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Too many articles waiting too long for a review

Hi there, I have noticed several articles that were nominated in July or August of last year that still haven't gotten a review. I know it can be a lot of work to review an article, but waiting 8-9 months for a good article review is way too long. Can we get some kind of campaign going to help these articles get reviewed? I've started reviewing three articles after I just nominated three of my own for GA. Any help or suggestions would be great. Maybe we could award some barnstars for the people who have done certain amounts of reviews as has been done in the past. Basilisk4u (talk) 23:39, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

I am new around these parts (and indeed only recently returned to editing more generally after several years largely away) but agree. I found it discouraging when I saw a couple of successful FAC articles go straight there because they didn't want to have to deal with the backlog here. Beyond some attaboys for people who are doing reviews, I am wondering if some of the backlog is by editors who aren't active anymore on the encyclopedia and thus their articles could be removed from nominations due to lack of sustained interest. I know I find some percentage of these articles (particularly ones that have some connections to a WikiEd class) in the short time I've been here. I'm wondering if contacting editors' whose nominations are older than X months to see if they remain interested on being on the list could help cut down the backlog number (if not actual work). But I see this backlog as part of the wider Wikipedia problem of an expanding content base and declining userbase. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:53, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
In addition to Barkeep49's suggestion of filtering inactive nominations, I think the best solution to this would be encouraging more Wikipedians to get involved in the process. More people doing the reviews is inherently going to lead to a larger number of them getting done. In particular, targeting individual WikiProjects and encouraging them to review the articles that fall under their scope (older ones first) breaks down this huge list to a bunch of much smaller ones. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 00:48, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
I know some people like to work on one article at a time, and are just waiting for someone to review it so they look inactive. Not sure how clearing inactive nominator's nominations would help the backlog, since that does not really cost any time. Kees08 (Talk) 01:29, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

A potential solution is to allow users to do a partial review of the article, such as allowed by the FAC and FLC processes. I would go through and do image reviews on a few articles (particularly music articles, which tend to have the highest backlog), but that means I have to commit to review the entire article. Others might be comfortable just doing a prose review. Not sure if we should move to a coordinator based approach for closing, or if we should just have one person in charge of verifying all the criteria were reviewed and closing it. Kees08 (Talk) 01:29, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

How would it save any time if we also had to wait for coordinators to show up during the process? That's one of the reasons why FACs take so long. The main problem is that we have many people nominating articles who don't review. Nominators should somehow be encouraged to also review other people's nominations. FunkMonk (talk) 02:55, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
There is touch time and total lead time. FACs usually take less time than GAC anyways, so bit of a moot point. Anyways, if you had lazy coordinators, the total lead time could increase, but I doubt it. Likely the touch time would increase slightly (unless people could go through reviews faster if they are reviewing things they understand), and the total lead time would decrease significantly. Maybe we need to do research first on the articles that are waiting on the longest (length of article? number of images? article in poor shape? etc).
We have had the just convince people to review more argument a lot; you can to some extent, but it does not solve any problem. Kees08 (Talk) 05:56, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
WP:DYK, as I'm sure you're aware, has a one-to-one review requirement. As GA reviews are more complex and time consuming, however, I fear this would simply lead to unsuited users giving shoddy reviews. With that aside, a less straightforward encouragement method would be necessary. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 03:00, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
This has been a perennial problem for as long as I can remember. It is simple mathematics, if more people nominate articles for review than those that review them then the whole process is unsustainable. My idea years ago was a to display a ratio of reviews conducted vs nominations made at WP:GAN. Potential reviewers could easily see who was abusing the system and nominators would have a better idea what their impact on it was. I personally would prioritise someones nomination if they have a positive review/nomination ratio. From memory it only got half implemented for technical reasons, but there may be a way to do it or something similar now. AIRcorn (talk) 21:58, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
I would support something along this line and perhaps a limit on number of nominations at once and/or in a given time period. All of the X at Y (Para)Olympics noms are each individually straightforward but also taking collective reviewer time that could be meaningfully spent elsewhere) Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:04, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
Given I nominated all of those articles currently up, Barkeep49, would you like to count how many articles I've reviewed this month, too? Look elsewhere for your problems. Courcelles (talk) 22:07, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
Disagree on the limits too. Another example is Chiswick Chap who has lots of nominations rolling through, but does more than his fair share of reviews. I suppose that was the point of my proposal. To more correctly identify the experienced editors who shirk reviewing that really shouldn't. AIRcorn (talk) 22:25, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
As someone who has seen the Backlog grow over the past 5+ years, this is a problem we have tried to solve over and over again. We used to run "Backlog Drives" but too many users would just rubber stamp nominations (so they could get a Barnstar) rather than actually do what the purpose of the Backlog Drive was (to reduce the backlog but to do so properly and not rubber stamping). After we ended the Backlog Drives, we came up with the "GA Cup" but that idea just never caught on. Like @Aircorn: said, its all mathematics, unfortunately. Also, @Aircorn: where was your idea of displaying the ratio's first proposed? Did it have to do with displaying the number of reviews a reviewer has done (which I would assume is what you mean by "partially implemented")?--Dom497 (talk) 15:58, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
It was a long time ago, when I was quite involved in trying to fix the backlog problem. I had a quick look through the archives, but couldn't find the exact discussion. I can look closer if you want. It was around the time we added the tabs, overhauled the instructions, updated the sub categories and started the help section. Nothing worked for long, even your backlog drives unfortunately. Again if I remember correctly there were technical issues getting the number for an editors nominations made, which just left us with the number of reviews being displayed. Enacting change here is a long slow process and when you finally do editors will come out of the woodwork and complain about it anyway. I haven't done much at this project for many years now and certainly don't have the time, patience or desire anymore to push through changes. Maybe we have to accept that having a backlog is just going to be a feature of Good Article Nominations. However I still believe the best way to help the backlog is to "encourage" those editors that nominate lots of articles without reviewing very many in return to review more. AIRcorn (talk) 20:50, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
Also, even thought I mentioned the flaws in it, I'm willing to give the Backlog Drives another chance if anyone wants to go down that road and start discussions around that.--Dom497 (talk) 16:04, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
I think that's mostly an organizer thing; if the coordinators do not give points for half-assed reviews, then they should be fine. I could be a coordinator if you need. The GA Cup seemed to be working well, maybe I got the wrong impression on it. Wikicup has been reducing the backlog as well, surprisingly to me, although there is no extra incentive for long or old articles. Sometime this week I am going to go through the difference featured content and figure out how they deal with the backlogs, try to do some data analysis on our backlog, and come up with some solutions. Kees08 (Talk) 18:45, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
@Kees08: Between the GA Cup and the Backlog Drives, I've learned that as soon as you start awarding points based on certain criteria, that discourages a large portion of possible participants...my best guess as to why is because humans just don't like people looking over their shoulder. Regarding the GA Cup, the first one worked very well. The second not so much. 2016 looked pretty good. But the most recent one was by far the least productive (net increase of 70 nominations). If we do another Backlog Drive it would have to be without a point system; rather, it would have to be based on the number of nominations you review. The coordinates would just spot-check nominations to make sure no one is gaming the system. Anyways, if you would like to be a coordinator thats awesome and we can start a further discussion somewhere! Also, thanks for taking the time to try and come up with other solutions. :) --Dom497 (talk) 19:46, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
I'm going to make another pitch for a limit of nominations. Something which would only let a person have 1 active nomination at a time but perhaps could then nominate multiple articles after some period of time (45 days) if nothing has happened with their nomination. If a nomination is reviewed and passed/failed then they can nominate another article and if it enters review purgatory after some reasonable waiting time they can put another article into the queue in the hopes that it will receive faster attention. Looking over the report of people with multiple nominations outstanding it feels like there are several who have multiple legitimate GA candidates and then others who don't (and perhaps did several nominations with-in a short time period). To me the point is we want Good Articles recognized as such and having a huge backlog means that several very deserving articles sit there without recognition or that potentially GA quality articles are only reviewed after such a wait that their nominator has lost interest and so the process is never completed (which might have also served as an incentive for an editor to stick around). This to me is in addition to Aircorn's idea of showing the ratio (if technically feasible). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:17, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
Limiting a person to 1 GAN per 45 days would result in a massive backlog of article that high profile users would send to GAN without solving the lack of review problem itself, so I don't think that's the answer. YE Pacific Hurricane 03:29, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
Agree. This is targeting the wrong people. AIRcorn (talk) 08:14, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
And again, if people would review just one article for every nomination they make, that would go a long way in evening out the numbers, even if they have multiple nominations. FunkMonk (talk) 13:12, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

Has anybody done any analysis of the articles to see if there are patterns that can help us find targeted approaches to managing the backlog? Absent actual data, my impression (which is probably wrong) is that we get a large volume of certain kinds of "boilerplate" articles (and, I hasten to add, I don't mean that in the belitteling or dismissiv sense; just as shorthand for relatively short, relatively fixed structure, using a large proportion of the same sources, and whose titles can be generated from a list, and as a result can and do show up here in relatively large volumes) on things like roads, a specific country's participation in a specific year's olympics (to repeat the example used above), and so forth. Iff it's correct that we have such areas that generate a high volume of nominations, it might be possible to focus on those areas specifically to lessen the impact on the overall backlog. It might be possible to shunt those areas to a separate backlog queue; to recruit steady reviewers by coopting a relevant WikiProject (which might conceivably revitalize relevant WikiProjects as a bonus); or employing some kind of coordinator role to manage that queue specifically.

Or—and I'm not sure I would support this—what if nominations that fail to garner a review in a specific amount of time were archived (without prejudice)? What effects would that have? It's possible it might actually lead to a healthier (more sustainable process) with less frustration for both nominators and reviewers. Those nominators whose articles fail to get reviewed will not be pleased, of course, but it is actually possible that getting that nom archived will feel less frustrating than having it languish for months in limbo. If the time for a GAC is predictable (will take 3-6 weeks: pass, fail, or archive), it is possible this would, overall, be felt to be better than living in limbo for the better part of a year.

"Encourage people to review more" simply does not work without systemic changes. Any backlog reduction drive will not work because it is effectively a one-time fix for a systemic problem.

If we're to do anything about this problem we need to think outside the box, and any actual solution will have to involve some kind of systemic component or a change to the process. --Xover (talk) 04:59, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

I am working to collect the data (as mentioned above), but its going to take a bit of time. Kees08 (Talk) 05:06, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
Many of these look after themselves as there is a bit of in Wikiproject reviewing. This can lead to other issues, but not generally review backlogs. AIRcorn (talk) 08:41, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Rough count of review/nominations for editors with multiple nominations

I was curious so looked at the editors with multiple nominations at Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Report#Nominators with multiple nominations (this version in case the bot updates it). I compared the number of reviews they have done (from User:GA bot/Stats version) to how many nominations they have made. Besides human errors with my counting there are other limitations.

The GA bot stats record the number of times a user has started a new page with "/GA". In the early days subpages were not made so editors who have been around a while will not have reviews recorded if they just passed them on the articles talk page. It also does not differentiate between Good Article reviews and individual Good Article Reassessments as they both use the "/GA" form. It does not take into account reviews completed by someone else once the article has been started, second opinions or other contributions to reviews by editors that did not start them. The difference may be quite stark, for example one editor I looked at had a difference of about 20% from what they had recorded as their Good Article reviews on their user page and what the bot had.

For the number of nominations I used the editors own recorded number plus the current nominations they had. Most had userboxs or some other means of counting their Good Articles displayed on their user page. Those that didn't I looked through there contribution history to try and reach a number. Level of accuracy depended on the user counts being up-to-date and recorded correctly. Again it is hard to differentiate between co-noms and contributors to Good Articles who did not nominate. Also it most likely doesn't take into account nominations that fail or were later delisted. There may be other issues I haven't thought of too.

I won't name names unless we decide whether, given the limitations, this is useful and what (if anything) we should do about it. Some general numbers though. Of the 43 editors with multiple nominations:

  • 31 had nominated more articles than they reviewed
  • 12 had reviewed more articles than they had nominated
  • 13 had not reviewed any articles
    • 9 of these had nominated less than 20 articles
    • 1 of these had nominated over 100.
  • 7 had nominated over 100 articles
    • 4 of these have reviewed more articles than they nominated
  • 13 (including 7 with 0 reviews) have nominated at least 10 articles for every one they have reviewed.
    • 9 of these editors have 20 or more nominations
  • 9 editors have reviewed 1.5 articles for every one they nominate

These look bad at face value, and in some ways are, but I chose editors with multiple nominations as they are more likely to be editors overwhelming the system. I think this confirms that having multiple nominations in itself is not a problem. However, there are definitely some editors out there who are not pulling their weight when it comes to reviews. To my mind the problem are the nine editors with 20 or more nominations who have only reviewed 10% of their nomination number. Again I stress there are possibly errors in this and these editors likely contribute to the encyclopaedia in other ways. I don't think we want to upset our content creators too much as they are vital for the encyclopaedia and many already feel unfairly targeted. Even still there is one editor in that list that has claimed over 100 Good Articles on their talk page on and I can find no evidence of a single review. AIRcorn (talk) 07:35, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

One issue with GA (cannot remember if I brought it up here yet or not) is that a single reviewer has to review against all criteria. Maybe someone does not feel comfortable with image copyright. Then they cannot do a GA review. The big one to me is if someone is a non-native English speaker, they could have someone else copy edit their article (via WP:GOCE or otherwise). Well, they would not be able to review any articles, because they do not have a good grasp of English. Not sure the exact situations of the users you looked at, but could explain some of it. Kees08 (Talk) 08:20, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
I agree that these are possibly reasons editors feel more confident nominating articles than reviewing them. However this is supposed to be a lightweight process. If someone can get dozens of articles to GA level I don't think it is unreasonable to expect the same editors to have the skill to be able to review articles in return. BTW many of these editors claim to have featured content, so pretty sure competence isn't a major issue. AIRcorn (talk) 10:20, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
My personal philosophy is that you should be willing to put in to a process at least as much time as you’re asking it to give you. But caution has to be used in trying to enforce that as some kind of standard, as the GA process is intentionally supposed to be lightweight without being burdened with pages of rules. Some people should absolutely be reviewing more, though. I wonder how a rule like "for every GAN you have listed at the same time beyond five, you must review one" would work, I’d find it reasonable. You could still list as many as you want, but only if you’re actively helping the problem. Don’t want to review, you’re just a little slower, because in my experience well prepared noms from frequent nominations or reviewers don’t tend to sit all that long. (Though very long articles can sit seemingly forever, regardless). Anyway, I’m rambling. Courcelles (talk) 13:11, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
I would support this as a proposal. In terms of implementing I would suggest that for any current nomination the person get credit for all previous reviews. So if they have 10 nominations active right now and have reviewed 6 they're fine (5 free + 6 previous). However, going forward that a review need to have been completed with in 21 days of their nomination for the Quid Pro Quo. While it's unfair to the 12 people who've done lots of past work, it is helpful in keeping our backlog from growing going forward (and addressing the issue of the other 31). If this idea is implemented we'll also need a coordinator or two who would keep track of whatever is decided to make sure the guideline is followed and in a way that ensures some quality of review (like with the Wikipedia Cup). I am definitely sympathetic to the content creator side. I started doing reviews in hopes that my nomination would be reviewed faster and so feel that we need to be supportive of all content creators whether prolific or not. I think the proposal by does that. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:06, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
Like I mentioned at the start, I feel a rule like this would end up either discouraging editors from nominating at all, as they feel they're not up to reviewing, or lead to people giving poor, uncomprehensive reviews just to get their credit. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 18:38, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
I agree with Lusotitan. Any sort of rule saying "you have to review a nomination" will either discourage people or just lead to rubber-stamping (quick-passes).--Dom497 (talk) 19:41, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
My personal idea was more along leaving a polite note at their talk page informing these editors of the backlog and that they are contributing to it. In an ideal situation they might not have realised this and decide to review more articles. Worst case they may get upset and decide not to use this process anymore. I suppose that will help the backlog anyway. If we decide it is a big enough issue there are are always options for enacting personal restrictions here I guess without having blanket rules. It does require someone to deliver the notice and possibly a dedicated subpage to keep track of things. AIRcorn (talk) 20:50, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
With 271 GAs and only 92 reviews, I'm probably one of the worst offenders, although I only have one review active at the moment, and therefore am not contributing to the backlog. I wouldn't object to a QPQ system like we have at DYK. (Where you simply state your QPQ in the nomination - it doesn't matter if it is complete.) Or, for that matter, a requirement that all admins have to review a certain number of articles each year to retain their admin status. Anyhow, I will review a few extra articles. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:20, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
Drive by, related comment: I think that mentality of not nominating articles that are ready for GA because of the backlog creates interesting data. The last GA Cup, we had a substantial increase in reviews, but that was followed by a substantial increase in nominations, which actually led to a net increase in articles that needed reviewed. Just pointing out the GA backlog is greater than the number listed on the page, due to people spacing their nominations out or waiting until the backlog is smaller. Kees08 (Talk) 22:10, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
@Aircorn: Continuing along your idea, maybe we could modify Template:GANotice such that when Legobot notifies the nominator that their nomination passed, the notification has a sentence saying something like "Please consider reviewing other nominations"?--Dom497 (talk) 22:55, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
I like this, simple and low-pressure. Courcelles (talk) 23:10, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
@Hawkeye7: You are not even close to the worst. Your response is very positive though. If we can get just a few prolific editors like you to review a few more it should help. I would like to think that most would be responsive. There are already editors on the other side of the equation, Courcelles for one has reviewed many more than they have nominated (unless there are some missing from their user page).
@Kees08: I made a graph a few years ago about the effect of backlog drives. You can see it at File:Good Article Backlog graph 2011.jpg. It was interesting how the backlog seemed to always flatten out at roughly the same level. It is almost like there is a subconscious backlog limit that inspires editors to review more or to nominate less. It would be interesting to add more data to that and see if it has changed. Seeing as we are currently sitting at 506 I would guess not much has really changed. If it was possible it would be more useful to know the average length of time from when an article is nominated to when it is reviewed as that is probably a better reflection as to the efficiency of the process.
@Dom497: Good idea. That seems like a no-brainer and I am surprised that it doesn't already. A reviewer left a similar comment at the end of an article I nominated once and I thought it was a nice touch. I still favour the person approach of a dedicated talk page message to specific editors (chance are they are not watching this page), but that is an easy implementation no matter what. AIRcorn (talk) 00:36, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, that makes sense. I think it is a nice gesture to try to limit the backlog that way, but all it really does is skew our data so we have no idea how much is actually in the backlog. Kees08 (Talk) 03:05, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Different point, I was wondering if most GANs have to wait a long time, or just a few. I snagged data from the Reports page, and used advanced data analysis (Excel) to create a histogram for GAN age. I fuzzed date for below 30 days since it was not on there, I knew the quantity but not exact number, so it is off by five or so.

It looks like most (> 50%) of GANs wait 60 days or less. About 88% are reviewed by 3.5 months or so. With that, maybe we should focus on analyzing the ones that are waiting greater than 3.5 months. Same people, same topics, length of articles, lots of photos, first time nominators, people that review very little, all might contribute. Kees08 (Talk) 03:05, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Data: File:History of GAN Age Over Time.png

My 2 cents: I speak for no one but myself. I am a researcher and a writer. I am extremely uncomfortable critiquing other people's work and am even less likely to do so if controversy erupts. I have no difficulty accepting critique of my own work, as I am meticulous, a hard critic of my own work, and prefer that information be accurate and clear. The majority of my articles submitted remain on the list far longer than 60 days, unless I am able to find someone to do the review. I have always assumed that is because many are biographies of women, are rarely from English-speaking countries (which means they have foreign sources), and are fairly long articles with in-depth profiles. (For example, my file on Carmen Casco de Lara Castro has been pending review since September 2017. All the sources are in Spanish, but that does not negate her notability and I believe she will eventually be reviewed.) I think that people tend to perform best doing things with which they have skill. Forcing people to review others' work is likely to result in a reduction of files submitted, but equally is likely to result in files that were deserving never being nominated. For the record, I stopped doing DYK when the process became so tedious that it took away time from content production. Some people are good at reviewing and I applaud them and am grateful to them. It is not my forté. SusunW (talk) 23:22, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
I don't think it should be required to review other articles, but we could come a long way by simply encouraging it. Now I see little that encourages people to review the articles of others, apart from the review counter, which doesn't really encourage it by itself. FunkMonk (talk) 23:33, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
I am not sure the fact the articles are female biographies with foreign sources is a main driver; in the same category, 16 days later, is a U.S. male biography. The oldest nomination right now that is not under review is a male British biography. I think maybe the common denominator on those is that the articles are long, there are many sources, and they typically fall within the same categories (albums, politics and government, sports and recreation). We would have to get some good data to prove that though (anyone willing to grab that data for the oldest 90 or so nominations?). Kees08 (Talk) 06:57, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
Could there be a correlation between topics that get many nominations, which therefore make their lists long, and how long articles in a given topic have to wait? FunkMonk (talk) 12:40, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
Again, I speak only from my experience, my Russian poet took months, my Russian puppeteer took months. The Canadian doctor, took weeks as did the American jewelry designer. All equally long, none in the same categories. SusunW (talk) 14:09, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
@SusunW: I would say it makes sense that foreign sources discourage reviewers as not many are going to be able to check them accurately. Same holds true for offline ones. As someone able to understand multiple languages you would make a valuable reviewer for these types of articles. It is not really that hard and I would be willing to help you get started. AIRcorn (talk) 05:54, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
Aircorn, I would be happy to verify sources and that the material contained in the article is actually supported by citations given. In the real world, that is a fact-checker's job and one that marries well with my research skills. Critique is not the same thing and I am not comfortable with it nor do I have any skill with WP technology or copyright requirements for photographs, etc. (You will note that every file I submit has been edited by Ian Pigott, a *true* polyglot—I am very adept at combining my knowledge of a few languages with multiple translation machines to confirm meanings and content.) In the real world there are writers, there are fact checkers, there are editors and proofreaders. It seems illogical that one volunteer can be expected to excel in all of these different disciplines to complete an article review. SusunW (talk) 14:46, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Information on Old GAs

Sparked by the information above I have collected information about GAs that were nominated in 2017 and haven't been reviewed. The information listed is based on hypothesis listed above for why articles might sit. I am doing this by hand but if there are additions that can reasonably be collected I will do so. It's important to note that this information is existing in a vacuum - we need to compare articles that have sat with articles that have been reviewed. My thought on that is that the comparison should be made to the next article nominated in that subcategory but that's harder to collect and so I haven't attempted to do so. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:23, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

All interesting information to know, but I wonder if there is much we can do about it from a practical perspective. Editors are going to nominate what interests them and reviewers are gong to review much the same. I don't see any way to (or even think we should) force editors to nominate in a specific area. AIRcorn (talk) 05:45, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
To be honest I'm not sure what its practical usage is, if any. I completely agree about the fact that people will nominate what they want and will review what they want. That's as it it should be. Here's my best guess at how this data might be useful. I do think this gives us some context about the backlog. So, for instance, Music has a large number of nominations but they seem to move through at an average rate so really music isn't substantially contributing to the backlog. On the otherhand Social Sciences has both a heavy number of nominations and well above average (mean & median) wait time. So perhaps we need to put some effort into recruiting (as you did above) more qualified reviewers in those areas. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 13:58, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

I was looking at this article about a legal case and realized that most of the citations are to the court's report of the case; not exactly a primary source for the facts of the case but close, and literally the primary source for the case's holding (which is ultimately what the case is about). There must be specific guidelines about how WP:NOR applies to legal cases, but I admit I'm having trouble finding them - anyone here have any pointers/suggestions? Thanks in advance... —Luis (talk) 22:16, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

I don't think it's an issue of OR, I think it's a question of whether it's a primary or secondary source. This essay suggests that they should be treated as primary sources which would then give guidance as to how to treat that sourcing in the context of a GA review. Hopefully a lawyer (which I'm not) chimes in with further help/guidance. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:41, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
Oh, I'm a lawyer :) I guess I was blurring the NOR/primary sourcing issue - they've always been somewhat intertwined in my head. So thanks for the pointer! I'm not sure it really ultimately is helpful, but I've left a comment trying to bring in the authors of the essay :) —Luis (talk) 01:09, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

WP:SYNTH concern

Greetings. I have been busy reviewing Talk:Tornerò (Mihai Trăistariu song)/GA1 and came across a WP:SYNTH violation where the article says "Critics gave positive reviews, praised this and that" which is clearly "combining material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." The editor refuses to remove the claim and pinged another editor who says this is allowed according to the essay WP:RECEPTION. The editor has now gone on a rant and asked me to close the review saying he has done this for 80+ GAs which I find quite worrying if 80+ of his GA articles contain WP:SYNTH. I was hoping someone could look into this or give some feedback before I close the review. CoolMarc 11:12, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Just for an FYI, I never said it was allowed but that looking at the essay it does seem to suggest it. But thanks so much for twisting my words. Best – jona ✉ 12:57, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
In looking at FAs that have passed in the last 6 months, many don't have this kind of statement. However, some do and its referencing is normally just multiple reviews as opposed to any kind of secondary source summarizing the reviews. This is something I'll be following and thinking more about because I've used those kind of statements, intended as summary, as an editor. I would also suggest given that there are other reasons that Cartoon network freak has asked for you to close the review that it would be OK to fail it, even without this discussion coming to consensus. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:09, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
@Barkeep49: such a "summary" is WP:SYNTH and should be failed based on the fact that it does not meet the GA criteria of WP:V, but what worries me is that Cartoon network freak has done this for 80+ GAs and has several articles waiting to be reviewed, and based on my review and the amount of issues I just found with the lead and first section leads me to think his articles are not being properly reviewed and his previous GAs might not have been either. Had these articles been English and more popular songs, WP:SYNTH like " the song received positive reviews, critics praised this and that" wouldn't last a day on the article and I'm shocked to see it being defended otherwise. CoolMarc 15:38, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation Wugapodes. I wasn't aware of that subpage. I have seen many editors class this as WP:SYNTH and have been taught this myself in the past, so I guess the misunderstanding goes past me also then. Regarding the neutrality, there were no negative reviews present when I started the review, but I found a few online from the British press and one was since added by Cartoon network freak. I have closed the review now anyway. CoolMarc 16:19, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
Well you shouldn't throw your intuition out the window either since that's what helped find those critical reviews and improved the article's neutrality. I don't think you're wrong to believe that we should be wary about this kind of thing, because this can easily slip into SYNTH and OR territory, but we don't want to throw out the normal editorializing and summary that make the encyclopedia more than a list of facts. All this aside, your review was a good one, and I think your closure was warranted regardless of SYNTH. Thanks for helping review GA noms! Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 22:21, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

GA icon triggering

Hi - earlier today I passed Gog the Mild's Zoë Porphyrogenita to GA, however, the GA icon didn't trigger and the GAN Notice hasn't appeared on his Talk page. I was going to manually add it but wanted to check and ensure I hadn't done anything incorrectly first? Chetsford (talk) 21:46, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

I saw that when Logobot removed it as maintenance. Someone smarter than I can probably come up with the real answer but I was wondering if it had to do with archiving the review page? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:53, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
It could be, though, I've archived my GARs in the past and not had that issue. One other thing is that the review never transcribed to the Talk page (even prior to my archiving it). Chetsford (talk) 21:55, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
FYI - I've added it manually; I hope that's okay. Chetsford (talk) 19:20, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
The bot is not working properly. It is being discussed at the bot noticeboard (Wikipedia:Bot requests#Take over GAN functions from Legobot). Nothing wrong with adding the icon yourself. AIRcorn (talk) 22:37, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
It's always best to wait at least 20 minutes after passing the nomination on the article's talk page to see whether the bot will do its work, which involves adding the icon, sending a message to the nominator that the article has passed, and adding the oldid parameter to the just-created GA template. If you add the icon before then, you pre-empt the other functions of the bot. On the other hand, if the bot never transcluded the review (generally because it was pre-empted at that stage by someone manually adding onreview or onhold to the GA nominee template before it could), then it won't do the post-passage tasks such as adding the icon, and you'll need to do it yourself. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:43, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Fixing Self Reviews

The Cricket nominator has accidentally started the review themselves. What's the technical way of fixing this? Would love to know how to do this as it's now the second time I've seen this happen. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:02, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Review abandoned

A review of at Talk:Clydesdale Motor Truck Company/GA1 was started on 2nd May, but the editor appears to have abandoned it. On 31st May they wrote this essay apparently retiring from Wikipedia. SpinningSpark 21:00, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

@Spinningspark: Mind if I take over the review? Nova Crystallis (Talk) 05:33, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
@Nova Crystallis: That would be great. SpinningSpark 15:21, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Abandoned GAN

Would anyone be willing to take over as the reviewer on the GA review for Jack Kirby? The reviewer did post a review, and although the review went stale for about a month, Tenebrae and Hiding pitched in and it looks like they addressed all of the reviewer's concerns. I pinged the reviewer, and left a request on their talk page, but they have not responded. BOZ (talk) 02:41, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Since it took you two weeks to reply to Hawkeye's review and another two weeks to address the issues he raised, I'd suggest giving him more than two days to get back to you.--Carabinieri (talk) 14:38, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

GAN correction

  • Can someone please correct the current GAN for Down (Fifth Harmony song) as it is reading that I am reviewing it? I reviewed the last GAN attempt, but I am not reviewing the current one. It should be read as open so others can pick it up for review if that wish to do so. Aoba47 (talk) 18:16, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
@Aoba47: Should be fixed now. I'll keep an eye to see what Lego does on its next runthrough. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:50, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Missing attempt

I just started reviewing Cloverfield, and didn't realise until after I had started my review that this was actually the third time the page has been nominated and reviewed as the previous attempts are not listed in the article's history at the talk page. I had a look back at the previous attempts by navigating to Talk:Cloverfield/GA1 and Talk:Cloverfield/GA2, and was surprised to find that the latter had been deleted due to the nominator apparently trying to review the page themselves. Should my new review continue at Talk:Cloverfield/GA3 (where it was automatically created) or should it be counted as the second review of the article? If the the latter, would I need admin help to move the page given a page once existed for the second review before it was deleted? - adamstom97 (talk) 07:19, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

adamstom97, I've just moved the review page to /GA2, and corrected the article talk page to reflect this move. I've also restored the information about the first review, which should not have been deleted from the talk page. Everything should be all set; please continue at Talk:Cloverfield/GA2. (The WP:GAN page will catch up with these moves in the next 10 to 12 minutes.) Sorry I didn't see this sooner. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:10, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
No worries Blue, thanks for sorting that out. - adamstom97 (talk) 23:12, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

@BlueMoonset: I have failed this review, which means a third GAN is possible in the future. I just thought I would mention that since the current Talk:Cloverfield/GA3 redirects to Talk:Cloverfield/GA2 which I'm guessing may cause some issues when someone tries to create a new review for the article in the future. - adamstom97 (talk) 23:33, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

I nominated GA3 for G6 CSD. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:50, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Waiting

Is there a particular reason that some articles are ignored for months, whilst newer ones are reviewed with in a day or two in the same category? Sorry if this comes across as a bit of a whinge, but I just want to make sure i've not made a common or obvious error. Have I nominated Arthur Frederick Bettinson to the wrong section? its an historical biography about a person who was of hugely influential figure in the boxing world, so I nominated the article to the Sports and Recreation category.

It's pretty comprehensive, but it's by no means a weighty tome that would take huge amounts of painstaking research to verify. There are however, a lot of sources that originate from the the subscription website British Newspaper Archive, I can see that putting potential reviewers off, so i have placed a note explaining that i'd give the reviewer access to the website.

Any tips or suggestions would be appreciated. Kind regards, Okeeffemarc (talk) 23:01, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

@Okeeffemarc: Hey there. I can understand your frustration at waiting having waited a long time myself and gotten a review more out of asking than anything else, so maybe this plea will get you one. I'm two weeks behind, but in roughly three months of tracking the flow of GA noms I can tell you that what category someone is in has a huge difference with how fast it's reviewed. Sports has the biggest delta of any of the categories between how long the mean and median article that has been reviewed waits and how long the average that is sitting in the queue has been there. That's why there are 13 noms above yours waiting for reviews (stretching back 7 months). I don't see that you've done anything wrong - it's just that there isn't as strong of a reviewer presence in Sports (outside of the X country in Y Olympics) as there are in some other categories (Warfare, Video Games). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:53, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
The reason is simply that people review whatever they want to review at any given moment. FunkMonk (talk) 17:14, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
You can increase the likelihood it will reviewed sooner by reviewing other people's nominations. The fewer nominations there are, the more likely it is someone will choose yours.--Carabinieri (talk) 19:10, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
Just wanted to make sure i hadn't missed something obvious. I have reviewed one article for GA so far, i will continue to when work permits. Thanks for the feedback. --Okeeffemarc (talk) 20:30, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Cutoff for Reviews

Hello fellow GA reviewers,

I have noticed that a ton of reviews have been abandoned for months with either the editors ignoring it or inactivity. I have failed the reviews where no action was taken on either the review page or article in months. Failing criteria was checked by user contributions and if both Nom. and Reviewer have gone a month without editing, its a fail. I have pinged nominators and reviewers of these abandoned reviews. I feel that these are holding up the growing backlog, leaving some article that have been nominator months ago to stay indefinitely. I try to focus my reviews on backlogged requests in topics I feel comfortable with reading extensively (such as Transport).

I propose a cutoff date for the Reviews. If a review is not worked on or NOT ON HOLD within a Month, the users should get pinged. If they do not respond within Three Days, an automatic fail will be applied to the review. I feel with a cutoff date, reviewers and nominators will be more encouraged to respond. Things come up in life and I get that some have to be away from reviewing for a bit to solve their life situations. If something comes up they should put the review on HOLD and notify the reviewer, not abandon the review.

Thank you everyone. We can tame this backlog! AmericanAir88 (talk) 15:24, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure what having a firm timeline will achieve. An open review doesn't stop anyone from picking up a different nomination. The reason for the backlog is a simple question of numbers. There are more people willing to nominate articles than there people willing to review them. The only way to cut down on the backlog is to encourage more people to do reviews. The number of open reviews has hovered between 70 and 100 for a while. I don't see how that's causing the backlog.
If the reason a review goes stale is that the nominator fails to respond or stops responding, the reviewer can fail the nomination. If the reviewer is the one who doesn't respond, it doesn't seem right to penalize the nominator by failing the nomination. In that case it would make more sense for someone to take over the review.--Carabinieri (talk) 18:48, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
Wouldn't cancelling the review so it's back open as un-reviewed make someone else more likely to pick it up? If I see something on review I'm not gonna go check and see if the reviewer is active about it, I'm gonna find something without a reviewer. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 19:09, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
In the scenario you're describing, you're picking up a different review instead, so having the stale review open doesn't have any effect on the backlog.--Carabinieri (talk) 19:17, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
Well, my point is if we cutoff the stale review and it was open again I'd have taken instead. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 19:19, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
And my point is that there is no reason to think this will have any effect on the backlog, which is the rationale given for introducing this new rule. In any case, inactive reviews are regularly closed. I don't see the point in having a hard deadline.--Carabinieri (talk) 20:56, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
If it's already happening, then a hard deadline just seems like being more organized. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 21:06, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Odd Reviewing on a GAN

Hello all, About five months ago, on 5 March, Ichthyovenator and I nominated Western Roman Empire for Good Article. Previously on 22 February I had reviewed the article myself (at Talk:Western Roman Empire/GA1) and found it lacking in several areas, and offered to drop the review and involve myself in improving the article. Ichthyovenator agreed and we (although he pulled most of the weight) worked on the article extensively, before nominating it on 5 March. It was recently picked up by JohnWickTwo, (at Talk:Western Roman Empire/GA2) who's initial commentary seemed only to list three ways the article was unlike Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire. I responded to his points (as Ichthyovenator had also done before me), and asked him why he was not using the six Good Article criteria, informing him also that I had never seen things reviewed comparatively to its related subjects. After this, he changed his points into six criteria, although these again did not relate to the Six Good Article criteria. I then posted the six Good Article Criteria in their entirety, requesting (although I will admit I did not actually explicitly request such) he restructure the review around them. 43 minutes later he closed the review saying it needed to be edited by the WP:GOCE, and needed to be raised to B class by an impartial editor. Earlier we had discussed the point of it currently being rated B class, and I had pointed out it was only C because no one had re-assessed it, and that of the three Wikiprojects claiming it, only one had a B-class checklist, which was not filled in, and that I had seen articles make the jump from Stub to GA, so the current assessment was immaterial. I will shamelessly admit to doing research; and noticed that JohnWickTwo had similar behavior at Talk:Jared Kushner/GA1, much to the confusion of Emir of Wikipedia, who had nominated it. I then reached out to my partner Ichthyovenator and asked if he thought it worthwhile to pursue community discussion, which he agreed to. In the meantime, I have re-nominated the article, with a regrettably passive-aggressive edit summary. As a result of this affair, I would like to ask the GAN community to review the here-listed actions. Thank you. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 23:42, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

It is completely irrelevant what class an article is before it is GA nominated, so yes, that does seem odd, and certainly not reason for closing. FunkMonk (talk) 23:49, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
The assessment of the article was closed when the co-nominators were showing no progress in editing or improving the article. One of the editors also was not available for an extended period of time and was apparently on an extended Wikibreak. Upon returning, the editor then made the odd request that the article be assessed in isolation from other sibling articles such as Byzantium and the Roman empire article. My point was that both of those articles were relevant and since Byzantium is a well-written FA-article and Roman Empire is a well-written GA-article, that it is important that the nominated article here take into account the quality of its sibling articles. The nominating editor then rejected this and again insisted on isolating the nominated Western Roman Empire article for isolated assessment, and then he required that his choice of review template be applied to pass the article on his terms. Since the article was lower in quality than its two sibling articles I then recommended that the article be submitted to GOCE for copy editing to improve the quality of the prose and writing. The assessment was then closed pending GOCE copy editing when the co-nominators were free to then re-nominate the article again. The co-nominators declined to request the GOCE copy editing and then immediately re-nominated it without any edits to improve the article. Now they appear to have finally agreed to and are ready to allow a GOCE copy editing. Examples of articles I have passed for GA-level include the articles for the recent film for Black Panther and the Sonata No. 2 by Chopin which anyone can examine to see examples of well-written GA-level articles. JohnWickTwo (talk) 00:04, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
@JohnWickTwo: The problem here being all articles should be reviewed in Isolation. I did not "require[d] that [my] choice of review template be applied to pass the article on [my] terms", I copied the Good Article Criteria in their entirety. I have agreed to GOCE because it will likely be another five months before someone is willing to take up the project, not because I think it currently needs it. I would be completely fine waiting until after it had been passed to run it through GOCE. -- Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 00:11, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
Looking through Talk:Western Roman Empire/GA2, I have several concerns with the review. First of all it does not appear that the reviewer understands the GA process, or its relationship to WP:PR (or the WP:GOCE), or the WikiProject quality assessments. Further, the reviewer does not appear to even be aware of the actual good article criteria, opting instead to make up their own subjective and arbitrary criteria (which are a mix of "This isn't like these other two articles" and "I don't like that"). There also appears to be an issue with the attitude: castigating the co-noms for not both being available when the review starts, and demanding that the nominators explain their motivations for working on the article before deigning to start the review. Finally, I suspect there is a language barrier that exacerbates other issues. The reviewer does not appear to be a native English speaker, and while that is hardly a requirement for reviewing, in this case their level of proficiency appears to be making the above problems worse. Note that I have not looked at Western Roman Empire (at all) and currently have no opinion on its relative merits or whether it meets the actual GA criteria. --Xover (talk) 07:00, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
My reason for closing the assessment was stated above as: "The assessment of the article was closed when the co-nominators were showing no progress in editing or improving the article. One of the editors also was not available for an extended period of time and was apparently on an extended Wikibreak". The regular understanding for co-nominated articles is that if one of the co-nominators is not responding to comments for improving the article, then the other co-nominator will respond to comments for improving the article. In this case, even after the other editor returned from a long Wikibreak, they were showing no progress in editing or improving the article. Both the co-nominating editors have now agreed to the GOCE copy-editing, which was the conclusion of the assessment which I had made. Such copy-editing is often a benefit to many articles at Wikipedia, and the co-nominating editors are free to continue with their re-nomination request once the GOCE copy-editing is completed. JohnWickTwo (talk) 10:16, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
Availing oneself of the GOCE is a good idea at various points in an article's lifetime, although it is certainly not always needed. Suggesting this is a reasonable thing to do in a GA review, iff the reviewer has identified major issues with prose that the nominators either seem unable to address or which are too substantial for anyone to address in a reasonable timeframe for a GA review. However, if that were the case, I would have expected the reviewer to first raise the prose issues and give the nominators a chance to address them. To start out demanding GOCE as a prerequisite, however, is entirely outside the GA process and norms. That the nominators have acceeded to a GOCE pass that they did not feel was needed, and the need for which was not substantiated in the review, is not an argument in favour of the appropriateness of the review.
I will also try to avoid speaking for the nominators, but note for myself that any efforts to address GA review issues requires that the reviewer point out specific actionable issues for the nominators to address. Looking through Talk:Western Roman Empire/GA2 I cannot find any such issues that are specific, actionable, and founded on the GA criteria. Thus I would imagine that the nominators did not make any responsive changes to the article because there was no such issues to address. Also note that I (and, afaict, no one else) has expressed concerns with the reviewer's close of the nom; it is the reviewer's behaviour during the review that concerns me. --Xover (talk) 17:41, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
@Xover: I would very much agree with you assessment. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 18:26, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
On 30 July my review made a very specific identification of an over-long sentence which was over 50 words long. It is bolded in the review which you state that you have read or looked at. My comment requesting the co-nominating editors to break it up into 2 sentences was ignored and both co-nominators were non-responsive to this request. The best option then appeared to be to recommend the article for an impartial GOCE editing because the co-nominators were doing no editing to improve and enhance the article. Both the co-nominating editors have now agreed to the GOCE copy-editing, which was the conclusion of the assessment which I had made. Such copy-editing is often a benefit to many articles at Wikipedia, and the co-nominating editors are free to continue with their re-nomination request once the GOCE copy-editing is completed. JohnWickTwo (talk) 21:03, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
I would like to point out that the timespan between JohnWickTwo bringing this sentence up in the review and the quick close of the review was just a little over four hours (11:16 to 15:59 on July 30th). I don't think it is fair to call us nominators non-responsive. I was working at the time and I fail to see how a four-hour window is a fair timespan to adress a comment. Ichthyovenator (talk) 21:14, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
Both you and your co-nominating editor have now agreed to the GOCE copy-editing, which was the conclusion of the assessment which I had made. Such copy-editing is often a benefit to many articles at Wikipedia, and the co-nominating editors are free to continue with their re-nomination request once the GOCE copy-editing is completed. JohnWickTwo (talk) 21:51, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
That has nothing to do with calling us "unresponsive" after only allowing us four hours to fix a perceived issue, during which I was busy and Iazyges was trying to point out the actual GA criteria to you. There is no need to repeat why GOCE is beneficial, you've said it several times now and recommending it was not the problem. Ichthyovenator (talk) 04:27, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
That has nothing to do with the point of the discussion here, that in recommending GOCE you neither pointed to specific non-GA-compliant issues that could be fixed nor followed any part of the usual GA reviewing procedure. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:08, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
The article being not well written is the first criterion on the list of GA criteria for a pass or fail. On 30 July my review made a very specific identification of an over-long sentence which was over 50 words long. It is also bolded in the review. My comment requesting the co-nominating editors to break it up into 2 sentences was ignored and both co-nominators were non-responsive to this request. They left it uncorrected and now it is left for GOCE to work on. The best option then appeared to be to recommend the article for an impartial GOCE editing because the co-nominators were doing no editing to improve and enhance the article. One of the co-nominators was not even present for much of the review because of his extended Wikibreak. Both the co-nominating editors have now agreed to the GOCE copy-editing, which was the conclusion of the assessment which I had made. Such copy-editing is often a benefit to many articles at Wikipedia, and the co-nominating editors are free to continue with their re-nomination request once the GOCE copy-editing is completed. JohnWickTwo (talk) 22:31, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
@JohnWickTwo: Again, there was a four hour window for us to fix it, during which I was far more interested in attempting to get you to review according to established criteria. Secondly, one sentence being too long is hardly something to hold up a review for, let a lone fail it. We did not editing because you neither gave us suggestions nor time to implement such. I would also like to set you straight on our agreeing with the GOCE. We agree because we have nothing else to do with it for another half-year, so we might as well allow it to run through GOCE. And I would also mention that we are free to re-nominate whenever we please, as we have already done. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 23:13, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
Ridiculous attempt to obfuscate. Mr rnddude (talk) 04:15, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
Your use of obscenity and profanity to express your anger at other editors as you have done here [1] must stop. The use of your obscenity and profanity is vulgar here [2] and is against Wikipedia policy, and I must ask you to stop denigrating other editors at Wikipedia by your expressing your anger by using obscenity. The GOCE editors who are now in the process of enhancing and improving the poorly written portions of your article are now copy-editing your article and improving it in order to make a future GA-nomination possible for your article. Multiple editors have now joined in to make nearly a dozen edits to improve and enhance your article. Your use of obscenity and profanity here [3] to express your anger is against Wikipedia policy and please stop using obscenity on Wikipedia. Your article was submitted with poorly written sections which are currently being repaired by GOCE editing and other editors helping to fix it. You showed no interest in making the requested edit yourself during the review and you left it unedited after the review because you renominated it again after the close without making a single edit to improve your article or to repair it in anyway. Let the GOCE process currently under way complete their upgrading of the defects of the article, and I request that you stop your use of obscenity and profanity at Wikipedia. JohnWickTwo (talk) 12:59, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
I fail to see how Iazyges swearing (removed almost immediately by him as well) is a point so big that you have to link it and repeat yourself three times. Saying that he or me had "no interest" in correcting the one mistake after you gave us four hours to do so before closing the review is unfair and disingenuous. Ichthyovenator (talk) 15:51, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
Your support for his use of obscenity and profanity to express his anger is unproductive and not useful for editing at Wikipedia. I request that you stop endorsing the use of obscenity and profanity by your co-nominator to express his anger against other Wikipedia editors. The corrections which you did not make to the article over the five days of the assessment process are now being responsibly done by the editors at GOCE, and they are well underway to already repairing your article since you did not make one single edit to enhance the article during the 5 days that the assessment was open. You will have the benefit of the fine edits currently being done by the GOCE editors and then you can renominate the article in its enhanced form once the copy edits have been completed for you by the GOCE editors. I request that you stop endorsing the use of obscenity and profanity by your co-nominator to express his anger against other Wikipedia editors. JohnWickTwo (talk) 12:56, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
I would hardly call confusion regarding how important the use of obscenity was endorsing and supporting it? There was no reason for you to bring it up three times and link the same thing over and over again. I don't think it is a good thing to do but he deleted it quickly and no one is endorsing it. What corrections? I think I expressed quite well in the review that I could not understand what you were referring to with the dating issue and there was very little time given to adress the other issue with the overly long sentence. Ichthyovenator (talk) 13:34, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
Disclaimer: I have not gone through the article itself, my comments only relate to the review and reviewing process, on which, I have to agree with Xover here. Some issues to address: 1) Articles should be assessed on their own merits against the six GA criteria. There is no requirement for articles to undergo any other form of assessment before being taken to GA or FA. You can go from "unassessed" to "Featured Article" if you so desire. Consistency across "sibling" articles may be desirable, but it's neither required, nor should it be expected. Writers will have access to different sources, which will make different assessments of the subject and which will thus result in different articles. The key is to ensure that all major details are covered, and all significant viewpoints presented. 2) It is not required for both co-nominators to be available for the review. It can take months for somebody to pick up a nomination for review. You cannot expect people to put their lives on hold to be available when somebody decides to pick it up. This is by far the worst offence in the review. 3) Articles should be laid out according to the manual of style, not according to how any other article is laid out. It might be an idea to have somebody with at least background knowledge of the subject conduct the review. This is a long and complex article, being thorough with it is going to require familiarity with the subject and sources, particularly with respect to criterion 2 and 3. Mr rnddude (talk) 09:57, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
Both the co-nominating editors have now agreed to the GOCE copy-editing, which was the conclusion of the assessment which I had made. Such copy-editing is often a benefit to many articles at Wikipedia, and the co-nominating editors are free to continue with their re-nomination request once the GOCE copy-editing is completed. JohnWickTwo (talk) 10:16, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
We both have agreed to GOCE editing now, because we might as well; not because we truly desire it. We will likely have to wait another half-year before someone picks up the review, so doing something other than twiddling our thumbs would feel better. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 17:11, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
Would you mind pointing out where exactly in the GA criteria it says articles cannot be promoted without GOCE copy-editing? Regards SoWhy 10:39, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
My comment was that many Wikipedia articles benefit from GOCE copy editing. Its a wonderful service available to many editors at Wikipedia. Both the co-nominating editors have now agreed to the GOCE copy-editing, which was the conclusion of the assessment which I had made. JohnWickTwo (talk) 11:56, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
That might well be correct but does not answer my question. Regards SoWhy 12:45, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
Funnily enough an addition to the article that was based off a suggestion by JW2 at that mentioned GA is being discussed right now at Talk:Jared_Kushner#Ivanka_Trump_"favourite_daughter". With regards to the Black Panther which they passed after a nearly a month check out this part Talk:Black_Panther_(film)/GA1#Checklist_as_of_5_July where they also suggest a "refactoring" of the sections. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 19:12, 1 August 2018 (UTC) (please Reply to icon mention me on reply; thanks!)

Arbitrary break

Yet more than the high-handed and arbitrary review itself, I am now also very much concerned by the reviewer's behaviour here after the concerns with the review were raised. The reviewer's responses here essentially ignore most of the concernes raised and even tries to dodge direct questions. They clutch at the straw that they had provided one single actionable issue (an overlong sentence), but obfuscate the fact that it was provided 5 days into the review, but only 5 hours before closing the review as failed. They also repeatedly bring up one of the co-nominators' "extended wikibreak"—which is a characterization of being offline for 7 days (judging by their edit history), that just happened to coincide with the start of the review, that is at best disingenuous, and at worst raises questions about the reviewer's good faith—as if there is a requirement that both co-noms be available.

In short, they exhibit no sign that they have understood why their review was problematic; they double down on the very positions that were problematic in the review; and they engage in obfuscation and dissimulation to such an extent that it brings their good faith into question. In consequence of this, I question whether this editor should participate in the GA process at all. --Xover (talk) 09:04, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

There is no evasion in any of my answers and I have answered your previous questions directly. Both co-nominating editors were making no edits to improve and enhance their article over several days in spite of my making direct requests that they do so over several days. My comments to them involved several thousand bytes (KB) of my writing to them which was all ignored. One of the co-nominating editors did not even show up for several days because he was away on some extended Wikibreak. The other editor appeared to lapse into a silence of two days apparently awaiting the co-nominator who had left on an extended Wikibreak. The current GOCE is now underway with multiple editors correcting the defects in the article which were not being addressed by the co-nominating editors. They will benefit from the GOCE editing and can then renominate it for GAN. Also, one of the co-nominators was actually the first one to fail the original nomination, not me. You are welcome to examine my passed GA assessments for Black Panther (film) and the Piano Sonata #2 by Chopin to see how different the editing environment was when multiple nominating editors were working diligently too improve an article and which led to their both becoming GA-articles. The co-nominating editors for Western Roman Empire were making no progress in improving their article by comparison. The article is now being repaired and improved by the GOCE editors to make the article better and to try to successfully lead it towards a good renomination. JohnWickTwo (talk) 12:59, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
You are evading the questions raised in the very message you are replying to. Explain how an "extended wikibreak" means a 7 day period, keep in mind that the article had been nominated for several months by the time you took up the review and you can't expect us to keep our eyes on it or wikipedia in general every day for such a long period of time. It was completely understandable for me to await my co-nominator and I fail to see how this was in any way wrong. The current GOCE process means very little here as we are discussing your review. In addition, the "direct requests" you made involve one comment regarding an (in your opinion) overly long sentence that you gave us four-five hours to adress before you closed the review, which is completely ridiculous. Ichthyovenator (talk) 15:57, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
No evasion here at all. The assessment was opened on July 25 and on July 27 you were requested to repair the dating problem I identified in the article when I stated: "The lede section appears to have a poor sense of time frame and its own historical placement; in fact the first date you list in your lede appears only in the second paragraph which is the exact opposite of what is done in the 2 sibling articles I have mentioned here for comparison which have clear dating explicitly stated from the first lede paragraph onwards throughout their own lede sections". You refused to make these edits and ignored my requests to improve your article for several days after this request was made. On July 30 you were also asked to start reducing the size of over-long 50 word sentences in your article and you again refused to do this editing and ignored the request. The assessment was then closed due to these defects in the writing over several days and my request for GOCE to enhance and repair your article are currently under way for the benefit of your article. The fine editing being done by GOCE at this time on your article should lead to an improve article which you can then renominate. Your support above for your co-nominator's use of obscenity and profanity to express his anger here [[4]] is unproductive and not useful for editing at Wikipedia. I request that you stop endorsing the use of obscenity and profanity by your co-nominator to express his anger against other Wikipedia editors. JohnWickTwo (talk) 12:56, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
You didn't adress much of what I wrote here at all so I would refer to this as more evasion. I have adressed the "long sentence" problem several times already, you give us just a few hours to adress it which is very unfair. The "dating issue" was not clearly expressed in the review at all in my opinion and I think you could have clarified your issues with the article, the only issue that is stated very clearly is the one overly long sentence you gave us a few hours before closing the review. Claiming that I "endorsed profanity" is ridiculous, refer to my response to this above. Ichthyovenator (talk) 13:38, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

So I will join the chorus who say that this review isn't in-line with the reviews I've done or read (and at this point I've read a lot of them). However I'd prefer to look forward and encouarage JohnWickTwo to take heed of the several other reviewers who have raised questions about this review and think about finding a GA mentor. We can always use more good people reviewing and he's clearly are interested - in fact one of the underlying issues in this seems to be the frustration at the wait time that articles need to go through to be reviewed. Doing what we can (which includes more reviewers as a best sort of solution) feels productive for the encyclopedia. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:55, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

I agree it is not a good idea to turn potential reviewers away, when we have such a shortage, and mentorship sounds good. JohnWickTwo has to acknowledge that his review was problematic, though, which he seems hesitant to do. FunkMonk (talk) 04:08, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
Since both Barkeep49 and FunkMonk appear to want to make constructive statements, I can make a one-time offer to both or either of them if they are interested. I have been considering nominating the Filmmaking technique of Luis Buñuel article for assessment at this time, and if either or both of these editors are interested, and if they feel that the article is ready for a nomination, then they can demonstrate to me first hand what they believe to be a proper review and I will nominate it if either one of them takes this offer. For the record, the assessment above was closed because the co-nominating editors did not make any edits to improve or enhance their article over a 5 day period. Their article is now being very well editing by GOCE editors to repair and enhance their article. This one-time offer regarding the Filmmaking technique of Luis Buñuel article is being made in good faith and it is limited to either Barkeep49 and FunkMonk for their stated purposes of demonstrating what they feel to be good edit practice. Examples of passed GA-assessments which I have completed recently can be located at Black Panther (film) and the Chopin Piano Sonata No. 2 to see examples of my reviews of articles which were being diligently edited by their nominators during the review process. JohnWickTwo (talk) 12:56, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
That seems like a rather one sided proposal, the onus is on you to do the preparation and show that you understand what it takes. I would instead suggest that you go back and look closely at the reviews of some promoted GAs as well as read the GA criteria closely. FunkMonk (talk) 13:04, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
Oh for heaven's sake. Here, Talk:Neferirkare Kakai/GA1 is a GA review I completed early in the year. That article went on to become one of Wikipedia's featured articles. I knew it was slated for FA so my review is probably more detailed than you would expect for a typical GA – I don't agree with some editors who view GAN as a "lightweight process"; there's a lot to do to meet the GA criteria even in it's bare form, but this is still quite a higher bar than GA was designed for. The reason I'm highlighting it is 1) because I use a table to review each criterion individually and 2) Iry-Hor has written numerous FA articles on Ancient Egypt for the encyclopaedia, which just goes to show that even a quality contributor will find that there's a fair amount of work to do to clean-up the article. Mr rnddude (talk) 15:00, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
There is a huge discrepancy in what level of depth reviewers do. I tend to be more towards the comprehensive side but don't think that this range of reviews is necessarily wrong for the project. I tend to put "lightweight" in quotes because I think it's a poor (but still possibly best possible) term to describe the goal - something that takes a comprehensive review of the article by 1 reviewer and 1 nominator (with sometimes a co-nom and other helpful editors). Even with this process many articles wait months to be reviewed especially if you take away those who are participating in the WikiCup. This is one of the few mechanisms that an editor can get comprehensive feedback on an article which is certainly valuable for editors of all experience and competency. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:59, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
You're making them an offer? The whole issue is of whether or not your reviews are being held to the standards the community has set. You can't just broker a deal. That's not how the process works. Further, the very initial point being made by Iazyges is that you reviewed the article Western Roman Empire against the standards of other similar articles, and not against the GA requirements to pass. Sorry, but I just can't believe how off-topic this is getting. SpartaN (talk) 15:46, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
John I'm going to take this post in what I hope was the spirit it was offered (as opposed to a reasonable reading of the tone) and thank you for taking the community feedback to heart and seeking a way, through first hand experience, to grow as a reviewer. If I were at all a qualified reviewer for Filmmaking technique of Luis Buñuel I would take you up on the offer. However, evaluating the article and especially its sources is not something I am equipped to do as a reviewer. Plus while I would say I am not a novice reviewer neither would I categorize myself as enough of an expert to mentor of guide a new reviewer. I do hope you would extend your offer to other experienced reviewers, especially those who might be able to access (and understand) the sources. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:59, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Talk:History of Scotland/GA1

Could a coordinator (nomenclat.?) have a look at this, please? I think it probably needs to be reviewed and withdrawn. The GA reviewer was a seven-week-old account at the time of the review, and the review itself consists of an unnecessary discussion about mirror sites. In fact, the review itself consists of the reviewer making two comments, neither of them related to the topic at hand or the GA criteria itself. —SerialNumber54129 paranoia /cheap sh*t room 12:52, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Eh, not to be pedantic but-uh the reviewer made three comments, two of which relate to criterion 2d - it contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism. They were false positives, but-uh, well... y'know... related. Mr rnddude (talk) 13:07, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
Also, they used a box to do their checks. My question would be this: Other than the suspicious activity of a fairly new account doing GA reviews, do you think their assessment is wrong? And if so, in which part? Regards SoWhy 13:10, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
Yes, let me rephrase: the reviewer ignored 11/12ths of the GAC. —SerialNumber54129 paranoia /cheap sh*t room 13:11, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
Because they made no comments outside the box except on 2d) or because you have found problems that indicate that those checks were skipped? I'm certainly not a skilled GA reviewer but reading the article I don't see that it should have been failed. Regards SoWhy 13:34, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
The article had a seven-paragraph lead section at the time of passage, a clear violation of MOS:LEAD, one of the GA criteria. More than one reviewer of the subsequent FAC expressed surprise that the article had passed at GAN given its state. (The lead was cut down to five paragraphs as part of the FAC, which subsequently failed.) I think it's very clear that the reviewer had insufficient knowledge of the GA criteria and demonstrably did not apply them in the case of this review, despite using the template; we know that the review should have failed 1b. What we don't know is what else was checked and what might have been overlooked. Under the circumstances, and looking at the review, I think Serial Number 54129's recommendation makes sense that the original review be rolled back and a new review be done by an experienced GAN reviewer, and we should probably suggest to the original reviewer that they gain more experience editing on Wikipedia and perhaps deal with GAN from the other side (as a nominator) before they assay another GAN. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:18, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
"do you think their assessment is wrong?" Yes. The article was then put up for a drive-by FAC nomination, which quickly crashed. The 2 opposes (one being me) both expressed doubt about it deserving GA status. Johnbod (talk) 14:59, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
  • There is no requirement for the reviewer to cover every aspect of the criteria in detail. By checking the items in the box they are essentially saying they feel it passes that criteria. While more detailed reviews are preferable this is supposed to be a lightweight process. I am not seeing a justification to roll back the review, if an editor disagrees with the pass they would be better served to do an individual GAR reassessment. From a casual glance it doesn't seem to be too bad. The FAC comment relating to surprise it passed was more about the formatting of the references, which is not a GA requirement. AIRcorn (talk) 07:49, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
I agree with these comments. I think most articles can benefit from a fresh set of eyes but find that that majority of suggestions I make aren't strictly necessary for an article to pass GA and thus could be omitted by another reviewer honoring the "lightweight" goal of the GA process. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:06, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
I just want to clarify that my comment above is not endorsing this as a good review. In fact it would probably annoy me a bit if I had submitted the article. I just don't think we should be undoing reviews unless there is a very good reason. AIRcorn (talk) 07:16, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Hello everyone, sorry for the late response, I've been off for a bit. While I recognize your concern, my opinions are generally those of Aircorn's. I felt that the article met the GA criteria, and ticked the boxes as needed. I ran the article through (I'd say) enough processes to determine that it met the requirements for the green circle. I don't believe my age (as noted by Serial and SoWhy) should be "suspicious" , as the instructions for reviewing state:

"To review an article you must:

Be a registered user—make sure you are logged in
Not be the nominator nor have made significant contributions to the article prior to the review".

These are the only criteria mentioned by the instructions. If the comment about the tenure refers to sockpuppetry, I encourage you to take your concerns to the relevant noticeboards. Also, if I have unintentionally overlooked something, I would point you to the fact that Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, and while the rules should generally be followed, they should be followed to the spirit of the law. I have attempted, in reviewing articles for GA criteria, to follow the criteria as best as possible. If there's still concerns, please start a re-assessment. Thank you for your time, EggRoll97 (talk | contribs) 08:21, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

@EggRoll97: Pleeease sign in under your original account and stop pissing about with "take me to a noticeboard" guff. —SerialNumber54129 paranoia /cheap sh*t room 06:31, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
I have no "original account" that I would sign in under. Please don't assume that. EggRoll97 (talk | contribs) 11:44, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
EggRoll97: So why did you bring up sockpuppetry and link to WP:SPI? The only concern brought up here at the time was that you, as a brand new editor, do not appear to have conducted a thorough enough review. History of Scotland is a huge 200k byte article, and your only comment provided in the review was concerning a possible copyvio. In an article of that size I'd expect you to find a plethora of 1a issues, at the very least. For example, the second sentence of the section "Pre-history" reads At times during the last interglacial period (130,000–70,000 BC) Europe had a climate warmer than today's, and early humans may have made their way to Scotland, with the possible discovery of pre-Ice Age axes on Orkney and mainland Scotland. I haven't a foggy what that sentence is supposed to mean (I have an idea of what it means, but that's a butchered sentence). There's a second example of the same problem in a later paragraph in the same section: The settlers introduced chambered cairn tombs from around 3500 BC, as at Maeshowe,[14] and from about 3000 BC the many standing stones and circles such as those at Stenness on the mainland of Orkney, which date from about 3100 BC, of four stones, the tallest of which is 16 feet (5 m) in height. Very long sentence, fusing several statements together, and not making a clear point. This should be a minimum of two or three separate sentences. A more experienced reviewer would also probably determine that the article should be halved in size, as is suggested by this editing guideline. I'm agreeing with both SN and BlueMoonset. With sentences like these, the article is certainly not, yet, ready to be declared a GA. Mr rnddude (talk) 16:14, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
Then please do bring it to WP:GAR. I don't feel like continuing to participate in this discussion, unless my input is requested at a community review. EggRoll97 (talk | contribs) 01:44, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

I will say that this false accusation of plagiarism is worrying and not what we would expect from GA reviewers, considering that plagiarism can eventually result in serious consequences in real life and on Wikipedia. --Rschen7754 03:53, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

@Rschen7754: That was the result of the plagiarism checker from the GA toolbox, it had a 99% match, and I believed it was plagiarism, later was cleared up. EggRoll97 (talk | contribs) 05:55, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
I see nothing wrong with that. Sure they could have investigated it more closely themselves, but asking the nominator to explain seems reasonable and it is a stretch to call it a false accusation. AIRcorn (talk) 07:16, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Standard procedure when editor is in-active?

Hi. I've been trying to tackle our oldest articles in the queue and came across Dual systems model. Editor User:Stash85 nominated this in November 2017 and has not been active ever since. He/she was part of a college course where students write articles with their professor/peers. The article is decent as it stands, but not quite there for GA status just yet. What is the standard procedure in this situation? Remove from the queue? Review and wait 7 days before pass/fail?

I left a comment in the article's talkpage to see if any page watchers would reach out, but I think it's highly unlikely anyone will because this was a new article back in September 2017. I also reached out to the editor in his/her talkpage in hopes of hearing back from him or anyone else. Course instructor User:Benkarney has not been very active in Wikipedia, either. Any direction will be greatly appreciated. Thanks! MX (✉ • ✎) 20:39, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

I generally ping the nominator when reviewing the oldest noms. After waiting at least a week with-out a response, I complete the review noting which standards are OK and which it falls short but without going into the same specific depth as if I were completing an actual review with an interested editor on the other side. This way if some other editor becomes interested in GA down the road they have some sense of what needed to be fixed as of the review date. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:44, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
@Barkeep49: Thanks for the reply. I've decided to add this question under our FAQ list. See here for more details. Cheers, MX (✉ • ✎) 02:30, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Nominator Review

Hello everyone,

I am writing this to address concern for a nominator (@Happypillsjr:) who does not put in effort for GA status. This users GA record is shocking as the user has a history of nominating far from ready articles. The user also sometimes starts reviews on their own.

The main reason is addressing this user is the fact that they nominate articles that they have never edited. All of the articles that were nominated by this user, including one I am reviewing right now (BMT Canarsie Line), have never been touched by the nominator. If the review somehow passes with the other articles, this user is taking the credit for work other editors have done. (See my review of BMT Canarsie Line to elaborate more on that).

The one article this user got passed was a very weak review. IPhone 6 was the article and it seems the reviewer did all the work as Happypillsjr never edited the article to fix the issues, the reviewer did.. Happypills needs to be taught how to properly nominate and to put effort into the articles they nominate. This user has received warnings from admins regarding the nominations but the user does not seem to learn the lesson. The history this user has is terrible and needs to be addressed further. AmericanAir88 (talk) 15:35, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Coming through their user talk edits, it does not appear they have ever asked the original writers of the article for permission. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 15:46, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
From my understanding (and please correct me if I'm wrong), anyone can nominate an article for GA, even if that person has "never edited" the article (in the FAQ, this is known as "drive-by" nomination). Now, reviewers should keep their eyes open for these nominations because that often leads to unresponsiveness if other editors aren't available to help. The nominator is also not required to answer the reviewer's concerns, but they cannot expect the article to pass in most situations. The issue surrounding poor articles being nominated for GA can be quickly fixed; we can remove them for the queue and let the nominator know why it's not ready for GA in a quick comment. We can encourage him to reach out to senior reviewers for a second opinion in the future until he finally has a good grasp of the GA process. Not sure what to say about him taking credit for other people's work, however. MX (✉ • ✎) 18:22, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
As MX says, nominators are not strictly required to be (major) contributors to the article but they are expected to take responsibility for addressing the feedback provided (cf. WP:GAI: Anyone may nominate an article to be reviewed for GA, although it is preferable that nominators have contributed significantly to the article and are familiar with its subject and its cited sources. Nominators who are not significant contributors to the article should consult regular editors of the article on the article talk page prior to a nomination.) If a user is claiming they were major contributors to a GA (opposed to claiming that they helped promote an article to GA), this might indicate a WP:CIR issue but should be addressed by talking to the user first. Afaict, AmericanAir88 has not actually tried to talk to Happypillsjr about these problems directly, so I fail to see how they should know they did something wrong. Regards SoWhy 18:31, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
@SoWhy:] Wow, I never knew that you didn't have to edit to nominate. I just think that if you nominate you need to ask permission or plan to do major work. I brought up this topic as this reviewer has a history of screwing with the GA process. They have nominated own nominations, not edited, and nominated poor articles. I attempted to talk to him and no response. I then consulted the main two editors (epic genius and kew gardens) of the article to ask for opinions. I believe this user needs to get more familiar with the GA process before further nominations. AmericanAir88 (talk) 18:35, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
@AmericanAir88: Could you point out where you tried talking to them? I can't find any messages on their talk page. Regards SoWhy 19:06, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
@SoWhy: This isn't about me but I will gladly show you: [5], [6], and [7]. AmericanAir88 (talk) 19:55, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
@AmericanAir88: It's about user conduct you find problematic, so per WP:CONDUCTDISPUTE the first step is to talk with the other editor at their user talk page in a polite, simple, and direct way. I suggest you leave Happypillsjr such a message, explaining your concerns and asking them not to nominate articles for GA unless they have more experience and also not to claim significant work on an article when they have not done so. Iff they are unwilling to change their approach, then you can consider requesting intervention at WP:ANI. It might very well just be that they are not aware of the problems they cause with such behavior. Regards SoWhy 20:28, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
@SoWhy: Will do, thank you for this. AmericanAir88 (talk) 20:36, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
This may be relevant: User talk:Happypillsjr#March 2016. They've also never responded to a talk page query in several years of editing. Mr rnddude (talk) 20:39, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

I have just posted a note to Happypillsjr's talk page requesting that they not make any further GANs. They made a number in 2015 and 2016, and then would open reviews for them, which got to be quite problematic after a while. I made two or three posts to their talk page explaining what the issues were, to no avail. Ultimately, an admin gave them (as noted in Mr rnddude's link) a short block after a final warning, which stopped the problem for a couple of years. It seems clear that they have no idea of what makes a GA, just what articles they think should become one for whatever reason, hence the out-of-process and not properly considered nominations. I also reverted their sole remaining nomination because (as always) they had not consulted with the article's significant contributors, despite having made zero edits prior to nominating. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:07, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Proposal to Add Sub-Topics to Sports and recreation

Sports and recreation has been the largest queue for a while now, with anywhere from 50-60 nominations. Would it be possible to split this topic into sub-topics, similar to most of the other topics? Off the top of my head, I would think the following sub-topics could work: Biographies, Professional sports and rec and Amateur sports and rec, but I would obviously be open to other sup-topics. Just curious, as it could make it a little easier for Sports and Rec reviewers to differentiate and reviews noms. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 16:12, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

This proposal could be tied in with a similar idea suggested here, perhaps? —SerialNumber54129 paranoia /cheap sh*t room 16:15, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
Definitely Serial Number 54129! I hadn't noticed that comment, thanks for posting it. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 16:20, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
No problem Gonzo fan2007, cheers. You might have found the better spot for the proposal(s) actually, as that other one has languished there somewhat for the last two months! —SerialNumber54129 paranoia /cheap sh*t room 16:26, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
My understanding is that with Legobot we were limited in our ability to change these topics. I also wonder if we're looking a permanent need for sub-topic or if our Olympic article GA spree will have some natural conclusion. There are obviously many more of these out there so it could certainly go on a good deal longer or could peter off once this year's Wikicup is over. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:30, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
Barkeep49 Even without the Olympics articles, there would still be 34 noms. At the very least I was hoping for a Sports & rec biography sub-topic, but thought splitting the rest into Pro and Amateur made the most sense. Legoktm is there the ability to add sub-topics with Legobot? « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 16:40, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
TheSandDoctor is working on a bot to take over from Legobot, after which we hope to incorporate suggestions such as this one. See Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Take_over_GAN_functions_from_Legobot for further discussion. TSD is a bit busy IRL right now; once that settles out we will have a new shiny bot to break. Kees08 (Talk) 20:53, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
It's interesting that Wikipedia:Good articles/Sports and recreation already has sub-topics. Those would be fine as well and are seemingly already categorized as such. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 22:31, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
Yeah I started to split some of those up with the intent of recommending those same subtopics for the bot. I plan to make some sort of "multi-sport" subtopic (for like Olympic and Commonwealth Games), but other than that the divisions are pretty good as-is. Kees08 (Talk) 22:29, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Abandoned review

This review got started in June and the editor seems to have left the project. How would I go about restarting it? --Coemgenus (talk) 20:46, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Coemgenus, see Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Instructions#Step 4: What to do during a review. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 22:12, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

What is classed as close paraphrasing?

Hello. I'm a newer Good article reviewer (only have started 2 reviews so far). A question I have is about close paraphrasing. I have been rereading Wikipedia:Close_paraphrasing#When_is_close_paraphrasing_permitted? various times and would like some clarification. How many words of a source is classed as close paraphrasing when it is used in a Wikipedia article?

I am currently reviewing Talk:Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino/GA1 and I have mentioned multiple times a part where I believe something is closely paraphrased. The issue is, I believe that although in some cases there are only a few words closely paraphrased, there is not a limited amount of ways to phrase the sentence.

Should I be saying that something is closely paraphrased when it's only a few words and not have a limited ways of stating? Or should I be mainly focusing on ones where a large amount of words are paraphrased and appear in the same order? Thanks. --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 19:21, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

  • Incidental similarities with the text are sometimes unavoidable. However, editors here are required to write articles in their own words from the sources they are using. Have you used Earwig's Copyvio Detector? Submit the article's title and then compare the sources with the article. Keep in mind quotes in the article will come up as an identical match, but you can suggest the editor to try to limit them if he/she is overusing quotes. To answer your question: other than quotes, everything else should be written in the editor's own words unless the matches are names, dates, or something of that nature. If not, it is close-paraphrasing (at least for me). MX (✉ • ✎) 19:44, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
@MX: Thank you for the quick reply. An additional question above would be: if it's only one/two words of similar wording, is it still closely paraphrasing? If so, these should be mentioned as well? --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 19:50, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
It depends on the words. The essential element is whether it is the creativity that is being copied. If the words are "moved to New Jersey", then that's not really a creative contribution. That's facts and facts can't be copyrighted. If the words are rather that they emigrated with a "youthful dream of prosperity", that is a comparatively unique and creative way of saying someone moved to New Jersey, and someone is unlikely to use that phrasing unless they are copying directly from that particular source. GMGtalk 20:03, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
@MrLinkinPark333: (edit conflict) That would depend on the entire phrase. If an editor simply grabbed a thesaurus and tried to change each word in a phrase/sentence simply to avoid the detector, then yes, that would be close paraphrasing. But a few, incidental similarities here and there isn't that big of a problem. Now, if you as the reviewer think there are ways to better rephrase something that closely resembles the source, definitely let the editor know. I find myself better equipped to rephrase my stuff once I've taken a few hours off from writing/reading. MX (✉ • ✎) 20:07, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
@GreenMeansGo: @MX: Okay. I guess I'll keep mentioning parts where rewording would be a good idea if it's a specific word/idea/theme that does not have limited ways of saying it. Thank you both. --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 20:12, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
Looking at the GA review itself, "vintage electric keyboards and synthesisers reminiscent of space age pop", "subtle funk", "melodically rich" are all examples of good colorful non-essential language. Those are probably not something that you are going to find worded the same way or very similarly across sources because it is essential non-copyright-able facts. It's fine to use that language, but it needs to be in quotes. GMGtalk 20:14, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
Close paraphrasing can also be using the same ideas or claims, phrased similarly but not identically, in the same order. That is, it can be at the sentence level rather than at the word level. Again, this depends a lot on how much opportunity there is for including other ideas or for choosing a different ordering; for instance, it is not problematic for our articles to copy the chronological ordering of events or alphabetical ordering of participants from their sources. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:30, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

RFC on stability criteria

See Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#RfC: Proposal: make subjects actively in the news ineligible for GANs and FACs for a RFC that is of interest to this project. AIRcorn (talk) 02:10, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Good Article review by relatively new user

Hi everyone. Today, Bold and Brash (talk · contribs) reviewed Talk:Floyd Bennett Field/GA1 and left the very cursory comment "I'd recommend this article for good article status based on the properly sourced references, organised and well-written information, and informative and useful photographs provided within the article's contents." However, the review didn't address any of the good article criteria. Since this user is relatively new (only 300 edits since January), I think they might not know about the criteria, and the article might need a second pair of eyes. Would a more experienced editor be willing to guide them through the review process? Thanks. epicgenius (talk) 23:46, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Epicgenius, I agree that the review was inadequate. If you would like, I can delete the GA sub-page and restart the nomination, keeping it's current place in the queue. Let me know. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 15:14, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
Personally I prefer his initial suggestion of mentorship and would object to deleting the review outright - if someone wished on that ground they could do an individual reassessment. I do not feel experienced enough as a GA reviewer to mentor others else I would volunteer. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:41, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
I'll be happy to conduct a full GA review (or reassessment). That's probably the best way to help new editors understand what the GA review process looks like. Please ping me when the reassessment is requested. MX (✉ • ✎) 19:07, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
@Gonzo fan2007 and MX: Thanks for the offers. If possible, I would like a re-review. Should I just add another nomination template to the article, or would it better for the nomination subpage to be deleted? epicgenius (talk) 23:34, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
Epicgenius, per the WP:GAN/I, "If the reviewer has not made any comments other than opening the review, it may be better to request a G6 deletion of the review page and start over." I don't view the comment that was made as being anything more than opening the review. As such, I will speedy delete per G6 and reset the nom for you. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 02:44, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
Everything should be reset now. Note that I left a message at Bold and Brash's talk page with some helpful suggestions and if anyone would like to offer to mentor, that would be great. Cheers, « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 02:47, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

GANBot Replacement

Hello! Earlier this year there was a bot request to replace Legobot's handling of Good Article Nominations. I have started working on an implementation that would address some of the concerns raised in that thread. After some discussion with barkeep49, I have come to understand that there might be other features that the community would like to see added. I have created User:Kadane/GANBot to track development, and to facilitate discussion about the new bot. Please feel free to leave comments/feature requests on the talk page. I would very much appreciate your feedback! Kadane (talk) 02:28, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

@Kadane: I have also been working on a replacement bot (almost done it actually), as was mentioned in the linked thread. I also have the WMFlabs account set up for it etc. Do you want to join forces? I have been waiting for DatGuy to return, but he has been inactive since Aug 26 (UTC). --TheSandDoctor Talk 04:26, 17 September 2018 (UTC); edited 04:31, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
@TheSandDoctor: - Sure, I will send you a private message on IRC so we can discuss what needs to be done. Kadane (talk) 14:52, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Co-nominations

I see that there are co-nominators for some GA-nominees, but I don't see how to add that information. I am trying to list myself as a co-nominator for Samuel May Williams. Also, the article is misassigned to Politics and Government, though Samuel May Williams is deceased. I tried to move it to the World History subcategory, but this was reversed. Please advise, Oldsanfelipe (talk) 18:47, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

  • @Oldsanfelipe: Hello, I've added a note that shows you as the nominator. The GA bot should update the information soon and it should display it shortly. Please resubmit the article to World History subcategory since the subject is deceased. Let the person who reverted your update know you'll be placing it back there, as stated in the note under the subcategory. MX (✉ • ✎) 19:16, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
    Adding to that, don't manually edit the WP:GAN page, the bot will revert you because your change does not reflect the {{GA nominee}} template's information. Regards SoWhy 19:21, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
@Oldsanfelipe: When using the {{GA nominee}} template, you can use the note= parameter to leave a comment, which an include your co-nom status. Similarly, if you believe it to be in the wrong category, change the subtopic= parameter and the bot will recategorize the nomination. Regards SoWhy 19:19, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
Thanks MX and SoWhy. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 19:30, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Changing Nomination Categories

In regards to the discussion above, I regularly see nominations which are technically in a wrong category but for which the category is still reasonable (e.g. example above about a deceased politician). Except in special circumstances (e.g. someone putting something in Miscellaneous for which there is an appropriate category) my feeling has been to leave the nomination where it was placed. So in the above example I would not have changed it if I had noticed it. Now obviously a pertinent fact there is that a co-nom wishes to change the category but I wanted to throw open a discussion about "fixing" "wrong" categories. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:20, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Afaik the only reason for the categories is to allow reviewers to find articles they might be interested in reviewing. So placing it in a wrong category might lead to less people interested in the topic seeing it, increasing wait time. If the category still makes sense, it won't hurt though usually. That said, the reviewer will still have to determine the correct category when passing the nomination, so even if it gets reviewed out of the wrong category, the article can still land in the right one. Regards SoWhy 20:29, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

What is the GA review requirement for factual accuracy?

Wikipedia talk:Good article criteria#"Factually accurate" czar 22:25, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Failed at failing

The other day I reviewed the article Goosebumps (film) for GA, and failed it. I left the usual helpful info and saved the review page (Talk:Goosebumps (film)/GA1), but noticed a while later that the usual things (notifying the nominator, incrementing my review count) did not take place, and eventually the nomination was just removed from the GAN list during a bot maintenance run. I assume that the issue is with how I carried out my review somehow, and was hoping that someone here would both know what it is that I did wrong and whether it can be fixed or not. - adamstom97 (talk) 00:35, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

  • Not sure why any of that happen, so perhaps an experienced GA project member can shed some light on this. However, if you want to manually increase your review count, go to User:GA bot/Stats. The bot will update the WP:GAN page with the newest review count when it runs its next maintenance. MX (✉ • ✎) 01:37, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
    • The bot does not like it if you start the review and fail it in one update. If you want the notifications to all occur, you should claim, wait for the bot to update (roughly 15 minutes), and then quickfail. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:42, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
      • Thanks for the replies guys. In terms of fixing this, does anyone out there have suggestions or should I just go through and manually do it? If so, is there anything else I need to do besides notifying the nominator and incrementing my own review count? - adamstom97 (talk) 21:06, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
        • I'm going to stop watching this page now, and implement the changes that I gave in my last comment. If anyone else sees this and has any more advice then please ping me or leave a message at my talk page. - adamstom97 (talk) 19:42, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Review count

I am not sure if anyone cares much about this, certainly it is not something which over-troubles me, but the mechanism for tallying reviews carried out may have a bug. I started assessing GANs in March (2018) and while I have been busy, I seriously doubt that I have carried out 97 GAN assessments in the last eight months.

As I said, this does not especially concern me, but I flag it up here in case it a symptom of something more important. Gog the Mild (talk) 10:37, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for that. I hope that I haven't caused too much work. I am fond of offering second opinions, and didn't realise that they were counted. I would have guessed that I had offered second opinions or made other inputs into other GANs 8-10 times. Until a few days ago my tally was 63, so that would more or less match. But it jumped to 97 on the back of maybe 3 assessments, maybe less. Which is what caused me post here. I don't care that much, but something is wrong with the bot. There is no way that I have commented on 30+ articles in the past week or so.
I repeat that I don't much care, so if you are happy that nothing serious or systematic is amiss then I shall just move on. Thanks again for the prompt attention. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:33, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
Gog the Mild, it is nothing serious, just a bot issue that will one day (hopefully) be fixed should we ever get a replacement bot. Much of the jump was caused by the Alexios V Doukas review that you opened on October 28. The GA nomination template was missing the status and note parameters (which means the nominator created their own instead of substituting the GAN template per instructions), so the bot couldn't add the "onreview" status, and kept trying every 20 minutes to do so, adding to your count each time, until I noticed the issue and added the missing parameters, whereupon the bot finally succeeded in adding "onreview" 11 hours after its first attempt. That accounts for 33 extra increments in your total beyond the normal single one; the other 14 may come from similar episodes that were caught more quickly. Contrary to an earlier post, they would not come from commenting on an already-open review; the bot's review-counting mechanism doesn't work that way; only the person who opened the review (whose username is in the top section of the review) is ever counted. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:30, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
@BlueMoonset:Ah ha, mystery solved. Thank you for tracking that down. Am I going to compound the situation if I manually deduct 33 from my count at User:GA bot/Stats? I have had a busy first year of assessing, but not that busy. Or possibly 45. And is wherever you went to do your "quick manual count" accessible to us mere mortals? Gog the Mild (talk) 16:40, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
Gog the Mild, feel free to manually deduct from your count at User:GA bot/Stats, if you prefer a more accurate number. I don't know what Harrias did to get his manual count; the only brute force methods I can think of seem unpleasantly cumbersome and time-consuming, and nothing I'd care to undertake. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:41, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
It wasn't too bad. I went to user contributions, filtered it to talk space, and chose 'Only show edits that are page creations'. I then manually counted out those which were GA reviews. Harrias talk 07:10, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Open reviews for over two months

There are currently 11 reviews open by user Iazyges that are hanging "on hold" since August 24, and one extra since July 22. The user either forgot about them or doesn't care anymore. Is there something that someone could do abot this situation? Cléééston (talk) 15:10, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Pinging Iazyges. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:13, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
The most recent edit Iazyges made was on September 22 at Talk:Rose C. Davison/GA1, which referred to getting back to the review there: I'm planning to; I've been busy recently and I'll get around to it as soon as I can. Past experience would indicate that Iazyges does eventually get back to reviews, but it can take several weeks. Perhaps they would agree to open only a couple of reviews at a time in future so if they do get busy in real life, only one or two are left hanging. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:13, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
Is it cool if I take over the review? I'm brainstorming what to do next for article creation and I usually use this downtime to review GANs. MX (✉ • ✎) 17:42, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
I'm cool with anything that get those reviews done. Cléééston (talk) 03:08, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
Apologies, I'll get to them ASAP. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 19:45, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Iazyges I was just noticing this also. I count 11 nominations you started to review, as far as placing the template on the article's talk page, and then nothing happened. They seem to be primarily in the areas of Hawaii/south seas, royalty. Perhaps you could just release the ones you don't have time to work on in the near future, and let some other interested reviewer step in. — Maile (talk) 00:14, 11 November 2018 (UTC) These are the ones I see, and the date the review template was opened:
July 22, 2018
Reign of Marcus Aurelius - put on hold for improvements, but it looks like nominator Векочел has made a lot of edits since then
Ptolemy XII Auletes
July 23, 2018
Kulottunga I (Chola Empire royalty)
August 24, 2018
Ambrose K. Hutchison (Hawaii)
J. W. Lonoaea (Hawaii)
William Henry Daniels (Hawaii)
William P. Ragsdale (Hawaii)
Hiram Kahanawai (Hawaiian royalty)
Kiliwehi (Hawaiian royalty)
Emma Kaili Metcalf Beckley Nakuina (Hawaiian royalty)
Angata (Rapa Nui royalty)

Free review service

I'm offering a free GAN review service. Just leave me a note on my talk page. GANs older than three months will receive priority. Nothing is expected in return other than courtesy. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:52, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Basic question

I've been searching through the GA rules and can't seem to find anything addressing whether a single nominator can have more than one GAN pending at the same time. Is this allowed? Ergo Sum 20:58, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Reviewer MIA

Tplaza64 started reviewing the article Ant-Man and the Wasp that I nominated for GA, but they have not contributed to Wikipedia in the almost two weeks since then. Additionally, Favre1fan93 and I are also concerned that they are not experienced enough to assess the article properly given they only began contributing this January and have made a total of 15 edits (including starting this GA review). My personal preference here is we be allowed to open the article up again for another editor to review it. Does anyone watching know what should be done in this situation? - adamstom97 (talk) 22:47, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

@Adamstom.97 and Favre1fan93: With an assist from Mz7 the review was deleted, and I have changed the template so that the bot fixes it on its next pass. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:00, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
Awesome, thanks for the help guys! - adamstom97 (talk) 23:07, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

@Adamstom.97, Favre1fan93, and Barkeep49: I have started a new review for this article, but only now saw this. I only started contributing in September, but I believe that I am experienced enough to be conducting this review (ironic COI noted). However, if anyone disagrees, or would like to help with the review/comment on it, please do. The relevant page is Talk:Ant-Man and the Wasp/GA1 --DannyS712 (talk) 09:36, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Get Out

It's GA reviewer, DJ-Joker16 seems to have disappeared without a trace, and the review has been languishing for months with no progress. Someone may do something about this. --Kailash29792 (talk) 07:00, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

You can just fail it. If he turns up again you can suggest you'll prioritise a review. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 07:07, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Social media addiction

The review at Talk:Social media addiction/GA1 doesn't appear to have considered any of the GA criteria and the history of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Social media addiction is, um, interesting. So I don't think the article appears to have received a fair GA review. On the other hand, it has an active merge tag. And although the merge tag is by the same editor who made the bad review, the bad AfD, and the bad AfD self-closure, it nevertheless appears to have some merits, and links to another article on a very closely related topic which appears significantly more complete (but also not in shape for GA). So what to do? I'd suggest re-opening but I'm not convinced that a re-opened nomination would likely to be successful. Apologize to the nominator and move on? Formally admonish the reviewer? —David Eppstein (talk) 21:02, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

David Eppstein, it's no longer possible to admonish the reviewer; their account is locked across all Wikimedia platforms including English Wikipedia. At this point, it might make sense to let the original nominator know that while the review was non-standard, the article isn't at (or near) the point that a GA nomination would be successful; indeed, it is less so than ever as it has been drastically shortened in the past week. The merge tag is still active, though the sole response is opposed to a merge. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:36, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Talk:Don't Tell Me (Madonna song)/GA1

Hi everyone, it seems like the reviewer at Talk:Don't Tell Me (Madonna song)/GA1 has disappeared so the review is stuck even after addressing all the comments. Is it possible for anyone else to just check and decide upon it? —IB [ Poke ] 09:29, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

@Aoba47: maybe you can take a look since you have reviewed the song articles previously? —IB [ Poke ] 21:03, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
Thank you for the comment, but unfortunately, I am currently taking a wikibreak for a while. I am restricting my editing to only work in my sandbox. Good luck with it either way. Aoba47 (talk) 22:15, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
No problem. Is there anyone else who can pick this up? Its been more than 1.5 months now —IB [ Poke ] 10:44, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
@Casliber: can you help on this article please? Don't know what to do. —IB [ Poke ] 14:44, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
IndianBio, I'm sorry you're having trouble with a reviewer. While absolutely it should not, this situation has previously occurred. Please follow the instructions under "if the reviewer withdraws". —Prhartcom♥ 05:42, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Review count fix

I have nominated a GAN for the first time since changing my username, and note that my "Reviews" count appears to have been reset to zero. I can only assume this is due to the name change. My review count should be 128, though I recall the count was always inaccurate and used to say I have done considerably more than this. Is there any chance my review count can be updated to reflect what I've done? I'm not too fussed about making it exactly accurate, just raising it somewhat above zero would be appreciated, though I'm not exactly going to lose any sleep if it can't be done. Oh and while I've got people's attention if anyone wants to trade reviews just start reviewing my nomination and tell me which one you'd like done in return. Cheers. Damien Linnane (talk) 13:23, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Damien Linnane, I'm sorry to hear that. It sounds like a necessary byproduct of requesting a new username. I don't know how to update a review count. In your shoes, I would unashamedly make my real review count known to all at the start of each new review. Cheers. —Prhartcom♥ 06:05, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

IP Nominator

I noticed that an IP User, 213.97.52.171, nominated the article Olanzapine for GA. I talked with the principle author of the article who said it was not them, so if a review ever were to be started, I don't think anyone would claim the article. Should I go ahead and fail it or is there some other process or is someone else willing to claim this article?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  20:49, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

I see no reason an IP editor couldn't appropriately nominate an article for GA and go through the review process. However, since they are not a major contributor I think it's safe to withdraw the nomination on those grounds. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:22, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
I see that this has already been done and finished, but the answer to this question is in the FAQ above. Unless the IP User has demonstrated that they are not here to build an encyclopeida, there's no reason to avoid working with an IP User. —Prhartcom♥ 06:09, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Obadiah Short failed by an editor after 44 edit counts in total

Hi! It appears that User:TerribleTy2727 failed Obadiah Short after 4 days as an editor. I put the article up for nomination, but didn't hear from the reviewer at all, and so was unable to respond before it was failed. The GA criteria don't seem to have been referred to much during the review process. Should I just re-nominate the article without advising User:TerribleTy2727? Hel-hama 19:27, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

It looks like a good faith review and they have brought up some relevant points. I would fix the issues they have brought up (it looks like you have already done some) and then leave a message at their talk page asking if they wouldn't mind reopening it. If they don't wish to then it is probably best just to renominate. Regards AIRcorn (talk) 20:41, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
Thanks User talk:Aircorn, I agree with you and will follow your advice. Hel-hama 22:45, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Just a ping. (This concerns the "Today's featured article" section of the Main Page ... but just about everything that shows up there is a Good Article, so feedback from GAN people would be relevant, welcome and appreciated.) - Dank (push to talk) 14:49, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

Athabasca Valles, Phlegra Montes, and Ganges Mensa

These three articles, about features on Mars, are currently nominated under the category Earth sciences. Shouldn't this be under Physics and astronomy instead? ~ KN2731 {t · c} 04:13, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

I believe so, KN2731; good catch. The nominationator would likely agree with you; these appear to be the same person. It would be appropriate to go ahead and fix this. Would you like to (perhaps referring to this discussion)? —Prhartcom♥ 04:26, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
@Prhartcom: sorry for the late reply, I must have missed the notification. I'll go ahead and change the subtopics on the talk pages and move the nominations to the correct section. Thanks, ~ KN2731 {t · c} 10:12, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

a/an

This is a minor point, but it's always stood out to me. Despite the fact that some of the good article topics begin with a vowel, (e.g., "Agriculture, food and drink" and "Art and architecture"), the preceding indefinite article on the talk page for each nominee is always "a"; Ansel Adams, for example, is described as "Ansel Adams is currently a Art and architecture good article nominee." Is there a way to fix this? By my count, the affected categories are Agriculture, food and drink; Art and architecture; Albums; Earth sciences; Education; and Economics and business. --Usernameunique (talk) 23:57, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

It'd be a fairly simple template adjustment by someone who knows the ins and outs of the template syntax, unless it's relying on some part of the template core that's not easy to change. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 19:10, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
 Done with this edit Wugapodes [thɑk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɹɪbz] 21:18, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
Looks good, thanks Wugapodes! --Usernameunique (talk) 19:26, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Broken second review notification

Any explanation for this bot notification of a GA review of one of my nominations, with the wrong status and broken article title, immediately following the correct notification? —David Eppstein (talk) 19:05, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

David Eppstein, the bot sometimes has problems with article titles that have accented letters in them, and glitches in some way such that it thinks the accented character is something else and is confused by the apparent change in name, such that it thinks that the correctly named article has failed, which triggers the notification you saw. I have no idea why this sometimes occurs, or what can be done to fix it; if we ever get a replacement bot, presumably this will be one of the things that will be fixed. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:02, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
No harm done. Thanks for the explanation. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:23, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
So, since the bot got confused, I guess I'll add the GA icon to the article? (I was the reviewer and was wondering the same thing.) -Bryanrutherford0 (talk) 17:24, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
Bryanrutherford0, I'm not quite sure why the bot didn't send out the correct message when you changed the GA nominee template to a GA template upon passing the nomination, which should have happened within 20 minutes of you having made the change, unless it had to do with the accent issue again; it will add the GA icon at the same time it posts a "passed" message on the nominator's talk page. Yet another glitch, I'm afraid; it's good that you added the GA icon yourself, under the circumstances, and removed the transcluded review from the article talk page. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:42, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Pande family

This is up next on the list of oldest nominations, but I'm a bit hesitant to review as it was nominated by an anonymous user [8] with minimal numbers of edits and none recently. Given that there are some obvious issues with the article that would mean I wouldn't pass it outright, anyone have any thoughts on just removing this nomination until an active editor nominates it? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 17:30, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

  • @David Fuchs: I think it would be good practice if you leave a message on the article's talkpage detailing some of the issues the article has. Maybe there is a page watcher who can take care of any issues that may arise from the review. You could also go to WikiProject Nepal in hopes of inviting other editors who might be interested in helping. If you do not get response in about a week, I would remove it from the nominations page. If you're worried a reviewer might start a review page, add a "Note" asking reviewers to read the talkpage message you left. Cheers, MX (✉ • ✎) 17:47, 16 January 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the input. I've poked the talk page of WP Nepal to see if there's someone who's willing to adopt the article for review. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 17:57, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Matt Bomer

Sorry, but I put this forward on 27 July last year, could someone review it thanks. Govvy (talk) 14:55, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Govvy, unfortunately we have a very large backlog, with about 430 unreviewed nominations. The oldest are now over nine months old, and there are about 90 unreviewed nominations older than yours. I hope someone will choose yours to review soon, but it could be a while: the oldest unreviewed nomination dates back to 24 March 2018. Best of luck. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:51, 16 January 2019 (UTC)
I put it forward for GA because I thought User:Reehdelrey did such an excellent job on it. And I thought it would be a nice easy article for someone to review. I am just surprised how slow the wheel turns... Govvy (talk) 01:04, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
Frankly speaking, it goes slowly because far more people are nominating articles than are reviewing them. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 17:54, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Gaviidae Common

Hello all. I nominated the above article for the GAN process and it was selected for review a few months ago but it seems the reviewer in question has taken a break from editing. I had pretty much completed all suggested work on the article and was only awaiting a reply on a question I had asked. I am unsure how to handle the rest of this process. What is the standard procedure for a situation like this? Thanks in advance to any who assist. Carbrera (talk) 00:31, 17 January 2019 (UTC).

User:Trillfendi

I recently have removed two articles (25 and Rihanna) nominated by User:Trillfendi who did not contribute to the articles at all, and I see nowhere the user discussed with the primary contributors of the articles, per WP:GANI. —IB [ Poke ] 13:49, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Articles may be nominated by anyone is the policy, and yes I have contributed to the articles. History exists. Just because I don’t bombard them with moving every comma and stalking every user’s edit who comes by doesn’t mean I can’t look at them objectively and believe they fit GAN criteria to be reviewed by other editors. Trillfendi (talk) 19:01, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
Nominators who are not significant contributors to the article should consult regular editors of the article on the article talk page prior to a nomination and you are not a significant contributor to any of them. Pinging @BlueMoonset: also. —IB [ Poke ] 20:26, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
I completely agree with IB's actions and interpretations of the instructions. Trillfendi the way to go about this is to post something on the talk page and say you're thinking of doing this. If no one objects, or there is support, and you're willing to implement changes as suggested by a reviewer, do the nomination. If someone objects, talk it through as you would any other Wikipedia disagreement. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:48, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
Of course I am. Trillfendi (talk) 20:54, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
Great! So all that's left for you to do is to leave a talk page message to see how other editors of the article(s) feel about a nomination. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:56, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Closure of GA Review (and removal of GA Status) by nominator of article for review

Please note Talk:Erich Hartmann, where the article was nominated for GAR and delisted by the same editor. The instructions state that discussion should be closed by an uninvolved editor when a conclusion has been reached - can the nominator of an article for re-assessment be suitably uninvolved? Is the closure and delisting valid? Note that the article has since been re-nominated for GA status by another editor.Nigel Ish (talk) 20:06, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

It is fine (in fact expected) for the person starting an individual GAR to close it. AIRcorn (talk) 20:43, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
What does "When the reassessment discussion has concluded, any uninvolved editor may close it (if needed, a request may be made at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure)." mean then?Nigel Ish (talk) 20:59, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
It was an individual reassessment so the opener is supposed to close it. What you are quoting is the instructions for a community reassessment. AIRcorn (talk) 21:44, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
Actually, per Wikipedia:Good article reassessment it depends whether it was an individual discussion or a community one. The former allows the editor opening the review to close it, the later requires an uninvolved closer. In this case, it was an individual reassessment and thus the nominator was able to close it. Regards SoWhy 21:20, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
Well if the process is allows the person who wants the article delisted to decide consensus and delist the article -(and in this case consensus was disputed) then GA status is effectively meaningless.Nigel Ish (talk) 21:27, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
This raises an interesting point and circumvents the purpose of consensus. Potentially (if I understand right), someone who disagrees with a GA promotion decision, or simply can find some fault (however trivial or not) can act as judge, jury and executioner? Maybe it's not as simple as that, as I haven't looked in to this part of the process in any great detail, but it could be a slight flaw? Bungle (talk • contribs) 21:32, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
Think of a GAR as a GAN in reverse. One person can promote an article so it makes sense that one person can also delist it. If an editor is deliberately delisting articles with an outside agenda not related to the good article criteria then that is a behavioural issue and should be dealt as one. Not seeing that here. There is the option of a community reassessment for those that disagree with an individual one. That process is pretty broken though so I wouldn't recommend it. AIRcorn (talk) 21:44, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
"Think of a GAR as a GAN in reverse", well, not quite. Whilst I take your point to a certain extent, the GAN process involves 2 editors who have to form an agreement for an article to be listed, with clear criteria to work to. Someone putting an article through GAR doesn't have to specify their reasoning, then have it sat in a queue for months waiting for another editor to come along and agree/disagree (i.e. GAN minimum 2, GAR minimum 1). It's not quite comparable. True, someone misusing this process would be caught fairly swiftly, although it still does present an issue. The fact you note the community reassessment is broken doesn't help the defence argument for GAR though. Bungle (talk • contribs) 21:57, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
A GA reassessment still needs to focus on the criteria as much as a GA review and they definitely have to have a reason. I don't quite follow the two people forming an agreement in GAN. If I as a reviewer decide an article does not meet the criteria then I can fail it even if the nominator disagrees. Due to the broken community process I always try to encourage editors to put an article through an individual one as I don't think individual GARs are broken (or at least as broken - nothing here is perfect and the GA system is far from it). AIRcorn (talk) 22:09, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
I meant that as far as a process goes, GAN needs 2 agreeing editors for a change in recognition to be acknowledged (promotion in GAN, vs demotion in GAR). I can't say I feel that strongly either way about the flaws in either GAR or community reassessment, though the initial above comment did make me think somewhat. The argument that a single editor can promote an article so therefore a single editor can demote one is a little weak, considering I can't just list an article for GAN, give reasons then auto promote a week later if there are no objections. The GA system at its core I guess is fairly un-bureaucratic, at least compared to FA so maybe it's not something to be overly concerned about. Bungle (talk • contribs) 22:18, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
Well its a good job I do not take part in the GA process because any process that allows someone, no matter how well intentioned, to be prosecutor and judge, is open to abuse. Such a process is liable to corruption, although it seems that no-one here is bothered by this, which is rather depressing.Nigel Ish (talk) 22:40, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
@Nigel Ish: In fairness, I entered a debate agreeing with your concerns. The fact I suggest it may not be something to be overly concerned about is more to do with comparatively informal nature of GA when compared with FA. GAR has been present for quite considerable time and I suspect if it were a serious concern, it would have already been discussed and amended. In saying that, I would still welcome the opportunity to bring it more in line with GAN, although when you look at the GAN backlog and how long articles take to be picked up, maybe this isn't as good an idea as it sounds. Bungle (talk • contribs) 22:50, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Yes and Yes - As outlined in the Individual Reassessment instructions, the discussion is opened and closed by a single editor. Of course the outcome can be challenged if the GAC and GAR procedures were not followed. –dlthewave ☎ 22:27, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest

As part of the WikiCup that is going on, I am looking at GANs posted by fellow competitors in the Cup and I want to be sure I don't have a conflict of interest or even the appearance of a conflict. I am a prolific professional wrestling editor and as such, I interact with other regular editors of PW articles, both in cooperation and disagreement over various articles. Over the years I have intentionally stayed away from doing GA reviews on pw articles in general for this very reason. I was hoping that experienced GA reviewers thoughts on the matter? Looking at articles, if I've done anything beyond "maintenance edits" on an article I would never do a GA review, but if I have not actually done any detailed work on an article I would actually like to review them, I think I have enough experience with wrestling and writing Good or Featured content that I could judge articles appropriately, but I don't want this to come off as inappropriate in any way. MPJ-DK (talk) 00:12, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

  • @MPJ-DK: My two cents here. I think you would be a value-added if you were to review PW articles. Your experience in this topic will help you identify gaps and improvements that other reviewers, even if experienced, would probably overlook. The whole purpose of the GA Project is to help get articles to GA status. With your work in PW articles throughout the years, I (and others, I'm sure) know you will make sure these articles abide by the GA criteria. I know your work is detailed and thorough, so there is no hesitation from me if you decide to review PWs nominations. Best regards, MX (✉ • ✎) 04:07, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Unexperienced editor passed my GAN without any comments

On April 2, 2018, I nominated the 190th Street (IND Eighth Avenue Line) article to be a good article. I received some feedback on the talkpage. Today, Mgasparin, who only has 67 edits, and only started editing on December 28, took up the nomination and passed it without any feedback whatsoever. While I clearly believe this article is of Good Article-material, it is unreasonable to assume that this article is perfect, and therefore, this review is unacceptable. I hope I can receive help with this issue, and hopefully a proper review. Thanks.--Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 16:52, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Kew Gardens 613, I see that Aircorn has checked the article, and feels that the article is indeed deserving of being listed as a GA. Congratulations. However, I notice that Mgasparin made a number of GA nominations of articles today along with that review, and that you'd reverted their nomination of Times Square–42nd Street/Port Authority Bus Terminal (New York City Subway) because it clearly wasn't ready; you've recommended that they hold off any further nominations until they have more experience editing articles and with the GA criteria in general. I agree with that assessment—people new to GAN sometimes go overboard in their enthusiam, which is understandable—and will also point out to them that users should not nominate articles they are not significant contributors to without first checking with the significant contributors to see whether they think it is ready to be a GA (which wasn't done for the nomination you reverted). BlueMoonset (talk) 20:02, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

I've just run into the same situation with Talk:Washington State Convention Center/GA1, which was promoted by Berrely without any comments. I'd like a second opinion, as I'm not comfortable with this kind of rubber-stamping for an article that long. SounderBruce 16:27, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Nomination not listed

I tried to nominate Bajadasaurus and placed the template on the talk page as described, but the bot is not listing it at Wikipedia:Good article nominations. What can I do? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:47, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Abandoned review

The reviewer of my nomination Tian Feng (magazine) has stopped editing over a month ago. I would be much obliged if somebody took it from here. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:15, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

I have opened an RFC at Wikipedia talk:Good articles#RFC about assigning classes to demoted Featured articles that may concern editors of this project. AIRcorn (talk) 08:20, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Sea Prayer

Hi, I came across this 3-paragraph stub with no talk page assessments and note that it has a GA icon on it. How did that happen? Yoninah (talk) 23:22, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

I didn't know how to remove the icon, that's why I posted here. Yoninah (talk) 00:01, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
Thank you. Yoninah (talk) 11:42, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Potential need for second reviewer

Hello everyone, the GAN review for Olallie Butte has not received any comments since February 11. The reviewer, Wilhelmina Will, has not edited since February 13, so I was hoping someone else could step in to revive/restart the review. Thanks, ceranthor 17:32, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Nevermind, resolved. :) ceranthor 13:27, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Notability

I'm sure we've discussed "In particular, the GA criteria do not require compliance with several major guidelines, including Wikipedia:Notability" before. However, I've just deleted Manny Parra's perfect game, which passed GAN on 16 January, because the arguments at the AfD gave a clear consensus to delete, though several appreciated deleting a GA because of lack of notability would be controversial.

This seems counter-productive. What's the point of spending a load of time improving an article to GA status, then time waiting for and doing the review, if it can be deleted? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:19, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

I would agree, GA should consider notability, but that should be by way of the policies that a presumably notable topic should meet: WP:NOT, WP:V, and to a degree WP:NOR. The deleted article was deleted due to failure of WP:V (lack of coverage from third-party sources), which is implicit by WP:N's GNG. In other words, it should have never been passed as a GA in the original state. If that requires pushing "notability" as a concern, then maybe that change is needed. --Masem (t) 16:29, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
I would have assumed that any topic which is both well referenced and broad in coverage would have met GNG, and any topic that does not meet GNG could be one or the other, but not both. GMGtalk 16:34, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
It's not quite a two way street; notability is meant as an implementation guidelines as WP:NOT#IINFO but thats perhaps too simple, as not everyone agrees what is indiscriminate info is. But there definitely is a on-par match of WP:V and WP:NOR with the GNG's base sourcing requirements; if you meet the sourcing requirements of V/NOR, you've likely met the sourcing requirements of the GNG, but other factors can make that fail the GNG like routine coverage. --Masem (t) 16:39, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
Well, I rather think of GNG as the logical consequence of V, RS and 5P1. Of course the 5P1 bit often requires editors who remember what an encyclopedia is outside of Wikipedia, which is becoming more and more of a rare find these days. Still, it's hard to imagine that any article that fails N should have ever passed GA simply as a measure of COMMONSENSE. GMGtalk 17:43, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
I feel the same about the Jim and Mary McCartney article who do not by any stretch of the imagination meet general notability guidelines yet the staunch Beatles stans on this website think two primary source Paul McCartney biographies, Beatles fan blogs, and a smattering of absolutely useless trivia disguised as broad coverage are enough for it to meet good article status. Madness. Notability is the foundation of what goes here and what doesn’t. Trillfendi (talk) 16:44, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
I have previously expressed the same opinion about the McCartney article - in fact I would go further and suggest it is unnecessarily intrusive and only isn't a complete BLP violation because the subjects are deceased. I just don't think "Delete per IAR" is a starter. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:47, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
This was discussed before being nominated for deletion at WikiProject Baseball and so I've been following it closely all along. I think expecting the GA reviewer to be able to ascertain verifiability but not notability is OK. While I followed that particular AfD, and it pains me to see it deleted, I couldn't make a policy based decision to keep (so I stayed silent instead). I also know that if I had reviewed that article for GA it wouldn't have occurred to me to question its notability, but once the question was raised its lack of notability as a topic felt compelling and ultimately I reluctantly agreed with it. So yeah these are tough ones I guess is my message? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:14, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
If an article doesn't meet notability guidelines, then it shouldn't be promoted to GA in the first place. That should be clear by now. I'd auto-fail such nominations without second thought and encourage others to do the same when they know an article isn't warranted. No objections to listing it more explicitly as a requirement for anybody who isn't certain. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 02:29, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
  • Just noticed this so late to the party. I think the GA criteria and Notability should be kept separate. If a reviewer thinks a subject is not notable enough failing it doesn't do any good. There is still a non-notable subject in the encyclopaedia, it just lacks a little green spot. Counter to Snuggums, if an article doesn't meet notability guidelines then it should be nominated for deletion, as that is the only way to delete articles (speedy/prods aside). I have done that a few times and would encourage others to do the same. You will get a few but it is a good article objections, but a good closer will ignore those. AIRcorn (talk) 07:45, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Suspicious GA reviews by new editor

Aravindante Athidhikal was promoted to GA by User:Lovelyismyname, a new editor whose first edits were to the GA review. Briefly looking through the article, it is clearly not at a GA level. There are grammatical errors and unsourced statements throughout (the filming section is almost entirely unsourced). Lovelyismyname has now started started a GA review for promoted Gokul Suresh to GA, despite the {{Advert}} template in the article. Both the GA reviews that Lovelyismyname has done were nominated by the same editor User:AhamBrahmasmi. Seems very suspicious to me. Bennv3771 (talk) 06:45, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Note also that AhamBrahmasmi is a declared paid editor for Gokul Suresh, one of the articles promoted to GA by this new user. Bennv3771 (talk) 06:57, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
Agree. Have left a note at both editors talk pages to discuss this here. AIRcorn (talk) 08:16, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
Lovelyismyname is a  Confirmed sockpuppet of AhamBrahmasmi; both are now blocked. Yunshui 雲水 08:34, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
@Yunshui: Can we delete the reviews? AIRcorn (talk) 08:42, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
I'm not a very regular contributor to GA so I'm not sure what the proper protocol is in these circumstances. I've struck the reviews already, but have no personal objection to them being deleted altogether if that's the usual process. Yunshui 雲水 08:44, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
I would favour deleting as they are transcribed and it may interfere with some of the automated processes. BlueMoonset (talk · contribs) knows more about this stuff than me. AIRcorn (talk) 08:56, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
Housekeeping. ——SerialNumber54129 11:36, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
Unless we feel a need to keep around "reviews" made by a sockpuppet of the nominator for paper trail purposes, I see no reason why these old /GA1 pages need to be retained. After all, If it were a review opened by the nominator (usually by accident or because they misunderstand the process), then I'd just delete it, so this would seem to apply to sock reviews since it's still the same person. I've just removed the transclusion of the review pages from the talk pages of both articles, so there's nothing referring to them any more. I have also removed AhamBrahmasmi's one remaining GAN, made earlier today; they're indef blocked and their judgment is clearly questionable when it comes to whether articles meet the GA criteria. Let's give it 24 hours to see whether someone knows of a good reason to retain the review pages before moving to speedy them. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:37, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
The Gokul Suresh GA review page has just been deleted as a G6 request, so I've put the one for Aravindante Athidhikal up for deletion as well, rather than wait 24 hours for one but not the other. We might as well be consistent... BlueMoonset (talk) 20:57, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
If it's a known sock, then by all means that's what CSD G5 is for. ——SerialNumber54129 07:04, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Is this standard practice?

I recently created and nominated the article King of the Universe, part of a series of articles I created and expanded on ancient Mesopotamian royal titles. The GA review by User:BMO4744 happened over a timespan of about seven hours during which I was not online. I have no doubt that there are many improvements that might have to be made before the article is truly at GA status, as is usual, but I do feel like the whole thing was a bit strange.

The main reasons given for not passing the article was its recent creation, a lack of citations, the fact that there was only one editor (me), some grammatical errors, that the topic wasn't fully covered and that it was currently a "start"-class. As far as I know the age and number of editors usually doesn't matter, especially given that this is a sort of obscure topic? The article is fully cited so I didn't see how this was an issue and surely concerns about grammar and whether some information was missing could have been adressed during the review if the reviewer would just have notified me. That the article was a "start" class also weirded me out as a reason since I have had articles go directly from "start" to GA in the past, especially if they were nominated soon after being created (which was the case here) or significantly expanded. I am also a bit baffled about there being zero correspondence with me here. Ichthyovenator (talk) 15:36, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

I just put my reply. If you are still disatisfied. I will leave and let someone else reassess the article. BMO4744 (talk) 15:41, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

I replied to your reply there, hope I am making it clear that I'm not attacking you or anything, the review just felt a bit strange. I will be waiting and seeing if anyone else will be weighing in on this. Ichthyovenator (talk) 15:46, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
@BMO4744 and Ichthyovenator: I as well don't know much about the topic so I'm not going into much detail about whether or not it should be a good article but I am however more interested in the review itself. Per the instructions under "Step 4: What to do during a review" it explicitly states You are expected to respond to the reviewer's suggestions to improve the article to GA quality in a timely manner as well as A reviewer may put the review "on hold" for about seven days to allow you time to fix any issues that may arise. Although it's normally an issue that the nominator did not respond in adequate time I'm gonna go as far to say that the reviewer that the issue this time is that the reviewer did not give adequate time for the nominator to respond. The general practice is to place the article on hold for seven days and if no attempts to fix the issue are done then it can be failed. In "Step 3: Reviewing the article" it reads Often the nomination is brought up to standard during the review. again there was no time allowed for an attempt to bring it to standard. More or less in my opinion you could say that the article was quick failed. Per the review completed (and a quick look over the page myself) there were no copyright violations, no cleanup banners, and it was stable. The only other possible quick fail tag would be It is a long way from meeting any one of the six good article criteria but again per the issues raised by the reviewer this does not seem to be a reasonable quick fail. The instructions then say In all other cases, the nominator deserves a full review against the six criteria from the reviewer. For most reviews, the nominator is given a chance to address any issues raised by the reviewer before the article is failed. Often the nomination is brought up to standard during the review, again this was not done. Looking more into the review the reviewer said decently illustrated but the article could need with more pictures and the article could really do with more illustration. The Good Article Criteria says The presence of media is not, in itself, a requirement which leads me to believe that the reviewer did not fully read the criteria. I'd also like to point out that the reviewer did not follow the instructions for failing properly (I fixed it here) which again makes me think the reviewer did not read the instructions. There are other issues the reviewer raised such as the article being a start class. There is a list of what cannot be a good article... Disambiguation pages and stubs... says nothing about start class articles. Further on the reviewer mentions multiple times that only one person has contributed to the article even going as far to state This also damages the review because their is only the scope of 1 editor for the article, this shouldn't matter as long as the article is neutral. It appears to me that the two biggest issues here are 1) There was not adequate time given to the reviewer and that 2) The reviewer appears to be applying some of their own criteria to the review which should not be done. The reviewer also seems to be having issues with GA related topics all over Wikipedia: (removing GA reassessment tag, another incorrectly closed GA, and again) I could go on picking apart all the things wrong with this review as well as the reviewer but I'd be here all day. My advice to Ichthyovenator, the GA Instructions read If you believe that you did not receive an adequate review, you may renominate the article immediately, feel free to do that there's nothing stopping you. And my advice to BMO4744 in the future, read the instructions more carefully, don't apply your own criteria, allow time for the reviewer to fix the issues, maybe look into some of the helpful essays here. TheDoctorWho (talk) 16:55, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
Another side note with the not following instructions, on the other GA's this user has passed they did not update talk page headers (I fixed them here and [9] nor did they add the articles to Wikipedia:Good articles as the instructions say to do. TheDoctorWho (talk) 17:12, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

GA Criteria 1 in Baseball/Sports Articles

Editors might wish to participate in this discussion about what good prose in sports articles (with a focus on baseball articles) looks like. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:59, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Expectations of nominators?

I found an article that I think is a good article but has never had a review. I've never edited the page and I don't have access to any of the books it refers to. When I look at the instructions it seems to imply that as nominator I would be expected to be able to write the whole article. Most of the article is written by an editor I've seen in many talk pages and suspect to be a tireless contributor in good standing, i.e. I'm willing to assume it is accurate. I am more than willing to copy edit what is already there and discuss improvements with a reviewer. Should I go ahead and nominate it and just work with what we've got? I'll go ahead and ping that editor @BD2412: in case they want to contribute to the request. ~^\\\.rTG'{~ 20:21, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

What is the article? bd2412 T 21:02, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
@BD2412: ->Hole! I was surprised with this article and just want to push it over toward the FAs. It seems likely to have wide topic coverage, good sources, and need little in the way of copy editing. Quirky to boot, isn't that what an FA/GA is? ~^\\\.rTG'{~ 22:34, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
Many thanks, that one was a particular labor of love for me. Note that some of the sources are from other short articles on types of holes that were merged into this one when it was created. Cheers! bd2412 T 22:46, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
RTG, as it notes in the GAN instructions, Nominators who are not significant contributors to the article should consult regular editors of the article on the article talk page prior to a nomination. It seems like you've done that here instead if BD2412 is the primary editor, and they think it meets (or is close to meeting) the GA criteria. The expectation is not so much that you could write the entire article, but that you could find sources and fix prose and fill any holes that the reviewer finds. You would be able to consult with other editors like BD2412 who may have access to sources that you don't. I don't know whether FAC is as flexible as GAN for allowing editors who haven't worked on the article to submit articles there. On the other hand, if you've had to do some work getting it through GAN, that may help you to sustain an FAC submission. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:49, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
Thanks BlueMoonset ~^\\\.rTG'{~ 00:27, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
I'll ping @BD2412: again. I was supposed to ask you, don't know how I missed it written twice in the instructions. If you like, I'll nom and do any copy editing and just consult for you anything beyond me, or nom it in your self. You say your self you laboured over it. You are a capable editor. So it is well written and widely covering the topic. There are FAs on math equations. This article has a nice gallery and will make a good DYK also. ~^\\\.rTG'{~ 00:42, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
I am fine with whatever you want to do. Have at it! bd2412 T 01:03, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
Done. Good luck o7 ~^\\\.rTG'{~ 09:09, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Bot not recognising new GA review

Does anyone know why the GA bot isn't acknowledging the creation of Talk:Fanny (band)/GA1? I added the review manually, but the bot reverted it on its next run. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:44, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Give it a day or two, the bot sometimes takes its time. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 16:56, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
It shouldn't take more than 20 minutes or so to show up on the nominations page under normal circumstances. In this case, the review page had some formatting issues that prevented the bot from parsing out the review information. I think I've got it fixed, but will check shortly to see whether the bot picks it up; if not, I'll keep working at it until it shows up. (Adding a review or nomination or change manually won't help; if the bot doesn't see it, it won't include it the next time through.) BlueMoonset (talk) 00:56, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
Aha, that did the trick - cheers! Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:11, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
@Jens Lallensack: @BlueMoonset: I created this page eight hours ago from my cell, but Wikipedia:Good_article_nominations#Albums still isn't indicating that the article is being reviewed (save the changing of "start review"→"discuss review"). Not a big deal, since I'm expecting to have the review completed within 24 hours anyway. Just thought I'd let you know, in case there's some unknown bug when someone creates a review page by mobile. Cheers. Homeostasis07 (talk) 01:28, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
Homeostasis07, it looks like the bot finally picked up on it after your edit to the review page adding the usual boilerplate to the top of the page. Without that required boilerplate, the bot doesn't recognize that it's a valid review page even if it has the right name for one. You're all set now. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:37, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

What did I break?

I've nominated Marjorie Paxson and the notice is showing up fine at Talk:Marjorie Paxson but hasn't shown up at Good_article_nominations#Magazines_and_print_journalism. What have I done wrong? It's been several hours. Thanks for any help! --valereee (talk) 17:48, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Valereee As you saw it's been included at GAN. I'm pretty sure the issue is that you had an extra line break between the rest of the headerstuff and the GAN template so the bot missed it. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:38, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
Thank you! I'll go look at the diffs and see if I can at least make sure I don't do the same thing again! --valereee (talk) 20:23, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Havana (Camila Cabello song)

The user H9v9n9 has picked up his own GA nomination for review. Someone delete the review page because this is obviously against the rules.—NØ 07:45, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Both the articles are currently loaded with fancruft and need cleanup. Same user has also started a portal and an obviously premature wikiproject for Cabello. This situation probably needs to be dealt with by admins...--NØ 19:16, 11 April 2019 (UTC)
@MaranoFan: They just recreated Talk:Havana (Camila Cabello song)/GA1 --DannyS712 (talk) 19:46, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
Time to report them to the administrators' board. They are WP:NOTHERE to improve the encyclopedia but be a soapbox for Camila Cabello as a single purpose editor. Trillfendi (talk) 19:50, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
@Trillfendi: I prefer to avoid drama, so I'll leave that for you to do? --DannyS712 (talk) 19:54, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Number of reviews

How do I increase the number of reviews I have done next to my name if it seems that I can't do it manually? I recently reviewed 50000 Quaoar, but when I went to nominate Soyuz flight VS22, "(Reviews: 1)" didn't show up next to my name as I had anticipated it would. – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 20:43, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Its done by bot and generally lags a bit. AIRcorn (talk) 10:38, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Closing GA

Hi,

I recently saw that Indian Administrative Service went without a GA review completed in best part of a year, so I contacted the nominator at Talk:Indian Administrative Service/GA1 to see if they were still happy to go ahead with the review, which they were. I then started Talk:Indian Administrative Service/GA2, and placed on hold a month ago, however their last post was the day that they responded to me. I'm not sure who the best wikiproject would be to instigate the changes I have mentioned, but I am against closing the GA without a single response. Any ideas? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 09:34, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Sometimes they just fall through the cracks. I recently failed three GA nominations under similar circumstances. It is one of the biggest drawbacks of having such a large backlog. I know It sucks after you have put in so much work, but your comments will always remain on the talk page if they return or someone else is interested in improving it. AIRcorn (talk) 10:46, 18 April 2019 (UTC)
Oh, I wasn't worried about that, I just feel bad for the guy to wait so long, and close it. Oh well, I'll close it (it's been open around a month). Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 11:01, 18 April 2019 (UTC)
I'm the idiot who opened the original review and didn't complete it. Sorry for the trouble I caused.--Carabinieri (talk) 21:15, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Border Roads Engineering Services

I have come across Border Roads Engineering Services. It was created by a new account and then passed by another new account with a similarly formatted username. The review consists of "very good" (Talk:Border Roads Engineering Services/GA1) and most of the accounts contributions are to the article in question. The article itself is extremely promotional and far from Good standard. Will request a WP:SPI, but dropping a note here to give Strider3690 and Shubh2545 a chance to explain and to get some consensus on whether to delete the review or some other course of action. AIRcorn (talk) 10:43, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Having a closer look at the sources (most of which are press releases) I will probably put the article up for deletion once the status of the review is sorted out. AIRcorn (talk) 11:02, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
Sock puppets confirmed. Awaiting blocks. I have requested deletion of the review at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Shubh2545. AIRcorn (talk) 17:29, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Split "Biology and medicine" (again)

This has been brought up various times in the past (including by me), but the discussion always stalls. But looking again at the "Biology and medicine" section, the grouping of articles seems completely preposterous. Within that section, we have Nurse practitioner, but also Unionopterus (an instinct arthropod). What on earth do these two subjects have in common? All other sections are much more uniform in content. The problem which is always brought up is that it is hard to draw the line when it comes to anatomy (and that the bots might get confused by a new section). Also, because some organisms cause disease. But there must be a way to divide organisms and anatomy from purely medical subjects. Have one called "organisms and anatomy", and another called "health and medicine" or something? Any thoughts? FunkMonk (talk) 20:14, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

It makes sense, although it is a bit of work. Legoktm will have to make some changes to their bot and the WP:GAN page. Someone will have to rearrange the Wikipedia:Good articles/Natural sciences page to reflect the split. The talk page of every article currently listed as Good with the topic=biology and medicine should probably be updated too. There are probably other things that need to be done that I have forgotten. AIRcorn (talk) 11:15, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
How much of it could be done by bot? Maybe not the page moves of course, but things like updating projects etc? ——SerialNumber54129 11:40, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, I don't imagine it will be done anytime soon. But if we can at least figure out how it could be done, then the strategy will be ready for when the time comes. FunkMonk (talk) 11:53, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
It wasn't too bad. I think we split out subcategories for music and war and maybe a few others so it was more involved than this would be. Biology and medicine came up later, but never went anywhere. I did most of the topics using AWB, and to be fair that is mostly cosmetic. Updating the GA lists is relatively straight forward. There were a few follow up problems that we had to solve. The thread can be found at Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations/Archive 16#Category Splitting. Looking back we also need to let Wugapodes know so they can update the bot that populates the WP:GAN/R page. This was all seven years ago, I don't know if anyone has attempted anything like this more recently. AIRcorn (talk) 12:16, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
I think this speaks to why having a modern bot do this would be ideal. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:00, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
@Aircorn: I'd want to run some tests if/when this all gets done, but looking though the code I think WugBot could handle the split without needing to modify the code. Wugapodes [thɑk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɹɪbz] 19:20, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
We have wanted to add a number of subtopics for a long time—Sports and recreation, and Warfare come to mind—and the groundwork was laid by setting them up in the GA space. Legoktm, the current bot owner (who took over from the previous one), has never done a topic or subtopic expansion and is not interesting in updating the code, even for known bugs, and the most recent attempt to write a new bot seems to have stalled. Absent a new bot, we're stuck with the status quo. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:09, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
@BlueMoonset: I may be able to make the needed changes to Legobot's code. I don't have a ton of time to commit at the moment, but I'll do my best to look through the existing code and get a sense of the scope of the project. While I'm at it, what are the known bugs you mentioned? Wugapodes [thɑk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɹɪbz] 05:32, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Good articles/mismatches

About a year ago I requested a list of Good Articles that had mismatches between the {{Good article}} template on the main page and the Category:Wikipedia good articles on the talk page. It also included a list of articles that did not match up with Wikipedia:Good articles/all. The first list contained thousands of mismatches.[10] It took a year but we cleaned them all up, mostly through the efforts of DepressedPer and other volunteers. I have now requested a bot to update the page, kindly provided by GreenC, and after a year we have another 300 or so mismatches. I would like to add a link to this page from one of the pages here. I could make a new Tab and add it to Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Tab header, link it from the main WP:GA or from this talk page. I suppose it depends on how much visibility editors think this should have. AIRcorn (talk) 08:22, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

I'd be opposed to linking to the the TAB but would support its inclusion here in addition to its current inclusion (which I'd never noticed until now) on WP:GA in the right-hand column. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:51, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
Yeah. I just added it there a couple of days ago as I figured that was the least likely place to cause concern. AIRcorn (talk) 02:54, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
Maybe add it in some way to the reports that are generated? It's useful in the same way the information about various noms/reviews are useful. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:23, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
Query: for cleaning up, do we manually remove entries or does a bot do that? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 13:33, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Raja Harishchandra

The GA reviewer of this article, Squeamish Ossifrage, made his last edit on 9 March 2019. I dunno if he is still active, but I hope anyone else will continue the GAR in his stead. --Kailash29792 (talk) 15:19, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Anote Tong

Hello! Kind regards!, I am here to not waste time of editors and reviewers and just ask if the article of former President of Kiribati Anote Tong is in good shape for a candidature. Thanks! --LLcentury (talk) 14:11, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Instructions for nominators requesting second opinion

Having gone through a few troubles with reviews as of late, mostly because of inexperienced editors that don't fully understand the rules of MOS and other site policies, I believe that WP:GAI should include a clear set of instructions for nominators who would want to request a second opinion. As it stands, it's unclear if the second opinion instructions on the page apply to nominators. SounderBruce 00:45, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

My understanding is that it is something that can only be asked for by a reviewer. Even when a second opinion is provided it is up to them whether they take it on board and pass the article or fail it. AIRcorn (talk) 10:41, 18 April 2019 (UTC)
According to the FAQ at the top of this page, nominators are encouraged to get a second opinion if they are having a bad experience with their reviewer. Argento Surfer (talk) 17:44, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
I see that was added by Prhartcom in 2015. They linked Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Instructions#Asking for a second opinion, which is under the instructions for the reviewer. I am not so sure it is very useful for nominators to be asking for a second opinion on a review if the reviewer does not want one, as it is the reviewer who makes the final decision. If there is a basic disagreement then it doesn't hurt to suggest it to them, but if they dom't want to it is unlikely they would take on board the opinion anyway. In my experience the best outcome for intractable disputes is to fail and then renominate. WP:GAR is also an option and in an ideal world would do this effectively, but it seldom leads anywhere (see Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/1980 (Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson album)/1 for a current one). AIRcorn (talk) 22:54, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
I had not noticed this ambiguity, and I agree with you, Aircorn, that the job of calling for a second opinion on a review should be the exclusive right of the reviewer, as that person may not appreciate the nominator inviting an additional reviewer. Any questions from the nominator should be able to be answered by the current reviewer. If the nominator needs someone else besides the nominator to review their work, they can ask the reviewer to call for a second opinion, and failing that, existing instructions already suffice: They should let their nomination fail, then renominate and get a different reviewer.
I volunteer to add a clarifying phrase to the instructions and to probably remove that line from the FAQ. What do you all think? —Prhartcom♥ 18:32, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
I think it's fair to make it clear not just in the FAQ that the second opinion calling is the prerogative of the reviewer. As noted the nominator can already get a second opinion by renominating. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:30, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
I modified both the FAQ and the Instructions to add a clarifying phrase regarding the nominator's perogative to call for a second opinion. —Prhartcom♥ 22:50, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

GA review procedure help

Think there's been an error done in good faith here; [11] --HistoryofIran (talk) 22:44, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Proposed discussion archiving

Comments are appreciated at Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations/Instructions#Archiving nom discussions by default, regarding a proposal to archive GAN nominations. Ergo Sum 21:36, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Bot number is wrong

As I have changed my username, the bot is stating that I have only done the one review when in fact I have done 12 now. So can this be fixed please. HawkAussie (talk) 01:48, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

A proposal for WikiJournals to become a new sister project

Over the last few years, the WikiJournal User Group has been building and testing a set of peer reviewed academic journals on a mediawiki platform. The main types of articles are:

  • Existing Wikipedia articles submitted for external review and feedback (example)
  • From-scratch articles that, after review, are imported to Wikipedia (example)
  • Original research articles that are not imported to Wikipedia (example)

Proposal: WikiJournals as a new sister project

From an FA/GA/PR point of view, this is a complementary system to provide review of existing content by external experts, implementing established scholarly practices, and generating citable, doi-linked publications. It also acts as a route for high-quality new articles from people who would not have otherwise contributed to a wikimedia project.

Please take a look and support/oppose/comment! T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 11:24, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Malformed nominations

Both my GAN articles, Edward Thomas Daniell and Julian of Norwich are listed as malformed - can I have some help knowing what I have to do about it as I don't really know what the matter is. Amitchell125 15:16, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

GA review count

Dear fellow editors, my tally of 56 GA reviews appears to be incorrect. According to my calculations, I did 35 reviews, not 56. Thanks for the compliment, though, I suppose. Can somebody fix this?--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 13:19, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

@Farang Rak Tham: You could manually alter it at User:GA bot/Stats. Gog the Mild (talk) 22:17, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, Gog the Mild.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 07:57, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

Blocked nominator

Bangladesh was nominated by a now-blocked user, is the best way to remove the GAN template from the Bangladesh talk page? Kees08 (Talk) 06:17, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

...I don't see the answer to this question. dannymusiceditor oops 18:43, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

  • It's under the question "Nominator has been inactive on Wikipedia for a long time. What should I do?". Blocked users are inactive. MX (✉ • ✎) 19:19, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
  • I have removed the GA nominee template from the article's talk page. We typically remove GANs proposed by blocked socks as a matter of course. The way to go about it is to indeed remove the template from said talk page. If this had been short block for other reasons the nomination should probably remain, but this was a clear case where removal needed to be done. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:19, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Luna 2

Luna 2 is a GA nominee listed under the Biology and Medicine category. The article is about a spacecraft and would be better categorised under Physics and Astronomy so that those most interested in this subject would be more likely to spot it. What's the best way to get it moved? @Coffeeandcrumbs: Also informing nominator. PeaBrainC (talk) 15:52, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

No objection. What ever facilitates it moving forward is fine by me. This is simply an error on my part. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 16:37, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Closure of some GAs

Could an admin plz close Talk:Honestly/Honestly (Encore)/GA1 and Talk:Monster/Monster (Reborn)/GA1. The editor who grabbed them hasn't edited WP since May 20 and his/her last edit was starting those reviews. The nominator, Cartoon network freak would like them closed so another editor could pick them up. Cartoon network freak would also like to close his GA review of War All the Time (Thursday album), as they picked it up on April 18 and told me they don't have enough time to review it as of lately, and they don't want to fail it. If an admin could close these that would be great. Thanks. – zmbro (talk) 22:17, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

  • The editor in question has done this in the past: opened a number of nominations and then not gotten back to them for a month or more: for Talk:The Colossus of Rhodes (Dalí)/GA1, it was close to two months. I am happy to close the two per Cartoon network freak's request; I'll leave War All the Time as is, since Kees08 will be taking over the review. Note that there were five nominations grabbed on that day; ceranthor has had similar delays on their nominations reviewed by this reviewer in the past. I have no plans to do anything with those other opened but otherwise unbegun reviews unless requested to do so. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:50, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the tag, BlueMoonset. I wouldn't mind getting another reviewer; Wilhelmina Will has been a good reviewer before, but it has been a month now. I am competing in the WikiCup and was hoping to include those GAs in my scores for this round if possible, but it's not incredibly urgent to me that they get reviewed by then - it is just a friendly competition after all. ceranthor 15:57, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
ceranthor, I've closed the original review pages and put the nominations back into the (overlarge) pool awaiting reviewers. Perhaps a WikiCup colleague or two might be encouraged to take up the reviews in the next couple of days, since they are now available for reviewing? (You might want to make a direct request, given the situation.) Best of luck! BlueMoonset (talk) 22:34, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Struck out nominations

I just noticed that sections like the Video games section has their nominations struck out. What is up with that? GamerPro64 03:59, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Someone made a bad edit on a review page by adding a strikeout tag in the restricted upper section. I've just fixed it, and the problem should go away. Thanks for pointing this out! BlueMoonset (talk) 05:16, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
Yeah that's my fault, I forgot that reviewer parameter was above the forbidden line. I assumed it wasn't and didn't notice. As you can see above, one of my nominations got a new reviewer. dannymusiceditor oops 02:05, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Potential new reviewer query

Hello -- I'm contemplating dipping my toe for the first time into GA reviewing but am concerned that the nominated article on which my eye has fallen looks like an obvious fail. I know I can apply very high standards – I've seen few FAs I couldn't nitpick over – so would it be possible to partner with an experienced reviewer to check I'm not being too picky? Espresso Addict (talk) 02:23, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

@Espresso Addict: What article was you thinking of doing and why do you think they might be failing. HawkAussie (talk) 04:03, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
Hello, HawkAussie. The article I had glanced at was Adriana Briscoe, as I often work on biologist bios. On a very quick preliminary look, I'm mainly worried by lack of encyclopedic style in places, missing inline citations in parts, possibly unreliable & primary references, lack of detail on her research and career, overlong publications list, and incomplete source details. I haven't checked it out in detail at all yet. Espresso Addict (talk) 04:25, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
ETA. I've just noticed, looking at the nominator's talk page, that another of the their nominations has recently failed with a review that is quite brusque. Espresso Addict (talk) 04:33, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
Espresso Addict A quick browse of the article for myself as I am not familiar in the biology side and I have noticed straight off the bat the inconsistency on the reference style. An example of this is reference 16 and 17. Reference 16 has the yyyy-mm-dd format while Reference 17 follows the dd-mm-yyyy format which is something that I would probably put a little mention of. Comparing to Ann Bishop and I can see that their is a lack of detail on her research and I would probably would fail under the basis of rule 1: It is a long way from meeting any one of the six good article criteria as the 2nd criteria has massive issues. HawkAussie (talk) 04:46, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for this, HawkAussie. It's useful to know that my standards are not too far out. I'll check it out formally and write something up that might be helpful in improving the article, noting your concern with the reference formatting. Cheers, Espresso Addict (talk) 04:50, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
Your welcome and hope you enjoy reviewing these articles. HawkAussie (talk) 04:56, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Ziyad ibn Abih review

Not sure what the protocol would be in this case, but the article Ziyad ibn Abih which I nominated recently was failed without a review by Nightbag10, who started here last month and has made less than 500 edits, barely half of which were contributions to articles. He incorrectly noted that the article “only had one source”, which is not the case at all, and failed the nomination without actually reviewing the article, allowing me the opportunity to address his concern or even notifying me. I addressed this at the “review” page. Should I renominate the article, just delete the review page as if one was never started or something else? —Al Ameer (talk) 00:25, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

That user has even "retired" according to their userpage. The review is pretty much useless, so I'd support deleting it and starting over. FunkMonk (talk) 00:41, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
Done. —Al Ameer (talk) 16:00, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Note: NightBag10 made a number of reviews, both under this name and under their previous name, Ammar Elbehery (the name change was on June 21, a couple of weeks after their first edit). Most of them were pretty quick passes, or superficial in other ways:

They also had five active nominations. The four that were not being reviewed have just been removed by HawkAussie, since NightBag10 has posted their retirement; the fifth, Tutankhamun, is being reviewed, and HawkAussie has posted about the retirement to the review page. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:44, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Yeah it is suspicious as you don't just quick pass an article without checking it through. So imminently that seems suspicious because if you was a new comer wouldn't you at least maybe look through the article to see if their was any faults in it even if you could took breaks in between your review. Most reviews at least have sections where you can work off. For example if I looked at the 2009–10 Arsenal F.C. season, I can straight away see that their is no prose for the pre-season which I would put up straight away as a mention.
It also seems like that the reviewer doesn't really know about how to review as an example in the Harrison Afful review stated that he found some sources that wasn't relevant to the page. But then later correct himself which is a bit weird in my books. Also he has some un-retired himself now so hmmm. That plus the fact he put up reviews for three articles that he hadn't done any work on which also seems a little bit odd. HawkAussie (talk) 03:59, 8 July 2019 (UTC)


I "retired" because of this review, I've made multiple mistakes whilst editing Wikipedia, because I am still new and only have one month of experience. I wanted to take a quick break from Wikipedia and rethink how I will continue doing this (because I LOVE editing Wikipedia!). I want to say sorry to Al Ameer son, my decision was too quick and I should have asked you before failing the review. I am still new to the GA system, so I don't really know how it works. I now offer another review of the article, only this time it will be thorough and complete, looking at every source and every sentence. I don't expect you to accept my offer (and TBH, if I were you, I wouldn't either), and completely understand it if you say no. Thanks for understanding, sorry for the hassle. NightBag10 (talk) 04:04, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Even with the mistakes, I'm happy to see someone proactive about reviewing GA nominations and improving their reviewer skills. oncamera 04:21, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
I’d like to thank NightBag10 for his acknowledgement, we all make mistakes even those of us who have been here for years. This should not have been a cause for you to retire and I’m glad you’ve reconsidered. On the contrary, we could use more interested editors in the Middle East topic area such as yourself. Personally, I’d rather a more experienced editor review this nomination but welcome your input. Because you’re pretty new, I would encourage you, before you take up any reviews, to devote your time here improving some articles that you’re interested in and nominating one of them for GAN and learn what you can from the reviewer. All of this could take a few months or less, but this is the best way to learn in my opinion. Try to find an article that could use serious improvement. Along the way, don’t hesitate to seek advice from anyone here, including myself. It won’t be long before you get the hang of things. —Al Ameer (talk) 20:57, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
Thank you so much for understanding Al Ameer, I was planning on doing that since I has learned so much from nominating articles. I am also looking at improving Middle East related article (currently Arab culture). Thanks again. NightBag10 (talk) 21:05, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

How long before bot adds GA symbol

Venezuelan refugee crisis was promoted July 7 2019 - how long before bot adds the symbol? Just want to make sure I didn't forget to do something. Atsme Talk 📧 15:05, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

You could do it manually yourself if you think it’s taking too long. Trillfendi (talk) 15:09, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
I believe, the passed GA needs the topic rather than subtopic (as the GAN template asks for) for the bot to pick it up correctly. I have changed the template but I don't know if the bot will pick it up and so it might just need to be added manually. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:23, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
Thank you! Atsme Talk 📧 19:40, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Co-nominator?

Is there a way to add a co-nominator to the GAN template? I believe there's one, as I've seen this done before, but cannot recall where. If someone could point me in the right direction, I would appreciate it. --K.e.coffman (talk) 02:07, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

K.e.coffman, After you subst the GAN template you can add it as a note. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:21, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
@Barkeep49: Could you clarify if you mean within the {{subst:GAN|subtopic=}} template, or on the nomination page (Wikipedia:Good_article_nominations)? --K.e.coffman (talk) 00:19, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
K.e.coffman, neither. Use {subst:GAN|subtopic=}}. After you press publish edit the template which will have appeared and add the co-nom as a note to that new template. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:25, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
@Barkeep49: Thanks for the help! --K.e.coffman (talk) 00:32, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

Split the page?

It has become quite difficult to load the nominations page. Perhaps some splitting needs to be done? D.Zero (Talk · Contribs) 02:37, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

See this discussion:[12] FunkMonk (talk) 17:04, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
If you are interested in only a specific topic, you can look at only that topic individually at e.g. Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Topic lists/History... Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 12:50, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

accessibility requirement for GA

I have added a proposal on WP:VPR to add accessibility as a requirement for attaining GA and FA status. Please take a look and give your input. Thank you.--Megaman en m (talk) 09:08, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Just a little update on this: Megaman en m has added a survey for this proposal, but participation has been surprisingly low. More input would be much appreciated! Colin M (talk) 15:47, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
I have started a discussion on how to implement this new criterium. Please give your thoughts here.--Megaman en m (talk) 09:15, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

How to check that criterium 2c is met

I have a question about the 2c criterium. When verifying that it is satisfied, is it enough to make a spot-check of the claims in the article or does one need to check every single claim against sources? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 08:35, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

It’s “criterion”, and ideally the former but often impractical or impossible, so usually the latter. The Rambling Man (REJOICE!) 10:08, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. So ideally one checks each claim, but for long article a spot-check (say a random, sufficiently large sample of claims) is also allowed? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 07:16, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
I think even for long articles one should check that each claim is marked to an identifiable source. The spot-checking is to make sure the source backs up the claim. Often not all sources can reasonably be checked (as TRM hints) because some are offline or in other languages, but this is a frequent area for problems so some spot-checking at least is necessary. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:30, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Weird

Why does the article’s page history show Tux Racer on review 21 times? Trillfendi (talk) 00:27, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

I initally thought that it was because someone had been editing the GA bot stats but that isn't it. HawkAussie (talk) 02:05, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
It was because the reviewer didn't know how to correctly pass the review, and instead of replacing the talk page's "GA nominee" template with the "GA" template, indicating passage, they put "passed" in the GA nominee's status field. The bot didn't know how to handle this status, and so it kept trying to do an update without succeeding. I've fixed the article's talk page to reflect the passage, and let the reviewer know how to handle closing a review for future reviews. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:28, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

DYKChecklist-inspired GAN template

Hey all!

I made {{GANList3}} and would like feedback on its viability to help cut down on the GAN backlog.

Cheers, –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 21:30, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

MJL, the effort is appreciated, but what problem is this new template/module supposed to be solving? DYK (and the checklist) is for a much less robust review process than GAN. Many of the GANList3 instructions don't appear to have been changed from the DYK version, and that could easily mislead novice GAN reviewers—the requirement levels are very different, since GA-nominated articles should be free from grammatical/prose errors/problems, and DYK is much more forgiving in this regard; there is no one-cite-per-paragraph rule at GA, copyvio isn't the only potential issue when it comes to copying/overly close paraphrasing/plagiarism, etc. If the {{GAList}} and {{GAList2}} templates are too opaque for people who otherwise understand the GA criteria (you don't want reviewers who don't have a good feel for said criteria), perhaps what is needed is better documentation for the existing templates. It doesn't seem to me that GANList3, even with improved instructions, could help cut down the backlog more the pre-existing lists—the time required to check all the things that need to be checked, and level of understanding of the GA process, remains the same. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:49, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
  • So I'm unsure that the template really functions as of this moment. I think the idea of comments reminding the reviewer what the template says could be helpful though as Blue correctly notes, we want reviewers who understand the criteria doing the reviews. While another optional template for reviewers could definitely be useful, I don't think it would cut down on the backlog, but will emphasize that's not a reason not to have this. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:24, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
    @BlueMoonset and Barkeep49: Fair points all around! I'll be sure to make some tweaks to the module to make it a little more in depth and stable. It likely won't cut down on the backlog as much as I originally hoped. Better documentation would be the thing I'm probably seeking. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 23:31, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

GA review transclusion

I don't know the best place to bring this up, but would anyone be opposed to having Legobot stop transcluding GA reviews onto article talk pages? I just had to remove one from Talk:Seth Rollins because it was breaking stuff (see the history for what it looked like), and I've run into it occasionally elsewhere too. Lee Vilenski fixed the subpage and put the transclusion back, but these still shouldn't be here. There's already a link to the review in a banner at the top which interested parties can see, and transcluding makes problems hard to find when they exist, and it also messes with how the talk page sections are presented. This really isn't an appropriate use of transclusion. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 16:17, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

I for one think they're helpful, as most regular editors probably wouldn't notice them otherwise, and it makes it easier for them to potentially chime in. In any case, they can easily be removed/archived afterwards by nominators if they want to. FunkMonk (talk) 16:20, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
If nothing else, Legobot can just add a new section with some text along the lines of "Hey, go look at this GA review, here's the link". The way they're now risks breaking stuff, including archiving, and causing problems for people trying to add stuff. I'm sure it's useful to just see it immediately, but one click away isn't much of a hardship, and it prevents a host of other potential issues. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 16:24, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Splitting Sports & Rec

I know this has been discussed ad nauseum before, but what would be required to split the Sports and Recreation topic on the nomination page to match the sub-topics found on Wikipedia:Good articles/Sports and recreation? Obviously User:Legobot would need to know the new subcategories and someone would need to manually update the current list under Sports and Recreation. Legoktm, is updating the bot something you are able and/or willing to do if I were to assist with the manual edits? « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 19:57, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

@Gonzo fan2007: That could help. If recreation was split from sports, then it'd be 25 recreation to 50 sports if i counted correctly as of todays outstanding noms. But yeah subcategories would be even better, like snooker, auto racing, or football for example. --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 23:30, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
There are all sorts of good changes to topics we could have. I believe the limitation is the bot not our thoughts on better organization. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:19, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
Another ping for Legoktm to get their input. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 15:13, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
Seems very plausable, especially for something like prfossional wrestling, which arguably doesn't fit in any real category, and gets a lot of GANs. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 15:18, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
There was a move afoot a few years ago to add more subtopics to a number of topics; Sports and Rec was one, Warfare was another, and there were a few additional ones here and there. Basically, the thought was that we have GAN mirror the subtopics used at WP:GA. Right now, for Sports and recreation, the subtopics are: Football · Baseball · Basketball · Cricket · Hockey · Pro wrestling · Recreation · Multi-sport event · Other sports; it would make the most sense for the subtopics to match between GAN and GA for obvious reasons. Legotkm was not interested in doing any further development or in pursuing bugfixes, just in doing whatever might be necessary to bring it back should the bot stop running—they took over the bot when the previous owner abruptly left Wikipedia, but it's never been a development priority. Various people have expressed interest in writing a new bot or taking over the existing one, and there have been discussions of functionality and issues and improvements, but nothing has yet come of it. So, absent a new bot owner/writer, I don't see how the split can happen at this time. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:27, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Legobot updating one reviewer

Any ideas why User:Legobot keeps updating this review for Until Dawn repeatedly? diff Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 07:24, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Hmm... the GA template on Talk:Until Dawn was missing the status=onreview parameter (see [13]), maybe the bot went into a loop because of it? I added it manually now, let's see if it stops now. Regards SoWhy 08:09, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
I manually fixed the count and the bot has not increased it again, so it seems to have stopped. I left Legoktm a note about it. Regards SoWhy 08:25, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
No worries - thanks for your helpǃ I took a quick look, but couldn't work out the suspicious behaviour.Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 08:37, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
Any ideas what I've done with this one, SoWhy? [14] I think I've done something weird, but my attempts to fix aren't helping. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 15:13, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
Might be because you removed the header and the other stuff that the GA review template preloads when you start a review and which says "don't alter anything". I added the standard stuff back and also transcluded the review, let's see if the bot picks up on it. Regards SoWhy 15:25, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
Yup, that seems to have done the trick. Regards SoWhy 15:47, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
Just for reference, I never removed anything, the page was blank when I started the review. It was a little weird. Thanks for your help.
Did you manually create a /GA1 subpage or did you click the "start review" link in the GA template? Because the latter should prefill the page and it would be a bug if not. Regards SoWhy 18:04, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

- clicked the link as I always have done. I think it was a mobile edit (which is very common for me), but I was surprised it opened a blank page and not the usual GA template. Not to worry. I'll report it if I see it again. Thanks for your help. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 18:07, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Just checked it out, starting a review from the "start review" on the nominations page only gives a blank page. I suspect whatever script generates the text into the new page doesn't work on the Mobile interface. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 18:09, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
Getting back to the issue with Talk:Until Dawn, the problem was that the GA nominee template didn't have a "note" parameter—a newly created GA nominee template has "|status=|note=" at the very end when created by substituting the GAN template. Some nominators hand-create the GA nominee template rather than use GAN, and too frequently they forget the "note" field (and sometimes even the "status" field!); when Legobot goes to update GA nominee, it can tell that the template is malformed because it's missing at least one required field. That's why "onreview" wasn't added, though Legobot did add the review transclusion to the bottom of the talk page, and why Legobot kept trying again and again until SoWhy manually added "onreview" which stopped it. I've just added an empty "note" field, so it should be all set—that's normally the best solution, because then Legobot would itself have added "onreview" to the now-valid template the next time it checked. (Also pinging Lee Vilenski.)BlueMoonset (talk) 21:12, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
Actually, AdrianGamer (now OceanHok) had added the template with the note= parameter but later removed it when they removed their note. That said, a missing note= field shouldn't trip up the bot if the {{GA nominee}} template exists because it should be able to add missing fields to it. Regards SoWhy 08:28, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
The bot should be able to add missing fields, or at least not worry about them if they aren't needed, but it doesn't have that functionality now and (as I just posted in an earlier section on this page) the bot owner is not doing any new development or bug fixes, just keeping it going at current levels. For that matter, someone just changed a GA nominee subtopic from "Warfare" to "World History" and the bot choked because it wasn't "World history" with a lowercase "h". Until a new bot developer can code a bot to handle everything Legobot does for its GAN task and take on additional functionality, we're stuck with what functionality we have; "should be" is a natural spec, but doesn't fit what's there. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:41, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Future idea: QPQ requirement

Hello,

The backlog of GAN's continue to grow and I thought of a way to counter the year long waits some people are waiting for. Similar to DYK, a Quid pro quo requirement could be used in order for a review to begin. This basically means that if you want an article for review, you need to review another one. Legobot can tag the article as QPQ on the nomination page once the user does so. Here are some rules:

  • Exception: The QPQ rule only applies to users who have done five or more reviews and at least one GA credit. This ensures that the GA criteria is understood.
  • You can do your QPQ review before or after you make your nomination, but for your nomination to be approved you will need to provide a link, at your nomination, to your completed QPQ review.

This is just a thought to counter the backlog, but I am interested in hearing your opinions. AmericanAir88(talk) 15:47, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

I'm against formal QPQ as GA reviews take time and shouldn't be rushed. We already have a "reviews" field, what would be helpful would be a "nominations" field. Completely up to a reviewer if they took on a review for someone who had less reviews than nominations, but the information would be there.
in my case, I have probably around a 2:1 ratio of reviews to nominations, but I don't want the only reason to review to be so that my GA gets looked at. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 15:56, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
I'd be against making it a hard-and-fast rule; as it is, I think with the 'reviews' number next to articles, combined with the usually obvious glut of articles by the same nominees in certain subcategories, there's already a non-codified expectation that you're not going to get your articles reviewed one after another, especially if you aren't giving back to the process. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 17:12, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
  • There are two very important questions here: "How do we reduce backlog?" and "How do we motivate editors to review other articles?". Solving them may require to different approaches. Limiting the number of articles that can be put up for GAN solves backlog, but it may be rather extreme for some. I'm somewhat in favor of it, but I don't think that solves the bigger issue, which is getting editors involved in reviewing articles. Any thoughts on the second question? MX (✉ • ✎) 17:57, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
  • I'd like to be able to easily see how many noms vs reviews a nom has done. I don't think a requirement is a great idea, as for DYK we end up with some pretty lacking reviews. For DYK it's necessary, as we have to feed the beast, but GA doesn't have deadlines. --valereee (talk) 18:06, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
  • I've been trying to maintain a 2-for-1 QPQ in my own nominations. But I think making it a rule, as it is for DYK, would lead to too-many low-quality and superficial reviews. So I'd prefer to continue encouraging it without requiring it. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:33, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
  • I would prefer there to be a twice annual GAN drive where people who are really interested in getting stuck in can have a fun contest. Also, as noted in various forms above, QPQ is one of the worst things we could instigate, it would lead to rushed reviews as it has done elsewhere. GAN is about serious encyclopedic content improvement. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 19:43, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
  • It seems that many people don't like the idea of a required QPQ. How about if it was encouraged more in the rules and on the pages? AmericanAir88(talk) 20:04, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
  • In the real world, there are writers, proofreaders and editors, all who have different functions. While I am a good researcher and a fairly decent writer, I have little skill with proofreading (I see what I think it says, rather than what it actually says) and terrible at critiquing other peoples' work. I take criticism of my own work well and always see it as a means of bettering an article, but critiquing someone else's work is extremely stressful for me. When I finish writing, I always have someone proof the article before I nominate it, but being forced to do a QPQ review for me would be a non-starter. (It is just one of the many reasons I rarely participate in DYK anymore.) I'm always glad to help others with sourcing or collaborating on writing an article, but I honestly think review is best left to those who are good at it and have the ability to do the detailed review that makes the article better than it was when they started. SusunW (talk) 20:09, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Personally, I never understood why we never did this. I have two ideas:
  • A modification of your QPQ idea, for every 2 articles your bring to GAN, there comes one you need to review. When it becomes clear that you do indeed know what you're doing, this becomes 1:1. To limit the amount of people flooding GAN with their nominations, limit things to only one nom per month, or even one nom at a time if the backlog gets too much to handle. (This might be annoying for people trying to promote sets of articles or trying to get a GT through quickly, but it'll be beneficial in the long term imo...
Personally I just leave a ping on the review page before I start a review of a really old nom. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:20, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
Both good suggestions, that doesn't really explain why you would want nominators to have less nominations though Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 19:44, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
GA drives take a lot of effort to organize and you don't know the turnout. Short drives (1 week) limit its impact on cutting down the backlog while taking roughly the same amount of time to organize beforehand. Long drives (1 month) take too long for organizers to review before handing out awards, delaying the gratification part. I do support a new review drive. 2 weeks seem like a sweet spot. You also need awards to get people interested with awards (think barnstars, trophies, etc.) to get them sign up. OhanaUnitedTalk page 03:30, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
OhanaUnited, Psst you might want to peek down a couple sections as there's now a thread open about this very topic. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:59, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Just chiming in with my tuppence worth. I agree with SusunW - I'd be a bit disheartened by a requirement for QPQ for GAs. I'm happy to do QPQ for DYKs, because it's pretty straightforward and there are very clear pass/fail criteria. However, having been through three GA reviews now, in which each of the reviewers picked up on different things that I hadn't thought about, I don't think I'd be competent to do a GA review myself. We all do different things here, and we should focus on what we're good at - my primary focus has mostly been on counter-vandalism work, and I must have removed over 10,000 obscenities and assorted nonsense from articles in the past year (as well as CSDing around 800 commercial spam user pages) - there's no QPQ for that! I'm learning as I go, and I hope that one day I'll be able to do GA reviews, but I'm not there yet - a QPQ would pretty much prevent me from nominating articles for GA (and consequently make it more difficult for me to learn how to do them). I think the review drive is a much better idea, and perhaps I'll be able to participate in the 2020 one if that comes around. Cheers GirthSummit (blether) 10:54, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
  • I also disagree with QPQ for good articles. It may only end up deterring people from submitting articles up for review. OhanaUnitedTalk page 03:32, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Reviews

I'm offering commitment-free, royalty-free GAN reviews. Just pop by my talkpage and let's talk. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 16:57, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

This is still a thing. And I'm now trying to take one GAN off the backlog for every requested GAN I review. Roll up, roll up! The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 16:35, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
I'll think about it. Right now none of my projects have reached the point that they need reviewing but the next time I think of bringing something to FAC or GAN (probably Cocoliztli epidemics or SpongeBob SquarePants, I'll see. Jerry (talk) 17:01, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

WP:RM within scope of WP:GAN?

So for Talk:Our Lady of Vladimir/GA1, Johnbod had the concern that the article title would necessitate a redirect to the article. I cited WP:GANOT, but that's an essay. There's now a requested move, so now it's really unclear to me how this may factor into the GA Criteria (does that make the Article unstable?) –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 22:08, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

I feel it kinda has to have a stability issue. If the name of the article is under question, it's not stable. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 22:35, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
Well in this case its the reviewer who initiated the requested move so not exactly fair to penalize the nomination for instability in this case, in my opinion. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:39, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
It will be stable once the RM is resolved. I think MJL should spend less time on these meta-worries, and more time improving the article, as per the review. Btw, my "concern" was that the article was at the wrong title, per WP:COMMONNAME. I raised this at the start, & then again later, & MJL pointed out that article titles are not in the scope of GAN, so I saw no reason not to do an RM in the normal way. Johnbod (talk) 01:59, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
Article moves have happened any number of times while a GAN was in process, sometimes before the review starts, sometimes when it's ongoing, and sometimes after a suggestion from the reviewer. It's no big deal, and certainly not a stability issue. The one thing to remember is that the GA review page is not automatically moved when the article is, so if Talk:Our Lady of Vladimir moves, someone has to be sure to move Talk:Our Lady of Vladimir/GA1 as soon afterward as possible. Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:32, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, & for that reminder. Johnbod (talk) 03:04, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

subtopic specifics

Hi! I saw two articles listed as Miscellaneous. Yoga as exercise and Iyengar Yoga, which should both come under "sports and recreation". However, I had to type specifically "Sports and recreation" to get this to work, "recreation" was not enough to populate into the correct queue.

Is this something that happens with items after having already been substituted? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 14:19, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Lee Vilenski, it has always been the case that the subtopic field has to be populated with a subtopic exactly as listed on the main WP:GAN page—in this case, both the topic and the subtopic are "Sports and recreation", which means you need to include the whole thing. (If the GAN template is more forgiving, it's news to me, but substituting templates can sometimes allow more latitude than direct editing.) So if you ever edit the subtopic field directly, be sure to use the exact form given on the nominations page, including capital and lowercase letters, and commas only where given. Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:25, 27 August 2019 (UTC)


New Reviewer

Hi Fellow Wikipedians!! I was thinking of becoming a reviewer. Is there anything I need to do before I make a start. I've read the review instructions. Thanks. scope_creepTalk 16:43, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Not really. Anyone can review an article. Read the instructions and the criteria for being listed.
All you need to do is select a suitable nomination. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 16:58, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
Would it be a good idea for somebody, an established reviewer for instance, to have a look over what I've done as a sort of check?scope_creepTalk 17:39, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
I have one question, on nominations page, the Peter van Geersdaele has had 41 reviews already. Would that be right? scope_creepTalk 17:45, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
Scope creep, actually the person who nominated it, usernameunique, has done 41 reviews. It looks like TRM picked up the actual review. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:49, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
Hi Barkeep49 Aah, that is what it is. I've been looking at that for about 4 years, wondering what it meant. Would you give the review a scan after my first review to ensure I was doing a good job. I'll crack on. Thanks. scope_creepTalk 17:58, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
Scope creep, not for that article I hope - another person, TheRamblingMan, seems to have already started that review. But when you've found a different one I would be happy to give it a once over. Just let me know. best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:03, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
Barkeep49 I choose that to make the point. Excellent. scope_creepTalk 18:05, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Convention for eliminating old nominations where nominators aren't active

Okay, so we can politely ping someone before taking a nomination, but should we get some kind of (very brief) process in place for nominations which are likely to be no longer needed? E.g.

  1. If the nominator of a GAN hasn't edited for a week, ping them before taking the review (you can do this, even if they have edited in the past week!).
  2. If no response is forthcoming within a week of the message, quick-fail the nomination.

This would perhaps formalise the issue and enable us to start removing some of the nominations which clearly don't belong in the backlog because their nominators have retired or simply aren't interested any longer. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 16:34, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. FunkMonk (talk) 07:22, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
Could I add a little caveat to this? A quick message to an active wikiproject regarding it prior to closure? I've often found that another editor is happy to take over the nomination to stop it from being quick closed. I don't think we should be closing nominations where there is willing editors Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 07:50, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
The process TRM lays out has been my thinking after investing a lot of time in a review only to find the editor long gone. The idea of posting to an active project makes some sense too. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:17, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Since the amount of time between a nomination and eventual review can be a year or more, we should be more flexible if someone doesn't respond within seven days of the message, especially if the nomination has been waiting a long time. If we allow a quickfail for this reason, I think we should also allow a grace period—I'd like to suggest it be at least a month—where the nominator can return and ask on this page for the nomination to be restored with no loss of seniority. (I also like Lee Vilenski's suggestion that the appropriate WikiProjects be notified prior to quickfail, much as we do up front when there is a Good Article reassessment.) BlueMoonset (talk) 23:23, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Maybe implementing a rule that requires the nominator to acknowledge the review when it starts would be better. A lot of people already do this and it would help solve the problem of whether the nominator is active or not. 1.02 editor (T/C) 12:13, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
I would support the idea of a grace period per BlueMoonset to restore a nomination with its originally nominated date within a specified time-frame, in instances when it has been quick-failed or otherwise removed because the nominator hasn't responded. The reviewer can then pick it back up again immediately within that time once both parties are known to be active. I would also suggest, prior to this, that WPs be advised as already been suggested. Bungle (talk • contribs) 12:52, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
Would this apply to nominators who are active but who have not replied/edited the article in question after a review has been completed? Or would that be separate? --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 17:10, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Notice of noticeboard discussion

Information icon There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue which may affect this project. Thank you. :) ——SerialNumber54129 16:14, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Backlog Drive

In the spirit of BOLDness I have gone ahead and created Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/GAN Backlog Drives/September 2019. While I would be happy to be the coordinator I thought there might be others better suited and so I have left that blank. Also blank is our goal for the drive. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:29, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

100% would support a backlog drive. If there is anything needed to be done, drop me a ping. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 20:23, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
There should be a point system, where the older the nom had gone unanswered until then, the more points the review gets. Jerry (talk) 20:35, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
JerrySa1, I had thought about that but also thought about the issue David Fuchs brought up where old noms are more likely to not have a persona round to do a review with. But that was my first instinct too and would support it if others thought it good. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:55, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
We currently have about 110 unreviewed nominations that are over six months old, and another 60 that would age to over six months by September 30 when the drive has ended. Perhaps we could do something as simple as give double credit, or 1.5 credits, for each review completed of a nomination that was at least six months old the day the review was opened. (The Guild of Copy Editors gives a 50% bonus for the oldest tagged articles.) The previous GAN point scheme, used in the March 2014 drive, had levels up to four months; as we're now over 13 months for the oldest unreviewed GANs, the levels could get quite complex: simplex strikes me as better for any bonus scheme. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:58, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
BlueMoonset, I would even be roughly in favor of limiting the drive to old GAs. Maybe 3+ months with a particular focus on 6+ months? Some of these will have nominators who aren't around anymore but I think there's value still in those being cleared out. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:43, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Whoever's doing the organizing should grab more people to help with verifying the reviews. From my experience in 2007, it can lead to burn-out really fast if you don't have enough helpers. OhanaUnitedTalk page 04:29, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

  • As it seems to be an issue here, one could simply ping the nominator on the nomination page or ask directly on their talk page before starting to comment on the article if there is suspicion they're not around anymore. I do that regularly when I begin reviews of old nominations. FunkMonk (talk) 06:17, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
If it is something we're doing I'd at least be willing to judge and verify the reviews. Hopefully we get some signups and can at least get the log under 500. Wizardman 19:17, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
When would a review be classed as complete for this drive? Once the article has been fully checked over and placed on hold, or when the article has been passed/failed? Also, what is classed as rubber stamping? --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 19:49, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
Upon pass/failing; rubber stamping basically being "yeah this is fine GA" without putting anything in. if you go through an article and you legit find 0 issues, trust me, you missed something, no article is perfect. Wizardman 00:03, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
Okay. Yeah, each GA review I've done, there's been assorted whether it's major/minor. --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 00:14, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
@Wizardman: Would you consider the two reviews of Carlos Landín Martínez and Laurent Eketebi respectively, by User:Willbb234 to fall into this rubber-stamping, questionable review category? It's worth being mindful of editors who may not necessarily apply the same level of diligence as usually expected. I hope this isn't the case with Willbb234, but maybe they can offer their own viewpoint in light of the above comments, especially as they appear to have started. Bungle (talk • contribs) 10:04, 1 September 2019 (UTC)
@Bungle: as you will see on the talk page of Carlos Landin Martinez, I had already copyedited the article and had looked at several references as well as thought about whether it could meet criteria. In regards to the other article, I read through (you will notice it is rather short) which didn’t take me long before reviewing. I do hope that it doesn’t look as if I was rubber stamping and I do apologize if it did. I take care in reviewing and I believe I did in these situations. Regards, Willbb234Talk (please {{ping}} me in replies) 12:06, 1 September 2019 (UTC)
@Bungle: could I direct you to Myth of the clean Wehrmacht. Although I reviewed this outside of the drive, this is an example of the diligence and care I take when reviewing. Willbb234Talk (please {{ping}} me in replies) 12:12, 1 September 2019 (UTC)
@Willbb234: Wizardman's comments above relate to an issue no doubt experienced during previous drives, whereby the dividing line between review quality vs quantity may at times become blurred. I was mindful to ensure that you would be alerted to my message and expected (hoped) for your response, so please be assured it wasn't an underhand attempt to discredit your review(s). I am sure we are all keen to ensure the drive maintains typical review standards among participants. Bungle (talk • contribs) 12:58, 1 September 2019 (UTC)
Bungle, Wizardman, and Willbb234, as it seems I'm coordinating this drive with Lee Vilenski's assistance, we're going to go ahead and use the same language as in the WikiCup regarding reviews, ""Only reviews of a sufficient length will be counted; quick fails and very short reviews will generally not be awarded points. As a rough guide, no review shorter than 1000 bytes will be considered, though the judges reserve the right to remove other short reviews. This is not to say that such short reviews are not worthwhile, it is merely to say that they will not be recognised in this competition.". As the organization of this drive happened a bit last minute, the two submitted reviews will count but similar such reviews going forward will not. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:01, 1 September 2019 (UTC)
I agree and would support the idea that a review, as part of the drive and thus amounting to "credits", should be substantial in some form, or otherwise evidently thorough in nature that would credit the reviewer accordingly for their time invested (and indeed time spent working through identified concerns). I think it's a good position to start from as it would at least deter drive-by reviews without any real substance from editors seeking quick "glory". Bungle (talk • contribs) 16:28, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Barkeep49, is this going ahead? If so, it presumably started 90 minutes ago, unless you want to postpone. I don't see that the drive page has been updated aside from three folks having added their names under Participants—things like coordinator(s), goals, extra credit for older nominations, etc., are still not specified. If the drive is on, I can probably dig up the old notice we used to put near the top of the GAN page, modified appropriately, in the hopes of attracting more reviewers, since the drive hasn't yet been advertised at all beyond this talk page. Please let me know. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:34, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

BlueMoonset, I would like to see this go ahead. However, I also didn't feel comfortable announcing that I was in-charge simply because I was the schmoe who bothered to create a new drive page. I am happy to lead the efforts but was waiting for some form of assent before plowing ahead. As none ever came I hung back. However, it looks like we're plowing ahead so I will do a bit of catch-up here. Lee Vilenski had offered to help and I'm hoping this offer still stands. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:18, 1 September 2019 (UTC)
Barkeep49, I've just added the banner notice so it appears on the WP:GAN page, with a link to the drive page, and done a bit of cleanup in the Participants section, plus minor wording fixes here and there. If we find that the oldest nominations aren't being taken, despite the encouragement to do so, you might want to consider adding bonus credit for them for the last half of the drive, since people seem to react well to extra incentives. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:41, 1 September 2019 (UTC)
BlueMoonset, thanks for all your help. It's appreciated. And the idea to add bonus for the older noms is a good one. I might do this sooner than that through barnstars but couldn't pull that off this morning. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:58, 1 September 2019 (UTC)
I have posted on Community bulletin board. OhanaUnitedTalk page 17:17, 1 September 2019 (UTC)
@Barkeep49: Are we doing reviews only from 3 months - 6 months+ backlog? I'm wondering so I know which ones to pick (I have a list). --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 00:16, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
MrLinkinPark333, you can do any article you would like. There will likely be some extra incentives for older reviews, whether through barnstars or something else. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:29, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
Okay. I'll aim for 3-6+ months as there's plenty to choose from (255 unreviewed from my last count). --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 01:37, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Section break

@Barkeep49: and @Lee Vilenski: Thank you so much for starting this drive. I've been always wanting and advocating for one. It is great to see it finally appear. If this one goes well, maybe a drive could be held every few months. If you need help with anything drive related, just ask. Also Barkeep, good luck on your RFA. You'll do great. I recently went through it and it admittedly gets quite stressful, so take all the time you need. AmericanAir88(talk) 23:32, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind wishes. Let's see how this drive goes and whether the progress we make is sustained or if October turns out to see the numbers bounce back as we have less editors reviewing because they burn out. If it is successful I would suggest a real drive no more than twice a year and think my preferred amount would be once a year or so. But that's certainly something for us to discuss as a GA community afterwards. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:30, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Pacific Pathways

This article has been nominated for just under five months. I've just taken a look at it, and in my opinion, it is a list, and so should go down the Featured list route (not that I think it is of sufficient quality as things stand), rather than Good article. Does anyone else have any thoughts on this? Harrias talk 12:44, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Agree that it's a list but I don't think it's in a fit enough state to pass FLC. But that's just my opinion. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 12:46, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
Yes, it's well short of FL quality. To be honest it probably quick fails GA irrespective, but after five months, I want to gauge opinion rather than just dive in. Harrias talk 12:59, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
I agree that it is a list, and that it should therefore be quick-failed. Josh Milburn (talk) 18:05, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Bot notification glitch.

See this diff. Legobot gave me one (correct) notification of the start of a review for Vojtěch Jarník (review is at Talk:Vojtěch Jarník/GA1) and a second (incorrect) notification of a failed review for "Vojt?ch Jarník". Maybe the "ě" character confused the bot? —David Eppstein (talk) 19:06, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

David Eppstein, every once in a while the bot chokes on one of the accented characters in the extended set, and thinks the one with the problematic character (always changed to something like a "?") has failed, while the one with the correct character retains its proper status. If we ever get an updated bot, hopefully it will be able to deal with this kind of glitch, but for now, it's a known occasional issue; the one prior to yours (from early September) was this one. I hadn't noticed before that it might be primarily (or only?) occurring when such articles are first picked up for review. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:13, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Question regarding asking a fellow editor to review a page

I started work on a film article, which I have recently placed as a GAN. But a couple days ago, I had asked another editor, because they are also interested in film and seemed experienced, to review it. I realized today that I don't know if this is allowed or not because the GA process is potentially a long wait and that really seems like I'd be cutting in line. Is this frowned upon, and should I just wait? I don't want to do anything that breaks the rules. -NowIsntItTime(chats)(doings) 03:57, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

NowIsntItTime, as long as there is no expectation of favoritism or other forms of a review which doesn't follow the instructions asking a particular editor to consider reviewing is absolutely OK. By way of example here is a review that I was requested to do which ended in a failure. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:08, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
I would have said that is frowned on, and if it isn't it certainly should be. That's the case at DYK, so I don't see why it shouldn't be here. The dangers of having a single reviewer are bad enough as it is. Johnbod (talk) 12:34, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
I would tend to agree with Johnbod. I've seen editors drop notes at wikiproject talkpages saying that something is nominated as a GA, which is I think just about on the acceptable side; I would be dubious about asking a particular editor to review an article, though. Even if the reviewing editor then went on to give a scrupulously fair review, it generates an apparent conflict of interest – and also provides yet another way by which better-known and more well-connected editors have an advantage oveer the relative newbies, who likely have fewer contacts of whom they could ask such a favour. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:29, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
Asking someone else for a GA review is a relatively well-established practice. Clearly not everyone is in favour of it, but as long as the review is conducted properly, I don't see it as an issue. Harrias talk 17:03, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
Anyone, especially newbies, can ask me to review any GAN, I'm not fussy, and I'm always working to try to reduce the backlog. I've also pledged that for every request that's made, I'll take one random out of the backlog. I can't see any problem there at all. Perhaps we should set up a page for volunteers who are prepared to take requests. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 17:06, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
Yah, my intent, like I said, was really to get someone I'd worked with before and has fair experience with information regarding the type of film to give a (fair, but still unbiased) review of the film article's quality. And to provide me with the necessary steps to fix anything that needs it.
Also, did I just provide The Rambling Man with a new idea? Let me know if this is legit happening! -NowIsntItTime(chats)(doings) 23:29, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
@The Rambling Man and NowIsntItTime: A very very very long time ago I had started the Recruitment Centre. I don't really remember why it died but it did (oh well). Perhaps it could be reincarnated in some form.--Dom497 (talk) 02:25, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

Newsletter

Is there a GA WikiProject newsletter? I'm excited to see that there's a backlog drive going on, but was only made aware of it through a passing mention on my talk page. If one exists, would someone point me to the signup list, and if not would anyone be interested in starting a semi-regular newsletter? Wug·a·po·des​ 17:16, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

We actually used to have a newsletter...like 6 years ago...lol (click here). I agree that we should try to start one up again.--Dom497 (talk) 19:21, 15 September 2019 (UTC)
I agree that would be interesting, especially noting how many articles are currently unreviewed/outstanding to promote more interest in tackling this backlog outside of this month. --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 00:13, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Gateway of India

Have just picked up the GAR for the above. The nominator would prefer that it be listed in the Geography and places section, rather than as an Art and architecture nomination. Can I just make this amendment manually, by just moving it, or is there a better approach? Many thanks. KJP1 (talk) 08:28, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

I don't think it should be up to the nominator, & the idea seems clearly wrong to me. It's a building/structure with no function except precisely as a piece of architecture. It's no more a "place" than any other large and prominent building anywhere. To be fair to the nom, I see from the review he nominated it as "A&A" but then presumably noticed it had been "G&P" when previously a GA from 2012-18. Nonetheless I'd like an answer to the technical point, as it is an outstanding point at Talk:Our Lady of Vladimir/GA1, an icon which the nominator placed in "Philosophy and religion", equally wrongly, imo. He has also queried whether just moving it will break the internet, so an informed answer should be useful. Johnbod (talk) 13:16, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
Let's find out. Harrias talk 13:31, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
Good old Legobot has moved it on the GAN page. Nothing seems to have broken. Harrias talk 13:47, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Legobot

FunkMonk kindly passed the article Mandate for Palestine here [15], just over 24 hours ago. legobot doesn't seem to have done anything since - is anyone aware of a problem? Onceinawhile (talk) 19:51, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

 Fixed - nothing technical, I just re-added the nomination template and then removed it. Hope it didn't break anything. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 20:48, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Can I review 2019 Veldhoven Open?

Per WP:GAN/I, I must "Not be the nominator nor have made significant contributions to the article prior to the review". I'm a member of the GOCE, and I copy edited 2019 Veldhoven Open around a month ago. Does this count as "significant contributions to the article"? Courtesy pinging @Lee Vilenski, but anyone else should feel free to add a third opinion. Bobbychan193 (talk) 07:03, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Bobbychan193, I would say that such an extensive copyedit does count as "significant contributions to the article". In addition, I think it's best if someone who hasn't put in a great deal of work on the prose should be the one judging the "well-written" criteria. Perhaps you could choose another article to review? BlueMoonset (talk) 07:57, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
Seems reasonable. Thanks. Bobbychan193 (talk) 08:00, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
I don't think it really matters (reviews are free to edit the article during the review), but you'd be best reviewing another article. I'm sure I even have more nominated. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 08:19, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Talk:Coronation of Queen Victoria/GA1 - should be closed

This article has deteriorated considerably since No Great Shaker started tinkering with it earlier this year. The lead in particular is much worse. He now has a notice on his user page saying a family crisis has greatly reduced his ability to edit. User:Amitchell125, the "reviewer", has now done a considerable amount of editing (some of it also very mistaken), can no longer be considered independent, and should step down, and the nomination closed. Johnbod (talk) 17:39, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

This article has improved considerably since No Great Shaker (NGS) began cleaning up the appalling mess created by the incompetent and arrogant Johnbod. The lead in particular is a significant improvement. While NGS now has a notice on his user page that a family crisis has greatly reduced his ability to edit, he still looks in when he can and remains keen to assist User:Amitchell125, who is doing an excellent job as an independent reviewer. The review should continue and NGS will be happy to address all questions raised by the reviewer in due course. Perhaps an administrator should be asked to consider the issue of copyright violation by Johnbod. No Great Shaker (talk) 21:23, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

@No Great Shaker: Sorry I'm a bit confused. Are you talking in the third person?--Dom497 (talk) 22:00, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
@Dom497: it looks like NGS was doing a parody of Johnbod's paragraph immediately above, describing their actions in the same way as Johnbod, but reversing all of of Johnbod's concerns to make them positive. Hence why it's written in the third person.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:00, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
Based on what I'm seeing in the article history, if I was reviewing the article I would be failing the nomination per GA criteria #5 (article stability).--Dom497 (talk) 22:04, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
I'm not quite sure where the claims of copyvio in the most recent edits come from. Just about anything published in 1907 is now public domain, and articles can include the text. I've seen a number of Wikipedia articles with text reused from the 11th edition of Encyclopedia Britannica from 1911, and others heavily reliant on passages from public domain government sources. The only potential fly in the ointment here is that as this is a work by Queen Victoria herself, it may be covered by Crown copyright, in which case it could still be protected. Has anyone actually checked this? I'm not sure whether there is a preferred or required template that should be used in the references section to indicate that text has been copied from a specific public domain source, but I have seen ones designed for that purpose (but can't remember where). The instability of the article is not yet sufficiently pronounced, since it's just the last few edits that have involved deletions and restorations. BlueMoonset (talk) 08:32, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
Crown Copyright seems to postdate the 1907 publication of the diaries "The Copyright Act 1911 removed the concept of common law copyright protection from British law, and it also provided specific protection for government works for the first time." (from our article), and also covers "work-related" works by the monarch, whereas the diary is a very personal document, not unlike any teenage girl's diary. No one has addressed the issue of the reviewer editing the article. Anyone wanting to check out "the appalling mess created by the incompetent and arrogant Johnbod" should look at this version from March, the last before No Great Shaker turned up, and form their own judgement. The article had then not changed much since I created it in 2013, apart from additions on music etc. Johnbod (talk) 14:08, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
Johnbod, I checked with Diannaa, who is one of the copyright experts on Wikipedia—I always consult with her when I need an authoritative answer—at User talk:Diannaa#Crown copyright. She is of the opinion (initially expressed at User talk:Diannaa#Coronation of Queen Victoria - copied text, the query having come from GA reviewer Amitchell125 after your reversion of their removal on the 20th) that this is still copyright in the UK and should be removed from the article. This is an unusual situation, to say the least, but under the circumstances I think removal is the way to go. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:06, 22 September 2019 (UTC)
Well I think this is crazy, but with the guts torn out of the article, and an involved reviewer, this should certainly be closed. Johnbod (talk) 03:46, 22 September 2019 (UTC)
Amitchell125, an alternative source for Queens Victoria's letters has been found. See the discussion at Talk:Coronation_of_Queen_Victoria#Copyright_problem_removed. Firebrace (talk) 12:24, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Rewards available

Hey everyone, I'm excited about the backlog drive and wanted to offer monetary rewards for a couple tasks, they're over at the reward board. $10 US for reviews (limit 20), and a quid pro quo offer if someone reviews my article Afghanistan. --Cerebellum (talk) 15:38, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Noms with no readily available sources

What are our options for dealing with a nom that is constructed entirely on offline sources that are not readily available? I can try and get some of the content through ILL (taking a few weeks) but even with good library access nothing is accessible, so I don’t really have a way to evaluate the sources and check for WP:V/plagiarism/etc issues for GAN criteria. The nom in question (Gabriel Báthory) has been languishing for a long time anyhow (although I wouldn't immediately pass it regardless of the sourcing.) Thoughts? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 17:58, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

We should assume good faith on offline sources, provided they are reliable. Nothing in the GA criteria suggests we have to physically verify the information when reviewing an article. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 18:04, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
@Lee Vilenski: Nonsense. Either get the book and actually check, or you're not verifying citations. You're just going through the motions, which is how libel and hoaxes persist on wiki. Chris Troutman (talk) 18:09, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
Bollocks. We can't all go and get the books. If Troutman is now suggesting that every single reference needs to be checked, let's see that in the criteria. I'm not even convinced that's a requirement for FA let alone GA. Stop that!! The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 18:27, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
Wikipedia articles are compilations of knowledge. If we're not checking the underlying material then what are we doing? The institutional laziness on this website is disgusting. We'll waste hours arguing about MoS but nobody can be troubled to visit a library. Chris Troutman (talk) 19:18, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
Another trout! Sometimes it's actually impossible to "visit a library" to verify sources. Did this ever become a FA requirement? Trout number two for Troutman!! The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 19:20, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
Can we not? It's not a hard requirement that every single source always be checked, but it is a requirement that there be no OR or COPYVIO, which requires checking sources. OP is concerned about two sources in particular, because they are predominately relied upon for the article, and that seems perfectly fine with an application of COMMONSENSE. GMGtalk 19:34, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
Indeed, it's the common sense way, or the Troutman way. I know which way Wikipedia policies and guidelines go, and it's not the fishy one. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 19:47, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
If someone wants to require that every source be checked for FA, they are welcome to propose it at WT:FAC, though I suspect that the reaction would not be positive. I've never been the type to check every source at GA/ACR/FAC, but I do generally glance at the citation to see if the citation is plausible based on the title and the type of source. A perhaps simplistic example: a citation about something that happened in 1975, cited to a book written in 1960. The more of these I find, the more inclined I would be to start checking everything. --Rschen7754 07:01, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
  • @David Fuchs: It looks like at least some of these may be available online. This was the first one I checked and it was available on Google Books, just not linked in the citation. GMGtalk 18:23, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
    • Sorry, shouldn't have implied it's all OTN, but the problem for me is the lack of access to Nagy and Barta, which are the primary sources for the entire thing. Under normal circumstances with an article not having access to many or even most of the sources wouldn't bother me if there was a wide sampling of others to spot-check, but in this case I wouldn't feel comfortable saying I'd done due diligence to evaluate without at least one of them. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 18:35, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
My mistake on this one. (I assumed it was a few sources). I ran a few userscripts to search for free versions online, but didn't come up with much. I don't think it should be something to fail an article over though. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 18:44, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
  • I concur that we should assume good faith for offline sources, even if all sources are offline. If there is anything particularly contentious, then as reviewer, you could request that the relevant quote be included in the citation. Harrias talk 19:04, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
  • By far the most cited source is a book in Hungarian - arguably the article relies too much on this single source, especially without knowing its quality. In those circumstances, you probably shouldn't have taken the review on. Johnbod (talk) 19:44, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
So what would the right play be in that case? Ignore a nom that's been languishing for nearly a year? Quick-fail it without actually bothering to do any sort of check or provide constructive criticism? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 20:01, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
Ask for help at the Hungarian wikiproject - there are actually plenty of Hungarian editors around. At the least for a heads-up on the quality of the source and some checking of the refs. I expect it is all ok, as the nom has a raft of GAs & an FA, and normally uses good sources, but it is clear that many of these GAs received no such scrutiny (see the review on Justina Szilágyi for example, where the issue is if anything even more acute), so it would be good to do this. Johnbod (talk) 20:06, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
If there's a general issue with checking sources, then GAN will have to incorporate a second reviewer or a "promoter" who checks the reviewer has done their job. We either do this, or we don't. I suggest someone who wants to double up on reviewers here starts an RFC, or we have to work with good faith. It kind of links in to the section above, relating to reviewers having a minimum number of edits.... The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 20:19, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
Years ago I did a GAN and asked the nominator to provide his sources to me. Oh, the indignation! Apparently with that request I had insulted his mother, his ancestors' graves, his dog, and the color of his toothbrush all in one blow. He dragged it off to this forum where I was roundly and soundly chastised like the dog I am. "Check sources! Bollocks!!" they cried in unison................... and we wonder why so many people think Wikipedia is non-serious. And we wonder. And we say we are. But. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 11:33, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
I don't think anyone here has said you shouldn't check sources. That would be absurd. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 12:13, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
To be fair, brown is a horrible colour for a toothbrush... Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 12:15, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

(←) Check offline sources? I was asking him to provide journal articles (it was a hard-sciences topic). Plus I was shouted down at that time right here in this forum by several GAN reviewers. Finally, brown may be a poor choice for a toothbrush color, but it's an even worse choice for toothpaste. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk)

Nominations with blocked nominators

Hello. I just noticed that World War II casualties of the Soviet Union was nominated by an editor who has just been indefinitely blocked. This is the first time I've come across this. What would happen to this nomination? Would it be instantly failed, or have a new nominator take over? --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 01:16, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

MrLinkinPark333, I would ask at relevant wikiprojects to see if someone is willing to act as nominator. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:26, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
@Barkeep49: Okay. I'm not personally interested in this particular nomination but I'll keep that in mind if I come across something like this in the future. Thanks! --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 01:42, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
What I've done is posted to the article talk page, specifically pinging the two editors who first responded to the blocked editor's query about nominating the article. I note that said blocked editor did not follow the process and nominated the article immediately even though it was clear the article was not ready for GAN; what I've done is ask them whether the article meets (or nearly meets) the GA criteria at the present time, and if so, whether either of them would be willing to help shepherd the nomination through. If they say that the article is not ready—still has significant issues (and based on the commentary elsewhere on the page, it would seem to)—then I'll simply remove the nomination as having been made out of process. If they think it is, then if neither of them are willing to deal with changes from the eventual review, then we need to find someone who will, and if there isn't anyone, then we should probably still remove it as out of process. We don't need to fail the nomination; a simple removal of the GA nominee template is all that's needed in this situation. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:30, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Same reviewer for second nomination

Hi, any ideas on what the rules are around re-reviewing GA noms? I just got a request at User talk:Lee Vilenski/Archives/2019/October#Kenny_Omega – GA to review the Kenny Omega article, which I opened, and closed as the nominator didn't get back to me in a justified time. The article has been changed, and does look like quite a bit of the critique I gave the first time around has been checked.

I'm quite happy to re-review the nom, but is this suitable? Should I pass this on to a different reviewer? Thanks for your help. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 07:07, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Lee Vilenski, reviewers sometimes, when they close a nomination, offer to review it again once the fixes have been made—among other things, it means that the new nomination wouldn't have to wait months to find a new reviewer. The situation in this case is analogous, and I don't think there would be any issue with you taking on the review this time, especially since the nominator has made a point of asking you if you'd be willing to review it again now that fixes have been made.
It's when there was a strong disagreement between a reviewer and a nominator on an ultimately rejected nomination that it might not be a good idea to have the same reviewer when the nominator brings it back to GAN. BlueMoonset (talk) 07:28, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
Cool. I thought this was the case, but I thought it wise to check. I'll complete a review. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 07:40, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Co-nominator GAs

Hello. I was wondering if Co-nominators are given a GA once they are passed. For Talk:Derek Kraus, the nomination was originally worked on by the initial nominator but later completed by a co-nominator. Does the co-nominator get the GA as well? Thanks! --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 18:26, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Is there such a thing as being "given a GA?" Usually people credit themselves with promoting articles, but I've also seen people say that they have "significantly improved" GAs, even if they didn't nominate it. I've also seen people say they have copy-edited a GA and claim it. Only things like the WP:GA CUP and the wikicup really have strict rules on this. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 18:39, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
I think the wires may be crossed here. The stats only shows reviewed articles. Not nominated articles. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 19:57, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Excellent work on the drive

I remember in the summer where I looked at the backlog number and realized that reviews could take months if not years. I proposed an idea as did others, to bring together the GA reviewers to help reduce the backlog. This idea became a reality and we did it. We reviewed almost 200 articles and helped each other out through analysis. Instead of a competition, we banded together to help reduce a backlog. As Good Article reviewers, we will strive to continue this trend and maybe in 6 months, we will come back together.

Great job everyone. Thank you to @Lee Vilenski: and @Barkeep49:.

AmericanAir88(talk) 23:56, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Seconded. Looking at the report archives, we're at the lowest backlog this year with 330ish unreviewed articles! Wug·a·po·des​ 21:07, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
It's even better than that, Wugapodes. Using the numbers from the Reports page (they vary from the drive's table, but I'm using it so we're comparing apples to apples), the last time we had fewer nominations was when we had 452 on September 21, 2018; and the last time we got below 330 unreviewed nominations was over three years ago on September 3, 2016, when we were at 327 unreviewed ones. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:59, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
I'd like to thank everyone who participated! There is clearly a need, and a want for this to be done. I don't see why this shouldn't be a regular occurrence. I'll have a word with Barkeep about the barnstars and get them out very soon. I do like the idea of it being a 6-monthly thing, as (pointed out above), there are still 330+ reviews outstanding (and the number is likely to grow without a drive). I think February/March would be a good time, but we'll see nearer the time. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 08:31, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
I enjoyed participating! :) Mujinga (talk) 13:07, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Copyvio threshold

Hi all, I was wondering if the copyvio tool was considered a reliable guide for determining criterion 2d. I ask this because an article that I have done a lot of work on was delisted from GA recently, while I was not actively editing on Wikipedia, and the reasoning given was widespread plagiarism in the article. I have run the copyvio tool on the article and it returned "Violation Unlikely", with the closest matching source being used for a short direct quote. If the tool says there is no copyvio or plagiarism issue, is that enough to challenge the delisting and try get the article promoted again? I wanted to ask here first because I have a tricky history with the editor that got the article delisted in the first place and I don't want to get into any unnecessary confrontations. Any insight on this situation would be appreciated! Thanks, adamstom97 (talk) 09:56, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Any ideas what the article is? The copyvio tool is exactly that, it is a tool. It's just used to find websites that could contain plagiarism. That doesn't mean that a high rating means copyvio; nor that a lack of one means that the article is clean. If it was delisted, it should have said where the supposed copyvio came from. If it doesn't, it's hardly a good argument. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 11:53, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
Plus if the tool returns a high probability of copyvio, you still need to ask the nominator to use WP:BLAME and The Wayback Machine to check whether others downstream copied from Wikipedia instead of vice versa. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 12:06, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
I assume this relates to Black Panther (film), and the concerns raised Talk:Black Panther (film)#Close paraphrasing still an issue? Harrias talk 12:10, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
Yes, that's the one. I don't see how I'm going to respond to the concerns when the copyvio tool can't point me to any parts of the article that are too similar, and the editor who raised the issue has refused to indicate what passages they feel are plagiarized. - adamstom97 (talk) 12:18, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
Adam, Wikipedia's copyright policy is not difficult to follow. All you have to do is learn the rules and write articles according to them. Trying to get tools that have been found to have bugs to do your work for you is not going to help you become a better Wikipedian. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:59, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
  • The copyvio tool clearly screwed the pooch on the Black Panther article (and Li He for that matter...). Even if it hadn't, there were about a half-dozen other serious problems with that article that should have caused it to fail its initial GAN (not least of which were harassment and personal attacks going on in the GAN itself), so it can't be relisted just because one of the autofail criteria may not have been met due to some technical hiccup like "If the tool says there's no copyvio, then GAN and GAR must treat it as though there were no copyvio". This kind of disruptive gaming is simply unacceptable. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:57, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

@Lee Vilenski, Lingzhi2, and Harrias: Thanks for responding to my question. Evidently I am not allowed to re-nominate the article regardless if the tool can't pick up any copyvio, so I guess that's that. - adamstom97 (talk) 18:23, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Good article reassessment

Is Wikipedia:Good article reassessment no longer functioning ???--Moxy 🍁 16:23, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Moxy, very few people are participating these days, though at least one reassessment is quite active, and I've just closed another. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:04, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
Do we want to actively pursue more GARs? I could plow through the text of all GA articles and develop some mechanical measures of potential problems... Lowest proportion of cited text (watching out for cites at ends of paragraphs)... Maybe... I dunno what else. Stale research on a topic still being researched? I dunno... Would that be worth doing? ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 01:21, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
The individual reassessment process works well enough and I would encourage any editor who is capable of reviewing a GAN (which I imagine is most who watch this page) to take that route in most circumstances. Like GAN reviews some can get a bit forgotten about (I myself have recently been guilty of this), but a gentle prodding or if needed executive decision can keep things moving. Community reassessments are broken and have been for quite a while. You tend to either get a contentious article with lots of comments by editors more focused on a content dispute than assessing the article against the criteria or the nominated article is largely ignored. Neither are much fun to work with, but we really need uninvolved GA knowledgable editors to comment on them.
I have toyed with the idea of proposing scrapping community GARS, but I think they are still necessary. Some editors might feel not competent enough or too involved to go the individual route and controversial articles sometimes should go through the community instead of being decided by an individual. There also needs to be a way to decide contentious reviews that does not lead to a ping pong match of passing and delisting.
I have found it works alright with two GA competent editors going through them. That way at least one can comment on the status and the other can close. Failing that I have often commented on a reassessment, waited a couple of weeks and then closed it if no one else has. I have just returned from a wikibreak and once I get into the groove a bit more I will go through the old reassessments myself, but it would be great if we got more editors from this project willing to close them. AIRcorn (talk) 09:54, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Minimum standard for reviewers?

I know that we are short on reviewers to clear the backlog, but I am alarmed by the number of recent nominations that have been rushed through to approval by editors with little to no experience with the process or Wikipedia in general. Examples like Talk:Aaron Swartz/GA2 (passed within an hour with no real comment by a user with under 30 edits) make me think we should have a minimum edit count for those who wish to review a GAN. Perhaps we should set it at 500 or 1,000, similar to those for WP:NPR. SounderBruce 04:24, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, I think at least 500. How anyone could have even a basic understanding of what articles should be a GA and what shouldn't without having edited the encyclopedia is beyond me.
Further more, I think we should be refraining from promoting articles without any commentary. There is always something to critique, even if it is a straight pass, but things could be improved for after the GAN. I know it's not the same as at the backlog drive, but maybe some sort of minimum review length? We shouldn't be casting away any willing reviewers, but we also don't want editors to simply rubber stamp them either. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 09:43, 22 September 2019 (UTC)
I don't think length is a good issue, but I think any GAN should actually be justified in text, even if it's a simple checklist. Personally as someone who's usually looking to take GAs to WP:FAC at some point it's also kind of frustrating in that there's no useful feedback or suggestions about possible areas to improve beyond GA standards. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 21:08, 22 September 2019 (UTC)
  • I'd also support a minimum 500 or 1000 edits standard for reviewers. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:42, 22 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Me too (in fact I'd support higher). Johnbod (talk) 02:25, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
  • I would as well. --Rschen7754 03:26, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose I think perhaps, without being too "bitey" to our recent new editors, who clearly perceive GAN as a place to hone their skills, we should look for a minimum of 150,000 edits and 100 GAs. Nope, perhaps just 500 edits. But that's bordering on WP:CREEP really. Who is going to re-review every GAN? Where do we have oversight, especially once the drive has finished? We don't, it's simply impractical to impose a minimum edits count on a reviewer I'm afraid. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 18:02, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Support in principle: It's not impractical to state up front that there is a minimum in terms of experience required for editors to have in order to review at GAN: 500 or 1000 sounds like a reasonable amount to expect of users; I'm not entirely sure about the 90 day requirement at NPR. (I note in passing that extended confirmed requires 500 edits and 30 days, though that may not be best here.) We have had quite a few new reviewers who got over their heads, and some of them insist that they're perfectly capable and, as there are no minimum levels, perfectly right to do the review, even though the article that they pass (or peremptorily fail even though it only needs a little work) should not be closed in that manner. Since GAN depends on a single reviewer for a particular nomination, it can be a real problem if that reviewer is unclear on the concept. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:44, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Why each review? If there's an unfamiliar name doing a review, which will be an infrequent event, you do an edit count; if that shows a problem, you deal with it. If the GA review rules say up front that only people with at least 500 or 1000 and/or 30 days or 90 days (or whatever the minimum level happens to be), then you'll generally have only those who qualify opening up a GA review to begin with. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:37, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
  • An "unfamiliar name"?! Deary me. I think the fact we're already wild-ass guessing over what constitutes sufficient experience here (30 days, 90 days, 1000 edits etc) is indicative that this is a non-starter. This looks like a solution looking for a problem. Are we over-run with poorly reviewed articles? No. Do we have a process for dealing with GAs which aren't deemed up to scratch? Yes. Do we need to make GA any less accessible? No. Do we want to dissuade new reviewers and keep increasing the backlog? No. I think it all speaks for itself. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 09:39, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
If by "Are we over-run with poorly reviewed articles?" you mean "Do many reviews appear to be much too superficial, often giving the impression the reviewer hasn't even read the article thoroughly?" the answer is yes. Johnbod (talk) 12:33, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
No, I meant what I said. If we have GAs which no longer meet the GA criteria, they should be nominated at WP:GAR. That is, after all, what that process is for. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 09:09, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
  • If we were to impose any standard, it should be that you have a GA before you can review a GA. A very low edit count may be a good indication of a lack of understanding, but a substantial edit count is by no means in indication that an editor understands what GA level content requires. But that's not going to do us any favors on the backlog. GMGtalk 12:11, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose What we need is reviewers who take the guidelines seriously and do their best. I don't think any minimum number of edits assures that. I wouldn't want to discourage a newbie who closely reads the guidelines, diligently does their best, and maybe misses a few things that an equally-diligent experienced editor would have caught. Those newbies are gold; we need to thank them and give them constructive feedback in a way that will encourage them to do another review, not just tell them they haven't hit the magic number yet. --valereee (talk) 10:32, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
  • I agree with the problems as stated (i.e., concur with Johnbod). I think that trying to enforce higher standards may not the be first step tho. I have for years and years stated thatthe value of GAN is actually less about improving articles and more about improving editing habits (i.e., training) I therefore recommend training/mentoring. [Note there's supposed to be a FAC mentor thingie, and I actually saw it done once, but I dunno if it's a thriving initiative.] Training for GAN is much more basic than training for FAC and therefore more necessary. I know the Teahouse has those badge thingies; I dunno how much they train anyone (I actually have no idea because I have never done it and never asked anyone about it). I have some suggestions about what should be included in training, but don't wanna get ahead of myself... Oh by extension I also agree with David Fuchs: "it's also kind of frustrating in that there's no useful feedback or suggestions about possible areas to improve beyond GA standards." ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 13:14, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Support In order to maintain the status of articles of GA standard we need reviewers who grasp and understand the processes on Wikipedia as well as how GA criteria is met. This would be a good idea to have a minimun number of edits like 250-500 in order to review GA nominations. Spy-cicle (talk) 19:36, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
  • I don't have enough experience at GAN to say whether I support or oppose this, but re: the practicality of enforcing this kind of rule: would it be possible to use creation protection to restrict the creation of page titles of the form */GA# to extended confirmed users? That would automatically impose a 500-edit and 3-month minimum on any editor starting a review. Armadillopteryxtalk 23:26, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose on principle. I'll take a closer look at what people above have said when I have time later, but generally I think we shouldn't be placing restrictions on reviewing. If noms think there's a problem, they can request a second opinion or post on this talk page. And I know experienced reviewers also go around reading reviews to try and catch problems. Encouraging those practices, I think, is better for the encyclopedia than enforcing restrictions that would probably just make our backlog worse with little gain in quality. Wug·a·po·des​ 16:07, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Another one

I'm currently trying to deal with Talk:The Life of Pablo/GA1, where Thatoneweirdwikier, a reviewer with 28 edits under their belt opened a review on a 45K prose character article ten minutes after requesting a potential mentor's help for their first review (which says it was to be of a completely different article, oddly enough). The only thing they had a problem with was the lack of source citations in the article's lead, and when the people there explained that this wasn't a problem, the article passed. I took a look and discovered some basic issues in terms of prose and MOS:LEADLENGTH, and following up on those have uncovered more. The problem is clearly that this hasn't been given an adequate review, yet unless the reviewer reopens the review and does get mentor to aid in it, or possibly even a second reviewer, we have an article listed as a GA that doesn't meet the criteria. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:32, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I think we all accept that sub-standard reviews happen. I'm not certain why you need to regurgitate the content of your concerns here, this is about whether we need a general bar of experience beyond which a review would be allowed to happen. Just be bold, delist it speedily and move on. This is going to happen from time to time. But putting an artificial threshold in place to prevent anyone from making such reviews would be harmful to Wikipedia's main goals. Did you have any suggestions relevant to this proposal, or was it just about the review in question? The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 16:35, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
Is there consensus that doing a preemptive delist is valid? As for suggestions, perhaps if not a prohibition, we could make a strong recommendation that reviewers have significant editing experience on Wikipedia before attempting a review—whether that comes with a suggested number of edits or not, it might make new editors pause to consider whether they do have the necessary knowledge of the various areas before they commence reviewing. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:32, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
I doubt that. If someone wants to perform a review and they can perform a review, they will perform a review, regardless of "strong recommendation". And a number of edits is absolutely no indication of an ability to review an article whatsoever. I know of plenty of users with thousands of edits who I wouldn't trust to review a sentence, let alone an article. There's no evidence whatsoever to support such a "edits==quality reviewer" theory. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 08:04, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

GA School?

Could we possibly set up a Good Article School, similar to WP:NPP/S, and have the mentors as trainers as well? That way, if we were to set up a minimum edit value for reviewing GAs, we’d have 2 options: 1. We could say “To review a GAN, you must have 500 edits OR have graduated from the GA School.” OR 2. We could make it extremely similar to WP:NPP/S by saying “You must have 500 edits to join the GA School and begin reviewing GANs.” Just a suggestion. Thatoneweirdwikier (talk) 08:36, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Fly by pass

I have removed the GA status of Washington State Convention Center as there was never a proper review.....just a new editor on their 12 edit with a fly by statement without any proper evaluation done. See no need to go through review as the original promotion was non valid. I have relisted the page for a proper review. --Moxy 🍁 23:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Talk:Washington State Convention Center/GA1

Yakov Dzhugashvili not updated as GA

I posted this message on the Legobot talk page, but figure it may get an answer here instead:

I just noticed that Yakov Dzhugashvili, which passed GA a few weeks ago, has not had the bot updated the article page. Is there any way to rectify this? Kaiser matias (talk) 16:56, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

@Kaiser matias: The bot removed the entry as "maintenance" instead of recognizing the promotion, probably because the reviewer added the {{GA}} template with unsupported parameters (status= and note= as well as subtopic= instead of topic=) [16]. I changed the template per WP:GAI but I don't know whether the bot will notice it. If not, just add the GA icon manually to the article. Regards SoWhy 17:29, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
@SoWhy: Thanks for that. I'll keep an eye on it and if the bot doesn't update I'll do so manually. Kaiser matias (talk) 17:41, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Legobot notification

Just had a talk page message saying an article was placed on hold, but the article in question has been on hold for a long time at this point. (At [[User talk:Lee Vilenski#Your GA nomination of Marharyta Fjafilawa). The user hasn't edited the page, but it also updated the info on the GAN list. Is this a bug, or is this something I'm overlooking? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 22:27, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Looks like a bug to me. I don't know why it would affect anything, but sometimes the bot will list in its edit summary not only the nomination that was just placed under review—and you had opened a GA review on 2018 24 Hours of Daytona in that same bot run—but other nominations made by the reviewer that are also under review, because it has had to update the number of reviews made by the reviewer in their nominations, such as Marharyta Fjafilawa, which as you note has been on hold since late October. I hadn't been aware that the bot was also posting duplicate messages to the nominator's talk page. Yet another bug to be added to the list... BlueMoonset (talk) 23:54, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Anania Shirakatsi

This article was nominated by User:Yerevantsi in March 2019, but the Wikipedia:Good article nominations page hasn't been amended to reflect the fact that it has been reviewed by User:Cosmia Nebula in June. It seems as if the review hasn't started, according to the talk page. Looking at the review page, it looks as if the review has been completed and assessed as a GA, but the article has not been passed. Can this be sorted out? Amitchell125 (talk) 09:57, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Amitchell125, the article talk page history shows that Wizardman marked the review as abandoned on August 18 of this year, and put the nomination back into the pool of nominations awaiting a reviewer. Looking at the review, there are no comments to speak of (no nomination is perfect), and no response to a query earlier in August, so the assumption was that the review was never finished, certainly not to the level expected from GA reviewers. Wizardman is very experienced here at GAN, so if he put the nomination back in for a second go, my guess is that he wasn't satisfied with the review, and he did his own sorting out, which brings us to the present. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:04, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Addison's disease

Hi

Addison's disease has been listed as a GAN. Immediately following nomination a review was started by the nominator (presumably in error). Could this be rectified? Thanks, PeaBrainC (talk) 13:22, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

The same thing has happened with India national football team at the Olympics where the nominator started the review to leave a note. Kosack (talk) 19:22, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
Add the A-League to that list as the nominator started the review. HawkAussie (talk) 23:25, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
(Moved from below) I just noticed in passing that Velella nominated the Friends of Friendless Churches article here and started the nomination page themselves. I am pretty sure that the Talk:Friends of Friendless Churches/GA1 page should be deleted per Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Instructions#Step 2: Starting a review, without any prejudice to a new review. epicgenius (talk) 14:15, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
I've deleted the review as G6 but think this is probably ineligible for GA altogether as it's currently a featured list. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:21, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Review of Goodbye (Spice Girls song)

Just noticed that Talk:Goodbye (Spice Girls song)/GA1 hasn't been updated since 7 September 2019. Is it safe to close this review as the user has long past their deadline for completing it? --Kyle Peake (talk) 16:27, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

Not uncommon unfortunately. I pinged the reviewer and nominator as tey were both still active this month. Sometimes these just get forgotten. Depending on the response, or lack of, we can either allow it to finish, close it, get someone to take over or put it back into the queue. AIRcorn (talk) 20:28, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

Archiving the talk page

Hi all. I noticed in passing that Battle of Karbala was promoted a while ago, but that the talk page - Talk:Battle of Karbala/GA1 hasn't been archived. Just thought that I would flag it up. Gog the Mild (talk) 14:03, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, there is no convention to archive the talk page nomination, looking back through my own articles, most aren't archived. Those that have are just where reviewers have decided to do so. Harrias talk 15:26, 21 November 2019 (UTC)
Fair enough. Thanks. I didn't realise. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:51, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

New Albion nomination

Hello Wikipedia editors. In June, I nominated New Albion for status as a wp:GA. To date, no review has been initiated. Circumstances are necessitating that I leave my current country in early January and not return until very late March, and during that time, I will be so occupied that I will be unable to attend to any editing tasks should a review commence. Additionally, I will be in rural areas with uncertain internet which further complicates my attention to Wikipedia. So, I am wondering how I should proceed with the nomination considering these personal matters. I very much desire to hear from any who may advise me regarding the article nomination and review considering this situation.Hu Nhu (talk) 04:37, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

@Hu Nhu: Sorry no one has replied to you before now. I would suggest that the best thing to do is to add a note to your nomination explaining the situation. You can remove it when you get back. I left an example here. It will appear at the WP:GAN page so any potential reviewer will see it. AIRcorn (talk) 06:56, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
@Aircorn: Thank you very much. This experience with the nomination has been an experience regarding much patience. Please know that I do appreciate your kind attention, and even more so, I appreciate your information. Kind regards to you.Hu Nhu (talk) 16:26, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
@Hu Nhu: If you're unoccupied for the next few weeks, I'd be happy to review it for you. Even if it doesn't get wrapped up before you leave, I will leave it open for your return :) Kingsif (talk) 23:19, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
@Kingsif:Hello to you. And thank you so much. The time I have to work on this before I go is--I believe--very limited; however, it is not utterly devoid of opportunity for my editing attention. So, since you kindly offer to keep this open for me, I will see what I am able to do. And it may be that I am able to attend to the matter when I am out of my country. I just am uncertain right now. So, I welcome your attention. I see you are familiar with wp:GA work, and I look forward to your comments and assistance. Kind regards, Hu Nhu (talk) 00:31, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Kingsif's GAN requests page

In the vein of something that TRM did, I've made a page where users can request for me to review their GAN. I will aim to review everything that is requested, with the hope of reducing the backlog and because I enjoy being part of article improvement. With this in mind, I'd also like to say that the requests page is primarily targeted at two kinds of GAN: those that have been unreviewed for >6 months, and those that the nominator thinks I will find particularly interesting (see the list of reviews I've done for inspiration there) and/or for some reason wants my view on. I've also put up a little sidebox on my talkpage linking to the requests page for when this gets archived :) Okay, that's all. Kingsif (talk) 03:38, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Talk:1 (New York City Subway service)/GA2

The reviewer, Happypillsjr, is considering failing this article as a "copyright violation", even though the other site pretty clearly takes from Wikipedia (comparison). While I appreciate Happy's efforts, I think this might benefit from having another reviewer looking at it, either via a second opinion or a new nomination. epicgenius (talk) 03:57, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Noting that the text from the comparison URL includes the Wikipedia reference list and plenty "[1]"s, so it's a hugely obvious mirror case, shall we not see if we can talk to Happy? Kingsif (talk) 04:15, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
@Kingsif: Happy said they will put the nomination on hold for now. However, I still think it would benefit from another reviewer's opinion as well. epicgenius (talk) 04:22, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
@Epicgenius: I'll give it a look tomorrow and add some comments where I see fit. (I can see you convincing me to review all the NYC subway articles now) Kingsif (talk) 04:27, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
@Epicgenius: I hope you don't mind I removed the pass; it seemed awfully premature since no work was done after putting it on hold. I'll put up comments for it. I may point Happy to the talkpage of an experienced GA reviewer, I know I benefited from little pointers by Ritchie before reviewing my first GAN. Kingsif (talk) 16:47, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
@Epicgenius: Not that I mind the clean-up, but I saw you suggested mentorship re. Happy's GA and FA work. Pinging @Happypillsjr: to say that I'm sure between us we could work on a B-class article to improve your quality editing skills if you'd like; I can offer my suggestions and epicgenius might, too. Kingsif (talk) 16:30, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
@Kingsif: Not a bad idea.-- Happypillsjr ✉ 20:07, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
@Happypillsjr: Are there any articles you've been thinking about suggesting for promotion recently? Kingsif (talk) 20:21, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
@Kingsif: Not recently yet.-- Happypillsjr ✉ 20:31, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

2020 backlog drive?

Hello. I was wondering when the next backlog drive would be held. The current outstanding nominations is almost back to where the September 2019 Backlog Drive started out with (592 now in comparison to 626 then). From what I'm seeing, the oldest unreviewed ones are from February 2019. It would be nice to cut down this backlog to at least late summer / early fall 2019. While I know the numbers will expand again and there's nothing really to prevent the amount to going extremely high, it'd be good to not have the backlog expand to a year (February 2020). Thanks! --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 00:03, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Well the start of the year always gets renewed attention on GA reviews (though also renewed numbers of GAs) with the WikiCup. From some quick math I did from 2019 the cup seems to act as a net benefit to GA - more reviews are done than GAs submitted so the fact that we're holding steady is probably OK. I would continue to suggest that doing an annual drive after most people have been eliminated from the cup is likely our best "value" in terms of generating new reviews that we wouldn't have gotten otherwise. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:16, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
So if on an annual basis, I persume that'd be September again as that's the last round? Or would November be better as the WikiCup would end then? I know December wouldn't work as that's the holidays. --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 00:33, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
How long did the previous drive last? September might be better... ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 02:22, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
Hate to be a damper, but these drives only really paper over the cracks. If anything I think they do more harm than good as they can result in poorer rushed reviews. Without fail the backlog is back up to pre-drive levels within a couple of months anyway. This is probably because they burn out the participants. The main issue is, and always had been, the experienced editors with multiple Good Articles that don't pull their own weight when it comes to reviewing. If we can't fix that then I think we are just better off accepting that we will always have a backlog. AIRcorn (talk) 15:52, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
I kind of agree all round here. I do think the backlog drives DO work, (clearly, even if there is some burn out they do promote more reviews), but there are some issues around editors not reviewing when putting up their own work. I've stated a number of times for the want of a nominations counter, to be placed next to a users' reviews counter on the list. This way we all know who is doing reviews, and who isn't. A pure number of reviews is helpful, but doesn't show the full story. Mine currently says I've done 57 reviews, which is great, but doesn't say how many nominations that is equivilent to. My calculations say it's around 36; which is fine. It could be that I've nommed 200 GAs in the past, and done a quarter of the reviews, which would be poor, and a detriment to the process. I'm not saying a full QPQ like we do with DYK, but a simple number of nominations would be suitible to me. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 15:59, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

(←) The only way to actually solve the problem is almost certainly unpalatable: you'd have to require people to maintain a certain (reasonable) ratio of nommed to critted. Even further, you might need to require new critters to undergo a mentorship for at least one or possibly two crits before they can nom. After that, the way to retain critters would be barnstars and collegiality, make people feel a part of the GA culture. But the main thrust of that is, as I said, almost certainly unpalatable. Short of that – keep the backlog drives, grin and bear the shortcomings mentioned by several above.... As for "how do you require volunteers to do anything?", the only way would be for all experienced reviewers to agree not to review anyone unless they at least initially go through all of the above. Make a ubox to that effect. Etc etc. But then some might complain and call us GA-tyrants or whatever... But if you attach the social engineering aspect (collegiality, barnstars, more, be creative) the tyranny is transformed from a liability into an asset: "Yeah, I'm one of the few, the proud..." etc. But. Almost certainly unpalatable. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 01:46, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Realistically, I think the soft touch is not reviewing people's articles when they aren't reviewing anyone else's. Looking over the noms I see some people with multiple nominations who have very few or no reviews at all. When I'm choosing articles to review, I'm not going to pick those people's. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 02:58, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
Yeah I think a bot that listed both noms and reviews would further help incentive things there. But that gets back to the idea that Legobot keeps chugging along but has been in need of a refresh or replacement for sometime. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:32, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
I tried to do that when I instigated recording the reviews years ago, but there are apparently technical difficulties in getting the noms (see Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 49#Keeping track of Good articles). Not to mention we have issues with keeping bots going in general. AIRcorn (talk) 09:35, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
At the risk of highjacking this thread further, the last time this idea came up I went through all the editors with multiple nominations and tried to source the number of reviews they had done compared to the number of nominations they had made. It was imperfect as the main reviewer is not always the one that creates the "/GA" page and it is difficult to get an accurate count of nominations from prolific editors (which these almost always are). In the end I went mainly be self claimed GAs on their user page. Anyway I posted it at Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations/Archive 23#Rough count of review/nominations for editors with multiple nominations. In response I ended up sending a few personal message to some of the identified editors quietly encouraging them to review more articles, which got either a positive response or was met with silence. There are places we could go with this, but I am not sure how hard we want to come down on our prolific content creators and it could lead down quite a dark road as Lingzhi2 points out. AIRcorn (talk) 09:59, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
A bright path: Shiny Happy Buttons! If we could get the ratio of nommed/critted, we could create new barnstars for encouragement etc... as for getting who crits, if I knew what pages to export, I could export them to my laptop and zip through them easily/peasily, generating related trivial factoids as I go... dunno if exporting is possible tho. Why isn't there a GA page analogous to WP:WBFAN? ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 10:18, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
I try to keep a 2:1 ratio (not always easy when I had 10 noms in September...), And if people commented on this, or made it out to be a great thing, there were ways to know who had a good ratio, it would push myself and others to get to that ratio. At 2:1, even with some editors never reviewing am article, the backlog has to go down. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 12:25, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
I think the main issue is volume. There are currently five times as many Good Articles. The best way would have been to get Legobot to update a list with the nominators name when it does its run populating the GAN page. Going through the backlog could be challenging. You basically have to go through the articles talk page history and find out who added the {{subst:GAN}} template. Then you have failed GAs and demoted GAs to consider. Category:Wikipedia good articles, Category:Delisted good articles and Category:Former good article nominees should cover it and comes in at about 40 000 articles. I am not sure if that includes the Good Articles that are now Featured though. AIRcorn (talk) 08:23, 17 December 2019 (UTC)
Judging by my one and only featured article, there no guarantee that a former good article which has been featured appears in any category that records its formerly-listed-as-GA status. This makes sense because it hasn't been delisted, so it doesn't belong in Category:Delisted good articles but it is no longer a good article. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:48, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
I'll jump in at the original comment to say that IMO incentives are good, but I can't comment on what kind may work best. Kingsif (talk) 16:38, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
I haven't made awards in years, but I did make some that are in current use by the GA and GOCE process, see this, this, this, and this (oh wait, ha ha, this was fun). As an even better option, IMHO, you/we could revive the totally defunct User:Minestrone Soup/Knightly order ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 16:58, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
Like GA service awards? Kingsif (talk) 18:21, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
Yes, or like anything you want. Be creative. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 23:57, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
I'd be more than happy to design a few barnstars and propose them over on the Wikipedia Awards WikiProject talk page if you all would be interested. If we proceed with designing barnstars, what should the general criteria be for awarding one? I personally wouldn't mind designing them similar to those over in the GOCE or DYK community (as in, a certain number of reviews earns you a certain barnstar). Yerkes-Dodson (talk) 06:57, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Pending Review changes

Hi all,

Is there any complications on articles being under Pending changes? I've done Talk:Simona Halep/GA1, which is under the anti-vandalism tool. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 18:20, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Lee Vilenski, in general I think an article that is vandalized a lot doesn't fail the stable criteria. It's the article that has substantial edit warring that does. As such I see no reason that an article under pending changes can't be GA. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:04, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Primary and dated sources

The nominator has done a lot of work on Penn's Creek massacre, but the article is still based mostly on primary and dated sources—especially #The captives. Per WP:PRIMARY, we should be cautious about basing large sections of the article on primary sources. Also, it's quite difficult to estimate the reliability of older secondary sources (by "old" I mean "old enough to be PD"). Are these reasonable concerns to have or am I going past the GA criteria here? If I weren't the reviewer, I could go back and rework based on newer sources, but then I would become involved. (Fiamh is an alternative account of mine.) buidhe 07:26, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

  • Interesting question. For the captives one you mention (Le Roy & Leininger 1759), I think it's okay. A reputable journal of the time finds their narratives fine to publish as attributed (so I'd suggest the section be attributed as their own retelling of events). The Early 1905 source seems to be some collection of court records, thus deemed the truth at the time.
This is obviously based on the qualities of fact checking in the past, but we can't do any better than those sources, I think. Kingsif (talk) 16:18, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Talk:Coney Island/GA1

Between a split request on the talk page and a reviewer that has asked for a second opinion, I don't think this will be going anywhere in the near future. Is there a way to temporarily pause this nomination, or do I have to withdraw it and resubmit it again later? epicgenius (talk) 15:48, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

It depends how gracious the reviewer is, I'm usually fine with waiting for a while but check to see that work is being routinely done. However, if it's going to change a lot it may be better to withdraw and resubmit. Kingsif (talk) 17:21, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
Kingsif, thanks for the answer. I'll wait a while in that case. epicgenius (talk) 18:18, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
Kingsif, would you be willing to provide the second opinion/review? That's one way to get this moving again. I didn't get the impression that anything more was going to be done until a second opinion has been provided, and it's been over a month since the reviewer called that opinion. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:33, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
@BlueMoonset and Epicgenius: Well, I just read through the talkpage and feel that there's some consensus that a split with some content to go to Coney Island (peninsula). Until that happens, it's going to fail coverage criteria IMO, so I wouldn't be in a position to give a 2O on the article as it is now. Kingsif (talk) 19:20, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
I agree that right now wouldn't be a good time to review the article for GA because it would fail stability criterion #5. When I nominated the page, it met this criterion, but then the split discussion opened after the review was opened. This was why I asked about pausing this nomination (or just procedure closing it for now). epicgenius (talk) 02:49, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
Perhaps the thing to do is to close the nomination now. Once the split has been made and the resulting article is ready, epicgenius could nominate it then. Kingsif, might you be willing to review it when it has been renominated? That way, losing the seniority of a February 2019 nomination wouldn't matter. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:09, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
Maybe, but probably yes. Kingsif (talk) 01:25, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
BlueMoonset, I think that closing the nomination would be the best way to go at this point. epicgenius (talk) 01:20, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
It's closed. Thanks to you both for getting back to me. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:52, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Talk:Riverside Church/GA1

Is it appropriate for an unregistered editor to review this article? This editor has no other contributions. epicgenius (talk) 15:22, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm almost certain you have to have an account to be involved in the GA process (either nom or review). Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 15:35, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
Reviewers must have an account and be logged into it to open a review per the GA instructions. I don't believe there's a similar requirement for nominators, but if they haven't been significant contributors to the article they have to consult those who to see whether it's ready for GAN in order to nominate it. So if an IP does open a review, the thing to do is submit a Speedy deletion, as epicgenius has already done. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:02, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
Deleted. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:04, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

California State University, Dominguez Hills

Hi, I just reviewed the third GAN of California State University, Dominguez Hills - nominated back in February 2019, it was the article's third nom since the end of 2016. And it is nowhere near GA-quality. I'm about to sweep through and remove all the copyvio, and although that's a major problem it is not its only one. Is there any way to dissuade people from nominating this specific article again until it's definitely improved? Kingsif (talk) 23:00, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

  • I don't know of any apart from talk page messages. Is it the same nominator? If so a personal message at their user page may be the easiest. The three failed GANs should be enough to tell other editors that it needs a lot of work before renominating. AIRcorn (talk) 01:09, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Kingsif, Aircorn, the nominator all three times was Torowhynot. A note to their talk page might help. However, I'd like to point out that the bulk of the copyvio material has been there since at least 2015 (and possibly earlier, since the references were "filled in", and thus their access dates set, in October 2015), so it was missed by the previous two reviewers in 2016 and 2017. The "John Muns" sentences, removed by Kingsif as a copyvio, were added by Torowhynot on 4 September 2015; I haven't researched the other removed copyvios. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:56, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Attending to a sock's review

Moved from Talk:North Korean Embassy in Madrid raid/GA1

@BlueMoonset: Can this be unreviewed and put back in the GA queue? It's a little late, but I've only just noticed that—since we last discussed this review—the nominator has been blocked as a sock of User:DeepNikita. G4 is no longer available for the page, but I'm not particularly happy about a sock giving me credit for anything, to be honest. ——SN54129 00:50, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Serial Number 54129, please post this to WT:GAN to see what the thoughts are there. I don't know what is best under the situation; some possibilities are:
  • revoke GA review/status, as you've requested, and put it back for review either with the original nomination date to retain seniority or with a new date
  • try to find someone to do an individual GA reassessment (effectively a re-review), though the status remains until the reassessment is complete (and hopefully remains a GA then along with whatever improvements you've made during the review)
  • leave it as is
Note that I don't recommend a community reassessment (so I didn't list it), because no one ever comments on those, and I don't think it would be helpful, dragging on for a couple of months or more.
I did check, and Caker18 only did two GA reviews including this one; the other resulted in a fail, a quick renomination, and a pass by a regular reviewer. So that one's set. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:17, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi all, any thoughts on this review? Per BlueMoonset's thoughts I'm bringing ths here for wider comment.

Personally I think it should go back in the pile (per bullet point 1), possibley even with a new date (which would probably ensure another longish wait at WP:GAN, as would be its due). Although the kindness of a new reviewer (per bullet point 2) would speed things along without that (and I acknowledge the good will that exists in these parts that it could happen!), it still seems to smack a little of receiving a favor from a sock (even if tangentially—you know, "this was reviewed by a sock so we better acknowledge it as soon as possible"), when we should (only IMHO of course) be doing the oposite (receiving nothing bat basd fath).

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance all. Cheers, ——SN54129 01:46, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

New reviewer issues at WT:GA

There is a long section about a new reviewer and some problematic reviews at WT:GA#New reviewer that editors who frequent this page may not have seen—I certainly didn't until a few hours ago, though the reviews started back on January 2. I am about to revert one of the reviews that was clearly inadequate (Talk:3rd Congress of the Indonesian Democratic Party/GA1; it certainly fails the "Well written" criteria), and will look for a new reviewer for that nomination; it will retain its original seniority in any event. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:07, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

On a slightly related note. Would it be worth redirecting that talk page to this one once the current conversation dies down. AIRcorn (talk) 21:30, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
I would support having one place rather than two though we would want to make sure the archives for the other page are easily accessible. This page does have more watchers (~1100 vs ~900) and a larger set of archives (23 vs 15) so yes this probably the page to keep. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:34, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

I listed Albert Camus as "Language and literature" but I now feel that "Philosophy and religion" would be a more appropriate subcategory...

What is the proper way to fix it? Thanks. Cinadon36 18:13, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Many thanks Buidhe! Cinadon36 20:29, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Technical articles

In case not everyone was aware of it, recently the prose criteria was expanded [17] to include understandable to an appropriately broad audience (see Wikipedia talk:Good article criteria#Understandability criterion for discussion). I have been working through the Good article cleanup listing and there were four articles tagged with "too technical". I tried to fix three and put the fourth up for community reassessment here. I know community GARs are poorly attended, but would appreciate editors here taking some time to put some input in as it is a relatively new change in the criteria and I would like to get a feel for the community stance on what is too technical. So far there are two other articles on that list that I feel probably fail this new criteria (HDMI and Hidden Markov model). I feel this is probably going to impact a lot of mathematics and technology articles and as someone who deals a lot with GARs I would appreciate some comments at a practicable level. AIRcorn (talk) 07:02, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

At the time when this criterion change was proposed, I wrote at length of my fears that this criterion would be used as a bludgeon to exclude any articles on technical topics from the GA process. I was reassured that the "appropriately broad" clause of the new criterion would be interpreted as meaning that we would not be applying a least-common-denominator standard of technicality to all articles and that articles on more-technical topics would be allowed to have correspondingly more-technical content and still pass GA. And even our WP:TECHNICAL guideline states that "It is unreasonable to expect a comprehensive article on such subjects to be understandable to all readers." But now Aircorn is writing in the newly proposed reassessment that instead all GA articles should have a lead that is "relatively easy", a standard that does not take into account the appropriate audience for the article and that may not be possible to meet for articles on highly-technical topics. Aircorn is threatening to broaden this reassessment to "a lot of mathematics and technology articles". It seems my fears were accurate. Can we head this off, please? Do we need to revisit the change in criteria? —David Eppstein (talk) 08:48, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
Hold your horses David. I deliberately went the community reassessment route for this reason. There is no threat to broaden it, just a genuine concern as to how to approach this. I didn't even take part in the criteria discussion. As it stands we have an article that has been tagged with being too technical for a few months and a new criteria that articles that are too technical don't meet the criteria. Clearly something needs to be done one way or the other. It is new and we need to establish were the "too" fits in. That is why I approached it as a case study. You would be better approaching from that perspective than attacking my motives here. AIRcorn (talk) 09:09, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
I took a brief look at the article. I don't think it's too technical per se, we need the technical points to drive the content. What is a slight issue is not conveying what the article is about - specifically in the lede. I have a degree in mathematics, but I struggled to see what the article was getting at in the lede. Even a intro sentence change would help with this. Even if the first sentence said penrose tiling is an example of a set of geometric shapes ("tiling") with unique characteristics. Whilst Penrose tiling does not show translational symmetry it can show reflectional and rotational symmetry. The tiling was named after... or similar.
Whilst we should keep WP:JARGON to a minimum, we can't always avoid it. However, especially in the lede, we should always denote what we are talking about in the planest possible language. You wouldn't see an article on a footballer start Joe Bloggs is a false 9 who sometimes plays as a left wing back. For example. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 11:21, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
That was a recent issue at DYK - one article on maths was little more than complex equations and jargon. Articles can be on technical subjects, as long as they're written with a non-expert audience in mind; if children can be taught division, adults can be taught Penrose tiling. Kingsif (talk) 17:34, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
That is exactly the sort of one-size-fits-all lowest-common-denominator attitude that is the problem. No, not all articles can or should be written with a non-expert audience in mind. We need to have articles on topics of active research, not just on topics that can be taught to uneducated non-mathematicians. The fact that Penrose tiling, of all articles, was called out as being too technical is very telling. It is on a topic that is frequently discussed in popular mathematics writing, unlike many of our other mathematics articles, and does have significant amounts of content that can be written at that level. In fact, it was written at that level, and nevertheless was called out as being too technical, merely for mentioning in the lead some of the more technical aspects of its topic (as the lead is required to do, to summarize the rest of the article). Articles should be written for as wide an audience as reasonably possible, but that is very very different from always writing them "with a non-expert audience in mind". Neither you nor Aircorn appear to believe that the audience should vary with the topic, and that is a serious problem.
To pick a specific example, my favorite example of a technical article that is not a Good Article but I think is close, Dehn invariant: this topic has been the coverage of popular-press articles [18] but ones that significantly oversimplify the subject (the linked article calls it a number, which is flat-out incorrect). Our article contains a section "Realizability" that I think would be considered heavy going by most professional mathematicians, but I think it is essential to the subject and don't know how to express it any simpler than it is there. (In contrast, the definitions section probably looks equally technical to non-mathematicians, but is actually much less technical.) The lead contains a sentence summarizing this section: "As an abelian group, this space is part of an exact sequence involving group homology." This summary sentence is considerably less technical than the section it summarizes, but I still would not expect it to be comfortable reading for anyone without a mathematics degree. So my opinion is that this article complies with WP:TECHNICAL: It is only as technical as it needs to be, and effort has been made to make the lead significantly less technical than what it summarizes. Nevertheless it is not and likely never will be readable by the innumerate. Should such articles be forbidden from ever becoming Good Articles? Should it be a condition of becoming Good Article that they be lobotomized so that they can be read by any adult? —David Eppstein (talk) 20:13, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
When writing analysis sections on film and TV, there are some heavy theoretical and technical terms, but I try my best to explain them or make it clear with the context, why are you so against doing that. What is the purpose of writing an article that is completely inaccessible to 99% of the readership? If the only people who can understand it are the experts contributing to and/or actively studying the sources that the article is written from, what is the point at all? (And since a GA criterion is that an article be clear, anything so technical it deserves an orange tag obviously wouldn't pass.) Kingsif (talk) 20:27, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
When I write that technical articles should be as accessibnle as possible but that this may not equal being accessible to all readers, and you conclude from that that I am against making them accessible at all, you are assuming bad faith, misrepresenting me, and introducing a straw man to the argument. Why would you do those things? —David Eppstein (talk) 21:42, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
I wasn't assuming bad faith, I was accurately summarizing your words: This summary sentence is considerably less technical than the section it summarizes, but I still would not expect it to be comfortable reading for anyone without a mathematics degree. [...] it is not and likely never will be readable by the innumerate. Should such articles be forbidden from ever becoming Good Articles? Should it be a condition of becoming Good Article that they be lobotomized so that they can be read by any adult? If it's never going to be readable to most people, it should not be a GA, yet you think it's fine that even the simplest part of an article requires a specific degree to be understood. Most people will never have a math degree, but you deem that 'simplifying' an article to that level is suitably accessible (it's not). That is literally what you wrote, no assumptions necessary. Also, using hyperbolic language like "lobotomized" to try and make the mere concept sound ridiculous isn't going to win the argument for you. (My original comment was also asking semi-rhetorical questions, no straw or misrepresentation as far as I can interpret.) Kingsif (talk) 23:08, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
My position is that (1) articles should be as accessible as possible, (2) not all articles can be accessible to a broad audience, and (3) the good article process should be available to all articles. Perhaps I am misinterpreting your position, but we appear to agree on (1) and (2) and disagree on (3). Instead of (3), you appear to instead believe that (4) GA should be reserved only for articles that can be made readable to all readers, anything else should be relegated to B-class or worse, and we should not encourage technical articles to aspire to GA status. But you are totally misrepresenting my position as (5) we should not even try to make technical articles accessible. I totally disagree with (5) and in fact I think that (although you have not advocated it) it is more consistent with your position (4) than with my own position. Please correct me if I am mistaken, but the example here of one of the least technical of our mathematics GAs being taken to review is not encouraging. I think it's easy to conclude from your position that you also believe (6) GA should not include mathematics articles. Again, please correct me if that is not your position. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:46, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
Of course - neither (4) nor (6) are things I support. Any and all articles should be able to reach GA (the theoretical goal is for all to reach that if not higher). I think it is possible to make, taking the example, mathematics articles accessible enough. I feel I may have misunderstood your position as (5); there was no intentional misrepresentation, but the tone of your earlier comments suggested to me a resistance to changing any technical language. Obviously, nobody wants to make this simple.wikipedia. One suggestion for accessibility of math articles I can only posit is to add uses for functions or history of theories, where appropriate: I come across several that read simply like: "[X] is a [YZ] in the form of [A], theorized in 1910 in the [B] form of Calculus, its formulae are: [20 lines of symbolic equations]" - it's fine for most readers to not understand this part, but if there were some sections below that say "the uses of this in engineering include..." or "this was discovered because..." or something, it would introduce the concept for more readers. Kingsif (talk) 22:23, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

It's a difficult balance to strike. It's unlikely that the average reader will go looking for the article on Dehn invariant, so the article doesn't necessarily have to be written for them. IMO GA articles just have to be as clear as possible to the widest audience possible without sacrificing comprehensiveness or accuracy. Also, Wikipedia is not a how-to guide and isn't really intended as a teaching tool for any audience. DYK is a different beast because that is explicitly targeted to a general audience. Many technical articles are unsuited for DYK for that reason (and others). buidhe 22:57, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

I strongly agree with your "the widest audience possible without sacrificing comprehensiveness or accuracy" and very strongly disagree with Kingsif's "If it's never going to be readable to most people, it should not be a GA". If we're going to set standards for what a good article on Wikipedia is, we should set standards that make sense for all of our articles, not merely the ones that can be covered without significant depth of knowledge like footballers or cinema. (I also agree that overly-technical topics do not make good DYK material, even though promotion to GA may make them technically eligible, but that's beside the point.) —David Eppstein (talk) 23:46, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
Your statement suggesting that cinema doesn't have technical depth of knowledge (incorrect and in conflict with what I said mere comments above) should be stricken (film reviews: simple; analysis and production: technical). But to the point: I also agree with the "widest audience possible without sacrificing comprehensiveness or accuracy" statement, and hope you recognize that this can involve using explanations and simple language. Things can be accurate and easy to understand. That's all I've been trying to say - if it's not possible to make certain articles understandable, I don't think it should be GA, but most of the time you can and should make it understandable. Your comments to me sounded like you didn't want to try that, maybe there was miscommunication. Can we be in agreement, now, that articles should try (or strive) to have at least some accurate layperson explanation. Wikipedia's collecting knowledge and sharing it, so it would be great if it could be understood. Kingsif (talk) 23:58, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
No. You continue to miss the point. Articles should be as accessible as possible without sacrificing comprehensiveness or accuracy. In some cases that may still mean that the lead includes material beyond a layperson level or that the lead is entirely beyond the layperson level. We should not omit such topics from the encyclopedia, any more than we should omit articles on the technical side of cinema (actually this appears to be a serious gap in our GA coverage: although Wikipedia has articles on technical topics on cinema, like say virtual telecine, all our film good articles appear to be articles on specific films). And we should not relegate them to some backwater ghetto of never being able to aspire to be good. We should encourage them to be as good as possible. Your "if it's not possible to make certain articles understandable, I don't think it should be GA", omitting as it does any consideration of which audience it is understandable to, is wrong and I cannot agree to it. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:08, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
I guess our definitions of GA differ, then - "clear" is still in the criteria, and though this could be open to interpretation as 'clear to a handful who already understand the topic', I see it as 'clear enough for a general audience who may be unfamiliar'. As for the quote, I see it as a compromise between a wholly technical article and a wholly accessible article. Push it to be as accessible as possible. Kingsif (talk) 00:24, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
If you still think that "an appropriately broad audience" is a meaningless part of the words in this new criterion, and that the criterion really always means "a general audience" whether or not that would be an audience that is appropriately broad for the topic, go read the criteria again. And keep re-reading them, until you see and understand the presence of that phrase in the criterion, before you review any more GA articles. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:39, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
That is completely uncalled for. Kingsif has been doing an amazing job with their GA reviews. You need to dial the rhetoric back a bit. AIRcorn (talk) 07:02, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
Says the editor who took an adequately accessible article to GA review over a drive-by technical tag by a blocked sockpuppet, and then threatened to expand the same treatment to "a lot of mathematics and technology articles". —David Eppstein (talk) 07:33, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
If it is adequately accessible then it will be closed as keep and the "drive-by tag" removed. Or it will be found too technical and delisted (or maybe other issues will be brought forth). I don't really care either way, but there is nothing wrong with taking an article with a specific tag relating to the criteria to GAR if it appear relevant. I usually take these through individual reassessments so you should consider the fact I went for a community one and dropped a note here asking for more eyes as a sign that I was acting in Good Faith. Or you can continue with your aggressive approach. As an aside, I didn't realise the tagger was indefinitely blocked until I went to leave a message on their talk page. It doesn;t really change anything as I tend to agree with their analysis. AIRcorn (talk) 08:07, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
You need to go cool off, David, now you're just throwing shade at editors who disagree with you. That also doesn't win an argument (nor does telling someone to shut up and re-read an ambiguous phrase until they think your opinion of its interpretation is the only one). Kingsif (talk) 18:11, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
I am making perfectly accurate descriptions of Aircorn's behavior. And when the GA rules link to a guideline that clearly states "It is unreasonable to expect a comprehensive article on such subjects to be understandable to all readers" and a GA reviewer takes it upon themselves to make that expectation anyway, in contradiction to what the linked guideline says, I think it's appropriate to get them to stop reviewing until they understand the guidelines they are supposed to be following. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:06, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
Maybe read everything that WP:MTAU says, not just the part you want. It's in the title: make them understandable. As broad an audience as possible may not be everyone, but we shouldn't be satisfied with articles that only people already experts can read. My view would be that an editor who would happily pass a GA that is written to too high a level for its purpose should stop before they can understand the appropriate guidelines. Your opinion is evidently different, and thankfully not gospel. Kingsif (talk) 19:15, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
Again, you are failing to understand my position and replacing it by a false strawman that does not represent my opinion. My opinion is that articles should be as accessible as possible for the subject, but that this is not always the same as being accessible to all. At this point, after we have gone over this point over and over, it is difficult to see your repeated misrepresentation of my position as anything but dishonesty, and your repeated insistence that we should only promote content readable by all as anything but anti-intellectualism. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:32, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
We clearly don't understand each other, which is what I'm trying to achieve, but since you would rather call me a liar and anti-intellectual (wow) than try to communicate, this is a waste of both our mental energies. All I see is a disagreement over what "appropriately broad" is, and after I made a comment explaining my view, you went on the attack to say I was wrong. About my opinion. Honestly, with the new wording I don't see that anything has really changed except making explicit what the term "clear", which has always been present, implicitly suggests in terms of readability. We all had different views of that, we will continue to. That's part of having individuals reviewing, as Wikipedia is supported by the fact editors have different views to build better articles, and nobody should stop because their hardline on a criterion is different to yours. Kingsif (talk) 19:51, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict)As an aside, sometimes the argument for having articles be more technical, or unappealing to the general reader is "why are they reading an article on this, if they don't understand the theory behind it. Only a mathematician (for example) would want to read this". Bare in mind that there are lots of different ways people land upon an article. Sure, there are people who would be searching for a topic, those that got there from a wikilink, but there is also times where it may appear on the front page (if it were nominated for a DYK, a related article was nominated for FA, perhaps someone died, etc), or even from the "Random article" link. I don't think we should be saying any article is "good" if you can read the whole lede, and not know what you are reading about. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 07:39, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
An encyclopedia in which lay readers can go to arbitrary articles and expect to understand every word of the lead is an encyclopedia with no intellectual depth. That's not the kind of encyclopedia I want to work on. And an article rating process that only applies to that kind of encyclopedia is a broken article rating process. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:10, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
  • As with all the criteria individual editors are going to interpret it differently. Davids definition of an "appropriately broad audience" will differ to mine, which will differ to other reviewers. That is fine and it is up to the individual editors at a GA nomination to work it out. This is no different to how we currently handle NPOV or broadness concerns.
Issues arises when editors disagree on a compromise and it ends up at GAR or we have old Good Articles where this is now a concern. As one of the main editor patrolling old Good Articles I have a good enough handle on the other criteria, but with this one (especially as it is new) I would love to get a sense of where the Good Article community sits with what is too technical. That is all. I put Penrose tiling through GAR as it has been tagged with a high level tag specifying technical aspects for a few months, it has discussion on the talk page relating to the technical aspects and as a "lay person" I could not easily fix it myself (that is always my first thought when I come across these articles). Hell an orange tagged article is justification in itself to open a GAR without even worrying about sorting limits of new criteria. If it is decided that mathematics articles get a higher level of flexibility in this regard then that is fine. I just want it to come from this project, not the mathematics one or from a single editor. AIRcorn (talk) 07:51, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
I think it was appropriate to bring an orange-tagged article to review. Separately, re. the new phrasing, I don't think any specific conversation needs to be had on a guideline to too technical, and not for any topic to get special treatment. Both because new reviewers could easily be caught out and feel like the process is inaccessible, but also because it doesn't change 1a that much and reviewers' discretion hasn't changed. Kingsif (talk) 19:51, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
Yeah I am not too worried about the validity of the reassessment. Dozens of articles are reassessed all the time for much less. It is understandable that some editors will get upset by this, but attacking other good faith and valuable editors like you is uncalled for. Maybe I should not have brought this here, but it seemed like a good option at the time. Anyway thanks for offering your opinion, I feel we are of similar opinions regarding reviewer flexibility and the process in general. Keep up the good work, it doesn't go unnoticed. AIRcorn (talk) 21:27, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, I think the continuing conversation above can come to something, too. :) Kingsif (talk) 22:23, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Scientific citation guidelines

I started a discussion about changing a link in the criteria at Wikipedia talk:Good article criteria#Scientific citation guidelines a week ago. It has got no comments yet so thought I would draw attention to it here. AIRcorn (talk) 04:15, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi all. I've posted here asking if we'd be interested in consolidating GA-related talk pages. Thoughts would be welcome. Ajpolino (talk) 18:49, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

WP:ACCESS concerns

Some GANs prominently feature tables, such as concert tours. MOS:ACCESS, which addresses tables in MOS:DTAB and the how-to guide, appears to fall outside of the GA MOS criteria (lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation). However, access for the impaired seems to be a more fundamental concern. If brought up during a review, shouldn't there be an attempt to accommodate it? —Ojorojo (talk) 18:20, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

In my opinion, we shouldn't try to expand the criteria for Good articles. Good articles are understood to meet certain targets, one of which is a defined subset of the MoS. I don't believe that failure to meet MOS:ACCESS should result in a GAN failure as it's unfortunately never been a requirement in the past.
On the other hand, if an editor brings up ACCESS concerns on any article (including as part of a GA review), it seems sensible to address those concerns, as ACCESS applies to all articles. I just don't think that we can reasonably link the success of the GAN to addressing concerns outside of the GA criteria. --RexxS (talk) 18:26, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
I'm not sure I agree. I disagree. Ideally, accessibility should be one of our core MOS guidelines. Wikipedia describes itself as "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit", and yet if the articles are not accessible, then in fact, it isn't even "the encyclopedia that anyone can read". I would be strongly in favour of expanding the GA criteria to require compliance to MOS:ACCESS. Harrias talk 18:37, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
MOS:ACCESS is one of our core MOS guidelines. But it's not one of the GAC. In fact, it isn't even required for Featured Articles, so it's completely unrealistic to make it a requirement for GA. It's true that this isn't "the encyclopedia that anyone can read", because far too many editors prefer articles to "look nice" in their eyes, rather than understanding how it is heard on a screen reader. If you want to expand the GA criteria, then start an RfC at Wikipedia talk:Good article criteria and see if you can get a decent response. You might want to consider the responses I got when I suggested that accessibility should be the six pillar and the lack of consensus for including the word "read" in the third pillar. --RexxS (talk) 19:23, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
That it's not one of the criteria for good article status is the problem. Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:51, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

The way I review GANs is to give a load of good advice, all based in FAC and more, and that includes ACCESS among other things. If the nominators refuse to implement those recommendations which aren't strictly GA criteria, that's their call, and until the GA criteria are changes, there's nothing that can be done. It's quite simple. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 17:52, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Whilst not fitting to MOS isn't exactly part of the GA process, I wouldn't be comfortable with someone not implementing changes that were not contentious and were part of the MOS. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 18:09, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
Yes, I don't think I feel comfortable passing reviews when not all of my legitimate (but not necessarily GA-standard) concerns are addressed, but as I said, unless all aspects of MOS are mandated for GA (and they're not even mandated for FA), it's just something we have to live with. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 18:13, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Content assessment#Improving how article assessments are presented to readers

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Content assessment#Improving how article assessments are presented to readers. Sdkb (talk) 22:46, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

GA nom by indeffed user

The user who nominated Addison's Disease for GA status has been indefinitely blocked. Would it be appropriate to remove the GAN candidate tag from the article's talk page, since User:Dino245 obviously isn't going to be able to respond to review comments? Hog Farm (talk) 15:26, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Hog Farm, I'd post the Med WikiProject first because there might be some other editor willing to assume responsibility for the GA. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:39, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
Barkeep49 Message posted there. Hog Farm (talk) 15:49, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
Hog Farm, as the nominator made no significant edits to the article prior to nomination (their edits were mostly reverted), I would be fine with removing the nomination as having been out of process (they're supposed to consult, and I don't think what they did on the talk page counts as consultation). At this point, though, I'd wait to see whether someone volunteers to shepherd the nomination through a review; if they offer, then by all means review it, but if no one does soon, or someone says the article isn't ready, it should be removed. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:39, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Script to detect unreliable sources

Main page: User:Headbomb/unreliable

I have (with the help of others) made a small user script to detect and highlight various links to unreliable sources and predatory journals. The idea is that it takes something like

  • John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14. (John Smith "[https://www.deprecated.com/article Article of things]" ''Deprecated.com''. Accessed 2020-02-14.)

and turns it into something like

It will work on a variety of links, including those from {{cite web}}, {{cite journal}} and {{doi}}.

I'm still expanding coverage and tweaking logic, but what's there already works very well. Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:02, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

New Wikipedian's GA review approvals reverted

Yesterday, Breakjan created their account at 19:31, and after two edits at 19:32, opened Talk:Jewel Changi Airport/GA1 at 19:40 and passed it at 19:46. They then opened Talk:Singaporeans/GA1 at 20:43 with the message "Great work!", passed it at 20:44, and then reverted the passage at 22:20 and updated the message on the review to "Great work on the article!" at 22:21, which was a confusing pair of virtually simultaneous actions.

I took a look at the articles, and noticed that both of them had a number of issues that needed to be addressed before they could meet the GA criteria. (These were not comprehensive reviews, but enough to know there were problems that should have been caught by a reviewer.) At 22:56, I posted to their talk page, noting that I had reverted their Jewel Changi Airport passage and was happy that they had self-reverted their Singaporeans passage because of the noted issues.

Today, in their sole edit, Breakjan reinstated their passage of Singaporeans, which I have subsequently reverted due to the problems I noted earlier (which I discovered later also include some overly close paraphrasing). I also made a second post to their talk page, pointing out while there's plenty of areas where they can participate, it's clear they aren't ready to tackle GA reviews, and I asked that they not continue with the two they've started. I'm posting here to let the GAN community know what I've done, and ask whether there's a preference between simply closing the reviews and putting the nominations back in the pool of unreviewed noms with no loss of seniority or requesting a second opinion on the current reviews in the hopes that whoever gives the opinion will be willing to take on the role of reviewer (with no guarantee that they will be). Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:43, 15 February 2020 (UTC) (Adding accidentally omitted "no" before "loss" at 19:56, 15 February 2020 (UTC))

Just close the review page. We can keep the same dates/seniority pretty easily. Act as if it didn't happen by changing the page on the noms talk. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 19:50, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
Both reviews have been closed, with the nominations remaining open with an incremented page number and no loss in seniority. (Breakjan hasn't edited since the attempted reinstatement.) BlueMoonset (talk) 20:25, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Julius Nyerere

The review at Talk:Julius Nyerere/GA1 is not listed properly at WP:GAN. The review status and the reviewer's username do not appear. What should be done? Hanif Al Husaini (talk) 12:09, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Hanif Al Husaini, the review page wasn't created correctly, so I've updated it to include the required top GA review section that WP:GAN needs to determine the reviewer (in this case, ManfromButtonwillow). It's been over three weeks since the review was opened—the reviewer hasn't edited since—so I'm hoping they'll return soon. The bot that refreshes the WP:GAN page runs every 20 minutes, so the review should be reflected there shortly. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:58, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Kim Hee-chul

It seems like the same editor who started the GAN for this article has picked it up for review? It is an unregistered user so it could be possible that it is more than one person from the same IP address. The GAN instructions also mention the following, (The nomination may be reviewed by any registered user who has not contributed significantly to the article and is not the nominator.), and I have put a part of the text in bold for emphasis. Aoba47 (talk) 18:49, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Aoba47, nominators are not allowed to review their own nominations, and IPs are not allowed to review at GAN at all, so I have nominated the review page for a speedy deletion and posted to the IP's talk page explaining why. Thanks for noting this issue. BlueMoonset (talk) 07:17, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
Is it worth revisiting whether we allow IPs to nominate articles in the first place? If they can't review an item, why are we allowing them to nominate it, let it go stale, get picked up by a reviewer and have no way to ping them outside of messaging a talk page that they very likely don't work from anymore Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 07:23, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

GAN promoted despite failure

Hi! I know we have an issue with articles that have previously been failed being read as failed by legobot, even if they are promoted... I just failed Crito, but it was then listed as passing! This is a much worse result, has anyone seen this before? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 15:45, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Lee Vilenski, according to WP:GANI#Failing, you are supposed to replace the {{GA nominee}} template on the article talk page with a {{FailedGA}} template, which isn't what you did. The bot knows how to interpret {{FailedGA}}; it has no idea what to do with the box you put there. I'm not sure why it thought the box was equivalent to a pass—I can't recall ever seeing this, but then I can't recall someone not replacing {{GA nominee}} with anything but the {{GA}} or {{FailedGA}} templates.
If you want the correct message to go out, first revert back to the GA nominee template, wait 25 minutes, and then replace it with a properly formatted {{FailedGA}} template. (If you don't wait, it won't work.) If you don't care about the message, or have already posted to the nominator's page that the message was given in error, then just replace the box with FailedGA. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:49, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Good Article, Verifiable books?

I'm encountering a problem on Elham Valley Railway, everything is good like neutrality, clear language then I meet Verifiability... the official Wikipedia page says that the book are a reliable source but what do I do when the article is full of books citations (that links the page), like I can't verify the article because I need to buy those books first to see if is written in the book. And in article there are few "free" sources that I can click and check it from there by just reading the website without buying anything. How do I proceed here? Editoneer (talk) 09:33, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

The best approach here is usually to assume good faith, but you can at least try Google Books or even Amazon to see if either will let you view inside the book just to verify a passage or two. But so long as the books used (or any print source like a journal) can be verified as existing (check the ISBN out) then we assume it's verifiable, just not necessarily easily verifiable. Gʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ˣ 12:04, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
My approach is generally to spot check some sources I have access to, either online or through my library; if they check out I generally assume good faith that other claims are verified by the sources cited. Generally, between Google Books previews and a reasonably good library, you can access at least some of the sources. Separately, I check out what the sources are and if they generally seem reliable (e.g. are they published by a reputable publisher, are they written by someone with subject-matter expertise?) If I look at an article with a view to reviewing it and it is entirely or almost entirely based off of sources that I cannot access, then I don't review it regardless of its other merits. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 14:46, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I gave up the article as the article was searching for a second opinion'er, anyways thank you for the advice I forworded your message there. Editoneer (talk) 18:24, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Sport

There's currently over 80 entries in "Sports and recreation". Could we split it into subsections?

I, for example, am very interested in motorsport but didn't know the first thing about curling.

If there were subsections, the backlog would appear smaller and it would be easier for potential reviewers to find articles of interest. --kingboyk (talk) 07:30, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

This has been requested a few times and the issue is with Legobot not being maintained. If we could fix those issues, we could have the same categories found at Wikipedia:Good articles, or at least indoor and outdoor sports split into two. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 11:51, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
I personally would like to see at a minimum a division between "Sports" and "Recreation". There would obviously be some boundary cases (Google "is cheerleading a sport" if you wonder what I mean), but there's obviously a difference between urban parks and recreational games (I get the impression card games would fall into "Sports and recreation) than cricket, baseball, or tenis. A split there would at least make sense on logical grounds. Hog Farm (talk) 01:20, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
We would very much like to make the full subsection division as done at WP:GA (currently nine in all), but until we have a new bot to replace Legobot, there cannot be any divisions or changes in any category here at GAN without breaking the nominations page and the bot that generates it. We're hoping eventually to get a bot mechanic who can deal with the code we have now (which has a number of known issues including this one) or a bot builder who can build a new bot from scratch containing all of the features of the current bot plus the desired improvements, but for now we're unfortunately out of luck. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:17, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
@OliviaZoe0: Do I recall you saying you were bored...? :) --kingboyk (talk) 01:43, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
@Kingboyk: I'm almost always bored, oof :'). My current project has been stalling for a while now too (I need to triangulate some map data, and I have no idea how). Could use a break from that to give me time to think. What'cha need? -- OliviaZoe0 ❤️ (She/her) (talk) 06:19, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
@BlueMoonset: Could you outline what changes are needed and (if you are aware) what programming language(s) are involved? We have a bored programmer here ^ who might be able to help provided it's not too complicated (as she has no wikibot experience, but we all have to start somewhere). (Please ping OliviaZoe0 if you reply). --kingboyk (talk) 15:02, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
@TheSandDoctor: has been working on it and can provide more information. It is fairly complete but needs a bit of extra effort to push it across the line. Kees08 (Talk) 22:02, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
@OliviaZoe0, Kingboyk, and BlueMoonset: at current it is in python (repo) and as kees08 says, just needs some more work and it is almost ready for testing. I know that I took it on a while ago and had some help along the way, but do not currently have any help with it nor really any time to work on it. If anyone here would like to tackle python and take a lead on it, please be my guest (I'll happily give repo write access, just need github username(s) -- which can be sent via Special:EmailUser, if preferred). --TheSandDoctor Talk 20:33, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
@TheSandDoctor: What work is missing exactly? -- OliviaZoe0 ❤️ (She/her) (talk) 11:15, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
@OliviaZoe0: The most obvious thing that sticks out to me is getting the database schematic from lego and creating it on tools. --TheSandDoctor Talk 06:15, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Talk:W New York Union Square/GA1

I was wondering if this constitutes a valid good article review, or if this needs to be sent back to the queue. This doesn't seem to check the article against specific criteria.

I am asking because the reviewer, Analog Horror appears to have performed some slightly-more-detailed reviews (such as Talk:Sabine Lake/GA1) but passed these without raising any issues, which statistically is very rare for a GA candidate. I'm also asking because I want to claim Talk:W New York Union Square/GA1 for the WikiCup. epicgenius (talk) 18:43, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

In these cases, I like to think it's worth seeing the quality of the article itself. It looks like something I would push through with few comments - probably some lede stuff mostly. I think realistically it would be best to mentor the particular reviewer for future reviews. Unless anyone else feels it's not suitable for a pass. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 18:51, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
I agree with Lee, only minor comments here. Kingsif (talk) 19:22, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
@Lee Vilenski and Kingsif: Thanks. If the article doesn't need a re-review, I'll claim W New York Union Square as a good article. epicgenius (talk) 20:26, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Sorry guys, I didn't finish it because I was busy. I finished it up right now. Analog Horror, (Speak) 18:54, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

AH also left similarly short reviews at Talk:Sabine Lake/GA1 and Talk:Bikram Choudhury/GA1. I haven't checked those articles yet, and I certainly don't think all reviews need to be long and tortuous, but I'm not sure these are sufficient. I've left a note on the reviewer's talk page advising them to be more explicit in their reasoning, and to seek mentorship if they need a hand. I haven't had a chance to look at those articles yet, so I don't have an opinion on whether the reviews should stand or if the articles should be returned to the queue. Ajpolino (talk) 19:51, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
Agree with Lee. At a glance, these articles look GA-worthy. I often pass such articles with short reviews. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:04, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
I don't have an issue with short reviews, as long as they are thorough. Sometimes all an article needs is a touch up. ~EDDY (talk/contribs)~ 23:44, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
Thoughts on Bikram Choudhury? The review is pretty opaque, and fails the article for not having references about Choudhury's career (which Chiswick Chap points out the article does have). At a glance, the article looks fine. I'd be happy to re-review unless others see some glaring issue with it? My concern is that if this is the depth of review that was done for the two passes (W New York Union Square and Sabine Lake) that they should be re-reviewed. Although, I agree at a cursory glance those two articles both look fine and would almost certainly pass on re-review (but may be usefully improved along the way). Ajpolino (talk) 01:00, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
I'm glad someone else thought the review of Sabine Lake was too cursory! (I'm the nominator.) I'd really like to get some constructive feedback, though I certainly tried to make the article as ready and credible as possible before nominating. But, so, now another editor has just gone in and manually removed the GA template from the article, without adding anything to the review, and I'm not sure what my next step is here. Should I relist somehow? Would someone here like to give the article a real review? Advice is appreciated! -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 00:28, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
@Bryanrutherford0: I think the best step is to send these back to the queue, re-adding the {{GAN}} template on the talk page, with the original date of submission. Arthur Rubin has reverted the approval of the W New York Union Square and Sabine Lake reviews. However, I think we should have some feedback from others, since multiple editors have said that both articles look like they are near GA quality. epicgenius (talk) 00:33, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
epicgenius, if a review is truly being undone, what you propose with the GAN template is the best practice: removing the icon from the article does little if the talk page still reflects the passage and the reviewer isn't informed (and, I'm assuming, the GA is still listed at WP:GA). The question is whether the expectation is that someone (or several someones) will be continuing the review on the current review page, perhaps concurrent with a second opinion request, or if the nomination is being put back into the pool of unreviewed nominations without any loss of seniority (incrementing the "page" parameter by one). We should probably let the original reviewer know of the consensus here. I'm happy to take care of updating the GA nominee template once we decide how best to proceed. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:44, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Okay, if I'm understanding correctly, then I'll try restoring the GAN template and then the bot will put it back in the list at WP:GAN? -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 01:13, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Bryanrutherford0, I think so. Check out what I did with the W New York Union Square article. You have to change the wikiproject ratings back to what they were prior to the review (i.e. demote from GA rating). epicgenius (talk) 01:34, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Bryan Rutherford, I've taken care of what epicgenius was referring to; Sabine Lake should be all set now. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:38, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Under the circumstances, and after Chiswick Chap queried me on my talk page regarding the review, I have also applied this logic to the Bikram Choudhury review as well; the failure has been unwound and the nomination reinstated with no loss of seniority. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:21, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Reviewer went AWOL

The person reviewing my article has gone AWOL during the process and hasn't edited at all since 24 February. Should I ask for a second opinion or is there some other procedure in place for cases like those?--Catlemur (talk) 13:18, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

@Catlemur: I can take over, if that's alright. Kingsif (talk) 14:10, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
@Kingsif: You are more than welcome.--Catlemur (talk) 14:12, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
@Catlemur: Added comments - just a few things, nice article. Kingsif (talk) 14:43, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Review of GANs

Hi guys. It was brought up at the recent RfA that my reviews may be a little too harsh/in depth. Specifically Talk:Baltimore Skipjacks/GA1 was brought up. Just for clarity, can I get some sort of consensus of if I should make my reviews more/less lenient? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 17:30, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

  • No, your reviews are just fine. I can see that some people might look to GAN as an easy ride, but your reviews (in my experience) have been on point. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 17:54, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
  • For that review in particular, it seems fine. You respond to questions in a friendly manner, and there's nothing you've pointed out that isn't an improvement for GA standard. It's an in-depth review, but only because you're specific, which is especially helpful at this review, given there was some confusion at points. GA reviews can be generic or detailed, and it really depends on the nominator and reviewer as to whether either kind works - your reviews seem to work, and I can't find anything harsh. Kingsif (talk) 17:58, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
  • No, the review was polite and focused on the criteria. Please keep up your good work at GAN! buidhe 19:33, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Nope, not too harsh. You quick failed one of my first noms, but it wasn't ready, tbh. You still gave a pretty full review before the fail though, and it taught me a lot about GAN. Hog Farm (talk) 16:37, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Add the "nominators who are not significant contributors to the article should consult regular editors of the article" aspect to the introduction?

Hey, everyone. On BlueMoonset's talk page, I asked that in light of this matter at the Katherine Johnson article if it's best for the introductions of Wikipedia:Good article nominations and Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Instructions to state the "Nominators who are not significant contributors to the article should consult regular editors of the article on the article talk page prior to a nomination." aspect? I ask because I think it will help editors to not overlook it. With Wikipedia:Featured article candidates, such advice is right there in the introduction.

BlueMoonset suggested that I bring the matter here for discussion. Thoughts? No need to ping me if you reply. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 23:30, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Sure, fine with me if you think it'll help. I don't think it hurts any to have it in the introduction. Ajpolino (talk) 01:41, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
I kind of like how simple the introduction to the instructions are, and it is already in step 1. Kees08 (Talk) 16:57, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
Per above, I think it's best in the introduction. And why not have it both in the introduction and lower?
With my support, BlueMoonset's support, and the support of two other editors above, there is so far a rough consensus to include the material in the introduction. I'll wait a day or so for more comments. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 00:07, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
I'd like to support this also, it has long seemed at least sensible if not the bare minimum of decent conduct. Of course being familiar with the subject and actual editing would be better. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:55, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
I'm fine with this but think that "Nominators who are not significant contributors to the article should consult regular editors of the article on the article talk page prior to a nomination" should have a caveat/time limit attached.
What if a significant contributor does not reply and the nominator is willing to address any issues? What about WP:OWN?
An article which XTools shows I have > 50% authorship of was nominated for GA in my absence by an editor who doesn't even feature in the Authorship pie chart, and passed. Naturally, I am happy about this (and it really is a good article). As none of us own articles, and if a nominator is willing and able to address any issues which come up, I see no reason why they shouldn't proceed with a nomination if a substantial contributor has not replied within X days and/or nobody has objected in that same time period. A comment on the linked thread re the article Katherine Johnson suggests 7 days as standard practice. --kingboyk (talk) 05:22, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
Seven days is pretty typical in terms of waiting for a response—if no one has responded within seven days, then I don't think the person who wants to nominate needs to wait any longer. They've made a good-faith attempt to consult, but no one was interested enough (or was around enough). However, if there's a conversation ongoing, then it may take longer than seven days to come to a consensus. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:21, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

GA process for WP: and Help: articles?

Hi GA folks! I've been editing a bunch of help and WP pages recently, and it occurs to me that there's not really any process for recognizing strong pages in that area the same way there is for articles. So, I was wondering, would you see it as useful to have such a process? And if so, would it make sense for it to be nested within or an offshoot of the GA project? Sdkb (talk) 01:34, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Abandon mission, abandon mission

Greetings I would like to pull off my offer to review Bangladesh, It been fun to debunk my stereotypes in my head but reviewing a page in prose makes me tired and delaying it for weeks won't be the solution. I wanted to undo when I signed up for this but I don't know how... so... I will need to wait for someone to take my place? Any help is appreciated. Editoneer (talk) 20:10, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Editoneer, why don't you put the nomination to "2ndopinion" status on the article talk page, and note on the review page that you need to step away from the review, and are hoping that someone else will take it over. The nominator can continue to work on the issues you've raised while waiting for a new reviewer. Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:53, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
Somehow risky but it's an actual good idea. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Editoneer (talk • contribs) 07:40, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

GAN has exceed its physical limits

The WP:GAN page now has 715 or 719 nominations on it, the most ever, depending on whether you believe the reports page or the GAN page itself. Sometime around when it passed 700 (the previous record was 689, broken on March 26), it began exceeding the maximum size of template-based page with transcluded templates on it, once they are expanded, so the last several at the bottom of the page are not transcluding, including the last of the listed nominations, each of which uses a GANentry template, plus a GAReview template for each nomination being reviewed, another 88 templates to add to the total.

This is going to get increasingly serious, with the Warfare nominations increasingly failing to transclude, and then the Video games, etc. Even if the bot were magically to be fixed or replaced, it couldn't deal with the basic problem that the page is too long. Each topic list, with all its subtopics, also has its own separate page which will not have the transclusion problem, so a stop-gap could be to add a link to that individual page in the header for each topic section. (For example, the History topic is at Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Topic lists/History.)

DYK ran into this overlong page problem some years back, and split the original Nominations page into Nominations and Approved pages. That only solved things for a while, and eventually the Approved page itself got too long, at which point we had to increase the number of sets we sent to the main page each day from one to two until the Approved page got short enough that the issue stopped occurring, at least for a while.

If GAN brings down the backlog, then the problem goes away. It might temporarily get worse while the number of nominations being reviewed increases, but as the overall number of nominations drops, so will the untranscluded nominations.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings. If anyone has a suggestion for dealing with this in the short term and/or the long term, I'm sure we'd all love to hear it. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:49, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Besides having subpages for each topic, I can't think of a solution. (Another backlog drive?) Kingsif (talk) 01:54, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
Couldn't nominations under review or on hold be moved to another page? That way there would be a page where prospective nominators would see only articles that needed a reviewer or 2nd opinion. buidhe 01:58, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
Buidhe, the bot runs every 20 minutes, and regenerates the full GAN page each time, so every time you moved the reviewed noms off, the bot would put them right back on. We can't modify it at the moment. I suppose you could attempt to create a new bot that ran on the heels of the other bot and did such a move, but I think it would be quite confusing and difficult to deal with. It also only buys a little time: at the current rate of increase, an unreviewed-noms-only page would hit the limit again in May or June, and we'd be right back where we are today.
Kingsif, a backlog drive would indeed help for a while, depending on how successful it was and how long its effects lasted. Last September's started at 626 and went as low as 453 on October 2, and we're up by over 260 noms in under six months. One thing we can do is be less generous with time for nominators who are unresponsive, which would result in quicker failures. But in many cases it's reviewers who are the slow part of the process, not the nominators. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:33, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
That is true! I did just finish up four reviews, though, so that should take eight templates off – if a few more are done, all the templates should at least transclude for now. Kingsif (talk) 02:41, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
Suggestions/Ideas:
1. Limit the number of nominations per person at any given time (a la FAC). Some nominators have a dozen or more nominations waiting for reviewers. You don't need to be as stringent as FAC, but a limit of 5 should be reasonable.
2. Introduce some form of QPQ. I suspect this is a perennial proposal, but you've got a perennial problem. It doesn't need to be 1:1 either, you could have it 1 review per 2 or 3 noms (or vice versa, I suppose).
3. Backlog drive... but this is a temporary solution (apparently sub 6 months)
4) Just a thought, is it possible that the depth of the backlog acts as a deterrent for reviewers?
5) You could, but this is a bit more convoluted, also set it up so that any editor can have 1 nom at any given time with no QPQ, but if you do a review then you can nom an extra article or two. I.e. 1 nom at a time for free, but you have to pay in for 2/3 at time (basically, if you're going to add to the backlog, then clear a bit out)
Those are the more obvious/immediate solutions that come to mind. Mr rnddude (talk) 02:54, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Personally, I oppose absolute limits on numbers of articles nominated because most high throughput nominators write well prepared and good articles that should be here. However, I support a QPQ system above one or two nominations. buidhe 03:38, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
    • A QPQ system has other benefits, too: if you have to do a review before you can nominate, it shows you (the reviewer/potential nominator) if you can endure the process of being scrutinized/criticized and makes sure you understand the criteria before nominating. And it shouldn't deter editors who really want to contribute. Kingsif (talk) 03:44, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Piper-ucla: You haven't been active since last year. Should your nomination (School belonging) be procedurally failed until/unless the nominator becomes active again? It seems to be a decent article that doesn't meet any of the quick fail criteria in my estimation, but it's hard to proceed without an active nominator. buidhe 05:05, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Buidhe, we run into this at DYK a fair amount. Piper-ucla was a student in a class, and hasn't stuck around. I'd suggest that when coming across any nomination that was made by such a student (Piper-ucla links to the class on their user page, but sometimes the information is on the article's talk page), you can ping them and if they don't respond in seven days, then don't review it. You can also find the class's Wiki Ed liaison(s) (in this case, one of them is Ian (Wiki Ed), who I've interacted with a fair amount), and check with them—if you ask, they can let you know whether there's anyone who can stand in for the nominator to address issues raised in the review, or if the nomination is effectively abandoned. I wouldn't fail the nomination in such a case, I'd just delete the GA nominee template from the article talk page. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:31, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Buidhe :*User:BlueMoonset Hi all, I have not updated the page in a while but still check it regularly and would love for it to still be considered for GA. Please let me know if there is anything I need to do on my end to help with this process. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Piper-ucla (talk • contribs) 22:34, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I would do the review on this one but I have no expertise on the subject area, so it's very difficult to evaluate the article. buidhe 18:22, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I would also oppose a hard limit on the number of nominations one can have, given how long it takes for most nominations nowadays to be reviewed. I would support a QPQ-style system or a backlog drive. As Buidhe said, many prolific nominators actually do take the time to write articles to a good quality. Requiring a QPQ would be great, but this runs the risk that people making poor GA nominations would also do bad reviews. epicgenius (talk) 17:38, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I don't think limiting the amount of reviews one can have open particularly helps. I usually have 10 open, but for every nomination I make, I try to complete two reviews. If I were to be limited to say 5 noms, I would be less inclined to do reviews of others. I've said it before, but having a count that states how many reviews every nominator has, against how many nominations they have, allows those with a higher percentage to get seen to quicker... That way, we encourage users to do more reviews! If you want your GAN looked at quicker... do some reviews! We already kind of have a similar situation, with users prioritising noms by users who have done reviews for them, but this is a best way to show who does the most reviews, and it also shows those people who don't review at all/very little.
  • It also doesn't stop users from not reviewing, as they will get looked at eventually. I think a bot that also counted reviews done nominations made similar to the amount of noms reviews that Legobot counts would be the ideal solution to our backlog issues. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 10:24, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
  • What do you mean regarding a bot counting reviews done, Lee Vilenski? Harrias talk 10:30, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Sorry, list of nominations (apologies). Legobot currently updates User:GA bot/Stats with the list of amount of reviews that people have made. I'd like a list of nominations in a similar way to this, so we can collate the difference. If someone has a high review/nomination rate, then I'd be more likely to look at their articles, over someone who maybe does 10 reviews, but hundreds of noms. Currently, you could do a few reviews, and there is no way to know just how many articles they have nominated in total. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 11:40, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
I very much like this proposal. To make it more concrete, and I have no idea if this is technically possible, how about something like:
Currently after my nominations is "(Reviews: 137)". Would it be possible to arrange things so instead it read "(Reviews:137; Nominations: 60; Ratio: 2.28)"? Or, if it were the case, "(Reviews:57; Nominations: 60; Ratio: 0.95)". I imagine that this would encourage nominators to review a little more frequently, without forcing them to. And high frequency reviewers or assessors would likely prefer articles by nominators with high ratios, without the system preventing any article from being reviewed. DoI: the first ratio is my actual one and I quite like the idea of my nominations being waved to the front of the queue. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:59, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
I was thinking the same thing as GtM. I'm not 100% on the colour idea, although maybe if there were gradations. E.g. A ratio >2, 1-2, 0.8-1, 0.5-0.8, and <.5. That way, if somebody slips under 1:1, they don't automatically "go into the red zone", so to speak. Although, how does this affect our colourblind editors? Ftr, I have 21 reviews to 5 nominations, so I'm in no way negatively impacted by this proposal. Mr rnddude (talk) 20:16, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
I wasn't sure what was technically possible. Your idea of graduations is better than mine of two colours. I don't see that it is a major issue for the colour blind, as they still have the basic figures and - at a push - the raw numbers on noms and reviews. Yes, 1.2 sounds good. If we are only going to one decimal place, then how about 0-0.5; 0.5-0.8; 0.8-1.2; 1.2-2; >2? If we have a sixth colour, use it for 0. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:48, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
That works. Mr rnddude (talk) 22:13, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
I'm all for this (although, not so sure about colours), but we would need a bot to do this. Legobot is already past it's usefulness, so we'd need a new bot to take charge of this. FWIW, I'd like to track this, even if it wasn't part of the nominations page. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 15:28, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I oppose QPQ vehemently. Other sections of Wikipedia operate this method with shoddy results, as people try to gather "credits" so their material can be reviewed. Having said that, I've probably got quite a bit of credit stacked up, so..... no. No. This isn't how to work on quality material for the encyclopedia. Jaunty, jokey, lightweight transient stuff perhaps, but not good articles. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 14:48, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Given that we're running into physical limits due to transclusions, adding nomination limits seems like a necessary step. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 17:45, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Is there a "School for Assessors", or a list of names of editors willing to assist/mentor new assessors. Over the past year I have twice had very experienced editors ask me to assist them through their first GAN assessment. It seems that there is at least a perceived barrier to entry. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:04, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
How embarrassing. I had forgotten that I had put myself on it. Perhaps we could advertise it a little more prominently? Eg in the Drive?
  • Astonishingly (to me) if each editor were restricted to five nominations, there would currently be 106 fewer nominations. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:10, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Numbers like GtM gave above give me pause about the idea of limiting active nominations. If some editor doesn't want to do reviews but is willing to contribute 40 nominations, should we really be turning them away? I realize we're swamped here, but I worry any restriction on the nominations side will leave us with less quality encyclopedia content (since, whether it should or shouldn't, getting that GA icon is clearly motivating to many of us). Ajpolino (talk) 02:23, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
    • Ajpolino: Nominations aren't some gift from the almighty; they're work other editors have to evaluate. If by some chance two or three of their nominations are reviewed at the same time, it's improbable they'll be able to adequately address any issues in a timely manner across all of them anyhow. Posting an article here is cheap, reviewing is hard, and I don't care about "turning away" someone if they aren't contributing to helping the process. Frankly, editors who only post nominations but don't review others' work are producing worse content; evaluating other articles per GA criteria makes one a better editor. GAN shouldn't be pivoted to serving their needs over the wider project's editors. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs [[User talk:|talk]] 12:44, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
Ajpolino: I don't see that a limit of five would result in any less nominations. Unless there are nominators who frequently have more than five articles being reviewed simultaneously. Instead of, say, 16 additional nominations waiting around at GAN, they will wait "off site". I don't see why, over time, it should result in any fewer GAs being achieved by any editor.
Hog Farm I don't think that anyone is suggesting that a nominator be forced to immediately reduce their number of nominations, just not post any more until their current tally is down to four.
Ajpolino, again. No we don't: FAC only permits one nomination per editor at a time. And we wouldn't actually be restricting - no one (I think) is suggesting that any fewer reviews would be carried out if this were in place.
21:09, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
I don't agree that it wouldn't reduce reviews. For example, I'm only able and willing to evaluate some types of articles. Let's say that the nominator puts up five articles, none of which I feel competent to assess, but not #6 or #7, which I find interesting and able to assess. With a limit, I may be busy with something else when those are put up later, or one of us may have left Wikipedia. Also, some noms wait several months for articles to be assessed which means they could exceed five only nominating an article every couple weeks. A limit could definitely reduce the number of articles assessed if we don't see a permanent increase in reviewing. buidhe 05:13, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
  • That actually gives me another idea, Drmies. Quick pass/fail noms don't take much time to review, but they can languish just the same as all other noms. Maybe we could have a listing area where new noms are placed for a quick look over. If they pass there then move them to the nominations area, or if they're ready quick pass them. If they fail, then remove them and leave the nominator a note as to why their submission wasn't listed. The usefulness of such a thing would depend on the proportion of QP/QF noms, though. Do we have any stats on what proportion of noms are QFs? or QPs? Although... practically every idea hinges in some way on the bot and its capabilities... Mr rnddude (talk) 02:28, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Backlog proposal

Hello. I'm thinking about starting up another backlog cleanup drive for the next few months (i.e. 3 to 6 months) or so. Any thoughts or objections? Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 05:10, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

I'd definitely would be interested in that, especially with the results from the last drive :) Perhaps @Barkeep49: or @Lee Vilenski: might have any ideas about it? --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 17:33, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
If now isn't the most suitable time for a backlog drive, I don't know when would be. I think similar rules to the last backlog drive, potentially for two months given the current climate. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 18:31, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
Agreed, I've been mostly working on the oldest nominations in Bio & med over the last month or so, and would be happy to continue a push on that front. Thanks in advance to the organizers. Ajpolino (talk) 20:37, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
If I can propose another barnstar for the backlog drive? The 'Best New Reviewer' - probably just a version of the reviewer's barnstar, awarded to the user who – of all users who started the backlog with 5 or less reviews – completes the most reviews. It aims to retain new reviewers rather than just bump up the efficiency of the main ones. Kingsif (talk) 20:47, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
Mad for it. Let's get it on, ASAP. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 20:47, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
In general I favor a once a year rather than this twice a year approach. I understand why there's some urgency now and if we do one now I would suggest we not do one again 6 months from now. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:59, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
Could we look at the idea of September drive in September? I'd argue we'll never get a better time to do a backlog drive than over this time. Personally, a bi-annual review drive isn't pushing me away from reviewing things the res of the year. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 10:12, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
I agree. Carpe diem. Without taking advantage of people's available time right now, the GA project only has itself to blame if the backlog grows out of control. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 12:53, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
Sounds like folks are interested in a backlog drive now. Any volunteers to organize it (or is someone already drafting it?). I can put a page together, but I don't wish to duplicate efforts. Thanks! Ajpolino (talk) 15:20, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
I'm sure it would help. I thought maybe the WikiCup would help with the backlog, but the backlog's been growing despite over 200 claimed reviews since the beginning of January. Hog Farm (talk) 17:37, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
As I said at the time of the last drive, GoCE has drives every other month and tracking them over the past ten years they seem to have steadily gained participants. As well as driven their backlog down by 98%. Let's have frequent GAN drives; if participation wanes, then we can back off with the frequency. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:42, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

'Draft' drive page

Started here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/GAN Backlog Drives/April–May 2020. Details can be tweaked, but I think we just need to get cracking on it. Harrias talk 19:02, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

I support starting this drive. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:38, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
Looks like we're starting in about 80 minutes; a lot of editors have already signed up on the drive page. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:42, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
Is there a way to broadcast more widely the fact that the backlog drive is happening? I stumbled across the previous one a day or two before it ended, and likewise only discovered this one by chance. I imagine there are some others who might similarly be interested but presently uninformed. --Usernameunique (talk) 21:12, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
It's a good thought. Any ideas where we could put it? I've posted to Village Pump (miscellaneous). If there was a place that had a set of users it would make sense to notify I would be happy to mass message them. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:13, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
If there is a way to leave a message on the talk pages of those that have successfully nominated good articles before, that might be helpful. Another option would be to place a notice at the top of user's watchlists. --Usernameunique (talk) 21:03, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Reviews counter

Over the last 30 or so hours I've started three reviews, but the counter (i.e., the parenthetical part of (Reviews: 41) Usernameunique) has not updated; it should be up to 44. Is this an issue, or does it just take some time to update? --Usernameunique (talk) 01:59, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

  • If you don't wait for Legobot to update (it runs every 20 mins) before quick-passing or quick-failing, then the review won't be added to your tally, ever. Perhaps that's what's going on. buidhe 02:19, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Yep, that was it. I changed one of them from "on hold" back to nothing; Legobot just ran, and lo and behold, my tally is up to 42. Guess I'll do the same for the others. Thanks both for your help and input. --Usernameunique (talk) 02:44, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
  • A combination of this and picking up reviews left unfinished means my counter is way below the actual number, I don't think it really matters unless any of the suggestions on not being able to nominate without a certain ratio happen, so it shouldn't be too much of a worry if the bot doesn't catch them all - I find that GARs are often missed. Kingsif (talk) 04:39, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Letting the bot run after opening the review and before changing the GA nominee template yourself (either by editing it or replacing it with GA or FailedGA) is what the bot expects; if you don't and instead preempt the bot, then it doesn't do various background tasks like incrementing the review count, posting about the review's opening on the nominator's page, transcluding the review on the article talk page, or ultimately adding the {{good article}} template to the article. As long as you wait over 20 minutes between saving the newly created review page and making any edits to the template on the article talk page, you should be safe thereafter. (Note that some people get their review total incremented beyond what it should be if there is something wrong with the GA nominee template, like a misspelled or miscapitalized subtopic or missing status and/or note fields, which prevents it from being added to the GAN page even though the bot recognizes that the nomination template is there.) BlueMoonset (talk) 19:38, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Article or List?

Willesden Jewish Cemetery - I really like this and it's been waiting a while for a review. I'd be pleased to pick it up but I have an immediate concern around whether it's actually an article, or really a list. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists tells me that "Articles are intended to consist primarily of prose, though they may contain some lists". To me, Willesden is closer to a list, something like, "List of notable people buried in Willesden Jewish Cemetery", than a prose article. That said, I don't think we have a Good List process. I'd appreciate advice on this point before I begin the GAR. I've pinged Headhitter so that they're aware of the query. KJP1 (talk) 07:42, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Many thanks. I think FLC is a good way forward. Let's see what Headhitter thinks. KJP1 (talk) 08:54, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
KJP1 and Buidhe Thank you both for your responses: much appreciated. The cemetery is notable – and a historic site – in its own right, so it deserves to stay as an article. But might a way forward be to split off the list of memorials and graves, and the people buried there, into a stand-alone List? Headhitter (talk) 11:33, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
For what it's worth, a list can be the primary article on a topic, and it's not unusual for one, even a featured list, to contain a significant amount of prose about its subject as well. If you think that an article on the cemetery and a list of its graves would fill two separate entries then that might be a good plan but it isn't strictly necessary. Gʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ˣ 11:42, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
See, for example, any article beginning Abbot of or Bishop of for "List of" not being necessary in page name. ——SN54129 11:43, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
Or, Grade II* listed buildings in Monmouthshire. Appearing at an FLC near you now! KJP1 (talk) 12:08, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
@KJP1: ...well, that does sort of have "list" in the title already... ;) ——SN54129 12:14, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
Serial Number 54129 - Very droll! Now, push off and do something useful. Like review an FLC...on some moderately important buildings...in a quaint but obscure county...on the Welsh marches. KJP1 (talk) 12:31, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
@KJP1: well, I found something to embarass myself over anyway  :) ——SN54129 17:25, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Serial Number 54129 - Not at all, very helpful. I like RexxS' demo of the images. See what you think. KJP1 (talk) 17:38, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Looking good, KJP1  :) meanwhile, if you know anyone interested in—err!—medieval arbitration, tell 'em to look in at FAC. Of course, arbitration has got a bit of a bad reputation around here, which might put peeps off! Keep safe, K ——SN54129 17:39, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Serial Number 54129 - Yep, it's going quite well. I see you're offline at the moment, but if you get a connection, I'd appreciate it if you could review the amendments and see if you're happy. In the interim, I shall certainly join the lovefest over at Loveday but you're doing quite well without further assistance! KJP1 (talk) 09:05, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Back online KJP1  :) yes, thanks for that, on reflection, perhaps next time eh? I haven't decided yet, but it might be a murdered watermelon  :) all the best! ——SN54129 13:45, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Serial Number 54129 - Will do. The Case of the Murdered Melon. Is that one of the Peter Wimsey series, following on from the Bludgeoned Banana, the Poisoned Pomegranate, the... oh God, enough! KJP1 (talk) 16:19, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Remove ga review

How can I request to remove a Ga Review? Beatleswillneverdie (talk) 15:52, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Nominator semi-retired

Hello!

I've recently did a review for a song by Miike Snow called "The Heart of Me". However, the nominator is semi-retired and his last edits were around January 2020. I didn't noticed that on his page, as I chose the article, not the nominator. I've put the review on hold, if someone wants to fix the article I would very much appreciate, it should take no a great amount of your time.

Kind regards, MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 17:18, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Merger of review stats

May I ask, where should I go to get my reviewer stats merged since I was renamed some time ago? NoahTalk 15:40, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

I've taken care of it, Hurricane Noah. Combining the 12 from your previous name and the 22 from your current name puts you at 34 as of the latest iteration of the GAN page. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:26, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
BlueMoonset, Could I please get this for my previous username Catrìona? I didn't know it was possible! buidhe 04:43, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
Buidhe, done. There were 24 under the previous name and 26 under the current name, so the GAN page now shows 50 reviews. BlueMoonset (talk) 14:02, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks! buidhe

Withdrawing offer to conduct GA review of Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality

I volunteered to conduct a GA review of Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality, but I have decided to withdraw. I have notified the nominator, who provided several pointed criticisms of the first two paragraphs of the review I had started. (That's pretty much as far as I got before I decided to withdraw.) Given the nominator's close involvement with the article, I will defer to him/her/them when it comes to finding someone else to conduct a review. (The GA instructions include this: "If you are in a situation where you absolutely cannot continue to review the article, please contact the nominator. Consider helping them find a new reviewer. If necessary, leave a note on the GA nominations talk page.")

And, yes, the next time I volunteer to conduct a GA review I will write my entire review in plain text and then publish the review when I am done.   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 04:03, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

  • I've dealt with this by altering the article's status to request a new review. Thanks for reviewing GANs and I'm sorry it did not work out well in this case. buidhe 04:35, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
Thank you, but I am not sure that what you have done fixes the issue. WP:GAN still states that "this article is being reviewed", although it now lists the reviewer as "unknown", which is confusing. Freeknowledgecreator (talk) 10:10, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
Freeknowledgecreator, the fix was not quite complete but is now, so it no longer says there's any review happening. The nomination is now back to waiting for a reviewer; I hope one picks up your nomination soon. (We do have a backlog drive ongoing, so with luck it won't be too long before that happens.) BlueMoonset (talk) 14:07, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Several articles I have contributed to significantly were taken off good article nominations

I got this message: "Reverted inappropriate GAN nomination; user is not a signifiant contributor to the article"

What do I do? Do I just try nominating it again? How do I prevent this from happening?Factfanatic1 (talk) 09:08, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

  • Factfanatic1, if this was done incorrectly, then it would be appropriate to revert the edit removing the template. However, I looked at your edit history, and one of the articles that you nominated Amandla Stenberg, you are not in the top 10 contributors by authorship, so removal of the tag is justified. I would seek consensus on the talk page before trying to renominate. buidhe 09:35, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Factfanatic1, I actually understand the concern MWright96 may have when they reverted your GANs. Your account only started editing less than a week ago, and yet you nominate over 10 articles, all at the same time, without any evidence you have made any attempts to improve these or check they are GA standard. Now, I can't prove you have not done this, but I'd be surprised if you have genuinely checked each and every one and found that nothing needed doing on any of them to them put them through a GAN. You're right that "anyone can nominate an article", but it's generally accepted this is to encourage anyone to develop one and feel they can then nominate without prejudice, than the approach you took. You have not yet demonstrated yourself as a competent editor or reviewer with so little edit history, so nominating 1 or 2 articles initially would have perhaps been a wiser choice, and even better with some demonstration that you have made efforts towards improving them beforehand. It isn't a race. Bungle (talk • contribs) 10:12, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I hadn't seen this conversation when I posted similar thoughts on Factfanatic1's talk page later on April 9, which they've since deleted. They have also opened consensus discussions on a few of the article talk pages where their GA nominations were reverted. BlueMoonset (talk) 14:18, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Talk:New Love (Dua Lipa song)/GA1

Unfortunately I have asked for a second opinion on this review because I don't believe the reviewer is cut out to review this. Their comments are bizarre and they cannot articulate themself properly. This is frustrating for me because I feel like they have wasted my time and now I don't know what to do next? Should they just fail the review and then I renominate in hope a more capable editor can do the review? @BlueMoonset: CoolMarc 08:23, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Coolmarc, we'll find a reviewer to take over the existing review; I know there's been a second opinion given, but the editor can't take over the review. Pinging Kingsif, who had been acting as a mentor to Happypillsjr, though not having much success in guiding them to improved reviews. Given the number of problematic reviews by Happypillsjr here, perhaps they should be formally requested to stop reviewing at GAN going forward. BlueMoonset (talk) 13:20, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
I just gave the article a quick read, and apart from a few spots of punctuation it looks fine. I might be able to take it over. As for Happypillsjr, they have been strongly hinted on at least three occasions to maybe stop reviewing. Since it doesn't seem to get through, perhaps a more formal warning is needed. It is quite an exceptional case with a number of problems that aren't going away, to the detriment of the project. Kingsif (talk) 15:24, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
Thank you Kingsif! Let me know if you are able to take over. CoolMarc 19:11, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Template explanation issue

Hi on Wikipedia:Good article nominations/templates the written out entry for the GAProgress template is missing the copyvio parameter. I tried to edit it in but I couldn't and the talkpage redirects to here. Mujinga (talk) 10:24, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Mujinga, I just made what I think is the necessary edit, and it looks okay on the page. Let me know if there's anything else that needs to be done (or if it isn't quite right). Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 13:51, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks BlueMoonset that's the change I was asking for. On my screen it's formatted a bit weirdly, with copyvio being on a line of its own, but the main thing is that the entry is complete. Mujinga (talk) 15:43, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
I've adjusted the formatting; let me know if there are any other issues. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:45, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Nominator on Wikibreak

I created the page last night, and was intending to start reviewing National Pacification Army today. However, the nominator left a message on my talk saying that they are "on break from Wikipedia indefinitely and I will most likely not be participating in the GA Review for this reason". Is it worth conducting a review, or should I just fail the article? Eddie891 Talk Work 13:04, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

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