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Instructions separated

I've moved the instructions to a subpage: Wikipedia:Good article review/instructions. This is so that it's easy to see what edits are being made to the instructions, independently of the edits to all the reviews that are going on. Mike Christie (talk) 14:35, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Dani California

While this article is at GAR, some editor has just blindly come along and passed the article. I disagree with this, as the article is at GAR and the people there should've waited for consensus. Furthermore, if they'd actually reviewed the GAR in the first place they would've addressed the given concerns (the citation style is poor). Can someone revert this totally invalid pass and let us continue with this specific GAR. Thanks for your time. LuciferMorgan 21:37, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I object to this bullying and improper comment; especially since it seems to be in the interest of a standard that LuciferMorgan has invented to the surprise of his fellow editors. It may be time for an RfC . Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:31, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Mr Anderson, I think you need to cool off a bit. Unilateral action on a GAR that is still under discussion is inappropriate. Also, your recent comments at GAR have shown a general animosity towards a process that has served wikipedia well. Please leave LuciferMorgan alone and lets return to good faith concensus building here. Our goal is to improve the article so that it will be GA status. Several editors have requested a simple fix; you seem reticent to make any change to the article. What is the point of NOT complying with the changes requested? --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:01, 31 May 2007 (UTC)]
That it's not in WP:WIAGA; making it a requirement now and unilaterally is violating guidelines; some would call it cheating. In this case, many editors don't know how to use {{citeweb}}, or find it more trouble than it is worth. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:54, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
First of all, you are no one to be calling someone else out for inventing anything, considering the completely ridiculous changes you are attempting to make to the GA delisting process section, the ones you added with ZERO discussion with those of us who actively participate in the process. Past that, the cite web template is not difficult to understand. If you can edit and article, you can use the cite web template. Period. I get that you find it to be more trouble than it's worth. Much like you, apparently, find it to be too much trouble to make necessary edits to the article you wish to have promoted to GA; deciding to instead invest all of your time harassing us, and attempting to force us to make the changes for you. It's not going to happen, so stop with the inappropriate behavior. And if you feel RFC is in order, by all means, request it. LaraLoveT/C 07:16, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I've left a full informal review of this article on the custodian's talk page, as he requested I look back over it. Hopefully, he will make the necessary changes to bring it up to standard. If anyone has the time of desire to help him out, I'm sure it would be much appreciated. LaraLoveT/C 05:24, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Individual vs. speedy delisting

Can I suggest a minor change in procedures, which I hope will be viewed as cosmetic? The motivation for this is that the term and process known as "speedy delisting" is not good spin for the GA project, since it is liable to wind editors up unnecessarily when they discover

  • the article was put up for review, but then delisted before they had a chance to comment;
  • the article is considered to be so bad by GA review that it got "speedily delisted".

Since, any editor can delist an article, it seems to me that is no need to aggravate other editors in this way. Instead, I suggest, the procedure should be known as an "individual delist" or something like that. In other words, if an editor spots an article on GA/R which they themselves would simply have delisted without recourse to GA/R, then they do just that, i.e., they

  1. remove the article from GA/R, with an edit line like "individual delist";
  2. follow the established procedures for individually delisting the article.

In this way, an individual is clearly taking responsibility for the delisting, and the GA project as a whole receives less flak. It also has the advantage that the same procedures for individual delisting apply both to a delist which never comes to GA/R and to one which does.

This would work best if coupled with a clarification of the procedures for individual delisting so that they are not regarded as "speedy", and are never referred to as speedy delists. In particular, the guidelines recommend leaving a message on the talk page before delisting ("I am intending to delist this article for the following reasons..."): other editors should be given a chance to respond to this before the delisting actually occurs ("I have now delisted the article"). Geometry guy 13:13, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure whether there is an option to "speedy delist" a GA/R-ed article put down anywhere, but I believe this should be strictly forbidded. Articles should be brought here when the decision of a GA reviewer is contested and cannot be settled between the involved parties on the talk page, so that third-party opinions are requested. If an article DOES merit delisting, it should be delisted, and if the reviewers have doubts, they should just be bold and do it. If they do the wrong thing, the article will end up in GA/R, but GA/R should not be used as a dumping ground for the "unsure".
OTOH, there might be cases when a persistent user would post a delisted article up for review despite a glaring inconformity with WIAGA. When this happens, we just have to go through the entire process, with most users commenting probably just limiting themselves to "voting" to delist citing the criterium failed. The article remains off the list, so no harm is done. If some user would become disruptive in his posting articles up for review despite their evident shortcomings, there are more general Wikipedoa procedures to handle such behaviour.
Finally - a delisting is a delisting. Just like one can pass or fail an article at any time, anybody can and should delist whenever they see an article not meeting the WP criteria. If the delisting was improper, the article will be brought back by means of GA/R, so in the end little harm will be done. PrinceGloria 13:26, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
PS. Hmm, I just realized that I am hereby proposing to do away with the entire first function of GA/R as described on the main GA/R page. I need to think it over now, but I still believe "speedy" should not be an option here, we need a proper close, even if the closing user (shouldn't it be done by at least an admin?) can be a bit more decisive in obvious cases.
I support the suggestion. At least the concept. I'm not sure I like "individual delist", but something like "Quick-fail delist", considering they generally meet the quick-fail criteria that would prevent an article from initial promotion. I'd also like to quickly respond to PrinceGloria's comment, "GA/R should not be used as a dumping ground for the 'unsure'." That is part of our duties. It's not uncommon to come across an article that you think should be delisted, but you aren't quite sure, so you don't want to be so bold as to just delist it. It's appropriate, in those cases, to bring it to GA/R for additional opinions and input. It also benefits the article to have several editors look over and leave a list of issues to be resolved. However, there have been cases when an editor has brought an article to review that clearly did not meet standards and I or others have "speedily" delisted it, either stating that it should not have even been brought to review or enacting WP:SNOWBALL. Regards, LaraLoveT/C 16:04, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm glad you like it, but I think you are missing the point if you want to call it "Quick-fail delist". Delisting by a single wikipedian/user/editor can potentially save a lot of time and trouble at GA/R, so I think it is only reasonable that it should be done with consideration and courtesy to article editors: it should not be "quick" and it should not be a "fail". Other possible names would be "Wikipedian delist", "User delist", "Editor delist". On the other hand, I have in mind that it could go well beyond quick-fail criteria (which would benefit from renaming as well, in my opinion: GAC-unready perhaps?): for articles closer to GA standard, the delister could even offer to be a reviewer for an immediate renomination: "delist-and-renom". The whole idea is to leave the process up to individual reviewers as far as possible. Geometry guy 16:39, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Just to give a little history on the subject, when speedy delisting was first instituted, the point was to allow editors to remove articles which blatantly failed the GA criteria, by justifying on the talk page how the article failed, and that was pretty much it. Speedy delisting as an option was removed by a vote of like 4 people, (I was one of the four, and the only dissenter) I think because people felt that was too quick or something. When the GA/R's quickly piled up and listing many of the obviously substandard articles on the list would of taken forever, we finally got speedy delisting back, though the wording in the instructions was just along the lines of "You can delist an article immedietly", speedy delisting was just a little catchphrase to identify that particular kind of delisting, there really wasn't an official terminology for removing an article's GA status immedietly. The term "Quick-failing" was actually invented by someone making some template for the Candidates page, people were nominating articles which were, quite frankly, terrible, and apparently some people felt that those articles wern't really worthy of the time of day, so someone proposed using a Quick-fail template (I think for articles which had 0 references initially) for many candidates to just get them off of the list. My point is that the various terminology being thrown around here isn't really the official name for delisting articles immedietly which clearly fail GA criteria, and quite frankly, i'm not sure why there needs to be some offical term for it, though the ArticleHistory template doesn't seem to have a current status setting compatible with failing articles immedietly. (The closest one is GA/R's, where it uses the wording that an article is delisted due to consensus, but of course, delisting an article immedietly is a consensus of one.) Homestarmy 20:12, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
ArticleHistory doesn't use the consensus terminology for GA/R text. The appropriate currentstatus code is DGA (delisted good article), or for nominees, FGAN (former good article nominee). I don't really see the point of "quick failing" a GA nomination, since fail or "quick fail" involves one editor making a call. The couple nominations I've seen "quick failed" were over matters of form that, had I been editing the article, I would have much preferred someone mention on the talk page for fixing. Gimmetrow 02:49, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Individual delisting is not something I invented. This is the page before I altered a single instruction; and it says, for those who look through the blue-wash, that a single editor can delist - and should, if he is certain that it should not be listed. I do recommend two tweaks; but they are discussed below, and this wording (which is Geometry guy's) was devised to answer the qualm expressed. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:35, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Civility and the zeitgeist

Many editors have probably noticed all four of these, but for those who don't have all the pages on their watchlist, there have been conversations with a similar background at WT:GA/R, WT:GA, WT:FAC and WT:FAR in the last few days. I'm posting this note at all four places, to make the point that incivility (of various levels) and needlessly aggravating language is noticed and has a real impact. Here are some section links:

I don't have a prescription for this, but it doesn't seem coincidental to me that these threads are all going on at once. Mike Christie (talk) 02:38, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

"Speedy delist" and "quick fail" again

I agree with the arguments I've seen that "speedy delist" and "quick fail" are terms that may irritate some good-faith editors. I don't see any reason to use those terms. As Homestarmy has pointed out, the terms are not on the page instructions, they're just casual terms used by frequenters of this page to refer to the processes.

I looked back at a 15 May version of the GA/R page, and there are half-a-dozen uses of "speedy delist", along with a "delist on sight", by four different editors. There's one only use of the word on the current version of the page. I think that's an improvement. There are no uses of "quick fail" in the old version, and only one (though it's referenced repeatedly) in the current version.

If it's true that the processes aren't the problem, just the terminology, then I suggest we just agree to avoid the use of the terms. We could put that into the instructions if that would help. I'd rather not have people editing other editor's comments in order to remove the word "speedy" and so on; it would suffice to have a note under any "speedy delist" comment reminding the editor that the usage is deprecated in order to avoid an adversarial atmosphere. Mike Christie (talk) 14:52, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for coming in on this one, and for making a concrete improvement. It doesn't completely address the issue that I raised, but maybe you and others here don't agree with the point I was trying to make anyway. Just to clarify, my view is that if a reviewer wants to add speedy delist or quick fail to an article on GA/R, then they should instead take responsibility and delist the article (not speedily, but with all of the usual considerations for delisting by an individual user). This is slightly different from asking the reviewer instead to moderate the tone of their language. I appreciate it takes time for a user to take an article off GA/R and delist it themselves with due consideration for article authors, but it can potentially save a lot of time at GA/R, and hence for all users who contribute to this process. Geometry guy 16:41, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm the one that frequently uses the term "Quick-fail", but contrary to the comment above that the term is "not on the page instructions", it is, in fact, listed on WP:GAC and Wikipedia:Reviewing_good_articles#How_to_review_an_article. Those criteria allow reviewers to fail a nomination (or, decline, is that more coddling?) without doing a complete review. I use those same criteria to conclude that listed articles should be delisted, in some cases. As for the suggestion that these be immediately delisted rather than wait for consensus, I am all about that. In some cases I have gone ahead and delisted an article that clearly failed. However, I don't think this should become the norm. Once an editor has brought an article to review, it seems inappropriate to immediately delist it without discussion, even when the article should never have made it to GA/R. The train articles, for example, should have all been immediately delisted.
Changing the names of the terms seems pointless to me. Why should we gingerly step around the issues? We have to completely overwrite our vocabulary for the protection of editors' feelings? If we must refrain from using "speedy delist", then I feel we should also refrain from using the term "delist". All speedy adds is that it should be done quickly. And, I would venture to guess, all articles for which the term "speedy delist" was used had been promoted before the current criteria and in no way, even by the custodians of the article, could have been argued as worthy of keeping the tag. LaraLoveT/C 18:43, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
It is not about vocabulary, but emphasis, and process. My view is that delisting should never be done "quickly". In many, if not most, cases, it should be done "easily", by one editor, with minimal process and discussion. This is not at all the same as "speedy". "Speedy", at GA/R, in particular, is used to establish a consensus that an article is unworthy of careful consideration. I can see the efficiency benefit of that, but I find it unhelpful. Instead I think the emphasis should shift towards a different efficiency saving. Instead of several reviewers establishing that an article should be delisted quickly, one user should take the time to list, on the talk page, the reasons why the article needs to be delisted, and then (preferably after a short pause), delist it. Discussion of articles which clearly need delisting wastes everyone's time, which would be better spent by one user listing points where the article falls short of the standard. Geometry guy 19:14, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Why should we even be talking about what people call immediete failures at all? If the language being used actually isn't nice, then that should fall under WP:CIVIL, I really don't see any reason for this new "warning" or really any need to officially define terminology hear at all, the instructions already give an explanation for what immediete delisting is that's more descriptive than just "quick-fail" or "speedy-delist". If somebody actually is using language that's just mean, (Which I really don't think speedy delist or quick fail is) there's already an applicable Wikipedia policy there. I don't ever remember seeing anyone actually complain in a real GA/R when people call for their articles to be speedy failed or another term like that, and just stacking on more rules just in case somebodies feelings might get hurt in the future sounds really Esperanzaesque, and that type of thing didn't end so well. Homestarmy 19:30, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Because Wikipedia is not a schoolroom, and we are not schoolmarms, seeing whether our fellow editors have written passing or failing articles. Often, using pass and fail will be interpreted as that even when not intended; and using them will encourage the mindset.
Do you regard David Gerard as Esperanzesque? Yet his hallmarks of bad process include:
  • Prescriptive when it could be phrased as a guideline
    • This actually reduces its effectiveness.
  • Fails to assume good faith; excludes non-regulars
    • Regulars assume bad faith or stupidity of non-regulars (other Wikipedians or anons), and other regulars consider this acceptable behaviour.
    • Outsiders frequently complain of exclusionary process or ill treatment by regulars in the process; regulars are dismissive of these concerns.
  • Process actions that are taken as personal attacks
    • If regulars keep having to say "don't take it personally" over and over and over, there's something deeply defective in the process that will be damaging to the encyclopedia project, even if you have a ready list of reasons why you absolutely have to do whatever the thing is people are taking personally.
  • Works through a committee or inadvertent committee structure
    • Even ad-hoc committees can only work if they scale with editors and articles.
    • Forms an in-group susceptible to the above problems.
    • Any process with regular voting or straw-polls is susceptible to this.
Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:10, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) Though I haven't agreed with most of the specific remedies that Septentrionalis has proposed, I do think it has to be accepted as fact that the existing vocabulary and style at GA/R sometimes causes friction. I didn't object to his inclusion of "pass" and "fail" in the list of terms to be avoided, in the instructions, though Homestarmy was also correct when he asserted (in the edit summary to his removal of them) that there had been no discussion of those terms; I don't think there's much harm in requesting anodyne language be used in a process that is demonstrably capable of offending people.

Yes, one solution is for editors to toughen up. That just doesn't sound like it can possibly be the best answer. I don't think WP:CIVIL strictly applies; this is more common sense -- let's phrase things in a way that gets the job done without annoying people who've put in volunteer time.

I haven't been involved enough with GA/R to be able to make many judgements. From that somewhat external perspective, I'll say a couple of things: First, from some of the diffs presented (in other related forums) it appears WP:SCG is occasionally overlooked, which must surely irritate the science and maths editors. Second, I have no doubt that the editors who volunteer time at GA/R to look over the articles listed are only interested in improving Wikipedia, and their language is not intended to annoy the custodians of the articles under review. I think if both those things are born in mind -- which amounts to saying that both sides of this debate have right on their side -- then improvements to the process can probably be made. My own suggestion, as above, is that starting by strengthening civility (beyond what any rule might require) is always productive. Mike Christie (talk) 02:26, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Seeing the reservations posted above and confronting them with the actual situation, I would say - if you don't want others to judge your work, do not submit it to GA! That's what GA is what about, reviewing, and yes, it does involve taking a position of some kind of authority and making personal judgements, and the GA process allows anybody to assume this position. Posting a GA nomination is posting a request for such a review, and not for editorial help or attaboys or whatever. A review is a review. Of course it is only reasonable to make tiny tweaks yourself rather than write lenghty volumes on why they should be done, but in the end, it is all about establishing whether the article is a GA or not, helping with article improvement is just a, to say so, by-product of the process. So you can't expect to get your article improved by others to the GA status or to get detailed instructions on how to do so. The place to go for such things is e.g. the Good Article Collaboration of the Week.
Secondly, concerning "quick fails" - I believe that there should be a possibility of delisting or failing articles that clearly do not meet an important criterium by far, without having to compose a lenghty review of the aspect's of the article, or to seek other's opinions. Some examples include articles that lack references (either completely, or e.g. contain only three citations for minor factoids and no "general" reference list that could pose as the soruce for all other info), or articles written from an overty POV. Reviewing such articles in detail is pretty pointless, as they would probably need rather radical changes (you cannot say which parts are true and not OR in an unsourced articles, and thus how the article would look like in the end). I personally do limit myself to stating the criterium the article fails to meet in the first place and why, and I haven't got a complaint yet.
Whether this procedure should be called "speedy" or "quick" is really not that important to me, though I don't find either term to be offensive in any way. It just signifies that the article IS delisted without a full review, and that there's a reason to do so. The only thing I believe could be changed is making the possibility more visible for reviewers and nominators, so that everybody would be aware one may do it.
Oh, and it is pretty obvious to me that when an article is "speedy" delisted or failed, but the rationale for doing so is disputed when it is put up for GA/R, the "speedy" procedure cannot be used again. Perhaps we need to put that in writing too. PrinceGloria 10:45, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Continuing the above discussion

Quite a bit of the discussion here has concerned "editors' feelings", "offending editors" and "editors' need to toughen up". I think this misses the point. The issue is not about editors getting offended: that is their problem. The issue is about them losing interest: that is Wikipedia's problem. Editors are volunteers and usually have a wide variety of things on their plate. If an article gets speedily delisted at GA/R, e.g. for lack of inline citation, or receives a review such as "lack of references", it increases the chances that the article will be abandoned, not because anyone is offended, but because no one can be bothered. More seriously for GA, editors, even whole projects, could lose interest in the entire GA process, because it seems to be too much hassle and not particularly helpful.

There seems to be a widespread perception that those involved in the GA process see themselves as guardians who "uphold the GA standard", rather than fellow editors who share the common goal of improving articles. This may be a misperception, but I think GA needs to shake it off — speedily. Geometry guy 11:22, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

It's all a matter of appropriate wording to me... (i.e. no need to change the process, instructions or criteria) Perhaps we could use a boilerplate text to paste to the article's talk page when failing for lack of references, explaining why this article can't be promoted and how to attempt at fixing it. Well, having to look for resources can be very discouraging, but OTOH it can be exciting too. And, frankly speaking, Wikipedia needs the editors who are excited by it more... PrinceGloria 11:43, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Considering the backlog at GAC, I don't think anyone is losing interest. Articles that are speedy delisted aren't articles that can easily be brought up to standards. Additionally, most have long since been abandoned, so there really isn't a custodian to lose interest. As you noted, "editors are volunteers and usually have a wide variety of things on their plate." That would include those of use who participate in the GA/R process. But here you all are trying to require us to make so many edits to an article and to list, in detail, all the issues with articles that come no where close to GA. The entire point of speedy delisting is to avoid the review. So to say we must leave a review for speedy delists so as not to discourage the custodians from have GA as a goal is totally defeating the purpose.
It would help if those trying to change every aspect of GA/R had some experience with it. Blindly demanding changes to a process you obviously don't understand makes no sense. It's also an enormous waste of time considering those of us who actually take the time to evaluate these articles for the purposes of improving WP and upholding the value of GA, are forced to waste countless hours debating pointless arguments. In the words of a great wise man, "Don't fix it, if it ain't broke." Hypotheticals and noted disputed situations with an archived pattern of once don't throw up a red flag for change. The process, with it's title, votes, traditions and everything else has been working fine for as long as it's been working.
With that said, these proposed changes—and the debates they spawn—need to come to an end. Start a new header or create a new page, whatever. Propose your proposals, each to their own. Let there be votes. No cheating, no long debates, no detailed responses. Support or oppose. Period. Save the comments as they've all already been covered. Let's get this over with so that those of us who value Wikipedia and the value of GA can get back to work. LaraLoveT/C 05:48, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
What would really help is if LaraLove would at some point reply to the proposals that have actually been made. What is "So to say we must leave a review for speedy delists so as not to discourage the custodians from have GA as a goal is totally defeating the purpose" supposed to reply to? As far as I can make out through the atrocious grammar, Lara is objecting to a proposal that individual delists be reviewable. I don't think this would be even a change of rules; but who has suggested this rule? Perhaps if she revises, she will think more clearly. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:44, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Lara seems to be objecting to adding large amounts of extra effort and/or process towards justifying the immediete delisting of an article. Homestarmy 21:03, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
I do not see how you construe her prose to say that; but if so, she is arguing against a position which no-one has suggested. Geometry guy has recommended doing something to clean up a delisted article; and I think that a serivce to Wikipedia, but that's not a requirement. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:18, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I think Lara is partly replying to discussions on other pages. Yes, there have been many ideas to change the GA process, but here we have been discussing a specific and relatively minor one. Anyone who finds these discussions pointless has no obligation to contribute to them. The quality of the grammar of contributors is also irrelevant to the discussion.

There are three quite concrete things which can be picked out from Lara's comments:

  • Considering the backlog at GAC, I don't think anyone is losing interest. But does this show a lack of potential good articles or a lack of reviewers? And also, are the GA standards too high? I find it depressing that the number of articles in the GA tier still has the same order of magnitude as the number of articles in the FA tier (I would not tolerate this for WP 1.0 ratings). There should be at least 10000 good articles amongst the millions in Wikipedia! And one might indeed ask, why are there not enough people willing to review? Lara might argue that it is too demanding, but why? And might it also be too uncomfortable to put oneself in the firing line? These are just questions, not answers.
  • The entire point of speedy delisting is to avoid the review. And this is why it should be deprecated. There are better ways to make the process more efficient than wriggling out of adding the GAList template and a few comments to an article talk page.
  • "Don't fix it, if it ain't broke." I agree. I wouldn't be wasting my time by trying to explore all the possibilities for improving this process if it wasn't broken. Some of the suggestions have been unrealistic, but please, here, let us focus on the realistic ones, not on any bad feeling that has been generated by debates on other pages.

Thanks, Geometry guy 21:24, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Excuse my one typo. As far as what it was in reply to, who knows? There are so many ridiculous, pointless requests on so many pages, I can't even keep up with it myself. With that said, I'm out. It's been real, but I've got better things to do. I'll be back when the new kids go back to their own playground. Until then, good luck with the backlog. Regards, LaraLoveT/C 05:21, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

The us-and-them attitude here saddens me, but I recognise that similar attitudes have arisen elsewhere, on all "sides" of the discussion. Anyway, there was one other comment of Lara's that I wanted to respond to, namely "It would help if those trying to change every aspect of GA/R had some experience with it." This is a fair point. Fortunately someone put up Klee's measure problem for GA/R after I added a Start-Class maths rating to it. This has given me the opportinity to practise what I preach and delist the article. Although I have no expertise in computational complexity, I was able to tweak some of the prose, expand the lead, add a few wikilinks, and leave a reasonable review for fellow editors. I did far more than I would expect or recommend as the norm, but still, it didn't take too long, and saved some time of other editors at GA/R.
Now, concerning "trying to change every aspect of GA/R", this is not my point of view at all. From my point of view, all these different proposals have arisen in a search for any improvement to GA/R (and its relation with WP) which everyone would find acceptable. Just one would be enough. Anyway, it doesn't look like this is going to happen, but the discussions have at least risen awareness of the issues, and generated a few helpful tweaks, so this kid doesn't feel it has been a complete waste of time playing here for a bit. :) Geometry guy 14:01, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
This entire discussion has put me off Wikipedia for some time, so excuse for not delving into all the intricacies of the above discussion. Just wanted to reply to two specific points:
  1. There are only 2000+ GAs when, seeing how many GAs are there, there should be 10K+ - I absolutely agree. We need MANY more articles complying with at least the GA standard - and I'd rather see WP's core articles on the list than another 8K of Pokemon's or TV show episode synopses (is this the correct plural?) BUT, it doesn't mean I'd lower the standards to have more articles making it... We just need more editors applying higher standards to their editing and go that extra mile further in "polishing" them. Fortunately, there are more and more people around for whom quality is more important than quantity.
  2. Sometimes there are articles that fall far from the GA standards and exhibit deficiencies that make reviewing them pointless (see my above comment for more explanation), and therefore we need the option of NOT leaving a full review. this is, of course, assuming that reviewers do take their job seriously and DO leave a full review normally.
Thank you! PrinceGloria 11:09, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Rewording to review step 5

I'd like to suggest a slight rewording of review step 5 - rather than "stating the problem(s)." it could be "detailing the problem(s)." this would suggest to the reviewer that rather than stating "There's not enough citations in this article", perhaps what s/he should be going for is more like: "There's not enough inline citations in this article - anything that's controversial should be cited, like here, any facts and figures should be cited, like here, and any quotes should be cited, like here." I believe that changing the wording would encourage reviewers to be more specific in their public assessment of the problems with any article up for delisting, and so that would be more helpful for contributors to the article to understand the concerns and to work towards fixing them. -Malkinann 08:32, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

This again goes to show we could use some boilerplate texts - I am afraid my Wikitime is too limited now to be bold and create them myself, but I hope my evasion of Wikipedian duties will not discourage some other brave soul from composing them! PrinceGloria 11:17, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Weird instructions in main page

Here is what you can currenrly read right after the instructions on how to request a review:

Please avoid the term speedy delist, any editor is free to delist an article, without further reference here; and Wikipedia is not a schoolroom. This is a voluntary process, and suggestions that delisted articles are bad should be avoided.

I have not been all that active here, but I cannot recall any consensus on adding such a passage, and overall it seems quite weird to me. Could anybody englithen me on what is its purpose and, more importantly, how it came about? PrinceGloria 23:41, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

User:Pmanderson insisted on it, though there was indeed no consensus to add it nor was there ever one, I simply didn't feel like edit warring to remove it. Homestarmy 23:03, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I think it would be worth waiting a bit for the dust to settle, and then rethinking what goes on this page. The stuff about only WP:WIAGA being "actionable" also needs rethinking, since obviously any suggestion for improving articles is welcome. Geometry guy 23:09, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
User:Pmanderson added it after I posted the first comment in this section above about adding a note to the instructions. I didn't see a consensus, necessarily, but I thought it was OK as an edit to the instructions. As I recall Homestarmy and I both edited it down a little bit from the original version. Mike Christie (talk) 23:23, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I altered the actionable line, I think I more accuratly captured the intention, though it might not be quite correct yet. Homestarmy 23:25, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
The new version seems to be an improvement to me. At the moment there are instructions and advice in several different places on the page, and probably some rationalization would be helpful, but again, there isn't a hurry to do this as the current mix of advice seems reasonable for now. Geometry guy 23:48, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

So, if there wasn't a consensus, can we please remove the line in question (the one PMAnderson added)? I strongly oppose such comments posing as instructions on the GA/R page. PrinceGloria 05:47, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I would have no objection to its removal. Homestarmy 06:02, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
I think I am partly responsible for promoting this idea, and I think there is something in it which is worth keeping. The point is that if an article is so obviously a "speedy delist", then instead of saying so in a bold note on this page, why not delist the article, following the criteria for delisting by an individual editor? I also think that no delisting should be speedy, but should proceed over a day or two, to allow other editors time to respond. This was how I proceeded with Klee's measure problem. Geometry guy 01:29, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I find "Criticisms not based on our agreed standards are not actionable." confusing - can anyone shed any light on what it's supposed to mean? -Malkinann 00:38, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I imagine it is similiar to FAC and FARC, where the FA Director generally will not acknowladge any votes that are based on reasoning that is not compatible with the FA criteria, for example, "Fail, because I hate the article's subject." would be ignored. I haven't seen much problem with non-actionable objections on GA/R though. Homestarmy 00:48, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
I thought it was trying to get at saying "you can disregard any suggestions that would be more appropriate for A-class or FA level", so I'm still a bit confused. -Malkinann 00:53, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Hmm, I suppose I see you're point, while criticisms that are above the GA criteria shouldn't ordinarily be relevant for deciding on an article's status, that doesn't mean they aren't actionable.... Homestarmy 00:55, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, the wording here is a bit odd. I think all editors should be encouraged to take action on any shortcomings raised about an article! Guidance on this page should encourage that, while also advising that shortcomings which are not GA requirements should be phrased as suggestions rather than conditions of GA approval. This makes it easier to make decisions based on the GA criteria alone, and I think that this is the point that is trying to be made. Geometry guy 01:22, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
My interpretation was a little different -- I assumed it meant that if you said something that did not provide much (or any) guidance on what to fix to correct the problem then that would not be "actionable". I think this may have been intended to encourage reviewers to be specific in their comments, rather than say "style needs some work", or something similar.
With regard to removing the instructions, I think on balance some version of it is good. I am not opposed to a delist that is done rapidly, but the term "speedy delist" isn't necessary, and I don't see why we shouldn't discourage it. Mike Christie (talk) 01:36, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree reviewers should be also encouraged to be explicit in their comments, and most reviewers are pretty good about this. On the other hand drawing an attention to a missed criterion can be helpful too, so I use the word "encouraged" rather than "instructions"... Geometry guy 14:07, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
PS. I have moved virtually all guidelines to the /instructions page, following Mike's sensible initiative. Please watch this page. Geometry guy 21:33, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Weird instructions in archive page

On a slightly different topic, the instructions I find most unhelpful at the moment are the ones on the archive page. Here they are:

To archive an article from the disputes page, check over the dispute, and see if any enforcement is necessary. For instance, if a discussion results in 5 editors for delisting an article and 1 against, then delist the article as you archive it. If a dispute is close, for instance, an approximately even amount of editors taking a side, try to make a new comment rather than archiving, to see whether the dispute should continue. Make sure not to archive active discussions, a good rule is to not archive anything that has a comment less than a week old, unless a resolution has been posted to the discussion. An exception to this rule involves disputes which have a clear outcome in these ways: There is at least an 80 percent majority to do something with an article, there are at least 6 votes, and at least three days have passed since the article was nominated for review.

I have to admit, I was a bit shocked. Disputes? Enforcement? Taking a side? Did a police officer write this? More seriously, the procedure is in conflict with the Wikipedia policy that decisions are made by consensus, not by counting votes: it is the quality and validity the comments which matter, isn't it? I assume that common sense is applied here: for example some "votes" could be out of date because the article has improved, but the vote has not been crossed out. So I found it even more surprising that results are summarized, by reviewers whom I greatly respect, in the form Delist: 6-0.

I have come to appreciate that the folk at GA/R are dedicated individuals, keen on improving articles in a cooperative spirit, and often get frustrated when article authors say "that's not in WP:WIAGA". However, using vote counting to decide on "enforcement" does little to encourage such a cooperative spirit. Geometry guy 14:07, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The page was once named Good article/Disputes, which is why "dispute" is there, if nobody enforces the review then only exploiting loopholes in the rules would allow anyone to put articles back on the GA list which should never of been removed, if nobody takes a side in a dispute that means there's nothing to do, and i've never been to the police academy, i'd make a terrible police officer. Pure consensus technically means that every single person must be on the same side, if that was put into practice in most places in Wikipedia, it would pretty much make everything with even a slight amount of controversy come to a halt. I'd like to note that the instructions don't actually say "vote" except at the bottom, (which was added in recently) this is because when the rules took on more or less this form, it didn't look like AfD, people would give their opinion, and the archivist (Which was basically only myself for many months) would read the discussion, figure out who was on each side, and determine what decision was most favored by a good majority. Of course, now, its mostly other people archiving now that this page picked up usage several months ago, and awhile ago, somebody requested that people commenting on reviews write their opinion in bold, which was when all the Keep and Delist started appearing. I believe it was because they wanted to be able to archive the reviews more easily, it was never really formalized as a rule, people just apparently picked up the format. I had nothing to do with making it into explicit vote counting across the board unless people were following me by example, I only took a 2/3's position as a personal thing and kept doing it when nobody objected, and I didn't really mind much when people didn't put Keep or Delist at the beginning of their comments, but if people want to do that for clarity purposes, I just don't see the problem, I don't remember the last time anyone here has actually given a pure vote with no justification at all. (I believe this is why people feel WP:RFA is currently broken, as it stands, providing explanation for a vote is purely optional)
I for one haven't seen any long term problems with the way people archive reviews, if I remember correctly, I had to guide one or two people through how to archive things properly, but after that, everyone taking the initiative and deciding whether or not to archive something and how to archive it seems to be working out fine. I personally like how the instructions here are mostly non-binding, it provides plenty of leeway for common sense. Homestarmy 17:37, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Apologies for the police officer comment — it was meant as a way of expressing my surprise, and not a personal remark. Thanks for clarifying the history, and I agree with your view that the instructions should be mostly non-binding to allow for common sense. I also agree that the archivist has to act on the discussion if action is mandated. I have a couple of remarks.
  • Consensus does not mean everyone agrees with the outcome, as a visit to a controversial AfD or CfD soon confirms: indeed "judgment and discretion are essential to determine the correct action, and in all cases, the discussion itself is more important than the statistics."
  • I am not against keep and delist on GA/R. In fact, I think it is useful (and more readable) to express opinion in this way. What surprises me is that these are counted and then recorded as the "Result" on the archive page. Surely this can only encourage participants to feel that the bold headline is what really matters?
  • In particular, the system at the moment seems to encourage participants to take a side from the very beginning of the discussion. I have no problem with some people doing that, because they hold a strong view, but nearly everyone seems to be doing it. I would much rather see encouragement to enter into a discussion with a more open-minded opinion, such as Close to GA, but... or Needs a lot of work, here's why:. In forums like these, there is a lot to be said for starting out with a Comment, then making ones opinion more explicit later, if necessary, either to support a growing consensus, or to prevent a review being misinterpreted as consensus when there is none. Such an approach can avoid a lot of crossing out!
You have been doing a great job recently clarifying some of the guidelines there about GA/R, Homestarmy. Maybe this one needs an update and some clarification too. Geometry guy 18:48, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Instruction removal

I see PrinceGloria just removed the instruction line about avoiding the term "speedy delist", with an edit summary saying it hadn't been agreed upon. Well, I guess we didn't have complete consensus, but I think there is some support for a version of it. I'm not going to revert, but I'd like to see some similar statement there, perhaps reworded. Mike Christie (talk) 10:20, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I think this may have been a misunderstanding on the part of PrinceGloria, who thought I had just added a new instruction, whereas in fact I had only moved the previously discussed instruction from the main page to the instruction subpage. However, I agree with PrinceGloria's edit summary point that the current phrasing is inappropriate, and was planning to reword it at some point, e.g., to remove the reference to the "schoolroom". I think a discussion would be helpful first, though. Meanwhile I have restored the removed instruction line. Geometry guy 10:54, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
PrinceGloria, could you suggest a form of the instruction that you think would be OK? Or do you think it's just wrong no matter what? I'd like to re-add some form of it; and it seems Geometry guy would too. Obviously Pmanderson, who added it in the first place, would support it, so I think we should talk about what wording would be acceptable, unless there are several other editors who all think it's not needed. Mike Christie (talk) 12:52, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I also dislike the "WP is not a schoolroom" thing. We could make reference to Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions, perhaps? (because it makes a good outline of what arguments to avoid in GAR as well...) although we should make it clear that regardless of whether an article passes GA or fails GA, it's not likely to be deleted. -Malkinann 01:38, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I think something like this would be a good idea, yes. It may also help to address the issue raised by Aaron Bowen in the next section. Geometry guy 10:37, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Where has there been an issue of someone fearing an article would be deleted if it failed GA? Past that, I wholeheartedly support the idea of adding a reference to WP:ATA. As far as the issues with "Speedy", would "Strong" be an appropriate alternative, or is that too harsh as well? LaraLoveT/C 19:23, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure there hasn't, but I think Malkinann's concern was that there might be a misunderstanding if WP:ATA were referenced. Anyway, it is easy to clarify this point. As for language, reviewers are of course free to use as strong language as they like, although I think we should all be encouraged to be constructive. For me the issue with "speedy" is not that it is harsh, but that
  • it is dismissive (compare "the article is a mess" with "the article is not worthy of consideration")
  • it suggests the existence of a process called "speedy delisting".
The extra sentence clarified the latter point by reminding editors that anyone can delist an article. "Speedy delist" (or "speedy keep") is/was often used when a rapid consensus for action developed (see e.g. the rapid consensus for "Chicago theatre" and "George W. Bush"). In this case the right action is often to archive the discussion. Unfortunately, the archiving instructions, which clarify when this is appropriate, only appear on the archive page. I think it would be helpful to have them on the main page. Geometry guy 13:28, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
I've grown not to like Speedy Delist... I have no problem with speedy keep, but I don't like speedy Delist at all---the creators/editors of the articles should (IMHO) be given every opportunity to rewrite their article/defend it. The only time I would support speedy Delist is when the article was passed in poor faith and/or it meets a criteria where it should be deleted!Balloonman 01:31, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Adjusting the guidelines

There are a number of changes which have been suggested to the instructions/guidelines, and I think it is worth having a go at some rewrites. I have made a start at Wikipedia:Good article review/guidelines. So far, I have reformatted the page, copied in the archiving instructions, expanded the first paragraph a bit, and made a few other minor alterations to clarify current practice. I hope that this much is entirely uncontroversial. There is more that I would like to do, but I am going to try my damnedest to produce something that offends no one, and everyone can live with. Main items on the agenda:

  • incorporate the "speedy" and "WP:ATA" issues raised above;
  • rewrite the archiving instructions to clarify them, and make them less numerically prescriptive.

Other editors are most welcome to join in, and it would be particularly helpful to have a simultaneous discussion going on here. I will not switch from the current /instructions to the proposed /guidelines without consensus. Geometry guy 15:04, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Maybe we should have an essay: "So your article's up for GA Review?" with an explanation of how it works and how to use the review to advantage, and how to keep the GA-status. ? -Malkinann 01:13, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
I've had a bit of a punt at an essay on GA/R which can be found at User:Malkinann/Good article review essay - please give me feedback on it on my user talk page. -Malkinann 06:27, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I've had a go at incorporating the two main items on the agenda into the proposed guidelines, but I guess the discussion is mostly being continued below. The essay looks good so far, and provides a nice complement to any proposed guidelines for reviewers. Geometry guy 19:47, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Changes to GA/R

Geometry guy and T-75, I like your arguments, and I appreciate your examples. I'll work on getting the archiving guidelines on the main page. I think we should first amend them, however. Change "percentage of recommendations" to "weight of arguments" in regards to what determines the result.

  • With those changes, should it remain that anyone can determine the result and process the discussion, or should there be only certain editors for whom have experience within the project to do so?
  • If the latter, should those be appointed or merely just have the instructions make note of this?

T-75 made a very good point about how some editors could just write anything with the expectation that their vote would count. In recent weeks, it became all too obvious what a frustration that can be when editors maliciously "vote" with the sole purpose of negatively affecting consensus.

I think everyone should consider these changes and give their opinions/ideas here. LaraLoveT/C 16:46, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. As remarked above, I made a start on this at a proposed Wikipedia:Good article review/guidelines replacement for the /instructions page, so would suggest to make amendments there.
Since anyone can delist an article, I would say that anyone should be able to archive a discussion (unless there is a clear conflict of interest, of course), but would make the point that archiving does involve taking responsibility. Archiving can of course be reverted if it is done improperly. Geometry guy 17:02, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
I did not follow the discussion, but for long I've been thinking that just counting "votes" is a terrible way of closing a GA/R. In extreme cases, there might be an overwhelming majority of fans/detractors of the article posting more or less irrelevant arguments, but if there is just one voice that puts forward a valid argument (i.e. one that is directly linked to WIAGA), that one voice should be able to trump all other.
Therefore, I am leaning towards leaving the closing to a proven group of editors. One solution would be to require the person to be an administrator, as I believe the RfA process is a good test for one's integrity and judgement (I am not saying "flawless", but still much better than anything we have at hand), or we can appoint a "GA/R director" somewhat in the mold of how Raul is responsible for FAs - one person who is generally trusted and enjoyes widespread respect, as well as who would agree to devote their time to review each review (pun not intended) and close it, as well as handle the possible aftermath. PrinceGloria 17:09, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
I like your idea, but I'm not sure GA/R has the participation that FA has. It may be more feasible in our case to appoint a panel. There doesn't have to be a consensus among the panel, the panel would simply be the editors granted permission to process review discussions. Whether or not they are admins may depend on whether or not we have a few admins currently working the project. Jayron is an admin, and I think he would be great for this, but I'm not sure how much participation he is currently interested in giving this project. LaraLoveT/C 17:39, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
To be honest with you until recently, I thought Homestarmy did the same job here that Raul did on FA's... I've always though Homey was our quasi leader ;-)Balloonman 02:34, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm very happy that others share my concerns about the "vote-counting" aspect of GA/R. However, I think it would be a pity to lose the lightweight wikipedian feel of the good article process by having a director or panel. I trust pretty much anyone here (including those I have disagreed with) to archive sensibly on the basis of agreed guidelines. Since this is a wiki (all mistakes can be fixed), and any wikipedian can list or delist good articles, I don't see the argument for restricting the process. It would just create more work for the select few. In most discussions it is easy to determine consensus. In the few which are controversial or strongly contested, I think we should recommend leaving archiving to more experienced reviewers: personally, I wouldn't dare archive such a discussion! Esteemed experts like Jayron could then focus on these more difficult cases.
I have attempted to draft a first attempt at revised guidelines. It is rather long at the moment, but in many ways, these are the most important guidelines. If these guidelines say that consensus is determined by counting votes, then reviewers will be inclined to vote, whereas if they explain that consensus is determined by weight of argument, then reviewers will be inclined to make valid arguments. This is very much a work in progress, however, so please contribute and/or comment. Geometry guy 20:34, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
By changing the emphasis on how to archive towards more of the role of what administrators do in AfDs, i'm concerned that somebody is going to get very unhappy when an archivist eventually considers people's arguments invalid, when in reality, those people's arguments have debatable validity. Also, its always seemed to me that people like it more when people in administrator positions hold opinions about the validity of arguments concerning policies and guidelines more in tune with the majority of Wikipedians active in an area, and that people do not often trust candidates for adminship who seem to hold opinions in any area too far from the mainstream. (I think User:Badlydrawnjeff might of been an example for that, even when he applied for adminship and requested that he only be given permission to administrate in areas which would not be affected by inclusionism or deletionism, he was turned down) If GA/R archivists had to be administrators, I think many of us would not pass an RfA for one reason or another, especially not me, my userpage affirms that I am a Fundamentalist Christian, (Which is true) most of my edits not related to GA stuff deal with controversial articles, (So, for instance, i'm almost certain to have very low popularity if Evolution related article editors vote) I have next to no experience with anything related to managing Wikipedia's operations besides what goes on with GA stuff, no willingness at all to spend my time clearing boring backlogs, (Except maybe the speedy deletion one, but come on, that one's normally pretty easy) and all in all, I doubt that I would be a very appealing candidate for adminship. As for other people, Ivo's recent RfA failed almost solely because he/she was drunk one night and started cussing people out while wiki-ing, (I suppose better here than on the road or something though) and how many of us can honestly say that we live up to the standards most administrators are held to in RfA these days? But even if we didn't have to be administrators, what happens if some people who are trusted to be archivists are like LuciferMorgan, who prizes internal citations along with most FAC people that i've seen, and some others are like Sept, who barely tolerate citations at all in science related articles, and might even fail an article in another field if it has too much citation? Archivists with very different perspectives on how the criteria should be applied may start crossing out the arguments of other sides, and I seriously doubt that will end well.
Now, i'm not saying that having GA/R's end more in line with how FA/R's end (Except for the two step thing) and how AfD's end is bad, but I think its going to create more hassels and problems than solutions. The way I see it, almost everything about the GA process has been allowed to be more cavalier than other processes because it has been less active, problems can be very easily contained, there are only a few people who regularily debate policy concerning how this all works and there have only been uncomprimising deadlocks concerning inline citations and basically nothing else, the lower activity and stature of GA discourages people from trying to game the system as much because the gain would be much lower than from trying to, say, game FAC, and therefore, almost all editors involved with doing GA stuff are generally capable of solving any problem and keeping things running with a minimum of hurdles to be jumped beforehand. I just don't think that we really need to have the people who deal with contentious parts of GA be administrators or part of a special panel yet, what could administrators or a panel do that we all can't already do? When things get active enough that people canvassing GA/R's and generally being cabalistic really starts picking up, then I can see some good reasons that we should turn to an administrator-only or GA/R director or GA/R panel type system, but for right now, I think trying to add more bureauocracy to the system at this point will make things more complicated and difficult for very little benefit, and the adverserial overtones that sometimes color contentious FACs and AFDs would likely creep over to here as well en masse, not just over Science related articles, and not just over inline citation usage. At the moment, the vast majority of GA/R's proceed peaceably, have nothing to do with science and inline citations, and any editor could probably figure out how to archive many of these disputes properly after a few minutes. (If they were ready to be archived, that is.)
When the GA process as a whole starts being recognized more and more as an important component of Wikipedia, then that's when things should probably start getting more official, with administrators or directors managing things, instead of just leaving it up to any interested editor, so that administrators or a panel could give consistant rulings almost every time about what to do with a review or something, and be able to consistantly discount invalid arguments while making sure not to discount arguments of debateable validity. But for right now, I think that time is still a good bit in the future. Homestarmy 21:11, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree, and also am against more bureaucracy. I have complete confidence in Homestarmy's archiving, because it is obvious that he takes the process seriously. I think even Sept, who disagrees with other editors here over several issues, and is regarded by many as disruptive, would archive sensibly. In any case, inappropriate archiving will just be reverted, so there is no point in doing it: see WP:CON#Consensus in practice.
Closing a review is a more serious responsibility than commenting, because you are not just saying "this is my view, based on the facts", but "this is what I believe the consensus view is, based on the facts, and here's why". I think nearly all editors recognise the distinction and would not discount votes as invalid because of disagreements over interpretation. For example, over inline cites, I am happy to argue in a discussion that a particular article (e.g. a short one, or one with technical content) does not need as many inline cites as other editors propose in order to source it properly to WP:WIAGA standards. But I would not discount other editors views on this when archiving, as this is, at least in part, a subjective judgement. Geometry guy 21:54, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

(indent reset) I am not fixated on having the authority to close limited to a specific group of people, I just want to make sure that even one vote can overturn the verdict if there is reason on the person's side. The closer also needs to look at the article itself, and not only the discussion - the current discussion at Chicago Theatre might imply the problem is somewhere else than it really is (and then the people voting to list it would absolutely be right), which is not the case and becomes evident on reading the article and the comments in the talk page.

Quite surprisingly even for myself, I think I like the wording you propose for closing instructions. PrinceGloria 22:08, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I am making a real effort here not to please myself, but to please everyone. I appreciate that there are subtleties with a case like Chicago Theatre; guidelines can help in cases like this, but untimately, the archivist, in my view, has to take responsibility and justify their decision. Geometry guy 22:26, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Looking at your proposed draft, it appears longer than the instructions of WP:FAR, that seems a bit odd. Do archiving instructions really need to be all on the main page? How about just a link to the information somewhere? Homestarmy 22:57, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree, they probably are a bit long, and could be shortened or linked in the long run. However, when a change is made, I think editors do value a reasoned explanation. Also FAC/FAR has a director, and so guidelines for archiving are not needed there to the same extent. It would be nice to replace such guidelines by a summary and a link, but I don't think we can start out that way. Note also that many reviewers will link past the header directly to the review of a particular article, so this won't be a concern. Geometry guy 23:51, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Is it really that necessary to provide archiving instructions on the main page at this point though, I mean, we have several people archiving already and there's no problems I see, I don't know why that backlog template is at the top of the page, (I don't see many reviews that are ready for archiving, in fact, the review page has sometimes had many more reviews than this on it) if somebody is interested in helping archiving, then couldn't they just follow a link to the instructions? Homestarmy 00:02, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
I think the backlog template is there because we need more reviewers to comment. The archiving is working reasonable well, but archiving guidelines are important not just for archivers, but to influence reviewers. If reviewers are well informed about archiving policy, then their comments will be better, and archiving will be easier. Geometry guy 00:24, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Ok then, I just thought it might of been related to the reasons for the backlog template. I'll comment on your actual revision on your draft page, I gotta deal with the 1.0 log on recent changes first though, somebody hasn't been delisting certain articles correctly, and i've had to file three reviews on pokemon.... (I could of filed one for Wario too, but lets be honest, would a GA/R really change anything there?) Homestarmy 00:33, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
You're a hero, Homestarmy! No rush on the comments. No one is planning to move fast on this. Geometry guy 00:58, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

(Unindent) I put the backlog template there because of the number of stale reviews once I returned from my GA Wikibreak. Not so much as an issue with archiving (I did those I could myself), but because, as mentioned above, we need more reviewers. Once some of the older discussions are closed, I planned to then remove the template. I was also hoping that considering the backlog page has been featured (if I'm recalling correctly), being on that page may draw some editors in to help and they may decide to stay. More editors = quicker consensus. LaraLoveT/C 04:35, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

It was a good call in my opinion! Thanks for doing it. Geometry guy 12:55, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Consensus check

I'm not a big fan of this consensus check thing. Maybe we need to comment on it since there seems to be an idea that only votes or comments after the consensus check count. Aaron Bowen 05:46, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not, either: I think it is well intentioned, but it may actually make things worse. I have commented further where this issue arose. In my view, the problem is that this process has lost track of the fact that consensus is not determined by voting. Consensus is not easy to define and even harder to determine, which is one reason that similar processes such as WP:AfD, only admins can close. Closing a discussion should mean taking responsibility and checking the arguments pro and con (in comparison with the article). Instead it has been reduced to counting votes. GA/R seems to be unique in this regard. I have already suggested here previously that the instructions for archiving are inadequate. Homestarmy has improved them slightly since then, but I do think we need clearer guidelines on how to close a discussion, and also to make more explicit in the guidelines for reviewers that this is not a vote. Geometry guy 10:34, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
I like consensus checks, obviously, because I initiate them. I don't do it to negate existing recommendations. I think it's a helpful tool for when there are excessive, lengthy comments and much debate. It's helpful to have a section for recommendations alone, with no comments. It's also a helpful tool for determining possible changes of recommendations after substantial improvements have been made to an article addressing fore-mentioned concerns. LaraLoveT/C 19:00, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't really like it, because I think it might confuse some people who aren't sure whether everyone's sentiments above the section should be taken into consideration by the archivist or not. Besides, if someone's sentiments are out of date in a review, anyone can contact them on their talk page and ask them to look again. Homestarmy 19:17, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
The same can be done for a consensus check. Anyone who may not have participated can be contacted to do so. I'll admit I may have over-used it, although I thought it helpful and didn't (at the time) realize that others did not like it. With that in mind, I would recommend limited use. For example, if you look at the Michael Jackson discussion and the Georg Cantor discussion, you will see that it was very helpful... at least I think so. In such cases, I think it should be appropriate.
As far as the comments about me made in the Brian Adams discussion, I don't normally use the word "vote". I didn't mean to use it there, I think it was just in response to Balloonman's use of the word. I prefer "recommendation". As far as the use of a consensus check for this discussion, it may be inappropriate, although I did not consider it so when I initiated it. But I assure everyone it was not to negate previous votes. I was simply hoping for those who had voted to look over the article again and post a recommendation under the consensus check, whether it had changed or not. Many discussions sit for long periods, it would be nice to get the consensus and resolve the issue. LaraLoveT/C 19:40, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
As I say, I do think the idea is well-intentioned, and it could become widely accepted if used sparingly, and its purpose is made clear. One issue is that it is generally considered inappropriate to move other editors comments, or to reuse them out of context, and some editors do get unhappy about this. For instance, I could have been annoyed that you moved my comments at "Bryan Adams" away from the relevant point, but I don't get annoyed so easily :) The issue about reusing comments could probably be solved if it is made clear that they are being quoted, and who is quoting them.
The main issue that concerns me, though, is that this is not a vote. It makes no difference whether we call them "votes" or "recommendations" if at the end of the day, all that happens is that they get counted: a rose by another name. I am exaggerating slightly for effect, and do not mean this as a criticism of archivists, but so far there has been no response to my "this is not a vote" comments, not even "Yes it is", or "No it isn't, but it isn't treated as a vote". Geometry guy 14:44, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
I haven't exactly been active in the GA/R process, but I will way in anyway. I understand the idea behind a "concensus check," but I also think that it shouldn't necessarily be necessary. Everything else on wikipedia is done by looking at the merits of the arguements and the quality of the article. In the review of the Brian Adams (wrestler) article I have been working on, it had substantial changes from when it was first brought here. I believe it should be brought to the attention of others when that happens, and they should review the article again; so something like a "concensus check" should be done, but I don't know if that is the right term cause I don't believe we should be looking for concensus. But as is the case in the instance mentioned above, there are two statements that say the article is still largely "in universe." If things were done here like they are at the rest of wikipedia, the person closing the review would look at the comments and look at the article; and then they would ignore those two comments cause they would find that they are not valid cause the article is not written in universe. It seems here that it doesn't matter what the merits of the comments or article is, all one has to do is make comments (right or wrong), and then a vote is tallied. If we are truly going to go by a straight vote, I could get hundreds of articles to GA status just by nominating them, having them fail, then putting them up for review and have all my friends come over and vote. I don't believe that is the intent of this process. - T-75|talk|contribs 15:56, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree with most of your remarks and I would definitely ignore any invalid comments if I were closing the discussion for this article.
I think would support the use of an occasional Consensus? section as a heads-up to reviewers that an article may have changed. The rather different use of such a section for long drawn-out discussions may also be helpful. Note that consensus on wikipedia does not mean everyone agrees with the outcome, so I think it is an appropriate term. Geometry guy 17:56, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
I've not seen invalid arguments come up too much, but generally, invalid arguments are swamped by valid ones anyway in most GA/R's i've archived. As for your example Theophilus, the use of canvassing you propose would probably violate WP:CANVAS, I don't think most people would fall for that, though there's never been much gaming of reviews before that i've seen, so I don't know if people would really catch that or not all the time.... Homestarmy 20:09, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Oh, I think people would notice. I've seen a few discussions where someone has pointed out "User:XYZ" is this or that in relation to the article or it's custodian. And I'm always wary of many recommendations for one discussion by editors who have never before participated in the project and are commenting on no others. I don't see that working. LaraLoveT/C 04:23, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Consensus summary

See Wikipedia:Good_article_review#Consensus_Summary for a possible alternative. The Wikipedia:Good_article_review#Holocaust_denial discussion was at 49kb, with such a long discussion, it was a task to calculate the recommendations. In this case, I simply copied the recommendations with signatures under the heading and removed comments. I think this would be helpful for longer discussions and convenient for processing/archiving. Please post your thoughts. LaraLoveT/C 04:23, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that in cases like "Holocaust denial" and "Georg Cantor" where there is a lot of heated and often tangential debate (of course, yours truly was one of the "troublemakers" in the latter case ;) ) it can be helpful to review the consensus. However, discussions like these can also be the most difficult to close, and the ones in which vote counting is least helpful (I note you say "calculate" the recommendations). A while ago I was involved in a contested CFD. It would have been easy for the closing admin to count the votes and say "no consensus", but he didn't; instead he looked for the weight of argument, compared it with policy, took responsibility, and in my opinion, made a very good decisions; it has not been contested.
In conjunction with this, I think it would be helpful to have the archiving guidelines on the main page (as I have noted already, for different reasons). I also think these guidelines need some rewriting to make clear what consensus is about, so that archivists do take into account all comments when closing a discussion. This may allay the concerns some editors had about votes "above the line" being negated. Geometry guy 14:44, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
To quote G-Guy... Yes, I agree that in cases like "Holocaust denial" and "Georg Cantor" where there is a lot of heated and often tangential debate (of course, yours truly was one of the "troublemakers" in the latter former case ;) ) I guess I couldn't quote him, Ihad to make a small edit ;-) I don't like the Consensus Checks even with these longer threads. The problem is that it makes the 'vote' seem more important than the argument being made. For example, I personally feel strongly that the "Holocaust denial" article should be delisted. The keeps/delists are about even. At least one of the people voting to delist is an idiot, and his vote ALMOST makes me want to change my position! Another has an ax to grind, but I believe he's more concerned about improving wikipedia. Those two delists votes don't weigh as much to me as the others---even thought their vote is to delist is in line with my own---they have very different reasons than I do. Then there are 3 or 4 people who are active contributors to the page. They make some strong arguments for keeping it listed. But they are hardly objective sources... but does that mean we can discard their positions? Absolutely not. I look back on some of the heated discussions that I've been involved with on my pet pages... my being intimate with the subject doesn't make my opinion less valid than somebody elses. In fact, in some ways, it makes it more valid, because I am familiar with the sources/subject. I've often found myself saying the same points that the defenders of the holocaust page make, "The data isn't there to say what you want." So, it becomes a little touchy. Then there are the regular contributors---in some ways I tend to favor people who are regular contributors to this discussion over people who are hopping in and out. You get a sense of who is who and who knows what they are talking about. Personally, a vote from Homestarmy, Lara, or one of the other people who contribute regularly here counts for more in my book than the occassional visitor. But does regular participation make the regular GA/R reviewer right? Is my opinion more valid than Jayjg's because I post on more GA/R discussions? No. By summarizing on name and vote, you are limiting the review process... you are taking the teeth out of the comments. You emphasize the regular voters while devaluing those people who have poured their hearts and souls into the article---hopefully to make the article the best it can be. You fail to see the votes that are strictly political/to make a point, and see only a vote and a name... and yes, I firmly believe that this conveys the sense of vote.Balloonman 02:49, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Since my name came up, I thought i'd say that I was planning on not making a suggestion at all for Holocaust Denial, somebodies got to archive this thing after all, and the less involved, the better I say. Homestarmy 04:34, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Okay, let me first thank Balloonman for his detailed thoughts. It's been a very long weekend at work, and—surprising to myself—this is actually relaxing for me. I'm very pleased that our discussions on the improvement of this project are going so smoothly, so productively. (Although, remember to keep it civil!) I would have never expected it two weeks ago when everything here sent me on a GA/R wikibreak! In fact, I'd like to thank everyone!
Past that, I'd like to point out the difference between "consensus check" and "consensus summary". The latter would be something I put in place in one instance as a beta, so to speak. Admittedly, it's a bad idea. But, hey, had to try to find out, right? Consensus checks, on the other hand, do not simply tally "votes" and signatures, rather it's recommendations with arguments and signatures but no comments. These are helpful in cases that either or both of the following has occurred:
  • Article custodians have taken the GA/R process seriously and have made substantial changes to the article based on reviewer recommendations.
  • Lengthy discussions with many comments, between recommendations and arguments/suggestions, from multiple users.
In the case of the former, the consensus check stands as somewhat of a request for those reviewers who have already made a request to look over the article again and, if they feel necessary, change their recommendation. It was previously mentioned that this is unfair because it is as if it voids previous recommendations, however, if you consider the proposal for determining consensus, when weighing the arguments of various reviewers, those for which are outdated would not carry any weight. So, under the newly proposed "rules", so to speak, if they pass, the consensus check would be helpful in alerting reviewers that it is necessary to go back over the article and update their recommendation accordingly before consensus.
As for the lengthy conversations, it's simply for everyone (not just the archivist) to read the recommendations and related suggestions without the flood of comments surrounding them. In these cases, I would find it appropriate to even copy and paste the recommendations into the consensus check section. In this respect, nothing is altered, the complete conversation remains intact, no editors have to go back to repost anything, but it would be consolidated to not include comments. LaraLoveT/C 05:21, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I am still uncomfortable with it even if you do copy the section with the vote to the summary. By copying that section you would miss the context of the vote. When was the keep/delist made, what was the trend at the time? I've seen too many discussions where everybody is in agreement. They all want to keep/delist an article, then somebody comes along and says, "I disagree." That one person makes such a strong argument that everybody from that point forward votes with the trendsetter. Context is very important in evaluating consensus. It is also important to see that a specific vote/recommendation was made before a major change. E.g. I've seen a lot of articles up for deletion/GAR, where the article probably deserves to be delisted/deleted. The main editors then make some major changes to the article, it is important to know that a major change has occurred, but that the first 5 votes were made on an older article. I don't trust people to come back and update their position---too many people don't get that involved.Balloonman 05:57, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Consensus checks aren't used until after such an event has happened. If major changes have been made to an article, that's the point the the CC would be utilized. Under our potentially new set of processing/archiving standards, out-dated votes would not weigh in toward consensus whether or not that editor updated their response in the CC (should we utilize it). As for the lengthy articles, I see your point, to a certain extent. While comments can affect a recommendation and add context to the review as a whole, each "vote" should have a detailed argument to support it. As for the time of when it was made, the signature would be carried over, in these cases, from the original "vote" along with the accompanying suggestions/list of issues. LaraLoveT/C 06:10, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I think you hit the nail on the head why I don't like it! Who is to say if a vote is an "out-dated votes would not weigh in toward consensus." For example, I vote to delist an article because of POV concerns. You vote to delist the article because of lack of citations. Four other people support delisting due to the lack of citations. The article's editors go through and update the hell out of the article---but they don't touch my POV concerns. A consensus check might mean that my vote doesn't count because it was made before the edit. With the consensus check, I'm forced to revote. I can also see some articles having multiple consensus checks. Who calls for it? I find consensus checks as a way to devalue the meat of the arguments and a way to discount previous votes. I'm also concerned that it takes the impetuous away from the arguments and places it on who made the arguments. A vote from a regular GA/R person with a weak reason is artificially enhanced over a solid argument of an unknown.Balloonman 06:23, 26 June 2007 (UTC)One other thought, it becomes more complex when a person lists two reason---in the example above, a person lists POV and Citations. If one issue is resolved, does that mean that the vote is outdated?Balloonman 15:07, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I share some of your general concerns about consensus checks, Balloonman, but no one has suggested that these are to be used to discount previous "votes"! Notice also that Lara took great care to put the word "vote" in quotes in her discussion, because we are generally agreed that we need to shift the emphasis away from counting votes towards determining consensus. In that case it is comments/criticisms that become out-of-date, because they are no longer applicable, not votes. The consensus check idea changes nothing: you don't need to "vote" again; in your example, your valid POV concerns remain valid. In my view the consensus check idea is just a "heads-up" to reviewers that the article has changed and they may want to recheck how it compares to WP:WIAGA (e.g., if citations have been added, is the article now properly sourced, or does it still need to be delisted?).
Your specific questions then have straightforward or common-sense answers. First: who is to say what counts? Answer: whoever takes the responsibility for closing the discussion and archiving the article. Whoever does this needs to take into account all of the comments which are still applicable. In the case of a "vote" with two reasons, the first valid, the second "out-of-date", the archiving editor will obviously only take into account the weight of the first argument.
I have tweaked slightly the wording in the archiving guidelines to avoid using the phrase "out-of-date". Please let me know what you think. Thanks Geometry guy 15:55, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I have no problem with something to announce a major change/redaction to an article. In my first AfD, I did something similar. My problem boils down to two basic things:
1) I don't like the title of Consensus Check. It implies that you have to restate your position or it is in danger of being lost--- it implies that people who post from this point forward will have a bigger say in the keep/delist debate. It sends all of the wrong messages about the process. If we had another way to alert people to the fact that the article has been updated/modified, that would be a different statement.
2) I despise the capturing of previous statements in a summary form. If that doesn't reak of a voting mentality, then I don't know what would. It completely separates the bolded words from the supporting reasoning! That makes it look very much like a vote.Balloonman 18:31, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

{unindent) I hope this doesn't come off as being rude, because I'm not trying to be, I just don't know how else to word it. I've stated more than once, as clearly as I know how, that a consensus check is different than a consensus summary in that the emboldened words are carried over WITH the supporting argument and signature. Consensus checks simply lack the resulting comments from other users. Those statements that included Comment or nothing emboldened at all. For example, if you look at the discussion on the Holocaust denial, it is very long. Between recommendations, or "votes", there is a multitude of comments. In the consensus check, those comments between the recommendation would not be included so that the archivist, and anyone else, could easily track the recommendations and the noted issues with the article, go back to the article, see what has been addressed and then weigh those arguments accordingly. This is not to say that the archivist would not review the full discussion with comments when determining consensus, as they could affect the weight of various arguments, but for the task of easily noting who stands where and why, a consensus check can be a very valuable tool. Granted, in this case, I tried something different; the consensus summary. Which I agree with you and others is a bad idea. Without including what issues the editors have with the article, it doesn't help. LaraLoveT/C 19:18, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

(The software automatically resolved the edit conflict between the above reply to Balloonman, and this one.)
That sounds like it is easily resolved to me. I agree with point 1, so we just need to use different terminology for those few occassions when a general alert would be useful. I would suggest something with a question mark in it myself, such as "Updates?", "Further comments?", "Consensus?", as if to say "does anyone have anything to add given that things have changed?". However, I don't see the need to formalize anything: such a request for updates just needs to be clearly explained whenever it is used.
Point 2 concerns the "Consensus summary" idea, which, from her comments above, LaraLove considers to be an unsuccessful experiment. In particular separating bolded words from supporting reasoning is no longer under consideration, so rather than raise this again, I think it would be more appropriate to applaud Lara for acknowledging the drawbacks of the idea and gracefully withdrawing it.
There does remain a suggestion to copy recommendations with supporting argument to the update section. This has pros (partially addresses point 1) and cons (loss of context). If it is done, I think it should be made clear that it is not a substitute for considering the recommendations in the context in which they were originally made. Geometry guy 19:29, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
G-Guy wrote above: In my view the consensus check idea is just a "heads-up" to reviewers that the article has changed and they may want to recheck how it compares to WP:WIAGA (e.g., if citations have been added, is the article now properly sourced, or does it still need to be delisted?). I would like a heads up alerter, but the problem is that "consensus" doesn't convey that. If the purpose is to give a "heads-up" to reviewers that the article has changed, then it needs to be worded to state that. Case in point: The Holocaust Denial article appears to have undergone significant changes this past week and at quick glance is marketedly improved. The Consensus idea was floated (and I don't fault anybody for trying an idea), but I had no idea that it was supposed to tell me that the article has been improved and that I should revisit it. I only rechecked it on a whim. If we have something, then it needs to be obvious as to the purpose, such as "Major Rewrite/Revision." It has to be something that a person new to GA/R can read and intuitively know what is going on. Consesus summary/checks imply that the discussion is coming to an end and that we need to reach a consensus before closing---that the article hasn't improved... not that we should consider revisitng the article because somebody made huge improvements to the article. Some sort of flag that does give a heads up, would have my support.Balloonman 06:54, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree, we need to use terminology which reflects the purpose. Anyway, it seems we three are now basically agreed that it is a good idea to have such a heads-up flag available.
As for Holocaust denial, the consensus section here was originally added as a test of the experimental "summary" idea, not as a heads-up, but I agree there is now a case for the latter! The article, or at least the lead, has now improved, partly in response to a suggestion I made to get around the argument over the first sentence. (I tend to believe that when editors start arguing about the wording of the first sentence, it is a sure sign that the lead needs to be completely rewritten!) I'm not yet ready to change my recommendation to "keep", but if more improvements are forthcoming (and I might try to make a few myself), then I will be. Geometry guy 15:21, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Nod, and I tend to be a keeper. If I see somebody willing to work on an article to bring it up to GA status, then I am more likely to keep a poorer quality article that is being worked on than a marginal one where nobody cares. Honestly, one of my biggest concerns over this article was that it felt like a cartel was imposing it's views on the article---that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. And that lead is VASTLY improved---it changes the whole tone of the article.Balloonman 15:44, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Tangents

Ok, here is something that I think we should establish some sort of policy on... Several articles the GA/R got off track---and discussion that should occur on the talk page occurs here. (The Holocaust Denial article is a perfect example...and the anabotic steroid article looks like it might be following suit.) When a discussion starts getting off track, I think we should encourage moving those discussions to the articles talk page. I generally read the talk page before I read the article itself so that I can tell what the pages users are thinking... thus, the debates that we have on GA/R would be limited and more on point---thus easier for the discussion closer to find people's thoughts.Balloonman 18:08, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I guess you are suggesting something analogous to the talk page template which says "This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the <article name> article. This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject." I think it is a good idea, and I can easily add a sentence to the /guidelines proposal to this effect, if others agree. Geometry guy 18:15, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
This has happened several times in the past as well, but it's never seemed much of a problem to me, and sometimes it helps illuminate what a particularily contentious dispute is really about without having to trawl through talk archives. Homestarmy 19:30, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm going to have to agree with Balloonman on this one. The Anabolic steroid article discussion is ridiculous. There's a flood of comments from editors who have worked on the article but no official recommendations. I have looked over the article, but I'm totally turned off by the 10k+ of discussion that has happened in a matter of a couple dozen hours or so between custodians that should have hammered this out on the talk page before bringing the article to GA/R. Haveing not read the article, I can't say for certain whether or not it meets standards. From having just scanned it, I found no issues. However, from reading over the lengthy discussion, it appears the issues would be more appropriately listed at WP:RFC/U. LaraLoveT/C 04:41, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Most people agree that the discussion concerning the Anabolic steroid article should be moved to the talk page of that article. The person who listed it for review is a brand new wikipedian who doesn't seem to have much experience and seems to of listed the article for review without making much of an attempt to discuss it on the talk page let alone read the article itself. Can you move all of the discussion there to it's talk page? Wikidudeman (talk) 04:52, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
I'll do it now. LaraLoveT/C 04:55, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. Wikidudeman (talk) 05:05, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Now hold on a minute here, although the user may be new to Wikipedia, i've seen legitimate reviews before called for by people who don't even have accounts, and the user who filed the review clearly was concerned about the article's factual accuracy and neutrality, (I translate the broadness thing as implying that the article is factually innacurate for not including the viewpoins of certain studies) both of which are relevant to GA status. Most of the dispute on the GA/R seemed to also have to do with how certain medical references were being utilized, (or not being utilized) which also probably had a good chance of being relevant to the discussion. If the discussion really was getting off-track of things relevant to GA status, all someone could of done is say in the review that the discussion is, in fact, getting off-topic. An article can be listed for RfC at the same time it is being reviewed for GA purposes as well. If his concerns really were baseless, the discussion probably would of made that clear relatively quickly, in which case there probably would of been pile-on keep sentiments, and the review would of ended quickly anyway. If we just start banishing all review requests that we merely think are wrong, (Except, of course, when they actually are filed for reasons not relevant to GA criteria or are being filed mistakenly) or were filed by new Wikipedians, off of the GA/R page, I think this would set terrible precedent, which could lead to people just deleting reviews simply because they feel the person asking for the review has lousy reasons. There would of been little harm in letting the review sit for the three days necessary to accumulate six keeps, if that's honestly where it would of gone, and off-topic discussion could of been ignored. Homestarmy 05:24, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
I, unlike Balloonman, do not first go to talk pages. I'm not a fan of reading these long-winded discussions. My reviews are typically based solely on the article and the edit history, so I don't particularly appreciate this mess being dumped in GA/R when it belongs on the talk page. Regardless, if you think I acted in haste, please restore the discussion. I'm fine with that. I just don't foresee me making a recommendation, and noted that no one else had either, so I figured it wasn't going to go much of anywhere. I would also like to point out that the nominator did not leave a notice on the article's talk page. So, if the discussion is restored, it should be dated for today and the article talk page amended to reflect that it has been relisted. LaraLoveT/C 06:17, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree completely with Lara's deleting the discussion, BUT I think the nomination should be restored for review. Leave the discussion on the articles talk page. New accounts can have legitimate complaints... the Holocaust Denial article being an example. IMO it was clearly not GA when it was brought here, but is marketedly better now... and the person who originally nominated it was a new account with a political agenda. But this nomination is the perfect example of why I think we need a note about long discussions---I too have avoided GA/R's where there was too much junk being posted here (the one which G-guy was involved with is a perfect example, I don't think I ever looked at that.) A note, I should clarify one thing, I only look at the talk page if the complain involves POV---I figure that I'll try to get a sense of the concern so that I am not looking at the subject blind---and then only if I am not familiar with the subject. Also, I would like for anonymous accounts being unable to nominate an article. If you are going to nominate an article, people should be able to contact you.Balloonman 14:44, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I haven't been able to think up a good sentence to add to the guidelines: after all, both the article talk page and GA/R are about issues concerned with improving the article. Any suggestions? Geometry guy 20:05, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

How about something to the effect of, The Good Article Review page is intended to discuss the whether or not a specific article meets Good Article criteria. It is not intended to fine tune specific issues or concerns. This is better handled on the articles talk page. If a conversation is not directly discussion the GA criteria, but rather content/issue disputes, it may be moved to the article's talk page.Balloonman 20:37, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Sometimes an article could easily be a GA if only specific issues or concerns were dealt with, such as Fair Use problems. Homestarmy 22:02, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
If an article could easily meet GA if only for a specific issue or two, I'm sure that would be brought up and discussed. That's not what we're talking about here. Check the Anabolic steroids discussion. It's right back to where it was when I moved it. A lot of these discussions get out of hand. Typically the nominations that pissed off the custodians. They come here to defend the article to the very end and spend absolutely all their time defending their work rather than improving any of it. Those are the discussions I tend to avoid. I'd like to be able to move that mess to the talk page and review recommendations.
I'm not sure how to word it, don't have time to think about it now. But these discussions should be like this:
 Nomination
 *Recommendation
 **Comment
 *Recommendation
 *Recommendation
 **Comment
 *Recommendation
As opposed to:
 Nomination
 *Comment
 **Reply
 ***Start of dispute
 ****Long winded response
 *Recommendation
 **Reply by offended party
 ***Clarification and justification
 ****Inaccurate citing of policy in defense
 *Comment on non-GA related issue
 **Reply
 **Start of argument
You get the point. It's a waste of time and space. Comments should be limited to responding to recommendations. If the nominations was made in bad faith, we'll catch it. We don't need some 30kb argument about the nomination. Custodians should let the reviewers do their "job" and find the issues with the article, THEN they can comment on it. That's what I think would make for a more perfect GA/R process. LaraLoveT/C 14:03, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
Well, having one rather vigilant editor hit me and Adam with accusations of ignorance when the review started probably didn't help the Anabolic steroid review, but it looks to me that a direct result of the review is leading to article improvements at the moment, the history is now very active. Besides, its clearly a controversial subject, I don't think its possible to write enough rules to force people not to argue over it, that's just how these kinds of controversial issues work. Homestarmy 16:37, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Additional proposed changes

List ideas for possible changes you have here:

  • I think there should be something listing acceptable recommendations. There's been much discussion regarding the arguably inappropriate use of "Speedy delist" and the like. I think it would be helpful to list those that are appropriate, for consistency sake. Possibly this is going into pointless specifics, but this is a pet peeve of mine. If no one else is bothered, I suppose I'll just suck it up, but it does bother me that one discussion will have recommendations such as "Endorse delist", "Keep delisted", "Endorse the delist", "Support the fail", etc. Then there's the random use of terms never before used that leave one wondering exactly what the recommendation is. For example (sorry to call you out like this Geometry guy), "Agree: work needed". Last, there are the extreme yet vague votes, for example "VERY VERY Weak Keep and cleanup". I personally don't like the "in-between" recommendations. I understand having a "strong" opinion one way or the other, but I don't feel a "barely keep" is appropriate. For the previous two examples, "Conditional keep" seems like an appropriate alternative. I would just like a set format of bulleted, consistent recommendations. It looks better and it's much easier to determine consensus for processing. LaraLoveT/C 05:38, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
(Posting here as there are so many unindents below, this message would get lost.) But, Lara doesn't like "VERY VERY Weak Keep and cleanup"---I think I'm the one who she copied for that ;-) But I do. I think there are shades of grey, and indications of strength of support help to analyze the consensus process. By saying very very weak, you know that I could go the other way...Balloonman 02:52, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I should note, that my "VERY VERY Weak Keep and cleanup" was immediately followed by a detailed explanation as to my concerns. Your note of conditional keep would not be accurate. A conditional keep implies that action must be taken to get the keep, I thought the article was good enough to stay as is... but the person who brought the issue to the table had legit concerns.Balloonman 04:45, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I suppose that it could be personal interpretation. "VERY VERY Weak Keep and cleanup" just doesn't seem productive. While a keep vote, it's almost insulting to the custodians of the article. At least, were I a custodian of an article which received such a vote, I would be offended. With two "very"s in all caps followed by a "Weak", I can almost picture that "Keep" hanging by a thread over an "Endorse Delist". Dangling precariously. Regardless, I just don't think that is an acceptable recommendation. A vote so weak it could be simplified to "Barely keep" seems more offensive than the notorious "Speedy delist". That's just my opinion, though. LaraLoveT/C 05:58, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
The speedy delist is says that we are going to delist the article without giving the primary editors a chanceto salvage the article. It says, the article is so bad that we aren't going to respect the editors enough to give the article a chance. More colorful comments, however, can help to clarify where a person stands---but the comment has to be taken in context with the rest of the statement. People's positions are NOT the mere pieces highlighted in the bolded section, they are the entirety of the comment.Balloonman 06:10, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

(This has become confusing with new comments in the middle of old ones... let's try to keep comments in order of posting, I think they more easily get lost this way.) I know what speedy delist means. I also, as I've stated a few times in the past week, know that recommendations are more than the emboldened portions, and I would appreciate it if people would stop throwing that comment at me as if I were oblivious. I think if I weren't aware of the necessity of detailed arguments, I wouldn't spend hours on reviews of these articles detailing their issues for my supporting arguments.

Now, with that out of they way, hopefully for the last time, my point is that the wording and emphasis of "VERY VERY Weak Keep and cleanup" is more insulting than is "Speedy Delist". Noting again that speedy delists are for articles which fail multiple criteria and could not easily be brought up to standards. It is my opinion that one should not have a vote so weak. It doesn't make sense to me. If the article is in such a condition that your keep is so weak, it seems more appropriate that it would be a "Weak Delist" rather than a keep so weak you have to scream two "VERY"s before it. If it requires cleanup and its quality barely attains your support, it just doesn't come off as up to standards to hold GA. Keep votes should be reserved for those articles with a quality deserving of GA. If an article is close to that quality, but in need of a little work, that would be a conditional keep. It is to say, "The article is good, but just not quite good enough. If these minor changes are made, you have my keep vote."

You're saying that your vote was not a conditional keep. I'm saying that it comes off to me as the epitome of what a conditional keep is. You stated, "...overall I thought it was a pretty good article. The problems that it has are easily fixed by somebody willing to make any effort whatsoever at cleaning it up." Valid claims to disqualify GA, but easy-to-fix ones. If they can be easily fixed, then the article can easily be brought up to standards, in which case it would earn a keep vote. So keep, if the changes are made. That's a conditional keep. That's all I'm saying. LaraLoveT/C 15:12, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


Lara, I beleive that the nature of GA/R, which should not be a vote, but rather a discussion, is well-reflected by the use of varied phrases. There are a myriad of situations, each one different. By no means should a discussion be processed just by checking the headigns. However painstaking and tiresome it might be, a close has to be administered by carefully reviewing the discussion, and preferably the article and its talk page (whenever relevant). Just trying to make one's life easier by forcing people to take an either/or stance is not something I would recommend. I believe that, for example, the close of Chicago Theatre was improper - judging by the number of bolded phrases, it might have seemed clear, but there were some valid arguments raised that still merited further discussion at least. PrinceGloria 09:36, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
I entirely agree with PrinceGloria's general comments here, and am pleased to be singled out for my imaginative style :) Consensus is usually only difficult to determine in contested cases, where the article is close to the standard and there is some subjectivity involved in whether it meets it. In this case, my opinion is that it would actually be easier to reach consensus if more reviewers didn't take up an initial position, but began with a comment. This would also reduce the number of occasions that crossing out votes or a consensus check was necessary. See also my comments at the bottom of this archived section.
Of course this is just my own opinion, and I accept that most reviewers have a different approach. Everyone has their own style, and so I think we should minimize prescriptions about how to comment. Apart from the archiving, this process is much like an AfD, and so a reference to WP:ATA ought to cover most of the issues.
In the specific case of Chicago Theatre, yes, the discussion could have continued, but I support LaraLove's decision to archive. If I had done it, I would have archived with a comment like "Several concerns were raised about the article but the consensus was that these concerns were not sufficient to merit delisting", but this is not a criticism of Lara's approach: the point is that she took responsibility and made a decision, and I fully support that. Geometry guy 13:36, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Just as a sidenote - the article was not proposed for DELISTING. It was proposed for promotion, and I believe a decision to promote has to be made more carefully. I still believe we cannot accept articles with major structural and content flaws, however strong the pressure from the authors might be. PrinceGloria 13:51, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
This concept sounds more like it should belong in an essay somewhere else, rather than in actual GA/R guidelines, that would really pile on the complications towards discussion :/. Homestarmy 16:47, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

(unindent)Actually, in the case of Chicago Theatre, it was nominated for relisting because it was improperly delisted. Considering that you, PrinceGloria, did that delisting, I can understand why you would be displeased with the outcome of the discussion, but the archiving instructions clearly state that if it's been three days and there are at least six votes with an 80% or greater consensus, that the discussion can be processed. It had been three days, there were 8 votes, and it was 100% consensus. As far as my wording for the results in the archive, I agree with G-man (I hope you don't mind if I call you that, let me know if you do), and I have amended the results to reflect his thoughts.

Going back to my proposal. I'm not conveying my thoughts as well as I'd like. I would like there to be an either or situation between certain terms, not stances. Meaning either "Endorse" or "Support". I suppose it doesn't matter. Looking at it from a open POV, this is totally ridiculous. I just bugs the hell out of me that three or four people will hold the same stance in a discussion, but every emboldened term will be different. Sounds like a personal problem to me. That's what I'd probably say to someone else if I were not the one making the proposal! Nevermind. I'm too much of a perfectionist about certain things, I think. Time for work. LaraLoveT/C 19:45, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I have some sympathy with Lara's point of view. In deletion processes, preferred wording has essentially been set by precedent, whereas here a variety of different terms are used for the same opinion. GA/R basically deals with three issues: a contested failed nomination, a contested delist, and a request to delist a current good article. In all cases I strongly support a variety of comments and views, but when the view is to list or delist, it may be helpful to encourage a common mode of expression such as Endorse fail/List as GA in the first case, Endorse delist/Relist in the second, and Delist/Keep in the third. If this is to be done, however, I don't think it should be done using guidelines, but essays/examples.
I rather like Homestarmy's idea to write an essay on this. Malkinann is writing an essay to help regular article editors with this process, so why not an essay for reviewers? This could of course, be written as a compromise, but since Lara and I have some different views (although I think we agree on many points), it might be fun to write an "Opinion A/Opinion B" type of essay (I know this idea from Easyjet magazine, but I'm sure it is widespread) - in a very friendly spirit of course - so reviewers can decide! Well, it is just a thought. Geometry guy 20:12, 23 June 2007 (UTC) PS. No problem with G-man, though my preferred contraction is G-guy.
Lara - the article was properly delisted. It has rather major failures and other than a few invectives directed at myself and assertions that the article is "good" I haven't seen any sensible counterarguments, some people went as far as to say that my reservations are well-founded, but they still voted for promoting the article (hmm...)
Secondly, this example goes to show that a closing procedure based on percentage of votes and such is flawed. This review was closed because emotion took precedence over content. WikiProject Chicago is pretty active and has many members, they can easily "win" any GA/R that way. And this is why I believe the number of "votes" should be disregarded, as well as the bolded word. If there is a valid argument, this is what should be taken into account. If there are no valid counterarguments to a valid argument, this is what should have the decisive impact, not the number of "votes" and whether somebody wrote "delist", "keep" or anything else. PrinceGloria 21:34, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
PS. I never read essays, I really don't have time for that. And I guess I am not the only one. This is just a pendant to what the G-guy ;) said above. I think the original instructions by the same author were very clear and concise, and fit to be put on the main page.
Perhaps what really happened is you, PrinceGloria, overstepped your bounds. You failed to respond to people's criticism of your "delisting" in a coherent way, and you got your handed to you. Speciate 21:45, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
This kind of comment is unhelpful, Speciate. What is done is done. Members of WikiProject:Chicago were entitled to comment at this GA/R and their views were heard. PrinceGloria was equally entitled to articulate his point of view. And reviewers such as Jayron32 and LaraLove expressed their opinions too. The review was closed on the basis of all this information. But everything in wikipedia is subject to re-examination and consensus can change. Geometry guy 22:09, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
I think that sometimes the only way we learn is to be told in a less-than-kind way. PrinceGloria still claims the delisting was "proper", and I felt that some additional edumacating was required. I view this object lesson as helpful. Speciate 22:27, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
(cutting back indent) I actually think I have responded in a very coherent way, enumerating the article's flaws, and also highlighting the ones that I found inacceptable in a GA article. There was little if any substantial response to that, the discussion (if we can call it that way) was rather unsubstantial and focus on either personal stuff or irrelevant issues. PrinceGloria 22:51, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't think the person bringing the review to the table was very nice about Gloria's totally non-vandalizing reasons for immedietly delisting the article, but I doubt I would of come to a different conclusion that Lara did. I would of counted PrinceGloria as part of the discussion though, but that still would of been nearly unanimous anyway. Technically, anyone could of let the review sit longer to see if anything else might of happened, archiving something according to the new rule is optional, if you read how its worded right :D. Homestarmy 23:07, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

(unindent)I considered archiving based on the proposed rules, but I thought it better to wait until they'd been approved. I did not include PrinceGloria's part of the discussion towards consensus because there was no official recommendation made by him/her. If this is incorrect, please amend the archive results. Regardless, I still feel that the delisting was improper. The article does not have a myriad of issues that would be time-consuming to correct. Delisting should only be done to articles that cannot be quickly brought back up to standards. While some of us agreed with issues you, PrinceGloria, brought up, none of us agreed that those issues warranted delisting.

As far as emotion, my personal opinion would be that the quality of this article would not even warrant it being brought to GA/R. Issues should have simply been brought up on the talk-page. Although those are my feelings on the issue, emotion had nothing to do with the archiving and relisting of the article. I did those based soley on the fact that it was warranted by current GA/R procedural policy, or whatever you want to call it. Considering the backlog, we need to resolve and process discussions as quickly as we can with our current manpower. LaraLoveT/C 06:48, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Reviewer guidelines

I made a first shot at reviewer guidelines now: see, as usual, Wikipedia:Good article review/guidelines.

  • I've change the current sentences to emphasise that all suggestions for improvements are welcome, even if they are not covered by WP:WIAGA. I think this reflects a common issue expressed by reviewers.
  • I've added links to deletion debate guidelines: I didn't think it was right to link only to WP:ATA, so I linked to a couple of other relevant places.
  • I added a comment about "speedy"'s: this is easier to handle with a lighter touch now that the archiving guidelines are on the same page.
  • I've added a sentence corresponding to the "please don't say articles are bad" concern, but have tried to word it in a more constructive manner (no more "schoolroom" nonsense!).
  • I've ended with a sentence about fixing problems with articles, but without being at all prescriptive.

I think I've done it in such a way that each of these five suggestions can be discussed and modified separately. Please do challenge or reword each of them. Any which are unlikely to receive consensus support are best fixed now, or they will simply be challenged later. Geometry guy 20:27, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry, but by trying to please everybody you have made it too long and vague. The original version was near perfect, while I actually object to this version. PrinceGloria 21:34, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Was that a comment or a vote PrinceGloria? Just kidding ;) Thanks for all your comments, and see below... Geometry guy 18:13, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree that it's a bit too long, G-guy. I like the information regarding "speedy" recommendations, but I think it needs to be reworded. Something I can help with tomorrow night. I also like the fact that a statement is included informing that we are not required to make any corrections ourselves, although, again, I think it needs rewording. Past that, regarding the archiving instructions, I think they should be linked rather than included on the main page. This has been previously mentioned, I believe. All together, it is way too much for the main page.
Reading over the delisting instructions, I think they can be trimmed and clarified. Instruction 4, for example, isn't even really an instruction. Such information should be noted before the instructions. I'm too tired to really consider options right now, but I think this can be cleaned up. While we're making changes, we might as well clean up everything. I have a *l o n g* workday tomorrow, but I'll try to work on it when I get off. LaraLoveT/C 07:02, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Puh-leeeeeze, do we really need to play nanny to all potential participants and make sure they do not hurt others' feelings? I mean, the speedy instuctions. There are also many other instances where we could expand on how GA/R is similar to, but not identical to sumfink or nuffink. I think the speedy thing was incidental and the only proper way to deal with it is just to keep that in mind, and when people start using it en masse, have a boilerplate text explaining why they shouldn't to paste in their talk pages. PrinceGloria 10:15, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Lots of people, when they first come to GA/R as a result of a message on the talk page, don't know a lot, if anything about GA/R. Therefore, they are newbies to GA/R, and shouldn't be bitten. Btw, boilerplate texts are generally felt to increase the bureaucracy of GA/R too much. -Malkinann 15:25, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I think that by cutting instructions to the minimum and allowing people just to express their mind we minimize the bureaucracy and allow for easy entry for the newcomers. Newcomers here are likely to be unfamiliar with AfD either, so there's no point confusing them further with references to the latter process. I really don't know what you have against biolerplate texts - good boilerplate texts can be very informative and help explain more specific issues without taking up too much of anybody's time... PrinceGloria 16:55, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Why do you think I have something against boilerplate texts? I'm just telling you what's been said before on the matter. -Malkinann 01:32, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for all the comments and offers to improve my poor attempt! Ironically, given how some of this started from my perspective, I am coming to agree with PrinceGloria that there isn't much point in mentioning "speedy delist" any more: if the proposed archiving guidelines are agreed, and there seems to be some support for this, then referring to them already makes the situation pretty clear. I'm quite happy for the proposed reviewing guidelines to be shortened accordingly. I also agree in principle with the idea that the archiving guidelines should not appear on the main page. However, this does represent at least a shift of emphasis in our modus operandi, so I would suggest that, once we are happy with them, we keep the archiving guidelines on the main page for a couple of weeks to see how they bed down, then review the situation. Geometry guy 18:13, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps a short summary with a link to the full text? LaraLoveT/C 15:50, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Maybe - it might be challenging to write though! The full archiving text probably needs to be on a separate page anyway (so it can be used on the Archive page), so I'll replace it by a transclusion for now. Geometry guy 15:56, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Another idea is to use collapsible tables. I've demonstrated this on the /guidelines page. Geometry guy 16:50, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
I like that a lot, but I fear that new users may not notice to "show" it. I like it, though. I think it's definitely worth trying. LaraLoveT/C 17:05, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I've added a couple of "Click to show/hide" sentences to make this more obvious — although personally I can't imagine anyone not wanting to play immediately with the show/hide feature :) Geometry guy 16:11, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I've now attempted to shorten the reviewer guidelines, although I hope that putting these guidelines in a collapsible table has addressed some of the concerns raised above about brevity. As suggested above, I have removed reference to the "speedy" stuff. Also, partly in response to an earlier comment by LaraLove, I have reorganised the delist procedure into more coherent steps. Let me know what you think to the new version. Geometry guy 22:08, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

No one has commented further on this, or made any additional edits to the guidelines. I'm sure my efforts are far from perfect, but perhaps it is now time to roll them out (tomorrow, Saturday?). I don't know whether it is better to replace the contents of /instructions by the new contents at /guidelines, or to replace the transclusion of /instructions on GA/R by a transclusion of /guidelines. These alternatives have the same effect, but leave a different edit history. Geometry guy 20:14, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
I've now done this, using the second method, although I've left comments so that the edit history is clear. Geometry guy 17:47, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

On Holocaust Denial

Am I to assume that whenever somebody archives it, they need to provide a speech accomanying the archive justifying their decision? Homestarmy 15:37, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what to say... but good luck...Balloonman 20:41, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
Much like a judge justifying their ruling, a lengthy, technically worded conclusion should come forth ... not really. I would just write a summary which included "I have reviewed the discussions and recommendations in their entirety. Based on those arguments and the current state of the article, [this is my decision]." Or something like that. LaraLoveT/C 13:50, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
This might be one of the rare cases where a close and reopen might be justified. I think the article has undergone tremendous changes in the 3 weeks since the GAR was opened. There has been a concerted effort in the past weekend to get the citations cleaned up. Thus, even the comments made by people such as Lara a week ago might be out of date!Balloonman 15:38, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
It looks to me like many of the differences between keep and delist here are tending to be ones of how many errors exactly constitute a bad article. I see a few keeps that admit that there might be room for improvement NPOV-wise, and some delists that cite possible POV problems and references related issues. With well-referenced being subjective as always, and NPOV overall not necessarily meaning there isn't a single POV mistake, I don't see how its possible to judge anyone's comments here on whether or not they still have merit, and if I was to archive this right now, I wouldn't be inclined to discount anyone's sentiments, and find a no-consensus 6 to 7 decision. Even if Vissario is really a single-purpose account not editing the review in good faith, (as Jajyg seems to suggest) that's still 5 to 7, assuming Ballonmans conditions are met. Homestarmy 16:33, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
No consensus is a verdict that all could live with... my change of vote to keep was more in line with the efforts being made to improve the article, than the actual status of where the article is. I think the article does have editors who are concerned about making this better, and no-consensus would indicate that the article does need improvements. I think the arguments for delisting are better than for keeping, but I think this would probably be the accepted by all.Balloonman 21:52, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't archive yet. Wait until the discussion has been dead for seven days. LaraLoveT/C 06:53, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
hehehe I'm going to mark my calendar, ever 6 days, I'm going to add a comment ;-)Balloonman 22:40, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
See, that's just wrong!! :p LaraLoveT/C 03:22, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
P.S. Also, considering some of the above comments regarding the possibility of the article keeping GA simply because it's making progress and there are editors who appear to care enough to make the efforts, I don't agree with this outlook. I think if an article has issues that disqualify it from GA, it should not retain its status simply because changes are being made. Regardless, should this article retain its status without being brought up to standards, it should be monitored for progress. In a few weeks, if these issues remain, it should be brought back to GA/R. LaraLoveT/C 06:57, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
I was just speculating on what I would do if, theoretically, I or someone else had to archive it right then. Homestarmy 17:10, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
I bit the bullet, as seven days have now passed. If the article does get renominated in a couple of weeks, then I hope it is by one of the regulars, and not by someone with an agenda!
I also did Mike Matusow at the same time. In my view, some reasoning is helpful when archiving cases which are controversial or otherwise not clear-cut, but I wouldn't want to insist on that. One sentence should certainly be enough in nearly all cases. However, I do think it would be a good idea for the archivist to sign with four tildes in accordance with the practise at AfDs and CFDs. I would like to insert "and add your signature" into the relevant sentence in the archiving guidelines. Do others agree, or have any comments on this? Geometry guy 20:50, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
I suppose having archivists sign wouldn't be much of a problem... Homestarmy 20:54, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Sounds fine to me. It's not like people couldn't figure it out if they wanted to. A look at the history would reveal the archivist. This will eliminate that step for someone that may want to contact the archivist about their decision. Although now that I've said that, I don't know... not sure I want anyone pitching a fit on my talk page about my decisions, haha. LaraLoveT/C 02:23, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
So far, i've yet to see anyone object to any specific archive decisions. Homestarmy 03:12, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Done. Geometry guy 14:27, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Damn bronchitis... I missed my 'six day edit' ;=) Balloonman 03:37, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

The Rite of Spring delistment.

This article was delisted "per review" according to User:Exarion. He has delisted the article and deleted the discussion from GA/R without archiving it. It did not have an adequate number of recommendations to warrant delistment, and I had just added a comment a few hours before. I am restoring the discussion and amending it to show that a rogue editor has hastily delisted it. LaraLoveT/C 05:58, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think failing to archive a review properly necessarily makes this person a rogue editor... Homestarmy 06:08, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
I use the term "rogue" in the context of a wanderer... a vagabond as he's not an active participant in this project. Oh, and it's not just a matter or failing to archive. The article should not have been delisted citing this process when a consensus had not been reached. LaraLoveT/C 06:21, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
He might have just been bold... I think we're all starting to repeat ourselves in that review anyway. -Malkinann 01:19, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm just hoping to avoid a backlash. Articles like this one shouldn't even be brought here. They should just be delisted. But delisting before a consensus has been reached has the potential to cause drama... which there has been too much of here in the past few weeks until just recently. I don't feel like going through that again. LaraLoveT/C 04:24, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Addition to page header

Something that informs newcomers that we GA/R regulars are aware that GA has lower standards than FA.
*Smacks self in face to distract from mind-numbing pain*
Does anyone else find it annoying that every other custodian who jumps on the GA/R page finds it necessary to point this out? As if GA should just have no standards at all?!
/vent-fest. Sorry. I had to get that off my chest. LaraLoveT/C 19:24, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I cannot understand GA or FA at all.

Forgive my venting, but once again my experiences with the GA (or FA) process leaves me baffled. With a single exception all of my attempts at GA/FA have failed.

I'm not a complete idiot. It's not like I'm just nominating trash, or vanity, these articles are not only "good", but in many cases the single best resource of it's type available in any media (apply liberal amounts of lemon-scented IMHO(TM) disclaimer to this statement as required).

Yet, they fail. So either I completely misunderstand what GA/FA is trying to do, or something is seriously broken.

With one exception, every GA/FA failure so far has been related to what I would describe as stylistic interpretation. Sorry Lara, I'm not picking on you, but I'd like to use your comments as an example of what I mean. Here's your quick list:

  • Remove the random wikification of stand-alone years.
  • For as many images as are included, consider a gallery. Currently, it messes up the edit links. Images should not affect the formatting of the article.
  • Remove any emboldened terms in the article after the title sentence.
  • See WP:CITE regarding the necessary information that should be listed for references.
  • The article could also use additional wikification.

Ok, these are fine and all, but what confuses me is that when I look at these I see what appears to be nothing more than a short list of questionable style points (see below). There's not one comment about the article itself. Maybe it's just me, but when I think of "good article" I don't think of "excellent style". Oh, style is important, don't get me wrong, but it is of utterly secondary importance to the article itself. And yet with only one exception (Eastern Front (computer game)) I have not received any comments on the content of the articles I'm trying to approve.

This worries me greatly.

Equally worrying is that the style comments are often random, contradictory, and often highly questionable. For instance...

Remove any emboldened terms in the article after the title sentence.

The style guide states that the first appearance of a term should be in bold, which is what the article does. Other names can, and arguably should, appear in bold or italics. But don't take my word for it, the WP:WIAGA itself uses precisely this style.

I'm not saying you're wrong to point this out, my concern here is that it is seems to be a personal preference. Many articles, including key ones, use this style, which is where I got it from. So perhaps it's not the right style any more, but is it a failable problem?

A better example, perhaps...

Remove the random wikification of stand-alone years.

This is the biggie, in a way: do you really mean to say that the article fails being "good" because it has some extra wikilinks on years? I don't believe this is what you mean, but that is, technically, what it means.

Let me assure you, the article would fail if you were to list even just this one. Why? Because invariably the person that posts them does not check back to see if they were addressed, so the Oppose remains in the review page. Then some 'bot directs a reviewer into it a few days later, counts the Oppose's, and fails the page.

This, too, worries me greatly.

So am I in the wrong here? Am I misinterpreting why articles fail? Do most actually fail for good reasons? Do articles not fail for style reasons? Am I full of crap?

I'm turning off the vent again (*click*). I would like some comments though, GA seems broken to me, and I see nothing going on to fix it.

Maury 21:14, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry about picking on me. I get it a lot. As for picking on the process, that's a different story. I'll start by clarifying that.
First, we do check back. For example, if the issues I noted are not addressed, not only will my recommendation not change, but I won't further review the article. However, if they are addressed, then I'll take the time to fully read and review the article. I'll even help fix it. A look through some other GA/R discussions would have revealed that.
Second, we don't use bots in any part of this process. All decisions and archives are done by project archivists. Currently, which you would have noted had you read the first discussion currently on this page, we're actively changing the processes and procedures of GA/R to address concerns of editors such as yourself. One of those is to fully weigh all recommendations and their supporting arguments, choosing to ignore any that may be outdated. Meaning if the issues they cited have been addressed, yet their recommendation has not been updated, it would then no longer carry weight for consensus.
Third, in my opinion, almost all failed articles failed for good reasons. In order for GA to mean something, to hold any value, quality must be upheld. Compare it to money, if you will. If we printed endless amounts of cash, it wouldn't be worth anything. In the same respect, if we gave GA to every article that requested it, it wouldn't be worth anything.
Last, as far as passing articles with issues, that happens. When there are very few, very minor stylistic issues, articles are conditionally passed or kept, depending. Conditionally being that the issues must be addressed, otherwise, we'll just delist it. In the case of articles, such as yours, with a few (a little more than very few) issues, a delist would be in order. The delist can always change if corrections are made. I look at like this: When I review an article for GA/R, I review it the same as if it were a GAC. If I would pass it, then I give a "Keep" or "List as GA" at GA/R. If I would put it on hold, I give either a "Conditional keep" or "Delist". (Maybe "Weak delist", but I don't usually think to do this. Your article would justify a "Weak delist" from me, currently.) If I would normally fail the article, it either gets a "Delist" or, in the case of those with many issues, a "Strong delist" (because recent changes to GA/R prevent me from using my "Speedy delist"), or I'll just delist the article myself and archive the discussion. I typically try to avoid that, however, because I think it's poor form.
Now, as far as my review goes; I didn't even read the whole article, as I noted in my review. The issues I listed were from scanning the article. Individually, no, they do not fail the article. When all taken into account, they can. GA/R recommendations can change. If issues are addressed, of course. Speaking of those, let me further detail my issues... something that I should possibly always do to begin with, but all too often custodians don't care, so it wastes time. I reserve such treatment for editors like you who actually care. Anywhoo...
  • The random wikification of stand-alone years is a pet-peeve of mine. Admittedly, it's not part of the GA criteria, but I point this out whenever I see it... which is much too often. I normally remove it myself, but it all depends on how much time I'm working with.
  • Placement and number of images falls under layout, which is covered in the criteria. Specifically, the following:
  • "You should always be watchful not to overwhelm an article with images by adding more just because you can."
  • "When placing images, be careful not to stack too many of them within the lead, or within a single section to avoid bunching up several section edit links in some browsers."
  • The page also details possible alternatives including galleries and category creation.
  • Removal of emboldened words outside of the title sentence falls under lead, which is also covered in the criteria. You are correct in stating that variations can be included and emboldened, although not required. However, these emboldened variations should be introduced in the title sentence. The body should not include emboldened terms. It's a distraction to the reader and potentially confusing.
  • WP:WIAGA states that you should cite your sources. Citing a source is more than just listing a url between brackets. Details of what should be included are listed in the guide.
  • Lastly, wikification. This is not covered by the criteria, although I believe it should be. It's a general standard that all articles link to others. Regardless, I also always point this out when relevant. Wikipedia:Reviewing good articles states "Also look for proper formatting and organization of the article, with appropriate use of wikilinks."
That in mind, your observations are accurate. Many of the recommendations point out stylistic issues, but a major point in the GA criteria is that the article comply with certain aspects of the Manual of Style. It's my opinion, from experience, that when these basic style issues do not meet the criteria, the "more important" (in the opinion of some) criteria are not met. With that said, I hope you are willing to correct these issues, and know that you can always ask for assistance by dropping a line on my talk page. If progress is made with these, I'll fully review the article and help with any other issues I may find.
Regards, LaraLoveT/C 01:30, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
I must say that I have not had the same experience as Maury. I think all of my GA and FA nominations have passed, although only a couple have not needed changes in order to be promoted. If you are complaining that an article should only fail due to it's content then I disagree (especially for FA). Often the reviewer will not be an expert in the subject, but if an article is cited properly then generally thats not going to stop them promoting the article. I see that some of your citations did not conform to WP:CITE. If this is the case then that has to be addressed before an article can be promoted. Especially if you are citing web pages, they can be moved or deleted, and just having a link to a URL is not going to be sufficient. I have regularly had comments on the content of the articles I've nominated. Have a look at the review for Mark Hammett on the it's talk page, and the discussions Nehrams2020 and I had regarding it. I do think that style issues are important though, and there is nothing wrong with attention to detail. If reviewers are straight failing your nominations without giving you a chance to address their concerns then that is a big problem though, and I would recommend taking the article to GAR in that case. - Shudda talk 01:57, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
It's been my experience with FA and GA nominations, that it is often a mob of editors from that particular article, project, or community who have a vested interest (or lack of the above, the lone editor who submits something decent from the blue but it was never on anyone's radar screen) that determines the success of a nomination. I spend a lot of time de-crufting and de-boosterizing college and university articles and the stonewalling and reverting I encounter from current students, alumni, fans, etc. resisting my good-faith efforts to improve their articles is stupendously frustrating. At the same time, I have seen sub-par articles be promoted simply because there was the apparition of consensus, when in reality it was more of CoI-voting by editors who had contributed to the article (or in my experience, dormant editors torpedoing the review because its not how they want the page to be) than objective criticism of the article. It's hard for a harried admin like Raul654 to parse every single vote in a consensus-forum for conflict-of-interest and likely far easier to resort to counting the number of Support votes along with the legitimate concerns of regular editor/critics in the review peanut gallery. There is much to be said about going through the "official" channels -- gaining the blessing of a tangentially-related WikiProject, getting the GA badge, then diligently waiting as two or three people contribute to the peer review process before going to FAC and not getting torn apart by reviewers for failing to secure previous blessings. The process validates the existence of the other groups even if it undermines the higher invocation of be bold in the name of groupthink.Madcoverboy 03:16, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
I have to admit that I don't think any of those are really a problem except the citation one. Atropos 04:04, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
Not a problem as in easily fixed? Or not a problem as in it shouldn't affect GA? LaraLoveT/C 06:51, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
As I said Lara, these comments were based on your message, but they aren't really about them. For instance...
"However, if they are addressed, then I'll take the time to fully read and review the article
I have no reason to doubt this, but I have had two articles fail for precisely this reason (you were not involved in either, as I say, this isn't about you or this article in particular). Minor criticisms were noted, and corrected, but the review didn't check back so the objection remained. At which point...
Second, we don't use bots in any part of this process
Automated processes are sometimes used to find GA and FA candidates for review. In the cases I am mentioning above, the reviewer looked over the FA page, saw the unretracted comments, and failed it. I don't blame them, by any means, but it appeared the article would have passed otherwise. This is more a side-effect of the backlog than anything else.
Shudda, to address your concern, no, I do not believe an article should be passed or failed for content alone, but I do believe, strongly, that content should be the overwhelming consideration. A great article with too much bolding is still a great article. A great article entirely in bold? Maybe not. Nor do I mind making these changes -- note that most have been incorporated into the article since -- my concern here is style is a personal issue and is often contradictory (what one editors likes might not be what another likes) so it may be impossible to make everyone happy. In the case of lots of reviewers that's ok, in the case of one or two reviewers the article will fail.
Perhaps my negative experiences are a side effect of the somewhat esoteric nature of the articles. I rarely see more than one real reviews, and maybe one or two "one offs". So if that reviewer doesn't like the style, fail-o-rama!
Maury 12:46, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

You are not the first to raise these kinds of concerns. There are many problems with the GA/FA processes, especially for more esoteric articles and articles with technical content, where quite often the only people with the expertise to judge the content are all significant contributors to the article. At GAC, the reviewer is supposed to be relatively independent, and consequently s/he may only be able to judge stylistic issues. There was much discussion of this (in a rather overheated atmosphere) a month ago at Wikipedia talk:Good articles. Suggestions made included:

  • Introducing some method for reviewers to demonstrate their competance to assess an article, e.g., by making edits.
  • Renaming WP:GA so that it is explicitly about compliance with policy and style guidelines.
  • Separating GA from the Stub-Start-B-A scheme, and making the latter a content assessement, so that (again) WP:GA can concentrate on policy and style.

GA/R is in a slightly better position here, because there is more than one reviewer. Nevertheless, there are not that many regular reviewers, and so with articles as diverse as Behistun inscription and Wanamaker organ coming to GA/R, there simply isn't the expertise available to assess content in every case. Some attempts have been made here to address some of these concerns without making radical changes like the ones proposed above. For example:

  1. There is no conflict of interest at GA/R between reviewing/commenting and editing. This works two way: regular article editors can contribute to the review discussion; and regular reviewers can fix (often quite substantial) problems with articles.
  2. Listing and delisting decisions are decided by weight of argument, not numbers of votes.

There are, however, draw-backs with multiple reviewers. One is that most reviewers have what LaraLove called a "pet-peeve", or some aspect of the guidelines which they interpret more strictly than others might. In my case, it is WP:LEAD: if the lead does not stand alone as a summary of the article, it isn't GA. For others it is inline citation, or formatting of references. If each of these preferences is "not negotiable", it may raise the hurdle if an article has to satisfy everyone. Point 1 helps to address this: for instance, I am always willing to have a go at improving the lead, and I think User:LaraLove copyedits and fixes wikification in almost every article that appears here. Point 2 helps as well: if I am the only one objecting to the lead, then my argument won't carry.

It is not a perfect system, but people are aware of the issues and are trying to address and/or compensate for them. Suggestions and ideas are, of course, always welcome. Geometry guy 14:13, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

It's also worth noting that objections not covered by the criteria don't carry weight for consensus. I make a recommendation on almost every article that comes to GA/R and I archive many of them. I'm notorious for nit-picking through articles and pointing out everything I find wrong. Sometimes to the point that I can't even put my review on GA/R, instead I have to post it to the article talk page as a peer review and summarize WP:WIAGA related concerns at GA/R. Often, however, I just list everything I see that I feel should be corrected and point out which of those suggestions violates a GA criteria. And, typically, any issues I find that do not fall under the criteria, I fix myself. Other GA editors do this as well. When archiving, those non-WIAGA related issues are not considered to determine consensus.
My best advice for you, and this is advice I've given several times before; if you feel that the issues noted are so insignificant that it does not warrant delistment or failure, just fix them and the article will retain GA or be promoted. We're working on improving the process. Just remember that we're all volunteers here... and you get what you pay for. No, no, I'm just kidding!
GA can be purchased for the low price of only $19.99. Send payments to User:LaraLove. No personal checks. All major credit cards, cash, money orders and gift cards to Chili's restaurants and major department stores accepted. Terms and conditions apply.
Regards, LaraLoveT/C 16:26, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion

Well I'd like to re-introduce a suggestion I made some time ago. I believe we could solve a lot of the problems with all of these processes by separating out the two tasks, reviewing and rating. This would mean:

There is a single "review queue" that combines the Peer, GA, GAR and FA. Articles are posted for review, not grading.
After a normally set review period, which can be extended or truncated as needed on an individual basis, a separare review panel examines the review and optionally assigns a "grade".

I believe this would address a wide variety of problems with the current system.

1) the average user -me- remains baffled as to the differences between GA and FA. From my perspective you list on GA first then FA, but the reasons for this are unclear.
2) it maximizes the number of eyeballs on the articles. currently potential reviewes are spread across many project pages. There may be someone out there that understands NIF, but they might be involved in something other than GAR, and therefore never see it.
3) it minimizes total workload. as it stands you basically have to do GA, peer and then FA to promote an article. Either the article is FA or it's not, the process taken to get there should not be at issue. But as it stands the article has to go through multiple reviews, dramatically increasing workload
4) if the reviews are even remotely objective, then the items turned up during GA should be the same as if the FA process did the same review. Yes, FA might have more items, but that's beside the point.
5) It can be made more objective with the manditory use of a worksheet, with simple items at the top, GA items in the middle, and FA at the end. Reviewers mark off the boxes if they believe they are met (along with comments of course). Minor stylistic items are considered suggestions only unless egregious.

Here's how I see this process working. A user posts to "the list" as they do to one of the lists now. The article then enters a review period of some fixed period, say a week. Reviewers use the worksheet to check off items against the review grid and add any additional comments. The editors can then immediately see what needs to be done to meet any of the criterion down the page. For instance, if there's only one or two missing GA's but a whole bunch of missing FA's, they might choose to implement only the GA's (for now). A separate section of the review is used to indicate changes made to match the reviews, whether required or suggested. After the review period closes there is the option to extend it, or not, as the editor sees fit. In either case, when the period finally ends the page moves to a review panel (again, open to anyone). The panel looks at the notes made by the editor, checks the article to see if they were actually made, and then grades it from nothing to GA to FA all in one step.

I think this avoids MANY of the problems in the current system. For instance, in the current system if an original reviewer does not return to the page to change their pass/fail due to changes, the article remains pass/fail. This process would avoid that completely. Additionally, by using a set worksheet (or at least guideline), the editor can see what items are really needed, and which are suggestions. Then they can simply choose to include the suggestions or not as they see fit. Finally, it stops the articles from falling into limbo. And I also believe it makes the entirely process much more streamlined.

Comments?

Finally, a comment of my own... Listing and delisting decisions are decided by weight of argument, not numbers of votes. In theory, sure, but in practice this is not how it works. And this is true for every one of the "it's not a vote" that actually turns out to be a vote. In practice, Raul (who is majority overloaded) goes to the review page, looks over the Pass/Fail, and makes a judgement. This isn't Raul's problem, it's the reviewers, if they don't go back and change their "votes" then the review page has all sorts of fails and suggestions. This is all he has to work on, no matter how outdated they may be. The same works in reverse, I can imagine cases of vandalism occuring after everyone has passed it but before Raul gets to do his magic. Maury 15:15, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Your concept sounds nice, but it wouldn't work. What standards would reviewers impose on the nominations? FA, A-class, GA? Would every reviewer just list everything they noted and let the custodians pick and choose what they want to fix? That wouldn't guarantee promotion to anything. :Addressing your points:
1. The differences between GA and FA can be found here. GA is not a requirement for FA. It is recommended that you have your article peer reviewed prior to nominating for FA.
2. It's been proposed (at both FA and GA, I think) that review processes be broken down into two phases. Style and policy, then subject accuracy. For the latter, an expert on the subject would review the article. I'm not sure where those discussions currently stand. I support that idea, however, this should be something that certain subject experts list their name on a page that can be accessed by all projects, rather than combining all projects.
3. Again, GA, PR, FA, it's not a staircase. To achieve FA one could idealy look at the criteria, read the essay, write an amazing article, nominate and receive FA. However, it's not as easy as it sounds. FAs are built. It takes time. PR is the recommended way to get help building the article. GA is something some editors prefer to use as a stepping stone to get their article ready for PR. Some find they don't need to do PR after GA. It all depends on the article, the custodians, and the reviewers. And not all articles need to be reviewed for FA. As noted above, the criteria are much different. Who would review which articles. There is much more that would be taken into account than you realize.
4. This doesn't make sense to me. GA and FA are totally different.
5. It sounds nice. I just don't think it would work. FA is on a much larger scale than GA. FA reviewers aren't going to want to waste their time reviewing articles that don't even meet GA standards. That's the whole point in the processes being separate.
The number of reviewers vs the number of articles would not decrease backlogs. The time frames and all of that, it just couldn't be guaranteed. GA and FA do not need to be combined. LaraLoveT/C 16:26, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
What standards would reviewers impose on the nominations? FA, A-class, GA? Would every reviewer just list everything they noted and let the custodians pick and choose what they want to fix? That wouldn't guarantee promotion to anything.
Precisely. Which is no different than how it works today. Does listing on the FA list "guarantee promotion"? No. Neither would this. What it would do is maximize the chance that someone knowledgable in the topic would come across the article. Splitting the lists out, as it is today, reduces those chances because editors generally work on only a single list at a time.
Again, this would be a review process, most similar to PR, with the intention of improving articles. The grading would be entirely secondary. Would you rather have 100 improved articles that are not marked FA, or one greatly improved one that is? I would choose the former.
GA and FA are totally different.
To my eye, one is simply a "more rigourous" version of the other. The GA vs. FA document simply blurs this even more, for instance it states that FA needs to have a certain layout (lead, heading hierarchy, table of contents), items that would immediately fail a GA as well. The differences section of the document is utterly filled with the sort of weasle words that would fail it from either. "Compelling"?! The only objective differences listed are the number of style guidelines that need to be met, and the requirement to meet a potentially non-existant style guide from a related project.
And mechanically there is no difference at all that I can see. To attempt to get either GA or FA, the article is listed on the appropraite page, it is reviewed (one hopes), and then it passes or fails. I can't see the "totally different" concept. Perhaps this explains all of my confusion.
Maury 18:06, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
FA is not only more "rigorous" than GA, it puts your article on the main page. GA is a tag on the talk page. In the list of participants, at least for GA, editors list their areas of interest and expertise. So, if you nominate an article for a certain topic and you want an expert in that topic to review it, go request one of the editors who have listed themselves as such. Additionally, as I previously pointed out, those who do FA and PR reviews will not want to be bothered reviewing lower quality articles, that's the whole reason FA recommends articles go through PR first, so they don't waste time on articles that come no where close to FA, much less those that don't even qualify for GA. LaraLoveT/C 20:43, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
I also found this is an interesting idea, and I can see some of the benefits. I can't see this happening though: you would either have to cross-post the idea at all the fora (FAC,GAC,FAR,...) you mention, or start a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia. Radical change is very difficult to effect.
I have a couple of comments, one general, one more specific (to me). The general comment is that you don't have to go through all these processes if you don't want to: you can just shoot for FA. Indeed some of Wikipedia's best editors do exactly that: they don't see the point of going through intermediate stages. (A famous recent example was George Washington (inventor).) My other remark is that your "two step" process is very similar to the way I prefer to approach GA/R or any similar process (such as AfD, CFD, etc.): I do not begin with a recommendation/vote ("keep", "delist", "delete", etc.); instead I begin with comments. Then I follow the discussion, and a few days or weeks later, I summarise my view in the light of that. I wish this style were more popular, as I think it would achieve some of the benefits of the review+panel approach.
Finally, to the comment on votes. I think it is crazy that one person makes all these FA decisions: Raul cannot possible read all the comments, check them against the article, and against the FA criteria. He does a pretty good job, considering, but imagine if there was just one person in charge of closing AfDs and CFDs: it would be a disaster! GA/R is much better off in that respect: anyone can archive a review, and usually it is a reviewer who has been actively following the discussion and knows all the issues. It used to be treated a bit like a vote - even the "score" was recorded in the archive - but that is no longer the case. Geometry guy 16:51, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

GAC backlog elimination drive

A month-long backlog elimination drive has started. There are several awards to be won. For details please go to Wikipedia:Good article candidates backlog elimination drive. OhanaUnitedTalk page 04:57, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Having looked at the history of the GAC page, I predict a flood of delist recommendations over the next few weeks. Editors are passing articles like a baby passes gas. I've not looked at any of them, but I just seriously don't think one editor can be so fortunate as to review multiple good articles in a matter of minutes. So, this is just an FYI to everyone. LaraLoveT/C 06:48, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
Personally, I think it's important that the backlog is cleared. I'm spending on average an hour on each article (I've filled up about 8 or 9 pages, that about 16 sides of A4 paper with notes) - most of my articles that I've done are on hold - I've had a look at a few of the articles, and although there are a few questionable ones being passed, the majority are, imo, fine. I may not be being overly harsh; at the same time, these are GACs and not FACs. Mouse Nightshirt | talk 23:04, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
I love how people always point out that GAs are different than FAs here. Anyway... I, too, think the drive is important. That wasn't my noted concern. In the midst of helping clear the backlog myself, I noted that there are several editors plowing through multiple articles in a matter of a few hours. Being a reviewer (albeit one that spends hours on reviews pointing out all errors and correcting many myself, which is far more detailed than most), I know that many articles cannot be competently reviewed that quickly. For that reason, I expect a flood of GA/R nominations in coming weeks, as I noted in my post for those editors, such as myself, that actively participates in GA/Rs on a regular basis. LaraLoveT/C 05:02, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Archiving

MiszaBot II seems to miss out subsections when archiving, so I archived one manually myself. Geometry guy 12:51, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Acting too soon

I have noticed that many of these noms have been sent to the archives quickly. Unless it is a WP:SNOWBALL issue (articles egregiously out of line) we should probably assure that any articles appearing here spend at least a few days even if there is an overwhelming consensus to delist; hoping that someone will come along and fix the problems. Many articles here are not outrageously bad; I have seen much worse articles come back from the dead after long times and lots of work due specifically to WP:GA/R. (anyone remember Michael Jackson?) Just be certain that EVEN in the face of clear consensus, if it appears that the article can be fixed that we give the custodians of said article the time to do it... There is no rush, and a week is not too long to spend on this page. Again, unless the article is just plain bad, don't archive it until we are SURE no one is going to come along to fix them... --Jayron32|talk|contribs 03:01, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Noted. I had a different point of view. But I respect yours and will stop (or slow down, rather), as I'm the one that's been clearing the page. I looked at it as there was consensus, and the fewer listed on the page, the greater the chance that remaining articles would get further recommendations. I've posted GA/R adverts everywhere I can think of...... except the advert banner... I should make one! Anyway, yea, to get participation up at GA/R. I suppose I'm a little overzealous and used to the all or nothing participation from custodians. They're typically either here fighting to keep it with all they've got (either a desire to improve it, or a desire to prove all of us wrong), or they're totally no where to be found. But I'll wait on the archiving until it's been a few days since the last recommendation. Lara♥Love 03:53, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, I would think to give it a week since it first appears at GA/R. That way, anyone who cares has a chance to fix any concerns. Again, snowball concerns should be delisted post-haste; but in cases where people at GA/R ask for fixes, we should, you know, give people a chance to fix stuff. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:47, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Good point. I shall curb my enthusiasm for keeping the list short. :p Lara♥Love 05:32, 10 August 2007 (UTC) P.S. Fooled you. :) This will make no sense whatsoever if you didn't see the edit summary that accompanied it.
Saw the edit. Had a mild chuckle. Emphasis on the mild...--Jayron32|talk|contribs 06:11, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
See, I try to lighten things up and bring a little laughter into it and you have to make comments like that... I'm hurt. No, really. I'm sobbing uncontrollably here... emphasis on sobbing. Lara♥Love 06:21, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Laughing uncontrollably. Emphasis on the "hing". --Jayron32|talk|contribs 06:26, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't get it. :/ Lara♥Love 06:32, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Jayron... I know that this issue has been resolved, but I was starting to think the same thing. I won't repeat what has already been said... but agree with Jayron... the reason why I like to wait a week is because some people can only log on once a week. It does no good if they log on after the issue has been closedBalloonman 18:35, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
You know what, Balloonman... I don't need you on my back too. I'm skinny... I can't carry all this weight. ... You hear that? It's my fragile frame cracking. :P Lara♥Love 18:41, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
And I'm not a light wieght either... :) Balloonman 19:15, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Notification process

It has been noted in a current nomination that it would be helpful in some cases for Wikiprojects interested in a particular article to be notified. Many of them advertise their GA and FA articles on their project pages. They may be willing to make corrections to articles that would otherwise be ignored and delisted. Perhaps, when nominators go to the article talk page to post the notification, they can also post notes on the talk pages of those Wikiprojects for which there are banners. Lara♥Love 14:23, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps something like the way bots do it when they're challenging images without a fair use? Leave a note at the project, at the main editor's talk page (if any), and the article's talk page? (whew!) Wrad 14:47, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Another idea I've been toying with. Possibly a barnstar award for editors who rescue a GA on the verge of delisting? Correct me if this already exists... Wrad 16:10, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
I really don't like that idea. Barnstars are for people who go above and beyond. They are awarded by individuals for doing what the individual believes is superb or unexpected work. Saving a GA that one is invovled with is not, IMHO, barnstar worthy. If you care about the articles you are working on, then you should work to preserve the accolades your articles have garnered. I oppose any effort make receiving a barnstar a part of a process. We don't give barnstars for getting an article to FA or GA status, we shouldn't give one for preserving said status. (especially when it becomes, as is often the case, several editors working together to save an article.)Balloonman 16:46, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
I guess that it would only be or special cases, such as in the rare Rescue from Deletion Barnstar. Oh well. When all is said an done, though, barnstars can be given by anybody for just about anything. I've seen some pretty lame ones out there Wrad 17:00, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
I have too, but I don't think they should be given out in this manner. If you see somebody make tremendous work on a GA delist candidate, then you are free to give that person a barnstar.Balloonman 17:23, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Besides having every project template code handle it, what would it take such that if an article is up for GAR/GAD, to update that project's assessment template to change the "GA" to "GAR"/"GAD" and propagate that to the appropriate project pages? (Once possibility would be to have the project assessment template, when presented with a GA that's gone to GAR, to create an appropriate category "Such-and-such Project Good Articles up for Review"). Yes, this put an onus on the project templates, but that's effectively spreading the work around. The only problem that I see right now is that I don't think these assessment templates "fail" gracefully in that an unknown classed spelled out in the article would fall out as a "unclassed" article instead of being still noted as a GA within the project. (looking at the code for Template:cvgproj as a reference case). --Masem 17:14, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, we already require that the notice be placed on the article talk page... If an article has NO ONE watching it for a week (the recommended minimum time to spend at GA/R) then I am not too sure that any additional notices will help... --Jayron32|talk|contribs 19:35, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
I'll just do it. We don't get that many noms belonging to Wikiprojects. Shouldn't take me more than 30 seconds per nom. If it ups the chances of the article being saved, I'm not bothered by it. Lara♥Love 19:40, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Possible GAR

I was thinking about posting a review for Space Interferometry Mission, in light of recent discussion on the talk page. I came here first to discuss, and so it didn't seem pointy. I think it could go a long way toward determining consensus on GA and future events. IvoShandor 02:38, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I see no problem leaving this article on the list, even though it is speculative. WRT the other speculative article, the 2007 Texas Football article, THAT article is bound to see massive changes in the next 4 months. It will become permanently stable in January, so there is little problem with it not being considered for the a short time. This article will see little change for many years, as the mission does not even have a hard launch date. Even though both articles technically deal with an uncompleted event, the nature of the event dictates that each article be handled differently. If this were an ongoing space mission with massive amounts of new info from it coming in every week or so, I MAY be inclined to go for a delist on it. But this article stands little chance of seeing massive changes, so is largely stable. Apples and oranges, really. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 18:31, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Question on NPOV tag following GAR review

Suppose that a GA article is placed under GA review, then a majority of reviewers confirm its GA status and the review is closed as keep listing. Can a single editor then turn around and tag the article for POV immediately afterwards, if there has been no material change to the article since the GAR? Would such action violate the GAR consensus and thus, the tag could be removed? Looking for your thoughts. Thanks. Majoreditor 04:24, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

If they tag the article for NPOV, there's no reason why you can't un-tag it. And if someone did delist it purely because of the NPOV tag (ie. without a GAR), then it would OK to relist it, or bring it here and have someone else do it. The entire process is very informal. Giggy Talk 07:16, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Backlog? Really?

I just noticed the backlog tag on the top of this page. I don't know if that's really necessary. Is 19 pending reviews really cause for concern? The guidelines to resolving a review state that we should wait around one week until after the last comment or vote. There's a few pending reviews, but those will eventually be resolved based on its time under review, not by any efforts of editors, right? In fact, according to those guidelines, asking for experienced editors to contribute will just slow things down. Drewcifer3000 04:39, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Most of the ones on there are only needing a couple comments to reach consensus. Because the quality reviews of the backlog elimination drive are being completed now, GA/R is about to blow up. Not to mention the sweeps of all GAs that we're about to begin. The project finally has adequate participation. We just need the numbers on each nom. I only have it viewable for that reason. If you feel it's unnecessary, hide it, but don't delete it. Having it on the edit page (even if it's hidden from the project page) keeps the list on the GA project open tasks template. Lara♥Love 20:15, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough. It didn't seem like a huge issue, just something odd I noticed. Drewcifer3000 21:44, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

PLEASE leave a notice on the talk page of the article you are bringing up for review!!!!!

In the past few days, I have had to leave notices on article talk pages for articles that have been up for GA/R for several weeks. If no one who cares about the article knows the discussion is going on, we can't fix it! Please ensure that if you bring an article up for discussion, you drop a note on the talk page letting people know about it. Our goal is to make a better encyclopedia by making better articles, not simply assigning ratings to articles. Please ensure that all due process is done to ensure that SOMEONE who cares about the article has a chance to address concerns. I had to un-delist one today that had 6 delist votes; it was a false consensus since NO ONE was given a chance to respond of fix the article. Lets make this work better, eh? --Jayron32|talk|contribs 20:38, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Henry Rollins

Hmm...I don't think there are any other GAR "regulars" who haven't already said something in this one. I'm not sure on consensus, but I want to know if anyone else has something to say before I make a judgement. Giggy Talk 01:07, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Considering no one left a message on the talk page, I suppose we should give the custodians some notice and let them have an opportunity to fix it. At least one article was delisted and archived today that did not have a notice on the article's talk page, as Jayron noted above. In fact, Jayron archived it, then reverted it, but it was archived shortly thereafter. Lara♥Love 04:11, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Actually, it appears that the rollins article is being actively fixed, so I have no problem leaving it around for a few more days. I did the revert of the archeoastronomy article. But it looks like someone else delisted it. Whatever. Still, we DO need to work harder at notifying the article talk page when a discussion is initiated. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:14, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
OK, I'll leave Rollins up a little longer and then decide (you can change comments based on changes in the meantime). As for archeoastronomy, I have since un-delisted it. Giggy Talk 06:45, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. Note that I didn't discover that the article was at GA/R until about 10 days after its nomination, but I'm confident I'll be able to reference the rest of the article by the end of tommorow. CloudNine 09:07, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Mother Theresa

I just closed this nomination as WP:FORUMSHOP. I didn't feel as if we needed to wait 3 days to rehash what we just discussed less than 3 days ago. I also posted a message on the Mother Theresa talk page explaining that if the critics of this article wish to be taken seriously then they need to wait before nominating it again.Balloonman 03:04, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

In my opinion, any further MT GA/R's which continue to be started back to back and don't have any specific examples of problems should just be deleted immedietly, no archive. These repeated review requests which clearly have no chance at present really seem to be skirting the edge of WP:POINT. If someone starts a review with real evidence, (and not just "It isn't neutral, so there.") then I think that's fine, even if it is started in only a few days or something. Homestarmy 01:27, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
This whole sitchuashun needs help from mediators before we take it up. It reads to me like some interpersonal shit is going on between the editors of the article... and I'd rather not take sides or get stuck in the middle of it. Once everyone has worked out their stuff, we can look at the article objectively, but until then, it looks like people are trying to use GA/R to mediate an edit war, and that's not what we are here for... --Jayron32|talk|contribs 01:58, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
I think we should archive on sight, not delete. Keep the record in case it is necessary. For example, it was real easy to find the speedy closed request because it was in the archive. As a general rule, I think we shouldn't review articles that have been recently reviewed unless a month or more has passed since the conclusion of the last review.Balloonman 03:00, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm fine with either. Personally, I'm not against forgoing the archive and just reverting the nomination. In this case, that is, as they've been told twice now that it's not appropriate to nominate so closely. The first renominate was after what, three weeks? We closed it stating it was too soon, so they renominate four days or whatever later. Ridiculous. Should it come up again within the next month, revert it. That's my 2 cents. LARA♥LOVE 05:25, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
In all the time i've been watching GA/R, I don't think this has actually ever happened before, generally people get the point after the second review. I don't think there's a great pressing need to make a new general rule about timeline here, I mean, its only one article involved. Homestarmy 15:45, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
The second nom was 12 days after the first one closed.Balloonman 20:33, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
I know I am probably considered to be part of the edit-warring/forum-shopping problem, but I had already posted similar comments about this third referral at Talk:Mother Teresa#Good article review. I was quite frankly amazed by the third GAR even though I had felt the article was unbalanced. It appears that I am not the only person who was active or watching this page, saw the second GAR, went over to try to help improve the page, immediately got labelled as a troll and got dragged into what was happening. Unfortunately even now there still seem to be two editors there who are taking a line of it being everybody's fault but theirs. I'll be interested in suggestions from experienced people here on how to avoid getting trapped in a similar way again. (Using my talk page or emailing me is better than responding to this request here.) As for the other discussion here, I certainly think that its worth archiving speedy closed nominations, not deleting them. And I think gut instinct rather than a set time limit is the way to decide whether a renimination is too early. --Peter cohen 22:35, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

In-line citations and potential changes to GA criteria

I have started a discussion over at the GA criteria page about the requirement of in-line citations in GA articles. Hopefully this should clear up quite a bit of debate over at WP:GA/R and elsewhere. Everyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. Drewcifer 20:54, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

(Over)use of boldface?

Is anyone else bothered by the excessive use of boldface type in certain GARs, such as RevoPower? Maybe I'm just picking at nits, but I find it annoying. Majoreditor 20:50, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

It started many months ago, but i've never been really annoyed by it. The boilerplate text for the GA/R template is kind of annoying though, since its just repeated over and over as you scroll down, and in short reviews, I think it gives the illusion that there's more commentary on the GA/R than there really is. Homestarmy 02:15, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Template:GAR

Just as a heads up, I created this template to make it easier to create GAR reviews. An example of it in use can be found at User:Giggy/GAR template preview. I also changed Wikipedia:Good article review/guidelines to note this. Giggy Talk 02:30, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. Great idea. Though I'm a little confused about the (De)listing line. What's that all about? Drewcifer3000 03:26, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
It contains links to edit WP:GA, Template:GA number, the article's talk page, and WP:GA/R. When you close the debate and archive, you have to edit all those pages (in cases of delisting, or of giving the article GA status). The article talk and GAR need to be edited regardless, so it just makes it a bit easier. Giggy Talk 03:42, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
I thought GimmeBot or something updated the GA count template automatically....? Homestarmy 03:58, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
It does. It also sorts and corrects listing errors. I always update the count myself, however, so that the number is as accurate as possible. If it's no longer necessary, the edit link beside it could be removed. :/ As far as the template goes, very nice. Lara♥Love 04:54, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Oh, also, tho. Looking at the (De)listing line. I take it you have them in order of steps? I don't know how everyone else does it, but I archive the discussion first. Then go to GA, delist the article and include the link to the archived discussion in the edit summary. Update the count. Then I go to the article talk page and leave a message with the link to the discussion there as well. Lara♥Love 04:58, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
No, it's in a totally random order :) Feel free to change it to the order you prefer. And yes, I update the T:GA count myself too, even though the bot does it. Don't trust bots! Giggy Talk 05:07, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
I swapped it. I think the number of GA project templates doubled today. :p Lara♥Love 05:09, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Nope :) Giggy Talk 05:11, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Wow. I sit corrected. I guess our three didn't add much, lol. Lara♥Love 06:11, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, Giggy is gone, so this is weird now. But I have a concern about this template. It makes the page kind of cluttered looking. I don't suppose their is some way to remove the double article title? I mean, I think to have the link to the talk and history and all that, which is helpful, it has to remain that way, and to keep the TOC, we have to have the header. I don't know. Anyone have experience with this sort of template that can comment? Lara♥Love 05:16, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Look at th etemplate now, is that what you meant? T Rex | talk 05:31, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, but I was thinking of something a little more drastic. I fixed it. I removed the header all together. The header is created in GA/R for the TOC. It's pointless to have a subheader of the same. I tested it. Looks much better. Lara♥Love 02:19, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Not enough in-line citations

Further to discussions at WP:WIAGA, basic policy and my numerous attempts to elicit specifics in response to various GA/R nominations,[1][2][3]. As my requests have been entirely ignored, I am giving notice here that I'll start to close GA/R's which are founded solely on this criteria unless we get some specific examples into these reviews. To say "not enough inline citations" is just about the most lazy and binary way I can think of of reviewing. We could get a bot to do it - as Ling, mentions at WIAGA, "Citation is a cognitive process" - that means thought and judgement are required to justify whether or not a specific sentence requires a citation. Please, please see WP:V and WP:Cite and WP:WHEN. If you have a problem with aspects of an article's text which you think is missing a citation - you need to bring that sentence to GA/R or fact tag it. Otherwise the author is none-the-wiser as to exactly what your objection is. If you can't tell him/her then they can't do anything about it, and your complaint is inactionable and therefore out of process.--Joopercoopers 12:31, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

This comment comes up so much and I hate it to. When asked to provide examples of what they feel should be cited, reviewers are rarely forthcoming, which is very detrimental to the process. --ZincBelief 15:49, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

It is somewhat unhelpful, and was once a target of frequent criticism, since people accused reviewers of basically being bean counters who counted the number of inline citations. Inline citations alone don't always reference an article, certain short sections utilizing summary style can borrow their referenced status from the parent, and some general references can cover material, though of course, the fight over the inline citations criteria blurs that line. (The new criteria would make it invalid for general references to cover material if an inline citation could be appropriate.) Homestarmy 15:57, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that all these guides, policies and essays you post explain what needs to be sourced. We shouldn't have to go through every article and tag every sentence. Look at the policies you post and figure it out. If it isn't common knowledge, it needs a source, otherwise your writing original research, which is in the GA criteria. Lara♥Love 15:59, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
NO! the reason I'm prompted to this action is there is a fundamental misunderstanding of policy operating on these pages. Yes, matters which aren't common knowledge should be sourced - but a source is provided in the reference section. An in-line citation is required for
  1. Quotations – When quoting published material, the quote should be attributed in the text and a citation placed after it.
  2. Data and statistics
  3. Counter-intuitive statements – Statements likely to surprise the reader should be cited. ie. Challengeable material or that likely to be challenged
  4. Opinions
  5. Contentious statements about living people
--Joopercoopers 16:03, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
As I have stated elsewhere, I am a very strong advocate for citing claims. I think many people are a little leary of the reliability of WP. People would like to be able to say I found this fact on WP and I know it is true because WP says so. However, we are truly a tertiary resource. Thus, everything we print should be something that someone else (hopefully a WP:RS) said. It is best if those someones are verifiable to the reader. Thus, I feel most interesting claims that a reader would want to state as a fact should be cited. The reader should be able to say I found this claim on WP and they say that so and so said it. If we do not properly cite interesting facts and err on the side of overciting this is not likely to happen. The standard of general knowledge is vague and can lead to problems. I often see general knowledge statement tagged with {{fact}} and I usually agree they should be cited. I have seen statements like Pamela Anderson is a popular celebrity known for her large breast or Wayne Gretsky is widely considered the greatest hockey player ever thusly tagged. Such actions generally lead to either proper citation or removal. That phrase Challenged or likely to be challenged in the abstract is undefined and begs the question by whom? I guess it might be reasonable to add by a reasonable person, but then we have to ask did the reasonable person have an understanding of the topic on the page or was he coming to WP to learn about the topic? Are we suppose to write the encyclopedia for an audience that might be learning and thus doubtful of any extraordinary claim? Do we expect the reader to be experts? A debate I am having on Gilbert Perreault is revolving around the fact that as hockey fans many things would not be challenged. However, maybe a biography researcher, a History of Buffalo or history of Quebec researcher might challenge a fact in the article. I tend to err on the side that any fact I think is even remotely interesting should be cited as a tertiary resource editor/author. I do not know if I am right, but I do know despite my poor writing I am able to get a lot of thing promoted up the quality scale with that approach. Anything I write, I try to write as if it will not be believed unless cited. Everything on WP is suppose to be something we say someone else said. In fact, everything on this tertiary resource is suppose to be something a reliable secondary source said. Regardless, of the fact, it is suppose to be something someone else said. In my highest quality efforts I attempt to cite my articles as if anything I don't cite is unverified. That is my standard of challenged or likely to be challenged.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 17:16, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Most of that's your choice Tony and I applaud it, but that doesn't mean it's required of you by policy.--Joopercoopers 20:10, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

(←) Yes! It's a matter of verifiability. You can have a dozen statements that aren't common knowledge included in an article and put your sources in the references section at the end, but that doesn't help a reader who wants to verify it. How are they to know what came from which source? If they aren't available online, do they just go check out every listed book and read them all? If you don't like the look of in-lines, consider placing them at the end of paragraphs rather than the end of sentences. At least then, the reader has a general idea of where to look. That's my view of it. Lara♥Love 18:34, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, well your view of policy is above and beyond that actually required - if you want to change this, take it up at WP:V, not here. --Joopercoopers 18:41, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
No, it's clearly in line with policy. As Tony alluded to it's in the "Challenged or likely to be challenged". We must never forget that "Wikipedia is for the readers, not the editors" and we can not assume a base of knowledge for our readers beyond what can be considered undoubtedly common knowledge (i.e. The Earth is round type stuff). It is unfair to assume that every reader is going to be an expert in any given subject and it is plausible that they may question something being stated as absolute fact that isn't common knowledge. While I agree that there should never be an "X number of cites required" criteria, I think it's fair to say that if any article has several paragraphs of claims without nary a cite to be found that the article is certainly lacking in the WP:V area. AgneCheese/Wine 19:02, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Just not the case - we don't need to treat our readers like idiots and spoon feed them at every turn. In line citations disrupt the flow of text and make it harder to read. Policy and consensus has established where we need to provide inline citations and deems the provision of a references section - like most academic literature you might read - acceptable. Challengable or likely to be challenged does not mean - by imbeciles - it implies a reasonable standard of education. Summary style allows citations to be maintained in the daughter articles and it's quite possible that an article may not require any citations at all because it makes no statements likely to be challenged. My purpose here however is to assert that if this 'insufficient citations' business is to continue - the reviewers need to point out the specifics (or at the very least a good sample) of the deficiencies. --Joopercoopers 19:11, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Well the "harder to read" is a personal opinion-and a stylistic one at that. Not everyone shares the same opinion. However, WP:V is a very practical consideration and it is a commitment to our readers that they will be able to verify what they have read and be able to trust that it is true. No one is asking that we treat our readers like idiots which is why universal common knowledge is rarely ever cited or requested to be. But on the flip side it is still not fair to expect our readers to be experts in the subject area and to already know that this or that is true and that no one "in the field" would ever challenge it. Why are our readers even coming to the article in the first place if we are assuming for them to know everything already? It's seems counterintuitive. You must keep in mind that a "reasonable standard of education" is very vague and subject to our own systematic bias. Considering the worldwide audience that Wikipedia has, it is rather elitist of us to assume that everyone will have the same level of education that we were fortunate enough to have. AgneCheese/Wine 19:39, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps we can all agree that when a reviewer challenges an article for lack of citations the reviewer should at least mention some specific examples of material which should be cited in the article. However, it is not incumbent upon the reviewer to point out every specific instance which should be cited.
Thoughts? Majoreditor 19:24, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
That is reasonable. AgneCheese/Wine 19:39, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Better, but really are we going to get into a situation where the reviewers say eg. "this one sentence". The reviewee fixes it and then the reviewer says "they're still not all fixed" - hardly seems fair. The reviewer should be saying which one's they think should be fixed most importantly - this is GA after all and my understanding was a more relaxed view is supposed to be taken - there's a difference between wikipedias Best and simply 'good'. Verifiability applies to all of wikipedia, but the presence of in-line citations is not the sole indicator of whether or not an article is verifiable. Simply an indicator of how convenient that verifiability may be. If reviewers are just going to say "all statements need cites" then we're in trouble.--Joopercoopers 19:41, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

(←) I completely disagree. As more and more articles come through GAC, the demands on the reviewers gets higher and higher. It's the same at GA/R. We can't walk editors through every sentence of an article and point out every detail. That's ridiculous. That's what the criteria are for. An article should not be nominated until the nominator feels it passes all of the criteria. Certainly things will be overlooked, and that's the point of the review, but we can't hold every custodian's hand, so to speak. I agree that pointing out a couple of examples is reasonable. To fact tag every sentence in need of a source, that's not our job as reviewers. It's like a college applicant disagreeing with the requirements of the college for which they have applied, then demanding that the college help them meet the requirements. It's the job of the custodian attempting to achieve GA to bring the article up to standards. How much help you get from your reviewer is up to them. Lara♥Love 19:54, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

  • Comment Personally I dislike references that aren't Inline. Mainly, because they open up the road to "Hey authors, put your book here and get free publicity!", without actually saying what they back up in the article. This would be appropriate in a further reading section, not as a reference to back up a statement. You also have to remember that the vast majority of people are idiots, and Wikipedia is pop culture now, we shouldn't lower ourselves down to Simple English Wikipedia levels, but we shouldn't make things needlessly confusing either, is a good example. Anyway, back to my main point, unused references are very bad ideas, they lead to plugging. See WP:LINKSPAM, It is also important to avoid giving an opportunity to spammers, which is exactly what general references are. They're little more than external links in the wrong section, and less prone to deletion . I do agree strongly with Majoreditor that any time someone says that an article lacks sources for statements (or vice versa in AFDs), they should back it up by the unsourced sentence (or the reliable source they're claiming) --lucid 19:42, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Asking for inline cites w/o actionable details, preferably {{Fact}} tags, is unacceptably unfair. -- Ling.Nut 19:52, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Is there anyone that disagrees with that statement, though? --lucid 20:02, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Apparently Lara does - and no one on the reviews I requested examples from has bothered to oblige me. --Joopercoopers 20:05, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Agne "WP:V is a commitment to our readers that they will be able to verify what they have read and be able to trust that it is true". I don't dispute this. The presence of reference section makes an article verifiable and in-line cites make that verification more convenient to the reader. It is however an significant step change in policy to say 1. All GA's require inline citations as a matter of course. ie. regardless of 'challengeable' - this isn't even required for FA's and 2. to insist on this requirement here. I'm not here to discuss the fine points of WP:V, I'm saying that the regular contributors to this page have established standards that are way above WP:V. If you've a problem with WP:V take it up and propose a new policy - don't use this page to beat editors into leaving by asserting a consensus of policy that doesn't exist. --Joopercoopers 19:57, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I'd also warn that the other extreme - fact bombing is equally unacceptable disruption. --Joopercoopers 20:05, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

(undent) Sorry, but if we're just saying "Not enough cites" without {{fact}} tags, then we need to change the culture. We are providing a service here, not dictating ex cathedra. -- Ling.Nut

Agreed. Comparing GA to a college application is ridiculous. GA is here to promote articles to good status, or give reasonably solid advice to get the article to such a status. Yes, it's not "everybody help me improve this article", but it's not "point out a flaw but don't give me any idea how to improve it" either-- as WIAGA says, people come to Good Article because they think it's as good as they can make it, and they want to get more help. If someone can't bother to spend some of their time to help improve the encyclopedia, they need to leave. There's no point having someone who doesn't care about improving Wikipedia editing it --lucid 20:18, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I didn't say I don't agree with that. I said that I don't think every single instance needs to be tagged. Some examples should be enough to get a custodian going in the right direction. The problem with GA/R is that often editors make their recommendations then don't go back. A problem that needs to be addressed. A reason I've slowed my participation in GA/R b/c I'm lacking time right now. But I don't agree that an article should have cites at the end, nor do I agree that an article could essentially be citation free. That's original research, and that's not what Wikipedia is about. Lara♥Love 20:15, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

(undent) Tag representative examples of each type of statement you se that needs to be cited, and explain the tags in detail. -- Ling.Nut 20:20, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

For the record, I'm with Laura and Agne27 on this one. Lucid, your implication that devoted editors may "need to leave" if they can't abide by your suggestion isn't going to help build consensus. I'd suggest trying a different approach. Majoreditor 21:45, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
So can you explain in detail to us dullards why GA/R should be a special wikipedia place, where higher standards are required for WP:V and reviewers can just shout 'oppose' without giving specific details of their opposition? --Joopercoopers 21:50, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Golly, I don't think that GA/R is that different from the corresponding FA sites, editor reviews, RfA, and other fora (forums.) In all cases, commenting editors are most pursuasive when they provide examples to reinforce their assertions. Rarely, however, are these examples exhaustive. Another way to put it: reviewers aren't expected to provide a full-scale red-line mark-up. Majoreditor 22:20, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Well I've yet to see anyone provide any examples yet - [4][5][6][7] - apart from this one [[8]]. What's a boy gotta do to get a proper review around here? --Joopercoopers 22:51, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
No they can pick out half a dozen of the most important ones they want to see referencing though. --Joopercoopers 22:54, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
To me there's also a matter of equity. Certain articles I've hung around in (Mother Teresa, Anti-Zionism, Poppers...) are more political (in a broad sense) than others David Langford, Il Filostrato, False Dmitriy I...). Why should we set more stringent requirements on the good faith editors of one category than the other? The politics and the edit-warring force editors to provide evidenc of their claims in some articles. In others they don't have to. But when it comes to me looking at an article and assessing its reliability, it is a lot easier to do if it has inline citations. An article such as Weimar Republic may be very good, but it has vast tracts of unreferenced text and 25 sources listed at the end. I have no idea where to check a paragraph or two because I don't know what books, let alone which pages of those books, supplied what information. If it had inline citations I could maybe get one book mentioned out the library, check the facts match up and see whether the more interpretative sections are reported accurtately. Then I can use the rest of the material in the wikipedia article to find out about alternative interpretations of events. So actually, if the edit-warring is kept in limits, a certain amount of challenge will produce a better quality of article and introducing that challenge elsewhere will be useful. As the GA process is about helping people to produce articles of a high quality with the use of reliable sources being a key factor. And imagine an article on someon "Fred Bloggs", at the bottom the following are listed as references: Fred's autobiography, an authorised biography, an unauthorised bigraphy, the authorised biography of someone who clashed with Fred when he was alive, maybe some articles by a range of reporters and in a range of journals. Certain of those sources are more reliable than others. If they're all sat in a list at the bottom of the article and there is no indication of which claim came from which source, how can we know whether individual statements in the article are reliably sourced? The process of moving an article to the less than 1% of wiki articles rated as good should include makign the sourcing clearer.--Peter cohen 23:23, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

You will have in-line citations for

  1. Quotations – When quoting published material, the quote should be attributed in the text and a citation placed after it.
  2. Data and statistics
  3. Counter-intuitive statements – Statements likely to surprise the reader should be cited. ie. Challengeable material or that likely to be challenged
  4. Opinions
  5. Contentious statements about living people.

Furthermore, because of the 'likely to be challenged' criteria, the answer to your equity example is; politically charged articles are intrinsically more likely to be challenged and will therefore require a higher standard of checkability. Uncontentious articles still require basic verifiability but we maintain that instant fact checking is less important. All information should be found in both GA and FA's reference section but we reserve complete spoon feeding for our very best work. But this isn't an argument or the place to be discussing the rights and wrongs of inline citations - it's about why GA/R is currently asking for more than policy requires; in a mechanistic way with no thought or judgement. --Joopercoopers 23:35, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps if there wasn't like a dozen different (mostly redundant and unnecessary) discussions on somewhere around five different project talk pages, editors would have more time to devote to the project rather than defending, explaining and reverting until their numb in the face and fingertips. Just a thought. Lara♥Love 05:02, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
What flagrant passive aggression, hyperbole and no kind of argument at all - you're just to busy to discuss you judgements?. Please say what you mean Lara - we have the same problem on the GA/R page. Specifics please - 1. Where are the dozen redundant and unnecessary (says who?) discussion? 2. Where are these 5 different talk pages? - I feel I might be missing out, the only discussions I'm aware of relating to this culture at GA is here and WIAGA, perhaps if you've got the time you could let us know. All the arguments that have thus far been produced here though are broad discussions of what WP:V really should be, rather than is - and belong there. I cordially invite you to start a thread as it seems no one is discussing it over there.--Joopercoopers 08:56, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

The page clearly says "This is not a Peer Review Process". If the directions are changed to Joopercoopers suggestion, I suggest that we change the name to Good article peer review and discussion. T Rex | talk 19:58, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Good point, T Rex.
I think I do say what I mean. And mean what I say. <-- Flashback to the 80s.
Ugh, let's see. There's WT:GA, WT:GA/R, WT:GA/R/guidelines, WT:WIAGA, and I sit corrected. It's only four. There's at least one discussion per page, multiple discussions on some, in at least one instance there are multiple discussions within one discussion, if that makes sense. Probably not, but don't feel bad. Everyone else is getting lost in it, too. Redundant and unnecessary says me, and I'm sure many other editors who didn't just get actively involved in the project this week can agree, considering much of the issues were just brought up and dealt with a few weeks ago. And considering the complete project overhaul that is going on and has nearly halted from all this discussion, I further claim unnecessary. We can only do so much at one time. Particularly when we're distracted and devoting less time to it because of discussions that in at least a couple of cases, carry little if any weight. Lara♥Love 20:23, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes I was saying what you were Lara, and I agree with you pretty much. I do feel that a few examples, 2 or 3 should be pointed out in a GA/R addition so that fellow reviewers know that the initial reviewer isn't lying or anything but I don't think that each example should be pointed out. Also due to the spread over discussion, I suggest we make a WP:Good article noticeboard for stuff like this? Yes? no? anyone? T Rex | talk 22:12, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

customer service mentality

new thread.. as for changing the culture. I very very firmly believe we need a customer service mentality. Service with a smile. Go the extra mile. Always patient etc. -- Ling.Nut 20:23, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Who the hell have you been getting customer service from!? --lucid 20:25, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I think perhaps from the Buddhist gift shop; whose staff would be a welcome addition to this page at anytime. namaste. --Joopercoopers 20:52, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Gift shop? Does that mean there should be a pic of Maneki Neko on the project's main page? :-) --Ling.Nut 20:56, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Heavens no! The Buddhist gift shop is where you go to hand in all your possessions and relinquish material attachement - it's one of the reasons the staff are so damned happy. (Well that an inner peace I suppose). --Joopercoopers 21:08, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

(undent) But seriously folks, take my wife — please. :-) Anyhow, I meant what I said. I think we should create a mentality that we are providing a service rather than passing judgment ex cathedra about the quality of articles. -- Ling.Nut 21:31, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Conceptually, I agree. Majoreditor 22:13, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
But but but I enjoy passing judgement about the quality of articles! The power coursing through my veins when I fail articles is awesome! Homestarmy 23:32, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps the good people in the shop can point the way for you, although leaving high school usually does the same job after a few years :-) --Joopercoopers 23:40, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

(undent, back to the point) I recommend an "How to be an effective reviewer" page. I'll draft something up and post it here for discussion. (It won't include ex cathedra pontifications from on high though, sorry) --Joopercoopers 09:13, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

"Manifesto" or "Our pledge to you"

Ok, let's try User:Joopercoopers/Zen and the art of good reviewing - someone might want to give it a copyedit and check for POV <smiles behind hand> --Joopercoopers 12:30, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I think this is a good start and a worthwhile initiative. I may have some suggestions/comments later on when I have a chance to examine it in more detail. Thanks for the initiative. Majoreditor 13:18, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
ARG! and oppose Did you get help from anyone in the math project when writing that? We've been over this. You can't require reviewers to make the changes. That is not our job. It is the job of the article custodians (or primary editors, as you refer to them) to maintain the quality of the article. We have enough going on in the project that, with our current participation, we can't go around fixing up every article that's starting to slide from the criteria. And we certainly don't have time to read every article twice and go through and change things in order to gain "moral right" to comment on the article. The fact that we volunteer our time in the project and you (meaning the article custodian) want the article to retain GA is what gives us the right to comment on the article.
No reviewer is required to make any number of trivial edits to the article to be allowed by the custodian to comment on necessary improvements. Considering how many editors are needed to comment in order to close a discussion, this is just another attempt to have reviewers make all the changes to an article so the custodian doesn't have to do it. The same ridiculous changes the math project attempted to make a few weeks ago. It's a review. Not an article over-haul. If you want a place to take an article to have someone fix it for GA, create a task force and get people to join it. But stop attempting to force GA/R reviewers to fix up articles that come through. It's a voluntary option to make changes.
I completely fail to understand why everything has to be sugarcoated in GA/R. Does everyone really think that we have time to go through an article twice and point out all the positives in an article before politely pointing out all the negatives—those we didn't go ahead and fix ourselves before commenting so as to gain our moral right to do so—in a snazzy little customized message, wait a week for a reply, bring up the possibility of GA/R with the list of concerns that we haven't fixed (only because we don't have the knowledge or books; that is to say that if we get no response, we should go ahead and fix everything we can ourselves), wait a few more days, then take it to GA/R and act as sergeant of arms for the days reviews are going on? I mean really? That's not just bending over backwards. That's retrieving the sun and the moon for these editors. These demands are completely ridiculous. We have almost 3,000 articles to go through (not to mention all the new articles coming in daily), and we're expected to go through all this for the ones that don't make the grade? I don't think so.
We've already sacrificed our option for "speedy delist" because it's offensive, apparently. So these travesties that were tagged GA and have no change of being brought up to standards anytime soon are left to sit for days on the GA/R page because it might offend someone to go ahead and delist it so we can get on to other things. I'm surprised we haven't had a backlash for the increase in SNOWBALL archives since the departure of the speedy delist considering SNOWBALL refers to the fact that the article doesn't have a snowballs chance in Hell of surviving. But that's apparently better than "speedy delist".
Look. I appreciate your efforts. I understand where you're coming from, but you don't understand what all goes on in this project. You want us to hold every custodian's hand through this process. We simply don't have time for that, nor should it be necessary. You've recommended that every reviewer have a couple GAs under their belt. I have two that I took through GA myself and I don't have empathy for this situation because of it. I made sure (the best that I could) that the articles met the criteria before I nominated them. When they were reviewed, I didn't ask the reviewer to make necessary changes for me. I also didn't expect it. I made the changes, I didn't bitch about it, and my articles both got passed within a day or so. In fact, I think one passed instantly. If they go to GA/R, which I doubt because I maintain them, I'm not going to expect and I'm certainly not going to demand that anyone fix it for me. Lara♥Love 14:37, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
It was offered in a spirit of humour, but with a serious message - your response speaks volumes, thankyou. --Joopercoopers 14:48, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I saw the humor in it, but how much of it is serious? Those points didn't come off as humor. It reads like the changes you want made peppered with some funnies. Is the whole thing a joke? Lara♥Love 14:50, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
The thrust is GAR is too high handed, too imperious and too insensitive to editors. That its also mis-informed is a particularly worrying combination. I wouldn't object to any of those points become part of the general attitude around here. If we're going to promote a genuinely collegiate atmosphere, this attitude needs a culture change. There are real people behind these articles - as well as projects Lara - who have invested their free time to do their best - as have you. Your attitude just then, when I attempted a modest change to the [9] the guidelines makes me hope you might be able to understand the editors position - imagine this project is my article. I am left completely cold by "we're just to busy and have to much work to help editors - or even be courteous" Working on a backlog is of practicaly no importance in comparison to retaining and encouraging editors.--Joopercoopers 14:56, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
(EC X 2)While I think that sometimes things can be stand offish around here and other reviews most of the time it is because of thin skin, and nothing else. That essay sounds like it recommends coddling everyone through GAR. If you think GAR is bad, try FAR, which some articles automatically receive after the de facto three month waiting period following the original nomination and passing. Lara brings up some good points. Basically the best of which is that GAR is a review process, not a fix up process. No one expects anyone at peer review or FAR to make the changes they recommend, I can't see why this should be any different. It is only when some one has problems with a review that topics like this come up, no one says jack about the hundreds of reviews that have been closed without issue. I would also note that the idea of "moral rights" is completely contrary to WP:OWN, I could go around wiki leaving comments on pages and FARs and peer reviews and never lift a finger to implement them. Both functions are important to the encyclopedia, however. IvoShandor 14:51, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I do think some of it is good and could be incorporated into the page about reviewing, which I think actually does exist somewhere. IvoShandor 14:54, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

(<-)While I agree that it's not the reviewer's responsibility to fix every problem or to point out every fault, Jooper makes an important point concerning tonality. There are unfortunate occassions when a reviewer opts to post a scathing sound bite rather than offering up constructive comments. Perhaps, as Ivo says, there is material here which can be incorporated into the review guidelines/suggestions. Majoreditor 17:35, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree, that shouldn't really happen, but you can't control everyone, the comment's contents must be taken into account whenever a review is closed. I assume this happens already. IvoShandor 19:10, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, the first thing I have to say about the reviewers advice thing is that the vulgarity really isn't necessary. I know it might seem hard to believe, but there's still some people on the interweb out there who don't actually like having to look at more vulgarity than they have to. Besides, vulgarity lowers respectability, it demonstrates a lack of will to write directly what you want to say, and says to the world "Yea, we could try to make this look as professional as possible, but its so much fun to resort to petty vulgarity instead!". Onto the specifics, I presume that since nobody has challenged Lara's interpretation of the suggestions that it is more or less accurate. If this thing is suggesting that reviewers at GA/R must actively try to fix articles before being allowed to comment, should not notify articles directly when they are obviously deficient, (But rather, mess around with ancillery commentary first) and read the whole thing twice, making an essay for reviewers isn't the way to go about it, the correct way to go about it would be to change the rules of GA/R, which do not include any of those suggestions, rather than making an essay, which by its very nature is non-binding. (At least, I presume its an essay) Also, to Lara, since when has speedy delisting been gone? I though I saw several speedy delists in the past few weeks or so zip by on the 1.0 log, (None which appears to be invalid, though one was a bit late after the commentary) and the only time I haven't been paying attention to these pages was around late August, when I was on vacation. Homestarmy 19:26, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

We're not allowed to vote Speedy delist anymore because it's found to be offensive. So now, rather than vote as such, we vote delist and archive with snowball. That's how it was a couple weeks ago anyway. Lara♥Love 16:53, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Too busy to help

I'm so glad you finally said this, Joopers: "we're just to busy and have to much work to help editors - or even be courteous (sic)". This came up the last time, too. I do help. I make many many many edits to the majority of articles I review. All the little non-WIAGA nitpicks I have, I fix myself. Sometimes I'll list them in hopes that the custodian will care enough about quality to work on those things as well, but at the first sign of bitching, I just do it myself.

Here's the issue with you. What you find as discourteous is the fact that your requests for expanded comments were ignored, so you blew up all our project talk pages rather than go to the talk pages of those editors whose comments you wanted expanding. Many editors don't return to a GA/R discussion unless their prompted to. Why would they? They've already made their recommendation. Perhaps you're a single-task editor. But I'm not. I've got all sorts of too much stuff going on, so I don't have time to double check everything. I can't even remember to keep up with many tasks without gentle reminders, but I always finish what I start or get someone to help me if I need it. You don't want editors to help if and when they have time; you want it to be required. What that results in is editors leaving the project because they don't have the time to meet those demands.

95% of my time on WP is invested in this project. I'd estimate that probably over 5,000 of my 6,500+ edits were for this project, either for reviews (for which I have no less than 500 between GAC and GAR), in project space or in editing articles for the project. I've got two task forces to maintain quality of GAs and until sweeps started, I was a regular voice and archivist at GA/R. So how am I to be courteous and comment with a smile when editors come here and alter what they think our project should be because they're upset about how their GA/R went? Lara♥Love 15:22, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about other editors' experiences, but I found the GA/R reviewers to be hands-on helpful when an article I was involved with came up for review. Lara and other reviewers were very kind and made several helpful edits which improved the article. My two cents is that GA/R is a nicer, more helpful forum than many others I've seen on WP. Majoreditor 17:46, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I would definitely echo Major's statements about reviewers being hands-on helpful. Almost every review I do, I end up doing a bit of copyediting myself. And I've noticed this in many others. VanTucky (talk) 18:05, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I think all of this varies from reviewer to reviewer. I think the thing we need to remember most is the ultimate goal of all of this is to improve the encyclopedia, I assume we are all here to do this. People should be nice, civil, whatever, sometimes what seems curt and discourteous in print can have no ill-will behind it at all. We should all remember AGF, and the real purpose we are here. I haven't ever felt like reviewers were too heavy-handed, or mean, maybe my experience is different. Recently an article I wrote was nominated and failed, I talked a bit back forth with the reviewer and the experience was helpful, it articulated what needed to be done still. Sure not all comments are helpful but I don't think because of this reason we should assume that GA or the criteria are at fault, sometimes comments just aren't that helpful, this should be taken into account in reviews, I assume it is already. Just my blathering two cents worth. IvoShandor 19:07, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Redux

There's been a few comments that the situation is getting too complex, being spread out here and at WIAGA. Laralove completely disingenuously suggested I've been bombing all the project pages in a deliberate attempt to destable the project. How dare you. At the time of my query I had commented only here and WT:WIAGA. My comments on Wikipedia talk:Good article review/guidelines came after, and I have not, to date commented at WT:GA. Just basic falsehood - but I'm getting the measure of her now, the gates are shut and no one's coming in to her project without the school tie.

Simply put, the issues are this:-

  1. Demands for blanket inline citations are not required by policy but they are being demanded in this project. No where has it ever been required that all facts (no matter how trivial) require inline citations.
  2. Apparently, according to Drewcifer, this is because the WIAGA criteria are too ambiguous. I disagree and think he's got the wrong end of the stick.
  3. The established practice at FAR is to provide fact tags or examples where reviewers think the article requires them.
  4. GA/R has a culture where principle authors aren't respected, where there isn't even enough time to read through articles properly, let alone fact tag them, and where it seems people have set up their own wiki empire completely contrary to the spirit of this project.

I have tried to affect some change from within here. You can see my manifesto as one extreme and Lara's "We changing nothing for you" position as another; but be in no doubt, unless this project starts to compromise, I shall start trying to build consensus elsewhere. It might be time we had another airing of what the purpose of the GA system is. --Joopercoopers 10:58, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I created wikipedia:When to cite to address these issues where the FAC and FAR are concerned. Your input there is welcome. Raul654 11:06, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Alright, Joopers. You asked me to just say what I mean, which I thought I was already doing, but whatever, I'll be more blunt. First of all, stop using a vocabulary that you don't understand. You've stated I'm passive-aggressive.[10] I may have a personality disorder, but it damn sure isn't passive aggression. In that same post you called mine a hyperbole... which it wasn't. I didn't exaggerate that comment. I also didn't say you initiated or participated in all said discussions. I simply stated that we have discussion ongoing currently at "around five" of our project talk pages. Turned out to be four, which is next to five, therefore falls in that "around" part. And I didn't "disingenuously suggest" anything. I bluntly stated that you'd been blowing up our project pages. If anyone other than you disagrees, by all means, put me in my place.

Now, to address your points:

  1. We've been over this so many times. If it's not common-knowledge, it should be sourced. Wikipedia is not about original research. Sources allow readers to verify statements and "facts". But, from an encyclopedic stand point, it's not a fact just because you say so. Wikipedia policy requires that information be already published by a reliable source. The sources must be cited for, among other things, any information that is likely to be challenged. This is an extremely vague term open to interpretation. Your interpretation differs from the popular interpretation of this project.
  2. Something about a stick... I'm skipping this one.
  3. This isn't FAR.
  4. That's your opinion which has been refuted by multiple users who have gone through the process themselves.

Once again, you felt ignored and didn't think or couldn't be bothered to contact the reviewers talk pages to ask for assistance. If you spent less time repeating yourself and more time looking through GA/R archives, you might finally realize that your situation isn't a daily occurrence in our project. It only happens about, eh, once of month. You have a skewed and frankly ridiculous point of view on the project. It's just another example of someone that's pissed off and subsequently has a narrow focus on GA. For which, really, I'm over. I've gotten too many balls rolling to improve this project, and am working with too many amazing editors (some long-term participants and some new to the project) with a passion for GA and we're improving it as best we can. You're distracting from our goal of improving the project by incessantly demanding we improve the project.

These issues aren't issues. You think because it's happened in your article's discussion, that this is a project-wide problem. Explanations are pointless because you don't care what is said if it differs from your point of view. I don't think we're going to stop requiring inline citation for statements and facts that are likely to be challenged according to our interpretation of that term. The more citations we have for verifiability, to prove our information is accurate, the more reliable the encyclopedia becomes. And if you think that's a detriment to the project that is Wikipedia, then I have nothing else to say to you. Lara♥Love 17:12, 6 September 2007 (UTC) P.S. Oh yea, and don't quote me in broken English for something I've not even said. It's not about you, Joopers. Just like it wasn't about other editors who whined about having to cite their sources and tried to have it changed. Maybe if you read the responses twice it would help. It's a matter of verifiability.

Train articles

Further to the mass of train articles reviewed awhile back, I still have a few I intend to eventually list for review. I do not wish to mess around with updating various GA pages (I get confused easily), and that's why I haven't delisted them personally. Since the GAR page is backlogged, it'd be better to swiftly deal with these clear cut cases. If possible, could a / some GA reviewer (s) go through the list below, and then review these articles? It's obvious they fail, no offence to anyone, so if they were promptly delisted it'd save GA/R (and me) some time which could be better spent elsewhere. The articles are the following:

  1. Danske Statsbaner has four sporadic citations, way below the requirement.
  2. Inverclyde Line has four sporadic citations, well below GA standards.
  3. New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway has five sporadic citations which fail to use a citation template, and the article is below the standard.
  4. Maglev train is extremely listy and needs a cleanup, below GA standards.
  5. Refrigerator car has six sporadic citations (below standard).
  6. RER has seven sporadic citations, so needs more verification.
  7. Rugby railway station has only one citation.
  8. Tay Rail Bridge has four sporadic citations (below standard).
  9. London Paddington station has only sporadic citations and is stubby in areas.

Thanks for your time. LuciferMorgan 09:44, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Since the criteria appear to be changing away from "cite everything", do these articles, in your opinion, have any specific issues besides citations? (that seems to be the common theme between them) Drewcifer 03:58, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
These are the articles that survived the last listing. Lucifer listed them, here on the talk page to avoid blowing up GA/R. Jayron and I went through and delisted many, but not these. I'll look over them soon. It's been on my mental to-do list, I just haven't gotten to it. Many of them need work on prose and layout. They have proselines in many cases and can be very stubby. I recall many had issues with their lead sections as well. And there's been no consensus on changing our citation standards. LaraLove♥ 04:21, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Stability of Disappearance of Madeleine McCann

With the "dramatic" goings on in Portugal at the moment, this article is undergoing various mini edit wars and isn't particularly stable right now. Just wondered what the consensus was on listing it for review? The Rambling Man 17:06, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

This is probably a temporary phenomena. My view is to wait a day or two for things to settle down and we can take stock then. TerriersFan 17:10, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Personally, I don't really care so much if an article becomes unstable after becoming a GA, because really, its bound to happen for many articles anyway. But if the instability is resulting in an article where no recent version is any good, then there's problems. Homestarmy 21:26, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
That article shouldn't have passed GA due to the instability problems. LuciferMorgan 11:19, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
Was it unstable as it was being passed, or unstable after being passed? Homestarmy 15:10, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
It appears as if there was some edit warring regarding the tense of a particular sentence. It's resolved now. There's also been some chronic reverting of breaking news. It appears some editors are more into the Wikinews type of writing. This is another example of why current events shouldn't be GAs. LaraLove♥ 17:25, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

GA/R Backlog and you!

There's a grand total of 31 active GA/R's, way too many. So, in an attempt to take care of that, I've made this handy table of GA/R's, documenting the vote count (not counting the original nomination), if any improvements have been made, and a request of action from GA/R regulars. Without VOTES nothing will ever happen. These are the oldest 13 8 6 active reviews: Drewcifer 23:04, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Article
(GA/R) 		Votes Comments
Henry Rollins
GA/R 		Delist = 5, Keep = 4 CloudNine is still working on it.
Cannabis (drug)
GA/R 		Delist = 3 SidiLemine is still working on it.
Bringin' on the Heartbreak
GA/R 		Delist = 4 Some improvements made by myself (original nominator). Needs more votes.
National Ignition Facility
GA/R 		Keep = 1, Delist=1 Only 1 vote! Please review the nomination and vote!
St Thomas the Martyr's Church, Oxford
GA/R 		Delist = 3, Keep = 1 Suggestions made to improve article by nominator (myself), none of them have been addressed as far as I can tell. Needs more votes.
Music of Hungary
GA/R 		Delist = 4, Keep = 1 Needs more votes.

I got a little bit bold and archived a few discussions. Feel free to complain about it on my talk page. Drewcifer 20:05, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm trying to ration my wikitime, but have decided that I'll allow myself one GA/R from this list a day in order to help.--Peter cohen 08:54, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Drew. I'll go through the list this afternoon while my son is napping. LaraLove♥ 13:58, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Awesome! Way to go Peter and Lara. Baby steps. Drewcifer 23:48, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

David Hilbert

In reviewing the current GA's in mathematics, I noticed that as well as the commendable GA/R of Derivative, there has also been a review and delisting of David Hilbert. I agree with the delisting, but I don't think it was sensible to snowball the discussion without some expert input. (Even though this is a biography, a significant portion of the article is quite technical.)

I have had personal interaction with this article only concerning the main image: it was nominated for deletion in early June; I argued the case for the image in late June, and implemented a suitable copyright notice on 21 July. Unfortunately, an admin did not close the discussion until 28 August, after this GA/R. Although the image issue was raised in the review, it is an aside. The image has now been kept.

The issue here for me is that a "bold delist" was replaced by a "snowball GA/R". I believe instead it should have been replaced either by a regular delist with notification, or by a slow GA/R, with time to assimilate expert input (again notification would have helped).

The article has a good list of primary and secondary sources. They are not thoroughly cited, but some sections of the article are in summary style, and other sections would only need a general cite per WP:SCG. Inconsistent formatting of references is also something that is easy to fix, hence not a reason to snowball the discussion. It appears that WikiProject Mathematics was not notified. Additionally, this article is relatively quiet (it doesn't really have any active "custodians") and so WPM seems to be unaware of this delist.

Fortunately, this means that there has been no flak, and I don't wish to create any. Indeed, none of my remarks are intended as criticism of anyone, and I think it is best to let all this pass withough further comment. I only raise this case to heighten awareness of the issues that surround articles requiring expert comment, in the hope that this information will help to avoid blow-ups in the future. Geometry guy 23:06, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I made a proposal that it be a standard that WikiProjects be notified. It was rejected. Some editors do notify the projects, it was my intention to do it myself, but I've not been very active in GA/R as of late, and I don't think I've done it even once. However, the math project does know (as seen here). They've just handled it well. LaraLove 03:51, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
(Excuse the cut in.) They have indeed, but I think I've only seen one of those two editors at WT:WPM, and only once. Geometry guy 14:59, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
It makes perfect sense to inform the projects, as one of the purpose of GA/R is to prompt work on articles thta might be saved with a bit of effort.--Peter cohen 11:43, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Especially for technical articles. Geometry guy 14:59, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
If the GA/R proceeded too quickly for some involved editors to seriously give input or have time to improve the article, I can't think of any great reason why another GA/R couldn't be started. Homestarmy 00:08, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, I don't think there is much point in reopening the GA/R until the article has a chance of passing, at which point a GAC might be more appropriate. As a step in that direction I have formatted the citations consistently as footnotes. I think it is now more apparent that the article is not "fantastically under-referenced" as was suggested in the GA/R. Indeed, the nontechnical material is sourced to the definitive biography of Reid. Geometry guy 11:01, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Rename proposal

Discussion

Given the confusing name of this page, perhaps it should be renamed "Good Article Discussions" or "Good Article Disputes". The regular process of promoting or failing a GA candidate is also called reviewing, and that this page exists can be confusing. This proposal was made as such by LaraLove at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force, and I thought it prudent to bring it here for wider discussion. Thoughts anyone? --Jayron32|talk|contribs 02:26, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

  • Support I'll go ahead and use this format. I had trouble sorting this out when I first got into GA, and it dampened my spirits a bit. Please change the name to avoid this happening in the future. Wrad 02:29, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support Good Article Disputes, per what I said in that other discussion. Homestarmy 02:43, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I'd support itBalloonman 03:56, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support - It was noted in the other discussion that a possible name could be Disputed Good Articles. That would use the shortcut WP:DGA which, unlike WP:GAD, is not already occupied. Lara♥Love 04:18, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
    Except that GAD is Good Article Delisting, which would be a subset of the Good Article Disputes process. GAR already lists the procedure for delisting an article, so by moving to GAD, we essentially subsume a redundant page... --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:46, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
    Touché. Lara♥Love 05:22, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
    The original link to Good Article Disputes was WP:GA/D, it used to redirect to GAR. An admin could move it back over the redirect, I think that's more important than some historical thing. Homestarmy 15:30, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support This definitely makes things less confusing. Cheers, Corvus coronoides talk 15:33, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support however maybe go with a name that suggests both purposes of this page, or separate the page into two sections for review. --lincalinca 15:34, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
    What do you mean? "Disputes" covers review and delistment, I think. And when you say "two sections for review", what do you mean? Lara♥Love 14:08, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support per Corvus Toepoke 14:25, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose Page name is in no way confusing, so however Jayron32 got that impression I haven't a clue. The current page name is much more clearer than what he proposes, so this is a very ill thought move. LuciferMorgan 23:55, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
    Well, overwhelming consensus is that it is confusing. That aside, it has occurred to me that my merge proposal is kind of silly. We can just rename to Good article disputes and redirect the shortcut. Considering the delistment process is on the page, Good article delisting could be deleted. Seems unnecessary to keep it for historical purposes when the process is still posted in several places. Lara♥Love 15:41, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
    I really don't think this can be called overwhelming consensus, I, however, am neutral in this discussion. IvoShandor 16:58, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose -- Currently, GA and FA are consistent, with candidate pages, and review pages. I didn't find it confusing differentiating GAC and GAR (The review page clearly explains in the first sentence that it is for articles which have already been given GA status, not for original nominations, and even inludes a link to the nominations page, which makes it obvious that page is something different from this one.), nor did I find it confusing comparing GA-related pages to FA-related pages when the pages had comparable titles. If the GA naming scheme is changed, without also changing the FA scheme, that will be confusing. I can see the point in giving the review pages more distinctive titles from the original nomination process, however if it's not changed in both cases, the current page titles are not confusing enough to justify causing that much more confusion by making pages not agree across ratings. If both pages are changed, "discussion(s)" would work better than "disputes/d", though I still strongly feel that "review" is the more accurate term. -Bbik★ 15:55, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

The following are from the original proposal from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force. Lara♥Love 03:28, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

The proposed name is stupid, and if enforced, I propose everyone boycotting it. I am 110% against it, and will fight against it wherever. Good article delistings suggests people are purposely out to delist GAs - however, if you all wish to give that impression feel free to go ahead. It's an impression some have already, and in their minds it'll be proving them right. At least with Good article review, the name is 110% clear (anyone saying it isn't is frankly talking rubbish). The page reviews the article as to whether it still complies with the GA criteria, and then gives feedback on how the article may be improved to comply (along with the voting). A stupid move, and it's one that will do plenty of harm to the project. LuciferMorgan 10:21, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Are we really only going with Good Article Delistings now? I've been away for two days, but wouldn't support that name.... Homestarmy 13:47, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Keep it the same! Oppose◙◙◙ I M Kmarinas86 U O 2¢ ◙◙◙ 05:07, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

(←) NO, No, no. Good article disputes is the proposed name change. Good article discussions has also been mentioned as a viable option. GAD currently redirects to Good article delisting, which is preserved solely for historical purposes. My proposal is to move Good article review to Good article disputes, steal the GAD shortcut and redirect it to the new page and, possibly, delete Good article delisting considering it's redundant and pointless. The process is on so many pages, we don't need it there for historical purposes. I agree, Good article delisting would be a terrible name for this process. Also, the confusion with the use of review comes into play on talk pages where some (which I have seen this happen many times) don't understand the difference between "GAC review" and "Good article review". Frequently, both are just titled with the latter. Lara♥Love 14:35, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

  • Support - I don't think the name "Good Article Delistings" is appropriate simply because LuciferMorgan is correct; it does suggest that articles are listed simply to be delisted, rather than undergoing a thorough review to see if the article still meets criteria. However, I see no problem with "Disputed Good Articles" or something along those lines, for clarity purposes. There obviously is some confusion in the name "Review" per above comments, so I wouldn't call it "110% clear". So, I support a move to Disputed Good Articles, as that is quite clear in that is states that the GA status of the articles is in dispute, but at the same time clarifies that the purpose is not to simply outright delist the articles. Raime 14:03, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support - I agree with the sentiments of Raime above. Having "delistings" in the title will give the wrong impression. Whether the page stays at "Review" or changes to "Diputes" I don't really mind although "Disputed Good Articles" describes the page well, in my mind. Suicidalhamster 14:31, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Wouldn't "Disputed Good Articles" imply that only GA's could be brought to the page for discussion? Homestarmy 14:38, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
    Good point. Lara♥Love 14:42, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
    "Good Article Disputes", proposed above, would work. That takes in GAs and non-GAs, and still corrects any confusion that exists with "GA Review". Raime 18:36, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support - disputes sounds much better than reviews. Davnel03 18:24, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment. Since I'm not contributing to GA/R anymore, I probably shouldn't comment, but, what the hell, here are my <insert cliche involving very small quantity of a world leading currency>: renaming this process (once more) as "disputes" is a bad idea. The present function of GA/R is to determine whether an article under review meets the criteria. Usually this is done by a single editor, but in some cases a wider input is needed. The three main scenarios are: a failed GAC, a delisted GA, and a current GA which needs review. The last of these has become particularly common, because GA/R has been reconsidering articles which were listed as GA before the criteria had been well formulated. Another common situation is when an editor thinks an article should be delisted, but is not sure enough to delist in personally. There is no dispute involved in these cases.
Furthermore, calling this process "disputes" will increase the adversarial nature of the process, "delisters" vs "supporters", "reviewers" vs "custodians". I firmly believe that the European inquisitorial system is a much better model than the UK/US adversarial system for Wikipedia processes like this. The job is to decide, as objectively as possible, whether an article meets the criteria, not to take sides and have a dispute about it until someone wins. Even more fundamentally, the process should be about improving articles. If the process is renamed, "Good article discussion" would be a better name than "Good article disputes". Geometry guy 20:25, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Oppose any move: Discussions is pretty vague. After all, this is a "good article discussion." Why don't we just not change it at all, especially if there is opposition that makes sense, which means there isn't consensus for the move (since this isn't a vote). Good article reviews is good enough, if there is some confusion, when you add a note to the talk page of an article going to GAR state that "the good article status of this article has been challenged" or something like that. There shouldn't be any confusion about what is what to anyone who uses GA, the instructions (which should be followed) make it obvious. Disputes is adversarial. IvoShandor 02:55, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

How about calling it Good article delist review or something similiar? Speciate 03:01, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Then what happens if an article has never been delisted? It would greatly limit GA/R's scope. Homestarmy 03:11, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Homestarmy makes a good point. Some of the articles nominated at GA/R failed their GA candidacy, so that title wouldn't fit. As far as G'guys comments, that's also good points. Disputes does have a negative connotation. Good article discussions would work. I don't see how that's vague. I don't think people would get the impression it's a page to just chat about the project. The buffet of boilerplate instructions should help curb any such assumptions as well. While Review makes sense and covers the process, it can't be ignored that it is confusing to those not familiar with the project. And concerning consensus, I'm not sure what you're saying, Ivo. Arguments are weighed. Both sides have legitimate concerns. The numerous supports can't be ignored because of the few opposes. Not to say that the supports would "win" were consensus determined right now, but it's not to say they wouldn't either. Consensus isn't dependent upon unanimous agreement. Lara♥Love 04:46, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
I think if opposes are legitimate and the reasons sound, they should be addressed. If there are legitimate concerns and they go unaddressed, that's not consensus (somewhere up above this was called "overwhelming consensus" and I still see legitimate opposition). I think discussions is too vague because it implies that good articles are just discussed, maybe it's about how to improve them further etc. I like GA Review because it is specific, and accurate. Do we have a bunch of examples where the current title was confusing, or is this something a couple of editors thought was confusing? If I could see some examples of why this change is needed I may be more likely to support it. IvoShandor 07:44, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment: Erm, Good Article Reassessment? -- Ling.Nut 18:00, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... *strokes beard* (No wait, I don't have a beard! Really! I don't.) That's not a bad suggestion. I support that. LARA♥LOVE 18:24, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
It doesn't seem very different from Review, but I still support it. Much more specific than Discussions, less adversarial than Disputes, and more relevant to the entire topic than Delistings. Raime 18:36, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Sounds suitable. It's a long word to type though ;P, but that just happens to be an artifact of English. Here is a list from the thesaurus:
We don't have many alternatives. English limits us.◙◙◙ I M Kmarinas86 U O 2¢ ◙◙◙ 18:45, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

(undent) Type the whole word? Whatever for? That's why the wiki-gods gave us shortcuts like WP:GA/R. :-) -- Ling.Nut 19:34, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Yea, the shortcut isn't an issue. If we go with Good article reassessment, that means keeping the current shortcut, which is great. Personally, from the list, I'm inclined to go with Good article parade, but I don't think I'll get the support on that one... applies in many cases, though. ;) Anyway, the issue is the confusion with GAC reviews. So this would solve that and keep the shortcut the same. LARA♥LOVE 19:41, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Oppose change to a d-word. Reviewing is what I've seen happening here. Discussion is less structured. And if it becomes dispute', you'll get more Mother Teresas. Reassessment is okay.--Peter cohen 22:43, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

  • Comment: Lara, I understand that it has been asserted that this is confused with GAC reviews, but is there any actual cases of this happening, is there a plague of confusion, or did this happen once or twice? Again, I see no evidence that this change is needed. This page has existed for over a year and a half as GA review. If there is good reason to change the name I can easily support it, but so far, and no offense, but its just some assertions that this somehow confusing. IvoShandor 00:05, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
    I encountered confusion as a newb in the project, have witnessed others confused while doing GAC and GA/R reviews (tagging talk pages to be specific) and this proposal came about after it was made evident that others had similar experiences, as has been expressed above and on other pages. I could go find diffs, but it would be overly time consuming. I'd prefer you just take the word of those of us who have experienced the confusion first hand. Also consider that I didn't make this proposal for the sake of practice with proposals. This process is a pain, but I think it's necessary. Also consider that editors aren't voting in support for the heck of it. Many know what I'm talking about. I don't know that it could be compared to a plague, but whatever it is, it can be easily remedied with the simple change of a word... preferably one that also starts with an R so we don't have to bother with shortcut changes. LARA♥LOVE 05:32, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
While I respect your opinion, and didn't think you did this to practice proprosals, I still don't agree that this name is confusing enough to change. If this is confusing so is FAR. This process has worked fine under the current name, I see no need to change the name because a couple people were confused. Since everyone just uses the acronymn anyway I don't know how much confusion this can possibly eliminate. Clearly there is a specific difference in GAR and GAC, I don't think that will become suddenly more pronounced by calling it reassessments or whatever. On the other hand, I have always wondered why there isn't links to all the GA pages on each page, like at DYK. IvoShandor 08:53, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused as to the amount of possible titles so just to make this discussion easier I would suggest we keep the votes separated from the actual discussions. Any other name proposals can be added below to be voted on and if you like more than one feel free to vote for more than one. Tarret 21:26, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Rename proposals

Good Article Review

Good Article Discussions

Good Article Disputes

Homestarmy 14:38, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Disputed Good Articles

Good Article Reassessment

  1. LaraLove♥ 17:40, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
  2. -- Ling.Nut 18:38, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
  3. Geometry guy 11:02, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
  4. Rai-me 12:35, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
  5. PrinceGloria 14:45, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
  6. Cheers, Corvus coronoides talk 15:28, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

There seems to be a clear consensus here, and a positive reaction at WT:GAN, so I made the change. Geometry guy 22:42, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Clearer directions

I just nominated an article for GA Review and a few things were left uncertain. Do I notify the user that passed a Good Article that their article is being reviewed (especially, in my case, where the article was reviewed an hour prior to my contention)? In addition, is there something specific I say on the article talk page other than that the article is being reviewed? Perhaps a GAR template for articles under review would ease things. Just some ideas. -- Noetic Sage 06:09, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

All that you're supposed to do is notify the talk page, notifying people anywhere else is optional. It doesn't technically matter how you notify the talk page as long as its clear there's a GA/R going on, but I think its more helpful to mention what criteria a person thinks the article fails first. Homestarmy 15:47, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Guidance on the fact tag issue

Honestly, why is there a requirement to litter "fact" tags in articles before we can consider them below GA standard? There is no requirement that "fact" tags be added before we fail an article, so why do we have this extra requirement before we bring them up for further discussion? The use of inline citations should be clear from the WIAGA standards, as well as NUMEROUS other places at wikipedia... --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:18, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree. We shouldn't have to fact tag bomb an article to validate an argument for delistment. The criteria is in place for a reason, and is quite clear, in my opinion. It's not our job as reviewers to point out every instance a citation is needed. Giving a few examples is the most that should be recommended. LaraLove 04:21, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
I strongly disagree. Let's be fair to editors. As I said before, how would you like it if your Significant other said "Shape up or I'm leaving you" but didn't reply when youasked for details about what needs to be shaped up. It is a fairness issue. 'Nuff said. --Ling.Nut 04:55, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, we're not really trying to marry anybody here, just determine article quality. Responsibility for that lies with the editor, not the reviewer. Wrad 05:00, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

(undent) That's the key point: in this particular instance, responsibility does NOT lie with the editor, it lies with the reviewer. Marriage is irrelevant; criticism is the issue. Criticism must be actionable/concrete. Article-specific guidance should be offered. WP:GAR wasn't made for the reviewers, but rather the reviewers for WP:GAR. -- Ling.Nut 05:12, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Where does it stop, though? Articles aren't put up here unless they really have problems. If it's a big problem, we speak in general terms. If it's a small one, we point out specifics and wait for improvement. You are the one who made the love relationship connection, not me. You explain it. There is no connection. You're right, marriage is irrelevant. It's nothing like a DTR. There is criteria. If the article doesn't meet the criteria, it isn't a GA. Asking for specific fact tags is a little much. Asking for information on what sections need tags is a little more reasonable. I think this is getting blown out of proportion. Just relax and let the process work itself out. If you really care about they article, I'm sure someone will come along who can help you know how to keep it at GA. Wrad 05:18, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Um, relax? I'm not concerned about one article, but a process. I'm not talking about love (again), but criticism. Blown out of proportion? Entering a discussion is blowing something out of proportion? A little much? Asking people who come along voting to delist an article to provide actionable items is a little much? I see nothing in your comments that makes sense, sorry. --Ling.Nut 06:17, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
I just think it's weird to have this discussion going on in two places and wonder why it even started. Wrad 06:19, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
the discussion in the other place has stopped & moved here. If you wonder why it has started, you are simply not paying attention :-) --Ling.Nut 06:22, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, I'm pretty sure I know why it started, I just think it could have been handled on the main page easily enough. Now it's just getting silly. Wrad 06:25, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

(undent) I'm trying to be somewhat patient. I have raised concrete issues; i see nothing silly here. Calling something silly is simply a way to duck out of discussing an issue. It's inappropriate. --Ling.Nut 06:53, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I'm not saying you're silly, I just don't like how it's boiled down to a tit for tat between us two, that's silly. Wrad 15:15, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Am I to understand that there's some requirement somewhere to use fact tags whenever someone believes something in an article to be unreferenced? That's news to me... Homestarmy 15:30, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I've noticed a trend that when a reviewer states an article needs additional citation, someone swoops in demanding fact tags. As I've stated countless times before, reviewers are not required to edit the articles they review. The criteria (along with WP:V and WP:CITE) are pretty clear, in my opinion, regarding what should be sourced. Giving examples is the most that should be expected from reviewers. LaraLove 17:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Radical idea

I have a radical suggestion. Citation, and especially inline citation, is one of the most contentious issues at GA and GAR. In my experience, it has caused and causes more trouble than all of the other criteria put together, both in the review process, and on talk pages like this. So, here is my suggestion: scrap it as a GA requirement. After all, verifiability is a policy, not a style guideline. All articles are supposed to meet it, not just good articles. So why not concentrate on the issues that distinguish good articles from the rest? Geometry guy 19:48, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Pretty radical! Would it really change anything? Articles would still have to follow policy, and thus have no unverifiable facts... Wrad 21:07, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
I also don't see what that would change. We already state the policy. That doesn't seem to affect anyone. We just get "You're being too much like FA! RAWRR!" Removing it from the criteria would just cause more issues. Perhaps rather than link the policy to the word verifiable, we should explicitly state that the article must be referenced in compliance with WP:V, which is policy. LaraLove 06:52, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I have to admit, this suggestion was not entirely serious (nor was it entirely frivolous). Anyway, I appear not to have captured the Zeitgeist on this occasion. Ah well. Maybe next time :-) Geometry guy 17:54, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

FAR then FARC; GAR then...?

  • Believe it or not, this is related to the other thread re: inline cites. I'm concerned that there is not enough time/guidance/provision for improving articles. Are we here to torpedo articles, or to help improve them?
  • Suggest a process of GAR then GARC, with no delist/keep votes allowed in GAR; only actionable comments.
  • -- Ling.Nut 06:52, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Aren't we already doing this? As far as I know, we give actionable comments and we say list or delist. This isn't a peer review, we're here to determine GA status. If an article doesn't meet the criteria, then it will be demoted, and we will say why. We always do. Wrad 15:17, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't necessarily see the point in this. As Wrad stated, that's basically what happens now, only all at once. Henry Rollins has been sitting there forever, so I don't think we need to split the process to gain more time. Obviously, if improvements are being made, the articles stays listed at GAR for some time.
That aside, there seems to be some disagreement in the purpose of GAR. It's not a dumping ground for GA restoration. It's the responsibility of the article custodians to maintain the quality of the article. GAR assesses the quality and determines whether or not it should remain listed. If it's close, we allow time for the custodians to improve it, helping if we so choose. If the article clearly fails, it has always (in my experience here) been procedure to delist the article and have it be renominated at GAC once it again satisfies the criteria. Articles really shouldn't sit at GAR for weeks, and months even, while it is improved. Turn over in GAR should be fairly quick in the majority of cases, in my opinion. LaraLove 17:39, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree and I disagree. I agree that GAR is not a dumping ground. However, I strongly disagree with the idea that article custodians are alone responsible for maintaining quality. All who care about Wikipedia should do all that they can to improve articles to the best of their ability. In fact Lara herself is a shining example of this philosophy. I find the distinction between custodians and reviewers unhelpful. Many articles do not have custodians any more: these articles belong to all Wikipedians, and, actually, in my opinion, all articles do.
I agree, though, that we should not prescribe how reviewers behave. I would like to see a process which is more like FAR without FARC, i.e., without the list/delist mindset, but instead a "what needs to be fixed to meet the criteria" attitude. After a few weeks (weeks, yes, months, no) the archiving editor can determine from these comments whether the issues have been fixed or not. But that is just my dream. Geometry guy 19:30, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
The best editors provide solid feedback. But if the article really has problems, even the best don't go into much detail. Hopefully, after the sweep is done, this will happen less often. GA will have an established quality standard. Wrad 21:09, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

(undent) Color me standing alongside G'guy, who i think was alngside me...ish. I think the atmosphere is too Delist! — Next!. It gives of an aroma of "Judge from Above" rather than "Guide on the Side". I suppose it's nice to have a factory-line mentality while the sweeps are being done.. but what about AFTER the sweeps? Should the environment remain the same? Nyet, I say! --Ling.Nut 23:12, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I think i can safely say that we all will breathe a sigh of relief/satisfaction when the sweeps are done. Wrad 23:44, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Lara does bring up the point that some of the GA/R's lately have been lasting an extremely long time, (even when the outcome is likely to be obvious, if an article hasn't been fixed in the first four weeks, what good would another week do for the most part?) this was bound to happen eventually anyway once GA/R gained enough commentators. However, I would say that while the preferable outcome to any GA/R would be for someone to fix problems that have been identified, sometimes articles should indeed be torpedoed, very quickly if possible for some of the worst violaters. While I can understand waiting for every article on FARC, I think its much more likely for FA's that there will be editors around who are familiar with an article, but for GA's, well, there's not always someone attending very well to an article subject, so no matter how long the wait on a GA/R, problems will not be fixed if there are no editors who care about the article immensly. Homestarmy 02:46, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Sigh. I've got a thing here. It's a long winded whatever of me trying to figure out where the hell I stand in GA, some information to hopefully enlighten the masses that ride the hate train through GA, and whether or not I can continue to handle the drama that I encounter with the amount of participation I devote to this process. In reading back over it, it appears to be very narcissistic, or me tooting my own horn, which was not the intention. It was really just typed as I thought; thinking aloud with a keyboard, if that makes sense. Anyway, whatever. I'm to a point that I don't care. It's 3 a.m. I have to get up in four hours. Editing at this hour is the equivalent to drunk dialing, recognizing that, I save page anyway. Regards, LaraLove 06:56, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Renaming Featured article review

I thought everyone here should know that I proposed to rename Featured article review to Featured article reassessment to stay consistent with the renaming of this article. Please give your thoughts here. -- Noetic Sage 23:38, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Mmmm. Hope you have a thick skin. --Ling.Nut 01:21, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
I predict something unpleasant is going to happen.... Homestarmy 02:40, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
My magic 8 ball says... Outcome not pretty, wear a cup. I wouldn't touch that discussion with a 50 foot pole. LaraLove 06:49, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

It seems we have reached an impasse

Looking over the dates for many of these GA/R's, a large number of them seem to be nearly or over a month old. It's rather impractical for a GA/R to last that long, since an article could change so much in that timespan, and now that GA/R has picked up activity enough for there to be several such reviews, (and a large number of reviews overall) I think its about time we consider ways to end GA/R's quicker. Some solutions from other processes that I think might work here would be a hard cap on how long a GA/R lasts, (So a review would automatically end after a certain time, irregardless of whatever is going on or what the tally is) or modify the speedy archive criterion to archive certain reviews which, although are contentious, have obvious overall support for some action to be taken, even if there's less of a majority supporting some action. (I notice somebody changed the times and recommendation number from three days, 80 percent, and 6 recommendations to seven days, 100 percent, and 5 recommendations, but I don't think that's contributing to the backlog immensly) If anyone has other ideas, it might be worth it to discuss them.

Really, this situation was bound to happen eventually anyway right from GA/R's outset, assuming the GA system picked up more editors and more articles. Times have definently changed at GA/R, and volume of articles seems to of increased beyond what the current rules can practically handle. While I don't really like adding on more rules unless its absolutly necessary to do something, I think that the time to do something has finally come to pass. Discussions which have comments several weeks old and comments several days old have a lower chance of all comments being accurate assessments or suggestions for an article, and this could inhibit the proper outcome for GA/R's; even if editors who made older comments were contacted to revise commentary, there's no guarentee those editors will still be interested in something they said many weeks ago.

I personally prefer the time cap solution, preferably something large to start with, like maybe 4 weeks. That might still be long enough for comments to be out-of-date, but at least it will be an improvement over letting more than a few GA/R's last for a month or more. Homestarmy 03:15, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the backlog is out of hand. I didn't realize that there had been a change in the closing instructions, but that apparently came with the reorganization of the page. Although it does state "nearly all" as opposed to 100%, but I think it should be left generally stated as "consensus" rather than a percentage or vague "nearly all". As for the time cap, I think it must be explicitly stated that it's a maximum amount of time, only for those articles that are actively being improved. Not a minimum amount of time for all GARs to remain open. Lara❤Love 05:48, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Except that I have come to see that articles being incrementally improved (see Henry Rollins article for example); emphasis on the INCREMENTAL, spend a long time on here where the primary editors say "Hold on and I'll fix it" and some small fix is made. There really should be a maximum cap, EVEN for articles being improved. If it can't be fixed in two weeks or so there is no shame in being delisted and renominated when the fixes ARE made. The problem is that, with old or stale reviews, no one checks them, and consensus becomes meaningless, as 2 month old comments have little meaning on establishing consensus. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:56, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
(disclaimer: I have not read all of the above or made myself accustomed thoroughly with all the issues mentioned - this is just a general proposal for returning to the roots of GA) - I believe the whole problem came from the desire to accomodate those poor souls who cannot face their work being reviewed (and possibly reviewed negatively - i.e. not passed or delisted). IMHO, "dynamic" reviewing of articles changing is the core of the problem here. I mean, how can I give an opinion on the article if it can constantly change and I'd have to re-assess it every other day to see whether my opinion should change?
IMHO, GA/R should assess whether the article DOES fulfill the GA conditions IN PRESENT STATE. It can give hints as to how to improve it, but should not wait for the article to be improved. This is not free peer review, this is not an article improvement drive. This is a simple assessment process, resulting in "yes" or "no", based on a set of known criteria, whose main aim is simplicity and efficacy.
I'd say - do away with "waiting for the article to be improved". If the editors express the desire to improve the article quickly, they may resubmit it almost immediately after delisting, provided all the necessary improvements were done. If they want to act upon it before the article gets enough reassessment reviews to close the reassessment, they should be able to take it off the list immediately and resubmit for review when they are finished.
Until then, despite the notice in my talk page, I will not take part in any GA/Rs that become journeys in time and space. PrinceGloria 09:19, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Just to see if there's something we can do that we all agree on, is there anyone really opposed to the idea of a time cap on GA/R's in general? Homestarmy 16:02, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

So basically, if I altered the rules tommorow to put a hard cap of 4 weeks on any GA/R's after I change the rules, nobody would say a word? Surely someone else has an opinion on this... Homestarmy 16:49, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
My view is that we should codify less, and leave more to the discretion of the archivist. In that respect, I also support replacing the hard coded numbers like "7 days" (discussed below) by more flexible guidelines. Geometry guy 19:39, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
But the only positively valid thing an archivist can do with super long reviews which pay debateable attention to the article's current state is to restart them and hope they work the next time, like I just did with that church review. GA/R's will take an increadibly long time to compleate if the trend of super long GA/R's continues. Homestarmy 21:12, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
The fan is a vulnerable object, and will be hit from time to time; we have to accept that. The other thing an archivist can do is archive with "no consensus" and leave the article's state unchanged. Of course it might be relisted here, but, with a bit of luck, it might not be. Geometry guy 21:22, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
But how could someone make a no consensus determination when consensus on the current version of the article is practically unknown? A discussion where there's no agreement is different from a discussion where there are hardly any valid opinions. Homestarmy 22:02, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
It is extremely rare that noone expresses an opinion, and I don't think any process should be organised around exceptions. In exceptional cases, editors should do what they think is best. Others will revert if they err. This is one of the reasons WP:IAR exists. Geometry guy 22:12, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't mean nobody expressing any opinion, I mean people expressing opinions which become woefully incorrect when compared to the current state of the article several weeks after the opinions are made. Homestarmy 22:32, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I think that drastic changes during GAR will become less common after the sweeps, though not entirely nonexistent. Wrad 22:41, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Idea

What if we had one person who was in charge of the GAR, like Raul at FAR and FAC? This could conceivably add some sense to the chaos. This person would decide what the consensus was. Obviously this person would need to be good in the midst of controversy, and have a lot of experience with GA. They would also need to be around consistently. We may even consider having two such persons. Wrad 22:12, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

That's an incredibly good idea. After Jaron reminded me about the backlog, I came around to comment on the oldest, but found I had already done so and there was no more debate going on. But I had no idea how to close a reassessment, or even if that was kosher. Having a reassessment director who can arbitrate things would be a big help, not only in streamlining, but also in assuring fair treatment. VanTucky Talk 22:22, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Multiple people already know how to and do archive reviews, and i've only seen like one or two instances of serious controversy over someone's archive decision. Like I said above, the problem with much of this chaos is that so many GA/R's last for so long as of late, while some of them should of been archived sooner, some of them technically should still continue since there are recent reccomendations. I don't think having a director would change that very much, GA/R's wouldn't end much sooner. Homestarmy 22:31, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Who are these people? Who do I talk to if I have a question about closing a GAR? Wrad 22:36, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
I think you're correct in a sense Home, but I still don't see how having a director would hurt things. It wouldn't even necessarily have to mean they hold exclusive power to close, only that they are there solely to monitor the flow of reassessments, ideally filling the closing position so the ball doesn't get dropped. I don't think anyone could argue that the closing system is efficient at present. VanTucky Talk 22:38, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
It is an extremely bad idea. The whole point of the GA process is that it is lightweight. Any editor can list, any editor can delist, any editor can archive a GAR discussion. Anything else is just bureaucracy. How are you going to cope with 20K Good articles with any other system? Geometry guy 22:43, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
If this is already happening naturally, that's fine. I just want to know who it is and how they're doing it so we can go from there. Wrad 22:44, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Again, like I said above Geometrey, having a director does not by definition preclude the ability of anyone to delist and archive. It only means there will be someone whose job it is to direct things to make sure it actually happens. VanTucky Talk 22:49, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
I think that if the rules were altered in a way that gets rid of the current backlog, we would find there wouldn't be a need for a director. Although the current GA/R rules have gone through many modifications over the months, most of the biggest modifications have to do with modifying what's already there, not making something that's new. And with so many GA/R's having problems with time warps in discussions, I think there needs to be something that solves the time warp, and a director wouldn't be able to solve that under the current rules. (A director still wouldn't be able to end discussions that have gone on over a month if there is still a slow but steady stream of commentary) Homestarmy 00:23, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't see a need for director either. I see a need for getting rid of this "wait a week after the last voice" rule - some cases are pretty clear-cut, and I could see myself adding yet another, say, "delist", which would normally be intended to express my support for some arguments raised, but here I feel compelled not to do it, as it would push the 7-day grace period even further (and I have no guarantee some well-meaning user wouldn't post immediately after my decision not to). And example is the Denial of Soviet Occupation, where there isn't much to be discussed left, and it still awaits its closure... PrinceGloria 06:54, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
I oppose, whole-heartedly any calls for any more "directors" on Wikipedia. There isn't much that's more anti-wiki than throwing around titles all over the place. It just makes the head of the director grow to enormous proportions. I really don't think the situation at FA with its director is something this project should be striving to emulate, just my take. IvoShandor 07:36, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

This was proposed before, however, rather than one person, it was a panel. It was rejected. If you need to know who frequently closes discussions, look through the archives. Recent ones are signed by the closer, older ones will show up in the history. Lara❤Love 16:24, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I would support having a director only if the director were moi, and I get lotsa cool stuff and free entrance into fine restaurants along with the title, and people flock to see me everywhere. Under any other circumstances, I oppose. I leave you 48 hours to consider my terms. --Ling.Nut 01:32, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
Ling for dictatordirector of GAR! Not sure about the cool stuff, but I guess you might get your own special table at Golden Corral :) Geometry guy 18:07, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
Totally. I support Ling.Nut as director, and I'll bestow upon him a reserved table in my section (50% gratuity required per meal, including all guests). However, I must be made the Queen of GA. That's a prerequisite to me supporting the director position. Can we make that happen? Lara❤Love 18:39, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
I support this motion, and have a panel of people as those that can close the GAN and GAR. Anyone from the panel can close these nominations. OhanaUnitedTalk page 15:45, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
There is effectively an informal panel already, as only the more experienced reviewers tend to want to close discussions anyway. It is a responsibility and a chore, with no associated glory. Geometry guy 18:07, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
That's pretty much true. Rarely does anyone not experienced archive any discussion, and if someone does it wrong, someone else just reverts it. Lara❤Love 18:39, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

New name

Rubbish new name, so thanks everyone for wasting people's time. Certainly a bad move. LuciferMorgan 19:49, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Get over it. Lara❤Love 20:25, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

A new way of doing things aka How we can fix everything

So alot of people have been complaining about really old GARs and the weird limbo some articles get in because improvements have been made to the article half way through. This seems like a valid concern to me, and seems to muddle up any kind of efficiency we can offer here. So, here are my ideas, completely copied from other people and posted here as if I thought of them myself:

  • Have the ability to "reset" a GAR once certain criteria have been met (length of reassessment, lack of consensus, etc).
  • Reassessments are only of oldid's of articles. That way the discussion is over one incarnation of the article, not spread out amongst any number of subsequent edits. If improvements are made to the article (as they hopefully should be), the GAR can be reset whenever the article is believed to be up to GA criteria and reassessed based on the new id.

The latter suggestions in particular, seems like it would speed things up. I imagine these things would rack up a consensus much faster if the article under review is a single version - any subsequent discussion of the article would be focused on interpretation of criteria and/or its application to the article, not an ongoing to-do list. In conjunction, I believe the GAR process would be vastly improved. Drewcifer 05:14, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

  • Or something. This idea has a relatively spring-fresh odor.
  • I believe something might be done to deal with articles at regular, preset intervals every week or ten days rather than giving each article a week on its own without comments etc.
  • I mean, swing through and clean house on every article that has been around since before the previous housecleaning. If a discussion is ongoing & many changes have been made, and so it needs to be "reset" then do so... Articles fall between the cracks because they stand alone (and they are not the 101st Airborne Division, for those who like Band of Brothers). Let's herd those little doggies! (... and by "let's" I mean "why don't you guys"; I am still nose-deep in RL) --Ling.Nut 06:42, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I feel that setting the reassessment to be of only one oldid would just inflame drama on GA/R. Lack of consensus could always be archived as lack of consensus. -Malkinann 09:33, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I absolutely agree with assessing only one oldid - this is not an article improvement drive, if somebody wants to improve the article to the GA status, please ask the reviewers who did GA/R for guidance and once everything is said and done, resubmit as GAN. I feel it is too time-consuming to participate in GA/Rs with moving targets, there is no need to please everybody, this is a yes/no decision process, not kindergarden. PrinceGloria 09:33, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
I think it's a good idea, but I think it should only be done if the requirement to send an article to GAR is that a notice must first be placed on the talk page with a time of one week for improvements to be made. If the article has not been sufficiently improved at that time, the article is nomed at GAR with the current oldid. Bust out recommendations and archive after either so many recommendations or a certain amount of time, say one week, whichever comes first. Like PG said, GAR isn't an improvement drive. If it's minor issues, we'll fix them like we always do, keep, archive. Otherwise, move it along. Lara❤Love 13:04, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Why so? If the article does not meet WIAGA, it is improperly listed as one and should be promptly removed. Actually, the removal should take place without involving GA/R, the GA process is about every user being able to list OR delist an article. Only in controversial cases should GA/R be invovled, and then they can assess whether a contested listing or delisting was appropriate, which by itself refers to an oldid situation, not the later changes. If the article was, say, delisted apropriately BUT improved afterwards, the conclusion form GA/R MIGHT be that the editors are encouraged to nominate the newer version for GA again. PrinceGloria 13:14, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I really really like Lara's idea above. Requiring that specific concerns with an an article be raised on an article's talk page first would dramatically reduce the problem of reassessing an ongoing work in progress. Besides, discussions of how to improve an article is what a Talk page is for in the first place. I imagine requiring this step would keep alot of articles from being raised at GA/R in the first place. So, here'e my idea of the basic timeline of a GA/R:

  1. An editor expresses his/her concerns with an article and it's qualification for GA status on the article's talk page. If, after X number of days the article has not been improved or has not shown signs of improvement, the editor may either
    1. delist the article themselves in the most clear-cut cases or
    2. nominate the article for GA/R in any potentially controversial circumstances, using an oldid
  2. The article is reviewed based on a single oldid version, and if a consensus of X votes is reached close and archive the GA/R as Delist/Keep/Etc.
  3. If substantial improvements have been made to the article during the GA/R, before a consensus is reached, and to the point of addressing all undisputed concerns raised, editors may reset the GA/R by archiving the old review and starting a new one with a link to the previous GA/R and a new oldid.
  4. Repeat until a consensus is reached.

Drewcifer 19:57, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't that turn GA/R into even more of a Peer Review process than a process designed to maintain the integrity of GA status? Also, improving articles as the result of a GA/R is fine, even preferred, but what difference would spending even more time waiting for someone to fix problems make when many articles already sit on the page for weeks, even over a month? Furthermore, that idea about waiting to file a GA/R or delist returns us back to effectively deleting speedy delists (Again) which is critical to quickly removing blatant non-GA's, and I imagine is super-critical to the current sweep in progress. (I see a whole crowd of speedied articles on the log now directly due to the sweep) Should people doing sweeps be expected to just keep adding their removal candidates to a huge personal list of articles, waiting until the day finally comes when they can delist almost all of them? (I seriously doubt many articles have active editors ready to maintain article integrity all of the time) Finally, this idea of only reviewing a certain oldid will result in very embarassing situations where an article in the middle of review suddenly contains some absolutly terrible violation of the criteria. (As is likely with certain extremely controversial topics, and possible with any article) Also, to address something you said earlier, there's nothing stopping people from resetting a GA/R right now, I just did a few days ago in what I consider to be entirely reasonable circumstances concerning a church. If we want to stop GA/R's from being so increadibly long-lasting, lets formalize the suggestion of myself and Geometry Guy below about a hard-cap on the length for GA/R's. GA/R should be reassessing the status of an article first and foremost, not trying whatever it can to improve them, that's what the (currently languishing) GA collaboration should be for. Homestarmy 21:21, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
I would argue that such a process removes any hint of a peer review: what GA/R should really be is "does this article match the GA critieria? Yes or No?" Instead these things typically devolve into an ongoing to-do list, which ends up being very difficult and annoying to sort out. All of that should be reserved for the Talk page, not here. As for the first step in my above timeline, I suggested that more as a formal way of saying something that is already being done pretty informally: the decision to delist on the spot or nominate at GA/R. My point is that if an article DOES substantiate a GA/R, then the issues should ideally be brought up on the Talk Page initially, rather than going straight to GA/R, to give the article's custodians a change to improve the article before it is reassessed. This already happens quite alot. I did not mean to undercut so-called "speedy" delists or sweeps, since those don't really apply to GA/R.
I'm not sure if I understand your point about the embarrasing situation. I presume that you mean if an article gets a certain number of "Keep" or "Relist" votes based on a particular oldid, and something new pops up in a new version that might blatantly violate criteria, that this might render the old votes based on an oldid incorrect or invalid? But the same scenerio could happen now, so my propposed changes don't change that fact. And besides, that might be a case where a GAR should be reset, as something has substantially changed. Besides, how often does that particular situation come up versus the reverse where someone votes delist, the article is improved, and the voter doesn't change their vote. The solution to both situations is the same: reset the article based on the new version (the new oldid).
My suggestion for restarting GA/Rs is based on what you and G-guy have been doing, so kudos. I'd just like to see it become a useful tool in all of our GA/R toolsets, rather than something that happens once and a while at some editors discretion.
And, finally, I think a hard-cap time limit is a useful solution, but not perfect. Since a GA/R has gone on for X days doesn't mean that the review is invalid in some way. We should find a way to speed the process up, rather than impose a time limit. I believe my suggestions would do just that: simplify things into a very quick "yes" or "no" vote. Drewcifer 21:51, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Adding on more pauses to the process makes things seem more like a PR to me because its as if the system is trying everything it can to give other editors encouragement and time to raise an article to GA status, and then only delist it as an absolute last resort after several weeks of mostly pointless waiting. Yes, people on GA/R's do tend to give lists of problems and propose that the problems be solved, but giving specific concerns about an article makes a decision look stronger. This can be especially important in reviews where one group is determined for an article's status to be changed one way or another in a way that isn't really correct. Sure, sometimes people come in and fix the problems people list, and then note the problems as compleated like a PR. But if people want to fix problems that editors have identified with an article in the hopes of retaining GA status, that's their perogative. Your suggestions sounds as if an editor must bring up problems on an article's talk page before doing anything, GA/R or delisting immedietly. The point of delisting immedietly is so that it can be done immedietly, not after a week, for egregrious violations of the GA criteria. Also, there's no rule that says you have to use GA/R immedietly when you think an article shouldn't be a GA, anyone could just drop a comment about how they think an article doesn't meet the GA criteria and offer suggestions for improvement.
Nextly, you're right about what the situation i'm referring to would entail. And yes, it does happen right now. That's why I assume we're talking about ways to reform GA/R, since that seems to be the principle problem in many old GA/R's. But the GA system doesn't promote a certain oldid of an article to GA status, it promotes just an article in general, and a Wikipedia article isn't supposed to be static. It also would GA status mean less and less the longer away the initial GA review was, since the current article (And the version that the world will see) will not be representative of what it was like when it was given GA status. Of course, not doing anything does mean GA/R's have to be reset or cancelled eventually, as I did with that one church article. The "Bringin on the Heartbreak" GA/R at the bottom of the page might be a candidate for resetting, since the nom changed his/her assessment which is dated back to August, but other editors have not followed suit, and Jayron and VanTucky still say it doesn't meet the criteria. So yes, this situation does seem to be happening more and more often.
When I restarted one GA/R and had to reccomend another be restarted, it wasn't something that I felt reflected strongly on the GA/R process, since it essentially meant that the review as it stood was a total failure. I think it would be best if all GA/R's would work the first time, and that means something needs to be done to prevent them from going on so long that article content changes too drastically for older comments to be accurate. (Unless, of course, the article actually is unstable, and fails the GA criteria) Having a time-cap would be similar to the AfD process, though of course, our cap should probably be much longer if extant at all since we have lower participation than AfD. At the very least, it should eventually get down to a point where, in any given GA/R, there isn't enough time for most comments to get out of date, and if they do get out of date, the article's stability is probably either questionable, or a very poor article is dramatically improved to GA status due to a GA/R. Homestarmy 16:39, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree with most of your points. But I think you're getting caught up on alot of the wrong parts of what I'm proposing. I too think that we should find some way to speed things up, that is the whole point of my suggestions. Enforcing a time limit on a GAR accomplishes this, but it imposes a restriction on the GAR which completely ignores the actual status of the article. I could imagine many situations were valid points are brought up in a GAR, but the time limit is reached and the GAR is closed despite these valid points - simply because there was not enough activity in the GAR.
Instead, I am proposing something which, I would argue, would speed things up even more, while still being based completely on the article: reviewing an oldid (which basically boils things down to a "yes" or "no" vote by removing the potential of an ongoing to do list, a moving target if you will) while encouraging possible resets of the GAR if all valid concerns have been adressed (leading to another simple "yes" or "no" vote). Basically, my goal is to simplify the way people participate in a GAR. Simplifying the process will in turn speed it up. As separate processes (oldid and resetting) neither suggestion would improve things that much if at all, but together I believe they would help considerably.
As for the Talk page notification, this is not something I'm dead set on, nor do I think it should be a requirement. It is just a common courtesy to the article's custodians: give them a chance to fix things before putting its GA status into serious jeopardy. Perhaps this could be something that is recommended but not enforced, and perhaps the time-limit things (X number of days then nominate for GAR) as well - neither are that important to me. The main benefit of this additional process would be to keep some article's from reaching GAR in the first place, since the article's custodians would hopefully address any concerns before nomination is even necessary.Drewcifer 01:11, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

So yea, about that new speedy archive criterion...

Why a week instead of three days? And when was it changed anyway? What was wrong with three days? What was wrong with around 80 percent? If this happened the week I was in Michigan, i'd sure like to see a link to this discussion, but as far as I can tell, this was changed with basically no real point. The entire purpose of being able to archive a GA/R speedily is so that it will be, you know, speedy, especially for blatantly obvious cases. A blatantly obvious case will not require an entire week to figure out. Homestarmy 17:10, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with comments made by PrinceGloria and others that we shouldn't give precise figures in terms of numbers of days or percentages, but rely on the discretion of the archivist. The more clear cut the reviews, the faster the archiving can be. I'd be happy to shorten the archiving guidelines along these lines. Geometry guy 18:26, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
But if its left vauge like that, it only takes one archivist gone awry to create a mess by archiving disputes like a day after their filed, long before editors who have a useful opinion can see it. Homestarmy 19:19, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
I am not aware of this ever happening. There is no need to invent solutions without a problem. In my view, the most important line in the current archiving guidelines is "Closing a discussion requires taking responsibility, determining what the consensus of the reviewers is, and taking action where necessary." GAR archivists all seem to take this responsibility quite seriously. Geometry guy 19:26, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
What is blatantly obvious to one reviewer will not always be blatantly obvious to another, or more importantly, blatantly obvious to likely contributors to GA/R's. That's why I think there needs to be some kind of limit, just not a week long one. Unlike the majority of proposed regulations to GA that were searching for an extremely unlikely problem to solve, the failure of human subjectivity to please everyone is not so unlikely. Plus, what you propose hasn't even been implemented, so of course there aren't problems yet. Homestarmy 19:31, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
Okay. In my view, no GAR should be archived sooner than 7 days after it starts because the process should include reviewers who only check the page once a week. However, what really should be changed is the "do not archive until there have been 7 days since the last comment". This should depend on the consensus. If there is no dissent, archiving can happen the next day. If there is a minority of dissent, then it is best to wait a couple of days before archiving. If the discussion is highly contested, then a week might really be needed. This is what I mean by "The more clear cut the reviews, the faster the archiving can be." Do you agree with this principle? Geometry guy 19:40, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
That sounds fair, and might help with the higher activity on GA/R often resulting in reviews lasting too long. But then, what happens with reviews where there is not nearly a unanimous consensus, but there is clearly a majority for a certain option? Such a review could last forever if people continue discussing it, since it couldn't be closed as just no consensus if its around 75 percent to do something. That sort of thing is why I think there needs to be a set-in-stone hard cap on the length of time for GA/R's, because most of the time, there's no point in waiting around for more changes or more opinions after a certain long period of time. Homestarmy 20:09, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Given that I support a minimum time of 1 week for a GAR, it seems reasonable to me that there should also be a maximum time, say 5 weeks, after which a no consensus archive is acceptable without waiting for further comments. Is this the kind of thing you had in mind? Is there general support for such a proposal? Geometry guy 20:21, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, I was thinking 4 weeks when I proposed it in a section above, but you didn't seem to like it since it would of required adding another rule. Homestarmy 20:23, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm not dogmatic. I think a combination of making the guidelines more flexible and adding a time limit might work quite well. Although it involves adding a rule, other rules would be shortened. Geometry guy 20:28, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
Then, if there's no disagreement about these ideas in principle, it seems to me we only need to work out what the exact numbers should be. Homestarmy 20:33, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
As I have said in previous discussions, I am against enumerating everything, but agree that a maximum time limit for GARs might be helpful. So there is only one number to fix from my point of view. I suggested 5 weeks: just over a month and easy to count. Does that suit? Geometry guy 20:45, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
I thought a month was 6 weeks long, but even though I think 5 is kind of high, I guess its fair to start with to see how it goes. Homestarmy 20:47, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
February is 4 weeks (28 days), other months are four and a half (30-31 days). But yes, lets see how 5 weeks works in practise. Geometry guy 20:52, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Disputed review over Marth (Fire Emblem)

Hello there. I and User: Hbdragon88 have discussed this issue briefly at each others' talk pages. Basically, the uncertainty is over the "broad coverage" GA criteria which was cited as a reason to fail Marth (Fire Emblem). The article is missing a Conception and creation section as that information isn't really attainable. I feel that this omission doesn't stop the article from being broad, it just stops the article from being comprehensive—a difference between GA and FA assessment. Really, I'm asking whether this is a justifiable reason to fail GA and whether this omission really stops the article from being broad in coverage. On another note, this user thinks every video gaming article must have a development section to reach GA status. So, I'd appreciate it if somebody would clear this up for us, Thanks. Ashnard Talk Contribs 15:10, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

First, I would consider opening up a full request for this on the main page, instead of bringing it to talk (which is more discussion on how articles are reassessed).
But specifically, I see a lack of broadness as defined by notability. There is very little information about the character that is not directly related to his appearance in games and the events within those games. It's not 100% in-universe, but there is a significant lack of out-of-universe information that would be absolutely needed just to meet WP:N, much less GA or FA. And I do understand that you are probably right that you'll have problems finding the creation information ( at least from English sources); unfortunately, this makes it very hard to justify why this article should stand alone.
My suggestion: follow the example of Characters of Final Fantasy VIII and merge all the Fire Emblem characters to a single article. You are likely going to have an easier time to find creation and other out-of-universe information for these characters than for one single character from the series, which lacks a strong English presence and thus is going to be lacking a large number of English references. That list itself may then be worthy of the GA. --MASEM 15:17, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
See List of characters in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. It failed FL; there isn't any out-of-universe info that I could find. Amazingly, FE DS has just been announced!!! It's a remake of the first Fire Emblem and will feature Marth as the main character. I know it's still in-universe info, but could this in any way aid the cause? Doh! It fails stability now anyway. Thanks for the comment. Ashnard Talk Contribs 15:24, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to list a number of examples that I discussed with Ashnard. Super Princess Peach's GA status was revoked in part due to a lack of development section; I nominated this for GAR once I realized that other GA video game articles listed at WP:CVG/GA did have dev sections. The reviewer for Big Rigs cited the need for explaining why they made such a bad game, which I could not provide. Character articles Aerith Gainsborough and Princess Peach and Sephiroth (Final Fantasy) (which has an empty "concept and creation" section, heh) are all former GAs that have no deve sections. hbdragon88 22:35, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that factor was unanswered. Is it absolutely essential for an article to have a development section? One thing I'd like to add—without offence to Hbdragon88—is that Big Rigs also had other factors that led the reviewer to fail it, not just the lack of development. Ashnard Talk Contribs 15:36, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Note how this time I didn't say it was the only factor; I think I said before that it was the only reason, but it's not. The important part is that the "broad in its coverage" was cited as "needs improvement" because of the lack of a dev section, which was a contributing factor to the failure of theG GA nom. hbdragon88 23:00, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

A number of articles just appeared in CAT:GA

A number of articles just appeared in CAT:GA without a listing on WP:GA. Doesn't look like these were indepedently reviewed. Gimmetrow 02:53, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

See Phase4's recent contribs, Special:Contributions/Phase4. He's been listing articles unilaterally. T Rex | talk 02:58, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Alright, I'm off to ask him to stop doing this. Should we put these articles on GA hold or just bold delist? Many articles have problems that can't be fixed quickly. OhanaUnitedTalk page 03:24, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Delisted them all. Lara❤Love 03:56, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Your conclusion is spot on - Alternative theories of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 has recently been identified as having serious COI issues. Socrates2008 (Talk) 21:59, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Now a bunch of articles have been delisted without removal from WP:GA: Edmund Burke, Iglesia ni Cristo, Organic food, Pasta, Zagreb, Chicago, Dallas, Texas, Edmonton.

New articles in CAT:GA not listed on WP:GA: Casino Royale (1967 film), Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Hurricane Nina (1957), Joey Santiago, Temple of the Dog Gimmetrow 21:51, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

GAR tag

What happened to the tag for GAR articles that went on the talk page? I don't find it in the instructions. Sumoeagle179 20:22, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure if there ever was a template, thought it sounds like a familiar template...usage would be very helpful for automating the updating of ArticleHistory events. Homestarmy 20:40, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
There was something that said something like "It's GA, but a user has expressed a concern..." as I recall. — Rlevse • Talk • 18:55, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Now that you mention it, that sounds like a great idea. If that template exists let's start using it, and if not let's make it happen! Drewcifer 19:53, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

GA citation debate

I believe I am one of the most productive WP:GA authors. At last count I had 38 current GA credits plus two that have been promoted to WP:FA. For some time, I have constantly had WP:GACs in the queue for review. In the month of October at one time I had 9 GACs, as shown here, in the in the queue. In October, I had at least 7 GA promotions: including Rush Street (Chicago), Ricky Powers, Washington Park, Chicago (neighborhood), Chicago Marathon, Harold Washington Cultural Center, Haystacks (Monet), Prairie Avenue, and Rainbow/PUSH.

Last month I posted Gilbert Perreault at WP:GAR (see Wikipedia:Good_article_reassessment/Archive_31#Gilbert_Perreault) because I felt it was being destroyed by another editor who was removing citations. The GAR was headed to a consensus to keep the article with the citations replaced. Then, User:Geometry guy closed the discussion as inappropriate for GAR and suggested I take it to WP:RFC.

You may recall that I had first taken the article to the talk pages of both WP:HOCKEY and WP:WPBIO without reply and then requested help at WP:PR after much back and forth editing and arguing.

Much to my surprise the RFC is headed toward a consensus to allow the removal of my citations and essentially authorizing people to remove citations at will if they are in the mood as has been pointed out in the debate. However, it is my opinion that I am being baited in the debate especially by User:Djasso who is making it appear that I am doing some unscrupulous. My most serious concern is that the way the debate is going, it seems to authorize citation removal from WP:GA beyond what I believe is appropriate and I feel I have a good sense of what is appropriate for a good article. Furthermore, the way debate is going it appears I will be handcuffed to sit by. I am very fearful that the persons I am debating with intend to tear the citations out of the GAs I have contributed and sort of need some backup so it does not happen. I had been thinking my work at finding citations was valued, but I am not so sure.

I am hoping that others here are concerned about protecting good articles will help reverse the debate back in line with the direction it was headed while at GAR. Please see Talk:Gilbert_Perreault#RFC.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 08:11, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

GAR template?

Should we create a template in the article's talk page to let people know that particular article was sent to GAR? This would be similiar to the ones like "GAN" and "on hold" OhanaUnitedTalk page 05:25, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Too..many...templates... already... Ling.Nut (talk) 05:30, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
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