Wikipedia talk:Good article reassessment/archive4

Quick-fails and renomination recommendations

Several of the current GARs touch upon two related issues.

1. A reminder: "Renominate at GAN" is not an actionable recommendation. What is the closer of the discussion supposed to do? Any article can be renominated at any time, so this recommendation is not a great deal more than a sugar-coated version of "Endorse fail".
2. Is it appropriate to bring disputed quick-fails to GAR? I would say yes: I'm unconvinced by semantic arguments that this is good article "reassessment", and a quick-fail has never been "assessed". This process was previously called "Good article review" and "Good article disputes": it is here to troubleshoot when other GA processes don't resolve the list/delist question. On the other hand, there is very little that GAR can do with an inappropriate quick-fail: all we can do is say it was inappropriate and recommend renomination. But, in view of the first point, is there any point in bringing quick fails here?

Can we improve this in any way? Geometry guy 20:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I think both cases touch on an issue that is beyond the scope of the GAR page. The page is here largely to comment on review actions that have been taken, not to fully review articles. It is, consequently, silly to bring a quick-fail here, as, even if deemed inappropriate, it will still need to be fully assessed through GAN. I would support a disclaimer indicating that this is not the appropriate venue for quick fails. You're entirely right that there isn't really anything that can be done for them here.

I, for one, use “Renominate” when both sides of the argument have merit and, consequently, feel an additional full review appears needed (again, the nature of GAR, despite the name, is not to fully review articles.) It’s not an endorsement of failure, but, rather, a vote of “neutral” or "second opinion requested". I agree that wording is far from optimal. Ɛƚƈơƅƅơƚɑ _talk 21:16, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I broadly agree. Sometimes, however, GAR does do more than it says on the packet: it occasionally does provide a full review, or even fix an article. I regard this as a good thing. Anyway, a disclaimer about quick-fails sounds like a good idea. As for the neutral recommendation, I am going to try using "No action" for that :-) Geometry guy 12:43, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I realise that it occasionally provides a full review (thus the "largely to comment"), which is definitely a good thing. We should certainly encourage that level of thoroughness, but it isn't really a reasonable expectation, especially given the difficulty of even getting a full review on GAN. I like the "no action" verbiage. Ɛƚƈơƅƅơƚɑ _talk 13:38, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

G-guy, great proposal for quick-fail. I agree that evaluating quick-fail is within the scope of GAR.

Concerning "Renominate at GAN", there are certain occassions when it's an appropriate recommendation. During the course of the GAR discussion an article could undergo substantial improvements. In that situation it may be helpful to suggest renomination. In that circumstance the suggestion to renominate validates the original reviewer's decision to fail the article; recognizes specific improvements made since then; and tells the article's editors that the article is now in a state where it will probably pass GAN. Everyone leaves happy and the discussion can be closed as "No Action."

Of course, there are many more situations where "Renominate" isn't an appropriate recommendation. We certainly shouldn't use it to dodge difficult decisions, pass the buck, or sugar-coat a failure. Majoreditor (talk) 16:36, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Automation of this page

I would like to automate the listing of GARs on this page in a similar manner to the listing of Peer reviews on the PR page. I would also like to automate the archives. For that I propose that reviews be placed on subpages of the form [[Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/ARTICLE NAME/N]] (where N=1,2,3,...) and are transcluded onto this page automatically using a category listing bot. A talk page template will be used to set up this GAR subpage. With this system, a GAR can be archived by changing a template on [[Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/ARTICLE NAME/N]] at the same time as providing the closing comments: the GAR will then be automatically removed from the GAR page and automatically listed instead on an archive page. This will remove one of the more annoying steps from the archiving process.

The appearance of this page will be unchanged. Any views or comments? Geometry guy 21:32, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

It's a good proposal. Let's be sure to include specific, easy-to-understand instructions on how to list an article at GAR. Majoreditor (talk) 21:38, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, the plan would be that the nominator would only need to substitute a template on the talk page. This would then provide both the talk page comment that a GAR has been started, and also a link to create the GAR subpage. So it would be simpler than the current process for nominators too. I agree entirely it needs to be clearly explained. Geometry guy 22:24, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm on board with this proposal. Simplicity is a Good Thing. Ling.Nut (talk) 06:05, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I'm going to go ahead with this. There will be a short transitional phase before the automation is fully operational. Experience shows that there will also be some teething problems. Please be patient and raise any issues here. Thanks Geometry guy 16:26, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

The automation of this page is now done, but I haven't yet automated the archives. Please test the listing procedure (substituting the {{GAR}} template on a talk page) and give suggestions for improving the instructions. The idea for archiving is to add the result to the template {{subst:GAR/result|result=result added here}}, which will automatically remove the reassessment from the GAR page and add it to the current archive. Geometry guy 21:02, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

The final automation of the archives is not yet done, but the process has been set up. I spent the afternoon in template substitition hell, but finally emerged with a solution. The template on current GARs is {{GAR/current}}. To archive a GAR, simply replace this by {{subst:GAR/result|result=result}} ~~~~, where you can substitute your reasoning in place of result. I hope this proves to be easier, once we get used to it. Geometry guy 22:34, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

This is fully automated now, and the backlog is too: it will show up when there are old articles, and will list them. The automation has been well tested in the last week, and appears to work okay. I've been trying to improve the documentation today, but there are some adjustments which I will make tomorrow. Geometry guy 01:35, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Apologies: automation of the backlog interfered with editing individual sections. I think this is fixed now. As I mentioned above... teething problems! Geometry guy 16:51, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Greg Skrepenak

There was a discussion for Greg Skrepenak which looked headed toward relist late last month or early this month, but it is no longer here and not at Talk:Greg Skrepenak. Shouldn't it be there by now?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 20:10, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

See this. Consensus was that no action would be taken at WP:GAR, with a recommendation to renominate at WP:GAN. Ɛƚƈơƅƅơƚɑ _talk 20:31, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Archive 34 contains the full discussion, along with a rational for archiving the discussion. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 17:43, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Delisting discussion

Can't locate the discussions for delisting of Grameen Bank and Banglapedia. Can someone, please, lead me to the discussions? Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 10:36, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Please, someone respond. I don't see any of the processes described in the project page followed when delisting these two articles. I am sure the process isn't just a wall-flower, and is followed by editors. I also am assuming that it was followed in these two instances. Why is it so difficult to dig it up? If it's removed then at least a diff should exist. Right? Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 17:10, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

GA is intentionally designed to not be overly bureaucratic. An editor, in good faith, can de-list an article that they feel doesn't conform to GA standards without going through the process of WP:GAR. I would recommend following up with the editors who delisted the articles [1] [2] to get their input. If you feel that delisting is not warranted and that the article does conform to GA standards you are welcomed to open up a discussion on this page. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 17:22, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it is not necessary to use GAR for delisting articles, so I'm afraid the diffs [3] and [4] are all you have in the way of discussion. I agree with you that the two reviewers did not completely follow the guidelines described in the section "If you believe an article should be delisted". However, these are only guidelines, and it is quite common for reviewers to delist articles more quickly than these guidelines suggest when the case is clear-cut. I think this is a pity, but the real issue is whether the articles meet the good article criteria. The reviewers have given reasons why they do not, and, at a glance, their reasons seem to me to be valid. If you are still unhappy, you can, as Agne indicates, list either or both of the articles at GAR for others to review the delisting decision(s). Geometry guy 17:34, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

There does not need to be a discussion in order to delist the articles. However, if you feel that the articles SHOULD NOT have been delisted, and would like to that decision overturned, you are free to start your own discussion on the main WP:GAR page. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 17:41, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I understand that delistings need not be discussed here. But the reassesment process outlined on this project page asks to leave a message on the article talk page detailing any remaining problems and Allow time for other editors to respond. If the article still does not meet the requirement only then it can be delisted. However, in both these cases this process flow was ignored and the articles were delisted without allowing anyone any reasonable time to address the concerns. This may not be a policy violation, but this certainly is not an appreciable activity either. Request the concerned editor (i.e. Nishkid64) to refrain from such hasty actions in future. Arman ^(Talk) 11:53, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

HRC GAR

this GAR was closed after 1 delist vote by User Cirt; reason for closure was "content dispute", Cirt's delist vote brought up other GA criteria not being met. Can anyone close off a GAR preemptively without considering the merits of the GAR? I (and also Cirt it seems) do not think the article comes close to GA standards so what can be done now? Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 04:09, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

The goal of GAR is to decide whether or not an article meets the good article criteria, not to resolve content disagreements between editors. Such disagreements should be resolved on the article talk page: if process is needed, then the right process to use is Requests for comment, where editors with experience in mediation can be found. The expertise of editors here is the interpretation of the good article criteria.

HRC was listed at GAR in response to a lack of progress on the article talk page: the long article talk page comment was cut and pasted as the reasoning for listing the article at GAR. User Cirt's comment refers to the instability generated by this content dispute, rather than providing any evidence of ongoing intrinsic instability.

Experience has shown that GAR is not helpful in resolving disputes like this: all that happens is that the article talk page discussion gets moved to GAR, with article editors voting "list" or "delist" according to their previous position. GAR has limited additional resources and is slow moving, so the likely result is deadlock for a couple of months, followed by closing the discussion as "no consensus". For this reason, there is consensus at GAR to close discussions pre-emptively in cases like this.

If you think a GAR would be helpful, you can open another GAR. If you do so, I would urge you to summarize concisely the reasons why the article does not meet the criteria, rather than giving a long list of quotations from other editors. However, I strongly recommend that you consider Requests for comment instead. Geometry guy 11:31, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your detailed explanation. I am not really stubborn and if you, who are kind enough to look after the GA designations, are comfortable leaving this article designated, then that's fine with me. I thought the list of other editors who expressed pov concerns would be more informative than just me expressing my own opinion but I guess not. I won't be doing a RfC because it seems as if that as well as maintenance templates are seen as adversarial so I'll just back off of this article. Thanks again for taking the time to explain thoroughly why you closed this GAR. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 15:09, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you in return for such a gracious response. I hope that some of the points you have indicated will be taken on board by other editors of the article. Geometry guy 15:34, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Automation status

The automation appears to be working well now, and, in my experience so far, archiving is easier. Let me summarize the new set-up.

1. Articles are added to GAR by adding {{subst:GAR}} to the article talk page. Saving this provide a link (using {{GAR/link}}) which sets up the article's GAR page (using {{GAR/current}}).
2. Archiving a review involves replacing {{GAR/current}} by {{subst:GAR/result|result=result}} ~~~~, and editing the talk page (e.g. by substituting the {{GAR/link}} template).

I'm not mentioning several points here, but I'd like to know if this is workable. So far I've done most of the archiving: {{GAR/AH}} was also a great help. Please try it out and comment. Geometry guy 22:36, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

One feature of the new system is that you can watch an individual GAR without watching others. But there is also the disadvantage that watching the whole page no longer informs you of all changes. If you want to keep up to date about new GARs, the page to watch is User:VeblenBot/C/GAR. Geometry guy 23:36, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

There have been some temporary difficulties because of the new preprocessor introduced on Saturday, and because the toolserver is down. There was also a delay setting up archive 35, but this is now done. The GAR template has been fixed to work with the new preprocessor, and the automatic listing is now independent of the toolserver. So all should be working smoothly again: please report any problems here. Geometry guy 22:13, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Reassessment system?

I'm wanting to flip through the current good articles doing quick checks to see if any ought to be reassessed. Is there any system set up for this? For example, anyway of telling other GA editors which articles I've double checked and when, so we're not all covering the same ground?

--jwanders^Talk 06:33, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Check out the sweeps project and ask Ohana if you can join in the fun! Geometry guy 11:35, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Order

The order in which GARs are listed has been reversed recently, so that the oldest nominations appear first. This actually happened by accident, but it occurs to me that it might be better to list GARs in this order. For one thing, it is more consistent with WP:GAN. For another it may help draw attention to old reviews in need of further comments or archiving. Any views? Geometry guy 17:39, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I have no preference. Consistency with GAN is a plus. Majoreditor (talk) 20:22, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Archiving update

I've asked a couple of editors to try out the archiving and I'm not convinced that the system is ideal yet. Archiving still takes too long, in my view, and I think the {{GAR/link}} template is badly designed and not very easy to use.

I would therefore like to propose a fairly bold change, that we make GAR more like GAN (and peer review) by using a talk page template which is placed at the top of the article talk page. There would be a template for a current discussion, and a template for a closed one (which could be used instead of article history). This would mean, in principle, that closing a GAR would involve only one talk page edit, at the top of the page, to sort out all the banners, although reviewers could also add some explanation to the talk page discussion if they wish. However, in my view, a link, together with explanation in the GAR discussion should be sufficient.

Does this idea work for others? Geometry guy 18:36, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

It's a good idea. The GAN and PR templates work reasonably well. Majoreditor (talk) 04:05, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

That was my feeling. Other views welcome... Geometry guy 11:06, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I would prefer that way instead of the current system as the notice would be where editors would expect it to be. It would also be better than having {{DelistedGA}} or {{GA}} at the top while the article is at GA Review. Tarret ^talk 13:40, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I will implement this soon, probably tomorrow evening UTC. Geometry guy 23:22, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Not done yet, but still high on my agenda! Geometry guy 22:30, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

This is now, finally, done. I hope that the revised system proves to be easier to use. Please comment or report any problems/issues here. Geometry guy 21:19, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

José Martí??

I note that Talk:José Martí claims that the article is a "Good Article," but I can't see any evidence that it has passed WP:GAN. What's more, if it was once up to scratch, it isn't any more and should be reassessed.

(In case anyone's wondering, yes I am planning next semester's syllabus, hehe.) --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 13:23, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

It's not listed at WP:GA. From the talk page history, it seems that one user updated the WikiProjects to GA status in one fell swoop without any kind of review or notice back in June. I'd say it's definitely not a GA; just the result of an inexperienced user. :) María (habla conmigo) 14:56, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the talk page doesn't claim (directly) that the article is a "Good Article", only that it is GA-Class in the WikiProject ratings. However, these WikiProjects (like every other I know) only permit GA-Class for Good Articles, so I've changed them all to B-Class. Geometry guy 17:33, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I meant. The user updated the WikiProject assessments to GA without an apparent GAN. Thanks for re-assessing them to their proper class. María (habla conmigo) 17:41, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, grand, many thanks for this.  :) --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 17:31, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Delisting

I delisted two articles today, Air (visual novel) and Yoshitaka Amano as they both fail multiple GA criteria (both were listed back in 2007). I believe I followed the proper procedure for delisting, including leaving notes on the article talk pages clearly showing which GA criteria they fail to list. Two different editors came through and reverted the delistings, saying "there was no discussion first" and one claiming I'd "overstepped by bounds" and that one editor can't judge an article for delisting (yet one can judge for listing??). From what I read, delisting does not require discussion nor does it have to be listed here before being delisted. Both editors seem to feel otherwise so I'd like some clarification. Is it required to have a discussion before an article is delisted when it clearly fails the Good Article critera? If so, can the instructions be made clearer regarding this or the part about delisting without GAR listed removed if its false. Also, are obviously involved editors of the articles allowed to "revert" a delisting? AnmaFinotera (talk) 00:35, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

It's acceptable for an editor familiar with GA criteria to de-list an article which is clearly deficient. The best way to do so is to state your reasons for de-listin gon the article's talk page, which you did.

Yoshitaka Amano clearly deserved to be de-listed. Air (visual novel) is close to meeting GA standards, however. I would have either brought it to GAR or left a note on the talk page listing the article's deficiencies and asking editors to correct them. But that's just my opinion.

Good-faith delistings by an editor such as yourself who is familiar with GA criteria should not be reverted. An editor who disagrees with your decision should bring the matter to GAR rather than revert you. Best wishes, Majoreditor (talk) 01:21, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree. However, although discussion is not required when delisting in this way, the delisting guidelines do recommend leaving a talk page note on the issues before delisting the article, not afterwards, and then waiting a day or two to see if anyone responds (see item 4) before actually delisting. This is particularly helpful if the article is close to GA and has active editors, as they might be able to fix it quickly. I encourage you to use this approach in the future. Geometry guy 11:58, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I also agree that a first step should be a talk page advisory. I personally advocate the idea that the delisting ought to be in the context of a full Good Article review, as if the delisting editor was reviewing a nominated article, and, if the article is found deficient, the delisting editor can state those in terms of the good article criteria in his or her delisting review. I suggest that the preliminary advisory take the form of: "In (some low number of weeks) I intend to review this article to determine if it still meets the current good article criteria. At present I find <insert list of concerns here> I personally think it is in poor taste in the initial advisory to set deadlines: "fix by <insert date here> or I will demote <article>." No state change should take place sans a Good Article review and the advisory precedes the delisting review. Such authoritarian behavior creates unnecessary panic and long term ill will among editors and Good Article reviewers. Take care Gosgood (talk) 13:15, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Interestingly, the sweeps task force pretty much says, if it blatantly fails GA, be bold and delist with a note on the page explaining why. I personally will leave a note of "warning" if its just a few minor issues, like one or two unreferenced statements or a need to cut down the images, and give time to fix. If it is an article that badly fails, as both of those did with whole unreferenced sections, I will boldly delist it. If one person can promote an article or quick fail it for failing the criteria badly, why must it go through GAR before being delisted if it also blatantly fails? Now I know we have many GAs which passed under lower criteria, but I'd presume that is part of why the sweeps was started. As for the two I failed yesterday, one was partially improved with a few references thrown in, but it still has quite a few unreferenced statements and has already been sent back to GAN. I think it needs to really be clarified in the delisting instructions. Should one never boldly delist except in obvious false listing (no GA review done at all), or can one boldly delist an article that badly fails with an appropriate note, or must one always give 24-48 hours to fix, or must all delistings go through GAR? AnmaFinotera (talk) 18:46, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

There is no such thing as a bold delist, and there is nothing in the delisting guidelines which suggests there is. What is bold about delisting an article? Is there a bold list? Isn't politeness a more valuable attribute than boldness on talk pages? The delisting guidelines provide answers to all your questions, but even though you seem to have read them, you don't seem to want to accept them. It may help to notice that they are guidelines which "should be interpreted with common sense and the occasional exception", and sweeps of old GAs (esp. pre 2007) do churn up exceptions, although I think the sweeps guidelines could be improved. The one or two days are not for a fix, but to see if anyone cares. If someone cares, and the article is fixable, then why not give them a week, as we do with "on hold". Neither listing, nor delisting an article are to be done on a whim.

Your decisions are not being challenged here, even though you didn't follow the delisting guidelines to the letter, so why are you complaining? What needs to be clarified in the guidelines? Are there any guidelines anywhere which suggest that all delistings should go through GAR? If so, point me to them. If not, then why are you suggesting again that there are, when it has been pointed out to you repeated that there aren't? Geometry guy 20:33, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

GA symbol on article page

A proposal to add a symbol identifying Good Articles in a similar manner to Featured ones is being discussed. 02:14, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Reasons for reassessments

How are GA reviews such as this helpful to editors? How many delistings and failed nominations are contested simply on the grounds that the reviewers are not providing any additional information with their "reviews?" Is there some way we can require that reviews be complete and actually provide useful feedback? No article (not even an FA) is perfect so there should always be suggestions on ways to improve an article. If these articles are being failed, then there's obviously things that can be pointed out. A simple pass/fail w/ no explanation is unhelpful to everyone. will381796 (talk) 18:28, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

The review is utterly unhelpful, I agree, even if the conclusion of the review is accurate. I would estimate that 10% of GAR listings come from unhelpful reviews, so it is not so high as to be a serious issue, but I'd be grateful for any ideas to encourage reviews with content. Geometry guy 20:51, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I would make two suggestions:

1. Require that GA reviews be complete. This would require that this be made explicitly cleared in the GAR instructions and would also require that any passes that do not contain a thorough review be reverted until a review is written out. There needs to be some accountability and some way that everyone else can see upon what criteria they felt an article passed. Even if the article is wonderful, great and obviously passes GA, the GA review should still point out some areas of improvement in the article. No article, not even FAs, are perfect.
2. Go through some of the talk pages of recent passes and see who's doing these unhelpful reviews. I can point out at least two editors that I've seen in the past week that do reviews like this. Messages can be left on their talk pages (after the GAR instructions are update) requesting that they provide complete reviews. will381796 (talk) 19:07, 5 May 2008 (UTC

To minimize misuse of {{GAList}}, of which this seems to be a case, perhaps its template documentation should reference step three of the Good Article review guideline. There is nothing in the template documentation that conveys the ideas that reviewing editors should leave extensive notes, and, above all, not to use the GA guideline as a simple checklist. Possibly the template conveys the impression that a facile checkoff is perfectly acceptable to the community. Take care. Gosgood (talk) 12:26, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Madonna (entertainer)/2

Why isn't Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Madonna (entertainer)/2 appearing at WP:GAR?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 19:15, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Give VeblenBot another 2 minutes, I estimate :-) Geometry guy 19:17, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

After a GA attempt

Talk:Blood donation/GA1 discussion has been completed. Some edits (more than just formating for clarity) have been added after the GAR result was given. Do these late edits need to be removed? Can only administrators close the discussion putting a box around it? Snowman (talk) 21:31, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

First, this is actually the wrong place to ask: WT:GAN is the main forum for nominations related issues. This page is for reassessment and resolving disputes. Anyway, the late edits don't need to be removed, but it is probably a good idea to move them to article talk, and I have done this with the last one. An archive box is unnecessary and inappropropriate. However, in this case the reviewer did not make it very clear that the review had been completed, so I've added a message to the review page, which hopefully will discourage further edits. If there are any issues with my edits, please ping me on my talk page. Geometry guy 22:31, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, that has sorted it out. Snowman (talk) 09:47, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Post GAN subpage revamp of GAR

When I next have time, I plan to complete the GA review subpage implementation by providing a mechanism to generate a review subpage for an individual reassessment of a current GA. The scheme I have in mind is to combine the individual reassessment process with the community GAR process. Thus {{subst:GAR}} will initially provide two links: one to start an individual reassessment on an article talk subpage (/GA1, /GA2, etc.), a second to start a community reassessment on a GAR subpage. Editors can then choose the most appropriate course of action.

In the past, editors have often either delisted articles with barely a comment, or brought them to this page when a community discussion was unnecessary. The consensus that every completed GA action needs a permanent link to a review page applies to individual reassessments as well, and I hope that this change will encourage better practice. I therefore also intend to restructure the current GAR guidelines to reflect this shift.

If anyone has any other comments on individual and/or community reassessments, now would be a good time to raise them. Geometry guy 12:12, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

The concept sounds worthwile. As always, it should be examined by the community and tested before implementation. Thanks for suggesting this improvement, G-guy. Majoreditor (talk) 13:49, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

• I get the feeling some may get confused by having to choose between a /GA1 and a GAR subpage, but if well documented, I think it's a good idea. giggy _(:O) 01:42, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I have no argument with this, and it would provide a logical place for eventual GA sweep reassessments too. EyeSerene^talk 09:59, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

That is certainly the intention.

Okay, two weeks later, I finally found the time to rewrite the templates (it took over a day!). The reassessment process begins, as now by substituting a template ({{subst:GAR}}) at the top of the article talk page. The new feature is that this now presents editors with a choice: starting an individual reassessment, or requesting a community reassessment. The templates are intended to be self-documenting, just like the GAN subpage templates.

I've tested them as best I can, but there may still be glitches. Anyone want to give it a go?

Once any glitches and other issues are ironed out, the documentation for WP:GAR needs a substantial rewrite.Geometry guy 12:13, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll give it a try next time I'm GA-sweeping. I'll starting looking next week. Majoreditor (talk) 17:53, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm road-testing it myself at Order theory. I also think it is probably a good idea to involve already the wider GA community, either at WT:GA or WT:GAN, probably the former. Geometry guy 19:23, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Yup, me too (although with the rate that copyedit requests are coming in, it won't be soon :P) EyeSerene^talk 18:47, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I completed my first road test. I don't know whether anyone else uses it, but I've updated {{subst:GAR/AH}} so that it provides article history events for both individual and community reassessments. Geometry guy 19:45, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I've now updated the guidelines. Please copyedit/clarify if necessary. I've also improved {{GAR/link}} so that it can be used to record results of reassessments as well as active ones. This replaces the functionality of {{Old GAR}} as an alternative to {{ArticleHistory}} for editors who find the latter too complicated. Geometry guy 15:16, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Humph. I've been GA sweeping and haven't yet found an article which needs to be tagged for GAR. I thought that if I examined fifteen articles that at least one of them might not meet GA criteria. I'll try the revamped process when I finally find a suitable article. Cheers, Majoreditor (talk) 19:09, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

In the context of GA sweeps, isn't GAR only appropriate if there's an objection to your decision to delist, or where you're uncertain about whether to delist or not? I've certainly had no problem finding articles that don't meet the GA criteria anyway. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 19:21, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I was hoping to find a marginal article and then list it at GAR. Perhaps I should focus on articles which were listed prior to a year ago. I'll start looking again tomorrow. Majoreditor (talk) 19:38, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Both of you seem to be under a misapprehension here. Even a non-marginal delist needs a review and a permanent record to explain why the article does not meet the criteria. Geometry guy 22:35, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't recall ever saying that it didn't. In fact, I distinctly recall having repeatedly said exactly what you just said. So where's the misapprehension? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 16:39, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Apologies Malleus, I misunderstood what you meant by "GAR". Geometry guy 17:27, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I tried out the new mechanism for an individual GA review. It worked just fine for setting up the page. If I have any problems with it I'll let you know. Majoreditor (talk) 16:04, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Page just blew up

Someone just did something to the GAR page. An entire article, Platinum Underground, is now plastered on the bottom of the GAR page and at least one of the GARs isn't transcluding anymore. Can anyone fix it? Majoreditor (talk) 05:12, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Fixed. near as I can tell, you were the one who did it. ;-) Did you have two browsers open at the same time, or something? Ling.Nut ^(WP:3IAR) 06:00, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, LG. That is bizzare. I haven't viewed, much less edited, the article on Platinum Underground. I don't see how it got comingled with my edit of the Google GAR. I only had one browser session open. I have no idea how my edit to the Google GAR could have spewed material from an article I've never seen into the GAR. If anyone has any ideas on what could have caused this, please feel free to leave a note on my talk page. Cheers, Majoreditor (talk) 06:19, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Other notable explanations include: 1) sitting at a bank of public computers and going for a pee, and 2) Your Little Brother Ling.Nut ^(WP:3IAR) 06:22, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I remember some time in 2007 a bug came about where all edits made, instead of being made where intended, instead were made to Wikipedia:Wikipedians or something like that. It was very weird... maybe this is a reincarnation of that? I dunno. —Giggy 06:38, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I think it's that sort of ghost in the machine. There's been no Rudget-esque incident on my end as there's just one computer in my house and I've been at it the entire time. Very strange. Majoreditor (talk) 06:43, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

This might be related in some way to the new problems appearing at WP:VPT recently; perhaps related to the recent server issues. Gary King (talk) 06:45, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

(undent) This actually happened to me once before; see my block log. Ling.Nut ^(WP:3IAR) 07:14, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

GA articlehistory errors

There were too many errors for me to sort at Talk:Max Mosley; can someone who knows the history there, and who knows how to correctly build {{articlehistory}} please do so? Thanks, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:45, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

move along, nothing to see here: wording is more than a little too strong

The following copy/pasted from WP:GAR:

"If there is no consensus, consider adding a new comment rather than closing the discussion, to see if consensus can be found. If in doubt, do not close. In particular, strongly contested discussions, where consensus is difficult to determine, should only be closed by those with more experience of reassessment discussions."

Erm. This wording is more than a little too strong. Things need to be moved along. GARs are sitting around unclosed with no new comments for 3 weeks.

Suggest rewording to make it easier to close. Something like:

If there is no consensus, consider adding a new comment rather than closing the discussion, to see if consensus can be found. If in doubt, leave notice that you intend to close the discussion, and wait 3 days for further comments before closing. In particular, strongly contested discussions, where consensus is difficult to determine, should only be closed by those with more experience of reassessment discussions."

• Ling.Nut ^(WP:3IAR) 04:30, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

We probably should get more experienced people to close GARs, instead of just commenting on them. But don't make any designated people to close. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:08, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

In that GAR involves dispute resolution, it could use the assistance of mediators, or at least of people who know the difference between consensus and majority rule, and how to achieve the former. --Una Smith (talk) 19:24, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Notification of initial reviewer

Can I suggest amending part 4 of the reassessment process; "Allow time for other editors to respond. It is also courteous to notify major contributing editors or WikiProjects." to also include notifying the initial Good Article reviewer? Surely it's common courtesy for the reviewer to be involved in the process? Peanut4 (talk) 22:37, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Majoreditor (talk) 23:58, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

The most recent reviewer is usually the relevant one. Geometry guy 21:44, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Second opinion on an individual GAR

I have been perfoming individual GARs as part of the GA sweeps project. The first couple of reassessments were great, as they led to substantial improvements. I'm having a hard time making up my mind on Great Pyramid of Giza. I'm not convinced that there is sufficient breadth of coverage (the construction theories section says that there are several theories but doesn't discuss them, and aside from the three main rooms, much of the inside of the pyramid isn't discussed). There is a separate article for construction theories, though. The reassessment is here. I've tried contacting all of the relevant projects twice, as well as major contributors, but I'm not getting anywhere. Another set of eyes would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, GaryColemanFan (talk) 20:10, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Procedural question. If this is a reassessment, shouldn't it be Talk:Great Pyramid of Giza/GA2, leaving Talk:Great Pyramid of Giza/GA1 for the original review? There could have been more than one prior review, though... --Una Smith (talk) 19:21, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Dual function of GAR

Could GA articles be nominated for review just like other articles? That would leave GAR for disputes about the appropriateness of reviews. --Una Smith (talk) 19:21, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

That exists, in a sense: it is called individual reassessment. See the instructions on this page. Geometry guy 20:06, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Abandoned GAR?

I've had a GAR open for Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? (U.S. game show) for nearly a month now and nobody's commented. Did I leave a step out? Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP)} 21:53, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

No, but you opened an individual reassessment, meaning that you intend to reassess and make the final decision yourself. If you would like input from the reviewing community, and a community decision on whether to list or delist, let me know, and I will help you restart it on that basis. Geometry guy 21:58, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Could someone take a look at Jackie Robinson Day?

I found this article through the Main Page and was quite surprised to see it listed as GA. It seems far from comprehensive, with scant references to substantial sources and weak prose. I haven't got the time, but could someone consider re-assessing? the skomorokh 19:32, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Ireland GAR

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

A few days ago Malleus Fatuorum demoted Ireland without any notification other than initiating the GAR by notice before demoting it 15 minute later. When I questioned him about it, his reply seemed rather dimissive and uncooparative imho. I noticed that under the GAR individual reassessment instructions it specifically says "Allow time for other editors to respond. It is also courteous to notify major contributing editors or WikiProjects and the most recent GA reviewer." I don't see that that was done and though I am not a major contributing editor no notice was even given to the Ireland WikiProject either, so while the article may have some issues I think demoting from GA was improperly executed. Comments would be appreciated as Malleus Fatuorum has now gone into semi-retirement and his reply suggested bringing it here. Thanks ww2censor (talk) 01:54, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but I have to go with Malleus in this delist. There are 3 "citation needed" tags and 1 "weasel" term present in the article. "Places of interest" is more like a list and only has 1 reference in the entire section. All you need is one "citation needed" or "weasel" tag to fail the good article criteria. And keep in mind that the GAR notice is for any case where GA is listed under GAR. You don't need to go through GAR to delist an article as long as you can confidently explain why you undertake such actions and how the article is measured against the criteria. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 04:08, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I was not asking for an opinion on whether the delisting was correct or not but if the process was properly executed. I would have been happy to try to fix the article's problems and so avoid delisting. So, according to the response it seems that OhanaUnited also agrees that not notification of the GAR needs to be given, either on the article talk page or the WikiProject even though it is a specific instruction and was never given in this case. That makes two editors who seem to ignore your own GAR instructions and seems disrespectful to other editors who might jump in to fix the issues before a decision is made. At least in FAR time is given for editors to come to an article's rescue but 15 minutes for a GAR is not enough time, no matter how awful an article may be. ww2censor (talk) 05:14, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

The delisting guidelines are only guidelines, not instructions. I do wish reviewers would more often allow time for editors to respond (even a day or two is better than nothing) but this is a matter for reviewer discretion, particularly for articles which obviously need much work: reassessment is not a sickbed. I do not find Malleus' response dismissive, but helpful advice: improve and renominate!

The GA process is designed to make it easy to list articles and easy to delist articles. This means that GA status is not a right, which once attained, can only be removed with due reverence. Those who wish to maintain the GA status of an article should maintain and improve the article.

However, Ohana's comment that "All you need is one "citation needed" or "weasel" tag to fail the good article criteria." is wrong and is exactly the kind of bean counting that once gave GA a bad name. His final remarks are confusing: what he means, I think, is that community reassessment is not required for delisting (it never was). However all delisting decisions must be accompanied by a reassessment page. This one has one and therefore process has been followed. You can ask for a community reassessment if you disagree with Malleus' decision, but it seems you do not. Nor do I. Geometry guy 10:35, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

The reason why I said about the "citation needed" tag is because it fails criteria 2(a) and the "weasel word" fails criteria 1(b). I have been tolerant on criteria 2(a) already, allowing one or two with citation needed tags to remain as GA especially if the article is very long. And please don't try to shift the blame to only one person (aka me). No personal attack please. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 16:39, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

My remark addressed the comment not the editor: that is not a personal attack. I am not trying to shift any blame for anything anywhere. There's no blame here to shift. I am only pointing out that nowhere in 2a ("it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline") or 2b ("reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose)") does it say there should be no "citation needed" tags, and nowhere in 1b ("it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation") does it say there should be no "weasel words" tags; further WP:WEASEL isn't even listed there. Any editor can add a tag at any time: that does not mean there is a valid concern. Reviewers should be encouraged to read the article and apply the criteria, not count tags. Geometry guy 17:05, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Although WEASEL is not listed outright, the spirit ideology is to avoid "ambiguous, uninformative, or non-specific", as stated in Words to avoid 1st section OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 02:19, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Just for clarification here, it is my view that Ww2censor is being disingenuous in his claim that I "demoted Ireland without any notification other than initiating the GAR by notice before demoting it 15 minute later." In fact I delisted it without any notification whatsoever. That the [[WP:GAR]] template was on the page for 15 minutes is irrelevant, as I already tried to explain. It was not there as any kind of notification of anything, simply as a convenient way of generating the review page. Neither did I delist the article simply because it had a few "citation needed" tags; I delisted it because it was (in my view) inadequately cited as per 2b, and the amount of work needed to correct that was substantial. I take issue with Ww2censor's remark that my reply to him was "dimissive and uncooparative", and would urge him to get to work fixing the article instead of wasting further time here. Unless that is, he believes that the article does in fact meet the GA criteria, in which case a community review would be appropriate.

I have never delisted an article lightly; in the case of Ireland I judged that the amount of work required was too much to be completed during the hold period. The fact that the work has not yet been done six days later, or even started, tends to reinforce my view rather than the reverse. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 17:51, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Malleus is one of the most careful and thorough reviewers at GA (most definitely not a bean-counter!), and has my complete support. Geometry guy 18:56, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Endorse MF and his delisting. YellowMonkey (click here to chose Australia's next top model!) 02:03, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I endorse the delisting. MF made a judgement call and acted within GA review guidelines. Majoreditor (talk) 13:15, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

It seems most of you are focusing on the delisting and not on the process. I still believe that notification should be given per your own guidelines and is just common courtesy, especially for the main article of a WikiProject that is assessed as Top & High. At least with FAR and FA notification is given and time is allowed for editors to address outstanding issues but I get the impression you guys don't seem to care too much about that. If you all think notification is a guideline to be ignored, so be it. Perhaps the notification guideline should be made compulsory. Malleus may well be a careful GARer but it is still a pity you endorse such non-notification irrespective of the merits of delisting or not. As a side issue, of course someone can renominate it after addressing the issues Malleus mentioned but from experience regaining an article's previous status is normally more difficult than avoiding delisting. ww2censor (talk) 04:35, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Give it a rest. Fix the article and renominate. GA is not a God-given right. The process was correctly followed, as has been been made abundantly clear. Or if you can't fix the article then shut the fuck up. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 04:59, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

That is just plain rude Malleus. I have moved on from talking about your delisting but am interested in the GAR guideline concerning notification, so why can't you address that. ww2censor (talk) 05:14, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Good to see that you've moved on from blaming me for delisting one of your favourite articles, one that fell so far short of the GA criteria that it was an embarassment. Why not fix it instead of wikilawyering here? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 05:26, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Regardless of the merits of Malleus's delisting, I find his incivil comment (STFU) highly inappropriate and a disgrace to GA. My opinion on individual delistings without prior notification is that they should only be done when the article was inappropriately listed (such as being listed without going through GAN) or the article clearly meets the quick-fail criteria. --J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 07:22, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the article Ireland is one of those that fell through the cracks. It was promoted to GA on April 15, 2006 but the good article criteria was just created in March 2006 and still in infancy for quite a long period of time. I am confident to say this article didn't go through GAN (or if it went through GAN, it met the criteria at that time but not the current criteria) OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 16:06, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Personally I think MF or STFU-MF as he is also known, has flouted the whole idea of process here. If an article has fallen below the required standard it should be first given the chance to come back up to scratch. It is a long and tedious process to re-attain GA status. Acting like a dick in response to the queries on this summary justice leaves me with no doubt that he is not in a fit place to remove the GA status in the first place. He is not a responsible editor, but in fact a loose cannon. It is just basic politeness to let other editors repair the day to day damage that can happen to these articles. I think a RFC should be made as this is clearly obscene.--ZincBelief (talk) 11:21, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Having looked at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Good_article_reassessment/guidelines#delist I have to ask in what way is this confirmation to wikipedia process. Please outline in full how MF's actions comply with GA delisting here.--ZincBelief (talk) 11:24, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Those who think they know better than me may find a comparison between this complaint that Ireland wasn't put on hold with this recent complaint that another article was put on hold instructive. Then again, probably not, as this is just a witch hunt, and who cares about the facts. I hope that Hildanknight and ZincBelief will have the courage of their convictions and offer their services to help improve the encyclopedia by undertaking a few reviews themselves. For myself, I am having nothing more to do with it or with them. Go find yourself another victim. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 14:33, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't look like a complaint to me. You can't just remove GA or FA status off the bat. You have to let people address the issues, or as it says on the guidelines page, address them yourself. I have participated in reviews before, they left me realising how poor wikipedia can be, but for goodness sake, you must appreciate that you have to let people have a say. Go and tell somebody else to STFU rather than bleeding over this page.--ZincBelief (talk) 14:43, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Any analogy between GA and FA is false—they completely different processes. GA status, in fact, can be removed off the bat by any editor. Guidelines in only call for a grace wating period (GA Sweeps guideline says about two days). If nothing happens, the artile is delisted. In this case the discussion showed that the result would have been the same even if Malleus had followed guideline and waited for two days. So the question about appropriatenes of the delisting is moot. Ruslik (talk) 15:49, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

You seem to have missed point 4. ALLOW OTHER EDITORS A CHANCE TO RESPOND. This is an important point. It is a very normal process in wikipedia, and one which STFU-MF decided he didn't care about, didn't apologise for, and started abusing us verbally when we suggest he should. Had other editors been allowed a chance to respond, then the outcome might have been different. --ZincBelief (talk) 16:21, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Grow up. GA isn't a God-given right. It's given by one person and is taken away by one person. Live with it. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 14:51, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I've grown up already thank you. Try following the guidelines for Good Article Review before starting a review. It might help.--ZincBelief (talk) 15:03, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

And I usually give at least 7 days of grace period (sometimes all the way up to a month, which is sometimes excessive). Wow, I almost couldn't believe what ZincBelief wrote, stating MF "acting like a dick", "not a responsible editor", "a loose cannon" in 2 sentences sounds like a personal attack. MF, I know you're frustrated so I got this page for you to read and let you steam out (it's written by me and Lara) OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 16:06, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

That page just about sums up my feelings about this. I get demonised when I don't put an article on hold and I get abused when I do.[5] This irresponsible editor, loose cannon, and all-round shit is out of here. Someone else's turn to be the whipping boy. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 18:53, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Believe it. What part of telling somebody to shut the fuck up and ignoring point 4 of the GA delisting guidelines do you believe does not fall under these?--ZincBelief (talk) 16:21, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Ignoring point 4 of a guideline does not fall under WP:DBAD (WP:BURO and WP:IAR seem more relevant). The delisting guidelines are only guidelines, not instructions, and guidelines exist to reflect consensus, not determine it. It is quite common for reviewers to exercise discretion about point 4, which was not bolded until July this year. I bolded it and added the courtesy notification recommendation to reflect and encourage best practice. I wish reviewers would follow it more often, as delisting without pausing for response has the potential to cause unnecessary problems and bad feeling, as this case illustrates. (Sadly, though, notification does not guarantee a problem-free reassessment.)

Reassessment is not a sickbed, and GA status is not a badge which once attained can only be removed with due reverence. GA is an assertion that an article meets the criteria; those who wish to maintain an article's status need to maintain its quality in line with these criteria. Don't blame the messenger.

GA is a process where individual reviewer judgement is foremost. Community reassessment is available for cases where the result of that judgement is questioned or challenged. I therefore welcome the initiation of a community GAR for this article, and hope we can draw a line under the angry remarks by both sides. Instead, as several editors are now doing, let us focus on improving the article and addressing its current failings with respect to the criteria. These are the raisons de'etre for GA. Geometry guy 19:29, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

They are not listed as guidelines, they are listed as instructions. I don't see any reason for flouting them as guidelines, or ignoring them as instructions. Can we ignore criteria as well? Where does this stop?--ZincBelief (talk) 21:29, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Most things stop at WP:FIVE. The criteria are guidelines in the technical sense, whereas the delisting guidelines are not, which may be why WP:GA refers to them as "instructions" (WP:GAR does not). We need to iron this difference out, anyway. ZincBelief has initiated a discussion at WT:GA. Geometry guy 22:05, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Archive 40 problems

What is going on with Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Archive 40? Approximately, the last ten days have not been archived.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 04:32, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

My fault, but I fixed it early today. Try purging your cache. Geometry guy 08:15, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Individual reassessments to group reassessments?

Given that Talk:Homosexual_transsexual/GA1 seems to be requesting a group reassessment, is it possible for a system to be implemented that allows an individual reassessment to be easily converted into a group assessment? -Malkinann (talk) 22:06, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I've moved this one, but I can't think of an easy way to do this in general. Fortunately, it is fairly rare. Geometry guy 10:52, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

I suspect it may become more common in the future: "I wish to have this article placed for community assessment unless you're willing to assist in repairing what you believe the faults to be."[6] --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:44, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Yuk. GAR shouldn't be used as a fix-up shop. Majoreditor (talk) 23:05, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, we shouldn't form our guidelines around threats like this! Geometry guy 23:12, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

GA Sweeps is a really good learning experience; I'd recommend it to anyone who has a rose-tinted view of this project. Doesn't matter what you do, you're in the wrong. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 23:13, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

My initiation to the GA project came, essentially, on the other side of an earlier GA sweeps process. It is an extremely hard thing to do well, and you are going to meet conflict eventually no matter what you do. Much credit to Malleus for sweeping so well on so many articles. I would like to sweep the medicine articles that TimVickers tagged, but I am not sure that I have the dedication, the time or the thick skin required! Geometry guy 23:28, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm bloody sure that I don't. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 00:47, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

The distinguishing feature of an individual GAR is that the reviewer who opens it makes the final decision. We cannot do anything about threats except call them. If the reviewer is unwilling or unsuitable to be the judge and jury, then a community GAR should be used instead. However, such misapplications are rare. More common are cases in which an individual reassessment is initiated (indeed often concluded) and challenged. In these cases, the natural thing to do is to close and record the disputed individual reassessment and start a community GAR: moving the individual reassessment would, in most cases, create a mess and prejudice the case. Geometry guy 23:12, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

As this specific article in whose review the threat was made stands right now, I would delist it. So I will wait to see whether other editors offer any input before deciding whether or not to close the individual review and initiate a group review, or simply to delist the article. My only point in raising this here was that it seemed like a curious concidence to have happened twice in a few days, when it has previously been such a rare occurrence. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 23:20, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Edward the Martyr GAR?

I'm sure there must be a good and obvious reason why the GAR requested at Talk:Edward the Martyr isn't showing up here, but it's not obvious to me. Can someone have a look? Angus McLellan (Talk) 17:01, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

The individual reassessment at Talk:Edward the Martyr/GA1 is still open. Nobody has requested a community GAR that I can see. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 19:13, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

OK, so long as it's nothing to worry about that's good. Ta, Angus McLellan (Talk) 20:08, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Needs updating: heading Yale controversy

Facts not right. According to the the New York Times the dates do not match up.

[[7]]

I am very new to this so bare with me.

Cleo Athalia77 (talk) 23:29, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Please link to the article concerned. We are not omniscient here. Geometry guy 23:35, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Adding Good Articles to the main page

There is a relevant discussion involving adding GAs to the mainpage going on here Wikipedia_talk:2008_main_page_redesign_proposal#Introducing_GA_to_main_page. Some of the ideas proposed include creating a separate WP:FA-like box to feature the GA, incorporating into DYK or not including GA on the main page at all. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 01:42, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

GAR not showing up

I nominated Tila Tequila for reassessment over a week ago and has yet to appear on the project page. I followed the procedure completely, but nothing turns up here. Did I make a mistake somewhere? DiverseMentality 20:21, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Same thing happened to me today. It didn't show up until I went and edited it the thing. All of a sudden, it showed up. Deavenger (talk) 20:29, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

WP:PURGE. Geometry guy 21:25, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

It's not showing up because you opened an individual reassessment, not a group one. --Malleus Fatuorum 21:26, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this is a better answer. You are the boss, DiverseMentality: it is up to you to decide whether to delist the article in your reassessment. If you want help, it can be converted into a community reassessment. If it is disputed, likewise. Geometry guy 21:31, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the answers, I was unaware that individual reassessments weren't listed. I guess I'll give the article a total of two weeks for the problems to be addressed and delist if they aren't. Thanks for the help guys. DiverseMentality 21:43, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

GA community input requested

A proposal to make some changes to the way we review Good Article nominations is currently under discussion at Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations#GA review reform. All interested editors are invited to participate. EyeSerene^talk 11:02, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Scotland

I have crated a reassessment page - Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Scotland/1 - however I created that page before I applied {{subst:GAR}} to the top of the article's Talk page, so the box is pointing to a redlink (Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Scotland/2).

Also, I cannot fathom how to transclude the discussion to the bottom of the Talk page.

Help appreciated.--Mais oui! (talk) 09:54, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I cannot fing the original discussion where the scotland article attained GA status. Can somebody point me in the right direction? I want to notify the Users who did the initial assessment that there is a review ongoing. Also, it would be helpful to have a copy of the article as it existed when initially GA'd.

I note that the community review is not transcluding onto this page either.--Mais oui! (talk) 10:01, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I am totally confused now. How on earth do I transclude the discussion to redlink Talk:Scotland/GA1, and where does that subpage come into the main Talk page? Yours extremely confused, --Mais oui! (talk) 10:07, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

The notice at the top of Talk:Scotland has suddenly become: "An editor has initiated an individual reassessment to determine if this article meets... ".

That was not my intention. I meant this to be a community reassessment. How do we remedy that? --Mais oui! (talk) 11:30, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

The templates are meant to be fairly robust, but unfortunately things can get confused when some mistakes are made. I will attempt sort it out and think about whether there are any ways to improve the templates so that they handle this kind of mistake. Geometry guy 20:01, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Moving "recommended" notificaiton of editor to "required?"

A GA of mine was recently put through the GAR process and demoted - no problems there, I agree on the assessment and currently not in a position to readily fix it. So I'm not expecting that to change, just an observation on the process.

However, the only way I discovered it was demoted was when my watchlist showed its article history being updated. Sure, in the history the GAR notice was added to the article, which I likely missed (particularly as it occurred on Jan 1) on my watchlist. The nominator didn't drop anything to my talk page on this, which the current instructions don't require and as it was an older article prior to the new GA process for having review transclusions, determining the major editor(s) would have taken some work.

Given that the new process to pass GAs do allow for easy identification of the original GA nominator, I would think that notification of this user should be mandatory (as it is done in the FAR process); other users can be recommended. Of course, for the older GAs, determining the user may be more difficult but it is possible. --MASEM 19:27, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I sympathise with your point. User notifications are to be strongly encouraged. However, a major issue is that nobody reads the instructions, and so if we require notification, it adds to the bureaucracy without necessarily achieving anything positive. Indeed, less reasonable editors than yourself are likely to come along screaming "process wasn't followed". (This happened only last October and caused a major headache for many editors.) What might be helpful, however, is adding a reminder to the templates that create the reassessment page. Editors are not usually trying to pull a fast one when they open a reassessment: more likely they simply forgot about the courtesy of notification. Geometry guy 20:12, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Yup, what GG said. Keep it as "recommended" OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 17:30, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I, for one, have absolutely no intention of tracking back through archived talk pages in an attempt to locate an original nominator no matter what the instructions are changed to say. If an article seems salvageable within a reasonable time frame then it's reasonable to expect any relevant projects to be notified I think, but for the older GARs even article history often doesn't help much, as the major contributors are frequently inactive. There are limits as to what it's reasonable to expect of reviewers. The pay sucks, conditions are Dickensian, and everybody hates you. --Malleus Fatuorum 18:05, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

GA reassement that was never finished

Talk:Chris Crocker (Internet celebrity) - The GAR header was added back in September, and the last comment on the GAR was also in September. D.M.N. (talk) 10:59, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Article fails to provide adequate guidance - how do I...?

I have been trying to follow the instructions in these reassessment guidelines, in order to correctly end my individual GA review (of the article Culture, but they do not cover:

• what to do about the separate GAR discussion page itself (do I need to archive it, and how? What if people keep on adding comments to it?), nor
• what to do about the copy of that page which is reproduced via inclusion of a sort of template near the bottom of the ordinary Talk page of the article (should I remove the template near the bottom of the page that causes the image of the GAR page to appear? Otherwise, what is to stop more discussion going into the shared page, even though my review is completed?), nor
• why the GAlist template line that has to be edited at the top of the Talk page, replacing the date with five tildes, and while it had |page=1|GARpage=1| it now has to be edited to insert a "replacement page" number, but what is the "replacement page" that n has to equal, nor
• what happens to the next bit on that line being edited, ie GARpage=1? It looks like I have to remove that bit as it is not included on the sample line given in the guideline, nor
• what to do if the article fails my review (as it has) and so is being delisted (done), but there is no GA template on the Talk page to remove (which the assessment guidelines tell me to do), instead there are some wikiproject notice templates, each of which rate the article as a GA, and give it various importance ratings. Do I edit the wikiproject notice template ratings? What do I replace GA by?, nor
• whether I should give my reasons for delisting the article, and if so, where I should do so?

I hope someone can provide some help on these questions. This whole business of going through this review procedure is very time-consuming this first time round... and may deter me from instigating future article reviews.

Please note: I am cross posting this enquiry on this talk page having mistakenly posted it a few hours ago on a "duplicate" talk page for another version of this page! I have raised the duplicate copies of page issue at the Village Pump technical forum. --AlotToLearn (talk) 06:52, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Autolinking individual reviews

Now that most individual reviews are on article talk subpages, they are easy to link and I've been increasingly adding links from community reassessments. However, there's no point in editors doing a job if it can be automated, so I've modified {{subst:GAR/header}} to produce the links automatically. Please report any glitches. Geometry guy 17:08, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

De-listing and article history

I just de-listed Rocky. I think I did everything right to close out the GAR. Will a bot update the article history/milestones box or do I need to do that manually? Otto4711 (talk) 23:00, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Flatworm

I listed Flatworm several days ago and it still is not listed on this page. In the meantime, the nominator is getting pissed and is continuing to nominate it for WP:GAN, but I strongly feel that this should be looked at by more than one person. The article is in the category for GAR nominees, but it's still not listed at WP:GAR. Dr. Cash (talk) 15:56, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Never mind. The article has been relisted at GAN instead. Dr. Cash (talk) 16:29, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

The explanation is that you accidentally started an individual reassessment instead of a community reassessment. Only the latter are listed here. Geometry guy 19:13, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Possible problem - help needed

Several hours ago, I created the community reassessment request, Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/DeviantArt/1. It has yet to show up on this page, even though the instructions say it should automatically appear within an hour. Since I've never done this before, I'm concerned that I may have missed something. Help! Aleta ^Sing 03:07, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

It looks fine to me - see WP:PURGE. Geometry guy 09:02, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Aleta ^Sing 16:20, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

need a reassessment

I would like to request a reassessment of Slut Night for reasons I just explained on the talk page. I don't think I can actually request one through this process as I don't have an account. Can anyone create the reassessment page for me? I am a very occasional editor to Wikipedia and even if I did have an account, I don't understand the process. --74.138.229.88 (talk) 02:50, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I've started the process. There is now a big template at the top of Talk:Slut Night. Without an account, "individual reassessment" is not permitted, but you can use "community reassessment". Just click on the "Follow this link" for community reassessment. This will present you with an edit box. Explain your concerns about the article in the edit box and save. That's it. Geometry guy 21:51, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

THank you so much, but to actually create the community reassessment page you need an account (I just tried and it wouldn't let me). I can make an account for this purpose but I don't want to seem like I'm abusing multiple accounts, since I started this debate under my IP identity. --74.138.229.88 (talk) 22:58, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I've created the community reassessment page for you to edit. Geometry guy 05:52, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! --74.138.229.88 (talk) 09:56, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Speedy delisting

Hey there. I have just nominated Veronica Mars (season 3) at FLC, although it is currently a GA. Is there anyways this could be delisted without going through the regular process? I nominated the article at GAN myself, so there is no problem with the nominator. Thanks, Corn.u.co.pia • Disc.us.sion 13:18, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Why do you want it to be delisted? Because it's a list? --Malleus Fatuorum 13:34, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, here is the FLC. Dabomb87 (talk) 16:03, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I've got to go out now. If it hasn't been delisted by the time I get back I'll do it. --Malleus Fatuorum 17:18, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

 Done --Malleus Fatuorum 22:05, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your help. :) Corn.u.co.pia • Disc.us.sion 02:01, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Central Intelligence Agency

Would the good folks here pls figure out how to best deal with this GA? Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Central Intelligence Agency/archive1 Thanks, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:18, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

For those who don't want to read the FAC, there has been a long-term sock problem which has tainted the article. -MBK₀₀₄ 22:43, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

If so, then it probably fails the stability criteria. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 04:11, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, we don't remove GA status just because someone who edits the article has been blocked for sockpuppetry, as RLevse suggests!

The article can be reassessed at any time by any editor starting an individual or community reassessment. The reassessment should be based purely on whether the article meets the good article criteria. It might be useful to do this, as the original GAN review was almost non-existent. Geometry guy 12:15, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Just as a question of procedure, since an article is no longer a GA once it becomes an FA (as I understand it), would the correct procedure be a reassessment of GA status or a GAN if it fails FAR? If no one is interested in the article and willing to follow it and address any problems, neither process seems worth the effort. —Mattisse (Talk) 13:26, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

The notion that the main CIA article (or any other that I have edited over the course of the past two years) has been "tainted" by sockpuppetry is a specious argument. Yes, I crossed a line in the FAC discussion on the main CIA article by nominating it and then casting two votes in support of the nomination, but no edit to content that I have ever made to any Wikipedia article has been made with either the intent or effect of biasing the factual content of that article. Plus, the Wikipedia checkuser program seems to be techincally flawed - the page at this address (as edited by RLevse):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_sockpuppets_of_No_barometer_of_intelligence

... says that these contributions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Misleadingsource

... are "definitely" made by the same person. Flat out not true. My guess is they were made on an IP address associated with a shared computer system at a public library. Is it customary to "out" experienced editors who use multiple accounts to protect their anonymity and delicate personal interests in such a public way? The set of Wikipedia articles in question aren't exactly as trivial as say, those about Pokemon characters. I fully expect this log-in to now be blocked as well and added to the aforementioned page[8], but please, remove the outright false allegations when you do so. First draft of history (talk) 17:26, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

In answer to Mattisse, failed WP:FARs are a grey area. If the article had GA status prior to becoming an FA then that status could in principle be restored after an FAR fail if there were no objections, but I'm not aware of this happening in practice: the article usually has to be renominated at GAN to recover its GA status.

For FAC, however, the issue is clearcut: an FAC fail has no impact on GA status unless someone initiates a GA reassessment. Geometry guy 20:21, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

First draft of history (talk · contribs), thanks for admitting you're another sock of No barometer of intelligence (talk · contribs), this time a block-evading sock. GAR editors-I didn't say delist it, just take a look at it. — Rlevse • Talk • 20:46, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate your thanks, Rlevse (talk · contribs), but once again ask that you (or some other admin who has access to the imperfect Wikipedia checkuser tool) remove Misleadingsource (talk · contribs) from the page linked to as confirmed sockpuppets of No barometer of intelligence (talk · contribs). It's just not true. And while you're at it, check the dates each disputed account (included the one I am using right now) was created on. Technically, they are all sockpuppets of An unattributed source (talk · contribs). Be sure to check the discussion page for that original account while you and the other admins are poring over this. Then look at case number three at this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry#Segregation_and_security

At least get your facts right. And then add then add Apparent public relationship (talk · contribs) to the newly created page, "Sock puppets of An unattributed source." Apparent public relationship (talk) 23:51, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Gladly adding you too. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:43, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Seriously, Rlevse (talk · contribs), I reiterate my honest request that you remove Misleadingsource (talk · contribs) from the "Sock puppets of No barometer of intelligence" category page, because both you and checkuser are just factually wrong on that point. I have never even looked at any of the articles edited by whoever was using that particular account. I would also ask again that in the interest of factual accuracy that a new category page titled "Sock puppets of An unattributed source" be created, and that No barometer of intelligence (talk · contribs) (as well as Sixth degree of separation (talk · contribs)) be added to that page. Despite the apparent consensus of the Wikipedia admins on this page, I steadfastly maintain that I had ample "real-world" security concerns for creating the initial "office of independent counsel" alternate account (which was later renamed "no barometer of intelligence") for "an unattributed source," and that disclosing the connection of the two accounts at that time, even to Wikipedia administrators, would have fundamentally compromised those personal security considerations. If I elect to edit Wikipedia again after my three month block is lifted, it would be under the original an unattributed source (talk · contribs) account, and it would be appropriate that all of the past edits made under its defunct socks be clearly visible.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/in-taipei-wikipedians-talk-of-fundraising-and-wikiwars/?scp=28&sq=joel+rennie&st=blog#comment-2490

Sixth degree of separation (talk) 14:29, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

• I believe Geometry guy has said the following: if you want GAR/GAN editors to "take a look at it", you must nominate it for GAR or GAN, just as you would for FAR or FAC if you wanted those editors to look at it. If there are sockpuppets involved, then the article would probably fail the stability criteria. —Mattisse (Talk) 22:10, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
• I don't see what alleged sockpuppetry has to do with an article's stability. If anyone wants to make a case that the article no longer meets the good article criteria, which do not include any restrictions on which kinds of editors are allowed to edit an article, then they should open a GA Reassessment. --Malleus Fatuorum 23:33, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

• I think the worry was that Barometer had vote stacked the original GAN as well. I can't seem to find the archive of the GAN discussion (it was 2 years ago), but a review of the article's history shows no edits or comments by Barometer or any of his currently known socks at any time during the original GAN, so I doubt he was involved at all. (Morethan3words (talk) 18:28, 14 April 2009 (UTC))

  It didn't worry me. Before my comment at the start of this thread I checked several things. For one, Barometer's earliest edits postdate the GAN review. There wasn't an in-depth GAN review: I've linked what I found in ArticleHistory. I broadly agree with Malleus and Mattisse, except that I do not see why there should be any presumption of instability (as seen by Ohana and Mattisse). I do not see any instability here. Geometry guy 22:43, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

• I did not see any instability. I was making a hypothetical "if" statement. (Sorry! No more hypothetical statements from me!) —Mattisse (Talk) 22:58, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Delisting

I came across Social Security (United States) while sweeping the articles with broken references category and realised this isn't meeting the GA criteria on a number of fronts. Despite the fact that I've been busy with GA noms and reviews in the past, I've never done a delisting. Do others agree that this should be a speedy delist? The current controversies section is but one section which exemplifies the problems that this article has. Sillyfolkboy (talk) 00:32, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't agree with a speedy delist. Even though much of the article is uncited it's probably not controversial, and an interested editor might well be able to fix it up pdq. I'd recommend that you opened an individual WP:GAR. --Malleus Fatuorum 23:07, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Malleus. There's no such thing as a "speedy delist". If you are confident, open up an individual reassessment and conclude it as swiftly as you believe is appropriate according to the response from article editors; if instead you want others to make the final decision, use a community reassessment. Geometry guy 23:21, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Backlog

Currently there's the backlog template on this page, despite there only being seven articles here right now. Do you think we can just remove it? Noble Story (talk • contributions) 00:54, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

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

The backlog has now cleared. Geometry guy 21:13, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Betty Roberts is up for individual reassessment?

AboutMovies put the article Betty Roberts up for an individual reassessment when withdrawing it from the community reassessment in progress. The article originally failed GAN (by me), and AboutMovies, the nominator, put it up for CR for that reason. After questions and comments by 2 editors at the CR, a sentence that was not in any source was brought to the nominator's attention and was removed by them.

I think the individual reassessment is inapppropriate because (1) CR is the proper place to reassess a failed GA review, (2) the nominator did this because he was going to lose at CR and wants to have yet another, second, reassessment, and (3) the article was changed as a result of the unfinished CR in a way that removed a reason failing it (for OR) so it can't be properly reassessed again. I am new to GAR, and an involved party of the original dispute, so I would like to ask others to decide and to take appropriate action. Thanks! Diderot's dreams (talk) 16:26, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

This was just a mistake with the templates. The nominator has withdrawn the request to have the article reassessed, and your GAN fail stands. Thanks for your hard work on the review. I've fixed the templates and do not see the need for further action. The article can be renominated at GAN when it is ready. Geometry guy 20:18, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

OK. And thanks to you folks for taking the time to address the reassessment. Diderot's dreams (talk) 17:29, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

What happens if a GAR has been open for 3+ months

I just went to article alerts here and found three articles nominated for GAR since February, what happens now.  The Windler talk  22:29, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

You comment here. Then things happen. I've fixed one of them: the other two are in the pipeline. Geometry guy 22:45, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

1918 flu pandemic

This seems to be proceeding very slowly, as the reassessment was initiated February 14, 2009. See Talk:1918 flu pandemic/GA1. Is is possible to make it a community reassessment in order to get more eyes? Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 20:55, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

All you have to do is state that you are closing the individual GAR with "no action" (i.e., "keep" in the article history) and open a community GAR in the usual way. Geometry guy 21:14, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

RfC: Reassessment of an "Unstable" Article

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Is it appropriate to nominate for reassessment a GA that is undergoing significant changes, i.e., as a result of an edit war? It seems to me that if the article is no longer stable, it no longer meets GA criterion five, and thus should be delisted. However, my nomination of this article for this very reason seems to have stirred up some controversy. What is the general consensus? Thanks, Vicenarian (talk) 17:19, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I guess you had your answer, as you've closed the individual reassessment. Instability is best handled by community rather than individual GAR to get multiple input from uninvolved editors. However, community GAR is too slow to deal with most edit wars, so it is better to let them pan out. If the instability resolves itself (so that it is clear what the consensus version of the article is), then GAR is not needed. Geometry guy 21:19, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I was convinced that an individual reassessment was not warranted on that article. I guess I just wanted some feedback as to whether, in general, the existence of multiple competing versions, something that would warrant a failure to list in the first place, should be considered a valid reason to delist. Vicenarian (talk) 00:10, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

As I indicated at the nomination of Talk:Poker_Face_(Lady_Gaga_song)/GA2, I believe the "stabililty" criteria for GAN is specifically so that the reviwer has a constistant understanding of what they are to evaluate as GA. If significant changes are being made on a day to day basis during the GAN, the reviwer is not going to have an accurate representation of what is actually being proposed for promotion. However, after GA has been established, you have a foundation of verifiable information, in which case, any changes become a burden of proof for any editor wishing to change that information. That's my interpretation, though it may need to be specified at GAR that edit wars are not a part of the criteria for Delisting. The Bookkeeper (of the Occult) 00:40, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

That's my interpretation too. --Malleus Fatuorum 00:50, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I think that stability has nothing to do with the article, but the editors. Edit wars are about the people editing it. An edit war can be quickly resolved with a 3RR block. Therefore, an article should not be stripped of its GA status simply because of the actions of those who edit it.--Unionhawk ^{Talk E-mail} 19:18, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I share the interpretation of Bookkeeperoftheoccult (talk · contribs). Further, I would suggest that the correct time to nominate for review is after the article has stabilized in some new state if you think it no longer meets the requirements. This way you know what the final state is without people arguing "But it's getting better/worse as we speak" during the review (which I suppose is why there is a stability requirement at all). --Falcorian ^(talk) 22:05, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

I see the consensus here, and I agree. My question now is whether we should add something to WP:GAR to specifically mention that an article should not be (or, at least, should not be outright) delisted because, as I said in my RfC question, "it is undergoing significant changes, i.e., as a result of an edit war." Perhaps a few lines in "Guidelines for reviewers"? This would alert future re-assessors to the consensus on this issue. Vicenarian ^{(T · C)} 06:46, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not generally in favour of legislating against every opportunity, as nobody reads the instructions and consensus usually works well enough despite this. However, in this case, I think it is worth adding a clause to the community reassessment part of WP:Good article reassessment/guidelines to reflect this discussion and long-standing practice at GAR. Other tweaks to the guidelines here and at WP:RGA (and perhaps even criterion 5 and its footnote) could be considered. Geometry guy 20:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Cleanup listing

A bot generated a listing for Good Articles in need of cleanup: Wikipedia:Good articles/Cleanup listing, Tom B (talk) 17:18, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Nordic race

An IP comments: "That article should not be listed as a good history article. Only very ignorant people would not see how it is used as propaganda. It certainly has some people who try to balance it, but the bias is gross. That article ia dominated by the kind of people that we can all suppose. Kun."

It was last checked in August 2008 as part of GA Sweeps. See also Wikipedia:Good_article_reassessment/Archive_26#Nordic_theory. Geometry guy 11:52, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Good articles in need of review

I've added an experimental section to the GAR page. Please see WT:GA#Good articles which are found wanting at FAC for further information and discussion. Geometry guy 11:23, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

It's a good idea. My, how relations between FAN and GAR have evolved for the better! Majoreditor (talk) 13:46, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Can someone tell me how this new section works. Chicago bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics was just promoted about six weeks ago and is now on the list.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 23:08, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

It is just an alert system to draw attention to articles which may need reviewers' attention. Uninvolved editors can remove articles from the list or open reassessments if they believe reassessment would be helpful. Geometry guy 00:12, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

What causes an article to be in the alert system? What is the flag that gets an article listed there?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 01:38, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Probably something like this. My question is how does an article get off the list? I mean, if no one comes along to determine if the article needs another review, how long will it stay on there? Indefinitely? (Morethan3words (talk) 04:32, 12 June 2009 (UTC))

Anyone can use the alert system by adding a template (or the category) to the article talk page. Any uninvolved editor can remove the alert if they believe reassessment is unnecessary, or if they start an individual or community reassessment. For instance, I believe you two are not involved with the other's article, so you could check them (taking care to avoid any perception of quid-pro-quo). I intend to respond to alerts within a definite timeframe if noone else does. I would certainly be unhappy if alerts remained unattended for more than a month. Geometry guy 20:24, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

That does not answer my question.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 20:41, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

The flag is the article talk page being in Category:Good articles in need of review. Geometry guy 21:15, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I had not noticed the tag you placed on the article. It should be at the top with all the other banners when used, IMO.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 22:27, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

It isn't a banner, but is more like an RFC. It could be placed at the top, I suppose, but FAC editors have preferred to add it as a talk page request. Geometry guy 22:38, 12 June 2009 (UTC) PS. If you care about an article you should pay full attention to its talk page IMO.

Archives

There's currently no list (that I could see) of all of the archives. It appears you can only go one-by-one to find a particular review/date. In addition, the oldest archives are named Good article disputes, should these be renamed to GAR? If there are no problems with this, I'll move them and add an archive link indicating the dates the GARs in each archive range from. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 22:21, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I'll get to this when I conclude my GA Sweeps reviews within the next few weeks. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 07:12, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

A date range for each archive would be useful. It would also be useful to have an alpabetized list of all community GARs; does such a list exist? Majoreditor (talk) 02:01, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

There are some categories that list them, but a full list can be developed through AWB. I'll try to work the date ranges in as well when I get around to it (unless somebody's eager to do it now, feel free). --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 02:32, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Okay, the following is the list of all of the archives. I added the dates of when the review was initially opened, rather than when it was closed. I didn't rename the old pages since they are archive pages (and I don't want to fix all of the article history errors). Now that we have this list, is there a simple way to put this into a table to list on the GAR page? Tomorrow (technically today) I'll make a subpage with a list of all of the articles that went through community GAR at one point (or in some cases, at several points). --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 07:27, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

1 (March 2006-May 2006)
2 (May-June 2006)
3 (June 2006)
4 (July-August 2006)
5 (August 2006)
6 (August-September 2006)
7 (September-October 2006)
8 (October-November 2006)
9 (November 2006)
10 (November-December 2006)
11 (December 2006)
12 (December 2006-January 2007)
13 (January 2007)
14 (January-February 2007)
15 (February-March 2007)
16 (March-April 2007)
17 (April-May 2007)
18 (May 2007)
19 (May 2007)
20 (May 2007)
21 (May 2007)
22 (May-June 2007)
23 (June-July 2007)
24 (July 2007)
25 (July-August 2007)
26 (August 2007)
27 (August 2007)
28 (August-September 2007)
29 (September 2007)
30 (September-October 2007)
31 (October 2007)
32 (October-November 2007)
33 (November-Decmember 2007)
34 (December 2007)
35 (January-March 2008)
36 (March-April 2008)
37 (May-June 2008)
38 (June-July 2008)
39 (July-August 2008)
40 (October-December 2008)
41 (December 2008-February 2009)
42 (February-April 2009)
43 (April-May 2009)
44 (June-July 2009)

I finished the list of all community GARs. I put it in a table so that it can be sorted by archive. Anybody got a good name to move it to from my user space? --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 00:30, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Good work. One question: how will the list be maintained? As for location, how about Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/List of community reassessments? Geometry guy 20:58, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I moved it to the suggested name. The list can be updated as each new archive is created. I, or somebody else, can do it whenever that occurs. Is there somewhere that a link can be provided from the GAR page for this list? Also, what do we want to do with the above archive list? --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 22:09, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I've added a couple of links and moved the above archive list to WP:Good article reassessment/List of archives. I expect it could be formatted more nicely. GAR archives are managed automatically by VeblenBot, and I'm normally the person who starts a new one. When I do so, I update Template:GARarchive, so if you watchlist this page, you will be alerted. At this point the previous archive should be stable and you can record its entries in the list, and add it to the list of archives. If the lists prove useful, but onerous for you to maintain by hand, we can look into automating them. Geometry guy 22:41, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

If a bot could update it that'd be great, but if not, it won't be too much of a pain to update. I'll watchlist the template and keep up with it. It took several hours to format the past archives, but updating for each new archive should take only a few minutes. I was initially going through and updating the article history for the articles lacking mention of the GARs, but that ended up taking way too long and I dropped that quickly. With the list, editors can update any article histories as they see fit if they're currently missing from the history. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 22:52, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all your hard work. To get archive contents, one convenient place to look might be (e.g. for the current, empty, archive) User:VeblenBot/C/GAR/45 (cf. User:VeblenBot/C/GAR/44, the most recently closed archive). Geometry guy 23:19, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

How does one appeal?

Minstrel show was recently removed through this process, over uncited statements. I count exactly four, only one of them on anything important, and all of which I imagine could be pretty easy to cite for, which I will try to do in the next couple of weeks. Talk:Minstrel show/GA1 says "This decision may be appealed at WP:GAR" but nothing at WP:GAR indicates how to do so, nor is it clear whether the appeal must be based on the current state of the article or if I can remedy these few identified problems first. - Jmabel | Talk 22:54, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

See the project page (WP:GAR). Look under the section titled "Community reassessment" and the bottom portion is a "how to" guide for starting a community GAR. Majoreditor (talk) 23:59, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

That seems simply to say that if I disagree I should renominate. So why any mention of "appeal"?

It seems odd that the first I heard of this was a delisting, instead of any indication that someone might want to make a pass through the article because it was to be reviewed. I would guess that most articles that aren't being very actively watched will continually fall away from 100% citation. - Jmabel | Talk 16:26, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I think if you examine the article you will find a large number of un-cited statements. The banner was placed on the article in March and four or five citation tags were placed at the same time. Nothing had been done about these when I reassessed the article. I found many more uncites statements, without tags. I can place some more tags if you would find taht useful. Jezhotwells (talk) 18:14, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Good Article Reassessment NEEDED For An Article At lacks NPOV

Dear Wikipedia. Could editors of wikipedia please do Good Article Reassessment of Josip Broz Tito article. The article is embarrassing. The Eastern European Dictator is portrayed as some sort of pop star and should not be in any nominations other than the article that lacks NPOV. Also considering he was responsible for war crimes,mass massacres, torture & mass imprisonment makes Wikipedia look like ad for Eastern European Dictatorships. One to mention is the Foibe Massacres (there are BBC documentaries). Wikipedia has an article on this so it’s just contradicting itself. You have one feel-good article about a Dictator then you have an article about the Massacres he approved and organized with the Yugoslav Partisan Army. Then there were Death squads in Southern Dalmatia (the Croatians are putting up monuments for the poor victims & their families now). Also it’s important to mention that the Croatian Government is paying compensation to his former victims. Surely a more critical historical article should be written or this present article should be removed altogether. What is next? A Stalin feel-good article? What about the respect towards the poor victims who suffered those awful events? Can the editors please look into this?Sir Floyd (talk) 02:36, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

The article was delisted as a Good article in October 2008, so no reassessment is needed. The best option for addressing issues with the article is to consult with the main contributors on the article's talk page, related WikiProjects, or even consider a peer review. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 02:42, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Nehrams!Sir Floyd (talk) 04:45, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Summary style

As the last 2 reassessments have both been contested based on the fact they are using summary style, i think we need to decide on the extent to which reviewers have to search for the citations in subarticles. Some articles, such as Jesus, were almost entirely summary style, and the subarticle also had summary sections, which could result in a sixth degree of separation linking to hundreds of articles.

How deep does a reviewer have to go until they give up? Or should they just add a cite needed tag to points they consider needful to cite, without searching the subarticle? If a cite needed tag is added, but the cite is in a sub- (or sub-sub-) article, should the cite be copied across, or the tag simply removed, or hidden text be added (so later reviers know it was checked)?

As there is no way to force editors to only add to summaries if the claim is cited in the sub-article, and many older GAs seem less than cared for, there has to be some limit on what is expected of reviewers, or guidance as to what is the editors' responsibility.YobMod 12:47, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

My understanding was that sources need to be in the artcile itself, not a sub article. However, I just went and checked out WP:Summary style#References, citations and external links, which suggests: There is no need to repeat all the references for the subtopics in the main "Summary style" article, unless they are required to support a specific point. I agree that it could be burdensome to wade through several layers of articles - I haven't actually encountered anything like that yet. Jezhotwells (talk) 16:27, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

In my view this is a weak point in WP:SCG, which is one of the reasons I believe it should be considered as secondary to 2b. Note that GA only absolutely insists on inline citations in very specific circumstances: reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose). In these cases, citation is needed in the article, not just in summary style spinouts. However, more general sourcing requirements (2a) can be satisfied using summary style, in accordance with WP:SCG and WP:Summary style. Geometry guy 20:03, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the principle of not needing all cites in a summary (and i only added fact tags to information that was not cited in subarticles), but the citations are rarely in the subarticle either. Should we then search sub-sub articles, or can such claims be considered uncited even taking summary style into account? Summary style also allows multiple subarticles linked from a single section, so even going only one layer down can mean reading 4 full articles in searching for a cite. Considering the backlog of reviews, should it be the nominators job to show such citations exist on subarticles, or the reviewers? Oh, and are subarticle only those with "main2 and "see also" type links under section titles, or does it apply also to all inline linked articles?YobMod 10:51, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I try to summarize my view: if the cite is essential per 2b, it should be in the article. If the cite is not essential per 2b, but is desirable for verifiability, then the nominator should either add a cite, or convince the reviewer that the summary style spinouts can be used to verify the material (i.e., they source and cite the points of concern). In the case of disagreement, GAR is here. Geometry guy 22:01, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Weirdness

Why doesn't the text of the Munchausen item display what is actually in the "Edit" box? In particular, my support for a review (and my stalker's sniping). Noloop (talk) 21:46, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Probably a cache issue. If you want to follow the review, I suggest watchlisting WP:Good article reassessment/Münchausen by Internet/1, and following the discussion there. Geometry guy 21:50, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Articles that fail notability

Right now i'm reviewing Book of Vile Darkness and as it stands now it appears to fail WP:BK. Should this be delisted until then or what? Doing a quick google check i didn't find any other obvious RSes that could be used to show notability.陣内_Jinnai 03:20, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

As there is only one source that really covers reception, and that is in very little depth, i would have delisted as failing broadness. Some reviewers are of the opinion that if there are no sources for reception, then GA is still possible for cases where there are other types of non-trivial sources, but i don't think that is the case here. If the book is itself not notable (and i agree that the sources seem to be minor mentions and this would be better merged somewhere), then it could be seen as failing the "too much detail" criterion (3b). I would delist for 3a and b concerns, and start an offical merge discussion.YobMod 07:50, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I had this happen when I GAreviewed an obscure road. I placed a notability banner, declared myself an involved editor, and withdrew from the review. Another reviewer later took up the review, and failed it for having the unresolved banner. The article was ultimately nominated for deletion and deleted. I actually thought the article was pretty carefully put together and met most of the GA criteria: you might say I thought that it was "Good", but that it shouldn't be an "Article". :) Diderot's dreams (talk) 03:34, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Book of Vile Deeds also had a few other issues with, most notability verifiability issue, especially with quotes.陣内_Jinnai 19:42, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I misindented my first comment. I was replying to your original post. Diderot's dreams (talk) 19:54, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Abandoned individual reassessment?

I'm not particularly well acquainted with GAR, but I've become involved in the individual reassessment of Klaus Ebner here. It began over a week ago when the reviewer originally began a community reassessment, which I changed to individual since the article passed GA over a year ago. It quickly became clear that the editor was not solely measuring the article's worth by the GA criteria -- the multiple versions of the article that were automatically translated into other languages for other Wikis seemed their major concern -- and although most of the concerns are in regards to the notability/reliability of used sources, numerous editors have disagreed with their ideas of WP:RS. Now the reviewer seems to have abandoned the reassessment. I've left messages on the review subpage as well as the editor's talk page, and despite the fact that they are actively editing elsewhere, there has been no response. Where do we go from there? Could someone else take a look? María (habla conmigo) 20:56, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you on this; this is a busy time of year for me. I can understand why, based on the guidelines, you changed a community GAR request into an individual reassessment. However these guidelines are intended to help reviewers decide whether to go for an individual or community reassessment, not to constrain that choice, and changing the status mid-review may not be the most helpful thing to do. In this case the change happened in the first 24 hours, so those watching community GAR may not have spotted it (I didn't). I encourage posting here and waiting before making such changes.

I think the GAR guidelines probably need to be clarified here. However, in this particular case, it may not have been such a bad idea for reviewer and article editors to discuss their differences: if any remain, community GAR is still available. In the meantime, I've fixed two sourcing issues that I spotted, and closed the discussion as "keep" without prejudice. Geometry guy 22:21, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Nathaniel Hawthorne

I've delisted the above article, but I've messed up the article history. Could someone fix it, please? Thanks! Awadewit (talk) 20:19, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Fixed, I think. --Malleus Fatuorum 20:29, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

In-line citation needed for each paragraph?

Over the past year I've noticed a trend for GAR reviewers to state or imply that an in-line citation is needed for each paragraph to fulfill criterion 2. My understanding is that all material must come from verifiable good sources, but that in-line citations are only required under certain circumstances (statistics, direct quotations, material likely to be challenged, etc) While it's helpful for articles to go beyond these minimum requirements, it's not required.

But perhaps I'm misinterpreting the Good Article requirements or maybe consensus opinion on in-line citation has changed. What are your thoughts? Majoreditor (talk) 18:21, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

You are not misinterpreting the criteria, which have been stable on this matter for over two years. There's a natural pressure to raise the standard of GAs, but in my view we should instead strive to make the GA standard more reliable. GA has an important role as a stepping stone, and also as a target for improving the many poor quality articles on Wikipedia, so its requirements should not be too stringent. I agree with you that it can be helpful to go beyond minimal citation requirements, but it is also helpful to add alt text to images, and a host of other things.

The main purpose of in-line citation is to help the reader find the source and the GA criteria focus on the kinds of material where it is most important to be able to do so. Articles can have paragraphs where every sentence needs a citation, and some where none of them do. An interesting example came up at GAR (and was delisted) a very long time ago: Wanamaker organ. The article has deteriorated since then: here is a version from 2008 which is better (apart from the last section). It doesn't have many in-line citations and for the most part doesn't need them, because the material is uncontroversial and the source is obviously reference [2].

When inline citation requirements were introduced in September 2006 (before my wikitime) there was a period in which comments at GARs took the form "Delist. Not enough in-lines!". Thankfully, GA moved away from such bean counting, and I hope the trend you see does not reflect a move back in that direction. Counting distracts from a more serious concern with GAs: the reliability of the sources. It frequently happens at GAR that a source is not reliable enough for the cited material; it also happens that the source doesn't support the cited material, or is plagiarized. These issues should be checked at the review level, hard work though it can be to do so. Geometry guy 17:57, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I am in favor of citations for several reasons. What may be considered "general knowledge" may not be true for all readers. I ran into this on an article on English architecture where the part that related to in depth history of the royal family was unsourced as "general knowledge". Also, it is difficult to assess accuracy etc. without any citations to check in evaluating an article. Further, when an article is well cited, anyone monitoring the article can more easily check if newly added material is indeed accurate and not just something "stuck in" and not covered by the citation. Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 19:02, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think anyone has argued that citations aren't "a good thing" have they? Majoreditor's question was about the interpretation of GA criterion 2b, which requires citations for "direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons", not for every paragraph. I very much agree with the view Gguy expressed, and I firmly believe that we should resist the trend of turning GAN into FAC-lite. To quote a recent example, is it really contentious, requiring verification by the highest quality sources possible, that on November 5th Brits set off fireworks to celebrate Guy Fawkes night? --Malleus Fatuorum 19:34, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Problem comes with "controversial statements that are challenged" - what is fine for you and something you'd never expect to be challenged may be controversial to someone else. This isn't limited to stuff like religion and politics. Even run-of-the-mill stuff like dates can be subject to that, even when there is a document with only date. Without having a clear source it could be considered a contriversial statement to say X was built in 1989 instead of 1988. That doesn't mean everything needs a cite, but stuff like that, stuff that someone unfamiliar with the subject wouldn't know offhand, could be considered controversial陣内_Jinnai 00:07, 6 December 2009 (UTC).

That's a rather idiosyncratic interpretation of "controversial". Would an argument that a shopping mall was built in 1988 rather than 1989 really be considered "controversial, for instance? What's happened to common sense? --Malleus Fatuorum 01:01, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

That Depends. Common knowledge is what the average person is expected to know unfamiliar with the specifics of the subject at hand. So a shopping mall's date, unless its part of its name or slogan/motto (the latter which would need to be common knowledge itself) it would otherwise need citation as the average person probably doesn't know what year it is and thus could see that as a controversial statement.

I realize for some people that might sound overbearing as the idea of how can a shopping mall's date be contriversial considering its so recent it must be documented sound ridiculous, so let me give you a non-shopping mall example of an item that assuming proves falicy and about the same date.

The NES's US launch date for something about that recent. It's official release date is 1983, but there is no mention of it until late 1985, however those items are mentions in papers bundled with Super Mario Bros. which wasn't originally bundled in the US. Therefore, the dates used are clearly contriversial even though it is widely accepted that the 1986 release date is appropriate because its the most commonly cited. The Nintendo Entertainment System could easily be said to be common knowledge that it was a video game system and probably common knowledge that it was Nintendo's first (although there are many teenagers now who sadly don't know this), but its release date isn't. The dates on the infobox need asterics beside them, but sadly MoS doesn't allow for that. Scratch that it was Super Mario Bros US release date. However, the point remains the same; its an item with a commonly accepted date, but that is none-the-less contriversial because there evidence to not support the commonly used date.

The above shows you can't say its not controversial just because you think it is.陣内_Jinnai 02:07, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Which is precisely the point. "Contentious" means disputed. So to return to the shopping mall example, that it was built in 1988 is only contentious if someone disputes that date. --Malleus Fatuorum 16:43, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

GAR

I am currently doing a GAR of Good Samaritan law Talk:Good Samaritan law/GA2. The page does not deal with the issue on a global scale therefore in my opinion it does not fulfill GA requirements. The main editor disagrees. Further comments... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:15, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

If this is still a problem, then I'd suggest that you close your individual review and open a community review instead. --Malleus Fatuorum 00:32, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

What would be the easiest way to do this? Just close it and start over? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:02, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I have left a comment on the article review page. In my view it is helpful for the individual review to have an outcome. Then a community GAR can be opened if necessary. It may be that you can reach a compromise in which some additional global coverage is added, while treating the US law as the prototypical case. Or you could simply close the review as a delist, giving reasons, and start over with a community GAR. Geometry guy 21:47, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay. Will close as indeterminate at this point. The main editor wishes further input.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:13, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

GA Sweeps update

Progress as of December 2009

Thanks to everyone's efforts to the GA Sweeps process, we are currently over 90% done with only 226 articles remain to be swept! With over 50 members participating in Sweeps, that averages out to about 4 articles per person! We are open to any new members who would like to help us complete the remaining articles, so if you're interested in helping, please see the main page. If each member reviews an article once a week this month (or several!), we'll be completely finished. At that point, awards will be handed out to reviewers. As an added incentive, if we complete over 100 articles reviewed this month, I will donate $100 to Wikipedia Forever on behalf of all GA Sweeps participants. I hope that this incentive will help to increase our motivation for completing Sweeps while supporting Wikipedia in the process. When Sweeps is completed, more reviewers will be able to spend time in reviewing GANs to assist with the backlog. If you have any questions about reviews or Sweeps let me know and I'll be happy to get back to you. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 00:24, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Sweep review

I've undertaken a GAR under the sweeps process, at Provisional Legislature of Oregon, which resulted in it passing. The steps in the process at Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force/Sweeps say "If the article passes review, in {{ArticleHistory}}, add an entry and classify the action as GAR kept." In all my years here, i've never edited an articlehistory, and do not actually know how to do this. It is a semi-automated task at all? Can someone assist? hamiltonstone (talk) 23:39, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

It's usually handled by a bot, but the documentation is rather thorough. If you can't figure it out, drop a note here and I'll give it a stab. Regards,  Skomorokh  23:41, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, Skomorokh, when you say "it's usually handled by a bot", do you mean if I just leave the thing alone a bot will update it, or do you mean that in other circumstances a bot would do it, but in this case it will have to be done manually? hamiltonstone (talk) 00:10, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

The latter is my (vague, unfounded) understanding; sorry for the lack of clarity. I know at FAC they will snort loudly at you for deigning to update manually, but at GAR we make do with scanter means :)  Skomorokh  00:17, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

It's not automatic, and I've had a similar problem in the past, for which I got a mild wrist-slapping. I'll update the article history. --Malleus Fatuorum 00:19, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Slapped your wrist, eh? I'll bet that worked :-) Thanks Malleus. I'll look at what you do there, and then emulate it at two others i'm passing under the sweeps. Ta. hamiltonstone (talk) 00:31, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Be fair Hamiltonstone, it takes a brave editor to even try and get near my wrist, lest they feel the wrath of the Great God Malleus. Well, in my dreams anyway. --Malleus Fatuorum 00:42, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Malleus, on that update, you put it as "listed", but should it be "kept"? Aboutmovies (talk) 00:58, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

That sounds right, and i'm fixing that, thanks. hamiltonstone (talk) 01:09, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

It should have been kept, you're quite right. I'm obviously not as smart as I thnk I am. --Malleus Fatuorum 02:25, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Deep biasness from an editor

The conversation is transcluded from WP talk:GAN. I want the help of my fellow editors and reviewers here to stop this biased madness. Please help.

Just yesterday I nominated the article "Paparazzi (Lady Gaga song)" under music for GA. However, an editor who was involved in a previous dispute of the article, User:Piano non troppo suddenly chimed in and started reviewing the article. His main intention is to fail the article and hence is claiming in short that "the article is a pile load of shit". I request my fellow GA reviewrs here to request him to step down from his biased review and let a reviewer not associated with the article come and review it. He should be warned against actions like this. --Legolas ^(talk2me) 03:38, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I have placed notes about this on the review page and the other editor's talk page and I am prepared to undertake the review if they step down. Otherwise, it may be appropriate to take to WP:GAR if there is a dispute about the review. Jezhotwells (talk) 03:49, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Piano non troppo is vehemently being aggressive regarding this article and it totally shows from the comments on his talk page that he is reviewing the article with the intention of failing it. And whether the dispute was regarding the external links or not, he was involved in editing the aricle and he should not review it. As the nominater of the article I frankly refuse to accept a review by such a biased and aggressive editor who doesnot carry any good faith. I call for a community evaluation and will raise a request at GAR. --Legolas ^(talk2me) 06:04, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Please complete Megalon GAR

In summer 2009 I found the GA review for Megalon was faulty and raised a GAR, and LeGenD has a lot of work to improve the article. In late December 2009 I had an operation, and am not fit to continue as the reviewer. We'd both be grateful if an other reviewer could complete the review. --Philcha (talk) 11:58, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually the intended referred article is Megalodon. Here is the talk page for details. This article has been vastly improved from its previous GA review state to resolve new issues pointed out by member Philcha. --LeGenD (talk) 05:36, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Another GA Sweeps update

Progress as of January 2010

Thanks to everyone's efforts to the GA Sweeps process, we are currently over 95% done with around 130 articles left to be swept! Currently there are over 50 members participating in Sweeps, that averages out to about 3 articles per person! We are open to any new members who would like to help us complete the remaining articles, so if you're interested in helping, please see the main page. If each member reviews an article once a week this month (or several!), we'll be completely finished. At that point, awards will be handed out to reviewers. Per my message last month, although we did not review 100 articles last month, I still made a donation of $90 (we had 90 reviews completed/initiated) to Wikipedia Forever on behalf of all GA Sweeps reviewers. I would like to thank everyone's efforts for last month, and ask for additional effort this month so we can be finished. I know you guys have to be sick of seeing these updates by now. Again, when Sweeps is completed, more reviewers will be able to spend time in reviewing GANs to assist with the backlog. If you have any questions about reviews or Sweeps let me know and I'll be happy to get back to you. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 02:22, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Mandatory notification

I've made a proposal that notifications for good article reassessment be made mandatory here. Lambanog (talk) 03:50, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

help

I do not know how to do this but could someone nominate American civil war? That article has many problems as underlined on the talkpage. It is incomplete and doesn't show the full scope and impacts/causes of it, only major battles. 198.188.150.134 (talk) 20:35, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

If you believe that the article has "many problems" that compromise its GA listing then you have to make your case at WP:GAR, where you will find instructions on how to do it. --Malleus Fatuorum 20:43, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't have the energy to nominate it myself but I believe it definitely needs to be reviewed. The article does not mention the aftermath of the war, which is by far the most important aspect of the civil war, nor the long term causes. Any reviewer should catch these errors, may i please ask that you file this report for me? 198.188.150.134 (talk) 08:32, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I see a Victory and aftermath section, and I also see that this article passed a GA review a little over a year ago, and is rated A-class by the Military History project. I see little grounds for requesting a review, but if you do then why not raise the issue either on the article's talk page or with the Military History Project. They will have the interest and expertise to help you. --Malleus Fatuorum 12:13, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Instructions for requesting a milhist A-Class reappraisal can be found here. Normally we only accept such requests from a registered editor in good standing, but you are welcome to raise any issues you have on the milhist talk page here. EyeSerene^talk 17:09, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Template matters

If an editor places a {{subst:GAR}}template on an article talk page and initiates an individual re-assessment, clciking on the individual assessment link creates a new page [[Talk:''Article name''/GA''x'']] where x is the number of the page. However at the top of the article the text A good article from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Currently undergoing a good article reassessment. where good artcile reassessment links to Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Article name/x which is where a community reassessment would be listed. Can this be fixed in some way? –– Jezhotwells (talk) 22:54, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

As far as I know these article headers were never discussed with GA, FA or WikiProjects. They are unreliable and frequently out-of-date. I have never supported them, and will not do so until the editors responsible communicate and address the concerns of the community. If you can figure out who they are and call them to account, please do so. Geometry guy 23:01, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Please direct comments to: User:Pyrospirit/metadata... or never mind, I'll do it. But that's where they come from, for future reference. • Ling.Nut 02:45, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

The article headers come from a script (currently also a gadget) that I started maintaining a while back, mostly to fix bugs and clean up the code, and also to add features (usually when people asked for them to be added). The headers shouldn't be unreliable unless there's a bug that I haven't heard about or if the format of the templates has changed, but the information the script displays is pretty limited. If you think that it shouldn't be as visibly promoted, go ahead and start a discussion about removing it from the gadgets page, which is how most of its users have it installed.

I've been very busy with college recently, so I haven't been paying much attention to Wikipedia. I don't really care about the script either way; I personally find it useful as an easy way of seeing at a glance what level of development an article is at, but I understand that some people might misinterpret the information as being more authoritative or precise than it really is.

Also, the templates relating to good article reassessments are tricky to parse if I remember correctly, so I wouldn't be surprised if the link isn't always right. I could entirely remove the GA reassessment links if that's what people want. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 04:59, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think anyone wants it removed. Folks can opt out by declining to check (or tick, if you're British) the relevant box in gadgets. ... The problem is that the link it displays is a redlink; wrong address. • Ling.Nut 05:33, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Alright, could you link me to an article where this happens? Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 15:11, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Certainly, African American culture links to WP:Good article reassessment/African American culture/1, but the reassessment is at Talk:African American culture/GA1, and Burger King links to WP:Good article reassessment/Burger King/1, but the reassessment is at Talk:Burger King/GA1. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 17:20, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Now I remember what the problem is. This script works by parsing the wikitext of the first section of the talk page; for GA reassessments, that looks something like this:

{{GAR/link|11:31, 21 March 2010 (UTC)|page=1|GARpage=1|status=onhold }}

Unfortunately, there seems to be no way to determine whether it's on a subpage of Wikipedia:Good article reassessment or on a subpage of the article's talk page. Anyone have any suggestions for what to do about this? Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 19:32, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

(undent) Erm, hard code the "Talk:", append the article name, hard code the "/GA", read the +"page=" bit and append the value after the equal signs...? Just a thought.• Ling.Nut 16:19, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for helping out here Ling, but I'm not sure that answers the question of distinguishing individual from community reassassments.

In fact, {{GAR/link}} has to solve the same problem and this is the algorithm it uses (I hope I get this right, as I coded it!): if the community reassessment page given by "GARpage=" exists, link to it; otherwise, if the individual reassessment page given by "page=" exists, link to it; otherwise provide a message inviting editors to start one of these two nonexistent pages.

Hence the script would have to do something similar: test for the existence of the pages it intends to link to. Geometry guy 22:07, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

That's a pretty inelegant way to go about doing it (it'll mean making two requests rather than one on the page), but I suppose there's no other way. At least this will only be necessary on a small fraction of pages. I'll see what I can put together. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 23:15, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Alright, I think it's fixed, and I've put in the usual request for the gadget to be updated. Let me know if the bug shows up again. (Also, please post future bug reports for this script at User talk:Pyrospirit/metadata, which I check regularly.) Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 06:30, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

WP:Quote

A proposal to promote this essay is underway.174.3.113.245 (talk) 05:34, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Talk:HIV/GA2

The so-called GAR at HIV appears to have been a significant abuse of process, and I am simply going to revert the delisting that this particular individual has undertaken. I'm not going to spend x number of days wikilawyering around this sort of conduct. Just a note for those who watch this area. hamiltonstone (talk) 01:35, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Currently, the article violates 4 and 5 in Wikipedia:Good article criteria. I notified top 5 editors [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] and gave it 5 days. Wheres the abuse of process? Phoenix of9 03:46, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

First, the circumstances of the article (see article talk page) indicate an individual re-assessment is not appropriate, least of all by a heavily-involved editor such as Phoenix. Second, only one specific issue was raised by Phoenix when the review was opened: the risk table. This issue had already been under discussion on the talk page, with several experienced editors indicating that while there were legitimate areas for discussion, the table was not as much of a problem as that one editor claimed. Third, the only other editor who did comment at the GA review page contradicted the view of the reviewer. This highlights the fact that individual re-assessment was not going to be the right course of action, and the review should not have been closed as a delist just because the person who opened the review didn't like what the other editor said. Fourth, Phoenix's states that they notified top 5 editors - but they didn't notify the editors who disagreed with Phoenix on the talk page on this very same issue, which was not a fair way to proceed. I repeat my previous advice. Do not delist this article under an individual reassessment, and do not continue the individual reassessment. Regards, hamiltonstone (talk) 06:09, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Phoenix's actions here seem more like retaliation against the other editors at the page (for not allowing Phoenix to delete a large, heavily sourced table) than a good-faith review. A delisting under these circumstances carries about as much respect as someone re-writing a policy in the middle of a dispute so that it "supports" the editor's side of the dispute. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:36, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Homeopathy

Dear Sir/Madam, I observed that the articles on Christianiy, Islam, Hinduism, Osteopathy, Naturopathy,

Chiropractic etc. are good and positive and there are forks to the articles on Christianiy,

Islam and Hinduism which contain all the criticism. The article on Homeopathy as well as

its fork for criticism ('http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Homeopathy/Criticism'), on the

other hand, are both negative and bad; so can we make the article on Homeopathy good and

positive like all the other articles and put all the criticism on its fork? If there's a

rule that both articles should be full of criticism, then we must make the matter in the criticism fork available in the main article for Christianiy, Islam and Hinduism also. Thanking you, Yours faithfully, Dr.Vittal (talk) 04:51, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

It has been pointed out on talk:homeopathy why this is not a good idea, and that the /criticism sub-page isn't a fork. Please stop forum shopping. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 11:42, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

In need of review

Does anyone here follow Category:Good articles in need of review? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:32, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I take a look occasionally, I see that there is one article listed theer. they also appear at WP:GAR. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 17:58, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

What to do next?

I've recently submitted September_11_attacks for review (see review page) but got no replies. This is a very large article and I assume it would be too much work to review it and get it back to GA status, which is why I assume nobody answered. What should I do in that case? Should I delist the article myself? Laurent (talk) 10:13, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

B'Day

B'Day has been tagged for reassessment since May 2010. Should it not have been 'seen' to by now? Lil-unique1 (talk) 01:08, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Well there is a reassessment at the bottom of the talk page. I have left a message on the reviewer's talk page. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 12:09, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Astronomy in medieval Islam/GA1

Could you guys add the discussion here? Thx Gun Powder Ma (talk) 09:58, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

You opened this as an "individual reassessment" (which is okay, as you have not contributed significantly to the article). This means that *you* determine the outcome (whether to list the article or not) after allowing time for other editors to comment, just as you would for a good article nomination review. Individual reassessments are not listed here. If you would prefer a "community reassessment" (listed here, outcome determined by reviewer consensus here) let me know and I will move the page and fix the headers. Geometry guy 17:32, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, please move it over here for "community reassessment". Gun Powder Ma (talk) 10:07, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Now at WP:Good article reassessment/Astronomy in medieval Islam/1 and will be listed on the GAR page shortly. Geometry guy 19:15, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Reasons for request GAR for GA review of Warcraft II

I'd be grateful if a few members particated in a GAR of Warcraft II, so that it is not swamped by those who swamped Talk:Warcraft_II/GA1. I don't want to influence those who partipicated in a GAR, and would prefer honest comment as more help for myself. IMO Talk:Warcraft_II/GA1 was a poor review because:

• The opening of was so poorly structured that I restructured it so I could understanding. None of the reviewers object to the result.
• IMO "This article is structure in a rather funky way that is, in a word, bad" has no information content and is just the opposite of WP:PEACOCK, whatever that is.
• "lots of irrelevant details and bad structuring that does not proceed logically" also tells me nothing.
• The complain that "Warcraft II is a real time strategy game (RTS),[1] in other words the contenders play at the same time and continuously, so that players have to move quickly" was, in the first reviewer opinion, "Bad, almost game-guide tone, how about just explaining what an RTS is instead of beating around the bush and giving us a really bad explanation before actually cutting to the chase". However, the article gives 2 citations for the explanation of RTS, IMO this is relevant, and hence trying to removed it would be WP:POV.
• IMO the Publication details have 2 functions. While most in most game articles Publication is about events before release, in Warcraft II it's most complex because it was additional platforms, the console versions added UI functions, but then Blizzard removed these when it released the Battle.net version.
• I'm interested in readers, and as an reader myself I want to know whether the game is good and whether it's one I'd like.
• The story, when present, is generally subordinate to the gameplay, for example:
  • Total_Annihilation's story is a concise summary of the gameplay: "What began as a conflict over the transfer of consciousness from flesh to machines escalated into a war which has decimated a million worlds. The Core and the Arm have all but exhausted the resources of a galaxy in their struggle for domination. Both sides now crippled beyond repair, the remnants of their armies continue to battle on ravaged planets, their hatred fueled by over four thousand years of total war. This is a fight to the death. For each side, the only acceptable outcome is the complete elimination of the other.
  • The in-game stories of the Red Alert series simply explain why the western powers are fighting Stalin rather than Hitler.
  • Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares has no story within the game and 1 page in the manual.

--Philcha (talk) 18:25, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

• I responded to the 5th reviewer's comments, usually with changes, but the 5th reviewer gave no reply. IMO this was effectively a quick-fail, and IMO a quick-fail is only justified if the article is unstable - in other situations it does nothing help improve the article. My responses included, which were ignored:
  • re prose, although I'd suggested alternative phrasing.
  • re refs generally, there are at least 1 per para.
  • no explain of the complain of WP:OR.
  • As requested I added a direct quote "Then again, Blizzard itself was in a kind of turmoil of its own at the time ...", and got no reply.

--Philcha (talk) 18:25, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Philcha, the idea that this review was a quick-fail is absurd and I urge you to retract it here and elsewhere. The overall review lasted for over 2 months, with detailed review comments from 5 reviewers. Even the last reviewer left indicative suggestions for improving the article. Reviewers are not obliged anywhere in the good article nomination process to put articles on hold: quick-failing refers only to failing for specific reasons where a detailed review would be unhelpful. If you believe there is a requirement that nominations should always be put on hold to fix problems, please point me to it. Thanks, Geometry guy 23:16, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

• Comment: I closed the review as failed as it appeared to have completely stalled. I suggested either renomination, peer review or GAR. Jezhotwells (talk) 11:56, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I've opened Wikipedia:Good_article_reassessment/Warcraft_II/2. There was a PR but work on that ended a month ago so I've closed it. --Philcha (talk) 13:24, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

This was unnecessary, as Wikipedia:Good_article_reassessment/Warcraft_II/1 remains open. Please take more care. I will merge the edit histories. Geometry guy 20:12, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Invalid link for GAR

Wikipedia:Good_article_reassessment/Warcraft_II/1 and the links from my contribs are OK. But when I try to link from Master_of_Orion_II to the GAR, I get an invalid link. Any idea why? --Philcha (talk) 07:31, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

What has happened here is multiple character encoding: the colon in the link was encoded (correctly) as %3A. Unfortunately, in the second link, the percent sign % has been recognised as a symbol rather than a code, and encoded again as %25, resulting in %253A, which makes no sense. Geometry guy 14:59, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Reassessment cat

• Category:Good articles in need of review SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:24, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Hlín

Can someone tell me why Hlín has been listed as potentially needing reassessment? :bloodofox: (talk) 14:23, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

User:Simon Burchell, probably. Regards, Skomorokh 14:26, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Stagnant (lost?) request

Would someone more experienced than me as to how the reassessment process works mind taking a look at 2006 Lebanon War? There's some kind of discussion there, but it looks pretty dormant; it's not resolved either way, and it's been sitting there for months. Shimgray | talk | 21:31, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Well it does look like the re-assessment has been abandoned. It was opened by an editor on 30 May who hasn't commented since and one editor commented in July. I closed it as keep, without prejudice to anyone else who wishes to open a proper re-assessment. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:40, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Long and Short Scales

This article has had too many editors. Administrator fast and careless editing / reverting has left this article with many points being repeated more than two or three times and yet not all points are demonstrated with each method. Interesting facts have been deleted by overzealous editors attempting to protect the article in their emotionally based style. Too many personal concepts have been added with no cites or basis. Again careless editing have left it fairly scrambled. Attempts at editing result in more reversion and confusion in the layout.

A complete reconstruct needs attention using the current supplied data. The article is also too long for the messages conveyed.--174.118.149.54 (talk) 04:56, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

This is not the appropriate forum to complain about an edit-war, and there is no policy regarding the number of editors appropriate for an article. If you believe this article no longer meets the GA criteria located here: WP:WIAGA, and a discussion in the talk page does not resolve the disagreement, then you can nominate the article for a GA reassessment using the procedure discussed on this project page at WP:GAR, explaining exactly why the article does not meet the GA criteria. Incidentally, it is not required to register an account, but you may find that your experience here would improve as a registered user rather than as an anonymous editor. Aaron north (T/C) 02:47, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Help needed at Talk:Real-time Transport Protocol/GA1

Would someone take a moment to respond to a question at Talk:Real-time Transport Protocol/GA1? An editor wants to know what to do about GA reassessment when another editor started one, but never finished it. --Pnm (talk) 05:06, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I've left it so that the editor can start a new reassessment page if s/he wishes. Otherwise, it might be better to add the abandoned reassessment to article history. Geometry guy 21:20, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I'll write the editor who was interested. Thanks a lot. --Pnm (talk) 03:22, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

GAs with tags

While editors are paying attention to the quality of GAs, note that there are currently 6 articles at community reassessment. Comments on any of them would be most welcome.

There seems to be a lot of GAs with cleanup templates at the top of them... see Heinrich event, Air transport and the environment (United Kingdom), Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, Indirect land use change impacts of biofuels. Johnfos (talk) 23:21, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Then why not fix them? Malleus Fatuorum 23:29, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

There's too many. Johnfos (talk) 23:34, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Then fix one of them, and ask a friend to fix another (and ask a friend...) :) Geometry guy 23:44, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Ok, my mistake, I thought you GA guys were interested in keeping up quality and that this might have been an issue that you would look into. Johnfos (talk) 23:56, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

It is, hence the suggestion that you roll your sleeves up instead of complaining from the sidelines. Malleus Fatuorum 23:57, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Editors may do so, in response to your post, but if you do not engage actively with the encyclopedia, you are not truly engaging at all. Geometry guy 00:00, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Consider reviewing the edit history stats and contacting the main editors noting that the page has a cleanup tag(s). Although it's helpful to improve articles ourselves, the original editors may have more background knowledge in addressing tags. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 00:17, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

I've solved the "problem" at Heinrich event: It was apparently tagged by someone who doesn't know what an WP:Inline citation is. (Hint: <ref> tags are not the only way that Wikipedians provide inline citations.) Perhaps the tags at the other articles will be as easy to address as this one was. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:18, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

User:Moni3 has commented elsewhere that tagging is essentially an unproductive and lazy activity, and I tend to agree with her. Malleus Fatuorum 00:21, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Well either way, there would be a reason why the article's tagged. Every article that's either featured or were good articles that I reviewed had good reasons to be tagged. People should just Be Bold and do something about a tagged article. GamerPro64 (talk) 00:39, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

There may well be reasons, but not always good reasons, as WhatamIdoing has pointed out above. Malleus Fatuorum 00:57, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Al-Kindi

I've de-listed Al-Kindi. Its had a POV tag on it for months on end. And also it isn't good William M. Connolley (talk) 00:08, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

OK, I have nominated for community reassessment on your behalf. Please add a rationale at Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Al-Kindi/1 Jezhotwells (talk) 00:30, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

How to question the competence of a reviewer?

I have real concerns about Rcsprinter123 (talk · contribs) who is conducting GA reviews and making some howling mistakes. Looking at the user's talk page and the number of warnings received recently, I question whether this user is competent to make any GA reviews and if so what can/should be done to address this. See Talk:Fund accounting/GA1 and especially Talk:Karl Marx/GA1. --Simple Bob ^{a.k.a. The Spaminator} (Talk) 08:03, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

• Talk:Siege of Vyborg (1710)/GA1 is a bit of a worry too. Eg. "You're getting, on average, 20 views a day, which isn't that many, and usually need lots of viewers to make it a GA, or there'll be no point." I gently suggested Rcsprinter123 hold off from reviewing back in February, based on the standard of his nominations as well as reviews. Kudpung had another go a couple of days ago. Unfortunately Rcsprinter123 didn't reply to either of those messages. --BelovedFreak 08:35, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Firstly, I have reviewed an number of that editor's WP:GAN nominations and they all failed; and I believe that there are more nominations at WP:GAN. Based on the lack of adequate corrective actions and the questions raised during the review I'm not sure that editor has any understanding of GA. Secondly, if there are objections to the award or non-award of GA then the appropriate place is to raise either a personal or a community WP:GAR for the relevant article(s). Pyrotec (talk) 19:44, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. But what about Rcsprinter123? He/she doesn't seem to respond to comments or suggestions from others. Do we have no option but to let this editor carry on doing poor quality GA reviews - leaving work for others to clear up? Surely there must be some sanction, a topic ban perhaps, until the editor acknowledges the failures and either puts in some work to improve the situation or steps away gracefully. --Simple Bob ^{a.k.a. The Spaminator} (Talk) 20:46, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

As a registered user (not an IP), under the rules of GAN that user "can" undertake reviews. Overturning them at WP:GAR and discussions such as this appear to be the only sanction, embarrassment does work for many users who do "poor reviews" (I'm not an Admin - perhaps Admins can do things). Pyrotec (talk) 22:00, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

This user is obviously very young and does not understand that Wikipedia is a serious project. There are a lot of things that autoconfirmed users can do, but if they are constantly getting it wrong they most certainly can be asked to stop editing in a particular area. If they still don't take heed of friendly requests, they can be warned for disruptive editing and eventually blocked. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 18:01, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

As an admin perhaps you could keep a watching brief? --Simple Bob ^{a.k.a. The Spaminator} (Talk) 19:41, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

We could perhaps stretch WP:TOPICBAN into a 'process ban'. The simplest route is to have an admin inform the editor that s/he has a choice between no longer trying to review GANs or being blocked (probably citing WP:DE as the official justification). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:13, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I should clarify and correct this old statement before it is archived:

Technically, no individual admin may impose a topic ban. Formal topic bans are only imposed by WP:ArbCom or "the community", typically through discussion at WP:AN. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:03, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Isn't there a precedent for process bans? I seem to remember several editors either being banned or threatened with bans for their continued participation in RfA after it became clear that their voting habits were unpopular. Opposing self-nominations for instance. Malleus Fatuorum 22:57, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it's been done. You can see examples at Wikipedia:Editing restrictions#Users_subject_to_restrictions (e.g., Barts1a and Porchcrop). We just don't seem to have written it down as a particular kind of editing restriction. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:43, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I have left a note at the user's talk page[14] about this thread. Jezhotwells (talk) 21:25, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

It also exists at User talk:Rcsprinter123/Archive 1 along with comments about individual GAN reviews and GAN nominations from/by that editor. Pyrotec (talk) 18:43, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

It is clearly a long running issue highlighted by others before my own concerns, and it is also clear that this user has repeatedly ignored any previous and current suggestions or warnings, and continues to make serious mistakes with GA reviews. So what to do next? --Simple Bob ^{a.k.a. The Spaminator} (Talk) 20:32, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, I guess that we should raise this at WP:ANI. Is that the right venue? Do we have consensus on this? Jezhotwells (talk) 21:05, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

That user has appeared there before (Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive672#User:Rcsprinter123) on a diferent problem. OK let's try that approach. Pyrotec (talk) 07:01, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Happy to add evidence/comments in support, but as the person who raised this initially it would add weight to the case if someone else would make the initial ANI post. --Simple Bob ^{a.k.a. The Spaminator} (Talk) 07:08, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I think ANI makes sense, seeing how the Talk:Karl Marx/GA1 was finished, and that was well after this thread was started and Rcsprinter123 was notified. --BelovedFreak 09:23, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

OK, ANI thread opened here. Jezhotwells (talk) 09:45, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

This ended with a topic ban for the entire GA process. The user was informed, but I don't believe that it has been documented in any central location (a step I believe likely to be unnecessary). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:46, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (Marvel Comics)

I think this article should be reassessed because since the fair review it was given and it's subsequent pass. It's core editors have added an array of fansite references to then article, which seems suspect. When me and another suggested they be removed, we had a backlash telling us they are notable because they are GI Joe fansites. Many suggestions have been given and met with hostility. Some of the sources came under discussion here [Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_92#G.I._Joe_characters] and still ignored suggestions they be removed.Rain the 1 ^BAM 17:36, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Raintheone fails to mention that this article passed its GA assessment barely a month ago, and the subsequent edits have been for the purposes of adding material in the hopes of a FAC push. Any neutral observer would agree that the article has improved qualitatively since that time, and we've even put it through peer review to assess how far we are from getting to FAC and what areas still require improvement, and in fact most of the Peer Review points have been addressed.

I'm not sure what the reason is behind Raintheone's obvious bias, but recently he's been deliberately targeting articles relating to the G.I. Joe franchise, including AfD nominations that failed to notify potentially interested parties. He's appointed himself judge, jury, and executioner on all material related to the franchise, in particular the 1982-1994 A Real American hero toyline and related spin-off media. I've been one of the most vocal critics of the approach he has taken towards the G.I. Joe articles, so he's now targeted this particular article due to the significant amount of work that other editors and I have put into it in the past month. Knowing that an AfD would die before it got off the ground, he's instead submitted this article for GA reassessment, a threat that's he's made in the past. And as with the AfDs on other G.I. Joe articles, he's failed to notify any potentially interested parties of this, but fortunately I've been monitoring this talk page due to the aforementioned threat.

-- Jake Fuersturm (talk) 18:25, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

To clarify Jake's statement, this particular article has been under major construction recently, because of suggestions from a peer review, which is still ongoing. The fansites in question, contain interviews with the creators of G.I. Joe comics, and have been properly cited and sourced. Not only is the article G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (Marvel Comics) worthy of GA status, but the goal of WikiProject G.I. Joe has been to ready the article for FA consideration. Raintheone has been met with hostility, because he has developed an apparent vendetta against G.I. Joe articles in general, and has concentrated on removing information from them instead of contributing to them. While I respect his intentions, as seen in recent discussions and deletion nominations, his suggestions have not been helpful or constructive, due to his lack of interest in the subject. Fortdj33 (talk) 18:39, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Accusing me of having a vendetta is unhelpful. The wikiproject for fictional characters was created to tidy things up. I don't see why asking for fansites, unsourced claims of sensational value be removed. I just get reverted when I try to help and get told off for not understanding the series. I'm not a fan so perhaps I have a better perspective on Wikipedia's guidelines and not changing them to suit the fancruft. Anyway, I'll leave it up to GA reviewers to decide if they want sa GA article with fansite material.Rain the 1 ^BAM 19:57, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

And now it appears that you are attempting to avoid any dissenting opinions, by creating this discussion, after already having been challenged on your motives here. Fortdj33 (talk) 20:56, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I just do not feel accusing me of having a vendetta is helpful. In the past few weeks I have explained I would like to help the articles meet the guidelines on many issues. I don't see how I can have a massive issue in real life against something I have never come across before. The only motives I have had have been explained, I would like to see the articles begin to move in the right direction and have the addition of sourced material, cited with reliable websites, publictions and so forth. I noticed the project was endorsing these fansites, which is unfair to the general reader. Having a GA with potential false information. You are trying to make out I ignore opinions but I have stressed my points and been told I cannot remove unsourced info - rather me - myself find a source. Also I have waited and listened to points made, but ultimately am I meant to ignore set guidelines because a group of fans tell me too.Rain the 1 ^BAM 21:35, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

As for consensus the reassment page is the page to get it, editors will decide if further reviewing needs to take place. I don't see why I had to seek editors and fans of the series permission, because in all honesty who would agree to that. I did say I may request this on that articles talk page, the editor called Jake said he would just revert the whole thing If I did that. You then reminded him, and quite rightly so, that it would perhaps look like ownership. FYI I was reverted for removing info from that article, that I had searched elsewhere, no reliable source states the claim.. but Jake reverted, reverted and even told me of for moving one of the images to a appropriate name. Another factor in this renom is the images, the peer review requested they have stronger rationales, etc.. but one wqas added back with inccorect tags and very thin explantion of where the image was required and it's purpose in the context of the article.Rain the 1 ^BAM 00:33, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Rain, the editors of WikiProject G.I. Joe are exactly the people you should be trying to reach a consensus with! It is certainly not my intention to attack you personally, but unfortunately I feel that your debate about reliable sources has degraded into disruptive editing. You have prevented other editors from reaching consensus on how to improve G.I. Joe articles, by expecting us to deal with problems you have created. You continue to edit G.I. Joe articles in pursuit of a certain point, despite opposition from other editors. And you repeatedly disregard other editors' questions or explanations for their edits. I can't speak for Jake, but I would much rather spend my time on Wikipedia improving G.I. Joe articles, instead of having to argue with you on talk pages. Fortdj33 (talk) 02:29, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Fort - feel free to speak for me - I'm wasting way too much time arguing with Raintheone and his ilk, instead of editing. In fact I'd already been planning to go on an indefinite wiki-hiatus (due mainly to the obstructionism I've encountered) except that this cropped up and I'll be damned if I'm going to let one editor flush all the work that's been done on this article. -- Jake Fuersturm (talk) 03:06, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Then do it, you feel the need to keep on at me for adhering to policy. I'm improving G.I. Joe: Resolute as we speak and still have time to edit. Atleast you admit you are attacking me. Sorry if the self confessed "fanboys" do not agree with me removing trivia, improving image rationales, moving files to correct names, removing senational and unsourced material is wrong of me. I guess I missed the part it said if a group of editors can decide blogspot, yojoe, wordpress and so forth are good for the verifiability of an article. I contest your idea that because the fans that edit those websites have a good knowledge of the subject, there articles should be allowed to cite claims on wikipedia.Rain the 1 ^BAM 02:49, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Haha, I love how you're "helping out" by editing the low-hanging fruit. Resolute - released 2009 (mature internet) vs. A Real American Hero - released 1982 (pre-internet). You really want to be helpful? Find replacements for the citations that you disagree with. -- Jake Fuersturm (talk) 03:01, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

See you are just a bully.Rain the 1 ^BAM 03:09, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

A bully? How, by asking for your help where it's really needed? As evidenced your threat (since carried out) to take the article to GA Reassessment, who's really the bully? -- Jake Fuersturm (talk) 03:20, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

There was no threat, I said I may I would take it here if I felt in the end it did not meet the standard. You take things so personal - It is not a war on you, a game or anything. I've been accused of being disruptive, having ulterior motives, a vendetta agaisnt toys and comics I never heard of before. It is always "you don't like GI Joe, you have no right to a say unless you learn the series and then cite it yourself" or "You are unhelpful, you are a 'deltionist'" This is totally out of control now, and behold no one has noticed what I am continually subjected too. Laughing me down because I made constructive edits. Shows by telling me my edits are basically unhelpful (see your use of quotaion marks earlier) because I edited something considered trivial amongst fans. One thing is certain the refs added are the most reliable content GI Joe has seen for while. You went in a rage and left wikipedia earlier because you don't like how things operate on wikipedia. You said that yourself. It's not my fault I am adhering to nobality guidelines.Rain the 1 ^BAM 03:31, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Arguably, both of you are being unhelpful here. Stop it. Jake, Raintheone can edit Resolute if s/he so chooses, and your comment about "low-hanging fruit" is unhelpful. Raintheone, whether or not you're right about the reliability of the sources being used on G.I Joe articles, it would be more helpful to avoid personalizing the dispute. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:33, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Raintheone - my reasons for leaving are mine alone. It's not about not liking "how things operate on wikipedia", it's about my frustration at wasted effort, not just in this article, but elsewhere.

Nikkimaria - with all due respect, Raintheone has been making the assertion for several weeks now that he wants to help the G.I. Joe WikiProject to improve their articles, but except for a few isolated edits, most of which are deletions, he's done little editing except on talk pages, on AfDs, and now in this GA Reassessment. Can you blame me for calling him on it? -- Jake Fuersturm (talk) 03:39, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Not blaming, but - WP:AGF or WP:DFTT, depending on what you feel his motivations are. Either way, not personalizing the dispute will make it easier to gain consensus (and, if necessary, intervention from uninvolved editors) and will result in fewer hurt feelings/emotional outbursts on both sides. I understand you're frustrated, but getting upset isn't going to solve this. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:00, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

You are not supposed to goad other editors work. If NM or another admin look into it further they will see I made around 13 edits in which I removed claims such as "person one said this character was blah blah" and other unsourced claims. Which I'm pretty sure is meant to be challenged, more than four occasions I looked for a alternative refs but to no avail. Plural AFD's? One AFD. Then this request for reassessment. If it got personal anywhere it is telling me I have a problem with the subject matter. On one ocassion I was told I should know GI Joe and Action men because I am male, I loved barbie dolls more though. I was later told I can only challenge unreferenced material if I myself find a source.. Why you call me a deltionist I do not know, they would not give their time to help improve things via friendly talk, which was met with hostility, I won't say hun again..Rain the 1 ^BAM 03:55, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Seeing as the reassessment has been opened, let's take constructive commentary over there - this page is mostly for process-talk, and this has moved beyond that. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:03, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Notice of RfC/U related to a Good Article Reassessment

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Raintheone here is a request for comment. The GAR in question and the conduct in question is my own. Apparently involved parties can comment too, seeing as the main dispute started on a GAR, this seems the appropiate place to notify. The GAR is here at Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (Marvel Comics)/1Rain the 1 ^BAM 22:33, 20 April 2011 (UTC

I've redacted part of the notice here and a reply from another party. Rain, if you're going to notify anywhere else be more neutral. Jake, I appreciate what you tried to do, but it's best that someone else do it since you are the filer of the RfC/U. If anyone would like to see the redacted commentary, it's in the edit history. Otherwise, the RfC/U is the place to post if you're interested in the user conduct, or the GAR if your focus is the article content. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:24, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

GAR on Chlorine

GAR on Chlorine was started, but it does not show up in the list here. I do not know enough about the process and the templates to find the problem, sorry. --Stone (talk) 08:18, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Netball GAR

I'm a bit unhappy about the new GAR on Netball. Specifically, we've got an ArbCom case open about the behavior of certain editors around GA reviews for Netball, and it seems to me that opening a reassessment might well be taken as WP:POINTY—or pointy-haired—disruption of the ArbCom case.

Would anyone mind putting this GAR "on hold" until the ArbCom case has at least moved out of the evidence phase? WP:There is no deadline for re-assessing an article like this, and we might get a more impartial review if it wasn't in the shadow of this case. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:10, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

If there is consensus for puting it on hold then that is fine by me. It won't however make the concerns over the article disappear. I think a number of users who have ties to these netball articles need to realise that the issues being raised come from editors who have not been involved in the ArbCom case and are simply an attempt to get the content improved - Basement12 (T.C) 02:58, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

No, I don't expect a delay to remove any real concerns. I am hoping, however, that it would remove some of the needless drama, so that when a reassessment is undertaken, all editors see the article for itself, and not as a pawn in an ArbCom battle.

Does anybody object? Now's your chance—please speak up! WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:03, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I've changed the notice to request only that involved parties to the arbitration request not edit the reassessment page for the duration of the case. Comments by uninvolved editors are certainly helpful, and welcome. Chester Markel (talk) 06:52, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I've reverted it, because I actually do want everyone to stop, and as the individual referred to in the words "an editor has proposed...", the notice should accurately reflect my actual proposal. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:23, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Request for community reassessment of Slayer home video

Hi, I started a community reassessment of this article here following disagreement over concerns brought up on the talk page. Thank you Hekerui (talk) 10:06, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Closing the old GARs?

I was hoping some editors would be willing to look at some of the old GARs (the ones approaching 2 months). I beleive consensus has been reached or is close on Dreamlover (song), Tim Lincecum, Guarana, and Jamie Stuart. I am less sure about Laurel and Hardy and Gery Chico. I would myself, but have commented on each of them and on some have even made quite a few edits. AIRcorn (talk) 04:52, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Closed Guarana as it I had not made any edits to it and the guidelines say "reviewers are not usually considered to be "involved" unless they have contributed significantly to GA disagreements about the article prior to the community reassessment." AIRcorn (talk) 12:17, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Happy for you or someone else to close Dreamlover as Delist, Tim Linceum as Keep and Jamie Start as Keep. You haven't contributed significantly to any disagreements about these articles, it's been fair comment. There is a backlog and these are obvious close. I'm not so sure about Gery Chico. Szzuk (talk) 19:14, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, I have commented on many but an uninvolved editor should close these old threads. --Jezhotwells (talk) 23:41, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I feel I could close Dreamlover without any dramas, but on Lincecum and Stuart I have commented that they should be kept, so think others should really make the final decision for them. AIRcorn (talk) 06:06, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I closed Tim Linceum, hadn't commented on that one. Szzuk (talk) 08:27, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

My view is that many GARs are kept open well beyond their sell-buy dates and just add unnecessary clutter. Shouldn't we be more decisive? Why are so few editors prepared to take the bull by the horns and close GARs anyway? GA is supposed to be a lightweight process, yet GARs can get bogged down for months. Malleus Fatuorum 19:36, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

They're deliberately left open for around two months because a lot of good editing takes places in the second month irrespective of an eventual keep or delist. It's often difficult to determine consensus because it requires a knowledge of the criteria and the subject matter, add in the formatting requirements and its more complicated than closing an AfD, which is often no more than a vote count or checking a ref. Szzuk (talk) 20:13, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

With all due respect, that's just crap. Why not keep them open for two years, then maybe those monkeys randomly typing away somewhere in the ether might manage to sort out the problems? Malleus Fatuorum 20:17, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Feel free to close the backlog. Szzuk (talk) 20:27, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Why? Apparently it has to kept open for infinity, as in the later months some good work sometimes gets done. Malleus Fatuorum 20:42, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

You said you wanted to be more decisive and take the bull by the horns. Szzuk (talk) 20:50, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Well I have been through all of the older ones that I have not commentrd on, and kept or delisted as appropriate. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:53, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Community GARs are only deliberately kept open for about 2 weeks in most cases. The fact that many remain open for 2 months or more has nothing to do with some idea that good editing happens in the second month. Instead it reflects the fact that closing GARs is a difficult responsibility which takes time to do properly - and editors with the inclination and expertise to do so are few. An article should be listed as a GA if it meets the GA criteria and not listed if it does not. Whereas GANs and individual GARs are intended as lightweight processes which don't always get it right the first time, community GAR should, as far as possible, get it right. Consequently, closing a GAR involves not only reading the reassessment discussion, but evaluating the consensus according to the quality of article and the GA criteria.

When I do it, I usually spend an hour or two copyediting the article and spot-checking the sources so that I am familiar with the content. Sometimes this reveals problems which were missed during the reassessment, because reviewers were concentrating on a different issue. It can be very rewarding work, but I haven't recently chosen to spend much of my leisure time onwiki. This is probably good for GAR, as GA is a collective endeavour which should not depend upon any individual for any of its operations, and several excellent editors have stepped up to the plate in closing GARs. Editors (such as Jezhotwells and SilkTork) willing to "take this bull by the horns" should be encouraged and supported, because it isn't an easy task. Geometry guy 23:17, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Fine, so meanwhile GARs languish waiting for one of you three to have an hour or so to look at each one. I think that's ridiculous, but then you know best. Malleus Fatuorum 23:35, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

There are several others, including yourself, who could close GARs, so pray tell, what is ridiculous? Geometry guy 23:49, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

What's ridiculous I thought was obvious; that it takes an hour or two to close a GAR. It's not a hospital for sick GAs. Come the time it's just an assessment of consensus, not an "Oh, I think I could fix this if if only I had the time, but I don't". Malleus Fatuorum 23:58, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh, okay, then you misunderstood what I was saying. I agree that GAR is not a hospital for sick GAs, and by copyediting, I only mean minor fixes. The problem is the flip-side: in closing GARs, even where there is a majority in favor of listing, it is surprisingly common to find that the article does not meet the GA criteria. Poor prose, close paraphrasing, unsourced material and deviation from the sources are all common issues. That is why it takes an hour or two to do the job properly. Geometry guy 00:07, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Then no wonder that very few can find those two hours to wrap up a GAR. Malleus Fatuorum 00:17, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

That was stirling work, the backlog was getting impractically long. I do somewhat fall into GARehabilitation because I enjoy the rehabilitation. Szzuk (talk) 10:08, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Mandatory notification of primary editors

It has been suggested to me that something more than a talk page banner is needed to notify primary editors about reassessments,[15] what do other editors think? Jezhotwells (talk) 02:18, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

When I was doing the GA sweeps I used to notify the top contributors to the article as well as the various projects, which I think is only polite. Malleus Fatuorum 02:36, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to see something like that - it's a minor concern, but the tag at the top of the talk page is something we tend to ignore, as I don't think most of us really look at the various little Wikiproject and similar messages. So if we see it being added on the Watchlist then it's fine, but if it is missed the only time you might realise that a GAR was underway is when it is over. :) Which means that the editors interested might not be able to fix it. - Bilby (talk) 03:33, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

I think this should be done for major contributors and wikiprojects. The aim is to fix the articles and in many cases only editors familiar or interested in the topic are able to. Will just need a small addition to point 3 under Community Reassessment. AIRcorn (talk) 20:37, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I suggest the addition of step 4:

Notify the primary contributors listed at Page History Statistics and also the talk pages of projects on the article talk pages(s). Jezhotwells (talk) 00:15, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Agree. Looks sensible and helpful. Szzuk (talk) 08:29, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

I have added words to that effect. Jezhotwells (talk) 18:47, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm

Not sure if I followed the instructions correctly since my listing is not showing up [16].Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:15, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

It's only community reassessment's that are listed here; you started an individual reassessment. Malleus Fatuorum 12:12, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Community reassessment's only done when there's disagreement about whether it should be listed, right? In any case, I'd appreciate some eyes on it just to confirm that it is indeed a copyvio before delist it and remove most of the content.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:16, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Detroit Institute of Arts

I came across Detroit Institute of Arts today, and noticed that it did not go through the nomination process and was upgraded straight from start-class to GA. Is it deserving? Chris857 (talk) 00:39, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

It may or may not be deserving, but to be listed as a GA it has to be reviewed at GAN, which it wasn't. I've undone the "promotion". Malleus Fatuorum 01:12, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Looking at the history it's clear that this was just a misunderstanding by somebody who did not know the GA rules, but I wonder if there would be a way of checking for other things of the same sort, for example by setting up a bot to scan GA articles to see whether there are any that lack GA reviews. Looie496 (talk) 02:58, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

For that last few years, three to four, the review has been by means of a transcluded {{/GA1}} page but before that the review was just one section on the article's talk page some of which might have been moved to an archive page. I don't know about bot writing, but it would have to check for three cases: a /GA1 with a "pass" verdict (it might have been failed, so a /GA2 or /GA3 might also be needed); a section on article's talk page (or perhaps more than one); a section in one of the archived pages (or perhaps more than one page in one or more archives). I see scope for plenty of "false alarms". Pyrotec (talk) 07:46, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Question on process

I just did my first GA review, of Oliver Valentine. It passed, and I added a GA template to the Talk page. But I don't see the green + appearing immediately on the article page itself. So either there is a time lag until some tool processes it, or else I screwed up. Can someone let me know if I added the GA template correctly? Thanks. --Noleander (talk) 22:06, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Never mind. The green + just showed up. --Noleander (talk) 22:06, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

You usually need to purge the cache of your browser as it is storing a local copy of the article. Jezhotwells (talk) 00:27, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

The icon is added by the GA bot, which runs periodically -- in this case it was about 10 minutes between passing the article and having the bot process it. Note that WT:GAN is a better page to bring up issues of this sort than this page. Looie496 (talk) 00:57, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

GAs with five or more intro paragraphs

Many of our good articles have more than four paragraphs in the lead section in contravention of GA guidelines, especially WP:LEAD. What is the specific criteria for exceeding the guideline of a maximum of four paragraphs for the lead section of an article? Should the GAs with more than four be submitted to WP:GAR, tagged with Template:Lead too long or left alone? Binksternet (talk) 23:40, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Background

Wikipedia:Good article criteria states that a GA must comply with the manual of style for lead sections. Four paragraphs is defined as the maximum length of a lead section at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section and Wikipedia:Writing better articles#The rest of the lead section. However, at WP:LEAD#Length, a pipe link to WP:Ignore all rules suggests that the four-paragraph limit can be exceeded if it "prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia".

Incomplete list of GA articles with more than four paragraphs in the lead section

(Please expand list as needed, or strikethrough corrected entries.)

• 1993 child sexual abuse accusations against Michael Jackson – 13
• 2007 Texas Longhorns football team – 5
• Alcoholism – 5
• American Civil War – 5
• Annelid – 5
• Arthropod – 6
• Anne Boleyn – 6
• Brachiopod – 10
  • Reverted Brachiopod lead to GA review Talk:Brachiopod/GA1 21:21, 9 April 2010 version, then consented 3 para. --Philcha (talk) 06:29, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
• Bryozoa – 6
• Beetlejuice – 5
• Chelicerata – 5
• Cnidaria – 5
• Cold War – 5
• Ctenophora – 5
• The Dark Knight (film) – 5
• Effects of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans – 5
• Ethanol – 5
• Evolutionary history of life – 5
• Flatworm – 5
• Geothermal energy – 5
• Glass fiber – 5
• Gunfight at the O.K. Corral – 5
• George Harrison – 5
• History of artificial intelligence – 5
• History of Gaza – 5
• Iran–Contra affair – 5
• JFK (film) – 6
• Mollusca – 8
  • Molluscs are highly diverse, not only in size and in anatomical structure, but also in behaviour and in habitat - Bivalvia are almost brainless, some Cephalopoda can be called intelligent. Gastropodas are the speciose and very economically important. And the evolution goes all most to the start of animal. --Philcha (talk) 05:58, 29 October 2011 (UTC) .
• National Lampoon's Animal House – 5
• Nemertea – 6
• Nickel – 6
• Phoronid – 6
• Roman Republic – 6
• Robert Rossen – 5
• Harry Shearer – 5
• Spider – 6
• Sponge – 6
• Karlheinz Stockhausen – 5
• Margaret Thatcher – 5
• World War II – 5
• X-ray crystallography – 5

Discussion

• If IAR is acceptable in some cases of GAN and GAR, when is that? Under what criteria can the GA nominator insist that more than four paragraphs is okay? Or is it the case that if a nominator has purposely gone down the IAR route then the article cannot be GA? Finally, is it time for the LEAD guideline to be expanded to allow five paragraphs?
  
  The determination of the number of paragraphs should be accompanied by a guideline on character length for the intro, to prevent unwieldy, unreadable over-large paragraphs.
  
  Some of the articles listed above are clearly very complex and convoluted topics that are nearly impossible to summarize in four paragraphs. Ones such as World War II, American Civil War and Evolutionary history of life might be argued as appropriately requiring five paragraphs of summary. However, I don't think that uncontroversial topics need more than four, nor do I think that any article needs six or more.
  
  I think articles with five paragraphs should be rewritten, or tagged, or the presence of five paragraphs validated by consensus on the talk page. Articles with six or more should be sent to WP:GAR. Binksternet (talk) 23:40, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

• On the list of the biggest issues within GAs this ranks at the bottom of the list.--Guerillero | My Talk 01:53, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

A brief, well-written and accessible lead section is essential to the encyclopedia. Many readers stop at the lead section and don't read further. Wikipedia places a high importance on a concise lead section, which is why it is part of the WP:WIAGA. Binksternet (talk) 02:42, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

• Two (hopefully obvious) states: IAR as mentioned above particularly if the subject is multi-faceted and ajoining two different lead paragraphs into one worsens the understanding; and more importantly, even if the lead is 5 or more para and reasonably can be taken to 4 with a bit of editing, that means that it's not a "hopeless" case, and GAR should never be evoked just for that failure. It may be part of a large symptom of the overall article that may require GAR, but if the only issue identified is that the lead is 5 paragraphs and not 4, that would be a waste of everyone's time to try to demote it for that singular point. --MASEM (t) 13:21, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

• I don't think that GAR should be invoked for articles with 5 or 6 paragraphs, above that sure, or if more than 4 alludes to other problems. Someone will simply join paragraphs or delete them, it takes two seconds. I've never thought this was a substantial problem for GAR. Szzuk (talk) 16:40, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Appears Malleus is fixing them, in less time than this conversation will take... Szzuk (talk) 16:42, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

• I note that about half of the articles remaining in the list are by Philcha, who has idiosyncratic opinions about proper lead length. Having reviewed a couple of them myself, let me explain that I passed them even though I didn't really agree that the leads needed to be so long, because the quality of the articles was so high in every other respect and because they are about such vital topics. I believe that we should try to keep our most productive editors happy even if it means making small compromises about policy occasionally. There are, of course, aspects about which no compromise is possible, but I don't see this as one of them. Looie496 (talk) 16:45, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
  • I don't think the leads need to be as long as they are either, but like you I've got no intention of starting a fight with Philcha over it. Malleus Fatuorum 17:23, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
    • Thanks to Malleus for jumping in and editing a number of the indicated articles! That Michael Jackson one is pretty bad, in my opinion the most likely GAR candidate. Binksternet (talk) 17:54, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
      • That Michael Jackson one is indeed pretty bad, but I'll have a go at it as well.Malleus Fatuorum 18:12, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
      • And done. I'm not touching any of Philcha's articles though, I'm not that foolhardy. Malleus Fatuorum 19:08, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Binksternet, I'm confused by why we're even having this conversation. LEAD directly states that the four-paragraph maximum is a general rule of thumb that editors are free to ignore whenever their best judgment suggests that this would be preferable. So if five paragraphs seems to be better than four, then a five-paragraph lead is 100% compliant with the guideline as written—and why would any intelligent editor fail a 100%-compliant lead length?

In particular, five shorter paragraphs are often preferable to four longer ones. Merging two paragraphs merely because you wrongly believe that four is an absolute maximum is wrong. If "shortening" an "overly long" lead means nothing more than deleting a blank line, then you're screwing up. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:44, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

You overstate the wording found at WP:LEAD, which is not direct at all about ignoring the four paragraph maximum. It says "As a general guideline, the lead should be no longer than four paragraphs." It does not say directly that five or more paragraphs are possible.

You describe haphazard methods of reducing five to four, but I have not suggested those methods. I have never expressed, for instance, a desire to combine two paragraphs by simply deleting the line break between them. Reading flow and comprehension trump any technical consideration; a point I am certain you and I agree on.

I also agree that a shorter lead section may be better than a longer one regardless of the number of paragraphs involved.

What I would like to happen is that WP:LEAD is shed of the hidden pipe link reference to Ignore All Rules and in its place is put a description of those times when five paragraphs (or more) are allowed. I would also like to see a description of how many characters a lead section might have, with suggested maxima along the same lines as suggested maximum number of paragraphs. WP:LEAD should be expanded to meet accepted Wikipedia practice, if practice is not reined in to meet the existing guideline.

The main point I'm sure we all agree on is that a lead section should be concise and and inviting. It should not be so long, or so heavily technical, or so any-other-kind-of-bad-writing, that it discourages the reader from continuing reading the main article body. Binksternet (talk) 18:17, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not supporting those changes to WP:Lead. I can see your point and realise you're trying to bring clarity, but this discussion should show you why I can't support those changes. They're too prescriptive and will distort the lead unnecessarily. Szzuk (talk) 22:21, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Rules creep. Good enough to suggest that four paras is generally enough (much longer and an "overview" section might be needed), without trying to identify all cases where more might be appropriate. Rich Farmbrough, 18:40, 23 October 2011 (UTC).

• If it is useful and remains on topic without being excessively long then I can't see it being a problem. Jamietw (talk) 07:26, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

• I provided a second opinion on one of Philcha's articles and made a comment about the size of the lead then with some advice on how to shorten it. I believe there have been a few others make similar observations, and while it would be great if the advice was heeded at the end of the day it is only a minor issue and not one that he is likely to change. I wouldn't feel comfortable passing any article with an excessive lead without a good explanation, but if that is the only problem I don't see the point of mass delisting them. The Brachiopod article is a bit excessive though even by his standards. In my short experience a bigger problem is short leads that do not provide enough context or a decent overview of the article. AIRcorn (talk) 22:34, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

• • I'll add that I've seen at WT:GAN that Philcha is unwell, so unlikely to be able to take part in this discussion. And frankly, given the scale of the problems facing Wikipedia this really doesn't seem like something we ought to be too concerned about. Malleus Fatuorum 22:38, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

• • Aircorn, the length of the lead at [[Brachiopod still bothers me, and the GA reviewer also found no solution. Perhaps 2 paras "In addition to the traditional classification into inarticulate and articulate brachiopods ... brachiopods for the first time were less diverse than bivalves" (classification; fossil history) could be compined, but the components are both big and complex. Should we discuss at Talk:Brachiopod? --Philcha (talk) 17:51, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

• • • I am a bit backed up at the moment with reviews, but will see if I can offer any advice when I get a chance. As others have said above, this is not a major issue and I don't think you should feel compelled to work on it if you are feeling unwell. AIRcorn (talk) 22:44, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks, Malleus. While I'm unwell, I think this matters. My arts and literature GA leads are 2, 4, 4, 3, 4 and 3 paragraph. My longer leads are in invertebrate animals. Readers have a reasonable grasp of vertebrate animals (the real problems start a level up, with Chordates, and get harder with other deuterostomes). But there are about 30 protostome phyla, and another 3 phyla ((Sponges, Cnidaria, Ctenophora (phylum)) which are in some way more "basic" to protostomes and deuterostomes. All these has very different structures and operation, and IMO the first priority is to explaining the difference, so readers can avoid confusion between these animals. Like Aircorn above, I think it is important to "provide enough context or a decent overview of the article". --Philcha (talk) 12:31, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Request 2 community reassessment

Request community reassessments for Warcraft II and Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares. In individual GAR, both ended with new objections, giving me no change to response. And in Master of Orion II the reviewer wrote, "... indeed possibly also WP:NOT: this is not an encyclopedia article at present, but a gameguide with reviews" - but Master of Orion II has many good citations, including several game reviews from good sources - some about just this games, and some about its use as the "gold standard" for reviews of other games. --Philcha (talk) 17:21, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Hurricane Ivan

There is consensus on Hurricane Ivan being demoted from good article status, and the reassessment needs to be closed. -- TropicalAnalystwx13 (talk) 23:05, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Done. Jezhotwells (talk) 23:33, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Question about reassessment procedure

I hope this isn't an inappropriate place to be asking this question, but is it acceptable to just remove the Good Article template (without listing it for reassessment) when the template was added without a GA nomination or discussion in the first place?

The page in question is Hotel Koresco, and the page creator (who has since been indef blocked) added the GA template [17]. The article is literally incoherent; this is from the lede:

"Within partake of PAGCOR Philippines Asia affiliation e-games venue facility accustomed. The hotel is basically owned by the Korean billionaire who also administer more than hotels over Asia. The expansion hill of pueblo de Oro tracks the hotel, with the tourism holdings support the Koresco hotel acquires engineering features. Grand stars construction embedded forming V-shaped building systems created by the Filipino architect Richard Tan."

I'm being overly cautious by even asking, aren't I? I'm prone to that. So can I remove the GA template without nominating it for reassessment? Dawn Bard (talk) 17:08, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi, that was just the GA icon that was added, it wasn't added to the GA list. I removed the icon, GAR is for reassessment of articles that have been reviewed for GA status at some point. Thanks for asking. Jezhotwells (talk) 19:28, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Possibly non-GAs tagged as GAs.

Working from the above comment, this list gives articles which are currently tagged with {{Good article}}, but do not appear to be GA rated on the talkpage:

• Cagayan de Oro
• Caysie Torrey
• Dunham Massey POW Camp
• Eraser (album)
• Felix Ho
• Footprints: The Best of Powderfinger, 2001-2011
• Forever Came Today
• Francis Pollara
• Gurdev Singh Gill
• Halifax Community College
• In and out of Love (The Supremes song)
• Kadambari Murali
• Kathy Kane
• Katie and Emily
• Last Exile: Fam, the Silver Wing
• Lee Yeongdo
• Liberty Square (Miami)
• Lindsay Taylor
• List of heaviest land mammals
• Marsha Milan Londoh
• Michael Kay (sports broadcaster)
• North West Agriculture and Forestry University
• O.T. (musician)
• Overtown (Miami)
• Rashami Desai
• Reflections (The Supremes song)
• Ricky C
• Royal Copenhagen Shooting Society
• Saryupareen Brahmins
• Stop! In the Name of Love
• Traffic collision avoidance system
• Urgo (Stargate SG-1)

The list is generated via CatScan; it takes all articles in Category:Good articles, and checks the talkpage for the presence of {{GA/Topic}}, which I believe is only generated when a GA review has happened and been recorded in the history. It will thus catch any without a review, but I think won't spot any cases where it's been reviewed, failed, and the template is still in place. Hope it's of some help... Shimgray | talk | 21:15, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I looked at Royal Copenhagen Shooting Society, and I'd guess that it was added (here) accidentally when the infobox was added. It'd be easy enough to pick up a stray template when copying an infobox out of another article. (I fixed that one.)

The same sort of multi-template error is seen here for Saryupareen Brahmins. However, "Stop! In the Name of Love appears to have been deliberate, and the editor in question appears to have done this more than once. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:50, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Some are copy-past accidents while others might be someone unsure about the processes. Hopefully no-one is deliberately circumventing the nominations. Thanks for this list Shimgray, it is something worth keeping an eye on. AIRcorn (talk) 23:35, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

All GA icons have been removed. Jezhotwells (talk) 02:42, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks all - I wasn't sure I'd have time to go through these last night, so thought it best to list them here before I forgot about it! The toolserver link should work for running the same test in future. One other possible discrepancy - Category:Good articles (generated from the in-article tag) has 50 fewer pages than Category:GA-Class Good articles, generated from the talkpage tags - I'm not sure as to what might be to blame here, though. Shimgray | talk | 21:01, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Just removed the icon from another ten. Two of those were in the list above, one was by someone who thought the article was good, a couple were added when the article was created (probably copy-past accidents) and the rest were added by ips. I left a note at some of the talk pages informing them of WP:GAN (didn't bother with the ones put in during creation or the IPs). Is it worth asking a bot to run through these semi regularly? AIRcorn (talk) 00:53, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Encourage more individual assessments

Many articles listed here could probably have been dealt with by individual reassessment. Considering participation at this page is low and in effect many are closed with only one or two comments anyway maybe we should do more to encourage individual reassessments. Community re-assessemnt should really only be used when there is a dispute over the classification of a Good article, not for routine maintenance of the standards. One way could be to only let articles that have been assessed, either through individual reassessment or GAN assessment, recently (month, week or some other set time) undergo community reassessment. It will mean some rewording to the instructions and some sort of informal check to identify any bad faith nominations (maybe a list here of current individual re-assessment that can be monitored). If any disagrees with an individual re-assessment it can then be turned into a community one without losing any work done by the assessor. AIRcorn (talk) 07:42, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Talk:Luke Ravenstahl/GA2

Not sure why this isn't appearing: Talk:Luke Ravenstahl/GA2. Help?--GrapedApe (talk) 04:17, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Should be ok now. Just needed to be transcluded. MathewTownsend (talk) 04:35, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks.--GrapedApe (talk) 12:32, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Polish milhist GA for reassessment

I am done with my review of Polish milhist articles up to GA class, and I have found several articles that do not seem to meet modern GA class standards. I have posted on the talk pages of those articles, listing the problems, and contacted their authors, some over a week ago, some just today, and I think for the articles that have had no action for over a week, we should start a GAR procedure. I am not overly familiar with GARs, so I'd appreciate comments from a more experienced GARer. The articles in question are:

• Szczerbiec - missing references
• Kiev Offensive (1920) - missing references
• Vilnius Castle Complex - missing references
• Dano-Swedish War (1658–1660) - missing references
• Battle of Grunwald - missing references
• Biuro Szyfrów - missing references
• Władysław Raginis - questions of comprehensiveness, prose and structure.

--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 14:39, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

There are two main choices, and that applies to each article. You can follow the "Community reassessment" (see green boxes on Wikipedia:Good article reassessment), and that way the community takes the decision to pass or fail (delayed if necessary by a "hold"); or you follow the "Individual reassessment" (see green boxes on Wikipedia:Good article reassessment), and that way you do a GAR assessment and award a pass or fail decision (delayed if necessary by a "hold"). "Individual reassessment" is a faster process, but one editor ends up doing the whole of the review, for one or more articles. Either way it would be polite to notify the original nominator and reviewer for each of the articles (assuming that they are still active), plus relevant wikiprojects (e.g. Milhist, Poland, etc). Is that what you were looking for, or were you expecting a different answer? Pyrotec (talk) 15:04, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

That's helpful, thanks. I guess my next step is to notify the reviewers/nominators (if different from the main author). If nobody replies, I will probably open an individual assessment, leave it for a few days, and pass/fail depending on whether there is any action taken. Does it sound fair? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 15:49, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

I had a quick look at Szczerbiec, but it was not a "review". I found a couple of {{citation needed}} flags and I see from the history history that they were added today (by you). Kpalion has done most of the work see here. I suspect that I would not fail it: see if Kpalion is willing to fix it, that could save the effort of reviewing it at GAR. Kiev Offensive (1920) looks a good article (not the same as a Good Article), but there are whole subsections without references, so possibly unless it is fixed, its not GA-standard - i.e. not compliant with WP:WIAGA clause 2(a) & (b). I'm not going to look at the rest (well for now anyway). I'm happy for you to review them, but reviewing can take a lot of time (almost all of my time, anyway). Pyrotec (talk) 16:39, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

I've contacted all reviewers. Kpalion has fixed the Szczerbiec article, so that one is fine now, as for the rest... we will see. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:16, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Education in Iceland

One I've happened to come across, but I don't have time to follow up on. I wonder if someone could handle (i.e. list or whatever) it. Thanks, Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 16:06, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

GAR speedy close

If there is an uninvolved experienced editor who could take a look at Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Mitt Romney/1, I've recommended a speedy close as keep there. Thank you for your consideration. —Eustress ^talk 14:29, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree. A speedy close would be very appropriate.63.119.36.186 (talk) 00:13, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I have reviewed the article and GAR text, and closed this as kept. hamiltonstone (talk) 00:24, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't agree with the speedy keep. Please explain your reasoning further.--Amadscientist (talk) 02:07, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Sure. I'm not sure where your concern lies, but I'll do my best. One possibility is that you are concerned that this wasn't handled as processes as are at FAR/FARC. That's because GAR isn't like FAR/FARC. For GAR one uses "this process if you find an article listed as a good article which does not satisfy the good article criteria." It isn't meant primarily as an article improvement process, but as a delisting process, unless issues are quickly addressed. FAR is a more complex process which has a stage that is mainly focussed on improvement, and a stage focussed on assessment with a view to possible delisting. Another possibility is that you are concerned that I haven't explained in detail why the article meets the criteria. It appears to me to be well-written, its lead appears consistent with MOS. It is abundantly referenced. Some may think it over-referenced, but given the potentially contentious nature of the subject, particularly at the moment, I think it's fine. I haven't been through it line by line, but I'm not seeing evidence on the talk page or the edit history to suggest any WP:OR problems. It is broad in its coverage, addressing personal life and education, business career, state political career, and presidential candidacies, as well as some separate discussion of key aspects of his views. If this were a candidate at FAC, I would be considering any possible duplication between the penultimate section and the body text, but I don't see it as an issue at GA since, even if there duplication, it is limited in scope. Individuals will seldom agree on the neutrality of articles about living partisan political players (IMO), but the careful referencing, the neutral language, and the watchful eyes of experienced editors all suggest to me that it is sound. Likewise, articles such as this are not always very stable in terms of vandalism, but I don't see edit wars or disputes on a scale that should prevent it being GA. Finally, images are generally OK; I am aware there is a live debate about one image that relates to one of the GA criteria ("images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions"), but there is a sensible discussion going on, and I don't think editors are trying to keep an image in the article that is clearly agaisnt the criteria. I hope these points address your concern. Let me know if not. hamiltonstone (talk) 02:45, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Please show where I seem "concerned that this wasn't handled as processes as are at FAR/FARC". Which is your first claim.--Amadscientist (talk) 03:00, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I didn't - i said I wasn't sure what your concern was, so I covered a couple of options. hamiltonstone (talk) 03:03, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

You didn't what? I asked you to show where I seem concerned about these things. I don't understand "I didn't" in response to my inquiry. You DID make a claim that is not accurate, speculation or not.--Amadscientist (talk) 03:18, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry I wasn't clear re: "I didn't" - I meant "I didn't make that first claim". hamiltonstone (talk) 03:28, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

It was innaccurate and not a reason for speedy delete since it is not anything I have ever expressed and makes accusations of policy interpretation NEVER stated and I take it rather serious when being used as an excuse to speedy close a community reassesment.--Amadscientist (talk) 03:05, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

You also state "use this process if you find an article listed as a good article which does not satisfy the good article criteria." which is the reason the GAR was started. You also state:"It isn't meant primarily as an article improvement process, but as a delisting process, unless issues are quickly addressed". OK, all these points seem to have been met. Primarily doesn't mean "ever" and "unless issues are quickly addressed" would seem to also be covered by the good faith work editors are attempting. All of the FAR reasoning is your speculation and not a part of the actual reason you speedy closed. There is no debate about FAR on the GAR, the talkpage of the article or elsewhere. --Amadscientist (talk) 03:10, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Speedy closing of Community reassesment seems unreasonable if the community is working on it in good faith!

Is this speedy closing appropriate? Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Mitt Romney/1 Seems to me there was reasoning given beyond someone is working on it. Thanks for assuming bad faith on my part.--Amadscientist (talk) 02:17, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I have largely responded on the issues, above. I'm not sure what you mean about assuming bad faith. I think you're making a useful contribution, and certainly don't think you've any bad motives; I just don't think the GAR process needs to continue, since the article meets the criteria. I'm very happy to see you continue to contribute to improving it. hamiltonstone (talk) 02:50, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I believe this "Speedy close" was innaproppriate and made several accusations of mis-interpretations of FAR, above in speculation, instead of simply contacting the editor being accused of these things for clarification. This speedy close was NOT appropriate and I request it be restored for the community to continue working on. I also believe these types of "shoot from the hip" decisions, accompanied by accusations or speculation of any kind contribute to editors leaving or stopping further contributions.--Amadscientist (talk) 03:21, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

For other editors who may wish to express a view, as well as for myself: can I just get clarification of whether you still believe that the article fails to meet the GA criteria and that I have misapplied the criteria in my reading of the community discussion on the page? hamiltonstone (talk) 03:31, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Muhammad GA review

This article was delisted on 12 May by User:Veritycheck as a result of a GA review, and then relisted on 13 August and the Review result retrospectively changed by User:Tarc without any new review that I can see. Personally, I don't think the article is a GA. Right now, it has five templates pointing out citation problems, MOS problems like "He" when referring to God in the body text, prose disasters like

• "He later worked mostly as a merchant, as well as a shepherd, and was first married by age 25",
• "The revelations (or Ayah, lit. "Signs [of God]")—which Muhammad reported receiving until his death—form the verses of the Quran, regarded by Muslims as the “Word of God” and around which the religion is based",
• "The Quran addresses Muhammad in the second person not by his name but by the appellations prophet, messenger, servant of God ...",
• "God has caused some messengers to excel above others 2:253 and in Sura Al-Ahzab 33:40 He singles out Muhammad as the "Seal of the Prophets""

I wouldn't even want to begin drilling down into the sources. So what is the most appropriate action now, given this state of affairs? JN466 10:57, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Has the thought of trying to fix these issues ever crossed your mind? Resolute 13:51, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

The review had no consensus to de-list from GA; Veritycheck did that unilaterally. After the initial arguments were shown to be bogus, some new issues cropped up (such as a copyvio) which I understand have been fixed, so there was no real reason to de-list in the first place. Template tags that have appeared recently should be addressed and fixed; de-listing from GA without even bothering to fix these things is rather drastic. ~Amatulić (talk) 19:34, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

An individual reassessment does not need consensus, it is up to the nominator (in that case Veritycheck) to decide whether it meets the criteria. If there is disagreement the next step is to bring it to a community reassessment. AIRcorn (talk) 02:49, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Personally, I think Veritycheck lost the right to unilaterally delist when their ridiculous rationale was found to be invalid. It became (unofficially) a community reassessment at that point, and the community had no consensus. Resolute 02:54, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Bad faith delistings should not be counted and editors that abuse the process should be sanctioned. Not sure that is the case here. Either way I think any controversial cases like this should probably always go through the community (maybe needs stronger wording here). If that had been brought straight to a community reassessment it would most likely have been relisted (see the article history of Margaret Thatcher for a recent case). Still it should have gone through the protst. AIRcorn (talk) 07:25, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

I remember that individual GA review and disagreed with the nominator that it was unstable. Other issues were raised but I was not aware that he delisted the article. I again noticed it when it appeared in a catscan I run from time to time to find mistakenly, or not, added GA templates on unreviewed articles. I was confused for a while, but figured it was because of missing reassessments [18] although it still appears there now so there must be something else going on (maybe the missing current status parameter). The revert of Veritychecks close was out of process so there is a good case to change it back to delist. However the best course may just be to open a community GA review, as controversial topics should really be dealt through that process rather than individual reviews. AIRcorn (talk) 02:49, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

articles should enter in the good articles sections only by authors submission. why is it that any users can read "the tag with proposition" and notin their talkpage??[file:signature.png] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.25.110.199 (talk) 02:30, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Pink Slime

Can someone close Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Pink slime/1. I was involved in a dispute over the article earlier so it would be best if someone else does it. AIRcorn (talk) 02:42, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Hello. Hello. Is there anybody here? AIRcorn (talk) 13:08, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes there is someone here. I will read the reassessment and then article and then come to a decision. There seems to be little in the way of participation, so I'm not going to close it without doing the background checks first. Pyrotec (talk) 14:27, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Not many do. Homeopathy only got about four participants and I was the only one I know of who hadn't been involved with the article previously. Thanks for taking this one on and I hope you stick around. This place is crying out for experienced reviewers willing to comment on or close reviews. AIRcorn (talk) 23:15, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Reassesment Organic Food 2007

I was searching in the archives for the reasons why the article Organic food was delisted on 15 October 2007. For some reason, I fail to find it. Wrong date, wrong place or so? I think I need some help... The Banner _talk 00:42, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

There was a sweep of all early GAs to make sure they met up to the current standards (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force/Sweeps). Most of this was before my time so I might be wrong, but I believe it was in response to getting the GA "green spot" put into article space. Anyway, what you are looking for is at Talk:Organic food/Archive 2#GA Sweeps (on hold). AIRcorn (talk) 01:16, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

The Sweeps pre-dates the "green spot". Many of the articles that were awarded GA status prior to 26 August 2007 were found to have been awarded GA without an adequate review, so the sweep, which took three years to complete, re-reviewed every article in the list. Those that were found to be non-compliant with the requirments were either delisted immediately, or put "On Hold". For those articles that were put On Hold, the relevant wikiprojects were informed and given time to bring the article(s) up to standard. The record shows that Organic food was put On Hold for 12 days before being delisted. There is a link to the review in the articles milestones template on the article's talkpage but the relevant section has been archived and that link was not been updated. I have now updated it. The template also gives a link to the article at the time that it was delisted and that shows that the article had several {{citation needed}} flags present. Pyrotec (talk) 20:23, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I was just curious why is was delisted, but looking at the links and your words, it should never have been promoted in the first place. Clear. The Banner _talk 20:51, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. It was promoted to GA in 2006 and on that basis was put up for WP:FAC in February 2007 but it did not make it through that "hurdle" and soon lost its GA as well. Pyrotec (talk) 21:06, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I am glad that someone appreciates the purpose of the Sweep. It was a very time and labour consuming process. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 17:31, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes indeed. I came in towards the end, some time after you, and I did only 46 sweep reviews, but one reviewer did over 300 reviewers and another over 600. Pyrotec (talk) 17:57, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Badly written instructions

I wanted to close my GAR at Talk:Henri Brocard but the instructions here are so badly written I cannot do it (and no, I don't intend to waste more than 5 minutes of my time trying to decipher them). I'll however list the problems with the instructions so somebody who knows what to do can fix them:

• "go to the community reassessment page" - what is the community reassessment page? Link it. It certainly is not the Talk:Henri Brocard/GA1 because it doesn't have the mentioned string.
• "On the talk page of the article, replace {{GAR/link|GARpage=n}} by adding or updating {{ArticleHistory}}." - replace means remove? ArticleHistory exists, update it HOW?

Thus I failed at both steps. Whoever wrote the above instructions - go take a course in manual writing. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:46, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Those are the instructions for closing a community reassessment. What you want is step 5 from the individual reassement column. I just realised that it doesn't mention what to do if you decide to keep it, which it probably should even though the steps are roughly the same. I showed you how to close these a while ago. Simply put keep or delist on the reassessment page (Talk:Henri Brocard/GA1) and then update the article history template to say whatever you decide to do. The instructions are at {{articlehistory}}, but what I do is copy the previous one, increment the number by one manually (for example if the previous fields were action1 change them to action2) and change the fields (GAN to GAR and so on). If it is delisted then the Wikiproject classes should be changed (GA to B or C), the article removed from the list at WP:GA and the {{good article}} template removed from the article. AIRcorn (talk) 12:19, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

You also need to remove the {{GAR/link}} template from the talk page (that is what links to the reassessment and is now covered by the link in the article history). AIRcorn (talk) 12:30, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

I did all but the article history. I think I could do it too, if I dedicated 10 minutes or so to learning this arcane tool, but to be frank - I have better things to do with my time, like create content. If you or someone else who understands this can fix the article history, please do. Hopefully one day this template will be made more user friendly or automated. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 14:19, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Done. Ideally there should be a way to just change the status field in the {{GAR/link}} template to just delisted or kept and then a bot should be able to do the rest. The article history is updated when the article is listed as Good so it should be possible. AIRcorn (talk) 14:47, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. This is a good idea, might be worth proposing it at Template talk:Article history. Ping me if you do so and I'll gladly endorse it. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:02, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Dead links

If a GA has dead links and no archives or replacement links can be found (such as by the WayBack Machine), then the content doesn't meet Wikipedia's verifiability policy, which is a requirement for GAs (see WP:GACR). So why does WP:GAR state that "Many problems, including the presence of dead URLs...are not covered by the GA criteria and therefore not grounds for de-listing." Till 12:02, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Verifiability is only required for "direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons - science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines". If a dead link is used to support one of these things then it can cause the article to be delisted (or the information to be removed). AIRcorn (talk) 01:16, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Dead links are a common problem with many articles. Currently 5353 Good articles have dead links tagged (many more will not be tagged). It is possible that over half of all Good rated articles could be delisted if this was a requirement. AIRcorn (talk) 01:19, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Also, having a web link is not a requirement for a citation. ~Amatulić (talk) 01:33, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Risk parity

The Risk parity article received GA status on September 15, 2011. Since that time it has received about 25 minor edits to tweak the article and strengthen the citations [19]. On January 4th, 2013 User: Don4of4 began a reassessment and failed the article claiming it needed more images and wasn't comprehensive enough. I left a detailed response and challenged his logic and the misapplication of GA guidelines in his reassessment. He has not returned to WP since Jan 4th, the day he reassessed and failed the article.[20] I don't think this is appropriate procedure nor is it fair to me or the original GA reviewer, User: SCB '92. Can someone help me?-- — Keithbob • Talk • 23:41, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

It seems that Don4of4 did not close the last GAR. Images are not really a concern unless there are free suitable ones available. Comprehensiveness is a GA issue though. I will have a look and comment at the open reassessment. As an individual reassessment it is up to Don4of4 to close it. If it is failed and you believe that to be in error the next step is to nominate it for a community reassessment here (I can help you do that if we need to). AIRcorn (talk) 10:51, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

History of the Jews in Mauritius

Does History of the Jews in Mauritius qualify for GA Reassessment? I was surprised to see it listed as such because it was so short. According to the criteria, shortness in and of itself is not an issue, but it seems to fail "broad in coverage", since it covers a very small portion of the history. I'm new at this, however, and I don't want to waste everyone's time with an official reassessment if I'm way off base, so I figured that it was short enough for maybe someone to just take a quick look? 184.187.183.118 (talk) 21:11, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

You have it right with your interpretation of the criteria. This article rings a bell for some reason. Will have a look at it. AIRcorn (talk) 10:13, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Found Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations/Archive 16#History of the Jews in Mauritius and the concerns raised there still seem to be valid. I personally find the broadness criteria the hardest to assess as it requires some knowledge of the topic. Having gaps is a good indication that somethings missing and 60 years is a long time considering the short history. You are not way off base and would have a good case for delisting. Saying that it is not the worst article in the world and I doubt there is much information to be found to fill the gaps. AIRcorn (talk) 11:11, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I'll have to look, I can't say that I'm an expert on the topic, but I'll see what's available. Thanks for the reply (sorry mine is so late!). 184.187.183.118 (talk) 16:53, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Well this book alone makes me believe that there's more to be said about the 1940-1945 period, let alone the aftermath. I think there's a good case, so I'm going to nominate it. 184.187.183.118 (talk) 18:57, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm, apparently I can't create a nomination since I'm a lowly anon. But I still there's a good case here. 184.187.183.118 (talk) 19:01, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

The period between 1940 and 1945 is probably the Patria disaster or its aftermath.--Tomcat (7) 20:32, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Talk:No worries/GA2 request for community reassessment

• No worries
  • Talk:No worries/GA2

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

1. The nominator failed to consult the instructions and neglected to notify me, the original GA contributor who brought the page to GA.
2. The nominator failed to cite any secondary sources to back up any of his assertions.
3. The article hadn't principally changed or been degraded in quality in any way since its initial GA promotion.
4. The article already did indeed have a worldview perspective, bringing together information from numerous secondary sources.
5. The article already did include discussion of usage in multiple locations, including a total of five (5) countries.

• Can this GA Review please take the form of a community reassessment and not an individual assessment, or at least not from a contributor with a vested interest to delist the article page who did not do due diligence first???

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