Wikipedia talk:Good articles/GAN Backlog Drives/March 2011

Pre-drive discussions

We have a week before the GAN backlog elimination drive starts (remember this month ends on the 28th of February). A few housekeeping things we need to iron out before the drive gets underway:

Awards: I used the same award scheme and types of awards as last year's drive. Any suggestions on different numbers, different awards, etc.?
Quality control: In the past, we have had a couple of volunteers who would review a few of the completed GANs for completeness, thoroughness, etc. If there are any volunteers for that task, that would be great. I know in the past we had 2 or 3 of them, which I think should be fine.
Graphs: Last year, we had a couple of users do some graphs for us (as with File:GanDrive.png). Again, any volunteers to do some graphs for us would be helpful. We'll have the running tally again from last year as well as the number of GANs per person left to meet our goals, which I think a lot of people liked last year.
Overall formatting: Personally, I like to keep things neat and organized on the GBED page, but if anyone has any better suggestions for housekeeping or formatting, go ahead and shoot away.

Any and all discussion on the above topics, as well as those which I did not mention, is welcome. –MuZemike 00:53, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you can't get anyone to do the graphs, I'll be happy to do them for you. Let me know. – SMasters (talk) 01:42, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That would be great. My suggestion, however, would be to use a new filename for this year's graph (i.e. other than File:GanDrive.png) so we have something to look back on when this backlog drive is done. –MuZemike 17:42, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK, sure, no problems. – SMasters (talk) 00:50, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Where, exactly, do we list pages we've reviewed? Ironholds (talk) 10:34, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In the running total section, below where I added the box showing what is to be added. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 17:55, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would be happy to do spot checks on reviews. Jezhotwells (talk) 17:05, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I didn't see you here. Would you like to do the graphs or do you want me to do them? – SMasters (talk) 01:02, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I thought it might be easier as you have the original templates. – SMasters (talk) 04:31, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK; I will get to that after my next review. Jezhotwells (talk) 18:32, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent, thanks! – SMasters (talk) 01:38, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Getting started

The GA backlog elimination drive is less than an day away. Here are some links to get those who are fairly new to the GA review process started:

Wikipedia:Good article criteria → Our criteria for good articles on Wikipedia (all of them must be met in order to pass)
Wikipedia:Reviewing good articles → Our guideline on reviewing GA nominations
"A guide to the Good Article Review Process" → A Signpost guide written late last year by Wizardman, which goes through the GA review process.
Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Report → try to get those GA nominations that are the oldest as well as those which have been placed on hold or under review for a long time, and it looks like the reviewer may have abandoned the GA review.

When in doubt about something always ask! Go at your own pace, and don't push yourself too hard. Always remember that one of the objectives for GA nominations is to try to increase the overall quality of articles, either by making improvements or by pointing out issues. –MuZemike 18:27, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The GAN nominations that are the longest on hold currently:

Talk:Sako Chivitchian/GA1 (49 days), in which the reviewer has asked yesterday that someone else take over the review.
Talk:Linguistic competence/GA1 (28 days), but it looks like it just needs to be punched in as a "fail" as multiple editors say that one doesn't meet the GA standards.
Talk:Shakib Al Hasan/GA1 (26 days), it looks it's just going fairly slowly, but progress is being made.
Talk:Missouri River/GA1 (18 days), still being worked on it looks like.

Note that Talk:Myles Kennedy/GA1 says 79 days, but that is inaccurate, as a reviewer picked up the review about 7 days ago. Finally, keep in mind that GA nominations should ideally not be on hold for any longer than 1 week unless extraordinary reasons permit. Anyways, if you go to Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Report, you can find updated lists of all oldest GANs as well as all oldest GANs under review and those on hold. –MuZemike 21:26, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That section Holds over 7 days old is mostly (almost entirely) a work of fiction; and what happened to the "When in doubt about something always ask!", presumably it only applies to other people. Pyrotec (talk) 23:28, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I though I implied that above in my first paragraph. –MuZemike 00:13, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well No, it was explicitly stated only in respect of Talk:Myles Kennedy/GA1. Pyrotec (talk) 20:40, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Quality v quantity

Perhaps we can find a way to reward editors for taking on reviews of bigger articles, rather than just the number of reviews? For example, I'm currently reviewing Tony Blair and I fully expect it will be several weeks before I can consider passing it, so reviewing an article like that is obviously going to take considerably more work than reviewing an article on, say, an hour-long TV episode that's only 40 minutes because of all the damn adverts! I'm not knocking smaller articles or calling any topic less "worthy", but it would be nice if we could recognise editors who take on a smaller number of challenging reviews as well as those who do a larger number of reviews that are more-or-less "open and shut". HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:18, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Check out the Copy Edit Backlog Drive awards to see how we break things down by different counts. Might be possible to do something similar with GAN, although it may be too late to make changes now, since the drive is starting in less than five hours. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 19:36, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I kind of like this idea. I can think of a couple simple, hard-to-game (or at least easy to catch gaming), ways to do this. First, a certain size cutoff - any article over 40kb at the start of the review gets the reader two "points" towards barnstars. It should be at the start to prevent any reviewers pushing for padding to increase article size. In general, bigger = more "important" (although not always, I realize). Second, the same cutoff the WikiCup uses - any article which exists on at least 20 Wikipedias, as of 1 March 2011 (date changed for drive purposes). This would serve to pick out "important" topics, I believe. Thoughts? Dana boomer (talk) 19:44, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I know last year I reviewed (and eventually passed) the GA nomination for Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant, which is about 90,000 characters of prose and over 150KB in overall size; that one review took up a good chunk of my time as it was a more seriously-written topic, not to mention immensely large. Perhaps, for starters, we could denote somehow those GA reviews whose articles are over, say and arbitrary number of characters of readable prose, say 50K. Thoughts? –MuZemike 21:11, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think an article can be a difficult subject to review without necessarily being enormous—for example an article on a high profile politician is always going to be tricky, whereas last week's episode of your favourite soap opera is not so tricky (but the dedication required to get it to GA is still admirable). HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:44, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But then that gets us into the position of having to judge which articles are "worthy" and which aren't, which I don't think any of us wants to do, or is even qualified to do. Look at the reams of discussion that took place before the WikiCup put their multiplier into place. However, at this point, I don't think that we really have time to change the scoring, with the drive starting in less than an hour. By the end of the last drive I believe there were less than a dozen unreviewed articles - if that's the case in this drive as well, then both the long and the short, the important and the not-so-much, will get reviewed, it's just a question of when. I don't think we really have to worry that we'll end up with a few dozen 60kb articles left over at the end of the drive, but maybe I'll be proven wrong. Dana boomer (talk) 23:09, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Reviews started before 1 March

I see a few reviews in the list that were commenced before 1 March. Surely these do not qualify? Jezhotwells (talk) 02:12, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would say they don't. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 02:16, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I think they shouldn't count if their reviews started before the drive. GamerPro64 (talk) 02:18, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

DustFormsWords (talk) seems to have jumped the gun somewhat. Jezhotwells (talk) 02:20, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Some of these are mine; they're ones started for the Great Backlog Drive that, yes, I'm attempting to claim twice. I would argue they should count, in that we won't be counting ones concluded AFTER the drive, and thus the relevant capture point would appear to be the conclusion of the review rather than its beginning. Or alternatively change it to include reviews started during the drive and concluded within 7 days afterwards, and I won't be bothered. - DustFormsWords (talk) 02:23, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

While we're on the topic, GamePro64's one completed review is a quickfail, which per the drive guidelines is also not to be counted. :-) - DustFormsWords (talk) 02:24, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Where does it say that? GamerPro64 (talk) 02:27, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On the Project page: "Only pass/fail will be recognized as completing a review. If necessary, you can put the article on hold if the article needs to be edited further to be passed. Once you have passed or failed the article after putting it on hold, then include your review below. Quick-fails will not be counted. Please state if the article is a pass, fail, or on hold. Make sure you follow up on holds." Jezhotwells (talk) 02:30, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I seem to recall that a period of time was allowed last year to compete review (7 days?). Jezhotwells (talk) 02:32, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

All right. The two relevant (early) GARs for me are Truth According to Wikipedia and Road to... - can I leave them up just for now, to see if anyone else wants to back me up on having them counted? And if nothing arrives I'll de-list them myself per the community consensus. At the end of the day I'm doing GARs because I want good GARs done, so while it's sad to not score them it's not like I only did them for the score. - DustFormsWords (talk) 02:34, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the article from my list now that I saw the note. I wish I found that out last year, though. GamerPro64 (talk) 02:40, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want to make a big thing about this. I just read it as reviews started after 1 March 00:00 (UTC) were those which counted. I agree that the main aim is to perform good reviews and get the backlog down. Jezhotwells (talk) 02:43, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ankit Maity's Reviews

Just a quick observation, and I may be wrong, but I think this user's two reviews need to be "reviewed" as it were by someone with more experience as they look a little hasty. Firstly, the Operation Titstorm review was closed as a fail without any comments. Looking at it briefly, I don't see any quick fail reasons. Secondly, the Famine in India article was passed without comment (note that its link is Talk:Famine in India/GA3). I find it difficult to belief that an article that long, and that controversial as seen on its talk page and in its previous two failed GA noms, would have absolutely nothing wrong it. A brief look at it sees a few potential copy edits and some areas that aren't entirely clear. Nor do the numerous issues on the talk page seem to have been dealt with completely. I think the user is reviewing in good faith, but might not fully understand the process, or may need some pointers. (Or I may be completely wrong.) Ravendrop 04:45, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh dear! I see no other course of action but to revert both—passing a hugely controversial, 35kb article at a glance and quick-failing an article without giving any reason where there are no obvious problems. I've reverted him and the articles should be relisted at GAN by the bot. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 05:29, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have written a new review at Talk:Operation Titstorm/GA2 however, I believe that between HJ Mitchell and myself, we have throughly confused the bot. Racepacket (talk) 13:08, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's not difficult in my experience! As long as it gets a proper review, it doesn't really matter who the bot thinks is doing it. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:10, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've only just found this thread. I've already raised concerns at Wikipedia talk:Good articles#WP:GAN reviews by User:Ankit Maity. By then I had reviewed a renomination of one of his reviews (which he failed) that the original nominator renominated without comment; and commented at WP:GAR on one article that he passed, but the nominator self-referred to WP:GAR. His review at Talk:Perl/GA2 looks contenious and he appears to be nominating the (non-existant) articles that match the Talk:foo/GA1 review pages at WP:GAN. Pyrotec (talk) 23:15, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

LivingBot

It appears that the bot may have fallen over so it would be wise to manually update the Wikipedia:Good articles/recent page. I have informed User:Jarry1250. Jezhotwells (talk) 00:11, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations!

I'd just like to say thank you to all of those reviewing. We have 100 (approx) articles on review. If we keep at it we will make considerable inroads into the backlog. Jezhotwells (talk) 00:25, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

28 days to go! The real challenge will be making sure a backlog as big as this one doesn't develop again. Thurgate (talk) 00:34, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hate to shoot everyone's hopes down, but I only count 55 so far from the main GBED page. –MuZemike 06:54, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, last year, we went down 94 on the first day in the last drive (and we have about 2 hours left until the GA bot updates the stats). –MuZemike 06:56, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bot malfunction

3 articles that I have recently reviewed have all been just been failed by the bot, even though I had listed them as a pass, and I was wondering what I do now to remedy the situation. Thanks in advance. Thurgate (talk) 00:57, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't do anything. As long as the paperwork is in order (ie it's listed and you've put {{subst:GA}} on the talk page), it doesn't matter what the bot's edit summary says. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:06, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed template

I (belatedly) made a template to help with the formatting of the lists of reviews.

produces

Tony Blair (Review)
Margaret Thatcher (Review)

which automagically link to the review page as well as the article, making it easier to spot-check review quality. Geometry guy 19:52, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

...and to keep track of the reviews. Excellent idea! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:58, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, it could make it easier to see who quick-failed an article and added it to their countercounter. GamerPro64 (talk) 20:09, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what good that would do, nor why we have quick-fail anyway. If we have to have it, it should only be for articles that are clearly never going to be GAs, but that's just my 2¢. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:23, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I've rolled it out: the template can also be substituted:

produces

Margaret Thatcher (Review)

i.e., # {{icon|GA}} [[Margaret Thatcher]] (''[[Talk:Margaret Thatcher/GA3|Review]]'') .

Substitution may be necessary if more than 500 reviews are listed, as the template uses an expensive parser function to find the review page. Geometry guy 14:25, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The page is currently at c,400/500 uses of "expensive parser functions" (if you are interested to check this, use "view source" in your browser and scroll close towards the bottom). The number "400" is approximately the number of drive reviews, but each review gets multiplied by the total number of GAN reviews (which is mostly 1). So the page may survive to the end of the drive without breaking: if not, I hope experienced reviewers can substitute the template without problems. I suggest template substitution for future drives. Geometry guy 23:56, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It would not be too hard to carry out a full substitution of the template on the page, using find and replace. Adabow (talk · contribs) 03:40, 22 March 2011 (UTC)r[reply]

I agree it would not be hard (and used find and replace myself for the roll out). I raised the issue because minimizing disruption is preferable for the benefit of reviewers with less broad experience. Not everyone knows how templates work or what a substitution is. If the limit is exceeded (which is likely, as the count is now 441), it may be simpler and easier if a few of the most experienced and extensive contributors to the drive substitute the template in their own (remarkably prolific!) lists of reviews. Geometry guy 03:55, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have now chnaged my list to use subst format; not sure how this helps as I don't really understand template features, but hope this helps. Jezhotwells (talk) 10:23, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In doing so, you may have single-handedly solved the potential problem. This is your edit. Template substitution fixes things in stone, so that they do not need to be re-evaluated. For example, the template did not know that Talk:Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)/GA3 was at /GA3: it had to search for it. After substitution, the search is over ;)

The current count for expensive parser functions is back down at 359/500, so it is unlikely the page will break in the last week of the drive. Instead, in the spirit of the drive, I hereby challenge reviewers contributing to the drive to review enough articles to break this page by April 1. A break will mean that the (Review) link will go red towards the end of the list. Geometry guy 04:24, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Community reassessments

What happens if an article fail or passes and is later getting a community reassessment? Does it affect the reviewers count number? Example GamerPro64 (talk) 04:29, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That should depend on whether the original assessment was "defectively" carried out; and it's not my call. Some reviews have been struck off (see a section about four above this one), but the example that you give here was described as a "good faith" assessment with some disagreement over WP:OR and on whether a "On Hold" or a "quick fail", was the appropriate response. This appears to be a "shades of grey" example in contrast to the "black and white" poor (substandard) reviewing done elsewhere. For example, the one before it at GAR. Pyrotec (talk) 13:09, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, but would add that this is a matter for the drive organizers to determine. GAR itself doesn't primarily rule on whether a review was defective or not: the issue at a GAR is whether the article meets the GA criteria. However, hopefully, community reassessments will provide useful information to help the drive organizers identify and discount inadequate reviews. Geometry guy 14:41, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I should have expressed myself somewhat better. As Geometry guy clearly stated, the GAR will only produce a Pass or Fail verdict (well, it could give a Hold); and I suspect that in the case of the first example it might not be too easy to make a case that the original review was defective. However, there are other cases where the original review was clearly defective, and has been overturned; but in all cases its the organizer's decision that is final in respect of the "count". Pyrotec (talk) 19:32, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nearing another milestone

There are now only four GANs left from 2010 to review. We're making great progress so far, and I see that the number continues to gradually decrease. We should be able to get it under 200 in maybe a week's time. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 20:38, 6 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

New format

I think we should consider an alternative way of submitting what we review. Because when I edit the page to add what I just finished a review, I either get an edit conflict, or my computer is too slow to submit it.--12george1 (talk) 18:52, 7 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't noticed any problems, can you be more specific? Jezhotwells (talk) 11:43, 9 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think he means having separate editable headings as opposed to non-editable headings would help that problem. However, if we do that, we would need to suppress subsections in the TOC, as we don't want to clog up half the page with whitespace and a TOC. –MuZemike 15:47, 9 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would be in favor of creating subsections (much like DYK does). It would then make it much easier to add new additions to your specific subsection. Ruby2010 talk 04:42, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Question.

I began reviewing Saluki for GA just before March, but I completed the review a few hours ago. To make sure, would this still count for the drive? Wilhelmina Will (talk) 01:05, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think that you will find the the answer to that in an earlier thread. Only reviews started after 00:00 1 March count. Jezhotwells (talk) 15:33, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okey-doke!!! Wilhelmina Will (talk) 22:23, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Counting actual number of GA reviews

Does anyone have a method for counting the actual number of GA reviews which have been undertaken. I ask as the current stats fail to take account on new nominations which are broadly keeping pace with the number of reviews completed. Jezhotwells (talk) 01:25, 12 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Only way I know of for right now would be manually counting what we have recorded. As of this post it's 256, though that doesn't count those reviewed outside of the drive. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 04:00, 12 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

GAN Nominations Report

The bot which updates this is down, so I have manually updated the stats. I have notified the bot owner. Jezhotwells (talk) 12:03, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The bot has now produced the report so I have updated. Jezhotwells (talk) 15:48, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

User:KnowIG's GA reviews

User:KnowIG is now indefinitely blocked, and he has left quite a few GA nominations that are on hold.:

If anyone can pick up and finish these GA nominations, that would be great. –MuZemike 16:12, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm taking over Battle of Yongsan. Dana boomer (talk) 17:55, 27 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

2011 Budweiser and Keith Aulie done. I'll fail the bottom one tomorrow as the concerns were never addressed anyway and I see more issues on a skim. Just leaves three so we're doing well on this. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 15:27, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations

I would just like to say congratulations to all who took part in the drive, and thanks to MuzeMike and Wizardman for coordinating. 522 reviews were undertaken, with 423 passes, 72 fails and 27 holds as of 02:00 GMT 1 April. Jezhotwells (talk) 03:03, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, I think we did pretty well, and your total was amazing! --Beloved Freak 08:46, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]