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WP:GACR #5 says an article should be stable. But it says in a note Stability is based on the articles current state, not any potential for instability in the future. Is an article that is substantially expected to change in the near future considered 'stable'? The example I saw before asking was a legal case which has a pending appeal in the Supreme Court, which would result in substantial additions to the article once concluded, and probably become the 'bulk' of the article. I've seen others in the past but have been told such examples don't pass stability. Just wondering, do they -- are they reviewable, or autofail? ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 22:26, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

That changes will be needed in the future shouldn't disqualify articles. This is most obvious in sports articles about active players or teams, which are never static. I always thought "stability" was about edit warring, not about necessary updates being made. — Kusma ( talk) 22:36, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Sure but isn't there a difference between updating an active athlete vs writing an article effectively on something 'upcoming'? In the most extreme case this would be whether an article on an 'upcoming feature film' could be a GA (assuming said film is not cancelled)? In that case we'd expect substantial updates to the article, even if the current article is of sufficient length and its current state meets WP:GACR. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 22:48, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

I think this should rather be an anticipated failure of broadness than of stability. — Kusma ( talk) 22:51, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Or not a failure at all. For articles about things that are not static (like, living people, non-ghost towns, anything that is the topic of active research) our articles should not be static. Our FA and GA processes do not assess how articles change in time and whether they are updated in a timely fashion (as far as I can recall, only the Featured Portal process ever did something like that). Instead, we just make sure the article meets the criteria at one point in time and hope/AGF that updates will continue to have the same quality. I don't think "updated often enough" is useful to check at promotion time, but it is something that we should enforce by reassessments. (And if the reassessment process is broken, that is not a good reason to make whole classes of articles ineligible for GA when they are eligible for FA). — Kusma ( talk) 08:10, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

In general the expectation of future changes should not be a cause for dismissal. Articles where content would change day-to-day or week-to-week should not be considered, as they are unstable even if they are not edit warring. In the example above where a big change is expected, and that change is relatively imminent (say one or two months?), I would bring this up with the article nominator. If they intend to update, and the article as written by them is of decent quality, I would say you could pass per update AGF as Kusma mentions. Alternatively, they might agree to keep the GA on hold until the imminent updates happen. CMD ( talk) 08:17, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

That example does sound more like a broadness issue, but the GACR note you bring up does somewhat irk me; the spirit of the stability criterion, at least as I see it, is checking that the article will more-or-less stay in a similar condition to as it was reviewed, from the point of review and going forward indefinitely - so with good reason to anticipate disruption, future instability should probably be considered, rather than the 'pass it now, GAR later if needed' approach that the note seems to recommend. Kingsif ( talk) 00:01, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

I probably misunderstand what you are saying, but I think articles about presidential candidates should be eligible for GA, not just for FA like in 2008. — Kusma ( talk) 07:21, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

To elaborate: John McCain and Barack Obama both were TFA on the day of the 2008 US presidential election. John McCain still is a FA, while Barack Obama was demoted at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Barack Obama/archive11 after being kept at lots of previous reviews. — Kusma ( talk) 08:04, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

I added the note based on this discussion and this RFC. It was supposed to provide clarification around articles that had the potential for future instability. I see the spirit differently, more as a practical response to reviewing than a quality one (i.e. if an article is constantly changing it is virtually impossible to review). We have a link to a reviewed version on the talk page, and as a live popular encyclopaedia most articles will change at some point. Aircorn  (talk) 17:22, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

That's true but I have always thought granting GA status to something that is clearly going to have foreseeable major changes in the future needs to be done with the greatest of care. So, for instance, promoting a TV season in the middle of the season to GA, or promoting a lawsuit that has been heard but not decided by the Supreme Court. This would be different than the kind of gradual changes we'd expect from a person who is living and might continue to be in the news. Best, Barkeep49 ( talk) 18:39, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Yup, this. Kingsif ( talk) 20:08, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

I guess it is a question of time scale. An article about a slow-moving lawsuit with a year to go until the next decision will be made should be fair game. A political candidate who might be voted into a major office next week, perhaps not such a great choice. — Kusma ( talk) 09:35, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

I think when an article changes significantly day-to-day, even outside of disputes, it isn't quite stable enough for a good review/GA status. Articles changing week-to-week can be sufficiently stable, and allowing these articles a GA review benefits the encyclopedia. Waiting "too long" deprives us the opportunity to have articles reviewed when they are still read.

As for the example of a political candidate who might soon be voted into office: in many cases this will only cause an additional two paragraphs into the article after the elections, assuming it's not the first election this politician is running. Nothing much that would change the quality wrt the criteria. (articles far from GA quality would change significantly more, as they're not yet broad in scope, so the news cycle will push more changes.) On the other hand, there are benefits to having an article about a politician reviewed within the election period: the extra eyes on the article are a good way to keep POV edits out. Femke ( talk) 16:26, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Thing is - any article can change for any reason in the future. An article on 1600 warfare could change because more info was found, or an inquiry was founded. We are basically suggesting in this criteria that an article shouldn't be a GA if there is an active edit war going on. If something is about to happen - say a political race hasn't finished, a video game is about to be released, or a sporting event is still in progress, then it wouldn't be broad enough, but would be stable. Of course, if a video game was never realeased (and was notable enough), it could still be a GA (or FA for that matter), provided it was obvious it had been cancelled - even if it does eventually get released (this happened not that long ago - was it a Star Fox game or Metroid?) Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 16:32, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

I agree that such an article shouldn't fail on the basis of stability, but I'm not sure that it fails on broadness, either. I have always read the broadness criterion as being judged against the facts which are actually available in reliable sources; saying that an article about e.g. a pending court case isn't sufficiently broad because it doesn't discuss the judgement which has not yet been written strikes me as a completely new and not necessarily desirable interpretation of that criterion. Would this mean that e.g. articles on sports teams can never be GAs because we know that there will be substantial new information to be added to the article at the end of the current season? Caeciliusinhorto ( talk) 17:05, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

I think mid-season is not an ideal time for a sports GA promotion, but the broadness here is relative to the article. Something that is constantly transient, like a sports team or competition, can be complete at any one time, after each game and season, it is "complete" at that point in time. While a court case that hasn't finished, that article isn't complete until the end. Not only will a lot of the content, and likely context, change depending on the result, but a court case needs its result. Like, a BLP obviously doesn't need a death section, but a BIO does, for completion, even though we know the BLP will eventually become a BIO. So, if an article has intransient scope (the kind of things we should not expect need regular updating: historical articles; one-off events or instances of events, including court cases, ended television shows; fundamentals of the world that barring new research, we should know everything about) the broadness and stability criteria should be interpreted strictly, but articles with a transient scope (living people, sports teams, the main articles for recurring events) don't consider the standard updates these will get. If that makes sense? Kingsif ( talk) 17:27, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

I promoted a GA the previous summer, Trevor Bauer, of a subject who was not only an active professional athlete but who had just become embroiled in a legal scandal. In retrospect, I probably should not have nominated the article before much of the case was settled (only a few days ago does it seem like it reached its end, but Bauer also plans to appeal MLB's decision). Regardless, this is not about him. My interpretation of the stability criteria with regards to events that may happen or that may come to pass is that the degree of additional work that would be required to keep the article at a GA level after such large changes take place should be reasonable for the promoting editor. In the case of, again, a professional baseball player awaiting a suspension from the league, maintenance of quality could theoretically consist of as little as one sentence (Player X was suspended for # amount of time). Once a deliberation is handed from the Supreme Court on a pending case, a drastic expansion will be needed to cover the Court's opinion, the public reaction, etc., and because the article passed GAN before such an occurrence, this additional information will not be checked for quality unless the article is taken to FAC. — Ghost River 18:05, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

a BLP obviously doesn't need a death section, but a BIO does, for completion that's exactly the kind of rule that I'm worried about being implemented. I've written a bunch of biographical GAs which don't have any information about the subject's death – Corinna is the one on my mind at the moment. Suggesting that the "broadness" criterion can or should be used to reject GAs based on information that isn't yet reported in reliable sources which 'should' be included in that type of article would mean that no biographical article on an ancient woman except for Cleopatra can be a GA; I'm sure there are other classes of article that we could write off on the same basis. Caeciliusinhorto ( talk) 18:20, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

It can always be asked in the review - I reviewed Corinna for GA, I can't remember if it came up, but everything should be taken with common sense; so I presume that either I recognized she is a very historical figure and there will naturally be coverage gaps, i.e. information missing entirely, not just from the article, or I asked and you told me that. I've been talking about upholding the spirit of the stability criterion, so the spirit of the broadness criterion does include using common sense, especially with very old subjects. Kingsif ( talk) 21:03, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

I have been meaning to reply to a few of these but things are chaotic at home at the moment. Every other part of the GA criteria is about article quality, whereas even a highly unstable article can still be of good quality. We are not a crystal ball. A recently passed BLP could suddenly become embroiled in a major scandal or the upcoming predicted edits might be entered to the required standard.

To me his comes down to a few fundamental tenets of Good Articles; the end goal is to improve content and every article can potentially be a Good Article (the last is not really a tenet, but many believe it). I find quality begets quality. Editors are more likely to add good content to an article if it is good to start with. One of my early GAs was on a sportsman who was at the peak of his career. I went back after they retired and was presently surprised that it had been updated to a similar standard. A few copy edits and I was happy with it.

If someone wants to put the effort into improving content and someone else wants to put the time in reviewing it then I don't really see an issue. You can always pass on reviewing an article if you are not happy about potential future changes. And you can also fail an article if it suddenly undergoes massive changes while you are reviewing it. Delisting an article that is not updated is relatively easy compared to other issues and often actually leads to the updates being made. Aircorn  (talk) 17:18, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Hiya, Tiago Niemayer who is a new user, made a review at Talk:Squatting in Hamburg/GA1 and passed the article with no comments. Whilst I'd love to think this is due to the quality of my work, I think it's mor likely to be on account of their lack of experience. I've dropped them a note on their talk. I see Talk:Greece–Turkey relations/GA1 has the same issues. Can an uninvolved person revert the reviews? Thanks Mujinga ( talk) 08:15, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Agree with Mujinga here. The user reviewed an article I nominated and while I would like for it to finally have GA status, this – unfortunately – is not a sound and through review by an experienced editor. Colonestarrice ( talk) 08:51, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

oh gosh that one too Mujinga ( talk) 09:00, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

moving here from Wikipedia_talk:Good_articles Mujinga ( talk) 08:20, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

All three reviews (including Talk:Supreme Court of Justice (Austria)/GA1) were opened and closed on 6 May 2022, one within nine minutes, and the other two together in a 15 minutes period. There simply isn't enough time to do adequate reviews in those periods, since the article must be read carefully in its entirety and its sources checked, among other things. A quick check of Supreme Court of Justice (Austria) shows a most recent update of the number of justices to be 2018 (this should be made current), and the first paragraph under background has a number of grammatical issues including with the final sentence. For Greece–Turkey relations, the second sentence of the lede is grammatically problematic: Greece and Turkey have a long history. Formal relations as nation states since 1830 when Greece was recognised as an independent state by the Ottoman Empire. (The article has received extensive edits starting a few hours after the article was passed, and a split proposal has also been made.) For Squatting in Hamburg, I found some sections to be unclear for a variety of reasons that a competent reviewer would certainly have raised with the nominator and had fixed. All three reviews were clearly inadequate, so I will be reverting all three passages and putting the nominations back in the pool of noms awaiting review. BlueMoonset ( talk) 21:16, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks BlueMoonset! Mujinga ( talk) 08:23, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

I agree with all the above. Well done to those involved in spotting this, and doing the right thing. SilkTork ( talk) 08:35, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

I found an article that I would like to review that has not been assigned to an editor for at least 1 month. Can I review that article now or do I have to wait for a specific amount of time or make at least x amount of edits to be able to review that article? Thank you. ShiriEdits ^Talk 08:56, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

There's no specific limits. What is important is familiarity with the WP:WIAGA criteria, and the time and ability to undertake a thorough review. If you have questions, you can always ask for a second opinion. Best, CMD ( talk) 09:33, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

If a brand new editor came over and gave out good reviews, I don't think anyone would mind. We do ask for some experience with the criteria. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 10:32, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

I would suggest doing a review, and if you're not sure asking for a second opinion when you're done. ( t · c) buidhe 10:40, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Yes, good idea (and a good question). I think if all new reviewers, or all below a certain number of edits, had to do this for say their first 3 reviews it would save a lot of time in the end (see section above) and improve quality. Johnbod ( talk) 13:28, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

I'll walk you through the review User:ShiriEdits. SilkTork ( talk) 15:30, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

As suggested previously by @ Buidhe, should we have a drive in June. As of now (19:28, 19 May 2022 (UTC)), we have "526 nominations listed, of which 444 are waiting to be reviewed." The previous drive was in January, for which, all the reviews have been checked and barnstars were distributed the last week.

The commons consensus on the talk page of the drive was that either there should be a large number of coordinators to check the reviews, or editors in good standing should be allowed to check reviews of other users which they are not involved with (nominated or reviewed). The latter was adopted in the January drive months after the conclusion of the drive as there were many reviews yet remaining to be checked with just one active coordinator. Thoughts? – Kavyansh.Singh ( talk) 19:28, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

As I said before, it's not necessary to check every single review. Checking at least one by every participant and for those with multiple reviews, every 2/3 or in a pinch every 5 should be perfectly acceptable. This would greatly reduce the workload of review checkers. I'm not opposed to opening this work up to non-coords as well. ( t · c) buidhe 20:44, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Buidhe; it isn't necessary to check every review. As they say, check at least one from each person, and then spotcheck. If all checked for that user appear great, spotcheck less, if the quality is more dubious, spotcheck more. I'm happy to help with the checking, either as part of a co-ord team, or independently. My activity levels are nothing like they used to be though! Harrias ^{(he/him) • talk} 21:16, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Likewise, I'm willing to pitch in although I may not be as active as before due to being a FAC coord. ( t · c) buidhe 21:20, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

I would be willing to participate as a coord under the rules that not all reviews need checking. I just finished up the last one earlier this week, after checking over 300 reviews. I'd love to never do that again. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 21:54, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm happy to do the daily graph-and-table progress work again on the drive page. I'd like to suggest that first-time drive participants (unless experienced GAN reviewers) have their initial review(s) checked as quickly as possible, so they can be given guidance if there are issues; if they're doing a great job, then whatever the spotcheck standard happens to be after that. Will there be the extra half-point for old nominations, and also regular points offered for people who take over abandoned reviews (usually indicated by second opinion requests, though not all such requests actually want or need a full review)? BlueMoonset ( talk) 04:29, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Even I can help checking the reviews as I did in the January drive. The idea of checking a few, then spot-checking sounds good! I think the rules and the points should remain same, no? – Kavyansh.Singh ( talk) 05:23, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Like @ Kavyansh.Singh, I'm down to help with some spot checks and also contribute GANs. For me, was definitely bit of a bummer to cycle through so many GAs (for first time) only to be unsure if I was on right path or not. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him •  talk) 15:29, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

I could help out in June this time; I was unavailable in January. Hog Farm _Talk 15:34, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

If the idea of opening up spotcheck reviews to a wider group of editors becomes accepted, then there may need to be some oversight of some doing "drive-by" spotchecks, although I am unclear at what the "spotcheck" criteria would be and if this would be conveyed clearly. I don't mind chipping in with that as a low-pressure task, if the checklist is fairly clear (compared to a comprehensive review check). I do agree that if a percentage of someone's reviews are judged to be adequate, then it's usually not necessary to undertake an exhaustive check on the entirety (especially if they're anything as long as mine can get...). Bungle ^{( talk • contribs)} 17:25, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Great idea, I will write up a review checklist based on existing policies & guidelines. ( t · c) buidhe 17:35, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Bungle I came up with a simple checklist: reviews must (1) address all of the GA criteria (2) provide constructive suggestions for improvement (3) verify at least some citations in the article. If they meet all 3 (or 1 and 2 in the case of a fail), the review is counted. This checklist is now listed at the GA drive page for reference. Does this work or should a more detailed version be written up? ( t · c) buidhe 17:50, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

One thing we can do is encourage reviewers to either use these templates to organize their review, or explicitly check every criteria. For example, the reviewer should write down: "The article is stable, no copyvio found", etc. is the article passes these criteria. Because many short reviews in the January drive appeared to be just prose reviews, and there was no way for the coord to know whether all criteria have been checked. Does this work? – Kavyansh.Singh ( talk) 17:56, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

I have found that some newer or inexperienced editors sometimes use the templates, but still post reviews that fall short of being acceptable. This isn't an issue exclusive for drives, but is more common in an environment where there is a competitive element (and against the clock). I personally think every review should use at least a basic checklist template, but there are many experienced reviewers who genuinely do not need this. I agree it may help somewhat for someone later checking the reviews. Bungle ^{( talk • contribs)} 18:01, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, there are many experienced editors who really don't need these templates. So lets not mandate it, but nothing wrong in encouraging it. I have seen reviews in the last drive which had just 3-4 prose suggestions and then the article was passed (by fairly experienced editors). Nothing wrong with it, we have few short GA level articles nominated which do not need much to be changed, but should those reviews count in the drive? – Kavyansh.Singh ( talk) 18:09, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

I note you placed this within the core of the drive page, although lets not conflate an actual GA review (and its respective criteria) with a spotcheck review (in a sense, a review of the review). I think the GA review criteria is already well established and we need not make any bespoke amendments to this. My point is that if we are allowing a wider number of editors to verify reviews that have been submitted, then it would benefit from being clear as to what in that review needs checking (to validate it as a proper review). Every participant should have at least some of their reviewers thoroughly vetted regardless, as noted above. Bungle ^{( talk • contribs)} 17:58, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Well, from my perspective these things are complementary: whatever requirements a review needs to be counted should be clear to both reviewers and checkers of reviews. I wouldn't want to make reviewers feel that there are additional requirements that they didn't realize were a thing. ( t · c) buidhe 18:10, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

I've now started a draft GAN drive page at Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/GAN Backlog Drives/June 2022, based on the January 2022 page and rules, naming all of us as coords. Further discussion should probably be on the talk page. ( t · c) buidhe 15:45, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/GAN Backlog Drives/June 2022 is starting in a week! Please sign up! ( t · c) buidhe 19:30, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Will the GAN review I started for the January drive be eligible? (I'm not kidding, it's been a while.) – Reidgreg ( talk) 23:53, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

If you didn't count it for the January drive, why not! ( t · c) buidhe 00:27, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Because it was started before June 1, maybe? The drive page is very clear about this: Reviews started before 1 June do not count, so ones started before February 1 surely don't count. Sorry, Reidgreg. We'd love to have you take on new reviews for the drive. BlueMoonset ( talk) 19:47, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Hello, I have nominated the two articles for GA, however, there are no reviewers. I am constantly working on them to improve. I am currently available to work to make these two articles qualify for GA. I shall be going on a break from Wikipedia, so, it is requested that some of the reviewers may please start review. I promise to be readily available for the time of review to work on them. Thanks, User4edits ( talk) 14:07, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

The second nominee is a list, so I've quick-failed it for not being part of the scope covered by the GA process. I have left notes for if/when you'd like to bring this up to FL standards instead. Sounder Bruce 23:05, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, I had developed it from a standalone list to somewhat of an article, but if you say it should be for FL, I shall work on it and try. Thanks again for your valuable feedback. Regards, User4edits ( talk) 10:18, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

GA review still awaiting for Banaras Hindu University. Thanks, User4edits ( talk) 22:21, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

May please be taken up during the GAN Drive Thanks, User4edits ( talk) 21:59, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

I had nominated Bangalore for GA, and it was picked up by Tayi Arajakate on 28 April. It has been over a month, and they have not yet started the review. I left a note on their talk page, but they have not edited since over a week. What should be done? Thanks, Kpddg ^(talk) 06:12, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

This is pretty common unfortunately. Sometimes life gets in the way. I would wait a bit longer if it was me as they have been pretty active this month until the last week. If they come back to editing and don't address your message or are absent for another week or so you might want to seek a new reviewer or someone can put you back into the queue. A drive is coming up soon so someone will probably pick it up during that if Tayi doesn't. Aircorn  (talk) 07:24, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. Kpddg ^(talk) 07:53, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

I think the problem here is that Tayi Arajakate opened 15 GA reviews on 28 April between 00:47 and 01:54 UTC. That's way too many at once. In the month since, four reviews have been concluded, two have had significant work done, six (including Bangalore) have been checked for copyvio (and two of these for illustrations, and a third has an additional comment made), and the other three are untouched by them. As Aircorn noted above, since we have a June GAN backlog drive starting next, if these 11 remaining reviews aren't going to be concluded in a timely manner, then those that aren't should be made available to backlog drive reviewers once the drive is under way. BlueMoonset ( talk) 05:53, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Kpddg, I'm terribly sorry for this, I'll look into it now and BlueMoonset, you are right I probably shouldn't have taken up so many of them. I was mistaken in thinking that I would have a lot of free time at that time but I'm fairly certain I can complete the rest before the end of the drive. That said if Kpddg (or anyone else) wants to, they can have their nominations listed for the drive. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 13:26, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

@ Tayi Arajakate, I posted this message here since you had not edited for over a week...now since you're back, do continue if you have enough time. Kpddg ^(talk) 13:29, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Previously this article was twice-nominated in 2020 as being Social sciences and society but today I noticed it's been nominated in Law, please see Talk:Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. I'm just wondering which section it maybe belongs in - I personally hadn't thought of the Harris & Klebold article as being a "Law" article... Shearonink ( talk) 15:42, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Law is part of SS&S ( t · c) buidhe 21:49, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

I suppose so... mean I know you're right, I've just never thought of it as an article about a Law-associated subject. Shearonink ( talk) 06:38, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

I can't see a more obviously appropriate section, and the header for law does say "crime and criminals" are in scope, so... I guess it's as good a place as any. Caeciliusinhorto ( talk) 08:12, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Ok. It's just that the previous two noms were in "Social sciences & society" and I was thinking "Law" was more for laws & law-making but that makes sense. Shearonink ( talk) 13:56, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

I see the comment "No source verification (see instructions)" placed in a number of reviews, including one of mine, and I am unclear what it means. I cannot see any reference to "source verification" in the GA instructions and a search for "source verification" on wikipedia yields only this redirect to an article on livestock source verification. Can you please help? simongraham ( talk) 22:21, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

It's a requirement for getting counted in the backlog drives, see the third point here. ArcticSeeress ( talk) 23:12, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

The guidelines state "Review thoroughly. To be counted in the drive, if the article passes GAN, the review must (1) address all of the GA criteria (2) provide constructive suggestions for improvement (3) verify at least some citations in the article. If the article fails GAN, the review must (1) explain why the article does not meet the GA criteria and (2) provide concrete recommendations for improving the article to GA quality. The coordinators welcome help from experienced reviewers in checking reviews during the drive; please apply this checklist." I cannot see a mention of sources, but there is of citations and the two are linked in GA criteria 3b, which states "all inline citations are from reliable sources". According to WP:VER, "verifiability means other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source". I think, therefore, "verify at least some citations in the article" means "check that some of the inline citations link to reliable sources" and "source verification" means "checking that the sources are reliable". Is that correct please? simongraham ( talk) 00:41, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

simongraham Not exactly. The scoring rules for the drive link WP:Reviewing good articles, a guideline that says among other things "At a bare minimum, check that the sources used are reliable (for example, blogs are not usually reliable sources) and that those you can access support the content of the article (for example, inline citations lead to sources which agree with what the article says) and are not plagiarized..." To pass an article, you must ensure that all sources must be reliable, but at a minimum only some references must be manually checked to ensure they support the article content rather than ^{failed verification}. This process of source checking may go by various names such as verification, spot checks, etc. ( t · c) buidhe 00:49, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. That is helpful. I feel, therefore, that "source verification" means "checking that sources are reliable, support the article and are not plagarized" and "verify at least some citations in the article" means "check that some of the inline citations link to reliable sources that support the article and are not plagarized." Is that right please? simongraham ( talk) 01:24, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

What I mean by "source verification" specifically checking some sources for: 1) source supports the content and 2) no close paraphrasing or plagiarism. Checking the reliability of all the sources is a separate process, often carried out by different people during FAC reviews. ( t · c) buidhe 05:09, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

To me, "source verification" means going well beyond checking that the sources exist, are reliable, and not plagiarized (all of which are also worthwhile things to do). It requires reading and understanding the sources to the point that you are convinced that the claims in the article are actually supported by the content in the sources. You cannot be expected to do this with offline sources but you should do this with the sources you can access. — David Eppstein ( talk) 05:57, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

This. More than a superficial examination may be required to determine if the source supports the content. ( t · c) buidhe 05:59, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Context: I've done 5 reviews to date ( 1, 2, 3, 4, 5), and every time Legobot has failed to notify people of the review on their talk page (except for when I've put them on hold), not transcluded the review on the article talk page, nor given ticks to good article passes. I've also noticed that it doesn't state the number of reviews I've done on the GA nominations page ( example), or the bot's stat page. Is there a potential reason the bot's giving me the cold shoulder here? ArcticSeeress ( talk) 18:48, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

It's not you. Without looking through the times I won't be able to tell, but if you open and close the GAN before legobot can update these things, it won't update them at all. Usually this can take around 20 minutes, so I usually open a review and wait for it to update and then post a review. Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 18:55, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

ArcticSeeress, the expectation when the bot was written is that someone would open the review by creating the review page, and then conduct the review, which would take a significant period of time—certainly more than enough time for the bot to run (which it does every 20 minutes) and notice that the review page had been created, at which point the nominator is notified, and the review info added to the main WP:GAN page and the article talk page. Once that's been done, the bot will notice the various subsequent changes, and make further notifications, such as the passage or failure of the nomination, or it being placed on hold while the nominator works on fixes. Hope that future reviews go more smoothly! BlueMoonset ( talk) 20:36, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Right, I think I found the issue. I've added the "onreview" and "onhold" status to the GA nominee template on the talk page myself before the bot can update it. I'll see if it works when I don't do that next time. Thanks. ArcticSeeress ( talk) 20:55, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Yep, looks like that did the trick. ArcticSeeress ( talk) 15:50, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Hello, I noticed the one reviewing my article Kendari is a user who's edits are solely only starting GAN Reviews and I find it very unusual. Anyonne want to check on it? Thank you Nyanardsan ( talk) 09:49, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Mentioned at #New contribution-free reviewer bears watching above. CMD ( talk) 12:47, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Hello, I saw a relevant discussion started here so I want to raise a similar issue with an article that was just passed Talk:2017 vote of no confidence in the government of Mariano Rajoy/GA1 by AnonymousPurpose. Though I do admire new editors jumping into help with the project, I wanted to see if the GA review should be reassessed since I see some issues that can be addressed properly with a more thorough review. Adog ( Talk・ Cont) 13:15, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Also now this one Talk:Wings Over Jordan Choir/GA1. Adog ( Talk・ Cont) 17:30, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Same here Talk:Radium/GA3. Artem.G ( talk) 18:33, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

I saw these as part of this month's GAN backlog drive. All three reviews include no actual reviewing and should be vacated. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 18:53, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

It seems that AnonymousPurpose registered the account only yesterday and has gone on to promote at least 4 articles within the GA structure, despite no evidence of an actual review taking place on any of them! I see Trainsandotherthings has already voided the submissions on the drive, which is the right action, but i'd also suggest the "reviews" need to be undone, or the page(s) deleted where viable so someone else has the opportunity to assess more thoroughly. I am unsure if AP is just a new editor who has made an innocent mistake, or a familiar one wanting to disrupt. The actions so far are not very helpful. Bungle ^{( talk • contribs)} 19:45, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

I've gone through and voided all three articles mentioned on this thread. I'm about to go through their contribution history to make sure there aren't any more. ( t · c) buidhe 19:53, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

@ Buidhe: Here's the fourth: Talk:Booth Theatre/GA1. I noticed these rapid-fire reviews (four in a day would be quite impressive) while doing new page patrol. I wasn't sure if and where to comment on them, but they certainly caught my attention, and I'm inclined to agree with Bungle's comments. ComplexRational ( talk) 20:55, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

I did that one too ( t · c) buidhe 21:22, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

@ Buidhe: I want to chime in that this Talk:Kang Daniel/GA1 review by Flurrious also need to be looked at as there's barely any review done, and should it be voided, be listed again in the backlog drive. Lulusword (talk) 03:26, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm new to Good Article reviews, and would look forward to learning about anything I missed. Flurrious ( talk) 16:25, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi Flurrious, a Good Article review is meant to be just that - a review. It is not meant to simply wave an article through to GA status. Quite simply, there's no such thing as a perfect article. Even if you think it's amazing, surely you can think of at least one suggestion for a change. Beyond that, reviewers should be sure to check all the criteria, and explain how they checked them, not simply state they are met without further comment. For example, take a look at Talk:Train/GA1. This is a somewhat extreme example as Train is a very broad topic, but you can see how all criteria were thoroughly checked by the reviewer. For the article you reviewed, one thing I would have pointed out had I been the reviewer is the very frequent use of "In {date}" or "On {date}" throughout the article, which is essentially WP:PROSELINE. There's no minimum amount of experience we demand of reviewers, but having some experience editing helps you know what to look for and be more familiar with Wikipedia's Manual of Style. My advice to you is to start off reviewing shorter articles (something around the length of Foxboro station perhaps) and making sure you're leaving constructive criticism. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 23:16, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Trainsandotherthings explains it well. Plus, when you are done with your review, you should close it by following the reviewer instruction at Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Instructions or it will be in limbo. However, I am not sure if you are done with your review on Kang Daniel or not because you already declare that the article passes GA here but you have not close the review. Lulusword (talk) 13:03, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Over 5 years ago, I said I’d review this article and I never did: /info/en/?search=Talk:Fidget_spinner/GA1

I apologize. I shouldn’t have said I would do it. I don’t think I’m the best person to do it. I have no experience with reviewing and I think someone else would do a better job so I’d like if someone else could take over. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rhetoricalnoodle ( talk • contribs) 14:55, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Wow, I am surprised you actually remembered about it now? It looks like the GA nomination was removed shortly afterwards anyway, but the page was not. I have csd tagged it as no review took place so there is no reason to keep it. If it ever gets renominated, the reviewer can start freshly. Bungle ^{( talk • contribs)} 20:31, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Deleted. — David Eppstein ( talk) 20:38, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

I've just been made aware that Wikipedia:Reviewing good articles is tagged as a guideline, but Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Instructions and Wikipedia:Good article criteria are not. I don't see a good reason to have two sets of instruction pages that are not in full agreement with each other (the "RGA" guide has a stronger emphasis on sourcing). In any case, if one of them is a guideline and two are not, shouldn't the ones linked in the header of the main WP:GA page be the guidelines? — Kusma ( talk) 18:26, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Would be interesting to see if this ever had any kind of consensus to make it a guideline before we reduce its "overwhelming power". The Rambling Man ( Keep wearing the mask...) 18:37, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

It became a guideline back in April 2007 [1]. It was developed by several editors in workshop fashion. See the first few sections of Wikipedia talk:Reviewing good articles/Archive 1 for details. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:08, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

The header and instructions that are currently more prominently linked were added by Aircorn and Dom497 in 2013. Discussion was Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations/New Proposals for GAN, Part I. It is unclear to me right now what interplay with the WP:RGA guideline was intended. In any case, I am interested in what rules/instruction sets people actually use and follow. — Kusma ( talk) 12:24, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

I am a little confused on the issue here. The criteria are criteria, not instructions. The are the minimum standard that good articles need to reach. The instructions are instructions on how to nominate and review an article. It is mostly practical info. RGA is a more in depth guide on best practice on how to review. It is pretty informal and if it contradicts the others it should probably be the one changed.

You will be stretching my memory a bit, but if I recall correctly the criteria and instructions were already pretty well accepted, I just made the tabs for ease of access. If the proposal is to add RGA to the header then I would probably be against it as I feel it is already too crowded. If you want to reduce the instructions, moving appropriate info to the guide and more prominently linking it from there then I would support that. I have always felt the instructions have got too detailed over time. Aircorn  (talk) 16:07, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for commenting! I would love to see the instructions made shorter (that would also make it easier to compare with the RGA page). My current issue is that the fact that RGA has a "guideline" sticker and the "instructions" and "criteria" don't can lead people to assume that RGA is gospel. Which is no problem at all if RGA is perfectly synchronised with the other pages. But if it isn't, it can cause unnecessary arguments. — Kusma ( talk) 21:54, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

No problem. If I get time I may mock up some drafts. There is some flexibility in reviewing, which is a good thing, so have to be careful not to make them too rigid. I would see the instruction as almost purely step-by-step instructions and RGA just as advice (probably more an essay instead of a guideline, although the labels aren't super important). Aircorn  (talk) 18:54, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Count me in - I'm happy to help review the drafts or whatever. Atsme 💬 📧 20:38, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Hello!

The nominator of " Recuerdo" wishes to withdraw their GA nomination as they don't have time to deal with it. I don't have a problem with that, however, I have already opened the review process. Can someone please undo this? So this doesn't get stuck in some sort of weird limbo?

Cheers, MarioSoulTruthFan ( talk) 11:52, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

MarioSoulTruthFan, please tag the Talk:Recuerdo (song)/GA1 page with the {{ Db-self}} template, so it can be speedy deleted. I've removed the nomination from the article talk page. Thank you. BlueMoonset ( talk) 14:58, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Thank you so much. Cheers, MarioSoulTruthFan ( talk) 15:05, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

It's a shame - that's a high quality article. Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 15:40, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be better to see if another editor would be willing to resolve the issues, instead of outright removing it from the GA process? — PerfectSoundWhatever ( t; c) 22:52, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi! I've gotten Novem Linguae to do some work on a user script to help with GAN closures. There is only currently limited functionality, but it needs testing. If you are about to close a GAN, and are happy too, could you leave entries for Novem to close here. Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 09:38, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

@ Novem Linguae: and @ Lee Vilenski: the article Zombie pornography has passed GA review if you want to go ahead and test the script on it. Etriusus ( Talk) 03:20, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

 Done. [2] [3]. Diffs for review, let me know if anyone sees anything problematic. Don't forget to add the article yourself to the appropriate section of WP:GA. – Novem Linguae ( talk) 03:39, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi! I accidentally started reviewing Talk:Paramylodon/GA1. Could somebody please delete it for me? Patachonica ( talk) 13:19, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Tagged. – Kavyansh.Singh ( talk) 13:34, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

But then who's gonna review it after it's deleted? Patachonica ( talk) 14:06, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Anyone who wants to review it can, including you ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him •  talk) 14:13, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

No, no they can't. They nominated it, they cannot also review it. Mr rnddude ( talk) 15:10, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Talk:Cyclotron/GA1 is not even a bad review, it's not a review. For physics topic as this, a lot can be said. Should probably be reverted, so admin is needed here. Artem.G ( talk) 17:57, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

David Eppstein maybe you can have a look? Artem.G ( talk) 16:48, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

The review was pretty paltry compared to what I've been accustomed to, but I've been going over the article and haven't found any issues that would, I think, merit de-listing. The writing is as clear as can be expected for a physics topic, the sources are reliable and appear to have been used properly, etc. XOR'easter ( talk) 18:35, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

I agree that the article is not bad, but IMO such poor reviews make things unfair, when some articles got roasted for some minor problems and some just receive GA without any real review. Though ok, I wouldn't argue about it more, seems that Cyclotron is really ok. Artem.G ( talk) 19:07, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

XOR'easter, nice to see you here again! Artem.G ( talk) 19:08, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

I took a look at this for Template:Did you know nominations/Cyclotron. It is missing many citations required for DYK. If I were reviewing it for GA I would have also required them for that. I'm not sure they're egregious enough to re-open the review, nor to quick-fail the article if re-opened, though. — David Eppstein ( talk) 00:59, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Hello. I was wondering if it was alright what is happening at Talk:2022 Kentucky Derby/GA1. I started the GAN review on June 4th. During this time period, Jlvsclrk began replying to the comments on June 9th despite not being the nominator to this article. I placed the article on hold on June 9th after finishing the review. The user who nominated this article, GhostRiver has not left any comments between June 4th to June 9th, and has since been inactive.

Is it okay for Jlvsclrk to go through the review as GhostRiver is unavailable or would Jlvsclrk be considered a co-nominator? I have not received a reply from GhostRiver on Wikipedia:Discord to see if she is okay with Jlvsclrk working on the GAN or if Jlvsclrk could be a co-nominator. Also, if all of the comments are addressed by Jlvsclrk only, then who gets the credit for the GA if this article passes? Thanks! -- MrLinkinPark333 ( talk) 22:52, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Posting here rather than responding on Discord to maintain transparency among all parties. The reason I was inactive during the listed time period is mostly because I have been moving, which I informed some individuals but not all. I also typically do not start responding to comments left on my GANs until the review is placed on hold.

My understanding is that there is no right or wrong when it comes to Jlvscirk responding to the comments. However, I have had no communication with them on the matter, and they have not pinged me to let me know that they were going to start addressing the listed comments. I do not want to get into WP:OWN territory by any means, but I am mildly irked that they went through the review without contacting me as the nominator, and I would like to do my own pass over the comments.

With regards to the credit: at the end of the day, I was the one who did the labor-intensive work of bringing the article to GAN. If most of the comments were major (such as Talk:Beheading game/GA1, where the final article product was significantly different than what was nominated), then this would be a different story, but from my quick look-over (again, I have been moving and have not been at my laptop until tonight), it appears most of the edits are small tweaks to references and phrasing. — Ghost River 03:00, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for the reply. There are parts of the GAN that have not been commented on if you wish to work through them (such as lead / infobox). Therefore, you'd be part of the GAN fixes as well. Pinging @ Jlvsclrk: so they're aware of above as well. MrLinkinPark333 ( talk) 18:47, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

In short though, no, it doesn't matter who actually makes the changes, the GA review is about the article, not the nominator. Of course, that doesn't mean that you can just go to any open nom and fill in the changes... although, if anyone fancies fixing up all my noms, that wouldn't be against my rules Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 19:59, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

User:Novem Linguae/Scripts/GANReviewTool is ready for use. It automates the steps for passing or failing a GAN, including adding the GA to the appropriate section of WP:GA. Please consider installing the user script and trying it out. Please report any bugs or feature requests on one of my talk pages. Thanks. – Novem Linguae ( talk) 10:35, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the tool, Novem Linguae, it works great! I used it twice now, no problems detected. Artem.G ( talk) 16:59, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Fantoche Kugutsu ( talk · contribs) has, as their first two contributions to anything, started two reviews at Talk:Kendari/GA1 and Talk:Double bubble theorem/GA1 (one of them is my nom). There's no actual content yet. And this is not against the rules, even the expanded rules of the June review drive. But, bearing WP:AGF in mind, I'm skeptical that someone who has done no editing at all (at least under this name) can be a competent GA reviewer. If this is going to be problematic, it would be good to figure it out sooner than later, so that the articles can be available for other review-drive reviewers (although mine, at least, is a recent nomination so it should not have priority in the drive). — David Eppstein ( talk) 06:55, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Indeed. There seems to be a lot of new reviewers coming in due to the drive, which is perhaps nice for DYK, but not here. Could the coords put a note, perhaps even bolded, on the top of the backlog drive page that's just like, "If you are new to Wikipedia or unfamiliar with article writing, you are strongly encouraged to chime in on existing reviews by more-experienced editors, rather than beginning reviews yourself." Ultimately these newbie reviews are not only non-reviews, but also quite discouraging to reviewers—potentially long-term editors—who are upset by seeing their work voided. Ovinus ( talk) 17:11, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

A week later, creating those two empty review pages remains this user's only two contributions. — David Eppstein ( talk) 16:27, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

I have just marked both for speedy deletion; even if they should return, they aren't an appropriate reviewer. One of the two was nominated back in January, and thus quite likely to be chosen for review during the current backlog drive, but both should be made available. BlueMoonset ( talk) 17:04, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Please see this discussion. The reviewer Tayi Arajakate seems to be busy, so I am requesting that this reiew be taken up by someone else. Thanks, Kpddg ^(talk) 04:41, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

@ Kpddg: I'll take it on. Ovinus ( talk) 04:45, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Okay, thank you Kpddg ^(talk) 05:19, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

I was about to finish it this weekend but I've already delayed it so much, so it's understandable. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 11:23, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

I wanted to suggest that Tayi Arajakate, who has eight other reviews open, voluntarily release some of them. Only one of the eight has significant work done—three only have non-review comments, and four have been given copyvio checks, sometimes with a single comment or image checks. At the time of the previous discussion, they said I'm fairly certain I can complete the rest before the end of the drive, but I can only see one that has been concluded, back on May 31, and two that have received a bit of attention in June: Bangalore has since been taken over by Ovinus, and Rosenkrieg has been given an image check to go along with its copyvio check a month prior, leaving the vast bulk of its review still to be done. I would be happy to add the ones released to those listed needing new reviewers for the current backlog drive. Three— Talk:Rosenkrieg/GA1, Talk:William Ketel/GA1, and Talk:John Ratcliff (bookbinder)/GA1—would even be eligible for an extra half point because of the age of their nominations. BlueMoonset ( talk) 16:53, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm open to releasing any of them. I'd suggest listing them for the drive, I'll try to finish them but if someone picks it up before I do so then that'll be that. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 23:40, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. I've listed the three mentioned for the drive, and will be changing their status to 2ndopinion, but may add some others if these get snapped up. BlueMoonset ( talk) 02:16, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

I started reviewing the article Wild Tales (film) at the beginning of the month, but it seems the nominator, Gabriel Yuji, hasn't been active since mid-May and hasn't responded to pings. I'd be really glad if someone else could pick up the nominator's side of the review. The comments are not too demanding, but I feel I'd be getting too involved if I just addressed them myself, and it would be a shame to fail such an almost complete article. Thanks, Daß Wölf 12:15, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

I'll help out. I'm not really doing much right now, so I have time. I'll go take a look at the article and the review page and see what I can do and ping you. Let me know then if you want me to continue. Jenhawk777 ( talk) 03:17, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Hello!

Thie aforementioned article, Google Me (Kim Zolciak song), was the first article I picked for a GA review for the Backlog Drive. Nevertheless, the nominator of said article hasn't been around since late May, almost a month now. If someone is willing to step up and fix the issues, there aren't many so it won't take much time.

Cheers, MarioSoulTruthFan ( talk) 11:56, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

I'll pick this up within the next few days if that's okay with you MSTF? I might even be able to do it tomorrow. ≫ Lil-Unique1 -{ Talk }- 20:35, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Thank you so much. No issues with that, just let me know once you are done at the end GA talk page. Cheers, MarioSoulTruthFan ( talk) 15:29, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

No good deed goes unpunished. It would be comical to be put through the wringer by the author of Squatting in Albania if it weren't so disheartening to have weeks of painstaking research trashed and publicly belittled because of a couple of misplaced page ranges, because I wrote "between the 1920s and the 1940s" instead of "by the 1940s" or "Meehan, p. 79" instead of "Meehan, pp. 79–81". I'm not exaggerating how trivial the problems that the reviewer supposedly uncovered are; read through Talk:Pruitt–Igoe/GA1 and look through the diff of everything that I fixed and tell me straight-faced this article deserved to fail GA. The reviewer's suggested improvements contained more citation errors than the article as written, and most of their comments had nothing to do with the GA criteria. Why should I bother spending dozens of hours of my time digging up newspaper articles, reading full-length books, submitting inter-library loan requests, and trawling through annotated bibliographies if this is the end result? Ruбlov ( talk • contribs) 18:17, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

It's a detailed review but it's probably beyond WP:WIAGA. Ask for a second opinion and remain chilled. The Rambling Man ( Keep wearing the mask...) 18:42, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Consider this a request for a second opinion. I am chilled, just disappointed. Ruбlov ( talk • contribs) 20:16, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Wow what an immature reaction to a fail. I both wrote and nominated Squatting in Albania for GA and failed the nomination of Pruitt–Igoe so I'm in a position to say that the first passes criteria 2/c and the second .. didn't and that's why it failed. Mujinga ( talk) 19:42, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

This has been a painful experience for me. You didn't have to call me out by name at WT:GAN and cast aspersions on my work, especially when you were unwilling to listen to my responses on the review. Ruбlov ( talk • contribs) 20:16, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

My initial outburst was impulsive and I personalized the issue too much. Mujinga, you spent hours of your time giving my article a thorough review, and I appreciate that and respect your decision. But I think that GA reviewers need to remember that GA is not FA and the actual standards for a GA are not nearly as high as some reviewers imagine. As Aircorn noted above, the GA criteria don't require spot-checks at all, and while I welcome the extra scrutiny I don't agree that minor discrepancies should be fatal to a GA nom. If you've ever worked on a long article over the course of several months with many sources that are often saying similar but not quite the same things you'll appreciate the difficulty of getting every citation 100% in line with the text. We are all trying our best but there is really no experience more discouraging than spending dozens of hours preparing an article for GA only to be publicly humiliated. Anyway it would have been much more productive to have expressed this privately and cordially to Mujinga and I apologize for lashing out here. Ruбlov ( talk • contribs) 23:26, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

• Mujinga I'd agree that your comment seems unnecessary. I would only use this board if you need input or assistance from other GAN reviewers. ( t · c) buidhe 23:33, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi, I nominated Shane Warne for GA and put the template on the article's page. However the bot hasn't put it here on the requests list. I think it is a bot error, but it is possible I did something wrong. Could someone check/fix this? Regards, Desertarun ( talk) 21:43, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

It was added on 24 June. CMD ( talk) 01:28, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Ah right, thanks. Must have been stuck outside my browser cache. Desertarun ( talk) 07:18, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

It has recently come to light that User:AFreshStart was a previously banned account who WP:Socked his way back in. In the time he was operating that sock, he accumulated 9 GAs to his name (you can find a full list on the user page). While I have not seen anything that would outright indicate that reassessment is necessary, the issue has been raised at Talk:QAnon. It would likely be prudent to have a handful of people check up on these pages, but I personally doubt that all 9 GAs are in need of reassessment. AFreshStart focused partly around Far right groups so it can already be touchy subject matter as is, last thing we need is a bad actor.

The article Qanon is of particular note since 2 of the 3 editors during the initial GA nomination have been outed as sock accounts ( User:AFreshStart, and User:Twsabin). The 3rd editor User:Psychloppos is a legitimate account. I was the GA reviewer for the page and there were no issues I noted at the time. Etriusus ( Talk) 17:15, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

The user in question frequently nominated extremely poor candidates, as well. I quickfailed one that was too short to even be DYK eligible! They should be reevaluated on that basis, let alone the addition of sockpuppetry. I always thought something was off about that account... Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 23:32, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

I did some digging into the situation. It also appears that User:Gerda Arendt took over the review for Pastel QAnon after User:AFreshStart was banned, so I have some faith in that article. Qanon likewise had a number of people working on it during a 2 1/2 week long review, a process that both User:Psychloppos and I were a part of ( User:CactiStaccingCrane was also involved to a lesser extent). I will, at least, vouch for the version that was reviewed back in February. Going through AFreshStart's talk archives have dug up a number of poorly done nominations that've quickfailed. It appears that per this discussion: User talk:AFreshStart/Archive 2#Your GANs have been reverted, most of the nominated pages by AFreshStart were not heavily edited by them. I am still unsure where AFreshStarts 14,000 edit count came from but its impressive they made it so long without getting caught.

The Passenger (Boschwitz novel), London Forum (far-right group), Mike Gapes, Lübeck disaster and Broccoli mandate articles apparently won AFreshStart a WP:Precious award. While AFreshStart was editing under false pretenses, it appears much of their work was actually productive. This isn't to say we shouldn't still double check everything, I am okay with at the very least, an informal review of each page just to make sure everything is up to par. Formally reassessing all 9 pages is a tad drastic, unless something more serious precipitates. Perhaps we need to take it case by case. Etriusus ( Talk) 00:57, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Since I'm being mentioned here: I have no idea why AFreshStart's original account was banned and if that ban was justified or not (I'm not sure I really want to know either). What should matter is the quality of the articles themselves. As far as I can tell, AFreshStart did some legitimate work on the QAnon article. As I said in the other talk page, I have no idea about his other contributions. If you think that the QAnon article must be renominated based on the AFreshStart problem alone, then so be it. But I feel that it would be a waste of time, and kind of unfair to the article, as well as to the other people (including me) who invested their time into improving it for the GA nomination. Psychloppos ( talk) 07:42, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Psychloppos, here is the investigation for AFreshStart, and the orginial block reason can be found here, read it if you want. I personally think that Pastel QAnon and QAnon should be spared because these reviews were spearheaded by multiple people, you and I included. The other 7 articles I cannot vouch for without doing a far more in depth review. Frankly, I don't have the time to do that on my own, hence why the discussion is moved here. But I get what you mean in that just because AFreshStart edited these pages shouldn't inherently disqualify them. It does, however appear that AFreshStart had a history of uploading poor quality GA nominations and we should at least do out due diligence to make sure nothing slipped through the cracks. Etriusus ( Talk) 14:59, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

@ Etriusus: oh ok, as far as I have understood he has been blocked for copyright violation. Honestly I expected something worse, like advocating hate speech, defamatory content or whatever. That is very unfortunate because from what I have seen he is capable of worthwile contributions. I must confess that I was bummed when he was blocked because I assumed that he was an experienced editor and, based on our interactions at QAnon, I was hoping that I could ask for his help on some articles that I'd like to work on. Anyway, I don't articles like QAnon should suffer from this because, as we mentioned before, it was pretty much a collective work and I haven't noticed anything problematic in that page. Those are just my two cents. Psychloppos ( talk) 15:54, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

If I remember right there used to be a nomination button to avoid fiddly source editing - please could it be put in a more obvious place. Chidgk1 ( talk) 12:45, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Chidgk1, the instructions for nominating an article for GAN don't mention such a button. Perhaps you're thinking of DYK, which has a couple of nomination processes that involve buttons (or at least links)? BlueMoonset ( talk) 01:30, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I've pretty much finished up reviewing Talk:Bangalore/GA1, which was initiated by Tayi Arajakate some time ago. (This review is mentioned above by BlueMoonset.) How should I indicate that I reviewed the article? I was thinking Kpddg (nom) could just nominate it again and I quickly pass it. Ovinus ( talk) 17:44, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Ovinus, if you've reviewed it and it passes, say so at the end of the current review page, and follow the remaining steps at WP:GANI just as if you were the original reviewer. No need to change the top of the review page; just go to the article's talk page and replace the "GA nominee" template with a "GA" template as described. (Please don't have it renominated!) Thanks. BlueMoonset ( talk) 23:20, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Sounds good, thanks! I wasn't sure if the bot would get confused. Ovinus ( talk) 23:38, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi I wonder if fellow reviewers would be kind enough to give some feedback on two reviews which I have open. They both seem to be following the same pattern, which is that the review is cordial and the only remaining issue is that every time I do a spotcheck I turn up more discrepancies in the references.

• With Talk:Pruitt–Igoe/GA1, nominator Rublov, I made 14 spotchecks (4, 10x2, 11x2, 13, 20, 22, 34, 36, 60, 66) of which 1 was AGF, 6 were good and 5 needed fixing. I then made two more (51 and 44), of which one was good and the other needed fixing - and hasn't been answered satisfactorily for me.

• With Talk:Martha_Yujra/GA1, nominator Krisgabwoosh, I made 9 spotchecks (1&2, 6, 10&11 x2, 19, 24, 30, 32, 44) of which 2 are debatably fixed, 2 were good, 5 needed fixing and have been fixed and one is still not fixed to my satisfaction. I then made two more spotchecks, 28 and 39, of which one was good and the other not good and so far no response on that.

I feel like my job as reviewer is not to have to check every reference and the job of the nominator is to make sure the references back the claims. So at this point I'm inclined to fail both these nominations and to advise to check the rest of the references before renominating. Is that fair? It seems a shame since both nominators are responsive, but the pattern of references not backing the info is wearing out my patience. Since this is happening twiceover I thought it's worth discussing. I'll make a note on the reviews that I've opened this discussion. Mujinga ( talk) 12:45, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

I have failed a GAN I was reviewing in the past due to spotcheck issues, despite the rest of the article being quite good. If you're coming up with 50% problems, then that's not a GA. It is certainly not the job of the reviewer to go over every reference; GA reviews take long enough as it is. CMD ( talk) 12:56, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm concerned a question like this is coming from an editor of your long experience. Mine is a minority view but you should be checking every single source and it shouldn't be a question that these reviews fail. Wikipedia's reviews processes are not and cannot be based around prompt, collegial replies for happy-to-glad formatting changes. The articles nominated meet the criteria or they don't. I encourage all to uphold standards, even when it's not very fun. Chris Troutman ( talk) 12:57, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

I don't think it is reasonable to check every single citation, especially if the article uses sources that are not accessible online and/or in a foreign language. Even for FA, this is usually done with spot checks only, and we can't expect people to scan and email an entire book to the checker. — Kusma ( talk) 15:44, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

I agree with CMD – this is definitely too many issues. A GA review isn't the place to shepherd nominators through the process of making the article match what the reliable sources say – they should be doing that before nomination! I don't have a hard-and-fast rule as to at what point to tell a nominator to go away and fix the article before re-nominating, but "50% of spotchecks turn up something problematic" is definitely past the line! Caeciliusinhorto-public ( talk) 13:25, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Spot-checks are there to determine if there's likely an issue without having to check every single reference. If you're finding issues with more than one or two (and those issues are something more than "oh a ref got broken when it was copyedited, I mistyped the page number"-type stuff) then a quick fail is appropriate. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 14:13, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

I disagree... I think your job is to check that each reference is properly formatted and matches the claim it used to support. Every GA I've reviewed I have checked every reference. Similarly, every article I have taken through the process, editors have checked too. ≫ Lil-Unique1 -{ Talk }- 14:30, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

I would be very surprised if every time you have nominated an article for GA, the reviewer has checked every single reference to make sure it supports the text it is accompanying. Certainly my experience is that reviewers don't usually – or if they do, they don't say that they have. I don't believe for one moment, for example, that the reviewer checked each and every one of the 247 footnotes on Pythagoras before promoting it; if that were a requirement then a lot fewer articles would get reviewed for GA status, especially for large or academic topics. Even with easy access to every work cited, and assuming all of the references are in English, checking hundreds of citations to make sure they support the text would be an enormous task for a single reviewer. Caeciliusinhorto-public ( talk) 15:47, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

It is not your job to check every reference, try to check a number you consider to be sufficient. If you find those references back the claims, fine. Otherwise, if let's say 40% of those don't back the claims, the article and its info are far from correct and it will take some time to become a GA. Usually, I check a couple and if one is not backing some claim, I check a couple more, and so on and so forth. One or two are fine, anyone can make a mistake or miss something. Nevertheless, is up to you to decide. You can give them extra time to address said issues or just fail with a reason of course. MarioSoulTruthFan ( talk) 15:36, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

I used to check every reference when the article's size made it feasible, but I now generally go by spotchecks. If a substantial number of spotchecks fail, it doesn't matter if the reviewer is responsive, there's a problem. You can give the reviewer a chance to fix the whole article by saying that you'll do a second round, or seeing if they correct not just the specific spotchecks but the whole article. However, it's wrong to accept just because spotcheck-identified problems have been fixed, if they were substantial.

What I do that I fear other GAN reviewers don't is check the references that aren't in the article i.e. in order to tell if Breadth (3(a)) is met, I need to do my own searches to find if any significant aspects of the topic are missing. — Bilorv ( talk) 17:03, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

the pattern of references not backing the info – this is a misrepresentation of Talk:Pruitt–Igoe/GA1. See Special:Diff/1094853839. There were two minor discrepancies ("During the 1940s and 1950s" instead of "During the 1940s") and ("between the 1920s and the 1940s" instead of "by the 1940s") and a couple of places where the page range needed expanding or the references got scrambled. Mujinga has not found a single substantive example of "references not backing the info". Ruбlov ( talk • contribs) 22:48, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

- perhaps a guide is needed? 10-15%? ≫ Lil-Unique1 -{ Talk }- 17:10, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

• There is no requirement for spot checks so you may do as many as you like. Obviously the more the better, but it is really up to the reviewer. What you must do is check sources 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.. You do need to check for copyvios and spot checks is a good way to do that. Aircorn  (talk) 23:54, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
• Many thanks for all the considered replies, it helps a lot - it is a grey area on spotchecks and that's why I reached out (I can't say I found Chris troutman's response with the edit summary "FFS" very useful). I've now failed both articles since I have no confidence the rest of the citations will back the claims in the respective articles. I hope they can get to GA standard in future. Mujinga ( talk) 15:46, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
• Late coming to this, but I support the general consensus that reviewers should spot check. How many? I don't have an absolute number, but I will check those statements that could be challenged, or in any way look odd or dubious, plus a handful at random. I follow the procedure that if I have checked several cites (more than 2 or 3, but not every single cite) and each one was fine, then I'm content, but if I find an error, I'll check more, and if I come to a second or third error then I'll put the review on hold until the nominator checks all the cites. Then I'll check a second time, and if another error turns up I'll fail. I will also do my own research both for broad coverage, and to double check the existing sources (some sources are biased, and a check of other sources - for me- is needed to ensure the sources used are neutral). SilkTork ( talk) 18:28, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
  • The GACR 2a criterion should be tightened up to clearly prescribe inline citations for the mentioned circumstances; "all ... including those" is a weird formulation if you think about it. It is not enough that such citations should be from RS; they should also comply with WP:INTEGRITY. Compliance with both criteria should be verified in spot checks. These checks should be made easier for the reviewer. Pages or locations (unless the source is very short), as well as URLs (if accessible online) should be obligatory so that the reviewer can quickly find the relevant passages in the sources. Johannes Schade ( talk) 05:14, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

I think this article will be a bit too much to be reviewed by one person. So, is it possible that a nomination has two or more reviewers? CactiStaccingCrane ( talk) 12:10, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

I know you've withdrawn the GA nomination to improve the article further. The answer is "sort of". If one person feels confident to review the article, they're can do so. Other people are always allowed to help out with the review. If the initial reviewer feels they cannot finish the review, or would like more feedback, they can put the review on 'second opinion' needed. A broad article like this may benefit from a peer review (No promises, but I might give some feedback there) before a GA nomination. Femke ( talk) 16:54, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Hello. I nominated the article 2021 Indian Premier League. Ps103ankit ( talk) has created a new section on the article talk page and said that they would review it. However, with only 150 edits, they do not seem to have sufficient experience, and did not start the review correctly. Please see the discussion here. Kpddg ^(talk) 13:48, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Reviewer has agreed to not review. Thank you. Kpddg ^(talk) 14:22, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure what happened to the editor reviewing Norman C. Deno. Can someone take a look and possibly take over? Thank you, Thriley ( talk) 16:21, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Regrettably, reviewer Tayi Arajakate opened 15 reviews in the period of about an hour on 28 April, and while half are done (some by other reviewers), most others have been lingering ( Bangalore is under review by another reviewer and is progressing). I think it's best if we list the other six here; any that haven't been dealt with in seven days will be set as needing a second opinion. The abandoned nomination reviews are:

• Talk:Norman C. Deno/GA1
• Talk:The Bear, Oxford/GA1: this could be deleted and put back in the pool since the only comments are by the reviewer to say it's being started (though it wasn't) and by nominator SilkTork
• Talk:Challis railway station/GA1: this has some comments by another editor, so it can't go back in the pool; pinging nominator Steelkamp
• Talk:Mammootty/GA1: this review made decent progress at first, but Tayi Arajakate last posted here on 12 May. Pinging nominator Paavamjinn to see how they'd like to proceed
• Talk:Carrie Goldberg/GA1: the last promise was for the review to be completed by the end of June, made four weeks ago; it hasn't even been started. Pinging nominator Bilorv to see how they'd like to proceed
• Talk:RAF Machrihanish/GA1: only small bits of the review were done (copyvio and image), and the most recent review post was 8 May, over two months ago. Pinging nominator Thx811

— BlueMoonset ( talk) 01:26, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Ideally, I'd like Talk:Carrie Goldberg/GA1 to be put back in the queue with the timestamp it was originally submitted at in a way that it appears with a normal "(start review)" tag rather than a "Second opinion" tag, if that's possible. (So it could either be a /GA2 page or this /GA1 page could be deleted.) — Bilorv ( talk) 09:26, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Bilorv, I've deleted the review page to put it back in the queue with your initial nomination date. Normally, I'd offer to do the review myself, but since I'm fairly involved in American politics, I'm not going to touch this one. Reaper Eternal ( talk) 15:59, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. I've deleted Talk:The Bear, Oxford/GA1, so that is back in the pool. SilkTork ( talk) 10:48, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, the Talk:RAF Machrihanish/GA1 review hasn't been progressed so probably best to be go back in the pool. Not sure how to go about that, is is best just to delete the nomination and start over? Thx811 ( talk) 21:02, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Thriley, Thx811, I've bumped the page number by one for both of your nominations and removed "onreview" from the GA nominee template; this puts you both back into the pool of noms awaiting review with no loss of seniority. I'll probably ask for second opinions for Challis and Mammootty, but not tonight. BlueMoonset ( talk) 04:57, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

I nominated Homo longi a while ago to Biology and medicine but it still hasn't shown up yet Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 00:11, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Dunkleosteus77, the bot was choking on your sig in the {{ GA nominee}} template for some reason—it is an extremely long and code-filled sig, just looking at it in the editor here—and I don't know why nor do I have the time to try to figure it out. I've deleted all but the necessities of linked user and talk page, and that seems to have done the trick. BlueMoonset ( talk) 22:01, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Yeah that was weird, but I think I fixed my sig now Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 22:07, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

From what I can see, the GA nom probably is taking a Wikibreak and hasn't replied for a month (I almost forgot the GAN too, but thanks Chiswick Chap for reminding). If it's possible, could some other editors, possibly involved in Wikipedia:Wikiproject Birds or regular GA noms, address some of the more minor issues? Many thanks for your help, support, and time! VickKiang ( talk) 04:04, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

After months of addressing concerns and letting stuff settle, I think that this article is a solid GA now. However, I'm fairly hesitant to nominate it right now, as one of the mentioned concerns is that the article topic is too unstable as the development program is ongoing and that the rocket's first orbital flight would shuffle stuff in the article drastically. Should I nominate the article anyways, or should I wait? CactiStaccingCrane ( talk) 04:04, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

I was trying to promote James L. Buie but the Bot created a new entry instead. Could someone please close this one for me? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:10, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Hawkeye7, done. For some reason, instead of changing the {{ GA nominee}} template to a {{ GA}} template, you inserted yourself into the existing GA nominee template as the nominator as of the time of passage. You might want to review WP:GANI#Step 4: Finishing the review, since the GA template has different and fewer fields than GA nominee, and there's a handy GA template to copy. The nomination will disappear from the GAN page when the bot runs about ten minutes from now. BlueMoonset ( talk) 03:51, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

@ BlueMoonset: In the process of this above problem the Good Article counter bot did not pick up that James L. Buie was a successful nomination. As you can see here I have 222 successful nominations that the counter shows. It should read 223 with James L. Buie (2022-08-04) at the top. Can this be fixed so I have the correct count? Thanks!-- Doug Coldwell ( talk) 08:56, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Pinging tool creator SD0001 to respond to Doug Coldwell's query. BlueMoonset ( talk) 15:17, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

 Fixed sdzerobot was crediting this GA to Hawkeye7 since it looks at the signature present in the {{ GA nominee}} template. I've fixed this with a manual database edit. – SD0001 ( talk) 08:46, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Magnus Hirschfeld was nominated by a user who hasn't contributed to the article, and in their fourth-ever edit. The user does have an unusual editing history, which may suggest they are an experienced editor who for whatever reason has created another account and not disclosed this, but that doesn't make me more confident to leave the nom live (especially since the user, in nominating the article, changed a lot of words on the talkpage re. transgender, and I can't tell if it's transphobia, censorship, or misguidedly trying to 'clean up' historic language Hirschfeld used, but again, this doesn't instill confidence). A review page hasn't been created, just leaving a note here before removing the talk template. Kingsif ( talk) 20:16, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Pinging JDBauby; the user probably just misunderstood what the purpose of a Good Article is, but let's give them a chance to respond. — VersaceSpace 🌃 20:25, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

In most cases this is a good-faith error by a newbie, but let's see what the editor in question has to say, I suppose. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 21:02, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, unless they try to do more with it, I wouldn't think there's anything too suspect. Just some unusual stuff. Kingsif ( talk) 21:21, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

sorry, i have an extension that does that for me, i'm transgender and it changes the word to "ghost" and slurs related to it into less offensive words - i had no idea it would affect my wikipedia editing. and i'm not any other editor involved with the project, just somebody who thought it was a really good article. sorry for any harm caused <3 JDBauby ( talk) 22:28, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

I am contemplating GAN; but before I start, I'd like to check what's involved.

The nominated article 200 Madison Avenue (which I am not reviewing and do not propose to review) told the reader:

• Each of the lower stories occupy about 36,000 sq ft (3,300 m²).

I changed "occupy" to "occupies", and made other, minor changes: some are merely a matter of taste, but I hope that taken as a whole they constitute a very minor improvement (but of course feel free to revert); however, it surely cannot be a "significant contribution". Indeed, I read ( here): "If the problems are minor or easy to fix, the reviewer may be bold and simply fix them."

Yet here's an example of fastidious avoidance of do-it-reviewerself fixing:

• Other tenants during that decade was the — "were"

and I seem to have seen this kind of comment rather often in GA reviews. For this kind of minor slip, fixing seems likely to be less tiresome for both reviewer and nominator -- but am I overlooking some discouragement/prohibition somewhere? -- Hoary ( talk) 07:12, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Hoary depends, some reviewers find that avoiding any edits to the article helps them maintain distance from the text and be a better reviewer. Others prefer to make small changes themselves. I don't think either one is right or wrong. On the one hand, it is more efficient to make changes myself, on the other hand, if I copyedit an article heavily I do feel that reviewing suffers as a result. ( t · c) buidhe 07:53, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Got it. Thank you, buidhe. When I start, I'll limit my copyediting. -- Hoary ( talk) 08:38, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Hi Hoary Another point to consider, is that sometimes a grammatical error can indicate that a sentence has changed since it was first written. Here's a made-up example:

• The sentence starts off as: John Smith was elected in 2015.^[ref]

Now suppose that a different editor adds a second name to the sentence, but does not add an additional reference.

• The sentence now reads: John Smith and David Jones was elected in 2015.^[ref]

If I, as a GA reviewer, change "was" to "were" myself, then this addition becomes pretty much undetectable. However, if I ask the nominator to make the change, they have an opportunity to check the reference, which may (or may not) confirm that both John Smith and David Jones were elected in 2015! If the reference does not support the date of the election of David Jones, then the nominator could add a second reference (if one is available), or delete the added name (if not).

So I would always prefer (even though it takes longer to write out) to ask a nominator to check and correct a sentence with bad grammar, rather than making the obvious fix myself (and potentially reinforcing (at best) an unsourced statement or (at worst) a factual error). Hope this makes sense!

Best wishes, Mertbiol ( talk) 20:19, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

An excellent point, Mertbiol. And as for referencing/sourcing, it's fairly easy to deal with editors who are utterly clueless about such matters; however, I often infer that I'm dealing with somebody who realizes that sourcing is a necessity (however annoying), but who believes that all this requires is references to "reliable sources" whose content is vaguely compatible with what they're trying to say (perhaps merely by mentioning names that appear within it). -- Hoary ( talk) 21:40, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

If the need for copy-editing is the one of the major feedback I would give a GAN, I would not attempt any myself as that would be substantive, but also hide more serious problems potentially ( Lipstick on a pig). On other hand, if there is other substantive feedback, I would rather they focus on that, while I make some light weight spelling/grammar fixes. Either way, I certainly would never call such edits 'substantive'. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him •  talk) 15:00, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

How about splitting Architecture - Buildings by continent? It's over 550 articles. I'm not sure I could do it efficiently, but perhaps someone like Epicgenius who will recognize most of the articles could do it reasonably quickly? Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 21:59, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Yeah... the list is significantly skewed by the sheer number of GAs related to buildings in the US (and in NYC specifically). Of the remainder, many of them are in Europe, more specifically in the UK. I can look at it in greater detail later, but at the moment, I only see a handful of GAs about buildings not in the US or UK. – Epicgenius ( talk) 22:21, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

No need to split by continent if there are some more natural splits among the articles that are GAs. "Architecture – New York Buildings" (Building of New York?) is probably able to stand on its own. CMD ( talk) 22:32, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

I tried adding the GA template to Talk:Walter Hunt (inventor), and as you can see here it just says "listed as one of the good articles" rather than giving a link to the GA subsection page, as e.g. Talk:Frank Bailey (firefighter) does. I recall that Legobot gets quite upset if something goes wrong with the subtopic on the talk page, so I'm posting here -- did I make some obvious mistake that I can't see? Also pinging the nominator, Doug Coldwell, so they're aware why I'm delaying adding the template. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 22:16, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

The subtopic needs to be "Culture, society and psychology", not sociology. Strings need to match those found here, or yes Legobot gets unhappy. CMD ( talk) 22:37, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

That worked; thanks. Doug must have copied the string from the section on the GAN page, which has "sociology"; interestingly, the GA nomination worked just fine with that string. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 00:00, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

@ Mike Christie: @ Chipmunkdavis: Turns out that Walter Hunt (inventor) does not have a green icon symbol on top of its article and does not show up on the Good Article counter as #232 at the top as a successful nomination. Usually these show up immediately right after a nomination is approved and promoted. Can these be fixed. Thanks.-- Doug Coldwell ( talk) 10:33, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

I nominated it on 8 April 2022 here. -- Doug Coldwell ( talk) 10:44, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

It's probably because when I removed the GA template out of concern it would screw up Legobot, I did not re-add the GA nomination template. Legobot then decided the nomination had failed. One solution would be for Doug to nominate it again; then I would immediately pass it with an explanation of why and a link to GA2. Is there a cleaner way to do this? Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 11:21, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

@ SD0001: Is there a cleaner way to do this? Should I do as Mike Christie suggested? I'll do whatever it takes and is best.-- Doug Coldwell ( talk) 12:15, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm not much sure about how Legobot works. SDZeroBot will update the counter if and when the article gets the GA icon, regardless of whether it's added by Legobot or someone else. I see that Bryanrutherford0 has now added the icon, so it now comes up in the GA counter. – SD0001 ( talk) 13:06, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes, it now counts and there is a green GA icon on the article. It looks like those two issues are resolved. Thanks for response.-- Doug Coldwell ( talk) 13:41, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

A bot regularly updates a list of articles with issues relating to the GA icon, the GA template, and the list at WP:GA, and I (and others) monitor that list to catch and fix issues like this. - Bryan Rutherford ( talk) 14:40, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

@ Bryanrutherford0: Great. It's good to have you around. You saved the day by knowing what to do. Thanks again for your work.-- Doug Coldwell ( talk) 15:36, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Could someone take a look at this nomination? The Marine Air Terminal article was recently reviewed by a relatively new user who passed the nomination with minimal changes. I'm concerned that the article wasn't assessed against the GA criteria, but I think this is more due to lack of experience than anything else. However, I'm not sure if a GA2 subpage should be opened, or if the GA1 subpage should merely be re-reviewed by a third party. Thanks in advance. – Epicgenius ( talk) 17:10, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

I would agree that is not a full review, due to inexperience. I've reverted the pass. The GA1 page can be either re-reviewed, or deleted allowing for recreation. On a related note, the user has started a GAN on an article they have not edited, which should probably be removed. I've added a generic welcome message on their talkpage, but if anyone has a message specifically about GAN and experience/involvement they've used before that would be appreciated. CMD ( talk) 18:14, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

I'll look over the article itself and post to the GA1 page; I doubt there's much wrong with it as I've been doing several reviews of Epicgenius's nominations recently and none have required more than tweaks. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 19:11, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Done; it's now passed. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 22:23, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

The same user has now picked up another article to review, Windows 2.1. I've posted a note suggesting they don't review till they've edited more. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 20:25, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

I have nominated Levi Canning by placing the nominee template on its talk page. How does the Wikipedia:Good article nominations get updated to show that Levi Canning is awaiting a review? Therealscorp1an ( talk) 11:24, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

That doesn't look right -- did you follow the instructions under "Reviewing" or under "Nominating"? I would delete that template and replace it with {{subst:GAN|subtopic=Television}}, pasted at the top of the talk page. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 12:24, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

I was looking at this at the same time as Mike. I removed the errant code, which has been panicking Legobot. That might fix it, or it might need to be replaced as Mike suggests. CMD ( talk) 12:27, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

I have added the other template, as User:Mike Christie advised. Sorry, this is my first time going through this whole process. What will happen now? - Therealscorp1an ( talk) 12:30, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

It's been added and now awaits human eyes. CMD ( talk) 12:47, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

I am quite new to this whole process, how long does it take for an article to usually be reviewed and what happens if it has been quite a few months without review? - Therealscorp1an ( talk) 11:55, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Sometimes your article is reviewed immediately, but more typically it takes two months or so for something to happen. The oldest couple of nominations get extra prominent placement on the nominations page (the oldest is currently just over four months old). Sometimes the backlog grows so large that many reviews are older than three months, and then there is usually a backlog drive and most of the old nominations get reviewed, but these drives usually only happen once or twice per year. — Kusma ( talk) 15:44, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

You can speed up the reviewing process by reviewing some GANs if you feel comfortable with the criteria. ( t · c) buidhe 16:15, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Okay, thank you very much for the information. - Therealscorp1an ( talk) 21:54, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

See here; can someone undo the review so it goes back in the queue? Thanks. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 15:14, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

The trick is to delete the review page, which I have just done. Next time, you can just tag it with {{ db-g6}} and/or {{ db-g7}} as appropriate, linking to the discussion in your edit summary when nominating, and some admin should come along and delete it soonish. — Kusma ( talk) 15:36, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

OK, thanks -- I think I knew it in the distant past and will try to remember. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 00:40, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

I see that the Music section is not updating by bot; I passed Eurovision Song Contest 1956 and it is still showing as on hold. Sammi Brie (she/her •  t • c) 21:29, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

I've started a GAN review yesterday, although the nominator still didn't get the message on their talk page. It's also still listed here, and it doesn't show that it has been picked up by me. Vacant0 ( talk) 12:54, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Legobot appears to have stopped doing GAN-related updates, including the WP:GAN page and notifications of reviews, holds, and pass/fails. I have posted to the bot owner's talk page ( User:Legoktm), in the hopes that it's an easy fix (or just a bot task that needs restarting), and the bot will be running again soon. BlueMoonset ( talk) 02:28, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Not sure why it got stuck, manually restarted it and it is running again. Sorry about the trouble. Legoktm ( talk) 04:32, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

How long does it normally take your bot to put an Albums article on the list? 184.65.203.138 ( talk) 21:26, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

• @ Legoktm: I see that Talk:El Niágara en Bicicleta/GA1 is not reflected, though a review page was opened at 09:20, 25 August 2022 (UTC). Sammi Brie (she/her •  t • c) 02:04, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Sammi Brie, frequently, in such a case, the problem is with the review page itself—if the Reviewer line in the top section is malformed, the bot can't parse it, and the Review isn't added to the WP:GAN page, or added but with a username of "Unknown". That was what happened here, until the review page was fixed. BlueMoonset ( talk) 21:38, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Can I ask a question regarding a Quick Pass. I see the injunction against this in the Instructions. However, looking at the 9 current nominations from User:Epicgenius in the Art/Architecture section, it seems pretty clear to me that they do (easily) meet the GA criteria as they stand. I could go through any/all of them in detail, and suggest some stylistic amendments, although these would likely be personal preferences. But, fundamentally, they meet the criteria, whether I do or don’t. It’s surely also relevant that Epic has previously written some 500 plus articles that have been deemed to meet the criteria, as well as over a dozen that meet the FA criteria. Do editors have any suggestions on how this is best approached? KJP1 ( talk) 10:04, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

I think any GA review should go through articles in detail. There are usually not just stylistic issues, but also minor inaccuracies in most articles, and a review can catch some of these. Yes, typically Epicgenius does brilliant work and his articles deserve the green plus, but they also deserve a thorough read through in case Epicgenius has overlooked something. (I have done three Epicgenius reviews 1 2 3 and while they only had minor issues, I do believe it was worth my time to check in detail). — Kusma ( talk) 10:58, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

(ec) Having recently been burned by taking an experienced contributor's work on faith (though not someone with as much to their credit as Epicgenius), I would suggest that a quick pass is not a good idea. I've reviewed several of Epicgenius's GAs recently and of course they all passed, but there were occasional things that needed to be fixed -- a sentence fragment, or an image issue. Currently I have just started a review of Hall of Fame for Great Americans, which has dozens of pictures of sculptures, and I asked in the review about the image licensing as the US doesn't have freedom of panorama. I don't know how that's going to turn out yet--Epicgenius said they'd look into it--but if it turns out I was right to question it that would certainly be something that should be caught at GA. (If anyone reading this is an image expert please comment at that GA, as I'm not an expert and could use expert input.) The contributor I ran into problems with was Doug Coldwell who has hundreds of GAs; I have not been doing spotchecks automatically at every GA review, having been conditioned by my FAC reviewing to think of spotchecks as an exception. It turns out there are extensive copyvios and close paraphrasing in Doug's work, and there is a proposal at ANI to indef him. Of course I'm now spotchecking every article I review, and I'm going to gradually work through the articles I've reviewed and passed and spotcheck those too, just to be on the safe side. I'm sure there'll be nothing like that with Epicgenius, but I think it's best to treat all contributors the same. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 11:24, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks both, that’s helpful and I understand the concerns. It makes for a slower process but time isn’t the critical point. KJP1 ( talk) 13:28, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

As the person whose nominations are being discussed, I'd say that, yes, these would need full reviews even if you think they might merit a quick pass. Like other GA nominators, I may think highly enough of my own work to nominate it for GAN, but a detailed review from someone else is extremely helpful, even if the reviewer catches only minor errors. Mike Christie's comment about the Hall of Fame for Great Americans is a good example of that, since I actually had forgotten that sculptures do not have freedom of panorama in the US until he brought up that issue. A spotcheck of sources is also an effective way of verifying that the article meets WP:GACR criteria 2c and 2d. I do this every time I review other editors' articles, even if I think the article looks good enough to pass on a first glance. – Epicgenius ( talk) 13:52, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Note that though WP:GAI does caution against quick passing an article, it does allow for the possibility that the article could be immediately passed without edits if it is deemed to meet all of the criteria upon nomination. I'm not sure I've ever seen an article nominated for GA where I could find no issues at all and could make no suggestions as to how to improve it, but in the event that you do come across such an article I don't think it would be inappropriate to pass immediately provided that you actually have checked it against all the criteria (including spotchecking claims against sources for both factual accuracy and close paraphrasing, and checking image licenses to make sure that they appear correct and that any non-free images have reasonable fair-use rationales) and write up your review so future editors have an idea of what you have checked. Caeciliusinhorto-public ( talk) 14:04, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

There is a discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § Limit to max GA proposals per user. relevant to this board. Please participate there. — David Eppstein ( talk) 20:47, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately the reviewer of Talk:Doyle spiral/GA1 has taken a pretty long break from Wikipedia (based on his user page, probably for school). He did clearly express his support for the article to be passed, but requested a second opinion. As the provider of that second opinion I'd pass it myself, but after my review I added four new images to the article, so it might be inappropriate for me to IAR pass the review. Thus I wanted to get approval here before doing that. Ovinus ( talk) 18:12, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

I took a look; I think if I were reviewing the article I would ask how we knew the images were in fact Doyle spirals. Did you construct these with something like Mathematica? If you were to add some such information to the source files they would be verifiable and at that point I think you could be comfortable passing the review. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 21:03, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

I constructed them with a JavaScript program; the numerical part was adapted from an existing online generator and wasn't too grotesque. I can't publish the full source code, unfortunately, because while I did substantively adjust the algorithm, the code is fairly similar to the website's. But I think these fall under Wikipedia:No_original_research#Original_images; there are papers which incorporate similar images (talk page has a bit more). I'd estimate that most existing Doyle spiral images, despite their geometric lack of originality, will still be above TOO due to coloring and thus not public domain unless for other reasons. Ovinus ( talk) 21:18, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

A reference to the online generator website might suffice then? Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 21:32, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Yep, done. Ovinus ( talk) 21:42, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

A number of articles with second-opinion requests actually need new reviewers to take them over, and three of them are older than the oldest current holds or reviews at over six months. As the two oldest just lost their reviewer, I was hoping there were experienced editors here who could take over. These second-opinion GANs needing new reviewers—all at least three months old—include:

• Talk:PS Keystone State/GA1 and Talk:SS Manasoo/GA1: these were originally opened back in January 2022, the original reviewer Usernameunique disappeared, and the second reviewer Ealdgyth is now too busy until late November to continue. At the moment, both reviews have foundered on a disagreement over the reliability of the same two source sites; it's hoped that a new reviewer would have some fresh thoughts on the sources one way or the other.
• Talk:Letchworth/GA1: originally opened back on March 2, the original reviewer, SounderBruce, was unable to continue as of June 14; ActuallyNeverHappened02 posted on June 24 that they'd be taking over with a new review up in a few days, and hasn't been heard from since. After over two months and minimal recent editing by them, this has to be considered abandoned.
• Talk:Ed Bradley/GA1: the original reviewer, M4V3R1CK32, did so much work on the article that they had to recuse themselves, but are prepared (as of June 24) to address any issues that come up from a new reviewer.
• Talk:Mammootty/GA1: the original reviewer, Tayi Arajakate, ended up not finishing a number of reviews that they took on; this was the only one of those where some progress was made prior to stopping. The nominator, Paavamjinn, has posted that they're interested in continuing.
• Talk:Christopher Lee/GA1: the nominator, Chiswick Chap, has requested a second opinion/new reviewer; the original reviewer, Realmaxxver, has not been good at keeping up with their reviews, making promises and not following through. (Their user page currently has a "semi-retired" banner posted.) They recently did another badly overdue review, but this review hasn't had any new review material since late June.
• Talk:Cribbage (pool)/GA1: the previous reviewer withdrew two months ago due to a disagreement over the broadness criteria. A new reviewer is needed to decide whether this does fail broadness or if it doesn't, and if not, then a full review needs to be conducted.

There are another five second-opinion requests more recent than these also posted on the GAN reports page. Thank you for your consideration. BlueMoonset ( talk) 19:30, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

I've struck a couple that I've provided a second opinion on. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 15:22, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

I know this has been discussed before but I have a couple of fairly extreme cases at hand and wanted to ask about precedent. I've provided a second opinion at cribbage (pool) that it meets the broad coverage requirement because there are no sources unused as far as anyone is aware. There are also three other articles I'm currently reviewing and have not yet passed or failed:

• Bridget Hustwaite 385 words (and I've asked for some material to be removed so it might end up around 350 words)
• JK-47 635 words
• Honolulu (pool) 409 words
• cribbage (pool) 782 words

Also pinging Lee Vilenski and Sean Stephens, each the nominator of two of these, and Premeditated Chaos, the reviewer who asked for the second opinon. From what I can see in the archives, there is no minimum word length requirement but the GA criteria must be met. The only one of the criteria that might imply length is 3(a): Broad in it's coverage/addresses the main aspects of the topic. I suggested that the article on Honolulu be merged into an article on pool variations, but the nominator didn't agree; and I don't see it as my job as a GA reviewer to enforce my opinion on that sort of decision. For the two bios, there's no natural merge target, and the sources are not outstanding but the articles would probably pass AfDs. So I'm inclined to pass them. The article about Hustwaite would be around 350 words if we were to cut the material I've suggested cutting. Do we have any 350 word (or shorter) GAs? Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 22:07, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

The two pool articles are obviously missing anything about the history of those games: where and when did they develop? Is there a tradition of playing them in certain cultures, or are they merely played by people who find them through books of pool game rules? Are there organized competitions or are they only played as friendly games? What is game play like — quick and flashy, slow and tedious, lots of exciting turnarounds? Does it more favor technical precision, strategic expertise, or just lucky breaks, and what are the best strategies? — David Eppstein ( talk) 22:16, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

This is my issue with passing the Cribbage article. I recognize that the sources have been exploited as much as they exist, but the content is narrowly restricted to gameplay - I cannot see an article so restricted as being broad in its coverage of the topic. I've said this before but in my opinion some articles just top out under GA for one reason or another. GNG is clearly met, every possible source is exploited, but the coverage of the sources is so narrow that a broader overview of the topic simply can't be written. I've written plenty of those articles myself, so I don't view it as a bad thing - simply an unfortunate reality of some articles. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 00:29, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

I am a big fan of sources that explicitly say that nothing is known about some specific aspect of a topic; unfortunately these can be rare for some topics. But without a sourced statement of this type that allows us to state in the article that we are aware of this aspect and know that nothing is known, I find it difficult to accept an article omitting something major as "broad". — Kusma ( talk) 10:25, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Sources that make that kind of statement are very rare in my experience. For the list of very short articles that Steelkamp links to below, I doubt a single one of the first 50 topics on that list has a source that states anything like that. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 10:41, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Well, sources can state other things that make you expect a short article. Djibouti at the 2012 Summer Paralympics had a one-person team and may be as broad as necessary. But I'm not convinced that some of the others are truly broad - Sumarr and Vetr makes me wonder whether there are modern references and allusions to this exist. Some other short articles may be in need of more thorough checking. The Michigan highways in particular seem to use original research done by comparing two maps, which I don't think is acceptable. — Kusma ( talk) 11:31, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

What concerns me more about Sumarr and Vetr is that everything in the body seems to be simply describing the contents of the ancient eddas like a plot summary, sourced only to translations of the eddas themselves. Hog Farm _Talk 01:29, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

I agree. I've long thought many of the old Norse mythology GAs need to be reassessed and possibly upmerged - as it stands they are barely more than stubs with pictures. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 01:42, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Echoing what Eppstein says here. If that context for them doesn't exist, that sounds like they should be merged into a larger article. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 22:41, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Can a 350 word article be a GA? Depends on the subject. Fuller Rock Light is 324 words, and with a bit of cleanup and a few more references could easily be a GA, assuming there isn't any significant information not yet in the article. But that's because there's not a whole lot to be said on the subject. For most articles, the answer is no, 350 words isn't sufficient. It's not just about word count, but about if it covers the subject properly without leaving anything critical out. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 23:23, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

I think, for me is that these items are independently notable. They pass WP:GNG, the cue sports items do get significant coverage discussing the game in multiple sources. However, they almost always cover these items in a "how to play" situation, or at least what the rules and objective is. They don't cover where the game was invented (and if Shamos doesn't know, it isn't known), and these aren't competitive games, they are more akin to killer. I'm happy to add a bit on the style of these games per Eppstein. Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 08:39, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

The phrase "independently notable" reminds me of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Doug Ring with the Australian cricket team in England in 1948 (2nd nomination). Doug Ring's cricket achievements on that tour were undoubtedly notable, but the decision made at the AfD was that that didn't automatically mean the article should exist independently. An eqiuvalent outcome here would be to merge Honolulu (pool) and cribbage (pool) into a new List of pool variants.

I understand Premeditated Chaos's hesitation, but I don't see anything in the GA criteria that permits me to fail an article. I think "broad" has to be interpreted as "all the sources will allow", not "everything an article like this should cover", otherwise thousands of longer GAs would be ineligible too. If I'm not willing to take an article to AfD, and there's no consensus to merge it to something else, I feel I have to pass it. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 09:59, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

List of cue sports does already exist. I don't think there isn't enough information to require a merge into this. Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 10:23, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

I think "broad" has to be interpreted as "all the sources will allow", not "everything an article like this should cover", otherwise thousands of longer GAs would be ineligible too. This is my understanding of the "broad in its coverage" criterion. There doesn't seem to me to be any good way to decide what an article "like this" even is, let alone what it "should cover", other than by looking at what the reliable sources on that topic say! To take an example of an article that I worked on recently, should Corinna be compared against biographical articles as a whole? Biographies of poets? Biographies of ancient Greeks? Biographies of women? Biographies of ancient Greek women poets? Biographies of ancient Greeks, and of women, and poets? Depending on which level we consider it at, the expectations for what it "should contain" might be very different! Caeciliusinhorto-public ( talk) 12:00, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

"Broad" does not mean "comprehensive", but in my opinion it does mean that an article has to cover the topic widely, without being narrowly focused on a single aspect of the topic, or lacking detail in general. 2-3 reasonably well-developed top-level sections is generally my benchmark for broadness, depending on the topic. Corinna, for example, obviously hits that - we have information about her life, her work, and the reception to it, and all the sections are very well-developed. Done. It'd be a GA even at half the level of detail. On the other hand, the Djibouti Paralympic article noted above may be complete source-wise, but isn't broad enough to be a GA in my opinion.

Speaking to GA-level broadness vs FA-level comprehensiveness, here's another example. For an album GA (to pick a fairly structurally consistent article type), I would expect to see at least 2-3 of the following typical sections - background, composition, recording, marketing, release, reception, and perhaps legacy for older albums - but wouldn't worry if it didn't address all of them. GA looks for broad, but can fall short of comprehensive. For the same album article as an FAC, which does demand comprehensiveness, I would expect to see all of those aspects covered in the article in some way, and would probably ask the nominator to at least explain any that were not addressed. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 01:39, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Ah yes, the Australian cricket team in England in 1948 forks. Such ridiculous articles; none of the "Player" with the Australian cricket team in England in 1948 articles should even exist, much less be featured. They're giant piles of statistics written as prose. Doug Ring and his achievements are notable, which is why we have a biography on him, but we don't need a hyperfocused fork. Guess who AfD'd the article you linked? Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 00:28, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Whilst these articles are short, there are good articles that are shorter as shown here. As long as they are considered comprehensive, and assuming they are notable, then I think most reviewers would pass a short good article nomination. The thing I would do in these situations is put extra care into ensuring those articles meet the broad in its coverage criteria. Steelkamp ( talk) 10:02, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the list, and I agree it means the reviewer should make doubly sure nothing is omitted. Interesting to see a couple of my own nominations near the top of that list; I'd forgotten how short some of the articles I've written are. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 10:22, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

If the article is really short notability is in doubt, but notability is not part of the ga criteria. ( t · c) buidhe 15:31, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Notability isn't determined by length of article, but by availability of sources. A topic can be notable without having sufficient breadth to be a GA. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 00:54, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

This is the point at issue, and per Caecilisinhorto's comments above I don't see how to define "sufficient breadth" except by reference to the sources that exist. Or to put it another way, if we're going to fail an article it ought to be with reference to the GA criteria, and at the moment there's no consensus to define "broad" in the criteria except by reference to the sources. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 10:11, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Personally, I think it's pretty unlikely that something that short is really going to be broad enough for a GA. I've avoided nominating CSS Junaluska for this reason - as comprehensive as it probably can be, but quite short. I've come to believe that something can be notable but if the sources leave out big chunks of material without stating that it doesn't exist, it's probably not GA material. Hog Farm _Talk 01:25, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

@ Mike Christie: This has come up a few times. There is a school of thought that every article should be able to reach GA status. The issue is that discussions on notability are inconsistent at best and some articles that should at least be merged tend not to. This leads to a few short articles being nominated. The level of broadness depends on what sources say (see WP:GACN mistakes to avoid Requiring the inclusion of information that is not known or addressed by reliable sources. If there are no sources on something then nothing needs to be (or in fact can be) said about that part of the article and the broadness criteria is met. Notability, merging etc has always been kept separate from GA worthiness. Aircorn  (talk) 03:57, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I think that was my main concern -- that the GA criteria give me no licence to make a decision about what the article should look like, regardless of the existence of sources. I think I'm going to promote those articles, if they meet the other criteria. I think we would need an RfC to allow GAs to be failed because sources don't exist, or because the reviewer thinks an article shouldn't exist independently and should be merged. I do think if a reviewer thinks an article is simply not notable they should start an AfD, but I doubt that would ever happen. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 04:48, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

A downside of not considering what the article should look like is that other would-be GA authors sometimes use existing GAs as inspiration or even as templates for their own projects. — Kusma ( talk) 06:20, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

I think if an article is arguably start-class because there are no better sources to raise it above start-class, then it should stay start-class, and not be listed as something it is not. That goes for both the pool articles. They do not cover their topic broadly. They do not answer the questions that a reader, expecting the broad coverage that a Good Article should have, would expect to be able to have answered there. Maybe nobody thought to write the sources that would allow them to cover the topic broadly, but that's not an inherent limitation of the topic, it's a limitation in the sourcing we have found. — David Eppstein ( talk) 06:52, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes, but how can this be codified in the GA instructions without it appearing to be at the whim of the reviewer? Do we want to add a criterion that says something like "If the article could plausibly be merged with another article, then..."? I don't know how that sentence might end. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 12:00, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

For an article about a sport or a game that only explains the rules, but doesn't say anything about when or where it has been played, this may indicate a lack of notability (compare Wikipedia:WikiProject_Cue_sports/Notability#Games). Then perhaps a {{ notability}} or a {{ merge}} tag could be appropriate, leading to a fail per WP:WIAGA quick fail number 3. — Kusma ( talk) 16:02, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. Would EMD F40PH be a GA if it were simply instructions for how to operate one? Or MP 40 if it were just directions for how to fire it and clear jams? Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 16:40, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Lee Vilenski, since two of the nominations are yours, and you're no doubt more familiar with the cue sports WikiProject guidelines that most here, can you comment? Wouldn't that guideline apply to Honolulu and cribbage? Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 16:47, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Absolutely. WP:NCUE#Games talks about games that aren't notable, specifically those that are or were never really played by many people, such as regional variant on games. We know both of these have existed for 50-100 years, but we just don't know their exact origin. You could merge any article into another article. Our guidelines are pretty clear on articles simply needing to be independently notable for articles, which both of these pages make clear. These are games that are played recreationally; but typically not the most well known game on the table. As far as I can see it, there are only two arguments against promotion:
#1 The articles aren't notable to be standalone, and #2 that they do not meet the broadness category. I do fail to see how these aren't independently notable. I agree that there are things that I would also like to know about these games (origin, annual players etc) but these aren't things that are commented on by sources. Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 18:13, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Hi, I passed Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel as a GA at Talk:Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel/GA2, but the nominator PatrickJWelsh received a talk page message that it failed. Did I do something wrong? Thanks, BennyOnTheLoose ( talk) 21:33, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

That always happens if the review failed previously. It's a known fault with legobot. I'd just remove the failed message from the talk. Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 21:40, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

While looking for an article to review, I noticed that the nominator User:Thespearthrower of this rather contentious topic has, as far as I can tell, not made a single edit to the article and has slightly over 300 edits. I know that the editor doesn't need to have done substantive work on the article but I figured I'd flag it for someone with more experience in this area to take a look. Rusalkii ( talk) 03:22, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Almost every GA candidate I've reviewed needed work. I would not take on an article with an editor who wasn't involved in developing it, so I would at least ask the nominator if they are in position to do the work, which for me means explaining the use of the source material, some of which are offline foreign-language sources. The subject material on a website like this is also problematic. Chris Troutman ( talk) 04:06, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

A nominator nominating an article they have made zero edits to is generally cause for the nomination to be reverted (not even quickfailed, just removing the GAN template from the article talk page). Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 21:38, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Did we ever implement a rule that nominators that make no edits to an article must post on the talk page before a GA nomination? I remember it being discussed a while ago. Aircorn  (talk) 21:47, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Aircorn, I think we must have, since WP:GANI currently states: Nominators who are not significant contributors to the article should consult regular editors of the article on the article talk page prior to a nomination. I have removed the nomination as being out-of-process; it can, of course, be renominated after a suitable consultation is made, assuming there's consensus that it's ready and that the nominator is ready to address any issues that might come up in the course of a GA review. BlueMoonset ( talk) 03:18, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

I already removed it and was reverted, so we'll see what happens. Agree that it's out of process. ( t · c) buidhe 03:57, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Maybe we should change "should" to "must"? Aircorn  (talk) 03:41, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Done. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him •  talk) 23:40, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

What would you all say is a good number of sources to check? By this I mean going beyond the minimal checking if the publisher is reliable, and actually going into the sources and making sure the claim is backed up by some source. Admittedly, the number of sources on this article is only about 90 so I should be able to check all or a good amount of them, but this could come in handy for the future as well. Should I always deep check all of them, or can I do a percentage of random picks on longer articles? Thanks. Duonaut ^{( talk |  contribs)} 08:40, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

This question, by the way, is mostly in relation to this in WP:GACRNOT: "Not checking at least a substantial proportion of sources to make sure that they actually support the statements they're purported to support" Duonaut ^{( talk |  contribs)} 08:52, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

I check at least three footnotes, which I suppose is not usually a "substantial proportion". I check more if I have any reason to think it's necessary, but if Earwig is clean, the ones I check are fine, and I have no other cause for concern, I usually leave it at three. I often deliberately pick sentences that relay descriptions or opinions, since those are more likely to reveal failure to paraphrase than e.g. an entry in a table. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 09:05, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

I generally check at least one per section, as well as taking a closer look at the sources for any particular statement that catches my eye. If there are issues in these, generally I check a bit more thoroughly. CMD ( talk) 14:58, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

I try to check 10% for established users, upwards of 20-25% for first time/ newer nominators. In my experience this is a lot compared to other reviewers, but it feels safe to me. If problems emerge, of course, more should be checked. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 15:24, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

I have developed a good sense for bad citations. Nowadays I often can check just one that looks off to me and reveal an issue. That said, I would definitely check at least a few sources depending on article length before passing. ( t · c) buidhe 16:20, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, this will certainly help in making the citation check speedier. Duonaut ^{( talk |  contribs)} 00:48, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

I just failed Leave the Door Open on prose. The nominator, MarioSoulTruthFan, said they disagreed with my review and has immediately renominated the article with no changes beyond one paragraph I provided a suggested rewrite of. I'd like to get feedback from other reviewers as to whether I'm setting the prose standard too high. The nominator also said "On top of this, your grasp of the reliable sources on music is minimum at the best, even with the proper links you fail to recognize them", which I think implies they expect reviewers to be familiar with the topic area of an article they review. I don't recall that ever being the case in the past; it's not so now, is it? Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 20:24, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

After cursory examination, your GA review seems fair. The quotes in the article are too much and many citations don't look like RS, to me. On this inclusionist project, the author only wants to write what they want read, norms be damned. This often happens in niche subjects where fans get a sense of which websites are their go-to resources, ignoring the larger community. Again, we're not here to write an encyclopedia: we're just a platform for fan service which generates $50M annually for our betters in W?F. If you're going to draw a line in the sand by no means ever question yourself. Chris Troutman ( talk) 20:37, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

To begin with, I would like for you to point a non-reliable source. Secondly, you are suppose to distinguish a non-reliable from a reliable source, there are two/three pages on wiki with that. Sure, that's the problem. MarioSoulTruthFan ( talk) 20:50, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Mario, he didn't fail the article on sourcing, he failed it on the prose being constructed from far too many quotes. You're focusing very much on the wrong thing in this response. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 21:17, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

The article does have sourcing issues too, though. I don't have the time or interest to review all 207 footnotes, but: Apple Music [6] appears to be a music sales site, not a reliable source about the music. AllAccess [8,9] source scheduled future release dates and is not reliable for the actual release date. An Italian-language press release [10] is not reliable. The Bruno Mars Store [13] is not reliable. Musicnotes [26] appears unlikely to be reliable. Etc. — David Eppstein ( talk) 21:25, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

All those sources are for release dates and therefore are reliable. I pointed this out to the reviewer as well. MarioSoulTruthFan ( talk) 12:17, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

False. There is plenty of information asserted to be sourced to those sources beyond bare dates. The last one that I mentioned is not even a release date at all. — David Eppstein ( talk) 17:42, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

I don't see any issue with the review, but also the nominator is completely at liberty to file for a new review. Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 21:32, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

There may be no strict rule prohibiting it, but is it not at least a bit frowned upon, to simply ignore the reviewer's good faith comments and re-nominate immediately? That's one of the things that Doug Coldwell was known for doing, and I recall several reviewers stating in the ANI discussion that they found it unreasonable. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 01:06, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

MarioSoulTruthFan is not adding large-scale copyright violations, so it's not really the same. — VersaceSpace 🌃 01:52, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

CV was not Doug's only problem - poor prose and poor sourcing were frequently cited as issues in his GANs. The point is that regardless of what the issue is, rapidly renominating without correction because you don't like what the previous reviewer said is a problem. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 02:08, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Doug did it often, and the articles he promoted had chronic issues. Neither of those are the case here. Sure, Doug's articles had prose issues, but that's not (mainly) why they should have failed. — VersaceSpace 🌃 02:15, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

The point isn't why Doug's articles failed - it's that rapidly renominating articles without addressing previous concerns is poor editing behavior. Doug was allowed to make a habit of doing it, and look what came of that. Other editors should be discouraged from problematic rapid renominations before it becomes something they do often as well. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 02:48, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

"Rapidly renominating" is an exaggeration. He did it one time and in response to something subjective (prose, as opposed to cv). What MSTF follows the advice given in the FAQ at the top of this page... — VersaceSpace 🌃 16:48, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

No, it does not. Both the FAQ and the text it is derived from, WP:GAI#5, say "you can take the reviewer's suggestions into account and renominate the article", not "ignore what the reviewer said and renominate the article immediately without any changes." ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 19:14, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Reading is certainly fundamental... section: "I failed the article, and the nominator just nominated it again without fixing the problems I identified!", which is followed by "...this is the recommended process if the nominator disagrees with your review. Let someone else review it this time. The new reviewer is sure to read your suggestions to improve the article while deciding on their review. If your concerns were legitimate, then the new reviewer will doubtless agree with you and fail the article again." — VersaceSpace 🌃 19:21, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

There's no need to be patronizing, so I'll ask you - politely - to cut out the snotty remarks in your next response. That FAQ entry is directed at reviewers, not nominators, telling them what to do if the nominator simply renominates.

The FAQ you quoted doesn't invalidate the fact that the GA instructions and the GA criteria both discourage immediate renomination, first by explicitly directing the nom to "take the reviewer's suggestions into account," and second by specifically making failure to take previous suggestions into account a quickfail criteria. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 19:39, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

You think I'd take a patronizing attitude toward an administrator (with a tenure of nearly 20 years)? I don't think that highly of myself. The criteria and instructions display the rules, but the norms and usual actions of the community around GAs don't entirely function around that. If you disagree with a review, and the reviewer fails the article before a second opinion could be requested, the obvious course of action is to renominate the article ("rapidly", as you call it). That does not need to be clarified in the rules. Disagreeing with a reviewer's thoughts on prose and not addressing the concerns as a result is not covered under Immediate Failure Criteria #5 — VersaceSpace 🌃 20:19, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

"Reading is certainly fundamental," coupled with a block quote, is not intended to be patronizing? You could've fooled me. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 21:18, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Clearly it was necessary to clarify reading is fundamental, since you responded based on your emotions and haven't said anything about the actual "meat" of my message. Do you agree that it's fine to renominate a failed article for GA if you disagree with the review, as the top of this page says? That's the important thing here. — VersaceSpace 🌃 02:06, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

It's a shame that you aren't able to control your condescending remarks. Perhaps when you're a little older you'll be able to conduct a conversation without resorting to childish accusations about emotional behavior. As it stands, I don't see the point in continuing to speak to someone acting as you are. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 02:38, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

I don't know, Premeditated Chaos, maybe I am childish, snobby, patronizing, etc. But I have stayed on topic, which is more than can be said for you. We definitely see eye-to-eye in that this conversation shouldn't continue. — VersaceSpace 🌃 03:06, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

This is why there is a specific quickfail criterion for not addressing concerns raised in a previous GA review. I would certainly quickfail the nomination were I to review it, for this reason. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 01:08, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Ahh, I knew there was something in the GACR, I just missed it because I wasn't looking under quickfail. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 02:05, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

If users were unable to renominate after a review, then they would have to address completely outlandish requests. Any decent reviewer would read those comments and see if they believe them to be suitable. Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 12:40, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Is this a common occurrence? If an article is failed due to an outlandish request, my general impression is that, at least for experienced editors, a second opinion is sought here instead of a full renomination. For the more regular issue, I note that FACs automatically list previous FAC attempts at the start of FAC pages. If something similar happened for GA, perhaps that would prompt more reviewers to check failed GANs and see if any changes were made. CMD ( talk) 13:01, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

I've had at least one GA where after a quickfail that I disagreed with (if I remember correctly arguing that the topic was too technical to ever be a good article) I immediately renominated. — David Eppstein ( talk) 15:02, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

I've once or twice failed an article but explicitly encouraged them to renominate (and once even helped them find a new reviewer). I view it as a kind of enhanced second opinion. Best, Barkeep49 ( talk) 15:21, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

That's quite a different animal than someone immediately renominating specifically because they disagree with an in-depth good faith review. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 15:30, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Was the issue that the reviewer doesn't understand GA criteria and left an unreasonable review or that the nominator was unwilling to comply with the criteria that the reviewer accurately assessed? That will depend on a case by case basis. Having a fresh reviewer - who can obviously see the previous review - is in my view merely a different form of a standard dispute resolution technique we use. Best, Barkeep49 ( talk) 17:46, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

It may depend on circumstances, but in your case you explicitly encouraged them to renominate. In this case, the reviewer is disregarding the direction to "take the reviewer's suggestions into account" before renominating. Failure to take previous comments into account is a quickfail criteria, so it's obviously something the community wants to discourage. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 19:41, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

That's quite unfair. I took his review into account and even change some of the prose according to his suggestion, I was willing to work with him as you can read in the review. On top of that, the article was submitted for GOCE before being nominated for GA. This is my last reply to this issue. MarioSoulTruthFan ( talk) 11:48, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

( edit conflict)I'm not convinced that 3O is a good response when there is an argument between two users. Best to disengage and be visible rather than create more issues. Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 15:34, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

After scanning the article and the review, I note that the article does not come close to maintaining encyclopedic tone. The overuse of quotes attempts to mask that issue. This style permeates the article and is particularly prominent under composition. Indeed, I'd criticize Mike Christie for setting prose standards too low, as they weren't bothered by the writing, but its implementation. The article leaves the impression, as Chris Troutman put it, that we're not an encyclopedia, we're a platform for fan service. Mr rnddude ( talk) 18:49, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Can I just say in my defence that I hadn't even gotten around to looking at the quality of the prose from that point of view? Addressing the quotes would have changed the prose to the point there seemed little value in criticizing it in that way. Though perhaps I would have eventually let through prose that you might consider fan service; I think it's hard to draw a line between what's encyclopedic and what's not, particularly when reliable sources cover non-encyclopedic material. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 19:51, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

While the criteria do not prohibit it, too many primary sources on an entertainment topic will create articles that lack professionalism and reserve. Chris Troutman ( talk) 19:56, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Just passing-by. That's a fair defence, Mike. In addressing the extensive use of quotes, the tonal issues might be resolved by proxy. Mr rnddude ( talk) 23:39, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

User:ජපස failed the article citing concerns about the article subject itself, but they didn't really have any suggestions for how the article could become a GA, due to its subject. It's okay if we don't want to literally call it a "Good Article" because it's about famous FRINGE -- I'm not trying to win a trophy. But I wonder if somebody else could look over the article and provide suggestions for improvement beyond ජපස's suggestion that the article shouldn't exist. Feoffer ( talk) 00:21, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

Just noted that User:ජපස, an active defender against FRINGE here on Wikipedia, disagrees with recent promotion of a different UFO sighting article to GA. I think their objection is primarily about the subject matter itself, not the article quality. Feoffer ( talk) 01:03, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

You better believe I disagree with this. I think there might be something to be said for your curation of pages related to the 1947 Flying Saucer Craze, but many of the individual cases you seem to want to highlight are borderline in their notability. I notice that the reviewer for that last GA did not seem to notice the WP:FRINGE problems. jps ( talk) 01:08, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

So far as I know, GA Criteria and FA criteria don't include any prohibition against articles documenting fringe. We need as many good articles on fringe topics as we can get -- that's how fringe gets debunked. Feoffer ( talk) 02:09, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

We most certainly do not need "as many good articles on fringe topics as we can get". Most fringe topics do not deserve inclusion in Wikipedia per WP:FRINGE. The bar to get over is one that the fringe claim has been seriously noticed by independent sources. This is a marginal instance here. Rhodes photographs were included in sensational news stories, UFO compendiums, and not much else. jps ( talk) 09:34, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

At a glance, putting aside potential FRINGE/NPOV concerns (and notability concerns), the article's writing could be improved. It is quite short yet remains a series of mostly disconnected sentences. There are some odd inclusions ("Also pictured was Rhodes posing with camera"?), and the sources lack any dates. CMD ( talk) 03:51, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

Thank you! I'll work on those. Feoffer ( talk) 04:05, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

This article has been nominated at GA, but the nominator has been indefinitely blocked. [4] Could someone please remove the nomination? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:00, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

I've removed the nomination. The odd thing is that the GAN was submitted while a Milhist A-class review was ongoing, and A-class is a more advanced status than GA. It isn't appropriate to have both at the same time, just like you shouldn't have a peer review at the same time, or FAC and GAN at the same time. BlueMoonset ( talk) 00:00, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

I failed K-57 (Kansas highway) for not having a map showing the changes to the road, since I feel that the article is incomprehensible without such a map. The nominator, 420Traveler, asked for a second opinion. Can I just reinstate the GA nomination template that I removed and change the status to “2ndopinion”? Or will that screw up Legobot? Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 22:49, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

I believe you can just revert and change the status to second opinion. ( t · c) buidhe 23:54, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

That worked - thanks. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 00:03, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

I want to bring up something that was mentioned at a recent VPR discussion. Levivich said (with regard to DYK) that it was discouraging to find the same editors nominating over and over: "I personally didn't want to be the "personal editor" for a small handful of people who were taking up most of the queue…Same reason I almost never do a GA review". RoySmith agreed. GA reviewing is a common good. Nominators benefit from the labour put in by reviewers; and they can benefit as much as they wish, by nominating more and more articles. Of course Wikipedia also benefits, and more importantly the nominator also has to put in significant labour themselves. But since the reviewing labour pool is finite, reviewing is a common good, not a public good. From our own article on common goods: "As common goods are accessible by everybody, they are at risk of being subject to overexploitation which leads to diminished availability if people act to serve their own self-interests”".

In environments where interaction can be cooperative or self-seeking, most participants stop cooperating unless there is a way to give negative feedback to non-cooperators. But if there is a way to give negative feedback, cooperative behaviour persists. I think there are probably editors like Levivich and RoySmith who would don’t review, or review less than the might, because they sense some GA nominators are non-cooperators, meaning that they nominate more than they review. How many potential GA reviews have we lost because cooperative and non-cooperative nominations are treated alike?

More reviews would mean more GAs which would be better for Wikipedia and for nominators as a group. New nominators, in particular, don’t get quick feedback on their work. Imagine if every first-time GA nominator had their nomination picked up by a reviewer within 2-3 weeks. Wouldn’t that generate a lot more enthusiasm for the process among those nominators? Levivich asked at VPR "I wonder what would happen if there was a queue just of GA/DYK noms by first-time nominators." Is there some way we could change the presentation of GAN to give priority to nominations by the least-experienced nominators? If we did that, perhaps it would automatically slow down the reviews for the most-experienced nominators, which would gently encourage them to review more to eliminate the backlog. Just changing the sort order in each GAN section might be enough to help, though perhaps a new and differently structured page would be even better.

I’m aware Legobot can’t be changed, but I’d still like to figure out if there’s a better way to present the page and worry about implementation later. Also pinging Etriusus, who started the VPR discussion. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 09:46, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

I've mentioned this before, but we have both a list of reviews done by a user, and also how many GAs that person has. If we could suffix a review nomination with a ratio of reviews/GAs that would tell everyone what sort of nominator they are. It's not a formal QPQ requirement, and it's also not something that would stop a review from happening, but people can look down the list and see who is doing more reviews per item nominated and choose for themselves if they want to pick up that review. Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 09:51, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

I like the idea of an extra queue for first time nominators. Maybe we should also have an extra report "GA nominations sorted by net number of reviews" (i.e. number of reviews minus number of GA credits). I'd be opposed to any kind of general restrictions against nominating a lot of GAs, but extra advertising for the work of people who are giving back more to the community sounds fine. — Kusma ( talk) 11:28, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Pinging Wugapodes, whose WugBot would probably be the way any report like that would be written. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 11:34, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

I have previously proposed a per-section limitation, which might help overall throughput by presenting a less intimidating list. I wonder now if that would also lessen the impression described above of areas being dominated by just a few users. CMD ( talk) 12:12, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

I am not opposed to a creating a report based around GANs vs GARs. Does Novem Linguae's Script take into account second opinions(@ Novem Linguae:) when calculating GA review number/can it be worked into this system? I know this was an issue in the past, where second opinions didn't show up on a user's total count. To my knowledge the List of GA reviews doesn't account for this, nor does it account for re-reviews by the same reviewer (e.g. the same reviewer did GA1 & GA2). For example, my count listed is 22 while I've actually done 24 reviews. I'd recommend finding a way to include second opinions, since otherwise there won't be an incentive to cleaning up the second opinion pile that builds up from time to time. Maybe changing the script to recognize who closes the review, rather than who opens it? Etrius ( Us) 19:52, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it does pick up subsequent reviews, as it counts review pages and who made the first edit to them. I believe you can manually add items to the list. Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 20:22, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Hey Etriusus. Thanks for the ping. I think Legobot is the one that maintains that User:GA bot/Stats page. The source code is at https://github.com/legoktm/harej-bots/blob/master/goodarticles.php. If Legobot is miscounting people's GAs, you may want to reach out to the bot's maintainer, Legoktm, or file a ticket on GitHub at https://github.com/legoktm/harej-bots/issues. If I need to make changes to my user script to make something easier for Legobot, I'm open to that too, but I would need details. Hope that helps. – Novem Linguae ( talk) 21:04, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, Novem Linguae. I am wondering if it is feasible to have Legobot identify the closer of a GA nomination rather than the first edit. This would help solve the longstanding issue of second opinions not being counted. I know that your script has an override function, so another reviewer can overtake abandoned reviews and close them on their own. Perhaps whomever adds the FailedGA/PassedGA banners could be recognized as the reviewer.

Lee Vilenski, I did GA1 and GA2 for Consumption of Tide Pods and it seems to have only counted once. If its supposed to include them both, I may need to file a ticket.

Frankly, bots are not my strong suit. Pinging: @ User:Legoktm to see their thoughts and the feasibility of such an idea. Etrius ( Us) 01:10, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Example GA noms table

Based on the suggestions above, here's a table that could be put together without any edits to Legobot. I did this in about three-quarters of an hour from the current GAN page, mostly just using Excel. A caveat: WP:WBGAN does not go below 14 so anyone with less than 14 GAs is listed here as having zero GAs (presumably we could get the rest of the data if necessary). This doesn't include topic area which would be possible, but a little trickier, to add. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 22:26, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Mike! I'll also note that the WBGAN table also excludes good articles later brought up to FA. For instance, while the table says I have 89 promoted, I've actually had 109 (which makes my reviewing average look a fair bit better). Hog Farm _Talk 01:07, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

I wondered about that! But I think errors that make people look better than they are are not that worrisome. After all, we also keep track of statistics at FAC, and for those 20 promoted you invested close to 200 reviews. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 01:11, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

This was exactly the sort of thing I was thinking of, but maybe a bit more like the current layout if implemented. I think we could probably look at getting a new report for all GA nominations, rather than just successful ones which would also then obviously include items that failed and those now at FA or later demoted. Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 07:40, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Lee Vilenski, how about this as a format? What else do you think we'd need? Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 11:13, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Topic area	Nominator	Article	Age in days	Reviews	Promoted GAs	Reviews per GA	Reviews minus GAs
Sports and recreation	BennyOnTheLoose ( talk)	1974 World Snooker Championship ( talk | history | start review)	22	73	75	0.97	-2

That's the right sort of thing - although we'd need to account for |notes and review status (and who is reviewing), as well as third opinions and the like. Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 11:39, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

A status column ("On review", "2nd opinion") and a notes column should be relatively easy for a bot. The reviewer could be added to the status column, though that seems less important to me. I've asked here if WBGAN can be extended to include all promoted GAs. I suspect picking up GAs subsequently demoted or made FA might be harder and wouldn't make much material difference. If WBGAN can be extended I'd like to see this report generated daily, and we can request a bot to do it if there's agreement this would be worth it. Personally I would rather have a page sortable like this than the current GAN page, but if we decide to try this I think we should set it up as a separate report first. I think I'd start using it to pick what to review next -- new nominators with lots of reviews would be top of my list. What do others think? Would a report like this be useful? Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 11:58, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Unless it includes subject area it would be mostly useless to me in finding articles to review. I am quite uninterested in pop culture articles (language & literature, media & drama, music, sports & recreation, and video games) which I think constitute a large fraction of GA nominations, and I rely on the topic sorting of the existing list to find nominations that are of more interest to me. — David Eppstein ( talk) 18:20, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Noms by editors with no GAs

Here's an extract from the bigger table above, this time with the actual number of GAs included. I've filtered out every nominator who already had a GA promoted, so this lists current nominations by editors who have no GAs to their credit. These are the ones I would like to see at the top of the list on the GAN page, to get reviewed quickly. It's sorted by number of GA reviews done by the nominator; I think nominators who have done a lot of reviewing deserve priority. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 12:38, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Current GA nominations by editors with no GAs

Nominator	Article	Age in days	Reviews
Shaidar cuebiyar	Bear Witness	8	36
Shushugah	Volkswagen worker organizations	112	28
Shushugah	Apple worker organizations	55	28
Gazozlu	Gürdal Duyar	12	7
Bluecrystal004	Yume Nikki	9	6
CactiStaccingCrane	SpaceX Starship	39	6
Caleb Stanford	Yes (band)	92	4
GeoffreyT2000	6ix9ine	7	4
MaxnaCarta	Dietrich v The Queen	25	3
Nolabob	Edith Rosenwald Stern	60	3
Bubka 95	Jaimin Rajani	8	2
Rusalkii	Poodle	13	2
DadOfTheYear2022	Eagle Scout	7	1
Praseodymium-141	Terbium compounds	63	1
Tagooty	Crested honey buzzard	50	1
Vladimir.copic	Zodiac Suite	21	1

Thanks for putting this table together! Pleasingly, all but one appear to be noms by editors who have been editing the article in question, which is a question I've been interested in for awhile. CMD ( talk) 12:53, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

I just realized the table is misleading; there are plenty more new nominators, but this only shows the ones who have done some reviewing. I'll add the others in a bit. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 12:59, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Here's the table again, this time including first time nominators who have also never reviewed. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 13:06, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Again, please include topic areas. Lists that do not break the nominations down in that way make it very difficult for me to pick out the articles that might interest me from the many that do not. — David Eppstein ( talk) 18:22, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes, definitely. At the moment I’m just trying to see if there’s interest in this way of presenting the nominations, and this list was just a test. Some version of the format above, including topic, reviewer, and notes, seems to be the best idea so far. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 21:59, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

FYI, for anyone interested, I have submitted a request to approve a bot to write a page that looks like the more detailed outline above. It would use WBGAN as it stands, meaning anyone with less than 14 GAs would be treated as having no GAs; if I can't persuade the operator of that bot to change it to allow more entries I might take on doing that as well. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 13:22, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Looks like it's already been approved Mike Christie. SD0001 - do you think this is something that can be done for WP:WBGAN? Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 17:58, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

See here; the answer is no, but it doesn't matter because I can get the data from a database. (Once I figure out how.) As I said there, I'm a bit surprised that under 5,000 rows is considered a lot of data, but that's not an issue for my purposes. I'm starting to work on the bot code and I'm not sure I can get the notes easily, but everything else looks straightforward. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 18:58, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

It appears that my nomination at Talk:Mamie Eisenhower/GA1 has been quick passed without review. Thebiguglyalien ( talk) 23:56, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Pinging User:Orson12345 to this discussion. This indeed was passed with no review, which we as a community at minimum strongly frown upon. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 02:30, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Hello, I passed the article because I believe that it met all the GA requirements. I am quite new to GA reviewing, correct me if I’m wrong, but if an article already meets the requirements, why do we have to do a full on review? The whole point of the review is to get the article to GA standards, if it’s already up to standard why should I start a pointless deliberation? If I’m wrong, please let me know because, again, I’m quite new to the GA process and if I made a mistake, I want to fix it. Thanks, Orson12345 ( Talk • Contribs) 13:57, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for helping out! Basically, there is no way to understand if an article has met the requirements without a review. You don't have to provide suggestions if you think none are needed, but the pass should explain the review you have given, ie. why you think each aspect is passed, and how you checked those aspects (which sources were looked at, consideration of broadness, etc.). The review here as written just has the pass symbols, so it's hard for others looking at the page to understand why the article is considered up to standard. Best, CMD ( talk) 14:08, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

@ Chipmunkdavis: Ah I see, so should I go back to the review page and explain further in detail why the article is up to standard? Is there a template that I could use to sort of checklist everything? Thanks. Orson12345 ( Talk • Contribs) 14:45, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

That would be great. There's not really a template, especially as the considerations will differ depending on the article. Some people do write it out in a table format, others do it in prose. CMD ( talk) 01:10, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

There's no standard template, but there are templates, at Wikipedia:Good article nominations/templates. They all have spaces where you can and should explain your evaluation of the article against each criterion. — David Eppstein ( talk) 01:19, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification! That includes some of the table formats I mentioned. CMD ( talk) 03:02, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Someone should probably take a look at this.~~ AirshipJungleman29 ( talk) 10:50, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

CSD tagged. CMD ( talk) 10:57, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

Mahajir (Pakistan) was nominated as a GAN about 80 minutes ago at 05:12, 15 October 2022‎ (UTC) by Flamealpha123, an editor who has been working on the article for some time. Four minutes later, a completely new Wikipedian, Imamuhajireditor, filled in the subtopic parameter that Flamealpha123 had left blank, but oddly filled it with "Language and literature" rather than what should have been chosen, "Culture, sociology and psychology". Four minutes after that, at 05:20, another completely new Wikipedian, Muhajireditor opened a GA review at Talk:Mahajir (Pakistan)/GA1, and 13 minutes later passed the article; clearly insufficient time spent to check an article with over 22 thousand prose characters and 94 separate references.

That's 21 minutes from nomination to passage.

It's pretty clear from the "review" that the editor is someone who does not understand the GA criteria—all one has to do is look at the lead section, which clearly fails MOS:LEAD in any number of ways, a hard stop right there—so I have reverted the passage and reset the nomination so it's ready for a GA reviewer who knows what they're doing and will be able to approach this without any Mahajir biases, since neutrality is another key GA criterion. I'm also wondering how two brand new editors, with usernames based on the ethnic group the article covers (I suppose it could be the same editor using two similarly named new accounts), knew to show up immediately and combined to give this article a status that it doesn't yet deserve. BlueMoonset ( talk) 06:34, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Unsurprisingly, they are all  Confirmed to each other. Reaper Eternal ( talk) 19:56, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Because the sockpuppetry was in the nomination itself, and not just in the faulty review, I removed the nomination from the article talk page without review. Obviously, no prejudice against a non-sockpuppet editor working on the article and re-nominating it. — David Eppstein ( talk) 20:33, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Very disappointing to read about the nominator's socked self-review; removing the GA nomination makes perfect sense under the circumstances. Thanks for checking, Reaper Eternal, and for removing the nomination, David Eppstein. As noted, the article still needs work before any future nomination. BlueMoonset ( talk) 02:55, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

At User:ChristieBot/SortableGANoms there is a sortable table of GA nominations. This is a draft and there are some caveats:

• The "promoted GAs" is currently taken from WBGAN, which only lists the top 500 GA nominators. This means anyone with less than 14 nominations is listed as having zero successful GAs. I will be fixing this as soon as I can figure out the technical details.
• I plan to change the "Status" column so that the status word ("Under review", "Waiting", etc.) is a link to the GA review as is done from the GAN page now.
• The notes column is not currently populated.
• It is being updated manually at the moment, meaning that I have to press a button. I will automate it soon, but probably not till I have the other issues addressed.

Any feedback on either the layout, or whether this approach to a GAN table is useful in the first place, would be great to hear. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 22:41, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

@ Mike Christie: I suppose the table doesn't take into account username changes? Because I'm listed as having done 0 GA reviews even though I've done a few under my previous username. Bennv123 ( talk) 23:59, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

It goes by this list. That's a Legobot function so there's little chance it can be corrected. If you let me know your old username I can add a correction for you and anyone in your situation. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 00:04, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

I see. Can I let you know via wikimail since my username was changed for privacy concerns. Bennv123 ( talk) 00:14, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

I will wikimail you in a moment. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 00:16, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

I've put a temporary workround (a static table of the current GA noms statistics) which allows me to put in the equivalent of WBGAN data. This means the promoted GA count is now accurate, except for name changes, and the revews count is accurate except for name changes. It won't be updated for at least a few days so will gradually get out of date. However, this means that the table is now usable to identify nominators with no promoted GAs. Pinging Levivich, who mentioned this as something they would like to see. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 01:32, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Good work! It's certainly interesting to look at, and it rather confirms my suspicion that there are a few people who nominate a *ton* of GAs while reviewing relatively few. There are also some people who nominate a lot of GAs while simultaneously reviewing a lot, of course. I don't want to call anyone out specifically, because everyone's editing style is different and some people, as noted above, may have edited or reviewed under different usernames, or simply contribute a lot in a different area of the encyclopedia. However, it does get me thinking about what structural changes might help with the GA reviewing backlog. A simple one-for-one QPQ requirement like DYK might just encourage a lot of quick, half-hearted reviews, which could cause long-term problems in the higher-stakes atmosphere of GA. However, maybe we could institute something like a 4:1 ratio - after your first 4 "free" GA nominations, you must review at least one GA for every 4 nominations you make; in other words, keep your Reviews per GA ratio above 0.25. —Ganesha811 ( talk) 15:56, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

promoted GA count is now accurate, except for name changes The sdzerobot database does account for username changes :) Let me know if you need help with querying the database. – SD0001 ( talk) 16:56, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Must be my error then; I took that data from the toolforge table directly. I'll take a look at the code again this evening. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 17:06, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Just realized that the error is in the wording above (now fixed). It's the reviews count that has the name change problem, not the promoted GA count. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 18:31, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Ganesha811, rather than QPQ in any form I think we're better off making the data available and letting reviewers figure out how they want to prioritize the queue. The existing GAN page makes the assumption that older nominations are more urgent. I don't think that should be the case. If I had to prioritize the list, I would probably do it like this, from most urgent to least:

1. Nominations from editors with no GAs to their credit. We want new nominators to be enthusiastic about the process and to get feedback quickly.
   1. Top priority to editors who have reviewed already -- the more reviews, the higher the priority.
   2. Next priority to editors who have never reviewed.
2. Nominations from editors with a small number of GAs -- say, 1-4 -- to their credit. Sorted by reviews minus GAs (R-G).
3. Everyone else, sorted by R-G, with ties broken by age of nomination.

This would make the top three urgent list:

1. Bear Witness, nominated by Shaidar cuebiyar, who has done 36 reviews. 15 days old.
2. Volkswagen worker organizations or Apple worker organizations, both nominated by Shushugah who has done 28 reviews. 118 days old and 61 days old.
3. Gürdal Duyar, nominated by Gazozlu, who has reviewed 7 articles. 19 days old.

There are 65 editors who have nominations waiting who have no promoted GAs. If we prioritized like this, in two weeks nearly all of them would have disappeared from the list, and if they nominate again they would drop down the priority order -- unless they start reviewing. That's the motivation to review; it moves you up the list.

Incidentally, I see Shaidar cuebiyar lists a dozen GAs on their web page but those were not nominated by them; they collaborated on the fixes -- I suppose the prioritization for this sort of thing might have to be tweaked.

This approach doesn't require any record-keeping of QPQs and it doesn't prevent reviewers like David Eppstein, who is interested in specific topics, from reviewing whatever they want to. It would be possible to present GAN in this order, or some other order that has consensus, or even to have sort columns to give different approaches if we want to get that fancy. But I think the current sort order, which privileges age of nomination, is a bad way to do it, and causes some of the complaints we've periodically seen. And as far as the backlog is concerned, I would break it into two: urgent backlog is anyone with R-G greater than zero. The rest is backlog, but less important, because those nominators can move themselves into the urgent backlog by reviewing. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 22:06, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

R-G is a stupid way to prioritize, because it means that someone who has 0 reviews and 10 nominations (say) is prioritized as higher than someone with 150 reviews and 200 nominations. The 150-200 editor is clearly contributing more to the project but your prioritization sends the message that they are not wanted and should go away. Only using age of these nominations to break ties and not as the main priority likely means that instead of languishing for months, some of the oldest nominations could even languish for years without a review, because they would not be suggested as in need of attention.

Also, I am in fact prevented from reviewing, by the simple fact that there are not nominations in the topics that interest me except the ones by me. Your proposed prioritization or fancy tables don't really cause that or address it, but it's still true. This means that to me, penalizing nominators for not reviewing is very close to the same thing as penalizing under-nominated topic areas for being under-nominated. — David Eppstein ( talk) 22:24, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

There are different versions of the GAN list and no one is forced to use any one when deciding which articles to review. We decide by RFC which one is most useful and appears on the main GAN page while the others are linked from there. ( t · c) buidhe 22:47, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

In practice, the order that appears on the main page is the order that will be used. The message I am seeing from the R-G prioritization is that someone who has 40 reviews but 440 nominations (to pick an example) will be dead last forever, because it will take them 400 multi-hour reviews to catch up and who has the motivation to put in that much effort before getting any reward? So we are essentially telling a very productive contributor to both reviews and nominations to go away, because we don't want contributors who put a lot of time into this process but are balanced more towards nominations than reviews. Is that the outcome you are trying to achieve?

Maybe to put it another way: R-G might be the thing to optimize if your main goal in shaking up the GA process, the one thing that must be achieved over all others, is to decrease the backlog. An easier but more extreme way of achieving that would be to impose a cap: if you think the backlog should never be more than 50 articles, then disallow nominations from anyone whenever it reaches that limit. But I don't think that is what we should be trying to optimize. Your focus on prioritizing new nominators appears to have a different goal: to encourage editors to join the GA process, by giving them a false sense of how easy it is to get their articles reviewed. Both reducing the backlog and bringing in more editors are worthwhile, but only because they are correlated with what should be the main goal, getting as many articles to GA status as possible while maintaining our standards for what that status means. If we do things that improve those secondary goals but disimprove the main goal, we are making the GA process worse, even while making it look better according to the incorrect choice of goals we use. — David Eppstein ( talk) 06:33, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

What if the backlog impedes the goal of getting as many articles to GA status as possible? If reducing the backlog doubled the reviewer pool, then the editor with 400 noms would have their noms reviewed in half the time. Levivich ( talk) 06:39, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

That's part of what I hope would happen if we prioritize new nominators -- we would get a larger pool of reviewers and that would eat through the backlog faster. But I think David is right that R-G would have effects we don't want. What if we restricted both counts (R and G) to the last 12 months? Just for the purpose of calculating R-G as a prioritization number. We would still show R and G in the table, but R₁₂ - G₁₂ would be used for sorting. This also discounts the contributions of someone who did a hundred reviews last year, which seems a pity, but perhaps it's better to focus on the state of play right now. I would still want to use G, not G₁₂, to put new nominators at the top of the table. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 11:24, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

I prefer the r/g to r-g, but it does serve some purpose (i.e I would use it as a way to differentiate editors with similar r/g stats. I think our goal should not be to reduce the backlog, but to reduce the time spent waiting for a review. A backlog of 500 is fine if no one waits more than a couple of weeks vs a backlog of 50 and many editors are waiting for months for a review. Aircorn  (talk) 15:47, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Is there any evidence that the order that appears on the main page is the main factor for reviewers in deciding what to review? Based on absolutely no evidence at all I would have imagined that most reviewers choose what to review primarily on what interests them most – that's certainly the main factor which goes into my choice of what to review. Caeciliusinhorto-public ( talk) 15:00, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

The state of the Agriculture, food and drink section has always felt like a possible indicator. CMD ( talk) 15:55, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Not necessarily. If I did the math right, ag/food/drink is about 0.8% of all GAs. We'd expect with the current size of GAN that using that percentage there'd be about 4 ag/food/drink noms, and there's 0, but given the sizes of the data points, I don't know that there's anything statistically significant about that. Hog Farm _Talk 16:09, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

I actually review food and drink articles because they are a bit more mainstream and tend to be easier to manage rather than because they are top of the list. Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 17:27, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Some reviewers work from the backlog report; I mostly do that myself, and there are definitely others who do the same. The report treats age in days as the overriding factor and the result is older nominations rise to the top of the list for those reviewers. There are certainly reviewers who pay no attention to the report and review what interests them regardless of age, but not everyone reviews that way. So yes, the order definitely matters. If we choose a different (default) order, I think it would change reviewer behaviour, perhaps by quite a lot. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 17:19, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

I think the big benefit to this is that you can now sort to your liking. I'd be more likely to review high review/nom ratio items but others may prioritise new items and others might choose new nominators. Part of the thing is that there are no hard and fast rules on who can review what, and that's a good thing! Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 11:35, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Lee here. There's never going to be one GAN sort that pleases all of the editors all of the time, so providing multiple ways of presentation is an excellent thing to do. Hog Farm _Talk 13:30, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Comment Thank you Mike and everyone else for all the effort in making these changes. It is very much along the lines of what I was trying to achieve years ago when adding the number of reviews to the page. Agree with the others above that having more information to base your reviewer choices on is a good thing. I don't know if it is possible, but could you add contributions there in some form. We have had issues in the past when very new editors suddenly start nominating articles and while often it is all in good faith sometimes it is not (at the least it would be helpful to identify and guide them through the process). Aircorn  (talk) 15:47, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

It looks as if I can easily get editcount, so I will add that as a column. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 17:19, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

The draft page now has an edit count column and I've added a link from the status to the GA review. I'll probably update it every day or so while I'm working on automating it. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 22:38, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

ONe thing that would be cool is if there is some way to see a list of noms who have no reviews, no GAs, and not currently under review. Then you could quickly give the nominator feedback if the GAN was unlikely to be successful. ( t · c) buidhe 01:28, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Buidhe, that was a well-timed question! Try this link. I was just coming here to post a notice about a tool I've just built that allows filtering of the GAN page by a variety of options. The tool's main page is here. I'd be glad of any feedback. I still have to implement sorting; currently it sorts by age. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 01:33, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi Mike, this might be a bit indulgent, but under a similar theme is it easy to create a column for number of edits to the nominated article? CMD ( talk) 03:03, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

It’s definitely possible but it might make it run too slowly — for each row in the table I’d have to query the contributions for the article and search for the nominator, and I don’t think that’s likely to be quick, so doing it 500 times is probably not practical. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 03:06, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Understandable. If there was a way to limit the computing needs, for example perhaps by limiting the query to the 100 most recent edits, would that help? CMD ( talk) 03:30, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

It might; I’ll take a look at what the API allows. It might also be possible to do something like run a daily job to get the numbers and store them locally on the server, then use that to fill the values in the table. It could then be sorted on that field as well.

I started working on this tool thinking that the main GAN page ought to be sorted differently, but I’m now starting to think there are multiple different uses for a tool like this — filtering out non-contributing nominators is one. Another might be finding inexperienced nominators — e.g. anyone with an edit count under, say, 1000. I do still think the current sort order is not a good one, though I’m not sure what the best alternative is. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 03:37, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

I really like this tool. I've been using it to figure out who to review next and I've done quite a few this month. Any ideas how often the page is likely to update? Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 21:17, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Lee, are you asking about this page or about this tool? I can't update the former at the moment and probably won't be able to for several days; aside from anything else I have house guests so I can't just write code all day! However, the GANfilter tool should be live -- that is, if you run it you will get data reflecting the state of WP:GAN at that moment. That tool should be able to give you the same output as the draft page I linked to, though in a slightly different format. Can I ask how you've been prioritizing your reviews? R/G, or new reviewers, or something else? Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 22:53, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

I tend to review items for people who do lots of reviews. Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 23:01, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Sorry for the long section but it is getting complicated which is why I am asking for help/advice.

I have been looking at and working through several related Good Articles, namely:

• Haskell canoe - Former GA, merged with the Haskelite article.
• Haskelite - Delisted after a GAR ( Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Haskelite/1)
• Haskell Manufacturing Company - Current GA. Proposed merge with Haskelite Manufacturing Corporation at [5].
• Haskelite Manufacturing Corporation - Current GA. Proposed merge with at Haskell Manufacturing Company [6].
• Carrom Company - Current GA

I was initially looking at them one or two at a time and didn't want to overwhelm the GAR process but I am finding statements on the different pages that are not consistent between the pages and the response to the proposed merge even though they were largely created by and proposed to GA by the same user. For example:

• Talk page diffs of 2 different authors saying that Haskelite was first produced by Carrom Company at [7] and [8] but no mention of this fact at Haskelite, Haskell Manufacturing Company or Carrom Company and in fact no mention at all of Haskelite at Caroom company.
• On the Company page it says that
  • The Corporation opened a second plant called the Haskelite Manufacturing Corporation.
  • The plant in Ludington was part of the larger Haskelite Manufacturing Corporation.
  • The Grand Rapids plant of the Haskelite Manufacturing Corporation was a spin off from the Company.

So a corporation opened a second plant which it spun off but it owned the original Company but The Haskelite Manufacturing Corporation page on the other hand makes no mention of the Company apart from saying Haskelite Manufacturing Corporation was formed in late 1917 as a spin-off from the Haskell Manufacturing Company of Ludington.

The original author takes it further at Talk:Haskell Manufacturing Company when they say The Haskell Manufacturing Company is basically a derivative off the Carrom Company which, if supported by WP:RS, is not mentioned at either Carrom Company or Haskell Manufacturing Company.

• There also appear to be some issues where it is unclear if the the plant and the organisation running it is being talked about.

I keep on coming across more issues and rather than playing whack-a-mole with individual issues on individual pages I was wondering if there can be a process for grouping together GARs for multiple articles at the same time? Apart from anything else it would make sense to look at them together so that content can be best assigned to the correct page and a fix on one page can be integrated into other pages. Gusfriend ( talk) 08:59, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Let's figure out which of these should be merged. The ones that cease to exist as independent articles also cease to be GAs and the rest could be reassessed. ( t · c) buidhe 21:57, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Would anyone be interested in taking over Talk:Thurgood Marshall/GA1? The reviewer unfortunately hasn't been able to make much progress in the month and a half or so since the review was opened, so although I'm not in a hurry, it'd probably be for the best if someone else was willing to step in. Thanks in advance! Extraordinary Writ ( talk) 07:28, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

I can wrap up the review. Hopefully in the next day or two, but sometime this weekend at the latest. So far the article looks excellent! Ajpolino ( talk) 03:47, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

I don't think I will be able to complete the above review. Please can someone take over? ¹⁴¹ Pr 13:24, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

The user that was reviewing this article appears to have gone inactive right as the review was being finished. Thebiguglyalien ( talk) 19:38, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Hello everyone, the reviewer for Talk:Thanos (Marvel Cinematic Universe)/GA1 is unable to complete their review due to time commitments. I have adjusted the template to 2ndopinion, but if anyone wants to take over through a fresh GAN page that would work too. Best, CMD ( talk) 14:38, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

I passed Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, but Legobot placed an edit summary on the nominations page that says "Maintenance" instead of "Passed". A GA icon was not added to the article and a message wasn't added to the nominator's talk page. I haven't reviewed a GA for a while so maybe I messed up the closure. SL93 ( talk) 16:11, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

theleekycauldron Just seeing if you have any ideas. I am more technology challenged. SL93 ( talk) 21:13, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

@ SL93: Hmm, I'm not sure – it looks like it's been taking off the GAN page? theleekycauldron ( talk • contribs) (she/her) 22:34, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

SL93, your closure was fine. However, when the bot was created, the expectation was that the nomination, the opening of the review, the setting of any further status like on hold or second opinion (if appropriate), and the ultimate pass or fail, would all be done far enough apart that the bot would run between each change; it initially ran every 10 minutes, and has run every 20 minutes for many years. (In other words, the review page would be opened when the reviewer decided to take on the review, and their review of the article against the criteria would then take place, with the results posted to the page a while later, by which time the bot would have run and updated the GA nominee template, transcluded the nomination page, and done whatever additional bookkeeping the bot does to internally keep track of things... if anything.) The key one that the bot seems to count on is that it gets to place the initial "onreview" status into an empty status field and do its other review setup steps; if this doesn't happen, it doesn't properly pick up on the eventual pass or fail, so it won't put the right words in the edit summary, nor—so far as I know—send a pass or fail message to the nominator, or add the GA icon to the article. Another advantage to opening the review page and then posting the review later is that you don't risk someone else taking the review while you're working on it, which has happened in the past. BlueMoonset ( talk) 22:23, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. I will keep it in mind next time. SL93 ( talk) 22:33, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Hello all, I started the review of Glyptotherium on October 3rd, completed the initial review (with comments on some things that need work before I can continue) on October 7th, and re-pinged the nominator Augustios Paleo ( talk · contribs) on October 15th. However, it appears that the nominator is inactive. Normally, I'd just fail the article for lack of response, but the article itself is both written quite well and extensively researched. It just needs some minor cleanup and improvement to pass GAN. (The main issues are the images being used and too-broad citations.) Is anybody interested in taking this over, or should I just fail it? I don't believe it would be proper for me to both review and make my own improvements. Reaper Eternal ( talk) 18:12, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Reaper Eternal, it looks to me that Augustios Paleo made three edits to the article a week ago today, on October 17, to address a couple of issues raised in your review, so your October 15 ping seems to have had some response, if not as much as you were hoping for. Maybe allow more time, and ask them on their talk page whether they plan to be more active in communicating and updating? BlueMoonset ( talk) 23:58, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Yes I will fix issues, sorry for delay as I have still been very busy. I will change the images when I get home. Augustios Paleo ( talk) 21:02, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for letting me know. Reaper Eternal ( talk) 23:04, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Notice - I am the nominator for this item. Reviewer has been inactive for over a month - would anyone else mind taking a look at the item? Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 11:42, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Lee Vilenski, I'd like to suggest that we consider this nomination and Talk:Rabia Balkhi/GA1, which were both opened for review by the same reviewer on September 4, to be abandoned. As the reviews were never started, I think the best thing to do is to delete the review pages and put both nominations back into the pool of unreviewed nominations with no loss of seniority. Pinging HistoryofIran, the nominator of Rabia Balkhi. BlueMoonset ( talk) 19:19, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

[9] This user appears to have quit Wikipedia. They certainty will no longer be editing. I'd be willing to pick up both of these reviews, I've been meaning to review more articles lately. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 19:28, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Ops, forgot to reply to this, sorry. @BlueMoonset Thanks for the suggestion and pinging me. I would have said yes, but now that Trainsandotherthings wants to review it, I'll gladly accept that. -- HistoryofIran ( talk) 13:13, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Trainsandotherthings, thanks for offering. If you're willing to take over both reviews, that solves the problem. If not, be sure to let us know. BlueMoonset ( talk) 05:35, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

I will be taking over both. I've started on Rabia Balkhi and will start on Retribution as well. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 12:41, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

I will be unable to complete the above GA review I assumed for Sour (album). Best if someone can take over, regards.-- N Ø 11:40, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Ronherry, the best thing may be to have the nomination put back in the pool of unreviewed nominations with no loss of seniority, and the review page deleted, since the review wasn't actually begun. Would that be okay? We could always request a second opinion, but that frequently doesn't work to bring in someone willing to conduct an entire review. BlueMoonset ( talk) 05:40, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

@ BlueMoonset: Yes, I'm okay with that. But how do I do that? ℛonherry ☘ 06:40, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Ronherry, I've just started the process to delete the review page. You don't need to do anything. Thanks for replying. BlueMoonset ( talk) 14:26, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

I've deleted the page, so @ BlueMoonset: the reset process can be finished off. Hog Farm _Talk 14:35, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, Hog Farm. Ronherry, the reset is complete. I hope a reviewer comes by soon, though it may be a while, since there are several hundred nominations awaiting reviewers. BlueMoonset ( talk) 20:17, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I'll wait patiently. Have a nice day. ℛonherry ☘ 20:33, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Hiya I had a new reviewer, Shawn Teller, pass Squatting in Albania with zero comments at Talk:Squatting in Albania/GA2, so I've dropped them a line about it on their talkpage and would ask someone here to revert it please, thanks! Mujinga ( talk) 10:49, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Mujinga, thanks for pointing this out. I am very skeptical of a review that was opened and completed in under ten minutes by a new reviewer who had made their first Wikipedia edit eleven days prior to conducting the review. While I don't think it was the right approach to attempt to delete the review page, as someone else attempted but was rebuffed, I think it would be best to revert the passage and restore the nomination with no loss of seniority, which I'll be doing shortly. I think the reviewer should gain significant additional experience of Wikipedia in general and article quality in particular before attempting another review. BlueMoonset ( talk) 20:28, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Cheers for the reset BlueMoonset! Mujinga ( talk) 17:58, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

• I am not entirely clear what this means (and if I should have been afforded a "hold" or another reviewer)..."although I think it can be improved to meet those, I don't think it will be in a timeframe that is suitable to put the review on hold. Also (this might be a bit controversial), I am not certain that it would be a complete improvement for this article to be changed in a way that would get it there." [10]--thank you Ozzie10aaaa ( talk) 16:20, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

  Hi @ Ozzie10aaaa, a standard hold at GAN means seven days to improve the page. The reviewer is saying that seven days would not be sufficient to make all of the needed changes. Sammi Brie (she/her •  t • c) 08:19, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

right, however if you look at the quote it seems as though he's implying the article ... "Also (this might be a bit controversial), I am not certain that it would be a complete improvement for this article to be changed in a way that would get it there" [11] ...which is not the neutral way a reviewer should appraise an article (please see link)...-- Ozzie10aaaa ( talk) 12:24, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the issue being pointed out here. The quote above and the text following it are general comments about the nature of Wikipedia and Wikipedia articles, they don't seem to be a defining part of the assessment. (There is confusion between prose length and technical length in that review, but that's a common issue.) CMD ( talk) 13:01, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

The reviewer is saying that they have pointed out some issues with the article, but they aren't the culmination of all the things required to make the item suitable at GA level. They have rightly failed the article as being too far away from one of the GA criteria. There's no issues with this and they have helpfully not lead you on by placing the article on hold making you think that the article is going to pass soon. Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 13:51, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

thank you for your reply-- Ozzie10aaaa ( talk) 15:39, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Starting a new section for this as there is now a tool that we can use to try different sort orders. The GAN filter tool now handles most of what's been requested in the earlier conversation. I am still looking into handling name changes, and I can't yet get edit counts by the nominator on the nominated article, but the current GAN page doesn't show either of these so I don't think it's an issue. I am also still working on getting notes to display, but very few nominations use this feature so I don't feel it's urgent.

If you go to the tool and press "submit", you'll get everything on the GAN page along with the following columns:

• Edit count of nominator
• Age of the nomination in days
• # GA reviews the nominator has performed
• # of articles the nominator has previously had promoted to GA (does not include any articles that are now FAs)
• Reviews performed divided by GAs promoted (R/G)
• Reviews perfomed minus GAs promoted (R - G)

I have set up a customized sort that puts new nominators at the top, following by everyone else sorted by R/G. I think there are some problems with sorting this way, but I think the current sort is worse. I would like to propose that we replace the current GA page with something like this.

I'd like to get other suggestions for sort order; I can set up additional custom sorts so we can try them out and compare pros and cons. Hence I'm not formally proposing this particular sort order; I'd rather see some discussion here and get a consensus on what the best way to sort the page would be, and then if we can get consensus here, propose it at a broader forum such as WP:VPR. Please try the tool out and see if you can think of other ways to improve on the GAN page we currently have. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 16:47, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for building this Mike, I know that I will be using this when I decide which GANs to review. I suggest adding the explanation for R/G and R-G onto the page, as I had to come back to this discussion to understand the meanings of those short-forms. This would make it more user-friendly for newer users. Z1720 ( talk) 17:01, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Good idea; done. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 19:17, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm generally in favor of keeping the topic-based subdivisions, but I also think we should prioritize new nominators and those who have reviewed many times but rarely nominated. Therefore, a compromise! We should sort *within* each topic area based on the informal proposal above: new nominators first (sorted by oldest to newest), then everyone else in R/G order. It would provide a gentle incentive to review for more experienced nominators while not providing any harsh penalties if someone chooses not to, while encouraging our newer editors and getting them through the process. —Ganesha811 ( talk) 22:41, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

I like this version of the re-prioritization proposal. Prioritization this way within topics seems to me much less harsh than sorting all nominations together in a big pile of unreviewed and maybe never-to-be-reviewed stuff. — David Eppstein ( talk) 20:37, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

OK. I’ll put together a page organized this way for review. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 20:51, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for the hard work you're putting in on this, with any luck it will result in lasting improvements! —Ganesha811 ( talk) 21:03, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Per the comments above I've now updated the draft page with separate topic/subtopic sections; the GAN filter tool produces the same output, formatted as a web page. At the moment neither are sorted within those groups but the wiki page does have sortable columns, and the tool does allow filtering the list down to what you're interested in. I will add a default sort order of new nominators first, then descending by G/R, in the next few days -- possibly tomorrow morning but more likely Thursday or Friday. If anyone has other layouts or sort orders they'd like to see, please let me know. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 21:11, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Looking good! When it's all set we should start an RFC on this page to implement it for the main nominations page. —Ganesha811 ( talk) 21:14, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Glad you like it! I think we should probably get a local consensus on what we think the best option is first, and then propose that in a more widely advertised RfC -- not everyone who might be interested watches this page. And I think one problem is going to be there are so many choices on sort order and presentation it will be hard to come up with an RfC that won't lead to ten options splitting the vote. Another issue is that Legobot currently writes this page, and the bot owner is not making any changes to it any more. We would have to see if we can get the code changed to write the same data to a different page. Both the code I wrote and the bot that updates the stats page depend on the current format of the WP:GAN page, so the page has to continue to exist somewhere. I will also work on building the page by iterating over the open GA reviews, using the template to find them; it could certainly be done and would eliminate the reliance on Legobot but would take longer. I'll look into that while the discussion here is ongoing. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 21:22, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

I agree that the RfC should be widely advertised ( WP:CENT would do nicely) but I think it should be hosted on this page. Maybe a link at the Village Pump too. I agree that too many choices would be an issue. Perhaps we could propose three options; A) status quo, no changes B) our specific proposal C) changes necessary, but not that change. As to the technical issues, I'm not familiar with them or how to fix them, but if we need help, perhaps we could recruit someone from the Bot Approvals Group? —Ganesha811 ( talk) 06:11, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

I now have things working reliably enough to discuss options. This is what the body of the page would look like with option B. The tool now allows you to choose whether you want the topics split or not, so this could also be an option, but it sounds like people are likely to prefer the topic split. How does that look? I think a first step would be a local discussion here, not advertised, since some of the most active reviewers and people knowledgeable about GA watch this page. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 01:58, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Wow! Looks impressive. What is the default sort order within each table? It doesn't seem to match any of the columns. I might suggest age be the default if there is none, to match the current setup. An item that feels missing compared to the current page is the article log links (esp. talk and history), which would be nice to have available from this page. Lastly, the Notes column is entirely blank, but may struggle if it has to get any wider. Could say the text in the right column headers be under small tags? Best, CMD ( talk) 03:02, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

For both versions of the page the sort order within tables is new nominators at the top (i.e. nominators with no promoted GAs) followed by everyone else. The new nominators are sorted by the number of reviews they’ve done. Everyone else is sorted by R/G — the ratio of reviews they’ve done to the number of GAs they’ve had promoted. Yes, I don’t have the Notes column working yet — still working on that. It also doesn’t yet account for name changes. Yes, I can add those links, but as you say it could get a bit squeezed. Perhaps a carriage return within the table cell would be a better idea than small tags? Two other ideas for shrinking the width: shorten column headings for the numeric columns ("Age","Revs", "GAs","R/G", "R-G"); and/or eliminate the topic area column as it's implied by the subtopic. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 11:04, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Looking at the Warfare section, one nominator, simongraham, has two nominations which are separated by other nominations. Similarly in Sports and Recreation Sportsfangnome's two nominations are split up by simongraham. Seeing these is what made me think it wasn't by nominator, although perhaps it is not a huge issue. For the squeeze, could talk and contribs be shortened to just t and c? I think everyone will know what that's about. If you want to shorten column headers perhaps add the longer wording as a reference so it can be seen on hover. CMD ( talk) 14:00, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

I've implemented the "t/c" shortening and the shortened headings. Currently the new nominators are sorted by age of nomination after the # of reviews, so since simongraham has no reviews and no promoted GAs, he's mixed in with the other nominations where the nominator has no reviews and no promoted GAs. There's currently no third sort key for the non-new nominator sections, but I could make it by number of GAs descending, which would mean that someone with 1 review and 3 GAs would sort ahead of someone with 2 reviews and 6 GAs. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 15:17, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm a fan of the new sort order. A couple of suggestions to keep it new-reviewer friendly: the nice bold "Start review" button we have now would good be to keep (instead of "Waiting"). Also, perhaps the first two columns could be the article name and status, like how it is now, as those seem like the most relevant columns for a new reviewer. Olivaw-Daneel ( talk) 18:43, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Done. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 19:41, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

This may be difficult to implement or controversial, so feel free to ignore, but I think if it's possible, the page should be even simpler. I don't think we need to put all the columns of edits, R/G, R-G, etc on there. That should be back-end stuff. Just a numbered list of the nominations, as we currently have them on the actual page, but in a different order determined as we have discussed. My thinking is that we should be keeping the front-end list of articles awaiting review simple and shiny, not a place for complex analysis of who "deserves" to be reviewed, while using the back-end sorting system to put prioritized nominations at the top. —Ganesha811 ( talk) 19:46, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

That's very easy to do, but I'd like to hear other opinions before doing it, just to be sure that it's the majority view. Personally I would like to see at least some of those columns there -- the R and G at least, and probably R/G. The edits column I can make visible for those using the tool rather than the bot-loaded page; I know there are people who would like to see the edits column so they can spot very new (probably too new) nominators. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 20:07, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

as we've said a few times above, one of the major plusses for this is that the sorting order is customisable. One person might be interested in people who have no nominations, another on where the item has been waiting the longest, whereas I might pick up the one with the person has either the most reviews, or the highest ratio of reviews to GAs. Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 20:11, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Fair enough, if my opinion is in the minority I don't mind. —Ganesha811 ( talk) 20:17, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

I think there's some room for trimming: if we're keeping R, G and R/G, not sure if we also need R-G. And instead of an edit column, we could note sub-1000 editors under Notes. Olivaw-Daneel ( talk) 20:36, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

The bolded start review was a good change! I vaguely suggest considering adding the current on hold and under review icons, but that might just be clutter. I agree we don't need R-G, that seems easy enough to eyeball from the R and G columns. CMD ( talk) 00:32, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

One more suggestion, Mike Christie - currently, if someone sorts on one of the columns, there's no way to return to the new "default" sort order unless you refresh the page. Could we add a column for "default" rank, just a number? I also think the Notes column could be moved to the far right side, since it's usually going to be empty. —Ganesha811 ( talk) 22:15, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Done. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 22:46, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Looking good! —Ganesha811 ( talk) 23:29, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Subtopic strings

I'm looking into what it would take to replace at least part of Legobot's functionality re GAs. At the moment I'm trying to see if I can take the code I wrote for the discussion above, and use it to generate the GAN page in the first place, so we have less reliance on Legobot. The GAN page currently has a fixed set of subtopics, but I see that this page has a longer list of possible strings, and as I'm looking at various nominations I see some that are using the topic, rather than the subtopic. For example, Talk:6ix9ine has "Music" as the subtopic; Music is a topic, not a subtopic, and Legobot put it in the "Other music articles". I'm pretty sure Legobot doesn't actually read the GAN page, it only writes it, so I'm not obliged to follow the rules Legobot gives. What should I do with a nomination that has the topic in the subtopic field?

I think most of the "alternate" keywords given on the strings page map fairly obviously to the existing subcategories, so I can make those all work. But do we want to change it in any way? Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 21:31, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Would there be objections to editing Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Topic Values to show the different subtopics in addition to the topics? Hard to see what's what as a glance, let alone how Music as a topic or subtopic might affect things. CMD ( talk) 00:35, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Maybe work in a page named something like Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Topic Values - draft? I don’t think it would harm anything to edit it, but it is the current reference for those strings. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 01:12, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

@ Mike Christie: I've taken a go at Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Topic Values/Subtopics. The issue here is that this is all best guesses, as I'm not familiar with the code involved. The base table has the "Primary keyword" column which I've left as the primary keyword of whatever the first subtopic is, but there are a couple of places where this is obviously nonsensical. Doe "Primary keyword" have any actual meaning in code that separates it from the alternative keywords? The alternative keywords mostly have obviously maps, although again this is just my guessing, so if the code is different please let me know. CMD ( talk) 20:50, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

That looks sensible to me. I went ahead and implemented something similar in the code today, and am debugging it now; once that's done I'll check against your list. The other thing we could look at is whether we want new topics or subtopics. I could also do something like make any unrecognized topic show up as a subtopic under miscellaneous. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 21:21, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this is coded per subtopic, but more flexibility on what users can enter as the "topic" in the GA template and have the GA template work would be good. I think that updating the template was held back by Legobot, so if this is sub-topic related, then adding a few variations (eg. many people input "arts" which the template does not recognise) would be good QoL. CMD ( talk) 04:32, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Draft RfC text and some limitations

The bot is now updating User:ChristieBot/SortableGANoms once an hour. I think I've implemented everything that's been requested. One limitation I'm aware of is that I am unable to provide an informative edit summary as Legobot does -- I think Legobot must be aware of the previous state of the page, either by reading it or by keeping a database, so it figures out that article X is new and article Y has passed and so on. Is it important to have those edit summaries? Another caveat is that I'll need to post another BRFA request if I want to write WP:GAN; the current approval is only for my user space page.

The web page tool to allow anyone to filter and sort the GA nominations has been updated with the new layouts as well.

Here's how the RfC might look, following Ganesha811's suggestion above. I've collapsed this by default to avoid people actually voting until we agree on wording. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 17:46, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Update: at the BRFA, BlueMoonset pointed out that having the reviewer name was valuable; ChristieBot currently doesn't pick up the review name. It also turns out that Legobot does have to have access to the existing page to determine status changes -- both updating User:GA bot/Stats and adding an edit summary that logs what happened. After thinking about this some more, I think the right next step is for me to look into completely taking over from Legobot. I'll work on that next, and if I can get the functionality working I'll go back to BRFA and get that OKed, and then we can run the RfC for the format change which is really independent of whether ChristieBot takes over from Legobot. I'll report back here when I have progress. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 21:36, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

I recently nominated the article Mireya Montaño. In the ensuing review, the reviewer noted that the article may not meet the "broad in its coverage" criteria. I countered that, as noted in the criteria's section: "'broad in its coverage' criterion is significantly weaker than the 'comprehensiveness' required of featured articles." Unfortunately, the nomination was quick-failed without a response to that statement. I am not here to challenge the quick-fail, but given the reviewer's lack of response to my comment, I figured I'd ask here what exactly "significantly weaker" means. I took it to mean that a lack of existing sources will not preclude an article from meeting GA so long as it covers all the information that is publicly available. Am I missing something here? Krisgabwoosh ( talk) 03:39, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Broad is weaker than comprehensive, however it is weaker in the specific aspect of thoroughness. The reviewer noted in the review that the article lacked coverage of some periods of the individual's life, providing as an example that childhood was missing. To meet GACR3a, it should mention that period of her life. It can do this without meeting FACR1b by not comprehensively covering childhood. Think of broadness as a framework, and comprehensiveness as what fills that framework. CMD ( talk) 06:04, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Ah, I understand. In that case, what is to be done when sources on a certain section of an individual's life simply do not exist? Is an article that otherwise meets all requirements permanently barred from reaching GA as a result of a lack of information that is impossible to access/is not publicly available? Beyond the current subject in question, I'd imagine that standard could prove difficult for more obscure historical figures, whose exploits (early life specifically) may not be documented until the point where they are notable. Krisgabwoosh ( talk) 06:45, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

The short answer is that this is a perennial question. My reading of consensus is that if sources don't exist the information isn't expected to be included, but it's something that comes up enough to not feel settled. Ideally sources specifically note information is missing (eg. Odoacer), but in the end there will always be edge cases. CMD ( talk) 08:04, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

See also this recent discussion. Broadly, some people believe that articles on certain topics must discuss particular things to be Good Articles (e.g. biographies must discuss the subject's early life) even if the sources provably do not exist; others believe that you should not fail a GA nom under the broadness of coverage criterion unless the sources to discuss the aspect that you think is missing provably exist. Premeditated Chaos suggested what I think is a potentially fruitful middle ground that an article can be presumed not sufficiently comprehensive if it isn't big enough for multiple reasonably developed top level sections. (The possible objection to that suggestion is that it just moves the problem to people arguing about what a sufficiently developed top-level section looks like and whether the article's section divisions are reasonable or artificial system-gaming).

If you dig through the WT:GA and WT:GAN archives you'll find a bunch of other discussions, but afaik this has never been resolved, and I don't have any great hope that it ever will be. Caeciliusinhorto-public ( talk) 15:19, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Everything is subject to gaming in some way, but I feel like having some kind of standard for what constitutes broadness (even if it doesn't wind up being mine) would on balance be more help than harm. At present, we have absolutely zero consensus, which leads to reviewer roulette and renders the criteria meaningless. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 03:41, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

The problem is crafting a criteria that covers literally every article on Wikipedia. There's potentially scope for some more limited criteria (eg. Movies should cover pre-production and reviews, biographies should cover birth life and death), but I've not seen a suggestion that works on the GACR level. CMD ( talk) 03:44, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

The idea behind having a minimum of "2-3 reasonably well-developed top-level sections" is that it's agnostic of what the sections are. A biography could have "Early life, legal career, death" just as well as "Legal career, retirement and poetry writing, return to the bar" or "early life, unusual educational years, legal career". Frankly, if the sections were developed enough, it might just have "early life, legal career" and still be a GA. It doesn't matter what the sections are, so long as the content in each section is reasonably well-developed and you can make the reasonable argument that each section is a major aspect of the topic.

Yes, "reasonable" is subjective, but unless we spell things out in precise black and white down to character count, any standard we adopt is going to have at least some subjectivity. Frankly I think we can assume that the majority of editors and reviewers will operate in good faith and not try to game the system just to get little green circles. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 20:01, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

I've said this in the past, but I would support a baseline of "long enough to be DYK eligible" as a minimum for GA status. If you can't even write 1,500 characters about something, it shouldn't be a GA. This is in my opinion reasonable and is not subject to interpretation or dispute, being an objective metric. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 20:09, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm one to agree. I don't think a lack of available sources should precluded an article from becoming GA. However, if there are so few sources that the article can't even meet a paragraph in length, then clearly it's not GA material. Krisgabwoosh ( talk) 20:35, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm fine with character count as a minimum cutoff, but frankly I think an article that can't discuss at least two distinct aspects of a subject in some depth cannot possibly be called broad, and therefore cannot be a GA. Some articles hit GNG, but top out at B/C-class because of the sourcing. It's nothing against the author or the subject, it's just reality. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 20:52, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

I proposed the minimum without prejudice to additional criteria being added as well. I think we need a broadly agreed upon baseline at a minimum. I'm not opposed to your suggestion. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 20:57, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

There was a discussion on this very topic somewhat recently where we realized that we don't all agree on what It addresses the main aspects of the topic entails. Ajpolino ( talk) 15:56, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be pertinent to definitively settle the matter. Where exactly such a discussion would go (Good article criteria doesn't have its own talk page) but asking the question and gaging whether people support or oppose a change would be quite helpful. Krisgabwoosh ( talk) 22:01, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

What exactly would you be supporting or opposing exactly, a change to the wording of the criteria? Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 15:30, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

I suppose one would be accepting or rejecting that either A) "The criteria allows any article to meet GA so long as it makes use of all the content in the available sources" or B) "The criteria limits what can be a GA based on a lack of available sourcing". You could word a question based on either of those premises. A majority support for A would hypothetically set that as the precedent while a majority support for B would set the opposite. Likewise, a majority reject for, say, A would set B as the precedent, and vise versa. Krisgabwoosh ( talk) 15:40, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

I've requested a second opinion for my review of Democracy in Iraq; to me it is a quick fail, but for the purposes of due diligence I've requested a second opinion. I think would be helpful to have a second set of eyes on it, thanks. Pinging nominee @ FormalDude for info. Regards, Goldsztajn ( talk) 22:19, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Done ( t · c) buidhe 23:10, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, @ Buidhe, that's very helpful. Kind regards, Goldsztajn ( talk) 02:36, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Hello. I was reviewing an article a week or so ago and it passed most everything. However, earwig seemed unhappy so I'd like someone else to come in and check copyvio for me, in particular, whether there is close paraphrasing or not. This is an area in which I am somewhat lacking in expertise, so it would be much appreciated. Duonaut ^{( talk |  contribs)} 22:55, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Can someone else have a look at this nom? It's a drive-by nom from newish editor who has never edited the article. I have removed the GAN twice (obvious quickfail on 2c and 3b), but it has been reinstated again. Best, CMD ( talk) 06:37, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Sorted. I've gone ahead and just quickfailed the article with an explaination. Renomming again in this state would be disruptive. Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 07:50, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't know what's wrong with the bot. A reviewer at Talk:Survivor: Africa/GA1 passed the article Survivor: Africa, but I've not yet seen the bot giving the article a "GA" icon. Maybe there's something wrong with the review itself or something? George Ho ( talk) 19:38, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Where did the reviewer pass the article? CMD ( talk) 06:38, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

I just read the "Overall" portion using a "+" icon. George Ho ( talk) 08:30, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

The bot doesn't read that. Looking through the history, the + mark was added on 7 October, but was followed by a statement that another look through was upcoming, and further comments were later made. Unfortunately, the reviewer has not edited since about then, and a ping from Lee Vilenski has gone unanswered during this period. Given that it has been almost a month, I am switching the template to second opinion. CMD ( talk) 08:56, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

For technical reasons I've decided to try to replace Legobot's GA functionality completely before starting an RfC to change the layout of the GAN page. There is an open BRFA for the bot to do this; currently it is approved for a trial period. I now have the bot doing all the things Legobot does, but to separate pages during the trial. The pages it is currently writing are:

• User:ChristieBot/GAN existing format -- to replace WP:GAN

Topic lists -- these are to replace the topic lists; e.g. Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Topic lists/Agriculture, food and drink

• User:ChristieBot/Topic lists existing format/Agriculture, food and drink
• User:ChristieBot/Topic lists existing format/Art and architecture‎
• User:ChristieBot/Topic lists existing format/Engineering and technology
• User:ChristieBot/Topic lists existing format/Geography and places
• User:ChristieBot/Topic lists existing format/History‎
• User:ChristieBot/Topic lists existing format/Language and literature‎
• User:ChristieBot/Topic lists existing format/Mathematics and mathematicians
• User:ChristieBot/Topic lists existing format/Media and drama
• User:ChristieBot/Topic lists existing format/Music‎
• User:ChristieBot/Topic lists existing format/Natural sciences‎
• User:ChristieBot/Topic lists existing format/Philosophy and religion‎
• User:ChristieBot/Topic lists existing format/Social sciences and society
• User:ChristieBot/Topic lists existing format/Sports and recreation
• User:ChristieBot/Topic lists existing format/Video games
• User:ChristieBot/Topic lists existing format/Warfare‎
• User:ChristieBot/Topic lists existing format/Miscellaneous

Stats page -- replaces User:GA bot/Stats

• User:ChristieBot/GA reviewing stats

In addition the bot will post the talk page messages for alerting nominators to reviews, holds, passes, and fails, and will transclude new reviews to the article talk page. You can see examples of the talk page messages on the bot's talk page, where it's posting them during the trial period.

I will be waiting a few days to see if the bot runs into trouble with malformed templates and so on, and to check it's correctly maintaining the statistics and history of the nominations. Once it seems stable I will post a request at the BRFA to take over Legobot's functionality. There are some minor differences between the pages the bot writes and the ones Legobot writes, so please comment if you see problems. Some notes:

• There are some decorative icons I've omitted
• I've omitted some hidden comments
• On GAN and the topic lists, Legobot uses whatever signature the user uses. I am not doing that; I'm just using a default signature layout for all users.
• The edit summaries are very slightly different
• The bot currently runs once an hour; it would run every twenty minutes if approved.
• The subtopics are sorted alphabetically, rather than in the current sequence -- e.g. Music now has subtopics Albums/Other music articles/Songs rather than Albums/Songs/Other music articles

There are also some advantages to the new bot. It maintains a history of every change to every nomination, so in the future it would be possible to run reports on how long different GAs wait to be reviewed, or how long reviews last, and so on. It would also be possible to change the topic structure -- new topics, or new subtopics.

If anyone sees any issues with replacing Legobot, please say so; if you see anything that doesn't look right in any of the replacement layouts, please let me know. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 04:03, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Im so glad that we're finally getting an updated bot. ( t · c) buidhe 04:27, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Addenum: I checked User:ChristieBot/Topic lists existing format/Sports and recreation and it seems that the GANs are not being sorted in the current order (oldest at top). ( t · c) buidhe 04:45, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for spotting that; should be fixed now. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 11:28, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

In User:ChristieBot/Topic lists existing format/Sports and recreation I'm listed as having 272 reviews; the actual number is 13. Not sure what's going on there. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 12:30, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Those are my reviews, I'd assume it's accidentally putting the nominators review number for the reviewers, as the nominator review number is not showing. Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 13:09, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

This should now be fixed. It turns out that the old User:GA bot/Stats page had some errors I'd never noticed; search for e.g. "Darrman" or "Jamesx" or "tofu" to see some repeated and confused entries. I think the new page has those errors fixed and I'm using that as a baseline going forward. If anyone sees anything else, please let me know. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 19:27, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for this work Mike. CMD ( talk) 04:28, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

What an absolute legend. Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 11:48, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

This looks great. I've been meaning to split Air transport into subtopics (airlines, airports). Glad to hear that the new bot will accommodate that. OhanaUnited ^{Talk page} 17:26, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Current Legobot GAN issues

Mike Christie, it is wonderful that you are taking this on. Thank you so much.

There are a number of edge cases and problems that can occur that Legobot does not handle, but perhaps your bot can or already does. I have mentioned these to previous editors who thought to take on the writing of a new bot. I am sorry it has taken me so long to write this: I have been busy IRL and have not had the time to organize my thoughts and memories on this topic.

A few of these issues occur with the {{ GA nominee}} template; not everyone creates them using the {{ GAN}} template, which can cause anomalies, and some people when editing GA nominee directly can accidentally remove required fields. Legobot will show errors like "Error parsing timestamp" or "Unknown" in an entry when something goes wrong. Some of the problems:

• the first field after GA nominee, which is unnamed, is supposed to have the timestamp of when the nomination was created. Sometimes, in making their own template rather than generating it with the {{ GAN}} template, they use four tildes rather than five, getting the whole sig of a user rather than just the UTC time. Can your bot handle this?
• it looks like you are generating your own information and user links from the nominator field contents. That will prevent errors from problematic sigs, which is a good thing.
• some fields may be missing. One proposal was to have the new bot add the status and/or note fields if they are missing—Legobot will just fail to update the GAN page when a review page is opened because there is no status field and thus no place to put "onreview"; it also won't transclude the review. Is this something your bot can handle or be made to handle?
• Legobot parses the top section of a review page to get reviewer information, and runs into problems if the Review line in it is improperly formatted. It reuses the exact format for the reviewer on the GAN page from name through to the (UTC) at the end of the date, so long as it's correct. Otherwise: "Unknown".
• A few issues with the edit summaries:
  • Legobot would again list nominations already on review or on hold if the number of reviews conducted by either nominator or reviewer was incremented. Please don't do that; only list articles that are newly on review, on hold, passed, or failed. And:
  • Legobot would never list changes to 2nd opinion from on review or on hold. It really should, and I hope you'll do so, since it's a significant change. I don't know whether a message should be generated to the nominator's talk page, but it's still worth an edit summary inclusion, since it's an important change.
  • Legobot was confused by some of the less common characters in article titles, and would claim that the article had failed under a variant title, while listed the correctly titled article as on review ( here's an example). I'm guessing that your code is not so fragile, but thought I should mention it as a known Legobot bug.

A major bug with Legobot was that Legobot got confused when a review ended in a pass (new {{ GA}} template) if there was also a {{ FailedGA}} template from a previous review: instead of sending out a Pass message, adding the GA icon to the article, and having the edit summary say that the nomination had passed, it would send a failure message and mention a failure in the edit summary.

Another design issue (bug?) was that it usually needed to already know about the article and to have transcluded it for it to do the Pass and Fail steps; otherwise, it would simply say "Maintenance". You might want to consider having Maintenance be included in edit summaries as an additional thing, such as switching between subtopics, nominations disappearing (being withdrawn/removed from the article talk page), articles moving and thus the article names in the GAN list also changing, and so on. It may also have issues along these lines if the status went to "onhold" or "2ndopinion" before the bot could do the initial review transclusion.

Have you heard yet from Wugapodes as to whether the minor changes you are already making to the GAN page will affect WugBot and the Reports page it creates?

I have a feeling I'm forgetting a few of the issues we were facing; if I think of others, I will add them below.

One thing that will be great will be the ability to divide topics further into subtopics. One thing that has been on hold for many years is adding subtopics adopted by WP:GA at WP:GAN. How are you handling them? Is it a list that as bot owner you want to keep access to restricted to avoid things breaking, or will it be more widely available? Also, will changeovers need to be coordinated? (Back before Legobot, when new subtopics could be introduced, it required close coordination.)

Thanks again for all that you are doing. This is going to be a major and welcome change for GAN. (Note: if this should have been put on some other page, please feel free to move it.) BlueMoonset ( talk) 02:51, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Legobot will not count a review towards a reviewer's review count if the review is opened and immediately quickfailed. I remember I never got credit from the bot for Talk:Women and Families for Defence/GA1 because of this issue. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 02:57, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

BlueMoonset, thanks for the detailed list -- this is very helpful. You might find it useful to watchlist User:ChristieBot/GAN existing format which is a copy of the core of WP:GAN; you'll see examples of the answers to some of your questions there as the issues occur. Trainsandotherthings, the issue you mention is addressed, I think. Specifics:

• Yes, the five tildes/four tildes issue already came up and should be more stable. The bot now looks for the first "|" in the template and finds anything that looks like a timestamp prior to that. It doesn't care what else is there so long as something looks like a timestamp.
• I decided I had to ignore weird sigs -- the variety is almost infinite. I look in the nominator parameter for a string like [[User:...]] or [[User talk:...]] and pluck the nominator name from that.
• For the reviewer, I use whoever created the review page, so the review line format shouldn't matter.
• I think the edit summary issues you mention should be OK. The edit summary differs slightly -- rather than "New This article That article" the bot uses "New This article New That article", but it shouldn't redisplay anything it's already reported. It should show any status change, including "Removed", meaning that the GA nominee template has been removed from the article talk page. If an article is renamed it will list "Removed" for the old name and "New" for the new name, but it should retain the old timestamp -- e.g. see this edit summary.
• I have not seen any problems caused by odd characters. I wouldn't expect that to cause a problem but I guess we'll find out.
• Each time the bot runs, it saves a record of what nominations were on the page. The next time it runs it looks to see if any of those are no longer nominees; if so they've either passed, failed, or been removed. If the talk page is in the Category:Wikipedia good articles category it marks it as passed; if not, it checks to see if the review page was created. If not, it marks it as removed. If the review page does exist, and the article is not in the good articles category, it counts it as a fail. I did it that way precisely to avoid the problem with old failed GA templates.
• If the article is placed on review, and then moved to hold, 2nd opinion, pass, or fail, before the bot runs again, it should handle it. That came up in the last day or so and was a bug; I think I've fixed it but it hasn't occurred again for me to test. I think it will also correctly credit the reviewer but we'll have to wait for a test case.
• It keeps a log of the reviews it sees. The stats page is constructed from a baseline snapshot I took of the Legobot version at User:GA bot/Stats, plus the sum of all reviews since that time. This ought to mean that I can correct any mistakes it makes by manually inserting a review record. Then at the next bot run it would include that in the GA stats page. Similarly it keeps an audit trail of all the events it sees -- nominations, pass, fail, etc. So in theory I could run a query to find all those GA nomination events from all GAs and build a more accurate set of data. I might run a query like that, though it's a longterm project, but I don't expect it would be completely accurate since I think early reviews in particular were not in a consistent format. Still, it should mean that the data from now on can be kept clean.
• It looks like WugBot will be fine; see User:Wugapodes/GANReportBotTest, which is running from ChristieBot's output page, and has no problems.
• At the moment I have the edit summary say "Update metrics" if there's no change to status and nothing new or removed. I picked that because part of the motivation for the bot was the ability to display and sort by metrics such as number of reviews, or edit count. Those are not in the existing format but once the bot has taken over we can return to the discussion about a new format, which could include those metrics if we want it to.
• The bot has a list of subtopics and the topics they belong to. Any subtopic not in that list is treated as a "Miscellaneous" topic and should show up in that section, so it should be possible to make up new subtopics on the fly. To add them to a topic would require me to add them to the bot's internal list. That's quick and easy to do, but I think it would be best if I only add topics & subtopics after some sort of consensus is demonstrated on this page. No coordination is required, but the sensible approach would probably be (a) get consensus; (b) wait for me to add it; (c) start using the subtopic strings in nominees. If someone jumps the gun and uses a subtopic string not in the bot's list it won't hurt anything; it'll just go in Miscellaneous.
• For an example of something the bot can't handle, see this version of Talk:Democracy in Iraq. The nominee string was {{GA nominee|14:41, 19 October 2022 (UTC)|nominator=––[[User:FormalDude|<span style="color: #0151D2; font-family: Microsoft Sans Serif; letter-spacing: -.3px;">'''Formal'''{{color|black|'''Dude'''|status=2ndopinion}}</span>]] [[User talk:FormalDude|<span style="color:#0151D2;font-family: Microsoft Sans Serif;font-size:90%;">'''(talk)'''</span>]]|page=1|subtopic=Politics and government|status=onreview|note=}}. I think the reviewer spotted the close braces and dropped the status in there, not realizing those braces were part of a span in the sig. The result was a "|status=2ndopinion" string inside the nominator signature, in addition to the "|status=onreview" in the correct place. The bot did this in response, which isn't too bad; at least it was able to post the nomination on the page. It was unable to post the "this article is being reviewed" string, though.
• If an article is nominated, reviewed, and passed or failed, in so short a time that the bot never runs, the bot won't know anything about it. I don't think there's anything I can do about that.

-- Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 03:43, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm impressed at the amount of work you've been putting into this bot. I think it's going to be a major improvement, and we are all in your debt, Mike Christie. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 12:44, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you! I appreciate that; let's hope it works as well as I am saying it will. I'm sure it'll run into some problems. One more feature that I didn't mention above: a malformed nomination that the bot sees but can't parse should cause the creation of an "Errors" section at the end of the page, giving the article name, and an "Errors listed" at the front of the edit summmary. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 12:57, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Great idea! —Ganesha811 ( talk) 18:17, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Another page it could not handle correctly, fixed with this edit. It still included the article in the GAN page but could not determine the status. I think this is acceptable. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 02:44, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Any other pages that depend on WP:GAN?

I just noticed User:SDZeroBot/GAN sorting, which I'd never seen before. I've left a note for the bot operator asking them to check if that page will still work if the page format changes. If anyone knows of other pages that depend on WP:GAN, please let me know. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 14:09, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Status update

The bot ran into some problems yesterday caused by invalid status parameters -- errors such as {{GA nominee|...|status=onholdnote=...}} and {{GA nominee|...|status=review|note=...}}; in theory "onreview" and "onhold" should be used, not "review" and "hold", and in the first case the missing"|" means the status is incomprehensible. The page was updated successfully, but when the statuses were fixed the bot decided another review had started, which screwed up the statistics. I've now reworked how it handles reviews to avoid this. For example, if a review is started and the review page is then deleted as abandoned, when the next review starts the bot will successfully change the reviewer. If a review is started and then an invalid status is set, it will show the nomination as waiting for a review, but when the status is fixed it will not now add a new review to the database. It also accepts "review" and "hold", since those are probably common mistakes.

These errors aren't easy to test, and aren't very common. I want to see several days of error-free running before the bot takes over from Legobot, so I'm going to wait a few more days before reporting back to the BRFA to get permission for the switch. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 13:57, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi Mike, perhaps the bot can generate a list of error pages? Further, could some issues, such as using "review" and "old" be fixed by updating the GA template? As I mentioned above this has previously not been done due to the need for compatibility with Legobot, so some errors might present opportunities to make the template more flexible. CMD ( talk) 14:13, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

It should report errors in two ways -- to an "Errors" section at the end of the pages it writes, and to the bot's talk page. The latter is mostly for things that are probably programming errors and I need to look at; e.g. this. The section at the end of the pages it writes would look something like this. When that happens it should also write "Errors listed!" at the front of the edit summary.

As for changing the template, I think the only requirement is that the bot knows everything that the template regards as valid -- e.g. if we add "old" as a valid form of "onhold", the bot should allow it too. I don't think the other way round is strictly necessary. E.g. if the bot decides that "old" means onhold, it can successfully update the GAN page with that. The article talk page won't show the right status but the bot won't care. It would be natural to make them the same, though, so if someone does update the template, so long as I know what the valid values are we should be fine. Another possibility would be to make the template show a big red error if the status is entered incorrectly. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 14:42, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi Mike, is there a diff link to show how it adds an Errors section? It would be useful to have it somewhere public so that mistakes can be checked by others, much like the Wikipedia:Good articles/mismatches page allows. You are welcome to sabotage my nomination at Talk:East Timor for testing purposes if a sandbox solution is insufficient. CMD ( talk) 06:42, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks; I'll take you up on that and post a diff here. Currently I'm writing the errors to the end of the (proposed new) GAN page, which is not very public since there will be no TOC, so perhaps a page called something like Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Errors would be a good idea? Or perhaps both? Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 11:49, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Here is a diff. I see Legobot manages to cope, using "Unknown" as the nominator. I could probably do that instead of just removing the nomination, if we want? I'll run some more tests on other parameters. Also, would you have any objections to me creating a dummy review of East Timor in order to test a couple of other functions? I would like to test the ability to transclude the nomination, change the status to "onreview", and add the GA star. All manually reversible except the creation of the review page; we can db-g2 that afterwards. Or since I do have page mover rights I think I can just move it to my user space without leaving a redirect to get rid of it and avoid confusing Legobot, and then db-g7 it there. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 12:25, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Here is a diff for what happens if "|page=X" is in the nominee template. Legobot still puts the nomination in the list, but leaves the number off the "start review" link, so that it goes to Talk:East Timor/GA instead of Talk:East Timor/GA1 or whatever the page should be. That's not great but again perhaps it's better than not putting it on the page at all. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 13:16, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Creating a subpage is a good idea, as it can be transcluded to other relevant locations. I think it would be preferable to put a malformed nom in a specific location rather than listing it as "Unknown", as that makes it easier to see and fix. Regarding the error message, it would be helpful if the bot outputted "Malformed nomination at Talk:East Timor" or similar, and perhaps state the reason for the malformation, so it's easy to go and fix. This then leaves the option of the bot removing fixed nominations itself, or relying on editors to manually remove fixed issues. (I believe Wikipedia:Good articles/mismatches allows manual editing for convenience, but the bot will nonetheless fix everything on its next run anyway as it re-generates the form from scratch.) I don't have objections to further testing; one last abuse of Legobot sounds appropriate. CMD ( talk) 13:53, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

OK, so:

• Malformed nomination information will go to Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Errors eventually, and User:ChristieBot/GAN errors while testing. This will show the article name, with a link and a short description of the error.
• The malformed noms will not be added to any of the listings pages.
• The edit summary, at least for the main pages (not the topic pages) will start with "Errors listed!" (or whatever text we want -- perhaps "Warning - malformed nominations!") and that text will link to the error page.

Do we want to try and generate an incomplete listing, as Legobot does, somewhere, perhaps at the error page? E.g. with a bad nominator param Legobot just uses "Unknown" for the nominator, and with a bad page param Legobot just leaves it out. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 14:15, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

I wouldn't include an incomplete listing in the main page, but I don't see an issue with it being bundled with the error message if it's helpful to someone. CMD ( talk) 15:03, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

I can easily removed malformed noms, but I think it might be OK to list them with a note making it clear there's a problem. For testing purposes I screwed up East Timor's nomination fairly thoroughly: no nominator, invalid page, invalid status, and non-standard subtopic. Take a look at this; East Timor is listed in "Miscellaneous", and there's a warning about the errors. What do you think? I did keep the error listing at the bottom of the page but I think if we keep the nom in place with a note the error listing at the end can go. The bot also populated User:ChristieBot/GAN errors and should clear it when the nomination is fixed; I'll test that in a moment. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 16:46, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

So long as the error message is easily noticed, and the bot updates the listing if the error is fixed, I don't have a strong opposition to listing within the main list if others prefer that. A note though, although it is out of alpha order, the current page puts Miscellaneous at the bottom. I think that should be retained if possible. CMD ( talk) 01:55, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

The Miscellaneous topic has been moved to the end. I've now also tested transclusion of the review and adding the GA icon to the article; both work. I made a couple of other minor fixes, and I think I'm now caught up -- let me know if you see anything else that needs changing. If not I'll go back to watching the bot for a few days and then report back to the BRFA. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 13:00, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Rancho Bravo Tacos was reviewed, but I don't think the list of GAs has been updated yet. Does someone mind taking a look? --- Another Believer _{( Talk)} 16:50, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Not much of a review if anyone wants to take a second look. Regarding the list of GAs, updating that is meant to be done as part of the GA review close by the reviewer. CMD ( talk) 01:16, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

@ Chipmunkdavis I'm not opposed to a second look if anyone wishes to re-open. @ Arkansore: Putting this discussion on your radar. --- Another Believer _{( Talk)} 03:04, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Can articles with a Template:Dynamic list become a GA? I wonder if that conflicts with the stability requirement. PhotographyEdits ( talk) 09:48, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

If it is an article with an embedded list rather than a stand-alone list (which per WP:GACR#What cannot be a good article? are not eligible for GA status) then I see no reason why an article with a dynamic list should be inherently incapable of being a GA. There are plenty of discussions in the talkpage archives about what exactly the stability criteria means, but I think it's fairly widely accepted that it's meant to prevent articles where the editors are actively edit-warring or otherwise in dispute about how the article should look from being promoted. The reviewer might reasonably ask whether an article with a dynamic list really satisfies the requirement that it be broad in its coverage, but I can certainly imagine articles which do meet that criteria – for instance lots of university articles have lists of notable alumni which are sometimes marked {{ dynamic list}} but which I don't think inherently disqualify an article from reaching GA status; similarly an article on an artist might have a list of works or exhibitions marked {{ dynamic list}} but still be GA worthy. Caeciliusinhorto-public ( talk) 11:40, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Agree with Caeciliusinhorto, stability is generally about the activeness of editing rather than the activeness of the topic. If a dynamic list changes every day or every week, probably not, but it can be as stable as any other part of an article covering a current topic. It would require good sourcing of course. CMD ( talk) 01:52, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

hello all, Just a quick note to say that I am a first-time reviewer for GA, and have just done an assessment of Edith Rosenwald Stern - I would be very pleased to hear any advice and/or a second opinion, whilst I get the hang of reviewing. many thanks Lajmmoore ( talk) 08:20, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi Lajmmoore, your review appears to be quite thorough, addressing each part of the criteria separately and including evidence of checking the sourcing. No critical comments from me after a quick read through! CMD ( talk) 01:20, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Also meant to reply on this the other day then forgot! It's great that as someone who writes GAs you are also reviewing them Lajmmoore. I concur with CMD that the review seems to be going well, you haven't missed out any of the criteria. Feel free to ask more specific questions - on the biography I would def ask the nominator to supply quotations for a few citations to check that's working out, or indeed you could make a request at WP:RX for specific pages. Mujinga ( talk) 12:29, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks very much @ Chipmunkdavis and @ Mujinga - and thanks for the tips! With full disclosure, it's not entirely selfless, in that I proposed another article for GA recently Stowe Gardens, so I'm getting going with the reviews in return (I still have another to do). I will say it's more enjoyable that I anticipated, and I really like the tone and support this Wiki-corner has for one another! Lajmmoore ( talk) 07:46, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Just to add I've now reviewed Talk:Eurovision Song Contest 1997/GA2 as part of the 2 4 1 for nominations! Lajmmoore ( talk) 19:30, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Why does every GA nomination have a "protect" link? Obviously, because it is in Template:GANentry, but I can't think of any reason I would go and protect an article directly from GAN instead of checking out its history first and then protecting from there. Removing the "protect" link would save some HTML; is there any downside to doing it? I don't think making it sysop only (as attempted before and reverted here) is very useful. But maybe I'm wrong and then would like to be educated :) — Kusma ( talk) 21:50, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

I have never protected a page from a GAN template. Reaper Eternal ( talk) 16:52, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Hello, I already read WP:GANI, and I would like to plan for reviewing an article, but I am not sure I can do it since it's my first time reviewing an article; maybe WP:GAN/I#2O can help. Aside from it, are there any providing tools that can be used, for example, tools for WP:COPYVIO? Regards, Dedhert.Jr ( talk) 04:11, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi Dedhert.Jr, one tool people often use is Earwig ( toolforge:copyvios), which can sometimes catch it. The easiest way however is to check sources yourself, and see if the article text resembles the source text too closely. There is no need to check every source though, I generally try one or two from each section and if there are no problems (copyvio and verifiability) then that satisfies me. CMD ( talk) 09:04, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

@ Chipmunkdavis Thank you muchly for the information. I will review an article, but I still need a guide. And one more question, does a reviewer must have some knowledge regarding the topic, or not? I am not 100% at mastering a topic at all, but my goal to review an article is to study more about the topic. Dedhert.Jr ( talk) 12:08, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

You don't need to be a master of a topic, although it can help to be familiar with the wider area. It's more important to be familiar with the WP:GA Criteria and wider Wikipedia policies and guidelines. CMD ( talk) 12:19, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. I'll try my best. Dedhert.Jr ( talk) 12:28, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

@ Dedhert.Jr WP:BEBOLD!!!! If you would like someone to review your GA review before sending it in, ping me and I'll gladly be a second pair of eyes. Do you have the User:Novem Linguae/Scripts/GANReviewTool enabled? It'll make life much easier. Etrius ( Us) 04:12, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

@ Etriusus Thank you, but I have no idea what is that tool and how do I use it. I am still new here for reviewing and inexperienced. Dedhert.Jr ( talk) 04:18, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

@ Dedhert.Jr No problem!!!! Hopefully I didn't scare you!!!!

It's a script that will automate the passing/failing process. The instructions of how to install/use the script can be found in the above link. Normally, you have to manually add the passed GA to Wikipedia:Good articles/all and change the article class. This script does the work for you. I highly recommend. Etrius ( Us) 04:24, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

@ Etriusus Thank you for the link. I would like to install the tool, but User:Enterprisey/reply-link.js says the code that one insert on this page could contain malicious content capable of compromising one's account. Dedhert.Jr ( talk)` Dedhert.Jr ( talk) 04:43, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

@ Dedhert.Jr You can just enable it on the 'Advanced' section of the Gadgets part of your preferences (accessed through the top right of your page). Specifically, you want to click yes on the Install scripts without having to manually edit JavaScript files option. You can edit your common.js file as well, there's nothing wrong with that. This way is just more user friendly.

That warning will always show up when editing you common.js file, no need to worry. Etrius ( Us) 05:23, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

I've been trying to review two nominations for each nomination of my own, per the project's unofficial recommendation, but there are just so many articles to expand and improve, and trying to assess two others for each of mine is really slowing me down (I'm currently short of that anyway). Should I set a more attainable goal (say one for each)? I don't want to be a quitter or take the easy way out, but I don't think I can do it. What would be a reasonable objective? An anonymous username, not my real name 05:56, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Doing reviews does help keep the backlog down for everyone, so doing any is better than doing none. At the end of the day, reviewing other articles isn't mandatory. But keep in mind that some reviewers (not all) avoid reviewing articles nominated by people with few reviews - doing none may impact how long it takes your own noms to get a review. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 07:29, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Good article reviewing is an example of the tragedy of the commons, or at least it would be if there weren’t social pressure to review, as PMC mentions. There are certainly prolific reviewers who have said they will deliberately pick articles to review by nominators who have done a lot of reviewing. Another way to think about it is that if you prefer to write articles and find it onerous to review them, you can assume other editors feel the same way, and the more nominators who cut down their reviewing in response, the worse the backlog will get — meaning your articles will take longer to be reviewed. If every nominator really did review more than one article per nomination, there would be no backlog at all. Editing is a hobby, and editors who feel obliged to do things they dislike will stop editing, which is a bad outcome, so it’s shouldn’t ever be an absolute requirement that nominators review. Still, I would encourage you to review as many as you have energy to review, and encourage others to do the same. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 12:19, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

In the end, it's up to you, but don't feel pressured into needing to do a review. I've found that reviewing GAs helps me review/improve my own nominations, and having seeing your work, you seem to have a very good grasp of GA criteria. A lot of new reviewers are afraid to fail articles, so often times low quality nominations build up and bloat the backlog. I'm currently cleaning up the obvious ones and would always appreciate the help. These reviews tend to take less time since there are glaringly obvious problems that were clearly not resolved prior to nomination. Shorter article also tend to take less time. You'll eventually hit your stride as you do more reviews. It used to take me a whole day to do a review, now only a few hours. Copy and pasting templates will save a lot of time if you aren't doing that. Etrius ( Us) 13:37, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Are reviewers allowed to fix a minor problem on an article they are reviewing in order to speed up the process? Ray 23:55, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Yup! WP:GAN/I#R3, bullet point 4 - "In the case of a marginally non-compliant nomination, if the problems are easy to resolve, you may be bold and fix them yourself." ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 23:58, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Ok, thanks! Ray 02:24, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

There may be an issue with User:SpyridisioAnnis and their recent GA reviews. This mainly is regarding Talk:Eurovision Song Contest 1997/GA1 (nominated by Sims2aholic8) and Talk:Absaroka (proposed state)/GA1 (Nominated by myself) which both appear to have been done rather hastily. The Eurovision Song Contest 1997 review even states that it fails the copy-vio and plagiarism (2d) criteria but it was passed anyway. I have no doubts about Sims2aholic8's work, or its quality, but I am concerned about the brevity of the reviews and SpyridisioAnnis's inability to elaborate when asked why Absaroka (proposed state) failed. This also is underpinned by [12] a prior concern at WP:ANI regarding WP:CIR and a haphazard GA nomination reviewed by Lee Vilenski. Pinging @ Iridescent: since I know you've been involved with this user. Etrius ( Us) 06:01, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

No, Eurovision Song Contest 1997 breaks 2c not 2d. That's how I reviewed it. SpyridisioAnnis Discussion 06:41, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Then how is it passing, if it breaks one of the criteria? ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 06:55, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

I use a 50-50 system to review GANs. If more than 50% of the criteria are met, the nomination is passed. If less than 50% of the criteria are met, the nomination fails. SpyridisioAnnis Discussion 07:58, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Please don't do that. The instructions for reviewing are found at Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Instructions, and clearly state an article must be "fully compliant". CMD ( talk) 08:01, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Not among subcriteria. SpyridisioAnnis Discussion 11:43, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

The plain meaning of the words "fully compliant" is that an article must comply with all of the criteria. I can see nothing in WP:GACR or WP:GAI which suggests that we accept articles which do not comply with all the criteria, including subcriteria, and our guideline on reviewing good articles explicitly says not to pass articles which do not meet all of the criteria. Caeciliusinhorto-public ( talk) 12:25, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree with the above. The criteria unambiguously state that all of the criteria must be met - not 50 percent or 75 percent, but 100 percent. An article with copyright violations and plagiarism should have been failed on that basis alone. I see that the reviews have already been reverted, but there's a reason that the article has to meet all of the criteria - otherwise, the GA badge becomes useless. – Epicgenius ( talk) 23:32, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Aaaaaaaah! Xx78900 ( talk) 08:37, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

These are both deficient reviews with little content, if they are not deleted the noms should be reset to a new GAN page. SpyridisioAnnis should not be reviewing GANs, they are clearly unfamiliar with the WP:GACR. CMD ( talk) 07:32, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Blimey, if we only had to meet half of the criteria, then the article no longer is "well written", just "written". Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 08:07, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Having read through both Absaroka (proposed state) and Eurovision Song Contest 1997 I agree both these reviews are concerning. The Eurovision one is marked as containing OR without further elaboration but passed anyway. It is not clear to me from reading the article where the OR concern lies, and the review doesn't say. If there is an OR problem, the review should make it clear what that is and shouldn't have been passed until it was resolved. As for Absaroka, WP:GACR#1 ("well-written") is a weak criterion, which the article seems to me to clearly meet; again the reviewer is unable or unwilling to explain where they take issue with the article or how it can be improved. I know nothing about Absaroka so I can't comment on broadness except to say that it looks plausible to me that the article meets that criterion, and again the reviewer's explanation of how it fails and what needs to be done to improve it is distinctly lacking – eventually after some questioning they specify not broad in media coverage, but given that the article says [Absaroka] never achieved widespread popularity ... the chief record of its existence comes from a 1941 publication by the Federal Writers' Project it seems reasonable to conclude that there wasn't significant media coverage of the proposal which needs including in the article. Caeciliusinhorto ( talk) 08:28, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

I would absolutely support my article being re-reviewed by another user. I'm not sure what OR is in the article, but that's the whole point of a GA review, to pick up on these points, make the necessary corrections and elevate quality articles, which has not been the case here. I've put quite a few articles through the GA process before and this is definitely not usual behaviour, which needs rectified. Sims2aholic8 ( talk) 09:18, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

I have reversed the pass of Talk:Eurovision Song Contest 1997/GA1, all the remains is to delete that page or increase the page count on the nom template (as it involves deletion I leave it to admin discretion). Etrius has already renommed at Talk:Absaroka (proposed state) with an increased page count so no cleanup is needed there. CMD ( talk) 13:09, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Taking a closer look, I also found a Toronto GAN which I have removed as a quickfail. There is also this Croatian War of Independence GAR request with suboptimal cause. I would appreciate it if another editor could check if this should remain in place (I think there are areas it could improve, although none that necessitate a full GAR, but this is not a topic I edit in much). CMD ( talk) 13:27, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

@ Chipmunkdavis Did a quick pass of Croatian War of Independence. I can see about a half dozen passages that need citation and a handful of maintenance tags. The original review Talk:Croatian War of Independence/GA3 seems to be emblematic of the early days of GA review but the A-class assessment seems to have been very thorough. My personal recommendation would be to mention it at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history and have them informally 'review' the page. I guess if no one takes it up, then we can discuss full reassessment. It just feels overly strict to reassess over something that's relatively minor/easily fixable. Etrius ( Us) 15:55, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

I think the easiest thing to do would be to increment the page count on the nom template, allowing someone to review at Talk:Eurovision Song Contest 1997/GA2. Accordingly, I have just done that. – Epicgenius ( talk) 23:35, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Mike Christie, it looks like the various edits on the article talk page caused ChristieBot to think that the Eurovision Song Contest 1997 article had failed, even though no FailedGA template nor Article history entry indicating failure was placed there. Is there a way that the bot can better determine what to do in this kind of (fortunately rare) situation? CMD, it seems pretty clear to me that the (now temporarily blocked) reviewer is too inexperienced to adequately judge what is a GA and what isn't; hence, I undid their removal of "citation needed" section templates from Toronto which they'd done just prior to nominating the article (their only edits to the article that I could find), and removed their GAR request for Croatian War of Independence, since it was supposedly due to edit warring, always a dubious reason for a GAN request (and with fairly minimal article edits this month). Also pinging Etrius regarding the latter article. BlueMoonset ( talk) 01:46, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

What are we asking the bot to do here? With the incrementation of Eurovision Song Contest 1997/GA1 to GA2, that means the article did not pass via GA1. Asking the bot to not read that as a fail may introduce more complications than it solves. CMD ( talk) 02:17, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

The current logic is that if an article has a GA nominee template, it gets recorded as a nomination. When the article stops having a nominee template then the bot has to decide if the nomination was removed, passed, or failed. If it sees a GA template it was passed; and if there is no review page it was removed. If neither of those things are true the bot decides it was failed. I’m open to changing that logic if we can come up with something better but I agree it’s not clear that the wrong thing happened here. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 12:08, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

There's a class of reviews that are effectively abandoned/unconcluded/aborted: no one failed it, but the review foundered or was canceled and a new review page was opened to start a fresh review. To me, "Fail" says that the article was determined to have not met the GA criteria, not that the review process wasn't completed due to reviewer issues. These are the reviews that never make it into Article history because there's nothing that the article history can record other than passed or failed. Is it truly a Fail when the problem was an invalid review or an unqualified reviewer, but recordkeeping requires that the review page stick around? BlueMoonset ( talk) 01:38, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

I mean I guess we could create a third status of "invalid" reviews, but that seems like a lot of effort to account for a fairly rare occurrence. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 04:09, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Also, they don't make it into article history? Is that a deliberate policy, because it doesn't make much sense. If someone sees a GA2 they're not unlikely to wonder where the GA1 is. CMD ( talk) 05:50, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

CMD, I don't know that it's a deliberate policy, but {{ Article history}} only allows these two results, according to the documentation: One of listed or failed. Probably the assumption was that all reviews had to end in one or the other, but more than a few every year don't get finished. I've never tried to add an Article history entry with anything different; I suppose I assumed that you weren't supposed to add an entry without a valid result. Maybe something can be done to allow the equivalent of a "review never completed" result for those reviews where a GA page was opened and never deleted, but the review stalled or reviewer disappeared partway in? BlueMoonset ( talk) 06:15, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

That's a subset of failed imv. ( t · c) buidhe 17:27, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree. While the GAN may have not failed on the basis of GA criteria, the nomination did not pass. On technical grounds, this is a failure and should be marked as such if there's no other option. However, I'd also support an "invalid" option for {{ Article history}}. – Epicgenius ( talk) 17:09, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

That is fine. I didn't mention the original GAR request since it was baseless. I found a few issues with the page but nothing that immediately raises significant concern (might need some citation needed tags though). It could use some tidying up but isn't worth the effort for a full reassessment. User:SpyridisioAnnis has been causing problems at AfD, AfC, and has a number of 3RR violations. Obviously a WP:CIR issue that likely stems from a lack of English comprehension. That user has caused enough headaches and its probably best if we fix the mess and let WP:ANI sort him out. Etrius ( Us) 02:21, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Should simply be banned from here. Moxy- 03:43, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

This 50% thing is quite the innovation though. Chuckle. Kingoflettuce ( talk) 12:47, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

It looks like he's well on the way to getting banned. ( t · c) buidhe 17:28, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

See this, which I reverted and was reverted by SpiridisioAnnis. I can't imagine it will be long before an indef. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 14:27, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Yamla is on the case. I'm sure this user will be dealt with promptly. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 14:36, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

I've reverted the attempt to restore the problematic review. I do hope SpiridisioAnnis stops, but at this point I'm not optimistic. BlueMoonset ( talk) 15:20, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Note to Mike Christie: when SpiridisioAnnis did his reversions, they included restoring the {{ good article}} template to the article. Twenty minutes later, ChristieBot also added the GA template, making two templates at the top of the article. Both were removed in a subsequent edit/reversion, but reviewers and nominators are known to add the template on their own at the end of a successful review, in part because LegoBot didn't do so reliably. Can ChristieBot check to be sure the template isn't already there before adding? BlueMoonset ( talk) 16:04, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes, should be easy. I'll do it next week. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 16:14, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

....sigh.... God damnit. Etrius ( Us) 17:28, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Just a heads up, they drive-by nominated 2002 FIFA World Cup, which I reverted due to the lack of agreement from a major contributor. Sounder Bruce 05:52, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Alright, I've had enough of this. I've started a discussion at ANI. If anyone here wants to comment, feel free to do so. Etrius ( Us) 16:35, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Update: A rather direct message regarding conduct has been left on User talk:SpyridisioAnnis. If SpyridisioAnnis causes any more issues here, let User:Iridescent know and they'll be indefed. Etrius ( Us) 19:15, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

The new bot to take over Legobot functions has started running. It did a couple of odd things which I am investigating, but it has updated the GAN page successfully, as far as I can tell. I will be cleaning up any messes it makes and fixing whatever needs to be fixed. Please let me know about any problems that I don't appear to be addressing. Thanks. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 20:51, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

One of the issues was caused by Windows Vista, for which the GA nomination and the GA review were both started by the same (fairly inexperienced) user, who evidently didn't realize that the review page should be started by a different editor. I assume the right thing to do here is just delete the review page and let the reviewer know? Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 20:56, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, you can just G6 the review page. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 21:04, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

This is minor, but can we get the little icons on each section back? ChristieBot seems to have removed them. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 21:03, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Should be able to, once it's running properly. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 21:48, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Update: a bug emerged immediately: ChristieBot is transcluding a duplicate GA review if the article has moved, so the article name is not the GA review name -- e.g. Construction of the Minnesota State Capitol vs. Minnesota State Capitol construction. It also transcluded at least one other duplicate GA review for a different reason. I've asked Legoktm to restart Legobot while I figure out the best way to fix these. There were also a couple of simpler formatting issues which I will fix as well. I'll post another note here once I make another attempt to put it into production. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 21:48, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

I fixed the bug, and as Legoktm had not yet responded to my request to restart Legobot I've retracted the request. The bot will run every 20 minutes and I'll be monitoring it; again please let me know of any errors you spot. Thanks. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 22:46, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Super minor note for Mike Christie... On Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Topic lists/Language and literature, "children's" became "childrens" when ChristieBot took over. Sammi Brie (she/her •  t • c) 23:07, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Fixed, along with a couple of other missing apostrophes. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 23:24, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed the GA nomination for Windows Vista, since the nominator had never edited the article and the article has a ton of uncited text. Since the CSDed review page has not been deleted yet, ChristieBot decided the review must have failed, since the article is not a GA and it's no longer on review. The edit summaries it produced were misleading as a result. The only thing that is actually wrong is that the nominator got a talk page message saying the nomination failed, and the internal audit trail that ChristieBot keeps logged it as a fail. I'm not sure either of those is a terrible outcome -- I don't search for the failed GA template in the talk page because that was the cause of a bug in Legobot, so there aren't any other easy ways to detect this situation, which I hope will be quite rare. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 23:51, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

I've deleted the GAN page. Hog Farm _Talk 00:17, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 01:09, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

A reverted GAN template is usually a quickfail, I don't see an issue with this being logged as a fail. CMD ( talk) 01:57, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

The bot couldn't find the talk page for Suwałki Gap. Presumably because of the special character? I've put this on my list to investigate. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 01:09, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

The biggest difference I can see is that the nomination page no longer lists the number of reviews made by the nominator (it only lists these numbers for reviewers, not nominators). I hope there is some plan to restore this information somewhere; it's something I found useful in choosing which nominations to review. — David Eppstein ( talk) 01:38, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that's an oversight. I'll add it back in over the next day or so. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 02:13, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

It's looking good, I'm sure a few more things will pop up to be ironed out, but overall, a smooth switch. —Ganesha811 ( talk) 02:48, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

The review counts for nominators are now showing up. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 12:10, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

oldid bug

See this diff; the bot is adding an oldid even though one is already there (presumably added by the GAN review tool). I can easily check for this and prevent the duplication, but I noticed that the oldid is different -- the bot is adding the revid after adding the GA star, and of course the review tool can't do that. Do we have a preference for which revid gets the put in as the oldid? If it doesn't matter, I'll just have the bot stop doing it if the oldid is already there. If it does matter, I can replace whatever's there, or the GAN review tool could be changed to not add it. Pinging Novem Linguae, the author of GAN review tool script -- Novem Linguae, I don't have a strong opinion about which is right, but I thought you'd want to see this discussion. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 23:27, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. I think the fix is for the bot to detect if there is an oldid present in the template, and if so, skip adding it. Link to bot source code? I can try to write a patch if you want. Something like this should catch everything except nested templates:

let hasGATemplateWithOldID = wikicode.match(/\{\{ga[^\}]*\|\s*oldid\s*=/i);
if ( ! hasGATemplateWithOldID ) {
    // add the oldid
}

– Novem Linguae ( talk) 23:42, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that’s definitely the easiest solution. I don’t think it should matter whether we use the oldid for the version with the GA star or the one just before, so if nobody objects I’ll do that. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 01:23, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Does your bot also detect and add oldid to {{ Article history}} templates? That use case is common and a bit more complicated. Would need to add action1oldid=, action2oldid=, etc. depending on how much history is in the template. So the checking code would need to be adjusted to be a bit more complex. – Novem Linguae ( talk) 01:29, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

It doesn’t do that at the moment, and I don’t currently have plans for that. The only bot I know that does that is FACbot; I can see it would be tricky. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 02:26, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

I've put in a fix to skip adding the oldid if it's already there. I'll check the next GA passed with the GAN review tool to be sure it worked correctly. I'm going to be unable to edit the bot in any way for about a week, starting early next week, so once this fix is stable I will not be making any other changes till after Thanksgiving, to avoid breaking it and being unable to fix it. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 12:11, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

The bug is fixed, but another, more minor one has become apparent. Teardown (video game) was promoted after the bot began its run and before it got around to adding the oldid, and that seems to have confused it. However, it did everything correctly, including adding the oldid to the talk page. I will have a look at what the problem is, but per the comment above, I don't plan to fix it for a week or so since it's just cosmetic. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 23:50, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Not transcluding new reviews

The bot has made several updates without processing some newly-started reviews: Talk:J. Michael Miller/GA1, Talk:South Asian river dolphin/GA1, and Talk:Fatigue (material)/GA1. — David Eppstein ( talk) 06:45, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Fixed, I think; thanks for spotting that. The bot was not noticing and processing a review unless it was placed on hold or second opinion. It has now processed several that had been started in the last day or two; I'm going through them now to check they were all done correctly, but please let me know if anyone spots something wrong. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 11:24, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

This has revealed two more issues, unfortunately. Review notifications are not correctly including the user name, and if a user's talk page is a redirect, the notification is added to the redirect source page, not the redirect target. The latter should be rare. I'll post here again when I think these are fixed. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 11:33, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

The user name issue is fixed, I think; I won't know for sure till another talk page notification is added by the bot. I'll keep an eye on it today. There are two issues caused by redirects. Neither is going to be common so I would rather not try to fix them immediately, since I'll be out of town for a week starting on Tuesday with no ability to fix any further bugs. The issues are:

• If a nominator has changed their username since nominating, the bot puts the notice on the redirect talk page. This happened with Fatigue (material); the nominator, Abdo2905, recently changed their name to FuzzyMagma. In the unlikely event this happens again before I fix the bug, I will manually move the notice to the correct user page. The fix is to follow user talk page redirects and post at the target instead.
• If an article has been moved after the nomination, and a redirect is created for the review, the bot is taking the creator of the redirect as the reviewer name. This is happening with Construction of the Minnesota State Capitol, which means that Baffle gab1978 is being credited with the review. I think if the bot finds a redirect at a review page, it should follow it and use the creator of the redirect target as the reviewer. Once this is fixed I will clean up the review counts.

-- Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 12:31, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Edits incorrectly tagged as minor

The user talk page announcements ("I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing..." etc) are being tagged by the bot as minor. This prevents them from generating an alert, so that users may only notice the announcement if they happen to have their talk page watchlisted. Also it is I think an incorrect use of the minor flag. — David Eppstein ( talk) 19:40, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

I should be able to fix this next week. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 22:16, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

I've now removed the "minor" flag for the user talk page notices. Looking at Legobot's contributions, Legobot omitted the minor flag in a couple of other cases but I'm not sure those situations matter. If there are other edits that should not be marked minor please let me know. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 20:35, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Miscellaneous section

Mike Christie, the bot seems to be removing the Miscellaneous section when it isn't populated, which is much of the time, and restoring it when it is. When it is gone, it orphans the Miscellaneous link on the GAN page, which comes from the Wikipedia:Good article nominations/guidelines header page that generates the top of said GAN page—people can click on the link but nothing will happen, rather than take them to the (empty) section. BlueMoonset ( talk) 21:56, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Added to the bot's task list; I should have time later this week to start addressing the issues that have come up. Incidentally, I see that that page has a notice saying that modifying the topic lists might impact the feedback request service. The relevant bot operator seems to be not very active, so that might be another impediment to changing the topic structures. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 12:32, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't think this will be an issue with the feedback request service if all we do is add to or reorganize the subtopics: The bot will automatically pick up changes to subtopics. I think GAN should hew to the GA topics, and look to the GA subtopics for new GAN subtopics. Among other reasons, it makes it much easier to figure out where to add the approved article in the GA lists. BlueMoonset ( talk) 17:39, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

The section links seem to be gone (compare Special:Diff/1121217546#FILM). I like them, if they aren't too difficult for the bot to adapt to. Thanks Mike Christie for your work. Ovinus ( talk) 04:20, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I should be able to re-add those. I'm hoping to get that done along with re-adding the old icons some time this weekend. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 12:07, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Can I get a second set of eyes on Jørgen Læssøe real quick? I don't need a second opinion. There appears to be a wikitext issue that is apparently appearing on my computer and not on the nominator's computer. I just want to confirm it is an issue on my end and not the page itself. This is in regards to the poem template. On my end, it appears to split the article in half but on User:Kingoflettuce's end it is all contained to the 'scholarship' section. Etrius ( Us) 22:51, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

That looks a bit strange to me, though I'm not sure it's not what's intended. The poem is laid out in a column at the right side of the screen; next to it on the left is the Scholarship section, then subsequent sections. The poem ends halfway through "Works cited". Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 23:33, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Etrius, I have the same thing that you and Mike are describing, where it cuts down through the entire rest of the article. Is the poem even necessary? It's so long...if it were a blockquote I'd be asking for it to be trimmed. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 02:36, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Now removed by Buidhe, but looking in the history I see what Mike describes, and looking at {{ rquote}} I'm pretty sure that's how the template is intended to behave; if you wanted the next section to start after the quote ended you could stick {{ clear}} at the end of the scholarship section, though in this case I agree with PMC and Buidhe that the poem shouldn't be quoted in full here at all Caeciliusinhorto ( talk) 11:30, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Hi. Can I request for a new reviewer for mu nominee, Talk:Suleiman I of Persia/GA1? The reviewer, User:Pharaoh Thutmose III, did not put any effort in his review and has been inactive since November 12. Amir Ghandi ( talk) 18:07, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Amir Ghandi, thank you for bringing this here. The reviewer was far too inexperienced at Wikipedia editing in general—indeed, their previous request to become a Pending Changes Reviewer was rejected, and their few edits since that time included the inadequate review here.

Taking a quick look at the article, it should not have been passed in its current condition: there are a number of places that fail to meet the "well written" criteria, generally because the English isn't quite right. A few examples include the lede's His reign as Safi II undergone troublesome events and Perhaps the only admiring aspect of his reign, and in the Second Coronation section, Thus, in March 1668, at nine o cloak in morning, simultaneously with Nowruz, should certainly have been noted for fixing by any reviewer as part of the review process, both with regard to why the actual day of the month wasn't listed here if it is given in the lede (suggesting "on 20 March 1668"), and to point out the misspelling of "nine o'clock". I would probably also have recommended that "Nowruz" be expanded here to explain that it's the first day of the New Year. BlueMoonset ( talk) 00:09, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

I have reverted the near-instant GA passage of HMS Maenad (1915) by Thehistorianisaac. The review page was created at 09:42, 8 December 2022 (UTC), edited to change the concluding Pass/Fail to "Pass" (rather than fill in the template) with no explanation of what was checked or how it met the GA criteria at 09:43, and then the {{ GA nominee}} template on the article talk page was replaced with a {{ GA}} template at 09:46 with the edit summary This is my first time reviewing; it will not be perfect. Courtesy ping to simongraham, who originally submitted the GAN.

It's the first time, i did not understand much Thehistorianisaac ( talk) 13:18, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

There are a number of reasons why I thought a reversion was necessary. The first was the very quick passage of the article, with no indication of what work and checks the review entailed. The second was the reviewer's basic inexperience with both the GAN process and with editing article content: most of their article edits are adding templates or wikilinks or the like: I only found a single article of over a dozen checked where a couple of sentences were added, and their few prose edits did not approach GA quality. I only noticed their edits to begin with because of an edit to the WP:GAN page, where editors should not be editing directly. This led me to their three submitted nominations, which were all out-of-process ones for articles where they had not contributed at all, nor had they posted to the article talk page to ask those who were significant contributors whether they thought the articles were ready and appropriate for nomination, as is required per WP:GANI.

Their most recent two GANs have been reverted; I left the one from mid-November, Xu Huang, to see whether the consensus here was to revert or to let it continue. I'm not confident, based on the edits I've seen, that The historianisaac has the skills to accomplish whatever editing work might be necessary during a review for the article to meet the GA criteria. BlueMoonset ( talk) 01:33, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

The Xu Huang nomination should be removed as well. Thehistorianisaac has not made any edits to that page (outside of a misplaced GAN tag). Regarding the article itself, it is mainly sourced to the 1700 year old Records of the Three Kingdoms, and the Romance of the Three Kingdoms subsection is sourced directly to that novel. We don't spell it out in the GACR, but I'd generally be wary of promoting something without more modern sources, for broadness if nothing else. CMD ( talk) 02:15, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, CMD. I've removed that nomination. BlueMoonset ( talk) 20:22, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

A relatively new editor nominated, was the only reviewer, and closed successfully, a GA nom for West Side Story (2021 film), within one day. I am not sure how to properly handle this situation, did place a second opinion into the GA template but it does not seem to have done anything since yesterday.-- ☾Loriendrew☽ ☏(ring-ring) 13:24, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Pass reverted on the talkpage and on the main page, and I left a note on the user talkpage. This leaves the nomination open for the moment. CMD ( talk) 16:23, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

The review page needs to be deleted to allow this to be processed properly by the bot. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 16:46, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Was the article not nominated by Rusted AutoParts? Looking at the talk's history, I don't see a nomination by the reviewer ( MyCatIsAChonk). –  dudhhr  ^talk  _contribs (he/they) 17:49, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, my bad. I am about 0.01% familiar with the GA process, somehow that review just did not appear appropriate or detailed. When the review initiated, all the documentation was by MyCatIsAChonk, Rusted's nom was disappeared, so I thought it was the same initiator and concluder. If the process and review were proper, then I humbly apologize.-- ☾Loriendrew☽ ☏(ring-ring) 19:37, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

I have pointed MyCatIsAChonk to the GAN review templates. At a quick look the article seems sound, so if they can expand on their review I believe this will work itslef out. CMD ( talk) 02:34, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Back from Texas, working on the various bugs in ChristieBot reported over the last couple of weeks. I mentioned above that the bot no longer marks user talk page notifications as minor; everything else is still minor. I'll add notes here as I fix things -- in some cases I won't be able to tell if the fix worked until a particular situation occurs, though someone could deliberately test some of these if they wanted to.

• The bot was adding the GA star ("{{good article}}") regardless of whether it was already in the article. I think this is fixed but will have to wait till an example comes up.

-- Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 22:55, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

@ Mike Christie Looks like something was broken during the review of Absolute zero. It appears that the removal of the GA template, then my subsequent re-adding seems to have confused ChristieBot. Despite the template being deleted, the nomination was still listed on Wikipedia:Good article nominations, resulting in me picking it up. I closed the review but it is still listed. Etrius ( Us) 01:41, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

It turns out that when an IP uses ~~~~ it turns into a "Special:Contributions" link rather than a link to the user page/user talk page. The bot searches for "user", and currently crashes if it can't find that. I should be able to fix this tomorrow, at least to prevent it crashing. Once the bot has the IP address correctly extracted it should be able to treat it like any other nominator name. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 03:52, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Actually I realized it was causing the bot to not make any updates so I've put in a quick fix to keep it running. I'll put in a more comprehensive fix tomorrow. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 04:04, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

I've had another look at this, and the IP address was not causing problems after all -- in this old rev of GAN absolute zero is correctly listed. The problem was caused by another nomination in which the nominator's signature has "user" in lower case -- I'd assumed this would never happen, which was silly of me. Anyway, it's fixed now. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 11:51, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Section anchor question

I'm working on re-adding the section anchors, and I see some that just replicate the section names, which surely makes them unnecessary. See this old rev and edit the wikitext to see some examples -- e.g. "{{anchor|Politics and government}}". There are also some anchors that are like this with a "2" at the end -- e.g. "{{anchor|Sports and recreation 2}}". At the moment I'm not planning to re-add these because I can't see any use for them; please let me know if they are really needed for some reason. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 14:06, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Mike Christie, I think the ones ending with "2" are used in Wikipedia:Good article nominations/guidelines header, which is the green area with all the topics and their subtopics near the top of the page, just above the Nominations header. It's useful for those links to be working, but if you want to modify them to reflect what your code is generating in terms of section headers, I'm sure no one will object so long as the links work to bring one to the relevant topic/subtopic. Thanks! BlueMoonset ( talk) 00:24, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation -- yes, I'll probably just use one of the other shortcuts then. I've decided to do a more extensive rewrite of the bot than I had originally planned, so it might be a week or three before any of the other fixes appear. If anything appears urgent sooner than that, please let me know. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 00:27, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

( edit conflict) I just checked, and with the exception of a non-functional Agriculture, food and drink link from the green, the others are all working at the moment. They do take one to the subtopic header rather than the topic header when they are both the same, but that seems fine to me. BlueMoonset ( talk) 00:31, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

That one fails just because at the moment the bot doesn't create a section if there's nothing in that section. That's one of the bugs I am working on fixing. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 00:34, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Duplicate GAN transclusion

Hi Mike Christie, in this edit Christiebot transcluded a GAN that was already transcluded on the talkpage. A weird edge case due to the previous testing I assume, but it may be something that comes up elsewhere and I thought worth mentioning in case it is simple to prevent with something like a check for the code it wants to insert. Best, CMD ( talk) 05:00, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

That's very odd. I can't see how that could have happened, looking at the code, but it did. I'm in the middle of testing a rewritten version of the bot, which I hope to be able to put in production this weekend; I will keep an eye on the transclusions for it to make sure the error doesn't happen again. Thanks for the note. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 11:11, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

@ Mike Christie: Another impossible event: [13] CMD ( talk) 00:42, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification. This turned out to be easier (and more embarrassing) to fix than I was expecting. I'd written the code to check if the review was already transcluded, but never put it in production. I've just made the change; please let me know if it happens again. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 02:07, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

I think ChristieBot is now running smoothly enough to consider making changes. (There's a minor issue with the edit summary I'm still fiddling with, but otherwise it seems stable.) I still plan to propose a change in format to a sortable table or sections with sortable tables, but before I propose that I'd like to suggest a more minor change that I think would be helpful. I propose to add the GAs count to each entry on the GAN page. The entries would look like this:

1. Isaac Sailmaker ( talk | history | start review) (Reviews: 183/GAs: 53) Amitchell125 ( talk) 18:58, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

A reviewer who looks at two GA nominations, one by a nominator with 100 GAs and 30 reviews and another by a nominator with 10 GAs and 30 reviews might well prefer to review the latter. I would also like to add the GAs count to the reviewer template, like so:

Review: this article is being reviewed (additional comments are welcome). (Reviews: 32/GAs: 18) Caeciliusinhorto ( talk) 15:10, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

I think this is a fairly minor change that doesn't require an RfC -- just a couple of days of discussion that shows no disagreement. If anyone thinks more discussion than that is necessary please say so. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 12:16, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Finally. Great work. I think the wording needs a little jazzing up, maybe - (183 Reviews, 53 GAs). Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 12:24, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree that an RfC is unnecessary. Many thanks for all your work on ChristieBot. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose ( talk) 13:06, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Unless someone comes up with a good reason not to in the next few days, I would be happy for you to implement this Caeciliusinhorto-public ( talk) 15:02, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

I would find this information helpful in selecting what to review. Please do it. I prefer Lee Vilenski's formatting. — David Eppstein ( talk) 19:26, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

This is great thanks and agree that this discussion, without formal RfC, will likely be consensus enough to implement (especially considering past discussions). Best, Barkeep49 ( talk) 19:28, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

I think this would be a positive change. It would inspire me to increase my proportion of reviews to nominations, certainly. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 19:48, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Sounds fine and useful, so long as Wugapodes can still parse the resulting GAN page in WugBot for the Reports page. BlueMoonset ( talk) 03:16, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Wugapodes has told me that the code for parsing the GAN page is quite robust, so I've gone ahead and made this change. If it does cause a problem I can easily revert until Wugapodes has a chance to fix their code. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 13:36, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

I like this new feature. My only quibble how does it tally the counts? My own figures seem about right, but I know that @ Simongraham: hasn't been credited with anything despite having a dozen or so GAs (several of which I reviewed myself).-- Sturmvogel 66 ( talk) 16:16, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

My count also seems to not include articles that have gone on to FA. Not a major issue, but would be nice to be included. Kosack ( talk) 16:22, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, those are removed from the count since they technically aren't GAs anymore. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 16:37, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Simongraham is credited with 56 GAs, but because their signature doesn't match their username (Simongraham vs. simongraham) the code I wrote to look up their GA count doesn't work correctly. I should be able to fix that; it might take a day or so. I think there are a couple of other users who sign with different case that will also be affected. The numbers come from the database that is used for WP:WBGAN, maintained by SDZeroBot. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 17:02, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Fixed. It turned out to be easy to fix, and had the side benefit of correcting a few other formatting issues with nominator names that I hadn't noticed -- see this diff. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 17:36, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Adding myself to the chorus of voices on this being a useful change; thx. Ovinus ( talk) 23:11, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Brilliant! Thanks for the quick response.-- Sturmvogel 66 ( talk) 00:06, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

This is the first time I've initiated a Good Article Reassessment. I have gut feeling that I didn't do something correctly - perhaps using a GA review template? I cannot point to anything specific that is a problem, but it just doesn't seem right. I apologize in advance for my lack of precision. Here are the relevant pages:

Good article reassessment#Sister Wives

Talk:Sister Wives/GA1

Talk:Sister Wives#GA Reassessment

In retrospect, I probably did not need to do a Community Reassessment.

Many thanks - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 20:42, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Do you mean you think there is something wrong with the coding, or something wrong with the way you wrote up the GAR? If it's the table, I think you made it clear what issues you found. The only immediately obvious improvement that jumps out would be directly linking the edits you made. For formatting, the issue I see is that at Talk:Sister Wives#GA Reassessment there is text outside of the GAR template. Generally, the whole GAR is included at Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Sister Wives/1. To fix that all you need to do is copy your text into the subpage (and use bold text instead of a header probably). CMD ( talk) 01:36, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

I've made the necessary adjustments, which included adding the required GAR template to the talk page—the GAR template should be the first step, before creating the reassessment page, but this fixes things—and moving the Discussion header from the article talk page to the reassessment page for the article. Since it was done as a community reassessment, it needs to be followed through as one. Now that the GAR template has been placed on the talk page, the reassessment page will show up at WP:GAR sometime in the next day or so. Mark D Worthen PsyD, did you do all the appropriate notifications of your GAR, including to the original nominator and reviewer (if they're still around), major contributors to the article (ditto) and all the relevant WikiProjects? See the WP:GAR page for the full instructions for community reassessments; since you skipped step 1, I'm guessing you may have missed step 5 regarding the notifications (and their full scope); if so, it would be great if you could take care of it. BlueMoonset ( talk) 02:56, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

I did notify the relevant WikiProjects. Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 18:12, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Thank you! I appreciate your help and insights. Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 13:38, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

I just released a new version of ChristieBot. This version should run more quickly, and is intended to fix nearly all the outstanding issues -- specifically:

• It should correctly handle situations where the review was manually transcluded, or the oldid added, or articlehistory used instead of the GA template, or the GA star manually added
• The icons and shortcuts are restored
• It is much more forgiving if an editor edits one of the relevant pages while the bot is running
• It should correctly handle redirects for both nominators and article review pages
• All sections appear on the GAN page regardless of whether they are empty

There were some other minor formatting errors that I won't bother to list.

I made one change to the Legobot version of the page: the subtopic "Culture, sociology and psychology" is now "Culture, society and psychology". These two were always treated by Legobot as synonyms, but it used the one with "sociology" as the subtopic title; I've changed to the one with "society", as being slightly broader, but can change it back if necessary.

This was a moderately substantial rewrite so it's quite possible I've introduced new bugs. I will be monitoring the bot but please do let me know if you spot anything wrong. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 16:46, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Mike for all your work on this. On the topic of subtopics, is the idea of having configurable (onwiki) topics/subtopics somewhere on the roadmap? I know in the past there's been some desire to change these but with Legobot we were locked in. Obviously you're active with the bot right now in a way Lego stopped having time for but I'm trying to think down the road when your attention might also drift to different projects/areas. Best, Barkeep49 ( talk) 16:49, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

The topics and subtopics are defined in a configuration file now, so yes, it should be easy to change the subtopics. Topics would be harder because there are dependencies elsewhere on them. If we can get agreement on a change to the subtopics I can change the configuration files to match and the pages should automatically update. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 17:02, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Just realized you mentioned on-wiki configuration. It could be done, but I would want to think about how to avoid it causing problems if someone doesn't set up the configuration correctly. Each subtopic needs to know six things: name, list of shortcut strings (e.g. "GEO"), description text for the top of that section on GAN, file name for the icon for that section, a list of strings that can be used instead (e.g. "lit" is a legal subtopic for a nominee that will get listed in "Language and literature"), and the topic it's part of. So long as we can be sure that an error in the setup doesn't cause the bot to do something stupid it should be possible. Let's wait and see how it goes when I make a change in the config file first, and if that seems straightforward we can look into making it on-wiki. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 22:20, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Art and architecture has the wrong icon (the same icon as the previous section). I don't see anything else. Thanks for the improvements. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 21:27, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

I think this is fixed now, but it won't show up on GAN or the topic page till those pages are updated. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 22:20, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Mike Christie, thanks for all that you're doing, and the new bot update. There are other parts of the GA process that use the topics and subtopics, including the GA, FailedGA, and Article history templates. For that matter, the link on the GAN page in the green area near the top still reads "Culture, sociology and psychology", so the listing below changing to "Culture, society and psychology" not only makes the page inconsistent with itself, but makes it inconsistent with WP:GA, which continues to use "sociology". I think it's a good idea to keep GA and GAN aligned when it comes to subtopic names. Regarding GA/FailedGA/Article history, I believe they call Module:Good article topics (GA certainly does), which in turn calls Module:Good article topics/data, and the latter has the topic and subtopic data used by those other templates. Any new subtopics would almost certainly need to be added to the /data module prior to being instituted at GAN to prevent things from breaking. BlueMoonset ( talk) 03:12, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Good point re society/sociology; I'll change that tomorrow. I wasn't aware of that module, so thanks for the pointer. As far as the bot is concerned, any change that is implemented there should be easily replicable in the bot's own equivalent table, so if there is a desire to add or change subtopics, I suggest we go ahead with that conversation and I can make the bot comply once the other components are ready to go. However, are we in the same situation with regard to those other components that we were with Legobot -- that there are no active maintainers so no change is possible? Or do those components have active maintainers? Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 03:37, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

It looks to me that Module:Good article topics/data could be edited by anyone with the proper template permissions (or an admin) who can figure out what needs to be done. It seems like many/most/all? of the subtopics under WP:GA are implemented here; {{ GA/Topic}} is what invokes Module:Good article topics, so once any new GAN subtopics are decided on, as long as they've been added to Module:Good article topics/data before being implemented in your table, I wouldn't expect any disconnects. (I hadn't known about the module myself until very recently, when it occurred to me to wonder how the {{ GA}} template figured out which subtopic went with which topic. There's no guarantee there isn't something else out there that has its own way of figuring out which subtopics are related to which topics.) Legobot had been very restrictive when dealing with subtopics (and the bot before it): if the capital and lowercase letters didn't match exactly, and punctuation as well, the nomination couldn't be processed properly; I gather that your code is much more robust in that area. Looking at the /data module, the odd thing is that it uses "society" rather than "sociology", so I don't understand why there hasn't been any disconnect so far... BlueMoonset ( talk) 05:50, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Interesting. In fact I think it did cause a problem; see this discussion. I think Legobot coped with it but the GA template did not. Should I still change the subtopic used by ChristieBot? Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 12:19, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

I think you should use what we've been using at GAN, "Culture, sociology and psychology", even more so as GA uses it too (albeit with a serial comma). However, I think it would be a good idea for someone with permissions to add both the "Culture, sociology and psychology" and "Culture, sociology, and psychology" strings to the appropriate section of Module:Good article topics/data so there's no longer any disconnect (retaining the "society" strings since they're another subtopic variant that needs translating). I'm guessing you have the necessary permissions? BlueMoonset ( talk) 06:32, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

I've changed the bot's list of subtopics and the GAN page is now updated to match. I can edit that page, but having never seen it before and knowing nothing about Lua or what uses that module I'm reluctant to. I'll post a request to WP:VPT to ask for a second opinion. The edit needed is to add three more rows matching "soc" -- "culture, society, and psychology", "culture, sociology and psychology", and "culture, sociology, and psychology", correct? Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 13:16, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Edit made. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 19:00, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

That's great. Thanks! Yes, all three.

The bot has begun putting out doubled edit summaries with the latest "On review" ( here), and two (one "On hold" and one "On review and on hold") for a nomination that had a new review and placement on hold between bot runs ( here); this doubled message has now occurred thrice since 16 December. I thought you'd want to know. BlueMoonset ( talk) 19:31, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks -- I did see it and I put in a fix for it an hour or two ago. Let's see if it happens again. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 20:11, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

This is not necessarily a huge problem, but I would like to point out that both the "Geography" and "Places" subsections in "Geography and places" have the same descriptions. I don't know how this happened (just found out that a new bot was implemented), but I'm just letting everyone know so someone more experienced can fix this. Thanks! Sparkl ^talk 20:46, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Fixed -- thanks for pointing it out. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 21:03, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

I would like to explore the possibility of changing a GA reviewer for the previously de-listed Turkomans page. The page was re-nominated for GA on 2 August, 2022 (5 months ago). All previous suggestions posted during the last GA Reassessment process were implemented and the current reviewer was properly notified about it ( 1). According to WP:GAN/I#N4a, a reviewer who starts a review has committed to complete it in a timely manner. However, it's been already 5 months. Respective requests for further notes from the reviewer were posted three times ( 1, 2, 3), to which the reviewer responded with "Noted" or "there is no deadline". On top of that, there's an ongoing dispute between me and the reviewer ( 1) about a possible breach of WP:Wikihounding and WP:Wikibullying, which, one may assume, would affect the neutrality of the current GA Reassessment. Visioncurve ^{Timendi causa est nescire} 13:46, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

I am happy to give up the review and indeed, I am withdrawing from the review. But, given the illustrious history of the article including my reassessment that found issues with sourcing, do you really feel a neutral editor will pass the article without taking my opinion into account? Best of luck. TrangaBellam ( talk) 14:46, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

That GA review looks like a mess. If you are ok with it, I can start a new review and I'll get you something this week with fresh eyes? Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 14:59, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Sure, LV! TrangaBellam ( talk) 16:42, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

It's not about passing the article or failing it, it's about completing it in a timely manner and collaborating in healthy environment. Moreover, it's also about not having a predetermined conclusion before even starting a review process. Visioncurve ^{Timendi causa est nescire}

Well, this is amusing. The nominator and the reviewer were both the same person [14]. The nominator Ashish 1816 is currently on a one week block for trying to sockpuppet their way to a GA. A quick 10 min review of the article didn't find anything intrinsically wrong with the article itself (save for some weird formatting errors). This is going to, at least, require a second opinion or a complete deletion of the nomination page. I don't like the idea of rewarding this kind of behavior by leaving the nomination open, but I don't believe there's any policy that temporary blocks of the nominator are quick-fail criteria (especially one that only a week long). Etrius ( Us) 04:43, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Well, it immediately fails WP:LEAD, so it's not a quick pass. My view is that the review should be deleted, and the nomination removed. If the nominator wants to renominate for GAN when unblocked, they are welcome to then, hopefully with some improvements. CMD ( talk) 08:51, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Even if the review were totally legitimate it should not have been passed in the current state – a quick skim finds for example He scored a total of 26 runs from 3 innings at an abominable average of 8.66, with the source being a list of statistics which do not support the characterisation "abominable". I also see various prose issues which need cleaning up. Caeciliusinhorto ( talk) 09:55, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

How about just marking it as a fail and giving the reason? That would preserve the evidence of the sockpuppetting without rewarding it. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 11:25, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't think GAN pages need to hang around as records of sockpuppetry, although sadly I don't think the page technically falls under CSD G5. That said, failing it is a good suggestion on its own merits, so I have done so, which should at least remove it from the list in case someone is looking for a sports article to review. Any admin is welcome to delete under the spirit of G5, despite my edits to the page. CMD ( talk) 13:15, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

When GAN malpractice happens, we typically CSD the review pages under G6 as "non-controversial cleanup". I'd wager this would fall under that category. Failing it would also be an option. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 15:01, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Would that apply to any ban or obvious signs of GA malpractice? I have previously cleared out the noms made by WP:INDEFed nominators (for obvious reasons) but I guess there's nothing stopping a 1 week ban from coming back and taking up the review once it's the ban is over. Perhaps we should make this clearer in the P&Gs since I couldn't find anything when looking. Etrius ( Us) 17:59, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

We CSD inappropriate reviews and return noms to their rightful place in the queue if the reviewer screws up, but in this case the abuse is by the nominator. Failing seems the right answer to that. — Kusma ( talk) 17:14, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

I've been wondering if there will be a backlog drive in January 2023. The review backlog has remained persistently high for several months. I understand that spot checks, etc. have caused issues in running one, but a GA backlog of this size can really dissuade potential editors. I have more than 60 pages I can send to GAN now and don't feel comfortable sending up more than one or two due to the very heavy backlog. Sammi Brie (she/her •  t • c) 06:05, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

The most recent backlog drive hasn't awarded its barnstars yet. I can live without the barnstar, but I found it a bit frustrating in the last two drives that we had long arguments about review quality and which reviews should score points and then there were not enough people to check reviews to these standards so winners were not declared in a timely fashion. Could we either not promise barnstars or not pretend to enforce review quality for the next drive? — Kusma ( talk) 06:38, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

To add to this: I think some of what happened in the backlog drives (encouraging people to state that they have checked all the criteria, including spot checks) was excellent, but it should ideally happen to all GA reviews, not just those in the backlog drive. We shouldn't have quality control switched on only during backlog drives, and we need to make sure that drive organisers can cope with the workload so the drive (including deciding on winners, if any) can be concluded without long delays. — Kusma ( talk) 10:26, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

I've quite frankly gotten sick of trying to be a coordinator for these drives, because it inevitably becomes "TAOT does all the work" while the other coords help little or not at all. For that reason I am uninterested in coordinating another drive at this time unless there's evidence that pattern will not continue. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 13:31, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Sammi Brie I would encourage you to nominate any articles that are ready for GAN and for which you are prepared to do any work necessary that the reviewer reasonably suggests. Just try to offset any nominations by reviewing others' articles. ( t · c) buidhe 07:46, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

I'd do that if I didn't have a topic where reviewers seem to glaze their eyes. When your article titles are things like CIVT-DT, KDND, and WANF, it's an extra problem. Sammi Brie (she/her •  t • c) 07:51, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

I hope the WikiCup will actually help with this. I think there were more reviews than GAs claimed by the participants last year. There are no bonus points for picking up very old nominations, though, unlike our backlog drives here. — Kusma ( talk) 09:09, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't know if this would be helpful, but ChristieBot logs all reviews, so it would be possible for me to produce a report showing for a given time period all reviews, by reviewer. With a little extra work I could probably add a column showing the length of the review, which I seem to recall is something that matters in the WikiCup. I could also add "age of nomination". And in line with the other discussions about which nominations should be prioritized, how about also giving a bonus to reviews of nominations by nominators who have reviewed more articles than they have had promoted? Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 12:23, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

For the WikiCup, current rules do not care about age of nomination, and the rule about review length is "very short reviews score no points". In the last (unfinished) backlog drive at Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/GAN Backlog Drives/June 2022, there were extra points for old noms, but which noms count as "old" could change during the contest depending on the state of the backlog. I'm not sure how much a bot can help -- reviewers were usually happy to list their articles. The bottleneck is meta-reviewers approving these reviews for scoring. — Kusma ( talk) 15:19, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

The instatement of additional rules into that drive (as compared to the previous one) seriously tanked reviewer enthusiasm, as some felt the requirements were wrong or excessive. We have typically given bonus points for "old" reviews, as Kusma mentions. I thought we had decided that not all reviews needed to be checked; rather, just spot-checking some reviews for each reviewer unless there were concerns. The idea of applying a bonus for reviewing old GANs might be worth discussing at WT:Wikicup. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 15:35, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

I've posted a note to that effect at WT:Wikicup. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 17:54, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

For me, I would like to see the barnstars given out from June 2022. It would be unfair to have them not handed out before starting another drive. MrLinkinPark333 ( talk) 03:04, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm sort of in agreement with what everyone has said here - the backlog means another review drive would be good, distributing the barnstars from the previous one first makes sense, it's not fair for organisers to have too much work or to shirk the task. A problem for me is that I look at the almost 600 nominations and struggle to find some I would be interested to spend the time reviewing - part of the issue is that a few nominators have nominated many articles in the same fields. Now I hasten to add that is all fine under current guidelines but my stance is more aligned with Sammi Brie, I rather only nominate two articles at a time. However I know from previous discussions that there is a range of opinions about that. Still, almost 600 unreviewed nominations is too much though so it might be worth brainstorming other ideas on how to bring that number down. Maybe trying to get more wikiprojects involved in 2023? Mujinga ( talk) 17:38, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

There are definitely a few editors who are doing far too much nominating and far too little reviewing. I also try to keep my nominations limited to a handful of articles at a time (I have two up right now, one has been there since August), and if I nominate more than that, make sure I'm doing more reviewing. I honestly would support capping the number of nominations each editor can have open at once at something like 15 or so, as this would incentivize serial nominators to review more so their own nominations get reviewed sooner. As I've said before, I'm frustrated with backlog drives where I end up doing all the work (looks like everyone else is gonna wait me out so I have to figure out the barnstars for the last one as well). So count me out for the next one as far as coordinating goes. It's immensely unfair to me to be doing all the so-called coordinators' work. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 17:44, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm sorry you've had that experience Trainsandotherthings - your work was appreciated!! Next time perhaps the drive could be more community organised so the mass of work doesn't end up falling on one person who didn't necessarily sign up for that role. Like perhaps the reviews should just be checked by the community at large - so if some reviews are substandard, somebody will pipe up about it, rather than expecting coords to check tens of reviews. Mujinga ( talk) 18:03, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

In January 2022, I personally checked over 300 reviews after two of the coords just disappeared or refused to help, and one had a serious injury IRL - definitely not doing that again. It's draining, thankless work. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 19:35, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Trainsandotherthings, it was never an expectation that every single GAN during a backlog drive is double checked At all let alone by one person. If a reviewer has one or two that are good and no bad ones, the barnstar should be awarded assuming that the rest are OK. However, with no checks it happens that the top awards would go to reviewers who ripped through articles giving very perfunctory reviews without solid checks or article improvement, which imo undermines the purpose of the drive. ( t · c) buidhe 00:09, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

@ Trainsandotherthings While I am busy in January (I'm taking my med school admission exam), I am going to have ample free time come February. With a bit of coaching I'd gladly help coordinate should there be another backlog drive in the near future. Etrius ( Us) 04:10, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Etriusus I can probably co-coordinate although my editing time is limited these days. ( t · c) buidhe 05:34, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Any help would certainly be appreciated. If someone wants me to opine here or there I'm happy to comment, but I can't see myself doing coord duties again. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 16:25, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

My expectation is that coordinators coordinate: among other things, make it clear whether and how many reviews need checking. They should also ask for help if they are unable or unwilling to do the checking themselves so the drive can be finished within a reasonable time period. If coordinators aren't willing to take responsibility for the scoring, they should also make that clear so others can step up. Coordinators don't have to do all of the work, but their very existence discourages others from doing coordinator-like work instead of them. I would rather have a coordinator-free drive than one where the coordinators simply disappear like in the June 2022 backlog drive, which was abandoned four months ago instead of being closed.

Alternatively, we could frame this as something other than a competition with judges, reducing pressure on coords to act as judges. Don't promise barnstars and crowning a winner unless someone intends to give out barnstars and decide on a winner. — Kusma ( talk) 11:12, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

I will look into barnstars this weekend (benefits of being raised Jewish include no Christmas family gatherings). Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 16:24, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

That's great @ Trainsandotherthings! Please do ask for help if it turns out to be more work than expected; Christmas will reduce my wikitime but not to zero. — Kusma ( talk) 17:06, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

See here. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 17:22, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Could someone take a look at the use of verb tense at Noldor, which I'm currently reviewing? WP:Writing about fiction advises the use of the present tense, whereas WP:WikiProject Middle-earth/Standards#Tenses says something different. To my eye the most important thing is consistency within the article, but I'd like someone else (preferably someone more experienced with WP:Writing about fiction and reviewing these types of articles) to have a look before promoting this. TompaDompa ( talk) 12:53, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Hey TompaDompa, you should follow WP:WAF here. WikiProject Middle Earth can't overrule wider project consensus, and their style guide has no real force whenever it conflicts (especially when in this case the "consensus" it refers to was decided between basically three people in 2006). Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 19:19, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

So, the nominator of Mongolia at the 2018 Winter Olympics reviewed their own GA nomination and based on what the comments were plan on quick passing their nomination. Can anything be done about this? Onegreatjoke ( talk) 02:53, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Appears to have been handled by Barkeep49. CMD ( talk) 08:03, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Looks like it was just good faith. I can understand why it's been confused this, as FAC works with you starting a nomination. Barkeep has solved. Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 13:37, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

I found that the situation at Talk:SpaceX Starship/GA3 is really hard to resolve without some kind of external intervention. The first reviewer (Timothytyy) want to quickpass this nomination by saying that it has met all of the criteria, but then a second opinion reviewer (Ovinus) listed a lot of issues about the article. The issues listed are not exactly alarming, but it does imply that the article may have some benefit at reviewing in GAN. However, both of the reviewers now want a third opinion as they claimed to be too involved with the GAN. What should I do now then? Should I just pass the nomination or get another person to take a look at the GAN? CactiStaccingCrane ( talk) 12:56, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Well, you obviously can't pass the nomination, as you are the nominator. The entire GAN looks like a shitshow, I'm sorry to say. The original review is totally insufficient for an article as lengthy and controversial as Starship has been (both as a project and as an article). On top of that, you shouldn't be randomly pinging people in to also add review comments on a GA. GA isn't structured on a consensus model the way FAC is, and now no one is willing to take responsibility to pass or fail the thing. What it needs in my opinion is a new review from a neutral, uninvolved contributor who is not a Starship fan or otherwise previously involved in the article, who has some experience at GA, and is willing to actually perform a thorough review in line with the GA criteria. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 13:18, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Alright, I agree with you on all of this. Should I just trash the nomination page and make a new one then? CactiStaccingCrane ( talk) 13:19, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

That would generally be something that the reviewer ( Ovinus) should be involved with. Either they believe they can continue a review, or they should fail it with no prejudice for it to be renominated. Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 13:33, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Mostly my fault, sorry. I saw on Mike Christie's talk page that Cacti was looking for someone to copyedit SpaceX Starship, so I did a first pass of it and left my questions on the GA review itself, rather than on the article talk page as I normally do. I was not reviewing in depth as I would for GAN; I just wanted to clarify simple matters for the copyedit. Then I inappropriately commented on whether to pass the review.

That said, I find the topic interesting and would be willing to conduct a full, bona fide review, but only if the people here (PMC? Lee?) think my tweaks to the article are minor. Otherwise, I think a fail + renom is in order, as I agree the original review was not sufficiently in depth. Ovinus ( talk) 20:40, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't think the current situation with the review is your fault. I don't have any objections to you picking it up as full reviewer, as it doesn't seem you've been previously involved, and you have quite a few GA reviews under your belt. Not sure how familiar you are with the rather extensive history, but there are longstanding issues with text-source integrity in the article, so I would politely ask that you be extremely thorough with your source checks to ensure that criteria 2 is met. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 03:12, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Sounds good. I usually spotcheck ~30% of the references, but I'll check every statement here, especially since the sources are easy to access. Thanks. Ovinus ( talk) 04:18, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

I have some issues with the reviewer at Talk:Gaius Sosius/GA1. He pointed out some alleged archaic or non-neutrally-worded phrases that remained from an earlier revision which quoted some older public domain text, and although I removed pretty much everything he objected to (even that which I found dubious), he still believes the text isn't "well-written" (C1) and "neutral" (C4). He effectively makes the argument using some early-to-mid-20th century sources and having bundled citations at the end of composite sentences violates WP:Verifiability (C2). He then took offense after I pointed out that he doesn't himself know what the sources in the article say, that he doesn't himself demonstrate why any of the older sources are unreliable, and that his understanding of inline citations is unsupported by the existing guidelines.

As it stands, he still claims the article isn't "well-written" (C1), "neutral" (C4) or "verifiable" (C2), but refuses to interact with me further, even though I pointed out that all he complained about regarding C1 and C4 has been removed. Presumably anything further I do to the article will be ignored until the "on hold" period lapses and the GA nomination is closed as unsuccessful. Should I ask for a third opinion or just close this review and open a new one? Avilich ( talk) 16:55, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

It's not clear to me what your reviewer (courtesy ping UndercoverClassicist) objects to regarding criterion 1: there are certainly some minor things I would pick up on when it comes to prose ("He emerged into prominence during the time of the Second Triumvirate" would be simpler as "He came to prominence during the Second Triumvirate", for instance), but the GA criteria are pretty generous on prose: they only require "clear, concise, and understandable to a broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct", and I'm not seeing the issue here.

I do agree with them that it is helpful to make your citations tie in as specifically as possible to individual claims, but the way you are citing things seems to me to be entirely within editorial discretion: as you note, it's allowed per WP:BUNDLING and even WP:TSI says The distance between material and its source is a matter of editorial judgment.

Roman politics are a bit out of my area (if we have to be in Rome, give me at least literature or social history!) and I haven't read the article thoroughly, but it certainly looks to me to be at or close to GA; I think UndercoverClassicist may be trying to hold you to a rather higher standard than the GA criteria actually call for here. Caeciliusinhorto ( talk) 22:05, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

To summarise the key points of my review - on first reading, I judged that the article was nearly there, but still needed work largely on c1 and c2 grounds. The main points were:

• I was concerned that the way in which WP:BUNDLING was being carried out - that there were examples where WP:TSIy had fairly clearly broken down, and that some of the use of multiple citations on complex sentences looked a lot like the 'bundling incorrectly' example given in Wikipedia:Citation underkill#Bundling citations.
• Some of the prose was archaic, difficult to understand or ambiguous.
• There were some bits of editorialising language that could be taken as compromising the neutrality of the article.

User: Avilich made an edit which made progress in all of those areas, particularly the prose. While I did not feel that any of them had quite been fully 'fixed', I could see that improvement had been made, so the question was now whether the article was 'good enough' for GA standard, which I recognise(d) is a fairly subjective measure when we're talking about prose style and what counts as 'close enough' for WP:TSI. As the article was (and is) very clearly there-or-there-abouts, I offered to place it on hold, see where it was in a week, and then either pass it or ask a second opinion. I'm very happy to engage with good-faith questions or queries, but chose not to reply to Avilich's last comment, which I felt was aggressive and unlikely to lead to a positive discussion:

So you haven't a clue what the sources say, and are drawing conclusions on how they should be cited? WP:TSI says nothing about pedantically assigning each individual citation to each fragment of a sentence, nor about readers being able to personally verify what is in them, and and bundling sources "that each support a different portion of the preceding text" is explicitly allowed by WP:CITEBUNDLE. Do elaborate more on C1 and C2, because all the concerns on your box for C1 have been addressed, and there are absolutely no verifiability concerns.

That's where we are now - I'm happy to pass it straight on for a second opinion sooner if you (or anyone else) would like to provide that. UndercoverClassicist ( talk) 22:25, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

@ Avilich, I've taken a look and I agree with you that C1 and C4 are close to being met, if not met (I see a couple of sentences that could use some clean-up), I'm a bit confused by UC's C2 concerns. UndercoverClassicist, don't do this when reviewing. The reviewer has a responsibility to be timely and responsive with their review. If they are unable/unwilling to continue, then they should put it up for a second review or fail the article. Leaving it in limbo just wastes time. This statement appears to be UC's express abandonment of the review, which is rather apparent now, and would warrant a second opinion. The process can be found here. Avilich, we are all trying to do right and I understand the frustration, but you came out of the gate a bit aggressively which doesn't help.

@ UndercoverClassicist, this isn't an indictment nor are you in any trouble, I feel as though there is a misunderstanding, or overexpression, of WP:INTEGRITY ( User:Caeciliusinhorto covered this well already). Understand that it is the duty of the reviewer to WP:COMMUNICATE any issues with the article and actively seek to resolve issues as they arise. Reviewers are given a lot of leeway due to the very decentralized nature of WP:GA, but if someone doesn't understand what you're asking then the article will go nowhere. In the meantime, please review Wikipedia:Good article criteria, and also check out Wikipedia:What the Good article criteria are not. Articles do not need to be perfect nor does every single factoid need a discrete citation immediately after the fact itself, it would gum up the pages quite a bit if we did!!! The succeeding citations implicitly cite the claims that come before it, even if there are 2-3 different citations in a sentence. WP:PERFECTION is important to keep in mind when reviewing, this isn't FA after all.

The article is almost ready to be passed and I do think some of the C2 issues potentially have merit, but only in the breadth that there may be information not in the cited sources (I am uncertain if UC is claiming that there is WP:OR or if they're just giving an example). There is a bit of WP:PUFFERY but that can be addressed easily enough. I'll take this over, save us the trouble of waiting. Etrius ( Us) 23:06, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

I have been reviewing Talk:Persea palustris/GA1, and after giving my first go-through, the nominator said they are unfortunately going to have to pull back and not continue with the process. Completely understandible. Life can be crazy (courtesy tag of User:An anonymous username, not my real name). Is it possible to get a replacement person to step in for the nominator? It is within the Plants project purview, and I could ask there. Or should I fail it and let it go? Seems a shame to do that, but whatever is the right thing to do. Thank you for your time and all you do. E – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) ( talk) 08:14, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

If it's only a little bit of work needed, I'd recommend the Project talk page. Lee Vilenski ^{( talk • contribs)} 09:50, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Excellent. Will do so. Thanks! – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) ( talk) 10:11, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

I missed that part where you said "if it's only a little bit of work needed". That's subjective, I suppose, but when I reviewed it first go-round, I didn't find the needs excessive, and sources are easy to find since it is a common North American plant. I posted it on the project talk page just now. If there are no takers, I'll come back within a week to ask for a suggestion on next steps. Thanks again. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) ( talk) 10:36, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Even if you close the review as failed, any future editor can look at your review and pick up on your suggestions before renominating, so I wouldn't look at it as time wasted! CMD ( talk) 14:45, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Good point! Thank you. :) – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) ( talk) 15:06, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

I was reading the June 2022 backlog talk page and I noticed that there was a concern about enticing and retaining reviewers. I strongly agree with this sentiment, especially considering that outside of backlog drives only about ~80 reviews are generally kept active. Perhaps we should consider a format similar to Wikipedia:Triple Crown, with higher awards given as someone reviews more articles. Hopefully this would entice new reviewers, especially seeing the vast number of awards given to people who achieve GAs, but not those who review them.

If you all think this is an idea worth exploring, I'll start drafting something in my sandbox. If this has been previously discussed and shot down, smack me with a trout and I'll be quiet. Cheers, Etrius ( Us) 22:44, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

More rewards for reviewers could help. But it seems the backlog is mostly created by people who nominate many articles but contribute no reviews. Displaying the number of GAs in addition to the number of reviews has made this easy to notice; if things don't get better, we could introduce nomination limits (if your review to GA ratio is below 0.5 you can only have one active nomination etc.) — Kusma ( talk) 07:51, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm admittedly pretty guilty on that front as I have over a dozen nominations and have reviewed comparatively few articles. I wouldn't be opposed to some sort of WP:QPQ rule, as WP:DYK has. It seems like a pretty fair system, giving nominators five freebees before asking them to review one article for each one they nominate. Krisgabwoosh ( talk) 04:17, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

I personally am not a big fan of WP:QPQ but have to admit we are slowly running out of alternatives. The goal is to have no backlog, or backlog drives. I'm proposing some level of incentive for reviewing GAs. Digging through the archives, this has come up occasionally, and has been well received but never implemented. We see about 2000-3000 articles nominated annually (I'll have the number tomorrow when the new year hits) and frankly, we aren't keeping up with demand.

The one thing I don't like about QPQ is that it'll punish a number of very prolific GA nominators. Yes, they are part of the problem, but we do have to keep in mind that it would be unreasonable to ask them to do 100 GA noms just to get their ratio back in the positive. It would serve as a de facto blacklisting. Perhaps make it so you're ineligible for rewards unless you maintain a positive, or some arbitrary, GA/review ratio. That might be a happy medium that doesn't require a formal QPQ.

Another Option is that we open a second Proposal drive. It's been nearly a decade since our last one and lord knows we need to update some stuff. Etrius ( Us) 04:57, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding but implementing a QPQ system could have some sort of, for lack of a better term, grandfather clause. A user with 100 nominations and 1 reviews wouldn't suddenly need to review 99 articles to be able to start nominating again, but rather would have to review 1 article in order to nominate their 101st article. Krisgabwoosh ( talk) 05:19, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

@ Krisgabwoosh I see, sorry, I believe I was the one who misunderstood. That at least gives some viability to the porposal, although I am unsure how logistically we'd go about it. The more I think about it, a Proposal Drive would probably be the best way to go about gauging consensus on these things. Village Pump is also an option. What does everyone else think? Etrius ( Us) 05:36, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

That seems like a good idea. If two minds are better than one then a dozen minds should be better than two. Krisgabwoosh ( talk) 05:56, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

QPQ has been proposed many times on this page and failed every time. I can see pros and cons to both approaches, but I submit that before thinking about the Village Pump one should first get consensus here—after all, it's only people engaged with the GAN process who will be directly affected. ( t · c) buidhe 06:07, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

I also think there should be some model reviews. Right now, the barrier to entry for "what is a good review" is that it's hard to find ones that are recognized as being high in quality. Post-Coldwell, I wish there was a standard for what percentage of references to spot check, for instance. Making it easier for editors to conduct reviews that meet our expectations will also help. Sammi Brie (she/her •  t • c) 06:28, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

I have been involved in about a dozen GARs and commented on a couple of GANs but I haven't taken point on any GANs myself. Part of the reason is that the only metric that I really understand is a negative one, i.e. "I cannot find anything obviously wrong with it" which does not necessarily mean that it is sufficient to be a Good Article. So, having some model reviews would be good. Also, a clear path of being able to comment (and possibly get credit) when you comment on a review that you do not own would be good and offer random people a way to contribute.

I would be okay with the only a handful in the queue at a time idea if you have a huge review deficit. Gusfriend ( talk) 08:05, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Your last proposal seems like it would make GA more like FAC, at which many people can weigh in, sometimes with contradictory opinions. At FAC, this is resolved through discussion, and the decision to pass is ultimately up to the coordinators, who assess the consensus. In comparison, GA has a deliberately streamlined approach, with only one reviewer, who in almost all cases makes the call to pass or fail on their own recognizance. Allowing others to weigh in randomly at GA reviews feels to me like it adds complexity without much benefit, and I don't think it would help reduce the backlog.

However, model reviews might be a good idea - maybe we could pick a few that the community feels are well-done and throw them up as examples to follow. For now, if you're interested in reviewing, I would suggest looking at GA reviews by editors who have lots of reviews, and seeing how they do things, then trying out what works for you. You can also post here and ask for someone to glance at your review to make sure you haven't missed anything glaring. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 08:22, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

There are worse things than backlogs. Two things that would be worse than having a large backlog would be if people stop nominating high-quality articles and if people start making low-quality reviews. Both of these are potential unintended consequences of implementing a QPQ system. TompaDompa ( talk) 18:13, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Our most important resource is not articles. It is volunteer time, hands down. When editors are submitting a large number of nominations and not doing any reviews, they are creating a large sink of volunteer time without doing anything to mitigate that (i.e. by doing reviews themselves). Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 18:20, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't disagree with any of that. I'm just saying that the size of the backlog is not the most important metric, and efforts to reduce the size of the backlog might have adverse effects on things we care about more, such as the quality of the articles that get promoted. Goodhart's law is worth keeping in mind. TompaDompa ( talk) 18:42, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

After The Coldwelling, as I like to call it, we absolutely need to make spot checking a requirement for GA status. This isn't FAC, and we cannot expect people to spot check every single source for a GA review. But at least one or two sources that are decently used in an article should be spot checked as an absolute minimum. I would support formalizing that as a requirement. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 15:05, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

I would support formalizing it too, but we are called to check every source we can get our hands on. I see this has slipped in the last several years, as most editors can't be bothered to do the research required. You can see for yourself what a joke FAC is where editors ask for happy to glad format changes but almost nobody reads the source material. Chris Troutman ( talk) 18:18, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

That's not realistic. To give you one example, would you expect a reviewer to spot-check every single source in Train? That would take hours. Spot-checks at GAN are not meant to be comprehensive. Otherwise, we might as well just call it FAC 2. If you want to check everything in your reviews, go for it, but that should not become a requirement. The problem we are trying to solve is the backlog; doing as you suggest would make it far worse. Nobody would ever want to review longer articles with many citations, and I wouldn't blame them. Nobody should be getting a free pass with no checks done, but at the same time we have to AGF to some measure or the entire process will simply break down. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 18:25, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Take a look at my reviews because I have done exactly that. I am disappointed that you choose not to live up to the community's expectations. The article you point to cites a bunch of English-language websites and a couple books you'd have to obtain. It's not that hard; it's just harder than going through the motions. FAC expects a lot more than just adherence to sources; checking citations is the minimum bar you lack the professionalism to pass. AGF is an excuse you use and perhaps good articles is not for you. Chris Troutman ( talk) 18:39, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

You on the other hand appear to lack the ability to discuss with others without insulting them. What's your problem? I have said nothing negative towards you, and yet you come out and attack me immediately. If you think my GAs have issues, you're welcome to try and delist them, but you will fail miserably, because they do meet the requirements. I will not abandon the GA process just because one editor thinks anything that doesn't meet his personal standards is garbage. I am referring to GAN, not FAC. You'll notice this is the good article nominations talk page. This is a collaborative project; if you cannot work with others without attacking and insulting them, perhaps Wikipedia is not for you. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 18:49, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

( edit conflict)So whoever picks up the GAN for Battle of Richmond, Louisiana is going to have to access the Bearss book I was barely able to get ahold of myself, or request me to email them scans of a bunch of pages from Bearss/Lowe/Hearn, all of which are somewhat obscure works? Hog Farm _Talk 18:51, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

You say this every time discussion about source checking comes up, Chris troutman, but it's clearly not the "community's expectation" or the "minimum bar" because nobody ever agrees with your insistence that every source must be checked. Maybe GA would be better if it were, but it isn't. Caeciliusinhorto ( talk) 18:56, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Furthermore, Chris Troutman brings up his own reviews, of which he averages two a year, as if that's some sort of evidence that his method is superior. If it's so easy, why do you only complete one every six months? Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 18:59, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Because there's no purpose served in prolifically doing half-assed reviews, unless you gain self-esteem from a bunch of templates on your user page which mean nothing if the work wasn't done. I grew disillusioned watching past GA review drives as I saw, as Caeciliusinhorto points out, the community is doing something other than carefully checking sources. Many editors have argued that GA only requires that citations exist, not that the cites say what the article claims. I wasn't aiming condemnation at your work specifically, Trainsandotherthings, as I haven't examined what you personally have done. I was speaking about your encouragement that there should be spot checks with a retort that there must be more than mere spot checks to prevent hoaxes. Your lax attitude on the subject does call into question your integrity on the subject but I exhort everyone to do better, not to claim accomplishment when they actually have none. Chris Troutman ( talk) 19:36, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Chris Troutman here that source checking is crucial, and should be performed to the extent feasible. That does not necessarily mean taking the effort to find copies of offline or paywalled sources, but when sources are online, they should be checked. Yes, it can take hours, but in my experience (on both sides of the reviewing process) it almost always turns up issues that would be an embarrassment to the GA process if they were let through uncorrected, even in articles that are sure to pass after those issues are corrected. This is the most important part of most reviews. It should not be skimped on. — David Eppstein ( talk) 20:05, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

You're welcome to object to the way GAN is run, and even to how others perform reviews, but casting aspersions, which you did in saying " checking citations is the minimum bar you lack the professionalism to pass. AGF is an excuse you use and perhaps good articles is not for you", is unacceptable, and you're experienced enough to know that. And those are asperisons, as you yourself admit you have no actual evidence to support them. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 20:18, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Not sure which comment in this thread to reply to, so I will leave this note at the end. I know I have not been as active here lately, but if there are people looking for a GANR mentor, I am still willing to do that. Might get more active reviewers. Kingsif ( talk) 18:44, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

@ Kingsif, I am unsure if we even have a mentorship program. If you're proposing one, then go ahead and add it to Wikipedia:Good Article proposal drive 2023. Etrius ( Us) 18:50, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

There definitely is (or was) a list of users willing to mentor new reviewers somewhere. Maybe it could be unearthed 😅 Kingsif ( talk) 20:44, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

@ Kingsif do you want me to add it to the proposal list? It probably got burred at, the now defunct, Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles, regardless there doesn't seem to be an active program anymore. Unless you want me to have full discretion on how to word it, you may want to add it yourself. Etrius ( Us) 20:54, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

I found it: Wikipedia:Good article help/mentor. It really isn't advertised however, perhaps it should be made more apparent. I've been review articles for 2 years and never even realized it was there. It appears to be part of the defunct Wikipedia:Good article help, so I don't think it is utilized much if at all. Etrius ( Us) 20:57, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Proposed model reviews

I have gotten some great GAN reviews in the past; these two stand out for their thoroughness, but I'm not sure they are great examples for exactly this reason. Has anyone got a really well done, but less lengthy review that could serve as a model? ( t · c) buidhe 08:51, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

@ Guerillero's review for me at Talk:Black Christian Siriano gown of Billy Porter/GA1 was really good, in my opinion. It concisely nailed what needed to be fixed to bring the article to FAC (since he knew that was a possibility). It is more freeform and doesn't directly address the GA criteria in the review, but it could be useful as an example of a GA review style that doesn't slavishly follow the GA templates. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 09:01, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Alright, it appears we had a handful of suggestions already popping up. I've created Wikipedia:Good Article proposal drive 2023 based off of the last proposal drive, I'll have a full draft finished by tonight, I still need to link everything and finish setting up the talk page. We can move our discussion there once it's ready (I'll probably start a new talk page thread when its up and running).

Once the new year rolls around, I'll add the proposal drive to the Tab header in order to boost visibility, assuming no one objects. I've also gone ahead and added @ Trainsandotherthings, @ Sammi Brie, @ Krisgabwoosh, and my own suggestions to the list, please edit and add to them as you see fit. I just copy and pasted the most relevant portion of each of your comments, there likely needs to be some refining. There were a few more proposals I noticed here but I wasn't entirely sure who was proposing/how to summarize the proposal. Etrius ( Us) 18:01, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

I've manually cleaned up a couple of odd situations, and I'm going to get ChristieBot to do the clean up automatically, but I'd like to get input on what we think should happen in these cases.

• Sometimes a nominee template will say it's unreviewed, but there are already reviews in the bot's database for that article and page number. E.g. Art was recently nominated but the nominator mistakenly put page=1 in the nomination; GA1 was years ago, so the bot created a review record for GA1, using the four-year-old review page and reviewer name. Etriusus noticed it and cleaned it up by changing the review to 2 and then failing that. The result was the bot thought both review 1 and review 2 were open at the same time. Another way this can happen is if a nomination is open, but is failed and a new nomination opened before the bot runs again. In both cases the bot will have an old review number open, and a new review number in a nominee template. The best response I can think of is that any nomination less than the maximum page number found should be treated as a fail. A note should be written to the error page so it's clear what happened.
• A similar situation is when a review page is deleted because it was created by mistake, or the review was invalid for some reason. If the nomination template is returned to "waiting for review" (blank status) and the page is deleted then when a reviewer comes along, the bot will find that previous reviews exist. In this case it should simply write a fresh review record. However, if this happens because the nominator used the wrong page number (as happened with Art) the bot is going to use the wrong review page and will report the wrong reviewer. Is there a reliable way the bot can distinguish between the two cases? I think I can have it check that the review page existed and was deleted, if that helps. One answer would be that if we delete a review page I should also delete the related review records in the database, as they are not valid reviews. Then when a new nomination comes along the bot would see no conflict. I can have the bot delete the review records automatically, but I'd need a reliable way to detect that that's what should happen.

-- Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 11:57, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Mike Christie, sorry it's taken so long for me to respond. Regarding the first situation, does your database know whether the previous review was concluded? Taking Art as the example, the Article history template on the talk page makes it clear that GA1 was closed as "not listed" (failed), so might the bot be able to realize that the error here is with the new GA nominee template using page=1, and handling the error that way? (If nominators do as they're supposed to and subst the {{ GAN}} template, it automatically creates GA nominee with the correct page number.) Or, when the bot believes there are two active nominations at the same time, it could (should?) check the talk page to see if there are GA or FailedGA templates that can elucidate the issue, for example, noting that one of those templates is there for one of the pages, and has a timestamp since the previous running of the bot. The thing is, you could have a GA1 that was passed a while ago and be on a GA2 now in a couple of valid situations: if the article had become an FA between the two (causing an automatic revocation of GA status in favor of the higher one) and then delisted as an FA, or if the article had been delisted at a community GA reassessment. For that matter, there are GA page numbers that aren't for GANs at all, but individual GARs. Not sure how these would affect your database, but either situation might cause gaps.

For the review page being deleted—fairly common reasons include abandoned/never started reviews, nominators opening a review of their own nomination, IPs opening reviews (they're not valid reviewers), and new reviewers taking five or ten minutes to give a pass or fail with no indication of having applied the GA criteria—the GA nominee template will keep the same page number and date/time for the next reviewer. With Legobot, we would have to wait for the review page deletion to go through before removing the onreview status from the GA nominee template, lest the bot go through the review transclusion and status change all over again. Is that still the case? Sometimes we'd temporarily increase the page number while waiting for the deletion to be accomplished—I suspect that may not be a good idea with ChristieBot? There are also situations where the nomination is just removed prior to review: an article can be clearly ineligible and/or the nomination is by someone who hasn't worked on the article and hasn't consulted with those who have about its readiness, for example. Does the database record these nominations, or only the ones where a review is opened? Or might it delete them for such pre-review removals?

It's late, so I've probably overlooked a question or some situations. If so, let me know and I'll try again. Thanks for your patience. BlueMoonset ( talk) 06:15, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed response. Re your questions:

• The bot currently only knows if a review was concluded if things happen in the "ordinary" way: when the GA nominee template disappears from the page, it adds either a "pass", "fail", or "removed" record to the database, and stops putting it on the GAN page. It's not currently looking at articlehistory or for FailedGA templates, but it could.
• It's not currently trying to understand history, so at the moment the GAR numbers won't confuse it, but I'd have to pay attention to those if I were to try to reconstruct a full history.
• For the deleted pages, the bot is currently getting upset because there are prior reviews, though it just complains and I don't think causes a problem. I'm not sure what the answer is to your question about whether ChristieBot has the same problem as Legobot with regard to waiting for the deleted page to be removed from GAN, but I think it might well have that problem.
• If a nomination is removed without having been reviewed, the database records it as "removed", and there should be no problem if it is renominated with the same page number. The only problem I would expect is if it got as far as being reviewed; then the bot would complain that prior reviews exist. (As far as the bot is concerned, it's happier if no page number is ever re-used for any reason at all, but I should be able to work around that.)

I don't think there's any way the bot can correctly interpret all of these situations, though I can certainly improve it. I think it should follow these rules:

• Record what the templates on the article talk page say, even if they look strange. In other words, record an "onreview" status for Art with page=1 even though it's possible to tell that's wrong. This approach means the bot will record what really happened, which makes this more like an audit trail than a corrected version of article history.
• If at any time there appear to be two active nominations, put on the GAN page the one with the highest number.
• The bot assigns the reviewer from the creator of the review page. It should already be handling page moves correctly, though there haven't been many test cases yet. If the same article title and page number appear in the database twice, meaning the bot records the review twice, I think the default approach should be to give credit to both reviewers. It seems better to hand out the occasional extra review credit than to skip crediting someone who made a good faith review attempt.

Let me know if any of the above sounds like the wrong direction. I'm busier this weekend in real life than I expected and may not be able to work on this for a few days, but will get to it when I can.

On a related note, Czar recently asked on my talk page if there were any way to give credit to reviewers (and even nominators) who were not the original reviewer and nominator. The short answer is no, not currently, but it's something that might be doable in the future. This is not a new issue, of course; we've listed number of reviews at GAN for years, and there's never been a way to do this. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 13:26, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

As long as we have no formal requirements for QPQ reviews I don't consider a little inaccuracy in the counts to be much of a big deal. With the old bot, at least, if you wrote a detailed review but then used it as the basis to quickfail an article, in quick enough succession that both happened before the bot noticed, then your review didn't count (that happened to me at least once, so my review count is off). — David Eppstein ( talk) 05:04, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

I've finished a working draft of Wikipedia:Good Article proposal drive 2023, as discussed above. Feel free to review it and suggest any improvements to the layout. I'm of the mindset that there should be an individual tab for the proposal drive, similar to our backlog drives. This'll help entice people to check it out, since this discussion page isn't as frequently visited.

Anyone who has a proposal can add it to the document directly, ping me if there are any issues/questions. I'll edit the template once 2023 begins and add a notice to Wikipedia:Good article nominations. Etrius ( Us) 20:29, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

@ Premeditated Chaos, @ Buidhe, would you like me to copy your 'Proposed model reviews' discussion to the proposal's talk page. Save you both the time of rewriting it. Etrius ( Us) 03:31, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Oh, sure, thanks :) ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 03:33, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Aaannndddd its up!!!! Happy New years everyone!!! Etrius ( Us) 05:39, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

FYI, the 1959 Canberra shootdown article has been nominated by an IP editor who's only made 4 or so edits to the article and who doesn't seem to have notified any of the more substantial contributors of the nomination. Sturmvogel 66 ( talk) 00:19, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

You can just revert the edit that added the nom template. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 01:02, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Done. CMD ( talk) 01:27, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll try to remember that.-- Sturmvogel 66 ( talk) 14:08, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Hello everyone! I've recently found out about the WP:RGA process and grew interested in it, so I'm considering trying my hand at reviewing some of the listed articles in the next weeks (I'll probably start from the Sports category).

However, I wanted to ask if there's anyone who is free enough and willing to mentor me during my first reviews, please. I've never done any of these before, and I'm still learning about the various phases of the process, so I'd hugely appreciate any type of assistance.

On a side note, even as a beginner, am I still allowed to join the discussions in the Proposal Drive panel? I probably won't give that much of a contribution to the debate, but I still liked some of the ideas thrown there.

Let me know!

Oltrepier ( talk) 20:33, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Hello Oltrepier, and welcome to GAN. There are a list of users who you might contact at Wikipedia:Good article help/mentor, including some who mention an interest in sports articles. Alternatively you can also ask questions here. You are welcome to comment on the Proposal Drive, all perspectives are helpful. CMD ( talk) 00:59, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

@ Chipmunkdavis Right, thank you! Oltrepier ( talk) 17:49, 6 January 2023 (UTC)