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Something obvious is missing in the six criteria

It seems kind of crazy, but there is a basic aspect missing in the six criteria for GA status: The article should be factually correct. I suppose that this is considered too obvious to include, but one could actually follow the six criteria as currently written, and sneak in a totally false premise, without technically breaking GA status. So the words "factually correct" should be added either to criteria 1 or 2. -- Sprachraum ( talk) 03:46, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Interestingly enough, I just looked at the assessment table at the end of Talk:1917 (2019 film)/GA1, and there the heading for criterium 2 says: It is factually accurate and verifiable. That would completely address my criticism above – but why does the same heading on this project page read "Verifiable with no original research" ? -- Sprachraum ( talk) 04:50, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia runs on things being verifiable not necessarily factually accurate. Being "correct" usually works around people doing WP:OR or leaving notes on articles where the reliable source may or may not be right. Information being verifiable is more important to us, and is why we don't mention factually accuracy in the criteria. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 07:44, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
An article built on a false premise but somehow meeting WP:V would presumably fail criteria 3a (broadness) and/or 4 (NPOV). CMD ( talk) 08:24, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
Well, where did the different naming in the table come from, that I linked to? Looks like a pre-existing template to me. And there is certainly no harm for an encyclopedia to make factual correctness a clearly named criteria for a good article, instead of just relying on the indirect effect of "verifiable" and "NPOV"! All I am suggesting is renaming the heading for criterium 2 on this page exactly like in the table: "It is factually accurate and verifiable." The version on this page is "Verifiable with no original research" – but the research point is repeated with the exact same words in 2c anyway, so won't be missed in the heading. -- Sprachraum ( talk) 09:20, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
The harm is that you'd be placing on Wikipedians - who are not required to be experts or have any relevant qualifications - the burden of deciding what's true. Deciding what's true should be done by the relevant experts in the appropriate publications, and Wikipedia should summarise it. So the task of Wikipedians is to judge what is verifiable in reputable sources, not what is true. You're actually proposing a fundamental change in the role of Wikipedia, that it has done without successfully so far. The "indirect effect" is enough. MartinPoulter ( talk) 09:59, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
The idea of "factual" is against the means of wikipedia regardless, so it shouldn't be changed. I have no idea why it appears in one GAN review, but that is a little by-the-by. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 10:51, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
This talk of "harm" and "proposing a fundamental change" is way over the top – and contradicts the simultaneously stated position, that "verify" and NPOV indirectly imply factually correct anyway. I know all about the need to verify from reputable sources, I've been in the Wikipedia for 5 years now. And of course I know that not every Wikipedian is able to judge for him- or herself the factual accuracy of every reputable source. But that doesn't mean that we don't have to do due diligence in evaluating the sources we use – especially when looking at GA status. Being an encyclopaedia should mean always striving to be factually correct, even if that is never 100% attainable. I work mainly on the German Wikipedia, where a GA is called " Lesenswerter Artikel". The very first line in the link translates to "The following articles are professionally correct, verified, broadly detailed, and informative." Apparently Wikipedia has survived despite the apostasy contained in "professionally correct" (you could also translate "fachlich korrekt" to "substantively correct"). So I would appreciate you not just circling the wagons when I point out the different wording between a table used here for one (or many?) GAN reviews and the wording on this page, and am stumped why the word "correct" doesn't appear here anywhere. Perhaps "professionally correct" or "substantively correct" is less likely to trigger fears of fundamental change? -- Sprachraum ( talk) 18:24, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
It has already been explained that Wikipedia verifies, it does not assert correctness. I once knew the subject of a Wikipedia article. She told me her child had been born on a Monday while the article said Tuesday. I informed her that the cited source said Tuesday and so that's what the article reflects. Beyond that issue, most GA reviewers don't always check the sources cited, so who's to say if the article is correct? Chris Troutman ( talk) 02:25, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
Chris, this line of reasoning is getting embarrassing. If you find out that a cited source contains an error, you remove the erroneous aspect from the article, or at least mark it out as "in dispute", or as "not reliably verifiable". And you could have told your friend to solve the problem by creating a trustworthy source with the correct facts, that can then be cited in the Wikipedia. That's not original research, that is preventing falsehoods polluting the world's databases. Wikipedia has a huge responsibility to not knowingly spread errors or disinformation, because (as you surely know) it is incredibly powerful: the worlds No. 1 source of information in concert with wikidata, copied constantly by other databases und myriad websites, as well as by an eagerly data-sucking Google, which then pushes the disinformation to the front of their search results. With the attitude you have described (which contradicts the proper meaning of "verify") you are basically abdicating the duties of someone working on an encyclopaedia. Like it or not, Wikipedia is used by untold people trying to find out the "facts" on any number of issues. If they see an article marked as "good", they will feel more confident that they can indeed trust the inherent information. If some (or most!?) GA reviewers don't bother to check the sources cited, as you suggest, they should please not bother to review GA candidates at all, and leave that to people willing to do the necessary work. -- Sprachraum ( talk) 03:08, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

please drop the stick. You have been told multiple times that this is not how Wikipedia functions. We summarise what reliable sources say about a subject - no more, no less. Your arguments are based on weaving a WP:TRUTH that is asanine and contrary to what we do! The idea that you think we should be telling people to go and create reliable sourcing (which would be WP:PRIMARY in that case anyway, so wouldn't beat the non-primary source), is incredibly dangerous and is suggesting BLP subjects weave their own narrative. You have a fundamental misunderstanding of what we do here, whether at GAN, or in general Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 09:04, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

I'll quote from the charmingly-titled Wikipedia:Complete bollocks. "The policies of Wikipedia state that articles must be verifiable and stated from a neutral point of view. This strongly implies that they must also be true." We do summarise what reliable sources say, but we don't take every reliable source we can possibly find and jam it in. If a source is found to be false, we don't include it. As a good example, I have cited Dave Marsh's biography of The Who on multiple GAs (including the band, Tommy, Who's Next and " Won't Get Fooled Again"), but I know that it gets Keith Moon's date of birth wrong (although, to be fair, so did everybody else before somebody found Moon's birth certificate and noticed he'd been lying about his age for his entire career).

Chris troutman "I once knew the subject of a Wikipedia article. She told me her child had been born on a Monday while the article said Tuesday." Are you implying a woman doesn't know her own child's birthday as well as some random person on the internet? That's crazy. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:05, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

In Chris troutman's apparently-not-hypothetical situation, the "random person on the internet" is Christ troutman. We have no way to verify whether anything Chris is saying holds up. A source vs an editor claim is entirely different from your example of having different sources that conflict, in which case editorial judgement can help determine which source is more accurate. CMD ( talk) 13:14, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
I agree that factuality isn't something volunteer editors should be obligated to determine (for GA nominators, reviewers, or any other editor), and that it would cause harm to the encyclopedia. Striving for factuality is expecting volunteer editors to become experts and is asking too much of them. On a personal note, I was once accused of vandalism for supporting material in an article which was "known to be false" despite it being found in numerous sources specific to the subject, an argument of factuality (rather than verifiability) by an editor claiming greater expertise. That put me off editing for several weeks while waiting for an RfC, stressing over the accusation hanging over me. I'll also note that for any subject which is evolving, articles will never be entirely factually correct, as we have to wait for the reliable secondary sources to publish. Adding factual correctness to the GA criteria would mean a continue de-listing and re-evaluation whenever the "facts" about a subject change. Altogether, this would be giving a lot more unnecessary work and stress to editors, and I feel that we would see participation fall as a direct result. –  Reidgreg ( talk) 13:46, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
"Striving for factuality is expecting volunteer editors to become experts and is asking too much of them." I disagree strongly with this. If you're not prepared to become an expert, or at least sufficiently educated to understanding the topic your writing about, you're at risk of making Wikipedia look like a laughing stock when experts do show up and think "who on earth wrote this?" Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:49, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia has been the subject of jokes and derision since it started. I suspect most who have been around for a while are used to it. –  Reidgreg ( talk) 16:07, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

Topic

Just passed Talk:24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual/GA1, any ideas if this should live under motor racing, or video games? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 14:23, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Motor racing. It's explicitly a racing substitute one-off event. CMD ( talk) 02:39, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Years for songs

There seems to be an inconsistency for this on the music good articles page, so I thought I'd post a message here: should album singles be listed by the year they were released on the album or the year of the single release? -- K. Peake 08:21, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

@ Kyle Peake, if Wikipedia:WikiProject Songs or any similar group of editors interested in that area has advice, then I would recommend taking their advice. If they don't, then I don't think it's very important. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 04:59, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Moving the footnote into the criteria

Currently, GACR #2a says:

it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline; [1]

  1. ^ Dead links are considered verifiable only if the link is not a bare url. Using consistent formatting or including every element of the bibliographic material is not required, although, in practice, enough information must be supplied that the reviewer is able to identify the source.

I propose moving the footnote into the criteria itself, so that 2a will read like this:

it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.  Dead links are considered verifiable only if the link is not a bare url. Using consistent formatting or including every element of the bibliographic material is not required, although, in practice, enough information must be supplied that the reviewer is able to identify the source;

This should make it easier for everyone to be on the same page, and avoid the problem of editors exceeding the actual criteria just because they didn't notice the footnote. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 05:07, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't really see a strong benefit to making the criteria longer in this manner. Is there a specific part of the footnote that is often being missed in reviews? CMD ( talk) 05:13, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
@ Chipmunkdavis, IMO the main problem seems to be "Using consistent formatting or including every element of the bibliographic material is not required", but archive URLs are also a problem. In this recent discussion, multiple GA reviewers said that they frequently ask for consistent ref formatting and for archive-urls (including when the website isn't dead). Some said that they wouldn't fail a nominated article over it, but they also didn't tell any of the noms that, so the noms don't know that it's just a friendly optional suggestion. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 05:25, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
What exactly is the issue with archiving websites that aren't dead? They could easily become dead at any time. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 11:24, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
What's the issue with archiving websites? Nothing for Wikipedia.
What's the issue with reviewers making up their own personal GA criteria, such as saying (or even just implying) that they'll fail the nominated article if the refs aren't formatted to their own personal satisfaction? I think the answer to that one's pretty obvious. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 23:26, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

flyby promotion?

Talk:Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker/GA1.- Earwig's Copyvio Detector- Moxy- 14:35, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't see anything untoward about that GA review. "Flyby promotion" would suggest that the reviewer passed the article without suggesting any improvements, or that the account doing the review hasn't been used for much else, neither of which are true. Yes, there is a strong match between the text of the article and a review of the film posted on DeviantArt. The publication date of the DA review is 22 June 2020. Going back to the version of the article before that date, a lot of the text is already present in the article. This suggests, at first look at least, that the text was copied from Wikipedia to DeviantArt rather than vice versa: the reviewer copied some details of production and plot from the Wikipedia article as background information for their review. We should always be vigilant for plagiarism, and I'm not saying I'm 100% sure there was no plagiarism in the article, but anyone suggesting there is needs to make a better case. MartinPoulter ( talk) 17:29, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
"Flyby promotion" makes it sound like the article must not already meet the criteria when it's nominated. The optimal case is that the reviewer has nothing to say beyond "Great job, I've listed this one". WhatamIdoing ( talk) 01:12, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)

 There is a discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § Redesigning the featured, good, and article assessment icons in regards to the icon for good articles. Pbrks ( talk) 23:15, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Article improvement newsletter -- thoughts, objections?

I'm playing with the idea of starting an article improvement newsletter with a twist -- that is, rather than solely dealing with a single type of article, it would discuss all of "low-quality articles in need of improvement to an acceptable minimum", "acceptable articles that could be brought to GA/FA with some work", and "GA/FA articles that are in need of extra eyes or currently undergoing GAR/FAR". Would anyone here be interested in such a newsletter, and more to the point, does anyone have objections to or concerns about such a newsletter? (Mentioning this on WT:FAC as well.) Vaticidal prophet 02:42, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

I'd read it... Eddie891 Talk Work 12:17, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
Excellent news -- a prototype signup list is currently at User:Vaticidalprophet/proof of concept, for any curious parties. Vaticidal prophet 22:28, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
Update: as the proof of concept is now a red link, formal signups are at Wikipedia:Discontent Content/mailing list, per the project page at Wikipedia:Discontent Content. Vaticidal prophet 04:56, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Primary Sources

Quick question, since I am unable to find any definite answers on the guidelines detailed in this article. Ideally, secondary sources are preferable and should constitute the bulk of a good article. Is it reasonable however, for primary sources to be purged indiscriminately from an article in anticipation of a good article review, particularly if it is used to cited information that is not contentious or promotional by nature? Haleth ( talk) 14:18, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

I don't think there's guidelines for everything that shouldn't be done, but primary sources shouldn't be purged indiscriminately. They are not by themselves an impediment to GAs, some even appear on FAs. They could of course be removed discriminately. CMD ( talk) 14:26, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
Primary sources are simply those where the subject talks, writes etc. About themselves. Generally we want secondary sources, but there are a lot of circumstances where primary is just fine. If your article is based mostly on primary sourcing, it's unlikely to pass, but you shouldn't just delete indescriminately. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 16:05, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Author has gone inactive?

Any thoughts on how to handle Talk:Theridion grallator/GA1? After doing the review, I noticed that the author hasn't edited for 3 months, so they'll probably never see the review. It's a nice article, which only needs minor work, so I'd hate to see this get swept into the bit bucket. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:01, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

I think I've got a solution. Looks like this was part of a university course. I'd left a note on the instructor's talk page asking them to herd their student in the right direction. -- RoySmith (talk) 23:36, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Reviewer has gone inactive

My article Massacre of Thessalonica was accepted for review a month ago [1] and my reviewer has yet to begin an actual review. Haven't heard a word in two weeks. I have written her but gotten no response. What should I do? I know these are volunteers, and I don't mean to be unreasonable, but I would sure like to move on with this even if it meant putting it back on the list for someone else to pick up. I think my reviewer is just too busy. Jenhawk777 ( talk) 04:05, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

@ Jenhawk777: Have you left a message on their talk page recently? Aircorn  (talk) 21:52, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
Bless you Aircorn! I didn't hear from the original reviewer for a month, then I posted for a second opinion and a splendidly wonderful individual Extraordinary Writ showed up. The article was then closed as procedurally failed, renominated, and is now set to be reviewed by that stellar individual who came to offer a second opinion and got roped into carrying the whole damn ball of wax! Talk about good faith! They are the best example I have run across, anywhere, in quite awhile. Things are moving forward now. I can't say enough good about them. Thank you for caring! Jenhawk777 ( talk) 22:04, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Quick edit request to fix substitution

At Wikipedia:Good article criteria/GAC, change {{#switch:{{{1}}} to {{safesubst:<noinclude />#switch:{{{1}}}. This changes the template so that, when substituted, only the appropriate criteria will be added to the page's source rather than the entire switch parser function, which is pretty long and unnecessary such as when it's added to GA review pages. This doesn't change the criteria in any way nor should it affect the template when it's transcluded. Bsoyka ( talk · contribs) 14:23, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

@ Bsoyka: I tried this, but it ended up breaking substitution altogether. Can you get this working on some other page first? Elli ( talk | contribs) 20:32, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
@ Elli: Figured it out! The HTML comments just need to be removed, which doesn't seem to affect anything (no extra whitespace is added when substituting). See: Old revision of Template:X23 Bsoyka ( talk · contribs) 21:32, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
 Done Elli ( talk | contribs) 22:09, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Edit request

Please edit Wikipedia:Good article criteria/GAC to change:

it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline

to

it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline. Using consistent formatting or including every element of the bibliographic material is not required, although, in practice, enough information must be supplied that the reviewer is able to identify the source

and please edit Wikipedia:Good article criteria#The six good article criteria to remove those words. (This has the effect of rearranging the page; no words are being changed.) This has been previously discussed most recently at Wikipedia talk:Good articles/Archive 16#Moving the footnote into the criteria.

The purpose is to stop reviewers from making up their own criteria for GAs, especially when (as in this case) the actual criteria have explicitly said that consistent formatting is not required. As an example of how widespread the problem is, see:

These examples show only a fraction of the reviews making incorrect, anti-criteria demands during the last few months. We need this to be more prominent so that reviewers will follow the actual criteria. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 21:35, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

  • Support this. Prefer alternative suggestion below Aircorn  (talk) 08:19, 9 May 2021 (UTC) It's fine to suggest consistent formatting, but to require it is wrong. I agree that it is a problem (not going to add to the diffs yet, but there have been discussions on the main talk page where experienced editors have brought it up as a requirement). If editors think it should be part of the criteria then an RFC should be opened to formally add it. Aircorn  (talk) 21:51, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Support. Like Aircorn, I have no issues with suggestions about the formatting: it's useful for FAC, for one. But requiring it is at odds with the spirit of the instructions, and clarifying the letter of the instructions appears to be necessary in light of the above examples. See WP:AJR. By the way, I sometimes wonder if it might be easier to just make WP:GANOT a guideline. Although it's currently an essay, it in my experience clearly reflects our consensus, so formally accepting it might prevent future incidents. Extraordinary Writ ( talk) 21:58, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
    • To be clear, I for one am not saying that all of the above examples are "demands" - at least some of them do appear to be suggestions. (It's of course easier to specify in the review what's required and what isn't, saving everyone plenty of trouble.) Yet there are still a few concerning incidents, and so I'd support making the rule clearer. Extraordinary Writ ( talk) 22:11, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
      • Surely then this is an opportunity to discuss this directly with the "culprits" being "outed" above without pings? It won't make any difference changing the criteria to become three times as verbose if people aren't reading them anyway, will it? For the "concerning incidents", deal with them individually. I, for one, have found almost universally positive feedback on more than 500 GA reviews where I invariably make suggestions that are beyond GA criteria, for the sake of improving the article. The Rambling Man ( Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 22:16, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
        The problem with not providing evidence is that editors who do follow the requirements have, in previous discussions, had difficulty believing that this wasn't just a case of "one bad apple". The problem with notifying the editors who have been quoted here is that Wikipedia:Canvassing says not to notify only editors who hold one view. So I could skip the evidence, in which case people wouldn't understand that it's widespread, signfiicant, and current; I could violate the canvassing guideline by notifying only people who hold one view, or I could assume (correctly, apparently?) that any editor who is interested will have this page on his watchlist, just like we used to do before pings were invented. ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯ WhatamIdoing ( talk) 22:26, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
        Why on earth do you think those individuals whose reviews you have brought up here without even a shred of courtesy in notifying them would have this page on their watchlists? When you bring up specific examples and then make bad faith accusations as to people's motivations, you absolutely must notify them. Rather than the reviewers, it's your bad faith mud-slinging behaviour which needs careful examination here. The Rambling Man ( Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 07:05, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
    • I've struck my support. The more I think about this, the more I realize that reorganizing the words isn't going to make a difference one way or the other. The time being spent here would be far better used on things that actually matter. Extraordinary Writ ( talk) 18:00, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose I note that two of my own comments have been brought up here and are being used as part of this discussion without any notification from WhatamIdoing, pretty rude, not to mention the other editors whose reviews have been linked here. I don't recall saying in any of my 500+ reviews that any of my comments were "demands". All of my reviews are aimed at making articles better, indeed almost all the recipients of the reviews seem to appreciate that. To claim, however, that I have made "anti-criteria demands" is simply a wholesale lie and is completely unacceptable. The Rambling Man ( Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 22:03, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
    @ The Rambling Man, the criteria have said, explicitly, for years and years, that consistent formatting "is not required" (emphasis in the original). This doesn't actually change the rules. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 22:24, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
    You've gone about this completely incorrectly and used people's reviews against them without giving them the right to reply. That's really poor form indeed. Your false accusations are frankly disgusting. Why don't you ask the recipients of the reviews I give if they'd rather not be advised about ways to improve their articles beyond bare GA criteria? To list two of my reviews here as "making incorrect, anti-criteria demands" is a total insult, assumes absolutely bad faith and you should stop. The Rambling Man ( Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 07:05, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
  • comment - I don't really see how this will make any difference to reviews. I would still make comments about referencing styles, as in my opinion they make the article better. Is there an example of a reviewer failing a nomination over referencing formatting? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 06:56, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose I don't see how this proposal will make any difference to reviews. I have made 150 Good Articles (62 total in the last two GA drives consisting of 62 days total) and don't see where any reviewer demanded any particular criteria or else my GAN would fail. I always looked at the suggestion and if it made sense, based on my experience of past GAs and my 500 DYKs I created, THEN I would go with the suggestion. If it didn't make sense, I would go with what I thought was common sense. I have never had a GAN fail due to not following a reviewers suggestion (of supposed made up criteria requirements), like the ones of my articles mentioned above of Talk:Burr Caswell/GA1 and Talk:Justus Smith Stearns/GA1. However I HAVE HAD some of my GANs fail, but it was due to criteria already in place (i.e. article to short on the material needed to be covered, lead to short, copy editing problems). I have had 97% of all my articles I created turn into Did You Know articles over a 14 year period = 500. I have had 90% of all my GANs promoted to Good Article (by dozens of different reviewers). I have a pretty good idea what a Good Article should look like. It's easy, just follow my past experience and use common sense. Please give me an example where there was a demand I do a certain thing that wasn't already a criteria, I should have used in the first place. I have found that the reviews done on my GANs in the past 24 months have been done by outstanding reviewers. I welcome their suggestions and then will work it accordingly using common sense as to what I think a Good Article should look like. I plan on doing 200 Good Articles over the next two years and using common sense is the way I will be doing it. It's worked good this way so far, so I plan on continuing. I have full confidence I will achieve my goal and there will be dozens of different reviewers involved.-- Doug Coldwell ( talk) 13:29, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
    @ Doug Coldwell, I don't see any of these reviewers saying things like "This is a totally optional suggestion that has no bearing on whether I will list this article as GA". I do see reviewers using the imperative mood to tell nominators to do things: "Be consistent", "Check the date formats", "Follow the style". I don't have a problem with making optional suggestions, but these are not being presented as optional suggestions.
    Also, to be clear, this rule is already in the criteria. The only proposal here is to rearrange the page. If you think that all reviewers and all nominators are fully aware of this rule and already following it, then what difference does the location make to you? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 18:28, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
    You'll never know what the reviewers meant because you lacked the basic courtesy to invite them comment. The Rambling Man ( Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 19:02, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Hmm. Isn't consistency in this manner a good thing? It's usually not excessively burdensome to get the dates in a consistent format, for example, and I think it's one of the things readers expect of quality content. As someone who's never reviewed a GA but has received a couple reviews, I've generally appreciated suggestions like these. Usually it's due to oversight on my part, not a deliberate attempt to be inconsistent. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 14:06, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
    Indeed. And to say I have never been so genuinely insulted here as I was to read that I was apparently giving "reviews making incorrect, anti-criteria demands", and to not even be notified that two of my reviews were being declared examples as such. I've been intimately involved with around 750 GA reviews now and not one single one of them has been a problem when coming to a pursuit of good practice, of making suggestions that would enhance articles for our readers benefit etc. Now it's been unilaterally declared that I'm making "incorrect, anti-criteria demands". Utterly insulting. The Rambling Man ( Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 14:11, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
    I see a lot of this stuff as extra polish. Yes its good to have, but is it necessary for an article to be good. Does it really matter if some citations say J. Bloggs or Joe Bloggs or J Bloggs. If the dates are October 2021 or 10/2021 etc. For me this comes into the realms of FA. If it correctly describes a link or I have enough information to get to the correct page of a book or newspaper then that's good enough. I like to think of Good Articles as the nuts and bolts of the review process, whereas I feel FA is better suited to the nitpicking. Aircorn  (talk) 08:38, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Support. I’ve seen plenty of reviews asking for things not in the criteria and in my early days as a GA reviewer I asked for some of those things myself. There’s no doubt that in every case the comment is made with the intention of improving the article, but GAN is not about every possible improvement and this clarification would be helpful. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 15:35, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
    How? If reviewers are offering more advice than basic criteria, this makes no difference other than to inflate the instruction set. What actual problem is this trying to solve? The Rambling Man ( Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 19:02, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
    I can't pull up an immediate example, but I know I've seen reviews in which the reviewer is insisting (not requesting or advising) on something that is not required by the criteria. I think that's a problem -- not a huge issue, because it's not all that common, but it does happen. After I realized (for example) that dead links are not required for GA, I've continued to point them out in my GA reviews but now I always add that it's not required. I think this wording might encourage more reviewers to do the same and I think that would be a good thing. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 19:13, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
    No, it certainly won't help. What I think some people here are looking for is a big fat reminder "GA criteria are the only things that should be considered when assessing whether to pass or fail an article. All other comments designed to help improve the article are to be encouraged during the review process but should not be mandated as part of the assessment". That then covers the fact I leave notes on mild compliance with aspects of MOS, that I look for ACCESS compliance (but have never once mandating anything other than an assurance that a source being used was RS). This proposal, beyond the incredible rudeness of discussing others motives and making bad faith accusations about their reviews, is rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic I'm afraid. The reviewers being shamed here will not re-read the GA criteria and be beholden to them. If reviews are failing because criteria other than those already mandated by the GA criteria, that's a problem and those situations should be dealt with on an arising basis. The Rambling Man ( Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 19:41, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Comment I find myself agreeing somewhat with Rambling Man. The issue is not just asking for consistent references, but with a whole lot of other criteria as well (for example Mos compliance, alt text etc). I think a better approach might be to put some text at the top of WP:GACR along Rambling Mans wording, with a link to Wikipedia:What the Good article criteria are not. Aircorn  (talk) 08:16, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
  • For me, when I do a review, I mention all sorts of things to improve an article. Whilst ALT text is not part of the GA Criteria, and there is no reason to fail an article because it doesn't exist in the article. Same for MOS and indeed consistent formatting. Most nominators are happy to encorporate these into the article, as it is an improvement, but I would never fail an article over it. The suggestion here is that we now need to specifically point out which parts of a review are just suggestions, and which are pertinent to the review. I would be against such micromanagement, but if anyone has any examples of someone having an article being failed on such details, I'd be very interested in it - and would support this being discussed with the reviewer. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 10:50, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
  • I linked above (it was already linked before that too). Spend some time at Good Article reassessment and you will see plenty of Good Articles nominated for non GACR reasons (citations in the lead, deadlinks, citation overkill, notability, no images, unsubstantiated neutrality concerns etc). Is it a problem? Maybe. I think if editors ask for criteria that are not required then it perpetuates the use of them. I found this thread quite interesting with experienced reviewers giving a newbie reviewer (even though it ended up being a sockpuppet) bad advice on what needs to be in a review. I wouldn't change the way you or any of the other prolific reviewers go about their work, but I don't think it hurts to remind editors that the criteria for passing are not actually that strict. Aircorn  (talk) 12:48, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
  • These seems like a misunderstanding of the GA Criteria, rather than a need to add to them. People misunderstand GA Criteria 6, that's why people nominate articles that don't have images. Notability concerns are an issue for GAs, because the article itself probably shouldn't exist. This seems like a bit of an impass, as it seems like (as I believe many have said before), nominators either want a detailed review of things to improve in an article (especially if there has been a long wait), or they want someone to check that there's no copyvio and it's broad and vaguely well written to get the icon on their page.
  • My big worry is that an addition like this will mean reviewers in camp A will either have to go out of their way to stress it doesn't effect the GA Criteria, or that nominators in camp B will start to report reviewers who put in a bit of effort to into finding things that could be improved.
  • If this is an issue with people putting up articles at GAR, then perhaps we need something there to stress that only things that point to a specific part of the criteria will be addressed. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 13:23, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
  • It's fine to add a reminder along the lines of my proposal. What's not fine is to surreptitiously cherry-pick a handful of reviews and declare a unilateral problem with "anti-criteria" reviews and then try to modify just one of the criteria which are being ignored in any case. If there are genuine problems of reviews being literally failed because of demands outside the scope of the GA criteria, that's a different matter altogether and should be handled on a case-by-case basis. This bad faith debate is going to achieve nothing other than to drive experienced GA reviewers away from an already backlogged process. Bravo. The Rambling Man ( Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 13:53, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
    I agree that a reminder such as you suggest would be useful; for me it could be instead of or as well as the proposed change. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 10:36, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Its not adding criteria though, its a clarification of the existing ones. I very seldom see editors hauled over the coals for providing a too detailed review, and the ones that do tend to be on the extreme end. A simple the article will benefit from alt text is all that is needed (which to be fair many editors do) instead of images need alt text or similar, something that is still said asked for in lots of GA reviews. [2] Aircorn  (talk) 22:33, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
    @ Aircorn, it's not even a clarification. These words have been on the page Wikipedia:Good article criteria for almost a decade now! I know that Wikipedia:Nobody reads the directions, but seriously: These exact words are already in the criteria! The only proposal is to slightly change the location of the words on the page! WhatamIdoing ( talk) 02:09, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
    The point is being missed here. Although this is a poorly crafted and bad faith attempt to out certain reviewers without notifying them, the essence of the issue is that on a few (how many?) occasions, GA reviews have been incorrectly failed because of an apparent mandating of issues beyond the basic GA criteria. Reiterating the words specific to one aspect of the GA criteria, moving them somewhere else, whatever, it won't have a shred of impact at all at any point. GA reviewers should be encouraged not discouraged or used as examples of providers of "anti-criteria reviews". If the objective here is to stop people reviewing at GAN then I guess that's been achieved. If the objective is to reduce the tiny number of GAs which have failed erroneously, this will not help at all. Those failed GANs should be dealt with specifically, and the reviewers assisted with what constitutes the requirements for GA. This bad faith thread is completely unhelpful, in fact the opposite, detrimental to those of us who have made a huge contribution to this process, only now to be subversively stabbed in the back. The Rambling Man ( Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 07:01, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
    The essence of the problem is not that "GA reviews have been incorrectly failed". The essence of the problem is that (some) "reviewers have misrepresented the GA criteria in GA reviews". Claiming that something is required when it is explicitly not required is a problem even if it has no effect on the outcome of any individual review. (Why is it a problem for editors to say X when the rules say not-X? Because it is always a problem for editors to misrepresent the rules. A lot of our ruleset gets transmitted by word of mouth. People who see the erroneous claim may repeat the claim in the future, until "everyone knows" that the rules are the opposite of what the written rules say. Also, the cumulative effect of piling made-up burdens on top of required fixes may discourage some nominators from pursuing the actually required improvements. This means that articles will not be listed for failing multiple criteria, when they could have been improved somewhat and been listed.)
    It is my belief that these reviewers have misrepresented the criteria innocently and good faith, likely having been incorrectly told by another reviewer that this was a requirement, and that all of these mistakes can be traced back to problems with how we are presenting the criteria on the page. Therefore IMO the solution is to make it much more obvious to everyone what the criteria actually say on this point. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 20:42, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
    No, in fact that's incorrect, although you wouldn't know it because you lacked any courtesy in asking those reviewers you've shamed here to comment. My point remains throughout this bad faith festival: reviewers (like me) offer a number of comments to improve articles during GA reviews. There's no misrepresentation, that's just something made up. After something like 750 reviews, I have yet to experience a review or a nominator who feels there has been any mis-representation. Probably better to find some real actual extant problem to solve instead of clandestinely dragging down good faith editors with bad faith criticisms of their approaches to GA reviews. The Rambling Man ( Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 20:48, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
    Have you ever asked any of your noms whether they knew what you meant? For example, in a recent review, you told @ DasallmächtigeJ that "In refs, spaced hyphens should be en-dashes." Did you ever ask DasallmächtigeJ or any of your noms whether they understood that this suggestion is explicitly something the Wikipedia:Good article criteria says that they don't have to do, and that they could freely ignore your optional suggestion? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 03:11, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
    If anyone has ever asked to freely ignore non-GA criteria suggestions, then I will have told them to feel free. You note that my reviews are called "comments". There is no claim in any of the near-600 reviews I've made that anything I say is mandatory. That's not how Wikipedia works, its a collaborative project where people can discuss issues. And in the near-600 reviews, this has never been an issue for nominators. Your bad faith accusations here are a disgrace: there's no actual problem here, and your suggestion to somehow fix one aspect of this perceived issue is a waste of time. How many GA reviews have you conducted? How many GAs do you have? How many nominators have had problems with my suggestions? Why are you continuing to assume bad faith? Also, it is completely reasonable to assume that nominators themselves read and are familiar with the GA criteria (the project is a collaborative effort) and can, at any point, reject any suggestion if it is not encapsulated in the criteria. In nearly 600 reviews, has this ever happened to me? I'll let you answer that. The Rambling Man ( Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 06:41, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
  • There's also an argument here as to why we are not updating articles to meet the MOS for things like hyphens and such which take very little time to update. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 08:06, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
Its this type of nit picking that we should discourage. It makes no difference to 99% of the readers if it is an en or em dash. GA should be looking at the forest not each individual tree. Aircorn  (talk) 17:02, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
Missing the point again. Where are these suggestions being mandated? Are nominators precluded from reading the GA criteria? Suggestions to improve articles beyond GA should be encouraged, not disgracefully and surreptitiously shamed. We should never discourage the improvement of articles, what a counter-productive suggestion. The Rambling Man ( Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 17:47, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
Where are these suggestions being mandated? I'd say that happens every time a reviewer issues orders, e.g., using words like "Do this", instead of making suggestions, e.g., using words like "Have you considered do this?" or "If you're hoping to go to FA after this, then you'll probably want to do this". We don't have tone of voice and body language, so people can't be expected to know that when you say "Do this" you mean "This is a purely optional suggestion" instead of "Do this, or else". WhatamIdoing ( talk) 23:28, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
Now you're in the world of fiction. Where is anyone saying "do this, or else"? Can you show me all the diffs? Can you tell me where reviewers are making "orders"? Indeed, my own reviews usually start with the word "comments". Once again you are assuming bad faith, and creating the idea of a problem which simply doesn't exist. Added to that your shameful and disgusting attempted shaming of reviewers at the start of this diabolical thread, I'd say you're now being disruptive. What an awful, misguided and badly "thought" out set of judgements you're trying to promote. The Rambling Man ( Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 06:36, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Well, what is the point of a MOS if we aren't going to keep to it? Surely just updating the article to be better is more productive than this conversation suggesting we should only have reviews that only deal with the exact wording of the criteria. Our goal as a community should be to improve the encylopedia. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 17:59, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Indeed. Too much time spent here trying to defend "not" improving Wikipedia. No-one has proved these comments are being interpreted as anything other than good, friendly suggestions. This bad faith conversation is utterly depressing and should be withdrawn with an apology to those editors whose reviews have been labelled as "anti-criteria", in particular those who were not even notified of such. The Rambling Man ( Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 18:45, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
@ Lee Vilenski, your question sounds to me like "What's the point of GA if we have FA?" Do you think that the GA process should require the same level of compliance with the MOS as the FA process does? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 23:23, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
This is going off track. We all seem to agree that there is nothing wrong with providing critiques beyond the criteria. We also seem to agree that the article should only be passed or failed according to the criteria. I also think we have a similar understanding of what is and what isn't part of that criteria. So we are mainly disagreeing on how much of an issue it is and whether something should be done about it. I am still in favour of a general note at WP:GACR. I see a rough consensus for this. Is there anyone opposed to that? Aircorn  (talk) 02:03, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
If you mean the note along the lines of what I suggested which covers all criteria, then it's fine by me. I hope the note will make everyone feel so much better but note: this will, in no way, impact the way the good faith reviewers being shamed at the start of this thread go about their reviews. Thankfully we'll all just keep on making comments which include suggestions to make article even more excellent. But the sooner this shitshow of a bad faith thread is closed, the better. The Rambling Man ( Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 06:40, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
Aircorn, yes, a note along those lines seems like a good idea to me. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 00:02, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Comment: seeing that my name has been brought up here, I want to add a quick remark after glancing over the discussion: the criteria for good articles are, as all sets of criteria in all sorts of life situation are and always will be, to a certain degree fluid and subject to interpreation by the individual reviewer. However, this does not mean they are arbitrary, to me they seem to be pretty clear. Nominating a GA and having it passed requires a certain set of academic and critical thinking skills that should enable everyone who nominates or reviews a GA to enter a reflected discussion on the GA criteria and individual editing requests. So, when working with a reviewer, it is m responsibility as a nominator to ask for clarification or refuse certain edits if they seem inapproriate to me.-- DasallmächtigeJ ( talk) 10:39, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
    I generally agree with you, @ DasallmächtigeJ. You've had six articles listed as GA. I wonder: When did you learn that Wikipedia:Good article criteria#cite ref-4 says that citation formatting is not a requirement for GA? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 23:07, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Alternative change

Just to be clear, since it's hard to find in the discussion above, here's the wording that The Rambling Man used in one of his comments above, suggesting that this would be more useful than the proposed change:

GA criteria are the only aspects that should be considered when assessing whether to pass or fail an article. All other comments designed to help improve the article are to be encouraged during the review process but should not be mandated as part of the assessment.

TRM says just above that he would support adding this. This is what I think Aircorn was referring to above as having rough consensus. I would support adding this. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 02:29, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

I will be bold and add it now. [3] Aircorn  (talk) 07:54, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Maintenance category questions

Does anyone know what Category:Good article reviews is for? It seems quite an eclectic collection of quite old reviews. Additionally, is there a way to be alerted when an article enters Category:Good articles without an oldid‎ or Category:Good articles without topic parameter‎, or somewhere where they can be seen without entering the category page to check? Thanks, CMD ( talk) 16:21, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

If you watchlist the category page, you should see when other pages are added to/removed from the category. -- RL0919 ( talk) 16:56, 9 June 2021 (UTC)
If and only if the "Hide categorization of pages" box isn't checked in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist. Extraordinary Writ ( talk) 16:59, 9 June 2021 (UTC)
Thanks both, box has now been unchecked. CMD ( talk) 07:54, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
Any thoughts on the first part of this question, the purpose of Category:Good article reviews? I'm tempted to nominate it for deletion, but Chesterton's fence implores me not to. Extraordinary Writ ( talk) 19:31, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
Looking under the hood, there is a tag present on all these pages: {{GAarchive|status=pass}} and {{GAarchive|status=fail}}. So these pages possess a GA archival tag that may have fallen by the wayside. These appear to be reviews that were archived. The GA Wikiproject does not list this category. So perhaps this category has been forgotten, the average age of reviews on this page being 12 years ago. In the past, there may have been two different paths of evolution toward archiving reviews: one path used this now-defunct tag and the other path used the {{Article history}} tag on talk pages which allows you to link to a review and remove its transclusion from the talk page. This then raises the question, how (do we) (should we) archive reviews? What is the recommended practice for archiving reviews in this day, this age? -- Whiteguru ( talk) 22:09, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Splitting part of the list at Wikipedia:Good articles/Warfare

I think this is the right place for this discussion, but I may be wrong. The Army subsection listing at Wikipedia:Good articles/Warfare has become long and IMO is getting fairly unwieldy. My instinct would be to split it up by country like has been done for the warships, but wanted to see if there were objections to this first. Subsection to the army part would be things such as the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Soviet Union, Confederates States of America, etc. Will also be leaving a courtesy note pointing here at WT:MILHIST. Hog Farm Talk 16:43, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

That does seem unwieldy, however browsing through I also feel that the warship split for every country also creates a lot of unnecessary vertical space, and one or two article topics feels not in the spirit of grouping Good Articles into topics. If the point of the groupings is to help visualise the quality of articles within particular topics, or topics that have had a lot of work, then a balance would be better. My instinct is that somewhere around "Warships of Yugoslavia" to "Warships of Turkey and the Ottoman Empire" feels like a good length that shows a grouping of quality without being an overwhelming wall of text (so somewhere between 20-30 articles). CMD ( talk) 17:10, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
I agree that this could use a further split, but not sure how. The section "Armies and military units" used to have only one subsection until last June [4] when I split it into army, air force, navy, and others. ( t · c) buidhe 23:10, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
One possible solution would be split out the US articles and possibly Australia (which are a LOT of them) to dedicated country subsections and leave the other countries together for now until there are more GAs. ( t · c) buidhe 23:13, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
  • On a related note, does anyone mind if I split "Early modern period (1500–1800)" into centuries, since it's also growing unreadably large (a good thing, but makes it difficult to see)? ( t · c) buidhe 23:25, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
    • Looking at it, I wonder if just splitting out the 1700s would work? It seems to be pretty heavy on that century. I also notice that it's 1500-1800 and then 1800 is the start of the long 19th century as well making overlap. There's some in there from the exact year 1800, so those can be moved over to the long 19th century and then the new sections truncated at 1799. Hog Farm Talk 00:05, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
      You're right: it's driven by US and French revolutionary wars. Maybe it would make even better sense to separate out US Rev and Napoleonic. ( t · c) buidhe 04:37, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
  • I don't know much about wars or armies. The simplest I would think is to divide by continents of the army origin. OhanaUnited Talk page 04:02, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Lists and GAN

I've been under the impression but I thought lists didn't go through GA. But List of counties in Delaware is a GA? Am I missing something, or should this not be a GA and sent through the FL process instead? Hog Farm Talk 15:32, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

@ Hog Farm: This is discussed in a few places on the article's Talk page. The gist of those previous discussions is that the title notwithstanding, this doesn't qualify as a "list" for Featured List purposes because there are only three counties in Delaware, which results in the article having more prose content than list content. So it was reviewed as a GA instead. I suppose opinions might differ on that, but it seems to be a question of the nature of this particular article, not an attempt to make lists part of GA generally. -- RL0919 ( talk) 16:14, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

There are articles that have been rejected from both fac and flc due to being too listlike for the former and not enough for the latter. :) Any article in a list format should be counted as a list for GAN in my opinion. ( t · c) buidhe 19:32, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't see how that is in any way a list, other than having a title saying "list of". Just having a list inside of an article doesn't make it a list. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 19:43, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
Lee, I think one of the main points there is that all of the similar articles to the Delaware ones in the same series are treated as lists. see Category:Lists of counties of the United States by state which this article is in. It's also in Category:Delaware geography-related lists. It's looking like for this specific list, it's treated as a list for everything but GA/FL assessment. Hog Farm Talk 16:06, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
  • I tried a few things with that article years ago. I can’t find the link at the moment, but my attempt to move the title didn’t get consensus either. As an aside we have articles that are virtually identical that have gone through flc and ga. Namely articles on tv series. So the distinction between the two is minor. We virtually ask for the same criteria on both. To be honest it wouldn’t be a stupid idea to combine the two processes given our limited reviewing resources. Aircorn  (talk) 01:51, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
  • @ Hog Farm: also that was 14 years ago. Processes and participants change over time. Read the talk page to see how it was passed. There doesn't even seem to have been a set GA process to follow in 2007. I went through this myself about a decade ago - FLC said my list had too much text to be a true list, and GA said it had too much list to be GA. Perhaps it might be a good idea to come up with "Good List" to cover those which FLC doesn't want. — Maile ( talk) 02:06, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
    • That's a good idea. At the moment I have it in the back of my mind that Lists don't make it to GAN, and some formal clarity on this would be good. -- Whiteguru ( talk) 02:38, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
    • Are you suggesting a new process called good lists or just adding a list category to good articles? Aircorn  (talk) 05:48, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
      • I was thinking about this overnight, and it would really depend on what the regulars wanted to set up. It's not a bad idea to have a separate "Good List" process. If they are incorporated as one, it could become a judgement call as to how much of a list necessitates the additional criteria? It probably could be done either way, but I think a separate process leaves room for review criteria that is list-specific. On the other hand, incorporating GL and GA together might be as simple as additional review "List criteria". Making GL part of GA would be a lot more easy to add, than creating a new separate review process. — Maile ( talk) 12:48, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
  • I think what is most interesting to me is that we could change this into a non-list, by changing the listed items into prose quite easily, but there is no way to change this into a true list article. Are we suggesting that any article that has list elements cannot be a good article? Like, I have an article at Tour Championship (snooker), which I don't think anyone could suggest is a list, but it has a similar structure to this article. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 08:49, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
  • You probably ought to involve the FL folks in this kind of discussion.... The Rambling Man ( Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 14:52, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
Really good idea. I put a message at Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates and Wikipedia talk:Featured lists. — Maile ( talk) 15:43, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
  • I don't know; putting lists through GAN seems pointless. FLC is not even close to the rigor of FAC—its already somewhere between FAC and GAN. Also, List of counties in Delaware is a list—I'm not convinced by the "too much prose" argument, the center of the article is a list as is a title. There are tons of FLCs with a lot of prose. I look at the FLC that was attempted and see a single person, disagreed about using the process, 14 years ago! Aza24 ( talk) 15:51, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
I think it's significant for this specific article that the similar [[List of counties in [state]]] articles are treated as lists. Hog Farm Talk 16:03, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
I tried again in 2013. It was reverted by @ Wizardman:. I still think it is a list, but the distinction is muddled enough that some lists could be reasonably classed as an article. Aircorn  (talk) 21:54, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Linking to GAN page after a page move

When a page moves after passing GAN, Template:GA no longer links to the correct place. For example, Talk:Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney − Justice for All/GA1 is not linked to from Talk:Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Justice for All. Is there a way to adjust the template, or is the best solution simply to create a redirect? Thanks, CMD ( talk) 08:40, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Maybe ping @ Slambo: who created the template. — Maile ( talk) 23:19, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
I thought we moved the subpages too... Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 06:59, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
That was 16 years ago when I first added the template and so many others have added and updated the template since then. It can probably be done, but I am not the best person to add that kind of automation to the template as I have not studied Lua at all, and have been out of the IT world since 2008. I stick around on Wiki to edit article content. Slambo (Speak) 13:27, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
Moving the subpages with the page does seem like the obvious solution, more consistent than redirecting manually. I'll ask at the technical pump if there are no additional comments here. CMD ( talk) 02:58, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
CMD I have run into a similar situation with a Hurricane GA moved to Tropical Storm GA; have no idea how to make the article history link to the GA Review, which bears the old article name, "Hurricane"... -- Whiteguru ( talk) 06:27, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Raised at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Page moves and Good Article reviews. CMD ( talk) 13:49, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Lists are not marked up as lists, what to do

Separately, I had an earlier concern that I wanted to voice and wasn't sure the best way.

Currently the lists are not marked up as so, which makes them less than accessible. The count of articles is essentially the (only) reason why (and which is what causes much of the WP:PEIS issue here). You can sell me that's fine not to mark them up as lists, but I think it would be prudent for our non-sighted readers if the count of pages in the section were moved to the front of each list rather than the back. Alternatively, the pages could be changed such that they are marked up as lists with some appropriate CSS for the inline goodness (hlist or roll your own if you want). This option is probably the better option but would add to the woes of /All, which to be frank probably just needs to be deleted rather than designed for, given its issues.... Izno ( talk) 15:43, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

Removal of NavFrame

Headsup: I'm working on removing or replacing NavFrame which GA uses on its topic subpages. It also uses a lot of inline styles that can nicely be moved to TemplateStyles as a portal-kind of page. Wikipedia:Good articles/Video games/sandbox is a copy of Wikipedia:Good_articles/Video games that does both, as well as tweaks some of the other presentation (like moving the text of the headings back into the headings -- I can't see why that was done and is not accessible).

I'm planning to work on the others but wanted to get this in front of people to start to ensure there isn't major heartburn with the new appearances. Izno ( talk) 15:27, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

@ Izno: Is the bug at Wikipedia:Good articles/mismatches#On Wikipedia:Good articles/all but not in Category:Good articles related to these changes to the GA lists? CMD ( talk) 07:01, 1 August 2021 (UTC)
I'd guess so. These changes are for better accessibility, so GreenC probably change his code. -- Izno ( talk) 14:27, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Review of Sahaib3005's GA noms

The following editor:

has made many noms or promotions in their brief tenure. The reviews are often cursory and promotion is often immediate (even if others raise substantive concerns). Can promotion of things like Creighton Preparatory School (per Talk:Creighton Preparatory School/GA1) be undone on sight per process, or do we need to run a formal GAR? DMacks ( talk) 18:55, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

DMacks, this is being discussed at WT:GAN#GA reviews by Sahaib3005. (It's certainly a bit confusing to have one talk page devoted to good articles and another talk page devoted to good article nominations.) Cheers, Extraordinary Writ ( talk) 19:09, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
Thanks! DMacks ( talk) 19:28, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

Rename 'World history' to just 'history'

Why is the GA subcategory for 'history' named 'world history'? There is no need to disambiguate it from another category (not that I am sure what it would even be, 'local history'? Whatever it is, we don't have it and thus we don't need to disambiguate the section title). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:16, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

Surely "history" would refer to all articles, simply because they took place in the past. World history seems a lot more succinct to me, makes it clear we are talking about historical topics in terms of how they have shaped the world. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 11:32, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
World history, like military history, American history, human history, history of cinema, etc., etc., etc. is a defined area of study. I.e. it's not disambiguating anything, that's the accepted name for the field, in the same way we say 'geology' (name) and not 'rock science' (disambiguation of 'science'). And, you know, what's the chance people will be uncertain whether to put any potential GA universal history articles - Early development of Mars and the like - in 'history' or 'astronomy' if we did. No need. Kingsif ( talk) 00:51, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Move of cue sports

Hi! We currently list "billiards, pool and snooker" under recreation, but the articles we promote rarely fit this description - it's generally professional competition. We currently list 149 articles, which is more than Cricket, which we list as its own section. I prepose that it has its own section (which can then be split into people and tournaments). The same would also be suitable for Rowing (164) and Motorsport (310 articles). If not its own section, I think it would make more sense as part of other sports; as its likely to have quite a serious amount more GAs in the coming future. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 09:21, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Good articles/Sports and recreation
  • Football: 1373 (365 American, 888 Association)
  • Baseball: 400
  • Basketball: 247
  • Cricket: 137
  • Hockey: 246 (all but 2 ice)
  • Pro wrestling: 342
  • Recreation: 416 (149 billpoolsnook, 161 stadiumsetc.)
  • Multi-sport event: 419 (all but 11 Olympic or Paralympic)
  • Other sports: 978 (310 motorsport, 164 rowing [of which all but 3 relate to The Boat Race])
Cricket is definitely an outlier here. The main utility of this subsectioning seems to be highlighting topics with many higher-quality articles. My intuitive feeling is that these second level subsections (the first level being Sports and recreation) feel 'deserved' when they stretch over one screen width. For me, this puts the grey area right around Basketball and Hockey, suggesting a benchmark of around 250 articles (hockey cheats in the screen height metric compared to basketball by having an additional third level subsection). 250 conveniently feels like a notable number in itself. 250 is also 10 times 25, with 25 being right in the 20-30 range I suggested felt intuitively right for third level subsections in the previous discussion on warships.
Based on these metrics, I wouldn't put billiards, pool and snooker in their own second level subsection, but see nothing wrong with splitting them into the two proposed third level subsections. (On the separate matter of shifting to Other sports, that they are professional seems convincing.)
Other suggestions emerging from these benchmarks would be pulling motorsports into its own second level subsection, and perhaps even pulling Association football out of the general football category (the non-American non-Association footballs don't hit 250 on their own, keeping American in that grouping). CMD ( talk) 15:14, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
250 would be the amount? Hold my beer. ;) Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 17:18, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
"Hold my beer. ;)" What is this, darts? 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ X 09:35, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
Bill Werbeniuk and Alex Higgins would likely disagree. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 10:41, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
It's pretty clear, that even when we get to like 50 or so, a sub-category of GAs can be made. I would definitely be in favour of listing it per Lee's suggestion. The Rambling Man ( Keep wearing the mask...) 17:20, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
Where do you get 50 from? Warfare has two very oddly small sub-categories (7 and 23), but aside from those they tend to be much larger. The only others smaller than Cricket are Mathematics and mathematicians at 97 (making up the entirety of the Mathematics category), and Classical compositions at 123. (Magazines and print journalism is an exact tie at 137.) CMD ( talk) 17:32, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
I said :even when we get like 50..." Jesus. The Rambling Man ( Keep wearing the mask...) 17:36, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

- I'm Happy with whatever segregation makes sense, but I do think we need to investigate what boundaries for subtopics are suitable (as well as changing cue sports items from being in recreation at the very least). Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 17:52, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

My inclination would be to move any of the cue sports relating to professional cue sports into the "Other sports" section while then motor sports out into its own thing. The motor sports is certainly long enough to warrant its own level 2 heading. Hog Farm Talk 04:15, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
I think hundreds of articles in a list can be hard to parse, versus having more sections. 50-150 articles would seem to be an optimal length to me for ease of navigability, but it can vary based on having a coherent topic. Compare the warfare battles prior to vs. after some reorganization by me. Whereas before there was a section over 500 articles, now each section is around 100 articles and you can even browse by specific wars! What tends to happen in practice is that sections get longer with more articles promoted as GAs without people trying to keep them organized well. ( t · c) buidhe 11:33, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
This is conflating two different levels of sections. Lee is asking whether cue sports merit their own green box section and menu link, as they already have a (although only one) bolded header. CMD ( talk) 11:52, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
I was, but also an open ended question to say how many items are required for more than one section, when you should have a section to yourself etc. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 12:00, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
I'm flattered, but it sounds very lonely! CMD ( talk) 12:29, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Given what seems to be general agreement above, I have 1) moved cue sports and 2) split out Motorsports. I divided Motorsports into two lists, the smaller of which just meets the lower bound of buidhe's optimal list length. I think my suggestion above of splitting Association football out would be the most obvious current need regarding navigation, especially as there are currently 484 articles in one list, but given this received no comments above I have left it as is. CMD ( talk) 11:29, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

How long does an article need to be to meet criterion 3. in regards to short articles

Hi there, I was wondering what length is needed to pass criterion 3 (Broad in its coverage) in regards to short articles. I nominated Call Me Karizma last month, a short article which meets the notability criteria, in hopes of making it a GA. However, it was failed primarily ( review page) due to not meeting criterion 3 with the nominator saying there is not enough reliable coverage of the subject to be long enough to get up to GA, instead wait until there is enough. Is there an ideal minimum character number at which point an article is long enough for GA? (I previously had no problems with short articles like Frank Bailey). Regards  Spy-cicle💥  Talk? 16:33, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

I can't see that it was failed because it was too long... It was failed more to do with it not being a broad representation of the subject. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 17:11, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
The reviewer of that article seems to be saying that an article about the subject is intrinsically incapable of meeting the GA criteria because of the state of RS coverage. I don't think this should ever be the case. IMO the broadness criterion needs to be interpreted relative to the extant RS coverage of the subject. If the article includes all of the main points available in RS, then it meets 3a. Actually, this is covered in What the Good article criteria are not: Point (a) means that the "main aspects" of the topic, according to reliable sources, should each be "addressed" in the article; (emphasis added). Also, the "Mistakes to avoid" include: Requiring the inclusion of information that is not known or addressed by reliable sources. and Imposing arbitrary size restrictions Colin M ( talk) 18:14, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
I don't agree the review is commenting so much that there isn't enough in the sourcing, but the prose does indeed need moving away from proseline. I do think if you rearranged the facts to read more like an overview of the subject, rather than "on X, Y thing happened". Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 19:08, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
I don't have any opinion on the proseline critique, but I was going off of this comment from the reviewer: Tl;dr: it's not you, it's the subject. Maybe when he takes off, there'll be something there for a GA. But perhaps we should ping @ GhostRiver:, since I don't want to put words in their mouth. Colin M ( talk) 19:38, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
I only just got home from my first day of teaching, so let's see how coherent I can be. My primary critique of the article, and why I failed it in my initial review, is that there is little actual content. The "Career" section is a cut-and-dry list of facts; mostly releases, but occasionally tours and labels he left. There's no meat. We don't know anything about Karizma's process for writing or recording any of this material, only that it exists. What little padding there is is tangential (I'm specifically looking at Thriller is a new label founded by Bob Becker who also founded Fearless Records.) Perhaps I misspoke in the original review, but what I was getting at was that, without that meat, a list of album releases, tour announcements, and label changes does not a good article make, and if that information can't be found in the sources provided (which it doesn't seem to be), then I'm not sure what one can do. To be perfectly honest, if you look at the coverage that's there, I think that the subject only glances past WP:NMUSIC, especially when you remove sources that are solely publicity or trivial coverage. I think that notability question is what I was trying to get at more than anything. — Ghost River 20:16, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
That's the meat of the issue there. If a subject passes GNG then we have enough info as we have significant coverage, even if it means only a short article can be written. The problem is the SNG's. In theory if an article passes a SNG it is assumed the coverage exists, it just hasn't been found yet. Then we could say that if an article is nominated for being a Good Article that significant effort has been expended to find the additional sources that would allow it meet the GNG. If they still can't be found then it is probably not a notable enough topic. In practice it doesn't really work that way as the SNGs are often used to say that an article must exist whether it meets GNG or not (a debate that has been brought up at other venues a few times over the years). I am wondering if there was a way to clarify our position on this, like saying an article must have "significant coverage in at least one reliable sources that is independent of the subject" to differentiate from the articles that only exist because of the SNGs. I feel this is rehashing AFD a bit, but the issue of short or potentially non-notable Good Articles has come up enough that it may be worth looking at options. Or we could just say that as long as an article is deemed notable then it has the potential to be a Good Article, no matter the depth of coverage. I feel we operate somewhere in the middle at the moment. Aircorn  (talk) 22:12, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
@ GhostRiver: I mean previously you seemed to agree that the subject met GNG (so it would still be eligible for GAN?). You mention it that the article does not mention his writing process or recording, etc but of the reliable secondary sources discussing him I could not find any sources discussing that (though it seems Lee Vilsenki has linked some more sources on the talk page, but I will need to vet the sources for reliability first, etc). I cannot 'magic' up reliable sources on command unfortunately, so I have to work what currently exists. Based on your comments here and the review page, it suggests you may have changed positions on this (hope this does not come as hostile, genuinely curious to hear your view). If an article meets GNG does is it eligible for GAN? If yes, do you think this article met GNG (and that available coverage was not incorporated)? If not, why?
Or alternatively, if it only 'scraps' an SNG it may be ineligible (though most SNG presume GNG)?
Also on the 'tangential' note, I only included that titbit of about the founding of the label because it is currently a redlink (so readers cannot see the background of the label at least for now + Fearless is notable thus it can be linked).  Spy-cicle💥  Talk? 22:39, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
Largely the length required depends on the subject; for artists and especially living ones, it's much harder to meet the fullness of the character of criteria 3a and 3b at the same time, while keeping with WP:V. It really depends on the subject. The shortest GA, M-105 (Michigan highway) is 179 readable words. But it definitely covers the entirety of the road and its history, with a cohesive narrative. The article for Kanye has nearly an entire page (on my screen) on his fashion sense because this is both important (to him and his character, anyway), and well-documented. An issue that can, on its own, exclude articles from meeting criteria 3 is a small number of sources that say very little, forcing a very bullet pointy article. Enough of this, from high-quality sources, can expand an article; if you find 50 different sources describing bits of the reign of a Roman emperor, for example, you can form a cohesive narrative from it, even if each source only tells you about one event. If you only have a few, it is hard to relate events together in a way that is useful for the reader, and not just a list of the events themselves. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 21:48, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
In general, I have never failed an article for shortness (indeed several of my GA's have been quite short) unless the reliable source material simply wasn't there for a broad narrative of important and relevant events. Historical figures, especially rulers, have the easiest job of this in general, as they simply have the most people talking about them. Even someone such as Andronikos Doukas, whose own father decided he wasn't co-emperor material, and who was only later made such, and who is generally unimportant outside of this role, has a breadth of sources discussing what little of his life was important to that role. Ultimately it is the broadness of the sources, not the length of the article, which decides if it can pass Criteria 3, IMO. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 21:53, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for your input and for linking the M-105 (Michigan highway) GA, certainly never seen a GA so short, but I suppose if it documents the entire the history the road whilst meeting WP:N, it makes sense. Is there an information page for short GAs? I know Wikipedia:Very short featured articles exists for FAs.  Spy-cicle💥  Talk? 22:39, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
Not that I'm aware of, there is a tool that can be used, which is just the FA length link where I replaced "featured" with good. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 23:23, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Break

Can we clarify what articles are eligible for GAN and note it somewhere in the criteria? This is not me being annoyed at GAN being failed (have had a number of fails prior), just want to clarify want the community thinks and depending on the outcome it will help save time for me and others (and reviewers) who nominate say 'borderline short' articles. Some options include:

  1. Regardless of the notability criteria and what current sourcing exists about the subject, the article needs a minimum word count of X to be eligible for GAN.
  2. Regardless of the notability criteria and what current sourcing exists about the subject, the article needs to adequately and broadly cover the main elements of the topic (Covering the 'how', 'why', 'what', 'when', and 'where' and not just the 'what', 'when', and 'where').
  3. If the article meets WP:GNG it is eligible for GAN.
  4. If the article meets WP:GNG or any WP:SNG it is eligible for GAN.

Regards  Spy-cicle💥  Talk? 23:05, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

In my mind, it's hard to make a cut and dry statement on this; theoretically just SNG could satisfy GA requirements, but it only tends to happen with subjects that are very niche, but specific, where all of the few sources are reliable and detailed. That's why roads and hurricanes dominate the top 10 shortest GA/FAs. I would say that #2 is covered by 3A, regardless of interpretation, #1 is patently untrue, #3 and #4 are iffy. It really is up to the equality of the sources. I think at present, the best doctrine for eligibility, length-wise, was defined by Justice Stewart, " I know it when I see it". Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 23:23, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
Notability is not part of the GA criteria, so theoretically every notable article is eligible for GA. If a non-notable article is nominated it should be put to AFD. The issue is articles with few references can survive afd. Broadness is only based on available sources. Some can come from primary sources, but even these can be limited sometimes and have to be used carefully. Stubs can’t be Good Articles so there is some protection against very very short articles. Aircorn  (talk) 10:37, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
I addressed this subject a little in my review of Adur-Anahid, which is currently one of the 50 shortest GAs (in fact, I believe the shortest biographical GA by word count, at only 335 words). My conclusion was that (based on previous discussions at WT:GA and WT:GACR), the consensus standard for passing criterion 3a is that it covers all aspects of the subject that are discussed in reliable sources.
Regarding the specific proposals:
  1. Minimum wordcounts are a blunt tool and we should avoid them wherever possible; what we don't want to do is encourage people writing shorter articles to be unnecessarily verbose so as to make an article eligible, or to have the situation where a reviewer recommends tightening up prose which the nominator doesn't want to implement because that would bring them below the wordcount. (And at any rate, a minimum wordcount would have to either be so short as to be meaningless, or grandfather in existing good articles, or lead to a bunch of existing good articles being demoted for not being long enough, none of which seem like great outcomes).
  2. "Must cover the how, why, what, where, and when" is a pretty vague rule - no clearer than the existing rule, I don't think! What does "how" even mean in the context of a biography, for instance? If we aren't sure of the exact where or when (as is the case in many ancient history topics) what amount of imprecision are we allowed to accept? Corinna's dates could be anywhere from the fifth to the third centuries BC; Theoris of Lemnos died some time between the founding of Athens and 323 BC. Erinna might be from Telos, Tenos, Teos, Rhodes, or Lesbos. Even Sappho's dates and her city of birth are uncertain – at least we know the island and the century!
Personally, I would presume that (almost?) any article on a notable subject is able to become a good article with enough work. Caeciliusinhorto-public ( talk) 10:27, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Withdrawal of nominations

I have withdrawn Des van Jaarsveldt from GA nomination. However @ The Rambling Man: wants to take over it. As the nominator and majority contributor, I do not want this but TRM put a very confrontational message claiming he's taking over it. As there's no option to formally withdraw it, I have done the best I can to close the nom but TRM insists on keeping it open. Can we please have it confirmed that the nomination is closed and withdrawn? The C of E God Save the Queen! ( talk) 16:13, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

I haven't finished with the review or the article at this time and will be quite content to make the numerous changes I have recommended along with other improvements. Cheers. The Rambling Man ( Keep wearing the mask...) 16:14, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
I have already said I do not wish for this to continue. As far as I am concerned, the review is closed as I have withdrawn it. You can still get GAR points for the WikiCup even if its closed as withdrawn if that is what's worrying you. The C of E God Save the Queen! ( talk) 16:18, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
No, that's not a problem one way or the other. The point is I can make some simple fixes and take it to GA status. Frankly, you could have done that by now instead of all the protests against actually actively improving the article, most odd. The Rambling Man ( Keep wearing the mask...) 16:26, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
Per the discussion on Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations#Taking over abandoned reviews, most of the users seem to agree that it is fundamentally a good idea for the reviewer to "adopt" the nomination if the nominator withdraws or cannot continue with the nomination. Especially when the issues brought up are relatively minor.... – Kavyansh.Singh ( talk) 17:33, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
As far as I can see, that linked discussion only really covers ambivalence or blocks. Not outright withdrawn nominations. The C of E God Save the Queen! ( talk) 17:44, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
As far as I can see it's good for the encyclopedia if TRM improves the article and gets it to GA status. If CoE is no longer interested in making those changes, they can withdraw from the process but I don't think they can block someone else from editing the article or bringing it to GAN. Possibly the way to resolve this would be TRM makes the changes he thinks are necessary then makes a separate GAN. ( t · c) buidhe 18:17, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
Alright fine, if consensus requires it. I will continue to restore it. I am not going to let this nom get hijacked. The C of E God Save the Queen! ( talk) 19:03, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
I think you've missed the point and headed straight into bad faith. I could fix the issues I identified in a few minutes. I'm surprised you haven't already done it. There's no "hijack" here, just an emphasis on improving Wikipedia when nominators are otherwise engaged and refusing to address simple comments. The Rambling Man ( Keep wearing the mask...) 19:12, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
Could you answer me this then please? If I had let you take over and you did get it to GA, would you have put it forth for WikiCup points? The C of E God Save the Queen! ( talk) 19:14, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
Assuming that I had made myself a major contributor to the article, then absolutely. I note you've made the changes, in all of eight minutes. The Rambling Man ( Keep wearing the mask...) 19:17, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
And that was what I had assumed. The C of E God Save the Queen! ( talk) 19:27, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
That I would improve the article and bring my own research to it, in order to ensure the article was in tip-top condition before claiming points? Yes, good assumption. But at least you managed to find those eight minutes to make the fixes now, so the point, on this occasion, is happily moot. The Rambling Man ( Keep wearing the mask...) 19:32, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
  • One thing I would generally suggest, if the first nom is a major contributor, and the second nom has after the review made a serious effort to increase the quality of the page, would be co-nomming the article, even if the first nom is no longer interested in working on it. Especially if points are involved, it's hardly a zero-sum game. Admittedly, I don't have direct experience with such, as the closest I've come was going from reviewer to co-nom of Western Roman Empire with User:Ichthyovenator, and asking User:Cplakidas if I could take some of his older articles through GAN. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 21:42, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Even if we had a consensus against taking over a specific nomination, I don't think there would be anything stopping someone from subsequently opening their own nomination, which seems like extra bureaucracy for no gain. If there is a content dispute about suggested improvements, that is a matter for the usual content dispute channels rather than GAN. If the issue is credit, I would suggest distributing it liberally, per Iazyges. CMD ( talk) 05:12, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
    Indeed, there was no question over any subsequent "credit" being "distributed" as per a co-nomination. The Rambling Man ( Keep wearing the mask...) 07:53, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
    If someone really wanted to prevent an article they had worked on being nominated as a GA, they could claim that whoever was renominating the improved article wasn't a substantial contributor and needed to consult with the authors of the article per WP:GAI. (Though I note that the GA instructions don't actually explicitly say that you need the author's approval to nominate – just that you should talk to them.) Such a discussion would be, I suspect, a waste of everyone's time. Caeciliusinhorto-public ( talk) 10:37, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

@ Sakyzof ( talk) 13:41, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 October 2021

The name needs to be MF DOOM in all caps, that's not a certain style, that's how the name is spelled. Robertcmh1986 ( talk) 19:02, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Wikipedia:Good articles. If possible, please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. If you cannot edit the article's talk page, you can instead make your request at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection#Current requests for edits to a protected page. Additionally, read the talk page for the consensus for spelling the name. ScottishFinnishRadish ( talk) 19:09, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

GANs without an oldid

Category:Good articles without an oldid has expanded to 76 articles, which at a spotcheck appear to be all recent promotions. Usually this is handled by Legobot, but Legobot does not appear to have undertaken this task since 27 September. Does anyone know what might have caused this change in behaviour? Awareness ping to Legoktm. CMD ( talk) 07:20, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, I know what's wrong, it broke when I upgraded Pywikibot. I'll try to fix it tomorrow. Legoktm ( talk) 08:32, 10 October 2021 (UTC)
This appears resolved, thanks Logoktm. CMD ( talk) 03:58, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Make FA and GA icons in articles more noticeable #2

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Make FA and GA icons in articles more noticeable #2. Dege31 ( talk) 23:33, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Add a minimum WP:GNG pass requirement for GA status

Coming off of the whole Lewis farago, where an article got all the way to featured article before being deleted for lack of significant coverage in reliable sources, I think one clear lesson we should learn from this is that articles should not be allowed to pass GA status, let alone FA status, with only a pass to a special notability guide. Lewis got through because it was pass for the baseball-player notability guide as it stood at that point, and then everyone after that took it pretty much as read that the topic was notable, even though the standard it had passed was really just a minimum "this is not likely to be deleted at AFD most of the time" standard. For GA we really should require, as an absolute bare minimum, that there are at least two reliable, independent sources describing the topic directly an in detail, regardless of whether SNG says that they are a pass due to other arbitrary criteria. FOARP ( talk) 08:48, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

I would support the addition proposed in your last sentence. With the proviso that GA/FA status is not an obstacle to deleting a non-notable article. ( t · c) buidhe 09:15, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
This goes back to the perennial debate about whether every article can be a GA. This does seem a minimal floor on that matter. However as Buidhe states, it would need to be worded in a way that the GA status doesn't become an (even greater) assertion of notability. CMD ( talk) 09:38, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
I would have taken WP:WIAGA criteria 2a and b to essentially cover this (obliquely); in demonstrating that it has been suitably and reliably sourced, it should demonstrate notability, and if it can't demonstrate notability, how it can be appropriately sourced? That said, spelling this out more clearly wouldn't be a bad idea, though probably could just be worked into the existing criteria to indicate that it really shouldn't be considered new news. ᵹʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 11:08, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
If a editor starts reviewing an article which they feel is not notable, why wouldn’t they just nominate it for deletion or merging? I think if an article can exist, it can be a GA, so GNG is here just a proxy for “should exist” (albeit a pretty good proxy). I don’t see this as a necessary GA criterion - more a reminder to editors that one’s Wikipedia instincts should not be ignored when picking up an article for review. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 11:15, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
There's a problem I find in people treating GAs/FAs as (generally) "untouchable" in the sense that they shouldn't be considered worth deleting or (perhaps often the better option) merged somewhere else, and that's no bueno. But I'm not sure about explicitly adding notability into the GA criteria when the GNG applies to every article already. I guess I don't think adding it would actually make a difference if people are not pointing this stuff out anyhow (we've certainly got a host of old GAs that probably run afoul of current notability standards too.) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 17:31, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
But GNG does not apply to every article in practice. There are many SNGs, splits and other (I was looking for the 5P mention of Gazetters, but now see it has gone) guidelines and processes that result in articles being created and kept even though in some cases no independent reliable sources exist. AFD is hit and miss at cleaning these up. Aircorn  (talk) 00:29, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Support this - seems sensible to spell it out. Johnbod ( talk) 13:42, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
I think this is a good idea, but I'm a bit concerned that we'll need to spell out that this does not grandfather all older GAs as notable - there have been a number of older ones merged/redirected/deleted. There's already enough problems with having to take these to AFD without the false assumption that GA means that it can never be not an independent page. Hog Farm Talk 17:35, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
This is not as straight forward as it would seem. We generally have a pretty lenient acceptance requirement for an article to be nominated for good. Outside of a stub if it meets our notability requirement it has the potential to be good. The issue is not so much with this process, but the AFD and merging processes. In an ideal world only articles capable of meeting GNG would be here, but we don't live in that world. I now feel we need to address this in the criteria as currently the criteria don't really account for notability - broadness only covers what is available in the sources. This is good as we don't want to fail an article because it doesn't cover something that is not recorded anywhere. I was thinking of something similar to the above a few months ago [5] although proposed one good source being good enough. While I would probably support adding something along these lines as criteria 2e, I feel this will need a RFC as it will disqualify a lot of Good Articles we already have (roads in particular spring to mind, especially as the gazetteer line has been removed from 5p). Saying more explicitly that passing a GA review does not mean the topic is immune from deletion or merging somewhere could be useful. I have seen AFD keep !votes based on solely on the fact that the article is Good. Aircorn  (talk) 00:44, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Somewhat ambivalent to the proposal, although I don't have a deeply vested interest (my wheelhouse is monarchs and nobles, pretty hard to miss GNG with that). It may be more worthwhile to propose that all AFD !keep votes based upon the rating standing of the article be discarded by admins, to attack the problem at its source, but I'm not opposed to this solution per se. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 04:15, 24 November 2021 (UTC)


  • Thanks for the feed-back. A proposed amendment to GA criteria as follows (addition in (underline) -
c. it contains no original research;
d. it is notable, with at least two instances of significant coverage in reliable sources; and
e. it contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism.
What do you think?
Making it clear that GA/FA status is not a good reason to keep looks like something that should be added to Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions and a discussion should be started on the talk page there. I agree that is a really bad argument and a lot of people seem to have trotted it our in the Lewis discussion. FOARP ( talk) 15:13, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
I think this would have the opposite effect, at least for GAs promoted with this in the criteria. Wouldn't a participant at an AfD feel entitled to say "It passed GA which requires notability so it shouldn't be deleted"? I think it would be more productive to make a change in the GAN instructions, to tell reviewers that if they have concerns about notability (expressed as you put it or with reference to the GNG, which I think I would prefer) then they should address those via AfD and not proceed with the review. If it survives the AfD the reviewer's opinion on notability is irrelevant. I think we need to avoid a situation where a reviewer fails a GAN on this criterion, when in fact it is AfD that establishes a consensus on notability, not any single editor. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 16:41, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
Some already do [6] This discussion is looking for an elegant way to distinguish the GNG from the SNG. A way to say that an article notable only under an SNG cannot be a Good Article. Maybe we are better adding it under Wikipedia:Good article criteria#What cannot be a good article?. Aircorn  (talk) 19:57, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
You're right; I misread the proposal as essentially saying we need to check for notability and non-delete-worthiness before promoting, but I see it's really a requirement for more than an SNG for a GA. I don't see how that can be justified. Does that mean that if the article on Lewis had survived AfD, we would still have to remove its GA status? That seems wrong -- the problem (if there is one) is surely that Lewis got deleted, not that it depended on an SNG. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 12:12, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
The essence is whether we want articles that only meet SNGs to be good articles in the first place. So if the consensus is that we don’t and we word it correctly and it was in effect earlier then Lewis would never have been granted GA status in the first place. Current good articles would be able to be delisted if they don’t meet GNG and it can’t be improved to show it does during the reassessment period. Aircorn  (talk) 20:34, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose—AfD is the forum and the fix for notability issues, not GAN. Imzadi 1979  → 17:03, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose - certainly looks like a solution looking for a problem. GAs already have to meet our notability criteria. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 18:25, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose as proposed. I think, as mentioned by others, this would have the opposite effect in making it harder to delete established GAs; I'd support the creation of, or insertion to, a guideline that all !keep votes based on article class should be discarded by reviewing admin, but this looks more likely to make the problem worse. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 20:31, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
Do we even need to spell this out though? I feel like most closers know this is a poor argument. It would make more sense as a subsection on our essay on arguments to avoid. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 20:37, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
@ Lee Vilenski: - Agree that this should be listed at arguments to avoid. I've started a discussion over there that can be seen here. I guess I should point out that the reason Lewis was made an FA is that it WAS a notability pass under a special notability guide, though there's no way it could ever have passed WP:GNG. There are still many, many articles on Wiki that are kept at AFD based only on SNGs that would not pass GNG - GEO is probably the biggest area for this. What I'm talking about here is a requirement that GA's pass GNG, not just an SNG. FOARP ( talk) 08:49, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
But why exactly does it matter? I fail to see a case where someone would look at an article, and not pass it to GA because it only met an SNG, but not GNG. Why are we taking it upon ourselves to make specific inferences about notability just for a subsection of articles. High quality articles get merged and deleted all the time, and that's how it should stand. If at AfD (rightly or wrongly), the consensus is that an article is notable, despite not meeting GNG; why should that mean that article is now barred from GA. It's also a bit wrong to suggest a single user can comment on what "significant coverage" is. The article we are talking about is a great example of what is supposed to happen - article is improved, suggested it is notable. Promoted to a higher class, but eventually consensus suggests it should be removed. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 13:12, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
  • This probably doesn't really work in practice. In general, whether an article meets GNG or not is decided by consensus of multiple editors (at AfD). This would suggest that the singular GA reviewer decide that, which if anything would just be counter-productive since it would make GAs even harder to delete. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 13:19, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
  • My proposal: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Deletion sorting#Proposal: 'Good and Featured Content'. Less bureaucracy, uses existing processes, and outcome-neutral. Jclemens ( talk) 18:58, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose It is not the place of GAN to overstep and second-guess AFD. -- Rs chen 7754 20:39, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Comment I was the nominator of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Doug Ring with the Australian cricket team in England in 1948 (2nd nomination), which was a FA and closed as merge. Reviewing that discussion may be of use to participants here. With that said, I don't know that this proposal as written would really be much of an improvement. What I think would be an improvement is to make it more clear that GA or even FA status does not confer immunity from deletion processes, such as the suggestions that have been made to include it in the essay for arguments to avoid in deletion discussions. Curious how both Doug Ring 1948 and Lewis (baseball) were sports related FAs that were basically just sourced from statistics... maybe something specific needs to be done to curtail these kinds of articles from being made in the future. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 04:36, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

GA reviews can't be moved if the article gets renamed?

What happens with the GA review (sub)page if the article is renamed? For example, if Riot Act (album) gets moved, are there any reasons not to move Talk:Riot Act (album)/GA1 in the process? This is being discussed at Wikipedia talk:Requested moves#moving GA/FA. – Uanfala (talk) 02:24, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

As long as the correct links are used in the article history template they shouldn't need to be moved. Talk:Laborintus II (album) is an example of having a GAN at one name, an FAC at another, and the current article title being yet another, but they're all reconciled alright in the history template. ᵹʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 02:30, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

topic vs. subtopic?

WP:GAN/I#PASS says to copy the "topic=" from {{ GA nominee}} to {{ GA}}. But I never see a topic=, always subtopic=. I generally just copy that verbatim to the GA version and it seems to work fine. Should the instruction be updated to say subtopic instead of topic, or is there something more subtle going on here? -- RoySmith (talk) 14:36, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Should be subtopic. Although why it's like that, when they don't have parent topics is bizarre. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 14:53, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
@ Lee Vilenski @ RoySmith According to Template:GA/doc topic and subtopic are equivalents, so I've updated the instructions to reflect that. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him •  talk) 10:59, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Talk:Affine symmetric group/GA1

Could someone take a look at this? I'm mostly a bystander but I have made some minor edits to the nominated article and have been watching this review unfold, over what is now 2 1/2 months. It seemed to be converging, finally, except for a few citation needed tags. Some of which turned out to be demands that the reviewer, User:Daniel Case, had made for citations on material not even close to being the kind of claim needing a footnote, like sentences saying (after sourced material about how different sources used different notations) "here's which of those notations we're going to use". When this was pointed out, Case repeated the demand for footnotes at those points and added a bizarre suggestion about how you satisfy the requirement for a reference footnote by making a footnote that did not actually include a source (apparently violating 2b that all references must be reliable sources). Now, after I called for Case to pay more attention to what the GA rules actually say, things got testy and Case has flounced, leaving a final comment "I'm done with this review right here and right now". So the review is...stuck in limbo because he is gone and didn't leave it with an outcome? I can't step in and take over because I'm involved in a small part in editing the article. Can someone help, please? Calm things down with Case and get them to be a proper reviewer, maybe? I don't want to ask for a new reviewer, because this is a very technical article and the review has already gone on so long, but maybe that's necessary? Or something. Anyway, also pinging User:JayBeeEll, the main editor of this article and the main nominator for the GA nomination. And my apologies to JBL for my intervention apparently having the outcome of making a bad situation worse. — David Eppstein ( talk) 06:21, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I will respond only to ask that you not misgender me, and apologize for doing so. I am male, not nonbinary: he/him/his, not third person plural. Daniel Case ( talk) 06:31, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
Dude, that is just how you generically refer to a person if you do not know their preferred pronouns. No need to get upset. ( t · c) buidhe 06:38, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
@ Buidhe: The very first sentence on my userpage makes it clear what my preferred pronouns are, in case my name does not. I recognize and accept that today there are those who want to go by pronouns that are not what gender norms would lead one to presume, and that there are those who are comfortable being identified by their current apparent gender who nonetheless choose to append a string of preferred pronouns to their name in the interests in the interests of making those in the former category feel welcome in an online social setting, but at the same time both of those groups should similarly recognize that it is equally an arbitrary cultural imposition to make everybody act as if they were uncomfortable with their gender being assumed from their name or appearance as it is to make people conform to assigned gender roles they themselves do not feel comfortable with (Morally, I don't see it as substantially different from " All natives are required to speak English in school, even among themselves").

Yes, I'm aware that "they" is considered good English for a single individual of unknown gender, when the speaker does not feel comfortable assuming it. But things change: We once considered "he" appropriate for any generic person, but we don't anymore because of changes to social mores. Likewise, in a world where "they" is now a preferred term for people who do not wish to be identified within the gender binary, its usage in that previous sense is increasingly less viable as a non-identifying generic and more a misgendering, whether intended as such or not (And if I were non-binary, I would probably just as likely prefer that singular "they" be used only for people of that identity so as to avoid identity dilution). Daniel Case ( talk) 19:17, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

[edit conflict] I note that Case is also the nominator for two current nominations and the reviewer for two active reviews, Talk:Interlingue/GA2 nominated by User:Mithridates and Talk:Prise d'Orange/GA1 nominated by User:AleatoryPonderings. The second review hasn't really started yet but the first has also been dragging out for three months, although it seems more because the nominator got distracted by real life.
As for the pronoun: Singular they is good English. That's the way I speak. If you don't like my dialect of English, tough. If you express a clear preference for some standard pronouns over others, I will endeavor to remember that for future encounters, but I won't apologize for failing to make assumptions. — David Eppstein ( talk) 06:39, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi David

I'm not so much distracted by real life as doing a pretty heavy lift to move a lot of the content into some new articles to leave Interlingue free to not have to be the article about absolutely everything pertaining to the subject. Did quite a bit of work on it last night, in fact! Mithridates ( talk) 07:26, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@ Mithridates: Glad to hear it! I have learned in the last couple of years to be very tolerant of GA nominators who take a while ... and reviewers even (It took my nom of Lafayette Park Historic District almost a year last year to get promoted). In the present case, I should note, the entire month of December, really, saw no activity on the nomination due to the holidays and the demands on a working academic (the nominator) during that time, and for that reason I decided not to press it. That, to me, had a lot more to do with "dragging out" this nomination than my suggestion for how to resolve the remaining issues early this morning that seems to have caused all this drama. Daniel Case ( talk) 19:32, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
  • From my very limited experience with GA processes, I don't find the demands by Daniel Case particularly surprising. There does appear to be some shared expectation within the subculture that there should be a ref tag at the end of every sentence/paragraph and that this is somehow a necessary and sufficient condition for satisfying sourcing requirements. – Uanfala (talk) 15:39, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
Yes, and that's exactly where I'm coming from. For better or worse we have in the 15+ years I have been an editor conditioned readers, and many editors, to expect to see a citation at the end of every paragraph (save in plot summaries/synopses of narrative works, where we have explicitly stated they are not necessary, and as far as I know only there).

If we leave those two grafs apparently uncited, you better believe any editor will be busy regularly removing them, reverting the removal, possibly getting warned or giving warnings for an approaching 3RR violation, and repeatedly having to explain to whatever editor, anonymous or otherwise, has done it why in this case it isn't necessary, which will seem to them like why up is down and black is white here, despite the absence of any clear policy on this.

And IMO this extra strife and effort is perfectly avoidable for the time being. I see it as a necessary tradeoff for the considerable increase in Wikipedia's perceived reliability since then. Daniel Case ( talk) 18:43, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

In other words, you review mechanically, by the presence or absence of footnotes, when the mechanical nature of your review is pointed out as unsurprising, you agree and argue that it is the correct thing to do, and when anyone questions you on whether you should maybe put some thought into the necessity of footnotes for individual statements rather than reviewing mechanically, you blow up. — David Eppstein ( talk) 21:01, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
Daniel Case, the situation you're describing would obtain if all readers and editors followed the same unusual rule of thumb as a subset of GA/FA/NPP reviewers. But most aren't like that. People reading an article, and editors working on it, will evaluate the trustworthiness of a statement not from the sight of blue clicky numbers, but based on the presence (and ideally, quality) of the sourcing, regardless of how that is presented. – Uanfala (talk) 22:48, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
@ Uanfala: It is based on the experience of maintaining articles lo these many years and doing basic admin work. I agree that it ought not to be so, but so it is. We drum it into people's heads that facts stated on the Internet need a source clearly cited, and don't even agree with ourselves on what degree we need to go. Some of us don't have the choice to not live in the world as it actually works, as much as we might not want to.

Like every problem, there are workarounds ... I was sort of hoping, as had been so far the case, that the article's very congenial nominator would be the first to respond, as I had been responding to him since he had been doing the bulk of work improving the article per my suggestions (a very pleasant experience in a subject area that is not my (or many other Wikipedians') strong suit and for which throughout last year, even during backlog elimination drives, we had been having trouble finding reviewers for, so I decided to take one on for the team, so to speak) and as is often the case when the Wikipedia way works the way it is supposed to work we could work out a compromise between us ... I even had some ideas.

I would be amenable to solving this at the policy level rather than leaving it for editors to guess and, usually, err on the side of caution. We have certainly, as I have already noted, provided explicit exceptions for plot summaries and made it more of a judgement call for intros (at least for non-controversial BLP claims; I also think we should cite any exceptional claims about a subject in the intro, like that it's superlative or unique in some way). Daniel Case ( talk) 07:10, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Good article reassessment on Cerium

Cerium has been nominated for an individual good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Jo-Jo Eumerus ( talk) 16:40, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Changing wording "fair use" to "non-free"

Hi,

I am working on reducing the confusion between "fair use" and "non-free content". See Wikipedia talk:Non-free content/Archive 72#Mixing up of fair use and non-free content. Fair use is a legal doctrine on allowable use of copyrighted material. Wikipedia has adopted a much stricter set of requirements under which copyrighted material may be used in the form of the non-free content criteria. The use of the phrase "fair use" when we really are referring to the non-free content criteria of Wikipedia can confuse editors, especially new editors who have some familiarity with the concept of fair use. For example, a copyrighted image of a living person may be allowable under the doctrine of fair use, but would be disallowed under our non-free content criteria as the image is deemed replaceable (and thus not meeting WP:NFCC#1). The Good Article process has some templates that use the phrase fair use in such a manner. I would like to make corrections as follows.

Affected templates:

Replace "fair use rationale" with "no-free use rationale". Note that the wikilinks already point to Wikipedia:Non-free use rationale guideline so this would align the text with the target page name.

Does anybody see any issues with doing this?

Thanks. -- Whpq ( talk) 19:51, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Change "fair use" to "non-free use" per above explanation. It turns out Template GATable invokes this template which needs the wording change. -- Whpq ( talk) 01:39, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

 Done * Pppery * it has begun... 03:34, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. All templates have now been changed. Whpq ( talk) 03:40, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 March 2022

There is a sentence that does not make any sense. I have no idea what the person that wrote it meant, but the sentence is "Kant stated in the Critique of Pure Reason that with Aristotle logic reached its completion."

That is not a correct form of a sentence. It is missing something. 2603:9000:8303:C551:29FB:CBB2:A80A:F1CE ( talk) 12:09, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

You might need to give us a bit more to work on, you are on the talk page of the Wikipedia project for good articles. You would be better off trying the help desk, or the talk page of the article in question. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 12:34, 5 March 2022 (UTC)
The IP user might be referring to Aristotle#Logic. – Kavyansh.Singh ( talk) 13:05, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

Request for move

Can the articles Farrand & Votey Organ Company and Grotrian-Steinweg be moved from Social sciences and society to Music? It would make sense for consistency's sake. Why? I Ask ( talk) 07:48, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

Why? I Ask There is no formal procedure for allocating articles to one category or another, or swapping out the categories. You can WP:BEBOLD. ( t · c) buidhe 09:03, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
I did try that earlier this morning, but was quickly reverted Why? I Ask ( talk) 09:03, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, it wasn't reverted due to the move not being suitable, rather that the entry was included twice. I have no issue with these being on music, seems logical. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 10:50, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
Done. Why? I Ask ( talk) 11:08, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

Fly by review

Can we get a reset of the GA review at Talk:Julio Jones/GA1 as the current review is by a brand new editor not aware of the process. Moxy- 02:40, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

The reviewer has asked to withdraw. I am resetting the GA nominee template to page 2, which seems like the best way to go given how many people have already commented on the review page. BlueMoonset ( talk) 02:31, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

History of metallurgy in the Urals GA Review

Hi Folks!! I need some advice. The editor who has created the article, translated from the Russian Wikipedia is using the RU Wikipedia units of weights, which are "poods", and units of length which "versts". They do have article, but they are meaningless to a modern person in the west. Would be in normal practice to keep these kinds of weights and measurement or would more modern types be a better fit or perhaps be required per WP:MOS. Thanks. scope_creep Talk 22:59, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

These units are likely appropriate if historically accurate and used in RS that cover the subject, but I would include a conversion into metric or imperial units. ( t · c) buidhe 23:04, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
The letter to Catherine the Great needs to be translated, too. Not much use having a foreign language letter that no one will be able to read. Why? I Ask ( talk) 23:06, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Tony Meo

Hi, this article passed GA (at the second attempt) yesterday, but the page doesn't show the GA icon. Please could somebody advise (or sort it out)? Thanks, BennyOnTheLoose ( talk)

This has been fixed. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose ( talk) 16:52, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

Good Article Counter issue

The Good Article Counter did not count my last GA of Lambert Gas and Gasoline Engine Company. If it would, then my count would be 215 instead of the 214 it now shows. I think everyone did what we all were suppose to do. Has the Counter gone bad?-- Doug Coldwell ( talk) 18:34, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

I'd give it some time - the article only passed a few hours ago. I think the counter updates periodically. Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 21:19, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
It has been over 24 hours and it has not picked it up yet. I'm thinking something is wrong with the Counter. Before it would record it and pick up on it immediately. As far as I can figure BOTH the reviewer and I have done the right steps. Perhaps an expert can look at this to give a clue why the Counter has not recorded my latest Good Article. Thanks.-- Doug Coldwell ( talk) 15:15, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
My next Good Article of William Goddard (publisher) was picked up immediately and counted. It turns out that something was missed in the steps of the reviewer that has caused Lambert Gas and Gasoline Engine Company NOT to have been counted by the GA Counter. Is there an expert that can correct this so I have the correct count? Thanks.-- Doug Coldwell ( talk) 08:18, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Consensus on New GA script.

Has the new script User:Novem Linguae/Scripts/GANReviewTool been tested out yet? I just came across it and it appears to automate a number of the tedious, manual edits during passing/failing an article. I'd prefer to not blindly use a script that is 3 days old unless someone has already run it and had success.

I do, on the other hand, have a GAR open I can test it on if a guinea pig is needed. Etriusus ( Talk) 02:59, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Disregard, I saw User:Lee Vilenski's comment here. Etriusus ( Talk) 03:02, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
I'd encourage you and others to try it out. All major features are done as of a few minutes ago. It's ready for wide use. Yeah it could mess something up, but it'd be easy to spot and fix. Please report any bugs so I can fix them :) – Novem Linguae ( talk) 10:40, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Source verification requirement

In the current backlog drive, I saw that some reviews are being marked as requiring source verification. Where is that required in either the GA criteria or the current instructions? Last I checked, this was not a requirement, apart from checking for copyright violations, for which Earwig's tool is normally used. If it is mentioned somewhere, perhaps it can be made more prominent or explained. czar 19:33, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

As one of the coords, I can say I did not make this decision. You would have to ask Buidhe. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 01:03, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
Wp:Reviewing good articles guideline requires source checks. Additionally the drive is intended to promote good reviews not bare minimum reviews. Further, I'm skeptical that a reviewer could be confident that an article passed all of the GA criteria without any checks. Copyvio is one reason to check sources; earwig can only work if all sources are online and in English. Otherwise you can't check copyvio with it. Verifiability is another requirement that seems impossible to confirm without checking sources. czar how can you confirm that an article is free of original research without checking the sources? ( t · c) buidhe 04:25, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
"Source checks" or "spot checks"? Any source check is confined to whether the sources are reliable/appropriate for the citation and whether there is copyvio, not to verifying content (like it is in FAC). In the vast majority of reviews I've read, this consists of a spot check aided by Earwig's. (I can't count the times I've seen non-English, offline sources be taken on good faith to not be copyright violations.) For what it's worth, I think there's a difference between bare minimum (rubber stamped) reviews and treating the GA criteria itself as a minimum of Wikipedia standards, the way a driver's license ensures a minimum bar of compliance, not that the driver is actually good. I.e., verifiability is that the article has reliable sources, not that the content of those sources was checked.
Maybe the point is more that the reviews need to mention how they checked for the copyvio criterion, because there is no requirement that the reviewer certifies the article's overall text–source integrity, especially when nominators have no responsibility to do the same. czar 19:35, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
GA Criteria 2c is "it contains no original research". This means that the sources must be "directly related to the topic of the article, and directly support the material being presented". There is no way you could check that without verifying content and text-source integrity. CMD ( talk) 01:57, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
That's not quite true. If I write "The capital of France is Paris" with no source at all, then you already know that the sentence "contains no original research". That particular sentence is even given in the lead of NOR as an example of a sentence that is not original research.
OR = made up by a Wikipedia editor; not present in any reliable source in the whole world. CMD, the line you quote is about how to demonstrate the absence of OR, which is not the same thing as what OR is. "The capital of France is Paris" is not OR, full stop. "The capital of France is Paris[1]" is demonstrated to not be OR, assuming that there is a source behind the little blue clicky number that says something remarkably similar to the statement in the article and editors accept that source as a valid way to support said statement.
If the reviewer happens to know that a given sentence is not OR (e.g., because the reviewer read a source that is cited elsewhere in the article that could have been cited to support this sentence; because the reviewer searched for and found a reliable source that could be added if necessary; because the reviewer happens to be a subject-matter expert on the capitals of Europe and is confident that such a source could be found easily), then the sentence passes 2c even if uncited or incorrectly cited, because it is not OR even if it has not yet been demonstrated to be not OR.
NB that the same sentence could be faulted on grounds of 2b (missing a necessary inline citation); I only say that you couldn't really claim that it failed 2c ("material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist", with the footnote that explains "By "exists", the community means that the reliable source must have been published and still exist—somewhere in the world, in any language, whether or not it is reachable online—even if no source is currently named in the article. Articles that currently name zero references of any type may be fully compliant with this policy—so long as there is a reasonable expectation that every bit of material is supported by a published, reliable source.").
I realize the distinction between "not OR" and "proven not OR" may seem a little fine, but it is a real and, occasionally, a relevant distinction. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 20:58, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
I understand that technical distinction, but I don't see how it affects the GAN process or this discussion. To end up in a situation where that is relevant a reviewer would likely have to search out references themselves, which is more work, and then they would have to explain that they did this in the GAN review to confirm how the article meets the criteria. Outside of completely WP:BLUE statements like "Paris is the capital of France", which in the best of circumstances make up a tiny portion of any article, and I suspect most reviewers wouldn't check, I would not expect this situation to occur in a GAN. I cite the line required to "demonstrate the absence of OR" because that is what the GAN process is intended to do, demonstrate the absence of OR (as well as demonstrating the meeting of all the other criteria). CMD ( talk) 02:06, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
I don't think that GAN is meant to demonstrate the absence of OR. I believe GACR there must be no OR. It doesn't say that it must be proven that there is no OR. I don't think you really expect that either. Consider Kelenken, which you just listed, as an example. None of the image captions contain citations. You didn't insist that the image captions demonstrate the absence of OR, and I think you made the right choice. There are no citations in the the lead or in the infobox (except for the authority identifier); therefore, nobody has demonstrated the absence of OR there. This, too, strikes me as a good approach.
If someone had written something that was actually OR ("material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist") in the captions, lead, or infobox, then I'm sure that you would have insisted upon its removal per 2c, or failed the article. But the mere fact that some of the actual non-OR was not demonstrated to be non-OR through the provision of an inline citation was not (in this case) and IMO should not (in the general case) be considered a fail-worthy violation of GACR. GACR says the article must not contain OR, which is a smaller statement than saying that the article must prove that it does not contain OR by providing more inline citations than is normally required by WP:V and LEADCITE. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 02:32, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
A lack of image citations is longstanding practice, and I am not going to challenge that in an individual GAN. The lead argument does not hold, as the lead contained no information that was not in the body, and all the information in the body was backed up by relevant sources. I hold that this was demonstrated quite well, to the point where I picked up on a number of close paraphrasings from the relevant sources that did not appear on the earwig tool. (Another reason spot-checks are needed.) I would have, as you say, insisted that material to which there are no published sources be removed. What still has not been provided here is an explanation of how I would possibly have known that, had I not checked the sources in question. (Under the reasonable assumption that I am not a terror bird expert, although even if I was there would be no reason to accept that claim at face value.) CMD ( talk) 07:32, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
Yes, I agree: we have longstanding conventions supported by almost everyone that there are situations in which one does not need to demonstrate the absence of OR by providing an inline citation for every bit of material. And apparently the way that you knew that these uncited captions, infobox items, and whole paragraphs contained no OR is: you read reliable sources that were not cited in the uncited captions, infobox, and paragraphs.
I think this is a fine system, and this is why I tell you: GACR requires the absence of OR; it does not require that the absence of OR be demonstrated for every uncited captions, infobox, and paragraphs. To put it another way, I want your practice (using good sources that don't happen to be cited in that specific spot to determine whether that specific spot contains OR) to be universal. I strongly prefer your actions to your previous words ("There is no way you could check that"). You did check that; therefore, we can check that. IMO we should check that. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 16:15, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
If you think we should do spot-checks, then we are in agreement and I am unclear why this debate has arisen. CMD ( talk) 17:03, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
I started this tangent because you wrote "There is no way you could check that [i.e., whether it's OR] without verifying content and text-source integrity.", which I believe is wrong. GA reviewers need to check for OR, and you can (sometimes) check for OR even when there is no cited source.
I think that my version of your 27 June comment would have sounded something like "There is no OR when editors could cite a reliable source to support that material, even if they haven't done so yet, but it is much easier to check for OR when the sources are already cited, and besides, 2b requires most content to be cited anyway." WhatamIdoing ( talk) 19:26, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
Speaking specifically to what was the standard, and not what should be the standard, the old rule was that you checked all of the sources you had easy access to, and trusted the nom for the rest. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 20:41, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

The GA criteria confuses me: are most articles ineligible?

Are there some articles that cannot / never become a GA? In all of my created articles, about 15, there are only a small amount I think I could ever get to GA, and only one which I've actually tried ( Coin Coin Chapter Three: River Run Thee is a current GAN). The reason— not enough sourcing exists. The Jerma985 Dollhouse, in the current state of available sources, will never be a GA because it won't fulfill broad coverage. Many articles barely pass GNG, and a lot of pre-existing ones really don't. So, is it incorrect to say most articles cannot be GAs because most subjects are obscure to where they lack enough RSs to provide broad coverage? Is my notion of a GA just off? — PerfectSoundWhatever ( t; c) 02:40, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

PerfectSoundWhatever There are different interpretations, but many would argue that the article only needs to be broad in coverage relative to sources that exist. See #"Broad in its coverage" for the most recent discussion. ( t · c) buidhe 02:45, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
@ Buidhe: That's a pretty liberating mindset. So could an article like The Jerma985 Dollhouse theoretically pass a GA (considering only broad coverage)? It's a culmination of all the web RSs I could find, and no book citations nor other media exist AFAIK. That seems strange— the article's 390 words. — PerfectSoundWhatever ( t; c) 02:58, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
PerfectSoundWhatever In the long run I think I would like to see notability guidelines altered so that works without lasting impact don't get standalone wikipedia articles. At present we don't know whether this video has lasting impact, but if it doesn't get more coverage later on, I would prefer it gets merged with the streamer's article. But for the coverage that exists, I think the article is reasonably broad and I would not fail on those grounds at GAN. ( t · c) buidhe 03:06, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
( edit conflict) See #"Broad in its coverage" above, which is a largely similar discussion above. There's no one, set accepted answer here. I don't know that I'd say most articles are in this boat as for most notable subjects there's enough coverage to flesh it out if you dig for sources hard enough, but there is sort of a fuzzy area where it's an unsure proposition if the subject is just obscure. I successfully got Gov. Daniel Dunklin's Grave State Historic Site to GA despite what the sources actually covering being more limited, but I've decided against nominating CSS Junaluska due to so much detail not being available in sources despite me consulting almost every secondary and primary source that came to mind and the article being truly comprehensive to the best of my knowledge. I frankly don't think there's a clear-cut answer here. Hog Farm Talk 02:50, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for the insight. Since there is no clear-cut answer, do you think whether or not a short article becomes a GA depends on the mindset of the reviewer?
Since I usually edit and create articles about stuff that I like, and a lot of the media I consume is contemporary, it isn't usually the case where there's some book out there to be dug out, with a bunch of information available. Also, unless I'm missing something, people don't usually write about Albums in books that much (at least modern albums): usually just newspapers and magazines. — PerfectSoundWhatever ( t; c) 03:03, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
I fall into the mindset that if it's truly comprehensive, then it's okay for GA, although other reviewers may be stricter. There are probably some reviewers out there who would pass Junaluska, but likely a few who would consider a quick-fail as well. Hog Farm Talk 03:08, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
Ah, I see. Ideally, the broadness criteria would be much more objective, but that's probably overly-optimistic. — PerfectSoundWhatever ( t; c) 03:19, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
If an article is truly "comprehensive", then it qualifies for FA on that point. The Wikipedia:Featured article criteria require "comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context".
The GA criteria, by contrast, require only that "it addresses the main aspects of the topic". There is a footnote contrasting it with FAC's "comprehensive" requirement: "The "broad in its coverage" criterion is significantly weaker than the "comprehensiveness" required of featured articles. It allows shorter articles, articles that do not cover every major fact or detail, and overviews of large topics."
For an event such as The Jerma985 Dollhouse, the "main aspects of the topic" are going to be who/what/when/where/why kinds of information. It needs to include enough information that readers can figure out what happened, but not too much. It is not going to require "details", and GA (unlike FA) does not even need to include absolutely every "major fact".
To give a real example, a newbie reviewer, looking at an article about an international award, noted that there was a dinner on the evening of the award ceremony, and he wanted the article to include information about what people ate at the dinner. This is a level of detail that is never required. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 20:02, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

"Broad in its coverage"

Hoping to open a discussion to get some consensus about how to interpret Criteria 3, "Broad in its coverage". Does the criteria apply to the article in relation to the topic as a whole, or does it apply only in relation to what exists in reliable sources? By the first reading, available sourcing limits what can be a GA, whereas by the second, anything can be a GA as long as it makes use of all the content in the available sources.

As an example, the album Jewels of the Sea (note: I wrote it and it's not a GAN; I'm only picking on myself here). Every possible source has been utilized to write the article, but none of them discussed the background, production, or recording of the album. These major aspects of the topic therefore cannot be covered in the article. By the first reading, the article can never be a GA (unless someone writes a source that covers this stuff). However, by the second reading, the article covers every aspect of what is available in the sourcing, so it would be considered "broad in its coverage".

I lean towards the first reading, but I would like to see some thoughts from GA regulars. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 22:48, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

I believe the second interpretation is correct. Often, I will see in reviews someone asking "what about this", and the reviewee would reply "there are no sources for that", and that is the end of that. In my opinion, the vast majority of articles would fail a good article review if the first interpretation is used. Most articles would have something like that "background, production, or recording of the album", something that reliable sources just don't discuss. I've come across things stated in unreliable sources that are not covered in reliable sources, so those things simply can't be part of the article. Steelkamp ( talk) 02:46, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
I strongly disagree that the vast majority of articles would fail if the first interpretation is used. I think you may have misinterpreted the reading I'm setting out. I'm not suggesting that every detail of a topic must be covered to pass GA; the criteria explicitly say that's not necessary. But they do say that an article must be "broad in its coverage" to qualify for GA. To me that says at least some discussion of "main aspects" ought to be present.
If reliable sources do not cover major aspects aspects of a topic, obviously the article cannot cover those aspects. And if an article cannot cover major aspects of a topic because the sources are lacking, how can the article be considered "broad in its coverage"? ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 03:20, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
Maybe not the majority of articles, but there are certainly significant chunks who would. Virtually every biography of any person before 1500 would be excluded, for instance. To pick on one of my own articles, aside from the supposed names of her parents, reported in a notoriously inaccurate source over a milennium later, we know precisely zero facts about the life of Corinna; we aren't even sure to which century she belonged! Not being able to fill in large chunks of a life is not uncommon in ancient and medieval biography.
My understanding is that historically, criterion 3 has been interpreted as being limited by what reliable sources actually exists. I'm sure there are previous discussions in the archives of this talkpage and WT:GAN which are relevant. (There may also be discussion at WT:FACR about the comprehensiveness criterion there which is of interest) Caeciliusinhorto-public ( talk) 08:43, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
I think the answer is based on how likely you are to think that potential sources exist. If you've got a good understanding of your topic, and are familiar with the principal sources used (perhaps because you've used them for similar topics - I think I've managed to write 6 GAs using the same two books as the prime source material) and you are confident that sources cannot exist, then it probably does meet the "broad in coverage" criteria. If you think that sources should exist, and you simply can't find them (such as if they're hard to find print publications that nobody reputable has reproduced on the web) then it doesn't. Nor do I think it meets the criteria if you can find the information in unreliable or self-published websites; while we don't accept those as sources, it's reasonable to suggest they didn't just make up the material on a whim, but used their own personal (and half-remembered) knowledge that can ultimately be traced back to some source somewhere. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:56, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
Should really mention this has been discussed at Talk:Cribbage (pool)/GA1. I tend to think that when we don't know something, very few sources will come out and say that we don't actually know it. If you were writing a documentary, you would say that "origins are unknown", but without a source that says it, there's not much we can do here. Maybe it is known - just not to us. There is a big difference between "you haven't searched wide enough", and "it doesn't exist", but there will be items that don't get much in the way of exposure. That being said, I do expect myself that GAs are suitably broad, so happy to go with whatever consensus forms. Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 08:54, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
I could see myself rejecting a FA because sourcing does not allow the creation of a reasonably complete or balanced article. But I certainly wouldn't reject a GAN for this reason, assuming that RS have been searched to a reasonable extent. ( t · c) buidhe 08:57, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

To give a practical example, consider Fender Contempo Organ which currently sits on just over 3,600 bytes of prose. I'm pretty confident I used all the content from the best reliable sources I can find, and anything left over is probably a fan-site that either duplicates this or adds its own original research into the mix. (That the article says "The Contempo was commercially unsuccessful and few models were manufactured, and was not used by many professional musicians" sort of makes this self-explanatory). The principal problem is that an article that is that short is always at risk of being redirected (in this case to Fender (company)#Products). Regarding Jewels of the Sea, I find it likely there are contemporary print sources that discussed it at the time of release. However, if the album was released with next to no promotion (either purposefully or more likely because of a lack of budget), then I believe it does meet the "broad in coverage" criteria as you can make a good argument to a lack of coverage in sources. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:40, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

I find myself in a sort of middle area with this issue. If the sources don't exist (not just are harder to find or access), they don't exist. But I'm not sure every article can become a good article; at some point you need a certain amount of context and information to make an article "good", and if you can't accomplish that with a notable subject it suggests the content is better off folded somewhere else. I generally look at getting 1000 words out of a topic as a general benchmark, but it's obviously going to depend on the article in question. I would say I can't immediately think of any article I've reviewed that I've failed for broadness issues. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 17:51, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
This is basically the argument I'm making - that an article cannot be "Good" if it cannot address at least a few major aspects that a reader would expect to see when looking at an article. I'm not arguing that every GA must necessarily discuss all possible aspects of its topic, because obviously this isn't FA, but if it can't do some measure of breadth based on the limits of the sourcing, the article can't hit GA - which I don't see as a bad thing. Some articles just tap out where they tap out. (As an aside, deletionist though I am, I don't think I agree that a GNG-compliant subject that can't hit GA must necessarily be redirected elsewhere.)
Ritchie333, in my opinion the Fender Contempo article is clearly "broad in its coverage" - it discusses the history, features, and known users, which are major aspects that a reader would expect to learn about for such an instrument. That's enough to be GA-level broad to me, even if the content is limited by what's in the sources.
On the other hand, I would bet money on having found every possible source for Jewels, contemporary reviews and all. And with all that, there simply aren't any sources that bother talking in any depth about the history, background, recording, composition, or release of the album. The article is as complete as I could make it; can anyone really and honestly look at it and say it's broad in its coverage? That it should be a GA? It's not a problem with the time period, because there are 54 album GAs from 1950-1969, each of which discusses some combination of those aspects. Even the shortest, King & Queen, manages to discuss background, release, and modern reception. It's not perfect but it clearly hits the minimum, and Jewels doesn't.
Picking on the Cribbage (pool) article, since Lee brought it up, it solely discusses the rules of the game. I'm not disputing that it meets GNG, and I have no concerns about it meeting the other GA criteria, but how can it be considered broad if the only thing it covers is how to play? Surely an article that only covers one aspect of a topic cannot be said to address its "main aspects"? ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 19:47, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
Pinging participants since it's been over a week without a response to my points above, and I still think we need some kind of consensus here. David Fuchs, Ritchie333, buidhe, Lee Vilenski, Caeciliusinhorto, Steelkamp.
For a more extreme example of why I think "all sources exhausted and none likely to exist" cannot always equate to "broad in its coverage" by GA standards, consider the case of geostubs on obscure places and geographical features. I randomly grabbed a mountain in Antarctica, Marin Bluff, and searched Google, Gbooks, Gscholar, WMF Library, JSTOR, Science Direct, and Newspapers.com for it, with nothing located. Given that it is one of tens of thousands of named, minimally-notable mountains in Antarctica, and there is no indication that any researcher or explorer has ever paid any especial attention to it, I am confident that no further sources are likely to be found.
Given that, is the article Marin Bluff therefore "broad in its coverage"? ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 21:04, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
If you can't write an article that's much more than a permastub on any topic it should not be a standalone article whatever whichever SnG says (imo) but that's not an issue we can resolve at gan. ( t · c) buidhe 21:36, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
In practice, I don't really disagree, which is why I tend to merge those when I can - but as you say, that's not something we can resolve at GAN, and it isn't the discussion I'm trying to have.
Assuming that no other sources exist aside from what is in the article at this time, would Marin Bluff pass GA criteria #3, "broad in its coverage"? ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 22:33, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
I agree if something is a stub, it can't be a GA - which is already part of the rules. We are talking about items where there is something specific that is missing, but isnt actually covered in sources. Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 09:40, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
I am not talking about articles where one thing is missing, which is what people continue to misread here. I am not interpreting "broad in its coverage" to mean FA-level comprehensiveness. I am talking about articles which do not address "main aspects of the topic," as required by the present GA criteria. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 20:17, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
I have a personal rule that I will not promote to GA any article which is not at least long enough to be eligible for DYK. Marin Bluff is three sentences and 575 bytes in size, and nowhere near eligible (though the DYK tool is bugged and somehow claims the article is 2571 characters in length). Accordingly, I would fail any such article for not being broad in its coverage. If you can't write 2,500 characters about a subject, I would maintain it is ineligible for GA or FA status. By extension, that does mean that some articles will never attain GA unless more sourcing becomes available on them in the future. Trainsandotherthings ( talk) 20:49, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Did you know#Long enough requires 1,500 characters (not 2,500). That said, I would be surprised if an article of just 1,500 characters actually managed to meet GACR. That's approximately 500 words, which is shorter than the lead of some articles. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 20:08, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
I also have interpreted the criterion 3a It addresses the main aspects of the topic to mean the article must address the main aspects of, well, the topic (rather than addressing the main aspects covered in sources). Consequently, if a topic is notable but insufficient coverage exists to craft an encyclopedia article addressing the main aspects of the topic, then that topic just isn't eligible for GA yet. Additional sources may always be written in the future. And it's no dishonor for an editor to craft an article that cannot supply broad enough coverage for GA. If instead we wish to open up the GA criteria to "It addresses the main aspects covered in the reliable sources on the topic" we should discuss changing the wording of WP:GACR. Ajpolino ( talk) 21:28, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Raskovnik

Raskovnik has been a good article since 2010. There were a few instances of subtly mistranslated terms in the text (which I've now corrected), but I notice that some more serious concerns were briefly raised on the talk page in 2018, without apparently getting addressed. Does that mean the article needs to be re-assessed? If yes, then I'll leave that for those who are more at east with those processes. – Uanfala ( talk) 16:22, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Tackling vital articles

I have a proposal to end the stagnation of vital article improvement, called Vital Direct. Basically, start breaking the ice by making two GAs in a drive, then gather up writers, choose the next two articles and repeat the cycle. Once we have enough members at the WP:WikiProject Vital Articles, we can make drives more ambitious (more GAs, FAs), and so on. What do you think? CactiStaccingCrane ( talk) 10:27, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

The main issue with a vital article specific drive is that it is such a broad scope of articles. It's not easy to jump between writing about mathematical variables, exercise, trade unions, and the Inca Empire. It may be easier to find a group of editors within a certain topic of VAs for smaller drives. There are a few topics which seem quite successful and might need only a little push to 'complete' so to speak, eg. Chemical elements. CMD ( talk) 10:38, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
Agreed. I don't think that making people go around is effective either, but rather our Wikiproject would try to collaborate with other WikiProjects in order to tackle these articles. If the project people isn't there, we can just move on and tackle other articles. No need to totally rewamp the system from the start. CactiStaccingCrane ( talk) 10:42, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
Not to be too promotional, but on WP:DISCORD there is a team-b-vital channel, where a Vital article is chosen via a poll to be worked on up to B class (perhaps further). See Okinomiyaki, Winnie the Pooh, Michael Eisner for some examples. Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 11:06, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
Lee Vilenski, I think the link you are looking for is WP:BVITAL :) I've participated at the channel and personally I don't think B-vital is that effective anymore. The hype has faded away after a year of operation. What I'm trying to look for is a sustainable solution, and the best I can come up is Vital Direct. CactiStaccingCrane ( talk) 11:11, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
Isn't that just the same thing under a different name though? Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 11:16, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
It's a bit different. The focus of B-vital articles are often Level 4 and 5 articles, which in my opinion isn't too far off from picking a random article and improve it. Instead, what I propose is to improve Vital level 3 and up articles to GA and FA. Improving to GA would be more objective than to B-Class and more rewarding, since you got the same kind of satisfaction as when you get any article to GA. I would love to get involved back with B-vital stuff and abandon my proposal if the focus redirect towards Vital level 3 articles. CactiStaccingCrane ( talk) 11:20, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Icon Slightly Tilted

The icon is rotated at a slight angle. This bothers me a lot. Can this please be fixed? 2601:603:B7F:1240:5007:8AA9:ECD8:47F4 ( talk) 20:41, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Most of the assessment icons are similarly situated: , , , , , , . Imzadi 1979  → 22:52, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Problem with Legobot

Federico Gatti has been promoted but Legobot says my nomination has failed... Dr Salvus 23:02, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposed addition to criteria

Articles are supposed to have Wikipedia:short descriptions. I propose addition to GA criteria that the short description should be appropriate. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 08:19, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Given the back and forth I have seen over some descriptions over say whether it be "none" or "Wikipedia list article" and so on, I don't know if we should codify it here. CMD ( talk) 08:50, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
Especially since a lot of editors, if not most, have no idea what that is. And I'm one of them. I've been around 15+ years, and only recently noticed it being added to older existing articles. I don't see this mentioned as criteria in any other review process. Does Wikipedia have a convenient drop-down box to add it in each article? I've been an admin for six years and never saw this pop up until recently. — Maile ( talk) 11:13, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
It is a relatively new thing Maile66, it used to be automatically generated from Wikidata, but now it's set locally (as wikidata can often be wrong, and has more room for vandalism on this sort of thing). However, I don't really see how it's a big thing for GAs, as to me it's the in the same irk as making sure the title is suitable, which also isn't a GA criteria. You can very easily add them via enabling Wikipedia:Shortdesc helper. I would add one if a reviewer pointed it out, and I would ask for one as a reviewer, but as it's such a nothing time investment to add one, I don't see the point in adding it to the criteria. Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 14:52, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
There are lots of minor desiderata for articles that do not rise to the level of being appropriate tests for GA. This is one. Do not add. — David Eppstein ( talk) 17:53, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
Don't let's do this, per above. Johnbod ( talk) 04:26, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
No. ( t · c) buidhe 05:53, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
No, bureaucratic cruft that shouldn't be included in the criteria. Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 08:30, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
I wouldn't support this either. While it's good to have a short description, I'd advise against conflating it with a set of unrelated criteria. I.e. if this proposal were enacted, someone can quick-fail a nomination that doesn't have a short description, even if it meets the criteria otherwise, based on something that doesn't relate to how well the article is actually written. – Epicgenius ( talk) 16:11, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Criteria 0a wording is ambiguous

I'm in the minority here so I withdraw this. Thanks for the feedback. – Novem Linguae ( talk) 10:19, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

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


It is a long way from meeting any one of the six good article criteria - This could either mean that it is a long way from meeting one of the six criteria, or that it is a long way from meeting all 6 of the criteria. I assume the former is meant? Should re-phrase, perhaps by removing the word "any". The change would need to be made at Wikipedia:Good article criteria/GAC, which is template editor protected. Thanks. – Novem Linguae ( talk) 22:19, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

I've always read it as the first one. CMD ( talk) 22:51, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
"Any one" is singular. IMO any change should be to remove "one"; making it "any of the... criteria". Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 23:45, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
Good idea. I'm fine with removing "one". Is this enough consensus to put in a template editor edit request? Thanks. – Novem Linguae ( talk) 05:50, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
I would just go ahead and link this discussion. ( t · c) buidhe 06:10, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Actually, I changed my mind. Deleting "one" is still ambiguous. Can we land on a wording that doesn't have two meanings? "Any of the six criteria" can mean one or all of them. I think that deleting "any" is the most straightforward fix.– Novem Linguae ( talk) 06:53, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Is this really important? Surely both things are true. Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 08:28, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
I assumed it meant "all and only all" until I read enough GAN reviews. But if it doesn't confuse others then I suppose it's fine. – Novem Linguae ( talk) 09:01, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
"Any one of the six criteria" strikes me as completely unambiguous – I can't see how "any one of" can possibly be construed as meaning "all of". Unless there's any reason to believe that the wording is frequently misunderstood, I don't see that there's any benefit in changing it. Caeciliusinhorto-public ( talk) 09:59, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Post-close comment: I tend to agree that "any" is ambiguous, and try to avoid it in writing precise mathematical statements, where ambiguity is generally undesired. In this case, I don't think the ambiguity has been problematic (everyone agrees what it should mean) but it might be clearer to replace "any one" by "at least one". — David Eppstein ( talk) 07:28, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Quick pass

Seem to have a new editor not familiar with this process. Talk:Maltese nationality law. Should be reviewed by an experience editor or rendered invalid in the meantime. Moxy- 01:22, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

No action has taken place on this since. As the article was passed within 3 minutes, and no further action has been taken by the reviewer following prompting, I am inclined to revert this pass pending a proper review. Would an admin mind deleting Talk:Maltese nationality law/GA1 so that a new page be created? CMD ( talk) 07:05, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
 Done My gentle preference is to leave the old GA page intact and just iterate to Talk:Maltese nationality law/GA2 for the next review, but since you asked I've deleted the review page. For transparency's sake, the text of the review is pasted below:
Text of deleted GA review from Talk:Maltese nationality law/GA1

The article Maltese nationality law you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Maltese nationality law for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already appeared on the main page as a "Did you know" item, or as a bold link under "In the News" or in the "On This Day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear in DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Signed, Pichemist ( Contribs | Talk ) 16:46, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

The article seems an all-round good article and follows all the GA Criteria, good to see another WP:MALTA article being classed as GA. Signed, Pichemist ( Contribs | Talk ) 16:50, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
There is no review done here. Have requested a third party for review. Took me longer to read the article than it did to pass ...3mins. Have you reviewed other articles that we should review? Moxy- 01:23, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
@ Pichemist: FYI, a GA review has specific criteria that needs to be checked. For your future reference, any of the following templates could be used to do a review. Good article nominations/templates — Maile ( talk) 01:29, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
Okay, this was my first time reviewing a GA candidate and I must admit I was a bit "pass-happy". I'll be sure to take note of this to prevent any further mistake from my end Signed, Pichemist ( Contribs | Talk ) 19:51, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
Let me know if you need anything else. Ajpolino ( talk) 15:39, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Good articles/mismatches

Trying to get these resolved. A couple of them are confusing me as to how to fix it (Japanese Micronesians and Palamu fort). Anybody want to take a crack at this? Hog Farm Talk 21:51, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I'll take a look. First one was easy enough. Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 21:56, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
The Snowman (fairy tale) isn't currently fixable until the CCI is done. Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 21:58, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
I suspect that one will be a wait for it to be deleted or stubified and then delist. Hog Farm Talk 22:12, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
I think I've got these both taken care of. The Palamu one just needed an update at Wikipedia:Good articles/Warfare ( [7]), and the Japanese Micronesians one needed the talk page re-united with the mainspace page (not sure how they got separated...). Cheers, Extraordinary Writ ( talk) 22:16, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 7 November 2022

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123957a ( talk) 06:58, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Support minor copyedits that improve the GA page. ( t · c) buidhe 08:04, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 Completed – In the third suggestion, the endash is actually an emdash ("living persons—science-based"). P.I. Ellsworth ,  ed.  put'r there 19:04, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Climate change in Turkey

How quick is too quick ? Talk:Climate change in Turkey/GA2 Moxy- 07:25, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Is that the right link? That review is from over a year ago. Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 08:24, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
Yup it is old.....just being noticed. Not sure how it passed with the first section having no sources.....not even mentioned in review. Moxy- 12:38, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
At this late date I don't think there's any point revisiting the review -- I would suggest opening a reassessment if you think it's necessary. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 13:22, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Concerns about a review

Talk:Morgoth/GA1: This is not a review. Can we give Chiswick Chap the courtesy of being given an actual review instead of this garbage? Curbon7 ( talk) 19:08, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

This has already been raised with the reviewer, and noted by Chiswick Chap. There is also currently a discussion at AN/I about the user. My suspicion is that the review will not improve substantially, and so should either be deleted or a GA2 nom created. The article was not added to the GAlists, so there is no cleanup needed outside of the nom page and talkpage. CMD ( talk) 03:42, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
Yes, could someone please delete the GA1 page and reset the talk page to leave the GAN as if it had not been addressed at all? Chiswick Chap ( talk) 05:22, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
I think it's all good now. User:VickKiang marked the GA1 page for speedy deletion, User:Liz deleted it, User:Lettherebedarklight removed the good article star, and VickKiang and User:Chipmunkdavis reset the talk page. -- Floquenbeam ( talk) 15:01, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Teamwork?

I've put up a few GAs over the years but never reviewed a GA nomination myself. The reason for that is that English isn't my first language and I sometimes miss language intricacies. I'm reasonably up to date with MOS and other guidance, though. So if another editor is strong on language but feels that they lack WP guidance knowledge, maybe we should team up. Ping me here if this is of interest (I don't have this page on my watchlist) or else head over to my talk page. Schwede 66 20:22, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Schwede66, WP:IAR, just do it and see. CactiStaccingCrane ( talk) 13:10, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
No worries. A couple of editors have been in touch for teaming up. Schwede 66 15:30, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

New subsections

Do they need to be formally proposed somewhere, or can they just be added? I think it might be useful to have a category for "Fashion and beauty" under "Culture, sociology, and psychology" - I count 23 articles that would fit under it so far. In comparison, Globalization has...4. Normally I would just boldly add it, but I don't want to wonk up the working of any bot or script by doing so. ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 06:38, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

My feeling is that specific topics should only be split when they contain enough articles to create a few lines. This is around 25 (depending on article title length), so 23 is within the ballpark. The current Globalization one feels ill-defined and vague (and why is Spanish flu there rather than in Diseases and medical conditions?). To my understanding bots do not interact with the lv5 subheaders. I don't think they interact directly with the lv3 headers either, however those headers are aligned to the GA template and GAN page which do interact with bots. CMD ( talk) 01:26, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

On this note, I've been thinking about whether Wikipedia:Good articles/Language and literature should have a subsection for Tolkien-related articles. There are lots of them, and they kind of overwhelm the other subsections such as "Characters and fictional items" and "Genres and literary theory". TompaDompa ( talk) 02:28, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

I've boldly created the fashion one as a subsection and removed globalization. I don't see why you shouldn't do the same for Tolkien - perhaps call it "Tolkien studies" or "Tolkien research". ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 03:15, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
Very well, I have created a "Tolkien" subsection. TompaDompa ( talk) 04:26, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
Looks good! ♠ PMC♠ (talk) 04:35, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
That's a lot of Tolkien! CMD ( talk) 04:48, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Talk:West Side Story (2021 film)/GA1

Would somebody please purge this review page? It needs another experienced reviewer, as the editor who initiated it admitted to not being familiar with GAR in their talkpage, and didn't expound on how the article actually meets the criteria. Nineteen Ninety-Four guy ( talk) 07:40, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

This is under discussion at Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations#Inappropriate GA of West Side Story (2021 film). CMD ( talk) 09:12, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Stale GA review

Talk:It Was Hot, We Stayed in the Water/GA1. Began on 11 October 2022, last edit was in November. I've seen @ Realmaxxver: do this for a few reviews, (e.g. 1, 2) and I wonder, why do they take up reviews when they don't have time to finish them? — PerfectSoundWhatever ( t; c) 16:40, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Input needed

Input needed in the GA article Talk:World War II#Seeking consensus to implement change in lead sentence. Cheers!-- Thinker78 (talk) 00:51, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Sourcing requirement for maps

Based on a discussion with A455bcd9 at Talk:Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Nasafi/GA1, I'd like to ask this question: what are the requirements for WP:RS and WP:V on maps included in GA candidates? Given that maps are pieces of information, and not just for decoration/illustration. This requirement has sometimes been made as part of FA candidacies, but not consistently, and I cannot find a specific policy to that effect. Constantine ✍ 19:05, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks @ Cplakidas for asking the question. In the meantime, for FAC, I found these 2007 and 2022 discussions concluding that "this is already covered by 1(c)" ( WP:FACR, 1(c): "well-researched: it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature; claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations where appropriate;"). However, WP:FACR doesn't say anything about citing sources in "3. Media": it's only about captions and copyright. I couldn't find anything similar for GAN, but, if there's such a requirement (for FAC and/or GAN), it would be nice to make it more explicit in WP:FACR and WP:GACR. A455bcd9 ( talk) 19:18, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
I would say that the level of sourcing and detail provided in File:Map of the Samanid amirate at the death of Nasr II, 943.svg is what we should be looking for with regards to verifiability requirements for GA or FA (and really for any image.) Some media is not going to really need much beyond "there it is", while something like this that is combining multiple historic sources absolutely should be clear what it's drawing from (especially since for ancient history it's not like we can be 100% of boundaries anyhow.) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 13:20, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
Thanks @ David Fuchs. Should it then be more explicit in WP:FACR and WP:GACR? Or is it implied in "2. Verifiable with no original research" as WP:V and WP:OR are core content policies that apply to everything inside an article? a455bcd9 (Antoine) ( talk) 20:30, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
WP:V explicitly mentions captions, although in practice they are rarely directly sourced, including in FAs. Explicitly including them would be a significant change. CMD ( talk) 03:55, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
Hi @ Chipmunkdavis: are you talking about WP:FACR or WP:GACR? For FA, although not explicitly included, it seems the sourcing requirement for user-made images is already applied as part of WP:FACR:1(c). For GA, I don't know. Please also note WP:IMAGEPOL: "User-made images can also include the recreation of graphs, charts, drawings, and maps directly from available data, as long as the user-created format does not mimic the exact style of the original work. [...] In such cases, it is required to include verification of the source(s) of the original data when uploading such images." a455bcd9 (Antoine) ( talk) 09:31, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
WP:V is core to GAN as well as to FAC. I am primarily noting that in practice, images and captions are interrogated less than article text. CMD ( talk) 09:49, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
Yes in practice for captions for sure. Regarding images, I often see them interrogated on FAC. I don't have enough experience of GAN though so I don't know. a455bcd9 (Antoine) ( talk) 09:53, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Good Article proposal drive 2023

The Good Article proposal drive is going to go live at 00:00 UTC. Any improvements to the GA process or its policy are welcome there. There are a number of proposed changes slated and anyone can add their own proposals or participate in discussion. Unless there is overwhelming consensus on all the topics, I plan for the discussion to go most of the way through January. Figured a customary notification to this page would be appropriate since this is the de facto improvements forum. Etrius ( Us) 22:20, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Providing sources to reviewers

Despite having been around en:WP for ages, I'm rather unfamiliar with GAN. And so the question I pose below may be somewhat ... stupid. I nominated my article Teikō Shiotani. Nobody has yet offered to review it, but the nomination is still young. I suspect, though, that most people who might be interested would be repelled by its dependence on (paper) sources that I imagine would be next to impossible to access outside Japan, other than in a first-rate library about photography. But actually the three most-cited sources occupy few pages (and two of them are in English). Thus my question: Would it be helpful (or even proper) to offer to supply PDFs of these two/three sources to anyone seriously contemplating a review; and if so, where might/should this offer be made? -- Hoary ( talk) 08:13, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Hoary Yes, providing access to sources can be helpful to reviewers. I would bring it up as soon as someone takes the review. ( t · c) buidhe 08:30, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
I usually AGF on paper sources I can't get access too. You can put in the notes on the nomination template to confirm you can provide refs on request. Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 09:14, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
Thank you, both. I've added a note to the nomination. -- Hoary ( talk) 12:53, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Hi, I was wondering if being paid to edit an article, and not disclosing who is paying you would result in an immediate fail, even though it meets the GA criteria. MasterMatt12 (talk) 21:04, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't know what GA has to say about it, but that's a violation of the WMF terms of use -- RoySmith (talk) 21:24, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
Any article like that likely has or if not should have an Template:Undisclosed paid banner on it. Point three on GA Criteria's "immediate failures" list states that an article cannot pass if "it has, or needs, cleanup banners that are unquestionably still valid." So yeah, I think the article would fail even if it meets all other criteria. Krisgabwoosh ( talk) 22:33, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
Alright thanks. MasterMatt12 (talk) 22:36, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Reassessment for faulty review?

Hi! I've recently been observing the GA process for the article Tomás Frías due to previous sockpuppeting issues there. GA Reassessment states that is meant to check whether an article "still meets the good article criteria". This article clearly didn't meet the criteria when it was passed (there's at least two claims not even sourced for Christ sake!). Given that, is reassessment still the right place to go? Krisgabwoosh ( talk) 18:44, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

If you know who the other socks are, report this at WP:SPI. It's possible that WP:G5 applies to the review page. -- RoySmith (talk) 18:52, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
Never mind, this looks like Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/JackWilkesMcCarthy. I'm on it. -- RoySmith (talk) 18:56, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
I had suspected the nominator of being a possible sockpuppet but didn't even think to check on the actual reviewer. I even left a comment for them on the review page about possible sockpuppeting. If they both turn out to sockpuppets, then I expect the GA will probably be taken down. In that case, I guess the original question still stands as an unrelated hypothetical. Krisgabwoosh ( talk) 19:17, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/JackWilkesMcCarthy. Just for the record, all of:
are eligible to be deleted under WP:G5. I didn't delete them only because I wasn't sure if that would be disruptive to the GA process. I'll leave that to the folks who are more familiar with how GA runs things. Please report any more socks to WP:SPI.
-- RoySmith (talk) 19:30, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
Deleted the reviews. Apologies to User:Indy beetle, User:CT55555, and User:Dabberoni15 for returning their article to pre-reviewed status; the nomination dates should return to their original value, so at least they won't lose their place in the queue over this. — David Eppstein ( talk) 19:40, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
@ Mike Christie: does ChristieBot need to be nudged? It hasn't updated these. — David Eppstein ( talk) 20:30, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
I can take a look in a couple of hours. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 20:39, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
I suspect it's too upset by the disappearance of pages it thought existed to be able to run. I can do the clean up shortly but I think it's not going to run at all till I do. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 20:53, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
Now fixed. David, thanks for the alert. As it turns out ChristieBot was getting upset by the existence of an "onreview" status in the GA nominee template because the GA subpage did not exist. I'll fix the code to not crash, but that might not be for a week or two -- I am unexpectedly busy in RL and don't want to make code changes at a time when I can't monitor the bot. If this happens again and I'm unavailable, someone could try making sure the relevant talk pages are self-consistent -- the status shouldn't be "onreview" unless the review page exists. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 22:26, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
Will the bot remove the good icon from the article's already passed or does a user need to go in and do that? Krisgabwoosh ( talk) 22:34, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
That will have to be done manually. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 22:48, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Nomination of 15.ai for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article 15.ai is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/15.ai until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.

– LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄) 12:13, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Propose to add notability to GA criteria

Here is an article which passed "good article" review, then was deleted, and now is at deletion review. Questions:

  1. Should articles which pass "good article" review also meet WP:N? (I presume yes)
  2. How often does this happen - "good articles" failing at WP:AfD? Is there prior discussion of this? Can anyone name cases?
  3. To what extent would it be meaningful to check notability at GAR, versus just being a bureaucratic burden for a rare situation?

Bluerasberry (talk) 22:10, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

1 Every article should meet Notability, Good Article or not

2 It happens a few times. Being a good article does not provide any extra protection against deletion.

3 If a reviewer thinks an article fails notability then they should take it to AFD. Aircorn  (talk) 22:17, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Notability is something that if you have concerns, take to AfD. It doesn't need to be a part of the criteria. We've had FAs also deleted the same way. Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 22:19, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
If an article has, and unquestionably deserves, notability banners, then it already fails under WP:QF. No additional rules needed. If it is not clear enough to warrant a banner it is also not clear enough to be problematic for Good Article status. — David Eppstein ( talk) 22:57, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
^ Izno ( talk) 05:27, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
Good articles do get deleted at AfD. This is to be expected in a way, it is easiest to write GAs on more obscure or specific topics, and those are also the most likely to lie on the edge of notability. However, agree with others above that it shouldn't be incorporated into the process here. Reviewing an article is a lot of work already, and being a GA has no bearing on whether something is notable. CMD ( talk) 08:40, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
WP:GAN/I#R1 contains guidance that reviewers should take care that the reviewed article doesn't have a notability problem: Ensure all articles meet Wikipedia policies and guidelines as expected of any article, including neutral point of view, verifiability, no original research, and notability. GA reviewers should naturally be able to notice an "unquestionable" lack of notability during review. But if they fail to, or the issue isn't that noticeable, that's fine (although not ideal), the issue is corrected either by finding more/better sources or through deletion. — Alalch E. 08:59, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Ad 1: you should expect that when checking the GA-criteria for an article, they should notice when an article is in fact non-notable. To my opinion, a non-notable article can never be a good article. When this process is a purely administrative exercise of colouring between the lines, an extra line about the notability should be added to the criteria. The Banner  talk 10:30, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

It's implicit in a GA review that one checks the suitability of the article for Wikipedia, including notability. I don't think adding it as an explicit requirement will have any effect. Once in a while, a GA reviewer makes a judgement about notability that disagrees with other editors; this is to be expected given that there's scope for disagreement about sufficient notability and that the decision is ultimately made by community discussion. MartinPoulter ( talk) 11:42, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
That's a good point. GAN is an individual process, AfD is a community process. GAN cannot act as a proxy for an AfD. CMD ( talk) 12:58, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
We have a bit of the same problem at DYK. Even though it's explicitly called out in the DYK instructions that passing GA doesn't obviate a complete DYK review, I have noticed that GA submissions tend to get more of a rubber stamping than a real examination. That's not GA's fault, of course. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:12, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
True, but sometimes a DYK reviewer will question whether the article just having passed GA is notable, or find issues with the sourcing, or discover close paraphrasing overlooked by the GA reviewer. This isn't the first time a GA has been delisted and ultimately deleted after a DYK review and trip to AfD because of concerns raised. Any DYK reviewer giving a rubber stamp to a GA isn't doing their job correctly and should be called on it whenever it happens. It's why we explicitly don't allow the GA reviewer to also review the same article at DYK; we want another set of eyes fully checking the article. BlueMoonset ( talk) 04:51, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
The problem is that some editors claim that an GA is notable, because it is a GA. The Banner  talk 01:30, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
Has any AfD closer actually bought that argument? — David Eppstein ( talk) 02:10, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
A unilateral redirect for Skathi (moon) was reverted and brought to AfD on grounds that the article was a GA. (The article was later kept on sound notability grounds.) – LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄) 14:49, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

After another GA, 15.ai, was brought to AfD, I also had an idea of having a bot track GA's that are nominated for deletion, possibly at Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Report. The external cleanup listings maintained by User:CleanupWorklistBot do not track pages nominated for deletion. – LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄) 14:57, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

The lists of GA articles could use an audit

I see some recent GARs where the article in question was not on the WP:GA list (e.g. WP:GA/SR) when the user script went to go remove it. This is a hint that our WP:GA lists are slightly inaccurate. The lists could use an audit. Probably best done by a technical person who can gather two sets of data, intersect them, then look at the differences.

Data set 1 would be the list of current WP:GAs gathered from Category:Good articles, or transclusions of templates such as {{ GA}} or {{ Article history}}. Data set 2 would be data scraped from the GA lists.

Any volunteers? Any objections? I'm currently a little too busy to do the whole project myself. If no volunteers and no objections, a good next step might be WP:BOTREQ. Thoughts? – Novem Linguae ( talk) 21:24, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

@ Novem Linguae: - Do you happen to remember one of the examples? Wikipedia:Good articles/mismatches should theoretically be catching these things (I just used it to catch two articles on the GA list that shouldn't have been). Hog Farm Talk 21:41, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for linking Wikipedia:Good articles/mismatches, that's good to know. Two examples are Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Dwayne Johnson/1 and Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Mr. Bean/1. – Novem Linguae ( talk) 21:54, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
Dwayne Johnson is still in the GA lists now, he is in the " Canadian football" subsection. Mr. Bean is in the GA lists in the " Other television series, 1990s debuts" subsection. (Leaving them there for now if it helps with debugging, although I suspect they'll pop up on mismatches soon.) CMD ( talk) 01:26, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
After investigating further, looks like GANReviewTool had some bugs that caused those not to get deleted. I've fixed the bugs in the code, and removed the entries. Since those are the only two examples and those were both false alarms, I think this is
Resolved
– Novem Linguae ( talk) 02:24, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
@ Novem Linguae:, can you look at this diff? Is it a related bug? CMD ( talk) 06:58, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
That's definitely a bug, but looks unrelated. Thanks for spotting. Will fix. – Novem Linguae ( talk) 07:03, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 Fixed. [8] – Novem Linguae ( talk) 07:11, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

HMS Vigilant category

I'm reasonably confident HMS Vigilant from Warfare should be under Warships of the United Kingdom and not Warships of the United States as it currently is - Findingmoney100 ( talk) 18:09, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Good catch, fixed-- Sturmvogel 66 ( talk) 19:39, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Should everything be cited?

 – per discussion below. Olivaw-Daneel ( talk) 21:38, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Inexperienced editor approving GAs

Please see my comments regarding this GA at Template:Did you know nominations/Bayfront MRT station. The article does not appear to be a good article and the same editor approved a similar article. Bruxton ( talk) 17:42, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Bruxton, this has been noted at WT:GAN. Thanks for being proactive. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 ( talk) 17:54, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
Thanks much @ AirshipJungleman29:. I was not sure where to go with the concern and I missed the discussion tab on the main page. And ping Bruxton ( talk) 17:59, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Poll now open for the election of Good Article Reassessment coordinators

A poll to select coordinators for the good article reassessment process is now open; please contribute to the discussion and !vote if interested. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 18:36, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

GA topics

 – per discussion below. Olivaw-Daneel ( talk) 21:38, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Redirect to WT:GAN

Per proposal 17, we should redirect this page to WT:GAN. I propose doing the following:

  • Move the 2 active discussions above to WT:GAN, leaving behind a {{ moved to}} message
  • Archive all posts.
  • Redirect this page.

Any objections? Olivaw-Daneel ( talk) 18:01, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

There was clear consensus for this at the RFC. I know that the existence of two talk pages with such similar purviews always confuses me. So yes, please do. — David Eppstein ( talk) 18:28, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure the consensus clearly included this page. Are you sure this was intended? As the talk page for a base-level WP page, with 16+ archives of previous discussion, I think redirecting to WT:GAN would do more harm than good. Not 100% against it, but would like to see some confirmation that others intended this page be redirected too, and if so, some explanation for how the archives would be handled. -- Floquenbeam ( talk) 18:33, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
Re. archives, I was just planning to follow the steps in WP:TALKCENT. Olivaw-Daneel ( talk) 18:38, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
I'm still not confident that this talk page was intended by RFC participants to be centralized too, but if this page is oncluded, that seems like a very reasonable approach. Thanks for explaining. Floquenbeam ( talk) 18:43, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
As above. I'm unsure how the archives should be handled, but someone should be able to figure that out. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 ( talk) 18:33, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
Please do this - it's been a bugbear of mine for a while! Lee Vilenski ( talk • contribs) 19:20, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
@ Olivaw-Daneel: Everyone but me appears to think this is a good idea. This was intended as a cautionary note, not as an attempt to relitigate or veto or obstruct. Feel free to do what you think best. Always nice to see an Asimov reference, by the way. Floquenbeam ( talk) 19:30, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
No worries, and thanks. I'll go ahead with the moves. Olivaw-Daneel ( talk) 21:33, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
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