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• WT:GAN

This is the discussion page of the good article nominations (GAN). To ask a question or start a discussion about the good article nomination process, click the New section link above. Please check and see if your question may already be answered; click to show the frequently asked questions below or search the archives below.

view · edit Frequently asked questions Main Criteria Instructions Nominations FAQ January backlog drive Mentorship Review circles Discussion Reassessment Report Shortcut WP:GAFAQ This is the list of Frequently asked questions about nominating and reviewing Good articles. If you cannot find the answer to your question here, you might want to ask for assistance at the GA nominations discussion page. Nomination process The backlog is huge! Is there something we can do to restrict nominations? There have been complaints about the perceived backlog in reviewing since the Good article status was created in 2006. Generally speaking, we don't want to restrict nominations along their path to GA. In the beginning, as many as 100 nominations were waiting for a reviewer to volunteer. By 2011, each day typically listed 330 nominated articles, of which 260 were waiting. By 2016, 580 were listed, 460 waiting; by 2021, 470 were listed, 300 were waiting. For comparison, today there are currently 638 nominations listed and 472 waiting for a reviewer. While it may seem overwhelming, a large backlog isn't a bad thing. It shows that many nominators want to use GA as a tool to improve the encyclopedia. It also allows reviewers to choose from a wide selection of articles that interest them. From a nominator's perspective, the main concern is the expected wait time before receiving a review, not the number of articles on the nominations page. Can't we force nominators to review articles? Quid pro quo reviewing (editors must review an article before nominating, perhaps after a grace period) was regularly proposed and always rejected as likely leading to lower quality reviews and fewer nominations from excellent content creators who may not wish to review another person's work. What order do nominations appear on the Good article nominations page? One advantage of reviewing articles to help the Misplaced Pages community is the GAN appearance order: the more articles you have reviewed relative to articles you have nominated, the higher up in the queue your nomination will appear on the GAN page. Note that above this, order preference is given to nominators who are new to GA. What if the nominator is a (perhaps dynamic) IP address? Any editor with significant contributions to the article may nominate an article for GA status (while only registered users may review), so significant-contributor IP nominators are permitted. Non-significant contributors should follow the advice above for editors who have not significantly contributed to the article. Dynamically changing IP nominators may want to clarify to the reviewer that, despite their signature, they remain the same person. Can I nominate an article I haven't significantly contributed to? No. Nominations from editors who have not substantially contributed will be removed unless the nomination shows that the article's regular editors were consulted on its talk page alongside a note on the GAN template showing their commitment to the process, e.g., |note=Adopted following extensive improvement by another editor. In the past, many drive-by nominators did not know the article or its sources and did not respond to questions by the reviewer. Review process I want to review an article. Do I have to review the oldest unreviewed nomination first? Thank you for deciding to review an article for GA. You may review any nominated article you are not involved in, regardless of the nomination's age or position in the queue. As a reviewer, I want to help the nominator improve the article, but it already meets the criteria. What am I supposed to do now? The purpose of a GA review is to determine whether the article meets the GA criteria. Article-improvement discussions are intended to prevent near-misses in nominated articles that almost meet the criteria. If the article already meets the criteria when you first review it, then explain exactly what you've checked in each of the main criteria (e.g., "I have verified there is no original research, copyright violations, plagiarism, unreliable sources, bias, edit wars, or untagged images.") and list it as a Good article. "Quick passes" are as legitimate as quick fails, although they are less common. Please do not make a list of nitpicky details or exceed the written requirements of the Good article criteria in an effort to make the review look rigorous. Instead, thank the nominator for presenting such a polished article, and encourage them to submit another. Who can respond to the review? The nominator is expected to respond to the reviewer's suggestions to improve the article, while everyone interested in the article is encouraged to participate in the review, not just the person who happened to nominate it. Nominators have no special privileges over other editors except that they can withdraw the nomination. Should nominators respond to reviewers' concerns? And what should reviewers do if they don't? The nominator has an interest in seeing the article become GA, so the nominator will likely want to respond to the reviewer to improve the article. In fact, all editors interested in the article are encouraged to respond to reviewers' concerns. However, nobody, including the nominator, is required to. If the reviewer identifies concerns directly related to the good article criteria and no one addresses the concerns, then no one should be surprised if the reviewer declines to list the article. If the article does not meet the Good article criteria after the reviewer has waited a reasonable amount of time for the nominator to make improvements, the reviewer is sure to fail the nomination. Future article editors may benefit from review comments on how to improve the article. The nominator disagrees with the reviewer. Can another reviewer take over? If your GAN experience is not going well or if you are disagreeing with the reviewer's decisions, then you may allow the review to fail, take the reviewer's suggestions into account, then renominate the article immediately (to get a different reviewer). If the reviewer has not yet failed the nomination, you may try asking them to ask for a second opinion. Other than these, another reviewer does not normally take over an active review. To prevent avoidable disputes, reviewers should either not make comments unrelated to the Good article criteria, or they should carefully label those suggestions as optional (e.g., "I know that citation formatting is not required by the Good article criteria, and I will not consider this when making my decision, but if you might send this to Misplaced Pages:Featured articles later, then that process requires consistent citation formatting"). Does an article have to be on hold for exactly seven days? No. Whether to place the nomination on hold at all, and the length of any such hold, is for the reviewer to decide. Depending on the quality of the article and the responsiveness of the nominator, a hold may not be necessary. If the reviewer decides that it is, they may choose longer or shorter periods of hold time. The reviewer may even modify the {{GA nominee}} template on the article talk page to include a "time" parameter, for example, "time=fourteen days", and the {{GANotice}} template used to convey messages to the GA nominator to include a "days" parameter, for example "days=fourteen". Keep in mind that protracted reviews show up as exceptions on the GA nominations report page. What should I do if a review page becomes inactive? This can happen for a number of reasons. Review pages should only be started by reviewers who are willing to take an active interest in the article and are committed to completing their review of the article in a timely manner. Sometimes another editor (such as the nominator) starts the review page by mistake. A reviewer can fix this by placing their signature after "Reviewer:" towards the top of the review page, but if no reviewer is forthcoming, it may be best to delete the review page: requests for such deletions may be posted at the discussion page. If a new reviewer is truly needed, follow the instructions page under "If a review seems abandoned". Do not use this process to void a review you disagree with. I failed the article, and the nominator just nominated it again without fixing the problems I identified! That's okay. There is no time limit between nominations, and this is the recommended process if the nominator disagrees with your review. Let someone else review it this time. The new reviewer is sure to read your comments while independently deciding on their assessment. If your concerns were legitimate, then the new reviewer will doubtless agree with you and also decline to list the article as GA. If the article is passed and you do not believe it meets the good article criteria, you can initiate a reassessment. How can GA be reliable when a single reviewer decides? The quality of a Good article is only as reliable as the most recent review and articles may deteriorate if unattended. The GA process deals with both of these issues by allowing repeat reviews by any registered user at any time. The process aims to encourage article improvement and build consensus on quality through multiple reviews—even though a single reviewer makes the decision whether to list the article according to the GA criteria. Any editor may contribute to any review discussion and reassessment is available when the "one reviewer decides" model breaks down. What if I have concerns about the quality of a review or need to resolve a dispute over the GA process? You can bring those concerns to the GA nominations discussion page to get help from other editors. Remember, however, to notify all users about whom concerns have been raised or who are involved in any dispute that you have.

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Requesting GA review for Banaras Hindu University and Vice-Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University

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

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

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

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

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

New reviewer issue

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is there such a thing as a "reviewer must have x amount of edits and has been active for x months" rule in reviewing GA nominations?

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

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

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

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

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

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

June GAN drive?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bangalore Review

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

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

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

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

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

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