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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 Add topic 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. If you are here to discuss concerns with a specific review, please consider discussing things with the reviewer first before posting here.

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 615 nominations listed and 441 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.

To help centralize discussions and keep related topics together, several other GA talk pages redirect here.

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Talk:Walter Tull/GA1

Anyone want to take over running the GA for Walter Tull? Regards. Govvy (talk) 18:59, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Govvy, I've incremented the review forward while maintaining its place in the queue per WP:GAN/I#N4a. Hopefully a new reviewer should come along soon. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:22, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

@AirshipJungleman29: k, thank you. Govvy (talk) 10:54, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Criterion 3 in articles about recent events

I wrote a review at Talk:2023 Djerba shooting/GA1, for an article about an event that took place three months ago in May. Right now every source in the article is also from May. The article currently lacks any information about aftermath more than a few days out or consequences/ramifications that lasted longer than a few days, and sources about it are proving difficult to find. We need some additional feedback about what "broad coverage" looks like in this case. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:07, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't personally believe recent-events articles can pass quality assessment (that is a prescriptive 'can', not a descriptive). You can see the comments at Talk:2022 United States infant formula shortage/GA1 for an example of the problem with recent-events sourcing -- the article was written from primary-news in real time, and now that the event is some way in the rear view mirror it lacks the significant academic secondary sourcing that's been written on the subject. Flatly, I don't agree "articles written in real time" stand as examples of Misplaced Pages's best work, which GA still is even though it's less so than FA (GAs are, statistically, 99.3rd percentile articles) -- the dust needs to settle around events before we have a clear encyclopedic idea of what happened, and real-time articles tend to be very staticky and disjointed. Vaticidalprophet 05:04, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

+1 (t · c) buidhe 05:14, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

I can hardly say I'm unsympathetic to this view (as my comments at AfD can attest, my biggest Misplaced Pages pet peeve is that regulars there say news reporting is always secondary coverage). But that still leaves the issue of what should be done with nominations like this. Should they just be quickfailed? Is it a notability issue? Is it a "delay" thing like future events articles? Current events articles are created every day, and it seems like Misplaced Pages in general doesn't know what to do with them. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 05:54, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

I think it's a 3a problem (and sometimes a stability problem), though at least for stuff that isn't wildly premature it's not imo an obvious quickfail until you've looked into whether the rear-view-mirror sources exist yet and the article can be restructed around them. For May to August, probably not, but the formula shortage article is going through that re-sourcing now. It is a "fail at some point" if you clearly can't resolve 3a, though. Vaticidalprophet 06:11, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

I think the stability point is interesting. I generally overlook whether sources are primary or secondary in GA, since all that's required is reliability. Most current events articles (often going back a few years) are based almost exclusively on primary sources. Is this something that should be taken into consideration? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 15:32, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

I interpret "stability" pretty conservatively (I am very suspicious about GANs on active controversial political figures/situations, as an example). I didn't think in June 2021 that COVID was GANable, but there was disagreement on this point. I'm not sold that it's GANable right now -- if Misplaced Pages existed at the time, we'd think it absurd now if we passed WW2 in 1946 -- but hey, it's got the stamp. If it can be reasonably predicted that an article would need massive revisions in the not-that-distant future, I think that's a problem for stability. This is inherently a problem for active events, and frequently a problem for recent ones. Vaticidalprophet 15:42, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

I apologize for shifting the focus of our discussion from events to film articles. Similarly, numerous recent films (2021-2023) may also be covered by articles and reviews published mostly around the time of their release. Without substantial academic secondary sources and reviews/analyses published years (or months?) after the initial release, could there also be a potential "broad coverage" concern in this regard? Mooonswimmer 15:54, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Media I think is a different case most of the time. Very popular or very controversial/political/etc works can fall under that issue. If a once-in-a-century-bestseller book came out six months ago and people are still fighting over the film rights, quality assessment might be premature. If "uber-notorious culture war guy" publishes a bunch of fnords in the shape of a book and the article is written hot off the presses, quality assessment is fairly likely to be premature. Most works aren't really 'active events' outside of this, though. Vaticidalprophet 16:08, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree with the above that just because something is new (or recently happened) it can't be a GA. We have to look a bit objectively and think is there going to be a big change on the article very soon. It's more about completeness than stability. Something that happens and then ends can be GANed that day provided that anything additional that may come up is likely to be minimal. Sports events are the best example - as much as what happens after the event might change pieces of it (maybe someone talks about that match years from now, or someone gets a retroactive suspension), this info is minimal to the event. GAs aren't supposed to be "done", rather that they cover the subject broadly. On the other hand, an article on something where there might be significant changes (say, a court case without a verdict, or a natural disaster with an outstanding review on it) might be more suitable to wait (although, we do have to be careful on timescales. Do we not nominate an article for two years waiting for a result? I think that would be ridiculous).

I think why people get so hung up on this is because it can be sometimes difficult to get an article through the GAR process in a timely manner if the updates don't happen. In my eyes, if something happened three months ago, we should certainly see if there is additional citations surrounding the aftermath (and always update the article with them even after a review), but we shouldn't put the article on ice awaiting references that might not come for some time. Remember that the GA criteria looks for broadness of the topic. FA looks for comprehensive information, which is more likely what we are talking about here. Lee Vilenski 14:46, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

I think there are special considerations depending on the subject. It's the same reason we have different WP:SNGs for different topics. Things like sports games or films are self-contained. The subject is the performance itself, and then secondary sources can be created immediately in the form of critical analysis (sometimes before the public even sees it, if it's a work where critics are given early access). Historical events are different. Their relevance comes from how they affect the region/population/world, but these effects often can't be seen and commented on until months or years after, and secondary sources often don't exist during that time. That's why we have things like WP:NOTNEWS and WP:NEVENTS. As far as the GA criteria are concerned, I would argue that these secondary sources are essential before the coverage requirement can be met. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:07, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Vaticidalprophet or whoever else can provide input: similar question about Talk:2022 California Proposition 1/GA1 based on what I've written there so far. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:26, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Kota Formation: too much tabular material?

@Yewtharaptor: I'm thinking about starting a review for Kota Formation. Before I dive into that, I'd like some guidance on the large tables which make up the majority of the article. MOS:LIST says Embedded lists should be used only when appropriate; sometimes the information in a list is better presented as prose. I don't see how presenting this information in prose format would be feasible, yet I'm left with the nagging feeling this might fail WP:CRIT 1(b) for list incorporation and this would better be treated as a WP:SAL. RoySmith (talk) 15:15, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Hello. I understand that the amount of content in Tables can be overwhelming. My working method is reduced to compiling all notable taxa in them. If we choose "minor" groups, like Phyllopoda for example, they are important because they mark biozones, and therefore I consider that they should be as tables. Biota with genus and species, unless it is something like "indeterminate fossil roots" or something of that level, I think it deserves to be in a table.

I also consider that the table of contents should be sufficient so that the reader can go directly to the section of interest Yewtharaptor (talk) 18:23, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

It is unclear to me why 90% of an article on a geological formation is dedicated to a list of the specimens found in it, and only 10% to the geographical formation itself—it seems like this fails WP:UNDUE. I would recommend that the list be split out into its own standalone list ("Fossil content of the Kota Formation") and that it be summarised at Kota Formation per WP:SS. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:42, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

The color key stands out as a MOS:ACCESS issue, but that's not a GACR issue. On the question of the large tables, I do not believe detailed fossil information as prose makes sense. The large tables are sequestered towards the end of the article (sort of like an Annex), which seems appropriate for such heavily detailed information that may be of interest to the dedicated reader but is not needed for the overall summary. However, there is no reason to only present such information in a table; the inclusion of a table should not preclude a prose summary or overview of the fossil content of the formation, the implications of any more significant finds, etc. This seems to be lacking in the current article, which gives me a similar feeling to yours that the article structure more closely resembles a SAL. CMD (talk) 01:40, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

What the good article criteria are not

When I first starting reviewing, I found the Misplaced Pages:What the Good article criteria are not essay by WhatamIdoing to be really helpful in teaching me how to review and how not to review. But now having nominated a few dozen good articles myself, I've found that many reviewers–probably more than half–make several of the "mistakes to avoid" in a given review. The most common is the one highlighted on that page in bright yellow. Besides the fact that this allows reviewers to enforce their personal preferences, this is one of the things that makes GA a heavier and more demanding process than it needs to be. I say it would be beneficial to make this essay more visible and to keep it more actively maintained. It might also be a good place to describe standard practice on copyediting during GA: how much is necessary, and when it's more efficient for the reviewer versus the nominator to do it. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 07:43, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't know that GACRNOT has full agreement. (I don't know that the guideline it explicitly contradicts in parts does either. That's GACR interpretation for you.) I find Renaming GA to something like Misplaced Pages:Articles that, in the opinion of a single human, meet six specific criteria, which suggests they are probably better than most articles but you wouldn't necessarily want to call them 'good' because there is definitely room for improvement, especially since they're not required to comply with all of the policies and guidelines, some of which are obviously important might give editors a clearer idea of what the process is really supposed to achieve way, way lower-reading than I'm comfortable with, and that's the GACR reading it's written from. There's probably a gap for an RGA supplementary-essay that incorporates the clear-cut-common-mistakes in GACRNOT.

On the references thing: this is something I think about a lot, because of just how common the perception is that GACR asks for something "higher than not-a-bare-ref". There's a tricky balance here between not violating CITEVAR and having...understandable references. Technically GACR doesn't require that refs have dates of any kind, but "bare refs don't have dates of any kind" is the exact reason they're discouraged. I saw "does GACR require ref dates?" come up very recently, so this isn't a hypothetical, and either answer feels unsatisfying (it "technically doesn't", but if it doesn't, why do we prohibit bare refs?). Vaticidalprophet 08:03, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

References

1. WhatamIdoing (8 August 2023). "Misplaced Pages:Good article reassessment/Osteopathic medicine in the United States/1". Misplaced Pages. Retrieved 20 August 2023.

What we really need is, similar to what's just been done at DYK, a reorganisation of these diverging and often-contradictory guidelines (WP:GACR, WP:GANI, WP:RGA, WP:GACRNOT). GACRNOT is out of date, RGA is looked at nowhere near as much as it should be, GANI is a structural and organisational mess, and GACR is superficially fine but is a little wonky underneath. Until someone finds the time to draft a reorganisation, we'll continue having this discussion every six months. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:44, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

I was being rather vocal about this exact suggestion a few months ago. There wasn't much interest in doing the legwork, so I tried to figure it out myself. User:Thebiguglyalien/Good article reviewing guide is my progress in that area. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 15:28, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

I think it's worth noting that some reviewers (myself included) would review an article and give you lots of things to benefit the article. Not everything I mention will be to do with the GA criteria, but they should (hopefully) improve the article. Once the nominator has looked at all my points, I would then judge to see if it meets the GA criteria. For instance, reforder is not part of the criteria (and we've even had a long discussion about it not being a barrier for any reason), but I don't see a reason not to mention it if you see it (and also care about these things). If someone said "ah, I see it's wrong, but it's not part of the criteria", I would agree and not require the change. Personally, my opinion of the "no-bare refs" argument is that if it's a website, you can run one script to fix it. If it's another type, (say a deadlink, or a badly written book/newspaper ref), I'd want to be able to read it. I don't consider it to be a big deal as it's usually very fixable with minimum fuss. Lee Vilenski 14:36, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

In my experience, noms (especially inexperienced noms) assume that everything you put in the review is required for GA status. Or, more precisely, is required to for you personally to accept the article as GA. Noms often experience a review rather like being stopped by a police officer. If the officer says "Please take one baby step forward", very few of us feel like saying "Actually, I have a legal right to stay where I am."

The common problems seem to run in waves (e.g., bare URLs, extra MOS pages, citation formatting, minimum number of refs...). The overall trend, however, is that reviewers exceed the requirements. If you want to know more why we created that page, then Geometry guy could also give you some of the history. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:43, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

This is what I thought as well. There's definitely a power imbalance aspect, even if it's over something trivial. This is why I always specify in reviews if something is "just a suggestion", "a personal preference", "not part of the GA criteria", etc. Even my usual requests are often phrased in a way that puts it to the nominator whether they think it's a good idea or not; GA should be a collaboration when possible. And on the other side, when I'm the nominator, I absolutely feel an implicit pressure to go along with what the reviewer said, even if I'll grumble to myself while running whatever non-GA errand they sent me on. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:56, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

I ran into a lot of trouble with trying to get History of penicillin through GA. I thought the article was fine, but eventually had to abandon the article completely. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:37, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

If I were in your shoes, I'd have told the reviewer flat-out that I thought they should back down a little. Have you considered returning to the review? It's been a month. Mackensen (talk) 21:56, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Wow, that reviewer has started 30 reviews during the nine months since creating their account.

Some reviewers find that the FA or PR processes are more to their taste. Misplaced Pages:Peer review, in particular, does not have any criteria, so you can provide feedback according to what you think is important. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:33, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Please do not let GAR becone anything like the opaque, unfathomable DYK process. Billsmith60 (talk) 18:51, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

There's clearly a balance to be done between making a review difficult to follow, and one that is a straight reflection of what is on the article with no means to improve it. I get that there is a power imbalance, but if something improves the article, there is rarely a need to not do it. The issues come up when something is debateable if it improves the value of the article. Lee Vilenski 11:17, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Fair enough, but I think it's good practice to prefix non-GACR comments with "not necessary for GA" or something like that. As well as making it clear the nominators doesn't have to address it, it also helps new nominators learn what is and isn't required for GA. I would bet that some reviewers who ask for e.g. ref formatting do so because they were asked to do that in GA reviews. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:43, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

My allusion to ref formatting is this: quality assessment criteria are not written in stone. If we have a constant phenomenon throughout basically the concept's entire history of the absolute majority of reviewers believing ref formatting of some kind is in GACR, then it is -- just de facto rather than de jure. The categories were made for man, not man for the categories, and if practice is very unlike the written GACR document, then that implies the document should be moved towards practice. (Extrapolate this across thousands of PAG disputes all across the project.)

Ref formatting specifically is a mess for this, because you very quickly run into CITEVAR, which for all its status as "probably the single most IARed major non-MOS PAG" (how often do you go out of your way to make sure you're reproducing the existing citation style when rewriting from scratch a stub no one else has cared about since 2009?) is still vitally important in a system with several major competing styles and literally thousands of minor ones. Nonetheless, there are still meaningful questions. I refer back to the ref dates issue -- if we don't require ref dates, why don't we permit bare URLs? Bare URLs aren't discouraged because Policy Sez, they're discouraged because they're hard to fix in case of linkrot -- access dates are the one missing element that actually makes this hard, because you can't plug the link into IA and know immediately what the last guy was looking at. Vaticidalprophet 13:59, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

At the top of the guideline in which CITEVAR lives, it says While you should try to write citations correctly, what matters most is that you provide enough information to identify the source. Others will improve the formatting if needed. There is, therefore, according to that guideline, no requirement that you always match the citation style yourself.

Also, it may be helpful to know that back in the day, when we talked about a consistent citation style, we meant that you shouldn't have half the article using little blue clicky numbers and the other half using the now-deprecated parenthetical citations. GACR has never required consistency beyond that, and every past attempt to apply the FA standard has been rejected.

Speaking of which, the FA standard is that they never actually reject an article over citation formatting. If that's the only remaining problem with an article at FAC, someone will just fix the citation formatting. FA rejections over sources are because the books and articles are bad, not because the citation has a comma in the wrong place. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:08, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

No one archives FACs because the refs aren't All Standardized To Title Case...though I honestly think they would be archived if I pointed out "no, I think this bit of MOS is absurd and I'm not going to do it" and dug my heels in, which is why I don't dig my heels in and dutifully standardize all refs to title case during or prior to FAC. (I think that bit of MOS is absurd, and I think the GACR-FACR gap on source formatting leaves GA writers coming to FAC for the first time underprepared. This is not necessarily all on GAN.) There's a pretty large chunk of FAC that I think amounts to "a lot of people think this is absurd, but no one wants to fail their FAC solely because they didn't do it". I think this is a bigger matter at FAC than GAN, because the single-reviewer structure of GAN gives less of an 'onslaught' impression and more of a 'level playing field' one, and because FAC's reputation precedes it. I strongly disagree that 'FAC rejects this source' is a synonym for 'this source is bad', but that's another matter for another place.

I've read probably low double digits of the currently-29 WT:GAN archives, though obviously large chunks of that in the earlier ones are skimming or clicking to the interesting bits of the TOC. Still working through, though. Vaticidalprophet 20:41, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

There's more fun to be found on other pages. I think that this link is the earliest version of what became CITEVAR in 2011. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:53, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

"Highest priority"

How are the highest priority unreviewed good article nominations decided on? I just noticed that banded palm civet, which I just nominated today, is listed there. Edward-Woodrow :) 22:32, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

It's there to make sure that editors who are new to GA get their article reviewed quickly. The wait time can be arduous, and the idea is that first-time nominators shouldn't be subjected to that. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:35, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Your review ratio is infinity, because you have one review and zero approved nominations. That's why you jumped into the priority list. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 23:05, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Requirement for Minimum Sources

So, I was browsing the The backlog drive when I noticed Machines (Nier: Automata). Upon giving it a cursory look, there are only 5 sources for the article. Barring the obvious 3a criteria issue that this may entail (I haven't actually looked this deep yet), is there any policy or MOS that forbids a GA from having so few sources? I've seen GAs pass with 8-9 sources, but 5 seems like too few. Not looking for any change to the criteria, just wondering if there's anything more concrete. 🏵️Etrius ( Us) 01:35, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

There is no policy that dictates the number of sources a GA (or any other article) must use. If five in-depth reliable sources are all that exist, and that is enough to provide broad coverage of the topic, then that is sufficient for GA (it may even be sufficient for FA, if the article is written comprehensively). ♠PMC♠ (talk) 01:59, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

@Premeditated Chaos Thanks. 🏵️Etrius ( Us) 02:02, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

In principle an article cited to one source would be acceptable -- one source isn't usually going to be enough to establish GNG, but the existence of other sources doesn't require that they be used. I don't think I've ever seen a case like that but I don't think it would be a valid fail if one showed up. Of course it's quite likely that some other criterion -- probably broad coverage -- would then be an issue, in practice. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:12, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

As stated previously, the minimum source is one source. Multiple sources are preferred for SIGCOV but not required if a source is in-depth enough to fully detail its subject matter with sufficiently broad coverage (i.e. a book solely about the subject by a third party). A high amount of sources often doesn't imply depth of coverage so much as giving the surface-level appearance of deep coverage, so quality is valued over quantity. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 08:27, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

@Etriusus, Premeditated Chaos, Mike Christie, and Zxcvbnm:, see the above section #GAN and articles with few sources and this ongoing reassessment. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk)

GAN appeal

Ronherry nominated the article Midnights for GAN, and it passed with a cursory review from Tantomile, who simply added the template and checked all the boxes with no comments. Whether this article satisfies GA criteria needs a closer examination and I want to appeal this GAN, but I'm unsure of the procedure. Could anyone help? Ippantekina (talk) 04:48, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Have you tried speaking to Tantomile about your concerns? ♠PMC♠ (talk) 05:08, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

AT a very minimum there are ref errors that should be fixed... (t · c) buidhe 05:24, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

@Ippantekina, while quick passes aren't really a thing anymore, I guess there technically isn't anything with GA rules stopping someone as long as they're claiming they gave the review a thorough look-through. Do you see an issue with the page? Giving it a quick glance myself I'm not particularly thrilled about the use of Twitter to cite Note 7. The See Also section is very clogged as well. 🏵️Etrius ( Us) 05:30, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Technically we do want evidence of spotchecking, which helps prevent broad claims like "all information backed up by sources". However, this review does pass our don't-just-checklist bar. It is worth considering if the issues here merit a full GAR/rereview, or if they can be noted on the talkpage as items to improve. CMD (talk) 05:56, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

I'd like to hear from @Tantomile: regarding their process with this GAN, to see if it was a deliberate process and not a just-checklist one. From there we might open a GAR or a Peer review if needed. Ippantekina (talk) 07:53, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

You've now pinged them here twice within the span of about 3 hours. I'm sure they'll respond when they get a chance, but please, if you find yourself in this situation again, try discussing it with the user first before bringing it to a very public noticeboard.

PR would not be an appropriate place to determine if an article meets GACR; it is simply a place to seek feedback and has nothing to do with the GA process. GAR is only necessary if you believe the article does not actually meet the GACR. Is that the case here? ♠PMC♠ (talk) 08:06, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Hi All, sorry about this. I'm reasonably new to GAN, but have been trying to participate here lately. I'm sorry if the process seems like i grabbed the template and said "pass" on everything, but i do want to assure you that there was a deliberate process. I read through that article and did not notice any issues with it. It appeared that most areas were cited, and i used Misplaced Pages:Checklinks to verify that all the links were working, and manually verified ones that the appeared to have a connection issue to ensure they were functional. I reviewed the media used to ensure that it was tagged with appropriate licensing, and if it was non-free that it's use was justifiable. It had sufficient background/other relevant information, appeared to not be biased, and all in all appeared to be a good, readable article. Reading over my own review now, i do see that I probably should've added stronger notes, but I'd still stand by my assessment. I now notice some small ref issues (namely 112, 324, & 350) that escaped me the other day, and I'll try to fix those in a few minutes. I'll definitely work to improve my process for reviewing GA nominations in the future, and you are more then welcome to head over to Misplaced Pages:Good article reassessment and request a re-review of that article if you so please. Sorry this happened, and I hope we can clear this up. Tantomile (talk) 16:14, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Hi Tantomile, thanks for this further information, and of course for the review. I did find your note on the media licensing to be insightful evidence of investigation (albeit a quite succinct one), and likely an indicator of the overall process. When you manually verify some sources, please give those a brief direct mention in your next review; it really helps others to understand the review process. Best, CMD (talk) 17:35, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Tantomile, I hope you keep these things in mind for future GANs. The article appears fine for GA criteria though, so I don't see a GAR necessary. Ippantekina (talk) 04:19, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

I will add that the first time I reviewed an article, I deliberately chose one that already looked perfect, nominated by an editor who knew the requirements extremely well. It was a good way to get started. I probably would not have continued if someone had complained about it being just a "cursory review" with no evidence that the outcome was even possibly wrong. At the time, I suspect that everyone who saw it was familiar with the nom's standard of work and therefore had no doubts that the article exceeded the Misplaced Pages:Good article criteria, but we also had more of a Misplaced Pages:Product, process, policy idea back in the day. The goal isn't a bunch of bureaucratic make-work to prove that you did the work. The goal is to get the correct end result. "Show every step in your work, kids" is for math teachers, not for adults on Misplaced Pages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:42, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Well said, WAID. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 00:58, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Thank you WhatamIdoing, and i can totally relate to what you're saying. Most of my edits here are done on random articles that i have some loose level of knowledge about, and with Midnights, i felt that i knew enough about the topic that i could assess it. I went through the GA criteria, and when i felt that the article was in compliance with something, i just said it passed that requirement, rather then give a whole write-up on why. As to judging an editor by their reputation, when i started the review, i glanced over Ronherry's profile (nominator & author of ~35% of content in the article), and felt that they were someone who could definitely write a article in this area (nearly 30,000 edits over 8 years, many to pages related to Swift, with over 1,100 edits to the article in question), so i felt like they knew what they were doing.

To everyone else, Maybe i did jump to conclusions faster then i should have here, and i definitely should've taken more notes, but all in all, i still stand by my result. I've only ever reviewed a few (maybe like 3?) articles for GA status, and i'm still trying to figure out the best way to do it. I'm definitely going to have to make changes to my process if i continue to help out here at GAN. I hate that this review had to end like this, but i'm glad we were able to have this conversation. Ippantekina, thanks for bringing this to my attention so i can fix it in the future. PMC and CMD, thank you so much for your levelheaded approaches to resolving this, rather then completely scrapping the review and starting from scratch. WhatamIdoing, thank you for popping in, sharing your point of view, and reminding people not to bite.

Thank you all so much, and i'm sorry this had to happen. if anyone has anything else, please feel free to tag me, leave a message on my talk page, or send me an email.

wishing you all the best, tantomile Tantomile (talk) 07:14, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

And thank you for the patience and the explanations!

I've seen similar discussions happen a few times on this page. I wonder if this kind of concern could be better handled using the "GA mentor" list. Like instead of commenting here regarding a review, we could reach out to a mentor on the list to see if they would discuss the review with the reviewer 1-on-1. And maybe even close this discussion here with {{Archive top}}? Rjjiii (talk) 15:30, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Running the drive, I've generally politely queried new reviewers if their review looks very sparse on their talk pages to double-check that they spotchecked et al. These reviewers generally come back to review more. There may be a lesson here. Vaticidalprophet 15:36, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

I think that sounds like a better method for handling this. i did not know that a GA mentor list even fexexisted until now, and i think this process could be made more visible (I see a suggestion over on the proposal drive, Misplaced Pages:Good_Article_proposal_drive_2023#Proposal_5:_Make_the_mentorship_program_more_visible, so i do hope that is implemented at some point in the near future.) As to closing this discussion, i'm 100% ok with that, although i'm hesitant to do it myself, since i was kind of called here to explain myself, and don't want to give the impression that i'm shutting down the complaint against me. Tantomile (talk) 18:02, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Input on Islam

I've recently (almost) completed a review of Islam, and I'm leaning towards promoting, but I'd like another set of eyes on it from an experienced reviewer before making a decision either way, given the size/importance of the article and my relative inexperience with the process. This second opinion won't need to be anything very in-depth, just a look at the assessments of the sources and a comment on whether the article's sourcing is GA-quality. Thanks in advance! AviationFreak💬 19:16, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Happy to do this, will make a comment on the review page. —Ganesha811 (talk) 22:39, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

RfC: Change wording of last Immediate failure in the GA Criteria

I propose the Immediate failure reason #5 have its wording changed from

A reviewer who has not previously reviewed the article determines that any issues from previous GA nominations have not been adequately considered

to

it has issues noted in a previous GA review that still have not been adequately addressed, as determined by a reviewer who has not previously reviewed the article

because it is poor grammar the way it stands. The other bullet points correctly continue the sentence from the opening, with phrases beginning with the word "it" (meaning the article): "if, prior to the review, it is a long way from meeting criteria" or "if, prior to the review, it contains copyright violations". But #5 stands apart from the others, not continuing the sentence from the opening. This simple wording change will fix it. 21:07, 22 August 2023 (UTC) Prhartcom (talk) 21:07, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Although I think the proposed wording is clearer, I don't think we need a RfC for this. (t · c) buidhe 21:20, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, Buidhe, I agree; this good-faith wording change would normally just be a quick c/e. Then may I ask, is the community in agreement to ask a template editor to make this change immediately? Prhartcom (talk) 21:41, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Sure, why not? The proposed wording is clearly an improvement over the current one. — Golden 22:32, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm fine with either wording, so consider this a "sure, why not" from me. If we're editing the QF criteria, I'd say that there are a few which could use more attention than this one. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:13, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

I think the procedure is to add a change request to Misplaced Pages:Requested templates. I'll go ahead and take care of that and refer here. Thanks all. Prhartcom (talk) 00:15, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Implemented, with "It has" rather than "it has", to conform to the case used in the other bullets in that list. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:07, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Neutrality concerns (Billy Strachan)

I am currently reviewing the article Billy Strachan which has been nominated by The History Wizard of Cambridge. I hadn't really looked at the sourcing side of the article yet because I tend to do that towards the end of my reviews. The nominator has recently been the subject of this discussion on the administrators noticeboard about the neutrality of their editing. I have now been told that some of the main sources in the article are non-neutral. It would be helpful to have some advice on what to do here. Llewee (talk) 11:01, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

See also Talk:David Ivon Jones/GA1, and I have lodged source-to-text integrity and paraphrasing/copyvio concerns also at Talk:Billy Strachan. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:03, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Additionally, Trevor Carter will need a GAR if the issues aren't corrected (POV as well as the same sourcing issues and puffery). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:05, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

And see also the FAC for Strachan where many of the sources were deemed unreliable. Hog Farm _Talk 15:55, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

And see the ANI for BLP vios now as well. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:01, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

I've learned to always do the source checks first. If there's something that isn't immediately apparent but can bring the review to a halt, it's almost certainly going to be found there. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:30, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

If only that had happened at most of WP:DCGAR, where AGF took over after a certain number of GAs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:09, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, got to say the best (in terms of learning for me) GA review I had was my first. I'm not saying that the others were bad - they were good also - it's just that having a microscope run over your sources and how you used them was a really useful experience that wasn't repeated to the same degree in the subsequent GA reviews. Hopefully that's because my use of sourcing was better in the latter articles! FOARP (talk) 08:04, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

This is something I've given a lot of thought to the last few weeks, having reviewed ~30 articles for the drive. I've both learned and taught a lot about Misplaced Pages best practices through the GAN and FAC processes. I've started to make a point of going into a little more detail when explaining corrections if the nominator has no previous GAs. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:24, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

@FOARP and Thebiguglyalien: FYI,

• January 2021.
• Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive297#The_History_Wizard_of_Cambridge
• July 22, 2023, Ruchell Cinque Magee
• August 2023 ANI

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:28, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

ChristieBot on WP:GAN

Just noticed ChristieBot stopped updating WP:GAN. Any reason why? Pinging Mike Christie. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 21:28, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Looks like it's upset about the GA nomination for coronary artery bypass surgery. I see from the talk page history that the nomination template had to be repaired; I'll have a look and see if that's causing it to crash. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:43, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, I tried to reset the nom and remove the error from WP:GAN. No luck yet. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 21:56, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

I think removing the nom would probably fix it, and I suspect the signature is causing the problem, but let's leave it for a few minutes so I can debug it. I'd rather find out what it is in the signature that is causing the problem so I can avoid future crashes. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:59, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Fixed. There was a bug that would only show up if the page parameter in the nomination template was before the nominator parameter, which only happens if the template is manually constructed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:45, 24 August 2023 (UTC)