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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 471 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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• WT:GAN

Is the GA bot ignoring me?

Ever since my review of Saitō Hajime (Rurouni Kenshin), the GA bot has neglected to add that review to my review count. When I started to review Itachi Uchiha, the GA bot hasn't edited on that article once and my review count is still at four. The GA bot is pretty active though, and Carolina Panthers' review ended later than mine yet the bot was able to tag it. Did I make a mistake somewhere? DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 23:11, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

I had the same issue when I reviewed The Road Not Taken. I never found out exactly why my review wasn't counted but my guess was that when the bot was updating the GA nominations page, my pass of the article was marked as "Maintenance" in the edit summary, instead of being marked as "Passed The Road Not Taken". I don't know if the bot's edit summary makes a difference in a user's review count, but this was the only explanation I could come up with. //Gbern3 (talk) 17:55, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I'll try reviewing another article to see if the GA bot will react. Its been two reviews since the bot did anything for me. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 02:41, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Reviewed Vincent Valentine. Bot didn't transclude review, update my count, or put up the GA icon. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 09:33, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

There are two points to cover here. Firstly, the GA bot count does not appear to be based on completed reviews, its based on the number of review pages (/GAx) created. So if I were to create a review page, e.g. Talk:Foo/GA1, my count would either be set to one or would be increased by one. Passing or failing a nomination does not effect the review count. Secondly, I've also had those problems with "passes" quite a few times and I think I've discovered the reason. The instructions on how to pass a article are quite specific: an article under review has a GA "string", say such as "''{{GA nominee|19:19, 26 April 2013 (UTC)|nominator=] (])|page=1|subtopic=Biology and medicine|status=onreview|note=}}''", note the Page No. comes before the Subtopic. However, to pass an article, the GA "string" has to be partially reversed to {{GA|~~~~~|topic=|page=}} . It seems that if the article is "passed" by setting {{GA|~~~~~|page=|topic=}} the GA bot ignores it as a "pass" and just does the "maintenance mode" operation described above. Pyrotec (talk) 16:23, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Oh, but I did create the review pages and I ordered the GA pass like the first example. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 22:32, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Same here. I reversed the string to pass it and I also created the /GA1 page, so if the count is based on page creation then my count should have gone up. //Gbern3 (talk) 08:47, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

What happens if I try to edit User:GA bot/Stats? I should be at 7 or 8 now. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 02:34, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I did that once, since GA Bot also ignores me, then had everything end up double counted when the bot later went back and added everything up. Resolute 03:15, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, you should be able to update it manually. How long ago did that happen? I did a manual run through awhile ago to try and correct some of the counts, so that might have been what caused it. --Chris 11:25, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Good to know there is a workaround. I just manually updated it to fix both my and DragonZero's count. //Gbern3 (talk) 19:30, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

The problem here is that you are changing the status to onhold before GA bot has a chance to do anything. GA bot only updates your count if it also changes the status from new to onreview. Once the status is onhold or onreview GA bot doesn't update your count, so that it doesn't update twice for the same review. So if you wait for GA bot to change the status to onreview, it should update the review count. Sorry, it's a known bug, but it requires quite a bit of restructuring to fix and I simply haven't had the time to do that yet. --Chris 11:25, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Oh Thanks! I always thought I had to change the status myself after creating the review page. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 05:48, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Donghak Peasant Revolution

Why is this article not on the nominees list, when it's been nominated since April 16?--Seonookim (What I've done so far) (I'm busy here) (Tell me your requests) 07:00, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Could be because the template was within another template. I've changed that. If the bot doesn't pick it up, try removing the template and then adding it back. J Milburn (talk) 10:48, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Talk:New York State Route 167/GA1

The review of Talk:New York State Route 167/GA1 has stalled and I do not feel I am able to reach a consensus with the nominator and complete the review. I request that another reviewer takes this one over. Thanks, SpinningSpark 22:23, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Where are links for reviews?

I can't find link to page where reviews are going on. I mean, not only for the article nominated by me but for any article appearing on nomination page. It just says 'start review' and take me to blank page. I am completely unaware of GA procedure. neo (talk) 19:34, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

The page is blank until a reviewer starts work on the article; this can take anywhere from a few days to a few months. -- Khazar2 (talk) 20:10, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I hope review of Palak Muchhal starts in a week. I may not be on net or much active after 31 May for 3-4 months. Thanks! neo (talk) 08:41, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

If you won't be here between that time, go to the articles talk page, and edit the "|note=" parameter in the GA nomination template and say that you (as the nominator) may not be able to respond to a review for a certain amount of time. Also, you should contact another editor that may be willing to address any issues if a review is initiated during the time that you will be away.--Dom497 (talk) 13:44, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

I will do it when I am sure about my absence. And I hope that review starts soon. This is my first GA nomination. Hope to learn from mistakes (if any) in article. Thanks. neo (talk) 14:07, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

A Deleted Nomination

One of my students created an article, Haynes Academy, nominated it for GA on April 8, then, after waiting for a couple weeks a would-be reviewer simply deleted the nomination on the talk page without creating /GA1, without further information on the talk page, and without leaving the nominator/contributor a message on his/her user page. This strikes me as counter-productive newbie-biting and can't imagine it fits in with GAN procedure. ...But I'm not sure. I plan to talk to the editor directly, but do not feel experienced enough with the review processes to know that this is entirely irregular, so I'm checking here first.

For context, I'm teaching a class in which students create articles and work to bring them up to GA status. In addition to the course project, students were offered extra credit for creating another article on their own time according to the same standards. Unlike the primary assignments, I did not keep tabs on or spend time in class on individuals' extra credit and, as it turns out, didn't even know about some of them until the last days of the semester. It's too late now to resolve this. It would seem the student gave up upon removal of the GAN without feedback on what to do next. --RM395 (talk) 17:55, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I'm not inquiring as to why it doesn't meet the criteria. I don't doubt there are many issues, but it would've been nice to have at least a quickfail explanation to go by.--RM395 (talk) 17:56, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree that this seems both against policy and counterproductive. Quickfails should have at least a few sentences of explanation, and should be archived on a GA subpage for future reference. Let me ping the editor in question for comment. -- Khazar2 (talk) 17:58, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, User:Grammarxxx should have informed nominator why article fails GAN. It is blunt to simply remove GAN from talk page. neo (talk) 18:16, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

The reasoning behind my nomination removal was that, like another article the user nominated, had many of the same issues. Instead of initiating the review and quickfailing it I was hopeful the user would just look at the review of the other article and learn from it. I didn't think it would be such an issue, as it's been done to me before. Grammarxxx 18:39, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

I've reinstated the nomination. Hopefully someone can provide an actual review with pointers of where the article needs to be improved. As far as I can see, problems with the article should not be dealt with like this- only procedural issues (such as a withdrawn nomination, withdrawing a bad faith nomination or a regular contributor reverting an over-enthusiastic drive-by nomination) would justify removing the nomination outright. J Milburn (talk) 18:41, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Sorry to hear it's been done to you, Grammarxxx--it's definitely not standard practice, and you should feel free to renominate the article in question so that it can get an actual review (even if a quickfail). You can see instructions for how to fail an article at WP:GAN/I. I'd recommend that even if an article has identical problems to those you pointed out in another review, you should still either note what those problems were or link to the other review, so that other editors interested in the article in the future will have a record that the article was nominated before and your suggestions for it; otherwise, it's hard for other editors to keep track of what's happening. Thanks for reviewing. -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:47, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Stalled review

After my GAN for Confusion (album) was picked up on May 1 by Idiotchalk, the reviewer said at the review page that they would do it over the next two days. I left a message at their talk page on May 16 asking about the delay. Should I ask renominate the article? Dan56 (talk) 22:26, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Review shopping

At Talk:Maria Sharapova/GA5, I failed the article largely for extensive violation of WP:IC. The nominator contests whether that page is sufficient violation of WP:WIAGA for failure, noting that a general reference at the bottom of the article is a citation for every paragraph. I reminded him that IC begins by saying " Many Misplaced Pages articles contain inline citations: they are required for Featured Articles, Good Articles, and A-Class Articles." I offered a WP:GAR discussion. Instead the nominator promptly renominated the article without fixing the problem.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 23:36, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, if the primary rationale for the fail was " At a minimum, each paragraph needs a citation and each fact should be cited", I support the renomination. The GA criteria are quite explicit that only some statements need inline citations, while WP:IC is not a GA criteria. This is listed as a common mistake at WP:GACN, the explanatory essay linked from the GA criteria. Is it possible to offer a criteria-based rationale for your failing this one? That might help clear up the situation. -- Khazar2 (talk) 00:47, 22 May 2013 (UTC)