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This is the discussion page for good article nominations (GAN) and the good articles process in general. 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 the link to the FAQ above 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.

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

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Inactive reviews

I was checking inactive reviews due to the backlog drive coming up, and I saw the following:

• Talk:Sleeping Beauty (1959 film)/GA3: I think the reviewer said they are fine with a second reviewer, but haven't marked it as such. Plus the nom has been inactive for 24 days.

  Relisted.

• Talk:Jonna Adlerteg/GA1: The reviewer has been inactive for more than a month, but it does look almost finished, so maybe it should be marked as needing a second opinion?

  Luckily this review seems substantially complete, unlike a couple of others from the same reviewer, and the reviewer seemed broadly positive on it. If there are no objections, this one might take a light lookover and pass.

• Talk:IMac (Apple silicon)/GA1: Have had no review despite being open for more than 3 months

  Relisted.

• Talk:Andhra Pradesh/GA3: Also have had no review even after being open for three months

  Reviewer has not edited since the ping three days ago, giving this one a bit more time.

  Reviewer has returned.

• Talk:Amos Yee/GA1: The reviewer barely started and have been inactive for more than a month

  Relisted.

• Talk:Mating of yeast/GA2: Had no edits for a month, then had a week of reviewing, and then again has no edits for a month

  A bit more of a confusing one, probably should be relisted, but I've dropped a note on the reviewer talkpage.

  Reviewer has not replied despite editing again, relisted.

• Talk:June/GA2: The reviewer had filled out a review template, but has said nothing, or failed it (as they marked in the template), maybe they are inexperienced

  Opened just this month, dropped a note on the user talkpage.

  Reset.

• Talk:Yang Youlin/GA1: New reviewer did not review, just marked it GA on the talk page, and has not been editing for two weeks (after having not edited for 3.5 months)

  This one is a bit weird, usually I'd wait longer given the review just opened, but, given the talkpage action, the lack of activity in general, and the upcoming drive, not opposed to relisting sooner.

  Failed.

Can something be done about these- either marked as needing another reviewer, or reset, as seems best? DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 07:11, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for checking all this. I've relisted three obvious cases in line with my understanding of our precedents, other comments above. CMD (talk) 08:01, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. There are even more GANRs similar to the above, but they were all started around less than a month ago, so I only mentioned the most egregious ones. Might do a similar check around the middle of next month. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 08:08, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer came back for Andhra Pradesh, I'm going to try and second opinion Jonna Adlerteg. This is the second time Mating of yeast has been relisted, which is a bit of a shame. Otherwise the rest are handled. CMD (talk) 16:18, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

• Should Talk:Selected Ambient Works Volume II/GA2 be released? How long does a reviewer need to ghost before it goes back on the queue? czar 19:53, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

  Yeah, that should be bounced. They were barely active before, haven't edited since creating the review page except to reply and say they'd review, and haven't responded to your ping at the review page. I've done it. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 21:09, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

Talk:Crusading_movement/GA5

In the context of the backlog drive this one could do with a little help to get over the line. It has been on the list since July 2024 and in review for a month now. Mea Culpa it used to have issues with overly close paraphrasing of sources but it should be sorted now. AirshipJungleman29 (talk · contribs) is doing a source check. IntentionallyDense (talk · contribs) did check in at Christmas and there was some objective points raised that are now all resolved. What would be really great is if another editor or editors could have a look and give additional feedback/comments. Norfolkbigfish (talk) 09:17, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

As I have said, the review is in progress. I am waiting to gain access to a couple of books. Of course, "Comments are welcome from any editor who has not nominated or contributed significantly to this article", especially with regard to source-text integrity. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:42, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

That's good to hear. Norfolkbigfish (talk) 12:50, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

My impression was that Airship had this review handled. An article of this size is bound to take awhile. IntentionallyDense 19:28, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Thank you @IntentionallyDense and apologies for my impatience @AirshipJungleman29. I shall sit on my hands for a while. Norfolkbigfish (talk) 16:16, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Taking into account that the nominator has failed to clear the article of close paraphrasing and copyvio during a series of reviews for more than four years, I think the reviewer's precaution is quite reasonable. Now, I do not want to refer to several cases of unverified claims and misinterpretations. If I were Norfolkbigfish, I would be extremly patient and grateful. Perhaps, they could meanwhile clean "their" other articles of close paraphrasing and copyvio. Borsoka (talk) 10:20, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Citation style in GAN

I haven't found an in-depth conversation about this so I'm going to be the one to ask. Is a consistent citation style required for GAN? I ask because MOS:LAYOUT requires it per "Editors may use any citation method they choose, but it should be consistent within an article." However footnote 3 on Misplaced Pages:Good article criteria says "Using consistent formatting or including every element of the bibliographic material is not required, although, in practice, enough information must be supplied so that the reviewer is able to identify the source.".

I always assumed that the actual criteria itself would outweigh the footnote but I'm not sure. I've never personally failed an article over inconsistent citation style, however I do bring it up or fix it myself when I see it. Is there situations where it would be appropriate to request people use a consistent citation style? Welcoming anyone more experienced than me here. IntentionallyDense 17:48, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

I haven't got more expirence than you but will provide my opinion regardless. The way I see it is that: an article should use a conaistent formatting style, but it is not something that you should fail or hold up a GA nomination for. SSSB (talk) 17:51, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

The baseline for GAN as I understand it has always been that the footnotes provide sufficient information to accurately identify sources, for example urls needing access dates and long sources sometimes needing page numbers. I wouldn't look at the dotting i's and crossing t's though, that's more FA. CMD (talk) 18:00, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

That's totally fair. Would it be appropriate to bring up in a review regardless (as in "hey this is a minor issue"). IntentionallyDense 18:05, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

It is best practice to emphasise when reviewer suggestions are optional and not part of the GA criteria (but I sometimes forget to be explicit about it). —Kusma (talk) 18:08, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Yeah this makes sense and while I was under the impression that consistant citation style was needed (still unclear) I will take this approach moving forward. Thank you. IntentionallyDense 18:10, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Agree, GA should be a light-weight process. When you edit an existing article, it's very time consuming to get all the citations you keep in the same format without much benefit to our readers. The GA criteria should trump MOS:LAYOUT. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:37, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

IntentionallyDense, you say you're still unclear -- it's definitely the case that GA does not require a consistent citation style. Any mixture is fine at GAN. You're free to mention to the nominator that it would be beneficial to regularize the citations, but promotion should never be held up for it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:09, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying! To be clear I’ve never failed a nomination for it in the past but I have mentioned it before. I’ll make sure to mention it as optional from now on though! IntentionallyDense 22:52, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

no, a consistent citation style is not strictly required at GAN - it's required at FAC. as CMD said, it's really more about having citations that are clear and have enough information to identify the source. ... sawyer * he/they * talk 21:55, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Although the GA criteria require complying with MOS:LAYOUT, inconsistent but functional citations shouldn't be the sole reason to fail a GAN. However, you ask " there situations where it would be appropriate to request people use a consistent citation style?" – yes, in my opinion, if the inconsistency is so bad that it becomes difficult to verify content. For instance, if the inconsistency in ordering and formatting of citation elements (author, title, publisher; or various dates) leads to confusion about which is which. Toadspike 10:21, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

+1 ... sawyer * he/they * talk 19:33, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Talk:Stephen Curry/GA2

I do have concern over the article, especially the editor is only 3 months, they suspiciously reviewed thos big article and think the article is almost to be promoted when there are visible issues. 2001:4455:389:2700:68AF:4149:23D4:B384 (talk) 19:09, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Just to reiterate what I said on the review page, so other people get a balanced view- it's a good review, and it's on hold, not "near passing". If they read and understood the instructions properly, which they seem to have done, then there being new is not a big issue (also, politely- you are an ip? how do you know what a newer editor can or cannot do?). Nothing suspicious about reviewing big articles- they might like the topic or want more bonus points at the backlog drive or for whatever reason they like. And there are not "visible issues", the issues are actually quite small for an article of this size, and they seem to have mentioned most of them. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 19:30, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Frankly, this seems like a perfectly well-conducted review. The points you bring up aren't part of the GA criteria or are entirely up to personal taste. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 19:44, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

I think your definition of "spotchecking" is different from everyone else's. As a hint, WP:GANI states "a spot-check of a sample of the sources" (emphasis mine). ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:55, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

(remove the G in GANI, and that is where the IP should be sent to) 2601AC47 (talk·contribs·my rights) Isn't a IP anon 19:56, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

I'd also note that contra what the IP claims at Talk:Stephen Curry/GA2, the inclusion of citations in the lead is not a problem. WP:CITELEAD explicitly says that citations are not prohibited in the lead, and notes various cases in which citations in the lead may actively be desirable or even required. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:25, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes, everything seems to be in order in the review. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:00, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

Add co-nominator after review

Hello, I was wondering if any knew whether or not it is possible to add a co-nominator to a GA after the review has already begun. For reference, I was asked this in Talk:History of the National Hockey League (2017–present)/GA1. Thank you. Kimikel (talk) 16:13, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

Co-nominators have no recognition in the statistics, which only pay attention to the nominator named in the GAN template. Hence you can list co-nominators in the notes or the review itself, at any point, with no effect on the stats. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:20, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes, it's a great pity as recognition would help to encourage co-operation to improve articles to GA status, and represent GA effort better. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:57, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Cady Noland article - sources

Hi all! I nominated the article for Cady Noland back in October, I figure it'll still be a few weeks or months until it gets reviewed given its length and complexity. But I wanted to note that I'd be happy to share any of the sources used in the article that I still have access to or personal copies of (which I believe would qualify as fair use if sent 1:1 strictly for the purposes of reviewing/fact-checking/improving the article). Feel free to jump on my Talk page or flag it in the review if sharing anything would be helpful. I've never gone through the GA process before, so I want to get some experience with the reviewee side of it all before contributing with reviews myself. Hopefully after I have my footing there I can contribute more on the review side as well. Thanks in advance to anyone who is eventually able to review! 19h00s (talk) 22:48, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for holding onto sources, that may be helpful for the reviewer. Sorry the wait can be so long. CMD (talk) 02:27, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Tuvalu at the 2024 Summer Olympics

I would like to know if Arconning's GA review of Tuvalu at the 2024 Summer Olympics is valid. I think that it has the same scope as the Tuvalu at the 2020 Summer Olympics article and that's a GA. I was also told that there is unsourced info but I can't find any. If this is actually not passable, I accept that, but I just don't understand how other articles of the same scope are GAs but this was quick failed. History6042😊 (Contact me) 04:11, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't know if I would pass either Tuvalu at the 2020 Summer Olympics or the 2024 equivalent - I've noticed a trend where sometimes, when one article that's not really meeting broadness gets passed by a lax reviewer, folks look at it and assume that similar articles must hit the criteria. I think this is what has happened with a lot of Olympics articles; even these relatively minor countries' performances can be expanded quite a bit, as shown by the existence of much longer and more detailed GAs on such performances. I think for something that would otherwise be bordering on a stub, you really have to get as much detail as you can. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 05:16, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Also pinging Arconning since they were mentioned. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 05:16, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

So would you suggest me just adding as much details as possible if I want this at GA? History6042😊 (Contact me) 05:17, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Arconning is pretty seasoned in this respect, so I would look at stuff they've done to see what kind of details are looked for here. Liechtenstein at the 2024 Summer Olympics and Belize at the 2024 Summer Olympics are both GAs for countries that only competed in a single sport that Olympics, so that would be about a good as a guide as any. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 05:27, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Alright, thank you. History6042😊 (Contact me) 05:34, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

The review in question is Talk:Tuvalu at the 2024 Summer Olympics/GA1. CMD (talk) 05:18, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

To take the tangent elsewhere, Tuvalu at the Olympics is 412 words, and yet for some reason it has to have five extremely short sub-articles??? I mean, ten points in the "making wikipedia as reader-unfriendly as possible" contest, but 0 points in the common sense one. BRB, going to start a merge discussion. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:23, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Good Article visibility

I have raised a discussion at the village pump about the visibility of Good Article status on articles in general, and also when viewed on a mobile device, that may be of interest. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:22, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Headings

I had expected MOS:HEADINGS to state a preference toward easily understood headings over complicated technical headings. No such preference was stated. Am I missing something?-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 13:51, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

This subject is currently at issue in regards to Techtonic Setting vs Background at Talk:2020 Sparta earthquake/GA1-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 13:53, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Going to mention this at Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy).-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:31, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Depending on the context this could fall under the criterion 1a, being understandable to an appropriately broad audience. IntentionallyDense 00:51, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Thx.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 06:54, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Aggressive/adversarial reassessment campaigns

Hello all,

I don't usually call people out, but the user in question keeps saying that if we don't like it we bring it to the attention of this forum.

As some of you are perhaps aware, User:Z1720 nominates several articles a day for reassessment. The main goal of this campaign has strayed from something meant to improve an article, to a crusade intended to diminish the numbers of "unworthy" GA articles.

Being on the receiving end of "you need to do work within a week or this thing you feel good about gets taken away" is hurtful. GAR could be a collaborative process, but the way it's currently being carried out by Z1720 is an adversarial one meant to force you to do work immediately. I assume it makes Z1720 feel powerful to make all the little editors dance to their will with threats of delisting. The practice has been described by other editors as a GAR shakedown, which is something that describes perfectly how this process felt to me. I have also tried to describe it here. Ultimately I retired from Misplaced Pages as a result of how violating this whole process was. (This post being a brief return with no intention of staying)

These practices have also been questioned several times for overwhelming the process with too many nominations , as well as criticism of the delisting-as-a-first-resort crusade.

I would like to open a discussion on whether the focus of GAR should be to improve articles collaboratively or whether we should continue to allow an adversarial process meant to force work on an accelerated timeline.

Or perhaps the goal should be to nominate as many articles as possible with the goal of having them delisted when nobody can start working on all of them within a week. In that case, I suggest 100 articles a day to get it done faster. Downside is that you don't get to make editors dance as much.

Acebulf 05:42, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

The focus of GAR is to improve articles. If improvements are happening or are intended to happen, GARs can stay open for quite awhile. Some FARs have stayed open over a year, but I don't know of any GARs have hit that yet. Is there an example of a GAR where improvements were happening and/or scheduled that was still delisted within a week? CMD (talk) 05:53, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

From a quick sample, it appears that Z1720 first leaves a comment on the talkpage of the article identifying the most pressing reasons they feel it may no longer meet the Good Article criteria. Then if nobody replies on the talk page and no edits to fix anything have been made within a week or two, they will open a GAR.

@Acebulf: what would help here is if you can identify a (or ideally, multiple) GAR that was opened prematurely - i.e. while discussion was ongoing on the talkpage, or while active edits making substantial improvements to resolve GA criteria issues were happening. A GAR being opened does not mean an article will be delisted - as CMD has said, they can remain open for months if an editor/multiple editors have concrete plans to work on it within a reasonable timeframe. Alternatively, please identify where Z1720 has "rushed" editors who are actively planning to work on an article. It is not anyone's responsibility to wait forever - if you wish to "babysit" an article and ensure it remains a Good Article, it's your responsibility to monitor the talk page for concerns (whether by watchlist or otherwise) and respond to them in a timely manner. In other words, if the editor/editors want an article to remain a Good Article, they hold the responsibility of letting others know they're aware of issues and planning to fix them within a reasonable time. I for one maintain all the articles I've brought to GA status on my watchlist for this very reason - so that if any other editor brings up any concerns or possible improvements I'll be able to see them.

If you can't identify these examples, then I suggest you retract your statement as a whole... but especially things like "you need to do work within a week or this thing you feel good about gets taken away". Even though this obviously is not intended to be an exact quote, the implication of it (that Z1720 is trying to "power trip" or something) is quite uncivil, as is the statements about "mak editors dance" and similar. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 06:12, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Personally, I feel that the fact a significant amount of time is provided to save articles at GANR is a mercy given to editors as is. It's a noticeboard for articles which no longer meet the criteria; if there is community consensus that the article isn't reaching one of those points, then it shouldn't be listed. The reason time is provided to fix it is because not all editors are monitoring all of the past articles they have contributed to all the time, so giving them a heads up is a good idea.

But it's not like Z1720 is going through and sending all of a particular editor's articles to GANR at the same time, so it seems like it's not really their fault if no one volunteers to bring an article back up to quality over the weeks provided. Any interested editor can always take a former GA back to GAN if they feel they've resolved the issues; it's not really that big of a deal. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 06:28, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

And to Z1720; thank you for your work here! When I look at the list of GAs, I want to see a list of articles that meet our standards, not a list of quality articles mixed in with ones from 2009 that someone looked at once and thought was okay. Pouring over these and seeing what isn't cutting it anymore is pretty thankless, but very well appreciated by some of us. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 06:30, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

"I would like to open a discussion on whether the focus of GAR should be to improve articles collaboratively or whether we should continue to allow an adversarial process meant to force work on an accelerated timeline. "

The purpose of Misplaced Pages is to improve articles collaboratively. Every content process you can name "forces work on an accelerated timeline"—that is, if the article is to be improved. There is no responsibility to "need to do work within a week", just to engage with the process and you are given the time you need: to take a current example, Muboshgu has been working on one current GAR for almost a month now, and if they need more time, they can have it. If you are unaware of the history, the GAR process was largely near-inactive for several years, and was revamped in the 2023 proposal drive. As a result of the inactivity, there is a several-year-long backlog of articles, some of which were already sub-standard a decade ago.

In my experience, most of the "adversarial" behaviour comes from editors feel GA status being removed from an article is an attack on them, when in reality it is just maintaining of standards. Examples can be seen above, such as "I assume it makes Z1720 feel powerful to make all the little editors dance to their will with threats of delisting", which is, to be blunt, a far more "violating" comment than anything Z1720 has done. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:43, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Hey everyone, I woke up to a lot of pings in this discussion: I will need to take some time to thoroughly read through the above (and any additional comments left below). If helpful, I will give an extended response below: if there are any questions about my process, feel free to ask below. I am happy to read any comments on how to improve my review process, and less happy to read personal attacks. Thanks everyone, and happy editing! Z1720 (talk) 13:18, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't think any of this is intended to be adversarial or aggressive. I have disagreed with Z1720 about the urgency of taking certain articles to GAR (Misplaced Pages:Good article reassessment/Martha Hughes Cannon/1 being the prime one), but for the most part, these articles being taken to GAR are nowhere close to the modern standards. When Mark Kellogg (reporter) and Gettysburg Cyclorama were taken to GAR, I had to rewrite and resource large chunks of both of those. There's been GARs last for months if somebody's actively working on it. They send more articles to GAR at once than I would personally be able to keep track of, but I think they do a pretty good job of not having too many from a subject area open at one time. Hog Farm _Talk 14:11, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

GA is there to certify that an article meets specific minimum requirements of quality. If someone is trying to keep something listed as a good article when it doesn't meet those criteria, they're not just being unhelpful. They're being dishonest. If you want an article to be GA, then improve it so it meets the criteria. I thank Z1720 for doing the heavy lifting in correcting the status of these false GAs. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:02, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

+1 Acebulf could stand to assume better faith of Z1720 ... sawyer * he/they * talk 17:07, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

I largely agree with everyone else who has responded to this. I assume this thread was triggered by Talk:Algo Centre Mall#GA concerns, but Z1720's behaviour there looks fine to me. As a timeline:

• 13 October: Z1720 raises concerns on the talkpage
• 14 October: Acebulf responds, saying they have addressed some issues and will fix others; makes two edits.
• 26 October: Z1720 makes further comments and adds cn tags
• 12 November: after no further talkpage response or human edits to the article, Z1720 asks Acebulf if they are still working on the article

So after Acebulf responded to the initial talkpage post less than a day after it was made, Z1720 did not bring up the possibility of GAR for more than four whole weeks of no further improvements to the article, and when their {{cn}} tags had been unaddressed for more than two weeks. For Acebulf to characterise Z1720's attitude as you need to do work within a week or this thing you feel good about gets taken away without providing any of the context which would show what actually happens leaves a pretty unpleasant taste in my mouth. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 19:23, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Despite all the pushback here, I think Ace has a point. Not in the imagined intentions of the nominators, perhaps, but in the timing of some of their actions. To pick an example (one that has recently concluded, I think with the correct result): Misplaced Pages:Good article reassessment/Alfred North Whitehead/1 has just concluded with a delisting after nobody stepped up to fix the issues with the article. So far, appropriate. But if we look more carefully at the timing: the first hint of an impending GAR was made on December 23, two days before Christmas, the GAR itself was initiated on New Year's day, and it was closed on January 10. If I happened to be the sole editor who cared about improving that article, and happened to be traveling over the holidays and not checking my watchlist until I returned, I would be rightfully pissed off. That is too short and too inconvenient a timescale.

When we initiate Good Article nominations, we can choose when to do it and how many nominations to keep open at a time in order to balance our own personal workloads. When someone else chooses that a GAR must happen right now, it has the feeling of someone imposing unwanted work on us and demanding that we do it. I don't think this means that we should not have GARs, and I don't think there was an actual problem in the Whitehead GAR, but we might think about making the timelines of GARs a little less immediate. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:24, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

If this is an issue, it's an issue with GAR as a process and not Z1720. The WP:GAR instructions do not require any pre-review notice period – they say Consider raising issues at the talk page of the article or requesting assistance from major contributors and After at least one week, if the article's issues are unresolved and there are no objections to delisting, the discussion may be closed as delist. In the case of Alfred North Whitehead, issues were raised on the talkpage with no response for a week, and the review was open for more than a week. The GA nominator/primary contributor had not edited for nearly two years and they have made fewer than 100 edits in the past decade. I do not think that the timing of the GAR was the issue here. Sure, Z1720 could have chosen to wait until after the Christmas/New Year period to start the review (though it might in fact have turned out that someone who would have been interested in rescuing the article would have been free over Christmas but busy afterwards – Misplaced Pages is a multicultural project and we shouldn't assume that everyone celebrates the same holidays that most western Christians do!), but the actual review itself wasn't opened until New Year's Day and remained open for ten days into January. Editors definitely looked at the review because two commented – both to agree that the article was not at GA level. If two and a half weeks of nobody even registering any interest in improving the article is insufficient, how much time should GAR take? Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:08, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

(ec) I agree that Z1720 is blameless in this, and nominating GARs is a net benefit to the encyclopedia. I think David's point about time is reasonable, but as you say, it is the GAR process definition that would have to change if we want to allow more time. I think it would be harmless to require 30 days before delisting. Perhaps with an exception for unanimous consent of at least two editors in addition to the nominator for obvious cases? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:21, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Thirty days of open review time seems reasonable to me, with I hope in addition some attempt to bring attention to an impending GAR some time before it happens (as happened this time) to avoid the formal process when it can be avoided. In this case, I thought that 9 days of pre-warning coinciding with a major holiday period and 10 days of open GAR were too few. I don't think the outcome this time would have been different, but what's the rush? —David Eppstein (talk) 21:09, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

I think there should be an ability to close after less than 30 days if a clear consensus has formed. I don't see a reason why Misplaced Pages:Good article reassessment/Siege of Gythium/1 would have needed to be kept open for 30 days. Although that's a special case, as it was originally improperly awarded GA status by a since-blocked sock. Hog Farm _Talk 21:21, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

There are some reviews that may not need to be open for 30 days, but I think keeping all GARs open for a minimum period of 30 days is a net benefit. On the grand scheme of things, it does not matter whether an article that has been sub-GA standard for five years keeps the green plus for another month, but needlessly pissing off a good contributor by delisting their articles without giving them a chance to fix the issues matters and needs to be avoided. —Kusma (talk) 22:09, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

I will not say anything further, but I did raise concerns with Z1720 on his talk page about the quantity of reviews he was launching. Cremastra (u — c) 21:55, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Just chiming in, but it doesn't feel like you are assuming good faith here, Acebulf. I'm been very active in trying to write/review good articles, and while I've only ever opened a couple GARs myself, I think it's good that Z1720 is taking initiative to ensure that all articles listed as good articles are, in fact, good. Anonymous 20:20, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

We have to keep up the standard of GA articles, or it's pointless to have the status at all.

I'd argue that trying to get an article through GAR is both unrewarding, and quite resource heavy. Anyone actively looking out problematic articles should be celebrated. Any article that has a response with a "yeah, we can fix that soonish" and has someone working on it is unlikely to be demoted. Lee Vilenski 20:44, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Note: this was previously discussed here. 2601AC47 (talk·contribs·my rights) Isn't a IP anon 22:08, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

A very long response by Z1720

Hey everyone, I appreciate Acebulf initiating this conversation, even if I have a different perspective and would have used different phrasing. I like how this has initiated many different conversations about GAR.

Personal attacks happen all the time in GAR work. Through a completely-unresearched-only-anecdotal perspective, I read personal attacks towards me about once a week or two, and not always from the same editors. I usually ignore those attacks, as they don't lead to article improvements. However, if someone personally attacks another editor, especially a new editor, I would warn them or report it. Some personal attacks made me reconsider GAR work, and I've seen editors leave FAR for this reason. I've sometimes avoided topic areas because I think specific groups of editors will attack me. I don't think this avoidance is a net-benefit to Misplaced Pages.

So what are my motivations for reviewing GARs? I don't think it is to "feel powerful to make all the little editors dance to their will". I'm already an arbitrator on en-wiki (and some community members think this gives me power, but I disagree). In real life I teach people how to dance, so I already get people to literally dance to my will (even if my choreography is horrible). I don't think either hypothesis is accurate.

My GAR work is an extension of my work at FAR and WP:URFA/2020. I want Misplaced Pages to be truthful about its "status" articles like GA and FA. Readers bestow respect on these articles, unless they see an article with that status with uncited text or orange banners. Editors use status articles as templates for their own work, adopting the good and bad techniques into articles they are working on.

I've seen several articles improve substantially because of a talkpage notice or a GAR. I've seen fantastic collaboration to "save" an article from delisting, improving the information Misplaced Pages shows readers. I've learned about cool people and events while reviewing. I am happier when an editor responds to a notice and starts improving the article. I am most frustrated when an editor keeps saying they want to improve the article, but makes no edits while contributing elsewhere on Misplaced Pages. I can get impatient when editors insist a citation does not need to be at the end of every paragraph. Sometimes I do not respond because I think a wall of text is becoming disruptive, and want new voices to post their thoughts and help us arrive at a consensus.

In my perfect world, editors would be regularly reviewing their "status" articles, looking for new sources and fixing uncited material. In my perfect world, reviewing good articles would be a waste of my time because they all follow the criteria. With some topics (Agriculture and Food) I think we are close to achieving that. In other topic areas, there are a lot of articles that need updates.

Some editors above have outlined concerns with the GAR process. I have some ideas on how to improve this, but that might be a different conversation. If anyone is interested, I am happy to create a new page outlining how I do my work. Some editors have seen my techniques in real life, so I can ping them if editors want a different perspective on what I do. I might also present my procedures at WikiConference North America 2025. As users above suspect, I am purposefully trying to spread out my nominations amongst several topics. Any help with reviewing articles would be appreciated, and any constructive feedback on how I can do better will be taken into consideration. Z1720 (talk) 21:54, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

This has become rather a hot discussion, and the case may have been stated rather too firmly, but I think there is a valid point here, which is that GAR is basically designed as a tool of last resort: it was never meant to be a daily thing, still less a way to slim down the list of GAs. I don't know the solution here, but the current frequency of GAR nominations does feel way beyond anything we ever experienced before. The comment that good work has been done in response to some of the GARs - I for one have fixed many articles now in that situation - is with respect very slightly missing the point, which is that the good work is being done under a new and wholly unwelcome kind of duress, in what has for many years been a relaxed regimen at GA, in stark contrast to the more high-pressure FA system with its demand for "comprehensive" coverage (mm, how can that be done in 100,000 bytes or less when there are a dozen textbooks on the topic, hmm...). GAN/GA/GAR, in short, is being manoeuvred in a wholly new direction by an unfamiliar interpretation of the old rules, which were always tacitly understood to be there in case of desperate need. I suggest we try to find a way to re-establish GAR as what we do when an article really has got into a truly parlous state, the likely editors and WikiProjects that could possibly fix it in slow time (there is, after all, no hurry if an article is years old and will exist for many more years) have declined to get involved, and the necessary changes to bring it back to something vaguely reasonable seem way too difficult. Pulling the GAR firing lanyard when there's nothing worse than a couple of ORish paragraphs inserted by an overkeen IP or newbie is frankly overkill. This should be measured, perhaps, against the greatly increased delay in getting an article of any complexity reviewed at GAN: short popular articles often get taken up within a day, while major topics can languish for months, so GAR usage that delists a batch of articles daily, with no more than a week's notice, threatens to grossly unbalance a gentle old process. My tuppence 'orth. Chiswick Chap (talk) 22:10, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

While I have been sad watching the GARs sweep through a topic I have an eye on, I don't understand this concept of duress. It is waiting till articles slip into a "truly parlous state" that unbalances the article rating system, which is again being proposed on the pump as being made more prominent for readers. I suspect the timing is already measured against the GAN time, as issues have often sat around for years. It is unfortunate that articles steadily degrading is perhaps the natural process, and that there are fewer editors around than we'd like, but neither of these are the fault of the GA/GAR system. CMD (talk) 22:52, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

It's the short fuse on GARs that makes editors of those articles feel under duress. The initial GA review also has a relatively short fuse, but in that case it's in response to a nomination made by the nominator. In contrast, GARs feel like they can come at any time out of the blue over a span of years and demand a response within a span of a few days. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:08, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

GARs can come out of the blue, they demand a response in short order, the stated concerns often feel superficial, and they divert volunteer time and energy from things that we want to work on to things that we feel we have to work on, or else we let our specialties down. I felt a lot better after I stopped caring whether any article gets or loses the GA sticker. The natural end result of these pressures is a severe deficit of GA's on any subject that requires expert knowledge to cover properly, but hey, it's not my problem. XOR'easter (talk) 23:58, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

This basically comes down to "we should lie to everyone and say these meet the good article criteria even though we know they don't". If they meet the criteria, then they should be designated as such. If they do not meet the criteria, then they should not be designated as such. If someone wants an article to remain designated as a GA for whatever reason, then it was on them to fix the article several years ago. If someone feels an article is "entitled" to be designated as a good article when it doesn't qualify, then those people are here to cause problems. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:11, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

We were talking earlier about the bad-faith assumptions of the poster on this thread. Your comment here is just as much full of bad-faith assumptions. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:15, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

I didn't make any assumptions. I described the unfortunate implication of an approach, and then I described what I think should happen in particular situations. An assumption would be like "the reason you harass people on GANRs is because you feel entitled to validation", but that's not the angle I'm approaching this from. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:43, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Your message was, essentially, "the people who want more time to clean up GAs are only doing so because they intend to cause problems". How is that not a bad faith assumption? —David Eppstein (talk) 00:35, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

The last one I did was Misplaced Pages:Good article reassessment/1st Airborne Division (United Kingdom)/1. I picked this up when the project was notified. The original author (Jim Sweeney) is no longer active so I took it. I do not agree that the article was in a "truly parlous state". The cited issue was uncited paragraphs. A check of the version of that passed GA shows that it was fully cited then, so the problem was that the article was probably not stewarded since Jim left. But anyone could have reverted the article back to its original state. All the required references could be found from the reference list. So I simply took out the books and added them. But this is, as XOR'easter, says, a diversion of my time. Proposed reforms to GAR should include a QPQ system, where nominators have to work on an article. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:07, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

But anyone could have reverted the article back to its original state. It would be a pretty sorry state of affairs if reverting 167 edits made over 13 years was a desirable outcome. I cannot imagine that anyone invested in the article enough to be upset by it being brought to GAR would appreciate someone doing that. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 00:25, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

I see two problems here: we are incorrectly telling ourselves and our readers that some articles meet 2024 expectations for Good Articles when they don't and in addressing that problem we are sometimes causing undue stress and making unrealistic expectations on those who might rework the articles to meet standards. I think as we come up with solutions (the 30 day one seems like a good idea, while I'm less convinced that the QPQ is a good one) we also recognize that many of the articles do not have someone at all interested in doing the work. And so perhaps there is a way of having a way of separating those two groups (articles w/an interested maintainer and articles w/o an interested maintainer) and go on different tracks for each. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:21, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

I think we need to remove the misperception that there is a one-week deadline to improve articles at GAR. As stated above, right now there's an expectation that an editor will volunteer to address concerns within a week: afterwards, they are given as much time as they need, but also should give periodic updates if the progress is paused or complete. Z1720 (talk) 00:34, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

The current practice is that if they don't rush in to commit their time to that improvement within that short timeframe then the GAR gets closed. Why do we need to close it so quickly? What's the rush? These articles have slowly deteriorated over years; another few weeks here or there won't make much difference in our standards. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:37, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

There also isn't the expectation from what I've seen to actually get the article done in a rush; a statement of intent to work on it and at least sporadically continuing work is good enough to keep it open for a good chunk of time. Misplaced Pages:Good article reassessment/Gettysburg Cyclorama/1 was kept open for over a month on what was a pretty short article and I'm sure would have been kept open longer if needed. FAR will sometimes put a nomination on hold for a few months if it's going to be a particularly big amount of work; I'm sure something like that could be implemented for GAR as well. Hog Farm _Talk 01:00, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

I agree with both Z1720 and David (because I think they're agreeing with each other). We need to change the misperception there is a deadline of a week and we need to make clear there is no rush as long as there is someone willing to improve the article. This sounds like something that could be improved by changing the wording of the templates we use. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:09, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

I really appreciate Z1720's quality control efforts, which continue despite the personal attacks they've received in several different GARs. WP:SWEEPS2023 is being slowly worked through for the most part because of their efforts. Also, like it or not, GAs are often used as templates for similar articles and if an article with the stamp is subpar, you risk the same issues spreading elsewhere.

Still, I was going to suggest a possible limit to how many GARs can be open at once (for reference, the current number is 35), but the main issue raised seems to be the time available before delisting. I wouldn't be opposed to increasing this from one week, though I do feel 30 days is overly long, so I'd prefer something like two weeks. Sgubaldo (talk) 00:52, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Thirty days is reasonable, but only if I have only one to do. If a dozen are dumped on me at once, then they should run consecutively, so I have twelve months to do them. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:28, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

This might limit the number of GARs in a given topic to twelve a year. I question why this limit should exist in GAR, but not for GAN. Z1720 (talk) 02:33, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

I agree; I don't think there should be any cap. Keeping the GA indicator as an accurate indication of quality is important; we can't reasonably expect to see them all saved at GANR. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 02:49, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

To add on, it isn't hard to see that a lot of the articles that Z1720 has brought to GAR were written/nominated by editors who have been inactive or semi-active for years. It would be a waste of everyone's time to be required to wait on their behalf. Anonymous 04:22, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Whose time is being wasted? Put it on a list, come back 30 days later, do other stuff in the meantime. You don't need to sit there, inactive and repeatedly refreshing the page every minute in hope they come back. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:39, 15 January 2025 (UTC)