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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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GA: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 Criteria: 1, 2, 3, 4 Reassessment: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 GA help: 1, 2 Nominations/Instructions: 1 Search archives

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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: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)

Indeed. Especially when you consider that many of these old GAs are by editors who no longer edit as frequently as they once did, leaving them open for a month seems like basic courtesy. -- asilvering (talk) 14:05, 15 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)

It is much more of a problem if an article that should not have WP:Good article status does ("false positive GA") than if one that should does not ("false negative GA"). For this reason, it should be easier for an article to be delisted than to be listed in the first place. I don't think it makes sense to have lower requirements for an article to remain a GA than for it to become a GA; an article that does not meet the WP:Good article criteria should not have GA status, so a GA that would fail a WP:Good article nomination in its current state should be delisted. GA status is supposed to be an indicator of a certain level of quality—if it doesn't reliably function as such, what's the point? Delisting a GA that is not up to standards is a good thing; bringing it up to standards instead is preferable. Cynically, if the prospect of losing GA status is what it takes for certain articles to be maintained to standards, then we should welcome articles being brought to WP:GAR to a greater extent. TompaDompa (talk) 21:47, 15 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)

I don't really see the link being proposed here. There's no need to divert to an article if you don't want to. The GA/not GA status doesn't change the content that is there, so any content quality deficit already exists. CMD (talk) 07:55, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

If you know you're one of three or four active editors with the subject-matter knowledge needed to fix an article, then yeah, you can feel pressured to drop your other projects and try to fix it. XOR'easter (talk) 18:08, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

That is about the pressure, but it doesn't explain the supposed deficit being created. As I mentioned elsewhere I have seen the GARs sweep through a topic I'm one of few editors in, so this isn't something I'm unfamiliar with. The GARs raised accurate points that I didn't have space to go through. One day I might get back to them. CMD (talk) 23:14, 15 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)

The last FAR I did was Hanford Site, and it took me four months to complete. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:42, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

I have no issues with a GAR being open for even longer than that, so long as work is actively ongoing. Misplaced Pages:Featured article review/Concerto delle donne/archive1 has been open since May 2023, although nearly two years may be a bit on the excessive end for GAR. One thing we do want to avoid is creeping up GAR standards to FAR standards - GA is a much lower bar, so the detailed polishing (which I've found to be the most tedious part in articles I've written) isn't necessary. Hog Farm _Talk 03:48, 16 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, stopping all your other editing to repeatedly refresh the page every minute in hope they come back. It is difficult to distinguish users who have totally left from users who check in every few weeks to see if something needs their urgent attention; this waiting period would allow us to make that distinction. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:39, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Because if you put limits on how many articles can be at GAR at any given time, we will have an impossible-to-fill backlog of substandard GAs! When we have thousands upon thousands of GAs, the number that fall below the standard is larger than twelve in any given topic per year Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 06:42, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

This is a problem only because of artificial limits you are imposing to make it into a problem. If you keep unchanged the limit on how many GAR nominations can be started in a given time period, but allow each one to run longer, there is no problem. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:47, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Oh, fair enough, I misunderstood. I would be fine with that switch-up. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 07:07, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Changes

Alright, based on what seems to be unobjectionable in this discussion, I have boldly edited the GAR guidelines to:

• change the expected time limit from one week to one month;
  • to include the "one week with unanimous strong consensus" exception;
• to make more prominent the practice of holding GARs open (within reason) if someone intends to work on them;
• and to prohibit more than three nominations on closely-related topics being open simultaneously.

Hopefully, the above changes should remove the undue stress and unrealistic pressure some editors feel/perceive. If anyone disagrees, of course feel free to revert (EDIT: as they have now been). Also notifying @GAR coordinators: ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:04, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Happy with everything except the "not more than three". If Editor A has saturated the GAR queue and editor B comes along and notices a severe problem with another article that has not improved after tagging and talk page notifications, then editor B should be encouraged to open a GAR immediately, not told to wait their turn. We can prohibit one editor from nominating more than three articles, but we should not restrict GARs by others. —Kusma (talk) 13:19, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

I do not think changes to GAR process should be made with less than 24 hours of discussion on some proposals, and with proposals buried inside a thread that was started as a complaint against me. I would prefer a more structured environment like WP:GAPD23, focused on GAR, where I can comment on each proposal and make my own proposals. Z1720 (talk) 13:27, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

By all means you should make your own suggestions, but I would hope we can find consensus with a structure that reflects the number of editors who care about it. The structure you're proposing is well suited to project wide discussions with large scopes or where there has been a complete inability for more relaxed forms of consensus building to work. Neither is true here (at least not yet). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:21, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

If there are enough proposals that formalised discussions is necessary, then we can go to a GAPD23 structure—which, as you may remember, is exactly how GAPD23 came about. You are perfectly welcome to comment on each proposal and make your own in an unstructured discussion. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:46, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

The change to "After one week, if three or more editors, including the nominator, unanimously agree the article does not meet the GACR" reshapes GAR to be an explicit delisting process. The point of holding the GAR open is to see if anyone is working on it. We do not expect editors, as far as I am aware, to go into less than a week old GARs with delist !votes. (I would also prefer that we not encourage drive-by personal attacks as a mechanism of change.) CMD (talk) 13:41, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

I am also not a fan, as I remarked above, of Acebulf's hypocritical statements on "violating" behaviour, but it seems a waste of time to ignore all subsequent discussion becaue of it. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:46, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

It's not just Buro. The initial post meant the subsequent discussion was not focused, which can be seen by the result shifting GAR to make it a more delisting process, which seems to be exactly the opposite of what is wanted! CMD (talk) 23:15, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Your assumption is that people will mass-vote "delist" within a week. That happens extremely rarely. A look at current reassessments shows only Gilbert Perreault fulfilling that criteria, where ten years of a seventeen-year career are missing.What seems to be wanted overall (i.e. not from just the initial hostile post) is that GAR becomes less adversarial, which is what the other changes (month-long discussions, topic limits) are intended to fix.As the person who has probably closed above 80% of GARs since GAPD23, I think I can best speak on how much participation GAR currently attracts. I can tell you that if the number of people actually making GAR work was anywhere close to the number of people commenting here about how GAR should work, the process would immediately be around twice as collaborative. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:48, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

That's not my assumption, it's an implication of the text. Currently we don't expect people to do this, the new instructions suggest it should be happening. CMD (talk) 01:15, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Agree that any sort of limits on types of nominations is a non-starter. The idea of the entire good articles and reassessment process is not to get shiny medals for people to burnish their electronic egos, it's to have quality articles. There's no mechanic for limiting nominations, so in a practical sense the GAR process is already unable to reasonably handle the number of subpar articles out there. Until we limit noms at GAN, we should never limit at GAR. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs 16:03, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't think we need the "unanimous strong consensus" exception - I really don't see any harm in holding them all open for a month, and if we get one that's so obviously delist material that we should shortcut the month (eg, driveby promotion by a sockpuppet, immediately listed at GAR), that's what WP:IAR is for. -- asilvering (talk) 17:10, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

We're assessing articles, not selling guns. Forcing a 30 day hold no matter what is foolish extra bureaucracy. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 23:46, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Eh? There's no bureaucracy involved in simply waiting for 30 days. -- asilvering (talk) 12:15, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm not a huge fan of the 30-day period being the new length. Is there any reason why it would have been helpful for Misplaced Pages:Good article reassessment/Siege of Gythium/1 to run for a full month? Or Misplaced Pages:Good article reassessment/Giselle/1? Now granted, one was promoted by a sock and the other was written by a sock, but that's still a case we need to keep in mind. I would prefer maybe two weeks as standard unless there was a very strong consensus or other factors (such as socking or hoaxing - see the ColonelHenry mass FAR from a couple years ago). With the 30 days being for the silent consensus closing. Hog Farm _Talk 00:24, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

That was a quick delist, and very untypical of the many I see on my watchlist. In the vast majority the key issue is a lack of citations, and adding these is often extremely time-consuming (if I do work on this it is very rarely my own work I am adding references to - I've never really done GAs). I think the situation is often not helped by the inital GAR "enquiry" suggesting all sorts of fundamental "wouldn't it be nice if" reconstructions, which are not very relevant to the GA criteria, and usually not thought through. The very few editors who respond to the GAR call are happily distracted into discussing these, normally without intending to actually do anything themselves. Johnbod (talk) 05:34, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

A lack of citations is grounds for a WP:QUICKFAIL during the nomination phase, so it seems reasonable to not have the reassessment phase be drawn out if that's the issue. A delisted article can always be nominated anew if and when it is brought up to standards. TompaDompa (talk) 06:40, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Re-nominating an article is an extremely heavyweight process. I tend to plan for it taking a full week of my Misplaced Pages editing time, at a random time not in my choosing sometime in the next few months when someone finally gets around to looking at it. It would be much preferable to get a favorable result from a GAR (difficult when multiple GAR participants are often very vague and contradictory about what they think it would take to get them to agree) and even more preferable to head off the GAR before it starts. Our goal should be to bring these articles back to GA status, and secondarily to retain the good will and participation of the editors who can do that, not to delist articles as quickly as possible and to demoralize editors in the way that Acebulf has obviously become demoralized. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:46, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

I disagree. The goal of the GAR process, specifically, should be to ensure that articles with GA status are up to GA standards. Article improvement is part of that (and the best outcome, obviously), but so is removing GA status from articles that fall short. TompaDompa (talk) 07:03, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

You misunderstand. Obviously we should not pass articles that do not pass our criteria. But if we have a choice of improving an article to meet the criteria and passing it, or failing to improve it and failing to pass it, we should choose the first. We should not push for changes that would make the first less likely and the second more likely. Similarly, if we have a choice of retaining the good will of editors and encouraging them to improve articles so that they can pass, or of pissing off those editors and getting them to flounce from the GA project and maybe from Misplaced Pages altogether, then obviously we should choose the first. We have clear evidence in this long thread that the second has been happening. The attitude expressed by you here that we must take a hard line and not even attempt to nurture our articles and our editors may be a big part of why. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:09, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

That is not what I said, and you know it. But either GA status means something, in which case false positives should be kept to a minimum, or it does not, in which case removing GA status should not be a big deal. If there is a significant delay between a GA ceasing to meet the criteria and either being improved such that it does or being delisted, then it is for a significant amount of time a false positive GA. TompaDompa (talk) 07:33, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

I question whether 30 days instead of half that is actually a significant amount of time in the lifetime of a GA, and whether temporarily having a green star on an article is so damaging to the encyclopedia that we must rush to bite editors and delist articles instead of waiting to try to get the article improved. Why don't you want to try to get articles improved? —David Eppstein (talk) 07:47, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

I have no idea why you think I don't want articles to be improved. A much more reasonable conclusion from what I said would be that articles should be brought to GAR sooner and either improved or delisted in shorter order. If an article has GA status for 5 years, but only meets the criteria for the first two, then it is a false positive GA for the majority of the time it is listed. I think that's a problem. I don't want editors to feel rushed to improve the article after five years in such a case, I want them to have already improved—or, failing that, delisted—it after two years. If, hypothetically speaking, more GAs are false positives than actually meet the criteria at a given point in time, the process has failed catastrophically. What percentage of false positives would be required for the process to be considered a failure can be discussed, but I think it is way, way below half. TompaDompa (talk) 08:41, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

I have to agree with David here. And I don't think it is fair to look at GAN when deciding what the process should be for GAR. When an article is nominated to GAN, it indicates that the nominator thinks it meets the criteria. Therefore we would expect any changes made to be minor (e.g. the odd source needs adding here and there). And therefore non-minor changes are considered quickfails. When an article goes to GAR, it means that it used to meet the criteria, but over several years the quality has slipped, and in some cases become quite poor. I think it is reasonable to allow significantly more time to allow the article to be fixed. SSSB (talk) 07:55, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

I disagree. If the article is, as you say, quite poor, we should not grant it significant time to improve while retaining GA status, it should be delisted and only get GA status again once it actually meets the criteria. For relatively minor issues, the kind that would be expected to be fixed during the GAN process (as opposed to the nomination being failed), it is reasonable for the article to retain the GA status while the issues are fixed—assuming that this is done in a timely manner. Having at one point in time been successfully nominated for GA status should not mean that an article is not held to the same standards thereafter. TompaDompa (talk) 08:54, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

You are proposing a significant change to current processes. GAR and FAR are currently designed to be more collaborative than adversarial and already GAR nominators face all kinds of accusations. Being quicker to delist may improve the theoretical accuracy of the GA plus but I can't see it improving the atmosphere. —Kusma (talk) 10:18, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

I mean, the entire point of GA status being something that is conferred upon an article and then remains in place unless it is actively removed, rather than GA being a one-off thing like e.g. DYK, is that it is supposed to be an indicator of quality. There seems to be general agreement that article quality decreasing over time to the point where the GA criteria are no longer met, sometimes by a substantial margin, is a relatively common occurrence. If GA status is to remain a decently reliable indicator of quality, the threshold for seriously considering removing GA status from an article that no longer meets the criteria needs to be fairly low. That means both that the threshold for bringing articles to GAR needs to be low and that the threshold for delisting articles once they are there if the issues are not addressed in a timely manner needs to be low. The alternative is to fundamentally change GA to a snapshot quality assessment that does not confer any ongoing status to the article at all (which would also mean that GAR would go away entirely since there would be no GA status to remove). This would still encourage article improvement and recognize a job well done by editors via user talk page messages (same as e.g. DYK out barnstars), but would remove the benefit to readers of indicating article quality. This is not my preferred option. TompaDompa (talk) 12:34, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Sure, in an ideal world all of our article ratings would be accurate at all times. A fundamental question is whether ensuring the meaningfulness/accuracy of the green GA plus is worth the cost in terms of volunteer labour and bruised egos of article writers. We should not aim for an abstractly perfect process, just for something that roughly works. —Kusma (talk) 13:25, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

There we agree: the process needs to be decently functional, not perfect. As to your question about whether it is worth it, I say yes. If we have to prioritize between the core purpose of the GA process—quality control—and avoiding conflicts between editors, I think we should go with the former. We should of course always avoid antagonizing editors needlessly, but it is not possible to please everyone and this is an instance where the other considerations have to take precedence. If we don't think the GAR process is worth the hassle in order to ensure that GA status accurately and reliably reflects the level of quality it is supposed to, we should stop having GA symbols on articles in the first place and scrap GAR entirely. TompaDompa (talk) 14:49, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

"Quality control" is NOT "the core purpose of the GA process". The purpose is quality improvement, by providing a process that incentivizes editors to do that improvement. It is really not important to the world that we are accurate in assigning green stars to some articles and not to others. Its importance is as a reward to editors for deserving the green stars they get. When too many articles have green stars and don't deserve them, it devalues that reward, and so we should work to keep it meaningful, but it is a problem only because it reduces the incentivization. Having a few stars on articles that don't deserve them doesn't reduce the quality of the encyclopedia in any way, and taking away those stars is not an effective way of trying to control that quality. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:19, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

As I said above, the entire point of GA status being something that is conferred upon an article and then remains in place unless it is actively removed, rather than GA being a one-off thing like e.g. DYK, is that it is supposed to be an indicator of quality. The alternative is to fundamentally change GA to a snapshot quality assessment that does not confer any ongoing status to the article at all (which would also mean that GAR would go away entirely since there would be no GA status to remove). This would still encourage article improvement and recognize a job well done by editors via user talk page messages (same as e.g. DYK out barnstars), but would remove the benefit to readers of indicating article quality. Thus, the core purpose of the GA process inasmuch as the result is something that it is bestowed upon articles rather than editors is quality control. We could award editors with barnstars or the like without any indication of the process being present either at the article or its talk page, but that's not the way we do it. For that matter, we could prominently display the editor(s) responsible for bringing the article to GA status in the first place, but we don't—if the main idea is to incentivize editors, why do we undercut that effort by not doing something so simple? I think it's telling that you switch between talking about editors being rewarded and articles having green stars—there is no reason the two have to go together since we can reward editors without adding good article symbols to articles. You are also completely overlooking the question of whether there is any benefit to readers, whom the entire encyclopedia is ostensibly meant to serve above all, that there is an indicator of quality in the form of good article symbols on certain articles. To my mind, this is rather simple: if there is a benefit to readers we need to ensure the accuracy of the indicator or else the benefit is lost, and if there is no benefit then these reader-facing symbols should be removed across the board. TompaDompa (talk) 22:24, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Its importance is as a reward to editors for deserving the green stars they get, this may be the issue. I've never considered the green stars as being given to editors, they are assigned to articles. If that's not clear we should make it clear, and make it clear that a GAR is not a slight against any particular editor. CMD (talk) 22:46, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

There are two additional reasons for bringing an article to GA: to allow it to be run at DYK, and as part of a Good or Featured Topic. In the latter case, a GAR has the potential to disrupt a great deal of work, so one can expect a great deal of push back. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:27, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

A GAR shouldn't affect DYK, as within the DYK timeframe it is the usual practice for the GAN to be reassessed. For GT the delist work period is 3 months. Has anyone seen how that timeframe might interact with an extended GAR? Does "Hold" often win out to cover any delays? CMD (talk) 01:39, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

The process as it is allows indefinite time for the article to be fixed. The article that prompted this discussion never even hit the formal GAR stage. CMD (talk) 08:19, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, not all GAs have fit the criteria - many were done with insufficient reviews, esp. the further back in time you go, while others might have been GA quality initially but have not kept up with changing standards (for instance, the necessity of spot checks on the sources) Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 14:54, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Good article reassessment: Good article reassessment (GAR) is a process used to review and improve good articles (GAs) that may no longer meet the good article criteria (GACR). Hawkeye7 (discuss) 08:21, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Proposal: Add to Step 5 in WP:GAN/I#N5

After the first paragraph:

If your nomination passed: congratulations! The article will be listed as a good article.

The article will now transition to a maintenance phase: it is recommended that interested editors regularly check good articles to ensure that they still meet the GA criteria. This is especially important for biographies of living people, recurring events, and active institutions (like sports teams or schools) as these articles can become outdated if new sources are not incorporated. Interested editors should also regularly check that all necessary article text is cited to reliable sources, especially text added after the article's GA promotion. If an article no longer meets the GA criteria, it may be nominated at WP:GAR.

I am reading a lot about editors who feel pressured to improve an article in a short time period. I think the GA process (and FA process) needs to emphasise that an article is not "done" when it achieves a status. However, if the article were slowly maintained over a longer period of time, the article would not need to go to GAR. Hopefully stating that the article needs to be maintained will encourage editors to regularly check their articles to ensure they still meet the criteria. Z1720 (talk) 15:17, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't see how this would hurt, but I am doubtful that it would help. I think that if editors were willing and able to do that, an encouragement in the instructions wouldn't be necessary. This does nothing for situations where the editor originally responsible for the GA promotion has retired, for example. And putting this reminder in the GA instructions won't get it in front of editors who are interested in the subject matter but had no involvement in the GA process. Such editors could be reached, perhaps, by posting at relevant WikiProjects with a notice that says the article was promoted to GA and explicitly suggests watchlisting it. (Yes, there are "article alerts", but not everyone knows about them, and they don't really provide the opportunity to congratulate the nominator, thank the reviewer, and remind the community that keeping an eye on the article would be good.) XOR'easter (talk) 20:11, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

This feels like an improvement over what the instructions have now. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:17, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

I think this is a good suggestion. If nothing else, it gives us something to point to that states these points explicitly. TompaDompa (talk) 22:27, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

I suggest removing the phrase The article will now transition to a maintenance phase. This sounds like there's some kind of formal process involved and might confuse people. The rest of the paragraph makes your intent clear so I don't think this sentence needs to be replaced with anything. -- asilvering (talk) 12:17, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

+1 ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:39, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Proposal: Text to add to the WP:GAR "Reassessment process"

Add to "Reassessment process" #1 (new text starts with the second sentence):

1. Editors should discuss the article's issues with reference to the good article criteria, and work cooperatively to resolve them. Comments should focus on the article's contents and adherence to the good article criteria. Comments on an individual's editing or reviewing abilities will be considered a personal attack: this may result in the comment being removed or the offending editor being banned from the GAR.

Inserting as "Reassessment process" #3:

3. Interested editors can indicate their intention to fix the article and give updates on their progress in the GAR. Reviewers should periodically check the GAR and give additional comments when necessary. Misplaced Pages is not compulsory and editors should not insist that reviewers, interested editors, or past nominators make the suggested changes, nor should they state that edits should have been completed before the GAR was opened.

Hopefully, this better defines the possible roles in a GAR. This will hopefully prevent WP:SOFIXIT arguments that are constantly directed to reviewers so that the GAR is focused on the article's content instead. Z1720 (talk) 15:48, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

• I think Comments on an individual's editing or reviewing abilities will be considered a personal attack is too categorical and risks derailing discussions to be about user conduct instead of article content—precisely the opposite of the intended effect. Other than that, I find this to be a good suggestion. TompaDompa (talk) 22:33, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

  There is a different issue. Comments on the salience of the review comments to the topic of the reviewed article can be very relevant. However, adding this text risks situations where appropriate discussion of this nature (for instance, discounting review requests that display misunderstanding of the topic) are misinterpreted as being about the competence of the reviewer, causing unnecessary friction, derailing the review, or even leading to a situation where the competent editors are shut out because they dared to point out that the remaining reviewers' comments are based on misunderstandings. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:41, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

• I don't think anyone involved has the authority to ban people from GAR, and I can't recall AN/I cases on GA/GAR civility that resulted in action. Making it clear that comments should focus on the article is good, but a statement about WP:CIVIL likely has to be more vague to be accurate. CMD (talk) 22:51, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
• I do not think that putting up a civility reminder / implicit threat is a good idea. This isn't ArbCom. Civility is a policy everywhere. I don't see any issue with making it clear that comments should be on the article, though I'm not sure I support the current wording. I haven't been very active lately and though I spent about 15 minutes reading through this thread I don't have strong opinions on the correct course of action just yet. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 23:44, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

There are no reviewers at GAR; it is a workshop process. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:25, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

• My impression is that this would put reviewers in a category above responders, create a first-mover advantage/chilling effect, and potentially lead to the original nominator being "banned" from their own articles. Not sure its practicable or desired. Ceoil (talk) 00:30, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
• This needs a lot of work. There are no reviewers at GAR; civility is an expectation everywhere; if the GAR reason is that a full stop was missing, editors should be perfectly entitled to point out the ludicrousness of the nomination. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:43, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Given the feedback above, let's workshop this. I think the underlying idea is good. Let's go sentence by sentence:

1. "Comments should focus on the article's contents and adherence to the good article criteria." – I think this is good and does not need to be changed.
2. "Comments on an individual's editing or reviewing abilities will be considered a personal attack: this may result in the comment being removed or the offending editor being banned from the GAR." – I think this needs to be either changed significantly or removed entirely, and others seem to agree.
3. "Interested editors can indicate their intention to fix the article and give updates on their progress in the GAR." – I think this is good and does not need to be changed.
4. "Reviewers should periodically check the GAR and give additional comments when necessary." – I think this is good; those who think the article does not meet the WP:Good article criteria should check in every now and then to see if it has been improved sufficiently for that to no longer be the case. Objections have been raised against the use of the term "reviewers"; I have no specific suggestions about alternatives.
5. "Misplaced Pages is not compulsory and editors should not insist that reviewers, interested editors, or past nominators make the suggested changes, nor should they state that edits should have been completed before the GAR was opened." – I think this is good; the above point about "reviewers" applies here as well. I might clarify what "past nominators" means here (I'm guessing it refers to past WP:Good article nominations?).

Thoughts? TompaDompa (talk) 19:00, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

• I object to these proposals. The problem at GAR is when bullies harass people for helping the project by removing an inaccurate classification. This is not a solution, it is appeasement. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:48, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Might you perhaps elaborate on what you find to be appeasement here? TompaDompa (talk) 19:53, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
    • GAR should be ready to say WP:SOFIXIT if someone gets upset that a non-GA still classified as a GA is no longer going to be classified as a GA. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:58, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
      • I see. I read "Misplaced Pages is not compulsory and editors should not insist that reviewers, interested editors, or past nominators make the suggested changes, nor should they state that edits should have been completed before the GAR was opened." as saying pretty much the opposite—those who think the article should retain WP:Good article status should not insist "fix the problems instead of bringing them up at GAR". TompaDompa (talk) 20:50, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

        Okay, thank you, I misread that part. I still believe that this is a problem with individuals rather than with the system, but I see where you and Z1720 are coming from on these points. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:05, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

        I take the position that since systems can be better or worse equipped to handle problematic individuals, we should try to improve the system either way: if the system is the problem we should fix it, and if individuals are the problem we should make the system better at dealing with those individuals. It is of course also possible for both to be part of the problem. TompaDompa (talk) 21:36, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

"Comments should focus on the article's contents and adherence to the good article criteria." should be expanded by adding that "The comments should be as specific as possible and must not exceed GA criteria requirements." For example, instead of "The history section should be updated." say "The history section should be updated with XYZ." In the given example, XYZ must be one of the main aspects of the topic since GACR 3a requires that the article "addresses the main aspects of the topic". I am aware that this requires nominators to gain some (minimal) knowledge of what would be the main aspects of the topic, but otherwise it is legitimate to create review workload out of curiosity if there's something new in the field. GAN reviewers face the same burden, so why not expect it from GAR nominators? Tomobe03 (talk) 20:01, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't think it's helpful to outright prohibit comments that go beyond the GA criteria. The important part is that only adherence to the GA criteria determines whether the article remains a GA or is delisted. The former encourages replies of the type "you're not allowed to say that", while the latter encourages replies of the type "that doesn't matter for our purposes here". We should want to focus the process on content rather than conduct. TompaDompa (talk) 21:04, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Some respondents to GARs want specific comments, others respond with hostility when every uncited statement is tagged or listed in the GAR. Giving specific concerns wastes a reviewer's time if no one offers to fix the article. If someone offers to make improvements, specific comments can be requested. As for comments outside the GA criteria: there are often disagreements to what is and is not included in the criteria. I would rather that a GAR not become a debate about this, and adding that type of statement might cause that to happen. Z1720 (talk) 23:26, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

I am fine with adding 1, 3, 4, and 5, while striking 2 as not having consensus. I wish the consensus was different, but understand that I'm in the minority. Perhaps "Reviewers" can be replaced with "commentators". "Past nominators" in #4 refers to the editor(s) who nominated an article to GAN. Z1720 (talk) 23:32, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Restricting only the number of nominations per field in a given period makes little sense unless it is to prevent unwarranted nominations made out of curiosity. Such throttling of the nominations, if I read it correctly, e.g. one warship per month... is like restricting the monthly number of articles where one may add a citation needed tag where one is specifically warranted. If a GA criterion is not met specifically, it should be pointed out, but generally speaking, only specific comments are actionable. If the GAR nominator is not required to be familiar with the article topic or specific GA criteria, we should scrap the GAR process as it is now, and automatically nominate GAs for review by a bot. Tomobe03 (talk) 08:07, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Consistent citation style

May I please ask (1) what is meant by "inconsistently formatted citations" in good article reassessment, and (2) are verifiability cleanup templates such as {{Citation style}} included in the set in WP:QF? Because if they are not, should the criteria not be updated to exclude {{Citation style}} since currently they seem to say they are included?

The context for these questions is article Perth Underground railway station (talk), which is currently rated as a good article (GA), having been found to satisfy the good article criteria.

However, Good article reassessment currently says common problems (including inconsistently formatted citations ) are not covered by the GA criteria and therefore are not grounds for delisting. However, this seems to contradict WP:QF, which says n article may fail without further review (known as a quick fail) if, prior to the review: It has, or needs, cleanup banners that are unquestionably still valid, since inconsistently formatted citations may be tagged for verifiability cleanup using {{Citation style}} where he most common correct use of this template is to identify an article that uses more than one major citation style. {{Citation style}} adds a cleanup banner to the article, presumably to promote the helpful standard practice of imposing one style on an article with inconsistent citation styles : an improvement because it makes the citations easier to understand and edit.

My instinct here is that each good article is expected to have a consistent citation style (whatever citation style is chosen for that particular article), and that an otherwise good article with an inconsistent style (because it mixes multiple styles) is just shy of being a good article. However, I would like to check with this group here if that is a goal of the good article (GA) rating, and whether or not Perth Underground railway station ought to be reassessed. Elrondil (talk) 07:37, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

I agree that it is a good idea to cause articles to have a consistent citation style, but the clear past consensus is that it is not a Good Article criterion. That said, if you can figure out whether the citation style should be Citation Style 1 or Citation Style 2 (usually by going through the history and finding the last consistently styled version) then it is easy to get the citation templates to enforce this for you by adding {{CS1 config|mode=cs2}} (or mode=cs1). It is so easy that I would feel comfortable enough doing this as a reviewer rather than even bringing it up. If citations are manually formatted rather than templated, then getting them consistent is more work. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:45, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

So WP:QF ought to be updated to clearly and explicitly exclude verifiability cleanup banners such as {{Citation style}}, right? Currently it seems this is tribal knowledge (that I didn’t know) and consequently spent time and effort going in the wrong direction, which is a waste and unless changed could repeat. Elrondil (talk) 08:48, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Quickfailing is always optional. You can QF for having unaddressed maintenance banners, but you're not obliged to. As a reviewer, you can do whatever you feel is right, including as David has suggested, just fixing it yourself if it's simple enough. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 09:05, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: The specific dispute here doesn't involve CS1 vs CS2, but short citations vs full citations. Your point still stands though. Steelkamp (talk) 13:47, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

@Steelkamp: Actually, the context, Perth Underground railway station, is about using BOTH short and full at the same time (when all the guidelines say we should chose which and then use it consistently). It was NEVER about "vs".

This HERE is about two questions and possibly updating of the guidelines to capture one of the answers so nobody else is likely to waste the time and energy I did. Elrondil (talk) 14:33, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

I think part of the issue is the interpretation of the word "consistent" in this instance. If I decide to format the citations such that short journal articles use full citations, while longer articles (with more extensive page ranges) or books use short citations (to enable specification of the specific page#), in my mind, that's still using citations "consistently". This approach (used in the Perth Underground railway station in question) is allowed at FAC. Esculenta (talk) 14:47, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

That sounds to me like you are using multiple styles, but have organised when you use which style. That isn’t consistent with a style, just consistent with your organisation of which style to use when ... but you’re using multiple styles. Elrondil (talk) 15:32, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

I do this at many of my FACs, and it's not considered to be inconsistent. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 20:55, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Not only is it consistent, but also, it might be the least bad out of our available styles. It allows for citing multiple different page ranges within the same document without a lot of garish superscripts interrupting the main text, while still having the full details for many references only a single click away, and also being friendly to the addition of new single-use references via the Visual Editor. XOR'easter (talk) 23:29, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

The guidelines do NOT say we cannot mix short and full footnotes. It is an entirely consistent style to use a full footnote for the first instance of a source and then to use short footnotes to refer to other points in the same source. This is getting far far into the weeds beyond the Good Article criteria. It should not hold up GA status and it should not merit a cleanup banner. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:37, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

I think it's a disconnect between users as to when it's appropriate to throw a cleanup tag on an article. If there's only one or two inconsistent citations out of dozens, it's unlikely to be significant enough to merit an entire cleanup tag. On the other hand, if the article is 50% one style and 50% another, then that's enough imo for a cleanup tag and to not promote to GA until it's fixed. In other words, if it's just one or two, WP:SOFIXIT applies (i.e. don't fail the article, just go into it and fix those couple citations yourself, if you're reviewing/commenting). On the other hand, if the citations are so different from each other as to merit the cleanup tag, it's not GA material. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 07:46, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

In this concrete example, the ratio is 24 vs 77 inline citations, so just over 23%. The main author is adamant they wish to use multiple citation styles at the same time, citing other GAs as precedence, and while I’m prepared to migrate the minor styles to the predominant style, it would probably just be reverted which is just a waste of everyone’s time and effort ... and unnecessary since, as Hawkeye7 said clearly, a consistent citation style is not required at Good Article level. Elrondil (talk) 09:06, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

A consistent citation style is not required at Good Article level; it is a requirement at A-class, the next level up. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 08:42, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, that is very helpful 😀. Elrondil (talk) 08:46, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Wishing to avoid a repeat of this waste of time and effort, may I please update the good article criteria to clearly and explicitly exclude a consistent citation style as a requirement for GA, turning this tribal knowledge into public knowledge? For example, by making the following additions?

1. In WP:QF: “It has, or needs, cleanup banners that are unquestionably still valid except for any relating to a consistent citation style, such as {{Citation style}}”
2. In WP:GACR6: “it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline; except that while a consistent citation style is encouraged it is not a requirement at Good Article level”

Elrondil (talk) 09:55, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

If we're going to add that sort of clarification, shouldn't it be more general? E.g. "It has, or needs, cleanup banners that are unquestionably still valid and which refer to noncompliance with the GA criteria"? Not very fluent, but my point is that surely there are other clean up banners that also don't justify a quick fail. GACR doesn't require compliance with all of the MoS, for example, so there are probably some MoS-related banners that one should ignore for GA. I don't know if the wording does need to be changed as you suggest, but if we do clarify that sentence I think it needs to cover all bases. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:15, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

But the criteria IS the definition, so you can’t defer to it when defining it. Elrondil (talk) 11:27, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

The Quickfail criteria can refer to the general GA criteria. —Kusma (talk) 11:29, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

True. Elrondil (talk) 11:32, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

As I read WP:GACR6, it is VERY specific about which subset of the MOS it includes, but currently it covers ALL the citation style guidelines. Elrondil (talk) 11:38, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

In the guidelines the consistency is a "should", not a must. That means that although it is expected, there is a little bit of discretion with good reason. I don't know if this particular case has that good reason, but in general this does mean that the GACR doesn't need to enforce this strictly. Note on the QF, that the criteria is "large numbers of , , or similar tags", which implies small numbers of tags (and I would consider citation style a minor one like these despite not being inline) do not necessitate a QF. CMD (talk) 11:51, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

The layout style guideline refers to WP:CITEVAR, which says a helpful standard practice is imposing one style on an article with inconsistent citation styles, which {{Citation style}} promotes (its most common correct use is to identify an article that uses more than one major citation style), which is a cleanup template currently covered by WP:QF. But according to Hawkeye7 a consistent citation style is not required at Good Article level, which everyone seems to be agreeing with, and all I am suggesting is that we write that down for the benefit of others that come after me. Elrondil (talk) 15:25, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't read the citation style cleanup tag as being currently covered by WP:QF in that way. A reword might specific the tags that are being looked for, but it is probably trickier to list all the tags that aren't being looked for. In some respects it is down to reviewer interpretation and situations will vary. CMD (talk) 15:30, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Looking at WP:Template index/Cleanup there are several banners that I would be less concerned about than {{citation style}}, for example {{metricate}} or {{USRD-wrongdir}}. I don't see a compelling reason to make an explicit exception for citation style-related banners. I wouldn't object to changing the QF guidelines to say that it only applies to cleanup banners which relate to WP:GACR6, though I can also see an argument that if a problem is bad enough that it merits a cleanup banner that's an issue for GA status even if it would be acceptable in moderation. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 11:57, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

hanging the QF guidelines to say that it only applies to cleanup banners which relate to WP:GACR6 sounds great. Elrondil (talk) 15:36, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

At that point we're just repeating QF criterion 1. Might as well just delete QF 3 entirely. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:17, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

That is an excellent point. If I may echo this back to check I understood correctly, QF2–5 are not the same as QF1 but, rather, are INDEPENDENT reasons that "stand on their own two legs" for QF'ing an article. That is also how I read WP:QF at first.

That is, QF2–5 are in ADDITION to QF1:

• sometimes to state and highlight – clearly, unambiguously and directly – an important reason for QF'ing (such as QF2 that equates to WP:GACR6 item 2.d, and QF4 that equates to WP:GACR6 item 5),
• in the case of QF5 to say "issues found previously are also issues now, and we're not going through GA assessment again until these existing issues are fixed first", and
• in the case of QF3 to say "a GA-rated article can't need non-trivial cleanup (the purpose of which is to drive it towards satisfying MOS as required by WP:GACR6 item 1.b), and as marked in the article with one or more cleanup banners, or even just large numbers of cleanup tags throughout the article".

Elrondil (talk) 05:35, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

I still believe the good article criteria may be made clearer.

I am therefore now proposing the following additions.

1. In WP:QF: "It has, or needs, cleanup banners, or even just large numbers of cleanup tags, that are unquestionably still valid and that are within the scope of the six good article criteria."
2. In WP:GACR6: "it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline;", where is a new footnote (with whatever number X it ends up) that reads "A consistent citation style is not a requirement for a Good Article rating."

The purpose of the first addition is to clearly and unambiguously qualify QF3 to the scope covered by WP:GACR6, and to untangle the cleanup banner and tag bits a little better. The purpose of the second addition is to clearly and unambiguously state that a consistent citation style is not required for a Good Article rating, but a little out of the way by dropping it into the foot.

It is also now very clear to me that there is no hope for consensus on what a "consistent citation style" is, even just amongst this group. Let’s be honest: we have a room full of cats, worse, a very large room with lots of especially unwilling cats. Everyone will do what they want, and this has persisted going back to the dawn of Misplaced Pages, so I doubt there will EVER be consensus. Which is fine: the diversity of humanity is a gift, not a curse.

BUT as David Eppstein suggested, this IS beyond GA rating, ... and, as an aside, perhaps there doesn’t NEED to be consensus if Misplaced Pages adopts a model–view–controller approach for citations. That is, (1) we as editors express citations in source (the model bit), (2) the readers decide through preferences and settings how they want to see these citations (the view bit) – as full, or as short, or as a hybrid, or whatever other scheme someone comes up with, and then (3) Misplaced Pages presents it to that user the way they want to see it (the controller bit). Which then means we wouldn’t decide how citations are presented, but delegate that decision to the reader. Until that becomes reality we just need to live with the plethora of approaches we currently have. Elrondil (talk) 06:14, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Templates in nominator signatures

See this discussion. If a nominator has a template in their signature, it causes problems for the GANReviewTool script. Templates in signatures are forbidden. Kusma suggested that ChristieBot could notice the issue and flag it as an error. I'm trying to avoid major changes to the bot at the moment, but I think this would be a very simple change, so I could probably get it done. Do we want to do this? The effect would be that the GAN updates would look like this one, with an edit summary starting "Errors listed!", and the error section at the bottom of GAN would show something like "Nominator for Example has a template in their signature". The error would continue to appear on every GAN update until the signature was cleaned up, which could be done by any user. Also pinging Novem Linguae, the author of the GANReviewTool script. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:07, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

By "until the signature was cleaned up", do you mean specifically the signature in the GAN template? If it avoids complications with the GANReviewTool script it seems of marginal benefit, although it's probably rare enough that you shouldn't feel much pressure to look into it. CMD (talk) 13:23, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes -- it could be substed or the whole signature could just be replaced with a link to the editor's user page. I know there are a few regulars here who notice when the bot puts an error in that section, and clean it up if possible; this is a little extra work for those editors, so I don't want to do it unless people agree it's worth fixing. If it doesn't get fixed it would keep showing up, meaning that the other real errors would be less likely to get noticed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:09, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Related: https://github.com/NovemLinguae/UserScripts/issues/209. It's a rare bug but I've gotten 3 bug reports about it. Patching it would be a decent amount of effort because RegEx (how I do most of my GANReviewTool wikicode parsing) is not good at handling nested template syntax. –Novem Linguae (talk) 13:39, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Yet another way to deal with this could be to make {{GA nominee}} throw up an error (and add a tracker category) if any of its entries contain templates. No idea how difficult that would be to code, though. —Kusma (talk) 14:17, 17 January 2025 (UTC)