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{{Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Good articles/Newsletter/March 2008}} {{Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Good articles/Newsletter/March 2008}}
==April GA Newsletter==
The April issue of the ] Newsletter is now available. ] (]) 03:45, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

{{Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Good articles/Newsletter/April 2008}}

Revision as of 03:45, 7 April 2008


Archives

Wine Project Newsletter

The Wine Project Newsletter!
Issue IV - April 1st, 2007

In this edition:

  • News & Notes New Grape Infobox; Standard Grape article format; Wine photos; New wine stub categories created; Wine related deletion notices; and more
  • Sub Projects Updates on Operation Stub Killer

This newsletter is sent to those listed under Participants on the Wine Project page. If you wish to no longer receive this newsletter please include Decline newsletter next to your name on the Participant list.
If you have any Misplaced Pages wine related news, announcements or suggestions drop a note in the Comments/Suggestion area of Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Wine/Newsletter.

Chaptalization

Updated DYK query On 10 April, 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Chaptalization, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

--howcheng {chat} 16:15, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Wine Project Newsletter

The Wine Project Newsletter!
Issue V - April 15, 2007

In this edition:

  • News & Notes New wine product members, Wine GAs and DYKs and more
  • Sub Projects Updates on Operation Stub Killer
This newsletter is sent to those listed under Participants on the Wine Project page. If you wish to no longer receive this newsletter please include Decline newsletter next to your name on the Participant list.
If you have any Misplaced Pages wine related news, announcements or suggestions drop a note in the Comments/Suggestion area of Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Wine/Newsletter.

GAC backlog elimination drive

This form message is being sent to you either due to your membership with WikiProject Good Articles and/or your inclusion on the Misplaced Pages:Good article candidates/List of reviewers. A new drive has been started requesting that all members review at least one article (or more, if you wish!) within the next two weeks at GAC to help in removing the large backlog. This message is being sent to all members, and even members who have been recently reviewing articles. There are almost 130 members in this project and about 180 articles that currently need to be reviewed. If each member helps to review just one or two articles, the majority of the backlog will be cleared. Since the potential amount of reviewers may significantly increase, please make sure to add :{{GAReview}} underneath the article you are reviewing to ensure that only one person is reviewing each article. Additionally, the GA criteria may have been modified since your last review, so look over the criteria again to help you to determine if a candidate is GA-worthy. If you have any questions about this drive or the review process, leave a message on the GAC talk page. --Nehrams2020 00:20, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Balti wine comment

Thanks for the nice words though, admittedly, I don't think they were needed. I didn't feel slighted at the editors comments. I just chalked it up to the same underlying factor behind the AfD---needing more research. Just as you can't judge the notability of a subject based on a cursory look, so to is the difficulty in evaluating an editor's "expertise" based on a glance. Agne/ 06:15, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

July 2007 GAC backlog elimination drive

A new elimination drive of the backlog at Misplaced Pages:Good article candidates will take place from the month of July through August 12, 2007. There are currently about 130 articles that need to be reviewed right now. If you are interested in helping with the drive, then please visit Misplaced Pages:Good article candidates backlog elimination drive and record the articles that you have reviewed. Awards will be given based on the number of reviews completed. Since the potential amount of reviewers may significantly increase, please make sure to add :{{GAReview}} underneath the article you are reviewing to ensure that only one person is reviewing each article. Additionally, the GA criteria may have been modified since your last review, so look over the criteria again to help you to determine if a candidate is GA-worthy. If you have any questions about this drive or the review process, leave a message on the drive's talk page. Please help to eradicate the backlog to cut down on the waiting time for articles to be reviewed.

You have received this message either due to your membership with WikiProject: Good Articles and/or your inclusion on the Misplaced Pages:Good article candidates/List of reviewers. --Nehrams2020 23:09, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Svidersky AfD

You forgot to log on with your user ID. Tyrenius 01:08, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Anna Svidersky

Howdy! You recently participated in the August 2007 AfD of the Anna Svidersky article. There is currently a Request for comment on the talk page of the Svidersky article aimed at resolving disagreements over the outcome of that AfD. I hope you don't mind the interruption but any additional or outside input would be greatly appreciated by all the editors on the Svidersky page. Thank you for your time. Agne/ 14:56, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Wine Project Newsletter

The Wine Project Newsletter!
Issue VI - May 6th, 2007

In this edition:

  • News & Notes New wine members, maps wanted, fame at last
  • Sub Projects Updates on Operation Stub Killer
  • Wiki-Winos Why port is poison and a special night in Chinon - this issue features your stand-in editor, FlagSteward.
This newsletter is sent to those listed under Participants on the Wine Project page. If you wish to no longer receive this newsletter please include Decline newsletter next to your name on the Participant list.
If you have any Misplaced Pages wine related news, announcements or suggestions drop a note in the Comments/Suggestion area of Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Wine/Newsletter.

Apologies to everyone for this notification being sent out so late, events in real life prevented me from distributing it at the time, and the Wine Project's had a bit of a lull during the Northern Hemsiphere summer. But as the nights draw in, activity should pick up again, and hopefully the next Newsletter will arrive a little more quickly....

The next few weeks are the perfect time to take photos of grapes in the Northern Hemisphere - get your cameras out! FlagSteward 15:57, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

University information

Hi I´m a college student from Mexico. I´m up to write something about the MIT. What I´m looking to is people who can tell me about the Student life there, and in your case the support the MIT gives to foreign students. It would be great if you could tell me about those things.

Thank you

Echg07 18:02, 19 September 2007 (UTC)echg07

WikiProject Good Articles Newsletter for November 2007

The November 2007 issue of the WikiProject Good Articles newsletter has been published. Comments are welcome on this, as well as suggestions or offers of assistance for the December 2007 issue. Dr. Cash 01:07, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Good Articles Newsletter for December 2007

The December 2007 issue of the WikiProject Good Articles newsletter has been published. Comments are welcome on this, as well as suggestions or offers of assistance for the January 2008 issue. Dr. Cash 00:30, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:WINE newsletter

The Wine Project Newsletter!
Issue VII - December 8th, 2007

In this edition:

  • Back in black...or rather wine stain burgundy Yes, the newsletter is back and we catch up with the some of the great work being done by Wine Project members like Kharker, VirginiaProp, BodegasAmbite and more!
  • Updates on Operation Stubkiller, GAs, and DYKs As well as advice and links for finding photos and illustrations for our wine articles
This newsletter is sent to those listed under Participants on the Wine Project page. If you wish to no longer receive this newsletter please include Decline newsletter next to your name on the Participant list.
If you have any Misplaced Pages wine related news, announcements or suggestions drop a note in the Comments/Suggestion area of Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Wine/Newsletter.

WP:WINE newsletter

The Wine Project Newsletter!
Issue VIII - December 22nd, 2007

In this edition:

  • News & Notes - Could Zinfandel become the project's first Featured article? Great opportunities for wine related illustrations, a new 1855-Bordeaux template, Did you knows and MORE!
  • Wiki-Winos - User:Jmjanssen and the mysterious Woop Woop
  • Wine articles on the Web - Find out how our Port wine, Chardonnay, Retsina & other wine articles have been referenced on the web and what do outside folks think about the overall quality of our wine articles?
This newsletter is sent to those listed under Participants on the Wine Project page. If you wish to no longer receive this newsletter please include Decline newsletter next to your name on the Participant list.
If you have any Misplaced Pages wine related news, announcements or suggestions drop a note in the Comments/Suggestion area of Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Wine/Newsletter.

WikiProject Good Articles January Newsletter

Happy New Year! Here is the latest edition of the WikiProject GA Newsletter! Dr. Cash (talk) 03:53, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

The Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Good articles Newsletter

The WikiProject Good Articles Newsletter
Volume I, No. 3 - January 2008

December issue | February issue

Project News
  • There are now 3,301 Good Articles listed at WP:GA. With 1,789 current featured articles, that brings the total of good and featured articles to 5,090!
  • The backlog at Good Article Nominations has recently exploded to 236 unreviewed articles! Out of 264 total nominations, 17 are on hold, 10 are under review, and one is seeking a second opinion. Please go to WP:GAN and review an article or three as soon as you have a chance!
The oldest unreviewed articles are: Attachment disorder, Byzantium under the Palaiologoi, Byzantium under the Angeloi, Wowowee, Tyrone Wheatley, Mina (singer), Jon Burge, Mercury Hayes, William Lowndes Yancey, and Toni Preckwinkle.
The top five categories with the largest backlogs are: Sports and recreation (47 articles), Film and cinema (25 articles), Television and journalism (16 articles), Art and architecture (15 articles), and Politics and government (14 articles).
The backlog at Good Article Reassessment currently stands at 17 articles up for re-review.
If every participant of WikiProject Good Articles could review just one article in the next week, the backlog would be almost eliminated!
Reviewer of the Month

Dihydrogen Monoxide is the GAN Reviewer of the Month of December, based on the assessments made by Epbr123 of the number and thoroughness of the reviews made by individual reviewers each week. Dihydrogen Monoxide hails from Brisbane (which, incidentally, is almost a GA, kids ;)) and has been editing Misplaced Pages since August 2006. He mostly likes to review articles relating to music, Australia, or anything else that takes his fancy! He also has two articles waiting, and notes that there's still a huge backlog,... so get cracking!

Other outstanding reviewers recognized during the month of December include:

Member News

There are now 166 members of WikiProject Good Articles! Welcome to the 7 new members that joined during the month of December:

This WikiProject, and the Good Article program as a whole, would not be where it is today without each and every one of its members! Thank you to all!

GAReview Template

Lots of you that frequent WP:GAN have undoubtedly seen the articles under review, marked with "Review - I am reviewing this article. ...". The articles have been marked as being under review by an editor using the {{GAReview}} template. The purpose of this template is essentially to prevent two editors from reviewing the same article at the same time, so it's essentially a common courtesy notice to other editors so that they don't pass or fail an article while you're in the midst of collecting and writing comments. However, just because an article is marked, shouldn't preclude another editor from contributing to the review. If you'd like to review it, go ahead; simply collect your comments and write them down on the article's talk page – but don't pass or fail the article – leave that to the other reviewer.

To use this template yourself, simply write "#:{{GAReview}} ~~~~" on the line immediately following the article's nomination at WP:GAN. You can even leave additional comments as well (e.g. "#:{{GAReview}} I will finish my review in the next 24 hours. ~~~~"). Reviewers marking articles with this template should also observe some common etiquette; please don't mark more than 1-3 articles as being under review at a time, and please try and finish your review within 3-5 days of marking the article.

GA Sweeps

After openly requesting the community for more participants into the Sweeps, we have 3 more members on the board. They are (in no particular order) Canadian Paul, VanTucky, and Masem. Canadian Paul will be sweeping "Middle East and the World" articles. VanTucky will be sweeping "Religion, mysticism, and mythology" and "Literature" articles. Masem will be sweeping "Television episodes". We're still looking for more reviewers. Interested individuals should contact OhanaUnited for details.

At this moment, participation in the sweeps project is by invitation only, as we desire experienced reviewers who have a thorough and extensive knowledge of the criteria. This is to ensure that articles that have "fallen through the cracks" would be found and removed, and that additional articles don't fall through the cracks during the sweep.

Currently, there are 16 members working on the project, and we have reviewed 74 articles in December 2007. Of those that are swept, 275 articles are kept as GA, 126 articles are delisted, and 5 promoted to FA.

Did You Know,...
  • ... that the total number of good and featured articles is now over 5000?
  • ... that GA was formed on October 11, 2005 and was formerly called "Half-decent articles"?
  • ... that there is a bot (StatisticianBot) that gives a daily report on GAN?
  • ... that many discussions were made over the years on whether GA should have a symbol placed on the main article space, yet at the end always removed?
  • ... that there was a proposal to change the GA symbol to a green featured star?
From the Editors

Happy New Year, everyone! I'm just filling in for Dr. Cash as he's busy (or away) in real life. This explains why I wasn't prepared for a full-length article on GA process, and instead I resort to a tiny DYK for GA.

  • OhanaUnited

Happy New Year as well! I'm still here, and haven't totally disappeared. I had to cut back on editing and reviewing during the month of December as I made the transition from Flagstaff, Arizona to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. But I should be about settled in the Keystone State, so I'll be contributing more to Misplaced Pages again in the new year. Thanks to OhanaUnited for putting together much of the content for this newsletter! He's been working hard with the Sweeps, and the 'Did You Know' section is also a great idea, so I think that will become a regular feature now! I also figured out how to have a collapsible newsletter, so that will change our delivery options a bit. Cheers!

  • Dr. Cash
Contributors to this Issue

Improving Misplaced Pages one article at a time since 2005!

WikiProject Good Articles: Open Tasks
This project identifies, organizes and improves good articles on Misplaced Pages.
Good article criteria | Statistics | GAN Report | Changes log
Nominations list | edit

WP:WINE newsletter

The Wine Project Newsletter!
Issue IX - January 7th, 2008

In this edition:

  • News & Notes - Portal:Wine up for Featured Portal status, WANTED-GA Coordinator/liaison and wine region maps, and can you guess which wine-related article was viewed over 85,000 times in December?
  • Wiki-Winos - Amatulić and his joke that may make you think twice about accepting an unknown glass of wine from a stranger
  • Wine articles on the Web - Did the Shiraz grape originate in Iran? Where did the Ah-so bottle opener get its name? What is up with that petroleum smell in some Riesling wines? And what the heck is Domaine de la Romanée-Conti doing planting Pinot noir fin? These are the questions that people out on the web are asking. Find out what answers they get when they turn to our Misplaced Pages wine articles.
This newsletter is sent to those listed under Participants on the Wine Project page. If you wish to no longer receive this newsletter please include Decline newsletter next to your name on the Participant list.
If you have any Misplaced Pages wine related news, announcements or suggestions drop a note in the Comments/Suggestion area of Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Wine/Newsletter.

WP:WINE newsletter

The Wine Project Newsletter!
Issue X - January 31st, 2008

In this edition:

This newsletter is sent to those listed under Participants on the Wine Project page. If you wish to no longer receive this newsletter please include Decline newsletter next to your name on the Participant list.
If you have any Misplaced Pages wine related news, announcements or suggestions drop a note in the Comments/Suggestion area of Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Wine/Newsletter.

WikiProject Good Articles Newsletter

The February 2008 issue of the WikiProject Good Articles Newsletter is ready! Dr. Cash (talk) 05:35, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Good articles Newsletter

The WikiProject Good Articles Newsletter
Volume I, No. 4 - February 2008

January issue | March issue

Project News
  • There are now 3,485 Good Articles listed at WP:GA.
  • The backlog at Good Article Nominations is 206 unreviewed articles. Out of 251 total nominations, 37 are on hold, 7 are under review, and 1 is seeking a second opinion. Please go to WP:GAN and review an article or three as soon as you have a chance!
The oldest unreviewed articles are: Johan Derksen, Trafford, J. Michael Bailey, Greg Skrepenak, Paleolithic-style diet, Alan Dershowitz, Natalee Holloway, Slovenian presidential election, 2007, San Francisco Municipal Railway, and Marcela Agoncillo.
The top five categories with the largest backlogs are: Sports and recreation (57 articles), Theatre film and drama (34 articles), Music (19 articles), Transport (17 articles), Politics and government (16 articles), World history (13 articles), and Meteorology and atmospheric sciences (13 articles).
The backlog at Good Article Reassessment currently stands at 8 articles up for re-review.
If every participant of WikiProject Good Articles could review just one article in the next week, the backlog would be almost eliminated!
GA Sweeps Update

During January, 57 Good Articles were reviewed. Including those articles that were under GAR or on hold, 35 were kept as GA, 20 delisted, 9 currently on hold or at GAR, and 3 were exempted as they are now Featured Articles.

Reviewer of the Month

Ealdgyth is the GAN Reviewer of the Month for January, based on the assessments made by Epbr123 on the number and thoroughness of the reviews made by individual reviewers each week. Ealdgyth, known in real life as Victoria Short, hails from Central Illinois, and has been editing Misplaced Pages since May 26, 2007. In this short time, she has made significant contributions to 9 Good Articles, including Baldwin of Exeter and Hubert Walter. Her interests in editing are in the areas of the Middle Ages, History, and horses. Outside of Misplaced Pages, she is starting her own photography business, and owns three horses. She likes to read science fiction, history, and geneology books. Congratulations to our GAN Reviewer of the Month for January!

Other outstanding reviewers recognized during the month of January include:

Member News

There are now 176 members of WikiProject Good Articles! Welcome to the 15 new members that joined during the month of January:

This WikiProject, and the Good Article program as a whole, would not be where it is today without each and every one of its members! Thank you to all!

On Hold versus Failing an Article

This month, I thought I'd focus on a less technical and more of a procedural issue at WP:GAN – determining what the appropriate course of action to take when reviewing an article. Currently, there are four options to decide what to do with an article:

  • Passing – it meets all six of the good article criteria; add it to WP:GA and add {{ArticleHistory}} or {{GA}} to the article's talk page.
  • Failing it – it does not meet the criteria; remove the article's listing from WP:GAN and add {{ArticleHistory}} or {{failedGA}} to the article's talk page.
  • On Hold – The article meets most of the criteria, but might fall short in a few areas; keep it listed at WP:GAN, add #: {{GAOnHold|ArticleName}} ~~~~ below the listing and add {{GAonhold}} to the article's talk page.
  • Second Opinion – Similar to the on hold option, except an editor is either inexperienced or not knowledgeable enough about a given topic and asks another reviewer to offer another opinion before passing or failing; add #: {{GA2ndopinion|ArticleName}} ~~~~ to WP:GAN below the article's listing and add {{GA2ndoptalk}} to the article's talk page.

So how to you know when an article fails outright, or fails initially, but meets "enough" of the criteria to be placed on hold? The answer to this question probably varies by about the same amount as there are reviewers of Good Articles! Everybody treats this slightly differently. The most important thing to consider is that articles should not be on hold for longer than about one week. Although there is no hard and fast time limit for this, most editors would probably agree that five to seven days is enough time to address any GA-related issues with the article to get it to pass. Some editors have extended this a few days in the past, due to other extenuating circumstances, such as an article's primary editor being very busy with school or work, so they have asked for extra time. But as a general rule, a GA nominee that is placed on hold should meet enough of the criteria to be able to be passed within five to seven days. Some examples of articles that might be placed on hold would be:

  • the article is mostly complete, but might be missing one topic (subcategory).
  • minor copyediting is required (needs a few minor manual of style, spelling, or grammatical fixes.
  • mostly well sourced, but missing maybe a handful of references.
  • a couple of images need to be tagged with appropriate copyright tags.

On the other hand, an article should be failed if it:

  • is missing several topic categories, or there are several sections which are very short (1-3 sentences per section).
  • contains numerous sections which are just lists of information, as opposed to written out as prose.
  • there's entire sections of text that have no references, or there are a lot of {{cn}} or {{unreferenced}} tags.
  • has evidence of an active edit war in the article history.
  • has major neutrality issues.
  • has any {{cleanup}} or other warning tags in various places.
Did You Know...
  • ... that on July 19, 2007, 1,548 good articles that have not been categorized at all were categorized in 15 days?
  • ... that in Chinese Misplaced Pages, articles need to have at least six net support votes before they are promoted to GA?
  • ... that the English Misplaced Pages has the most Good Articles, the German Misplaced Pages has the second most (at over 2000), followed by the Spanish Misplaced Pages (at over 800), the Chinese Misplaced Pages (at over 400), and the French Misplaced Pages (at over 200)?
  • ... that Simple English Misplaced Pages has zero Good Articles?
  • ... that "Sport and games people" category has the most Good Articles?
  • ... that Virginia Tech massacre (which is now a featured article) was promoted to GA just only about one month after the shooting incident, but took more than seven months to reach FA status?
From the Editors

Originally, I wasn't planning to do "Did you know" other than as a fill-in for Dr. Cash. However, I decided to continue writing this section until I ran out of ideas.

  • OhanaUnited

Please leave any comments or feedback regarding this issue here.

  • Dr. Cash
Contributors to this Issue

Improving Misplaced Pages one article at a time since 2005!

WikiProject Good Articles: Open Tasks
This project identifies, organizes and improves good articles on Misplaced Pages.
Good article criteria | Statistics | GAN Report | Changes log
Nominations list | edit

WP:WINE newsletter

The Wine Project Newsletter!
Issue XI - February 21st, 2008

In this edition:

  • News & Notes - Every American Viticultural Area now has an article! Keeping up with the B class wine articles and find out which start class article of top importance was viewed almost 43,000 times between Dec-Jan.
Plus, find out which wine related Did you knows helped to dispel the myths around the Shiraz grape's origins and which Bordeaux wine chateau was a last minute addition to the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855-not without some controversy.
Also, what wine articles have the most potential to reach Good article status?
  • Wiki-Winos - Meet User:EvanProdromou! Evan who? Well let just say that another "wiki-wino" has come out the closet to say Hi and share what his project Vinismo can do to help Misplaced Pages's wine articles.
  • Wiki wine articles on the Web - Guess which prominent wine personality thinks that Misplaced Pages is one of the best wine resources on the web? Also find out who thinks our Mission grape article is lacking and how our Plavac Mali article cleared up some confusion about the grape's relationship to Zinfandel. Plus, was Mick Jagger really singing about Sommeliers in the Stone's song Beast of Burden?
This newsletter is sent to those listed under Participants on the Wine Project page. If you wish to no longer receive this newsletter please include Decline newsletter next to your name on the Participant list.
If you have any Misplaced Pages wine related news, announcements or suggestions drop a note in the Comments/Suggestion area of Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Wine/Newsletter.

WikiProject Good Articles Newsletter

The March 2008 issue of the WikiProject Good Articles Newsletter is ready! Dr. Cash (talk) 05:53, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

The Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Good articles Newsletter

The WikiProject Good Articles Newsletter
Volume I, No. 5 - March 2008

February issue | April issue

Project News
  • There are currently 3,647 Good Articles listed at WP:GA.
  • The backlog at Good Article Nominations is 185 unreviewed articles. Out of 237 total nominations, 42 are on hold, and 10 are under review. Please go to WP:GAN and review an article or three as soon as you have a chance!
The oldest unreviewed articles are: Ian Browne (cyclist), Tony Marchant, Reginald fitz Jocelin, Annie Russell, Brodie Croyle, and Jimmy Moore.
The top five categories with the largest backlogs are: Sports and recreation (39 articles), Theatre, film, and drama (34 articles), Transport (23 articles), Music (21 articles), Politics and government (18 articles), Culture and society (13 articles), Places (13 articles), and World history (12 articles).
The backlog at Good Article Reassessment currently stands at 13 articles up for re-review.
If every participant of WikiProject Good Articles could review just one article in the next week, the backlog would be almost eliminated!
GA Sweeps Update

Two members joined the sweeps team this month. They are Jwanders and jackyd101. Jwanders swept Physics sub-category quickly and is now sweeping "Astronomy and astrophysics". Meanwhile, jackyd101 is sweeping "Armies, military units and legal issues".

During February, 66 Good Articles were reviewed. Including those articles that were under GAR or on hold, 33 were kept as GA, 21 delisted, 17 currently on hold or at GAR, and 1 was exempted as they are now Featured Articles.

Reviewer of the Month

Blnguyen is the GAN Reviewer of the Month for February, based on the assessments made by Epbr123 on the number and thoroughness of the reviews made by individual reviewers each week. Blnguyen is from South Australia and has been editing Misplaced Pages since 2005. He was also the reviewer for the month of December 2007, so this marks the second time that he has been GAN's Top Reviewer for the Month. Congratulations to our GAN Reviewer of the Month for February!

Other outstanding reviewers recognized during the month of January include:

Member News

There are now 185 members of WikiProject Good Articles! Welcome to the 9 new members that joined during the month of February:

Did You Know...

This WikiProject, and the Good Article program as a whole, would not be where it is today without each and every one of its members! Thank you to all!

One GA Requirement - The Lead Section

In this issue, we will focus on one of the requirements for good articles: a good article article should follow Misplaced Pages's guideline on lead sections. So what does this guideline say, why does it say what it does, and how can good article reviewers help?

The lead section is particularly important, because for many readers, it is the only part of the article which they will read. For instance, they may have come to the article by following a wikilink in another article simply to obtain a quick overview before they continue reading the original article. They may only read the first paragraph, or even the first sentence. On the other hand, one of the joys of Misplaced Pages is the way that it embodies the endlessly branching tree of knowledge; if a lead is well written, it may encourage even such a reader to read on and learn something new.

This is reflected in the terminology: "lead" is a word taken from journalism, where it recognized that many readers will only read the beginning of a newspaper article, and so it is important to convey the key points first, before going into detail. Note that "lead", in this sense, is pronounced as in "leading question" and is sometimes spelled as "lede" by journalists to distinguish it from lead, the metal, which was once very important in typesetting. Misplaced Pages supports both spellings.

Misplaced Pages:Lead section is written with all this in mind, and describes two different roles for the lead: first, it should introduce the topic; second it should summarize the article. This is not always as easy as it seems; indeed, it is almost impossible to write a good lead if the article itself does not cover the topic well. It has a side benefit that an article which satisfies this guideline is probably also broad: if the lead is both a good introduction and a summary, then the article probably covers the main points.

The good article process is often the first place in which an article is judged against this criterion, yet many current good articles may not meet it. A common fault is that the lead is purely an introduction, while the rest of the article contains other information, which should be summarized in the lead, but isn't.

So, how can reviewers help to improve this? One approach is to read the rest of the article, and not the lead, first. Make a note of the significant points discussed in the article. There is usually at least one important issue in each section. Then, go back to the lead and ask the following questions:

  • Does the first sentence of the lead define the topic, as described in the article?
  • Is the most important information mentioned in the first paragraph?
  • Is the lead a suitable length for the article? The lead guideline recommends 2–4 paragraphs depending on the article length, but judgment is more important than counting.
  • Are each of the significant topics that you noted mentioned in the lead?

If the answer to each of these questions is "yes", then the article probably meets the guideline. If not, you may be able to fix it yourself by summarizing the article. If you can't, then it suggests that there are not only problems with the lead, but also the rest of the article. That is the beauty of Misplaced Pages:Lead section.

Finally, there isn't universal agreement on whether the lead should contain inline citations. As long as the material in the lead is developed and cited elsewhere in the article, then inline citation is not required. There are exceptions, the most significant being quotations and controversial material about living persons.

Good luck helping more articles meet this important criterion!

From the Editors

Well, this is somewhat GA-related but at the same time not totally GA-related. However, I think this is important. Thanks to everyone who supported me at my 2nd RfA. It passed unanimously at 79 support, 0 oppose, 0 neutral. As many are impressed by my work in Good Articles processes, I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone giving me a very enjoyable time at GA. There are 2 people that I want to explicitly say thank you to. They are Nehrams2020 and Epbr123. They patiently taught me how to do GA reviews properly in summer 2007. I couldn't achieve better without them. Now that I have the mop and the bucket, some of my time will be working on reducing Commons image backlog. Nevertheless, you will still see me once in a while in matters related to GA.

  • OhanaUnited

Please leave any comments or feedback regarding this issue here.

  • Dr. Cash
Contributors to this Issue

Improving Misplaced Pages one article at a time since 2005!

WikiProject Good Articles: Open Tasks
This project identifies, organizes and improves good articles on Misplaced Pages.
Good article criteria | Statistics | GAN Report | Changes log
Nominations list | edit

April GA Newsletter

The April issue of the WikiProject Good Articles Newsletter is now available. Dr. Cash (talk) 03:45, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

The Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Good articles Newsletter

The WikiProject Good Articles Newsletter
Volume I, No. 6 - April 2008

March issue | May issue

Project News
  • There are currently 3,868 Good Articles listed at WP:GA.
  • The backlog at Good Article Nominations is 195 unreviewed articles. Out of 267 total nominations, 57 are on hold, 13 are under review, and 2 are seeking a second opinion. Please go to WP:GAN and review an article or three as soon as you have a chance!
The oldest unreviewed articles are: A4232 road, New York State Route 63, Great American Boycott, First Great Western, Duck Soup, Sanja Matsuri, Code of Conduct (affiliate marketing), Prospect Mountain Veterans Memorial Highway, Aliens (film), and Roanoke Regional Airport.
The categories with the largest backlogs are: Theatre, film and drama (27 articles), Sports and recreation (25 articles), Transport (24 articles), Music (19 articles), War and military (19 articles), Politics and government (18 articles), Religion, mysticism and mythology (16 articles), Literature (14 articles), World history (14 articles), and Video and computer games (14 articles).
The backlog at Good Article Reassessment currently stands at 12 articles up for re-review.
GA Sweeps Update

The GA Sweeps process is progressing nicely! During the month of March, a total of 92 articles were reviewed. Of that total, 74 were found to continue to meet the GA criteria, and 18 were delisted. There are currently 14 articles that are still on hold in this process, awaiting revisions. Congratulations to Nehrams2020 (talk · contribs), who sweeped a whopping 51 articles during the month! Jackyd101 (talk · contribs) also deserves congrats for sweeping a total of 26 articles!

Reviewer of the Month

Dihydrogen monoxide is the GAN Reviewer of the Month for March, based on the assessments made by Dr. Cash on the number and thoroughness of the reviews made by individual reviewers each week. Dihydrogen monoxide hails from Brisbane in Queensland, Australia, and has been editing Misplaced Pages since April 6, 2007. He has contributed to 8 Featured articles and is an avid reviewer and contributor to the Good articles program. Other reviewers should check out his Noob's Guide to GA Reviewing. Congratulations to Dihydrogen monoxide!

Other outstanding reviewers during the month of March include:

Member News

There are now 195 members of WikiProject Good Articles! Welcome to the 13 new members that joined during the month of March:

This WikiProject, and the Good Article program as a whole, would not be where it is today without each and every one of its members! Thank you to all!

To delist or not to delist, that is the question

So you’ve found an article that, on the face of it, does not merit its good article status. What next? Especially where there are many glaring issues that need addressing, it’s tempting to just revoke its GA status and remove it from the list, but although we are encouraged as editors to be bold, this approach (known to some as "bold delisting") is not recommended good practice. There are many reasons why a listed article might not meet the assessment criteria—it’s always possible that it never did, and was passed in error, but more likely the criteria have changed or the article quality has degraded since its original assessment. Either way, we should treat its reassessment with no less tact and patience than we would a fresh nomination.

This, in fact, provides a good starting point for the delisting process. Approach the article as though it has been nominated for GA review. Read it and the GA criteria carefully, and provide a full reassessment on the article talk page. Explain where and why the article no longer meets the criteria, and suggest remedies.

Having explained why the article no longer meets current GA criteria, allow its editors time to fix it! In keeping with the above approach, it may help to treat the article as on hold. There is no need to tag it as such, but give editors a reasonable deadline, and consider helping out with the repair work. Bear in mind that more flexibility may be required than for a normal hold—the editors did not request or expect your reassessment and will probably have other projects taking up their time. They may not have worked on the article for months or even years, and at worst the article may have been abandoned and its authors no longer active. As always, communication is the key. It sometimes helps to post messages to relevant WikiProjects (found at the top of the article talk page), or to contact editors directly (this tool is useful for identifying active editors for any given article).

Only once the above process has run its course, and sufficient improvement has not been forthcoming, is it time to think about delisting the article. Communicate your final decision on the article talk page, even if there was no response to your reassessment and hold, and take the time to fill in the various edit summaries on the article talk and GA list pages to ensure the delisting is transparent and trackable. If you have any doubts about your final decision, you can list the article at Good article reassessment or contact one of the GA mentors, who will be happy to advise.

Article reassessment is perhaps the single most controversial function of our WikiProject, and the one with the most potential to upset and alienate editors. Yet it is one of the most necessary too, since without the ability to revoke an article’s status we would be unable to maintain quality within the project. However, if we approach reassessment sensitively and with the goal of improving articles to the point where sanctions are unnecessary, we will ensure that delisting is the last resort, not the first.

From the Editors

As we near the 4,000 Good Articles milestone, the project continues to grow and to gain respect in the Misplaced Pages community. Nevertheless, we continue to have a large backlog. If every member of WikiProject Good Articles would review just one article each day during the month of April, the backlog would be eliminated!

Please leave any comments or feedback regarding this issue here.

Contributors to this Issue

Improving Misplaced Pages one article at a time since 2005!

WikiProject Good Articles: Open Tasks
This project identifies, organizes and improves good articles on Misplaced Pages.
Good article criteria | Statistics | GAN Report | Changes log
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