Misplaced Pages

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 most recently promoted articles are: Hurricane Daniel (2006), Tarbosaurus, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Wicca, Seth MacFarlane, Stanley Internment Camp, Hurricane Karen (2007), Interstate 155 (Illinois), Tropical Storm Ingrid (2007), Brian Sings and Swings, Winston Churchill, Mzoli's, John Kefalas, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

• 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:

• Awadewit (talk · contribs)
• Canadian Paul (talk · contribs)
• Derek.cashman (talk · contribs)
• Drewcifer3000 (talk · contribs)
• Elcobbola (talk · contribs)
• Jackyd101 (talk · contribs)
• Kane5187 (talk · contribs)
• M3tal H3ad (talk · contribs)
• Nehrams2020 (talk · contribs)
• The Rambling Man (talk · contribs)
• VanTucky (talk · contribs)
• Wassupwestcoast (talk · contribs)

Member News

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

• Majoreditor (talk · contribs)
• Bernstein2291 (talk · contribs)
• The4325 (talk · contribs)
• Pepsi2786 (talk · contribs)
• Monowi (talk · contribs)
• Rankun (talk · contribs)

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

• Dr. Cash (Lead Editor, Distributor)
• OhanaUnited (GA Sweeps correspondent)

Improving Misplaced Pages one article at a time since 2005!

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:

• AnonEMouse (talk · contribs)
• Canadian Paul (talk · contribs)
• Casliber (talk · contribs)
• Derek.cashman (talk · contribs)
• Dihydrogen Monoxide (talk · contribs)
• Drewcifer3000 (talk · contribs)
• Jackyd101 (talk · contribs)
• Johnfos (talk · contribs)
• M3tal H3ad (talk · contribs)
• Miranda (talk · contribs)
• Nehrams2020 (talk · contribs)
• VanTucky (talk · contribs)

Member News

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

• Atlantik (talk · contribs)
• Auawise (talk · contribs)
• Cyclonenim (talk · contribs)
• Dihydrogen Monoxide (talk · contribs)
• Ddstretch (talk · contribs)
• Ealdgyth (talk · contribs)
• FamicomJL (talk · contribs)
• Hamiltonstone (talk · contribs)
• jackturner3 (talk · contribs)
• Kbthompson (talk · contribs)
• Keilana (talk · contribs)
• Miranda (talk · contribs)
• pcbene (talk · contribs)
• Skeeker (talk · contribs)
• Snowolf (talk · contribs)

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

• Dr. Cash (Lead Editor, Distributor)
• OhanaUnited (GA Sweeps and Did You Know correspondent)

Improving Misplaced Pages one article at a time since 2005!

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:

• Blnguyen (talk · contribs)
• David Fuchs (talk · contribs)
• Derek.cashman (talk · contribs)
• Dihydrogen Monoxide (talk · contribs)
• Calbear22 (talk · contribs)
• Ealdgyth (talk · contribs)
• Jackturner3 (talk · contribs)
• TimVickers (talk · contribs)
• VanTucky (talk · contribs)
• Wrad (talk · contribs)

Member News

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

• Bibliomaniac15 (talk · contribs)
• Canyouhearmenow (talk · contribs)
• Chrisisinchrist (talk · contribs)
• Ed! (talk · contribs)
• Juliancolton (talk · contribs)
• Kakofonous (talk · contribs)
• LOTRrules (talk · contribs)
• Matthewedwards (talk · contribs)
• Nousernamesleft (talk · contribs)

Did You Know...

• ...that the shortest timespan for a GA to be listed and subsequently delisted is 8 minutes? (The article is Project Chanology and currently listed on WP:GAR)
• ...that the current nominations system started on March 10, 2006?
• ...that in May 2006, number of GA surpassed number of FA?

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

• By Geometry guy

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

• Dr. Cash (Lead Editor, Distributor)
• OhanaUnited (GA Sweeps and Did You Know correspondent)
• Geometry guy (News Correspondent)

Improving Misplaced Pages one article at a time since 2005!