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This talk page should be used for discussions relating to the nominating and reviewing of Good article nominations. Please direct any comments regarding the improvement of the GA program as a whole to WikiProject Good Articles. Thank you.

view · edit Frequently asked questions Main Criteria Instructions Nominations FAQ January backlog drive Mentorship Review circles Discussion Reassessment Report Shortcut WP:GAFAQ This is the list of Frequently asked questions about nominating and reviewing Good articles. If you cannot find the answer to your question here, you might want to ask for assistance at the GA nominations discussion page. Nomination process The backlog is huge! Is there something we can do to restrict nominations? There have been complaints about the perceived backlog in reviewing since the Good article status was created in 2006. Generally speaking, we don't want to restrict nominations along their path to GA. In the beginning, as many as 100 nominations were waiting for a reviewer to volunteer. By 2011, each day typically listed 330 nominated articles, of which 260 were waiting. By 2016, 580 were listed, 460 waiting; by 2021, 470 were listed, 300 were waiting. For comparison, today there are currently 707 nominations listed and 632 waiting for a reviewer. While it may seem overwhelming, a large backlog isn't a bad thing. It shows that many nominators want to use GA as a tool to improve the encyclopedia. It also allows reviewers to choose from a wide selection of articles that interest them. From a nominator's perspective, the main concern is the expected wait time before receiving a review, not the number of articles on the nominations page. Can't we force nominators to review articles? Quid pro quo reviewing (editors must review an article before nominating, perhaps after a grace period) was regularly proposed and always rejected as likely leading to lower quality reviews and fewer nominations from excellent content creators who may not wish to review another person's work. What order do nominations appear on the Good article nominations page? One advantage of reviewing articles to help the Misplaced Pages community is the GAN appearance order: the more articles you have reviewed relative to articles you have nominated, the higher up in the queue your nomination will appear on the GAN page. Note that above this, order preference is given to nominators who are new to GA. What if the nominator is a (perhaps dynamic) IP address? Any editor with significant contributions to the article may nominate an article for GA status (while only registered users may review), so significant-contributor IP nominators are permitted. Non-significant contributors should follow the advice above for editors who have not significantly contributed to the article. Dynamically changing IP nominators may want to clarify to the reviewer that, despite their signature, they remain the same person. Can I nominate an article I haven't significantly contributed to? No. Nominations from editors who have not substantially contributed will be removed unless the nomination shows that the article's regular editors were consulted on its talk page alongside a note on the GAN template showing their commitment to the process, e.g., |note=Adopted following extensive improvement by another editor. In the past, many drive-by nominators did not know the article or its sources and did not respond to questions by the reviewer. Review process I want to review an article. Do I have to review the oldest unreviewed nomination first? Thank you for deciding to review an article for GA. You may review any nominated article you are not involved in, regardless of the nomination's age or position in the queue. As a reviewer, I want to help the nominator improve the article, but it already meets the criteria. What am I supposed to do now? The purpose of a GA review is to determine whether the article meets the GA criteria. Article-improvement discussions are intended to prevent near-misses in nominated articles that almost meet the criteria. If the article already meets the criteria when you first review it, then explain exactly what you've checked in each of the main criteria (e.g., "I have verified there is no original research, copyright violations, plagiarism, unreliable sources, bias, edit wars, or untagged images.") and list it as a Good article. "Quick passes" are as legitimate as quick fails, although they are less common. Please do not make a list of nitpicky details or exceed the written requirements of the Good article criteria in an effort to make the review look rigorous. Instead, thank the nominator for presenting such a polished article, and encourage them to submit another. Who can respond to the review? The nominator is expected to respond to the reviewer's suggestions to improve the article, while everyone interested in the article is encouraged to participate in the review, not just the person who happened to nominate it. Nominators have no special privileges over other editors except that they can withdraw the nomination. Should nominators respond to reviewers' concerns? And what should reviewers do if they don't? The nominator has an interest in seeing the article become GA, so the nominator will likely want to respond to the reviewer to improve the article. In fact, all editors interested in the article are encouraged to respond to reviewers' concerns. However, nobody, including the nominator, is required to. If the reviewer identifies concerns directly related to the good article criteria and no one addresses the concerns, then no one should be surprised if the reviewer declines to list the article. If the article does not meet the Good article criteria after the reviewer has waited a reasonable amount of time for the nominator to make improvements, the reviewer is sure to fail the nomination. Future article editors may benefit from review comments on how to improve the article. The nominator disagrees with the reviewer. Can another reviewer take over? If your GAN experience is not going well or if you are disagreeing with the reviewer's decisions, then you may allow the review to fail, take the reviewer's suggestions into account, then renominate the article immediately (to get a different reviewer). If the reviewer has not yet failed the nomination, you may try asking them to ask for a second opinion. Other than these, another reviewer does not normally take over an active review. To prevent avoidable disputes, reviewers should either not make comments unrelated to the Good article criteria, or they should carefully label those suggestions as optional (e.g., "I know that citation formatting is not required by the Good article criteria, and I will not consider this when making my decision, but if you might send this to Misplaced Pages:Featured articles later, then that process requires consistent citation formatting"). Does an article have to be on hold for exactly seven days? No. Whether to place the nomination on hold at all, and the length of any such hold, is for the reviewer to decide. Depending on the quality of the article and the responsiveness of the nominator, a hold may not be necessary. If the reviewer decides that it is, they may choose longer or shorter periods of hold time. The reviewer may even modify the {{GA nominee}} template on the article talk page to include a "time" parameter, for example, "time=fourteen days", and the {{GANotice}} template used to convey messages to the GA nominator to include a "days" parameter, for example "days=fourteen". Keep in mind that protracted reviews show up as exceptions on the GA nominations report page. What should I do if a review page becomes inactive? This can happen for a number of reasons. Review pages should only be started by reviewers who are willing to take an active interest in the article and are committed to completing their review of the article in a timely manner. Sometimes another editor (such as the nominator) starts the review page by mistake. A reviewer can fix this by placing their signature after "Reviewer:" towards the top of the review page, but if no reviewer is forthcoming, it may be best to delete the review page: requests for such deletions may be posted at the discussion page. If a new reviewer is truly needed, follow the instructions page under "If a review seems abandoned". Do not use this process to void a review you disagree with. I failed the article, and the nominator just nominated it again without fixing the problems I identified! That's okay. There is no time limit between nominations, and this is the recommended process if the nominator disagrees with your review. Let someone else review it this time. The new reviewer is sure to read your comments while independently deciding on their assessment. If your concerns were legitimate, then the new reviewer will doubtless agree with you and also decline to list the article as GA. If the article is passed and you do not believe it meets the good article criteria, you can initiate a reassessment. How can GA be reliable when a single reviewer decides? The quality of a Good article is only as reliable as the most recent review and articles may deteriorate if unattended. The GA process deals with both of these issues by allowing repeat reviews by any registered user at any time. The process aims to encourage article improvement and build consensus on quality through multiple reviews—even though a single reviewer makes the decision whether to list the article according to the GA criteria. Any editor may contribute to any review discussion and reassessment is available when the "one reviewer decides" model breaks down. What if I have concerns about the quality of a review or need to resolve a dispute over the GA process? You can bring those concerns to the GA nominations discussion page to get help from other editors. Remember, however, to notify all users about whom concerns have been raised or who are involved in any dispute that you have.

• WT:GAN

Second opinion on Talk:Joseph J. Romm/GA1

I would appreciate second opinions on the citations to potential copyright violations on the Joseph J. Romm. The nominator claims that they are fair use by the Climate Progress web site that hosts them. Jezhotwells (talk) 15:23, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Still looking for imput on this. Cheers! Jezhotwells (talk) 11:05, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi, two clarifications. First, I believe that there is only one link at issue now. Second, I am not the nominator of this article. I am just the guy doing all the work after someone else nominated it who has never contributed to the article. -- Ssilvers (talk) 05:56, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

And still seeking a second opinion on a sourcing issue. Jezhotwells (talk) 20:06, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I'll try and take a look today or tomorrow, Jez. Ping me on my talk if I forget. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs 20:10, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, this has been resolved now. Jezhotwells (talk) 02:42, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Second reviewer needed

• The Most Hated Family in America

The first reviewer has become "semi-retired", and the bulk of the recommendations from the initial review (pending at Talk:The Most Hated Family in America/GA1), were responded to. Would be appreciated if another reviewer could come by and see if the article is now satisfactory to be promoted to GA status. Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 16:14, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I'll jump in. Binksternet (talk) 23:07, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

My thanks to Binksternet (talk · contribs), for helping out with this. ;) -- Cirt (talk) 15:49, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Image review

We have been patiently waiting for an image review so that we can wind up Talk:Bobby Orr/GA1. There are two images that I consider borderline in the article. One is an iconic image that is closely associated with the subject of the article. The other is a picture of a display at a museum. The author is willing to remove either or both, but I need an image specialist.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 14:19, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Does the BOT take a Christmas holiday?

I nominated Robert Latham Owen (a deceased US politician) for GA review under North American History (a sub-category of World History) back on the 24th, on the understanding that the BOT would promptly post it on this page automatically. Three days on there's still no sign of the BOT doing so. I tried posting it manually here under World History, but someone or something moved it to Miscellaneous. I've done a fair bit of work on Misplaced Pages, but have not previously grappled with the GA machinery. Advice from Old Hands? Nandt1 (talk) 22:49, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

The subtopic you want is "World history". I fixed that in your nomination (on the article talkpage). Fixing things on the page manually often doesn't work or is reverted by the bot. You also seem to have had "North American History" in your timestamp which seems to be unreadable by the bot.--BelovedFreak 22:54, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Looks ok now. --BelovedFreak 23:05, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for taking a look at this!Nandt1 (talk) 00:04, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

No problem! --BelovedFreak 00:10, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

discussion box

I think that it would be better if the reviewer would add a discussion box to mark the closing of the GA discussion on GA subpage. At present the reviewer can close the discussion on the talk page, and editors focused on the GA subpage might not notice what has happened on the talk page. I think that an instruction should be added that tells reviewer to add a discussion box to mark the closing of a GA review (pass or fail) on the GA review subpage. Snowman (talk) 19:33, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Review issue

I nominated U.S. Route 223 for GAN. Racepacket (talk · contribs) selected the article for review. I found that odd, and somewhat hypocritical, because he earlier proposed that no reviewer review more than five nominated articles from a single editor/nominator. This article would be the sixth nomination of mine that he's reviewed. The review had some valid feedback, but the last series of comments centered on a content dispute over the status of Interstate 73 in relation to how it might impact US 223 in the future. In dealing with this reviewer, it was my feeling that to further continue the review process would be fruitless, that unless I gave in and inserted misleading and less than relevant information not supported by pertinent source, that the review could not come to a satisfactory conclusion. I closed and withdrew the nomination. I renominated the article to gain a fresh, second opinion. The second review was opened by Racepacket, against my explicit request that he no longer review my nominations. I have since withdrawn that review and brought the situation here. Imzadi 1979 → 07:38, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Why not just let Imzadi1979 get the second review from another editor that he wants? I don't see why Racepacket feels the need to keep rereviewing the article so it doesn't get a second opinion. --Rschen7754 08:22, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

1. Because the idea behind the GA process is that a fresh pair of eyes should look at the article, "kick the tires", and invest considerable effort in determining whether the article meets the GA criteria. I have spent hours doing that. That effort will be wasted if the nominator assets the right to "fail" a review without consulting the reviewer and then immediately post the article for a second review. The correct course in a situation where the reviewer and nominator have a difference of opinion is for the nominator to suggest that they are at an impass and request a second opinion. Otherwise, we are face with WP:HEAR of the nominator not "hearing" what the reviewer is really saying.

2. The review process must be transparent. The nominator should never delete text from the article talk page, downplay the failed review, or delete the transclusion of the full review from the article talk page.

3. In this particular case, the lead paragraph says "although neither state has plans at this time to complete the freeway" which I questioned as misleading because the states do literally have plans, but they are inactive. "at this time" violates WP:RELTIME. But the nominator refuses to address my concerns.

4. As a practical matter, the highway articles pose a logistical problem for the GAN process. A lot of editors edit a lot of articles, so it would be difficult to find someone who has not edited the article to review it. I felt that I was helping Misplaced Pages by volunteering to review an article that has been edited by a number of different people, including Rschen7754 and TwinMetsFan, who do a lot of highway reviews. I don't think that it is hypocracy to review this article, given the fact that the remaining highway reviewers who have not edited this article have reviewed far more than six of Imzadi1979's nominations.

5. I can appreciate a situtation where the nominator realizes that an article is far from meeting GA criteria and does not want to put any more effort into working toward passing any GA review. In that case, the nominator should have the right to state that he is withdrawing from the GA process. But that does not give the nominator the right to "fail" the review and renominate it a few minutes later. Racepacket (talk) 16:10, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

1. Your time is appreciated, but please note that past experience with your reviews has shown that you've requested incorrect information be added to an article based on an incorrect reading of sources , requesting a change in an article, receiving it, only to request that the change be reversed among other minor issues. You had proposed that a reviewer only review five articles by a nominator, and this was number six from you for me.
   1. I have heard every one of your suggestions and read all of the articles about I-73 to which you've linked. The problem is that you haven't WP:HEARD me when I said that all of this is speculation, not fully supported by the facts in MI/OH vs. SC/NC/VA, and not appropriate to the article under review. Imzadi 1979 → 17:22, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
2. It is transparent. It was archived to the usual location.
3. Your solutions break WP:CRYSTAL since the new Congress doesn't even convene for 2 more days. Even once they're in session, it's speculation to know if they'll include funding for I-73 in a highway bill and if that funding is directed to more than just SC/NC/VA/WV. Further, it's speculation that they'll even write one of their massive highway bills rather than the regular appropriations for the USDOT. They don't do those big highway bills every year. Finally, all of this speculation included in the US 223 article is WP:UNDUE weight. It should all be in the I-73 article. The fact that MDOT had plans which might have impacted US 223 in 2000–01 doesn't mean they still have them. I see old Control Section atlas pages showing proposed realignments that don't appear on the current editions of the atlas. In fact, I-73 doesn't even show up on the 2001 or 2009 editions.
4. TMF's last edit to the article was in 2007 to remove a project cleanup template with AWB because the project banner on the talk page took over that function. Rschen's only edit to the article was in 2005 to tag it for cleanup and set the sortkeys for the categories. Neither action is "substantial editing" nor does any of this guarantee that Racepacket's "in-bred reviewers" would pick up the review. The fact remains, that the members of the national-level project don't edit much outside of their regional specialties (mine is Michigan, TMF's is New York, Rschen's is California and Washington) until such time as an article is ready for GAN or ACR.
5. I think that the article already meets the criteria. The outside opinion you canvassed even agrees with me to that point. By default though, to "withdraw" means that the article "fails". It's a bit hypocritical of yourself to criticize anyone's timing for renomination when you received a review on VA-27, did not address the substance of the review and renominated it hours later.

Now then, Racepacket, you have chased me away from this article. Please re-close the extant reviews and detach. I have no desire to renominate this article at this time. I will ask that you refrain from reviewing any of my nominations, and I will do the same with yours. Imzadi 1979 → 17:09, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

I believe that we can certainly resolve any differences about U.S. Route 223 on the review page or the talk page, but the issues raised above on this page have more far-reaching policy implications. I did make a proposal to limit to 5 the number of time that a reviewer could select an article from a particular nominator, but that proposal was rejected, so I don't understand why you keep bringing it up. I did renominate VA 27 after considering all changes suggested in a prior nomination failed by the reviewer, which is a very different thing than trying to shop for a "yes man reviewer" by the nominator "failing" a nomination and then immediately renominating it. As a matter of policy, Misplaced Pages wants editors to keep improving articles until they meet the GA criteria. Also as a matter of policy, Misplaced Pages wants a "fresh pair of eyes" to review the GA nominated articles and that means that the reviewers pick the articles rather than the nominators pick the reviewers. Racepacket (talk) 18:07, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Your "yes man" reviewer theory is flawed; when I review a GAN, I *always* look at previous reviews and take those into account. --Rschen7754 18:14, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Review not updating automatically

I created the subpage for the GA review for Indianapolis Motor Speedway yesterday, but its entry on this page has yet to be updated. This is the first time that I have reviewed a GAN - am I doing something wrong?--Midgrid(talk) 14:34, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

You're good, the bot's just been down for a little while. Should be back up in ~12 hours. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 15:01, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the information!--Midgrid(talk) 15:30, 3 January 2011 (UTC)