Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations/Archive 34

Following on from this discussion, I'd like to get some feedback on the GAN review process and how we can move forward. The review was handled by Pbritti, who took it over in October 2024 but was largely absent for several months, so that the actual review took place over a period of eight days, from 11 to 19 April. During this time, I made significant improvements to the article, often in response to the reviewer's feedback. However, the review was quickly closed with a failure, citing issues that I believe are unfounded or had already been addressed and resolved (see the linked discussion for details).

I find it frustrating that the assessment was made so abruptly, after a long delay caused by the reviewer's unavailability, and on grounds that I consider to be inconsistent and specious. I suspect that the reviewer had little time to devote to the task and, as a result, interrupted a process that was delivering good results. So I'd like to know if this review met the expectations of the GAN process and, most importantly, if another reviewer might be willing to reopen and complete the review. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:49, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

I have discussed this at length on Talk:Santi Romano, but I will repeat this here: describing me as absent from a review when I handed it off to a second opinion months ago is false—during that time, it was no longer my review. When I got the chance to provide a review earlier this month, I discovered that the article had been submitted with numerous verifiability and copyright issues. At this point, my only regret in this review is that I did not provide the closure afforded by a quick fail in October. To anyone interested in reviewing this article, understand that Gitz's response to me failing the article on egregious issues was to repeatedly accuse me of incompetence. ~ Pbritti (talk) 00:47, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

I've had a quick look-over; personally, I think much of the alleged close paragraphasing (such as this) doesn't come close, and most (not all, but most) of this earwig link is indeed repetitions of non-creative expression, which is fine. Still, quickfailing based on verifiability concerns comes under the discretion of the GA reviewer: in this case, I would just move on and put the article up for another review per WP:GAN/I#N5. Best of luck, ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 01:04, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, @AirshipJungleman29. Pbritti, however, did not fail the review based on verifiability concerns. As you can see from their final opinion, they mentioned portions of the lead ... unsupported by the body (which is undoubtedly mistaken), close paraphrasing (which is questionable and, in my opinion, also mistaken) and instability of the article (which arose entirely from Pbritti's suggestions and my willingness to implement them). There's simply nothing about verifiability.

Some verifiability concerns were raised during the review, but these were either demonstrably unfounded (see The publication date of Principii and its potentially incorrect Italian name, The paragraph on the Marshal position, no attribution of who is speaking in this quote, attempt to moderate its more extreme tendencies and relatively detached and uncommitted public profile) or quickly addressed (namely, two "citation needed" tags). For this reason, Pbritti's final opinion contains no mention of verifiability issues: there are none.

However, after I raised my concerns about Pbritti's rushed and incomplete review, they began to claim that This article was submitted with multiple unsourced statements, several failed Vs and (in their comment here above) numerous verifiability ... issues – claims that I believe to be completely false and specious. Santi Romano is fully verifiable.

@Pbritti Re Gitz's response ... was to repeatedly accuse me of incompetence, I did not accuse you of incompetence, but I asked you to substantiate your judgement so that others could assess your competence (here) and I claimed that you had delivered an incompetent review (here). I understand this may be upsetting, but I'm not interested at all in evaluating your competence as a reviewer but rather in understanding whether your review was OK and, if not, what should be done about it. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:46, 22 April 2025 (UTC); edited 10:20, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Gitz6666, AirshipJungleman29 is right that the best response is just to submit it to GAN again. I haven't gone through the review to see whether I agree with Pbritti's assessment, but it wouldn't matter unless they were simply not using the GA criteria -- the reviewer gets to decide the outcome of the review, per the instructions. That's both a strength and (occasionally) a weakness of the GA process. If I were to look at the article and decide it should have passed GA, I'd still say your next step would be to renominate. I agree that waiting eight months for this is frustrating, but that's why we have backlog drives -- see further up this page. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:00, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

@Mike Christie, please correct me if I'm wrong: WP:GAN/I#N5 encourages editors to seek additional input if they feel they haven't received an adequate review. Arguably, this input would be meaningless if the only option were to resubmit the article to GAN. So, if a review appears inadequate — for example, if it mentions the GA criteria but misapplies them — it would not be consistent with WP:GAN/I#N5 to start the process from scratch. On the adequacy of this review, please see my comment here.

Note that Pbritti asked for a second opinion months ago, but unfortunately their request was never acted upon; an editor offered to step in, but ultimately nothing came of it. In my view, the best outcome here would be for an experienced editor to provide the second opinion that was requested but never materialised. My practical concern is that if I were to start the process all over again, I might lose touch with the subject and its many complex sources over the next few months. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 14:55, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

You have received "additional input" which suggests that the review, while harsh, was adequate. Failing a review with reference to the criteria is the prerogative of the reviewer. There have been many other requests for input at this page which have concluded that the review was inadequate and should be reopened. That is not the case here. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:35, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

I think you will need to add to add a nomination note that the reviewer needs to speak Italian, otherwise the concerns of the previous review will not be able to be addressed. Specific foreign language speaking GA reviewers are pretty hard to come by, which is probably why the second opinion request took so long to answer. Consider reaching out to someone who could review via talk pages, though I'm not sure if this would violate Wikipedia:Canvassing or another policy? IAWW (talk) 19:27, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

It's only canvassing if the notification is non-neutral and/or implies there's an expectation that the person being messaged will pass the article no matter what. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:53, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

@It is a wonderful world, you're right, verifying citations from Italian sources can be tricky. I understand that, and I've also taken WP:NONENG into account, but about half of the sources are in Italian and the article would be significantly worse without them. However, I can provide verbatim quotes and English translations for almost all of them, as I've already done whenever a verification concern has been raised (1, 2, 3, 4). I'd do my best to make the second reviewer's task as easy and productive as possible. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 22:23, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

New topics are being added to GA Review box on Talk:Wordle (see this and this). What's missing? Thank you, Cl3phact0 (talk) 14:19, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

The template on the GAN wasn't closed, I've added a closing template. CMD (talk) 14:32, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Thank you! -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 14:36, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Yesterday, I failed the article Life Till Bones. However, it is still showing up on the album nominations page, does not show up in Toolforge, and my review count has not gone up. I reviewed it normally; I hit start review and failed it, following the typical instructions. What is causing this? Locust member (talk) 18:27, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

The bot isn't updating WP:GAN currently. Cos ^{(X + Z)} 20:23, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

I'll take a look at the bot's log when I get a moment; tonight, I hope. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:05, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

I think this edit should fix it; the next time the bot tries to update GAN it should work. The problem was the user signature, which had a user space link to a subpage instead of the main userpage as the first link. EF5, ChristieBot currently can't handle your signature -- you don't have to change it, but if you nominate any other articles, would you change the nominator parameter in the nomination template to a simple link to your user page? I'll take a look at handling this situation a bit more gracefully as soon as I can, but the basic issue is that the bot has to use whatever is in that parameter as the name of the nominator, and it can't always easily tell which of multiple links in a signature is the right one. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:36, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

I've now updated the bot so it will not crash when this happens, but it won't correctly identify the nominator. This is what the result would look like if the nominator parameter has this issue: the nomination for EF5 drought gives the nominator incorrectly, which will screw up the stats for users who have this sort of link in the nominator parameter. I'll put this on my list to fix but it will take longer. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:14, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

Interesting, thanks for fixing it. Enjoy the drought article. :) — EF5 ^(questions?) 15:21, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

It's many years since I nominated a GAN, and I might have made an error. I'm trying to nominate Caerleon pipe burial, and I left the subtopic blank since nothing seemed appropriate, but that seems to have sent it into limbo, can't see it at Miscellaneous or anywhere else. Thanks Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:21, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

It's in Miscellaneous now. Sometimes it takes a bit to update. CMD (talk) 13:38, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

CMD, thanks. As I said, it's been a long time since I posted on GAN Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:43, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

This edit request to Wikipedia:Good article nominations has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

In my GAN (1992 Flores earthquake and tsunami) in Earth Sciences in Natural Sciences, can someone make it known that I will be self-blocked until May 30 due to school stuff? WFUM🔥🌪️ (talk) 18:58, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

Wildfireupdateman, you can add a note to your nomination under the "|note=" parameter at Talk:1992 Flores earthquake and tsunami. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 19:00, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks, I've added a note to the talk page.WFUM🔥🌪️ (talk) 19:12, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

May starts in two weeks, and so does our next GAN Backlog Drive. We've already established a theme, so it'll be newbie-oriented. Is anyone willing to coordinate the drive besides me? Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 14:03, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

I am happy to help:) DaniloDaysOfOurLives (talk) 20:42, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

Pinging our previous coordinators @IntentionallyDense and Ganesha811: to see if they're interested. :) Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 19:22, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm traveling next month so I won't be able to coordinate, but I'll probably participate and do a few reviews! —Ganesha811 (talk) 19:23, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

No worries. Have fun traveling. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 20:32, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Happy to help! I'm not great with the technical stuff but I do like helping newbies. IntentionallyDense ^(Contribs) 19:37, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Good to hear! We'll do our best. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 20:36, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Bless you guys. I nervously remembered I hadn't done anything to set this up a week or so ago but was buried in other stuff, and was then reminded of it again by the watchlist notification. -- asilvering (talk) 23:15, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

I hope that more newbies will sign up for the drive in the coming days. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 10:39, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

We could send talk page messages to invite recent newer reviewers? IAWW (talk) 12:33, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

That sounds good. However, we'd need a list of reviewers who have less than 6 reviews and were active in lets say past three months. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 16:33, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

I think I could provide a list like that, once you're agreed on what the numbers are for those parameters. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:49, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

Potential reviewers could also be added to the list, that is persons who have nominated an article or two for GA but have no reviews yet. -- Reconrabbit 17:14, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. We could also notify them. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 17:21, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

less than 6 seems good to me! IntentionallyDense ^(Contribs) 17:18, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

oops i meant also to say i agree that 3 months is a good range for activity. IntentionallyDense ^(Contribs) 17:20, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Good articles/GAN Backlog Drives/May 2025 is up! Please sign up. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 11:04, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

I didn't know about this until I heard about it through Wikipedia:Discord. Maybe a notification message should go out? -- Reconrabbit 14:25, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

Agreed, a MediaWiki talk:Watchlist-messages watchlist message should go out. —Ganesha811 (talk) 14:27, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

I'll request one now. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 15:12, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes I had no idea about this until recently IAWW (talk) 14:28, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

Could someone update the backlog drive tab to display the current drive like we've done in past years? This isn't something I know how to do. Thanks! IntentionallyDense ^(Contribs) 16:34, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

 Done, if I did it correctly Nub098765 (talk) 17:13, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

Hi. I have nominated Rajesh Hamal for GAN but @Real4jyy removed that nomination. I have asked him for reason behind removal but still I didn't get any response from him. Can you please clarify this? Thank You! Fade258 (talk) 13:00, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

The reason they gave in their edit summary was "drive-by nomination". Per the Good Article instructions, nominators are expected to be major contributors to any article they nominate. You have only six edits to that article, none of which are substantive, and none since 2022. I would also recommend self-reverting your nominations of Barsha Siwakoti and Barsha Raut, as they are both far from meeting the Good Article criteria at this time and are likely to be quickfailed. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 14:09, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

@Premeditated Chaos, Ok I will and It means that I can only nominate those articles for GAN which was created by me. If I have to nominate other users creation then what portion of edits should I need to made. Can I still review GAN nominated articles? Fade258 (talk) 14:10, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

No, it doesn't mean you can only nominate articles you have created. It means you must have contributed significantly to them. The GA instructions I linked have a footnote that explains "The nominator is either the author of at least 10% of the article or is ranked in the top five in authorship". There is no restriction on who can review GA nominations, aside from needing to have an account in order to create the review page. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 14:31, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

@Premeditated Chaos, Thank You for your time. I clearly understand now. Fade258 (talk) 14:45, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Looking over GAN reviews, many tend to be dominated by long lists of copyediting nitpicks. Under the GA criteria, the only copyediting issues that should be evaluated in a GAN review are:

• Whether there are any parts of the article that are unclear
• Whether the article is concise
• Whether the article complies with Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable
• Whether there are any spelling or grammar errors in the article

Excessively detailed copyedits have become a major contributor to scope creep at GAN. It increases the overall time for the reviewer to check the article and the nominator to respond to the reviewer's concerns. If reviewers feel there are copyediting fixes to be made beyond the listed issues above, I encourage them to do so through the normal editing process, to list the other issues they noted separately in the review as "additional suggestions outside of the GA criteria", or even to fix things as they review if they're minor non-controversial changes. I also encourage nominators not to feel like they're obligated to write perfect FA-level prose if the article already meets the listed standards above. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 18:59, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

I second that reviewers should clearly delineate the points not relevant to GA, and encouraging a much more hands on approach. Maybe these should be added to the GA reviewing instructions? However, I find ironing out all the grammar errors is normally one of the biggest if not the biggest time consumer in GAN reviews. Fixing dangling modifiers, WP:CINS mistakes and unclear sentences normally contribute a lot to the "long lists" of prose points. Sure, these could all be fixed directly by the reviewer, but then nominators are more likely to make the same mistakes in the future which leads to even longer review times. I think making articles fully grammatically correct is just a big job a lot of the time, and there is no way to avoid it. IAWW (talk) 20:20, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

To a certain extent I think we're overly-focused at GA on perfect rather than understandable grammar. If the error makes part of an article unclear in some way, it's worth pointing out. Otherwise, I honestly don't know that it matters at the GA (rather than FAC) level whether the commas are perfectly placed (or other minor errors of precision rather than clarity), so long as it's reasonably, well, readable for the reader. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 21:14, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree, but isn't that just not what the GA criteria says? It says "spelling and grammar are correct", not "spelling and grammar are mostly correct"? IAWW (talk) 07:59, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm new looking at the GA project, so take this as the opinion of a newb. I just got through my first GA review (took a LONG time, largely my fault but there was a few issues that popped up with reviewers) on the article for Technical geography. I was looking at the Wikipedia:Featured article criteria and honestly I'm not sure I can tell the difference between what I'd expect from FA and what I experienced with GA review. I'm honestly not sure what the difference is between the article types at this point. Would be nice to see clearer differentiation between them. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 23:10, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

@GeogSage, if you can't tell the difference, sounds like your GA review was unusually harsh. -- asilvering (talk) 23:21, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

I wouldn't want to say that exactly, Talk:Technical geography still has them visible if you'd like to judge. One reviewer got banned mid review, and I had a move/new job that really delayed my response to the second one, so they took FOREVER. That said, looking at the feedback and what I changed, I'm not sure how much a FA review would do differently based on the criteria I read. I'm hesitant to nominate that article until I have more time to dedicate to a project like that though. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 23:25, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, at a glance, Talk:Technical geography/GA1 seems unnecessarily nitpicky and time-consuming. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 23:40, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

I have to scroll to reach the end of the table of contents. Hard luck, @GeogSage. This was definitely not normal. -- asilvering (talk) 23:53, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

I've said before that we should be screening reviews, especially from new reviewers. That was in the context of them being too light, but perhaps we should also be nudging people who make their reviews too heavy. The former hurts the process in making the ratings less accurate, while the latter hurts the process by making it difficult to go through. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 00:01, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

Sounds like you should sign up for next month's backlog drive! -- asilvering (talk) 00:34, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

How would screening reviews work? Would they ever need individual manual approval (e.g. marking as patrolled) or are you more envisioning a culture of checking in on new reviewers to give feedback? Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 02:34, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

More the latter; the former has been discussed over the years but was deemed impractical. I urged Mike Christie to make User:ChristieBot/SortableGANoms for this reason, but it doesn't really get used much. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 02:38, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm not really sure how I would use it for this purpose. I would want a list of GANs under review and the ability to sort reviewers by number of reviews. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 02:49, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. The hardest part was the losing the first reviewer, and ultimately starting a second review because of that. The page is likely much better because of all the feedback, which is the point and ultimately a good thing. I want to bring the page to FA status at some point, it's a passion project of mine to get looking good, and I hope the reviews make that process smoother. Glad to hear that this isn't the normal thing to expect though, as I'm planning to nominate a few more down the road... I'm looking into trying to learn how to review as well, so good to know that level of detail isn't expected. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 02:35, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

@GeogSage, the backlog drive next month is a good way to get into GA reviewing - there's a process for having new reviews checked by an experienced reviewer in this one. You should sign up! -- asilvering (talk) 03:53, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks, I will consider helping. My new job has sucked the free time and energy out of me the past few months, but I have a much lighter load during Summer and would like to help. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 04:09, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

I second what asilvering said. If you need help with reviewing GANs, you'll get it at the next month's backlog drive. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 10:45, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

Agree wholeheartedly. Drives me batty when reviewers ask for changes that take longer for them to write out than it would for them to fix. -- asilvering (talk) 23:23, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

I think some reviewers are (perhaps unnecessarily) afraid to make changes themselves. They may be concerned about crossing the line into being a major contributor and thus too involved to review; I also think some may be worried about stepping on the nominator's toes. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 23:26, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks TBUA for the reminder, I know I can be guilty of this. I also flagged in a recent review this quote from WP:AGF: Many people misunderstand Wikipedia's "assume good faith" policy as meaning "assume another editor performed due diligence" or "assume blind faith" regarding a reference, editor, or content. However, the actual intention is closer to "presume good intent", which does not mean "I do not have access to a source, so I 'assume good faith' about the source's content."

I've seen (and done) this in reviews a few times and it may be helpful to give it broader attention. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 02:45, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't think it necessarily makes article review take longer, as a reviewer should be reading the article, but c/e concerns do end up as an unnecessary area of focus. I suspect this is due to a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's a really easy area to comment on, and thus perhaps an area a newer reviewer may feel comfortable digging into. Secondly, this sort of nitpicking dominates FACs, so I suspect that bleeds over a bit. Thirdly, as PMC notes, directly editing may not be attractive to a reviewer, so if they see something they feel they would change they want to note it somewhere, so it ends up on the GAN. Lastly, copyediting can mix in with other issues, such as reflecting sources well, so it pops up in discussion of other criteria. Perhaps, as with the occasional overfocus on images, we need to better encourage the notion that in this respect a GA does not have to be perfect, and that a reviewer can pass an article even if they have copyediting concerns. CMD (talk) 04:51, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

I also agree. The prose needs to be understandable, but not of a professional standard like for FAs. Therefore, I encourage reviewers to copyedit and fix grammar mistakes in the article, but not to considerably change how the article looks (this should be rather left to the nominator). Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 11:03, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

I have moved the efn from the lead of the GA instructions into the main text, because it seems clear that people are (still) not reading it. I have also adjusted the wording and removed an incorrect statement that was added in March. The original efn read like this:

• If the nominator is either the author of less than 10% of the article or ranked sixth or lower in authorship, and there is no post on the article talk page, it may be uncontroversially considered a drive-by nomination. You can notify the nominator on their talk page. Reviewers have the discretion to remove any drive-by nominations they come across.

The revised version was trimmed to:

• The nominator is either the author at least 10% of the article or is ranked in the top five in authorship, and has contributed to the article talk page.

The first portion is fine, but "has contributed to the article talk page" is not an accurate revision of "and there is no post on the article talk page". Merely contributing to the talk page does not make someone a significant contributor or prevent a nomination from being a drive-by. The original intent was that anyone without significant contributions could still nominate an article so long as they made a post on the talk page justifying their nomination, not simply that they have "contributed to the article talk page". ♠PMC♠ (talk) 14:36, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

The ridiculously curiously low edit count requirement, by the way, also causes... misunderstandings (here and here). I suggest we remove it and increse the % contribution (perhaps to 25%). Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi 14:57, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Agree with this as sometimes just running AIbot will result in you having authorship of 10% of the page. The best way of determining in my opinion is "do you feel like you know the article content and sources well enough to answer questions about them and assess them against GA criteria" however that is far too subjective. IntentionallyDense ^(Contribs) 03:27, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

Agree, that line should certainly be amended to something like "The nominator is the author at least 10% of the article or is ranked in the top five in authorship, OR has posted on the talk page justifying their nomination." -- asilvering (talk) 21:26, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes I like that requirement the best. If an editor brings an article to GA standard but doesn't nominate it themselves, someone who is familiar with the sourcing and prepared to take it through the GA process should have a method of doing so. IAWW (talk) 21:57, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

I see that this talk page is a place for discussion of the Good Article process. Is it also a forum for discussion of questions about specific Good Article nominations? Robert McClenon (talk) 06:17, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes, all the time. What's up? ♠PMC♠ (talk) 06:21, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

We used to have talk pages for all different parts of the GA process, but it got very confusing, so we streamlined it into one talk page. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 07:57, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

I am new to the Good Article process but am not new to reviewing. I am trying to work on the oldest nominations. (Well, the oldest nominations that don't require a degree that I don't have. All I could do about Parabolic subgroup of a reflection group was to ask for assistance from WikiProject Mathematics.) So I am trying to review Tommy Villiers, and would appreciate another set of eyes. I found that, a few days before I started reviewing it, another editor had put maintenance tags on it. I see that an article should be quick-failed if it has cleanup banners that are still unquestionably valid. I assume that assessing whether the banners are still unquestionably valid is a judgment by the reviewer, which might or might not be quick. I started a review, and asked about the maintenance templates, but I didn't think that the answer that I got was useful. So I think that I am asking whether another reviewer will take a quick look at the tags and see whether I should just leave them alone until I finish the review. I was annoyed by what I thought of as an unhelpful response by the tagger, but maybe I was expecting too much. In the meantime, I will continue the review unless I am advised otherwise. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:09, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon, there's a backlog drive going on right now that you're welcome to join, where a second set of eyes for new reviewers is baked into the process. -- asilvering (talk) 15:22, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

Responded on the talk page. I don't believe the tags are appropriate. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 15:29, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

Not trying to make the process harder/longer for myself, but this doesn't seem to be the right approach to reviewing. I checked in with @Floating Orb on the review page but they don't seem to be ready to do the full review process. 19h00s (talk) 21:51, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Oh. I don't know what it is. Floating Orb (talk) 21:52, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Sorry. Floating Orb (talk) 21:52, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

What is the full process? Floating Orb (talk) 21:54, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Hi @Floating Orb, the GA reviewing process can be found at the instructions page (Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Instructions). If you would like, I can help guide you through reviewing? IAWW (talk) 22:03, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

So, I am now reading it from top to bottom. There are some citations needed. Floating Orb (talk) 22:07, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

I think Floating Orb might need a little more experience—rather than just reading the guidelines—before undertaking structured reviews. And also read up on talk page etiquette perhaps :) Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi 12:03, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

Yeah. My review has gotten more confusing than I thought. Floating Orb (talk) 16:45, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

Floating Orb, if you need to hand this off to someone else I would not judge you or be frustrated. This is a long article with a lot of dense citations, might not be the best for your first review. But as I nominated it, I’m not sure if it’s appropriate for me to say it might be handled better by someone else. 19h00s (talk) 18:19, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

I will help Floating Orb through as much of the review as possible and will make sure it is properly done. I'm sure he has already learned a lot from the process and will continue to as long as he participates. If Floating does not wish to finish it or doesn't have the time, I will. IAWW (talk) 18:24, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

Oh. I think I am ready to continue now. Floating Orb (talk) 18:41, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

Would anyone support or oppose changing "Doctor Who series" to "Doctor Who series and characters" or something else, or perhaps splitting it?? When I was passing Nardole for GA, I was unsure which subcategory he fitted to as I assumed series was just for the individual series articles rather than the characters too, so I think it may be a bit confusing for other readers/reviewers too. DaniloDaysOfOurLives (talk) 23:24, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

It's really for everything that isn't "episodes". I'm tempted to just remove "series" and trust readers to be able to make that jump. CMD (talk) 00:49, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

I would support this too DaniloDaysOfOurLives (talk) 01:51, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

I am putting my review of Tommy Villiers on hold again for about a week, because I concluded that the author and I were wasting each other's time due to edits that changed the numbering of the footnotes. If someone else wants to pick up the review, that is all right with me. Otherwise I will come back to it when it looks as though isn't in flux. I am aware that the flux is intended to improve the article, but the review should take place after the improvement is more or less complete. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:49, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

You don't need to make a post on this talk page about putting a review on hold. You can take as long as you reasonably need to complete a review. That being said, Launchballer is correct that most reviewers will work from a single revision and make comments based on that. For example, at Talk:Voss (collection)/GA1, Generalissima comments "I chose a random set of sources as of this revision" for the spot check. When I went back in to do corrections, I could always go back to that revision so I knew that she and I were working from the same ref numbers, even when I made changes later. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 06:04, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

In a GA-nominated biography of a living person of a musician, Spotify is used several times as the source for discography listings. I don't see an indication in a list of reliable sources as to whether Spotify is a reliable source. My thinking is that it is a reliable source about itself as a music streaming service, and so is a reliable source that the recordings by the musician exist, and that is sufficient. Does anyone have any other thoughts? Robert McClenon (talk) 18:49, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

There's an active discussion at WP:RSN about it, although it isn't a long one. EF5 (talk) 18:51, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

I agree with your reading of this. Where Spotify or Apple Music become unreliable is with any claims for downloads/sales Billsmith60 (talk) 11:43, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Posting here to encourage participation in reassessments from more people than the regulars at the GAR page. These are older discussions where improvement is not ongoing and which could use more participation.

• Vampire folklore by region, (link to reassessment)
• Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, (link to reassessment) – Soviet republic from 1920 to 1991
• Harold B. Lee Library, (link to reassessment) – Main campus library for Brigham Young University
• Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, (link to reassessment) – 2003 video game
• Magnus Carlsen, (link to reassessment) – Norwegian chess grandmaster (born 1990)

Any comments on the above would be useful. Many thanks, ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:26, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps it is relevant to note that three out of five of these do not have any cleanup tags or banners? If there is reason to delist an article, it should be possible to make that reason specific enough to tag the article with it. Or maybe if the article does not deserve any such tags, the GAR should be closed as a pass.

This comment was triggered by another recently opened GAR, on an article that had and still has no cleanup tags whatsover (but where those tags could reasonably have been placed): it is better to fix problematic articles before they reach GAR, and cleanup tags are a good way to request those fixes. If cleanup tags languish too long without attention, that may be a sign that GAR is needed. But opening a GAR out of the blue on an article that hitherto has seemed unproblematic (even if it does have hidden problems) can come across as hostile and as a barrier to getting it fixed: fixing one cleanup tag is a task that may be easy or hard, but at least is bounded. Satisfying GAR reviewers can come across as a Sisyphean task where whatever you do they just keep coming back with more and more quibbles until somebody gets exhausted, and why would I want to enter that sort of game when it isn't even my GA nomination in danger of delisting?

So I would like to ask: place cleanup tags first, and then wait a reasonable time before opening the GAR. If you're not willing to put that much effort into trying to rescue the GA, why is it reasonable for you to expect another editor to do even more cleanup work getting the article back into shape? And if you don't want to get articles back into shape and are instead using GAR as a process for delisting as many articles as you can as quickly as you can, you're doing it wrong.

Details deliberately omitted because I don't want this to be about the individual GAR opener but about the GAR process more generally. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:08, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps it is relevant to note that three out of five of these do not have any cleanup tags or banners? If there is reason to delist an article, it should be possible to make that reason specific enough to tag the article with it. Or maybe if the article does not deserve any such tags, the GAR should be closed as a pass. I haven't looked at any of these examples, so no comment there, but in general the fact that an article does not have any {{citation needed}} tags, for example, does not mean that no citations are needed, and nothing in the WP:GAR instructions requires the placing of cleanup tags or banners. It does suggest that before beginning a GAR, one should Consider raising issues at the talk page of the article or requesting assistance from major contributors. Requiring that someone concerned about an article both say "there are issues with citations" on the talkpage, and add a template to the article saying exactly the same thing, seems like bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 08:32, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

(Further, in theory the GAR itself should say what issues the reassessor noticed. If no valid issues have been raised, or if all the issues raised have been solved, the reassessment should be closed as keep; if valid issues remain unresolved it would be a much better use of everybody's time to address those issues than to argue about which cleanup tags should be placed. If you are genuinely uncertain what the issue is, ask for clarification, but otherwise requiring tagging for the sake of tagging is just obstructionism.) Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 08:36, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

There's a school of thought that whether an article qualifies to be a GA should not be the main factor in classifying it as a GA. You'll sometimes see people at WP:GAR trying to argue that non-qualifying articles should continue to be classified as GA. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 14:46, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

When I have added citation needed templates in the past, I have been accused of being "disruptive". I now only add them when asked, and am happy to do so. Editors can also use scripts like User:Phlsph7/HighlightUnreferencedPassages.js to help find potentially uncited statements. Also, @David Eppstein: I am happy to be pinged when there are concerns about my editing. Z1720 (talk) 16:05, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Ok, let me put it a different way. I regularly check cleanup tags for GAs and FAs in my area of interest via the cleanup listings generated by bambots, among other reasons in the hope of heading off GARs and FARs. In this process I see some other GAs (not the ones I focus on) that still have decade-old cleanup tags. Surely these are the ones worth focusing on?

If instead people are just going to nominate untagged articles for GAR, without past evidence of neglect of cleanup tags, then it feels like being ambushed. Why should I have had any earlier reason to try to fix the problems that weren't noticed as being problem? If the issues had been properly tagged, earlier, there would have been more time to deal with them, but instead everything is rushed and in the context of a review. That doesn't seem as constructive and as likely to lead to a good outcome. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:48, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

I understand the sentiment but I at least am hesitant to insert a bunch of cleanup tags into articles; I'm sure that if people went around putting tags on GAs there'd be wailing and gnashing of teeth from a third group of editors regarding WP:TAGBOMBING.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Hog Farm (talk • contribs) 17:07, May 3, 2025 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: I posted concerns on the talk page here and waited 9 days for a reply. There was no reply, nor edits to the article. While some editors monitor cleanup tags, many do not and articles will sit with cleanup tags for years. In fact, 32% of GAs have a cleanup tag on them (although not all clean-up tags highlight a concern that would be contrary to the GA criteria). An article does not need a GAR after it gets clean-up tags: it needs a GAR when it no longer fulfils the GA criteria.

Yes, there are worse articles that need to be cleaned up: I am looking for them and will bring up concerns when I find them. Help would be appreciated. Another way to help is for editors who care about articles in a category to review them before I do. A quick way to review articles for citations is to use User:Phlsph7/HighlightUnreferencedPassages.js, while User:Phlsph7/ListUnreferencedParagraphs.js allows editors to check multiple articles for uncited passages. User:Headbomb/unreliable.js Will colour code the references at the bottom of an article by reliability, which is helpful for spotting potentially unreliable sources.

I also do not want to overwhelm one category of GAs, so I try to spread them out amongst many topics. Hence, why last night I nominated at GAR a British TV show, a phylum, a biology debate, a weather phenomenon, a railway line, a math array/table, an American TV show, an American TV show episode, a religious historical event, and an association football article. I try not to nominate articles with similar topics, so even though I have three Family Guy articles that I have noticed, I will not nominate the next one until I Take Thee Quagmire is closed.

GAR is not a hostile attack on an article: its a review. Wikipedia is a volunteer service and no one has to respond to or fix up articles that need work. If any editor chooses to work on an article, that's awesome! I am happy to put any templates in an article when asked. I also encourage editors to avoid waiting for me to respond with templates and tags before fixing up an article. Go find those uncited statements at the end of paragraphs!

So David Eppstein (and everyone else reading this) the short answer is: No, I will not put citation needed templates in an article unless asked, and I will continue to nominate articles to GAR if I think a GAR is necessary. I hope you do not consider this response a deflection and I am happy to answer any specific questions here about how I edit, why I do the actions that I do, and what can be done differently. Z1720 (talk) 19:24, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

@Z1720, can you at least place a maintenance tag on the article? You don't have to go and tag-bomb them at every place where you think it needs a citation, but not ever tagging them for maintenance at all and then going to GAR is nuts. I wouldn't expect any editor to have every GA in their topic area watchlisted. -- asilvering (talk) 21:12, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Why is a maintenance tag necessary on top of the fact that we already ask people to post on the talk page and then wait a week and then go to GAR? What difference will that make? Will we start asking people to wait a week after the maintenance tag too? There is so much effort devoted to instruction creep for GARs for so little actual increase in preventing articles from losing their GAR status. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 21:18, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Because the point is to have articles that are good, right? Flagging articles that need attention is a basic, helpful part of how we do that. @David Eppstein has said, above, that he specifically checks articles in his topic areas for maintenance tags. I do, too. What I don't check is talk pages of articles I don't watchlist. Tagbombing is disruptive and I'm not asking anyone to do that. But I can't understand why someone would observe a problem with an article and decide to start a delisting process without flagging it for attention first. The delist process takes effort! Tagging an article with a maintenance tag or two is the work of seconds. -- asilvering (talk) 21:23, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

@Asilvering: In my opinion, editors who care about an article's GA status should do more than wait for another editor to post maintenance tags: they should informally review articles regularly to ensure all necessary text is cited and prose is updated when required. There are lots of GARs where no one responds to the talk page notice or GAR posting. Adding more work for reviewers takes away their valuable wiki-time. At a certain point, competency is required and editors can find the same uncited statements or outdated statements that I do, especially when it is entire paragraphs or sections. If editors look and still can't find the concerns, I am happy to clarify or add cn templates when asked for a specific article. Z1720 (talk) 21:37, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Obviously the point is to have articles that meet the GA criteria. We should encourage people to maintain their own GAs and look over older ones so that they continue to meet the criteria. We shouldn't be expecting people to do a bunch of notify/tag/advise make-work that doesn't actually result in more articles meeting the criteria.

Z1720's experience, which I've seen them discuss before, is that no matter what method they use, editors rarely if ever bother to fix up an article before GAR hits. I recall a previous discussion within the past few months where (IIRC) Hog Farm mentioned having similar results. By and large, people just do not care until you brandish the possibility of losing the GA sticker. That's the motivator, much as nobody likes to admit it. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 21:43, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps you did not notice the remark above where I pointed out that I patrol a list of error categories for articles in my area of interest and periodically check specifically for GA and FA articles on the list? The cleanup tags and banners definitely catch my attention. There are thousands of articles on these cleanup lists, I cannot watchlist them all, and I cannot clean them all up (more tags keep getting added, often faster than the old ones are cleared) but those tags will definitely get some attention, as will comments to WikiProjects, much more than comments on individual article talk pages. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:55, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

With all due respect, you appear to be the only person who actively does this, and we cannot expect an entire process to revolve around one person's workflow, when time and time again we have shown that tagging, posting to WikiProjects, and posting on talk pages achieves very little in the way of action. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 22:07, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

I propose a simpler way to resolve this. Let's mark all articles as GA by default so we can start from the other end and work our way back. If someone believes that an article does not meet the GA criteria, whether it be a new article or a previously-existing one, then they are expected to improve it until it does. It will remain GA until it is fixed because it's unfair to put the burden of fixing them on others and it doesn't make sense to take away GA if it could some day meet the criteria in the future. You might notice that under there's system there's no scenario that involves in a delisting—this is by design. Once universal GA is put into effect, WP:GAR will be marked as historical. That way it's fair for everyone, and we can finally focus on improving articles without being distracted by checking or evaluating them. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 22:57, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

As David Epstein puts it above, In this process I see some other GAs (not the ones I focus on) that still have decade-old cleanup tags. This fits with my experience: articles can have cleanup tags left unaddressed for years, regardless of either importance or quality assessment. In my experience tagging articles is not an effective way of getting problems fixed in general, or of ensuring that GAs stay at the standard they should be specifically. Obviously having articles that are good (rather than Good Articles) is ultimately the most important thing to the encyclopedia, but in most cases tagging an article with issues is not an effective way to address that. Some issues are fixed by people who patrol those particular tags (I've done some of it myself!) but if a sub-standard GA is going to be brought back up to standard, it's almost certainly going to be done by people who watch that page in particular. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 21:46, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

My point is that because we still have GA-listed articles with these stale tags, those are the ones that should be focused on in GARs. Yes, other articles may be more secretly problematic, but articles with stale cleanup tags are openly problematic and there is evidence in the staleness of the tag that they are not well maintained, so they are the likeliest candidates for removal. Why are we targeting other articles instead? —David Eppstein (talk) 21:57, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

You are always free to start GARs for those articles when you come across them if you feel it's important. One might alternatively argue that ae should prioritise articles which haven't been abandoned for GAR's attention as they are the most likely to actually be improved. Either way, as we are all volunteers here, everyone is free to spend their time in the way they want even if it isn't the most theoretically optimal use. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 22:40, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

So if you "wouldn't expect any editor to have every GA in their topic area watchlisted", what exactly is it you expect a drive-by tagging to accomplish asilvering? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:27, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

There are listings of cleanup tags in many areas maintained by User:CleanupWorklistBot. Tagging puts an article onto those lists. Users who patrol those lists looking for things to do will find them there. Not tagging means that, from the perspective of users patrolling those lists, the article is unproblematic. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:59, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: I noticed a GA today with a cleanup banner from 2013. I have brought other articles to GAR with even older templates. Also, sometimes there is only one citation needed tag for one sentence: if this is the only concern, I will not bring the article to GAR. I appreciate that you patrol cleanup tags, but I think you are the exception as evidenced by the 32% of GAs that have a cleanup tag, 32% of FAs that have a cleanup tag and the Guild of Copy Editors having a steady increase in articles needing a copyedit since 2021. An article at GAR will not be delisted if editors are actively making improvements. I try to bring articles to GAR from a variety of topics: if you know of math articles with older concerns, please feel free to bring them to GAR. Z1720 (talk) 22:22, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

How many editors patrol those lists? I, for one, didn't know they existed before this discussion. Judging by the fact there are over 3000 GAs with basic citation needed tags (out of a total of 41,000), I think your commendable efforts may be the exception rather than the norm. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:24, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

2013 beats the 2015 example I had in mind, quantum electrodynamics. I think for articles with such long-stale tags, there can be no reasonable objection to bringing them to GAR. The editors who care have had plenty of time to deal with them and haven't. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:10, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

It's more than just editors patrolling the lists (though I'm confident there are more people doing that than you think), but also all of the maintenance categories. It's very common for editors to adopt whatever maintenance category and try to start clearing it, or at least wearing it down. There are certainly more people who care about maintenance categories than there are people who care about GAR. If what we're actually after is to get someone to fix up the articles, tagging them is a pretty easy first step. Again, it's the work of seconds. It's a lot more work to put something up for GAR, so I don't at all understand why someone would go to the trouble of GARing something but object to the idea of tagging. -- asilvering (talk) 06:09, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

@Asilvering: No, it's not the work of seconds, it's hours of talk page messages when an editor decides to berate you for daring to point out concerns on their favourite article. Or it's hours of talk page messages when the editor is upset that you nominated an article a week/month/year after posting the maintenance tag, which is "not enough time for them to fix the concerns" even though the uncited text has been in the article for years. Or it's hours of work when you posted the banner but didn't add citation needed tags so how could they possibly find uncited statements on their own? Or it's hours of talk page messages when the person disagrees with the tag and starts arguing about it. If an editor wants an article to be a good article, it's their job to maintain it and not a reviewer's job to hand-hold editors through the criteria. If an editor cares about every article in a category, then they are putting a lot of work on themselves to maintain all the articles, which is their choice. It's OK for an article to be delisted as a good article, and Wikipedia will continue to function. Z1720 (talk) 12:58, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

I agree that it is ok for an article to be delisted as a good article, and I think you're losing the forest for the trees here. -- asilvering (talk) 15:20, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

And I think you're unfairly dismissing the experience of the person actually doing the GAR work. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:28, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

It's a net loss for the project, a disappointment, and a failure for an article to be delisted as a Good Article. Far better to rescue the article so that it continues to deserve Good Article status. We need as many deserving Good Articles as we can get. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:36, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

No it isn't. The article already isn't a GA because it doesn't meet WP:GACR. At this point the GA circle is just inappropriately applied and needs to be removed. Trying to keep GA status on articles that don't meet WP:GACR isn't only disruptive, it's dishonest. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 19:53, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

I am disappointed that so many articles were important enough to editors that they wanted them promoted to GA status, but not important enough to maintain the article and ensure that text is cited and information is updated. It is frustrating to me when editors are upset when an article is nominated for GAR, but did not showcase that passion by reviewing the article before a reviewer posted concerns. I am happy to share how I review articles if anyone is interested. Z1720 (talk) 01:48, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

I don't think it's fair to criticise editors for not maintaining all existing GAs. Articles will entropy over time, that's just a natural part of the cycle. CMD (talk) 07:22, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Sure, articles which are not maintained will decline over time – but I think Z1720 is right here: if you think it is important that a particular article not decline over time, you should work to maintain it; if it's not important enough to you to maintain, then you can't reasonably complain when someone points out that it hasn't been maintained! Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 12:05, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

@Chipmunkdavis: 100% agree, it is unfair to criticise editors for not maintaining all GAs. Wikipedia is a volunteer service and everyone chooses how to spend their wiki-time. Articles need regular maintenance, and an editor who cares about an article's status should either choose to maintain it (in order for the article to keep its status) or choose not to maintain it, which will lead to the article potentially getting delisted. I wish the community would tell editors more frankly that if they care about the article's status, they need to maintain it, but that it's also OK if the editor doesn't want to maintain an article. I also wish the community was more frank in telling editors that it is unacceptable to insist the reviewer maintain an article themselves, or that reviewers should ignore GAs with issues and just let them keep their badge. It is a lot of time and work to maintain an article, and even more time and work for an article you don't know a lot about and don't really care about. Z1720 (talk) 14:15, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Editors come and go but our articles stay and it should not require a GA-review-level effort every month for every good article by the nominator or some designee to keep their status.

Your article reads to me that you feel that nominators are acting inappropriately entitled to their status and resting on their laurels, and that this entitled attitude makes it justifiable for you to be entitled as well, entitled to demand that others put in significant amounts of time and effort in cleanup work or risk losing their badges. I think this focuses far too much on the editors and far too little on the content. It is the content of the encyclopedia, ultimately, that we should care about; everything else we do here is with the goal of improving that content. Among other reasons, focusing on editors and badges makes it solely the badge-holder's responsibility to defend their badge; focusing on content instead could bring in a broader crew of editors interested in the improvement of content as a collaborative effort.

I see nobody here insisting that reviewers maintain articles themselves. But I also don't see tagging articles for problems as being maintenance, any more than initiating a GAR is maintenance. Both are steps towards telling other editors who might watchlist and maintain the article that they should do some maintenance. But tags like [citation needed] are a smaller request for maintenance, and a GAR is a much bigger ask: handling a [citation needed] tag might take a few minutes, but rescuing a GAR-nominated article might take days or weeks of effort. All I am requesting is that someone (and it doesn't have to be a GAR reviewer) take the smaller steps first, before escalating to the bigger ones. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:59, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

I'm confused, the nominator is surely Z1720. They are the one initiating the GAR. All of the GARs I've seen Z1702 nominate focus entirely on the content and not at all on the editors. CMD (talk) 18:01, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: Editors don't lose badges, articles deteriorate so that they no longer adhere to the GA criteria. If no editors want to maintain an article, they don't have to. The consequence, though, is that the article (not the editor) might get reviewed and delisted if the article no longer adheres to the criteria. I want to also highlight your statements": "tags like [citation needed] are a smaller request for maintenance, and a GAR is a much bigger ask: handling a [citation needed] tag might take a few minutes, but rescuing a GAR-nominated article might take days or weeks of effort." I want all GAs to adhere to the GA criteria. If tagging an article with cn tags will only fix one problem, but the rest of the article wouldn't adhere to the criteria, then I would rather nominate it for GAR. Z1720 (talk) 18:22, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

From a non-GA perspective, what happens once the article does get delisted? From the way this conversation is going, it doesn't seem like the issues get addressed. Does the information on the article's flaws that you've gathered just then... sit in the talkpage archive? Given how infrequently talkpage archives are looked at or consulted, that seems like sort of a waste of all the time an effort you put into analyzing the articles. Additionally, from a reader's perspective, I mean, I'd like to know when statements fail verification or aren't cited, have issues with NPOV, or if the article won't give me a complete picture of the topic. The green button (or lack thereof) meant nothing to me until recently; they're much more so a Wikipedia-writer thing, imo. The maintenance tags at least let the readers know there's issues, and lots of them are pretty easy to fix (especially for newer editors). GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 18:31, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

@GreenLipstickLesbian: From my perspective, your analysis of delisted articles is correct: the comments sit on the talk page and rarely get addressed. This is why I avoid leaving detailed reviews until someone offers to address concerns: it's a waste of my time to list every concern when no one is going to address them. That is another reason why I think GAR is so effective: it allows non-article etalk page watchers to notice a deteriorated article and offer to help. I think the same thing happens for maintenance tags: they usually sit in an article for several years unaddressed. That's why I do not add them unless asked, as it is a waste of time. Also, anyone reading the article can see that a statement is uncited: it doesn't need a cn tag at the end of every paragraph for the reader or interested editors to figure that out, in my opinion. Z1720 (talk) 18:40, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Being deliberately vague as you describe is a way to cultivate the appearance that you don't want anyone to find out what problems you have in mind and that you don't want the problems fixed. It is not a promising start to a GAR, nor anything that might be inviting to drive-by rescuers. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:45, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

This is becoming a WP:1AM problem. Many people now have tried to explain to you why articles that don't qualify as good articles should not be classified as good articles. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 20:34, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

@Thebiguglyalien Argumentum ad populum...sorry, sorry, WP:1AM is an essay about content disputes... and it advises the many to seriously reexamine your own position and Work with the lone holdout. Besides, he's not arguing that articles that aren't deserving of being Good Articles should remain as good articles, he's arguing that the encyclopedia would be better if there was more of an emphasis on improving troubled articles than delisting them. Now, the counter argument is that people won't, and anybody saying that is just trying to stop the process. I can see how that would be true in some cases, but I do think believing that's true in all, or even the majority of, cases requires me to assume a lot of bad faith that I'm not comfortable assuming. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 04:39, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

I figured WP:1AM would be politer than WP:IDHT. No one needs to argue against delisting as a whole if we create a system that will effectively cause this to happen either way. This whole fracas wasn't a response to some sudden mass-delisting; it was a response to a routine request for people to please participate at GAR at all. If the expectation is that any article falling below the GA criteria should be improved, then I reiterate my very serious proposal. There are a few million articles desperately needing improvement, and I don't see how it contributes to improving any of them if we falsely check a handful of them off as "good" when they aren't. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 04:49, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Actually, from my perspective, this whole fracas started because a couple editors said "hey, could you describe the issues you spot in a place people will see?" and that's... going to somehow lead to every random stub being put on the front page as a featured article? Sorry, the second bit's getting a little hyperbolic. I mean, not too far off from the proposal you're suggesting, so gosh maybe it's not that hyperbolic. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 05:13, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

We don't have to assume anything. All the GARs are listed collectively, a quick scroll at Wikipedia:Good article reassessment will provide you a quantitative estimate of participation. The idea that editors here don't want articles to improve is something literally everyone agrees with, and it's weird it keeps being brought up. I don't see how you feel uncomfortable assuming a lot of bad faith, but are happy to repeat the idea that editors here don't want articles to improve. CMD (talk) 04:50, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

@Chipmunkdavis I have very deliberately avoided stated that editors here don't wish to see articles improved, thank you very much. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 05:08, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

You've wrote "he's arguing that the encyclopedia would be better if there was more of an emphasis on improving troubled articles than delisting them", and that others are countering this argument. No-one is countering it. CMD (talk) 05:12, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I did summarize another person's argument. And then summarized other people's (specifically TBUA's) counterargument and apparently very serious, proposal. But I'm not stating it, I'm stating that other people state it. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 05:15, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

The summary of the first argument missed a lot of its relevant points, and thus the supposed counter-argument was an off-mark misrepresentation. If you don't want things to be your own statements, it would be clearer to use quotes, especially when presenting the second argument as an example of an assumption of a lot of bad faith. CMD (talk) 05:21, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Okay, what relevant points do you feel I missed? GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 05:26, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

The original argument was not about improvement vs delisting, it was "place cleanup tags first, and then wait a reasonable time before opening the GAR", ie. it was a proposal to change the process, adding an additional step. (This comes in the context of very recent discussions which already changed the process to make it longer.) "Now, the counter argument is that people won't, and anybody saying that is just trying to stop the process" meanwhile does not reflect the other views expressed at all. Everyone is quite pleased when GARs receive attention, and "anybody" in particular is somewhat out of place given the long history. CMD (talk) 06:11, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes, and the argument which led to that proposal was the idea that if an article's issues aren't severe enough to be tagged, labeled, or otherwise described, then they are not severe enough to open a GAR for. Concerning the second part-you've read TBUA's very serious proposal, right? Let's mark all articles as GA by default and so on. His argument is, quite literally, that people don't really want the issues to be identified, and that people asking asking for others to tag are just using it as an excuse to prevent articles from being delisted. (courtesy ping to my favourite events inclusionist incoming @Thebiguglyalien: I haven't misread you, right?) And yes, just to restate myself, I do find that to believe that, I'd have to assume a lot of bad faith.

But re, the history thing - yeah I can really see that the history everybody in this forum has with each other is getting in the way. In no other place on Wikipedia is is normal to argue that you shouldn't tag, or fix articles, just go to the Twilight zone back-non-reader facing area and argue with people about your right to not tag/explain your tags until you're satisfied they'll act on them immediately. And that is my opinion. I don't know why the act of merely saying "hey, please put reader-facing tags when you see articles with severe issues because people might fix them" is such a terrible, terrible thing. If you'd like to deprecate tagging, WP:TfD is thataway. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 06:34, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

TBUA's argument is a caricature of the frequent discussions that often come up here, where efforts to open GARs often lead to very personal invective directed against those users. As for tagging, that is not the argument that was made, the argument was that made was that tags should be used instead of opening the GAR, with the GAR being a later step. (It also relies on the assumption that a GAR is more aggressive than peppering cn tags throughout an article, and I'm not sure there is evidence for this.) CMD (talk) 06:43, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Just reread and had completely missed you were actually saying in that second paragraph. Nobody has argued that people should not tag things. That is a complete and entirely bad faith red herring, and the TfD suggestion is somehow goes even wider than TBUA's super serious proposal. CMD (talk) 06:48, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

I mean...

No, I will not put citation needed templates unless asked (Z)

We shouldn't be expecting people to do a bunch of notify/tag/advise make-work that doesn't actually result in more articles meeting the criteria (PMC)

what exactly is it you expect a drive-by tagging to accomplish asilvering (Airship, who actually has called it drive-by tagging a lot)

I think the same thing happens for maintenance tags: they usually sit in an article for several years unaddressed. That's why I do not add them unless asked, as it is a waste of time (Z again)

Caeciliusinhorto called adding tags "bureaucracy"

In response to three different editors saying "GAR is fine, but I think we'll improve more articles if we tag smaller issues first". There's a very explicit argument being made that because some people don't feel that tags contribute to the GAR process, then reviewers shouldn't bother putting them. In fact, Z went further, and implied that somebody asking for tags was a CIR issue. (They linked to the essay, so it's not just poor wording). If that's not an argument against tagging, then I don't know what is. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 17:50, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Caeciliusinhorto called adding tags "bureaucracy". This is a serious misrepresentation of what I said. I said: Requiring that someone concerned about an article both say "there are issues with citations" on the talkpage, and add a template to the article saying exactly the same thing, seems like bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy. My position is not that adding tags is bureaucracy, it's that requiring both adding tags to an article and making a notification of the exact same problem on the talkpage (which is the current GAR process) is unnecessarily bureaucratic. They are not the same thing Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 18:26, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

@Caeciliusinhorto Okay, apologies. You said that requiring people to add tags and explaining the problem is unnecessarily bureaucratic; current consensus is that you should explain many taggings on talkpages or in edit summaries, so I assumed that you were referring to the tagging portion as the bureaucratic part. I am sorry for making that assumption.

My current position remains unchanged - I can think of no good reason why somebody wouldn't prefer to see a bunch of changes, critically analyze an article for and find several flaws then... not alert the reader to potential issues, or mark the issues to make it clearer to other editors that assistance is needed. Talkpages aren't nearly as widely monitored as maintenance categories (for most editors - I'm aware the GA peeps tend to disproportionately use talkpages and many of them prefer to remove all pre-existing article content and write most of the article themselves, which means cleanup tags aren't needed). I know the issues might not get solved by the end of the GAR, and yes, sometimes people may disagree with the tags, but if your end goal is improved content, then it seems like a logical thin to encourage. I am aware that most people on this board are mostly focussed on the green sticker part, however, so I understand if they'd not want to waste energy on an article that isn't going to meet that standard. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 23:33, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

At the risk of explaining the joke, the underlying point is that a former GA is no different than any other article that needs improvement. If we're going to keep the GA classification for articles that don't meet the criteria, we may as well add the GA classification to every article on Wikipedia that don't meet the criteria. And to your other point, I don't think anyone here is challenging tagging. I'm pro-tagging myself. The problem is when it's used as a bureaucratic hurdle to say "you have to do this this and this before we actually re-evaluate the article's status". When these hurdles aren't raised, GAR is a lightweight process. But some people will go out of their way to say that no action should be taken against a GA, and this behavior has been ongoing for years. Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/John von Neumann/1 stands out as one of the more infamous examples of stonewalling the process. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 06:46, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Mate, I'm sorry to say it, but it just looks like consensus was against you in that GAR. WP:1AM? GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 17:53, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Canvassed WP:STONEWALLING is not consensus. I don't understand why you're going to bat for people who are deliberately slowing down a process just so they can artificially inflate the number of badges. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 18:23, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

If that's the way you still insist on seeing it, then I'm sorry but that's where I think we're ending this. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 18:39, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Just so y'all are aware, this portion of the discussion is off-the-screen on mobile due do the number of indents, you may want to bring it down to a new line. — ^EF⁵ 22:59, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

LMAO. I usually use the laptop for reading heavy discussions in such a way, and sometimes mobile. Haven't seen this problem in mobile recently. Will check it later. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 04:16, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Can you clarify, because it is ambiguous. Do you mean more than there is now, or simply "a good GAR system would primarily emphasize article improvement"? Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 05:34, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

I mean, what's so wrong with a tag sitting in an article for years until it's addressed? They're valuable warnings to readers. Because, and I know given that you hang out in GAs, and this is a board full of GA-peeps this may be surprising, but actually no, a lot of readers don't know how to spot uncited text. Many of them don't even know what citations do. That's.... that's actually something you have to explain to newbies a lot, what a citation is and what is does, how it works. And those are people who want to edit Wikipedia, which automatically is a very self-selecting process. And a lot of our readers are kids or teenagers, aka people who are still learning that you can't believe everything you see on Tiktok. And that's something you find obvious - what about the less obvious, even to you, issues you find, like with source-text integrity, POV, or broadness? You don't really expect those to be easily seen by readers, do you? I do see where you're coming from though - again, the GA/FA processes are very insular. So I think I know how you've come to the opinion that these issues are, well, obvious to anybody other than you.

Again, this is coming from a readers-first perspective, not a backend-wikipedian-article-rating one. Again, you can put your time to whatever you wish! We're all volunteers, after all. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 20:26, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

I agree that maintenance tags should be added, and that adding them is helpful in itself. Good articles are just articles where we've already checked them for original research, NPOV, etc, and confirmed that they're good to go. If we no longer feel confident that they meet basic standards, we remove that classification, at which point its issues have the same priority as any of the millions of other articles with problems. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 20:38, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Well the more I here it described here, the more it seems that any article rating process apart from FAC/GAN doesn't seem to involve that much meaningful article improvement! Is that... inaccurate? Please tell me it's inaccurate. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 21:01, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

I don't think it's really inaccurate. It's pretty impossible to improve every article that is rated... Ratings tell us what articles need to improve. If we improved every one we rated up to a high standard, then we wouldn't really need ratings. IAWW (talk) 21:33, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

I agree. I think that outside FA/GA, the rating system mostly records the state of the article at the time it was reviewed. It might potentially trigger improvement at some future date by editors who use the rating system to guide what to edit (for instance, destubbing stubs, or targeting close-to-ready articles for GA) but that's beyond the rating process itself and is mostly invisible to us. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:51, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

I completely agree maintenance tags should be added for this reason. I also find them extremely helpful as a reader. However, as you note, that is a separate issue from the GAR process and I don't see why they need to be combined. IAWW (talk) 21:30, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

@GreenLipstickLesbian yes, exactly. If what we care about is that content gets improved, maintenance tags are a good way to signal that. Sure, "GAs" that aren't really GAs anymore shouldn't have the little green dot. But most readers don't even know GAs exist. Maintenance tags, everyone can see. And, again, they take seconds to apply. -- asilvering (talk) 19:10, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Emphasis on "deserving". If an article is listed as a GA but does not deserve the status, that also does a disservice to Wikipedia, and delaying a reassessment process does not help that.

I still don't understand why people interested in article cleanup cannot work within the bounds of GAR. Any sort of time limit was deemed hostile, so reassessments can pretty much be kept open indefinitely. But apparently drive-by tagging articles and waiting years for people to notice it is better than targeted improvement? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 08:12, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

I honestly think it's wishful thinking: "If we just X, people will fix it!" But despite having this discussion roughly forty times a year, and despite the pressure on GAR editors to do more and more and more before taking an article to GAR, time after time, the only thing that consistently motivates any action is the looming possibility that an article will lose its precious green circle (and often not even then). ♠PMC♠ (talk) 08:26, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

The goalposts just keep moving to kneecap the process more and more. Lots of people get up in arms about the process moving too fast, so we give them what they want and we see hardly any participation despite leaving things open for a month or longer. It seems some will not be satisfied until it becomes nearly impossible to delist an article, no matter how poor of a state it is in. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:17, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

The process just isn't that important, so your doomsaying about kneecapping it doesn't resonate with me. It's the article content that is important. If the process as it is currently implemented is process for process's sake rather than something that improves content, then the process should change. The regular GAR nominators keep saying here that GARs typically do not result in improved content. That should be a red flag that the GAR process is not working well. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:53, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

For me, the GA process has no value without GAR, in the same way that Wikipedia has no value without deletion processes. If no articles were ever deleted on Wikipedia, the quality of the encyclopedia would be irretrievably diluted. AfD has over a 50% deletion rate and a ~15% straight keep rate, meaning not much improvement gets done there. Would you really describe it as "process for process's sake"? No, because keeping project-wide standards up is more important than keeping substandard content for content's sake. Similarly, within the confines of WP:GA, maintaining the value of the criteria is more important than keeping substandard content for content's sake. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:29, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

I agree with AirshipJungleman here - GA status loses a lot of its meaning if there's no attempt to keep a project-wide baseline standard for these. Hog Farm _Talk 23:12, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

You're arguing against a strawman. Nobody here is arguing for shutting down GAR nor for keeping the GA rating on substandard content, for any reason. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:15, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

What I am arguing about is this growing instruction creep that keeps making it progressively harder and harder to open a GAR. Not that long ago, GAR standards were to open the article without prior notification on the talk page and keep the GAR open for a week. Now we're at a discussion on an article talk page, with an indefinite period to wait for nothing to happen, followed by the article sitting around at GAR for a month, usually with nothing happening there as well. And a further proposal to require adding tags with another indefinite wait for nothing to happen on top of that ... At least in my mind, it's enough to have the understanding that 1) multiple articles in a narrow topic area should not be nominated at the same time (and preferably a break between nominations, not just a string of one constantly at GAR for months at a time) and 2) leniency with the amount of time editors have to work on an article once it's at GAR. I don't have a great definition for narrow topic matter, but we should be able to trust people to use common sense. FAR has the ability to place nominations on hold, which could be useful at GAR as well. At least from personal experience, I felt that the GAR process for Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Battle of Antietam/1, Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Gettysburg Cyclorama/1, and Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Mark Kellogg (reporter)/1 was done in a manner that was conducive to fixing up the articles. Antietam was part of a somewhat disruptive string of GAR nominations by a now-blocked editor, and I did not see the notice and was not monitoring the articles for the other two, with the GAR coming as a surprise (especially Kellogg, which wasn't on my radar at all). The Gettysburg Cyclorama GAR was able to occur at a fairly leisurely pace while I was very busy with work. Hog Farm _Talk 23:34, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

GAR inherently allows nominations to be held. There is no rush to close, and practice is to leave it open while someone is working on it. The one-month limit was brought in to stop delistings. CMD (talk) 02:01, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

You were arguing that GAR is an unimportant process for process's sake because it results in little article improvement, no? I was arguing against that. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:03, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

False. I was arguing that we should initiate GARs in a way that encourages improvement rather than in a way that aims towards delisting at all costs, and that doing it only as process for process's sake is a wasted opportunity for improvement. You failed to address any of that, instead pretending you were arguing against some imaginary person who said you should not do GARs at all. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:45, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

I don't think you're quite getting it. You, not an imaginary person, are arguing that the GARs you see as "process for process's sake" should be replaced with an "improvement-encouraging-GAR". I am arguing that the GARs you see as "process for process's sake" have a very definite use. If you can't see what I'm trying to get at, let us end this conversation after your reply. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 01:27, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Respectfully, I daresay that characterizing it as a way that aims towards delisting at all costs is at least as much of a straw man as what you described in those terms ust above when it came from someone else. TompaDompa (talk) 22:15, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Could've fooled me. I personally will continue to nominate any article to GAR if I notice that it does not meet WP:GACR but erroneously has the GA circle in the corner. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 00:28, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

What a brave stance to take against imaginary opponents. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:03, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

It's a net loss for the project .... for an article to be delisted as a Good Article How is it a loss for the project? What exactly do you propose we are losing by delisting an article which no longer meets the criteria? Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 09:47, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

We are losing the opportunity to have a better article. Better articles are what we should be aiming for. The badges are merely a way of incentivizing people to make better articles. They are not important in themselves and taking them away from the undeserving serves only the tertiary goal of keeping the badges meaningful in the hope that meaningful badges will encourage article improvement. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:47, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure this GA is "merely" an incentive program. Putting aside editors using GAs as templates for writing and sourcing, editors also use it to get structured feedback on their writing/research and to have a more discrete line to work articles up to. I don't think either can simply be understood as incentivizing content creation except in a very loose sense. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 23:35, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Ok, but that only really works within the process of reviewing new GA nominations, and would work the same if we kept GA status forever or forgot it immediately. I don't think it is so relevant for GAR. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:39, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

You're right, and it is a bit off topic.

I understand your comments here to have two threads: 1) if we have a set of articles that do not meet the GACR, the ones we put through GAR first should be the ones with old tags. 2) When editors leave a comment on the talk to say an article doesn't meet the GACR (e.g. for neutrality, too detailed), they should also tag the article itself.

I can see your point with #1. All else equal, if I have two articles that don't meet the GACR I may preference the long-tagged one as it means editors have had more of an opportunity to address issues, it will generate less pushback and feelings of being blindsided. I also think that all else often isn't equal, and another priority for putting articles through GAR may be the most flawed. I understand at GAR they are working through a generated list, which seems not optimal for delisting the most flawed articles, but optimal for preserving reviewer time. Maybe a new list could be generated (GAs with oldest tags)?

For #2, I think the template point I raise above, and AJ29's comment adequately establish why a GAR process that doesn't improve the article is still good. Adding steps will a) give more work for people who work in GAR, reducing the number of articles that can go through GAR or reducing their time for other Wikipedia work, b) disincentivize editors from putting an article up for GAR as it is more work, c) improve some articles as editors who don't go through talk pages to see why something was delisted and people who adopt tags can work through. These effects have to be weighed up.

My opinion for #2 is that if an editor wants to know where articles can be improved, there is no shortage of backlogs. I also think that if we want to encourage tagging of articles to get improvement, we should do that in areas where there isn't a not insignificant tradeoff, and we should do it to articles we want more urgently repaired. I don't want a GAR reviewer to waste their time tagging chocolate in savory cooking for issues, it's just not the most valuable use of their time, especially if that extra step will drive people away from nominating articles.

Hopefully this wall of text has some value. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 01:02, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

We are losing the opportunity to have a better article. How? I genuinely cannot understand what you are suggesting here. Surely if the promise of a GA badge only serves as an incentive to improve an article, we should be delisting articles faster so as to reintroduce the incentive! Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 10:45, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps we have a fundamental disagreement over what GA is for. If it were merely for recognizing content that is already good, then GA reviewing would be much less work: almost every nominee would fail, we could immediately say so, and be done, like a quickfail. But (as a nominator and a reviewer) the best nominations, for me, are ones where the nomination process itself produces significant improvement to the articles through the process of peer review. It takes a lot of work, though, on the order of weeks on both sides. The reason I nominate articles, and the reason I review nominations, is not for recognition: it's because by interacting in this way between a nominator and a reviewer I can contribute to better results, better content, than would happen if I merely edited articles on my own without the feedback.

If GA were merely for recognizing content that is already good, then also GAR would be much easier. Nominate an article, at a fixed version with no updates considered, come to a consensus that it has fallen out of GA status, dust hands, done. Allow people to get recognized again by renominating. Maybe in practice that's what happens a lot anyway for articles that through time and attrition have lost their maintainers and nobody else steps up.

But if, as it is to me, GA is about improving articles through a back-and-forth with a reviewer, then that sort of quick and easy GAR has lost the plot. And the kind of GAR that I have seen, where the nominator says basically "this article is not GA but I'm going to make you figure out for yourself why not and then only tell you at the end if you're getting it right" has lost the plot as well. There is no real back and forth, no attempt to improve articles, only the goal of delisting for the sake of delisting. Maybe that provides an opportunity for someone else who has not been disillusioned by this kind of non-review to re-nominate, but that's a slim chance to trade for a missed opportunity for review.

The part that frustrates me, though, is that every time I try to articulate this desire for GAR to at least aim for a proper back-and-forth review (and succeed in the rare cases when there is a maintainer willing to do the reviewing) I get shouted down by a crowd of GAR regulars who appear to want it to only be a quick and easy re-evaluation and will distort everything I say to argue against it, as has happened here. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:36, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

"this article is not GA but I'm going to make you figure out for yourself why not and then only tell you at the end if you're getting it right" it reminds me about Wikipedia:Featured article review/Emmy Noether/archive1 and Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Vector space/1 where I had to slightly intervene. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 04:09, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Gosh, I had a biology teacher in highschool who would do the "I'm going to tell you your work is terrible, and how much a terrible stupid person you are for even daring to ask me why I think that". Complete jerk. Spent more time doing "binder checks" (to make sure your binder was "properly organized") than answering questions or explaining the material. He played the victim whenever anybody complained about him, too, insisting that all his students just didn't want to put the effort in, they wanted an easy 'A'. Second worst teacher ever. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 04:31, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

@AirshipJungleman29 Just want to come back to this - do you really think the sorts of tags that would be placed would be so minor and poorly-explained as to be drive-by-tagging? GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 04:21, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

At the top of the Good Article nominations page, there are two lists of articles that are usually the same. One is labeled as The oldest unreviewed good article nominations are: and the other is labeled as The highest priority unreviewed good article nominations are:. The lists are often, but not always, the same. How is the priority determined? Obviously age is one of the inputs, and usually the most important input. What else if anything is taken into account? (Presumably we only have two lists because there is some difference.) Robert McClenon (talk) 16:57, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

I believe that's a leftover from when there was an attempt to encourage more reviews. The second box uses a formula that takes into account the ratio of the number of reviews to the number of good articles. You can see this calculated User:ChristieBot/SortableGANoms. However, the ratio is ignored for newer participants (with a small number of GAs). It's all handled by ChristieBot. CMD (talk) 18:10, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

It really should have been removed when we switched back to sorting the nominations in order. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 20:39, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes, that's a leftover. I'll remove it when I get a chance. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:15, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Fixed with this edit -- it didn't require a change to the bot after all. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:13, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

Does anyone know who is responsible for SDZeroBot? The wording in the report is a bit misleading for the "still GA" statistic. For example, my report says:

Promoted GA nominations that are still GAs: 3

But in fact I have seven articles that were promoted to GA, and some then went to FA. The bot should say (in my report):

Promoted GA nominations that are still GA or better: 7

This is not just a matter of stoking my ego  :-) ... the bot should produce a report that is less misleading (espcially if future GA processes ever use the stats from the bot to make decisions). And the bot knows if an article is FA or GA or neither, since the bot also produces FA reports ... so it has all the data needed. Thoughts on this possible change? Noleander (talk) 20:09, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

This has always driven me crazy, so I would love to see it tweaked. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 20:16, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

You can just look at User:SDZeroBot to see that it is run by User:SD0001. Getting all articles that are subsequently promoted to FA right without getting something wrong is probably not as easy as it looks; the current version seems accurate (but I keep my own count on my userpage and make sure I understand exactly what the offset is between my count and the bot count and why). —Kusma (talk) 20:50, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

I don't think "GA or better" is necessarily right either -- an article promoted to FA and then demoted is not returned to GA status. I assume it is reset to B, but certainly not to higher than that. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:29, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

Agree.... what I was proposing was that the count include articles that were nominated for GA at one point in time, and are currently GA or FA. Im 99% sure that the bot software already has access to those numbers so it should be an easy matter to change it. Noleander (talk) 22:02, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

What report are you referring to? The only report SDZeroBot maintains is WP:WBGAN which does not have such wording. It indeed doesn't count articles that became FAs, as the bot doesn't have data about FAs. – SD0001 (talk) 20:33, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

I'm guessing this report: https://ganfilter.toolforge.org/g_editor_query/?editor_name=SSSB SSSB (talk) 07:34, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

If so, that page is produced by ChristieBot, not SDZeroBot. The number it reports is taken from SDZeroBot's database, but the wording on the web page is ChristieBot's. I can change it but would like to get consensus here on what it should say instead before I make a change. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 08:25, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

Well, we do want to know that an article is still (GA or FA), not including demoted articles whether they were at GA or FA before demotion. If that can be done then "still GA or better" or "still GA or FA" would both be fine as wording, in my view. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:21, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

Unfortunately the FA database that ChristieBot maintains only goes back to August 2006, so any articles promoted to FA before then would not be identifiable. In addition, SDZeroBot's database doesn't include any articles that are no longer GAs, so I would only be able to look up the post-August 2006 information for articles that ChristieBot is aware were once GAs -- again the cutoff for that is around 2007. ChristieBot also does not track FAR. All this means that there would be some omissions in any information ChristieBot could add to the number given by SDZeroBot. Changing the wording used on the web page, if that's what we decide to do, is quick. Adding more information about any articles that are not currently GAs would require changes to the code and for the reasons above would be incomplete in some cases, but if there's a clear statement of what we would like ChristieBot to show, I can look into what it would take. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:44, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

I don't think the buttons should overlay the right Wikipedia menu. SeaDragon1 (talk) 12:37, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Maybe this isn't a Good Article question, but a question about ratings. If I have passed an article, and then use the Rater gadget, it may show me multiple WikiProjects in which there is no rating. Is it better to leave them alone so that the rating is inherited from the shell, or to assign a Good Article rating in each project? Is this partly a matter of backward compatibility from before there was a shell and the ratings were all by projects? Robert McClenon (talk) 18:38, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Leave them alone, and yes. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:49, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

This has come up a lot lately in reviews and discussions, so I think the GA community would benefit from a clear answer in a section only dedicated to this question:

• WP:GACR6 2b states: "reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose)." Does this mean that GAs should, at minimum, have a citation at the end of every paragraph that verifies the information that proceeds it, except for sections that do not require citations (like plot summaries and lead sections)?

It might be helpful to proceed comments with a bolded "Yes", "No", or "Maybe/Comment/Depends", or respond however. Z1720 (talk) 22:37, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

No bold from me, but if we settle on "Yes", then we should drop the "that could reasonably be challenged". Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 22:43, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes – It has always been this way for me in practice, and it seems like the reasonable interpretation of the wording. IAWW (talk) 22:57, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

We can't divide articles into "sections where citations are required" and "sections where they aren't"; that would be absurd. We require inline citations for material that requires inline citations, and we don't want those citations to be later than the end of a paragraph. In many cases, that will mean that there are citations/footnotes at the end of a paragraph, but not always. So obviously the answer is "it depends". GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 23:39, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Another exception is MOS:BLOCKQUOTE: It is conventional to precede a block quotation with an introductory sentence (or sentence fragment) and append the source citation to that line. Personally, I do not like it, but it is allowed. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:53, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I've never understood it any other way. All claims need to be supported by a citation except for "implicit primary source citations" (like plot summaries) and for summarizations of cited content (like leads). "No later than the end of the paragraph" seems to be throwing people off; all it means is that you should follow WP:REPCITE. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 00:12, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

No. Criterion 2b requires that every claim likely to be challenged is backed by a reliable, inline citation somewhere before the paragraph (or line) ends—not that every paragraph must mechanically finish with a footnote. Esculenta (talk) 00:21, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

Esculenta Just to make sure we're talking about the same thing, are you thinking of any specific cases where the end of a paragraph doesn't need a citation (besides the plot and lead examples that Z1720 included)? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 00:35, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

@Thebiguglyalien – Two everyday scenarios where a paragraph needn't finish with a fresh footnote:

:* Single-source coverage. If the first sentence cites Jones 2019, pp. 42–45 and the remainder of the paragraph is nothing more than a summary of those same pages, adding a second, duplicate citation at the end serves no verification purpose. Anyone checking the text already knows exactly which source (and page range) to consult.

:* In-paragraph granularity. Sometimes each specific claim in a paragraph already carries its own inline citation (e.g. a list of ship specifications where every displacement figure, speed figure, and launch date is individually sourced). Placing an extra, catch-all ref after the final full stop would just repeat information that's already right beside the relevant statements.

Outside the lead and plot sections, every challengeable statement still needs to be verifiable, but criterion 2b doesn't prescribe where the ref goes so long as it appears before the paragraph ends and is clearly linked to the material it supports. Requiring a reflex "citation-at-paragraph-end" would create redundant clutter without improving verifiability. It reads as a request for licence to dispense with nuance. Esculenta (talk) 00:40, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

• @Esculenta: In both cases, I would suggest moving the citation to the end of the last sentence that the citation is verifying, as the citation would be assumed to verify all the information before it. Putting it in the middle of a paragraph could mean that it is verifying all the information in that paragraph, or it could mean that, after the information was added to the article, another editor added uncited information after the ref. Z1720 (talk) 00:45, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

  You could suggest that, but then I could reply that WP:GACR6 2b states that "All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph" and that my interpretation of the rules is reasonable. So there we go in circles, likes previous conversations on this page. I agree in practice citations overwhelmingly occur at the end of paragraphs, but apparently, reasonable people can disagree on the specific interpretation of the guideline. Esculenta (talk) 00:54, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

  Hopefully the outcome of this thread will clarify which interpretation of this rule is the consensus of GA. Z1720 (talk) 00:58, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

  Even if you think you've come up with a consensus in your favour, you can't deny what the guideline actually says. Instead of all of this time-wasting back-and-forth, wouldn't it be easier to change the guideline itself to explicitly demand that all text blocks MUST end in a citation? Esculenta (talk) 01:16, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

  I feel like that's what they're trying to get consensus for. Reinterpreting (or changing) the rule to fit the consensus. Nub098765 (talk) 02:37, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) I don't know if the former is disallowed, but it would be bad form to put the source in front of only some of what it supports instead of at the end; that would really mess up WP:TSI. The latter might apply in specific circumstances, but I don't know if I've ever seen it in a GA; whenever I've encountered a sentence like this, I put the last citation at the end of the sentence. Even if we don't outright ban these, I'd strongly discourage both of them. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 00:47, 9 May 2025 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) Disagree with the above. Firstly regarding "single-source coverage", it is silly to refuse to place a citation where it is required in the expectation that the reader will just know that the previous citation is still relevant. Why? We use citations to indicate where information has come from. We don't leave a trail of bread crumbs, hoping the reader will figure it out now that we've purposefully removed the helpful markers. Secondly, I think you've misunderstood this to say that this is an attempt to obtain "catch-all" citations. I don't think I've ever seen someone try and shoehorn such in. Every paragraph should end in a citation because every paragraph is made up of information you have obtained from sources that need to be indicated. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 00:49, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

  @Pickersgill-Cunliffe: The wording says that "content that could reasonably be challenged" requires a source. That wording would be redundant if all content required a source. However, it is not redundant: we have content that has been deemed not to be reasonably challenged, such as under WP:CALC. Are you suggesting that when a paragraph ends with WP:CALC-based content that we should somehow shoehorn a source into it? —David Eppstein (talk) 02:37, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

  WP:CALC only applies to elementary arithmetic and unit conversions of sourced information. So for example if a source says that there were two apples and three oranges, we can say in wikivoice that there were five pieces of fruit. You still need a source giving you the original numbers. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 03:28, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

  Not just elementary arithmetic. WP:CALC: Mathematical literacy may be necessary to follow a "routine" calculation, particularly for articles on mathematics or in the hard sciences. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:52, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

  It still requires a meaningful reflection of the sources. Compare the fruit with more complex math if necessary, but you need a source for the input. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 04:12, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

  You need a source for something but it doesn't have to be the input. In Matrix (mathematics)#Size, the example at the end of the paragraph is a meaningful reflection of the sourced notation. The calculation itself is trivial (counting to three) and swapping the data in the example with different data copied from a source would add no value. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:18, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes, if there is no citation at the end of a paragraph of the main text then the content preceding this lack is uncited. The criteria already provides the exceptions, being essentially ledes and plots. This should be adhered to. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 00:38, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

@Pickersgill-Cunliffe Maybe a stupid question, but what would you do with illustrations or examples? For example, Chinese characters (a featured article) lacks a footnote at the end of the paragraph where it introduces how to draw the character 永. Would this count as an exception to the rule laid out above? Similarly, in the section for printings and typefaces, the author made the editorial choice to put the citation above the list, as allowed by the MOS. Would that count as uncited to you? Similarly, there is an uncited table illustrating several examples of Hanja, and the hangul and translations accompanying them (two things that don't need a citation, given that we don't need citations for Wikipedian-provided translations unless controversial). Is this problematic to you? GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 01:03, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

@GreenLipstickLesbian: Answering your first question, I would consider that akin to the BLOCKQUOTE example provided above by Hawkeye. I agree it's an interesting and rather unique example though. I also don't see an issue with the list you bring up; it's encapsulated in the same way. I do note that my comment focuses on paragraphs of text! Personally I would say that yes, the table is uncited. That's a personal preference I suppose, but in my opinion nothing should be left to the abilities of Wikipedians. We are writing the encyclopaedia, not providing the information and expertise for it and the sources behind it. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 01:09, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

Hey, if I'm good for anything it's finding the weird examples! Because, while agreeing that the first two aren't problematic, I would argue that ... I know it's not fully accurate, but I'm going to call it this, transcluding a usergenerated source (image on Commons) isn't quite the same as MOS:BLOCKQUOTE, but I see why somebody would say it's similar enough. As for the list not being paragraphs... it's a list made out of paragraphs of text? So, for the proposed re-wording, how would you actually define a paragraph? And as for the final thing - I think I'll have to disagree outright. Much information about very valuable topics simply hasn't been translated into English. Either we limit ourselves severely, or we have to accept, on good faith, that basic translations are okay. Without it, we lose so much information. For example, I've had to manually translate things such a non-Latin titles of creative works. If I didn't do that, I'd have had to transliterate them, which is also a process with room for error. Either way, it was either that or simply... not have the information? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'd have loved to been able to consult a published source - titles are short enough that it wouldn't infringe on the external source's copyright, but if you'll pardon a small tangent, larger translations actually have to be provided by Wikipedians in many cases, as modern translations are in copyright and our NFCC go against using non-free material when a free alternative can be generated - but I couldn't. In this situation, what would you do? GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 01:26, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

Actually, @Thebiguglyalien, I'm interested in your opinions on the above listed examples; each has resulted in (by my argument) a paragraph that does not end in a citation. Are these issues to you? GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 01:39, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

I'd consider these to be the equivalent of image captions, in that they describe visuals on the page rather than making a claim in their own right. For the purposes of 2b, I'd consider the previous sentence to be the "end" of the paragraph as far as sourcing is concerned. But you're right that with this formatting, the end of the paragraph is technically unsourced. Regarding the table itself, I'd allow that it might fall under the spirit of WP:TRANSCRIPTION if not the letter (it refers specifically to sources). Like Pickersgill, I'd still prefer if it was drawn from a source rather than an editor choosing and translating their own examples—see my writing at Profanity#Subjects where I only used examples if they were provided by the source. But this is also a minor case that I'd be willing to accept even at FAC. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 01:51, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

So the end of the paragraph.. is not always considered the end of the paragraph? We're going to need to officially define the end of the paragraph in that case, given that I think on Wikipedia, there is a very high portion of people (self included) who have brains who read guidelines in a very literal manner - I think some of that is what leads to friction in processes like these. If it helps, while I do think examples should be drawn from sources when possible, there can be an immense amount of creativity when it comes to compiling examples. If you only use examples from one source, and the example is on the longer side, it's a Wikipedia copyright issue. And yes, some publishers will get fussy about things such as a creative table being reproduced. That's an issue for, less so for us, our content re-users, certainly. But what I'm hearing is that yes, you think it goes against the rules, but you think it's acceptable for an IAR sort of reason? GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 02:05, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

• No. There are multiple good reasons for not changing no later than the end of the paragraph to at the end of the paragraph. There are two such cases that have occurred in my editing: (1) Paragraphs where the claims needing sources are sourced at some earlier point in the paragraph, and where the paragraph ends with a simple example that does not require a source per WP:CALC, is not copied from any source, and should not be copied from a source (because copying literal examples without good reason is the same sort of improper copying as copying the text wording of sources without good reason). Example: Matrix (mathematics)#Size, first paragraph. (2) Paragraphs that end with a displayed mathematical formula, such as the first two lines of Matrix (mathematics)#Addition. The convention that has been followed for such material, across Wikipedia, has to put the footnote at the end of the text before the displayed formula, rather than on the line that ends the paragraph inside the formula. There are at least two good reasons for this convention, one being that bracketed numbers in formulas could easily be misinterpreted as part of the formula, and another being that Wikimedia's standard formatting for displayed formulas using <math display=block> does not make it possible to put a footnote marker there. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:00, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

  To clarify my memory, I went back and reviewed the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations/Archive 29#RfC: change GA criteria to require inline citations in all cases in 2023 when we adopted this text as part of the main GA rules instead of the supplementary guidelines. The closure statement went out of its way to quote one of the discussion comments "I see no language in the proposal that forbids putting the citation before the content as in your example". The examples used in that discussion were Featured Article Providence and Worcester Railroad#System which then and now has footnotes prior to rather than after a bulleted list, without footnotes on the items in the list itself, and (non-GA/FA) Universal Declaration of Human Rights#Adoption which has the same structure of sourced text following a bulleted list that does not repeat the footnotes on each item.

  Whether one counts a bullet in a bulleted list as a separate paragraph or the whole list as part of the preceding paragraph is not obvious to me. I think though that these examples clearly meet the current standard that all content is sourced prior to the end of their paragraph (long before, if each bullet is a paragraph, but nevertheless it is clear enough which source is intended to apply) and would not meet the standard under discussion of requiring a footnote at the end of the paragraph (repeated many times if a bullet is a paragraph). I have no opinion whether that means this RFC is asking for a stricter standard than FA or whether the FA example should not be FA. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:47, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

  @David Eppstein Would you support if these specific examples (bullet points and some math situations) were excluded? IAWW (talk) 07:59, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

• I'm not DE, but I think math equations/situations should be excluded because (from my understanding) they are self-proving as correct (that is, the solution of the equation verifies that the math does what it says it does). Lists with bullet points would also be excepted, but that is also not written in paragraphs so I didn't think to specify it in this question: the citation for a list can be before the list or after the last entry, from my interpretation of wiki-policy and guidelines. If the list is formatted by a paragraph, my interpretation of GA? 2b is that the citation would be placed at the end of the last entry (if the citation verifies all list entries) or after the entry that it is verifying. Z1720 (talk) 15:51, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

Simple calculations under WP:CALC (not mathematical calculations requiring full proofs, which should be cited), formulas, and bulleted lists are the exceptions I know about offhand. If this is to pass they definitely should be exceptions.

That said, the current wording that the sourcing for material that needs sourcing should happen before the end already covers those situations.

The main effect of this rule, to me, is in freeing reviewers to review superficially, only checking the existence of a footnote marker at the end of each paragraph. The difference between that and the existing situation is the lack of thought into whether a missing footnote marker is actually problematic. We don't want to encourage lack of thought and superficiality in our GAN reviewers. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:11, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

• Yes, this is a basic and standard expectation for sourcing, across Wikipedia's content assessment. GA should not differ from it. CMD (talk) 02:21, 9 May 2025 (UTC)
• Yes except for explicit exemptions from the MOS. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 07:19, 9 May 2025 (UTC)
• Almost, but there are some exceptions where it makes sense to put the citation slightly before the cited content. Typical exceptions are cast lists for films or displayed mathematics formulas. Perhaps we could clarify what the exceptions are? —Kusma (talk) 07:32, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

  I'm had a look through the guidelines and surprisingly can't find a list of typical exceptions anywhere. Both cast lists and mathematical formulas can fall under the same general exception—under which also fall the common exceptions of block quotes and tables—of not being part of article prose. There is some variance in how these can be best cited (lists and tables can be cited in various ways depending on whether and how they combine multiple sources, block quotes can be cited before the quote or after the author name), but those variations are needed because they are not textual prose. (And if we are being pedantic we should include images and their captions, which do not normally need citations at all.) CMD (talk) 07:49, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

• The intention of this question was to ask about citations in prose organised by paragraphs. I didn't intent to ask about charts (of which a citation anywhere in the chart is usually fine), images (because I don't consider captions as part of the prose), and math equations (because I see that they are usually organised like block quotes or images). Block quotes is an exception I didn't think of, and would probably be specified that the citation can be before or after the quote. Z1720 (talk) 15:45, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

  The layout of equations as a separate block of text is separate from their meanings. In terms of meaning, they are usually part of a sentence within a paragraph, which can continue both before or after the equation. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:13, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

  Equations are part of paragraphs . 64.112.179.236 (talk) 08:23, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes as being completely within reason. Per above, if you don't have an end-of-paragraph citation by default, how the heck could you verify the last sentence of said paragraph? — ^EF⁵ 16:16, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

• No, that is not the plain meaning of the criterion being cited. "No later than" means "no later than", not "at the end of". Just because "at the end of" is a convention that makes sense in most circumstances, that doesn't mean it has to be applied in every circumstance. Fussing so much over footnote placement seems like a distraction --- or, maybe, a way to have a mechanical rule to follow instead of actually checking to see if the writing and the referencing are good. 64.112.179.236 (talk) 08:35, 10 May 2025 (UTC)
• Yes It makes it easier for readers to find the source of information. Some elements may have different standards, such as block quotes, mathematical formulas, lists, and tables, but the current formulation is specifically about paragraphs. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:50, 10 May 2025 (UTC)
• Yes - Although the proposal is slightly different in meaning from the existing wording, the existing wording is hard to parse. The GA criteria should be very simple & plain. Also, I concur with User:Firefangledfeathers who wrote above "if we settle on "Yes", then we should drop the "that could reasonably be challenged"." Noleander (talk) 01:35, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

  Also agree with that addendum. CMD (talk) 01:41, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

  It would not be the first rule requiring inanity in our footnotes. The rule on DYK that the sentence stating a DYK hook needs to be footnoted, even when the same footnote is right there on the next sentence of the same paragraph and covers all claims in both paragraphs, is another. I have defended that rule, telling DYK nominators "I know it looks stupid but it's the rule". But in that case the redundant footnote can be removed and sanity restored once the DYK has run. Requiring unnecessary footnotes on material that cannot reasonably be challenged seems to me to be a step towards making GA about arbitrary rule-following rather than having any justifiable connection to article quality. (The first example I found when looking through some recent GAs was an unfootnoted claim that ⁠1/2⁠ + ⁠1/3⁠ + ⁠1/9⁠ = ⁠17/18⁠, and that ⁠17/18⁠ is less than one: could this reasonably be challenged?) —David Eppstein (talk) 01:51, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

  Happily the rule would not require inanity in footnotes, or create redundancy. CMD (talk) 02:04, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

  Well, clearly we disagree. I think requiring a footnote on 1+1=2 would be inane. Famously, the xkcd blog characterized adding [citation needed] to "the night sky is dark" as vandalism [https://what-if.xkcd.com/109/ (see footnote 5) and inspired a generation of vandals to do just that. Not everything needs a citation. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:18, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

  Yes, you did open saying things would be inane. I'm not sure why you think that is going to entice others to consider your input. But to answer, this example as with the mathematical notation arguments above are taking things immediately to extremis and using that as a norm. If you can show me where 1+1=2 has caused disruption in a GAN I would appreciate it. Your reading of xkcd and cn tags misses that the footnote is clearly about their intent. This is an especially poor comparison to make when you previously started a whole discussion where you asked people to add tags. CMD (talk) 02:31, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

  It probably hasn't caused disruption yet, because the rule as written doesn't require a footnote on 1+1 = 2, or on ${\displaystyle {\frac {17}{18}}<1}$. But the rule that people want to change to would either require a footnote or, at best, lead to pointless bickering over "WP:CALC" this and "could reasonably be challenged" that.

  I don't think that the question of how to handle mathematical equations is taking anything "to extremis". Formulas are all over math and science pages. The issue of how to provide references for them is obviously important. Just because articles with technical content are only a fraction of the whole encyclopedia, that doesn't make the issue less important in those cases where it does come up. This whole discussion is about the edge cases, really: the question is about whether a style guide that makes sense 99% of the time must be applied 100% of the time, on pain of losing the green sticker. Nobody is saying that mathematical formulae are the "norm", just that they fall in that percentage where the style guide doesn't make sense, proving by example that the percentage in question is non-zero.

  (The idea that the rule wouldn't cover them because it only applies "to paragraphs" doesn't make sense at all to me. Formulas are part of the paragraphs in which they are included. So are block quotes. And I don't see how putting a bullet point in front of a short paragraph radically changes the situation, either. Either there's a solid principle behind the rule, and so it should apply everywhere, or it's merely an idea that's good most of the time, so it should apply most of the time, but the green sticker award shouldn't hinge upon it.) 64.112.179.236 (talk) 04:55, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

  Actually, the discussion is not about edge cases, it is about the general criteria. I'm afraid if you think that pointless bickering is prevented by the current formulation then you are mistaken. The particular edge case being raised is a red herring, under the presumption that this change affects mathematical formulas, which it really doesn't, it would be really easy to figure out specifically how to deal with them. Anyone is welcome to propose a way to handle mathematical forumlas, just reply to Kusma above on the actual sub-discussion about edge cases. CMD (talk) 05:35, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

  There are two different things here that you appear to be conflating: (1) the formatting of displayed formulas, (2) claims that do not need citations under WP:CRC (essay but one linked by our current rules) and that would require a citation under this rule because they happen to be placed at the end of a paragraph.

  I have been presenting mathematical examples because those are the examples I am familiar with, but I have no reason to believe that issue (2) is limited to mathematics. I would much prefer simple general rules than carve-outs for special cases. I believe the current rule, that everything needing a source should have a source, at or before the end of the same paragraph, is a simple general rule that works. I believe that the proposed rule is more likely to cause problems where a reviewer demands a source (because the new rule says so) and the nominator doesn't understand why a source is needed nor how to find a source for something so obvious that no source even bothers to write it.

  As for bickering over WP:CALC: I have been through many GAN processes on both sides where CALC might have been in play and don't recall any bickering. In the example that I provided involving the unfootnoted observation that 17/18 < 1, one of our most experienced reviewers (and nominators), User:Chiswick Chap, didn't even flag it as an issue. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:27, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

  I recall raising the point on a WikiJournal of Science article (developed from a Wikipedia page), and was politely informed by the mathematicians involved that the calculations would be obvious to any mathematician. My humble 'A level' maths did seem very far away at that moment! Chiswick Chap (talk) 06:57, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

  My own standard is that basic arithmetic is obvious enough to fall under WP:CALC but that calculations that would require a mathematics degree to understand are probably going to need a source. But I guess this can be a matter where editors differ. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:34, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

  I am not conflating them, I am responding to their being used as examples. If there is a risk of conflation, that is because of their prior use. We should indeed have a simple rule, and citing text is a very simple rule. If no source bothers to write something, it should not be in an article. CMD (talk) 07:49, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

• No. With "exceptions" necessary for numerous specific situations, and because not all content can reasonably be challenged, a "yes" is the wrong rule. Fundamentally we entrust great discretion to GA writers and reviewers, who must have the knowledge and expertise to make judgments about irreducibly open-ended criteria, like what level of detail is or isn't necessary, and what is a fair balance of views on a particular subject. Likewise, in assessing the referencing, their good sense and consensus is the real foundation. The criteria should be high-level and general guidance, staying away from mechanical interpretation and from WP:CREEP. Adumbrativus (talk) 06:52, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
• Side comment. Recommend removing "(or line if the content is not in prose)". This sounds like a recipe for overciting - it's common to have a table or bulleted list that is all cited to the same source. This line, taken as written, seems to imply that every single bullet and every single row of the table needs a citation, even if it's the exact same citation. Now, in cases where there's an eclectic table or list that really is cited from a variety of sources, that's fine, but if it's obviously the same source (very common for stuff valid to support to primary sources, e.g. official lists), this is overkill. See Provinces_and_territories_of_Canada#Provinces as an example - putting the citation in the column header for where that column's data comes from is fine. As written, this implies we'd need to repeat each citation 13 times, once each row. (Would potentially be willing to support if this is removed, but am definitely opposed as long as this is kept.) SnowFire (talk) 16:07, 16 May 2025 (UTC)
• No. Mandating a more specific location for references than we already do doesn't make the content any more verifiable. And, in general, I'm concerned about changes that allow for nitpicking over format, something that tends to drive people crazy and which improves the encyclopedia very little if at all. Especially when we're already frequently advising reviewers that they only need to "spot check" references to see if they verify the content in the first place. -- asilvering (talk) 20:21, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

I thought I understood how to interpret criteria 2A, but I currently have two GAs being reviewed where it seems like a much higher standard is being expected. I’m raising the topic here to confirm the consensus. My understanding was that citations just needed to be sufficient to identify the source in question, but there’s no need for consistency, elegant formatting, or even necessarily page numbers, as long as verification is possible. One of my reviews is requesting that when there are multiple references used to a particular source, these are not repeated in the reference list and, in the case of different pages in one book or journal, short citations are used; the other requested a number of polishing details, including Page ranges are given inconsistently: pp. 42–3 for ref 6; pp. 31–32 for ref 10 (the second form is correct, according to our manual of style). and You sometimes do and sometimes don't give the publisher's location. In both cases, it seems the reviewers are treating these as non-optional. I’m very surprised by these requests in both reviews, so my question here is, have I grossly misread the consensus about the GA criteria? (Courtesy pings: simongraham, Tim riley, and Eddie891) ~ L 🌸 (talk) 18:33, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

My understanding of GA citation requirements is that the reference should be sufficient enough that a reader could find and verify the text. For websites, this means a hyperlink is fine (as I can click on the link and verify the information). For books, enough information to find the source is needed (usually author name and title of the source). There is no requirement for consistency or to use any template at the GA level. Z1720 (talk) 18:42, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

The GA criteria only state that "enough information must be supplied so that the reviewer is able to identify the source". In the case of Bungay Castle (novel), repeating the citation with different page numbers is not relevant to WP:REPEATCITE, because there is no "multiple use of the same inline citation or footnote"—the page numbers differentiate. For Ann Radcliffe, Tim makes reference to MOS:NOTES, which states "Editors may use any citation method they choose, but it should be consistent within an article"; "citation method", not "citation formatting", means that information such as publisher location is not required to be consistent. That said, if something explicitly within the MoS is brought up, such as MOS:PAGERANGE, it is a good idea to fix it whether or not it is required by the GA criteria. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:48, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

I agree with Airship, but will add re there’s no need for.. even necessarily page numbers: page numbers/ranges for a book are definitely needed for GA. Citing a full book for a single claim is a massive hindrance to verifiability.

Also, as an example of why having proper formatting is worthwhile, even if not *required*, at Ann Radcliffe there were enough formatting things to be tweaked that some mistakes crept in (a book had the wrong publisher, some websites had the wrong name, and at least one book had insufficient information to identify what edition was being cited). All of those are things it is valid to ask to be repaired for GA, and it is hard to identify them without the references being consistant. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 18:52, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

For the record, the book with an unclear edition was Northanger Abbey, a work with so many editions that a page number is unhelpful. To verify a quote from that novel, any reader can simply pull up a convenient ebook and ctrl-F the words. The other mistakes you note (while they were worth correcting and I highly appreciate your hard work to implement the improvements you advise!) are also not a serious bar to verification. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 19:12, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Serious, no, but I think any reviewer would be within their rights to ask for them to be corrected; it's just hard to even identify things like that without consistent formatting. Either way, I largely agree with your opinion! Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 19:16, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

While this isn't something I would demand at GA level, I think with things like Northanger Abbey that are on wikisource, best practice is to make it easy on the reader and link to the actual wikisource chapter or even page. —Kusma (talk) 10:33, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Incredible to see this immediately below a conversation where we're saying "not all dead links are so bad, actually". The only parts of the MOS that are required for GA are the ones in 1b. The "presented in accordance with the layout style guideline" in 2a is simply saying "you need a list of references, and it needs to be at the end of the article somewhere". That's it. I don't even think the first review you cite is in accordance with FA norms, let alone GA ones. -- asilvering (talk) 18:55, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

The formal expectations for source formatting in GAs are a bit out of date in my view, but they are quite low. Many good reviewers do not review strictly by the GA criteria, but give general suggestions how to improve the article; you can always argue that some points are beyond the criteria and so you should not be expected to act on them. But if the suggestions are easy to implement and improve the article, wouldn't you want to follow them? —Kusma (talk) 18:57, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

In this case, I did argue that the points were beyond the criteria and encountered disagreement, hence coming here. I really welcome opportunities to improve the articles I submit to GA, which is why it's disappointing to have reviewers fixate on citation issues that are not part of the criteria instead of what feels like the "meat" of the article. For example, I really appreciate how your own review of St. Albans Abbey is pushing me to integrate more sources and better explain the material. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 19:25, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

GA is supposed to be a lightweight check of an article to make sure it's well-written, sourced, and meets some basic requirements. It should be a quick, painless process with minimum burden on the nominator and the reviewer. Demanding more of someone's time is unfair to the nominator because it's not what they signed up for, and it's unfair to everyone else participating at GAN because it slows down the whole process. If someone wants to provide a review with more general advice, then I encourage them to go to WP:PR where reviewers are also desperately needed. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 16:59, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

GA typically gives much better peer reviews than PR. I do not understand your comments about "fairness". —Kusma (talk) 18:07, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

I think it's pretty clear at this point that it's not totally clear for new and even experienced reviewers what exactly they're supposed to be looking for. WP:GANI and WP:RGA are almost useless in teaching people how to review in their current state. It's all based around unspoken norms and expectations, with accepted interpretations of the criteria being scattered in the talk page archives here instead of codified. When do we plan on updated or revamping these pages so they actually guide people through each step from creating the page to passing/failing in a way that's understandable? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 20:09, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Whenever someone actually gets around to revamping them, I assume. Maybe that someone could be you? -- asilvering (talk) 20:14, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

I did, two years ago: User:Thebiguglyalien/Good article reviewing guide. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 20:23, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

I'm familiar with your guide. I mean the pages you've specifically drawn attention to. -- asilvering (talk) 20:27, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Are you putting it forward as a consolidated replacement for WP:GANI and WP:RGA? Obviously that needs an RfC, but I would suggest putting it under {{draft proposal}} and workshopping it with the community for the moment. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:31, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

I'm asking that we stop enforcing unspoken rules and then complaining about the fact that we have so few reviewers. I've put in my effort to bring us toward that goal, I'd like to see everyone else's. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 20:34, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Which unspoken rules do you particularly have in mind Thebiguglyalien? And, more relevantly, do you mind if I copy-paste User:Thebiguglyalien/Good article reviewing guide into WP-space, if you don't intend to take it further? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:36, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

It's all unspoken. WP:GAN/I#R3 only requires that An in-depth review is provided and that you provide a review on the review page justifying that decision. The former doesn't say anything about writing anything down as you do that in-depth review, and the latter could be fulfilled with two sentences. RGA says bear in mind that future editors may be interested in your reasoning, so don't just leave an all-positive checklist. Suggestions for further improvement may be welcomed by article editors. Again, you can fulfil that by writing a few sentences in the review page, and even that comes across as a suggestion rather than an expectation. A reasonable person could carefully read GANI and RGA and come to the conclusion that a quickpass is standard. And yes, feel free to do whatever you like with that page. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 20:53, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

I've been thinking lately about the need for a User:Tony1/Redundancy exercises: removing fluff from your writing style tutorial. Perhaps as an additional resource to a better written instruction set. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 00:43, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Alright, I've moved it to Wikipedia:Good article reviewing guide, with the eventual goal of replacing WP:RGA and the relevant half of WP:GANI. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:02, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

I see two threads here saying that the reviewing instructions are broken, specifically: I think it's pretty clear at this point that it's not totally clear for new and even experienced reviewers what exactly they're supposed to be looking for., and referring to unspoken (which should be unwritten) rules. I am not sure whether I am a new reviewer or an experienced reviewer. I have 200,000 edits and have reviewed more than 7,000 draft articles, and have reviewed 3 Good Article nominations. So maybe it doesn't matter if I am an experienced reviewer or a new reviewer. The only instructions that I think are unclear are those having to do with references and source checking. Are there any other uncertainties, or do the questions have to do with checking the references? So what are the unwritten rules? If there are unwritten rules, we should either formalize them by including them in the guidelines, or conclude that they should not be rules? Can someone please tell an "experienced new reviewer" what the issues are? Robert McClenon (talk) 19:01, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

It's all unspoken. WP:GAN/I#R3 only requires that An in-depth review is provided and that you provide a review on the review page justifying that decision. The former doesn't say anything about writing anything down as you do that in-depth review, and the latter could be fulfilled with two sentences. RGA says bear in mind that future editors may be interested in your reasoning, so don't just leave an all-positive checklist. Suggestions for further improvement may be welcomed by article editors. Again, you can fulfil that by writing a few sentences in the review page, and even that comes across as a suggestion rather than an expectation. A reasonable person could carefully read GANI and RGA and come to the conclusion that a quickpass is standard. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 21:09, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

User:Thebiguglyalien - I now see that there are two separate areas where the reviewers may want better instructions, the depth of the review itself, and the documentation of that review. Your comments appear to be that the instructions for documenting the review say very little. I agree, and I don't know much documentation of the review is expected. I also think that the instructions are not clear about the scope of the checking of the references. Not everyone agrees on what the unwritten rules are, which is a reason it may be difficult to write them down. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:41, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

As far as GA reviews, this feels wildly inadequate, I'm not sure any of the criteria was properly considered and the reason given for promoting does not line up with our criteria (cc @Willbill6272 as the reviewer and @Boneless Pizza! as the nominator). I would advocate for this article to placed back into the queue (and or have a proper review done). Sohom (talk) 03:18, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

I was about to request it because I felt a bit uncomfortable to that review, but it seems like he promised to another editor here . If he didn't did anything at least for a week then it needs to be reverted back. 🍕BP!🍕 (🔔) 03:21, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

Likewise. I requested it after I noticed the incomplete review and was going to wait one week to give some review time before taking further action. I'd leave it up for a few more days, but if nothing is done after then, send it back to the queue. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 18:28, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

Another user already took some review somehow before this user can. 🍕BP!🍕 (🔔) 21:02, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

Hm. I only just gave a 2O to an earlier version of that article. Any review should definitely look at the previous review as well when an article has been relisted so soon. The new reviewer isn't obligated to agree with the previous reviewers, but not responding to those concerns at all is not great. -- asilvering (talk) 23:15, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

(To be clear, I'm talking about the reviewer here. I mean, obviously I personally think my own concerns ought to be responded to, otherwise I wouldn't have stated them in the first place, but submitters are always free to resubmit even without any changes at all if they don't like the outcome of the previous review. It's on the next reviewer to determine whether those concerns are important enough to withhold the GA status or not.) -- asilvering (talk) 00:42, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying 🍕BP!🍕 (🔔) 00:45, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

@Asilvering Hi. Can you review or do spotcheck so that my DYK would be successful :< 🍕BP!🍕 (🔔) 23:22, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't do DYK work and don't know much about it, you're better off asking someone else. -- asilvering (talk) 04:20, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

oops sorry, I mean, can you do spotcheck at the GAN page #3 if its okay for you? 🍕BP!🍕 (🔔) 05:20, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Ah, I've already been involved in a GAN for this article so it should probably be done by someone else. Hopefully someone less vulnerable to nerdsniping than Rollinginhisgrave. -- asilvering (talk) 13:51, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

I think the follow-up review has still fallen a bit short, with no spot-check demonstrated. I intended to provide a more thorough review to my satisfaction but have instead spent the past few days reworking the article with Boneless Pizza!, as a result I have become a significant contributor and my actions can't be considered a review. The article is in much different shape than it was at Talk:Poop emoji/GA3 and it would be greatly appreciated if someone could give an outside opinion (particularly if the summary of Abel makes sense). Thanks, Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 02:48, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Got response to copyeditor here . 🍕BP!🍕 (🔔) 10:43, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

The page Muisca raft was nominated a good article, but it cites no detailed studies explicitly arguing that the raft was associated with the Eld Dorado ceremony (rather, is has studies and more general works focused on the El Dorado ceremony, which should instead have its own page). A recent article in "Pre-Colombian Central America, Colombia and Ecuador: an integrated approach" by prominent muisca scholars Uribe Villegas, Martinón-Torres, and Quintero Guzmán (who have written on this subject for several years) states that the musics raft, made approximately between 1200 and 1400, was made in the context of the local Pasca chiefdom, not the Guatavita ceremony. Currently, this article only proves the Guatavita ceremony happened, however no academic source from after 2000 which deals primarily with this subject (the raft) seems to say that the raft is associated with this specific ceremony. Only short news articles and museum pages. The serious sources cited here mostly do not directly associate the raft and the ceremony if they are recent. Therefore, it is extremely important to add this debate, and to add the growing doubt about this raft found in Pasca corresponding to the (real, yet in a different context and time) Guatavita ceremony. The article currently spends too much time arguing about the ceremony and the not the object itself, however an article Guatavita ceremony would be more appropriate for this. Therefore, the Good Article label is not appropriate. To cite the conclusion, "Interpretations must be informed by an awareness of broader political tensions and ritual practice, especially propitiatory offerings led by chiefs, in the Pasca region during the late muisca period". Earlier, it's made clear that the Museo del Oro specifically has used the association to Guatavita for tourism. The book is a collection of serious studies by Dumbarton Oaks, who already published similar important studies in the 1990s and 2000s on the isthmo-colombian area, so important they contributed to changing the area's name from "intermediate" to "isthmo-Colombian". Articles about the muisca generally rely too much on old 19th/early 20th century sources or short news pieces or Museum pages, instead of relying on modern archeological studies (like the very important work of Langebaek or more recently Jorge Gamboa). Here is a link to the source: https://www.google.de/books/edition/Pre_Columbian_Central_America_Colombia_a/V1U9zgEACAAJ?hl=de . Regards, 80.187.73.169 (talk) 18:42, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Hi IP, it doesn't look to me like you've raised any of these concerns at Talk:Muisca raft. Could you do that, please? You're also welcome to start editing the article yourself to bring it in line with recent scholarly work. -- asilvering (talk) 19:40, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

I did, but a weird glitch apparently happened as my addition to the discussion is absent from the page history (but my comment is present on Muisca Raft:talk) 80.187.73.169 (talk) 20:33, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Oh, I think I’m at fault here. I fixed the problem (I think). 80.187.73.169 (talk) 20:38, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Not quite. I'll fix it for you. -- asilvering (talk) 20:39, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Ah, I fixed half of it and in the time that took me, you've fixed the other. All good now. But you may want to re-ping the editors you tried to contact earlier, by replying to your own post and tagging them in again. Not sure if your copy-paste will have pinged them properly. -- asilvering (talk) 20:42, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Ok. Thanks for your help. Regards, 80.187.73.169 (talk) 20:44, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

I think I resolved the issue now (with sources cited), though it was fairly weird for the article to cite the experts in question (important ones for this subject) multiple times without ever mentioning their sceptical stance towards the association of the Guatavita ceremony with the raft. I have now added scepticism (as well as the regional historical context of the offering, which isn't really controversial) on the raft's association with El Dorado (as many such ceremonies existed across Muisca territory, not just the El Dorado one). Regards, 80.187.73.169 (talk) 14:32, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

So after a discussion with another user, I moved the title of the article to clarify article naming and avoid an unnecessary move discussion (Since I assumed the new change would be largely uncontroversial), but as it turns out, the change caused the GAN to autofail (I assume since it's a different title now? Idk how that works). Nothing about article content has changed and the review was still active and ongoing; what is the procedure for something like this? I'm admittedly unsure on what to do here. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 19:08, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Talk:Pokémon competitive play/GA1

When you move a page you should move subpages with it, this includes GA pages. I've moved the review, pretty sure the closing scripts etc. will work fine now. CMD (talk) 23:10, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

I'm really liking the GA review circles, and have used them several times. Small suggestion to improve the instructions at WP:Good_article_review_circles ... the term "cooling off period" is used for Step 3: WP:Good_article_review_circles#Step_3:_24-hour_cooling-off_period. That term is confusing in that context; normally "cooling off" is used after shooting a weapon or exerting oneself to exhaustion. In Step 3 of GARC, a better term may be something like "Confirmation period" or "Ratification period" or" "Affirmation period". Not a big deal, but GARC seems a bit underutilized, so anything to make it more inviting may be helpful. Noleander (talk) 16:54, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

Change it if you want to, I guess, but I doubt this is affecting usage of review circles in any appreciable way. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 04:59, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Alright. I changed it to "confirmation period". I understand that this improvement will not improve GARC usage "in any appreciable way"; but every little bit helps. Noleander (talk) 20:05, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

When I am spot-checking the sources in an article, if I discover that a few of the links are broken somehow, is there any rule as to what action I should take? Is it ever appropriate to fail the article because of problems with the sources if it passes GA criteria 1, 3, 4, and 5, but has verifiability problems? Am I correct that the review may be put on hold for this reason? If the review is put on hold, and the nominator then indicates that the repairs have been made, is there any particular rule about additional checking of remaining sources? What percentage of the sources should be checked on the first pass? What percentage of remaining sources should be checked on a second pass? Is there any general guidance about how complete the checking of sources should be? Robert McClenon (talk) 05:14, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

The idea is that you as a reviewer are comfortable that the article generally does not plagiarise, and is backed up by the sources, rather than there being a strict numerical goal. 5-10% of sources is sometimes thrown around as a yardstick, but it's flexible (for example, in a very short article you might be easily able to just check every source, in a very long article you might just pick a couple per section). If there are no problems in that 10% then you might feel comfortable passing on that basis, however if some problems are found you might want to check further. A link being broken is not per se evidence of unverifiability; there may be a new location, archives, etc. Even with an offline source, you could ask the nominator for a supporting quote. It is fine to put an article on hold if sources need to be fixed to meet GACR2 (adding the usual note that sources do not need to be perfectly formatted, just identifiable eg. access-date for online sources and page numbers for longer sources). CMD (talk) 05:41, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

To add something a bit more concrete to CMD's first sentence, I wouldn't pass a GA unless I was satisfied that all the major claims in the article check out. The number of sources you'd have to check, and how deeply, would depend on how wide-ranging the content of the article is. I think it's important to go beyond just a random spot check, because it's easy to just end up being directed by RNG to a bunch of sources that don't really matter - you could remove that content from the article without changing much of the overall meaning. If an article leans heavily on a particular source, you should check that one. This isn't just important for the WP:V reasons, but also is usually where I find out that there's something missing from the article that means the "broad" criterion isn't quite fulfilled.

As for broken links, you can just fix those yourself. If that's particularly complicated you can throw that job back at the nominator. -- asilvering (talk) 05:55, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Re dead links: perhaps surprisingly, a GA reviewer should not ask the nominator to fix them, unless they make it clear it's not a GA requirement but just a suggestion. Per WP:GACR, footnote 4, if the link is not a bare URL it is acceptable at GA, even if it's dead. However, if you have picked that source for a spot check the nominator is obliged to supply the content of the source, and the easiest way for them to do that is to fix the link, so that's an exception. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:25, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Not sure it's that clear cut, {{dead link}} presumably falls within WP:QF3, so "large numbers" would need to be fixed if possible. That said, the common example of what is needed to meet that GACR footnote is an access-date for pretty much this reason. CMD (talk) 10:33, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

I’ve been assuming the reverse — that footnote 4 means that that would not be a quick fail. I think I suggested here a couple of years ago that we stop allowing dead links but there was no consensus for that change. Is this one of those areas where actual practice differs from the apparent meaning of the criteria? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:23, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Actual practice in general is to fix dead links, which is not specifically related to GANs. Allowing dead links is different from taking them as standard, and not all dead links are the same. Mainly this is a corollary of our expectations that nominators are familiar with the article and its sources. If a nominator was not the one to add the original link, they cannot not be familiar with how it supports its claims. CMD (talk) 16:27, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes, @Mike Christie, thanks for pointing that out. I do mean as a suggestion, though if it's well and truly dead it might end up being a WP:V problem that does need fixing. -- asilvering (talk) 18:50, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

If the nominator can't demonstrate that the source supports the content, the corresponding claim needs to be adjusted or removed. A reviewer is perfectly within their right to challenge everything that is cited to a dead link. —Kusma (talk) 16:20, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes, that's the WP:V problem that does need fixing that I'm talking about. -- asilvering (talk) 17:19, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Asilvering, this is the discussion I remember. I don't think there is consensus for a reviewer to challenge every dead link. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:55, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Personally, I would never pass a GAR while it had unresolved dead links, even if it isn't explicitly stated in the GACR. If nobody can verify the content, it's as good as unsourced. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 11:03, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

I don't like to do so either, but I also don't like going beyond GACR in a review -- we've had multiple threads here about the issue of reviewers asking for non-GACR fixes and per the linked discussion I think many would put deadlinks under that heading. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:37, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

A review policy of "no dead links unless you can demonstrate that the dead link is a reliable source" seems perfectly within the GA criteria to me and is within the spirit of the discussion you linked to. —Kusma (talk) 12:01, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

I agree. I don't think that discussion would allow a reviewer to say "as well as showing it's reliable, you have to change it for a live link", though, which is how I think some reviewers approach dead links. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:51, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

I honestly do think you could ask for them to "show it's reliable and that it is accessible somewhere [i.e. an archive service]", if not "change it in the article to the live link". In the same way that we can't cite other forms of lost media directly, if it cannot be verified by anyone the content is by definition not verifiable. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 13:08, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

What do I do in a situation like this? The review's been open for over a month with no progress and the reviewer's been inactive for three days (I pinged them on May 12 but got no response). — ^EF⁵ 00:32, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Talk:2021 Bowling Green tornadoes/GA1

Let's wait at least until a week from the ping. If the review is not able to be finished, the nomination can be put back into the queue at its original date. CMD (talk) 02:51, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Chipmunkdavis, it's been almost a week now. — ^EF⁵ 14:44, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Week has passed and the reviewer has not edited in slightly over a week. The review was opened a month and a half ago. Absent no objections, I'll close the review soon and move this back to queue. CMD (talk) 02:34, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Reset. CMD (talk) 14:35, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

I added some words to step 4 of the GA Review circle instructions. I boldly changed

Try to complete the review within a timely manner (reviews typically take no longer than seven days).

to be

You should start the review and make significant progress within three days of accepting the notification. You should complete the review within seven days (provided the nominator is responding promptly to your suggestions).

The purpose of the change is to ensure that participants don't ignore their obligations to start the review. Background: I've participated in GARC five times in the past five months, and three of the five times, the reviewer did not make significant progress (or even start the review) for 5 or more days, even after I gave them polite reminders.

Since this appears to be a common issue, I boldly added the guidance that a GARC review should be substantially started within 3 days, which is reasonable in the GA review circle context. In other words, in exchange for getting a fairly prompt review of their own article, they are obligated to uphold their end of the bargain. I used the word "should" rather than "must" because life happens, and GA reviews cannot always progress on a rigid timetable. I'm not suggesting that the "should start review within 3 days" suggestion apply to GA nominations happening through the normal GA process – this is only for GA Review Circles, where benefits come with responsibilities. Noleander (talk) 16:57, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

I haven't participated in GARC, but I did assume it came with the expectation of reasonably rapid reviews. However, that is for starting a review, I would not limit the end of the review to seven days. CMD (talk) 02:15, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

The seven day goal was already in the review circle instructions, although I did change the phrasing from typically to should. But we can change it back to typically if that's the consensus.

The essence of this change is not 7 days or 8 days.... it's to remind participants that they shouldn't devote all their time exclusively to working on their own articles. They need apportion a decent amount of time to doing the review they committed to doing.

In 60% of my review circles, I watched my reviewer working on their own articles for 4, 5, 6 days consecutively, not pausing to review my article. (BTW: please do not look at my circles for identities: this issue is about the process, not the individuals).

An alternative to setting a 3-day start window would be something like: "Participants should spend roughly as much time doing the review, as tending to their own GAN article" but that seems to be a lot more contentious and confusing, so I did not suggest that. Noleander (talk) 02:48, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

I think stating something more explicit would be better, I did not get the idea of working on both from the timeframe wording. CMD (talk) 07:21, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

I think it makes sense to encourage people to prioritise getting their review done over responding to any reviews they receive. —Kusma (talk) 10:38, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Okay. How about changing the text (shown above, in green) to:

You should prioritize the review over working on your own GAN article. You should complete the review within seven days (provided the nominator is responding promptly to your suggestions).

Noleander (talk) 13:19, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Per the above, I changed the GARC step 4 instructions to Performing the review should be prioritized higher than work on your own GAN article. You should complete the review within seven days (provided the nominator is responding promptly to your suggestions).

Shouldn't conversations of this sort be at Wikipedia talk:Good article review circles? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:36, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

I don't know. I got the impression that all GA-related discussions were supposed to be on _this_ talk page ( Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations ) because the row of tabs at the top has a large "Discussion" button.

Also, that other talk page ( Wikipedia talk:Good article review circles ) appears to be devoted to the process of initiating the individual review circles. But, if it should be moved, let's move it. Noleander (talk) 13:10, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

I noticed that User:Tarlby has been closing old WP:GARs. Most of the closures are adequate closures, but I wasn't sure if this one was appropriate, as I am still working on it, and there wasn't a consenus or a lack of activity. I reverted some of their edits, but I'm not sure if this is an appropriate response. Keres🌕Luna ^edits! 23:03, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

I looked at the reassessment discussion and didn't see you explicitly state that you were working on the article, only that the GA review was defective. I looked at the revision history and saw an edit from 5 days ago. Before then was 11 days ago. I did not scroll further down the revision history or look at who made the edits I looked at (which was you), so I just assumed no one was working on it and delisted the article. This was just a case of me not thoroughly doing my chores. I think reverting me was the right decision. Tarlby ^{(t) (c)} 23:27, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

In WP:GAR it states that you should only delist when there have been no responses to the reassessment and no improvements to the article or after at least one month, if the article's issues are unresolved and there are no objections to delisting, the discussion may be closed as delist. Reassessments should not be closed as delist while editors are making good-faith improvements to the article. Even though it has been one month, I was making sporadic improvements to the article and there was movement to delist. Its okay though; just keep this in mind for next time.

The problem is that you have used the GANReviewTool and reverting those may cause problems. Not sure how to fix this. Keres🌕Luna ^edits! 00:01, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

No problems worth caring about. Tarlby, when you close GARs as delist, please make sure that you assign a new WikiProject rating on the article talk page. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:25, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

👌 Tarlby ^{(t) (c)} 20:56, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Is there anyway to have a reviewer withdraw from a nomination? It has been almost a month and the editor who picked up the nominations for Victorious: Music from the Hit TV Show and Victorious 2.0: More Music from the Hit TV Show has not even started despite being active. Shoot for the Stars (talk) 23:07, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

Have you pinged them at the review and/or left messages at their talk page? ♠PMC♠ (talk) 23:26, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes and they have not responded in days? What can be done? Shoot for the Stars (talk) 04:38, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

@Shoot for the Stars, I don't see a message on their talk page? -- asilvering (talk) 20:25, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

They waited almost a whole month to respond and they then deleted both reviews without telling me at all after saying they would review it. It is super frustrating that reviewers can do this. Shoot for the Stars (talk) 02:55, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

This GAN has been open for 9 months now. The reviewer Cplakidas has not been active on Wiki for the past month, and the review seems quite close to completion. Would it be alright if another reviewer pitched in here? I would like to complete it myself if that is accepted procedure. Matarisvan (talk) 12:51, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

Hi Matarisvan, as the reviewer has not edited since 21 April, if you are not a contributor to the article (and you do not seem to be) then you can pick it as a second reviewer. CMD (talk) 02:03, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

I was looking through the GA list for the backlog drive, when I noticed that A Matter of Time, an album which is expected to be released in about three months, was recently nominated for GA. Is there precedent in this case? It feels like it's too early for an article like this to be truly comprehensive and become a GA, however, from a quick look, it does seem to address the main aspects of its topic which are currently available, and it is technically stable at the moment. Leafy46 (talk) 04:47, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

In cases like this, "stability" is assumed to mean more broadly that it's not going to be subject to significant changes. In this case, the current version is not stable because it's going to need substantial changes. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 05:25, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

I concur that it likely should not qualify for GAN if it is soon going to change drastically. This applies to media that is yet to be released, events that haven't happened yet, and more. I think a loose example of something like this happening was with Metroid Dread. When the game was presumed to be cancelled, it was listed as a good article. Then it got released years later and it was effectively a completely different article, leading to its delisting. Although this isn't an exactly similar case, the same fundamentals apply. λ NegativeMP1 22:30, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

FYI all, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#AI editing? concerning User:Jorge906 notes Talk:King of My Heart/GA2 is an AI-generated review. Iirc past precedent has deleted such cases, but probably best to concentrate discussion at AN. CMD (talk) 02:50, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Now we have Talk:King of My Heart/GA2 with an entirely different problem, reviewer indeffed. I don't have the immediate headspace to figure this out. CMD (talk) 04:07, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, I've gone ahead and deleted that as a clearly insufficient review (G6, which is the precedent, as memory serves), especially given that the reviewer is indef-blocked. I restored the article to the queue, and will conduct my own review shortly. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 10:32, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

Hello,

I'm quite new to Wikipedia and still learning how good article reviews/nominations work, so I wanted to ask if reviews for previously failed articles are, overall, different from reviews of articles that haven't been nominated before. The article I've nominated was failed in 2022, and I've fixed the specified issues in the previous review, but I was wondering if the new review itself would be any different from usual. If so, how? I'm trying my best to learn what I can, especially before I do any reviewing myself.

Thank you! Reverosie (talk) 20:15, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

Hello and welcome!

If the issues identified in the earlier review have been addressed, then no. If they have not, the new nomination may be subject to being closed as a WP:QUICKFAIL per criterion 5 (It has issues noted in a previous GA review that still have not been adequately addressed, as determined by a reviewer who has not previously reviewed the article).

As a sidenote, the abbreviation "GAR" usually refers to WP:Good article reassessment (used for articles that have been granted WP:Good article status but may no longer meet the WP:Good article criteria); to my knowledge, there is no commonly used abbreviation for a review of a "regular" WP:Good article nomination (I might use "GAN review"). TompaDompa (talk) 20:24, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

Thank you so much! (Sorry about the abbreviation mix up) Reverosie (talk) 20:26, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

Hello, as real life got in my way, I found myself unable to review Taichang Emperor. Should I close the nomination, or find someone else to pick up the review? I appreciate any help, thanks.--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 01:42, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

Hi ZKang, thanks for the heads up. As no-one else has commented on the review, you can tag it with {{Db-g7}}. When it is deleted, all that is needed is to revert this change and it should be back in the queue for someone else to review. CMD (talk) 02:13, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

I am currently conducting a GA review for the article White Marc Bouwer dress of Angelina Jolie. I find the prose satisfactory and have spot-checked the sources. However, the article is presently only 525 words long. Would it be appropriate to pass the nomination in this case? I look forward to the community's thoughts. Regards. MSincccc (talk) 07:55, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

My position, which is probably a minority one, is that even WP:PERMASTUBs can be GAs if they pass the criteria. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 08:15, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

The GA criteria, under Wikipedia:Good article criteria#What cannot be a good article? says "Disambiguation pages and stubs: these pages cannot meet the criteria."

You may be making a point about stubs not being defined by length, but by how well they completely cover a topic, but in that case PERMASTUBS is not the best essay to point to. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 08:37, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone, for sharing your thoughts. I've now passed the article as GA. Regards. MSincccc (talk) 15:39, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

I think short articles like this should be taken on a case-by-case basis, this one looks to be reasonably comprehensive and not excessively short so I would be fine with allowing it to pass. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 08:41, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

If the article meets the B-Class criteria, even though it's short, I do not see any issues that would prevent that article from becoming a GA. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 11:18, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

FYI all, HouseBlaster has created Wikipedia:Backlog drive schedule, where we can see how GAN backlog drives might fit amongst other volunteer demands. CMD (talk) 04:12, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Hello everyone! the last GARC circle was assigned 2 weeks ago and although the nomination pool is filled the next cycle hasn't been assigned yet. Out of the 2 current coordinators one is semi-retired as well. I am now proposing for a third coordinator for the GARC process.

I am proposing History6042 for the process. He has 18 promoted GAs out of 26 nominations and has done 35 reviews. He has also assigned 4 cycles himself already, so he knows the job as well. Vestrian24Bio 11:31, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

I already said this on my talk page but I will do it here too. I accept the nomination if others are okay with it. History6042😊 (Contact me) 11:48, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

I don't see why the process needs all this bureaucracy. If someone wants to organise a circle, why can't they just do it? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:35, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

+1. At least once I’ve encountered a time where there were zero active coordinators and it was frustrating. Instead of making it worse, why don’t we abolish the position? ^EF⁵ 12:37, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

I somewhat assumed circles were monitored by their participants, but someone who has assigned four cycles seems up to the job of coordinating cycles. CMD (talk) 12:45, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

Sure, but if they were already doing it before being a coord and (rightfully) weren’t reprimanded, what’s the point of the role? Vanity? ^EF⁵ 12:47, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

They were told by the coordinators to leave it for the coordinators to do it. Vestrian24Bio 12:49, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

If they were doing it right, then, why tell them to stop? I get I sound like a toddler with all the “why” questions but I’m just trying to grasp why this role is needed in the first place. ^EF⁵ 12:52, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure about it either, but I'm guessing it's for a supervision of somewhat? Vestrian24Bio 13:00, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

A quick note that a topic like the current one in trading GAs becomes unreadable on a phone after a bit: for instance, CMD's last post appears as one character per line. Regards Billsmith60 (talk) 10:50, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

I always thought that trading GA reviews was prohibited (i.e. quid pro quo ... a pair of editors exchanging GA reviews). In fact, I thought that is why GA Review Circles were invented. Contrast with the WP:Peer review process which permits quid pro quo ... but PR is more informal, and no badge appears at the top of the article. I was kinda surprised to see a comment above saying that GA has no such prohibition against 2 editors trading GA reviews.

I have no opinion on whether two editors should be able to trade GA reviews, but whatever the consensus is, it should be plainly stated in the GA instructions. Thoughts? Noleander (talk) 00:52, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

• It has never been prohibited, and should continue to be allowed. If we want to make that explicit, I'm fine with it. Frankly, given the extensive backlog and our continued refusal to implement mandatory QPQ like DYK, trading reviews can often be the only way to get anything looked at in any reasonable timeframe. Anyone misusing the privilege - by rubber-stamping reviews, passing inappropriate articles, or pressuring the other party, ought to be T-banned from GAN at speed. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 01:18, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

I think it is a bad idea. Even if the intent is not log-rolling, the knowledge that reviews are quid-pro-quo is likely to discourage whoever goes first from being appropriately critical. I'm not enthusiastic about review circles in general but I think if we're going to have them then they need to have at least three people in them to reduce this problem. On the other hand, it's not generally problematic to have two people review each others' articles, at separate times, without any direct intent to trade reviews. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:25, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

There is a common assumption that review trading must necessarily reduce criticism. I think this unfairly assumes that people are just here for a green sticker and not to actually improve articles. Personally, I see review trading as teamwork for the improvement of articles. I would never offer to trade reviews with anyone I didn't respect enough to be critical with, and who I didn't expect to be firmly critical with me in return. I would be disappointed to provide a thorough review and receive a quick pass in return. In fact, I fairly recently refused a non-QPQ review which would have amounted to a rubber stamp, in large part because I don't particularly want to be hand-waved through. I can't imagine that I'm unique in this desire to receive actual feedback. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 01:38, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

To clarify the question I posed, I'm not suggesting any change to the current GA policy. I'm just asking whether the current policy should be better documented. Perhaps in the GA instructions? or maybe in the GA Review Circle page? But silence is not wise, because even experienced editors like myself are completely wrong in their understanding. Noleander (talk) 02:00, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

I think your understanding is good, and that David Eppstein is right on the issue here. A QPQ system introduces risks, which is why it has never been implemented. I don't think PMC is unique in wanting good feedback and ensuring they get good feedback, however not being unique does not mean that it is universal. Even putting aside the issues David Eppstein raises, understanding good reviews requires at the very least a bit of experience here. Perhaps some experienced editors could and do 'trade' reviews. If so, I hope they're treading carefully. Either way, the process should not be explicitly approved. CMD (talk) 02:32, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

There is also room for clarification that looks like "QPQ is discouraged due to xyz issues but not against the rules". Obviously this is something to be expanded on but I don't think it would hurt to clarify this. Many different tasks work on this system (such as closing XfD and other things I can't remember) and while there is occasionally overstepping, it tends to work well. IntentionallyDense ^(Contribs) 02:40, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly my point. It sounds like qpq is not encouraged, but it is permitted and under some circumstances. GA instructions should not be silent about the advice ... The GA Instructions should answer common questions editors will have about the GA process.

Perhaps it is best placed into the review circle article, because that page already talks about quid pro quo, and has a brief discussion about why it is discouraged, and offers the circles as a solution. Noleander (talk) 02:54, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

It is permitted in the sense that everything not banned is permitted, but we don't need to write everything down. Indicating that it does happen, even with discouragement, is more approval than currently exists. CMD (talk) 02:58, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

I'm going to have to disagree here as I don't see how that would provide more encouragement. IntentionallyDense ^(Contribs) 03:02, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

WP should be open and transparent about everything ....many people will have questions about whether GA can be done quid pro quo. Give them an answer. Remaining silent gives the impression that it's available only to GA insiders who know the secret handshake. I've been here for nineteen years and I was certain that quid pro quo was prohibited for GA. Noleander (talk) 03:30, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

Now that I know that qpq is permitted for GA reviews (under certain conditions) it sheds a new light on my past experience with GA: Before GA review circles were invented, there were times my GA nomination languished in the GA waiting lists for weeks, even months. I had no idea I could reach out to an experienced, careful editor with GA experience and offer to assist each other.

And after GA Review circles were invented (I have used it five times) I've found some of reviews to be, well, not as high quality as I hoped. I had no idea I had the option of seeking out a diligent, thorough reviewer who also had an article pending in the queue.

I understand the concerns about poor-quality GA reviews that might result from qpq. But it seems unfair that some GA regulars have the option to reduce their GA review wait times by taking advantage of qpq.

If qpq is so horrendous, it should be prohibited outright, as another editor suggests above. Or, if it is permitted (with constraints) then it should be made known to all. Noleander (talk) 04:23, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

The problem with prohibiting QPQ as a rule is that it is impossible to get a workable definition. There are regulars here, both reviewers and nominators, who are going to run into each other repeatedly. We cannot prevent that, and any attempts to try and figure out times or similar would be both gameable and would further tank an already grindingly slow system. If someone does reach out and offer QPQs, I don't recall that they have explicitly about doing so here, in the sense that it is a condoned practice. I don't know how many GA regulars do this, I did not know PMC did this before the discussion. The idea that "taking advantage of qpq" is an established practice is wrong; if it was established, we wouldn't have invented GA review circles to try and figure out a way to get towards qpq without the issues involved. I apologise for the low quality reviews you have received for the circles, however I would suggest there is no evidence that they are lower (or higher?) quality than a normal random pick from the list. CMD (talk) 04:48, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

When you say "there is no evidence that [GARC reviews] are lower (or higher?) quality than a normal random pick from the list" that is a non sequitur. I was comparing GARC with the option of going thru the GA nomination list and finding an editor with subject matter expertise, who has done top-quality GA reviews in the past, and who has a nomination with a subject I'm interested in.

To put it simply, there are apparently three avenues to get a GA reviewer:

1. Nominate your article and wait patiently (can be very slow)
2. Use GA Review Circles (faster, but reviewer may not care about your article)
3. Quid pro quo: find an editor in the GA nom list and see if they are interested

My point (how many times to I have to say this?) most GA participants are only aware of #1 and #2. I have no idea how many are using #3, but I suppose it is a small number. I'm not saying there is a cabal, but I am saying that experienced, diligent, careful editors should be made aware of #3.

It is contrary to WP philosophy to have unwritten processes. If qpq would cause poor quality reviews, that can be addressed by adding constraints. Noleander (talk) 05:08, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

There is no consensus that 3 is an appropriate avenue to get a review. It is not an unwritten process, there has actually been explicit rejections of the process multiple times. We should not make editors aware of something that does not exist, and has failed to gain consensus multiple times. CMD (talk) 05:27, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

That's actually incorrect. What's been rejected numerous times is mandatory QPQ like DYK has - one review per nom. Informally arranging to review another editor's work in exchange for a review on your own has never been formally accepted or rejected. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 05:47, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

No, creating non-mandatory pathways have been rejected too, recently at Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations/Archive 31#Proposal 4: Formalize "horse trading". CMD (talk) 06:55, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

No, a loose proposal to formalize the idea of trading reviews was rejected by a fairly weak consensus of five people, only two of whom actually seem to have opposed the notion of trading reviews. One comment was actually pro-trading and was just anti-formalizing: Formalisation isn't needed. Informal agreements to review each other's work is okay so long as the people involved aren't afraid to fail the nomination or bring up substantial issues if needed. Even your own oppose was pretty weak tea and seemed to accept that it was the extant status quo - Not sure there is much in actuality that needs formalising, and I can't see what a formal option would be that isn't QPQ (already being discussed above). The majority of the comments within the discussion section noted that review trading is already acceptable/within the status quo/not forbidden. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 14:11, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

I assume I was being accommodating of the grey areas, as were others. Formalizing the idea is saying it is accepted practice, this was rejected. If you continue to push the argument that it is not a grey area and we should make an explicit mention of it, I would expect opposes to become stronger tea (not that I understand how that idiom applies to what I said). CMD (talk) 19:47, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

Okay, but the point is, whatever their motives, the participants generally seemed to agree that trading reviews is not forbidden, which is actually the opposite of "creating non-mandatory pathways have been rejected too". ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:58, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

The proposal was clearly rejected. To put into stronger terms than a WP process really merits, refusing to criminalize something does not make it legal. CMD (talk) 20:04, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

When something is not prohibited by the law, criminal or civil, that does generally mean it is not forbidden under the law. The more appropriate summary here is actually that participants opted not to create a formal framework for arranging review trading, and thereby left it unregulated. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 20:27, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

I am not sure what point you are trying to make. The RfC was a clear rejection, and other actions such as the creation of review circles which prevent trading reviews further reinforced that. CMD (talk) 03:45, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

The point I'm trying to make is that your continued assertion that review trading was "rejected" during the proposal drive is based on a clear misreading of the responses in that discussion. Based on this assertion, you have been arguing that informal review trading is somehow disallowed or prohibited, when it is clearly not. If you want it to be, go ahead and create an RfC and get a proper consensus for disallowing informal review trading. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 04:30, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

That is a terrible misreading of what I want. If anything, my comments here have specifically tried to prevent moving towards a scenario where there would be an explicit ban, despite these inexplicable counterarguments. Please re-read my initial comment, which states my position clearly at the end. CMD (talk) 06:37, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

Yes, your initial comment says you think it "should not be explicitly approved" (which is the present, unregulated, state of affairs). But you've spent the last day and a half arguing that the community has explicitly rejected trading, that it's not an appropriate avenue to get a review, and that "refusing to criminalize something does not make it legal" (in other words - you view it as "illegal", so to speak).

All of these statements go quite a bit farther than simply saying you don't think informal review trading should be explicitly approved. You're acting like it's a foregone conclusion that the community doesn't approve, and that's what I'm saying you don't have consensus on. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 07:20, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

No, your "in other words" is totally wrong. It is explicitly a contrast against something fully illegal. CMD (talk) 07:37, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

Since it seems to be a perennial question that comes up shouldn't the consensus be documented more prominently?

Right here in this thread, with only handful of editors, there's tremendous confusion about whether it's permitted or not. How how many times is this conversation going to be held over and over again in the upcoming years?

Should we have an RFC asking if the consensus should be documented more prominently? Noleander (talk) 05:49, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

Alright, this is insane :-) There is clearly no common understanding if qpq is permitted or not. Personally, I have no opinion on the matter, I just want the consensus documented. I propose an RfC with three questions:

1. Can an editor with GA nomination contact another editor (with a GA nomination) and arrange to review each other's articles?
2. If the answer to (1) is "yes": Are any constraints imposed on the process? (e.g. "only editors that have performed five or more GA reviews")
3. Regardless of the answers to (1) or (2): should the consensus for (1) and (2) be clearly documented in the GA instruction page(s)?

Noleander (talk) 05:55, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

While I agree with you, I think we also need to keep in mind that while the vast majority of GAN regulars work under this understanding, some do not. We have had editors in the past who do just want a rubber stamp on their articles. I don't think that means that she should make QPQ against any rules but it isn't something that I think can be applied to every editor (not saying you were implying that either.) IntentionallyDense ^(Contribs) 02:43, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

I'm still thinking the most logical conclusion to this is "Trading is discouraged but not against the rules" this just puts into words what we know to be true and can prevent confusion. IntentionallyDense ^(Contribs) 11:38, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

Agree. My understanding, based on the above comments, is:

• Two GA nominators are permitted to trade reviews
• However, it is discouraged, because it can lead to poor quality reviews, and has been abused in the past
• Trading reviews is not common, but is used by experienced editors on occasion
• The GA instruction pages are deliberately silent about GA review trading, to help discourage the practice and avoid poor-quality reviews that might result
• Proposals in the past to document GA review trading practices (either "permit" or "prohibit") have resulted in "no consensus", contributing to the lack of mention of review trading in the GA pages

I'm still inclined to have an RfC on the topic, simply to officially document the current 2025 views on the issue. That way, if questiosns arise in the future, editors will have an easier time locating the discussion (because RfC's are easier to find in the Talk page archives than some random thread like this one). A good RfC question might be: "Should GA nominators be permitted to contact another GA nominator and offer to exchange reviews?" Noleander (talk) 19:05, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

I actually think the current ambiguity is a feature and hope that any such RfC will result in no consensus. —Kusma (talk) 19:18, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

It is in some ways a feature, and somewhat of a hangover of how GA functioned in the past. As those of us have been here for awhile are aware, over time we have had to increasingly define the process as various problems have arisen. GA reviews have more specific requirements, and initiatives such as GA Review Circles are creating specific pathways to replace informal discussions. The shift from individual judgement to community processes will happen here too if the response to someone raising the question of horse trading here is others saying it is fine and that horse trading should be a formally accepted practice. Even an RfC that ends in no consensus is going to shift the dynamic. CMD (talk) 19:57, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

That's fine. Even a "No consensus" outcome has some meaning ... and at least it would capture the current views as of mid-2025. Noleander (talk) 19:57, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

Can you not capture the current views from reading the above discussion? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:13, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps. But an RfC has some benefits: (a) potential participation by GA outsiders, with fresh perspectives; (b) easier to find an RfC within the archives in future years when future editors search; (c) Organized, bulleted discussion that is easier to read & digest; (d) Summary & closure by disinterested party. Noleander (talk) 17:55, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

If there does end up being any RfC, there should be a brief summary of how the review process works and what it's for, for the sake of people who don't regularly participate here. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 20:02, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

Is ChristieBot down? It's been a very long time since any changes were made to the nominations. On top of this, I just passed an article, and ChristieBot isn't doing anything to update the status and remove it from the nominations list. Is something going on? 🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 16:06, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

Mike Christie. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:43, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

I won't be able to check it till tonight. The most likely explanation is that someone manually formatted a new GAN nomination in a way that the bot can't handle, but I don't know of a way to find such a nomination without running the bot interactively so I can see where it fails. I'll post again when I've had a chance to take a look. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:50, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

Thank you so much for the quick reply! ChristieBot is incredible and I'm so glad we have something like it. Thank you!!! 🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 18:29, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

It was hung, for some reason; I can't tell why. I restarted it and it's running now and making edits so I think everything is probably going to be fine. I'll keep an eye on it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:34, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

Thank you so much! 🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 19:36, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this is of concern, but the nominations page still isn't updating 🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 19:40, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

It just had a big backlog to get through; it's updated now. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:56, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

Thank you so much!!! 🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 21:26, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

@Mike Christie, I believe that the bot has partially crashed or something as it has not updated Wikipedia:Good article nominations since 6 June. AlphaBetaGamma (Talk/report any mistakes here) 10:41, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. The problem article is 12th Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. BlueMoonset reset the nomination to page=2 with this edit, but then the reviewer, Easternsahara, edited the old review page to continue the review, instead of starting a new review. As far as the bot was concerned this meant that review 2 had not started. Then when the article was promoted (with this edit (which appears to have been done manually, rather than by following the instructions, since the result includes the nominators name which is not a valid parameter for the GA template)) the bot has a promoted article for which the review was never started. That appears to be the problem. I've reverted the promotion, and I think that's going to fix the issue, but one of two things needs to happen. The first option would be for Easternsahara to follow the instructions at GAN/I to create a review, so that there's a review with page=2, and then wait for the bot to update the page to show the article is under review. I think it would be best to copy the review text to the new review, and revert the first review to the state it was in with BlueMoonset reset the nomination. Then they would promote the article, following the instructions rather than doing it manually. The second option would be to accept that the first review is to be modified, but this would be much more difficult to manage -- since the nomination was reset the failure of the first review has been recorded in the database and I'd have to clean up some of the records and make them reflect the new situation. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:21, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

This has been fixed; thanks to Easternsahara for making the appropriate edit. The bot should be running normally now. I've added a line of code to trap this error if it happens again; if it does happen, the bot should keep going, but it will write a notification to the bot's bugs page, and will report the error at the end of WP:GAN. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:10, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

At the review of Silence (Doctor Who), there is a question of whether media used are WP:DERIVATIVE. Could someone more familiar with such assessments give some input? This would affect other GAs which use related images, such as Weeping Angel, Doctor Who Live and Yeti (Doctor Who). The last is currently at FAC but has not yet received an image review. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 05:46, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I believe the reviewer is correct that there's a copyright in the design of the Silence and you do need a tag for that as well as for the photographs. If these are covered under freedom of panorama, that works, but I'm not entirely sure that they are. A public space for UK FoP purposes includes places that the public must pay to enter, so you're fine on that front, but the question is whether the exhibition was in fact permanent. By my reading of our article on the topic, the exhibition was always intended to be temporary (and this source claims that the Cardiff venue, which seems to be where both photos were taken, was intended to be temporary), in which case I think FoP does not apply. If you can show that the exhibition was intended to be permanent, the fact that it did not end up being so is not an issue – I believe FoP would still apply in that case. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:05, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

Thanks Caeciliusinhorto, much appreciated. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 11:17, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

@Caeciliusinhorto: Original nominator for the GA here, and clarifying after me and another user did some research: It seems that the exhibition was planned to be permanent, but the venue itself would have shifted overtime, franchise uncertainty leading to an unplanned cancellation. Sources from the time (A few examples: ) cite the experience as being intended as a "permanent" addition, with the lease deal seemingly being a plan to change venue, or change presentation. The retail and merchandise manager for the exhibition stated in a Radio Times around the time of the experience's closure in an interview that "...it's just being devised now what the live experience is for Doctor Who in the future. So watch this space," and the Head of the BBC's live entertainment in 2012 stated multiple times that the exhibition was meant to be permanent. This source specifies a permanent move with a five year land lease, and while this source specifies a temporary shift to Cardiff, the source implies that it's more of a change of venue issue than it is an exhibition permanency one.

From what's been found it seems like the Experience was intended to last as a permanent exhibition in some way shape or form, including by some of those in charge of handling the Experience, though the venue it was held at would shift over time before plans fell through. Obviously not exhaustive, but regardless I do feel it's clear the exhibition was planned to be permanent. For clarification, in regard to copyright law, is that does that still count under FoP if the venues are different yet the attraction is the same? Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 04:26, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

Excellent work, thanks Pokelego999. Once the images are tagged with Template:FoP-UK the article can be passed. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 05:59, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

The GAR for Roman Republic, Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Roman Republic/1, was closed but the template is not getting removed from the WP:GAR list. I think the unusual nomination procedure and closure has caused the GAR bot to skip it. I tried fixing it but I don't know how to manually remove it from the GAR list. Any help would be appreciated. Feel free to ping me for clarification if needed. Z1720 (talk) 14:25, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

I've fixed the formatting; should disappear soon. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:24, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Addition/1

@Jacobolus: has posted the following : "Judging from their behavior, people starting these processes generally seem not to realize that they have more collegial alternatives available, not involving a short time limit or an implicit threat, so it's valuable to clearly explain it to make sure they get the message." This was after they posted "Leaving the "do this or I'll take the green badge away" threats until after you run into page where other editors are either (a) completely disengaged and unwilling to discuss concrete and specific concerns, or (b) outright refuse to make changes that seem clearly required by good article criteria."

I have asked here that comments about the GAR process happen on this page, and comments about my conduct happen here or on the appropriate noticeboard. The comments above, and others at the Addition GAR, do not give me confidence that this will happen, so I'm initiating it.

I hope there are some ideas on how to avoid lengthy discussions about GAR process on individual GAR pages. I also do not think jacobolus's comments are creating a welcoming, collaborative environment to make improvements to the article: instead, it brings an adversarial relationship between the reviewers and the editors making changes. I hope other editors can comment on the interaction at the Addition GAR here and suggest new paths for a better environment so that the GAR can be reserved for making improvements to the article. Z1720 (talk) 00:52, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

Mountain out of a molehill, from both sides. Move along. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:59, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

I just don't understand why some editors like to start a formal process, usually with a vague handwave of a criticism, something like "this article is too long" or "this article includes uncited statements" as their first step whenever they find an article they have problems with. I urge anyone tempted to ever kick off one of these processes to always instead lead by starting a talk page discussion with as complete and specific a list of criticisms as they can muster, actually putting in the work to engage positively with other Wikipedians who are watching the page. It's even better if they make some proactive effort to fix some of those issues, asking for help in the case where the task seems too large for one person to quickly knock down. If a local talk page discussion doesn't immediately work, linking the discussion somewhere like WT:WPM can be a good second step, to bring more eyeballs along.

The biggest problem with processes like this is that they are dramatically asymmetrical: it takes very little effort to start the process as a critic, but potentially unbounded amounts of work to satisfy the critic's criteria, especially if further critics are attracted to a discussion, since those criteria are typically vague and underspecified, and usually revolve more around ticking off boxes on a checklist than doing a careful editorial review of articles. The critic has effectively no skin in the game, and can make many quick drive-by criticisms and move on without consequence, whereas anyone interested in keeping the little green or gold badges (admittedly a kind of pointless goal) is more or less told to "fix this or else ...".

The same advice applies to many other kinds of formal processes here. For example, it's nearly always better to try an article talk page conversation, possibly followed by a user talk page conversation, to resolve a revert war instead of immediately escalating to some noticeboard or other. The formal processes work better if treated as a back-up to basic conversation when it fails, rather than a basic frame bounding conversations from the start.

Thanks @Z1720 for making a more specific list of problems you found. That is useful work. The GAR wrapper for it seems counterproductive and unnecessary though, and in the future I recommend leading with the specific list, as an ordinary discussion topic. –jacobolus (t) 02:59, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

One editor has just recently been topic banned for doing exactly this, and I'm quite certain that the only reason Jacobolus didn't get a topic ban as well was because of dumb luck, that the one instance where they weren't heavily involved in the disruption was the one that ended with ANI. Jacobolus, if you think that non-GA articles classified as GAs should receive some special privilege or first claim on editors' time because they at one point in their history passed a GAN review, then you lack a fundamental understanding of the process and need to stop engaging with it until you fix that. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 03:20, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

• Most talk page discussions and GARs get no responses, as witnessed by the current list at WP:GAR. For a reviewer to list every concern in the initial statement would be time-consuming for no benefit if there is no response. I do not add citation needed templates to articles unprompted anymore because I get accused of WP:REFBOMBING or trying to prove a point. I am willing to add citation needed templates when asked, as stated in the opening statement of the Addition GAR. Editors can also use this script to highlight potential uncited statements in an article. If editors want to add additional processes before an article is nominated at GAR, they are welcome to propose them here, but not at a GAR. Z1720 (talk) 03:30, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

  Most "good article" nominations get no responses, as is witnessed by the even much longer list at Wikipedia:Good article nominations. More generally, most anything one person tries to do at Wikipedia typically gets few responses because other people are instead working on something else of more personal interest. But talk page discussions (and bold edits) remain the best tools we have. If you don't get a response for a while about some concern related to a mathematics related article, I recommend pinging WT:WPM, which is fairly active and pretty good at dragging at least a few editors to any relevant discussion that seems stalled or in conflict.

  @Thebiguglyalien my impression from reading a very large number of Wikipedia pages about a wide variety of topics is that the vast majority of the "very good" articles on the site, especially if judged holistically for quality, do not have a badge of any kind, and most articles which do have badges, including ones granted badges very recently, are alright but not amazing and usually have significant flaws, not particularly distinguishable as a group from, say, "B class" tagged articles except for the coincidence of having once gone through an arbitrary formal process. If someone really wanted to be strict and literal about the various checklist items probably 80% of them could be demoted for one reason or another.

  As far as I can tell the entire concept of "good articles" was originally created because the gold star reviews were too slow and onerous with a backed up queue, and GA was supposed to be a quicker and more effective process for getting more articles reviewed and given basic badges as a signal to readers that those articles are considered alright and a motivator for author–editors to put pages through some kind of peer review. However, the current GAN and GAR process is as, if not more, troublesome than the FA processes used to be, and now as a reader there is no obviously discernible difference between pages with gold star badges and little green circle badges and not really any obvious difference between review quality or criteria when reading archived reviews of gold vs. green badges, which reviews are highly variable in care and usefulness. The number of old "good articles" getting prodded for demotion seems about as great if not greater than the number of new good articles getting reviewed for promotion, while the number of subject-interested and somewhat experienced editors has not increased much if at all over the years. It seems likely any promoted article will eventually be demoted again, more or less at random.

  "I do not add citation needed templates to articles unprompted anymore" – I also wouldn't recommend leading by plastering articles with tons of templates. But a list of concrete and specific criticisms on the talk page is pretty much always helpful, even if other editors disagree about them. –jacobolus (t) 04:46, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

  "probably 80% of them could be demoted for one reason or another" seems a good reason to ease the process, not throw up additional roadblocks. (As does the comment about potential onerousness.) CMD (talk) 05:42, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

  I guess it just depends what your goals are. I think the main goal should be improving the articles and directing effort toward facilitating improvement of the articles. If your goal instead is to randomly cycle badges and direct as much effort as possible toward toward badge management, then sure. –jacobolus (t) 16:56, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

  The assertion that Z1720's efforts are random badge cycling is incivil, and incorrect to boot. Believe it or not, the article classification system is designed to facilitate article improvement, and to the extent ratings do anything, having the system be more accurate facilitates broader assessments and can direct improvements. None of this prevents any editor noting areas that articles, whether in the 80% or 20%, can be improved, or carrying out such improvements if they are interested. CMD (talk) 17:12, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

Can someone look at Talk:Halimah Yacob, either GANReviewTool or ChristieBot has misfired. CMD (talk) 18:11, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

I was the reviewer. Sorry if I messed something up. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 18:18, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

Ah no, I've figured it out. CMD (talk) 18:34, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the help! I hereby call for your Wikipedia salary to be doubled. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 18:37, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

Most of my salary is paid in tithe to ChristieBot. CMD (talk) 18:41, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

Hah. Which never passes any of it on to me. CMD, what went wrong exactly? It led to something odd happening in the database which I'd like to fix, but I don't see exactly what happened. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:11, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

What happened was that the nominator originally requested that the nomination be reset as FireFangledFeathers stopped editing in November 2024. However, when FireFangledFeathers came back to editing, the original GAN was used leading to some technical bugs. It is a very edge case, although ChristieBot is still unhappy. CMD (talk) 03:18, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

Thanks; I think it's now fixed. The bot was confused because having seen a nomination with page 2, and seeing that the article was promoted, it could not assume the nomination was withdrawn so it was looking for a reviewer for that page number. I removed the references to page 2 for that article from the database and it should be fine now. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:26, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

I've completed my first GA review. If any of the experienced reviewers has a few minutes to spare, I'd appreciate a quick review of my review, and any pointers for future ones. Thank you :) YFB ¿ 20:35, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

I'm not nearly the most experienced reviewer there is, but with nearly ten under my belt, I'll say that this is a very nicely done review! I really like how you split up your comments. Keep up the good work reviewing articles! 🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 20:38, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

Thank you - that was quick! YFB ¿ 20:53, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

That's a well-structured, well-explained review, especially considering a tougher topic. Your handling of GA criteria combined with the relevant other policies and guidelines was particularly good, and your interaction with the nominator and another commenter was a positive. I'll note that your review felt confident, and I think it warrants that confidence, which I hope you carry into future reviews :) Kingsif (talk) 21:51, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for taking a look and for this really encouraging feedback. YFB ¿ 23:16, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

Hello,

I'm a new reviewer, and I'm not sure if I should quick fail one of the articles I've started reviewing. It has deprecated sources and it is relatively short, but I am not sure if I am required to quick fail it or not because of these factors. The article is Princess Si of Anding. Can somebody please help? 🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 20:17, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

Reverosie, decisions on passing or failing are always up to the reviewer's discretion. Which deprecated sources does the article use? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:28, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

I'm not actually sure. Wikipedia just told me that there were deprecated sources when I transferred the article to my sandbox, but not which ones were bad. I went searching for them, but had no luck, hence my request for help. 🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 20:30, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

I think it's referring to Encyclopedia Britannica, which should be assessed per use, and Abebooks, which can include user-generated information. FWIW, I would be quickfailing that article for struggling to distinguish fact and fiction and using a storytelling tone throughout. If the nominator is a dedicated editor, they can turn that around quickly, but it might be something you'd want to ask for a peer review to comb through first. Kingsif (talk) 20:33, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

Thank you so much! I'm thinking that I might have to do that. I really don't want to quickfail an article, but this seems like it needs too much work for me not to, so I'm deeply considering it 🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 20:36, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

I've failed the article and let the nominator know that I'd be happy to review it once more when it is ready 🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 21:12, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

Hi Reverosie, I see the article has been nominated again less than a day after quickfail - this is usually not enough of a refractory period for improvement or to reflect on the previous review comments. A quick glance at the current state of the article, it still has poor tone and now has unreferenced parts and unclear references. I haven't looked at the content enough to tell if the historicity is clearer, but given a new section called "verified facts" has been added, I get the impression that little thought has been given to improving the presentation of information throughout the article with this as a backdoor 'fix'. Feel free to copy these comments over to the new review, but I would advise asking the nominator to seriously go over the article, with an eye on MOS if needed, and wait at least a week before re-nominating. Kingsif (talk) 21:43, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for posting this!!! I was again questioning what to do, but didn't feel inclined to ask again. This is very helpful! 🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 23:34, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

Is it possible for this to be deleted and added back to the nominations needing review list? Pretty obvious at this point that the reviewer, NAUME GOU, is not going to do this review/concerns of disruptive editing have been raised numerous times at their user talk. Sarsenet•he/they•(talk) 05:42, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

I agree that the reviewer seems far too inexpirenced for this. He has also been pinged and not responded, despite have edited since. I know we are supposed to assume good faith, but their edit history and inexpirence do not fill me with enough confidence to ping them again before taking this step (which I normally would). I have nominated the review page for deletion, and when that is done will change the nomination template to reset the nomination and reinsert the nomination in the queue. SSSB (talk) 16:47, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

 Done SSSB (talk) 17:19, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Thanks! courtesy ping @DarkKholi, just letting you know this was taken care of and sent back to the queue. Sarsenet•he/they•(talk) 05:14, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Thank you both, @SSSB and @Sarsenet DarkKholi (talk) 11:35, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Hello,

I've never been in a review circle before, but I noticed that four nominees are currently in the pool. How long does it usually take for the circle to open once this happens?

Thank you! 🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 21:12, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

I've added a new nomination to the pool after my original article was taken up by a reviewer, and word on this? 🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 22:13, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Since we recently deprecated the coord position for GA review circles, any experienced editor can follow the directions to set one up. If you feel confident following the directions, you can do it yourself. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 22:24, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Oh! Thank you so much! I'm quite new to wikipedia, so I'm not sure how well I could do it myself, but I might try! Thank you again 🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 22:30, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Another follow-up: Would anybody be willing to open a review circle for the four articles there? I don't feel confident enough in my abilities to do it myself. Thank you! 🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 23:03, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Just as a heads up, the Wikipedia:Developing Countries WikiContest is being planned to run from 1 July to 30 September. The scoring rules are not available yet, but if it is like last year then GA reviews will be eligible for points. We had a couple of issues with new editors reviews during last year's competition, but the coordinators took this into account then and I'm sure they remember, and I'm sure they'll be helpful if we find a new reviewer needs to add a bit more to the reviews.

Another aspect is that of course if anyone is reviewing relevant articles here, they can double dip for DCWC participation. It helps fill out the overall combined improvements. Perhaps we could also consider separately giving some sort of GA review barnstar to those who use the opportunity to work on reviews. CMD (talk) 04:21, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

The new scoring has come out, and they've increased the points for a review to 10 (from 5 last year). I created a huge list of every GAN that seemed to meet the inclusion criteria, hopefully it gets picked up. CMD (talk) 07:12, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

There's a new pilot program open at Wikipedia:Resource support pilot, where editors can submit requests for the WMF to buy sources for them. I encourage folks to check it out, and notify any WikiProjects and editors that may be interested. Apologies if you've seen this elsewhere already. Toadspike [Talk] 07:25, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

man, I wish this existed before I bought those cue sports encyclopedias. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:03, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

how ISU Junior Grand Prix in Latvia meets the criteria for GA, but ISU Junior Grand Prix in Bulgaria – which had similar sourcing in quantity and quality – not only does not, but somehow merits being sent to AFD as well? Is GA reviewing just a total free-for-all, or are reviewers racking up as many reviews as possible for some contest? Bgsu98 (Talk) 00:13, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

Different reviewers typically have different standards, that’s all. As for the AfD that’s for the community to decide. ^EF⁵ 00:17, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

Reviewers make mistakes. Either @DaniloDaysOfOurLives made a mistake passing Latvia, or I am making a mistake bringing Bulgaria to AfD. It's probably the later given my lack of experience with notability concerns, but that's my perspective. IAWW (talk) 00:17, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

I am sorry if I caused any stress by reviewing Bulgaria's article. I thought it met GNG and was notable. I would also like to point out that Wikipedia:What the Good article criteria are not says that notability issues are not within the scope of GA reviews. Different editors have different opinions DaniloDaysOfOurLives (talk) 00:25, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for linking that. I found what I think are notability issues after starting the review annoyingly. IAWW (talk) 00:34, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

"Different editors have different opinions." That's a wild understatement. That's like one judge giving Skater X a 10 and another judge a 1 for the same performance. Actually, it's worse than that; it's like giving a 1 and then calling the anonymous tip line and filing a bogus complaint. I'm sorry I ever brought anything here; I should have stuck with the Featured List project. Bgsu98 (Talk) 00:45, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

I can say right now that your hostile reactions here, at the AfD, and on the GAN page are going to make it difficult for you to find anyone willing to help you with this. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 00:59, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

What difference does it make? What am I going to do, get screwed even worse than I have been? Bgsu98 (Talk) 01:36, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

Were you in a more cooperative spirit, the likelihood the AFD/future GANs would turn out positively would be quite a bit higher. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 01:47, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

Although I am still upset about the AFD, I have calmed down from last night. Bgsu98 (Talk) 12:51, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

I've drafted an RfC for the backlog limit idea: it's at User:Mike Christie/GAN backlog RfC. Please comment at the talk page there; if there are some indications of support, and not too many people arguing it would be a disaster, I'll post a revised version here in a day or two. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:00, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

Generalissima and thebiguglyalien made some comments above saying they would do more reviews if they didn't have to do spot checks, so I've created Category:Good article nominees seeking source review. I'll keep an eye on the category page, and everyone else is encouraged to do the same. If anything comes up in there, someone will do a spot check and review for broadness/neutrality to replicate the role at WP:FAC using the standards of GA.

I haven't added it to documentation or really done anything elaborate as I'm hoping this can run as a trial. We can evaluate it in a month or so if we want to change it, get rid of it etc.

If you want to do a review but don't want to do a spotcheck, you can add this category to the review page. It would also be good if you can flag any exceptional/dubious claims you want checked specifically if you don't want to check them yourself. If you would like, it would also be great if you can ask the nominator to quote something from an offline source if you think it's necessary, so all the quotes can be available when the source reviewer comes along. Best, Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 02:10, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

I was thinking that something like this should exist, but my fear is that this will end up overflowing and it will doom a review to purgatory the same way 2nd opinion does. I wonder if a second reviewer for sourcing would work better if the two reviewers decided to work together in advance. There's also the question of how "reviewer credit" would be applied, since people's worth at GAN is often judged based on that and there's talk above about enforcing restrictions based on it. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 02:21, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

Yeah these are good points. If it's just putting reviews in purgatory that's bad, and if that happens we can get rid of the category. I like working with others on GAs, and this obviously doesn't preclude that. Reviewer credit is a harder problem and I don't know the answer. In FAC it counts as one whole review. I can see that being gamed, but I don't think the outcomes of that would be any more unfair than the fact than reviewing a 500 word article gives the same review credits as a 10000 word article. Anyway, I hope you try this out. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 02:46, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

I haven't engaged with the "second opinion" process so far. What are the problems with it and can we improve it, for example by other ways of highlighting reviews in need of a second opinion? —Kusma (talk) 21:31, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

What remains unclear is what is really involved in carrying out a review without a spotcheck. It's understandable that people do not like doing source reviews, but given their importance (multiple GACR not really being possible to assess without) that essentially amounts to not liking doing reviews. Nothing wrong with that, making reviews attractive is the struggle of our time, but it's not a solution to say one can do a review without really checking the criteria that are being reviewed. CMD (talk) 02:43, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

If someone uses this, we will be able to see what was involved in a review without a spot check, and if we don't like it we can get rid of it. I don't think it's that mysterious though; spot checks are pretty recent at GAN, and most FAC reviews aren't doing spot checks. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 02:59, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

If you mean FAC reviews mostly involve prose reviews, that is correct and not needed at GAN. We don't need to dot every i in the reference formatting either, another regular part of FAC. CMD (talk) 03:41, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

The practical effect of this is that we're incentivized to stop reviewing at GAN and to stick with FAC and PR, where these are considered full reviews and where "reviewer credit" is not a thing. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 13:50, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

I don't really follow. CMD (talk) 20:56, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

If GAN reviewing is more demanding than FAC reviewing, then why would I want to do a review at GAN when I can do just the fun parts at FAC? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 21:05, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

That seems an inherent difference between doing a review yourself or simply being able to do parts of a review, but I don't see how it relates here, as we do need the reviews done. CMD (talk) 22:05, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

The main reviewer is the one who checks for NPOV, broadness/focus, copyvio and verifiability. Each of these requires looking at the sources. Spotchecks just make this more explicit. I don't quite see what is left if a reviewer does not engage with the sources; just commenting on the prose and noticing that the article is stable should certainly not lead to any reviewing credit. —Kusma (talk) 08:32, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

Hopefully there'll be a concrete example we can look at to see whether and how these concerns manifest. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 09:29, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

I mean, people can always ask me if they want this... but I don't know how helpful it will be in terms of them assessing everything else if they've not at least examined sources generally (as above). Kingsif (talk) 08:42, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

How abou the exact opposite category? "GANs requiring prose reviews"? For most people, they are the easy part. For me they are not. Letting the prose reviewers lead the way would probably end up with a large group of barely started reviews relying on hard to access sources and on topics that aren't interesting to potential source reviews. Let source reviewers lead the way, and the worst thing that happens is that the category ends up empty 😛 GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 21:19, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

This would also give the source reviewer the "credit" for the review, which would be a good thing, in my opinion, if it's the source reviewing that is the chokepoint. -- asilvering (talk) 21:54, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

If you want to start such a review over the next few days, ping me and I'll finish up the non-spot-check review so there can be a more tangible to look at. I admit to having a hard time envisioning what this would look like, but that may reflect my reviewing technique (close reading on phone browser, flagging sentences I want to verify when I have computer access). Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 22:26, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

I agree with the comments above that this would slow down reviews over all, and that any engagement at GA level requires the reviewer to look at the sources. This doesn't seem to me to fit with the goal of a lightweight process. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:58, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

Yes, it's hard to see how this would work. If it did result in having two reviewers per GAN, not one, that would be an unwelcome step towards the month-long multi-person review process at FAC, with a far smaller throughput even than we now have at GAN. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:28, 24 June 2025 (UTC)

The thinking here is that an individual review might be slowed down, but if it got editors to do reviews they otherwise wouldn't, there would be a net positive effect for the backlog. If it's not, or if it's making reviews go for too long, then we would just get rid of it. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 14:43, 24 June 2025 (UTC)

I'm reviewing Hugh Roe O'Donnell for GAC. At the time of nomination, the article size was more than 15,000 words. After I asked the nominator to trim the article per Wikipedia:Article size, they managed to cut it down to ~12,750 words (ToolForge size estimate ). Now the nominator says the article can't be trimmed significantly anymore. TOOBIG says an article shouldn't have more than 15,000 words, and an article with 9,000+ words can be approved if the article subject is prominent enough to do so. I'm not sure if the subject meets this criteria, and I want to ask other editors if they think it does. Would it be wise to do an RFC for resolving this issue, or would it be too much? Or should I trust personal judgement on this matter? Matarisvan (talk) 14:15, 25 June 2025 (UTC)

• @Matarisvan: While WP:TOOBIG is not part of the GA criteria, 3b says, "it (the article) stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style)." An article that is TOOBIG is usually a symptom of this criteria not being adhered to. I recommend that you, as the reviewer, read through the article and suggest places that could be summarised or are too detailed. You could also remove redundant words as you are reading to help reduce the word count. After conducting a quick skim, I would recommend cutting the "Personality" and "Physical appearance" sections as unencyclopedic and unnecessary detail. The "In popular culture" section could be written as prose, which might reduce the word count. There are also a lot of quotes in the article, which could be considered for summary style instead or removed entirely. Z1720 (talk) 14:31, 25 June 2025 (UTC)

  @Z1720, thanks for the suggestions! I was also unsure about the Personality and appearance sections. I was thinking they could be concentrated into a single paragraph, and I will recommend this to the nominator, along with your suggestions on the pop culture section and the quotes. Matarisvan (talk) 15:29, 25 June 2025 (UTC)

  The "In popular culture" section could be written as prose, which might reduce the word count Word count tools typically omit bulleted lists, so rewriting those as prose will in fact increase the nominal wordcount the tools are reporting; nonetheless I think the IPC section would be better as prose.

  At least some of the excessive wordcount is due to redundancy: e.g. this betrothal would further cement a growing alliance between two clans who had traditionally been mortal enemies for centuries -> this betrothal would further cemented a growing alliance between two clans who had traditionally been mortal enemies for centuries saves a couple of words already; you can rewrite more substantially than that to save even more. I also see some entirely unnecessary detail (is the parenthetical really important in Dublin merchant Nicholas Barnes (alias Nicholas Skipper)?) I think the nominator could definitely trim further. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:42, 25 June 2025 (UTC)

• Genghis Khan is a complete summary of a pivotal figure of history in less than 10,000 words. If you can't see how a much less influential, well-known, or written-about person can have an article shorter than 12,500 words, you simply haven't tried. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:24, 25 June 2025 (UTC)

  @AirshipJungleman29, it is good to hear from you after quite some time. I understand what you are saying. But when I think about it, all the articles related to Genghis Khan (say his campaigns or succession) have their own detailed articles thanks to efforts by you and other editors. However, for O'Donnell, almost all the events in his life don't have their own articles, and so they all have to be jammed into this article. I have therefore suggested the nominator split off this article into two or three articles, and they have so far split off one article. I will try to get the article size cut to ~10,000 words or fewer by the end of the review, as you have suggested. Thanks for commenting. Cheers Matarisvan (talk) 15:36, 25 June 2025 (UTC)

@Matarisvan: perhaps advise SkywalkerEccleston that they can also submit the article, in whatever size or state they see fit, to Wikiversity's Journal of Humanities where it is peer-reviewed by specialists in the chosen field. —Fortuna, imperatrix 17:12, 25 June 2025 (UTC)

Per the notes here, I have cut down the article further; it is now 11968 words. Matarisvan, please let me know how you want me to proceed. SkywalkerEccleston (talk) 10:53, 26 June 2025 (UTC)

Almost 900 nominations. 800 waiting to be reviewed. Still growing each day.

Backlog drives not having the same impact they used to. Review circles and mentorship doing good work, but not at a scale to make a huge difference.

Articles waiting almost a year to get reviewed.

I feel like something has to change, and QPQ seems to be the only thing that can make a difference at this point. Similar to WP:DYK, we could find a threshold so that new editors don't get dissuaded and to ensure reviewers have the experience of a certain number of GAs before doing their own reviews. Heck, we could only require QPQs for super GA writers, or for editors that have a huge difference in the number of GAs versus the number of reviews.

Many may state (which I will admit I have said): there's no rush; they'll get reviewed when they get reviewed; good articles still help Wikipedia, even if they aren't GAs; the GA icon doesn't mean that much; etc. But I think at this point we have a broken process, one that is not serving the purpose it is meant to.

QPQ has its challenges, obviously, related to quality of the review. But we have that problem today, even without QPQ. Imagine if we say all QA nominators with over 25 GAs under their belt are required to complete a QPQ review for each subsequent nomination. We could have a technical solution that flags this for reviewers, similar to DYK, noting that in order for this specific nomination to be approved, the nominator has to complete a GA review. At the very least, we only burden editors who have a fairly in-depth knowledge of GAN (how many people actually have more than 25 GAs?). « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 17:42, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

This isn't an endorsement of QPQ, but I believe we should lower our standards for what constitutes an acceptable GA review. Not in the sense of allowing quick passes, but by actively discouraging FAC or PR level reviews, or really anything that contradicts WP:GANOT. We also need to be quicker to fail nominations that aren't super close to meeting the criteria, but that would be much easier to do if we weren't condemning the failed nomination to another 6+ months of waiting in the queue. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 17:49, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

I support both of these comments, Thebiguglyalien. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 18:27, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

I'll throw out one more, in that I'd be much more willing to review if it weren't for the time and energy investment expected for a spot check, which is much larger in a relative sense than every other aspect of the review, and in my opinion the most tedious. I get why they're there, but all the same they're the main thing that discourages me from reviewing. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 22:10, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

I agree here; I think we may need to enforce returning an article to the queue if it is passed without spot checks, but beyond this I think a QPQ is a good idea. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 21:06, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

I would fully support instituting a qpq for editors with >X GAs. If you aren’t reviewing your fill of articles, you shouldn’t get the privilege of participating in GAN. Seems fair enough to me. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 18:31, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Agreed. Making a GA nomination is, by definition, making a request for another editor's time and energy. If you are willing to ask this of someone, you should be willing to commit to returning the favor to the community. If that's too much to ask a nominator, then it's too much for the nominator to have asked of someone else. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 18:57, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

+1 Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 19:16, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Alternatively, editors with more nominations than reviews. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:39, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

In the end, this would be everyone. If I have never written a GA, then my first nomination is a "freebie". However, every subsequent nomination would require a QPQ, because technically my ratio would be 0-1, then 1-2, then 2-3, etc. I also don't want someone inexperienced with GA writing being forced to do a review they are ready to do. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 19:46, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Sure, but if someone who's contributed several times more reviews than nominations in the past wants to nominate, I'd like to let them. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:38, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

No comment on whether or not this is the right idea, but copying the DKY five freebie limit seems a simply possibility for this option. It could even be extended to perpetuity, eg. requiring no more than five more GAs than reviews. CMD (talk) 02:59, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

I'm not going to name any names, but I was astonished to see an article in the queue whose nominator had 200+ GAs, but has done 0 GA reviews. Bgsu98 (Talk) 15:57, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

I sometimes get a bit paranoid because I've dropped significantly below 2 reviews to 1 nomination.. I think you should at least try and keep parity at the very least. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:02, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

In my opinion, we ought to consider banning editors from the GAN process when their stats look like that. An editor who has a great many GAs and very few reviews is quite plausibly an editor who has tried reviewing, hated it, and given up on it. I oppose QPQ in general because I don't think that someone who is good at writing but sucks at (or hates) reviewing should be forced to spend more time on the latter at the expense of the former. But someone with zero reviews has never even tried, and that just strikes me as unfair. -- asilvering (talk) 16:31, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

I've never liked direct QPQ as it can be quite time consuming to do a review, and it isnt like DYK where everuyhing happens in a short time. Ive always thought we should be prioritising those who have good review ratios (within reason) and slowing down those who dont review. I will almost always pick up reviews from those I can see do many reviews.

In this way, we don't stop people from putting in noms, but we do incentivise doing reviews. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:53, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I think that's the better way to handle it in general. My point is about the folks with zero reviews and very high numbers of GAs. -- asilvering (talk) 16:56, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

Probably best for a quiet word, if I'm honest. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:03, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

All yours, @Lee Vilenski... -- asilvering (talk) 17:23, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

I was trying to be discrete, but people below already named the names, so... Bgsu98 (Talk) 21:35, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

• Support QPQ: The large backlog means new editors have to wait months for a review. This delays their ability to get feedback and improve their article-writing skills and discourages them from editing because they do not get the validation that someone cares about their contributions to the site. The process would be more effective if those with lots of GAs could only nominate more articles if they had a positive review-to-GA ratio. Numbers can be discussed after, but I think a general consensus of a QPQ is good to establish now. Z1720 (talk) 19:23, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

• For context, there are currently 451 nominations where the nominator has a negative review-to-GA ratio. This number does not include nominators with 0 GAs. Z1720 (talk) 19:31, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

• Z1720 are you able to calculate how many (1) unique nominators there are and (2) how many of those nominators have 25 or more GAs? « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 19:36, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

• @Gonzo fan2007: There were 159 out of the 451 nominations with a negative review-to-GA ratio. For editors with 25 or more GAs with a negative review-to-GA ratio, there are 37 nominators with 162 nominations. If anyone wants to play around with the numbers themselves, User:ChristieBot/SortableGANoms has a chart of all the GANs: I copied the chart into a Google Sheets document, then sorted the table by various parameters. Since Sheets numbers the rows, I can figure out various statistics quickly. Z1720 (talk) 19:50, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

I don't think it should be retroactively applied; requiring a positive review-to-GA ratio would mean several very prolific editors would be punished unduly and forced to review hundreds of articles before ever nominating another of their own. I think that'd be a very unfair expectation to suddenly put upon people.

I think the best thing to do would be to give everyone with a negative review-to-GA ratio a fresh start (ie, zero QPQs, and just the one freebie) while people with a positive ratio should get to keep their current number of hypothetical QPQs. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 21:09, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

That feels like a reasonable compromise. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 21:22, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

I do not think applying it retroactively it is punishing prolific editors. Instead, it is requiring them to help reduce the backlog that they contributed to. I also think resetting some editors ratios while leaving others in place might get complicated, as two groups of editors would have different stats (some would have total reviews complete, while others would have reviews complete from a certain time). I would prefer to have a time period for editors to get in a positive ratio (maybe six months?) and then start the positive ratio or QPQ requirement. Z1720 (talk) 21:24, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

I think it would be completely unfeasible for editors like BeanieFan (negative 204 QPQs) Chiswick Chap (negative 263 QPQs), Parsecboy (negative 536 QPQs) or EpicGenius (negative 538 QPQs) to do the needed number of reviews in any reasonable amount of time whatsoever. We would be arbitrarily barring some of our most prolific editors from nominating articles for several years at the very least. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 21:32, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

@Generalissima, Premeditated Chaos, and Z1720: just to be clear, no one is proposing that you need to get back to even or a positive ratio in order to nominate an article. I think the proposal would be more "if you have a negative ratio today, then for every subsequent nom you need to do a QPQ". That said, I would not propose that as the rule. Its easier and more straightforward to just require a QPQ for any editor over a certain amount of total GAs/noms. This number is already automatically tracked for nominators and reviewers. Based on the data above, this would give us maybe an extra 150 reviews from the 40 editors or so who are prolific GA writers. And it would be a long term fix, as the QPQ requirement would not go away when someone reaches a positive ratio. As an example, I have written 47 GAs and have 150 reviews. I don't think I should be immune to the QPQ requirement and the likelihood is that with 47 GAs I know what is required for a good review. Taken with Thebiguglyalien's comments above about sticking more to the intent of GAN, I think this would really help alleviate the backlog. I think our goal should be the reduction of the timeframe of reviews, not the total amount of nominations. Ideally, nominators shouldn't wait longer than a few months (the general timeframe that most other article review processes take). « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 21:40, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

As much as I wish those prolific editors had done more reviews in the past, and as much as the scale-balancing Libra in me would like to say "no, make up the deficit, get reviewing!", I think Generalissima's proposal is the best way to move forward. It's unreasonable to expect people to do several hundred reviews now when QPQ wasn't a firm expectation when they were making those nominations. (It's certainly always been a courtesy expectation; I was taught to do two reviews for every one nomination I made, but it's never been enforced). We'll get more people on board if we're willing to bend on this and not force people to do a ton of work just to get back to square one. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 21:45, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Just jumping in here, but there is an interesting Reward Board offer regarding the use of DYK QPQ "credits" as incentives for contritbuting. If an individual absolutely does not want to do GA reviews to build their personal QPQ bank, such tasks like that could be a way to improve the site without needing to do reviews (esp. since some editors would already have an existing surplus of these credits). Leafy46 (talk) 21:47, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

The whole point is specifically to reduce the staggering GA backlog. We already don't have enough people who review more than they nominate, so I'm not sure this would help very much with that. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 21:53, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Premeditated Chaos as I mentioned, no one is proposing to force editors to catch-up in order to nominate articles. The QPQ would merely start at a certain point moving forward, requiring any additional nominations to have an associated QPQ. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 22:02, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

How is that different from Generalissima's proposal, then? ♠PMC♠ (talk) 22:07, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

It's not, I'm trying to clarify to everyone that no one is proposing that. I replied above to the three of you, including Generalissima, to clarify that I wasn't proposing this, because the comments made it seem like I was. That said, what I am proposing is to require QPQs after a set amount of GAs. This allows new or casual editors to avoid QPQ for the most part, while ensuring those who are required to do a review are capable of doing it positively. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 22:22, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

People may feel more incentivized to review articles and build their bank of QPQs, so they have more bargaining power towards other individuals who are more inclined to contribute through writing than through reviewing. The same amount of work would be getting done (i.e. articles would be getting reviewed), and people who like to do reviews could still see contributions in areas they want to see them in, without necessarily needing to do that work themselves. Ultimately, though, it's just an extension of what QPQs could entail. Leafy46 (talk) 22:12, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

These are all very good points, but they raise questions. QPQ may lead to shorter articles receiving massive prioritization while longer articles are left to sit. This has grim implications for many vital and high-viewership articles. 🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 22:28, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps this is a different issue entirely; More short articles being reviewed is not a bad thing. Regardless of what we do, long articles will likely have longer wait times. Vital and high-viewership articles, however, should have indicators in my opinion 🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 22:36, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Short articles already get prioritized while longer, more complicated, or more esoteric articles sit, so I can't imagine QPQ would make it worse. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 22:44, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

I agree with this entirely 🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 22:46, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

• What I would support would be a tiered cap on concurrent nominations based on review-to-nominations ratio. My concern with a straight QPQ is that we're going to see a marked decrease in review quality if we do that + some individuals are simply better at writing content than reviewing other people's work. And if you aren't reviewing but are only nominating a few at a time, then if there's people who consider your work valuable enough to review then that's OK to me. Where I think the process bogs down is when you have bulk nominators who don't review. As of this version of the GAN report, the 10 editors with the most nominations have 171 nominations open. Running them through Mike Christie's GA stats tool, these editors have Reviews - successful GA nominations of +1, -538, -263, -7, +87, -6, +1, -4, -204, and +2. Of the ones who are triple digits in the negative, one has never completed a GA review. I don't think we should be blocking somebody from nominating entirely just because they haven't been reviewing, but to me this is like a community garden. If you're going to be consuming a disproportionate amount of the end benefits, you should at least by trying to put something back into the system. Rate limiting will avoid having a situation where someone cannot participate in the system for lack of reviewing, but will limit the concurrent amount of benefit the large negative balances will get out of the system at once. Hog Farm _Talk 22:27, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Hog Farm would you elaborate how this would work in practice? Like if someone was 200 GAs/20 reviews, compared to someone who is 50 GAs/50 reviews and someone who is 20 GAs/200 reviews, as an example. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 22:32, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Just spitballing something here - I haven't looked into the statistics or anything yet. If you have over a certain minimum sample size of review/nominations and you're above a certain nominations-reviews ratio, you can have up to a certain number of nominations open at once. Someone with a lower ratio would have a lower number of articles they could nominate at once. We'd also probably want to have some sort of cap for those under the sample size - if you've never had a GA promoted before, you really don't need to have a ton open. I know from personal experience of my first 4 GAs that were ever promoted, I've since gone back and completely rewritten two, have gone back to make substantial improvements to another, and sent the other one to GAR where it was eventually kept. Just off of gut numbers, which could easily be improved by anyone with more time in the data, I'd say maybe in the 12-15 range for 200/20, 7-10 for the 20/20 and 50/50 (I'd treat them both the same; they've put in what they took out), and then something like 3-5 for 20/200. Nothing overly drastic. Although I'm personally colored by my bias that I'm not sure that anyone can really give sufficient attention to 20+ GA nominations at the same time. The biggest sticking point I can see is where somebody is up against their cap, has to do a ton of reviews to get to the next tier, and all of their current nominations have been sitting around for months. Hog Farm _Talk 22:43, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Ooh - I like this, that's a really good compromise. It doesn't shut people off completely, it avoids some of the problems of a strict QPQ, but it encourages reviewing a lot more. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 22:33, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

I like this idea quite a bit. It encourages more reviews without shutting people out entirely. It also doesn't force people to review as much as they nominate, which could lead to less people leaving. 🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 22:35, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

However, what about nominators who don't review articles because English is not their first language? 🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 22:40, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

That's why I think the cap should always be at least a couple. I hope this isn't too blunt, but there is the concern that if you have enough struggles with learning English that you can't review, your nominations probably need more work as well, so it would make sense to not have a large number of those open at once. Hog Farm _Talk 22:43, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

That makes a lot of sense 🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 22:47, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Hog Farm my only concern is that all this does is effectively hide the backlog. Any restriction on nominations will inevitably lead to nominators queuing noms and nominating immediately once another is complete. QPQs actually require clearing out the backlog, instead of hiding it. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 23:05, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, we already hide nominations when there's more than 20 from one person, this would just be a shadowy extension of that practice, and does not encourage people to actively review content made by others. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 23:20, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Well, is that really true? If I have only 3 nominations up, it might take months before someone reviews one of them. When I put up 20 nominations, the odds that at least one of them will be reviewed in a timely manner goes way up - so if I were limited to only having 3 nominations at a time, I'd be able to get new GAs at a much slower pace than if I was able to put up as many as I wanted, even if I had the same "queue". Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 23:25, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

I don't find this argument convincing; I think Gonzo has the right of it here. Given how long GANs already sit, I don't think "you can let more noms sit at once" is a strong enough incentive to review that it will actually dent the backlog. You're a bit of an outlier here in terms of your high output and varied topics. If I don't want to review X topic, I might still review one of your others on Y or Z, so for you, having more nom slots probably does up your chances of someone picking up your review.

On the other hand, most prolific editors have a more limited area that they tend to write in, so having a greater number of noms doesn't necessarily make them more likely to get reviewed. If I won't review architecture, Epicgenius is out of luck whether he has 1 nomination or 100. What's the incentive for someone like him to do a bunch of reviews just so they can let 20 noms sit instead of 10? Even if this worked for the people with a high number of simultaneous nominations, there are far fewer people who have 10+ or even 5+ active nominations at one time than there are people who have 1 or 2, so this is not at all an encouragement for those people to increase reviewing. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 23:59, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

• We should explore rate limitation in general (and probably should not have reversed the successful initiative to shift default order). I believe the last proposal was X articles per author per topic (ie. per lv2 header at GAN). This was a good idea to limit backlog growth while also facilitating reviewers who may work mostly/only in specific topics. The hiding the backlog arguments frame GAN as a mechanical system, but HogFarm is absolutely right that this is a "community garden", given we are managing limited resources and are all volunteers. A bit of selectivity in what you plant in your allotment does not seem very onerous. CMD (talk) 03:12, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

  In what way does this encourage reviewing, as opposed to simply throttling nominations? ♠PMC♠ (talk) 03:35, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

  Possibly in the way HogFarm mentions, but a more core point is perhaps that this sort of question purposefully sidesteps the question of community responsibility being raised. CMD (talk) 03:54, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

  I agree with Hog Farm that GAN is a community garden, always have. You may have missed my first comment in this discussion, in which I specifically say "Making a GA nomination is, by definition, making a request for another editor's time and energy. If you are willing to ask this of someone, you should be willing to commit to returning the favor to the community."

  However, I simply cannot see how simply throttling simultaneous nominations encourages most editors to do more reviews. Since I do not believe it would encourage more reviews, I cannot see how it encourages the common good. My reply to Generalissima above lays out my argument to this effect. I think this discussion would be more productive if you presented yours, as opposed to accusing me of "purposefully sidestepping". ♠PMC♠ (talk) 04:23, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

  The question sidesteps the issue because it narrowly focuses on the generation of new reviews as the only metric to examine. There is more to the system than a simple I/O process. It should not be taken for granted that a small number of editors requesting disproportionate amounts of the community's time/efforts is normal. WP:FAC is limited to one nomination by default. CMD (talk) 05:36, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

  The goal should be to encourage editors to make as many articles as possible meet the standards of being a good article. In an impossible ideal world, all Wikipedia articles should meet those standards. Artificially throttling prolific editors does the opposite of that. And if the system is not scaling now, then pushing people away from the system will not help it scale because those same pushed-away people will also be discouraged from doing reviews. Fewer nominations and proportionately fewer reviewers will just leave us with the same problem of nominations waiting too long for reviews.

  If, on the other hand, what one wants to encourage is a system where badges are precious and editors squabble over who can get one, then throttling nominations seems a step in that direction.

  What we should be doing instead is somehow encouraging more reviews. I have qualms about a QPQ system (experience with DYK QPQs shows that it incentivizes cookie-cutter checkbox reviews instead of depth of reviewing, and a QPQ system will only work for balanced editors who like both nominating and reviewing; it will push away some editors who are comfortable nominating but for whom the confrontational nature of reviewing is a blocker) but at least it has the clear goal of encouraging more reviews. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:47, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

  Well put. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 05:58, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

  Agree IAWW (talk) 09:55, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

  We're taking it for granted that a GAN review is one editor giving time to another editor, as opposed to two editors giving time to an article. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 06:24, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

  No we are not, we are in fact directly challenged by the fact that the time for the second editor's investment is not keeping up with demand. The related claim that "Artificially throttling prolific editors does the opposite of that" in unfounded, especially as it does not grapple with the plain fact that this system exists at FAC, and supported by "those same pushed-away people will also be discouraged from doing reviews" which somehow ignores the stats HogFarm pointed to. The claims also ignore those who are turned away by the slow and backlogged system. CMD (talk) 06:32, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

• I hate "stick" methods for making people do reviews. I tend to review articles I am interested in or during backlog drives. In the first case, I get to engage in depth with an interesting topic where the spot checks take no time at all because I read the sources anyway. In the second case, I get the satisfaction of being part of a joint effort to kill the backlog and some silly recognition like barnstars. As a nominator, I hope for reviewers interested in the article who are willing to find ways to improve it. I am worried I will get more quick passes and fewer interested reviews out of QPQ reviews. A general QPQ requirement would not make me do additional reviews (I already do about two per GA) but I do not think it would improve anything. Overall, some current issues at GA seem to be:
  • Lots of content by the same nominators in relatively narrow topic areas with not enough reviewers in these areas
  • The recent backlog drive did not work as well as some others have in the past (I don't know why, I didn't have time so did not participate)
  • Some general disagreement on how reviews should be performed.
• At the same time, interesting stuff often gets picked up quickly (I think James Cook was nominated and reviewed in under a week). I think my general question is how can we make it more fun? —Kusma (talk) 07:04, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

  It would be great if this could be done, but I can't think of a way to make reviewing so much more "fun" that it would actually have an impact on the backlog. IAWW (talk) 10:09, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

I see QPQ as the only way to make a real difference to the backlog, which I think is at crisis levels. Once the backlog is down <200 or so, we could remove QPQ again. I would be more in favour of everyone starting on a blank slate with QPQs, and I think the only exceptions to the requirement should be new nominators (<5 noms). I'm not really a fan of rate limiting solutions because I think they will have the annoying effect of "hiding" the backlog, are not as scalable, and are more complicated. IAWW (talk) 10:06, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

We could also just advertise review circles better, which are a bit like QPQ: agree to review an article, get your own article reviewed now instead of in three months. Works great if you want to know when you'll be busy with GA reviews from both sides. —Kusma (talk) 13:23, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

"Advertising" could mean a talk page message to all nominators who have not yet participated in the circles, perhaps? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:34, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Review circles mean that you can choose whether you want your nomination to be affected by the backlog. I do not think a lengthy backlog of unreviewed nominations by people who never review is a major issue. —Kusma (talk) 13:42, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

• As a user with a three figure gap of more reviews than GAs, I would not support QPQs here, for a variety of reasons. Most obvious is that we’d be pushing users who can’t do a good review to not only do so, but to do multiple as quickly as they can. But even if we build in failsafes for that, I’m inclined to think it’s not ‘fair’ in the way being proposed. By this I mean, I think in most cases we’d be asking the nominator to do twice the work of the reviewer, if not three times. Very rarely are GANs quick passes, and by nominating a user has taken on the responsibility to collaborate in the review. We’re all quite annoyed with drive by noms that don’t take part in the review process. It may not be as heavy as the reviewer that often, but it’s still committing their time and effort for the ultimate benefit of Wikipedia. If they did a preliminary check that the article met GA requirements beforehand, that’s another pseudo review, so to ask for a QPQ on top does seem unfair. Can we look at each nom as a reviewer and nominator working together - I see Epicgenius called out above for a three figure deficit in reviews but I’ve been reviewer for multiple of those noms and the participation really could be tantamount to a review. The other big reason that comes to mind is that GA will still lean on users who just willingly review more than they nominate, and that comes (I believe) from such users understanding and valuing the purpose - IMO we are unlikely to produce many more of such editors if there are obligations and requirements in the process, it may seem more cold than collaborative. Kingsif (talk) 14:10, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

  I think in most cases we’d be asking the nominator to do twice the work of the reviewer, if not three times. I just don't agree that this is the case, or even that it's a bad thing. If we're assuming that the GA reviewer is also a GA nominator – and most are – they are also doing this work, just elsewhere, with their own article. In a perfect world, it's a virtuous circle - you do one, you review one. Everybody shares the load for the common good.

  GA will still lean on users who just willingly review more than they nominate. This is not working now, it has never worked for as long as GA has existed, and it will continue to not work in the future, because there are not enough of these people to cover the amount of people who want to write without doing the work of reviewing. This is the whole reason people are proposing QPQ in the first place. Continuing to believe that outlier reviewers will save us, without significant changes to the process, is nothing more than willful blindness. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 14:45, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

  On the first part, I do agree - I later wrote Can we look at each nom as a reviewer and nominator working together, which sums up my view on that. My argument is that a nominator actively participating in the review is effectively QPQ and it doesn’t matter which side of the equation (nominator/reviewer) a user is, the workload is shared already. I accept that if the reviewer is a nominator elsewhere, asking for QPQ will maintain this balance, but it is still demanding more work roughly over the same time, risking burnout.

  Om the second, I don’t think “outlier reviewers” will save GA, I don’t even think the bulk of reviews are completed by users like myself. But I don’t think making GAR a chore will benefit editor retention, and won’t encourage users to just believe in the project. Kingsif (talk) 20:16, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

  Quite frankly, if you can't give a good review after tens of GA nominations, you probably shouldn't be nominating articles anyways- imo most users with lots of GAs are capable of good reviews, but just don't conduct them. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 14:46, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

  I disagree, to a point. Not every A student makes a good teacher, likewise, understanding the GA criteria enough to get an article through as nominator does not necessarily mean someone can translate that understanding to a review. Maybe if nothing or little needs to be improved, and I do think most people are able to learn how to do a good review, but I’ve taken over enough to know that it’s not a natural skill for everyone. Kingsif (talk) 20:21, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

• I stand by what I said the last two times (2023, 2024) this has been proposed: The potential benefits do not outweigh the drawbacks of potentially (1) discouraging high-quality nominations and (2) encouraging low-quality reviews. I'll also reiterate what I said in response to another 2024 proposal: I am in principle decidedly in favour of incentivizing reviewing, just not like this. I had no strong opinions on either changing the sort order to be by review ratio or changing it back, but both had fairly strong consensus in favour at the time. The sort order by review ratio did incentivize me to review more than I otherwise would have, although this mainly took the form of encouraging me to pick up clearly-premature/unprepared/deficient nominations to close as unsuccessful rather than ignoring them as I otherwise might have—which may or may not be the kind of behaviour we want to encourage. I would at any rate not be opposed to changing the sort order to incentivize reviewing. TompaDompa (talk) 15:03, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

  If none of these ideas work to cut the backlog (as they haven't so far), at what point would you support QPQ? What if the backlog reaches 2000 noms and over a year to get a review? IAWW (talk) 16:46, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

  Just chiming in that I would still prefer rate limits to QPQs. Force less work rather than more. QPQ, even if newbies are exempt for a period, can still feel like a barrier to participation. Fewer new users involved long-term, and more burnout is what we will get. I just won’t support asking the same pool of users (generally) to do extra work when (per above) IMO being an active nominator is already doing their part. Kingsif (talk) 20:33, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

  I would rather accept longer waiting times than lower quality. If we really want to reduce the size of the backlog at all costs, we could simply impose a moratorium on new nominations until the backlog is reduced to, say, 200. That would be a pretty drastic move, but it would (temporarily) reduce the size of the (visible) backlog. TompaDompa (talk) 23:25, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

  Artificially throttling nominations is not a functional solution, it just conceals the problem. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 23:31, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

  I agree. Requiring QPQ would be artificially throttling nominations and as such not a functional solution but a way to conceal the problem. TompaDompa (talk) 23:41, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

  I would appreciate if you could not twist my words. That is not what I said and you know it. I was responding to your suggestion that "we could simply impose a moratorium on new nominations until the backlog is reduced to, say, 200", which is a suggestion to throttle nominations. Requiring QPQ is not a system of throttling nominations, it is a system that asks people to put in what they are taking out. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 23:59, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

  I apologize. I do indeed know that was not what you meant and it was not my intention to twist your words. My intention was to make the point that requiring QPQ would also, in a way, throttle nominations. If editors have articles that they want to nominate but because of some reason that has to do with the process do not do so (yet), their nominations have in effect been throttled. For instance: if an editor has 20 articles ready to be nominated but can only nominate 5 of them at the moment because that's the limit imposed by their current QPQ status, 15 nominations have been throttled. The effect is not in actuality reducing the size of the backlog by 15, but artificially hiding part of it (15, to be precise) out of sight. If those articles are later nominated, QPQ has throttled them and the quantitative effect on the backlog related to those articles (both in terms of number of nominations and time from nomination to review) is purely cosmetic—or in other words false. If those articles are not later nominated, QPQ has had the effect of discouraging nominations that otherwise would have been made. I do not view either of those as a beneficial outcome, and I would not characterize it as a functional solution. TompaDompa (talk) 01:03, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

  The current backlog also throttles nominations. I don't generally tend to GAN because of the long times and because I'd be adding to a problem. I've talked to people who simply don't bother because of the time too. Theoretical discussions of throttling miss that it already exists, plenty of stuff is already out of sight. CMD (talk) 03:04, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

• The GA reviews and nominations by editor in 2025 can be seen in this Google Sheet. Sheet #2 applies QPQ at different amounts. ~35 editors would be affected if the QPQ is required after 5 nominations. This would impact ~1/3 of the deficit. Some editors mentioned above who have large gaps in the nom/review ratio, such as Chiswick Chap, have reviewed more than they have nominated this year. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 16:48, 20 June 2025 (UTC)