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Good article nominations

This is the discussion page for good article nominations (GAN) and the good articles process in general. To ask a question or start a discussion about the good article nomination process, click the Add topic link above. Please check and see if your question may already be answered; click the link to the Frequently asked questions below or search the Archives below. If you are here to discuss concerns with a specific review, please consider discussing things with the reviewer first before posting here.

1a and 3a in Reception sections with isolated reviewers

In some GANs (looking at books, in particular), the Reception sections are written with dedicated paragraphs summarizing each reviewer in isolation, often with heavy quoting, and little to no attempt to connect themes with other reviews. Sometimes this is by necessity, say, if there are only three reviewers and there is little connection to the other reviews. But most often there are plenty of reviews and opportunities to engage with the guidance in Wikipedia:Copyediting reception sections, weaving reviewers together for a general audience to understand the holistic reception. The latter, to me, is the minimum quality bar for the "well-written" (1a) and "breadth" (3a) GA criteria. In my experience, this also reduces heavy quoting, which pushes the boundaries of fair use paraphrase, even when attributed. It also requires more effort.

For some examples of the variance, see The Oxford Guide to the Book of Common Prayer: A Worldwide Survey#Critical reception or A History of English Food#Reception for separate paragraphs per reviewer, and Sappho: A New Translation#Reception or How the Red Sun Rose#Reception for combined paragraphs across reviewers.

What is our general working expectation for GANs? Is it sufficient for GAN breadth and writing quality to plop summaries of each review without connection, or are editors expected to connect the reviews for a general audience when available? czar 02:29, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree that this needs more attention, and I consider an unorganized assortment of opinions and quotes to fail the GA criteria. The majority of the time when reviewing an article about some piece of media, I have to ask the nominator to fix the reception section because it's a list of quotes. In this case, I usually consider it a criterion 2 failure in relation to copyright and failing to properly paraphrase the source. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:34, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

I certainly don't like quote-plopping, but I see enough people saying things like "any suitably sourced and reasonably complete article can be a GA" that I wonder if requiring "weaving" is overly ambitious for GA. -- asilvering (talk) 03:12, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree that quotes should be used sparingly in reception sections and overuse of quotes in a reception section should be considered both an issue of copyright and poor prose. Even if there are few quotes, reception sections should also be somewhat organized or they risk not being clear (e.g. by academic/non-academic reviewers, by views on certain aspects of the book, or by positive/negative reviewers) ~ F4U (talk • they/it) 12:55, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

The best way to summarize the critical reception will vary from case to case. There are several dimensions to this. The number of reviews, the length of each individual review, the relative prominence of each reviewer in the relevant field, the type of work (e.g. fiction versus non-fiction), and whether the reviewers broadly agree, disagree, or cover separate ground altogether are all factors that determine this. When there is a fairly large number of relatively lengthy reviews that all largely agree on the main points, summarizing by theme is likely to be the best approach. Conversely, a low number of relatively brief reviews that focus on different aspects may be better summarized separately in the body (though the much briefer summary in the WP:LEAD might still be best presented thematically). I have used both approaches in different articles based on what seemed the most fitting to me in each case. We must remember that summarizing different reviewers' viewpoints collectively can also result in WP:Improper editorial synthesis by making stronger or broader claims than is justified by the overall contents of all relevant sources. For this reason, I favour a comparatively conservative approach to doing so. This is an area where our different WP:Policies and guidelines exist to some extent in tension with each other and we have to exercise judgment in finding an appropriate compromise approach that does not go too far in one direction or the other. Reasonable people can disagree about the best course of action in any particular case. TompaDompa (talk) 20:11, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

In the case of too-few-reviews, I don't think summarizing each review in depth offers any actual illumination for the reader. In an example with three reviews, summarized in depth and relying on quotes, it reads like book back cover blurbs (advertisements) or a review aggregator. I wouldn't say that's any greater breadth of prose or good writing than a single sentence for each. I haven't seen an example (including my own older GAs on books) in which a paragraph for each reviewer is a helpful review approach. czar 16:38, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Summarizing a review that the reader is not able to access is helpful. It may not be the optimal approach, but it provides information they did not have and could not get on their own. There are of course better and worse ways of summarizing individual reviews, where a high reliance on verbatim quotes tends towards the worse and writing about the overarching ideas in one's own words tends towards the better. The underlying problem is that we rarely have WP:Secondary sources about what the reviews say, but have to rely on the reviews as WP:Primary sources on themselves. TompaDompa (talk) 16:52, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

@TompaDompa, your linked guidance on primary sources says we should only use them sparingly, to fill in details not provided by secondary sources. We should be limiting the reviews as sources on themselves and instead only using what little is needed to elucidate the larger theme. When there are only three reviews, this would mean extremely short reception sections, i.e., proportionate to the coverage and not a dedicated paragraph for each review. That seems to be the best compromise when citing a source as primary to itself. czar 21:36, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that follows. A book review is a secondary source on the book and a primary source on the reviewer's opinion. In a hypothetical case where all the secondary coverage we have is from reviews (which is not uncommon) and the greater part of each review consists of the reviewer's subjective assessment of the book (also not uncommon), do we then discard the majority of the content that the sources choose to focus on? That seems a rather peculiar approach to WP:Due weight to me. I personally think the opinions of reviewers are in many cases—for non-fiction in particular—the most important part of the article. Minimizing this aspect on the basis that reviews are primary sources on the reviewers' opinions would be throwing out the baby with the bath water, methinks. On the other hand, I am very concerned about the risk of WP:Improper editorial synthesis by collating and summarizing different reviewers' opinions collectively too liberally, creatively, or subjectively. I would also note that the weight question is really a separate issue to how the section is structured, as it does not distinguish between

Reviewer 1 identified A as a positive and B as a negative.
Reviewer 2 identified X as a positive and Y as a negative.

on the one hand and

Among the positives, A was noted by Reviewer 1 and X by Reviewer 2.
Among the negatives, B was noted by Reviewer 1 and Y by Reviewer 2.

on the other. TompaDompa (talk) 22:43, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

To bring this back to the core issue, my question is whether (a) A History of English Food#Reception and (b) The Oxford Guide to the Book of Common Prayer: A Worldwide Survey#Critical reception, i.e., GAs with heavy quoting and dedicated paragraphs for each reviewer, sufficiently meet the 1a (well-written) and 3a (breadth) GA criteria. This would help me calibrate how to handle the Reception sections of current book GANs. czar 00:37, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

To the extent that there is a problem, it is with excessive quoting rather than with the structure as such. I have to admit that I do not understand how either could be a problem with WP:GACR 3a (it addresses the main aspects of the topic) specifically, however. When it comes to these specific reception sections, I find A History of English Food#Reception to go too far in using verbatim quotes, while The Oxford Guide to the Book of Common Prayer: A Worldwide Survey#Critical reception is (to me) within acceptable bounds. TompaDompa (talk) 01:35, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

I would personally argue that no, GANs with extensive quoting and dedicated paragraphs to individual reviewers in the reception section would not pass the GA criteria. In my opinion, this kind of reception section violate 1a by making the general reception of the work as a whole unclear, 2d through extensive quotation, 3b for going into excessive detail in the reviewers, and 4 by placing undue emphasis on individual reviewers rather than the broad consensus. Lazman321 (talk) 01:45, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

While I agree that the reception section of A History of English Food does not meet the GA criteria, I disagree with your points about criteria 3b and 4. Your point about 3b doesn't make sense because the same reception section would be wholly acceptable if it were not directly quoted, but paraphrased in the editor's own words; quotes in themselves are not examples of excessive detail unless they would be considered excessive even when paraphrased.

For example, this excerpt:

The reviewer noted that she had seen badger hams on the bar in the West Country pubs of her childhood, and that a tripe seller in Dewsbury market sold "nine different varieties of tripe, including penis and udder (which is remarkably like pease pudding)."

would certainly be excessive. While, this excerpt:

Shilling finds this "an impressive tour" from a well-stocked mind, her approach being "a firmly chronological line across the landscape of culinary history, pausing at intervals to examine objects of interest." She agrees that the book is "opinionated and wildly idiosyncratic", in the tradition of W.N.W. Fowler's "gin-soaked" Countryman's Cooking and Rupert Croft-Cooke's English Cooking: A New Approach. The book gives, Shilling asserts, a "glorious sense of the continuity of English cuisine from the Middle Ages to the present", making it an "engaging, funny and admirably entertaining history."

would not be an example of excessive detail, but should be paraphrased to not use excessive direct quotations. I honestly don't understand your point about criterion four, I'm sure case-by-case decisions can be made about what constitutes "undue emphasis" in a given article, but three or more sentences from a single review is hardly "undue" if a review is one of few reviews and provides detailed critical commentary or analysis of a book. ~ F4U (talk • they/it) 02:26, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree with TompaDompa that there is very little in the way of "integrating" the opinions of different reviewers that can be done without straying across the WP:SYNTH line. If three reviewers say a book is informative then, clearly, we can say "Some reviewers agreed it was informative", but for any more individualistic or perceptive comments, we need to deal with reviewers one at a time. Happily, the rules do not say we are forbidden to describe what individual reviewers said. A fifteen-word quote is not obviously excessive under the rules; and if readers are to be given an idea of the tone and substance of a review article, which I would have thought was what a well-written summary of reviews should be about, then a few short excerpts are certainly justified as fair use. If we were to narrow down our interpretation of the rules to say nothing more than some bland mumble about reviews being broadly favourable with some more mixed attitudes (left unspecified), then review sections will indeed be short: and extremely uninformative to boot. There's also the matter of making the reviews seem insubstantial; if the review section is one short paragraph, passing editors may conclude the reviewed book is not notable as nobody had anything substantial to say about it... As for any considerations of undue weight, as long as each reviewer, of whatever opinion, is given about the same amount of coverage, and the review section is not unduly long, that should not be a problem. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:10, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Postmortem: As the GA reviewer of A History of English Food, I appreciate this discussion. I am becoming more cognizant of this issue over time, both in these reviews and in my own writing. I see we are primarily discussing book reviews, but I would appreciate if we could also discuss film reviews. I recently reviewed Time_(2021_film)#Critical_response for DYK, and I noticed the nominator made an exceptional effort to avoid quoting in favor of excessive, but possibly poor paraphrasing, a reverse of the current scenario under discussion in this thread. This also poses a similar problem! Although I covered some of the issues in my DYK review, looking at the current version, I can see potential issues with the lack of quotes, and the reliance on similar wording from the quoted material. While this might be good for DYK at the moment, I think a keen GA reviewer could find issues with the paraphrasing in the reception section as relying too much on the source material. Putting that aside for the moment, this is a problem I've tried to avoid in my own writing, for example in Bad_Faith_(film)#Reception, where I tried to strike a balance between direct quotes and paraphrasing, but where I felt I missed the mark. I would appreciate extra eyes and instructions. Viriditas (talk) 20:57, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Inactive reviewer

AryKun began seven reviews at the same time on August 28 and then went on a wikibreak with six of them still active. Would it be appropriate for someone else to process them or return them to the nominations page?

• Talk:Fishing cat/GA3 (not started)
• Talk:Palaeotherium/GA1 (nominator expressed concern that the review was insufficient)
• Talk:Literature of Botswana/GA1 (nominator responded to the review)
• Talk:Pouyannian mimicry/GA1 (nominator responded to the review)
• Talk:Tiger quoll/GA1 (not started)
• Talk:Evarcha striolata/GA1 (nominator responded to the review)

Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:43, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

I've pinged them on the one they hadn't commented on at all. -- asilvering (talk) 23:33, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

We can G6 that one (Fishing cat), to return it to the queue. Tiger quoll has conversation but nothing substantive. The others have prose reviews but no source reviews, so if AryKun is unable to complete those they will have to be incremented and returned to the queue. CMD (talk) 13:09, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@Asilvering and Chipmunkdavis: It's true that this user has left comments on every review but mine. Kindly let them know that the pages will be G6ed if they do not complete the reviews within the next 24 hours. Thanks, Wolverine XI ^{(talk to me)} 17:47, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Let's give it until the 28th, a round month since the reviews were opened. CMD (talk) 00:56, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Literature of Botswana, Pouyannian mimicry, and Evarcha striolata were passed as GA by AryKun on the 23rd (without closing hatnotes). I can try and take over Fishing cat and Tiger quoll. Reconrabbit 19:52, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

@Reconrabbit, if you could do Tiger quoll that would be helpful and really kind of you - that review is already in progress. I just pinged again on Fishing cat juuust in case, but since there's nothing there except my pings I think it's fine to just delete that one and someone can get to it during the backlog drive. -- asilvering (talk) 20:22, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

@Asilvering Hi, just came across this thread. I think that I would see to see the Palaeotherium article review back in queue since I’m unfortunately not confident that it would go well. This is ultimately not up to me, so if you can take further action, I’d appreciate it. Thanks. PrimalMustelid (talk) 22:28, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

@PrimalMustelid, since that review has already started and has substantial comments, we shouldn't be deleting it. You can relist it yourself, however: see WP:GAN/I#N4a for instructions. -- asilvering (talk) 23:08, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I just double-checked whether this would reset the queue position or not, and it doesn't - so if any of you do this, let me know so I can add the article to the backlog drive list. I won't notice it in the queue otherwise. -- asilvering (talk) 23:12, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Alright, I relisted Palaeotherium for an available GAN slot. PrimalMustelid (talk) 23:15, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I've fixed the Palaeotherium relisting; not only does the page field need to be incremented by 1 in {{GA nominee}}, but the "onreview" (or any other current status) needs to be deleted from after "|status=". I've made a similar fix to Talk:Fishing cat, where the review page was deleted. (Both errors showed up on the WP:GAN page.) BlueMoonset (talk) 00:01, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @BlueMoonset, I thought the bot would sort that out on its own. -- asilvering (talk) 21:19, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Is there a requirement for GAs to be reassessed every so often?

Given that I just stumbled on an article that has been listed as a GA for just over 17 years (specifically Era Vulgaris, originally listed as a GA in September 2007), it seems that the answer to my question is "no". In that case, I think we definitely should require articles previously rated as GA (and for that matter FA) quality to be reassessed periodically to determine if they still meet the criteria and, if not, to remove their GA status. As I have not been very involved in any aspect of the GA nomination process for many years, I wanted to post this suggestion here so that others who know much more about this process can share their thoughts. IntoThinAir (talk) 11:55, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

There are 40,000 articles currently marked as Good Articles. Automatically reassessing even a small portion of them would overwhelm the already under-populated GAR process. There is an open project to review a subset of older articles with issues - see Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Sweeps 2023, but it too has minimal participation. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 12:30, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@IntoThinAir: I have been reviewing GAs to ensure that they meet the good article criteria for a couple of weeks and nominating some of the articles with the greatest concerns to WP:GAR. While it is more likely that an older article will need a significant amount of work, it is not always guaranteed and I think the community would feel overwhelmed if we mass-GAR'ed all articles promoted before a certain year. My process is to quickly review articles in a category, and post a message on the article's talk page if I am concerned that an article does not meet the GA criteria. If no one responds in about a week, I will post the article at WP:GAR. I also use this tool to mass-review good articles for uncited paragraphs and orange banners, which helps me select which articles I review. I also try to nominate articles from various categories so as not to overwhelm a group of editors. For example, I will nominate music article a week, then wait a week to nominate the next music article to GAR. If you have any questions, feel free to ping me here or post on my talk page, as any help to review GAs is appreciated. Z1720 (talk) 13:35, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

For Featured Articles, there's the similar WP:URFA/2020, which does aim to at least get eyes on every FA which hasn't been reviewed for a long time. Of course, there are a lot fewer FAs (6,500 vs 40,000 GAs) and they're generally in rather better shape than very old GAs can be. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 14:48, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Over the past two years I've taken a look at a number of the older rail transport GAs and brought a number of deficient ones to reassessment. But I only bring a few at a time at most to avoid overwhelming the process. I wonder if individual editors targeting certain categories of older GAs (particularly on topics they are familiar with) might help with reviewing older GAs. It would also be useful to see which older nominations still have active nominators. While the nominator being inactive doesn't guarantee an article is deficient, and conversely an active nominator might not have maintained their promoted GANs, it gives us some basis to gauge if attention might be needed. I can't speak for all nominators, but I make a concerted effort to make sure all my successful nominations are maintained to at least GA standard if not higher. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 01:10, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

October backlog drive begins soon!

The aim for this month is to completely eliminate a subset of the GAN backlog: we want all nominations submitted before 1 October 2024 by editors who are relatively new to GA to be out of the queue by 31 October. If you're an editor with fewer than 10 GAs, get those nominations in before October begins! As a stretch goal, we're also going to try to eliminate the backlog of GANs by all nominators who have reviewed more articles than they've nominated. -- asilvering (talk) 23:48, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

I have a few questions related to this if you don't mind;

1. What counts as relatively new?
2. Are there enough "new nominations" to earn any of the higher end awards? (e.g. The Order)
3. Is this backlog drive restricted to those nominations?

λ NegativeMP1 23:37, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

1. <10 GAs total
2. yes
3. yes.

Right now there are just a handful of example list items on the drive page right now, but a couple of days before it begins I'll put up the full list and we'll be able to see how many we actually have. It won't be fully finalized until the drive actually starts, because I'll have to update the list manually. -- asilvering (talk) 23:50, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Alright, thank you for responding! λ NegativeMP1 23:58, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

@Asilvering: If you need any help with adding articles, I'll be here, just ping me. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 10:29, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! I don't think it will take all that long, but if I find it's way more of a bother than I thought, I'll shoot you a ping and we can each take one of the lists. -- asilvering (talk) 18:52, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

@Vacant0, it wasn't too bad after all. I'll add the last bunch right as we tick over to Oct 1 UTC, but if you'd give the GAN page a quick skim to see if I might have missed any once I do that, that would be great. -- asilvering (talk) 21:40, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't have time now, but from a quick look at a few sections, everything appears to be alright. From the history page, I see that the newest addition, Matthew Webb, should be added. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 23:23, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Full list is up! -- asilvering (talk) 00:10, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Nice. Good job! Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 10:59, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

October is also going to be hosting a drive for Women in Green (Sign up here!. If you review an article about women or women's works, feel free to double dip! Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 18:57, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

The lists are up! They'll be a bit subject to change (anything on the list now that gets a review started before Oct 1 will have to come off, and anything applicable that's submitted before then will have to be added), but it looks like we have 260 articles on our first list, and just under 400 when we add the stretch goal list. We can do this! We can get these backlogged lists completely cleared out! -- asilvering (talk) 22:58, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Good articles/GAN Backlog Drives/October 2024#Target articles CMD (talk) 02:13, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Second opinion(s) wanted

I'm currently reviewing tumor necrosis factor which was nominated by @AdeptLearner123, you can see my review so far at Talk:Tumor necrosis factor/GA1. So far I've done a source check and image review but I'm a little stuck with the prose review part. I feel like the article may be a bit too technical but I would appreciate some extra opinions on the topic. I'm also not sure if it is over technical to the point of not qaulifying for GAC or if it's fixable. IntentionallyDense (talk) 20:08, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Personally, I think the lead ought to be somewhat more accessible, but I'm not sure if the body needs to be. I'd want to know when students normally learn about the concept before saying anything about the body, since I don't think there's much point in writing something to a high school level if the concept isn't taught until graduate school. -- asilvering (talk) 20:27, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I think that seems fair. My main concerns were with the lead as that’s what most people read. I did ask that they spell out some of the abbreviations they used just cause there is a lot in some of the sections. IntentionallyDense (talk) 23:19, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

At a very quick run through, while there are a lot of short paragraphs that perhaps could be looked at, the prose itself is technical but not badly written. Looking at WP:ONEDOWN, I feel it would be a very ambitious high school that would be teaching this; the study of individual proteins can be PhD-level research. I added a couple of wikilinks, which I do suggest for any particularly technical terms. Get the lead as accessible as possible, perhaps clear up parts of the body you feel wouldn't be comprehensible to a late-year undergraduate student, but overall I don't really know how else you'd write a protein article. CMD (talk) 02:35, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me. I’m currently working with the nominator to make the lead more accessible but I’m mostly leaving the body as is (aside from anything I find during my third read through). IntentionallyDense (talk) 03:07, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Inactive review

Hi! I nominated the page 2024 ICC Men's T20 World Cup for GA on 25 August and User:Vkwiki100 started reviewing it on 1 September 2024. Then, in two days he has gone off-wiki and hasn't returned yet; it's been almost a month now. The GA review has been on hold for a month now, could someone care to takeover or something? Vestrian24Bio (TALK) 06:33, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

The review so far is very minimal, if they haven't returned by tomorrow this should go back into the queue for a fresh review. CMD (talk) 11:51, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Second Opinion on the page Tumor necrosis factor

I've decided to officially ask for a second opinion on the Tumor necrosis factor GA review (page:Talk:Tumor necrosis factor/GA1 and nominator:@AdeptLearner123) I'm mostly looking for second opinions regarding prose, readability, and broadness. I will also be asking the medicine wikiproject. Feel free to jump in wherever and offer what suggestions you have! IntentionallyDense (talk) 14:49, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

IntentionallyDense, it is not necessary to notify this page if you are seeking a second opinion, especially if you have only just changed the status. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:39, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Yeah I didn’t think it was necessary or anything I just wanted to :) IntentionallyDense (talk) 19:24, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Bot problem

Something is causing ChristieBot to crash on every single run, meaning that nothing will update till it’s fixed. I’m traveling till Sunday with no access to the system so the only way to get it to run is going to be to find the offending nomination template (which is almost certainly what is causing the issue). Whatever the edit was that caused the problem appears to have been made at around 12:00 noon US Eastern time. Usually it’s caused by omitting or misformatting a parameter or parameter value. I have code to catch all the cases I know about but this must be something new. Sorry about this but I can’t even help look at the moment as I’ll be in a car for hours yet. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:17, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

@Mike Christie: Should we be looking at the templates in the GAN lists, on the individual GAN pages, or on the article talk pages themselves? Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 18:29, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

The templates on the article talk pages, I would expect. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:31, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Mike Christie, it looks like the bot wasn't running all the way through significantly earlier than that. The last run that affected the WP:GAN page was at 00:52, 2 October 2024 (UTC); the next run where ChristieBot made some edits was at 03:43, when it was working on the just-opened Talk:Sleeping Beauty (1959 film)/GA3: it made three edits, to the review page, article talk page, and nominator's talk page, but never updated WP:GAN. (I didn't see anything on that review page or talk page that appeared likely to break anything.) BlueMoonset (talk) 02:39, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

It really isn't ideal that so much of the GAN process is based around a single point of failure. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:31, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree. Which reminds me of one person who might be able to help. SD0001, if you have a moment would you look at the tail of christiebot-gan.err on Toolforge? The last error might well be me mishandling an exception, but before that it might identify what it was processing before it crashed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:34, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Looks like this is resolved from Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Can someone not a maintainer read a file on toolforge?. I have been at an event myself and am only seeing this now. – SD0001 (talk) 17:19, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it’s fixed — I didn’t realize till after I’d pinged you that someone else might be able to look at the logs for me. Thanks. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:07, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

So I did a search through Talk namespace, for pages with {{GA nominee}} on them, sorted by latest edits. Scrolled down to "Ianto's Shrine" (one of the last pages bot processed on WP:GAN) and went up. One of the next pages is Talk:Holzwarth gas turbine, where an editor failed the nomination, then reverted the edit and put it on hold instead. But the bot already processed the fail. Could that be it? AstonishingTunesAdmirer 連絡 02:30, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

I added a signature to Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Green Lantern (film)/1, which was added to GAN during Christiebot's last edit there. CMD (talk) 02:47, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm still receiving the failure emails every twenty minutes, so whatever is causing the crash is still in place. AstonishingTunesAdmirer, the list you created is exactly what I would have thought would find the error, whatever it is, but I've just looked at every article edited since the time in question and can't see any errors in those templates. BlueMoonset, that's a good point; I'll look a bit further back. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 03:03, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

I've looked at earlier pages and can't see an issue anywhere. I've posted a note on WP:VPT asking if anyone can read the log file to identify the troublesome page. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 03:18, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

The bot is running again, thanks to Hawkeye7, who posted the errors for me to review at VPT. The issue was triggered by edits to Talk:Holzwarth gas turbine reversing a fail and changing it to a hold; when that happens the bot records an error, because the page now has an active template for a review page that the bot thought was inactive because of the fail. That's not particularly rare, but in this case the previous error on the error page User talk:ChristieBot/Bug messages was to record that the bot couldn't write to a page because that page had the {{bots}} template on it, which forbids bots from writing to a page. That template was included in the error message, so the attempt to write the new error failed because the bug message page now had the {{bots}} template too. I've removed the old error message from the bug messages page, so the bot can now run.

The proper fix is for me to change the bot so that when it records the error it doesn't include the {{bots}} template as part of the message. I won't be able to do that till next week, so in the unlikely event that the bot tries to write to another page protected by {{bots}}, it will start crashing again the next time after that that it writes an error. Clearing the bug messages page will resolve it again. I'll post another note here when I've updated the bot to address this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 07:21, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Thankyou Mike for getting this sorted and for all your work with ChristieBot. Hope your travels go well. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 23:00, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Statistics: Where from?

Hi,

I'm updating my list of GA reviews and nominations, and my numbers aren't adding up with those next to my name on the nomination page. Would anyone know where this data is sourced from? — Chris Woodrich (talk) 22:55, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

It's from ChristieBot's database; your statistics are accessible through this link. If I had to guess, either there are entries from before the current system, or some went on to be FAs and are thus not counted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:59, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

• Thanks AirshipJungleman29. I've been able to reconcile my numbers with ChristieBot (well, two seem to have been excluded because they were co-noms, because now I have 112 by my count). Does ChristieBot also have a list of reviews? I'm missing five in my notes.  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 23:22, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

• Nix that, I was looking at the other ChristieBot output I'd been using. Yes, this is much more useful. Thank you.  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 23:24, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I checked mine to see if it's a problem elsewhere, and they don't add up either. The GAN stats tool says I have 91 successful promotions with 85 that are still GA. By my count, I've only had 90 successful promotions. Five of those are FA, so 85 is the correct end result. It seems like there's a stray one somewhere that the stats tool thinks was promoted and then demoted, but I'm not aware of any that might have caused this. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:45, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

• Yeah. One nomination at that level isn't a big deal, but there may be a malfunction or other issue (or, perhaps more likely, my count is off). — Chris Woodrich (talk) 23:56, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

  Hi, Chris, glad to see you back editing again; it's been a while. I won't be able to look at the data again until Sunday at the earliest but will see if I can reconcile to your list when I get back. TBUA, I can do the same for you if you have a list I can compare to. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:58, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks, Mike. I managed to reconcile the reviews. I'm going to try the nominations again, because I'm seeing that the bot isn't counting two articles nominated by others (as correct per its programming), so I think I'm missing one.  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 00:54, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

  Nix that again - I don't have the failed nomination listed on my page, and that's the one off. Thanks for the offer... I should be squared up now! — Chris Woodrich (talk) 01:05, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

GA reviewer demanding copies of printed sources

Here, a GA reviewer is demanding that copies of print sources are e:mailed to them. There are serious problems with this - articles are not owned by individuals and it cannot be reasonable to expect that any one editor has access to all the references that have been used in the whole history of an article - 20 years in this case. If the GA review process can ask for any print source used in an article to be available to be emailed to a reviewer, no matter who added the source and when it was added, then it is an effective prohibition of offline sources (for example, it would prevent people from using print sources from a library as they would no longer have a copy of it). Of course, there is also the issue of copyright, and whether sending copies of whole magazine articles would be acceptable from a fair use/fair dealing point of view.Nigel Ish (talk) 19:33, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

You may want to direct the reviewer to WP:RX. Of course, verifiable sources are not required to be easy to access by most standards (WP:SOURCEACCESS). I hesitate to articulate that the "responsibility" is strictly on them to facilitate the verification of the article to their satisfaction, but it's certainly not on you. Remsense ‥ 论 19:42, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Sigh. This is the third venue where this discussion is going on. Please see my comments at Talk:Aérospatiale SA 330 Puma/GA1 so I don't have to repeat them here. RoySmith (talk) 19:46, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Apologies. Remsense ‥ 论 19:47, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

(ec) This is not just an issue for article page as the issue won't just effect one article, but all GA and FA reviews (as there is the requirement to check sources), and by extension all articles - because while offline sources are acceptable according to WP:RS, if the review process demands that sources are always availble, than that places that into question. A GA nominator doesn't own an article, and it would be inappropriate if good sources that are used in the article but not available to the nominator (because they were added long before - in the case of the article in question tat least one of the sources was added by me, not the article nominator, in 2008.Nigel Ish (talk) 20:05, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

As both a nominator and reviewer, I am ready and willing to send any copy of a source at any time, preferably in plain text, as that is easiest. This is a basic requirement. Viriditas (talk) 20:09, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Agree. No article should be failed because the sources are not immediately available to the reviewer. However, if they cannot be made available to the reviewer by any means, we have a failure of WP:V, and that content should not be in the article as it cannot be reasonably verified. -- asilvering (talk) 20:18, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

it cannot be reasonable to expect that any one editor has access to all the references that have been used in the whole history of an article

@Nigel Ish: On the contrary, it is entirely reasonable. I won't nominate an article if I can't verify all of the sources used, no matter who added them. This is not a serious problem at all, it's how we do things. If you are nominating an article in good faith whose sources you haven't checked out, that's a problem. Viriditas (talk) 19:58, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

As noted above, I am not the nominator.Nigel Ish (talk) 20:08, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

I wasn't speaking of you specifically, but of anyone who nominates. Viriditas (talk) 20:10, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I suppose I should've phrased my comments above a bit more pragmatically: if the reviewer can't verify to their satisfaction, for whatever reason, then they have no reason to pass the review. Remsense ‥ 论 20:12, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

So the nominator should become WP:OWNer of the article and remove anything that they havn't personally verified? How does that comply with Wikipedia being a collaborative project?Nigel Ish (talk) 20:30, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

No one is saying that. What people are saying is that it's good practice for the nominator to verify the sources themselves, and that it's perfectly reasonable for the reviewer to require access to the sources to verify the information in the article. If neither reviewer nor nominator have access to a particular source, they should find someone who does, so the information can be verified. -- asilvering (talk) 20:34, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

The idea is that by nominating an article to GA status, you are affirming that it meets the GA criteria. If you cannot confirm the verifiability of non-trivial material in the article, then you really shouldn't be nominating it. Hog Farm _Talk 20:57, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

This attitude essentially requires the removal of off-line sources from anything in GA, turning it into only the Good Articles of stuff available on the internet now. I don't think this is a good idea. Verifying the material in a source does not always imply the ability to send the source materials to others online without copyright violation. For instance, it may be available only physically as books in libraries. Material of that nature should still be acceptable as a source for GA. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:14, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

What? How does it do that? A person can easily verify something available only as a physical book in a library - by going to the library, requesting an interlibrary loan or scan, or by asking the nominator or someone at WP:RX to send a copy of the relevant pages. -- asilvering (talk) 21:18, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

If material is only available in physical form in libraries, it is unreasonable for reviewers to expect nominators to provide it in electronic form. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:39, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

What I was getting at was that there's just as much value in getting something up to as solid of a state as you can without getting the GA badge as there is in GA itself. I can point to several articles I worked on where I felt that GA wasn't in the cards due to various limitations, but I think those are just as good of a contribution as GA. Yes, I understand the shiny badge is a strong motivator, but not everything that gets polished up needs to go through this hoop. You can keep the content in there if you think that it's accurate, without sending the article through GA. Hog Farm _Talk 21:46, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

WP:GAN/I#R3 bullet 1 says This must include a spot-check of a sample of the sources in the article to verify that each source supports the text in the article that it covers. I'm open to other suggestions for how I should do that. If somebody wants to photocopy the material and mail it to me in the paper mail, that works for me. But I suspect your opposition isn't actually to the "in electronic form" part, but rather in the basic idea of verification. That I can't help you with. RoySmith (talk) 21:50, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

It is fairly trivial to take a photo of a couple of pages in a book and email them to the reviewer if you have access to the book. And it is good practice to keep copies (in paper or electronic form) if you can. It does happen occasionally that you no longer have easy access to a source, but I find it rather unusual for that to be the case for more than one or two of the sources of a fresh GA nominee. —Kusma (talk) 22:42, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

It happened to me for only one article, the GA on Brownie Mary. I backed up many of those old newspaper clippings on a spare hard drive somewhere, but if someone was to ask me right now for an exact copy of a sentence from a source, it would take me some time to find it. This is because when I wrote that article, many of those sources were freely available to everyone on Google News archive, which is now mostly defunct. Viriditas (talk) 22:44, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Note, on a lark, I decided to track down these sources, and I think I've identified the majority of them on my spare hard drive, encoded in a text file. I would recommend more people do this; in other words, save the sources as text in a backup file. Viriditas (talk) 00:04, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

It has happened to me that accessing a source requires significant time and effort (involving filling out an interlibrary loan request, waiting days or weeks, and then physically accessing the library) that I do not wish to repeat merely to convince a reviewer that I accessed it once already. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:22, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

I would agree that in cases like that, the reviewer should be reasonable and not demand such an effort. But 1) a nominator should have verified all information cited in the article at some point in the article development process, and 2) some form of spot-checking is absolutely necessary, with WP:DCGAR being the result when that goes by the wayside. Hog Farm _Talk 23:31, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

If the verification process involves somebody to go to a library and look at a physical book, it seems absurd that we should expect that the nominator do that, scan the book in question, and then email it to the reviewer, when the reviewer could just go to the library themselves. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 21:49, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

It's 2024 now. Most popular books and periodicals are online and library patrons have access to digital versions in maybe 80% of cases, so this isn't as much of a problem as you are making it out to be. Yes, when we are working on niche topics, this becomes far more difficult. I am currently trying to get a hold of death certificates and old newspaper clippings that have been pretty much lost to time, and I can tell you that it isn't easy. But most people don't have to do that, as we rely on accessible secondary sources for our articles. As it stands right now, 90% of my book browsing is digital, but for Hawaii series by Georgia O'Keeffe, which is currently a GAN as of yesterday, at least three of the books I used for that article do not have digital versions, and I had to go to a physical library to use them. If a reviewer asks to see the material, I will send them a copy in text, as I took cellphone pics of all of the pages as a backup. Viriditas (talk) 22:05, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Sure, if the reviewer can do that, they should! That's what I usually do when I'm reviewing. But I have an unusually good university library at hand. Most people don't have that, so as a nominator, I'd be expecting to have to provide copies of sources if they needed them. -- asilvering (talk) 22:09, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

...assuming they live near a library that has the book. Or live in a place where they can find the book at all, for that matter. Editors come from many different places. AstonishingTunesAdmirer 連絡 22:09, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

All editors can access WP:RX, a most amazing place that helps with exactly this. —Kusma (talk) 22:44, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

But (we hope) the editor who added the source to the article has already obtained access to the source. If the nominator is not that person and has not themselves seen the source... I see no reason to deem it absurd that they take on tracking it down instead of the reviewer. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:58, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Nigel Ish should probably steer clear of the GA process until they show they understand it on a basic level; the guidelines re. offline sourcing—as well as policies such as WP:ONUS—are well established, and everyone has to follow them. No one gets a pass by getting the reviewer to do their work for them. RoySmith has experienced this at FAC, I know, as many of us have, and it doesn't matter how experienced one is there: if a reviewer wants a source to confirm source-text integrity, you send it to them. And this isn't something which is slightly weaker at GA just because it's a 'lower' classification of the article: WP:C is a policy with legal implications. Roy was not just within his rights to request offline sources from you; he was mandated to do so by policy (C & V). And all talk about this requirement suddenly creating a form of OWNership is nonsense. It's merely asking the nominator to fulfil their obligations under both policy and project guidelines.

(I'm aware Nigel Ish isn't the nominator of the article in question, but they randomly and as far as I can tell without invitation into a discussion between two others, and then started this thread, which means they must want comments directed to him, rather than the reviewer or nominator.) SerialNumber54129 13:13, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

As you are banning me from the GA process, I assume that this means that I am banned from any page that is going through the GA process, or presumably has gone through the GA process. It's a shame that no-one informed me about whatever community discussion that banned me. I will bother you no more.Nigel Ish (talk) 14:14, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

No-one's banning you, Nigel Ish, certainly not me—I couldn't if I wanted to, and I don't!—I'm merely suggesting that questioning fundamental policies and important guidelines and then tying up loads of editors in a discussion which only leads to you getting told the same thing several times is hardly a productive use of your own or other editors' time and energy. Now take that silly notice of your user page and get on with your work!  :) SerialNumber54129 14:27, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Nigel Ish, I think everyone is talking past each other here. First, no one said banning until you did, and that's not how banning works on Wikipedia. I don't know whether you actually think there was a "community discussion" or if you're trying to make a point, but that doesn't really matter either way—no ban took place. Second, nominating an article for GA doesn't mean "this article looks good". It means "I've verified that this article meets expectations". If a nominator can't verify the sources, then they shouldn't nominate it. I notice you've never actually participated in the GA process. It's far from perfect, but everyone here with experience on the issue has confirmed that verifying sources during a review isn't the problem that you're claiming it is. I've nominated about a hundred good articles now, and I've never once had this issue. Also, if you think that online sources are inherently lower quality, I suggest you check out WP:LIBRARY and the Internet Archive, among other places. This is where most of the project's experienced content writers (including regular GA nominators) get their sources. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 14:40, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

I have very little to add to this discussion (except to concur with the many wise and thoughtful contributions made by TBUA, SN, Hog Farm, Roy and others), except perhaps a bit of calm and common sense. Whenever I've come across the rather rare situation in which a reviewer has asked for a source and a nominator has said, in good faith, "oh dear, I don't have access to that any more", a solution has been found -- either that particular check isn't too important, the reviewer says "fair enough" and asks for a different one, or that check is important and we have a discussion to see if any additional sources can be found, and make a call on retention/removal based on that. This really doesn't have to be an adversarial or confrontational process unless people choose to make it one. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 12:08, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Would it be kosher for me to take up this review?

Hey all—I just saw an article I've had on my watchlist since its creation, Religion of the Shang dynasty, just got put up for GAN by its primary contributor. Thing is, I'm probably its distant #2 contributor to date, mostly in the form of style, reference, and copyediting. I'd like this to be a GA and the nomination was a bit of a surprise, but I would like to review it if it's not seen as an issue for me to do so. Remsense ‥ 论 14:39, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

nah i think you're good - if anything, it will mean you can do a more thorough review than someone completely unfamiliar with the topic. ... sawyer * he/they * talk 14:42, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm of the opinion that reviewers are (or should be) allowed to copyedit the article as necessary so long as it doesn't substantially change the content, so to me it doesn't make a huge difference whether that's during the review or before it. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 14:44, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

You're really underselling that "distant". I was a bit worried and then took a look at xtools - you're fine. Literal lol. I get more authorship on articles by running iabot. -- asilvering (talk) 18:09, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

I would say that's at least partially a function of this article having a very particular edit history, such that the numbers would make a minor contribution look like an infinitesimal one. But thanks all in any case! Remsense ‥ 论 18:12, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Description in Places subsection

Hi, I was just wondering if the descriptions in Places subsection is necessary in its currnet form. "This includes countries, states, counties, cities, neighborhoods, and other political designations in Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia and the Pacific, Europe, Middle East, North America, and South America". I don't think there is a need to specify which continents it applies to, especially when it list all of the anywa. I think "This includes countries, states, counties, cities, neighborhoods, and other political designations" would be fine on its own. Alternatively "designations" could be replaced with "subdivisions". Artemis Andromeda (talk) 19:23, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Additional input request

Hello, an article I nominated (Eugenics in Minnesota) was failed, but I don't believe the reviewer specified truly why it failed. After discussing with Viriditas, I have decided to ask for some more input here. Could anyone tell me why this article was failed and how I can improve it? Cedar Tree 03:05, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

I think it is very confusing how it was determined what went in the background section and how it was structured. Apart from the "structural" issues referred to by PARAKANYAA, I wouldn't be happy with whole books being used as references without page numbers, such as ref 27. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 03:24, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

It's an abstract issue, and it's fairly subjective, so I can see why it would be hard to explain. With how the article is organized, it gives the impression that the Baby Health Contest and the Minnesota Eugenics Society were the entirety of the eugenics movement in Minnesota, with some background info and aftermath thrown in for context. Overall, it looks like the author decided in advance what the article should cover and then sought out sources to add those things. Look at the "Tuition waiver helps Native American students in Minnesota" source, for example. The word "eugenics" doesn't appear once in that source, so it almost certainly doesn't belong in the article. And on the other end, why is Ladd-Taylor (2019) only used once? That looks like the sort of source that should be mined until there's nothing left. I've written about this approach at User:Thebiguglyalien/The source, the whole source, and nothing but the source. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:59, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

In addition to the above, I would not pass the article with that lead. It is a very bare summary of the article, and it has two sources, one of which seems unspecific to eugenics in Minnesota. CMD (talk) 04:15, 6 October 2024 (UTC)