Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force

GA articles

I have just looked at the articles for a GA review, and it seems the problems are still there, as always. If this "Project quality task force" really wants to make a change (and radically cut its workload) it would rapidly FAIL most of the articles that are up for review. "Head 'em off at the pass" seems to be the case, and explain WHY. Any editor can do it, so why don't you, if you are so concerned?--andreasegde (talk) 20:22, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

The lack of an answer confirms my belief that this project only wants some kind of aggressive/insulting power, and not help at all. It's sad... --andreasegde (talk) 21:51, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry you feel that way - there are ongoing discussions on other pages concerning GA nomination and the backlog, and this page is watched less than others as the Project Quality Task Force is only a sub-project of GA with smaller participation. You may be interested in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Good articles#Proposed solution to Backlog Problem and Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations#New proposal of guide for nominators. Such discussions are perhaps best held on these pages, as more members of the GA WikiProject will see and respond to them. EyeSerene^TALK 09:52, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

No notice

An editor left a message at talk:Same-sex marriage in Canada stating that he decided that the article no longer passes muster and that he had delisted it. This occurred without notice. From an earlier discussion, it sounds as though notice is usually given. Why wasn't it this time? It appears to me that there is a procedure for delisting at WP:GAR. Following that procedure allows editors at the article to address the problems before it is delisted. Now, after getting refs for quotes, adding a paragraph or two to the lead, and dropping some links with <ref></ref> tags, editors have to go through the nomination process again. This seems like a rather drastic course to have taken given the relative simplicity of the changes required. -Rrius (talk) 09:21, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I am here to express my displeasure.

Largely by mistake I discovered today that Nova laser was delisted from GA in February. I cannot find any discussion of the article or the GAR process anywhere. Links in the talk page lead nowhere. The message posted on the article talk page was posted after the fact, completely generic, and wrong.

No effort was made to engage me, the primary editor of the article. In fact, from what I can see this decision was completely internalized. The GA/PQT cabal apparently decided to appoint themselves judge, jury and executioner, and then notify the victim after the fact.

I see on this talk page that this article is not the only example. What the hell is going on here?

Maury (talk) 02:53, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Greetings from the cabal. It's called sweeps. We're reviewing all listed GAs, comparing them to the current GA criteria, which is more refined compared to the practically nothing of a couple of years ago. Articles that clearly fail to meet the current criteria are immediately delisted. If you feel it still meets the criteria and should have remained listed, you can request remediation at WP:GAR, otherwise, check out the GA criteria and make the necessary improvements to the article, then nominate it once more at WP:GAN. Regards, LaraLove|Talk 04:28, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

To start, thank you for replying Lara. I figured you'd be the first to reply, given our past histories, limited though they might be. Given the issue, I realize that even replying was probably non-trivial, and so I ask you to keep in mind that the following is absolutely not personal - in fact, as far from it as possible. I appreciate what you do for the wiki, and especially the help you've given me in the past. But quite frankly, this reply simply ignores the problem I'm bringing up. It's more than a little insulting that this is the sort of reply you think this very serious breach of conduct deserves.

Let me be sure I understand the reality of the situation: a group of editors have decided, amongst themselves, to review the GA content of the wiki. More than that, they have decided, amongst themselves, that they are individually capable of judging the GA criterion, criterion that were developed by 3rd parties outside the purview of the average working editor. Further, this small group went about, as individuals, making changes to the status of articles based on their personal opinions, without any process of oversight, community involvement, attempt at communication or even the slightest amount of effort whatsoever to involve the people who are stakeholders. At no point was anyone outside the immediate circle of the working group informed of the "project", brought into the process, asked for their opinions, or informed the greater wikipedia community as whole.

Is this an accurate description of the process? It seems to be.

And what is the suggested remediation? After going through the (IMHO) overly-bureaucratic multi-party GA process, and having that overturned by an individual of dubious credentials, I'm pointed toward the even more bureaucratic GAR? Let me express my continued displeasure. Maury (talk) 05:24, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Looking at the article, there are quite a few issues. Not only that, but in looking at the "GA" version, it did not appear to meet the criteria at the time it passed, nor was it given a thorough review in comparison to the criteria. However, this was before I joined the project, and I'm not sure exactly what the criteria was at the time, nor the standards for review. They have steadily improved over time. This article is well on its way, but there are several improvements that are necessary in order for this article to be relisted as a GA. I recommend requesting a peer review and, perhaps, requesting a few editors that have this topic as one of their interests drop by for a copy-edit and MOS check. LaraLove|Talk 04:35, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, well, well... another editor is upset because we delisted their favorite article, eh? First of all, I can guarantee you that all of the Sweeps reviewers know the GA criteria and processes back to front. Most of them obtained their adminship partially due to their excellent article writing and reviewing skills (me included in this category). Did you expect us to inform you when that article is promoted to GA? If your answer is no, then you cannot expect us to inform you when the article is demoted. Going back to the article, without reading the fine contents, I can pinpoint several issues on the spot.

1. The reference tag on the top will result in quick-fail right on the spot if it goes through GAN
2. The background, history, and early modifications sections are not referenced at all
3. The references are not in same style. They lack a lot of information such as publisher, date of publishing, access date, etc.
4. The journal articles references do not tell us which bit of information comes from which journal article

OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 14:27, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

"another editor is upset because we delisted their favorite article"

And another self-appointed group member has missed the point entirely. I don't give a crap about the article. What I give a crap about is a group of people appointing themselves rulers of the GA flag and deciding, based on their own personal opinion and nothing else, what should and should not get the flag. I also give a crap about the fact that they go about making these changes without even the slightest effort to inform or improve the articles in question, and go on to insult and threaten anyone that questions them on this behavior.

Maury (talk) 17:38, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Maury. At the outset, I would like to point out to OhanaUnited and the cabal members who had the same reaction that you lot brought this upon yourselves. You go around telling editors at articles that the articles they have worked on are no longer good and give little explanation to as to why. "The criteria have changed" is not terribly helpful in this regard. You should expect people to be upset and should be prepared to hold back on the snark a bit.

Simply delisting articles that in one person's opinion "clearly" are no longer GA seems to be rather lacking in explanation. These are articles where editors worked hard to achieve GA under the old standards and are now seeing that effort undone at a stroke with no prior notice to allow them to bring the articles back up to snuff and no meaningful guidance as to what needs to be done. Even articles that "clearly" don't make the grade under the new criteria should be given a week to brought up to snuff for the sake of fairness and to lessen the backlog at GAN. This affair seems to have been handled in the ham-fisted manner typical of sysops across the internet, and is yet another reason participating at wikipedia becomes frustrating the point of not being enjoyable anymore.

I rather think the cabal have lost some perspective on GA status. Having GA and FA and all the other article statuses is just as much a reward system as it is a means of sorting articles by quality. Obviously, when articles fall below GA, they should be delisted in the normal way. The problem here is that the articles did not fall: the criteria shifted, and editors were given no chance to meet them. With the article under threat, editors are more likely to rally 'round to save the GA status. When you simply delist without warning as part of a major shake-up, editors are going to be frustrated, upset, and demoralized. They also realize that GAN is going to be loaded down with articles trying to get their status back. With no guidance (unless you happen to have a cool reviewer like Nehrams2020 who will give extensive advice if asked), editors at many articles are likely to not even try. The sweeps process seems to have been designed for ease of cabal member use, rather than with an eye toward producing the greatest number of improved articles. That misses the point of changing the GA criteria in the first place.

I can but only help that what I have said here will have some affect aside from making me feel marginally better. I do hold some hope that some members of the cabal will take what Maury and I (and some editors above and at various talk pages) have said to heart and change their approach to future projects of this ilk. -Rrius (talk) 19:54, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I know I can't say something on behalf of LaraLove, but I'll show you what she thinks about this issue (head over to User:OhanaUnited/GA delist response) OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 21:23, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Look, the GA rules say that anyone can delist. Why shouldn't this group of editors (cabal?) have the same right to do that as anyone else? This group doesn't have any more power than the next guy, so what's the big deal? Wrad (talk) 21:38, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

The GA rules describe a process of individual reassessment that this cabal seems to be flouting: creating review pages, allowing other editors time to respond, etc. That, more than the secretive nature of the cabal, seems to be a problem to me. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:03, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I wanted to join this discussion earlier, but had to drive about 400 miles today to visit family (man, gas is expensive!), so wasn't able to respond until now. I do recognize that editors are upset from reviews performed and you have the right to be. I have upset editors in the past with some of the reviews I have performed, and have learned from each one on how to better review these articles to improve the collaboration between reviewer and editor(s). I have been thanked by many others, who have seen their articles improved as a result of the reviews I have performed. This is a learning process for both parties, and we have expanded our efforts in improving our reviews.

Although there are complaints of this "cabal", the reviewers have a difficult task. Should editors be notified when articles are passed/failed? There's no requirement, but it is usually general courtesy to do. I don't necessarily tell editors when articles pass or fail, but am sure to contact them (along with related WikiProjects) whenever I place an article on hold. This gives multiple editors a chance to work on addressing raised issues and collaborate with me in helping to improve the article to meet the criteria. Should articles be delisted? We're not a power-hungry group, believing that just because a single editor is able to delist an article that we should do our best to whittle down the current GA list. The GAs that are initially failed are so far from meeting the criteria, that it would not be feasible to put them on hold. If no issues are addressed on a hold, they are delisted as well. However, the majority of the articles pass, and the articles improve during the process by either sweeps reviewers assisting in improving the articles themselves and/or collaborating with editors of the article to further improve it. Putting articles on hold is usually the best option which stimulates larger discussions and pushes the article to pass.

Many of the reviewers have previously reviewed hundreds of articles and know the GA criteria. Many have written GAs themselves and know the dedication and requirements that articles need to meet the criteria. However, using this knowledge to review other editors' articles can be challenging. When I have passed articles in the past, there is rarely discussion afterwards. Failing articles, at times can have similar results, while some editors are very negative on the review I have performed. I have accepted this, realizing that I can not please everyone, even though I would like to. We are rarely thanked for our work (we're almost like IRS auditors!), but that's not the reason that we do it. Each member here has the best intentions for the GA process and the quality of articles on Wikipedia. We don't like delisting articles, and it does pain me to delist articles knowing the higher class it had previously attained. It's easier to point fingers on what we do wrong then it is to work with us in fixing the issues. I'm not saying that this is what is happening in this discussion, because we do need to inform editors on what we are doing, to propel better collaboration in the future.

Again, we are here to help. If you do have questions about particular articles, reviews, the criteria, or other GA issues, please do contact us. Many of us would be happy to provide a more comprehensive review when asked. Assume good faith in our intentions. If you have further questions about my comments, please do respond, as I, and the other reviewers, do want to improve this process any way we can. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 06:42, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I was a little concerned about the tone of some of the posts in this thread (from both sides), and drafted something last night, but it didn't really say what I wanted it to so I gave up and went to bed. Nehrams has put it better than I could have. We're very aware that we're dealing with other people's hard work, and try (I hope) to handle delisting tactfully, but we also know that we can't please everyone. I've been hugely impressed with article editors so far, who have generally been willing to drop what they are doing and pitch in when we land them with an unrequested, unexpected reassessment. We have to make a judgement call though on which articles are salvageable within a reasonable time limit, and which are so far off GA (and usually apparently unattended) that there is little point in putting them on hold. We will also fix issues where we can - it's simpler all round, and we'd much rather keep articles than lose them. However, we do make mistakes, and we should be receptive to constructive criticism and learn from it. EyeSerene^talk 09:09, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I just have to respond to two things Nehrams said. First, no one is questioning the cabal reviewers' intentions or hard work. What is being questioned is the act of sudden delisting and the thought process behind it. The article that brought me to this issue was Same-sex marriage in Canada. That article was delisted without notice but with a partial list of problems. I started working on the problems, and asked the reviewer what this was all about. Nehrams, who was the sweeps reviewer on it, was kind enough to give an extensive list of problems. Those could have been overcome within a week if I had the desire to do all the work or if a few people got together and tried to save it. It is not an article I do much editing at, so I did not have the desire to do it alone and no one else helped, so it remains sub-GA.

Nehrams said, "It's easier to point fingers on what we do wrong then it is to work with us in fixing the issues". I think it would have been easier to get people to work on improving the article by giving a warning that it would be delisted in a week. Moreover, it would not have taken too much work to hold off on delisting. It means coming back a week later to quickly look it over before either delisting or stating that it won't be delisted. -Rrius (talk) 21:30, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

So in retrospect it's becoming clear that the real justification is embedded in the GA rules, and the reviewers are within their "legal" rights no matter how much it bothers us. So what normally happens when you have bad rules is that the rules get changed. So let's explore fixing the them.

A general rule that has developed over the last millennium or so (complete with rolling heads) is that if some process requires a bureaucracy to put it into place, another bureaucracy should be used to take it away again. The GA rules, for reasons that are not clear, allow one to sidestep this policy. That's the point of contention here.

In the past I have had people quote policy at me, policy I did not understand. So I took the time to understand it, and invariably found that the policy was originally set up to address a very different issue. For instance, I was told that articles should not have image galleries in them. When I went and looked, I found that the policy was actually set up to stop "image montages", pages consisting mostly or solely of images. Someone didn't like the word "montage", so they changed it to "gallery". So the rule was set up to do something utterly unrelated to its current reading, and was being misapplied through confusion.

My gut feeling tells me that the rule here might fall into the same category. Why would one ever want to have this rule in the first place? Doesn't it seem odd that a single person can delist GA? Perhaps it was because in the past that anyone could single-handedly list', so the single-person delist was actually being symmetrical? Or perhaps it was because there was no GAR in the past and we needed some sort of kill mechanism? Or perhaps people were bypassing the nomination and just stamping GA on anything they liked and it needed to be removed just as quickly? The possibilities are endless, but it seems clear that whatever the reason for inclusion, it's outlived its usefulness.

I'm all in favor of quick-deletes on things that clearly fail, where the GA was granted without going through nomination for instance. But, obviously, I'm not at all in favor of quick-deletes in the case that the standards change out from under the article. In that case I don't believe its "clear" at all.

So, let's talk about this: under what circumstances is the quick-fail/delete policy to be used, and under which ones should the article go to GAR? Let's codify this, get it into the GA rules, and the problem disappears. Yes, it's entirely possible that this will increase the backlog in GAR, but the Wikipedia is about writing articles, not grading them, and we need to be sure we don't scare people off from writing just so we can make a grading process easier.

Maury (talk) 16:33, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

The fact that a single person can promote a GA is pretty good reason why a single person should be able to delist a GA - that's the type of process it is. Ideally, however, you'd want people aware of the quality of GAs to correct for any mistakes that an improperly promoted GA, which is why this task force does request only those that have a history of working in GA approval of articles.

However, this is not AFD - the article is not deleted, no content has been removed; it just needs to be cleaned up and/or reviewed to make it a GA again. It may not be a GA for a month while it's being fixed and processed, but that doesn't hurt anything. --MASEM 16:57, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

But that's not the case. It takes at least two people to make a GA, and more importantly, there is a very specific process to go through that can take days or weeks. In reverse, a single person can remove GA, instantly, and has no process to follow. If you really are arguing that the process should not be changed, and I'm not sure you are, we'll need some solid arguments with examples. The very existence of this thread is a good "pro" argument for change.

I also think that the second portion of your statement is just plain wrong. As it was noted above, GA is a reward as much as a grade. To see it removed by someone who was not at all involved in the article or the original GA process and can't seem to lift a finger to help is very hurtful, let me tell ya. This thread is ample demonstration of this point as well.

Again, we need to focus here: under what circumstances is a quick-fail reasonable, and under which ones should we go to GAR. Real-world examples are needed. Maury (talk) 17:28, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Ideally, the instant delist is a last resort, and only applied to those articles that would meet the quick-fail guidelines were they to come up for nomination today. What have sometimes been called "bold delists" are strongly discouraged across the GA project - if an article can be realistically saved, it normally will be.

Actually, all procedural issues aside, it might be useful to get some statistics on this. The sweeps list is here. <lame excuse>I don't have the time to go through the list myself right now</lame excuse>. I'd be interested to see what percentage of articles have been delisted without some sort of prior hold or GAR reassessment. From a quick scan, it doesn't look high. EyeSerene^talk 17:32, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, metrics are always useful to some degree, often "very". Maury (talk) 14:04, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I've never been a member of a cabal before, how exciting! My own view is that articles that warrant a quick delist are usually self-evident, but that when they're delisted a full explanation ought to be given so that they can be improved. I've only quick delisted a few, one of which was Handloading, an article that it seemed plain to me never should have been a GA in the first place. Almost always I'll fix what I can, detail what I can't fix in the review, and put the article on hold. It's rather depressing to see how infrequently editors step into the breach to fix things; GA sweeps is definitely something nobody would choose to for the thanks you get. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 19:29, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes, other editors got to delist the article even before the Sweeps got there. My question is... Are you targeting the sweeps process? The sweeps participants? Or the whole GA in general? I feel that a few individuals are taking the blame for something that is done very frequently in the GA community.OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:11, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I take you at your word that other editors delisted articles before Sweeps came along (I have not even remotely been interested in article status before this). Maury is suggesting that the one-editor delisting is a problem, and I agree with him. I have a slightly different problem with the Sweep process as it relates to "clearly" sub-GA articles. It is unfair and wrongheaded to delist articles as part of the aftermath of a change in criteria. It does not seem right to whisk the rug out when the quality of the article has not necessarily changed, but rather the rules by which that quality is judged have changed. It is discouraging to editors who might otherwise be disposed to help the article. I once again request that the quick delisting of articles that qualified under the old rules be given at least a week to conform to the new rules after being reviewed by a cabal reviewer. -Rrius (talk) 21:42, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

There are no "cabal reviewers", and none of us wants to see an article lose its GA listing unnecessarily, I have absolutely no doubt. I also have absolutely no doubt that in the vast majority of cases any article that can be salvaged is already given a fair chance by being on hold for at least a week. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 21:47, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

So reviewers should be a little more careful and put the articles which don't meet criteria on hold, or at least provide a list of issues to fix in the future. Perhaps the GA sweeps instructions can be made more explicit on that front. But GA is designed to be quicker than FAC, and so is the delisting process (for all the b-cracy that's accumulated, GA is still quicker than FAC, provided there are reviewers about.) This is just an organized content control system which ensures older GAs are still up to spec, and is entirely acceptable. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 21:51, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The GA sweeps criteria are perfectly clear on that front. Have you actually looked at the amount of work that most GA sweeps reviewers put into each article that they review? For very little thanks it appears. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 21:54, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Oy, don't bite me head off... if it weren't for the fact that I've been working on content writing, I'd still be part of the sweeps. :) But I just hope that everyone stays courteous and leaves information on improvement when delisting, I'm not commenting on the actual delisting itself. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 22:00, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry. I see that I was replying not just to your comment but to an earlier one as well. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:06, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Malleus, I cannot share your certainty as I only became aware of the sweeps process due to an article that could have been saved in a week. As to your objection to "cabal reviewer", I don't think I'd heard of a Wikipedia "cabal" until two or three weeks ago, and still do not have a firm grasp on what it is, so I am not up on the terminology. Also, to your points in a later comment about hard work, please note that I specifically said no one is questioning the hard work of sweeps reviewers. If you are talking about my suggestion that reviewers visit twice, I just don't think it is that much more work to go back to the article and get a sense of whether editors have done the work. -Rrius (talk) 00:24, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

There are no cabals. I agree with you, it's no trouble at all to go back to an article a week or so after reviewing it to see what, if any, work has been done, and I do not doubt that the vast majority of GA sweep reviewers do exactly that. The work though, is in doing the initial review; making as many corrections as is possible, and flagging up any outstanding issues for the article's editors to deal with. It's rather depressing though to see how often nobody seems to care about the article, and a week or so later it has to be delisted. Just take a look through this list, and see how many articles are "delisted after hold". --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 01:31, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Ooops! I was confusing the name of the Mediation Cabal with this. Between this, mediation cabal, and suspected sock puppets, I've been introducing myself to too much administrative wikiness for my own good. I hear you about editors not caring. Nehrams put so much work into identifying specific issues at Same-sex marriage in Canada that someone should work his list. I'm not gay and I'm not Canadian, so I don't really care about the article that much, but someone should fix it. I just can't figure out where all the old editors went. -Rrius (talk) 02:19, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

Hi, sorry I haven't replied. I've not been online as much this past week, and wiki time has been sort of focused, so I hadn't checked my watchlist. To save time, I'm going to be blunt. Articles are listed and delisted by one editor. Article writers have no beef with the former. Critics of the GA project have no problem with the latter. In order to maintain a balance in the project, the same manner for listing needs to exist for delisting. GAR is in place to ensure neither of those processes is abused. These delistings are generally reserved for those that never appeared to meet the criteria to begin with, such as those listed without review. Let's speak on the articles mentioned in this thread. The first article has entire sections without citation; that generally prevents an article from being quickly improved. It was also passed without sufficient review and apparently failed to meet the criteria at that time. For the second, I don't know how many weeks it has been since it was delisted, but it's still not improved, so it would appear it does not fall in the "can be improved in a week" category either.

As OhanaUnited so untactfully pointed out above, article custodians/writers who have found their articles delisted have registered their displeasure a few times in the past. Perhaps I've reached a point, or maybe I started out at this point, that I just don't see the necessity to argue over such delistings. The time spent complaining about the article having been delisted could have been better spent bringing the article up to standards. The notification of delistment is placed on the article talk page. I've stated to others before, if you don't have your GAs on your watchlist, you obviously have no concern with maintaining their quality, and really should not be shocked to find that they've been delisted after being neglected for a great deal of time. I've removed two of my GAs from my watchlist because I'm tired of dealing with the frustrations that come with working on them. If they're delisted, someone else can fix them. That's how I view it.

So that's basically how I feel about it. As a project, we want as many articles listed as possible. It is certainly not our goal or desire to remove articles from the list. However, the greater goal is project quality, thus the name of our task force (not cabal). If an article is delisted, improve it. If done within a few days of its delistment, list it at GAR and, if it meets the criteria, the delist will be overturned and the article relisted. If it takes you longer, you'll be referred to GAN. If you need help improving them, ask me or others in the GA project. We can answer questions and I'm sure some of us will even help make improvements. We understand the criteria, and while most of us aren't inclined to improve the articles we come across that aren't topics of interest to us, we are happy to help those who request it of us. Our process, however, is one of checks and balances. The sweeps process involves the project's most experienced reviewers, and they are working with the best interests of the project in mind. LaraLove|Talk 16:30, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

For the second, I don't know how many weeks it has been since it was delisted, but it's still not improved, so it would appear it does not fall in the "can be improved in a week" category either. If that refers to the Same-sex marriage in Canada article, you are wrong. It could easily have been fixed in a week. It was not, however, because the main contributors to it don't seem to care. If you look at the list Nehrams provided at Talk:Same-sex marriage in Canada, you will see that I was able to knock off a lot of the work in two sittings. I didn't bother to do it because, again, it is not a high priority article for me. As I have stated numerous times now, it is more likely that those missing editors would have stepped-up if they had been warned the article would be delisted. As long as I am repeating myself, I will say again that it is not fair to delist an article that passed under the old criteria without providing a chance to improve without going through GAN. If the article is so weak it would no longer pass even under the old criteria, then it certainly makes sense to just delist, but when it is a question of a change in the rules by which articles are judged, it only makes sense to allow editors a chance to make the appropriate changes. Finally, doesn't it take two, a nominator and a disinterested reviewer, to promote to GA?

I didn't read the second or look at the review. I can go do that if you so wish. The first one didn't meet the criteria at the time it was reviewed. If no one is bothering to improve your article, I doubt it would have made much of a difference if they were given a week before it was delisted. This comes back to watchlists. If it's not on their watchlist, they probably don't care. And for nominations, articles are often nominated by one of the authors. So, for example, I don't count myself as a party in any of my listed GAs, and I've never nominated an article I didn't work to bring to GA. So I suppose you can say that some GAs go from two opinions, but there is still only one reviewer, unless a second opinion is requested.

All this seems unnecessary. I'll go look over your article. LaraLove|Talk 19:02, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay. The article was promoted without review in 2006, and it arguably fail to meet the criteria at that time, which was weak at best. The editor who tagged the article as a GA, which was done the day after it was nominated, had previously worked on the article, his first edit to it two months before. The thirty-four points of needed improvement, detailed by the reviewer who delisted it, do not leave the realistic impression that the article could be improved in a week.

Both of these articles are clear examples of those that needed to be delisted. The point of sweeps is to ensure that the GA project is of the best possible quality. This is not to say that articles that don't meet the criteria are not good. Just as articles that fail to meet the FA criteria are, at times, still impressive. It is simply that articles such as these, which have had much good work put into them to make them informative and educational, but have not yet been polished, leaving them with many issues to be corrected in order to meet the GA standards, should not remain listed. It does not look good for the GA project, or Wikipedia, for articles of such quality to be tagged as GAs. Surely they can be improved and renominated, but clearly they need some attention before that. And they must be maintained. LaraLove|Talk 19:38, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I've stated to others before, if you don't have your GAs on your watchlist, you obviously have no concern with maintaining their quality

Oh, you have got to be kidding me.

I've written thousands of articles on the Wiki. Thousands. Real articles, articles where I have to track people down and get them to mail me documents because they pre-date the internet. I've been sent articles, papers and images from major physics labs that normally don't even talk to the outside world. I've tracked down the inventors of various devices so I could be sure my explanation of how the devices worked was correct. I've even gone to other cities to get out-of-print books to further add to my collection of references. Dozens of my articles have ended up on the front page. My watchlist has so many articles on it it has been rendered absolutely useless because of the continual stream of edits that overwhelms it.

And you presume to tell me that all of this came about because I "don't care"? Wow!

Maury (talk) 19:03, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

That's impressive. However, my words were that you care about maintaining your GAs if you don't have them watchlisted. It was around five months before you realized this article had been delisted, right? GAs need to be maintained. If you're unable to do so, it shouldn't be taken out on others who are trying to improve the GA project and Wikipedia after they remove an article that is far from GA quality. LaraLove|Talk 20:13, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposal

Here is what I propose:

Immediate-delist of GA articles should only be used when the original GA clearly fails the GA[C/N] at the time the article was promoted. Examples include editors upgrading the article to GA status without a GAN, GA promotions in spite of a fail in the GAN, etc.

In all other cases a delist should go to GAR. Examples include changes to the GAC after the GA was granted, one GA reviewer's opinion over another's that it met it in the first place, etc.

Maury (talk) 19:12, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I've put a header above this to hopefully draw greater attention to the proposal.

Personally, as I've stated above, I don't see a need to change the current procedure. Such delists are already reserved for cases where the article is far from meeting the standards. In the case that brought this discussion up, it's borderline of whether or not the article met the criteria in place at that time, as it was vague criteria, open to interpretation. However, IIRC, it did not receive a review, so it would still have met the delist criteria of this proposal.

As to Maury, I'm sorry this has been stressful for you. I hope you don't take it as a slight against your work. Obviously, you have put a great deal of time into improving and expanding Wikipedia, and that is awesome. We're simply trying to improve the GA project and ensure that all listed GAs meet the standards. We don't wish to delist articles, and it is always our hope to see them improved so they may retain their GA status. There is a checks and balance system, so that if an article is delisted and able to be improved within a week, the delist can be contested at GAR and overturned. This all seems sufficient. Of course, this is just one editor's opinion. LaraLove|Talk 20:13, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Such delists are already reserved for cases where the article is far from meeting the standards

The threshold should be, as is the case in other deleted/de-promote/etc. rules, that the when there is the slightest doubt, then you don't use the immediate delete/delist etc. This is a standard across the entire Wikipedia, implemented to avoid precisely the sort of editor/bureaucrat argument we're having here.

If an article made GA in the past, and it wasn't due to broken rules or a failure of admin oversight, then it falls under "slightest doubt" pretty much automatically. It doesn't make a difference if the article is complete pants (or simply "not good"); if it "legally" got GA, then the only course of action is to "legally" remove it. The rules posted on GAR are extremely clear on this: an individual reassessment starts with GAR.

I should point out that the only remaining "quick fail" criterion I can find applies to articles on the GAN. I cannot find any policy on quick fails for articles that have already received GA. If there is some other policy, and it's not the historically orphaned one, then the discussion of the exact wording change needs to start there.

Maury (talk) 21:30, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

GAR is for those cases where there is some doubt in the mind of the reviewer or a desire to challenge the decision by an editor. It is not a clearing house for delisted GAs. There are very clear cases where an article is so far away from the present GA standard—it doesn't matter what the standard was when it was passed—that it clearly ought not to retain its listing. Nevertheless, even in those clear-cut cases, it's the reviewers duty to leave a clear and detailed explanation of what the problems are. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:04, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

To expand on Malleus' comment, to place an article at GAR that is far from meeting the standards is a waste of time for those who review GAR articles. Sweeps reviewers are some of the projects best, most trusted reviewers. The list of needed changes they leave should be fully sufficient for anyone with the desire to adequately improve the article. Articles are posted at GAR for one reason: To question the actions of an editor. Either in their listing, delisting, or failing of an article. In cases where it is clear the article is beyond a point where it can be quickly improved, it is not appropriate to ask multiple editors to take their time to review the article. Once again, if such an article is delisted, and someone manages to improve it within a week, then the article should be listed at GAR and the decision potentially overturned. Otherwise, we risk cluttering GAR with article reviews that are unnecessary. LaraLove|Talk 04:06, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Once again you are arguing that GAR is, as you put it, a "waste of time". However, you have also have repeatedly stated that GAR is the solution to use if the article is delisted during the sweeps. Obviously one of these two statements is untrue, and considering all the fightin' and a feudin' that avoiding GAR has caused, it seems pretty obvious that GAR workload is not terribly germane. Once again I feel the need to point out the fact that the Wikipedia is here for the articles, not the critics, so if we have to choose between increasing workload for reviewers (an undemonstrated point BTW) or the editors, then there's really no argument is there?

Further, I still can't find any current policy that states there is a quick-fail policy for existing GAs, although all of the members of GA/PQRF continue to "quote" it. I see a proposal for such a system from some time ago, now abandoned, and current policy that applies only to the GAN list. So I ask again, where is the current quick-fail policy stated?

I'm sure you'll both point me to Wikipedia:GAPQ/S, but given that it was created by the members of the GA/PQRF, doesn't follow official policy, and isn't being followed anyway, I consider it to be non-canonical. We don't get to write our own laws to suit us, which appears to be what happened here.

Maury (talk) 13:45, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

You seem to be deliberately misunderstanding what you are being told. Nobody has said that GAR is a waste of time. What has been said is that it's a waste of time and effort to take an article that is clearly very far short of the current GA criteria to GAR. FYI, the quick-fail criteria are here. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 17:23, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Yea. I don't really have much else to say. I believe I explained it pretty clearly, but I suppose I can attempt to clarify further. The quick-fail criteria apply whether the article is a GAN or one that is currently listed. It doesn't matter. These articles waste the time of reviewers at GAR because there is absolutely no reason a group of reviewers need to go over an article that's already been reviewed and delisted as a clear fail by an experienced reviewer. That's not what GAR is for. Improve the article and renominate it. It's that simple. LaraLove|Talk 17:34, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

And FYI, if you look at {{FAC-instructions}} instructions. On the first step of Nomination procedure, it says "Before nominating an article, ensure that it meets all of the FA criteria and that peer reviews are closed and archived." You see, there is quick-fail in FA, just that it's not enforced. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 20:08, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I don't know about that. I've seen some articles get blown out of FAC in pretty short order. If an article falls way short of the criteria—which is what we're talking about with quick-fails here—it won't make old bones at FAC. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 20:23, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

The quick-fail criterion everyone is referring to is talking about articles during GAN. There is nothing in that section that has to do with articles already on GA. And example is offered to suggest that the FA works the same way, yet the language in question also clearly refers to articles before they become FA -- "Before nominating an article..." I thank Ohana for demonstrating my point so effectively.

The same GA "reviewing" document quoted above does have a section on Delisting articles which talks about what to do when you "come across an article which no longer meets the criteria". I hope everyone agrees that this is what we're talking about here. The "Delisting articles" section sends the reviewer to these criterion, where they clearly state that the article should be placed on GAR in these cases.

So again, if someone can point to the official policy on quick-failing articles after they have received their GA, please do so.

Maury (talk) 12:38, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I think everyone is probably becoming exasperated with the circular nature of this discussion; I know that I am anyway, so this will be my last word on the matter. The instructions to GA sweeps reviewers quite clearly state: "Review the articles against the criteria as you would an article listed at WP:GAN or WP:GAR ... In the case of a clear failure to meet the criteria, remove the article from WP:GA". Here. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 13:27, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

You refer to the sweeps procedure that was created by the very reviewers here in this thread. The one that states that "It is polite to first notify article editors of your intentions and give them a chance to respond (a day should be enough)", even though all of the complaints here in this page are a result of these ad-hoc rules not being followed. The same one that states "In the case of minor issues, issues which can be easily addressed, try to fix as many problems as you can, list any remaining issues on the talk page, then allow editors seven days to address them", yet failed numerous articles that could be corrected in minutes?

So, a selected team of GA/PQTF got together and created new rules that are in opposition to official policy, felt free to ignore these rules whenever it didn't suit the reviewer, and dismiss any complains about the process or the fact that it wasn't being followed by insulting the editor as being "lazy". Wow, how could anyone possibly get upset over that?

It appears the wagons have been circled, so I'm open to suggestions on how to break the logjam. 3rd opinion perhaps?

Maury (talk) 14:18, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I"m sorrry, but this has gotten ridiculous. Everything on this site was created by editors of this site. So to say that these pages are irrelevant or invalid or whatever because I created them, and because I'm participating on this page, is unfair. The quick-fail criteria used for GANs are the same criteria we follow for sweeps. You're asking for policy pages of a wikiproject. That doesn't make sense. I don't see the point in adding a line to the quick-fail section that says they can also be applied when reviewing current GAs, but if that is indeed necessary, then it's a change we can make.

You bring up "articles that could be corrected in minutes" yet you provide no examples. There have been no articles quickly delisted that could have been fixed in minutes. If that were the case, they would have been fix, listed at GAR and quickly relisted. Neither of the articles mentioned in this long discussion have been improved. Both were far from meeting the standards, and neither needed to remain listed. There has been no abuse here. Only a lot of wasted time. Improve the articles and renominate them if you so wish. If you feel they were inappropriately delisted, you can list them at WP:GAR, though, as noted above, they are clearly below standards. As Malleus, I am not commenting further here. I can run laps at the gym. LaraLove|Talk 18:47, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Well clearly we are at an impasse here. I am not happy with the outcome, and am open to any suggestions on way to move this process forward. Third Option is reasonable, but tries to limit itself to one-on-one. Mediation Cabal perhaps? Maury (talk) 00:30, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Whatever. Knock yourself out. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 01:16, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

GA community input requested

A proposal to make some changes to the way we review Good Article nominations is currently under discussion at Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations#GA review reform. All interested editors are invited to participate. EyeSerene^talk 11:01, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup templates on GA pages

• Wikipedia:Good articles/Cleanup listing Ling.Nut.Public (talk) 08:28, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Article to be evauluated for GA

Not sure if this is the right page to be asking, but I would like to request that the PlayStation Home article be evaluated for GA. Thanks. JDC808 (talk) 02:14, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

The place to go is WP:GAN: check out the instructions for nominations there. Geometry guy 19:59, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Lack of targeted notice

I just discovered Trabancos River had been delisted. I am not here to complain about that but about the lack of targeted notice. In this case, I might or might not have been able to make the fixes suggested, but I was not aware of the GA review on the article's talk page until after the delisting (I have a few thousand pages on my watchlist as many users do). It would be absurdly easy to target notice by dropping a message on the major contributor or few contributors' talk pages in association with each review. A standard message could be:

I have reviewed [[ARTICLE NAME]] as part of a GA review sweep and left a message on the article's talk page regarding issues found. Please note that if the issues are not addressed over the next week, the article may be delisted. Thanks.--~~~~

All one needs to do to find the major contributor(s) of an article is to use the Wikipedia Page History Statistics tool. In the case of Trabancos River you would have found that I made 177 edits, another other user made 60 edits, and no one else made more than 8. I think this sweep process is a very good idea but I imagine many other article contributors will find themselves also scratching their heads, after the fact. Note the difference between this and a GA review. With regard to the latter, a major contributor has made a request and should be expecting a review on the article talk page. Here, it may be years since an article was promoted. The major contributors may not notice the page on their watchlists, and they may only stop by every few days and barely check their watchlists, when they do. Tripping the angry orange message bar is many times over more likely to provide notice, and possibly trigger action on the issues raised in the assessment which might avoid the need for delisting. Note also one psychological issue. A user is more likely to address problems raised if they think they can avoid delisting, than they are to take action (or quick action) if they know there is no deadline in place, but that they must go through the rigamarole of relisting at GA after addressing issues. I would think the impossible-to-attain but actual goal to shoot for here, is to get action on every GA so that none are delisted. I think this is crucial to foster that goal --Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:48, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

The instructions point out that the main contributors/WikiProjects should be contacted. For the most part the reviewers have done well contacting editors/projects, especially recently. If you saw who reviewed the article, send them a message to remind them of the instructions to prevent this from occurring in the future. Thanks for letting us know. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:10, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I delisted this article back in 2008. I do not now recall who I notified of the review, but usually I would notify any interested projects plus any significant contributors who appeared to be still active. If in this case I failed to do that then I can only apologise.

If the issues I raised in the sweeps review are addressed and the article is renominated at GAN then I will undertake to review it as a matter of priority. --Malleus Fatuorum 01:12, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Aha! My mistake. I visited the article talk page because I saw an edit on my watchlist today with the edit summary "GA delisted" and thus first discovered the delisting, despite the passage of time. Obviously, I failed to look at the time stamp on the assessment, and thought the delisting was a recent event, given the edit summary and my knowledge that this sweep was in progress. Well, my entire post above is a non sequitur springing from my own misunderstanding. Slapping my forehead hard, I remain, and my user name takes on special significance here...--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:43, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

For the record, I just checked my talk page history and I was not informed, but it's not a problem (unless you tell me you're not human, in which case I will choose a different standard to hold you to). Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:58, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Congratulations to the sweepers. and thoughts

I see that the sweep list is clear of everything apart from GAHs. Even if some of you recharge your batteries quickly, could I suggest that everyone pauses at least until the end of the year before considering another sweep.

First, the whole unreferenced BLP business means that a lot of people are being drummed into one article improvement drive and probably don't want to be distracted by another.

In the mean time, there are various review or assessment pages with backlogs which could use your skills. I know that there are plans for a WP:GAN backlog drive next month which is the most obvious place for GA Sweepers to go next. However, the people at WP:FLC are finding it takes longer than they would like before they have enough opinions to close assessments. WP:PR, WP:DYK and WP:FAC might also appreciate input.

As far as other GA improvements are concerned, I noticed today that at the bottom of WP:GA there is a link to Wikipedia:Good articles/Cleanup listing. It seems rather odd having a page saying "These are some of our better articles. Oh and a lot are tagged as needing improvements." It might be worth removing the link and attaching it to this task force's page

The cleanup listing is several months old and I suspect (and hope) that most of the 1000-odd articles listed there have been swept since the list was generated. While I'm against another sweep, it might still be worth getting the bot to generate a new listing, to see how many articles are left. Project members might then check whether anything can be easily fixed, whether any tags are mistaken or unimportant and then review the rump.--Peter cohen (talk) 14:14, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure there will ever be the appetite to try something like sweeps again, certainly not from me anyway. --Malleus Fatuorum 14:56, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Heh. I was only active in the early part of the process (and kept meaning to come back and do 2was sure I was on 48 :P 6 more just to get to 50, but looks like I missed the boat). Congratulations to everyone anyway :) EyeSerene^talk 15:23, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I'd have to echo Malleus Fatuorum's thoughts, I don't think many are eager to jump into Sweeps again. Hopefully many of the cleanup listing articles have already been dealt with, but in extreme cases, the articles can always be brought to GAR. A new listing could be helpful for those interested though. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 02:40, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I got involved because of the "green dot in mainspace" argument, but that all seems such a long time ago now. Never again. --Malleus Fatuorum 04:02, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. I'm assuming another discussion will be started about it in the coming weeks. I think I joined Sweeps to help review a few articles on the side while reviewing GANs. Unfortunatley the problem I have of needing to finish things I start meant that I reviewed way more than a few... --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 05:13, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Past, Present, Future

I'm sorry to interrupt, but...

There should be a button on the bottom of every article that says "Read to completion" or something. You could trace your browsing history more intimately. Study the patterns in the progression of thought patterns. I believe an implementation of this should be simple... However, how much more data would that cost? Is it too much? Or can only those who risk going too far find out how far they can really get?

Cool beans Nineball (talk) 02:35, 5 January 2011 (UTC) all you

What does that have to do with this project? Perhasp you should post at WP:PUMP Jezhotwells (talk) 16:30, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Stable version / against article rot

I want to spread the word about a new template that I have discovered, which may someday help take on the problem of article rot (the loss of quality in previously good articles), and at the very least, preserve the good articles in an accessible fashion. Essentially, when people find that a page has achieved a good, stable position, they may mark the permanent link as such on the talk page. It is unobtrusive, does not affect the editing of the article, and does nothing permanent (the permanent link ID can be updated, as warranted). I personally think this is a wonderful idea, and am trying to get the word out. I post this here, because most articles that is found to meet the "good article" criteria would probably be logical choices for marking stable versions. It's a brand new idea, so I don't know if it's going to take off or not, but I thought I'd let y'all know. Falconus^{p t c} 16:42, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

{{ArticleHistory}} already includes a version id that the person promoted the GA can (and should) enter. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 23:02, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

The difference is that the {{Stable version}} allows more flexibility. If an article hasn't made GA yet, but still looks pretty good, you can record that version. Similarly, if an article has been GA for a while and there is a more recent version that is as good as or better than the one that got GA that can be recorded.

Yaris678 (talk) 17:06, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Applying for good article status

Hello, I'm likely not in the correct location, but can you tell me how I can ask for an article to reviewed for Good Quality? This would be the Mozilla Firefox article. I know the article is not at good quality status, we just need some insight as to how we can improve the article. Thanks, Trewyy (talk) 19:42, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Good articles without topic parameter

Hey folks! I stumbled upon Category:Good articles without topic parameter as its the Backlog of the Week. I've been going through and adding topics to a number of these, but it seems like most of them became GAs in the last year and were given a subtopic. However, that subtopic didn't automatically place the article in the parent topic or remove it from the category "Good articles without topic parameter". I've never been involved with the GA process, so I'm not sure if there's some reasoning behind this, or if this is undesired behavior. Thoughts? Thanks! Ajpolino (talk) 22:58, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Art and architecture

Adding Arts to topic= doesn't do anything. Also, shouldn't this be split at least into Music, Architecture, Fine arts and sculpture and Other arts related. The topic doesn't immediately come to mind for music articles, at least — Iadmc♫^talk  23:37, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Joining the task force

Hey all, just writing it to find out what I can about A) learning more about the task force, what to look for as an editor, and B) possibly joining the task force! Been reading through the page but wanted to get some feedback from task force members. Thanks! PcPrincipal (talk) 15:50, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Anyone opposed to marking this historical?

It looks like this page isn't used any longer. Anyone opposed to marking it with {{Historical}} and de-linking it from the sidebar at Wikipedia:Good articles? Ajpolino (talk) 21:27, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

 Done This appears to be uncontroversial. A hat tip to the positive collaboration that happened here. Further questions should probably go to WT:GA or Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations. Cheers. Ajpolino (talk) 18:59, 18 February 2020 (UTC)