Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Good articles

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[edit] Recording sweeps

Updating it after you've done a sweep would be quite easy, just putting your date-stamped signature over any previous recorded mark. Hopefully this will make coordination a bit easier. Should it be put at the talk page for WP:GA? Or is this the best place for it?

I have linked the current location for the sweeping chart on the new open tasks template for the project. TheGrappler 02:40, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

On reflection, maybe it should have a subpage on the WikiProject, a bit like /General? TheGrappler 16:48, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I moved the list here Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/sweep list so it doesn't take space here on the wikiproject talk page. It is also on the main wikiproject page in the tools section. Tarret 20:34, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:WGA

I thought it would be an idea to set up a shortcut to the WikiProject - WP:WGA was unclaimed, and it seems pretty unambiguous. TheGrappler 16:48, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Fail"

I think the use of the word "fail" throughout Wikipedia:Good articles/Nominations and in the template names is a bit strong. It may imply to the casual Wikipedia reader that the article is actually bad ("this article was nominated as a good article but failed" would not be much of a leap to "this is a bad article" in many minds I'm sure). I'd suggest some softer language be used. As I see it, this process is supposed to be a "win win" situation (editors either see their article "promoted" or get some valuable feedback; there should be no such thing as "fail"). --kingboyk 18:11, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, "fail" might not be the best of wording... at the very least, we should continue to make sure that casual readers don't see too much unwarranted negative language. For example, {{FailedGA}} alreasy uses neutral language; I think the fact that it technically has "fail" in its name isn't really so much of a problem. Melchoir 02:01, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
I reviewed 3 articles and failed them, using "PASS/FAIL" for each section mentioned in WP:WIAGA. Maybe I should have used YES/NO/ALMOST...? Bugmuncher 13:47, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Introduction

I have listed as one of the aims of the project, improving articles to good status. I believe this is actually one of the things this project does - the aim of constructive comments in reviews of articles that don't currently meet the criteria is precisely to bring them up to the criteria! Also, I know that in borderline cases, I have actually helped out (copyedits, providing images or sorting out image copyright status), and I am sure others are the same. I couldn't have done that without the help of WP:GA.TheGrappler 22:30, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project Page

I added a box to the wikiproject page to add a bit more color. It was adapted from the Wikiproject Tropical Cyclones. I hope it makes the wikiproject stand out more. Tarret 19:50, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Great job! --Siva1979Talk to me 19:55, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
I have to say I don't think this is a good idea. Tastes vary, and I may be the only one but to me it does not look visually appealing at all. I prefer to just stick with the standard way pages look. Worldtraveller 21:12, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm going to agree with this. The page doesn't look too bad, but I feel its structure is confusing, and it makes it more difficult to edit.  -- Run!  22:14, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Daughter project Unreferenced GA

Following suggestion, I've set up a daughter project that will be concerned specifically with articles that are well-written and illustrated, but lack references. I feel that these are a particular quality concern for Wikipedia, and should be given proper attention. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 22:07, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Passing and Failing

I only began to review articles last night, and I've done three of them. What I'm noticing so far is that it's a lot easier to fail an article than it is to pass one. Is this normal? I don't want to be a person that says "no" all the time, but of the three I reviewed, only one appeared to be even close to GA criteria... and none of them had leads that described the article. Bugmuncher 13:53, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

No, I think this is good. I probably pass about a third of the articles I review, I'd guess. GA standards are only as high as those of the most lenient reviewer, and the comments you leave when you fail an article are probably the most useful part of the process, so don't be afraid to fail nominations! Obvious things like inadequate leads, lack of references, untagged images should definitely be picked on. Keep up the good work! Worldtraveller 14:10, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] TfD nomination of Template:Gan-fail

Template:Gan-fail has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. TheJC TalkContributions 22:35, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My 2 cents.

Firstly, I think you should read my ideas at Wikipedia_talk:Good_articles/Nominations#Good_Article_Drive_and_other_suggestions. Please respond there.

Secondly, I have sent two articles - Yahoo! and NeoPets to Wikipedia:Peer review. I am sure that if the peer review is successful, these articles can definitely become Good Articles. Please go to Peer review and give your comments regarding these articles. If you have sufficient expertise on the subject of the articles, we could collaborate to improve these articles into Good Articles.

Lastly, it looks like many people confuse the Good Articles WikiProject with the Good Articles proccess. We should make the distinction clear.

Just my 2 cents.

--J.L.W.S. The Special One 03:11, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit]  ??? What's the Point ???

I mean really, why do we have the good articles??? Personally I think its a great idea but is there any point when half the users don't even know about good articles. It seems myself and a few others have lost the battle for a sign in the top right hand corner of articles and it seems there will never be a link on the main page or the navigation bar so why do we bother??? Can somebody please explain the point of good articles (make it a good explanation or the rant will continue!!!).--Childzy 18:33, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Here's a couple:
  • It is the largest article assessment programme currently operating on Wikipedia. Article assessment is vital.
  • It encourages higher standards across many more articles than are able to pass through the FA process. By the end of this year, at the rate it's going, there should be about twice as many GAs as FAs.
  • The more articles that meet the GA criteria, the more people will come to know about GA and will strive to make their articles meet the criteria.
  • It provides great assistance to people compiling CD and other releases of Wikipedia material.
GA is still a very young process but it's becoming more and more established, and more and more useful as well, and I'd like to thanks the many people who are doing great work reviewing articles and making the process run efficiently. Worldtraveller 19:29, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks you've proved my hidden point Good articles are vital to wikipedia so why cant we have our link in the navagation bar or a sign on the articles--Childzy (Talk|Clarets) 19:47, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I think it has something to do with some, well, silly argument about this horrible, horrible thing called "metadata" which, from the way its detractors seem to make it sound, makes it come out to almost be like little viruses which destroy anyone's reading experience for any article it touches, though im not exactly certain yet how this is possible. I don't think it has much to do with GA itself. Homestarmy 20:16, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Homestarmy's right - there's no sign just because it's metadata, and that's to be avoided. The FA star shouldn't exist either. I'm tempted to delete it - Raul654 deleted the GA star that previously existed even though a TFD discussion hadn't endorsed it, because he said it was against policy - he could equally delete the FA star but hasn't done.
Has anyone asked for a link in the navigation bar? GA is still young, as I say, and it has its critics (at least one of whom has a completely irrational hatred of it and accuses any link to it of being 'spam'), so personally I don't mind waiting for that - say once we have 2,000 GAs we could lobby for it. Worldtraveller 20:21, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok fair enough say when we get a few more we can ask.--Childzy (Talk|Clarets) 20:56, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New proposal

Featured Articles and Good Articles are both Wikipedia processes to recognize quality articles. I created a proposal for greater co-ordination and integration between the two processes, so that both processes will be more successful in their aim of recognizing quality articles. Please read and participate in the discussion on the village pump. Thanks. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 13:48, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sweeps

I've been doing a bit of reviewing lately and kind of like it. So I signed on to the project. I'd like to know what all goes into a sweep. Does it include looking for the GA cat on the main page or on the article page? If so, do I record that, too? --CTSWyneken(talk) 14:10, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quality standards question

While looking at articles that have failed GA nominations, I noticed that many of the articles failed due to the fact that there were no citations (criteria 2). I then looked at some articles that passed and noticed some did not cite any sources. When I looked at the article history, I found at least 3 articles did not go through the nomination procedure. Someone came by and just slapped on the GA template on the talk page. The editors of the article did not even comment. I delisted the 3 articles leaving a message in each talk page to add citations and resubmit through the nomination procedure. I pause now because I am wondering if this is the proper thing to do. Were these articles given GA status under different criteria in the past? --RelHistBuff 11:46, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I just made a quick check through one category of GA articles (which includes the 3 I noted above). I found at least 7 more articles that do not satisfy the standards and did not go through nomination. That's a total of 10 out of 50 articles in the category or 20%! One article was given GA status anonymously (IP address only), two were given GA by article contributors, and one even caused some surprise among the article editors when they saw the GA template (they noted that the article wasn't really good enough yet)! This is a bit worrisome. The number of GAs may be increasing, but if 20% never went through the assessment process, then that devalues the status of GAs. Is there any admin process being done to clean this up? --RelHistBuff 12:39, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree that there's a problem, just yesterday I came across a clearly failing article myself that was put on the list, it's on the disputes page now though because somehow someone can't tell that it isn't NPOV :/. What happened was, we used to do sweeps through the list every so often and delist stuff that failed, but I don't think anyone's done that in awhile. Patrolling the list from time to time is probably a good idea, and don't worry, you did the right thing to delist if they failed the critera. Homestarmy 16:22, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia talk:Good article candidates#Quality standards. Slambo (Speak) 17:27, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Came across a situation where an article was "nominated" by a listing on GAC, but the nomination template was never placed on the talk page. One of the regular editors was surprised to find a GA-failed template appear suddenly, and would like to remove the template. Is this OK? Gimmetrow 21:52, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Passenger vehicles in the United States under review

Dear members of WikiProject Good articles,

I would like to draw your attention to this article and the review request that has been placed concerning its promotion to GA. I believe this case might create an important precedent as to the interpretation of the GA criteria, so your participation is vital. Please note that people direclty involved in the editing of the article and the previous discussion on its talk page have been asked not to participate, so the future of this and similar nominations depends solely on your opinions.

Thank you, Bravada, talk - 23:24, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

That's rather unusual, the disputes page is open to everyone for comment. (Unless, you know, your banned from editing or something) Homestarmy 01:55, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
I just did not want to repeat the same discussion we already had, and couldn't find consensus. The review request was put up to gather external opinions on the subject. What is yours? Bravada, talk - 02:15, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fair Use Rationale essential for GA?

Just want to check if I'm doing this right. My understanding is that images need to be tagged correctly if used in an article that's trying to get GA status. By tagged correctly this means for a Fair Use image, it will need the correct copyright template, the exact website address it was taken from and a full fair use rationale. However I noticed some of the FU images in Lancia Flaminia for example don't have the Fair Use rationale. Have I been too harsh citing one reason for failure as the lack of this? Alexj2002 08:57, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Just to make sure - you failed Lancia Kappa. Lancia Flaminia does exhibit the same problems, but this is a GA already and I think it does fulfill the other criteria, so I'd rather work on getting some free pics rather than writing lenghty rationales if that's OK with you. Moreover, I think that if the lack of FA rationales is the only reason to fail a GA, I believe the reviewer can just remove the images and promote the article placing a notice on the talk page, as this is basically exactly what the nominator should do to successfully renominate and it spares some fuss - this is not applicable in the case of the Kappa, just a general thought. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bravada (talk • contribs).
...wait a moment, this is not my WikiProject! Why do I have it on my watchlist then...? Bravada, talk - 10:43, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
I've found that, if the article is worthy in other respects, that leaving a note saying the tags need to be fixed before promotion and putting them on hold to be done will often get them fixed. Now, if it has a bunch of other probs, I fail it and note the path to fixing the article. --CTSWyneken(talk) 12:14, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the advice. If the images are the only problem I'll put it on hold and leave a message with the nominator and on the article talk page. Lancia Kappa had a few other problems Bravada, hence why I didn't think it deserved to be a GA yet. Alexj2002 13:25, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I am perfectly aware of that and neither do I believe it is even remotely worthy of being a GA. Btw, thanks for being so courteous to leave me a note on my talk page :D Regards, Bravada, talk - 19:18, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reliable Sources for GA articles

I'm currently having a discussion with some members of the Wikiproject Poker about reliable sources, namely the use of a personal website to serve as the primary source for biographies. The discussion is going on Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources and on the particular article's talk page Talk:Ram Vaswani. I'd be interested in the thoughts of other GA reviewers since one of the poker project members seems to think my concern about reliable sources is "reinventing the wheel". Agne 02:10, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

A personal website is not a "good" source, (WP:V) so therefore, I would say it would not count for an article being well-referenced. Homestarmy 13:03, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Hi. I do not believe that the reference site in question is a personal website. The Wikipedia definition, for example, indicates that a personal website cannot be used for commercial purposes. As the site in question is used in part for commercial purposes, then I feel the personal website argument is not valid. Furthermore, the website is owned by a company rather than a person. Essexmutant 17:05, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
As Vaswani is one of the owners of the Herndon Mob site, the site qualifies as Wikipedia:Reliable Sources#Self-published sources in articles about themselves. You're right, Agne. Self-published material should always be reported as the POV of the publisher, and not as general fact, until such time as there is independent corroboration of that material. Similarly, references from the New York Daily News would be considered of limited value in an article about Rupert Murdoch. In general, if a self-published source is reliable, then other reliable sources will cite it. Until then, it should be avoided. ClairSamoht - Help make Wikipedia the most authoritative source of information in the world 21:28, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA Re-Review and In-line citations

In light of the changes in WP:WIAGA relating to in-line citations and the on-going GA re-review, I am being bold and going through all the current GA's that do not have in-line citations and dropping this notice. I am not doing a full review of the articles at this time but figure this will serve as a friendly notice of the change. It is my hope that the article's editors will go through and add the neccessary in-line citations (and any other needed improvement) so that when a GA reviewer does come and give full review, the article will be more likely to pass. I ask that my fellow reviewers hold off on doing that review till at least a week has passed from when I drop this notice on the page. I've directed any questions or concerns to this talk page.

Members of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles are in the process of doing a re-review of current Good Article listings to ensure compliance with the standards of the Good Article Criteria. (Discussion of the changes and re-review can be found here). A significant change to the GA criteria is the mandatory use of some sort of in-line citation (In accordance to WP:CITE) to be used in order for an article to pass the verification and reference criteria. Currently this article does not include in-line citations. It is recommended that the article's editors take a look at the inclusion of in-line citations as well as how the article stacks up against the rest of the Good Article criteria. GA reviewers will give you at least a week's time from the date of this notice to work on the in-line citations before doing a full re-review and deciding if the article still merits being considered a Good Article or would need to be de-listed. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us on the Good Article project talk page or you may contact me personally. On behalf of the Good Articles Project, I want to thank you for all the time and effort that you have put into working on this article and improving the overall quality of the Wikipedia project. Agne 20:16, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

That's a good idea. It's less abrupt than telling editors who are invested in an article that the article might not be a "Good Article" anymore. I had just left a notice on an article that I came across, and I spent a while trying to figure out how to craft the comment. Good job :) --- The Bethling(Talk) 20:30, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Well done on the wording. I've primed the members of WP:TWP about all of the rail transport related articles, and we're in the process of working through them, albeit a bit more slowly than I would have liked. I'll take another look through that section later this week to see what we can do. Slambo (Speak) 20:44, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
What a pisser! Just about every maths article is now on GA review. Looks like we will no longer have any maths GA. (sulk) --Salix alba (talk) 07:13, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
I don't know about that. It looks like most of the articles have the references there, just not cited and attached to the particular claim in the article. The purpose of the review is to elevate compliance with WP:V and to enhance the overall quality of the articles. I don't doubt that most of what is listed in the math GAs are true, it's just not easily verified. Agne 08:33, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
I don't know what to say. In pactice its unlikely that many of these articles will receive the attention needed to get them up to the new standard, Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics is a vast project with 10,000 articles and only a few active editors, only a few of which are particularly concered about the GA/FA standards.
In general we're not overly concerned about inline citations. Much of the matrerial is common knowledge appearing in countless textbooks. The utility of providing inline cites for common mathematical statments is limited, such a set of cites might provide a page numbers in text book A. But in practice the user will have text book B,C or D so the cite has little use. For this sort of information we better serve the reader by saying at the end, you can find references to all the material in this article on one of the following textbooks, as well as most other text books. Indeed its better to refere the reader to a text book which they will need to read the whole of, to be able to understand the cited fact.
Similar concerns have been raised at String theory [1] and Special relativity [2]. These articles all share the same property of being overview articles, summarising a large body of accepted knowledge. Take Calculus the level of mathematics there is absolutely basic, summarising 400 year of mathematics. And there are many sub-articles, where the details are discussed at length.
Yes there are cases where inline cites are appropriate, in cases where they the statements are not common knowledge or are contrivesal. The historical sections tend to have more inline cites, as this material is generally less well know, and sometime contreverals. There are often more debates over who discovered what first than whether a cetain mathematical fact is true or not. --Salix alba (talk) 10:42, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
I guess what is "common knowledge" to one, isn't to others, and I'd be very wary of making a significant exception here, as it could serve as a precedent for other articles. That said, I guess there is no need for inline citations in sectiosn dealing with the mathematical principles and such explicitly, e.g. explaining what a given theory is and how it works, to say so (I have never ever written about maths in English before, please forgive me my awful excuse for a style), but then if you go on to discuss the history, applications and other stuff where you refer to the "real world" and not just mathematical principles (e.g. this and this guy said that, while this guy invented that), a citation wouldn't hurt.
I would also trust the common sense of reviewers - I guess it is quite unlikely that an article would be delisted because e.g. it doesn't provide a citation for the Pythagorean theorem. And in controversial cases, we still have the GA Review to discuss it in a broader group. Bravada, talk - 12:41, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict with Bravada) As the song says, I second that emotion. Claims that X invented Y's Theorem before Y actually published (but lost priority through some intrigue, etc.) should certainly have reliable, inline citations. However, making every math and science article have a footnote for each statement which a person "not learned in the art" does not find obvious would require overhauling, well, every article on math or science which the Wikipedia possesses. And you're not going to be able to convince, for example, physicists to give footnotes for sentences like "two events happening in two different locations that occur simultaneously to one observer, may occur at different times to another observer" (special relativity). Whether or not you think those inline citations are a reasonable thing to require, the people writing the material just aren't in the habit of footnoting what they consider common knowledge.
For a concrete example of this problem, see the recent FAC on Redshift. Anville 12:47, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


Hear, hear, Anville. You are saying eloquently what I've been arguing about all along, the in-line citation requirements are different for different subjects. I think many editors who come into science-related subjects unaware of this are fooling themselves. --ScienceApologist 18:49, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree that in-line citations for non-controversial statements in mathematics articles are not needed - often any book on the subject will contain this information. However, statements which can't be verified from first principles or checked against other technical knowledge, such as historical information, should be cited. In-line citations can also be good for digging deeper into a specific area, even if it is technical and well known. Stephen B Streater 19:13, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category List for notice about In-line citations

I just went through the War and military section and it does take some time. I found that quite a few articles have a very small number of citations but overall would not pass the well referenced criteria. I modify the note a bit for those. If anyone else want to adopt a category to work through, feel free. If Slambo takes Transport that leaves us with

  • Art, architecture and archaeology - Done
  • Awards and decorations - Done
  • Biology and medicine
  • Chemistry and materials science
  • Culture and society
  • Economics and business
  • Education
  • Engineering and technology
  • Food and drink - Done
  • Geography and places
  • Geology, geophysics and mineralogy
  • History
  • Language
  • Law
  • Literature
  • Mathematics - Done
  • Media - Done
  • Music - Done
  • Philosophy - Done
  • Physics and astronomy - Done (Outside of the Hurricanes/Tropical storm articles there are QUITE a few in this cat that are missing in-line cites)
  • Politics and government - Done
  • Psychology - Done
  • Religion - Done
  • Royalty, nobility and heraldry - Done
  • Sport and games-Done (Sheesh. I didn't know there COULD be so many references for Pokemon articles :p)
  • Transport-Slambo? In progress
  • War and Military- Done


How about if you are in the process of notifying the articles w/o or few in-lines, you make a note here and update when that category has been done? Agne 21:11, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

It's a very good idea, and I see it progressing very quickly, but we shouldn't forget about the actual re-assessment of articles according to all WIAGA criteria. I have User:Lincher/GA on my watchlist and no change to it was made since September 20. While current nominations are more or less closely monitored, the list still contains quite many articles that have serious flaws on many accounts, the citation thing notwithstanding. So, I guess if we want to really make the GA status meaningful, we need to deal with that ASAP - with 70 members of the WikiProject, it should be possible to achieve within a reasonable timespan (a month?) Bravada, talk - 15:21, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
I hope to go through the rail transport starting tonight. Slambo (Speak) 15:25, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
I just wanted to note that it might not be the best idea for a member of a given WikiProject to re-review the articles from that field, as he or she might have an inadvertently more "lenient" approach, and there is also a chance he or she has some personal connections to the authors. For example, my main field of "specialization" are automobiles, but I would not like to review automobile GAs, not only because a significant part of them were actually created by me :D , but also because my relations with the authors of the other articles might affect my judgement. Bravada, talk - 15:37, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Point taken. It took me a little while to get my own thoughts together and to read other editors' comments on the issue, but here is my plan of action... For the articles in the rail transport section where I have access to the references used (and as a researcher and an author in this field, my personal library of reference material is constantly growing), I will attempt to format inline citations as appropriate for the article. For articles where I do not have access to the references listed, I will try to find some in my own library that can be added to further verify the facts that are there and only mark those where I cannot add inline citations myself. So, in other words, I'm not just going through on a delisting action, but I plan on working to keep listed articles on the list. Since WP:GAN was created, all of the rail transport articles that I've found to list have gone through the process and were reviewed by other editors (for example, I didn't write ALCO FA, but I put it up for nomination and followed through with the requested edits to get it listed; as another example, I did write California Southern Railroad and I followed the nomination procedures to get it listed). Slambo (Speak) 20:48, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Now that I thought about it more (I am not good at this thinking thing, takes me some time), I guess that since we have agreed that two editors need to give positive reviews for the article to be kept on the list, it wouldn't be that terrible if one of them was a member of the WikiProject, especially given that he or she might have, as you do, access to the sources cited, and perhaps even improve the article on the way. It would just not be proper for a fellow WikiProject member to place a second review - it would be good if the other review would be from somebody from the "outside". Bravada, talk - 21:08, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
I couldn't get as far as I wanted to last night since I ended up replacing SuSE with Kubuntu (very smooth install, BTW), but I did get to updating one article (Graniteville train disaster) early this morning. My work and progress list is at Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Article maintenance task force/GA updates. Slambo (Speak) 13:07, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
I just got through an initial scan looking at the references on these articles. I would say that 11 out of the 85 articles currently on the list still meet the references requirements and use inline citations appropriately (articles that I wrote fall into both categories). There are a few that are severely underreferenced, listing only one reference for what I consider a large block of text, and there are a couple that need better lead sections, and even one with no images. I will be working on these as I can, but if anyone else wants to hop in with additional comments on the work list, please do. Slambo (Speak) 13:55, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I think that this "pre-review" is not helpful at all. Please don't do this any more because it is rather aggravating and more than a bit myopic. --ScienceApologist 18:46, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

It's either this, or we just automatically fail articles on the list which have no inline citations. The debate over including this criteria has been......extensive. Homestarmy 19:16, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
It's not only that (inline citations), although it is important that all articles comply with the new standard (some only need to have a few citations added and that's it), it's mostly about a huge amount of articles were sneaked into the list in the past when the system was less tight and are now quite embarassing and compromising the GA status. All of them need to be reviewed now that we have a more or less stable WIAGA and a sufficient number of people monitoring new nominations, to make sure all articles on the list are really Good Articles. The inline citation thing is just about notifying the editors of articles in advance, so that they could fix that and so that nobody would actually have to delist an article about that - it has been proposed very early when discussing the re-review to prevent any inconvenience to authors of really good GAs that miss inline citations. Bravada, talk - 19:28, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mandating inline citations

The change to Wikipedia:What is a good article? mandating inline citations was not really done under consensus, IMHO. I have changed it back, as explained at Wikipedia talk:What is a good article?. --Kjoonlee 10:48, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Please see the talk page of WP:GAC where most of the discussions concerning this issue took place. RelHistBuff 11:07, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Where specifically? I couldn't find any discussions there. Not even in the archives of the talk page. --Kjoonlee 11:07, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
It's in the WP:GAC talk page and it has been discussed with a lengthly detail and under consensus. Please do not change it. — Indon (reply) — 11:13, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Specific section is Wikipedia_talk:Good_article_candidates#Citation_of_sources_should_be_required_for_GA. RelHistBuff 11:21, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Real problems with heavy-handed members of the GA-project

I have no problems with in-line citations. I love them. Sometimes they are very useful. Good editors use them to comply with WP:V and WP:RS. However, there lately have been some editors that seem to have replaced careful consideration of content and style with a new criterion for evaluation: a simple binary operator that registers if there isn't enough in-line citations according to some arbitrary rule they invented. What this magic number of citations is varies from person-to-person and is really not very interesting to discuss because it is, frankly, an editorially ugly maneuver. I have no probleming saying that a good article should have at least one in-line citation. Almost every article at Wikipedia has at least one unique fact that can be cited. But there are summary style articles written that are so broad, so "common knowledge", that expecting much more than this in terms of bean-counting in-line citations is inappropriate. There is nothing wrong with asking for a citation to a particular fact in an article you are reviewing. There is something wrong with stating that just because an article has only 6 or 4 or 2 inline citations that it somehow isn't a "good" article (or will likely be delisted). And yet I'm informed that it is a concerted project of people in this consortium to do just this, which strikes me as very odd considering that good articles was started to fight against the FA-horror of arbitrary rules. Now there is this group of GA-members who think that they can tell whether an article is potentially "de-listable" or not just by looking at how many inline references they have? Even if they are just doing this as "fair-warning" I have to ask: fair warning of what? That there might be a discussion of GA-review.

Specific requests for inline citations when a reviewer sees one is necessary are much more useful to editors involved than are these vague accusations. I find this kind of activity to be detrimental to the project in general.

If you want to do a general review of GA articles, I think this is great. There are not that many of them, and you could review them all if you'd like over a period of time. Every article in Wikipedia could use some helpful review comments, but this kind of in-line citation fascism has got to end.

--ScienceApologist 18:45, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

If you have any problems with specific delistings, please express them in Good Article Review. If the editor delisted an article simply because it did not contain a specific NUMBER of inline citations, it is surely an invalid review and the article should be relisted ASAP. Bravada, talk - 19:30, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
I totally agree. There is no "magical number" to get. Merely any important claim in the article that needs to be verified per WP:V and to alleviate any WP:OR concerns. This could be a half dozen. This could be 30, 40 whatever. It all depends on the article, content and number of important claims. Agne 19:33, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Then how did you decide to put on notice the articles you cluttered the talkpages with this sort of argument, User:Agne27? You just felt that way today? If there is no magic number, no criteria for putting the articles on notice, yet there are some articles which aren't put on notice, then explain to me why I shouldn't just go ahead and remove your arbitrary notices? --ScienceApologist 20:09, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Agne was being very kind to inform all the editors of Good Articles that might use some inline references that the criteria have changed, and that there is also an impending reassessment of all older GAs, so that editors could have more time to perhaps brush up their articles. I am most surprised to see you angry at her for doing that! Bravada, talk - 20:26, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
And you know, looking at a few of the articles Agne notified, a few seemed to have several editors spring into action, and now several of them seem fine. Homestarmy 21:43, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

It's always good to get people to improve articles, but you need to re-evaluate what you consider the criteria to be if you think that Agne's fly-by-night warnings were based on some sort of objective measure of criterion 2b. If an article has zero inline references, it is fair to say that it fails 2b, but if it has even one, discussion is required to determine whether it lives up to WP:V and WP:RS standards, especially because there are some things that one should not cite according to WP:CITE. --ScienceApologist 22:44, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I completely disagree with the premise here: we see recently-promoted Good Articles every day at FA with woefully inadequate inline citations. Worse, the lack of inline citations often reflect inaccurate, POV, and OR articles. Inline citations are required for GAs, as for FAs, and there are too many GAs being passed without adequate inline citations (among other problems, like not conforming to WP:GTL, WP:MOS], etc.) Sandy 23:09, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Good point - might I ask you to delist articles exhibiting such basic problems as GA, and to notify the reviewer? We are currently re-reviewing them, and some users try to monitor ongoing nominations, but there is still not enough "qualified manpower" to guarantee nothing slips through the cracks, so any help would be invaluable in improving the standards! Bravada, talk - 23:27, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
It would be unpolite of me to delist one that was just promoted last week by a well-meaning reviewer <eek> ... but I encourage some members of the Project here to browse WP:FAC for a couple of weeks to observe some of the articles that come through there waving the GA flag, when they are barely cited. If anything, please try to tighten the citing requirements here, so we don't have "sheep to the slaughter" showing up at FAC thinking they're ready, when the articles aren't even close to fulfilling basic requirments for citations, that would address WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:OR, etc. It would also help over there if reviewers here would take greater care that articles conform to WP:GTL, WP:MOS, and WP:FN (footnote after the punctuation). It is so disheartening to reject articles whose authors thought they were in good shape after GA promotion. Articles that aren't adequately cited are usually that way for a reason: the writing is often inaccurate. Sandy 23:42, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Sandy, may I recommend WP:GA/R if you see an article which you believe clearly fails the criteria but may be disputable? Homestarmy 23:58, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Homestarmy, please do not ironize about being impolite, but do help us! While we might wish all GA reviewers knew all Wikipedia policies and guidelines (and how to apply them) from the outset, practice shows it's best to learn on examples. If I'd pass an article and in a week got a notice saying that my review neglected this or that, I would surely become aware of the that more acutely than by reading the MoS (which is almost unreadable for a common mortal anyway) a few times. I also think that by seeing an article "sent back" for GA/R, we would all learn more about the criteria we might neglect.
Secondly, I believe that the problem here is the misconception that GA is a criterium for FA. It is not, it is a separate process with separate goals and criteria, and many GAs would never become FAs (which is why GA was founded in the first place). Perhaps we need to make it more clear to editors and nominators, so that they wouldn't head with their newly-promoted GAs to FAC and become disappointed. Bravada, talk - 01:56, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
ScienceApologist, I've read through WP:CITE once again just now, and I can't figure out what you mean by "there are some things that one should not cite according to WP:CITE". Are you talking about sources being unreliable? If you can't find a reliable source for what you say, you aren't relieved of the responsibility to provide a source, you are prohibited from including the unverifiable content.
If you "just go ahead and remove your arbitrary notices?", it's considered vandalism. (See "Improper use of dispute tags" in the Wikipedia:Vandalism#Types of vandalism article.) ClairSamoht - Help make Wikipedia the most authoritative source of information in the world 23:53, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] VERY IMPORTANT NOTICE

Dear All,

When re-reviewing articles, please note that we do NOT only re-review them for compliance with cirterium 2b. We re-review them for compliance with the entire WIAGA, and actually since 2b is a new criterion, we need to be a little more forgiving with regard to that, hence the whole idea of warning editors beforehand (which went awry, unfortunately).

So, when you are reassessing the article, please do not concentrate only on references and sources, and leave a full review covering all the aspects of the article that full under specific WIAGA criteria. I have just seen an editor delist an article just because it had its references combined with further reading. This is exactly what will bring thunder and lightning over GA, and will cause even more nasty discussions like the one we are having now.

Please spend a bit more time when re-reviewing (or reviewing for the first time, for that matter) and do leave comments on all criteria, even if one of them is enough to fail the article.

Thanks,

Bravada, talk - 14:19, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

If I tag on a not so important notice here, it might get noticed :-) It's a small issue, but it would be so nice if the GA reviewers would remind editors to correctly place ref tags. It's such a small item, but so unsightly and irritating to fix, and perhaps reviewers aren't aware of WP:FN. Sandy 15:08, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Yup, I guess no mortal human being will ever dig through the entire Manual of Style (which is even self-contradictory at times), but I would advise all reviewers to take a look at the above link, as well as WP:LAYOUT. Those are pretty basic things, and they just stick out to more experienced editors, so sweeping the articles for that can save us some embarassment when a GA we reviewed is then submitted for FAC. Bravada, talk - 15:16, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
The most frequent WP:GTL problems are very common: amounts to making sure the final sections are ordered as 1) See also, 2) Notes, (footnotes - inline cites), 3) References (if separate general refs are given), and 4) some combination of either External links or Further reading, when given. Often, See also - which is Wiki content - is placed last, or Wiki content is placed in Further reading: simple things to fix, and just minor irritants. A frequent WP:MOS problem is repetitious words in section headings or overwhelming, rambling Table of Contents (a tipoff to the possibility of a poorly-structured article :-), so reviewiing that guideline may be helpful. A compact, well-organized TOC offers a good indication the article organization is well thought out. Sandy 16:09, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Hi I just wrote a comment on the special relativity Talk page that the sequence there must be changed, as the "See also" section forces hides the footnotes and references from the immediate view of the reader - "See also" obviously should not be squeezed in-between the article and its notes and references, but belongs with "further reading". Harald88 19:40, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
If an article fails GA criterion, I will fail it - I don't care what any other editor says. I review articles according to what WP:WIAGA says, not some editor. If the criterion isn't there for enforcement, it shouldn't be there at all. LuciferMorgan 19:14, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] In-line citations on Lord Voldemort

Hi WPGA, in attempting to produce in-line citations on the Lord Voldemort article, I figured that Harvard referencing was the most appropriate. However, there are many editions of the Harry Potter books, and thus the page numbers in each vary. I only own one set. Do you suggest just noting from which edition the page numbers come, or would it be better to use the WikiProject Harry Potter templates; for example {{CS|ch=3}} which yields CS Ch.3? Of course, {{HP2ref}} would appear in the references section. Does that suffice? Thanks, --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 19:59, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Edition would probably help make it more reliable, i'd do it that way. Homestarmy 20:29, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Virginia State Route 16 review

Hello, I decided to try my hand at reviewing a request for GA status today for the first time and I'd appreciate it if someone who has some past experience would review what I said about it as the nominator/author of the article is questioning a lot of what I said. The comments I made can be found at Talk:Virginia State Route 16 and then the author has brought discussion to me at User_talk:Metros232#Virginia_State_Route_16. This [3] is the revision of the article I reviewed (since then the user has made one edit to a reference, but that's it as of right now. Any comments would be appreciated, thanks, Metros232 00:18, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmm and considering the user just now called my comments anal retentive [4], any help would be much appreciated right now. Metros232 00:25, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
I apologize if I offended you, but that's the view I now have of this process: removing red links just to make it a "good article", mhen it is better to keep those links for when the articles are written. --NE2 00:27, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure if the Redlinks break the style guides, but their certainly very annoying. I think you made the right call though, the references only seem to apply to the history section alone, that's about one half of a well-referenced article, which just isn't enough in my opinion anyway. Homestarmy 01:04, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
The whole description is from USGS topos. --NE2 05:18, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Oops... I forgot to include that as a source in this article, like I did in others. Fixed. --NE2 17:42, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 13:45, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question @ GA Box Text for Biology Articles

Please see Talk:Charles_Darwin. Is it possible for someone to edit the Good Article box (2nd from the top) to correctly say "a biologist?" I haven't been able to figure out how to do this myself. Thanks so much for your condideration! Keesiewonder 18:14, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Thanks for your reply. I have an inquiry in as you suggested. Keesiewonder 18:14, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Looking for related project page

Was there another page for GA reviewers that had reviewers' areas of interest, and their approximate numbers of GA reviews? I swear I edited a page like that at one time, and now I can't find it. Twinxor t 09:03, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I remember that too, but I don't know where it is either... Homestarmy 14:12, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
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