Latest comment: 10 months ago231 comments27 people in discussion
The process of GAR (i.e. review) nomination process is fundamentally flawed. GAN nominators have to get acquainted with the topic nominated. GAN reviewers have to get acquainted (a bit at least) with the topic reviewed. GAR nominators may act in good faith or to get a sense of personal fulfilment of "doing" something, making others to do something etc. For example, in recent Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/A7 (Croatia)/1 review, the nominator admonished that "The 'Future' section needs to be updated, with some information moved to 'History' and other information updated..." without investing an iota of effort into thinking about what information would have to be moved to 'History'. As it turns out, no new sections of the motorway were added, no 'History' to be updated... Granted, three paragraphs needed citations, but it is not helpful in development of Wikipedia to allow nominators to essentially require others to research a field for they are ignorant but curious. If GAN reviews must specifically say what was checked and found to be lacking in relation to GA criteria, GAR reviews must do the same. If a complaint is vague it should be rejected outright because a vague complaint would not stop a GAN from being promoted. If the GAR nominator was too lazy or ignorant to spell out what is the problem with the offending article in relation to the GA criteria, their complaint must be rejected as unactionable. Tomobe03 (talk) 15:43, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
Your incivility and snark is much more of a problem than a vague review (which I don't agree this was). If you encounter another GAR opener that you think is overly vague, feel free to politely request some specifics. There's no discrepancy between GAN and GAR here, since a GAN reviewer could just as legitimately say something like "Three uncited paragraphs". Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:09, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
The nominator correctly pointed out that there were issues in this article promoted to GA status 15 years ago. You fixed those issues. The article remains a GA. The process worked fine. Don't take it personal. —Kusma (talk) 16:11, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
The alternate scenario, in case anyone is wondering, is that the nominator points out issues, no-one fixes them, the article loses its GA status, and guess what? The process still works. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:23, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
If that is the desired approach, the process would be more efficient if it were automated with every GA nominated by a bot requiring updates and addressing of any maintenance tags added in the meantime (cn, failed verification, clarify, etc.) after a set period. Tomobe03 (talk) 19:14, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
I purposefully keep nomination statements short to avoid WP:TLDR, as I find it is more likely to get a response from an interested editor. I am always happy to add citation needed templates, give more specifics, and re-review articles, or provide a more thorough review if requested (for a faster response, please ping me). I am open to suggestions on how I can improve my process, and will change my procedure if I think it's a good suggestion or there is a consensus established by the GA or Wikipedia community. Let me know if you have any questions. Z1720 (talk) 17:11, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
Z, I've seen a few times that editors facing GAR take issue with the level of detail you go into in your notices because they don't realize you're willing to elaborate. Would you be willing to leave a note in your initial comments saying you're happy to expand if requested? Maybe it'll even be taken as a sign of good faith and solve all our problems of GAR being perceived as hostile... Rollinginhisgrave (talk|contributions) 23:48, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
This discussion has inspired some thoughts of my own about the GAR process, which I feel is generally confusing and off-putting. It looks more like a peer review or an FAR than a GA review, and it seems to rely on people who frequent GAR to go in and fix articles themselves. That is something that I, and I believe many other experienced GA reviewers, am generally not interested in doing. To get an article to GA, editors who are interested in that topic improve the article and then respond to points from an uninvolved reviewer. To keep an article at GA, we often rely on uninvolved GAR people to step in and improve articles that they may not be interested in, which is basically a whole different thing. Is there a reason why GAR is not more like the GA process? Something like this would make more sense to me:
Someone believes a GA no longer meets the criteria, so they start a discussion at the talk page. If there is no response or there is agreement that a GAR would be worthwhile, they nominate the article for GAR and specify which criteria they believe is no longer met. These nominations would be added to the GAN list so all potential reviewers can see them.
An editor can reassess the article, and this would work like a normal GA review. The reviewer assesses the article against the GA criteria and notes what improvements should be made. The person who nominated the article for GAR would be free to do this review if they are not a regular editor of the article. There would be no requirement for the GAR reviewer to do more than a normal GA reviewer.
The original GA nominator, editors who watch the article, and relevant WikiProjects would be notified of the review and the onus would be on them to improve the article to avoid delisting. The GAR nominator and anyone else who is interested would be free to improve the article as well. A second opinion could be required if the nominator does all the work, to avoid rubber stamp GARs.
If there is no response to the reviewer's comments after one month then the article would be delisted. Similar to a failed GA review, there would be an expectation that the reviewer's comments are addressed before someone attempts to nominate that article for GA again. If editors do respond to the GAR and improve the article within a month then the GAR can be closed as keep.
This process would: be consistent with the structure and style of GA reviews; make use of the skills that experienced GA reviewers have; and avoid someone opening a GAR without fully explaining what improvements are needed, since it would just be a nomination until someone picked it up for a full review. For editors who do use GAR to find articles that they can do improvements for, they could still do that by responding to GAR reviews. If no one is interested in improving the article at the time it gets picked up for review, there would be a nice set of instructions left for someone to follow in the future. And for someone who makes major changes to a GA and wants an uninvolved editor to assess whether it now / still meets the GA criteria, they would be able to nominate it for GAR and essentially get a second GA review for the updated version. That, in my opinion, would be a much more positive use of GAR than just picking up articles that are close to delisting and putting in little effort to keeping them at GA.
I have had a look back through the archives to get an idea of what problems there are with the current process. It does seem that a lot of GARs get closed with no work being done. My suggestion would ensure that at least a full GA-level review has been done before any article is delisted. By putting the onus for improvements on article and WikiProject editors we would be reducing the need to plead with GAR watchers to do major work on articles that they are not interested in. And by putting more emphasis on talk page discussions before nomination we would hopefully be reducing the need for GARs overall.
@Adamstom.97: You are describing basically what happens at GAR right now. Many times a GAR is closed without comment because the original GAN nominator is no longer editing Wikipedia and no one else cares enough for the article to retain its status. It's OK that this happens: no article has to be a GA and nobody has to edit Wikipedia. If a GAR required a thorough review like GAN, there would be a lot fewer articles at GAR, causing many articles which do not meet the criteria to remain GAs and not get improvements. My suggestion is this: if an editor wants to prevent a good article from being nominated at GAR, they should check on the article now, and periodically, and ensure that there are no uncited statements, no unreliable sources, and that the information is updated. If an editor wants to work on a GAR, they should indicate their intention on the GAR so that a more thorough review can take place. I am happy to give additional comments if pinged. Z1720 (talk) 21:01, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
You know better than I how it currently works, but I think you are downplaying the differences between the current process and what I am suggesting. You also seem to be one of the main people who is getting articles delisted without any effort put into improving them, so I think you may be a bit biased. I feel it is significant that the current process has no set role for the equivalent of a GA reviewer, which I think would get more experienced reviewers interested in GAR. That in turn could get more responses to reviews since there would be a set structure that is familiar to people. This might not help with responses for articles that nobody is interested in, but it would ensure that there is at least a full review available for future editors to work from in improving articles. These are just suggestions coming from someone who has been put off getting involved in GAR. I don't necessarily expect anything to come of this, but I also didn't think I would be dismissed as if there is no problem with the current system. - adamstom97 (talk) 21:21, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
There are over 40,000 GAs. Wikipedia is a volunteer service. No editor has to work on improving an article, and no article has the right to a GA just because it passed a GA review at some point. Yes, I could improve an article before it gets taken to GAR, but sometimes I do not know the scope of what needs to be done, and sometimes I just don't care about the topic. The articles that go to GAR should not be dependent upon the reviewer's personal interest in trying to research sources and fix up an article beforehand. If it was, there would be an imbalance of article topics at GAR.
I don't think a set structure will get more people interested in reviewing an article, because it will create long reviews with lots of bullet points of work to do. Instead, it will create busy work for the reviewer that won't result in more interest in fixing up the article. Furthermore, there are over 700 GANs waiting for reviewers, which shows how much the community as a whole likes reviewing articles. An interested editor does not need a reviewer to point out how an article does or does not meet the GA criteria: any editor can read the criteria and fix up the article so it adheres to it.
There are many ways to improve the GAR process: my responses are not dismissals, but rather engagement of the points that are made. Disagreement does not mean dismissal, it means that I don't think the idea is tenable. If an editor disagrees, they can state why. I will disagree with suggestions that reviewers need to volunteer their time to improve GAs before opening a GAR: I believe that interested editors should be taking the lead to fix up the article, not reviewers, and if no one is interested in fixing it up the article can be delisted. If editors want their articles of interest to avoid the GAR process, they should go to WP:GA and update their articles. Z1720 (talk) 21:46, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
We already begin the process by starting a discussion on the talk page. We call that discussion GAR. We also have a process where someone does an in-depth check if the article meets the criteria. It's called GAN, which can occur after GAR. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸21:46, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
I see your point, and I sympathise with it, however I think this places too much demand on GAR nominators who are not necessarily interested in improving the article but just want the rating of GA to actually mean something. The current process has no set role for the equivalent of a GA reviewer: I think that's a good thing. Who wants to do a GA review on an article that could easily never be actioned? That would be a very demotivating waste of time. We already struggle to get enough GA reviewers as is. IAWW (talk) 21:46, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
I don't see why GARs need to be closed in thirty days when there are GANs in the queue for over six months. My suggestion as to how to improve the process is that I would like to see the GAR page organised more like the GA one, with the nominations sorted by topic. If we are relying on uninvolved editors to step in and improve articles that they may not be interested in, this would help.
Unfortunately, checking on the article now and then and ensuring that there are no uncited statements and no unreliable sources will not head off GAR. Keeping GAs up to date is not necessary, as the "broad in its coverage" criterion is significantly weaker than the "comprehensiveness" required of featured articles and they do not cover every major fact or detail. The last couple I have been involved in, John von Neumann and Bali Nine, have centred around arguments concerning the GA criteria. The former, an article that in its comprehensiveness could probably pass FAC, involved whether the article went into unnecessary detail, based on a gross misunderstanding of the meaning of "unnecessary detail"; the article was of high importance to several, diverse projects, all of which wanted the information vital to them well covered, but by no means did the article go off topic. (It's unusual organisation allows the reader to go to the subject area they are looking for.) With Bali Nine, there was an argument about whether MOS:QUOTE applies to GAs (it doesn't). Hawkeye7(discuss)22:04, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
@Hawkeye7: GARs will remain open if the article is being worked on. For example, Battles of Lexington and Concord has been open for over 4 months, and Inside No. 9 for over 2 months. GARs are only closed after a month if no one comments on the review and no significant improvements are made to the article. WP:GAN lists GARs by topic underneath the topic's GANs; that might be the type of organisation you are referring to above. I cannot guarantee that keeping all the prose cited and updated will head off a GAR (those are not the only criteria at WP:GA?) but it certainly helps. When I talk about keeping an article updated, I am referring more to BLPs and other ongoing events (sports teams, cities, ongoing TV series) whose articles will need more information added. Z1720 (talk) 22:25, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
That is the exact GAR process as it is currently in effect, as you would know if you had participated in any. We have gone through this process many times, as people continually want more and more obstacles to actually enforcing the GA criteria. First it was having GARs last for as much time as article improvers need, which is in effect: look at Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Battles of Lexington and Concord/1, which is thre months old and shows no signs of concluding before it reaches four months. If it reaches a year, so what? Improvement is all that matters. Then it was pre-GAR notifications, which Z1720 studiously does before each nomination. Then it was drive-by tagging articles upon delisting, which I have tried to do whenever I delist an article, if tags are not already present. Feel free to suggest the next meaningless bureaucratic step Adamstom.97; it will mean nothing to you or other people who do not participate, but will surely make you feel better that the GA criteria are consistently devalued for our readers. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:44, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
Proposed addition to process: in addition to the above, anyone who wishes to GAR an article must wear a hair shirt woven with the article's text for at least six months before making the tentative suggestion that the article be delisted. If a 30-day community poll garnering at least 65 net participants agrees that the process may proceed, the hair shirt may be removed and the flagellation step shall begin, one lash for every 100 bytes in the article's text. If the flagellant survives, they may then initiate the GAR process. ♠PMC♠(talk)00:04, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
C'mon now, you both know that being antagonistic and snide (respectively) like this is not conducive to constructive discussion, but rather contributes to a generally hostile atmosphere and is likely to make the people you disagree with more entrenched in their positions. TompaDompa (talk) 00:37, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
At a certain point, we have to acknowledge that the demand for ever-increasing pre-GAR processes is absurd. ♠PMC♠(talk)00:41, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
I agree, and this point can be made without hostility and sarcasm. It would be sufficient to enumerate the ever-increasing pre-GAR processes and state that it would be absurd to add even more. TompaDompa (talk) 00:47, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
Quite frankly TompaDompa, that goes both ways. If you choose to look away from the ceaseless antagonistic hostility and snide remarks against I and other people who believe the GA criteria should mean something, don't be surprised if other people have more self-respect. You know what? Z1720, how about we step away from GAR from a few years? Let's see if any of these "lie down and take it" endorsers bother to step up to the plate. Maybe TompaDompa could make their first edits to a GAR page in a year. Maybe Adamstom.97 could make their first edits to a GAR pagefull stop?? Just kidding-everyone knows you have to have been part of a process to suggest improvements to it, right? Right? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 01:18, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
I agree with you on the core issue (as I think my comments in previous discussions amply demonstrate; here is an example), and I figured that you might be more receptive to this feedback from somebody who agrees with you than somebody who disagrees with you. I also hoped that it might inspire someone who disagrees with you to do likewise with the needlessly hostile comments from that direction (and I would note that I have also gone on the record as saying that such a hostile comment aimed against you, specifically, was unacceptable). This may have been overly optimistic of me.More generally, I respect you and appreciate the things you do on Wikipedia. Our previous interactions have, on the whole, been pleasant and constructive (at least from my perspective). Speaking for myself, I expect my friends to call me out if I'm ever out of line—and this was something of an attempt to do likewise (kind of, at least). My comments should not be construed as "lie down and take it" so much as "don't stoop to their level". I apologize if it came across as taking someone else's side against you, as that was not in any way my intention. TompaDompa (talk) 01:36, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
@AirshipJungleman29: I am not at the point of stepping away from GAR, though I understand if others are. It is not enjoyable to have someone question your work at GAR every few weeks because you nominated an article over a holiday period (but I am unsure which holiday), stating that a GAR is a threat (leading to this exchange), and accused of wanting to make others do something. Those are all within the last two months, though there are many others that I can't recall because frankly, it happens so often that I end up forgetting about most of them. Others can probably recall events in December and June, which took up a lot of my time to respond. I like answering questions about how GAR functions and how to improve the process, but I dislike having to repeatedly respond to personal attacks.
I think it is an incredible waste of WT:GA's time to rehash GAR every few months. I'm all out of ideas on how to keep GAR going without someone questioning my motives every few weeks. I wonder what other editors think should be done to prevent this conversation from happening again in a few weeks. I hope the solution is not stopping GAR, but would respect if that's what the community wants. Z1720 (talk) 04:16, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
I frankly think the root cause of the disconnect is an idea of GA status being a standard confirmed one time at the end of a specific period of work, rather than the GA status being a continuing status ongoing after the time of the review. There is a certain ongoing maintenance obligation that comes with keeping an article at GA status, and it only seems reasonable to me that if the ongoing maintenance lapses too much and the article decays beyond a certain point (or never met the modern standards in the first place), that status should be reassessed as necessary and when needed removed. Hog FarmTalk01:32, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
@Rollinginhisgrave: I don't think telling a reviewer SOFIXIT is following the philosophy of WP:NOTCOMPULSORY. Telling an editor to SOFIXIT before a GAR is minimizing the amount of time it takes to fix up some of these articles. Matrix (mathematics) took six editors just under 2 months to fix up the article. Battles of Lexington and Concord is taking over four months and counting. One editor thought the solution at Red-tailed hawk was to revert the article to its 2018 version, which has started a discussion about what important information needs to be put back into the article.
My time is valuable, too. When someone replies SOFIXIT, I do not think that editor values my time and expects me to fix up an article that they care about so that it can retain its status. I think the editors who care about the article's status should BEBOLD and address the concerns, instead of demanding that the reviewer should have done some non-descript amount of work to fix up the article first. Z1720 (talk) 03:43, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
I think we're talking about different things. I'm talking about editors who believe the GAR instructions don't reflect WP:SOFIXIT, and I don't think NOTCOMPULSORY is relevant there: they want to increase the requirements of GAR (e.g. adding cn tags, fixing one or two before "escalating"), but aren't clamoring for the same volume of articles going through GAR. So, same amount of time, different tasks—if you don't want to engage in a GAR process which has those requirements, you are a WP:VOLUNTEER and don't have to. Rollinginhisgrave (talk|contributions) 05:41, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
You can submit an article to GAN just to have someone check your work, but there are two processes that require it: DYK and Featured Topic. In the former case, the GA check is indeed a one-off, and the nominator may not care about the result of the GAR. In the latter case, though, the GAR threatens not just the status of the article, but a lot of work that the editor has done on many other articles as well, and a vigorous response can be expected. Hawkeye7(discuss)03:14, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
Well, maybe the user should have vigorously maintained the article if keeping GT/FT status is so important to them! No one is entitled to maintaining GT/FT status in the first place in any case. Also, sorry, but GAR for an article in a GT/FT doesn't threaten work on any other articles - the topic may lose GT/FT status, but the other articles retain their assessment status. ALSO also, plenty of GAs have nothing to do with a GT/FT, so this argument only applies to a tiny portion of articles even if it held water, which it doesn't. ♠PMC♠(talk)03:40, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
It should probably also be noted that per WP:FTRETENTION, there is a grace period of three months before a WP:Featured topic or WP:Good topic is delisted if one of its constituent articles is. That's three months after the WP:Good article reassessment is closed (assuming the article is delisted, of course), not opened. There should be plenty of time to fix any outstanding issues identified in the GAR before the topic is delisted, especially if the GAR lasts longer than the minimum 30 days. There is of course the question of how long the article would have to wait at WP:GAN if it is delisted and then renominated—I'm not sure how WP:Featured and good topic removal candidates typically handles the situation if an article is at GAN when the grace period runs out, but looking at some of the topics brought there the last year or so it seems that granting leeway for articles that are actively being worked on is at least not by any means unheard of. TompaDompa (talk) 04:06, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
I was not prepared for such an aggressive and rude response to my genuine suggestion here, so much for WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF. I do think it is ironic that certain editors are saying my suggestion is exactly how the current process works while also rejecting the improvements I have suggested as being too difficult to implement. You can't have it both ways people. - adamstom97 (talk) 08:39, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
Alright Adamstom.97, let's try this out. From now on, every single GAR that Z1720 nominates will have to receive a full GA review—i.e. source spotcheck, image copyright checks, prose review—before it is closed. I will ping you whenever a GAR nomination reaches thirty days without a full review, and you can either provide it yourself or get someone else to provide it. I'm sure it won't be too difficult to find reviewers—as you say above, there will be no requirement for a GAR reviewer to do more than a normal GAN reviewer, and it's not like the GAN process is facing a massive reviewing backlog or anything.As a matter of fact, Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Joey Barton/1 and Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Real Madrid CF/1 are reaching 30 days old later today, without full reviews. I look forward to seeing your work on them. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 09:43, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
I think you know that you are being an asshole, and it is working. My interest in this is waning quickly. Doesn't change the fact that you just admitted that GARs are being conducted without properly assessing articles against the GA criteria. It may be harder to do it properly, but that doesn't mean we should carry on with the lazy, incorrect approach. - adamstom97 (talk) 09:50, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
I don't understand why you think not doing a full new GA review is lazy and incorrect. In order to be a GA, an article needs to meet all the GA criteria. If an article listed as a GA does not meet one of the GA criteria, and this is not fixed within a reasonable period at GAR, then it is not a GA - it's just mislabeled as one. There is no need to re-do an entire GA review to determine this. ♠PMC♠(talk)10:41, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
I wholly agree with your point and I thought some of the above responses were funny, but this hostility towards a good faith suggestion is too personal and unkind. IAWW (talk) 10:15, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
I'm not convinced it is a good faith suggestion, is the thing It is a wonderful world. Adamstom97 has "had a look back through the archives to get an idea of what problems there are with the current process", and their conclusion after seeing the general absence of participation in 90% of GARs is that there are large numbers of experienced reviewers who for some reason are happy to ignore the massive WP:GAN backlog but who will nevertheless provide detailed reviews for articles which are often GAN quickfail quality, and that no GAR should closed until such a review has been completed.In other words, Adamstom97's suggestion is to immediately and irrevocably halt the GAR process. Can you please explain to me how an editor can say they want to improve the GAR process and simultaneously make such a suggestion, all in good faith? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:51, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
Maybe they think that the amount of editors attracted to GAR though the more detailed reviews will compensate for the extra workload imposed on GAR nominators. Maybe they just hadn't thought through how much extra effort it would be for GAR nominators. Maybe they have a fundamental misunderstanding about the purpose of GAR.
Just because you think someone's argument is flawed and frankly ignorant, it doesn't mean you should assume bad faith. In my opinion, personal and sarcastic replies just deter the people reading this discussion from making their own suggestions in the future. IAWW (talk) 11:04, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
I'll chime in. Both initiators framed their "constructive conversation" around how to fix Z1720 being lazy, ignorant and power hungry – I didn't contribute to this thread because it was never framed constructively from the start.
But they have ignored over 10 editors questioning their (low level of) knowledge and (poor standard of) analysis to focus on you, and will now try to use you to excuse them running away from something they've never shown interest in. Asking them to put money where their month is ultimately demonstrates your points better in the long run, because I agree this isn't about improving the process. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 12:43, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
Both initiators framed their "constructive conversation" around how to fix Z1720 being lazy, ignorant and power hungry: If this were true I would agree with you. However it is not: Z1720 was only discussed when he involved himself, and the harshest accusation toward him was "You also seem to be one of the main people who is getting articles delisted without any effort put into improving them, so I think you may be a bit biased". Maybe I'm missing something but that's obviously far from what you accuse them of. I'm not sure who the second "initiator" is. IAWW (talk) 13:02, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
I recommend looking up. This thread was made about A7 (Crotia) Reassessment, which Z1720 conducted. Tomobe03 described Z1720's reassessment as admonishment. They said reviewers review to get a sense of personal fulfilment of "doing" something, making others to do something etc and the GAR nominator was too lazy or ignorant. They said the complaint was unactionable (when they actioned it). The post was called out as incivility by Firefangledfeathers. Kusma and Thebiguglyalien said they taking a content reassessment personally here and here. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 13:19, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
That's inaccurate. The first section argues that "GAR nominators may act in good faith or to get a sense of personal fulfilment of "doing" something, making others to do something etc." (ie, saying that GAR nominators are acting in bad faith or are enjoying controlling others by forcing them to do reviews). It then immediately mentions Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/A7 (Croatia)/1 as an example, which Z1720 nominated. The person goes on to say "If the GAR nominator was too lazy or ignorant...". I find it absolutely stretches credulity to think they were not making nasty aspersions about Z1720 specifically. ♠PMC♠(talk)13:21, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
You are both correct. I mistook "Why is GAR like that" to be a separate discussion. My bad. I agree Tomobe03 is clearly acting in bad faith.
This discussion was originally about Airship accusing solely Adamstom of acting in bad faith though, which is an unfounded accusation. IAWW (talk) 13:36, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
Adam's post was a subheading, with the title directly responding to the bad-faith argument ("Why is GAR like that?"). Missing half the thread might lead some editors to different conclusions. Regardless, I directly told Airship that he should have kept that to himself. He has already offered a mea culpa, so your final comment above seems – at best – like an unnecessary final knife slash at him. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 14:22, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
I think we broadly agree and it's time to move on. My final comment was not meant to be adversarial to Airship in any way. It was there to clarify the intent behind the message you originally responded to. I massively respect Airship and have asked his advice on multiple occasions. I think he is one of the most competent individuals on wiki. IAWW (talk) 14:53, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
I think there is some important context missing here. GARs have been perceived as a very adversarial process for a long time, and GAR nominators (and participants who suggest delisting) often had to endure personal attacks. Discussions about the process tend to degenerate quickly. Usually these discussions involve suggestions to make it harder to start a GAR. The discussions rarely do anything productive because the central problem is that we do not have enough people who keep GAs up to criteria or who can help. The vast majority of Wikiprojects are dead, so most of the notifications go into the void. —Kusma (talk) 10:06, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
The point I don't see here is that GAR exists because, in emergency, a GA is so desperately bad that no reasonable amount of effort can save it, and it's bringing the entire GAN system into disrepute. It is very difficult to frame a requirement or policy to say that, because what does desperate or disrepute or emergency mean in terms of verifiable status; the result is unfortunately to allow a much wider framing of the GAR criteria to say if *anything* is wrong then a GAR is possible. This has resulted in, to my mind (and I see to several other people's, above) excessive usage, meaning that articles that have a few missing citations, or are poorly paragraphed or are missing a couple of section headings or whatever, can quickly be dragged to GAR and summarily demoted from GA. That feels entirely wrong to me. The missing criterion is that the article has to be in a condition that really can't plausibly be fixed, or equivalently that editors use the procedure with the greatest restraint, when all else has failed (and there is no hurry whatever). A GA that has, like say Nikola Tesla, 282 citations, a clear account of the subject covering all the main points, but a dozen wobbly or missing citations and a little bit of mess in a couple of sections, and which can be fixed in a few hours ... is not in my view a proper subject for GAR. I suspect that the majority of current GARs are no worse than that. It seems to me a great shame that we are losing GAs for want of minimal attention, and a system that operates with sensible restraint.
I agree with Kusma's point that many editors and WikiProjects have moved on; why don't we have a list (somewhere near here) of GAs that need attention to keep them out of GAR? We could even have a small system whereby a few monitors drop a note to editors they think might be willing to lend a hand. If an article has languished on that list for a year or so, and isn't getting any better, then GAR might be necessary. My thoughts. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:13, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
GAR presumably exists because the rating system is designed so that articles can move up and down it, and so for any given rating there must be up and down processes (individual judgement, GAR, FAR, and WikiProject review if A-class is counted). This does not need emergencies, and there's no process to save a B-class article from going to C-class at all. It is worth keeping in mind that GA and FA are not just internal statuses, they are reader-facing elements (and there is a current proposal to make GA/FA ratings even more reader facing than they already are). Given this, GA/FA ratings should ideally reflect the article the reader is currently reading.On repairs, we already have a master list of GAs that need attention here. As of this comment it includes 13,559 articles, although this does not distinguish between GACR issues and general other issues (ie. reference formatting). On the other hand, it doesn't cover untagged issues. Creating something more intensive runs into the issue of there being over 40,000 GAs and a general consensus that the manpower that does exist struggles to handle GAN alone. The GAR process is one where a note is dropped for editors to perhaps lend a hand, and at least Z1720 seems to additionally drop a prior note on the talkpage. The result is not a quick process, and even with articles left languishing for a bit with both talkpage comments and GARs, most GARs don't attract any attention. Thinking again about the 40,000 articles, WP:URFA/2020 has not been completed five years after it began, and that process is not looking at all FAs, but a subset. It is also worth keeping in mind that we are not in general "losing" GAs, the number of GAs seems to be on an almost inexorable upwards trend. CMD (talk) 12:20, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
CMD, you say "most GARs don't attract any attention": which is why a simple activity of drawing individual articles to individual people's attention could well help. It's sad to think that articles are just going down through neglect, especially when many of them are well-written (and basically well-cited) on major topics. My intuition is that the GAR process is now throwing many perfectly good (small "g") articles on the fire, and that we could fix that by any of several means. I'm not blaming anyone here; it seems to me that everyone is acting in good faith, which means that the process (or its explanation) is wrong, not the people. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:10, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
It does seem like pinging individuals (maybe those with high authorship?) may generate more response than wikiprojects. IAWW (talk) 14:15, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
Some editors think it's annoying to be pinged, especially for a process that (some) have never engaged with before. Nominators and original reviewers already receive a notification on their talk page and editors who watchlist the article will have the GAR template notice listed. There will always be GARs that receive no response no matter what process is put in place. How much effort should be put toward looking for editors to volunteer their time to fix up GAs? If that effort still results in no engagement, then that reviewer's time has been wasted. I also think it's a shame that some GARs receive no response, but that's part of the process: one editor can't save and maintain all 40,000+ GAs, so editors have to decide which articles they want to focus on. Z1720 (talk) 15:11, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
More polite than just pinging would be to drop a small note on the talk pages of one or two people that you think may be able to help. I guess there could be a standardised notice, but a few words of the 'This GA needs a bit of TLC, and I thought you might be able to help' variety would perhaps do the trick. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:34, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
Yes that sounds like a good idea to me. I maybe even support replacing dead wikiproject pings with these more personalized individual pings since saving GAR nominator time is a concern. It certainly won't magically bring in unlimited volunteers, but it may be a little better than the current pinging system. If talk page messages are reserved for editors with 30%+ authorship on an article I think they would be more appreciated than annoying. IAWW (talk) 15:39, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
I don't understand this comparison at all. GAR doesn't throw articles on a fire, they aren't deleted or anything like that. All that happens after a GAR that does not attract attention is that the talkpage banner is edited so that a GA is replaced by (usually) a B or a C. Further, the GAR process is what can and does sometimes attract individual articles to people's attention. Creating a GAR automatically sends the GAR to the GAN page and to places like Wikipedia:Article alerts, where it can be seen by interested editors. It is indeed sad that articles degrade, but they don't degrade because of the GAR process, they degrade before the GAR process. Without the GAR process, which creates specific focus on articles, even fewer small g good articles would be improved. CMD (talk) 15:24, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
GAR certainly burns that little green star, ditching the status gained with a fair amount of effort (and a lot of queuing, often). GAR is not designed as an attention-gaining manoeuvre; that it can do that is a bit of a last-ditch side-effect. On degrading, most of it is of course unskilled (often IP) editing. I won't even mention how we could stop that by getting folks to sign up as a precondition for editing, but it'd save a lot of trouble. Finally, in case anyone's not noticed, this thread and the one above it reveal a great deal of strong feeling on this point from different editors, so I do think it would be wise to take note of that rather than try to argue it down; the process is causing real friction, and this isn't the first time it has come to this page either. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:38, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
GAR is designed as attention grabbing, that is why it appears on all those lists. The green star is just an icon, saying it is burned does not read as a serious statement. You mention the actual "Flawed process" when mentioning queuing, and that process is GAN rather than GAR. What would be wise would be to stop tacitly sanctioning abuse directed at those working within GAR, which is what seems to repeatedly come to this page. CMD (talk) 15:55, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
Well, you say both that is "designed as attention grabbing" and that "most GARs don't attract any attention", so something is clearly going well wrong if the first thing is true. I personally don't agree that grabbing attention is its function: but to the extent that it does do so, it is pressing the "Emergency, GA about to be demoted!" button, which is a stress on an editor-force that everyone agrees is under pressure and barely keeping up with multiple essential tasks. The lists that articles appear on are mostly very far from editors' eyes, and if they really contain thousands of items, we know why we wouldn't like to look at them anyway. Far better would be personalised attention-directing, as I've suggested. The "flawed process" I mean is GAR, and queuing is not its problem; excessive pressure given the need to save what can be saved from the prevailing wreckage is. I am not "tacitly sanctioning abuse" at anyone (that is a monstrously misplaced imputation): on the contrary, I believe and have said consistently that the flaws are all in the process, not in the people, who are all acting in good faith in volunteer time, so the process is what needs to be fixed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:15, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
What's "going wrong" is simply that we don't have the editors interested enough to maintain all the GAs. I do not go through the GARs and try and fix every one. I have other tasks, essential or not, and off-wiki as well as on-wiki, that I choose to do instead of rescuing GAs that are about to be demoted. That's not a situation that fiddling with GAR will solve. GAR doesn't create a wreckage, and there's no pressure on any editor to edit an article if they don't want to. Those who do not want to appear to tacitly sanction abuse at anyone should not join in support of a thread that opens with accusing GAR nominators of being lazy and ignorant, and this is not the first time such a situation has happened. CMD (talk) 17:38, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
The effort is not to obtain the "little green star", it's to bring the article to a certain quality. The little green star is nothing more than an indicator that it's currently at that quality. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸16:06, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
As always with such arguments, yes and no. The symbol denotes quality; but getting there is indeed the target, and getting it removed does set the project back, like it or not: it is not a neutral matter. The number of GAs is slowly rising: but it is not growing much faster than the total number of articles, as would be needed to raise the overall proportion of GAs, or to put it another way, to make every commonly-read article "decent". We should not want anyone to come to Wikipedia and read an article on any significant topic that has not been reviewed in any way, but that is the reality for thousands of topics. We should be working to find ways to accelerate the GAN process, and to restore articles under threat of GAR to GA quality, so as to get the overall proportion of GAs up: that's the goal. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:21, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
BTW I won't have much availability for a while now; please don't think from lack of replies that I've forgotten how important this is. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:22, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
The badge denotes quality, so I think that only articles that meet that quality should have the badge. It sets the project back when we claim an article with uncited text, outdated information, and unreliable sources is a GA. According to WP:GA/S, the percentage of articles with GA status has been increasing or remaining constant month-to-month since October 2023. It would be great if that percentage went up more quickly, but we are all volunteers and editors will work on what they want. Yes, having every article be "decent" or a GA status is a great goal: that goal is not achieved by ignoring articles that have already reached that status. Rather, GAs should be regularly updated and, when they no longer reach the criteria, be reviewed to see how they can be improved. If no one wants to improve them, they should be delisted so that Wikipedia is telling our readers the truth about the article's status. Z1720 (talk) 18:01, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
Let's just give every article a green circle. Mission accomplished. If you see a problem with that, then you're starting to see why we should remove green circles from articles that don't meet the criteria. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸18:04, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
Well, if the was retired and replaced with This article has not been systematically reviewed – to be removed following assessment – it would achieve both "everything has a badge" and "don't mislead readers". Virtually nobody would support that.
Anecdotal experience: I have no friends or family members who knew what GA or FA was before I told them. The badges aren't visible to mobile users (>65% of readers). Based on this ongoing VP proposal, there is a sizeable contingent of editors who do not respect the GA process or articles.
When you consider this, the strong emotion over GAR makes more sense. It creates a perception among editors that delisting is a process done to them, and not to benefit content or maintain standards. That's why we see language like "admonished" and "lazy".
Increasingly, this is a sentiment I see from editors when they receive negative FA reviews, too—someone suggested I not review an FA nominee if I spot an error that can't be fixed.
I basically disagree with any analysis saying the process is broken – I think this is fundamentally a social problem. Like, with the GA backlog for example, we had nearly a dozen people busting out the statistics. No one here has provided a single example of the process failing. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 19:03, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
We could, and in at least one fairly recent (and particularly egregious) case, we have. I am inclined to agree that the (chief) disruptive force here is the recurring hostile reactions to GARs being initiated. I also think this is a solvable problem—it just takes active enforcement of WP:CONDUCT policies, in particular WP:CIVILITY. I haven't seen any examples of GAR nominators saying anything along the lines of "the people who wrote and reviewed this are stupid and should be ashamed", but that should obviously be sanctioned equally as harshly as the corresponding uncivil remarks in the opposite direction I have seen plenty of examples of. TompaDompa (talk) 22:50, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
Though the knitting pattern book we found did provide inspo for this knitted uterus!Well, I'm not going to say that trying to delist an article with an AFD "sources exist" style comment, because you found a brief mention of the subject in a knitting pattern book, while a similar article cited near-exclusively to contemporaneous government weather reports, one or two breaking news-type headlines, and other primary sources complete with puffery, promotional text, prose line, and plagiarism is kept because, despite the GAR nomination being fundamentally the same quality is an example of the process working well. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋19:20, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
and other primary sources complete with puffery, promotional text, prose line, and plagiarism is kept because...
I think your comment is unwontedly harsh in a way that raises the temperature instead of lowering it. Different users engaging with a process will produce dissimilar results. That's common on Wikipedia and not evidence in itself that a process is broken. Saying "this is old and I found new sources" is not the same as "this has drifted from the original promotion". Drift is not necessarily a problem. It can be, the nominator ought to identify how and why. You've raised plagiarism. That's a serious problem. The nomination doesn't mention it, and I don't see it on the talk page. Mackensen(talk)19:36, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
Well, apologies - but also, trying to delist an article because you found a reference in a knitting pattern book and a few passing mentions without regard to their accuracy or relevance is about the same level as trying to keep an article at AfD because you found a brief mention of the subject in a knitting pattern book and a few passing mentions without regard to their accuracy and relevance. And I know several people here would happily tban somebody from AfD for doing that.And no, but you see it on Earwig with the linked sources, which is about as easy to spot as anything. Not fixed yet because it's plagiarism of what I'm pretty sure are PD sources, which I don't prioritize fixing. So while I agree the nominator could have used the Right Words TM, the nomination statements are fundamentally similar and I don't see why one's acceptable and one isn't. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋19:48, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
This framing is antagonistic, although a good illustration of the fundamental problem with GAR, which is that depending on the user it's seen either as an opportunity for article improvement or a personal attack. Two different nomination statements by two different users interpreted by even more different people led to different outcomes. I don't know what else to tell you. Also, I don't think it's incumbent on someone looking at a GAR nomination to find all the things the nominator didn't mention and then flag those, and someone would probably complain about scope creep if they *did* do that. Mackensen(talk)21:17, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
No, it isn't on the person looking at the GAr to find issues - the close was purely procedural afaict, but somebody aske for an example of a process not going well, and I provided it. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋23:19, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
@GreenLipstickLesbian: A brief mention in a knitting pattern book, and an academic journal article in which the responder (you) used as an inline citation 6 times. This GAR led to the responder (you) doing great work to find additional, better sources than what the initial reviewer (me) found. Would these improvements have happened if the GAR was not posted? Z1720 (talk) 19:42, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
Yes, one of them was usable - but 75% of the sources weren't and very obviously weren't. And maybe? You also tried to delist it because of lack of post-2007 coverage, despite the fact that the organization hasn't really been... in existence since.. okay I wrote 2014 in the article because that was the earliest source, but it's been pretty dead since 2008/2009, and that's been reflected in the article sine 2011. So of course there were no updates. I know most people here who submit GAs would be really annoyed if somebody tried to flunk their GA because it didn't include coverage that wouldn't have possibly existed. And maybe? But "I went and dropped a search result in and patronized the person volunteering to clean up the article by trying to teach them how to use Google Scholar" is not going to get you improvements in most cases, it drives people off the GAR side of things. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋19:54, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
You've said "You tried to delist it" 3 times now. From here, it looks like, "You opened a Good Article Reassessment and voted Keep after I added 6 citations".
Concerning "patronised the person volunteering [...] by trying to teach them how to use Google Scholar": He retrieved 3 sources for you and stated where he got them. Not everyone communicates in the same way, and immediately assuming the worst because someone speaks plainly is really unkind. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 20:20, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
A few things. All processes on Wikipedia have a goal - you don't open a GAR because you think an article is of good quality, and neither Z172O or I believe that the author was going to come back and either a)counter his claims or b)fix the article was likely. I don't think acknowledging the reality of opening a GAR is particularly unfair, just like I wouldn't have an issue with somebody saying that the reason I opened a GAR was to delist a poor-quality article, or the reason I open AfDs is to delete non-notable or poor quality articles. If I opened such a discussion on a flawed basis, I would be fine with somebody pointing it out. On your other point - I mean, half his comment was devoted to wikilinking TWL (three times!!!), and talking about how to find books. If it was meant to be just idle-chit chat, I do apologise. That being said, for reasons that should be clear to anybody here, three out of those four sources were unusable and because initially I thought he'd actually checked them out and thought they might be useful, not just put the first results when you google "Knitta Please", I wasted about 40 minutes looking for what he had seen, and then even longer writing a polite yet firm decline explaining why I wouldn't be using a knitting pattern to expand an article. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋00:02, 17 July 2025 (UTC)
You might have that reason for opening GARs. He voted Keep. If you had replied, "I've looked into the sources and don't think it should be delisted", there would not be consensus to de-list. That is basically what you did say.
half his comment was devoted to wikilinking TWL: Of his 1163-byte reply, 42 bytes linked TWL. Looks like 4% to me. I think your maths is off. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 09:08, 17 July 2025 (UTC)
@GreenLipstickLesbian: I am sorry that mentioning that I used Google Scholar to find sources was interpreted as trying to teach you how to use Google Scholar: its intention was to inform responders of where found the sources. I think the comment, "trying to delist an article because you found a reference in a knitting pattern book and a few passing mentions without regard to their accuracy or relevance" is inaccurate, and I do not appreciate that characterization. Z1720 (talk) 20:23, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
Uninvolved editor opinion: the general tone of discussion on this page makes me sad - too often antagonistic and snarky. From observing these linked threads I understand why Z1720 and Airship have been defensive, but it'd still be preferable to take some of the edge out of replies on both sides of the debate. On the substance of the issue, I see how the removal of the green badge could be taken personally by the original GA nominators, but that doesn't strike me as a good reason to shy away from delisting articles that no longer meet at least one of the criteria. Every article wearing a GA badge it no longer deserves, devalues the badge. It also tends to invalidate GA% as an indicator of article quality growth overall. The examples given by GreenLipstickLesbian appear to me as the process working correctly: GARs raised, identified issue(s) discussed and resolved or discounted, GA badges retained. The framing of 'trying to delist' seems to me to unhelpfully misrepresent the motivation of the GAR nominator. Likewise analogies of 'burning', 'ditching' and 'wreckage' aren't helpful. Nominating for GAR should not be seen as an attempt to delist, but as an attempt to assure the ongoing validity of the badge (if the issues identified go unaddressed, delisting is the outcome; that doesn't mean it's the goal). Perhaps we just need to update the wording in templates etc. to reinforce this and take the perceived sting out of the process. YFB¿23:04, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
@Chiswick Chap: I am intrigued by this perspective that GAR is for emergency use only. I don't see articles being brought to GAR as a bad thing, so I don't see any reason to keep the process hidden dark and deep in the vaults, not to be used—unless at the utmost end of need. I also don't think a nominally-WP:Good article needs to be unfixably bad to bring the entire GAN system into disrepute, as you put it—clearly failing the WP:Good article criteria is enough for me to find it, well, embarrassing. For that matter, I find any article clearly below the minimum standards expected of all articles (say, having uncited paragraphs) to be an embarrassment to the project at this stage in Wikipedia's history more than two decades down the line. Generally speaking, I don't really agree that a few missing citations is a comparatively minor issue, as I gather you find it to be. Is there any particular reason this process should be reserved for emergencies? If articles with WP:Good article status not meeting the criteria (but remaining within a reasonable distance of doing so, for some definition of "reasonable distance") is essentially not a big deal, it would make much more sense to me to loosen the criteria and enforce a new, less strict standard rather than retaining a nominal but intentionally-unenforced higher standard.I agree with your assessment that the main reason that certain articles that once met the criteria no longer do so is unskilled editing. I also agree that getting an article to GA status takes a fair amount of effort (and often waiting time). I think it is understandable to be a bit miffed if that hard work is undone by such editing to the point where the article is no longer up to GA standards. That being said, any ire in that instance should be towards those who have edited the article to its detriment. Being upset at the editor who brings the article to GAR is misdirected—I would even classify it as shooting the messenger. If one is more upset at the latter than at the former, it can only be because one is more interested in the article retaining GA status than GA quality, which I think is a pretty clear case of putting the cart before the horse. I don't view the hostile reactions to GAR nominations as a symptom of a problem (be it with the process or the nominators), I see it as a problem in itself—a conduct problem on the part of those who react that way. That it has not abated as the process has been adjusted with additional pre-GAR steps, longer duration for nominations, and so on but continues (as evidenced by this very discussion) is, I think, evidence that this approach is not very effective at cooling the hostile atmosphere at GAR. TompaDompa (talk) 23:36, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
Sometimes, the messenger deserves to be shot. Too many GARs are raised on spurious grounds and misunderstandings of the GA criteria. GARs have been raised on political grounds. On the grounds that the article has been heavily edited and has therefore become unstable. On the grounds that the article has become too big. On the grounds that the subject is not notable. On the grounds that the article has not been updated in ten years. This is what creates an adversarial situation. Hawkeye7(discuss)00:57, 17 July 2025 (UTC)
Feel free to seek sanctions against editors who open GARs in bad faith or for non-GACR-related reasons, but none of that is what I'm talking about. I was responding to Chiswick Chap's points about (1) GARs being opened for articles that do not meet the WP:Good article criteria but are nevertheless not so desperately bad that no reasonable amount of effort can save it and (2) article quality degrading over time due to unskilled editing vis-à-vis the effort necessary to get the article to GA status in the first place. TompaDompa (talk) 01:38, 17 July 2025 (UTC)
This is what I had assumed (GARs triggered by loss of article quality over time) but now I'm not so sure. I went to look at Narcissus (plant), recently advertised on WikiProject Plants for GAR, and rather to my surprise, when I compare the current version to the reviewed version from 10 years ago, it looks like the issues raised (WP:TOOBIG, text without inline citations, unused references in Bibliography) were all there when the article passed review. I think the issues do engage WP:GACR (3b, 2b, 2a respectively), but there is also some room for debate as to whether they apply. (i.e., looking at the original review, the reviewer was aware that not every paragraph was followed by an inline citation, but presumably they felt this was not Wikipedia:Content that could reasonably be challenged.) These are good suggestions, made in good faith, and worth trying to improve, but the original GA review wasn't just a cursory rubber-stamp either, and it makes me feel that there's some validity to what Chiswick Chap is saying. We certainly don't want to be bound to the lowest common denominator of GA reviews, but I can also see how this would feel like a rug pull if you're the editor who originally built up the article. Choess (talk) 16:22, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
The reassessment was opened two days ago; you chimed in to say that you disagree; and consequently there is currently no consensus to delist (even in the event of no further comments). I said it before, but I'm still not seeing actual harm here. Can you find, or does anyone have, a delisted example fitting this profile? — ImaginesTigers (talk) 17:13, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
I think you're trying to see a critique I didn't make. I read this discussion with interest, went off to a convenient GAR, ran a diff expecting to find a decade of poorly edited cruft on top of the good reviewed version, and was very surprised to see that the issues identified in it did not meet the plausible model that's been proposed in the comments here ("degrading over time due to unskilled editing" and "pretty much the fault of editors who...insert uncited statements". That doesn't mean the GAR caused "harm"; my point is that if we are trying to figure out why emotion runs high here, it helps to have an accurate model of why articles wind up at GAR. I haven't run a 2-year longitudinal study or anything, but if literally the first GAR I go to from here is more in the vein of "this article probably didn't meet the criteria when originally reviewed" than "this used to meet the criteria but no longer does due to neglect", we should probably not assume that the latter model is the predominant one. I would like it to be the right model, because degradation of that kind is more easily fixed by editors with less specialized knowledge, but I doubt that it is. Choess (talk) 18:55, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
I think you're trying to see a critique I didn't make: "You misunderstood me" would have been fine; I'm not trying to deliberately misinterpret you. This editor was right in saying there's a lot of antagonism here. This subject is way too heated.
I don't disagree with your perspective (although I have my own view on why it's contentious). I hope you can see why I think more examples would be more persuasive. If they resulted in a delisting, that would, rather literally, be a double standard. There's some nuance in that the site's standards have changed over time, but I do agree it could cause upset nonetheless.
I don't think one example can serve as "an accurate model", and rather than "we should probably not assume the latter model is the predominant one" I believe we shouldn't assume anything on a really contentious process. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 19:50, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
As an editor who nominates a lot at GAR, I don't think there's one singular reason why GA deteriorate, but there are several themes. One theme is editors who add uncited information after the GA is promoted, and it is not removed because the nominator and other interested editors have not reviewed the article to fix that uncited text. Another theme is articles that have not been updated in several years, so statistics and recent events are not in the article, casuing the article to be outdated and missing main aspects of the topic. Another theme is that the GA standards have become stricter in regard to citations, so some articles that passed several years ago no longer meet the GA standards of today. In this case, the interested editors have not returned to the article since its promotion to bring it in alignment with current criteria (usually this means uncited statements). Some GARs are a combination of the above themes. The commonality in GARs is that the nominator and interested editors experienced in the GA criteria have not made substantial edits to the article in several years to address these concerns. Also, a notice on the talk page does not cause interested editors to comment because they don't have the page watchlisted or they no longer edit Wikipedia. Z1720 (talk) 20:49, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
I agree with both of you that there is probably no single predominant cause for GAs becoming not-good. I think this sort of typology is interesting and potentially useful in that it suggests mitigating measures we should take. i.e., for the first type, which I'm pretty sure is common, just diffing to see what's been dropped in since the article made GA might reduce the friction for even a relatively experienced editor to fix the issues.
This particular example also brings up the thorny issue of inter-reviewer variation. Z1720, I didn't intend to use you as a whipping boy here: your comments on this article were apposite, and I'm not sure you're wrong in saying saying it's too big and unfocused to be formally a Good Article. The general issue reminds me of the joke that a person with one watch always knows what time it is, and the person with two watches never does. The variation stemming from using a single reviewer is something that's been accepted at GA as the price of being able to provide some assurance of quality without all the overhead of multi-person reviews at FAC. That variation is probably not immediately obvious at initial review–the author is probably not looking at contemporaneous GA reviews to see if others are getting off easy–but GAR highlights the fact that different reviewers can come to different judgments about the same article. I'm not sure there's anything we can do about that part. Resolution through consensus is not scalable on the amount of time and energy we have.
I think the effect of losing principal editors is an interesting one that's probably under-explored because of the general community's open-culture dogmatism that You are not irreplaceable and editors are more or less substitutable. I suppose that's true on the project scale, but IME it's completely false on the level of individual articles and topics. As I've been trying to fix "citation needed" tags at some of the plant GAs, I find it takes me an alarming amount of time because I don't generally have high-quality sources on hand for specific things like banana breeding. When people with specialist knowledge and easy access to sources become inactive, the amount of effort required to maintain their articles rises really sharply. Choess (talk) 21:41, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
I don't mind being used as an example if everyone is polite about it. I don't initiate GARs thinking I'm the sole reviewer. I see GAR as the initiator creating the discussion with observations of how the article needs to improve to meet today's GAR status. It's also OK if editors disagree, but if I'm not convinced by the argument I will respond with why. I don't initially do thorough reviews because several GARs don't get a response: it's a waste of my time to list a dozen or more bullet points that no one responds to. If editors ask, or if they are interested in fixing up the article, I will often do a more thorough review or add citation needed templates. Your observation of how much time it takes to fix up an article aligns with my findings, except it takes me longer to find and analyse sources on topics I'm unfamiliar with. That is why I do not "fix up articles myself" and dislike when editors state WP:SOFIXIT: I don't have the time to maintain every GA and am not interested in doing that. I would rather initiate a discussion so that an interested editor can take the lead in fixing up a particular article. Z1720 (talk) 22:25, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
While its unfortunate that Wikipedians haven't edited years after their article was promoted to GA, it's pretty much the fault of editors who don't know that the article is a GA (or FA) and insert uncited statements. Of course, you also have to think about the reviewers too. My examples of GA articles on my watchlist are Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Summerhouse (video game), Kelston toll road and Texas Public Radio (latter two reviewed by me) to my watchlist. Since Animal Crossing stopped major/regular updates from late 2021 and doesn't have an enhanced Switch 2 version (unlike Zelda's Breath of the Wild), then it could stay at GA even if there's no edits for over a year. There were small updates to ACNH regarding Switch 2 compatibility and to fix security patches in Nov 2022. And the Kelston toll road was only around for a few months in 2014.
When an article is (or is about to be) nominated for GAR, its the responsibility for any editor (whether from the GA nominator, reviewer, or page watchers or anyone else) to see the comments on the talk page and address them accordingly. I don't want to see a green icon with more than a few cleanup or citation needed tags. Z1720 is quite generous into the GAR by leaving a talk page message, then waiting for at least a week before the GAR starts and once GAR starts, they also put a notice on the relevant users and wikiprojects. Then anyone should address the issues within a month or it will lose its GA status. It's like a PROD where if its been placed, it will be deleted within seven days if no one objects. Of course, no one should create an article that will most likely be deleted. JuniperChill (talk) 01:44, 17 July 2025 (UTC)
One thing that doesn't seem to have been brought up is the losses from the ratchet effect–since we (reasonably) consider "false positive" GAs more of a problem than "false negative" GAs, it's easier to move down the scale of article quality than to move up. So if you aren't able to address a GAR in a timely fashion, when you do get around to fixing it, you have to restart the process from the beginning to move back up the scale to GA. Even if you've done a good job fixing it up, a big article going back to GAC is going to scare reviewers by its sheer size. Essentially, we're throwing out the labor of the previous GA review. I wonder if it would make sense to advertise in the review queue which articles are former but delisted GAs versus new promotions? Would those be seen by putative reviewers as less time-consuming, because they're able to build on the work of the prior review? Choess (talk) 15:29, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
I did bring this up conceptually above, when I noted the "Flawed process" is GAN. I have pondered at times some sort of snapback mechanism for delisted GAs, but I run into a couple of issues that undermine my attempts to craft a serious proposal. Firstly, a snapback period effectively just shifts the metaphorical 'cliffedge' of GAR to a different time, so that's creating a whole new consideration to just shuffle things around a bit. Secondly, articles can changes immensely over time, and so a past GAN can become completely outdated (someone recently pointed out in a discussion about FAs that the Taylor Swift article has been an FA for nearing half of Taylor Swift's professional career). Figuring out when a GAN has become outdated is difficult without doing a significant part of the work that carrying out a new GAN would involve anyway. I do think putative reviewers might be more favourable to a former GA, however I far from convinced that it would actually be a reliable signal of expected quality.That said, there are probably ways to better leverage past reviews. One change that might help but also not impede, is to do what FAC/FAR does and provide easily accessible links to previous reviews on GAN pages. Nothing that can't be found in other ways, but perhaps making them more obvious to nominator and reviewer. It could include GAN, GAR, PR, and perhaps even old FAC and FAR in situations where those have happened, and I haven't been able to think of a strong detriment to having these links easily available. CMD (talk) 15:50, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
Numbers game
I looked over the GAR page. It's longer than it was back in the day – a lot longer. To give you an idea, there are currently 97 (ninety-seven!) GARs open. On this day five years ago, there were 19 open GARs. Ten years ago, there were seven. Fifteen years ago, there were three.
What really struck me is that 91 of the 97 GARs (94% of this unusually large number) were opened by the same editor. And this reminded me of a problem we had at WP:RFC a few years back, with one editor starting an RFC for basically every dispute.
To give you some background information, we usually see about two new RFCs opened each day, down from three per day in the past. Most editors will never start an RFC, and few editors will ever run more than one or two. Nobody needs to have ten RFCs open at the same time, and when you have that many major discussions going on at the same time, your ability to participate in any of them – much less in the collegial, collaborative, responsive manner that is the community's ideal – is diminished by mere volume. Also, when you start "too many", other editors begin to resent you for it. In one typical scenario, they feel like they're having to swat down complaints about minor problems, and that this is preventing them from properly addressing the bigger problems. Their irritation with your behavior, even if you are right, can result in worse discussions and bad decisions ("Ugh, this nom again. Whatever he wants, I'm against it").
For RFCs, we now warn editors against opening "more than one or two" simultaneous RFCs. It has proven to be a useful approach. Ordinary editors haven't been restricted at all, and the few RFC "enthusiasts" have had to prioritize their use of community attention. We no longer see the RFC's OP saying the same thing over and over across multiple RFCs (they tend to open similar RFCs across multiple articles). We no longer get complaints about the same editor creating multiple inappropriate RFCs or about the same editor creating multiple "drive-by" RFCs. We no longer have the community's finite ability to respond to RFCs getting divided over as many RFCs.
We had two goals, both of which appear to be met merely by communicating a standard for what's normal and acceptable:
No lone editor gets to monopolize the community's attention.
Nobody starting an RFC will be so busy with other RFCs that they can't put time and effort into the new one.
I looked at the 19 GARs open on this day in 2020. Two editors each had opened two of them. The other 15 were all from editors who only had one GAR open at a time. I looked at this talk page on the same day. There were no complaints about GAR, or about rude editors, or about anything else that seems to have filled this section.
I suggest that we consider introducing some limits to multiple simultaneous GARs. It's IMO a good idea to allow someone to have more than one GAR open at a time, but we might pick a fairly generous number (five?) that we think would allow a larger-than-usual number while still encouraging active participation by the nom in each GAR they start and still leaving capacity for "the regulars" to fully respond to other people's noms, too. What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:27, 20 July 2025 (UTC)
I don't see that this is necessarily a problem. If there is a large backlog of articles with WP:Good article status that no longer meet the WP:Good article criteria, we should want them to pass through WP:Good article reassessment at a fairly rapid rate. If we require the GARs to be open for a minimum amount of time even in cases where there is no further input, we expect the number of simultaneously open ones to go up—and restricting the number of simultaneously open ones is just slowing down the process. It is probably worth noting that the minimum time before closing GARs was tweaked from one week to one month earlier this year; I count more than 40 currently open GARs without any attempts at addressing the issues outlined in the nomination that are older than a week, of which more than 20 are older than two weeks.TompaDompa (talk) 22:53, 20 July 2025 (UTC) Amended. TompaDompa (talk) 23:09, 20 July 2025 (UTC)
Agreed. I'm not sure how relevant RFC is as a comparison here; GAR doesn't request the attention of a broad chunk of the community like RFC, and generally I wouldn't expect the same fatiguing effect given the articles taken to GAR will presumably have had a wide range of original nominees. YFB¿23:04, 20 July 2025 (UTC)
I also agree that the large number open is a symptom of the rules changes which require every GAR to be open for a minimum of one month even if there is zero engagement with the GAR in question. I do not share Z1720's zeal for listing GARs frequently, but I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with it either. I think we've historically been very willing to keep GARs open for a long time so long as article improvement is underway. There is fundamentally less engagement in this process as well, unfortunately. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 01:05, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
Those historical numbers are artificially low, as they reflected only the Community GARs of the time, and exclude the individual GAR process that existed in the past; the two were combined after a rework of the GAR process a couple of years ago. For instance, Talk:Deep frying/GA2 is not listed on 7 September 2022 despite it being open at the time. The numbers could well look very different if individual GARs were included. Hog FarmTalk23:55, 20 July 2025 (UTC)
Also, I wonder if people were avoiding the process artificially because the instructions were a total gong show that made it seem to be more trouble than it was worth. ♠PMC♠(talk)00:48, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
I'm not sure how to find the "individual GAR" pages, but comparing today vs five years ago, I see:
an average of 8.75 comments per GAR five years ago (not including the nomination itself)
an average of 2.75 comments per GAR now (also not including the nomination itself)
That's a pretty big drop in community engagement. Even if we round very generously in favor of the current state, we're getting half as many comments now.
I suspect that the sheer volume of simultaneous GARs is the cause. If @Yummifruitbat were correct, and each nom was pulling from a different pool of editors, then we shouldn't see such a substantial drop in participation over the space of just five years. Instead, I think that many responses to GARs come from a finite pool of individuals, who only have a limited amount of time for this process. If there are twice as many GARs, they can contribute (on average) half as much assistance to each.
As the editor with the large number of GARs mentioned above: I would appreciate all help in resolving issues with good articles, or nominating GARs if they are not close to meeting the criteria. Here are some ways to help:
Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Sweeps 2023 has a list of "Open entries" of GAs from 2006-2009 that had at least 6 unreferenced paragraphs when the list was created. It is so close to being complete, and a couple more editors reviewing those articles might get it complete before 2026.
This link has a list of GAs with clean-up tags: some of the tags do not pertain to the GA criteria, but many others do and fixing them up is still worthwhile.
Concerned about prose bloat in GAs? Here's a list of GAs by length. While I would not open a GAR solely based on length concerns, resolving this will improve the articles (and potentially discover your next WP:FAC?)
With this tool, an editor can copy-paste a list into the script, which will export how many uncited paragraphs and other clean-up templates there are in each article. It's not perfect (lots of false positives for MOS:PLOT and WP:CALC) but it helps narrow down which articles might need to be manually checked.
If looking at an individual article, this tool will highlight uncited prose. This is how I find that "uncited text" I keep referring to in GARs.
I do not want to be creating the vast majority of GARs, so please help! I limit the amount of GARs in a topic: for example, I have not nominated Siege of Yorktown because the GAR for Battles of Lexington and Concord is still open. I also try to get other editors to nominate at GAR to bring new perspectives and perhaps get someone else interested in GAR.
If WhatamIdoing's proposal is accepted, either a lot more editors will need to open GARs or the number of nominations will slow down, causing GAs that don't meet the criteria to remain GAs. An example of this is at FAR, where there is a limit of 5 open noms per editor: I have opened 11 FARs this year because stalled nominations, months-long efforts to save articles and disagreements limited my ability to open a new FAR: only 57 FARs have closed as "keep" or "delist" in 2025 (of course, not all are nominated by me). There are many FAs that don't meet the FA criteria anymore, but aren't opened because of this limitation.
Some articles get the necessary improvements they need when nominated at GAR because that is how editors find out about them: these improvements make the GAs better. I am happy to follow whatever consensus editors establish for GAR, and the best outcome, in my opinion, would be more help in reviewing GAs. Z1720 (talk) 01:27, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
Length and bloat is one of the better reasons to open a GAR. It's a much more complex problem to fix than something like copyediting, and I can't think of any scenario where I'd pass an article that's over, say, 12,000 words (and even that would require unusual circumstances). Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸02:09, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
@Thebiguglyalien: I will sometimes get pushback if I mention WP:TOOBIG or the article's prose size; TOOBIG is also not codified in the GA criteria, so I often respond that a bloated article is a sign that there is too much detail. Many editors also think a topic is broad enough to justify the extended length: I usually disagree. Some examples of this discussion are Narcissus (plant), diving cylinder, Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant, and Yes (band). The effort and time I need to expend discussing this concern by itself is, for me, not worth bringing an article to GAR. Z1720 (talk) 02:30, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
Looking at the examples, it looks like diving cylinder ballooned by about 50% since its initial GA review but the others are more or less comparable in size now to when they passed; that is, the WP:TOOBIG problems have been there all along. I'm open to contradiction by people with more institutional memory, but I suspect reviewers have (historically?) been ignoring the "summary style" part of criterion 3b and evaluating "unnecessary detail" by comparison with other article sections–if one section is very detailed but so are all the others, it passes. That is not to say you are wrong for reading what the criteria actually say. I have sort of a guilty conscience here: I prefer to write minutely detailed articles on niche topics, and those are the ones I find useful as a reader, but I also am aware that scratching my own itch that way may not be the best for the median reader. Choess (talk) 05:29, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
I think it's more than Summary style is a bit trickier to understand (many schools have word minimums for essays), and for a review process that relies on one person and we try to get new reviewers, it's not always going to be checked. You're also going to get differences between reviewers based on their familiarity with the subject, you can see that on FAC where reviews can be quite different. To be clear this not a unique occurrence for summary style, every reviewer is going to have their own areas of interest and issues they are going to notice more or less than the median reviewer. Even without this, when hundreds of GANs are processed each month there's always going to be something overlooked. I don't know how much institutional memory there is of the gestalt of reviews given each review is independent, and it is only in the past few years that there has been more community attention to getting a bit more consistent and thorough. CMD (talk) 08:24, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
WP:GACR doesn't technically require the use of Wikipedia:Summary style. It requires that the article being reviewed not go into unnecessary detail. The reviewer decides what level of detail is "unnecessary". The link to WP:SUMMARY is there for information and convenience, not to declare that every GA must have at least one section with a {{Main}} link. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:23, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
Above all, GARs would not need to happen if GAs were maintained. I have several dozen GAs and I try my best to keep them up to date (at least the ones that aren't on railroads from the 1800s where there are no new developments to add). Of course we are all volunteers, but if one does not want to see an article end up at GAR, the thing to do is to improve it yourself and make GAR unnecessary. That being said, our standards have evolved and I've had cases where I bring something to GAR that was by today's standards entirely unfit for GA status even in the state it was in at the time of promotion in like 2008. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 02:11, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with limiting nominations. In my eyes there is currently a massive backlog of articles that need FAR or GAR, and I appreciate anyone who works hard to reduce it. IAWW (talk) 01:40, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
In my opinion, Z1720 is doing really good (and honestly quite thankless) work doing all these GARs. As IAWW said, there's a massive backlog of articles which really don't meet the criteria anymore. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 22:04, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
I agree that it is thankless work. OTOH, you probably shouldn't expect people to thank you for spending five minutes taking away a public "status", when what's needed was for you to spend a couple of hours fixing the actual problem in the article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:09, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
We should expect Z1720 to get some thanks. Maintenance gnoming has always been an important part of en.wiki. CMD (talk) 00:11, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
I really dislike this framing of "spending five minutes taking away a status". That's not what is happening. By raising a GAR all that @Z1720 is doing is flagging that an article needs attention to get it (back) into compliance with the GA criteria. That's a perfectly valid and valuable activity. The status is only "taken away" if nobody bothers to engage with that feedback. As noted repeatedly, the alternative to GAR is to apply maintenance tags where deserved, and people seem also to have complained that that is unhelpful / drive-by / hostile etc. YFB¿00:52, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
Basically, there is no winning for Z1720 or anyone else who wishes to do GAR work with any regularity. Inevitably they get yelled at for having too [few/many] words in their GAR rationale, too [few/many] attempts at notification, too [few/many] maintenance tags placed, too [few/many] whatever else the aggrieved party wants to bring up as a problem. ♠PMC♠(talk)00:59, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
I agree: GAR is perceived as a threat to "my" achievement/recognition thereof; all threats are received as threats, and there's no "friendly" or "gentle" way to issue a threat. (See also parents being told that their newborn baby has a serious medical problem: It was [too abrupt/too delayed]. They were told by [the first person available/the best person]. It was [too direct/too indirect]. And so forth, because the problem isn't the manner; the problem is that someone is saying this at all.)
But the fact that it's "always" one editor doing this is also a social problem. When "all" the GARs come from one person, it's easy to conclude that this one person (and their obviously unreasonablly high standards) is the actual problem. After all, if the community broadly/generally did this, then every GAR would come from a different editor. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:06, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
So... once GA is achieved, it should be irrevocable regardless of article degradation, because otherwise people's feelings might be hurt? Let's skip GAN too then, and just award the badge for participating. YFB¿01:16, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
I think this comment perhaps exemplifies the entire WP:BATTLEGROUND nature of GAR discussions the best. When somebody makes a good-faith suggestion as to why a GAR might not be recieved well, or how to make the process better, somebody comes along and starts accusing them of trying to make the GA status permanent or turning it into a participation trophy. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋01:27, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
Respectfully, that's a misinterpretation of my comment. I was responding specifically to the statement that GAR is a 'threat' and that by definition "all threats are received as threats". My position throughout this discussion has been that this is not a helpful or accurate framing—precisely because it posits a conflict that doesn't need to exist. But the logical conclusion of a framing where GAR (or presumably any time-bound process resulting in revocation of the badge) is a 'threat' to be avoided / restricted, is that once awarded GA is effectively irrevocable. YFB¿01:43, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
It starts out saying GAR is perceived as a threat, and then goes on to say all threats are received as threats. It's not unreasonable to parse the latter as an elaboration upon the former. Rather than arguing about what WhatamIdoing meant, we can simply ask for clarification. TompaDompa (talk) 01:56, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
I mean, while I do love being able to ask the creator of a source text for further details - if you were writing an article, and a newspaper quoted an expert on The Land of GA-writers saying the inhabitants viewed X cultural faux paus as a threat, and would respond to it as a threat, would you then pass a GA which said "expert said X cultural faux paux threatened the people living in the Land of GA-writers"? I mean, we could both see how the person arrived at that conclusion, but it wouldn't be accurate. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋02:04, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
I do not think that is a helpful or accurate analogy. Rhetoric on talk pages is obviously quite different from article content—we interpret the things editors say on talk pages all the time, but WP:INTERPRETATION is disallowed in articles. Even disregarding that, there are quite meaningful differences between the way things were said in this thread and the way they are in your example. TompaDompa (talk) 02:20, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
How would you think about "X is viewed as Y; all Y are viewed as Y" in casual conversation? Would you interpret it as two separate statements or the latter as an elaboration upon the former? TompaDompa (talk) 02:33, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
I mean, of course they're two separate statements? They both build upon a connecting idea, and the conclusion is pretty easy to draw ("so people who view X as Y will view X as Z"), but I can't get any more from that. I mean, if the statement was "X is Y; all Y are Z" then yes the implication is that "X is Z", but I still can't get that from the original sentence. I suspect that's not the answer you want, and I'm a little worried you think I'm doing an obstinate bit, but this is quite genuinely how I process the world. So there you go? GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋02:38, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
No, I don't think you're being obstinate—this is something that can be interpreted in different ways. It can be interpreted as "X is viewed as Y because all Y (including X) are viewed as Y" or alternatively "Y is viewed as itself, whereas X is viewed as Y rather than as itself". I would be more likely to interpret it as the former, because in my experience that is a significantly more common use of rhetoric. I would not be as prone to interpret it this way if the semicolon were a period, or the qualifier "all" were omitted. I would also be less likely to interpret "X is viewed as Y; all Z are viewed as Y" as meaning "X is viewed as Y because all Z (including X) are viewed as Y". In this case, it turns out that WhatamIdoing does actually think that GAR is a threat (see below). It would appear that Yummifruitbat interpreted them correctly. TompaDompa (talk) 02:50, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
Yeah, honestly I grew up in a multicultural community (not unlike the internet!), so I long ago learnt that trying to guess what somebody most likely meant based on what other people most commonly mean really doesn't work. For an easy example, person A didn't say thank you because I did B for them? Well, maybe they didn't appreciate it, maybe they didn't want to draw attention to my act and embarrass me/imply that I couldn't be expected to do basic favours for somebody in my community. Which is it? Goodness knows, not me so best not to assume! And not to get too into the weeds here, but while I see how you got at first conclusion, the actual conclusion makes very little sense to me. "X is Y" is a standalone statement; "all Y are viewed as Y" just intensifies that yes, people will be responding to all elements of set Y as though they are Y and will not typically moderate their responses. While I can see why somebody would make the leap to "All elements of Y are viewed as such, therefore X is an element of Y", that's somewhat like the the fallacy of the converse. Second conclusion... nope, that's lost me. An element X being treated as an element of a set Y doesn't mean that X stops being itself. But this is waay too tangential, I'm starting to feel. Glad you brought YFB up again though - their comment below insisting that just because WAID is questioning part of the GAR process, despite her open defense and support of people who do it, means that she's displaying hostility to any form of GAR is just bringing me back to saying "Wow, this is just a BATTLEGROUND". Which.... okay, my first experience with GAR was watching this one last year. You don't see me on the page, but that's because I was working on the article as part of a CCI. Which, as you can see, took me about four hours of straight editing. The article was delisted, rightfully but unfortunately, but I was just one editor, and I really didn't have the knowledge to get that much more involved. The editor who started it, and who got me involved in the cleanup by requesting a CCI while she spent a great deal of time and effort finding issues in the article and highlighting them. She treated the main author who was scrambling to try and figure out where both a)standards had changed for GAs overall and b)what new material had been introduced without a reference, with nothing but politeness, even know I know the entire thing was a lot of work for both of them. But looking at comments other people made in the review, and stuff just became very personalized very quickly.
if you truly want to make Wikipedia better you would let the article be delisted and take the months to finish the work yourself
Seriously, did you even bother to read the criteria [name of User]?
it would greatly help if you bothered to go look for things to fix yourself (when in fact the original author had made many edits at that point, hunting down page numbers, trimming off sections, swapping out citations and was asking for feedback.:( )
That was the first GAR I ever saw, and it really set the tone for how they appear to be handled. It was just so personalized and snarky, no wonder these are so empty! Who wants to volunteer to clean up an article if they're going to be treated like shit the moment they ask for help? I was pretty new back then to project-space stuff, if I knew what a GA was it was only because I'd learnt about it a month before. I knew I'd have had to ask questions and I didn't really want to put myself in the position where somebody I thought was an admin would telling me how selfish or lazy I was. No, I just left my involvement at this and scuttled off.And then watching any meta discussion... I mean, like last May, I made a comment noting that hey, adding citations doesn't seem like such a bad thing, and that quickly devolved to somehow me going to bat for people who are deliberately slowing down a process just so they can artificially inflate the number of badges? And I quite like the editor who made that comment, so I really have nothing else to say other than it must be the area. Another editor said basically the same thing (adding tags and telling people what you see the issues as is good!) and was met with somebody saying that other editors not being able to find those issues was a CIR issue. You know CIR. The essay we link to when we block mentally disabled people and try to make it sound polite. The entire GAR process, while needed, just has too much bad energy. Which, I mean, it's not the first time I've seen stuff like that. Last year, I pointed out to an admin that no, what they were reverting wasn't technically speaking, vandalism, so please lay off the newer rollbacker for AGF and trying to help the editor, only to be met with claims that I was somehow defending vandals and it's like... christ. Yes, vandalism happens and bad articles get created. And yes, that needs to be dealt with. But being right is not enough and the ABF of any person who questions any part of the process is only going to end in tears. The fact that it's happened over something maybe a couple dozen active editors care about, let alone use, and by most people's own admission rarely is ever actually leads to article improvement is... actually, we live in a word where Title Case 2: Electric boogaloo just hit arbcom so it's not that surprising. Sorry for the long post; it's past midnight for me and I'm overly wordy at the best of times. Blame in on my highschool Spanish teacher, who made me write eleven sentence per paragraph upon fear of a C, if you'd like. TL;DR: musings on sentence structure, long rant about how the entire area feels like a warzone tinged with sadness because, ultimately, it's sad seeing people get hurt over something which doesn't matter to anybody but them. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋07:53, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
I'm sorry you haven't appreciated my comments. They were made in good faith and intended as constructive. I am a bit baffled as to what @WhatamIdoing wants here, and I'm trying to make the logic stack up. In search of a less confrontational tone in the discussion, perhaps you could refrain from accusing me repeatedly of WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour? YFB¿08:28, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
I think a large part of the disconnect is that you are treating it as logic while I am treating it as rhetoric. Using a semicolon to mean "because" (or otherwise to join to clauses where one explains the other) is one of the main uses of semicolons. I might also equally well have said "[...] X is viewed as Y rather than primarily as itself" or "[...] only as itself". But yes, this is getting a bit tangential. I think the main point here is that Yummifruitbat was right to interpret WhatamIdoing's comment as "GAR is a threat" since that is their actual position, and your pushback was misguided. TompaDompa (talk) 12:16, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
No, GA shouldn't be irrevocable. But those of us who are looking at the process in general should remember that the process is being experienced by humans, who have inconvenient qualities like "emotions" and "memories" and "opinions". WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:36, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
it ought to be. i don't know why we put so much more thought into the feelings of original nominators than GAR initiators, when the latter are also putting legitimate effort into improving the project and face all kinds of bureaucratic hoops, aspersions, and other bullshit. for what it's worth, i appreciate your GARs. ... sawyer * any/all * talk01:51, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
I suspect that Z1720 shares my belief that "legitimate results" are more important than "legitimate effort" in this case. I have some serious doubts about whether the present volume of GARs is producing the results that I'd like to see, and I know that it's producing results that I don't want to see. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:22, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
If editors perceive an article review process as a threat, I think WT:GA needs to have a broader discussion on how to change that perception. I don't think ignoring GAs that no longer meet the criteria is the solution. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a reward system for editors: I don't think editors should be hostile to feedback on how to make articles of interest better.
If editors believe I have unreasonably high standards, we should open a new thread about those standards to fix the problems. I am happy to give extended explanations on why I opened specific GARs, what changes I might have made (or will make in the future) and respect any consensus to change my behaviour. I would greatly appreciate it if more community members would participate in GAR to spread out the nominations, and I am happy to give tips and answer questions. Z1720 (talk) 01:32, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
GAR isn't "feedback on how to make articles of interest better". Realistically, GAR is "a way to de-recognize past achievements unless heroic efforts are made real soon now".
I do think it would be worth you thinking about why you believe your efforts at GAR and FAR are worth your time/effort/emotional cost/reputational effects. I don't know your motivation, but in the past, I've seen more "It's fundamentally unfair for this article to have this status/exist" or "This process is the only way I can force other editors to improve this article right now, instead of whenever they decide to prioritize it" than "I genuinely believe that if I send this article through this process, even when – usually – nobody improves the article".
If you want more community members to participate in any individual GAR, we need fewer GARs at a time. That assumes that these different GARs are competing with each other for the same editors' time and attention. That is likely the case for some of the nominations some of the time, but probably not for all nominations all of the time. My intuition would be that editors largely participate in GARs for articles on topics they are interested in and do not participate in GARs on topics for articles on topics they are interested in. If that is indeed the case, the total number of simultaneous GARs overall is not really the relevant thing—the total number of simultaneous GARs within particular interest spheres is. TompaDompa (talk) 02:03, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I have never raised or participated in a GAR and have only recently become involved in GAs. But I value the work @Z1720 does because without editors taking articles through GAR or a similar process, the inevitable consequence is that the average quality of badged GAs goes down. This devalues the GA badge for articles that genuinely meet the criteria; misleads general readers and less experienced editors as to what counts as 'good'; and makes the badge useless as a basis for measuring cumulative article quality. Articles wearing GA badges they don't warrant any more is not primarily a question of 'fairness', it's one of whether the badge actually means anything or provides any practical utility. I think the main reason more people don't raise GARs is because it's self-evidently a thankless task where your motivations get attacked. We should fix that, not steer one of the only editors taking on that task not to bother. YFB¿02:09, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
I take it that you were completely unaware that "general readers" don't know anything about GA. The little green icon doesn't even get displayed for most readers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:16, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
Wow, everybody here seems intent on assuming I can't read and/or haven't read stuff. No, I am not completely unaware that GA icons are not displayed on mobile etc., thanks. I don't think that is equivalent to "general readers don't know anything about GA", but even if they didn't, that was only half of one part of my comment. So perhaps you could respond to the substance of my points rather than presuming my ignorance? YFB¿02:42, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
Sure, I can be verbose if you want:
You say that it "devalues" a badge that means nothing to 99.9999% of the world, which effectively means that it can't devalue the badge at all, because the badge isn't actually valued in the first place; also, to the extent that the badge represents, to some of the people in that 0.0001% minority, that something happened (an editor once decided to list it) rather than representing that something is (the article's current version has certain qualities), the badge isn't devalued at all, or even incorrect;
You say it "misleads...less experienced editors as to what counts as 'good'", 99% of whom have no idea that GA exists, so they're impossible to mislead. Also, part of growing in experience is to learn that content assessments are usually out of date, and that a GA listing was just a single editor's opinion to begin with, so it may even provide value by being wrong in the same way that the black sheep of a family may prove instructive by being a bad example (though personally I'd be sad if this were true about more than a very small fraction, regardless of whether we're talking about articles or humans).
You say it "makes the badge useless as a basis for measuring cumulative article quality", except that GA status is already useless for that purpose, or so close to useless that it's basically a rounding error.
You ask "whether the badge means anything", to which the only possible answer is the badge means different things in different contexts and to different editors; Americans (and perhaps people from other countries, but I can only vouch for the US situation) will find similarities in the perennial school reform debates about what a high school diploma means.
You ask whether the badge "provides any practical utility", to which I say no, it doesn't. And it's not really even supposed to.
I would say that this perspective is fundamentally at odds with how the process works. There would not be a GAR process if GA status was not intended to—in some way—be meaningful. TompaDompa (talk) 03:17, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
You tell me that, in your own personal view, you believe GA status is a valuable thing and that it represents a promise to the world that this article meets certain specified standards – standards that are relevant and important to readers' real needs, such that when these are met, we are really accomplishing what's important and unique about Wikipedia's purpose and goals.
This is the GA editor's contribution to the world: to write an article according to criteria that are high enough to meet our obligations to the reader but still practical for most subjects, and to take that GA badge as a solemn promise to readers. GA, even more than FA, is Wikipedia's little candle that overcomes the darkness of ignorance, and it matters to you.
We could do away with GAR entirely by removing the concept of "GA status" and instead making GAN a snapshot assessment that does not confer any ongoing status to the article (similar to, say, DYK). Would you be in favour of that? TompaDompa (talk) 03:23, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
OK, thank you for this detailed response, and the alternative framing below. I understand that you don't see value in the badge for any purpose other than massaging the ego of the nominator. That explains your apparent hostility to any form of GAR. If you'd set this out to begin with, I suspect fewer people would have bothered to engage with your arguments. My view of GA is not as naive as you imply, but fundamentally I believe Wikipedia initiatives should aim to achieve roughly what they purport to (so if we say 'this is a good article' that should mean that we actually made some effort to ensure that it is 'good'). I would guess that's not an uncommon view among people who participate in GA. YFB¿06:23, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
There's probably a Laffer curve sort of phenomenon for setting quality standards. Too low, and the award of the assessment is meaningless. Just right, and it's meaningful enough that people will do somewhat more work than they might have otherwise because they see the award as attainable. Push too high, and capable editors increasingly abandon the process and it becomes an award for navigating bureaucracy as much as high standards. (Too many "false negatives" also endanger GA, by making it seem arbitrary.)
Maybe I'm still wrapped around GACR 3b, but it looks like the current GARs are commingling problems that have resulted from lack of maintenance and gradual deterioration with an attempt to align de jure and past de facto standards. I suspect it's the latter that makes people feel threatened. "Fix all the places that aren't up to spec on inline citations" is like Kehrwoche, annoying but achievable. "Actually, this article should have been cut down to half the size when it passed ten years ago, in retrospect it never really met the criteria" will just make people throw in the towel on the process. This is why I think some attempt to describe and classify the problems in the current stock of GAs is important. i.e., put the GAs that have always been WP:TOOBIG into some kind of maintenance category as you find them but don't incorporate that problem into the formal GAR and the one-month clock. Choess (talk) 08:17, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
Thanks, this seems a way more constructive perspective. If there are specific criticisms of the basis for certain GARs, let's talk about those and how to handle them differently, rather than making it all about a particular editor or 'too many' GARs. YFB¿08:34, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing:GAR is perceived as a threat to "my" achievement/recognition thereof; all threats are received as threats, and there's no "friendly" or "gentle" way to issue a threat. I take this to mean that you believe GARs are not only perceived as threats, but are threats. Is this interpretation correct?But the fact that it's "always" one editor doing this is also a social problem. When "all" the GARs come from one person, it's easy to conclude that this one person (and their obviously unreasonablly high standards) is the actual problem. After all, if the community broadly/generally did this, then every GAR would come from a different editor. I agree that it is a social problem, but there are plenty of other perfectly plausible explanations. The simplest is that nominating GARs just isn't viewed as particularly interesting or rewarding by most editors—unlike certain processes with built-in recognition/bragging rights/[insert more appropriate term here] such as FAC, GAN, and DYK. The solution in that case might be to institute some kind of incentive to make the process more appealing to initiate. Another possible explanation might be that there is a hostile atmosphere and that nominators can expect a high likelihood hostile reactions, deterring most people from nominating GARs. The solution in that case might be to more actively enforce our WP:CONDUCT policies, in particular WP:CIVILITY, at GAR. TompaDompa (talk) 01:53, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
If starting a GAR is not rewarding now, presumably it also wasn't rewarding five years ago. Five years ago this month, we had three times as many editors starting GARs. The lack of "reward" hasn't changed in the last five years, so the lack of reward is not a logical explanation for the disappearance of other editors. NB that we have two things going on: Z1720 has 90+ GARs open, which is an enormous number. But also: We used to have more than 15 editors with open GARs at a time, and now we have about five or six. Something has driven away ~65% of our past GAR starters.
I think that GAR is a threat – to editors and how they feel about their contributions and their place in the community. I don't think it's a threat to the articles themselves. Making editors feel rejected (no matter which 'side' they're on) means we lose their potential future contributions, too.
I don't know. However, one thing that I think could do this is a perception that GAR is dominated by a single editor. Why should I bother, since he'll do it for me? Why should I do this, since I don't want to be like him?
Another thing that I think could produce this effect is the sheer volume. At some level, quantity becomes its own quality. That's why editors object to talk pages being filled with AI-generated comments: It's just too much. The volume overwhelms, and editors don't feel like there is any point in participating. Why should I bother, since there are so many open GARs getting so little response?
We could probably generate half a dozen stories.
An initial test for the first story, BTW, could be looking at changes after Z1720 became active in GARs. Z1720's first GAR was in February 2023, then May 2023, and then a large series in August 2023. Since then, they have started more than 200 GARs per year. I said above that five years ago, there were 19 GARs open, with 17 unique editors starting them. About three years ago, there were 15 GARs open, with 12 unique editors (three editors started two; a few had been open for ~6 months). None were from Z1720. One year ago, there were 16 GARs open, by nine unique editors, and eight of the GARs were from Z1720. This is half as many unique editors starting GARs as we had five years before, and two-thirds as many as we had two years before (though these are spot checks rather than totals).
This makes me suspect that if Z1720's high-volume participation is a valid story, it's not the sole and exclusive explanation for everything. NB too that if there are multiple valid stories, this could still be the only factor that we can effectively control. "Multiple factors" doesn't mean "not worth addressing this one [possible] factor". WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:53, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
We really need to take into account the change from GARs lasting a minimum of a week to a minimum of a month earlier this year when comparing the number of simultaneously open GARs, or else we get a rather extreme apples-to-oranges situation. Anyway, I don't think a higher number of unique editors starting GARs is necessarily in itself a good thing. There is of course the bus factor benefit, but: if the desired outcome is article improvement it is better for 1 editor to nominate 20 articles that all get improved than for 10 editors to each nominate 1 article that gets improved, if the desired outcome is that articles that no longer meet the GA criteria be delisted it is better for 1 editor to nominate 20 articles that all get delisted than for 10 editors to each nominate 1 article that gets delisted, and if the desired outcome is that old GAs get reassessed in general it is better for 1 editor to nominate 20 articles that all get reassessed than for 10 editors to each nominate 1 article that gets reassessed. TompaDompa (talk) 03:05, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
If you want to get into the numbers, you should do it with tools more accurate than the kind of simplistic spot check that I used above.
Is it better for one lone editor to take an action that changes the rating on a lot of talk pages, or for a lot of editors to take actions that change the rating on fewer talk pages?
but instead is:
Is it better for us to improve some already-listed articles, or to change the ratings on a larger number of talk pages?
We don't have infinite capacity, so if we do more of one of these two things, we will necessarily have to do less of the other.
Separately from this (and more closely related to your question), I also wonder:
Is it better for anyone when the GAR process is dominated by a single editor?
I mean, I don't share your (in some cases implicit) assumptions about the counterfactuals. For starters, you are the one who brought up the numbers—I pointed out that a major change to the process six months ago makes it rather difficult to compare figures from before and after the change. If you were unaware of it, that's fine—just keep it in mind for the future so you don't unintentionally mislead yourself or others. Secondly, it is not necessarily the case that doing more of X requires doing less of Y. That only holds true if X and Y are directly competing with each other for the same editors' time and attention, and it is by no means self-evident that changing the article assessment on the talk page for article A competes with making material improvements to article B. Different editors are interested in different things, and will do the things that they are interested in doing while refraining from doing the things they are not interested in doing (as obvious and borderline tautological as it may sound). If editor 1 is interested in changing article assessments A1 through A25 but uninterested in improving articles B1 through B3, and editor 2 is diametrically opposite in their interests, there is no competition between the two. As for whether it is better for anyone when the GAR process is dominated by a single editor, it very well might be—it depends on what the alternative is. If we have to choose between one editor doing everything on the one hand and nobody doing anything on the other hand, then yes, a single editor dominating the GAR process is preferable. If we have to choose between one editor doing amount X and a bunch of different editors doing significantly more than amount X, then a single editor dominating the process is a net negative (assuming this is a situation where more is better, of course). In a situation where one editor contributes regularly to the process while others only do so sporadically, it is not necessarily true that the regular contributor disengaging would make others "fill the void". My guess? It is probably a net benefit that Z1720 contributes as heavily to the GAR process as is currently the case. TompaDompa (talk) 21:21, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
About this: Secondly, it is not necessarily the case that doing more of X requires doing less of Y. That only holds true if X and Y are directly competing with each other for the same editors' time and attention...
IMO it is not possible for both of the following statements to be true at the same time:
There is a community of "regulars" at GAR. Specifically, it has been asserted on this page that such a community exists and approves of Z1720's nominating dozens of articles at a time for delisting (see, e.g., "Z1720's philosophy of GAR is clearly supported here by active editors"). If those claims are true, then, GAR "X" and GAR "Y" are directly competing with each other for that group's time and attention.
Despite the claims on this page, there actually are no "regulars" at GAR, so that the time and attention being spent on each GAR is being taken away from other kinds of work (if editors show up at all in response to the GAR, which for most GARs, they don't). Maybe that "clear support" for his nominations is just the Slacktivism kind: I'm willing to click the 'thanks' button every now and again, but I won't actually do any work. Consequently, it doesn't matter how many GARs are open at a time, because GAR "X" does not compete with GAR "Y"; instead, it competes with writing new content, sourcing other articles, AFD discussions, or whatever else the original GA nom might be doing most days.
I think there's certain an actual community of "regulars" at GAR. I keep an eye on baseball and MILHIST and see what I can fix and what I can't; Donner60 watches MILHIST articles, other users monitor for math, biology, etc. There hasn't historically been a community need to !vote delist on GARs of deficient articles without comments so far, so that's why you don't see that. I check the GAR page several times a week and I'm sure there's others like that. I guess we could go the FAR route and have editor entering delist declarations regularly for no-comment GARs (many FARs don't have much significant engagement other than the "regulars" posting Move to FARC or Delist declarations. I don't believe that slowing the process down further or severely limiting the number of concurrent GARs from one editor is going to increase the rate of engagement significantly; these are already open for a minimum of a month before delisting anyway, with a talk page notice ahead of time for most nominations (like Z1720, I try to leave the notice before opening a GAR). The sad truth is that for a lot of these older GARs without an active maintainer, nobody is likely to particularly care whether the article is at GAR or not. Hog FarmTalk00:05, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
I think it is self-evidently true that "There are GAR regulars" and "There are no GAR regulars" are mutually exclusive propositions. I do not think it is self-evidently true that "There are GAR regulars" necessarily means either that those regulars would have contributed to GAR XYZ if only there had been fewer GARs to choose from or that editors that are not regulars contribute significantly to the GAR process. It is entirely possible for there to be two separate groups of editors engaged at GAR: those who are interested in GAR as such, and those who are interested in the articles that are brought to GAR. It is likewise entirely possible that for a significant proportion of GARs, neither group would be interested in improving the article even if that were the only GAR open at the moment (i.e. the limiting factor is interest, not time/effort). TompaDompa (talk) 00:14, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
Thinking about what @Hog Farm says about keeping an eye out for MILHIST, WP:MED folks sometimes reply, but most of the GARs that we're notified about aren't really core "medical" topics (e.g., Legal history of cannabis in the United States).
Are there any "generalist" folks at GAR? Editors who are interested in improving pretty much any GA article, just because it needs it? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:21, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
I feel fairly confident in saying that for a straightforward reading of "pretty much any GA", the answer is "no" (both because that means an immense range of topics and broadness/specificity thereof, and because it means a wide range of issues and severity thereof). If we soften it to "a broad variety of GAs", I'm unsure. TompaDompa (talk) 00:36, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
I'm not convinced that Z1720's extended involvement is a significant contribution to the problem (although on general principle it's good not to have processes identified with one person alone). Looking over the list of GARs, I see quite a bit of productive engagement. It doesn't read like an editor who's burning out, and Z1720's philosophy of GAR is clearly supported here by active editors who might be expected to take it up if he stepped back. Choess (talk) 07:31, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
It is not a pleasant thought to open a GAR and risk the abuse Z1720 receives. Why bother when a thread attacking you is seen as a great place to open new discussions about your work? CMD (talk) 08:57, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
The reason I've stopped nomming at GAR is the one-month length, which is annoyingly bureaucratic. Really appreciate Z1720's work. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 20:03, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
I've also been very disappointed by this change and have largely stopped bothering with nominations that will inevitably sit for a month with little or no engagement. As it was I only really did GARs on train topics since I had good background knowledge and the experience of nominating or reviewing dozens of GAs in the subject area. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 00:44, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
That's not what GAR looks like from the perspective of most editors.
The line between a helpful number of templates and tag bombing is different for every editor and hard to keep track. I would characterise the likelihood of a hostile response to adding citation needed templates as "sometimes draws a hostile response" rather than "rarely". Z1720 (talk) 01:35, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
Adding more than a couple of "large" banners at a time is probably Wikipedia:Tag bombing (which recommends " Add a tag for the one or two most urgent problems").
Adding more than a handful of {{citation needed}} tags – especially if the resulting perception "every place where a tag could possibly be justified" instead of "this specific bit would particularly benefit from an inline citation" is probably also tag bombing. Given the behavior of a few editors, who first scatter {{citation needed}} tags all over an article, and then proceed a few weeks later to a wholesale blanking of most of the article, it is only rational for editors to respond to tag bombing as a threat to the article's structure and integrity. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:42, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
If I add a handful of citation needed templates to a couple uncited statements, but not all of them, an editor might resolve them. I then thank them for their edits and tell them that there are more uncited statements. That editor then asks why I didn't also tag those statements in the first place, so that it could have been addressed at the same time. Some editors have expressed a slow, piecemeal approach as a problem with GAR in previous conversations. Others say any template is a waste of time and link WP:SOFIXIT, except I am a WP:VOLUNTEER and cannot spend several hours per GA fixing all of them, so I open GARs instead hoping interested editors will help. I feel similar to what PMC expresses above that there is no winning no matter what I do, so I do what I think is best for the article. Z1720 (talk) 02:04, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
Is "what you think is best for the article"
Starting a GAR
which is one of a hundred open GARs
so nobody replies to this one
and nobody edits this article
but after a month or so, someone changes the rating on its talk page?
An accurate assessment is improvement to our statistics, but is it an improvement to the article? I don't think so. Few editors can claim to have assessed more articles than I have, but I have never believed that changing |class=Stub to |class=C on the talk page constituted an improvement to the article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:19, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
an improvement on the editor's end (which i'd argue a quality assessment is, as it helps us know what needs work) is still an improvement. most normal readers don't use categories for navigation, but we still try to keep up with maintenance and organization because it's useful. ... sawyer * any/all * talk02:22, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
I think it is best to open a review on a noticeboard watched by several editors, hoping someone is interested enough to address the concerns. I think in the past several GAs were not maintained and their quality deteriorated: GAR is one tool in resolving this. Sometimes opening a GAR does not attract responses: it's unfortunate but a testament that editors used to care about the article and either left Wikipedia or haven't checked/updated the article. It's OK if others disagree with my perspective, and I'll change my procedures if the consensus is for a change. If an editor wants to improve several GAR articles, they can "freeze" the nominations by posting a comment in the GARs, and improve the articles as they see fit. I avoid nominating in topics where a GAR is already open. Z1720 (talk) 02:54, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
Sometimes opening a GAR does not attract responses – more than 50% of the current open GARs have no responses from anyone. I suggest that a physical majority goes beyond what I'm willing to call "sometimes" for an established process. (Imagine what you'd be saying if AFD had more than 50% of noms closing as keep or WP:Soft delete because nobody responded at all, or if more than 50% of RFCs attracted zero comments. "Oh, well, that just happens sometimes" is not the what I'd predict.)
@Premeditated Chaos says above that I'm expressing concern that the current GARs are "being done badly". I'm specifically stating that they're getting 30% as much participation as they used to, which is a risk factor for both the GARs making the wrong decision (e.g., either keeping or delisting when a full discussion would have concluded the opposite) and also for the articles being delisted when rescue was reasonably possible (i.e., if the volume of GAR nominations was better matched to editors' appetite for participating in the discussion). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:22, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
I'm sorry to be blunt, but reading this whole discussion, it just feels like you have a problem with the idea of GAR and are marshalling every rhetorical device you can conceive of to argue against it, regardless of whether it's internally consistent: there's too many, not enough participation, it's bad for articles, GA status is meaningless, actually it has so much meaning that suggesting it be removed is a threat, whatever. In one of your earliest replies to me, you likened a GAR to a parent being told their newborn is seriously ill, which frankly is a comparison that I can't begin to take seriously. My hair shirt suggestion from farther up the page begins to feel less and less like satire every time I look at this discussion. ♠PMC♠(talk)00:36, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
I think that GAR is a necessary process, just like AFD is a necessary process. But I don't think the necessary process is functioning well these days.
For example, so far this calendar year, you have left one comment in a GAR. In 2024, you left four comments. What could we do differently, that would make you want to participate in one discussion a month, or even one a week? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:01, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
I'm not Premeditated Chaos, but I'll answer. What we could do differently to make me want to participate in one discussion a month, assuming we are talking about GARs started by somebody else, is nominate one article I would be interested in working on at GAR a month. If we are talking what it would take for me to nominate one article a month, we would probably have to start by enforcing our WP:CONDUCT policies, in particular WP:CIVILITY, more actively at GAR. I haven't encountered much uncivil behaviour directed at me the few times I have participated at GAR, but I have seen enough examples directed at others brought up at this talk page that I don't feel particularly inclined to go there and risk having abuse hurled at me. It would also help if the minimum time before closing as delist were changed back to a week instead of a month. And then I would just have to encounter more articles I think warrant bringing to GAR—I'm not likely to actively go looking, and right now I can't think of anything in particular that I think would change that. TompaDompa (talk) 02:23, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
So in short, the only way to tempt you to participate regularly in the GAR process is to attempt to delist articles that are interesting to you. You would not choose to participate for the sake of GA in general. (In the past, you've initiated two GARs and commented in one.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:43, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
That is one, not particularly charitable, way of putting it. Another way of putting it would be that I typically engage with articles within my wheelhouse rather than articles on subjects I am relatively unfamiliar with (I can of course be enticed to work on certain parts of articles that do not otherwise interest me). I have nominated articles that weren't exactly within my wheelhouse when I discovered that they had serious issues. But no, I do not think my time would be well spent in areas where I (at least in relative terms) lack proficiency. I am thankful that there are other editors that bring articles to GAR for the sake of GA in general; to me, this is a good division of labour, if you will. TompaDompa (talk) 03:04, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
Okay, and you've commented in three since 2023, what's your point? Nothing's keeping me from GAR, I simply don't choose to spend my time there, as with many areas on Wikipedia. Clearly the same applies for you, which is fine. I just think it's stupid that every time GAR gets mentioned here, people start tearing their hair out about how the process is so horribly unfair that we need to impose yet another level of make-work bureaucracy on anyone who could be so mean and threatening as to nominate an article for GAR. We ask people to do all of this pre-notification, pre-tagging, pre-discussion, pre-commentary, and what does it get us? Nothing, because the reality that people don't want to accept is that most people aren't interested in maintaining old GAs, and all the make-work in the world isn't going to change that. ♠PMC♠(talk)02:49, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
What made GAR work, back in the day, was editors who were willing to spend their time there. We need some subject-matter specialists, just like AFD needs people who can recite WP:NCORP in their sleep, but if GAR's going to function as part of an article improvement process (rather than an article rating process), then we also need some folks who care about participating in GAR for the sake of the overall GA program working. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:37, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
We do have an editor who is willing to spend much of his time there but he keeps having to waste his time with make-work and defending himself in discussions like this. Perhaps you could put your money where your mouth is and join him in the trenches. ♠PMC♠(talk)05:08, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
if GAR's going to function as part of an article improvement process (rather than an article rating process), then we also need some folks who care about participating in GAR for the sake of the overall GA program working – I don't think that's true. It's sufficient that people participate for the sake of the articles, rather than the process. Like I said, I would improve articles I am otherwise interested in working on if brought to GAR. If other editors work on articles they are interested in working on, the system works. If nobody is interested in working on a particular article, that is not evidence that the system does not work—delisting is and must be an acceptable outcome of the process.I also don't think GAR necessarily needs to function as part of an article improvement process (rather than an article rating process). I asked above and didn't get an answer, so I'll ask again: We could do away with GAR entirely by removing the concept of "GA status" and instead making GAN a snapshot assessment that does not confer any ongoing status to the article (similar to, say, DYK). Would you be in favour of that? TompaDompa (talk) 15:01, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
I'm not opposed to it in principle.
I believe that having GA as an ongoing status prompts (some) ongoing improvements, which in turn better meets GA's ultimate goal of improving articles. But if my beliefs on that point were proven wrong, and one-time snapshot assessments were more effective, then I'd cheerfully change my mind. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:42, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
I can't imagine any individual wanting to join a process in which one person is throwing so many articles at basically zero people. I would be willing to help a team at GAR that was trying to respond to each nom (I have done so in the past), but the present system is not manageable for any single editor, and there is no group there for me to support. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:51, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
I have already answered this question. I would be (note my use of the conditional verb) to support a team of editors who attempted to respond to GARs generally or systematically. There is presently no such team. Therefore, I am unable to support this non-existent team.
I don't expect a team to be formed under the present approach to GAR. I don't even expect any individual (myself or anyone) to attempt to address GARs generally under the present approach to GAR. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:34, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
Alright, the only two options for you are producing occasional comments on individual GARs or being part of a hypothetical team of editors responding to GARs on a systematic basis. Thanks for your replies. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:47, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
This is interesting. You say you believe GAR is a necessary process, like AfD is a necessary process, but you gave a pretty thorough rebuttal here of my arguments in favour of removing the badge from articles that no longer meet the criteria. I struggle to understand how AfD would work if closing as Delete wasn't an available outcome. In what circumstances should a GA lose its badge, in your opinion? YFB¿06:12, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
I found your stated reasons (which I suspect are just a part of your full reasoning) to be weak. That's not the same as saying that there are no reasons.
A GA ought to lose its "badge" when it doesn't meet the criteria, including immediately after being incorrectly awarded.
But:
GA's purpose is to improve articles, not merely to accurately rate them.
GAR is part of GA. GAR's purpose, therefore, should also be to improve articles, not merely to accurately rate them.
Consequently:
A GAR that produces article improvements is a win. That meets the goal of GA.
A GAR that does not produce article improvements failed to meet the goal of GA.
I disagree. GA's purpose is both to improve articles and to accurately rate them. If it weren't, GA status would not be a thing—it would be a one-off, snapshot assessment (similar to, say, DYK). Consequently, if 100 GARs are started for articles that do not meet the criteria, and the outcome is:
10 articles are improved to the point that they retain GA status.
10 articles are improved somewhat, but still do not meet the criteria and are delisted.
80 articles are not improved, and are delisted.
Then GAR has improved 20 articles, and has delisted 90 articles. There has been a benefit to 20 articles, and there has been a benefit to the project for 100 articles. GAR has served its purpose for all 100 articles. TompaDompa (talk) 15:54, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
What's more, GAR's purpose, therefore, should also be to improve articles, not merely to accurately rate them does not follow from GA's purpose is to improve articles, not merely to accurately rate them and GAR is part of GA. "Merely" is doing some very heavy lifting here, but it is actually entirely possible for GA's purpose to be both article improvement and article rating, of which GAR's part is solely article rating (if, say, all the article improvement is supposed to happen at GAN). Saying that A GA ought to lose its "badge" when it doesn't meet the criteria strongly suggests that you think that article rating is one of the purposes of the overall GA process, in which case A GAR that does not produce article improvements failed to meet the goal of GA makes your position internally inconsistent. If article rating is in any way part of the purpose of the overall GA process, then a GAR that results in a delisting because the article does not meet the criteria does actually do what the process is supposed to do. So I'll ask you outright: do you think that article rating is one of the purposes (not necessarily the main or even a major one) of the GA process? TompaDompa (talk) 16:05, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
No. I think that rating is a means to an end (rating is a method for achieving a purpose). I do not think it is an end goal. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:28, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
Whether it is an end goal was not the question. Do you think that article rating, be it as a means to an end, is one of the purposes of GA? TompaDompa (talk) 17:04, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
That seems like splitting hairs to me. For instance: I would say that the purpose of WP:RX is to help editors access sources, the end goal of which is article improvement—saying either that the end goal of WP:RX isn't article improvement or that the purpose of WP:RX isn't to help editors access sources seems rather silly to me. In that case, the "helping editors access sources" part is obviously a means to an end. But hey, let's pick some other term than "purpose" so we are on the same page. How about "intended function"—do you think article rating, be it as a means to an end, is one of the intended functions of GA? TompaDompa (talk) 19:34, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
I don't know what RX's purpose is. I can tell you what effects I see it producing, but that's not the same as knowing what the intention behind it is.
In the case of GA, I can tell you that the "intended function" is to encourage article improvements. I haven't always agreed with some of the intended functions (e.g., as a stepping stone to FA status: given the size of the GAN backlog, I'd rather that would-be FAs proceeded straight to FAC), but I'm not telling you what the intentions "should have been"; I'm telling you that the intended functions "actually are" all connected to article improvement.
Fine, let's leave that line of inquiry if you are not interested in giving much of a straightforward answer. I put it to you that since you are of the opinion that A GA ought to lose its "badge" when it doesn't meet the criteria, you should be in favour of increasing the throughput at GAR to make that happen with articles that currently do not meet the criteria. TompaDompa (talk) 20:30, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
I put it to you that even though delisting is sometimes necessary, that delisting is not the best possible result of GAR.
I also put it to you that increasing the throughput does not seem to have improved the results of GAR. We want improved articles – but GARs are getting only 30% as many comments as they did a few years back, suggesting that they are getting fewer attempts to improve the article. We want correct answers from GAR – but GARs are only getting 30% as many comments, and half of them aren't getting any comments at all, which suggests that the results are at a higher risk of being wrong. "Do more faster" is not always the right response to a process that doesn't seem to be functioning well. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:55, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
I agree that article improvement is strictly preferable to delisting. That doesn't mean that delisting is a failure, or "getting it wrong", or even not a good outcome—if the article does not meet the criteria, it should, as you said, lose GA status.increasing the throughput does not seem to have improved the results of GAR – "improved the results" in what sense? I think that if we have a backlog of GAs that do not meet the criteria (as should be fairly uncontroversial), reducing that backlog at a quicker rate rather than a slower rate is an improvement. Since you agree that articles should be delisted if they do not meet the criteria, you should be in favour of faster delisting. The best way he have of getting "the right" outcome is to do a full review of all the WP:Good article criteria. In other words, going through the WP:Good article nomination process. Delisting means that an article can go through that process anew. If you are worried about "getting it wrong", you should be in favour of delisting to make this possible. TompaDompa (talk) 21:09, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing you say: GA's purpose is to improve articles, not merely to accurately rate them and A GAR that does not produce article improvements failed to meet the goal of GA. By the same logic, a GAN that is failed or quick-failed, where the nominator does not fix the identified problems, also failed to meet the goal of GA. Should we eliminate these options and just leave every GA open until it passes? YFB¿18:17, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
Well no, if no improvements happened during or following the GA review itself then GAN didn't achieve any article improvement. You can argue that the existence of the criteria might have prompted work prior to the nom, but the act of nominating and the act of reviewing did nothing for the article, so by your logic it failed against the purpose of GA. YFB¿19:38, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
The GAN is the incentive for many of those changes to be done, however. If no changes are made by somebody before they nominate an article, and they don't demonstrate understanding of the sources, then the nomination can be quickfailed because the community doesn't want to encourage GANs with no hope of article improvement.Also, before anybody says my critique of any part of the GAR system is rooted by a desire to leave all GAs as is or something, in the past day I've sent 3 GA-articles to either GAR or, when I looked for sources to update the articles with and realized there were none, AfD on notability grounds. Which I expect isn't going to make me friends, I don't think there's a way to say "yes, you put dozens of hours of work into something and here's a fundamental flaw with it" and have it come off a compliment, but you don't see me complaining about that. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋19:47, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
This is a long discussion and I won't pretend to have gotten my head around it in full, but I'd like to put on record my support for what Z1720 (not alone, but to a tremendous extent) does at GAR. I think looking at the raw number of articles nominated there is the wrong metric to judge (lack of) success -- a better one would be to look at the quality of the nominations. I've participated in a good few by now, and it's extremely rare to come across one where the article already seems to meet the standards -- moreover, very few have been things that could be fixed quickly or easily, certainly not by an editor not already expert in the material. We're having a similar discussion at WT:FAC at the moment which basically boils down to the fact that the process would be a lot better if only we had a large pool of people with high-level expertise in any given subject -- however, in most cases, we can't rely on having that sort of expertise on tap, and should be grateful when we do. I think this plays into the question above of why GARs relatively rarely end in the article being improved and kept -- in most cases, that's not easily possible within the time, skills and energy available to the people who see it. However, I'd echo the editors above who have said that, if an article has a GA badge but doesn't meet the GA standards, delisting it is a good outcome, even if improving and keeping would be a better one. UndercoverClassicistT·C21:03, 30 July 2025 (UTC)
Kind thoughts, but no, I've fixed numerous of his GARs by taking simple and quick actions that did not require special knowledge of the topic. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:33, 4 August 2025 (UTC)
What are we doing to increase the time, skills and energy available to GAR? For example, are we barnstarring the 'rescuers', whenever a GAR ends in keep due to improvements? Are we proactively recruiting good editors? Could we collaborate with other groups to promote awareness of Wikipedia:Article alerts, since GARs are one of many items listed there (example)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:39, 4 August 2025 (UTC)
Wikipedia:New pages patrol has occasionally gone on recruitment drives, picking a handful of criteria (e.g., x number of edits, y account age) and just inviting people to apply. GAR could do something similar, systematically.
With Article alerts, my thought is that if people watch the list for their favorite WikiProject, then even if they're watching it because they're interested in a different section (e.g., AFD), they'll occasionally get reminded about GARs. Consequently, making the Article alerts workflow more popular would benefit every process included there, including GAR. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:43, 4 August 2025 (UTC)
Very true! IIRC, you're very active at the WikiProject Council; perhaps you and the other regulars there could try something similar to what you say NPP did, alerting editors with x edits and y account age to article alerts and their possible uses? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:44, 5 August 2025 (UTC)
Indeed. It is very easy for everyone to understand that article alerts should be more used, what is not easy to understand is why the lack of article alert use is a direct issue here, let alone one worthy of prolonging this attack thread. CMD (talk) 02:35, 6 August 2025 (UTC)
It's not "a direct issue here". It is a possible way to address a significant problem here (lack of responses to most GARs, especially when compared to prior years). WhatamIdoing (talk) 12:39, 7 August 2025 (UTC)
GARs in need of participation
Latest comment: 10 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Posting here to encourage participation in reassessments from more people than the regulars at the GAR page. These are older discussions where improvement is not actively ongoing and which could use more participation.
Mentorship but for helping editors create/nominate good articles
Latest comment: 10 months ago4 comments4 people in discussion
We have a mentorship program for Good Articles, but that only covers reviewing and not for nominators who want assistance in creating and/or nominating good articles. I know that Featured Articles has a mentorship for nominators, so I'm curious if its possible to potentially expand the scope of GA mentorship to also consider nominators? I'm unsure if this has been discussed before, so if previous discussions have occurred on this suggestion then I'd appreciate any links to them and/or what consensus was reached beforehand for my own benefit. Gramix13 (talk) 06:08, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
I created the current iteration of GA mentorship because there are significantly more nominators than there are reviewers, to the point that the whole process is barely sustainable. I'm not opposed to something like this if there's support for it or even making GA mentorship focus on both, but really the reviewer kind of takes this role for a good article nomination. Otherwise, WP:Peer review can serve this purpose (although it is also struggling to find reviewers). Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸00:40, 1 August 2025 (UTC)
As Thebiguglyalien highlighted above, Wikipedia:PR exists. If such an idea were to be implemented, then it may make PR redundant. I'm not opposed to the idea, I think it's a good concept, it's just the concern of making PR redundant. I'm willing to support it if the issue is suitably addressed. Icepinner15:06, 9 August 2025 (UTC)
Credits
Latest comment: 10 months ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Is there a way for me to have my accredited GAs restored? I recently had my username changed, which left my 18 GAs credited to my former username. Is there any way to fix this? ✦ Saltymagnolia ✦11:18, 12 August 2025 (UTC)
The instructions are here; if you want to conceal your old username, which some do, then just let me know via Wikipedia email. Otherwise post a note at my talk page with the old name that you want connected. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:10, 12 August 2025 (UTC)
Event - How to edit calmly in controversial areas
Latest comment: 10 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 9 months ago3 comments3 people in discussion
I'd suggest, given the state of the backlog, that the October backlog drive have no theme. The themes are interesting but they complexify the process and may intimidate some reviewers. The focus for October should simplify be on incentivizing as many high quality reviews as possible. —Ganesha811 (talk) 12:25, 26 August 2025 (UTC)
In Vector2022 I just see the top-level headings by default, each expandable, so there is no problem with TOC clutter even with reassessments included. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:09, 28 August 2025 (UTC)
On one hand this would make navigating the TOC easier, on the other hand since the sections aren't manually editable having them appear in the TOC is the only purpose for their existence. CMD (talk) 02:35, 29 August 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 9 months ago28 comments10 people in discussion
Would there be interest in getting a few people together to systematically clear out one subject area of nominations? I'm looking at WP:GAN#REC for example where there are eight open nominations, and they're all very short and easy by the looks of it. If four people expressed interest, each could take two reviews and get the whole section done (and more people would be even better!). Just to be clear, this is not a proposal for a formal backlog drive, just something that could be done when there are enough interested people for a given subject. Seeing this sort of quick progress in clearing out an entire section could be motivating, and if there's a lot of interest, then it could be applied to some of the medium-sized subjects as well. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸00:57, 16 August 2025 (UTC)
We should pick another once most of the recreation reviews are on hold or completed. If a few more people express interest, we could go for a larger one. WP:GAN#CULTURE has good variety if we could get at least 10 people for 20 nominations. Otherwise magazines and print journalism looks like an easy one for 4–8 people to tackle. Ideally I'd like to avoid ones where it's dominated by one person (don't want to overwhelm them and would prefer to let several nominators have reviewers), and others like royalty are also being maintained and are mostly reviewed already. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸18:34, 16 August 2025 (UTC)
I've been trying to clear that section since I started reviewing almost a year ago. I've got it down to one article twice but never zero. IAWW (talk) 23:48, 17 August 2025 (UTC)
I'll do the Pythagorean addition; if somebody else takes the graph theory one the Mathematics section will be empty. —Kusma (talk) 10:24, 23 August 2025 (UTC)
It's my nomination so I can't help with the reviewing, but I'm at least holding off on additional nominations in that section for now as a way to improve the chances that this happens. And thanks to all the reviewers including Kusma and Gramix13 who have brought it so close to being cleaned out! —David Eppstein (talk) 18:50, 25 August 2025 (UTC)
As we're moving toward completion on the Recreation and Education sections, are there at least four people (including myself) interested in tackling the eight nominations in WP:GAN#PRINT next? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸20:23, 23 August 2025 (UTC)
That sounds good to me. I'm grabbing one now, and one is from an inactive nominator, so that leaves Lyon Village, Virginia (nom) and Kikwit (nom). In the meantime, if anyone wants to start pledging to do two each from Culture, we could optimistically have a list of at least ten people ready to go by the time we're done with the current projects. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸21:29, 23 August 2025 (UTC)
There's a couple print media nominations that interest me. I'll see about reviewing them once I'm done with my own open nomination. --Grnrchst (talk) 09:07, 24 August 2025 (UTC)
Mathematics: From 1/3 under review to 1/2 under review.
Places: From 2/6 under review to 4/7 under review.
Recreation: From 0/8 under review to 3/4 under review.
Recreation was the one we all started with together and quickly got all eight under review in a matter of hours. After that everyone kind of went off in their own direction and it just became regular reviewing. A few of the open reviews have also dragged on a bit longer than the expected one week. If we want to do another section, I suggest waiting until the in-progress sections are mostly resolved, and then getting a few people together in advance before coming to an agreement on a given section. In the meantime, there are currently ten more nominations waiting in the above subjects. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸23:04, 28 August 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 9 months ago4 comments3 people in discussion
Chenab Rail Bridge was nominated for a GAR in February 2025. While the user Theeverywhereperson indicated an intention to review on 4 August 2025, he/she had not started the review as of date, and has reverted with a might/might not answer when queried on the same. So request to restore the article to the original date as per the list, so that someone else can take it up. Thanks! Magentic Manifestations (talk) 12:47, 25 August 2025 (UTC)
In the past we have waited a month, although Theeverywhereperson has indicated on the review that they are not free. Have you asked them if they want to withdraw as a reviewer? They can nominate the page for deletion and then all that is needed is to make a small reset to the nomination template. CMD (talk) 13:42, 25 August 2025 (UTC)
@Chipmunkdavis, In my opinion, if the review is ongoing, it is fine if it takes longer. However, if someone has not even started reviewing it after 20+ days, it simply takes the article from the GA backlog, and prevents others from taking it up. As per your suggestion, I have suggested that the user nominate it for deletion. Will reach out in case of further help. Thanks as always! Magentic Manifestations (talk) 03:19, 27 August 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 9 months ago10 comments6 people in discussion
Title sums it up - I've been asked a few times to archive references as part of a GA review, but I'm not sure if that's a requirement or not. EF513:37, 29 August 2025 (UTC)
No. As a reviewer, I will run the article through the archive bot as a courtesy and then just recommend that the author archive the rest, but clarify that it is not a requirement. Bgsu98(Talk)13:50, 29 August 2025 (UTC)
Archiving may or may not be required for FA/FL (at the very least, it's strongly encouraged at FL), but really shouldn't factor as a requirement for GA. Bgsu98(Talk)14:16, 29 August 2025 (UTC)
As long as archiving is not required, I think explicitly including archiving in the Tools template could be easily misunderstood. —Kusma (talk) 05:43, 30 August 2025 (UTC)
Lots of good ideas are not Good Article requirements. This is one such. It is helpful for GA reviewers to find things that could be improved that are not requirements, but when they do so they should be clear that they are not requirements. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:00, 30 August 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 9 months ago6 comments3 people in discussion
That GA review was failed immediately (not stated as a quick fail) without giving me time to fix the concerns the reviewer had. I don't think the person should have immediately failed the GAN - they should have given me some time to fix the issues and/or put it on hold. I personally feel like the concerns that were raised could have easily been fixed within the standard seven day period once I was notified of them.
According to WP:GANI you should put it on hold if you determine that the article could meet the good article criteria if a few issues are fixed and you wish to prescribe an amount of time for these issues to be corrected (generally seven days). It also says you should fail the GAN if you determine that the article does not meet the good article criteria. I'm not quite sure if their assessment justifies an instant failure, seeing as they elaborated on what information they think is lacking in places, but did not give me any time after seeing their comments to actually fill in the gaps before failing the GAN. There's one uncited statement in the article that can be easily removed; otherwise, it was clear to me that they think the article passes criteria 3-6.
The reviewer said they do feel like this article has the potential to reach GA status in the future: I do believe this has what it takes to make GA status in time though, so keep trucking on. I feel I could have easily addressed them within a week or so if they had given me the time to do so.
Would it be appropriate to undo the failure temporarily and place the nomination on hold so the issues can be addressed?
I'd say based on what they said, it's most likely QF criteria #1. I'd take an educated guess it's because they saw information as lacking in some places. There aren't any copyvios on the article so it's probably not #2. They may think it needs cleanup banners so IDK about #3. There hasn't been any edit warring so it's obviously not #4. Talk:It (character)/GA1 did fail due to broadness (although IIRC some people disagreed with this and felt it was too harsh, I agreed that it wasn't broad enough) so it could potentially fall under #5. Nevertheless, we should wait and see what Pokelego says. Gommeh📖/🎮23:25, 30 August 2025 (UTC)
@Gommeh Yes, sorry for being unclear, but #1 was my rationale (While it wasn't one particular criteria, so many were lacking, I felt, that I felt it was warranted). Additionally, I based it off WP:GAN/I#R3, and felt it was unlikely it could be completed in the seven day time frame. However, I am quite fine with re-opening it given how much you're fighting for this to be re-opened. If you believe that you can complete this within the given timeframe, I'm happy for it to be re-opened so you can address what was brought up in the review. I'm admittedly unfamiliar with re-opening GANs, however, so I'd appreciate assistance from someone more experienced on the feasibility of it, in this case. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 00:57, 31 August 2025 (UTC)
Fair enough. Depending on what information I can find I may have to actually remove some information instead - like who the Turtle is for example - if it's not relevant enough. I'll have to think about it. And thanks for clarifying - I'll probably get on it sometime tomorrow. Gommeh📖/🎮01:03, 31 August 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 9 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I'm hoping that someone might be able to help fix the review status of Bill Cardoso. I quick-failed this article and closed my review yesterday. The creator made some fixes and re-nominated the article the same day, which seems to have confused the bot, which removed and then added back the article with me still indicated as the reviewer. The nominations page still says that the article is on GA1 and that I am currently reviewing it. I'm not planning to conduct a second review at this stage, so would it be possible to return this to pending? Thank you. MCE89 (talk) 10:31, 6 September 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 9 months ago5 comments4 people in discussion
Hi -- I nominated two articles for GAR today but I don't see them transcluded yet. Is this something with a delay on it? If it matters I did them manually since for whatever reason the JavaScript tool isn't showing up even after clearing my cache. Gnomingstuff (talk) 19:29, 9 September 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 9 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
There's a bunch of unreliable sources present on the article that will have to go, but other than that I'm not sure what type of work I should do before I nominate it for GA. Any help is appreciated. Gommeh📖/🎮19:00, 9 September 2025 (UTC)
@Gommeh You may be better off asking at WT:VG, people active there are likely experienced with GACR3 and GACR4 considerations. The Teyvat's Major Nations table and the notes are uncited. Aside from that, ensuring the sources present support the text is probably the most important step. CMD (talk) 01:51, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 9 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Does this page need to be QF'd? The nominator has been banned for sockpuppetting and the page seems to be a way off from GA status (rather laudatory, vague, etc.). I'd fail it myself, but it seems that the GAN banner is missing from the talk page anyway. Any thoughts? ThaesOfereode (talk) 22:12, 9 September 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 9 months ago5 comments4 people in discussion
How does GA reviewing handle excerpts from other articles? Particularly regarding referencing. Is the excerpt considered to be part of the nominated page, part of the page from which it is extracted, both, or something else? Cheers, ···Peter Southwood(talk): 14:53, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
Anything displayed on the nominated page should be reviewed. If a page excerpts something unreferenced, it should be fixed or failed. —Kusma (talk) 14:59, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
Further, discourage excerpting. It adds an unnecessary layer to assessing GACR5 stability, as well as adding complications to anyone trying to see what the oldid version that was promoted was in the future. CMD (talk) 15:19, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
I think excerpting should not be used in article space, but that is independent of the GA criteria in my view. —Kusma (talk) 16:01, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
Yes. Nearly all the excerpting I've come across is either WP:UNDUE or inadequate for the purpose it's trying to meet. This is because the excerpt is from an article on another topic and is designed to explain that topic, not the one in the article containing the extract. It's always better to describe and cite the point that is being made, for which the other article may perhaps be helpful as a supply of raw materials. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:13, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
Is significant contribution absolutely necessary for nominators?
Latest comment: 9 months ago5 comments4 people in discussion
I've started reviewing a page for GA status and it's probably going to pass pending a few things to fix up. I noticed the nominator only has 3.6% of authorship on the page, behind others at 31.5%, 6.3%, 5%, 3.9%.
I'm only new to reviewing good articles, so I thought I'd ask here if the requirement that nominators be significant contributors to their articles a strict necessity, or is there some discretion? The nominator in question is a long-standing contributor who has many many successful nominations and reviews themselves. Thanks in advance. SnowyRiver(talk)07:30, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
Hi SnowyRiver, it is not absolutely necessary. The rule was put in place to ensure that nominators are familiar with the material and thus are not wasting a reviewer's time. If you have started the review and it is going well, please continue it. CMD (talk) 08:29, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
From the GA directions: "...either the author of at least 10% of the article, or are ranked in the top five in authorship." Are you referring to the water buffalo article? If so, the nominator is #6 in authorship, so that seems pretty close to me; I'd go with it. Bgsu98(Talk)08:32, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
Also, the nominator of that article is very experienced with the GA process and generally quite responsive, so I wouldn't worry about authorship percentage for this nom. —Kusma (talk) 08:56, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
Thanks, the nominator's extensive level of experience on both sides of the GAN process and across Wikipedia in general was my main reason for questioning. Thank you all for the clarification. SnowyRiver(talk)09:05, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
First good article review
Latest comment: 9 months ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Hiya, I'm thinking of starting my first good article review sometime in the near future. I'm trying to familiarise myself with the requirements by reading policy and instruction pages, and on the instructions page, it recommends asking one of the good article mentors to look over your review if it is your first one. My question is, how exactly would I do this? Would I page one of the good article mentors on the article review page after I've posted it, or should I post the review on a mentor's talk page (or here, even) prior to posting it on the article review page? LivelyRatification (talk) 01:36, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
Generally you can either post at WP:GAMENTOR before or after you start the review, ping a mentor, or reach out to a mentor on their talk page. I'm happy to help so feel free to ping me at any review you start. IAWW (talk) 14:39, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
Proposed streamlining of reassessment nomination
Latest comment: 9 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I have done so, though I have no way to test that I've done it correctly, so fixes welcome if needed. Thanks for the pointer! -- Beland (talk) 19:39, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 9 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
The original reviewer appears to be MIA. Would anyone be willing to help out this editor by finishing the GA? The article falls into the Philosophy and religion category. Bgsu98(Talk)11:30, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
Discussion about MOS:COLOR and how it applies to maps
Latest comment: 9 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 9 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Hey all. I've been seeing a lot of BLPs have been nominated recently, some of which are about people whose notability is rather recent and who are regularly in the news. My nominations and reviews have mostly been about historical figures; the only BLP I nominated was about someone who has been in hiding for more than 4 decades, which made me confident that news about them wouldn't drastically affect the broadness or stability criteria. So I was wondering if there are any guidelines that we should be following when nominating and reviewing BLP articles? I ask because these are articles that could change substantially from day to day. Are there clear indicators where a BLP would fail (or pass) criteria 3 and 4, by nature of it being about someone who is actively in the news? --Grnrchst (talk) 09:23, 17 September 2025 (UTC)
I don't think we have formal guidelines, but I agree a GA nom of someone actively in the news is likely suboptimal. It's tricky to draw a firm line, it is easy to say for example that political candidates being nominated during the campaign makes little sense, but it is a different case for a politician (or any celebrity) who might receive small updates regularly without expecting a big change. I recall that GANs on unreleased video games have failed before, due to the expectation of significant potential change upon release. CMD (talk) 10:58, 17 September 2025 (UTC)
Clearing the template-based request queue
Latest comment: 9 months ago2 comments1 person in discussion
{{GAR request}} just survived a deletion discussion. I had nominated it because there were complaints in a recent RFC that the GA process left not-so-good articles with the GA stamp of approval for too long. It appeared articles were getting tagged with this template and then left in limbo for several months (the oldest is currently from June), even though the project page says the list of pending requests should be kept empty most of the time. The template also didn't require editors to supply a reason for their reassessment request, which would normally result in a speedy close when opening a reassessment. TFD participants decided instead of dropping this pathway, we'd add a mandatory "reason" parameter to the template. I have just implemented that, and pulled reasons from the talk page edit histories for all but one of the nominated articles. (For the other one I left a question on the tagger's user talk page.) I leave it up to the regular GA participants to evaluate these requests and demote articles as needed; hopefully the requests now have a clearer path forward. Thanks! -- Beland (talk) 18:11, 22 September 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 8 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Hello. My article Dorfromantik (board game) is currently under GA review but no progress has been made for over a month. The reviewer, @History6042, has not edited the review page since 8 September and that was to say that his mouse had been broken but is fixed now. Is there anyone else that can conclude the review? It started in mid-August and has been getting somewhat tedious. Chorchapu (talk|edits) 18:19, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
No worries, hope you are well. Take your time; there is no deadline. I am working a bit on this; trying to gather my thoughts:) GoldRomean (talk) 12:48, 25 September 2025 (UTC)
Thanks GoldRomean. Everything is fine, it's just that I am very busy at the moment and do not really have time to edit Wikipedia. This'll be over by mid-October. We can do a issue in mid-October, so you don't have to rush if you're still planning on writing this. Vacant0(talk•contribs)13:06, 25 September 2025 (UTC)
Good Article Gazette
I appreciate that people have signed up for the newsletter but what has bothered me is that it is not really accessible to non-subscribers and potential subscribers. There are no links to it. You can either search it up for yourself or find it on a user's talk page. So, does anyone have a solution to fixing this issue? Maybe we could add it to the sidebar at Wikipedia:Good articles? Vacant0(talk•contribs)13:11, 25 September 2025 (UTC)
Remove Frank Lampard from Backlog
Latest comment: 8 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion
The same editor has given a very, uh, cursory review for 15.ai. I appreciate the enthusiasm in help lowering the backlog, but it's unfair for editors to have to relist their nominations just to get a proper review. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 22:37, 27 September 2025 (UTC)
no doubt this has been discussed before and it flies in the face of the bigger problem of the backlog, but it seems odd not to have some sort of minimum qualification/experience for reviewers. DeCausa (talk) 23:28, 27 September 2025 (UTC)
Should we not just delete all these crap reviews and put the articles back in the queue with their original nom dates? ♠PMC♠(talk)03:04, 28 September 2025 (UTC)
It is not in written policy (unless the original reviewer agrees to the deletion or there is an obvious error), but there is a long history of deleting improper reviews to restore the status quo ante. Perhaps we need to write that up somewhere. Policy is supposed to be descriptive of our practice (WP:PPP) after all. —Kusma (talk) 15:38, 28 September 2025 (UTC)
I could go and delete a few of the reviews, but I think the current situation (articles back in the queue at their original place, bad reviews in place but vacated) might be even better for transparency reasons. —Kusma (talk) 17:11, 28 September 2025 (UTC)
Hi @DoctorWhoFan91, Thanks for spotting it. Yes, It is closer now and we need to create related pages for it. I think we need to look for co-ordinators to coordinate this month's drive. Pinging last month co-ordinators @Vacant0, DaniloDaysOfOurLives, and IntentionallyDense:. If they're not available then I am happy to help out there. Your thoughts on coordinating @DoctorWhoFan? Best Regards! Fade258 (talk) 14:58, 17 September 2025 (UTC)
Hi @It is a wonderful world. Thank You for your commitment regarding coordinating this month's drive. Can Old nominations first would be a suitable theme for this month's drive? I think it helps to clear those backlog which has been nominated for GAN for more than 90 days. Fade258 (talk) 01:12, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
I think that would be a good theme. I'm happy to create the backlog drive pages when there is consensus to have this theme. IAWW (talk) 08:09, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
Hi @Vacant0, No worries about that. Since It is a wonderful world agreed to coordinate and I am also there to help out. I know You already said in above reply that you will skip this month's drive but I request you to re–think about coordination. I don't want to force you to coordinate but If you available from mid-October then would you agree to place your name in coordination? Fade258 (talk) 15:40, 25 September 2025 (UTC)
Thanks for taking a look. I don't really have the time to do all that manually, since there are over 300 noms over 90 days old. Do you think it would be unreasonable to expect people to identify old noms themselves? IAWW (talk) 18:18, 28 September 2025 (UTC)
How to fix this glitch?
Latest comment: 8 months ago4 comments3 people in discussion
I recently review the article Klaus Mikaelson and quickfailed it at time as it was a long way away from GA criteria 1. It was then removed from the nominations list. The original nominator and I have since worked on the article and co-nominated it a few hours ago. At the time, it claimed somebody had already started reviewing it, but the link to the discussion for the same was my original review. As such, I renominated the article. Now, while it doesn't say this on the main talk page, when you go to the GA nominations page, it says that its currently being reviewed by me? I don't know what's happening, because I have not volunteered to do this (especially given I am ineligible as the co-nominator). MadelynnSienna (talk) 17:18, 25 September 2025 (UTC)
The edit history is complicated enough that I can't be certain this is what happened, but I suspect whoever made the second nomination did not follow the instructions, and instead added the nomination manually, using "page=1". That would point the GA nomination link at the old review. I think this is the incorrect edit; there is no "co nomination" parameter in the GA nomination template so this must have been a manual nomination. Everything looks OK now. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:45, 25 September 2025 (UTC)
Since you are not a major contributor to that article, I would ask on the talk page and consult with the main authors of the text. Afterwards, if you have approval, you can follow the instructions at Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Instructions. I would still make sure you are familiar with the sources used to write the article. Nominating this article now could be considered a "drive-by nomination", since you haven't edited it at all at this point. -- Reconrabbit18:43, 29 September 2025 (UTC)
In this case I don't know much about the subject, and almost all of the information appears to be cited to reliable sources, so I can't see obvious ways to "improve it to good article status" unless you are aware there is missing information that could be added, or retrospective reports about the event, etc. -- Reconrabbit23:48, 29 September 2025 (UTC)
0.6% of all articles are now Good articles
Latest comment: 8 months ago22 comments10 people in discussion
Hello everyone, the number of Good articles continues to increase, as does the relative number compared to the overall numbers of articles. Some time recently in July/August we passed the mark of 0.6% of all articles being Good articles, pretty much on the seventh anniversary of August/September 2018 when the percentage exceeded 0.5%. (See Wikipedia:Good article statistics for the full table.) That does mean that however slow we find the process, it's somehow keeping up with overall article growth rates. On the other hand, we are looking at 28 more years to reach 1%. In the spirit of the recent pledge system of creating a positive statement of intent, I have created Template:User Good article 1%er, stating at least 1 in 100 of my article creations are Good articles. Regulars here are likely at or far above this level, but my hope is that it looks like a very achievable benchmark, and thus target, for less familiar users. CMD (talk) 10:08, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
This is a great achievement, and something that should be applauded. Another reviewing initiative is good article review circles, which in August created its 50th circle! Interested editors are invited to add to the nominations pool. Z1720 (talk) 14:28, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
Nice work! My thinking is that the amount of potential articles to be created should approach some finite amount, so creation rates should dip when nearing that, meaning if the rate of GA stays the same the proportion should increase somewhat. I'm very curious if there is any data on how close Wikipedia is to hitting the theoretical article ceiling. IAWW (talk) 14:43, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
I've seen quite a bit of discussion on this. I feel that we are far, far off, but not all potential articles are equal. Language barrier makes some things less likely to be created (eg, an enwiki user is more likely to create an article about topics of local interest which narrowly pass GNG in the US then they are for China), and some topics are less well covered (gender disparities mean that traditionally 'feminine' topic areas such as fashion or cosmetics have relatively little coverage compared to disproportionantly well-covered areas like warfare, video games, or train stations).
So eventually article creation will begin to slow down, not because we near the number of notable topics, but because we exhaust the pool of articles that our userbase (heavily weighted towards educated men in the anglosphere) would be most interested in writing about. Beyond demographic issues, I think some notable topics are just inherently more dull to write about extensively Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 15:08, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
I do not think Wikipedia can ever reach an article ceiling, as historical events and new notable places or people will necessitate article creation. However, at some point the amount of new articles created should plateau, and editors much smarter than me might be able to calculate when that might take place. Z1720 (talk) 15:28, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
We may run out of editors before we run out of unwritten topics, around 2 and a half million articles are still created each year. And then if we consider overall content, see File:Wikipedia article size in gigabytes.png, it doesn't even seem to have the small slowdown raw article numbers has. CMD (talk) 15:53, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
This is great and I like the idea behind the userbox. Let's aim high: 1% good (or featured) articles ten years from now? (I need to get back to writing GAs instead of burning myself out on reviewing though). —Kusma (talk) 16:15, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
Featured articles have been peculiarly stable at ~0.1% forever, so on that trend 0.9% GAs would hit 1% total. If anyone has good ideas for an easy reviewing goal userbox that might also be something to put out there. CMD (talk) 17:17, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
Glad it's increasing, but this is a snail's pace. The figure means that just 1 in 166 articles is good, or to put it the other way, that 155/166 articles in a global encyclopedia are not good. If we include the FAs we get 1 in 143 articles (good or better), i.e. 142/143 articles aren't even good. Obviously, many articles are stubs or lists, so perhaps we could estimate (multiplying by 4 or so) that 1 in 35 articles with text are in practice good. Still, I think we would all be shocked or disgusted if we picked up a printed encyclopedia and learnt that only a few percent of its entries had reached a decent state or indeed had even been reviewed. There's a long way to go. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:39, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
That's certainly one possible perspective to take, and I'll be the first to say that the English-language Wikipedia is in a sufficiently mature state (and has been for years) that the focus should be on content curation rather than content creation (article quality, not quantity), but I'm not sure if it's particularly helpful. Wikipedia has been around for almost 25 years, and even if the throughput here at GAN were dramatically increased to 100 newly-promoted GAs per day, we would still not be at one million GAs in another 25 years. That's compared to a current article count somewhere between 3 million and 4 million when excluding stubs and lists, based on the statistics at WP:ASSESS. The most effective way to improve the proportion of GAs (and FAs) would probably be the wholesale deletion (or by all means WP:Draftification) of vast swaths of low-quality content, which would likewise require a very high throughput to have an appreciable impact. I think more than a few editors would consider that an obvious instance of Goodhart's law. If the goal is that every article should be GA-class (or higher), some kind of drastic change would need to happen. TompaDompa (talk) 12:22, 27 September 2025 (UTC)
25 years to get a global encyclopedia up to decent quality ... would seem to be a reasonable goal in proportion to the scale of the task; Scientific American this month has an article about a forest ecology project that is meant to complete 160 years from now. (I notice I have made a User:Dr. Blofeld-ian argument about the low proportion of good to other articles.) As for the vast swaths, it isn't the mounds of stubs that are the problem: readers can see those say almost nothing, and cause no big issues. The damage is done by the WP:OR-rich articles that actively mislead: as Mark Twain said, "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." We need to suppress the definitely-wrong materials spread across the encyclopedia, so that when we hear people talking about Wikipedia, they aren't just laughing about it. The easiest way to do that would be a vigorous removal of uncited content. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:22, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
I'm in favour of removing uncited content, though I think if we want the effect to be seen in a timely manner we would need to either make adding stuff more difficult or removing stuff easier. TompaDompa (talk) 14:46, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
That's one change that could perhaps help, and a suggestion that comes up every now and then. Another thing that occurs to me is that deleting WP:DYNAMIC lists that are not kept up to date would remove incomplete, misleading, and outright false information, but doing so for the specific reason that they are not maintained to an adequate standard is not currently an approach that enjoys widespread support. TompaDompa (talk) 14:53, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
My exclamation mark says that I know that exactly; of course the let-the-IPs-edit-away goes right back to Jimmy Wales, and it was how WP grew so rapidly with a vast accumulation of totally uncited articles for the first 5 years or so: we're still cleaning them up, and will be for many years yet. On the dynamic lists, we'll never purge all of them, but insisting on sources would be a big help as without them they function as perfect OR-fests. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:55, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
There are probably quite a few remnants from the time when expansion was the focus that are no longer beneficial to the overall project. The WP:Deletion policy could be modernized, for instance. TompaDompa (talk) 15:20, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
Yes, we need to get our act together fast. Particularly as AI is developing fast and Musk is planning on building an encyclopedia which will dwarf us. And spot on, the real dirt on Wikipedia is in those bloated, poorly sourced articles on very notable subjects which really ought to be satisfactory by now. We lack the numbers needed to pull off very large scale clean up drives, but respect to anybody on here who is making a big effort to organize things and chip away at it.♦ Dr. Blofeld06:44, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
We have less time than any of us have imagined. Someone (you can easily guess their politics) just created an article, now already revdel-ed and being speedy-deleted, called Flew a helicopter into the Wikiservers. (I saw it because they did it by moving Fly, which I helped to bring to GA.) Muskopedia would have the money that Nupedia did not, and the will to pay 10,000 editors to write whatever they are told to. The Wikipedia servers are not safe in the US. They need to be moved to relatively safe and neutral countries: I'd suggest a distributed system between, say, Canada, Sweden, and New Zealand, with hot standby and off-site backups. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:26, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
I would reopen it, but that's just me. If the problem isn't sourcing and just size and expansion, there's a lot of wiggle room. @Chiswick Chap: for input, as they are the master of the short GA. Viriditas (talk) 22:17, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
I agree, this was not a reasonable quickfail. The article is not so far from meeting the GACR that it could not have been fixed by the nominator. In addition, GA does not demand comprehensiveness, only broadness - it must address major aspects of the topic, but does not have to include every last possible detail. ♠PMC♠(talk)23:25, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
There were several recent GAN’s a year or so ago, where I had a similar problem. The article was missing just one major aspect of the topic. I pointed the nom to a specific source and page and then wrote a sample paragraph of about 400 words on the review page and said something like “this is what is missing, add what you can”. They added maybe 90% of the content I recommended and I passed. Viriditas (talk) 01:35, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
Not sure I can add much here, as I find all that has been said very sensible. I try to collaborate with nominators whenever I feel I can help to make an article better. I recall drawing a map on one occasion. The key issues are structure, themes -- implying sourced content, and perhaps missing images. Chiswick Chap (talk) 04:54, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
15-year-old improperly closed GAN?
Latest comment: 8 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Latest comment: 8 months ago8 comments6 people in discussion
I'm reviewing Vincente Minnelli. I spot-checked about a tenth of the citations. I found five discrepancies between the article and sources, all small but big enough IMO to need correction, which I did:
(Only the statement about Freedman was actually incorrect; the others were only not supported by their citations.)
Given that rate of discrepancies I'd expect a thorough survey to find 40-some more of the same magnitude. Must I then either check every citation (which would take more time that I'm willing to spend) or fail the article? Or are any of these too minor to preclude GA? Dave Schweisguth (talk) 00:32, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I wouldn't fix all 40 sources yourself or check every citation. First give the nominator some time to respond, they may have some understanding of how the text developed to include discrepancies, and be able to make some changes. I have in the past carried out a second spotcheck of a different set of sources in such situations, and had the second spot-check come up better. CMD (talk) 00:53, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
I've been working on a set of criteria for failing in circumstances such as these. Right now, I'm experimenting with failing if 10% of the spot-checks (for example 10 random spot-checks out of 100 total sources in the article) don't pan out. I use a simple Python script to randomize and shuffle the numbers several times. Viriditas (talk) 01:01, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
I think a spotcheck needs to come up completely clean, or at least only with trivial fixes, to pass. However, though I have failed GAs immediately for spotcheck reasons, I nearly always allow the nominator to go through and clean up first instead. E.g. if the first three citations I check fail verification, that's not automatically a quickfail if I decide to let the nominator address it; the second spotcheck might find ten out of ten clean. I have occasionally allowed a nomination to go to a third attempt to get the spotchecks clean if I thought it was very close. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:39, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
There are clearly different cases here. One is where glosses have been added, so the source says Joe Bloggs did XYZ, and the Wikipedia article says the British athlete Joe Bloggs did XYZ. I think that's perfectly fine, so an automated gadget that labels this a discrepancy is making a category error.
Another innocent case is where a new claim B has been carelessly inserted into the middle of claim A. Then we get AAAA1 B [ref B] AAAA2 [ref A]. The AAAA1 material will trigger a mismatch with ref B; nom will say ah, we need to repeat ref A to sort it out. That's quickly done during GAN.
The case we're trying to catch is where serious OR has been inserted and the refs are thus seriously abused. That may take some shaking to discern. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:35, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
I'm now dealing with an even newer case! I have a review where two sources are used correctly and appropriately to make sensationalized claims that most newspapers still report as accepted conventional wisdom, but the claims themselves have been debunked by experts within the last 20 years as exaggerated myths. Viriditas (talk) 00:41, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
Thanks all. It doesn't sound like anyone is saying that these cases are too minor to be ignored. I'll fail or hold as the nominator thinks best and, after someone has reviewed the sources more thoroughly, I or the next reviewer can spot-check again. Dave Schweisguth (talk) 00:05, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
Do we have/need an essay about broadness?
Latest comment: 8 months ago5 comments5 people in discussion
GA criteria requires that an article is "broad in its coverage", but doesn't really go into what it means by "broad" and barely even distinguishes broadness from "comprehensiveness". This is in contrast to other criteria, such as 1a, which are a bit clearer about their terms. But the term "broad" is a bit, uh, broadly-defined. Criteria 3a currently links to the out of scope essay, but this strikes me as something that should really be linked in 3b, as it's more concerned with focus than broadness. I'm wondering if a piece that clearly explains what we want out of a "broad" article could be helpful to both nominators and reviewers, just as we can link to WP:MTAU for what we mean by "clear and concise" prose. Do one of these exist? If not, should there be one? --Grnrchst (talk) 18:06, 10 October 2025 (UTC)
The footnote clearly says that "broadness" is much weaker than "comprehensiveness", but I guess some further clarification could help. In my view, "broadness" means that every important aspect of the topic is given some consideration, but but it does not require in-depth treatment. For example, my article An Account of the Voyages is broad, as it addresses the main topics (background/history, author/publication, content, immediate and later reception) but not comprehensive, as most of these topics are only addressed briefly. In contrast, A Voyage Round the World is comprehensive in its treatment of the same topics. —Kusma (talk) 20:58, 10 October 2025 (UTC)
I think Kusma's comparison is helpful and should be the example used in the proposed essay since both articles are on accounts of Royal Navy voyages. A useful benchmark is that a sufficiently broad article has all the headings that one would expect of a comprehensive article. ViridianPenguin🐧(💬) 21:29, 10 October 2025 (UTC)
Almost: I'd say that it has all the topics that would be in a comprehensive article, but not every topic need be a subsection – some might be paragraphs. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:05, 11 October 2025 (UTC)
I'm glad this is being discussed. In my recent GA review of The Batman, I became concerned with the broadness criterion but passed it on that just the same. This issue came about because the production section was split out and the summary style was never updated to reflect the broadness of the original section. Viriditas (talk) 21:33, 10 October 2025 (UTC)
Do potential future events fall under GACR3a?
Latest comment: 8 months ago9 comments7 people in discussion
Asking for a third opinion at Talk:Enderlin tornado/GA1 as to whether two criteria are met; stability and completeness. Not super worried about the edit warring as it's not consistent (still would like another look from someone experienced), but since this was the reason this was initially failed: do potential events (in this case, potential FEMA response to the tornado) fall under GACR3a's requirement for completeness? I don't see anything saying this explicitly, but I'm not sure whether articles should be assessed on current information or future information that could possibly lead to an expansion of the article.
Thanks! And a WP:3O is requested overall; I'm obviously biased as the nominator and there's been an off-wiki discussion regarding this which led to the re-opening of the discussion. EF502:49, 11 October 2025 (UTC)
I'm definitely not the most knowledgeable about the GA criteria but unless the event is imminent (i.e., under normal circumstances, the event has an overwhelming chance of happening) and would fundamentally change the article (i.e., a substantial amount of information would be added and the structure could possibly change entirely), e.g., an upcoming video game, I think we ought not bog ourselves down in the possibilities of what could happen relating to the subject. nub:)03:08, 11 October 2025 (UTC)
Of course, I'm speaking generally here, so I don't know how helpful this would be in this specific context. Apologies in advance. nub:)03:09, 11 October 2025 (UTC)
Actually, disregard the 3O request, it isn't a huge deal. Still would like clarification on 3a though. EF504:54, 11 October 2025 (UTC)
3a isn't completeness, but broadness. There is a wide variety of opinions on what is broad enough, but the official criteria say it's "significantly weaker" than the comprehensive criteria of FAC. WP:GANOT says that one mistake is to demand information not in reliable sources. Given it's about a possible future event, there aren't RSs yet (I assume), so it cannot count towards broadness. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 07:56, 11 October 2025 (UTC)
My reflection is the same as nub's. I believe we have previously interpreted this regarding events that are definitely going to happen that would significantly alter the article, such as their video game example. This is easily extended to say a building being built, a sports competition that is ongoing with a definite end date, or a storm that is still happening. A storm that finished months ago however, seems in the clear. CMD (talk) 14:26, 11 October 2025 (UTC)
I can also think of GA nominated/reviewed while the underlining project was under construction at the time such as the Level Crossing Removal Project, Midland Main Line upgrade and A9 dualling project (the latter two nominated by me). I just think that when you have enough info on a project to satisfy the 'broad' criteria (such as the background, planning and why the project is needed), then a GA is suitable. You also have video games that have been in early access for years such as BeamNG.drive, which it still is. JuniperChill (talk) 15:52, 16 October 2025 (UTC)
Can GACR6 be used to put an article up for re-assessment regardless of time since GAN?
Latest comment: 8 months ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Here from Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/2025 Enderlin tornado/1, where the nominator of the GAR and I (nominator of the GAN) have a conflicting viewpoint on this. WP:GAR says explicitly Instability in itself is not a reason to delist an article. But, it doesn't mention specifically how long it should be before the article shouldn't be re-assessed on GACR6 (stability), and the nominator in this case cites that the re-assessment reasoning is based on instability at the original GAN 2 days ago. So, the question is: Can GACR6 be used to put an article up for re-assessment if it was very-recently promoted? Would like a few experienced opinions, and apologies for posting here twice in two days. EF520:56, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
Worth noting a few statistics on this one. Article was created on 6 October, nominated for GA on 7 October, taken under review on 9 October and passed on 11 October. Between GA nomination and approval, there were 205 revisions made to the article, or over 50 per day. My conclusion is clear: 1) the article was clearly unstable when under review (and remains so), 2) the reviewer did not adequately assess the stability. As the review was very recent, stability should be considered at the GAR. The good news is that GARs typically last more than a month, so if we do what the GA reviewer should have initially done and just wait for the process of article creation to finish, all should be fine on that front. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:21, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
AirshipJungleman29, you are probably right about the instability of this particular article, specially as it was so new, so that much of the change during the GAN was most likely due to its newness and being in work. That is to be distinguished (for other articles) from change that is caused by the GA process itself (in response to the reviewer's comments), which should be taken as normal work and not as instability. In general (again, not specifically about that particular article), a large number of edits during GAN is not in itself cause for alarm: some nominators may make a few large edits, while others might make a lot of small ones in response to the same comments. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:12, 17 October 2025 (UTC)
October 2025 Backlog Drive
Latest comment: 8 months ago17 comments6 people in discussion
Hi all, the October Backlog Drive is starting in a few days and I am currently the only coordinator. An additional coordinator would be very appreciated, especially considering this is my first time coordinating. IAWW (talk) 13:31, 28 September 2025 (UTC)
Hi @Bgsu98. Thanks for asking it! And sorry for my interfere. If I am not wrong then, Do you asking what coordinating invloves? If yes then, In my opinion, Coordinating a backlog drive mostly involves helping to keep things organised and running smoothly. This usually means to make sure that the drive page and leaderboard are updated correctly, answering participant questions about the rules or scoring and to double check that the reviews meet the Good Article criteria etc. Fade258 (talk) 15:21, 28 September 2025 (UTC)
Thank for your help. Please review the drive page whether it is correct or not. I am adding your name in coordination. Cheers! Fade258 (talk) 16:37, 28 September 2025 (UTC)
Unfortunately all the coordinators I know from previous backlog drives indicated they wouldn't be available, but I think we should be alright to figure it out as we go along. I believe the bulk of the work is keeping track of the points. If you haven't participated in one before I recommend you look at one of the previous drive pages to see how the point allocation and formatting works. IAWW (talk) 18:10, 28 September 2025 (UTC)
I don't really think the point system is any more complex than it needs to be. To address the backlog, the drive should incentivise reviews of unpopular articles. Articles that have not been reviewed for a long time are apparently unpopular, and articles that are very long are also unpopular. The most successful drives have addressed these issues by having extra points for both long articles and old nominations. If the bonus points are removed, the drive will not achieve its goals. —Kusma (talk) 10:56, 29 September 2025 (UTC)
Hi @Kusma, Thanks for your opinion. I agree with your above comment. I think we're not going to remove the bonus points. I kindly request you to review the scoring system and place a message on drive's talk page if scoring system needs to be updated. Fade258 (talk) 12:26, 29 September 2025 (UTC)
We can use some more folks joining.
In previous years, we've had immense success with backlog drives. Now, they seem to be a smaller-scale event. This might be because we had a few heavy hitters, but I wonder if there's other factors as well? I've been encouraging a few people with open nominations today with low numbers of reviews, but don't know how effective that'll be. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:50, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
I don't think it's just with backlog drives, it just feels like there's more interest in nominating than reviewing than there was in the past. It's so hard to tell what the cause is and how to fix it. IAWW (talk) 20:04, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 8 months ago5 comments5 people in discussion
So on the GA nominations page, I've mainly been trying to review the oldest articles in the backlog, but I was wondering, what can I do when the nominator isn't present on Wikipedia anymore? Crystalite13 (talk) 17:04, 17 October 2025 (UTC)
Give them a week or two after your initial review to wake up and then, if the article cannot be passed without additional improvements and nobody else steps in, fail it. (If you're going to do it this way, I think the initial review should at least list some issues in need of improvement but need not be a complete review. My reviews are often a two-step process with the sourcing spot-check in a second phase after other improvements that might have changed the sourcing.) —David Eppstein (talk) 17:50, 17 October 2025 (UTC)
I often start the review with just a check that the nominator will be able to respond to comments. If I hear nothing within like 2 weeks, I fail it. Thanks for working from the oldest noms, which are generally the toughest. IAWW (talk) 18:01, 17 October 2025 (UTC)
Putting the review on hold starts a notional seven-day countdown: in practice, that is usually stretched if the nominator is actively working on the nomination, but it might provide an easy method to close the review if not: make your comments, put it on hold, and then fail the review if the time elapses with no response. UndercoverClassicistT·C19:32, 17 October 2025 (UTC)
You could try asking other frequent contributors to the article or Wikiprojects (if they are active) to see if anyone is likely to respond. A decent review will be helpful to editors (now or in the future) even if the article doesn't get promoted (or even if someone doesn't respond within the deadline).Nigel Ish (talk) 19:42, 17 October 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 8 months ago5 comments4 people in discussion
I'm not doing too well right now. I have maybe three dozen articles sitting in the queue right now – most are in the Other sports subsection, and a handful in the Television subsection – in case anyone is interested. I would appreciate it! Bgsu98(Talk)22:59, 20 October 2025 (UTC)
That's a good idea. For every one of my articles that someone chooses to review, that person can assign me any category (except for math, please) from which I will choose an article to also review in return. When you start the GA, just leave a note there telling me which category you've chosen. Bgsu98(Talk)10:27, 21 October 2025 (UTC)
Are page numbers and ranges required in citations for GAN?
Latest comment: 7 months ago27 comments12 people in discussion
I'm conducting my first GAN review since spot-checks became a requirement, and I've run into an issue where some citations don't have page numbers or specific ranges in some cases, making them hard to check. So are page numbers/ranges required or not for GA? And if they are, how precise should they be? The currently written criteria make no mention of this apart from articles having to be verifiable. FunkMonk (talk) 14:42, 21 October 2025 (UTC)
I think not. Our only criteria related to the citations themselves (as opposed to the sources or content) is #2a, which is all about layout. I think it's reasonable for reviewers to demand page ranges from nominators, as proper reviewing would be impractical without them. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 15:17, 21 October 2025 (UTC)
If we assume it is not required, how does that gel with spot-checks recently having become a requirement for reviewers? If nominators aren't required to give citation ranges, it's almost impossible to spot-check. FunkMonk (talk) 16:11, 21 October 2025 (UTC)
That's a pretty weird, onesided halfway between former GAN and FAC reviews. So we're not provided the means to check the sources ourselves but we should ask nominators for quotes? Sure, assume good faith and all, but if someone wanted to tamper with the quotes, that would be pretty easy. What is the point of this extra hoop for reviewers then if the burden doesn't go both ways? FunkMonk (talk) 16:31, 21 October 2025 (UTC)
I think the idea behind that is that it's fairly common for somebody to misread a source; it's fairly rare for somebody to deliberately falsify one (though that does happen!) GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋16:40, 21 October 2025 (UTC)
The burden is all on the nominator, who has to run around finding the pages and quotations (and possibly falsifying them, as you suggest). The case you are outlining, where the reviewer could access the source, but not identify the page, and the nominator takes the very risky opportunity to tamper with it, seems unlikely to happen. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:44, 21 October 2025 (UTC)
There is no running around if it's already there. I've nominated dozens of articles, I know both ends of the process very well, it seems just like basic verifiability to have page numbers. And yes, falsification is a real issue when it comes to contentious topics or paid editing. I reviewed Imelda Marcos, for example, which was later demoted for the sources basically not supporting the text. FunkMonk (talk) 16:49, 21 October 2025 (UTC)
Yes, I also don’t know why you wouldn’t use page numbers. But if you are reviewing a WP:OFFLINE source you cannot access, you will need to AGF that the nominator provides the correct quote. It seems silly to allow that but to effectively forbid trusting nominators in other cases. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:07, 21 October 2025 (UTC)
Yeah, I use kindle ebooks (and other, completely legally acquired ebooks) as sources because they're more accessible. These don't have page numbers; personally, I do my best to provide chapter/section names, but these aren't always obvious in an ebook format. I actually don't think a demand or expectation of page numbers is reasonable, but asking is fine (as long as you respect why somebody might say "no, I can't"). GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋16:22, 21 October 2025 (UTC)
they are not formally required, but it is always reasonable to ask for page numbers when reviewing and it is generally expected for the purposes of Wikipedia:Text-source integrity and ease of verification. personally, i avoid ranges more than maybe 3 pages. ... sawyer * any/all * talk16:34, 21 October 2025 (UTC)
We have in practice supported requesting page numbers for large sources for the reason Firefangledfeathers mentions. Not a precise art, so hard to put something strict in the criteria: if the source is a pdf of 2-4 pages of large text I probably wouldn't raise it. However, a reviewer (who represents a reader who might be one of those small percentage that do check sources) should ideally not have to hunt through reams of text to figure out where a particular idea is being cited from. Other factors, such as a direct gbooks link to the page, a quote as mentioned above (although perhaps in the source template rather than just the GAN page), or a lack of page numbers in the source, also means a firm rule on page numbers might slightly miss its intended purpose, but in practice page numbers are often the most convenient way to narrow the portion of a long source a reviewer needs to look through. CMD (talk) 16:36, 21 October 2025 (UTC)
I don't necessarily disagree, however when it works it does facilitate the spotcheck, and I'd be reluctant to require nominators to find other methods unless there is a firmer GACR guideline. CMD (talk) 16:55, 21 October 2025 (UTC)
definitely, i just thought it worth mentioning. i'm not suggesting we demand nominators jump through hoops ... sawyer * any/all * talk16:59, 21 October 2025 (UTC)
I agree with CMD's comments. I'd add that although it's not a fail if there are no page ranges, when you do the spotcheck this means, as someone says above, that the nominator will have to hunt through the book for the information to satisfy the spotcheck request. You might as well suggest to the nominator then that they add the page range. Similarly with dead links, which are allowed; you can still ask for the source information for a spotcheck, and if no archived copy can be found the source has to be removed, but if an archive is found you can suggest to the nominator that they add it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:28, 21 October 2025 (UTC)
There is a bit of variation. I would not require page numbers in citations of relatively short scientific articles, especially if the typical citation culture of the discipline does not use them (Mathematics is an example here). But if you cite a 600 page book, you should make it easy to locate what is being cited (by using page numbers or chapter numbers of theorem numbers or whatever works). —Kusma (talk) 18:41, 21 October 2025 (UTC)
More than merely not requiring page numbers in citations of short scientific articles, our standard citation templates do not provide any mechanism to specify page numbers within citations of articles. Their page parameters are only correctly used to give the page range of the entire article. (Do not talk to me about {{rp}}; it is an abomination and must be destroyed.)
So requiring GA nominators to do something that they cannot even do would be a recipe for frustration. Page numbers within books are another matter; they sometimes do not exist or cannot be found in some formats, but when they exist they are useful information to include in a citation.
The only actual GA requirement is that we cite reliable sources and that the source being cited is identifiable. We don't even require consistent citation formatting, let alone inclusions of this and that piece of metadata. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:12, 21 October 2025 (UTC)
There are multiple ways to specify different page ranges within the same sources, and doing that is even required for longer sources at FAC. An example of a co-nomination of mine where it was demanded and followed through: HeterodontosaurusFunkMonk (talk) 09:00, 22 October 2025 (UTC)
The work cited in a different format than all the others there, with separate page numbers, is a book-length work even though maybe officially it is a journal article. But I thought that, unlike GA, FA required consistency of reference formatting? —David Eppstein (talk) 05:49, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
They are not always necessary. If it is fairly difficult to find the part of the source that supports the text (e.g. long, offline, or the article text is a pseudo-summary of a large part of the source) then it should be considered necessary in order for reasonably being able to verify the article text. It is reasonable to encourage it, of course. Kingsif (talk) 12:39, 22 October 2025 (UTC)
As another way of expressing what I believe is a already the common theme in these responses: I've always understood that editors are not obligated to provide anything more in articles than "reliable sources cited inline" and "enough information to identify the source", but they are obligated to provide in the review anything a reviewer desires in order to verify a particular part of their spot check. (Page numbers, scans, quotes, etc.) If a page number is acquired during the review it would of course be sensible for either the writer or the reviewer to go add it to the article but neither is obliged to do so, and it would kind of exceed a "spot" check to request details for every citation. I think it's important for GA to avoid scope creep (especially regarding citation formatting) to keep reviewing sustainable, so in addition to considering this the status quo I also think it's a reasonable way to balance article expectations and spot check feasibility. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 23:33, 22 October 2025 (UTC)
My argument is that "enough information to identify the source" can include page numbers, treating "source" not just as a particular work but the actual text (or sound, etc.) that information is 'sourced' from. A reader with access should be able to verify themselves in the same way a spot-checker is trying to. For similar reasons, access-dates are another important inclusion that is not just citation formatting. CMD (talk) 03:11, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
I agree with this interpretation. Especially with more and more students realising they can’t cite Wikipedia but they can cite our sources (if only they could find the relevant part)! Kingsif (talk) 12:18, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
A page number is nice, but I've never yet had a situation where ctrl-F and/or the book's index failed me. Perhaps because I enjoy source checks so much, it does not bother me if they take a little more time. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 00:14, 25 October 2025 (UTC)
FWIW, I assumed a "where possible" was implied. As noted above, the cite journal template doesn't actually have the parameters to do so. Kingsif (talk) 00:39, 25 October 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 7 months ago22 comments13 people in discussion
The GAN page lists GA nominations in alphabetical order by category: agriculture, then art, then on and on until you get to video games, warfare and miscellaneous. This ordering results in bias where agriculture articles tend to get shorter time in between nomination and review than those in other categories that are listed towards the bottom of the list. The wait times are unequal for nominators depending only on the category, not the quality of the article. Over time this can discourage nominators from under-reviewed categories of articles.
Here's what I propose: we should implement a rotating system for categories in terms of the order they are listed on the page. Every two to four weeks (or once per GA backlog drive), we should reorder the list of categories cyclically so that a new category is on top. The way I see it, the rotation could be managed by a bot, a template update, or it could be done manually. If a reviewer was only interested in a particular category, we could make a subpage that only lists GA nominees in that category (e.g. WP:GAN/Video games) or something of the sort.
The benefits to this idea are that it promotes fairer exposure across all GA topic areas by helping to distribute reviewer attention a little more evenly and reduces unintentional backlog accumulation in later-listed categories (looking at you, warfare).
Well, there's usually less than a month of waiting time for the agriculture, food, and drink category, while categories lower than that have waiting times up to 10 months, with nominations from January or February being frequent. HurricaneZeta (T) (C) 23:15, 10 October 2025 (UTC)
Yeah. I would be OK reshuffling the whole order too, but this proposal would only change which category gets listed at the top. The goal is to reduce the average wait time. Gommeh📖🎮23:37, 10 October 2025 (UTC)
I agree this is worth considering. But as a nerdy maths teacher, I am going to point out that the average wait time shouldn't be affected, it is the standard deviation that would decrease (equally worth doing, don't get me wrong. I'm just being pedantic). SSSB (talk) 15:39, 11 October 2025 (UTC)
I know that I suggested this on Discord, but I am not sure the effect would be worth the disruption of shuffling the page so often. We could highlight a different category as "focus category" for each month though, similar to the "subject sweeps" we had recently. —Kusma (talk) 07:01, 11 October 2025 (UTC)
For example, the WP:GAG could feature one section of GAN per edition and maybe highlight five open nominations (perhaps the oldest open nomination of each nominator in the section). —Kusma (talk) 16:44, 11 October 2025 (UTC)
I think I'd prefer this over cycling the categories, this would let us better target categories with larger backlogs. Putting it on the Gazette would be nice too, but I think a section would be more visible. Gramix13 (talk) 23:03, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
I wouldn't see the harm in it. I mean, science and music are dead at the moment whilst engineering is slowly getting hacked away. Icepinner15:05, 11 October 2025 (UTC)
If this imbalance is a real issue (and I don't see why it wouldn't be), I support choosing a random topic to appear on top as a "focus subject" for the month or week JustARandomSquid (talk) 17:13, 17 October 2025 (UTC)
Shall I put together an RFC to get more people's input on this? I can see it has at least a little support. Gommeh📖🎮17:18, 17 October 2025 (UTC)
Please don't, the support is marginal at best (call me an oppose if you like). Kusma's idea of having a featured section might be workable, but rotation would be a faff and it'd just make finding one's usual section more difficult. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:38, 17 October 2025 (UTC)
Having a featured section would also be OK and I'd be more than OK with discussing that in the RFC as well. Gommeh📖🎮17:44, 17 October 2025 (UTC)
Comment - is anyone able run the numbers and verify empirically that the effect described is real? If so, then I would be inclined to support it. That evidence (if it exists) should form the basis of the proposed RFC. —Amakuru (talk) 17:48, 17 October 2025 (UTC)
This is a question particularly amenable to statistics! As of writing, the quantity of articles pending across the 33 GAN categories (incl. misc.) returns a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.165 indicating a very weak linear correlation of more articles in lower categories. Thus, I do not think there is sufficient value in rotating the category positions. ViridianPenguin🐧(💬) 02:21, 25 October 2025 (UTC)
I'm not even going to pretend I understand statistics, but would a more useful metric not be how long an article has spent in the queue per category? JustARandomSquid (talk) 11:30, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
Whatever statistic is used will need to take into account the time the nominations have been pending appropriately, because that correlation coefficient can just be explained through more articles in the lower categories getting nominated. IAWW (talk) 13:36, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
I think we looked at this before and we found that Agriculture does empty very fast, however the 'being at the front' bonus doesn't really extend far below it. CMD (talk) 14:36, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
I would not be 100% confident it’s AI generated, but the signs are very much there. Wikitext errors (the ==== not creating a subheading sometimes and appearing in plaintext as if it’s been copied from non-code instead of typed), the review content is almost entirely just restatement of the GA criteria (feels like someone has asked a chatbot outright if the article meets the criteria, without how or why), and the conclusion at the end recommending someone decide it passes all criteria.
The exception is in the crit 3 review, with a line of personal opinion. But then you could worry it’s an AI that’s read enough other reviews to add a benign opinion because that’s what happens.
Regardless, I would send it back for not really being a review. Even when I find nothing wrong, I try to detail how a crit is met, this review has no feedback for anyone to know why it thinks the crit are met. Kingsif (talk) 14:53, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
The fact that it was created in one go with inexplicable nowiki errors? That it contains nothing that could be interpreted as an actual human critique? That it contains meaningless statements like "The references are authoritative, and tiny improvements for citation linking only would polish it further."? That it contains no evidence of a spot check having been conducted? ♠PMC♠(talk)14:57, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
In fact, I would suggest that Talk:Canon EOS/GA2 also bears indications of being LLM-generated. The duplication of the "GA review" header with different capitalizations, the similar yet slightly different styling for two reviews done an hour apart, and most damningly, the plausible-sounding bullshit like "As it stands, it has a ‘list’ signature". (And again no evidence of an actual spot check in the sense of looking at any references and seeing if they verify the text). ♠PMC♠(talk)15:12, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
The critiques also seem quite off, "the writing avoids jargon" seems unlikely to be a human conclusion, "developed steadily" is simply wrong on its face, and talking about the same images twice is strange. CMD (talk) 17:06, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
I think the review is such bad quality that it can be considered a drive-by review and the nomination can be put back in the queue regardless of whether it is AI-generated or not. IAWW (talk) 15:01, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
I cannot get involved here because this editor did Talk:Cup of China/GA1, which is obviously one of my articles. At the same time, I sent another article the user had written to CSD15 for being 100% AI-generated (Anoxic microsites in soil). The thread on the user’s talk page about Bee also smells of AI, but a check of it said no. So, I don’t know what’s going on here with this user. If you think the review is insufficient, then by all means, it should probably be put back in queue, but I can’t be the one to do it. Bgsu98(Talk)15:09, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
I agree with this as well. AI or not, it fails to engage with the article in a meaningful way. We'd typically vacate a review like this regardless, and that's what should be done here. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 18:40, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
I agree. I have deleted the Silver Lake review per G15. (G15 requires specific markers of being AI-generated but I think the line at the end about recommending a pass counts as "communication intended for the user", and the markup errors are also strongly suggestive although not part of the G15 requirements.) I think that should suffice to return it to the queue, as the review's recommendation that someone pass this article appears not to have been acted on. Along with Talk:Canon EOS/GA2, the same reviewer's other review Talk:Cup of China/GA1 probably needs scrutiny. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:00, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
Renominating an article that failed because of reviewer concerns
Latest comment: 7 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion
This is for the Trichy assault rifle article that didn't pass a Good article nomination. I'm trying to address the reviewer based on his assessment as much as I can. Should I go use the GAN again? Ominae (talk) 13:14, 30 October 2025 (UTC)
The concerns were quite vague, but probably valid. I suggest reaching out to the reviewer to see if their concerns are mostly alleviated, and if not, ask them for some specific examples or help. If the original nominator is not available and you have fixed the concerns to the best of your ability, I suggest listing it at WP:PEERREVIEW, where you are more likely to get helpful general feedback than in a GA review. IAWW (talk) 13:35, 30 October 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 7 months ago6 comments4 people in discussion
Is there anywhere that keeps a log of the GA reviews that we have done? I've not bothered to keep a record, and now I wish I had. Bgsu98(Talk)16:39, 3 November 2025 (UTC)
We really do need to store these tools somewhere more accessible. Thinking of where the best place for the 'backend' editors to access it my current best idea is to put in on a page which creates a short header for the fully bot-generated Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Report which is the best back-end place we have aside from this talkpage. CMD (talk) 17:27, 3 November 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 7 months ago6 comments4 people in discussion
Hi, I just finished reviewing Formula One, but I'm unsure where to put it on the list as under Motorsports there's only "Races and seasons" and "Racers, racecars, and tracks", which don't apply for the article. Would I have to create another section, and if so, what should it be titled? Fwedthebwead (talk) 19:22, 3 November 2025 (UTC)
Following the Field Hockey precedent above you could create a Motorsports lv3 header. Further, Races and seasons looks like it needs to be broken up, longer than a normal screen. CMD (talk) 03:08, 4 November 2025 (UTC)
@Fwedthebwead and Chipmunkdavis: I was bold and named the two sections "Racing series and seasons" and "Races". Feel free to revert or make changes, I know virtually nothing about this topic. "Races" might need to be split up itself in the future: its currently at 270 articles (although maybe some of these can be improved and promoted to FA status to reduce the numbers?) Z1720 (talk) 16:10, 4 November 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 7 months ago97 comments26 people in discussion
I'm seeing more and more Good Articles being passed that were AI-generated, and that have the usual problems with AI-generated writing, up to and including hallucinations. Here's a recent example that passed yesterday of an article generated nearly entirely with AI (the article is primarily by one editor who has a pattern of confirmed AI use, and there are ChatGPT source parameters in some of the revisions here), which has major problems that persist to the current version.
The fact that this is repeatedly happening suggests that there's something broken in the review process. At the very least reviewers need to be familiar with the indicators of AI writing; the example above was not particularly hard to identify as AI even before digging into the revision history. Gnomingstuff (talk) 18:07, 22 October 2025 (UTC)
I tagged them on the talk page, but given that I noticed this like 30 minutes ago and the reviewer doesn't seem active right now, that's all that has happened so far.
At any rate, I didn't post this topic as a call-out of any particular reviewer, and if it came off that way I apologize. This isn't an isolated incident, it's a structural issue: The GA criteria that worked well before 2022 don't seem to be working as well anymore with AI in the mix. Some of the criteria can be applied to AI text -- it tends to violate 1b, 2c, sometimes 2d, and 4 -- but the spot-checking in #3 doesn't seem to be cutting it anymore, and a lot of AI-type editorializing ("played a pivotal role, underscoring the rich tapestry of its impact and aligning with its enduring resonance) is slipping through. Gnomingstuff (talk) 18:22, 22 October 2025 (UTC)
If there's an appetite for changing the GA criteria, could we start an RfC on this talk page? It would need pre-RfC discussion to settle on proposals for the community to vote up or down on. I'd like to hear from more people before taking any action. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:38, 22 October 2025 (UTC)
Regardless of the specific allegations addressed here (whether the author used AI or not), I do think this is a rare opportunity for change. We have many folks assembled here and I think it would be alright to add a seventh pillar to the Good Article criterion: at the time of passing, all text must be written by a human. In the edge case where an editor relies on AI as a crutch but is responsible, they should review any generated text and the cited source word by word and take full responsibility for the contribution as their own.
We can't hand over the keys to robots at this point, or maybe ever. I believe AI writing as it stands cannot reliably satisfy criteria 1b), 2c), and 2d) (especially). We'll really need a seventh point to make that clear though, and nip the problem in the bud. Bremps...02:14, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
I get where this idea is coming from, but my understanding is that LLM detectors are notoriously inaccurate. (At least, that is what I was told recently when trying to clean up an article suspected of having been partially AI-generated.) This could unfortunately be abused to quick-fail articles that are entirely human-written, on the basis of an LLM detector incorrectly identifying something as AI. (You can test this by running the US Declaration of Independence or some similarly old document through an AI detector; in many cases, at least some of the text is incorrectly flagged as AI.) Having all text be human-written is something I'd strive for, but it could also throw up false positives in AI detectors. Epicgenius (talk) 02:56, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
As a continuation of what I said above, ZeroGPT claims that the United States Declaration of Independence (1776) is "91.69% AI GPT", and writer.com claims that it is only "73% human-generated". I think this proves my case that LLM detectors are not useful for actually detecting AI, and that requiring all text to be written by a human would lead to GANs being incorrectly failed en masse. –Epicgenius (talk) 03:15, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
I would say that a good first step here would be to provide evidence that the current criteria is missing sourcing issues.
I'm less concerned about AI and violations of 1b, and 4 as the editorial language and bad prose/formatting issues tend to be quite obvious.
However I think with respect violations of criteria 2 and to some extent criteria 4, these are already time consuming processes and accordingly i think the burden of proof required for making them more strict should be appropriately high (as in we need some solid evidence that the current system is failing to catch errors before saying the already somewhat time consuming process should be more detailed).
This is not me saying that we shouldn't be strict with sourcing, or that nothing needs to change, more so that we should start collecting evidence of failures in our current system if we want to change things. IntentionallyDense(Contribs)22:33, 22 October 2025 (UTC)
Not to hijack this thread (and I’m not commenting on this specific article) but it’s also not exactly helpful to open GARs without discussion and just make blanket accusations of AI and not elaborate, as you did with Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Epilepsy/1 which you opened for concerns of OR and SYNTH but haven’t been able to tell anyone which (or any) parts of the article are OR/SYNTH.
I don’t mean this to come off as accusatory, I do believe you’re fighting a good fight here, especially with medical topics, however I do believe that if we want to have a discussion about GA’s and AI, we need to include the discussion of how theses issues get brought up.
In regards to the Epilepsy article itself, I’m almost done adding sources to the unsourced info (so far I’ve only had to remove about 1 sentence) but I did try to ask you over a month ago for what sourcing concerns led you to open the reassessment and have not gotten a reply. It very hard to improve an article when someone is claiming there is overt issues but not backing up those claims, as people can improve issues that they know exist but can’t improve issues if they don’t know what they are.
I explained what parts of the article were synthesis and OR, with direct quotations, at least three times. I stopped responding because no one was listening to me even after repeated explanations, and I did not open up any further GARs because I simplydo not have it in me to have to repeat myself again. Gnomingstuff (talk) 17:23, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
You did point out unsourced information and wording you thought was proof of AI use but you never expanded on the synthesis part. As per WP:SYNTHIf one reliable source says A and another reliable source says B, do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C not mentioned by either of the sources.. All I was looking for was which sources you thought were synthesized to come to an inappropriate conclusion.
I do absolutely agree that you showed evidence of OR as shown by the several uncited paragraphs but that is a relatively easy fix, find sources and add them. However an accusation of SYNTH requires an editor to go back and check sources to make sure that there is no inappropriate misrepresentations of sources. This is time consuming and hence why i wanted just one example of it before moving on.
I never got a single example of SYNTH from you nor did I find any in my work on the article. Which leads me to wonder which sources you found that were synthesized. In general, when making a GAR make sure that for every claim you make, you have something to back up that claim or else it gets really difficult and an article that does actually have issues (such as the epilepsy one) may get overlooked due to confusion.
My point is that if you had nominated that page for GAR with claims of poor prose and OR it would have been a pretty simple process on everyone as you had clear examples of that and others could easily see that. But adding in other accusations, sticking to them while also refusing to show evidence of them derailed the process. I didn't want to spend time arguing over SYNTH when I could have been improving an article and obviously you didn't either. I know you are very involved with finding AI on Wikipedia and I think that's especially important with GA so I don't want you to feel like you can't open GAR, there is just ways to do so and ways in which will unintentionally make things harder. IntentionallyDense(Contribs)20:20, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
The problem is that LLM output is synthesis by nature -- even when told to restrict its output to a given source, it still has the rest of the language model -- but that since LLMs are a black box, it's impossible for end observers to know what other sources are in the mix. Even if I was employed by OpenAI and had access to the code, it would be virtually impossible.
So, unfortunately, since we don't have an AI policy, "this text was written by AI" is not something I can point to in a review. All I can do is point out things like how "the need for X" is an opinion and not a fact, and then have this very basic assertion be "debunked" somehow. Under those conditions, no, I don't actually feel like I can open a GAR, not without losing my damn mind. Gnomingstuff (talk) 16:53, 27 October 2025 (UTC)
An opinion is an opinion and a fact is a fact, regardless of whoever wrote it, be it a human, an AI, an alien the Holy Spirit or whatever. The problems you mentioned earlier can be easily solved by asking for a second opinion. Cambalachero (talk) 17:02, 27 October 2025 (UTC)
Just to be clear, did you check any of the sources before making an accusation of SYNTH? Because it seem to me (not trying to make any assumptions here, simply trying to understand) that you saw prose issues and then assumed those must correlate with sourcing integrity.
Slightly off topic, but "the need for" can be a fact not an opinion and I've seen almost that exact wording is many high quality secondary sources. I don't love the wording and typically try to word it more as "research has shown xyz leading to efforts to improve xyz" etc.
Again, usually that wording kinda raises a red flag for lack of understanding of the topic and parroting back info but the phrase itself and the context it was used in, are appropriate. IntentionallyDense(Contribs)17:10, 27 October 2025 (UTC)
Another issue is AI-generated reviews, wherein some reviewers either entirely or partially use AI. These reviews are often inaccurate, and I have seen a couple of these. HurricaneZeta (T) (C) 22:48, 22 October 2025 (UTC)
If you see an AI generated review please raise it, we had a number of these early on in ChatGPT days and developed a pretty quick practice of reversal. CMD (talk) 03:14, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
I’m not yet persuaded that this is an “AI” problem rather than an “unskilled reviewing” problem. If someone uses an AI while producing an article that meets the GA criteria, including NPOV and verifiability, there’s no problem. If someone passes a GA that doesn’t meet those criteria, there’s a problem. The latter is also a problem we can identify definitively (unlike AI use, which can’t be proven), another reason to focus any problem-solving there. New reviewers may sometimes not be fully skilled yet and a personal talk page message is the best first step to help them. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 23:36, 22 October 2025 (UTC)
Can we agree That any sort of substantial usage of AI in an article (drafting more than a sentence) should disqualify the article from contention as a GA until the text has been thoroughly replaced by human-generated text?
Chatbots are black boxes that can reason well sometimes (or at least simulate it with word prediction) and hallucinate other times. They are fed off of websites like Wikipedia- putting AI text back on Wikipedia would result in an infinite GIGO loop, as AI trains on AI and generates more subpar text.
Not having substantial AI text should be a prerequisite to an article being unbannered at all, let alone being a GA. Bremps...02:03, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
Completely agree. GA is not only a stamp put on an article, it is a community process that demands the engagement of a nominator and a reviewer. It is an insult to a reviewer to expect them to review the syntactical output of a text generator and not the written word of a human being. ♠PMC♠(talk)02:08, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
This is a competence issue. Editors who use AI tools in the manner being discussed here (without disclosure, mind you) cannot be trusted to produce articles that meet the GA standard. Do we really want to showcase machine-written articles as 'good'? What is the point of the GA process at all if it does not showcase quality articles written by human volunteers? Yours, &c.RGloucester — ☎04:14, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
No, I don’t agree. Any focus on the tool rather than the text itself is just ripe for needless interpersonal conflict. We can never know or prove exactly how someone wrote an article. We can know whether the article is, eg, neutral and verifiable. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 04:45, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
If the output from the model meets the GA criteria and is well-written, what good does it do to disqualify it on the sole basis of "being from an AI"? Outputs can have hallucinatory text, but they also can not. We ought to assess them on a case-by-case basis rather than applying a blanket rule, just like we do with human-made text. nub:)05:04, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
I understand that a lot of the allure of Wikipedia is that it is written by humans and by humans alone, but my view is that if a person uses the AI as a tool rather than a replacement (using it to overcome writer's block, draft a section, summarize for a lede, etc., before human refinement), there's no reason to dismiss it—it reads, cites, and informs well, does it not? nub:)05:21, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
it reads, cites, and informs well, does it not No? Rarely and unreliably at best? I recently, due to another user disappointingly advocating for AI, googled three articles I worked on with AI mode turned on and the original conclusions those summaries drew from text I wrote is something I hope nobody ever adds. If an AI tool is prompted to summarise, explain, or analyse then it *will* make up something that it has determined is in line with expectations and similar text, but which it hasn’t directly drawn from relevant facts. It informs about as well as handing a child a full novel and asking them for critical analysis: you’d have to put in so much effort identifying anything useful, before even working to present that in a useful way, you’d have been better doing it yourself. Kingsif (talk) 12:31, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
Ah, I should have clarified. I meant that as an if–then statement. If it reads, cites, and informs well, then why disallow it solely for its AI use—it reads, cites, and informs well, does it not? That being said, I understand that the vast majority of people who'd use AI as a "tool" would simply take its output as fact and never refine or check it. That's a product of human laziness. But I also understand that there are people who will refine it and check it. They will put in the work. nub:)15:06, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
If someone is going to spend the time to refine the product of a syntax generator that way, they should spend the time to write the fucking article properly instead. ♠PMC♠(talk)21:29, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
Why? If both means are relatively harmless and (may) lead to the same end, why should someone be forced to restrict themselves to just one of those means? Also, what is the "proper" way to write an article? nub:)21:48, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
There's no "both means". You can look at the sources, identify prominent viewpoints, summarise them clearly and concisely with citations, and polish to your heart's content. If you want to use an AI at any stage of the above process, you then have to go back and do all the previous stages again because the AI cannot be trusted with any of it (not even to polish because it can and will make things up). A finished proper article will have been inspected at every stage of the writing proces by a brain with the ability to think critically. If you want to use AI, you're just wasting your own time. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:09, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
I'm not convinced that AI cannot be trusted with anything. Sure, they are "just text predictors", but they are damn good ones at that. I agree that trying to use an AI to wholly find and synthesize sources isn't okay and will likely contain untrue information, but, from what I've seen, an AI (like ChatGPT) could very easily polish a paragraph without making anything up if it is prompted correctly. I think this is a problem of the user, not inherently of the tool. You have to know when you shouldn't use a tool and you have to know how to use it correctly before applying it in an article on the information superhighway known for its verifiability. So you're right: everything must go through a human. But I disagree that AI should be wholly disallowed or that it cannot be trusted. nub:)22:20, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
The ultimate argument of AI proponents is always "you must be prompting it wrong". No amount of prompt fiddling can substitute for human cognition. The process of researching and writing is in itself valuable; twiddling with the output of a text generator is not the same thing. ♠PMC♠(talk)23:30, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
You're right. Those two concepts are not the same thing. I agree that human research and article development is in itself valuable. But the way I see it, the use of AI can undergird the human process. Say, for the banal task of improving clarity or phrasing in a sentence. Some humans wouldn't even catch potentially inefficient or discursive language. Or maybe the task of summarizing the body of an article for its lede. Some humans really struggle with synthesizing the info into a concise 400 words. So again I ask: why disallow AI in the entire Wikipedia workflow, if it
Is relatively harmless, and
Helps humans express the information more clearly?
An LLM does not understand the text it generates. It might simplify a sentence, if you're lucky. I'd you're unlucky, it might make you think it has while changing the meaning or otherwise causing errors. Relying on a syntax generator means you're never going to develop an actual facility at doing the task yourself, and I will die on the hill of defending the writing process as intrinsically valuable not just to Wikipedia but to human reasoning as a critical skill. ♠PMC♠(talk)00:10, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
I agree. The problem occurs when people using it to write articles don't recognize that it is engaging in original (or nonsensical) research and add what it gives them to new or existing articles. For example, I am interested in Feigenbaum constants (who isn't) and how they are used in articles outside of science on Wikipedia. I asked ChatGPT why this is (why is there a paucity of real-world articles on applications) and it recommended I start a new article on the subject of situational elasticity to discuss the constants. It then wrote 500 words telling me all about it. The only problem is, there is no such thing as situational elasticity. It invented the idea as a conceptual metaphor and then built an entire world around it. Viriditas (talk) 00:27, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
Honestly, seeing this comment, I think I mostly share your conviction about writing as reasoning. Truly, one of the most rewarding things about contributing to Wikipedia (and life in general, to be honest) is the ability to work through the truckload of sources you compile, being able to realize each puzzle piece into a neat whole, and sharing that product with the world. And no machine should ever replace human cognition or reason. I will never argue for that.
However, I don't see using AI as a tool as necessarily diminishing or replacing that process. When people use it to replace their critical thinking and writing skills, they aren't using it as a tool. They're using it as a replacement. But I will always advocate for the ability (and encouragement) to use AI as refinement—just like spellcheckers or, and I know I might be treading on some hot water here, the input of another editor. From what I've seen, LLMs are especially good at explaining where people might be misusing a term or have a grammatical error so that they can rectify it for next time. Of course, this doesn't mean that you should take its suggestion without a grain of salt, but AI can be an exceptional tool. I mean, when have you last heard of a machine being able to further cancer research!
AI obviously operates on a more complex and risk-prone level than any human could, and I agree it can easily lead to intellectual laziness or, worse, the uncritical propagation of falsehoods. That’s a serious issue. But I don’t think the presence of that danger automatically disqualifies all careful use. If it is used critically, it can be a way to streamline someone's workflow, and if I'm being honest, I think that's really fucking cool. nub:)02:43, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
I think you provided the foremost answer to this (why not allow both methods if ultimately same effort) yourself, in your first reply to me: people who would choose the method to use a gen AI tool to do the work, will not do the checks. More pertinently, in the instances of people using an AI tool, they can not know enough to accurately check the output without going and doing all the work the AI did (e.g. reviewing the sources it used, if any) for themselves. It's madness, I think, to even consider using it if you actually want accurate - and accountable - results. Kingsif (talk) 20:49, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
For the reason I mentioned above, I don't fully agree with this. Use of AI without any manual checking whatsoever is indeed problematic and is why we have WP:G15 for newly-created pages. I think we should focus on whether the article meets core policies like WP:NPOV and WP:V (which are already in the GA criteria). AI-generated text usually has problems meeting these criteria, and people who continuously use AI indiscriminately, without any review, should probably be restricted or sanctioned in some way.That being said, failing an article solely because it was AI-generated seems to be focusing on the means and not the ends. Would we be failing GANs because the nominator did their research online instead of physically going to a library? I'd hope not. –Epicgenius (talk) 15:05, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
My opinion is that AI is a tool that can be used for good too. I don't care how much AI was used to write an article as long as it meets the GA criteria. IAWW (talk) 15:38, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
I've left a note on their talk. There were 40 minutes between the reviewing being started and the article being passed, with some edits to the article inbetween, which makes me disinclined to say there was no review. Still, there needs to be evidence of a spot-check. Rollinginhisgrave (talk|edits) 09:16, 4 November 2025 (UTC)
Hi, just to clarify, I did do my best to do a fair review; I wasn't trying to bypass/cheat the review process. I understand that my review was insufficient (I'm new at this), so I will take another look at it and add the reference spot check. It was a mistake, but in good faith. Thanks! One-summer-day (talk) 15:47, 4 November 2025 (UTC)
AI is not a problem in and of itself; it is a tool, and it can help to get past writer's block when starting a new page from scratch. But it is not enough, it may provide a starting text, but the user should refine the text and add references where needed (AI may include references but they are not always valid for Wikipedia, such as IMDB entries). In-text praising and puffery is a problem no matter if AI-generated or not ("Words to avoid" has been there long before the AI boom), the writer should have fixed that either way, and the reviewer should have not accepted it either way. Cambalachero (talk) 19:01, 22 October 2025 (UTC)
Users should definitely not refine a text and add references where needed, that is entirely WP:BACKWARDS and produces all sorts of issues. This was a problem even before llms. CMD (talk) 03:15, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
That essay is pure nonsense. There are policies and guidelines on how an article should be, but the process from blank page to a finished article (or from finished basic article to good or featured article) is open to personal preference. Cambalachero (talk) 03:35, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
No, it isn't. "On Wikipedia, original research means material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published source exists". Please read the pages instead of linking blindly. You don't need to cite that the sky is blue, and if something does not have a reference right now but it can have one because such references do exist, then the problem is just adding such references, not the unreferenced but otherwise correct text. Cambalachero (talk) 14:18, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
I wonder if CMD may be thinking of something closer to WP:SYNTH, if they mean an AI compiling multiple sources of mixed relevance and authority to write text with a perhaps liberal interpretation of them all… Kingsif (talk) 14:24, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
Llms don't compile sources. Llms abstract language into a mathematical formula, and produce a response through that process. It is not linked to whether cited sources exists at all, or whether the sky is blue. Generating article text with llms is one of the core potential uses that almost everyone has opposed in llm discussions. CMD (talk) 02:01, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
So that kind of AI is not what you meant ':) But yes, using entirely gen AI to write articles is... not sharing knowledge, to put it mildly. Kingsif (talk) 20:55, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
I know this conversation is a little old, but I just want to note, I think what CMD is saying has a lot of merit. The trouble with writing article text and then finding sources for it is that it's almost never written in a way that actually treats the sources with appropriate due weight and summarizes their contents effectively. The whole point of a tertiary source like an encyclopedia is to summarize the available secondary sources on a topic. I really think it is backwards if you write the text off the top of your head and then go find sources; when I was wet-behind-the-ears I tried writing article text that way and quickly discovered that responsibly sourcing it, like really responsibly, was practically impossible, so I started writing article content sources-first and I've never looked back. A huge amount of content disputes here arise from people not doing things that way. ('"')(Mesocarp) (talk)(@)02:04, 6 November 2025 (UTC)
I think the consensus here is firmly against AI, and is swinging more towards complete ban (which I’d support) and quick fail rather than just requiring rewrites. Based on this, would there be any appetite for a WikiProject or similar of users advocating against AI Wikipedia-wide? With things like that human-computer partnership Wikiproject starting up, it might also serve as a useful antidote. Kingsif (talk) 12:31, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
Wikiprojects are not meant to serve as activist fifth columns. If we want to change some aspect of policy, the right method is to propose a change to the community in an RfC. I would be happy to propose adding obvious AI use to the GA quick-fail criteria. Yours, &c.RGloucester — ☎23:46, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
No, but I'd imagine a Wikiproject for identifying and cleaning up AI text and references would at least endorse some essays about the harms of pretty much every kind of AI in the information space - things that can be handily pointed to as examples of opinions and arguments when they approach editors adding AI, or for quick linking on a local consensus in future RfCs. Kingsif (talk) 20:58, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
My question is how are we determining if AI is being used? Like if there is somehow no violations in the current GAN criteria but a reviewer believes an editor used AI, on what grounds would that be disallowed and how would that decision be made? we know that AI detectors are unreliable but i’m also not sure what human assessed criteria to detect AI would be effective (again, is our current GA criteria not already written in a way that would prevent AI use).
I could see the reasoning behind having nominators agree that if they nominate an article they are agreeing that, to their knowledge, the article is human written. this allows people to QF if there is concrete evidence of AI usage and focus more on the current criteria while also making nominators stop and think.
Perhaps an automatic statement like:
“by creating this page (the nomination page) you agree to the following:
To your knowledge all prose is human generated
To your knowledge AI has not been used to add references, modify prose, or write significant amounts of the article
To your knowledge there is no current concerns about AI being used inappropriately voiced on notice boards or the talkpage
This doesn’t add extra strain on nominator (since nominators should check for obvious issues before nominating regardless) avoids the whole “how do we decide if there is AI (since it relies on the nominators knowledge of the article not an assessment of prose) and reviewers can say “hey you agreed that there wasn’t AI in this but i believe there is, please clarify” and either proceed or QF. This also has the benefit of not changing the GA criteria. IntentionallyDense(Contribs)01:44, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
I get the point of this, but To your knowledge all prose is human generated could actually have the unintended side effect of banning articles about AI from the GA process. Maybe tweaking it to remove the word "all" might work though; we'd still want most text to be human-generated, which is what point 2 covers. (Not to mention that reviewers unscrupulously using AI detectors may erroneously flag a human-generated sentence as AI, and fail solely on that basis.) Epicgenius (talk) 02:01, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
I don't think we can mandate text be human generated, even though I personally agree with it. What do you consider to be human generated? Where do we draw that line? It is my opinion that most AI text already fails our policies and guidelines on numerous levels. Be it the numerous weird mannerisms of AI text, the faked references, or the inability to think and process the way a human brain can, there's a lot we can use against AI writing as it stands. I do see the rising number of issues with AI misuse (most uses are misuse if you ask me) and understand the appetite to do something about it. I'm just concerned that a ban won't stop people, in the same way we've declined to formally ban paid editing because simply banning it won't stop it, just make it harder to detect. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 02:42, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
What I think we could ban is AI generated references. Every reference should be created and checked by a human without the use of any AI tool. AI misuse is at its worse when it involves falsifying references, which is very much a blockable offense since it's introducing misinformation.Trainsandotherthings (talk) 02:44, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
Yeah - that, I think, is uncontroversial. Falsified references is a direct violation of WP:V. On the other hand, mandating that GA noms contain only human-generated text (while something that I strive for, personally) is very likely to result in a situation where an overzealous reviewer uses an LLM detector, decides that something like the United States Declaration of Independence is AI-generated, and then fail the article. Not to mention that not disallowing AI-generated text, ironically, makes it much easier to detect poorly-written AI-generated text, since people won't be trying to find creative ways to evade such an AI ban. We already have six criteria that can in most cases weed out the AI garbage, which often tends to be non-neutral, makes up hallucinated references, and so on and so forth. –Epicgenius (talk) 02:57, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
We don't need to mandate LLM detectors. A simple human check for AI-generated references, AI prompt or markdown should be performed, and if any of these are found, the article should be quick-failed. Checking whether the article itself was machine-generated may be impossible, but the presence of any hallmarks of AI-generated content should immediately disqualify the article on the grounds that the article creator has a competence issue. Yours, &c.RGloucester — ☎04:02, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
A simple human check for AI-generated references, AI prompt or markdown should be performed That sounds reasonable; my concern is just that the reviewer would (ironically) try to use AI (i.e. the AI detectors) to weed out AI. So if we were to add an anti-AI pledge for nominators, we might as well have the reviewer do the same. –Epicgenius (talk) 11:04, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
There's no irony in that. The community seems to have little issue in editors using AI for non-writing purposes, such as finding sources. CMD (talk) 13:02, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
If the output doesn't affect the quality of the article, sure. The thing is that using an LLM detector to check for AI does impact the quality of the article. (As an aside, WP:AICATCH has an entire section dedicated to catching edits that add sources which have an AI tracking indicator in the URL.) –Epicgenius (talk) 13:57, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
I'm not seeing a directly link between the use of a checker and article quality. The url tracking indicators are useful due to high correlation, but in all the discussions I have seen they are noted considered as one factor in the wider assessment (similar to llm detectors in that sense I suppose). CMD (talk) 14:10, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
My point is that, if an editor is using an LLM detector to assess that a GAN is or isn't using AI-generated text, then it is impacting the outcome of the GAN process. The GAN process is one of the ways where an article's quality can be checked against objective criteria. Hence, this is why I said that the use of an LLM detector is affecting the quality of the article. –Epicgenius (talk) 16:02, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
You don't even need to do that, just CTRL-F for any of the unholy pantheon of AI verbiage ("highlighting," "underscoring," "aligns with," "emphasizing," etc.) and check whatever source is attached. You will likely find issues. (Recent example: Talk:Abracadabra (Lady Gaga song).) Gnomingstuff (talk) 22:19, 27 October 2025 (UTC)
human generated = prose is written (as in words put together into sentences to form bodies of text) by a human (inputting the words themselves not simply copy and pasting from an ChatGBT). i think the emphasis here should be one a human linking together words to form sentences and convey meaning. that is where AI messes up. Again I do not think this will stop people from using AI, it just allows people to at least take action regarding it. IntentionallyDense(Contribs)05:51, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
That's rather pointless. The problem is puffery and referencing, not the use of AI in and of itself. Unreviewed AI text may contain such problems, but reviewed AI texts are perfectly fine. Focus on the finished product, not the production method. Cambalachero (talk) 14:01, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
Would this be the first rule that applies to a production method rather than actual article content? I disagree with crossing that line for several reasons. IAWW (talk) 21:04, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
Honestly, in the case of gen AI I think there are definite arguments for focusing on the production method, things that set it apart. There's the fact Wikipedia's purpose is to share the sum of all human knowledge (emphasis mine), and things like (mentioned in a comment just below) how some of the necessary human touches like awareness of a wider subject to judge significance at a specific sub-topic article are never going to be replicated. There's the fact AI will struggle to distinguish sources, and that important parts of a topic covered in fewer or more advanced sources could be ignored, for a non-expert reviewer to miss. There's the simple fact that all the AI work should be checked by a human for simple verifiability, which theoretically means finding everywhere the AI gleaned its information from, and then reading around to make sure it didn't miss or misrepresent - a headache for a nominator and an unnecessarily unfair workload put on the reviewer if a nominator hasn't done that. Kingsif (talk) 21:14, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
I think these issues with the tool are nowhere near strong enough to ban it in people's workflow. Also, the tool can still be used effectively even though it has its issues in my opinion. I use GPT-5 three separate times in my GA workflow: to add rowscopes to tables, to double check the data in the tables (very commonly one or two numbers are wrong from human error copying the source), and then to find grammar mistakes and typos in my finished prose. AI is in my opinion the best tool for these tasks. It saves me time so I can spend more time on the important stuff like evaluating sources and writing prose. IAWW (talk) 21:47, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
We're clearly talking about gen AI, not longstanding organisational tools. While I think you should do a grammar/typo check yourself, because automated tools typically love to make everything sixth-grade standard and there's something to be said for personality in writing style, there's a big difference between a form filler & spellcheck, and gen AI spewing out nonsense. Kingsif (talk) 23:56, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
Yes, but the line between acceptable use and unacceptable use is not clear, and banning all use certainly is not the solution. IAWW (talk) 10:53, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
If I can be perfectly honest, I don't know where you're getting the idea that people want to ban all kinds of AI and all (including non-content) uses. I have seen people express that as a personal opinion within the context of proposing gen AI content-creation bans, but not yet propose it. That you are so concerned about the possibility, though, somewhat makes me worry you feel too reliant on using the worst spellcheck in the world. Kingsif (talk) 00:33, 27 October 2025 (UTC)
Earlier in the conversation you said: "I think the consensus here is firmly against AI, and is swinging more towards complete ban (which I’d support)." That's where I "got the idea". IAWW (talk) 07:59, 27 October 2025 (UTC)
"There's the fact Wikipedia's purpose is to share the sum of all human knowledge (emphasis mine)"
First, the fact that prefacing a statement with "the fact that..." or variants of it is usually done to make it sound as uncontroversial, while being anything but.
And second, with the exception of alien civilizations that we have not met yet, all knowledge is human knowledge, so the whole point is moot. Cambalachero (talk) 00:04, 25 October 2025 (UTC)
Okay, so Wikipedia's stated purpose is not highly controversial, calm down mate.
Second, you are missing the point, in a way that feels deliberate. But let's play ball, sure, AI can't have knowledge. But how we share knowledge is communicating information. And what AI is actually kinda known for is communicating disinformation. It cannot reliably share human knowledge, so we cannot utilise it to try. Kingsif (talk) 00:12, 25 October 2025 (UTC)
No, it's completely on-point. You talk about "human knowledge" and that "AI can't have knowledge" as if we were in the classic sci-fi scenario where Skynet, Ultron, VIKY, Bender and all robots develop artificial general intelligence and become competitors of the human race. That's just sci-fi, and AI as we know it in this discussions is nowhere near that. It is a tool to obtain knowledge, with advantages and disadvantages like any other source of information. And what do we do with sources of information with disadvantages? We use them, with care.
Consider for comparison biased and opinionated sources. They are bad sources of information, and a non-partisan reader must set apart the raw facts from the opinions and the subtle and unsubtle manipulative narratives; and yet nobody considers banning them. Cambalachero (talk) 02:15, 25 October 2025 (UTC)
I am literally talking about AI generated content not being reliable for sharing what we consider knowledge. I think that has been clear. AIs spitting out hallucinations is a pretty undisputed thing. I have not once suggested there is some robot 'alternative knowledge' base being created to rise up and wipe out human knowledge, and your attempt to ignore my explanations to make it seem like I only have sci-fi concerns is a ridiculous straw man.
A human can parse those biased sources in a way your precious AI can't, that's why they're not banned. Congrats on only making arguments against yourself. Kingsif (talk) 00:24, 27 October 2025 (UTC)
I agree there's no reliable AI detector, so some kind of self-declaration sounds like a good idea. Now, while I do think we should outright ban AI, I also think there would need to be a discussion before doing that because of the 0.1% chance an AI-generated article theoretically meets all the present GA criteria. However, as mentioned, AI-generated references clearly don't meet those criteria, so it should be common sense to ban such. That could be achieved in an additional specific note to the GA crit.
Weasel words and puffery, other big concerns, are also covered by the GA crit, as would be things like obviously incorrect/non-verifiable content an AI has hallucinated. What is harder to identify, but terrible for an article and something gen AI does a lot, is to not weigh sources. While DUE and broadness are covered in the GA crit, I think it can be hard for a non-subject expert to necessarily identify where things may be factually supported by one source or another, but still misrepresented due to an AI not having background awareness to judge or contextualise. Kingsif (talk) 21:07, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
Isn't weighing sources the one thing LLMs get right with the help of gradient descent? One of the problems I've seen recently is that the models aren't updated enough to have the most current information. That means weight can be off due to relying on older data. Viriditas (talk) 21:18, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
Not really. They will have the biases of their data, which (besides obvious potential neutrality problems) means they weigh more importantly sources that are structured similarly to the largest dataset. Apparently, also longer sources get preference. This skews weighing sources in favour of, in my interpretation of those characteristics, traditional sources. This is not always appropriate. It also means the approach LLMs seem to take in weighing sources is unlike that of humans (they seek objective patterns which have little bearing on the appropriateness of any given source for any particular subject), which I would describe as very flawed. Kingsif (talk) 00:05, 25 October 2025 (UTC)
When I perform a CRAAP test, I'm using conceptual pattern matching just like an LLM is doing it statistically. I can meta-evaluate, but the LLM can't. Viriditas (talk) 01:30, 25 October 2025 (UTC)
Hi, I joined recently in order to improve some music-related articles and nominate them to GA status. I come here in order to know if my meaning of work, partially using AI, is suitable for GA nominations, and I think it is the good place to add my message. You can see my current works in my sandboxes 1, 2, and 3. As I am not an English native speaker, I used GPT-5 in these works for copy editing, especially improving wording of sentences, in order to have a well-written prose. I ensure that all the sentences rewritten and submitted by AI were checked and verified by myself, word by word, compared to the sources, in order to remove any form of interpretation, synthesis, or hallucinating. All the references I added were included and formatted manually, with some help of reFill for some of them (those ones were later completed and checked manually). In my knowledge, after rewriting AI submissions, all the prose I added meet WP:V guidelines, and do not contain any WP:OR, WP:SYNTH, or copyright violations. I spent several days restructuring, expanding, trimming, removing approximative material, checking references, etc.
You can check the history of my sandboxes, where I improved and developed day by day some articles. If you think my meaning of work does not meet GAN guidelines -as I know use of AI is currently a very controversial topic debated here, please let me know. I need to know if I have to rewrite each one from scratch, without any help, even with an average wording, in order to submit it. I ping some users involved in this discussion, including @Gnomingstuff:, @IntentionallyDense:, and @Bremps: Thank you. Kv200 (talk) 09:26, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
I have done a few spot checks of Ritmo and it looks fine for text-source integrity, although describing Hakuna Matata as "the Disney hit" should go. The bigger issue is that the song does not appear to have received any critical attention and basically all the sources are interviews from the press tour. I am not sure it meets WP:NMUSIC. I also think some of the same issues persist wth Summer Days; I do not consider it music criticism when outlets post music news, particularly when accompanied by interviews with the artist. Rollinginhisgrave (talk|edits) 10:32, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
@Rollinginhisgrave thanks for replying. Disney hit allusion has been rewritten in my sandbox, thanks. For notability concerns, I know it did not receive any critical reception, but I don't think it is a matter now - articles exist in main space, it is not a submission, but an improvement. I was entirely focusing about AI using for GA status, not notability. And as you certainly know, there is no number of sources required for reaching GA status. As I know chart positions do not warrant notability per WP:NSONG, the huge amount of charts and certifications may make the song notable. For Summer Days, fully understood your point of view - maybe the critical reception section should be merged into the composition one, without citing the reviews.Kv200 (talk) 10:51, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
Commenting strictly on prose here, I think aside from some basic spelling typos it actually looks pretty good. I'm going to reach out on your userpage with some resources for prose. IntentionallyDense(Contribs)17:37, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 7 months ago4 comments4 people in discussion
Since the review was closed as a quick fail, the standard method of requesting a second opinion is not available. I consider the review Talk:Diving safety/GA1 to be contrary to the instructions, criteria and principles of GA reviews, and would like some further opinions. There is a basic critique of the review on the page at Talk:Diving safety#Comment on GA1. Cheers,···Peter Southwood(talk): 07:12, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
I, too, would quickfail an article that (in the reviewed version) had a three-year-old "expansion needed" cleanup banner, multiple paragraphs ending in unsourced sentences, entirely unsourced paragraphs ("Incident management", "Buddy or team divers"), and even sections that are almost entirely unsourced ("Personal protective equipment"). If I were reviewing I would have been more specific about where I found these problems but I don't think it's necessary for a quickfail reviewer to do that. These issues should have been handled before nominating. I'm not sure about the length as a quickfail issue but that's unimportant when there are other valid quickfail issues. To me this looks like an entirely valid quickfail. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:13, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
No, sorry, I have to agree with the QF. The article is way too long and weirdly structured with far too many bullet lists and unnecessary {{main}} templates for totally ordinary words like "risk". There are uncited portions and you nominated it with a standing tag from 2022. I see at least one extant ref error that's just a redlink to a citation template and that's just at a glance. It's not reasonable to expect a full review when you're that far off the GACR to begin with. ♠PMC♠(talk)08:15, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
The nominator for this article may have a connection with a textbook they're using as a source for the article. If so, that would place them under a conflict of interest. The second opinion that they're asking for here should have been requested at an earlier stage—before the article was submitted to GAN, in order to double-check the nominators work—because the COI that they may be under can affect their objectivity with regards to the article's quality. At this late stage, the nominator ought to have another editor who is unconnected to the diving industry act as co-nominator, helping them to helm the article through the GAN process. Editors who have connections to an industry need to be particularly vigilant when handling articles covering those topics in order to avoid the blinders which conflicts of interest can surreptitiously place without that editor being aware of it. Almost like oxygen deprivation, these blinders can creep up very quietly, blinding an editor from seeing the true state of an article. They may overlook deficiencies which are apparent to others unconnected to that subject. A co-nominator can help in this regard. Regards, Spintendo15:38, 9 November 2025 (UTC)
Odd behavior upon user rename
Latest comment: 7 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Latest comment: 7 months ago13 comments10 people in discussion
In August I proposed an informal subject sweep where we'd pick a subject, gather a few people, and clear out one subject all at once. It was reasonably effective and got some reviews moving, but I'd like to go in the other direction now. Instead of trying to empty a small subject, let's shrink down a large subject. Preferably a subject with roughly 50 unreviewed nominations, is generally easy to review, and isn't dominated by two or three editors who would suddenly have a bunch of reviews at once.
The subject that stands out to me is albums. So here's what I'm thinking: if we can get 5–10 people to agree to 1–2 reviews, then we can all go at once and bump the section down to about 40. More would be even better. I'm willing to do two if enough other people are as well. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸18:37, 6 November 2025 (UTC)
The albums category currently has 10% of its articles being reviewed. That's not bad, considering there are 7 other categories with a lower number of reviewers. Also, of the 57 articles listed in albums, only 24 are from an editor with only one article in the category. Two editors have no less than 12 articles nominated in Albums. Two other editors have 9 articles amongst them. So in other words, 37% of the articles in Albums are from only 4 editors. Five other editors make up 12 articles amongst them, while the remainders (24) are the singles. If one wishes to choose a "neglected" category containing numerous 'forgotten' editors and their long-waiting articles, one could do better than Albums. Spintendo04:25, 7 November 2025 (UTC)
Or, If you must choose Albums, at least focus on the 24 singles, so as not to overwhelm any of the nine editors with >1 (Alas, they should be so lucky!) Since I'm choosing a single, that ought to leave us 23 remaining. Spintendo06:29, 7 November 2025 (UTC)
I see that lots of nominators in the Ablums category have a negative review-to-GA ratio: I think if those editors would like their articles reviewed more quickly, they should review other GAs. I would rather that a subject sweep focus on a topic where lots of the nominators have a positive ratio. Z1720 (talk) 15:11, 7 November 2025 (UTC)
I can understand somewhat where this argument comes from when addressing specific editors (even if I disagree with it), but to apply this to an entire subject areas is off putting to me. Do readers really benefit from a subject area having less articles reviewed as being a good article just because the contributors in that area are not reviewing other articles? I feel that we should be focusing on the content when it comes to GA reviews by not giving more merit to what GANs deserve a review based on the nominators. I don't agree with subject sweeps that are based on the the review-to-GA ratios of nominators because that will only serve to benefit subjects with editors who have a record of GA reviews, and subjects like this one with a negative ratio will receive less sweeps, increasing their own backlog which is contrary to the goals of a subject sweep. Gramix13 (talk) 18:30, 7 November 2025 (UTC)
Well, nobody put forth a perfect recipient for our focus, probably because one doesn't exist, so instead of three people doing something reasonably useful that they had already agreed to, nobody did anything at all. Somewhere here is an object lesson in how perfection is the enemy of good.
GACR currently notes articles should be in summary style, "focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail". The application of this like other parts of MOS often comes down to local consensus, although the criteria as written relates to WP:COATRACK considerations as well as absolute length. CMD (talk) 08:35, 12 November 2025 (UTC)
Who decides what detail is necessary and what is unnecessary? How is this decided? Is some competence required in the topic matter? Is it decided by careful consideration of what information the reader needs to understand the article as written? Is it decided by discussion, logical argument and considering the available evidence? Is it arbitrarily decided by the reviewer without opportunity for discussion, or something else? Does summary stye override completeness of coverage when the content is not available elsewhere on Wikipedia ···Peter Southwood(talk): 17:38, 12 November 2025 (UTC)
Editors, thought and discussion, it depends, not really because the article as written is less important than what it should be, hopefully, not arbitrarily but logically, and no but it doesn't practically matter because the latter is easily fixed. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:56, 12 November 2025 (UTC)
I have frequently brought up page size as an issue for GARs and FARs. Yes, I believe it matters because 3b of the GA criteria states the article, "stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style)." If an article is too big, I believe it is unlikely that it is using summary style. Often I will then read through the article and find instances where information should be spun out or summarised more effectively. The lead of WP:AS outlines why large articles can be a problem. Z1720 (talk) 00:24, 13 November 2025 (UTC)
That could theoretically happen, but it is not the usual occurrence. The John von Neumann page for example, had an entire subsection deleted even after the GAR closed. Keep in mind that all articles are fully condensed into ~4 paragraphs even before looking at the overall size. CMD (talk) 04:04, 13 November 2025 (UTC)
I've generally erred towards seeing biographies as one article topic which doesn't as neatly condense into sub-articles, but that has not gained consensus. Even including that, pointing to sizes does not argue that none of the included text is unnecessary detail. For example, does the long quote from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe add to the Newton article? Probably not (and that short paragraph is being unnecessarily technical as well). CMD (talk) 04:37, 13 November 2025 (UTC)
An article that is well referenced is going to be bulkier than one with fewer sources. Also, is a point possibly being missed here – that references don't come into the equation when assessing the number of words used and that good use of sources should not be penalised? Hence if you were to take the references out of the Newton article, would it drop to well under 200K? In summary, the word count is the proper measure of article size Billsmith60 (talk) 11:27, 13 November 2025 (UTC)
@Billsmith60: The page size script does not include references in its word count. Removing all the references would not change the number of words in the article body. Z1720 (talk) 21:34, 13 November 2025 (UTC)
Anyone in good standing is welcome to close a GAR that's ready for closure. I try to close some that have been open more than a month with no further activity when I get the chance. This isn't like FAC, we're (the coordinators) really just here to help the process along and as a point of contact when things go off the rails or a discussion is unable to reach a clear consensus. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:44, 13 November 2025 (UTC)
Yeah, I figured out how to do it and it's really very simple. I have closed several of them. If there are any that appear questionable (you disagree with my decision), please let me know! Bgsu98(Talk)22:09, 13 November 2025 (UTC)
Thanks Bgsu98 for closing a bunch. There are also some older GARs that could use additional comments. Editor input to the discussions are welcome. Z1720 (talk) 16:43, 15 November 2025 (UTC)
New script to help do source spot checks
Latest comment: 7 months ago6 comments5 people in discussion
Hi everyone. I wanted to share a new user script called Veracity that automates the setup for source spot checks. The script generates a review table containing a balanced sample of citations next to the article text they support. It works for GA reviews, FA reviews, and other evaluations. I originally built it to audit a GA candidate, and I recently used it for an FA source review (example here). I welcome any feedback or suggestions. Thanks! Annedrew (talk · contribs) 21:21, 15 November 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 7 months ago17 comments6 people in discussion
I would like to propose the addition of a feedback link on new GA and FAC review pages.
The objective is to provide nominators with a simple means of offering constructive comments to reviewers, particularly newer or less experienced ones who may still be developing their reviewing skills. I have myself benefited from valuable suggestions left to me by nominators and experienced reviewers.
A sample prototype of the proposed feedback page can be found here, where nominators can leave brief suggestions or comments at their convenience once a review is closed. This would not alter any existing review procedures, nor would it be mandatory for nominators or reviewers.
@Pbsouthwood Once a reviewer concludes a review, a nominator who has concerns—such as suggestions that seem purely stylistic or comments that do not follow MOS—can leave these under the Feedback column. This allows the reviewer to see and address such issues in future reviews. Comments left on the feedback page would trigger a notification, similar to a ping. MSincccc (talk) 15:56, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
Providing feedback to any editor, on any action, is always a good idea. So the question is: is a formal mechanism beneficial? I'm not sure. A couple of random thoughts:
a) Editors can always leave feedback on the reviewer's (or nominator's) Talk page.
b) Nominators may be reluctant to leave _negative_ feedback on a reviewer, since it may (subconsciously?) impact future reviews (from that, or other reviewers).
c) Feedback from a reviewer may come from other reviewers, as well as nominators (e.g. in FAC: sometimes reviewer B will add a comment to a note from reviewer A).
d) Following-up on the comment from User:AirshipJungleman29 above, what if you (MSincccc) did a trial where you posted a request for feedback on a review: You review article ABC, then post a note in GA/FAC talk page and ask anyone (incl nominator) to give you feedback. Invite other reviewers to do the same thing for their reviews. Then observe the quantity & quality of responses. That data should help evaluate this proposal. Noleander (talk) 16:20, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
a) I am aware that editors can leave messages on talk pages—this has happened with me—but it becomes easier to locate relevant points with the help of a dedicated feedback page.
b) I have received feedback myself, including negative comments, much of which has been helpful, and I believe this system could similarly benefit new users.
c)Anyone can leave suggestions on the feedback page with respect to a particular FAC or GA review.
d) I am presently conducting a GA review here and a FAC one here and here.
I really can't give you my opinion one way or the other without a clearer understanding of what you're proposing. Can you make an example of a completed feedback page for us to review? Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:43, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
How is that better than commenting on the article talk page, of it it is a more personal point, on the reviewer's talk page? If it is a matter of procedural compliance, maybe this page is the right place? ···Peter Southwood(talk): 08:36, 15 November 2025 (UTC)
One can always go for the reviewer's talk page. But the proposed feedback page will ensure that all comments/suggestions with respect to a specific review are easily found on a single page at any given time. MSincccc (talk) 09:50, 15 November 2025 (UTC)
It helps keep review-specific feedback in one place. Talk-page messages often get buried or split across pages, so a dedicated page gives reviewers a clearer record to refer back to. MSincccc (talk) 10:55, 15 November 2025 (UTC)
Yeah, I can't see any use whatsoever. Actual feedback (which the provided example is not) is far better left where someone should see it rather than on some autogenerated forgotten page. To quote previous feedback to you left in its proper place, this is a well-meant idea but not conspicuously useful. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:45, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
My thoughts are similar to Airship's. I appreciate the motivation behind this idea but don't see a valid use for it. It comes across to me as a solution in search of a problem. We already have enough projectspace type pages to keep track of as it is. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 22:13, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
How do you find out when a good article was nominated?
Latest comment: 7 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Try adding "/GA1" to the end of that article's Talk page (assuming it was the first time it had been nominated). That discussion should give you a good idea for when to check the Talk page history re the article's promotion Billsmith60 (talk) 11:23, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
Unreviewed articles
Latest comment: 7 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Hi. I have two articles, Tamara Bunke and José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage, in which two different editors opened the review but never made any substantial comments in months. I was wondering if it was possible to remove them from reviewers but not lose the original nomination date. Many thanks, The Blue Rider12:14, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 7 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I just quickfailed this. As this is my first time quickfailing a nomination and my first time reviewing a GA in four months, I'd appreciate if someone could confirm I'm not being too harsh.--Launchballer07:04, 21 November 2025 (UTC)
When quickfailing for broadness it's best to specify at least some specific sourcing that needs to be added to the article. The closest you came to that was "Around a quarter of the references contain the word 'review', so reception almost certainly exists". You should verify that that sourcing actually contains a decent chunk of information that needs to be added to address the subject's main topics. I think the prose review was good, though I don't see anything there that I would consider quickfail worthy. IAWW (talk) 10:18, 21 November 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 7 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Henri Elendé was passed as a GA but not added to the list anywhere. I have absolutely no idea what subtopic of "Sports and recreation" he should go in - there's doesn't seem to be a separate category for high jumpers. * Pppery *it has begun...22:15, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 7 months ago9 comments6 people in discussion
Criterion 4 of WP:QF says that a nomination can be quick failed if it is not stable due to edit warring. However, this seems to be redundant, as a nomination can also be quick failed under Criterion 1 for not meeting Criterion 5 of WP:GACR6 ("it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute"). Thoughts? Icepinner03:30, 15 November 2025 (UTC)
Yeah. Might want to open an RFC to propose removing Criterion 4 of WP:QF. I wonder which came first: Criterion 4 or Criterion 1 of WP:QF? (or may have been an error, who knows) Icepinner15:24, 15 November 2025 (UTC)
I agree that WP:QF Criterion 4 can be removed as redundant with WP:QF Criterion 1's incorporation of WP:GACR6 Criterion 5. In comparison, WP:QF Criterion 2 is not redundant with WP:GACR6 Criterion 2d because the former clarifies that the other parts of WP:GACR6 Criterion 2 are not grounds for a quick-fail unless the article is far from compliance with them. ViridianPenguin🐧(💬) 02:23, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 6 months ago16 comments8 people in discussion
The singer is currently involved in an investigation, and due to the nature of said investigation it's impossible for the article to remain stable. Changes in the investigation, and the attention it brings, will mean the article may change wildly. Thus I believe the GA review should be closed and delayed until this matter is sorted out. Harizotoh9 (talk) 01:51, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
The GA criteria specifies that "Stability is based on the article's current state, not any potential for instability in the future." The D4vd article as it currently stands is not unstable, given that there isn't an edit war or content dispute going on regarding his involvement in the Celeste incident. Rather, there appears to be a lot of normal, constructive editing towards keeping the article up-to-date, and the details aren't changing so dramatically that it would be a moot point to perform a review (see WP:GANOT). Thus, I wouldn't support closing the review on the sole basis of stability. Leafy46 (talk) 06:33, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
The article would have benefitted from a more rigorous shaking‑loose of minor issues before being brought to GAN. Wikilinking insignificant words like teenager, montages, Singapore, California, anonymous sources, album, maturity, and impounded are always best avoided, as is the practice of Wikilinking a word in one paragraph of an article to another paragraph in the exact same article— all issues found in the D4vd article. Errors like this are demonstrative of a lapse of focus, and runs the risk of draining a good reviewer's energy. I don't condone what appears to be the other reviewer's abandonment of this review, but then again, there's at least a residue of argument for not blaming them for it. (Still, clicking "begin review" is a contract that ought to be honored rain or shine.) The nominator should feel free to renominate this article at their earliest convenience (ideally, after the above mentioned issues are addressed). Spintendo12:10, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
Well, that's for another reviewer to deal with. It very well could be unsuccessful even with a new reviewer, but that's the point, it should have a reviewer to go through such issues and decide if the article has met the criteria. You don't quick-fail reviews for wikilinking too much - the whole point of the review is to bring issues like this up so the nominator can resolve them. It's unfair to have that permanent stain on the article history for something that is not the nominator's fault. jolielover♥talk13:12, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
Stability is one of the least important aspects of a GA in my experience, and it's more so concerning edit wars than new information popping up. Most articles on BLPs are going to have new information come up after their review, that's why you can check the permanent revision the review was conducted on. I recently had a GA pass in the midst of his album announcement (which was not intended), and obviously, new information to the page, but you can make it work. D4vd's article has been, for the most part, not too shabby in terms of fast changing information and edit warring. jolielover♥talk13:16, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
Agreed. I do think we should readdress whether it should be a part of the GA Criteria. In my eyes, it basically suggests that there isn't an edit war going on, not that it is stable as in "complete". Lee Vilenski(talk • contribs)14:00, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
@Jolielover: is absolutely right, over-Wikilinking should never form the basis of a quikfail. I have to admit that overlinking-issues in general form one of the first things I look for in gauging an article's robustness, so when I see a nominator who has invested an admittedly generous 192 edits into an article and yet still overlooks the overlinks, it naturally places me in the position of being unfairly biased against them. The GAN process is, as Jolielover rightly mentions, yet another opportunity for nominators to improve their issue-identifying acumen. At the end of the day, I think everyone agrees the more untenable position is that of the reviewer who promised a review that ultimately wasn't delivered (and who appears to have done this before). for increasing everyone's workload. If it were me, my contrition would be to offer 2 additional reviews as a penance. Spintendo19:56, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
Stability is more than just edit wars and content disputes; an upcoming, unreleased film is generally held to fail stability because in not very long it will be substantially different from what is reviewed. That isn't too say that this situation is so analogous that it should be failed on stability, but I personally would put off taking up a review until the dust settles in a few months. Rollinginhisgrave (talk|edits) 20:31, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
Oh and perfect example just came up. People just released a news article citing sources which contradicts information from news reports only a day or two ago which means the need for re-writes information added in the last few days. The recent reports are ultimately cited to TMZ, and some or all of it may be incorrect. Sources can't even agree upon Rivas' age (whether she was 14 or 15), and basic other details of the investigation. Stability is not possible under these circumstances since investigators have said very little about the case, and sources are sometimes in contradiction with each other. Harizotoh9 (talk) 08:47, 25 November 2025 (UTC)
TMZ is not sourced once (I in fact phased out the source entirely). The citations were to KTLA, who have since posted a new article correcting their past article. The highest quality and most cautious sources for this article are People, ABC, NBC, AP, CBS and LATimes. . News sources are relying upon sources because officials have been very quiet and released very little official information. That will eventually change and investigator and medical examiner findings will be released, which will lead to heavy expansion of the investigation section. None of this is stable and it's expansion, re-writes piled upon re-writes. Harizotoh9 (talk) 19:04, 25 November 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 6 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
This article was recently quickly failed at GAN with the claim that I "fundamental lack of understanding of the subject matter", which was reaffirmed at a talk page discussion where the reviewer flat out said that they "can only conclude that [I] do not understand" the topic. Now I contest this quick fail for obvious reasons (I was the one who wrote the article and have good understanding of what the sources say), but I am not here for that since I have an open peer review. What I am more concerned about is that if the same standard of review keeps up (where the review is quick failed because a perceived lack of knowledge/the problem with the article is really "I don't understand what I am writing about"), this article may never become a good article without a significant rewrite. I would like some other opinions on this; how valid was the quick fail justification and what major problems does the article really have that should be addressed by me before a future GAN? RandomInfinity17 (talk - contributions) 02:08, 26 November 2025 (UTC)
I don't claim to understand the technical terminology in play, but it sounds like Roy does, and I trust that he wouldn't QF on those grounds otherwise. It is not unreasonable for a reviewer to QF an article that contains numerous errors. Nobody needs to be an expert to write a Wikipedia article, but you do need to have sufficient understanding, especially in technical fields with lots of jargon and doubly so if you're going to take something to GAN. ♠PMC♠(talk)06:00, 26 November 2025 (UTC)
Amount of articles per section: a discussion
Latest comment: 6 months ago9 comments7 people in discussion
A positive aspect of increasing the number of GAs is that some section headings have lots of articles. Last year, I opened a discussion about how many articles should be in each section before editors consider splitting them. One consensus of the discussion (in which only a few editors expressed opinions) was that a section could be split if there are over 200 articles, but only if there is a logical place to split it.
In the video games GA section, I did a split of video games released in 1995-1999 into 1995-1997 and 1998-1999. I split that heading first because it was the first one chronologically to have over 200 articles. It was good-faith reverted by PresN: in the edit summary, the stated reason was that other video game sections were larger, that the categories should have consisten ranges of time (though noted that Music's categories are not) and that the two year range for a category is too small. Before conducting more splits, I wanted to get more opinions from the GA community.
Questions: When should editors consider splitting GA headings? Should the video games section headings be consistent (every five years) or should different time ranges be used to keep the number of articles below an arbitrary number?
If we do go with a cap on section size, I would prefer aesthetically not to go with the alternating 2-year/3-year setup, but maybe 3-year groupings starting at 1990 through 2019. I don't love tiny year ranges, but I do understand that there's not a lot of great options if we don't want sections to have more than 200 articles. --PresN15:53, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
I would be fine with 3-year sections: it's a bit of a pain to set up (splitting a section into 2-and-3-year sections is easier than splitting three sections into five) so if implemented it would have to be done in one series of edits. Z1720 (talk) 16:15, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
What is the major argument against having larger sections? Especially in the sense that lots of readers probably won't know precise date ranges media came out in, smaller and smaller increments don't make a lot of intrinsic sense to me. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchstalk17:45, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
@David Fuchs: Some arguments against large sections is that it is too difficult to find articles of interest when scanning a large list, and a large list makes editing it more difficult, and more categories make the headings more precise. An example of a large list is Warships of the United Kingdom, with 441 articles. At the other extreme is Television series, with some sections with two articles. Z1720 (talk) 01:12, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
When the title disappears off the top of the screen (on standard Vector2022 width) that is not ideal for easily remembering where you are in the sea of blue. CMD (talk) 02:49, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
I've been privately maintaining a variation of the section dividing the decades into early, middle and late segments (visible here), my reasoning being that thirds of a decade have clearer specific cultures than whole ones; nobody's going to mistake the late 90s for the early 90s, for example. If we were to do further splitting, I would suggest a format similar to what I'm using, though my method might come off as somewhat persnickety to some, since the divisions occur within a part of a year rather than between years (the divide between early and mid occurs at April/May XXX3, and the divide between mid and late occurs at August/September XXX6). A simpler and slightly more agreeable alternative might be to go by a "3-4-3" format for each decade that's a bit more clear cut, an example being 1990-92, 93-96, and 97-99. I have no strong feelings whether or not we go through with any split at all, but I figured suggestions for that route would be helpful. Cat's Tuxedo (talk) 01:42, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
I have no qualms with irregular time ranges, but of course if someone is willing to do the work of reformatting to implement a shift to 3-year groupings, I would prefer that for aesthetics. If we go with the latter approach, I agree with PresN's pitch to do ten 3-year groupings covering 1990 through 2019. ViridianPenguin🐧(💬) 02:48, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
Ideally I'd prefer if the video game sections were split by console generations, although that may not be a very well defined term. If we end up splitting them by smaller time frames, one question I'd ask is how early access games (more specifically, fully released games that were formerly in EA) would be handled? Would we want to use the date the game enters EA, or the date the game fully releases? What would happen if the two dates were in different time frames? Gramix13 (talk) 05:54, 27 November 2025 (UTC)
Request to remove stuck/malformed GA entry: Hushmand Dehqan
Latest comment: 6 months ago9 comments3 people in discussion
Hello admins. Could you please help remove a stuck and malformed entry from the current Good Article nominations list?
I have fixed the nomination on the article's talk page (`Talk:Hushmand Dehqan`), but the bot is unable to process the correct nomination because of a faulty, stuck entry in the main list.
The faulty entry to be removed is:
`Hushmand Dehqan (talk | history | start review) (0 reviews, 999 GAs) Example (talk) 07:17, 29 November 2025 (UTC)`
The error persists because of the inclusion of the placeholder `Example` and the bot's inability to create the review page. Removing this line should allow the bot to process the nomination correctly from the talk page.Mojgoon (talk) 08:29, 29 November 2025 (UTC)
I apologize for bothering you. I tried several times to renominate my article for GA status, but it did not work. The WP:GANI page did not help me either. Could you please assist me? Thank you.
Could you please write the correct code for the GA2 renomination right here for me? Thank you again for your patience. Mojgoon (talk) 12:46, 29 November 2025 (UTC)
Suggestion for easing the backlog of reassessments
Latest comment: 6 months ago8 comments4 people in discussion
Looking at the GAR page, it seems to me like a large number of articles listed there are being reassessed because of issues that were present at the time of the review. (I was specifically motivated to write this by Bury F.C., but it's far from the only one). It seems silly to me to list articles here with the expectation that someone will work on them to bring them back to their former glory, if they were never good in the first place. If I want a mediocre article worked on, should I get a friend to pass it as a GA and then list it here for reassessment in the hope someone will work on it?
Instead I propose some sort of mechanism to annul problematic reviews that didn't address an obvious issue that existed at the time of the review, to make it as if the article was never good in the first place (which it wasn't). It's much easier to take a glance at the reviewed versions of recent GAs to check whether there are any issues the reviewer hasn't addressed than find time to improve the article. Additionally, the nominator is not going to complain about an incorrectly passed GA as they would for an incorrectly failed one, so a mechanism for outside observers to object might be good.
Thoughts? Is there some reason I've overlooked why this is a terrible idea?
@JustARandomSquid: One concern I have is that the GA criteria has become stricter (whether that's a good thing or not is a different discussion). That means articles that passed the criteria in 2007 no longer meet the criteria in 2025: a GAR might encourage editors to make the articles even better. Also, there are some editors who want GAs to be posted at GAR so that they can find articles they are interested in improving (and are theoretically closer to meeting the criteria than the average article). If someone is gaming the system in the way described above (getting a friend to pass the article) I suggest opening a discussion here and a GAR might not be opened for as long. Z1720 (talk) 14:01, 27 November 2025 (UTC)
Yeah, I didn't think of the criteria changing. So the takeaway is that there's no real way to distinguish between articles that don't meet the new criteria and those that never even met the old criteria, not everyone even cares, and I guess that if I really think a review was wrong, that's dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Thanks for your comment! JustARandomSquid (talk) 16:04, 27 November 2025 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm glad they agree with me, but it's not really the best idea to do this. I guess this can be considered starting a BRD cycle, in which case they're welcome to discuss this here. JustARandomSquid (talk) 13:37, 30 November 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 6 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
In 2023, SWEEPS2023 was established as a collaborative effort to evaluate good articles promoted in 2009 or earlier that might have unreferenced text. It started with 380 articles and is now below 25. Thank you to everyone who participated in identifying or fixing up these articles, and we appreciate any help with evaluating the last articles.
As a reward, we have given SWEEPS more work! The next iteration of the effort, SWEEPS2025, has been set up to evaluate good articles promoted between 2010 and 2016 that might have uncited text. The project is starting with 214 articles from a variety of topics. The effort is collaborative, so anyone can get involved with evaluating and fixing up articles on this list. Feel free to post below or on the project's talk page if there are any questions. Z1720 (talk) 15:58, 1 December 2025 (UTC)
Discussions on AI fact-checking quality articles
Latest comment: 6 months ago8 comments4 people in discussion
We should be careful not to conflate this with spot-checking. Throwing the article into an AI is presumably a look at the entire article at whatever level of detail the AI uses, whole article rather than sampling. Further it is specifically looking for (supposed) factual errors rather than a more holistic check on source use. A useful tool but not a 1:1 replacement. CMD (talk) 06:29, 2 December 2025 (UTC)
I agree. AI can be really good for quick flagging TSI issues too through. Obviously only for flagging to be followed by human review. IAWW (talk) 12:10, 2 December 2025 (UTC)
That our articles contain some errors means that there is always something left to improve, always something for someone to come and fix, and always something else to discover. Fallible beings can't create perfect articles. What we can do is create living documents that are always growing, always improving, and always changing. Yours, &c.RGloucester — ☎12:18, 2 December 2025 (UTC)
I would love to work on a mini-project that goes through all GAs and FAs and uses AI to find small errors. Seems very productive. IAWW (talk) 12:12, 2 December 2025 (UTC)
If you want to look through existing GAs perhaps check them as part of the GA sweep mentioned above. CMD (talk) 15:56, 2 December 2025 (UTC)
How to close the GA discussion page
Latest comment: 6 months ago4 comments2 people in discussion
Hi @Lajmmoore, you have successfully closed the review. The only thing you have done differently from any other close is reverted GANReviewTool's hatting of the page, but hatting is optional and doesn't impact whether the review is closed. Rollinginhisgrave (talk|edits) 22:16, 2 December 2025 (UTC)
Thank you so much - yes its' the hatting I was trying to do. Do you know why I could hat it with the GANReviewer tool before I did the revert, but not after? (out of interest more than anything) Lajmmoore (talk) 22:23, 2 December 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 6 months ago9 comments5 people in discussion
Hello, some 8 months ago, I submitted a GAR for the article Deadmau5. Following its unceremonious speedy closure, I think it is actually ready this time. Would it be inappropriate to submit it for yet another reassessment, or should I wait longer? Viva la horde, ~ GoatLordServant(Talk)13:12, 3 December 2025 (UTC)
Hold on, it's not currently a GA. So, what you want is to nominate it for GA, not for re-assessment (that's for existing GAs that one doesn't think meets the criteria). If you believe your article has been improved enough to meet GA standards, then you can renominate it. Bgsu98(Talk)13:21, 3 December 2025 (UTC)
@Bgsu98: yes, I want to submit it for Good Article because I think it meets the criteria:) I am sorry for the confusion, I wrote 'reassessment' because, while I was aware that there are two different processes for GA review, an assessment of the Deadmau5 article so shortly after its quickfail would be a kind of 'reassessment' by definition, not by process. Thank you for the go ahead! Viva la horde, ~ GoatLordServant(Talk)15:35, 3 December 2025 (UTC)
@GoatLordServant: I added some citation needed templates to the article that should be resolved before a GAN. There's also some sources that are flagged as unreliable that might need to be replaced like "Sportskeeda" and "Gameskinny.com". Z1720 (talk) 15:43, 3 December 2025 (UTC)
@Z1720: I'm not confident that the Sportskeeda source needs removal as it was added per this discussion. It is also a specific thing that has been difficult to source on the article for years, apparently. Either way, if the Sportskeeda and Games Kinny source are still unreliable for his uncontroversial cameo appearences in games, would it be suitable to omit the mentions entirely? As for the CNs, thank you for those, I could have those resolved pretty soon. Viva la horde, ~ GoatLordServant(Talk)15:57, 3 December 2025 (UTC)
@GoatLordServant that discussion was carried out by two editors with sub-100 edits that actively goes against our consensus on Wikipedia:SPORTSKEEDA. There is no indication that this source is any more reliable than a standard Sportskeeda source, and if that info cannot be sourced otherwise, it's probably better off being removed. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 02:17, 6 December 2025 (UTC)
You can certainly omit information when there is no high-quality source for it. It might be possible to cite the game itself with {{cite media}}, but if no one covered the cameo it is probably not major enough to be needed in the article. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 02:19, 6 December 2025 (UTC)
Thank you guys so much!! Still newer to the 'improving an entire article' thing and, as per all three of your advice, the cameos are now omitted. Thank you.:) Viva la horde, ~ GoatLordServant(Talk)04:45, 6 December 2025 (UTC)
GAR one-month minimum: stats analysis and proposal to reduce
Latest comment: 6 months ago39 comments17 people in discussion
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
On January 15, 2025, GAR rules were ammended so that GARs were open for a minimum of one month. Advocates for the change wanted more time for editors to volunteer to fix the article. Detractors felt that reviews didn’t need to be kept open for that long, and reviews without a response would clutter the GAR page. Since this change has been implemented for 10 months, I want to find out what happened when this change was made, and to find out if keeping GARs open longer resulted in more articles being kept. My bias before starting this study was that the one-month minimum was too long and should be reduced. I also believe that during the time of this study, I nominated the greatest number of articles at GAR, although I have not quantitatively proven this.
Methodology
Using the GAR archives, I recorded the GARs that resulted in "kept" that were created after January 15 (when the one-month change took place). I then recorded when the first editor posted a comment that indicated they wanted to work on the article. This metric was selected because GARs will not be closed if someone indicates they want to work on the article. GARs will stay open while work is ongoing, even past the one-month minimum. I then recorded the number of days difference between the review being opened and the first indication comment.
Results
184 GARs opened between January 15 and November 15 were closed as "kept". One article was closed as "kept" without additional comments (Evansville tornado outbreak of November 2005) and was not included in these results. This leaves 183 kept GARs.
This chart displays the time between the creation of the review and the first comment that indicated that someone wants to work on this:
Time distance
Number of articles (cumulative)
% of articles that received an indication (cumulative)
Less than one day
95
51.9
One day
108
59
Two days
124
67.8
One week
150
82
Two weeks
165
90.1
Three weeks
171
93.4
One month (30 days)
177
96.7
Older than one month
183
100
Analysis
Over 50% of articles that are eventually declared "keep" receive the first indication within 24 hours. By two days, over two-thirds of the articles had an indication posted. By two weeks, over nine-tenths had an indication. Seven articles had the first indication after the one-month minimum and would have been delisted if closed at the minimum. The GAR with the furthest distance was Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy at 40 days.
My proposal
Change the minimum amount of time a GAR can be open before delisting from one month to two weeks.
Rationale
When many GARs are open at the same time, it becomes difficult for editors to navigate and find articles they are interested in.
GAR nominators avoid nominating similar articles from the same topic at the same time: by closing GARs sooner, other articles from a similar topic can be nominated sooner.
The minimum amount of time an article remains open at FAR without comment is four weeks (28 days). At one month (28-31 days), GAR’s process to delist an article is longer than FAR, even though it is supposed to be a lower-stakes assessment.
After two weeks, the likelihood that an editor will indicate that they want to work on the article drops substantially.
I think I would support lowering the no-comment close threshold to no lower than two weeks so longer as the closer of the nomination is a different editor than the one who opened the GAR, to at least guaranty two sets of eyes on the article. (I think an editor who is closing a GAR, especially a low-participation one, needs to check the article history to make sure improvements are not occurring without mention of such at the GAR page and scan the article to verify that the problems alleged in the GAR are actually present). GA status is much more easy-come-easy-go than FAC. Since GAN operates on effectively a two-editor consensus (nominator + reviewer), then I see no reason why GAR should not operate on a two-editor consensus model as well. As to timing, I would certainly fail a GAN where significant work was needed and the nominator had made no reply for multiple weeks unless there were extentuating circumstances. We do need to be careful with how many GARs of a topic are listed at once, or in short succession after GARs closed as keep. Most of the GARs I have been involved with making the corrections to the articles in required substantial work, which can wear out an editor group. Hog FarmTalk00:07, 16 November 2025 (UTC)
Support The logic of the proposal checks out. I would also not object, based on the data provided above, to lowering it back to one week since an additional week beyond the first only leads to a 10% increase in the number of articles receiving input. If it is indeed the case that open GARs are rate-limiting when it comes to new GARs being opened, processing GARs that do not lead to significant article improvement more quickly means that we get to the GARs that do lead to such improvement in shorter order; in other words, the process becomes more productive from a perspective of article improvement. TompaDompa (talk) 01:01, 16 November 2025 (UTC)
Comments It would depend on what the value of a kept GA article is compared to the value of keeping the clutter down, and the relative amount of work in resubmittong for GA against fixing an article under review. At a rough guess, there should be little difference, but do we have any statistics about how many failed articles are resubmitted and how long it takes for that to happen, and what the success rate it? I would guess that we have no useful data on any of these considerations, but if we do, we should consider them. Do we even have any idea of the value of a GA?···Peter Southwood(talk): 06:11, 16 November 2025 (UTC)
Support a reduction to a 2 week minimum time before closure. I was opposed to the 1 month minimum waiting time from the beginning - my comment at the time was We're assessing articles, not selling guns. Forcing a 30 day hold no matter what is foolish extra bureaucracy. Searching through Archive 33 shows multiple threads lamenting the massive GAR backlog that was caused by this change. I've appealed to the community to get more involved in GAR but there hasn't been a significant difference in engagement. Most nominations end up being simple delists with little or no activity besides the initial nomination. I do agree with Hog Farm about the pace of nominations being potentially too fast. It doesn't take long to determine an article merits reassessment, but it's almost always far more work to address the issues which merited the assessment. As someone who closes GARs, I am perfectly happy to wait far longer than 2 weeks if there is work being done on the article or someone needs time. That's not what happens in most cases, as the data provided by Z1720 proves. I think two weeks is more than enough time for an interested editor to indicate their intent to work on improving an article listed at GAR. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 22:25, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
Oppose GARs are a "break glass in case of emergency" nuclear option, yet I've seen them being handed out like candy for trivial issues such as single unsourced sentences. The last thing we want to do is encourage more GARs by making them delist sooner rather than encouraging fixing the article oneself per WP:BEBOLD and WP:SOFIXIT. A month is a suitably major length of time for a major action. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 02:34, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
Support, I think it's clear from the thorough statistical analysis presented above that the extra time does not provide a commensurate benefit in terms of retaining GAs/closing GARs as keep. ♠PMC♠ (talk)02:36, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
Support, with HogFarm's so longer as the closer of the nomination is a different editor than the one who opened the GAR caveat. -- asilvering (talk) 01:46, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
Comment: About the "closer is different from nominator" caveat: right now I don't close GARs that I opened or commented on, as I want a second opinion. Adding HF's stipulation wouldn't change my practices, and I think it would be a positive aspect to codify into the rules. If put in place, I would appreciate it if editors interested in the GAR process would consider patrolling the GARs so that they aren't stalled waiting for a closer or that they aren't being closed/checked by a small group of editors. Z1720 (talk) 04:09, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
This is a good point, and appears to be a good practice, but it also produces situations where an editor responds, fixes all the issues to the extent that they understand them, and leaves the article in what they consider satisfactory condition, after which nothing happens. The nominator should at least provide feedback on whether the issues they identified have been rectified, so the responding editor has some confidence that the work is done (or not, as the case may be), and an independent closer knows what to look for.
To facilitate this process, the responding editor/s should preferably leave a message indicating that they think they have fixed the listed issues.
A checklist template for this could be useful. Also maybe a maintenance category for unclosed GARs that have been reported as fixed.
Also, if both nominator and responding editor/s agree that the issues have all been fixed, I see no reason why the nominator should not also close. An additional opinion is only really necessary if there is uncertainty or disagreement. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood(talk): 04:59, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
@Pbsouthwood: I can only speak for myself, but I try to follow-up on articles after concerns are addressed. Sometimes there is a long wait because I am not pinged, so I do not know that editors are waiting for me to comment. A checklist template might be difficult, as GARs aren't a full GAN review (for example, I rarely check image licences in a GAR). Also, if there is only one concern in the article (usually uncited statements) then a checklist is probably not necessary. There are also some GARs I open where other editors post additional concerns, so I want this process to give space for those editors to also comment, rather than sending articles to GAR repeatedly. Z1720 (talk) 14:54, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
All fair comment, but a template providing a checklist can have non-relevant items either deleted or checked as complete (I prefer the former) and it is a good check that the criteria of the review actually match the GA criteria and are not arbitrary or scope creep.
Not being pinged can happen, and sometimes seems to happen even when a reply should automatically generate a ping. One doesn't want to appear rude or impatient - other things exist, but sometimes when nothing happens for long enough, everyone forgets and nothing continues to happen. Cheers, ···Peter Southwood(talk): 15:57, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
Support: the extra time beyond two weeks does not seem to be particularly useful. Thanks to Z1720 for the helpful statistics! Phlsph7 (talk) 09:28, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
Comment This is moreso aimed at Z1720 but would this include cases where an editor has shown interest in fixing the article but has not been able to have time to do so in the two weeks? for example with Cancer pain I do intend to do what I can to fix your concerns but I'm tied up with improving Coeliac disease which I started improving a couple weeks ago. Basically if I was to say "hey I don't have the time right now for this but if you could keep this open for a month that would allow me to improve thigs, if I haven't made any edits in that month then feel free to close it" would that mean I could still have a full month to find the time to improve it? IntentionallyDense(Contribs)07:24, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
Yes, even when the time period was one week, we would often leave articles open for months if there was hope they could be improved. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 11:14, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
@IntentionallyDense: If any editor says "I want to work on this article" the GAR will remain open indefinitely to give time for editors to improve it. The GAR will then remain open as long as work is ongoing, and editors should ping for updates if they think work has stalled. Z1720 (talk) 15:04, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
Support, we should keep nominations open of core articles waiting for someone to pick it up, and clean out most of the others after a week or so. Happy with two weeks too. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 11:13, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
Oppose - I would have commented earlier but (as life is busy and various) I don't seem to have come by here for a few weeks ... which is precisely the issue at stake here. We aren't all machines who check GAR and GA Discussion and multiple other pages every week: a month is a much more humane timespan in which people who have taken a fortnight's holiday, or been sick, or busy at work, or ... anything else in real life, have a realistic hope of spotting something they want to contribute to. I believe this was pretty much the rationale for the one-month period, given that before that we were seeing decent articles getting the chop long before anyone actually noticed. We really don't want to go there; and moving back that way is not constructive. The argument that 9/10 articles get noticed within that frame, even if true, isn't the point: it is that the others didn't, that there is no hurry, and that the more we can catch the better. The data are actually fragmentary, too: for comparison we need to know how many were nominated, so we can see what proportion were kept (it's no good working out percentages of an unknown fraction). For all those reasons, we should not go with this honest but mistaken proposal. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:32, 5 December 2025 (UTC)
@Chiswick Chap: In answer to your comment above, from January 15 - November 15 there were 483 GARs opened: 299 closed as delist, 184 closed as keep. This means 38.1% of GARs that were opened during that period were declared kept during that time period. Please ping me if additional data is requested. Z1720 (talk) 17:11, 5 December 2025 (UTC)
Many thanks. It's good to know that the rest of us managed to save some of them; I'm sorry there wasn't more time available to rescue the others. I certainly don't think that shortening the time will serve any purpose. In particular, the GAR list is not comparable to the GAN list which is stuck until people pay attention to each item; items on the GAR list die all by themselves if neglected. There is therefore precisely no hurry required in its case, and rushing things through more quickly would make things worse not better. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:17, 5 December 2025 (UTC)
@Chiswick Chap: Shortening the time would allow more articles from a topic that no one wants to work on to be nominated. I avoid nominating articles on similar topics to others at GAR. If no one wants to save an article, other articles in that topic have to wait a month before the next GAR. An example is Somerset articles: many articles from this area no longer meet the GA criteria and no one has stepped forward to improve them, but only 12 articles will get GAR'ed each year. While waiting to get listed, articles will still be listed as GAs even though they no longer meet the criteria. I do not think keeping an article's status when it no longer meets the criteria is a net-positive for the GA process. Delisted GAs can be renominated at GAN when improvements are complete. Editors also do not have to wait until a GAR to improve GAs: if editors care about an article's status, I recommend that they check the articles every few months and fix issues so don't have to go to WP:GAR. Z1720 (talk) 18:55, 5 December 2025 (UTC)
All I can say is, those of us who are trying to save GAs are already running as fast as we can. Doubling the supply will just leave us totally run off our feet. That really wouldn't be constructive; and that'sin addition to the points I made above. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:29, 5 December 2025 (UTC)
@Chiswick Chap: I realised a while ago that I could not maintain all GAs (or even FAs, as I went through WP:URFA/2020). The deterioration in some GAs happened because no one was monitoring the articles. Some articles only get improvements at GAR because editors who care about it notice the concerns. No one editor, or small group of editors, should or could maintain all GAs. Slowing down the GAR process means that it takes longer for the 110 articles I currently have noticed, plus the thousands of articles that have not been checked yet, to potentially get the improvements it needs or to show that no one is interested in maintaining them. Not every article needs a GA badge, and the stats at WP:GAS are only meaningful if they accurately count how many articles still meet the GA criteria. Z1720 (talk) 03:37, 6 December 2025 (UTC)
You are seeking to remove GA status from as many articles as you can. I am seeking to add GA status to as many articles as I can. You say that once demoted, folks can reapply whenever they like, ignoring the fact that there is a lengthy queue for that process, and that GAN can demand substantial effort from both nominator and reviewer. Pushing ever more rework - seemingly, as much as anyone will allow you - in that direction is extremely unwelcome. Please notice that there are thus multiple reasons why the proposed cut in GAR time is undesirable. Chiswick Chap (talk) 03:51, 6 December 2025 (UTC)
That would likely be right. It means that, as Zxcvbnm said above, that GAR is basically an 'emergency' option, not a routine process, and to be used only when something is seriously wrong and really not going to be fixed any other way. We really should not be using the dire threat of rapid delisting to fix cases where a new/temporary/IP editor has innocently added a few uncited claims to a well-written article, overlooked because someone was out of office and someone else made a small edit on top of the additions. The fix in such a case is five minutes of tidying-up, which anyone should be able to do. And as Hog Farm has said, there are other scenarios which don't warrant GAR either. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:18, 6 December 2025 (UTC)
@Chiswick Chap: If the articles take a five-minute clean up to fix, then why were 61% of GAs closed as delist in the time period mentioned above? My conclusion is that most articles are not five-minute fixes, but instead take several hours, days, or longer to bring up to GA standards. I wish most GARs took five minutes to fix, because then the articles could be declared keep quickly so work can begin on the next one. This discussion is not about the articles someone is interested in fixing: it is a conversation about the articles that sit at GAR without comment, and deciding how long an article should sit there without comment before we decide that someone is probably not going to work on it. Z1720 (talk) 19:06, 6 December 2025 (UTC)
If there is a mismatch between the pace at which WP:Good articles become in need of fixes in order to meet the WP:Good article criteria and the pace at which those fixes can be carried out WP:Good article reassessment, then slowing down the rate at which they can be brought to GAR seems misguided—indeed, even counterproductive as it inevitably results in an ever-growing backlog of articles that are waiting to be brought to GAR after the need for fixes has arisen. Better then to speed the process up to reach an equilibrium point. One possible way of accomplishing this would be to increase the number of articles that can be at GAR simultaneously, so there is not a need to wait for GARs to be closed until the next one can be brought there. Another way of accomplishing it, if we want to keep the current restrictions on simultaneous GARs, is to allow for earlier closure to get rid of the hold-up for the next one. TompaDompa (talk) 20:48, 6 December 2025 (UTC)
Don't get me wrong, I said there were multiple scenarios, i.e. the cases vary widely. But there have definitely been quick cleanups nominated, and that was wholly wrong. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:00, 7 December 2025 (UTC)
@Hog Farm: I interpret this comment as asking reviewers (usually me right now) to judge how long it will take to fix up an article, even though I am not a topic expert on the article or never heard of the BLP before. This is going off topic: this proposal is for the articles where no one responds. If an article is a five-minute fix, then an editor can volunteer to fix it up and get it declared "keep" quickly, and GA has a better article. Discussions about the threshold of GARs can be a different thread below. Z1720 (talk) 19:19, 6 December 2025 (UTC)
Z1720, it does not require massive expertise to see that very little is wrong with an article on the surface. GAR does not investigate possible deeper issues in any case. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:01, 7 December 2025 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Significant contributor in case of an IP editor
Latest comment: 6 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Our relevant policy states that editors who have "contributed significantly to the article" may nominate it for GA review. I have selected Principality of Kakheti for review, but its nominator (~2025-33222-94) is an IP editor, and I can’t identify them among the main contributors (). What should be done in this situation? Borsoka (talk) 13:21, 9 December 2025 (UTC)
Technically, they are a “temporary account” editor (their IP is masked) which means they could well be the same IP editor who created the article. (Actually, even if they were an IP editor, IPs change so they could still be the same person.) I would personally WP:AGF here and continue the review, as long as they indicate they will be able to respond to review feedback. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 14:51, 9 December 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 6 months ago6 comments3 people in discussion
I recently (26 Nov) got my second GA article (first one was quite old). However, as I have been reviewing GA articles (doing my part as I have submitted two more nominations) I noticed that my number of reviews is properly updated, but not the number of GA. It currently shows (5 reviews, 1 GA) but it should be "(5 reviews, 2 GA)". My question is: how is the GA count determined, and did I make a mistake somewhere? Thank you. A.Cython (talk) 00:31, 10 December 2025 (UTC)
Looks like the bot missed the most recent review; it thinks it's still under review. I'll have a look at the database, probably tonight if I get time, and see if I can figure out what went wrong. Thanks for the ping. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:06, 10 December 2025 (UTC)
Thank you for looking at this issue. I know, it is a small issue, but it took a year to bring it to GA status. I am wondering whether my quick submission to DYK and this change in the talk page have anything to do with the bot getting confused. A.Cython (talk) 21:38, 10 December 2025 (UTC)
This is now fixed. As far as I can tell, the problem was caused by this 2012 revision of the GAN page. If you look at the Sharon Newman nomination on that rev, you'll see that the nominator field is screwed up. ChristieBot periodically looks for pages that need to be updated in a database of historical GAs -- for example if a page becomes a redirect it tries to clean up the database so the newly moved GA is recorded under the correct new title. That means it periodically has to look at old revisions of pages to figure out who the nominator and reviewer were. It's not obvious to me why it decided to look at the Sharon Newman page -- as far as I can tell nothing has happened to it in the last few months that would cause the bot to look at it. But it did look at it, and it crashed trying to use the garbage nominator name in that old GAN rev. I've updated the code so if it gets an enormously long nominator name it will ignore it and try another way to find the GAN history for that article. The crash started happening three or four weeks ago so the historical numbers may have been wrong for anyone who had an article promoted in that time. I say "may" because it would sometimes have correctly processed the promotions; it would only crash when it reached Sharon Newman, so if the bot processed the article before Sharon Newman the database would have been updated.
If anyone else sees numbers they think are incorrect please let me know; give it about an hour before checking as the bot is working its way through a month of incomplete updates at the moment and it will probably take it a little while. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:56, 10 December 2025 (UTC)
@Mike Christie:, since this review was closed improperly the bot counted the article as failed and so my number is still at 0 GA's, will that be fixed naturally later since the GA template was added to the article or is that something that will need to be manually fixed? I don't want to be a bother but it's my first GA so it'd be nice to have. Snuggle📫🖤23:15, 10 December 2025 (UTC)
The easiest fix would be a dummy second procedural nomination -- remove the GA template, nominate it again as if it had really failed, and then have someone pass it properly. I can do it later if nobody else gets to it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:30, 11 December 2025 (UTC)
Well, darn it, it looks like your number did not update because of the bug mentioned in the section above, not because of the improper close. So there was no need to jump through these hoops. You now have two GAs to your credit where you should have one! I'll have to delete the GA2 records from the bot's database; probably tomorrow. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:20, 11 December 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 6 months ago12 comments5 people in discussion
Coming here as I'm not entirely sure what to do about this. A while ago, I nominated The Paper Kingdom for GA. This morning, I woke up to see that the review was taken up, but it was already complete. Done in roughly 7 minutes with the only comment being "Will be closing this nomination as a Pass, I read this earlier in the day yesterday, it’s good" and the review template, although there's no comments demonstrating any attempt to actually go through the criteria. There's also no spotcheck.
Obviously, as the article nominator, I think it meets the criteria, but I know it's not right that this nomination was basically rubber-stamped. Plus, if this makes any sense, there's very few GAs on unreleased/lost media. So I was really hoping for a thorough review to make sure that this admittedly odd article concept (though notable) was truly up to standard in the eyes of another editor. I think in cases like these the article is usually re-submitted to queue, but I'm not sure. Seeking some sort of advice on what will happen here, and if I personally need to do anything. λNegativeMP117:03, 11 December 2025 (UTC)
Tagging the reviewer KmartEmployeeTor. It seems this is not the first time they have done this, see Mama's Gun.
I remember my very first review I did practically the same thing at Talk:Aaron Burr/GA1 in March. Tor, to quote Chipmunkdavis' advice to me on that page, [a] GA review should contain enough information for future readers to see how the article was evaluated, and how that evaluation found that the article met the GA criteria. In particular, a review needs to assess source usage and specifically check sources, to see whether the article contains original research or plagiarism. More detailed instructions can be seen at Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Instructions. In other words, you need to show that you've at the very least checked the sources and prose to see if they meet the criteria. While quick passes are as legitimate as quick fails are, they're much rarer and should at least include an assessment to each of the GA criteria. Something like this for Talk:Example/GA1:
Well-written: Pass No issues there, barring a few minor spelling issues.
Verifiability: Pass It has a list of references and reliable sources are cited inline with the relevant guidelines.
Broadness: ✗Fail There's no reception section at all for this article. Reception is one of the main aspects of a creative work, and GA's are required to address all of the main aspects of the topic. Criterion 3 is failed by not having a reception section at all.
Neutrality: Pass No issues here.
Stability: Neutral. I don't see any edit wars, but the article was only recently created. Give it some more time to develop.
Illustrated: ✗Fail The image in the infobox is of the album cover, but does not have a valid fair use rationale. The other images look fine.
I'm very familiar with what a good article review should look like, I've reviewed somewhere between 40-50 and nominated around the same range as well. But none of the articles I've nominated have received an improper review, so I'm not precisely sure what to do here and that's my worry. λNegativeMP117:42, 11 December 2025 (UTC)
Oh okay, my bad. I couldn't tell. But yes, those are good comments to give the reviewer and very accurate to what a review should be. λNegativeMP117:46, 11 December 2025 (UTC)
Cancelled media usually do not have a reception section (e.g. look at cancelled video games). Those which have the section usually have it because the game was later leaked. Vacant0(talk•contribs)18:21, 11 December 2025 (UTC)
Sorry, I'm relatively new to reviewing, and I only started because I nominated Gizmodgery for good article status. Should I reassess/expand or reverse the approval then? I've never seen a "reception" section for an unreleased album (see: Songs from the Black Hole) so I thought it wasn't necessary. KmartEmployeeTor (talk) 18:37, 11 December 2025 (UTC)
That's not the issue I was raising - the sample review I posted above was only an example of what an acceptable review could look like. The issue is that we aren't sure if you adequately assessed the article against each of the GA criteria. Gommeh📖🎮18:41, 11 December 2025 (UTC)
Alright, I think I've got it then. I'll expand my review and reassess later this afternoon. By the way, I first checked a couple of approved reviews to get an idea of what to do, and I stumbled upon this review here, and thought speedy approvals like these were okay. I see I was wrong now, my apologies. KmartEmployeeTor (talk) 19:18, 11 December 2025 (UTC)
They are OK, just so long as you indicate you've compared the article against the GA criteria. Having said that though, more often than not speedy approvals are relatively rare. Most GA reviews take at least a day or two. They generally follow something like this in terms of process:
Initial look-through
Comments for improvement on the talk page (for example, if you don't think an article meets a certain criterion)
Time for the nominator to respond to and address comments
Second look-through to catch things you missed the first time around
Source spot check (to determine if the sources cited actually back up the claims they are cited to in the article)
Image check (to see if the images are relevant and have the correct licensing, etc.)
In a broader sense what should be done if one stumbles across a review that doesn't appear to engage with the GACR? The review KmartEmployeeTor linked to - Talk:Amethyst (mixtape)/GA1 - appears quite rushed, not even a mention of source spot check or Earwig scan. I can understand why they may have thought Talk:The Paper Kingdom/GA1 was sufficient based on seeing that. Zzz plant (talk) 15:52, 13 December 2025 (UTC)
KmartEmployeeTor went back around and did it as a proper review, so there should be no further issue. @KmartEmployeeTor: thank you for going out of your way to do the review again and understanding our feedback! λNegativeMP119:20, 13 December 2025 (UTC)
Canadian
Latest comment: 6 months ago4 comments4 people in discussion
Dose quick delisting exist?
Over a decade ago (14 years) - I got the Canadian article to GA level Talk:Canadians/GA1.....in my view it simply isn't at that level anymore. Instead of doing a ga reassessment can we just delist this quickly. My intent is to work on getting this back up to GA level and think it needs a rewrite rather than some tweaks that a ga review would give us. Moxy🍁22:17, 12 December 2025 (UTC)
To my understanding, a reassessment is required for an article to be stripped of GA status, although nothing stops you from improving the article now. GGOTCC02:08, 13 December 2025 (UTC)
There's no immediate delisting process, other than if say an article were deleted or redirected by community consensus. Just nominate the article for reassessment and we will see if anyone is interested in working on it. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 16:57, 13 December 2025 (UTC)
The WP:GAR page states that editors should prioritize bringing an article up to standard above delisting", even more so when you were the one who brought it to GA. You would identify what parts of the article don't meet the standard (most commonly due to sourcing issues) and fix it accordingly. You have users like Z1720 who do check existing GAs that were promoted over 10 years ago and still meet the criteria. If they don't then Z1720 posts a talk page comment and waits at least two weeks before nominating it for GAR. I'm surprised no one has raised a query about the article meeting GA until now. (and yes, I was the one who tried to move Canadian (disambiguation) to Canadian, which failed multiple times because most articles on demonyms don't have a primary topic, even when there isn't a language with that term. I'm not going to rehash or plan to do that RM again) JuniperChill (talk) 22:22, 13 December 2025 (UTC)
2025 Singaporean general election
Latest comment: 6 months ago7 comments3 people in discussion
Greetings comrades. I recently discovered the good article nomination — made 202 days ago — of the page entitled 2025 Singaporean general election, and would like to review it. However, upon further inspection of the rules surrounding the above, I remembered — to my abject horror — that I did, in fact, edit the aforementioned article before — five times, as a matter of fact.
I would like an external opinion — or better yet, several — on whether five edits is considered "significant", as well as whether this edit in particular constitutes a significant edit, per the rules. At the time I marked it as non-minor — now I'm not so sure. It was mostly copyediting per MOS and moving things around. However, the scale of it was rather large (+1934 bytes).
I will abide by any consensus regarding this matter.
TL;DR: How far can the rules surrounding good article nominations be bent?
P.S. I apologise if this is not the intended forum for these sorts of questions — I'm relatively new to this whole Wikipedia thing. Please don't kill me.
On a separate note, my initial enthusiasm has been somewhat dampened by these revelations.
According to the page statistics, you are the 18th ranked editor on that page with 0.4% of the edits. It doesn't strike me as significant. A typical GA reviewer might make that volume of edits during a routine GA evaluation. Bgsu98(Talk)00:16, 10 December 2025 (UTC)
That does not seem to be a minor edit. However, would that impact your reviewing? I would say not, as that was mostly editing the lead many months ago, and it appears the lead has been significantly reshaped since then. CMD (talk) 03:12, 10 December 2025 (UTC)
Thanks — I'm not sure the second part is relevant though, if you've already deemed my edits "significant". On a separate note, I completely failed to notice the "10% of the article" or "top five in authorship" definition of significance of on the instructions page, which would have obviated any need for this discussion. SelfDestructible (talk) 07:47, 12 December 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 6 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I want to nominate Lehakat Pikud Merkaz, while it is a very new article, I do think that it has a good case for GA status and I have worked heavily on it, making me a valid nominator. The problem is that it clearly fits into two subtopics and I think it would stick out if I put them in either.
They are:
Music-If you look at that article, a good amount is focused on their music, the notable members are mostly musicians or songwriters with a few exceptions and to emphasise this further, twosongs of theirs are on English Wikipedia.
Warfare-See this discussion on my talk page, since I'd rather not repeat the points I've made there.
Either way, I think it would stick out. If it is in music, there might be questions asked about why a Israeli military ensemble is in there, but the same thing would probably happen if I put it in warfare because of how much of the article is focused on their music and entertainment programs. (Assuming those are things that happen, anyway).
I want any editor who sees this and can help guide me on which subtopic it fits into better.
Latest comment: 6 months ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Eric Gilbertson (climber) I believe that GA was granted in error. How do I challenge this? The article had been deleted **twice** not that long ago, and it's not stable right now. I'm not sure what procedures the reviewer based their belief that it will be stable on. How do I challenge this? Graywalls (talk) 18:29, 15 December 2025 (UTC)
I'm the reviewer who passed the GA. You can read my rationale for passing on each criterion at the review. I'm also more than happy to answer any questions about the review. Regarding stability, I justified why I didn't think the notability issues would crop up again in the review. I was clearly wrong about that, as another AfD was opened. Nonetheless, since that AfD was closed as keep, do you still have concerns about stability? If so, you can open a reassessment (GAR), in which further discussion can be had. IAWW (talk) 19:55, 15 December 2025 (UTC)
As IAWW said, you can always open a reassessment request if you don't think that the article meets the GA criteria. Make sure to specify why the article does not meet any of the six criteria, otherwise the request can be speedily closed. Vacant0(talk•contribs)20:08, 15 December 2025 (UTC)
Latest comment: 6 months ago4 comments4 people in discussion
Can someone take this to GA review please? If you look at the talk page there was a post a year ago this month that there were whole paragraphs without citations, and the GA review needed to be reassessed. Thanks.4meter4 (talk) 18:46, 16 December 2025 (UTC)
Remove the GANs which have not begun, and let the other two play out normally. The reviewer for the GA in progress should feel free to fail the nomination if improvements are needed and no one is available to perform them. The GAR does not require the participation of the original nominator. Bgsu98(Talk)21:38, 20 December 2025 (UTC)
Incidentally, "let the other two play out normally" does not work for Talk:Drug-eluting stent/GA2, because Pbsouthwood is the reviewer, not the nominator. Normally, I would think we would need a new reviewer or for the nomination to be returned to the queue. However the nominator has not edited since October, prior to the review in early November. So with both the nominator and reviewer inactive this is a double problem. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:29, 20 December 2025 (UTC)
was retired and replaced with 
Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 13:34, 16 August 2025 (UTC)
Done Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 11:15, 17 August 2025 (UTC)
Spintendo 04:25, 7 November 2025 (UTC)
for increasing everyone's workload. If it were me, my contrition would be to offer 2 additional reviews as a penance. Spintendo 19:56, 23 November 2025 (UTC)