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Good article nominations

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

How to track progress during backlog drives

When we discussed problems with backlog drives, one of the things we talked about was that the progress tracker is vulnerable to new submissions - that is, editors submitting new GANs makes the progress appear to slide backwards, which is really demotivating for backlog drive participants, especially when, like in the January drive, we have so many new submissions that they actually cause the backlog to have a daily increase during the drive. So, during this most recent backlog drive, rather than tracking how many GANs are still outstanding, I tracked how many GANs were reviewed by drive participants. That way, we'd only ever see progress occurring, and we'd see just how much of it we were responsible for.

But there are two problems with that approach:

1. I had to do this counting manually, which was kind of annoying; also, I didn't get to it precisely on time every day, which limits its effect (that's a me problem, though)
2. It turns out a LOT of backlog-reduction is actually the work of people who are not participating in the backlog drive, so the numbers are sad and small.

For #2, it's true that this one was supposed to be a smaller-than-usual backlog drive, and the effect would be different in the big January 2025 drive. I'm not sure by how much. It's also possible that, during the big backlog drive, fewer reviews are conducted by people who aren't participating. For reference, the March backlog drive included 387 reviews - about double the number of the July drive. But I don't know how many reviews were done in March that weren't counted in the drive, since I'm not sure how to find out how many reviews were opened in total in March. A bigger effect, though, also means more trouble from a #1 perspective.

This isn't relevant for the upcoming October drive, since for that one we'll be generating a target list at the beginning, then working from that list. But for the January drive, I think we might be better off just counting the way we've always done it before. -- asilvering (talk) 16:44, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

WP:FEB24 made use of categories that showed progress bars (and provided a convenient list of articles to target). If there were a way to automatically add the articles that we are interested in to a category and remove them if a review was started then that could help. ForksForks (talk) 22:36, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

If it would be useful I could probably add a query to the GAN query tool that would take two dates and return a list of all the reviews started in that date range, along with the current status of the review (passed, failed, on hold, under review, superseded (i.e. the review was deleted)). Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:49, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

I'd be curious to see how many reviews were opened in March 2024, so we could compare the number of backlog drive reviews to the number of total reviews. -- asilvering (talk) 00:41, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

By month this year:

Month	# Reviews started
Jan	246
Feb	208
Mar	600
Apr	225
May	207
Jun	266
Jul	349

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:13, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Okay, so that's a bit more than 200 reviews that weren't part of the backlog drive in March, and a bit less than 200 reviews that weren't part of the backlog drive last month. We appear to do something like ~230 reviews a month, give or take, whether there's a backlog drive or not, and then the backlog drive is extra. The March drive started with 750 outstanding noms and ended with 555 outstanding noms. -- asilvering (talk) 02:40, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

asilvering, it should be pointed out that reviews starting during the March drive continued to be finished after the month ended, dropping the outstanding noms down to 506 at 01:00, 11 April 2024, before the numbers began climbing again. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:46, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Review withdrawal

Hi all, I've been asked to withdraw from a review on Rai dynasty. I failed the article, which was reverted by the nominator. This has relisted the article, and I am still the reviewer. Is there a way for my review to be preserved while allowing the editor to relist? Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 13:20, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

If an article is failed it can be relisted with a new nomination. Your review is preserved on that review page, the new page will have a different title (in this case with "GA2"). CMD (talk) 13:57, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

TrangaBellam appears to have simultaneously decided that Rollinginhisgrave is incapable of reviewing "their" articles, but also to reopen Rollinginhisgrave's review. Aside from anything else, the nominator cannot revert a reviewer who has chosen to end a review, so I'll reinstate the original close shortly. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:10, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Because, I wanted to preserve the comments. And, sure, I will send for a re-nom though I have no idea why an editor with less than 500 edits to mainspace is reviewing 22 GANs! TrangaBellam (talk) 14:18, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

At a quick glance there is an overfocus on GACR1 and not enough examination of other aspects, but that is not a cause for such incivility. CMD (talk) 14:44, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Sure, my apologies to them for the outburst. But it is ridiculous that someone who has barely edited any article is reviewing so many GARs simultaneously and ludicrously. If project regulars feel that's not a red flag, well, ... TrangaBellam (talk) 17:24, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

in fact it is not a red flag, and so long as they're doing a decent job at reviewing and willing to learn the ropes (as Rollinginhisgrave seems to be) then their edit count is of no consequence. you ought not to bite. ... sawyer * he/they * talk 03:59, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Rolling is currently reviewing one of my nominations and I have gotten a very good impression that they understand the GA criteria well. Their review comments so far have been particularly helpful in tightening up prose and neutralising potentially non-neutral points of view. I am more than happy with what they have done so far and am looking forward to the rest of the review. That they don't have a lot of edits in the main space (although almost 500 edits hardly makes them a newbie) doesn't concern me when I'm confident that they understand the ins and outs of what they are doing in this process. Not every reviewer needs to be a writer, they just need to be a good reader, which Rolling clearly is.

Reading over the article on the Rai dynasty, I completely understand why Rolling failed it. I think the article's prose is very confusing and uses a lot of words to say very little. There are also some clear problems with neutrality and broadness, so that's criteria 1, 3 and 4 this is failing to live up to. --Grnrchst (talk) 10:44, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Interesting; I will wait for your feedback. TrangaBellam (talk) 12:01, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Newbies aren't always clueless. If someone competent joins and takes the time to learn processes before editing, we should applaud this unless they give us a reason not to. And speaking to this specific issue, reviewers are expected to fail the review if the same issue exists throughout the article; listing every instance of a recurring problem is beyond the purview of a reviewer's job. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:52, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Citing predecessor/successor in infoboxes

For people who held any sort of position, the infobox often lists the predecessor and the successor. It seems that these aren't typically expected to have sources at GAN, and there are many GAs where they're not mentioned in the body. Is this something that's been discussed before? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:33, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Ah the joys of beyond-the-subject frames, boxes, and templates. All assume that materials are cited elsewhere. In the case of predecessors and successors, these are certainly beyond the scope of the article as they don't concern the subject who occupies the box in between. If we view such frame structures as navigation aids to the reader, they have the same status as navbars, viz., links to related articles with a fair amount of guidance as to what types of things they are – companies, books, scholars, sportspeople, whatever – but no citations right there in the structure. Hard to see how this can be avoided for navboxes; given that, we might as well not worry too much about pre-/post- navguides either, really. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:36, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

So, in essence, information in an infobox that lies beyond the scope of the article does not meet the same citation standard as information relating to the subject? i.e. a birth date in the infobox should be cited in the article but a successor in office need not be mentioned? Krisgabwoosh (talk) 21:38, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Seems more an issue of infoboxes expanding beyond MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE, and our practices are not able to handle these cases because they are not meant to. CMD (talk) 04:41, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

It's hard to see why the article body would make a thing of successors, even if predecessors could just about get a somewhat-off-topic mention. Similar case for previous and next books in a series, the matter is above the level of the book itself. It does seem reasonable for boxes to provide such navigation. More problematic may be the rather overblown pre/post boxes for ceremonial offices which often appear at the ends of articles. Chiswick Chap (talk) 06:51, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

If an entire article would not make a thing of something at some point, the infobox definitely shouldn't. Navigation should be left to the navigation boxes or the articles covering the level above mentioned. CMD (talk) 07:35, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

OK, so what would you do with all of these thingies at the ends of a thousand articles? Each article should certainly cite that Casimir Bloggs is a baronet, but it's not likely to say much if anything about Casimir's predecessors, still less his successors. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:55, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Navboxes that appear at the end of the article are AFAIK technically tricky, as references placed after the Reflist template don't work properly. I don't think we can source them outside of treating sources as an EL. CMD (talk) 08:02, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Mm, klunky. Well I don't see why nav info (pre/post) in the infobox should be treated differently just because its box is above the Reflist, the function is exactly the same. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:20, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

That sort of misses the underlying problem which is that infoboxes aren't navboxes and shouldn't be used for navigation. Nonetheless, as Nikkimaria has found below, they should be sourced if they contain information not in the article. CMD (talk) 08:34, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

So you'd try to rip all nav info out of infoboxes? A very blurry line: all wikilinks are nav, whether they're links to people's institutions, siblings, cities; there seems no good reason in a book article not to mention how it fits into its context in the same way, and so on. The alternative would only be yet more space-hogging sidebars, which are definitely navboxes: not an improvement. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:46, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

I'd keep it to the items mentioned in the article, where possible. CMD (talk) 08:55, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

MOS:INFOBOXREF indicates: "If the material needs a reference (see WP:MINREF for guidelines) and the information does not also appear in the body of the article, the reference should be included in the infobox. But editors should first consider including the fact in the body of the article." So if these claims aren't in the article body, they would need to be cited directly. Nikkimaria (talk) 05:04, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 15 August 2024

In the WP:GAN#Video games section, there is a mistake on line 16 for the Aperture Tag GAN. It says "statusonhold" instead of "status=on hold". KingSkyLord (talk | contribs) 20:20, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

It looks like the |status= parameter was used twice in the GA template on the article's talk page. I've removed the extra one, so hopefully it should be fixed shortly when the bot updates the page. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:46, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

John Sterling (American football)

I'm new to reviewing GAN, and I believe I may have gotten myself a little in over my head with this one. You can see my current assessment of the article at Talk:John Sterling (American football)/GA1. I'm not sure what to do here because while the article does seem to pass the criteria based on what I have looked at, I'm unsure of the significance of this person. I'm a bit confused as to why this page of all American football players was chosen. I do know that GA don't need to have a particularly important subject and don't have length requirements, but I still find this very odd. If this article does pass, it will be probably the shortest GA on Wikipedia. I'm kind of rambling at this point, but I am looking for advice as to what steps I should be taking next, if I am missing anything here, and the opinions of more experienced GA reviewers. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 01:55, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Courtesy pinging of @Gonzo fan2007:. I have also looked at a couple of these articles and would be happy to click the pass button on them. I guess what I am looking for some reassurance from you that the sources available have been exhausted. ForksForks (talk) 02:01, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

In the case of Sterling, it does seem like pretty much everything's exhausted. Division II college, picked up in the midst of a strike when let's be real he wouldn't have made the NFL otherwise, then once it was done and they got the main players back that was it. All I found was a game log that he had a few rushes and a fumble which might be worth adding? There are a few others where I think some expansion of the college football section would be possible though since that was a bigger deal than the NFL in the 30s, but that's not the case with Sterling. Wizardman 02:10, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

@CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath and ForksForks: Hi all. I just want to note that there are plenty of short GAs! Pretty much half of the "at the Olympics" GAs are really short. São Tomé and Príncipe at the 1996 Summer Olympics, as an example, is 280 readable words of prose. John Sterling (American football) is 346! Wizardman (long time no see!), I try to avoid random stats in these short bios. That said, happy to consider any notable additions to any of them. Cheers! « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 02:59, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Interesting, thank you for the examples as that does help me feel more confident in my decision making process. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 03:02, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Very short featured articles. CMD (talk) 03:10, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

The intuition is that the characters Joe N.F.L. Unknown and Species insignificantissimus, both with 280-word articles, are really not worth a hill of beans, whereas a 10,000 word article on Napoleon or Nuclear physics feels worthy of a global encyclopedia. The valuation is probably right, but the rules say both types can be GAs: or rather, they are silent on the matter of real worth. Only thing: the minute bits of fluff are a jolly sight easier to write, and to get through GAN. Luckily, many editors see substantial topics, however defined, as worth the effort, or all GAs would be fluff. Chiswick Chap (talk) 05:01, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Not just editors, reviewing longer and more substantial articles is harder too. CMD (talk) 05:16, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I look at a lot of fluff and question if it should be a GA. If others are doing the same, and the GA certification therefore means something different to reviewers than to readers or editors, is that a problem? Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 07:27, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

If we think the criteria are too loose, we need to find a way to tighten them up. Trouble is, I suspect, that a testable definition of fluff is unwriteable. Do prove me wrong. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:37, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I have some ideas for how to do it, but it's probably best to establish if there is a problem before getting into that discussion. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 08:17, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I think that we can draw a line between the football article and a species stub -- and I think such a criteria would have a good chance of gaining consensus. Consider the case of species insignificantissimus -- these articles are often three sentences or less. We could reasonably draw a line that good articles need 1) at least one section heading that is not references/see also/external links (eg. it is not just a lead) 2) longer than 3 (or some other number) sentences. With the understanding that if an article is that short, the sources that WP:NEXIST claims to exist must be found before it can be brought here. ForksForks (talk) 13:20, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't think three sentence GAs are a real problem right now that needs to be addressed. I have never seen a nomination this short, although I can't see up-to-date GAs by size. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 13:34, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

You can see them here. CMD (talk) 15:27, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Any short article can be a GA if it definitely passes GA criterion 3-).. Whether they need to be articles (do we really need a half dozen articles on São Tomé and Príncipe at the Olympics, instead of just one summary?) is a question for the notability processes, not GAN. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 09:07, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

That's an alternative route, get the footballer deleted. The GAN question is whether GACR#3 is strong enough. Intuitively we all feel it isn't, but strengthening it isn't easy. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:20, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

"cannot be defined as a stub" could be proposed to be added to GACR#3? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:16, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I think that would just push the problem back a level; people would debate whether an article was really a stub if it did include all the relevant information. I think deletion/merging is the best option, and am half inclined to propose deletion/merging of the various subarticles of São Tomé and Príncipe at the 2008 Summer Olympics as a test case. For sports players such as the one that started this thread, though, I think it's hard to think of a valid merge target. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:43, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Merging is a good option. Some ideas for defining "fluff" to address the sports players:

1) Survey reviewers here why they think the sports player is fluff, and then see what is in common in their responses. The definition is then simply an abstraction of consensus.

2) The standard at FA for disqualifying "fluff" is that the article is comprehensive and well-researched. As a lightweight FA, we can adopt the same disqualification by requiring that articles could be comprehensive and well researched.

3) Leave it up to reviewer discretion to an extent. FA has "comprehensive and well-researched", DYK has interesting. Category decisions could be established (i.e. small country at Olympics in X year) and applied to streamline discussions, or 2O could be used, and require consensus (to prevent being dragged into debate).

Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 13:30, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I think generally we can't decide on this page that we are gonna merge these articles. And I think you'll find that trying to merge stubs on this site is like pulling teeth. Better to leave them alone, cause even if you get for example a group of 10 stubs merged, there could be tens of thousands of articles you'd have to repeat the debate for, which is a timesink that could be spent improving articles with futures. ForksForks (talk) 13:45, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

That will require adjustment of WP:OLY, which currently assumes that all "country at [event]" articles are notable. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:10, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I think this is doable but we could just rely on some specific criteria for "too small" rather than the word stub to prevent debate. See my comment above. ForksForks (talk) 13:22, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

There's probably an increased number of the Olympic articles on the shorter side going through currently due to the combination of the ongoing Wikipedia:2024 Developing Countries WikiContest in addition to the world just having the actual Olympics. It's an article format with a set template and one that will be on people's minds. Many contest qualifying countries also are those sending very small contingents (although obviously not all). CMD (talk) 10:01, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I would like to point out that there are high quality articles about a country's contingent at the Olympics - see Palestine at the 1996 Summer Olympics, which, unlike many of these examples, is far more text than table. If anything, a lot of these "X at the Olympics" feel more suitable as featured list nominations rather than GA.

As for football players, I think many of them could be merged into lists; many of this sports player stubs are simply listing some basic stats of a player and who they previously played for. For John Sterling above, couldn't we have something like "Replacement roster of the 1987 Green Bay Packers" which gives these short snippets of info? Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 20:51, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

• Comment I forgot to subscribe to this thread and never came back. I think regardless of where you may fall on this core issue, right now these types of articles qualify for GA under our current criteria. On the note about the Olympics articles, I have always had the same feeling about notability and whether small countries with almost no participatory athletes justify an article for every Olympics, or whether it would be better served by a large summary article. But as someone pointed out, that's a discussion for a different page. My main point in my original response was to reassure the reviewer that brevity does not nherently disqualify an article from achieving GA status. Cheers! « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 20:09, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Chiswick Chap, in response to your comment above regarding "value" and "fluff", I just want to note that although you have contributed impressively to core topics with broad appeal (Bat, Fish, and Tiger to name just a few), you have also contributed in niche areas that likely don't appeal to many people (Berry F. Berry, The Experienced English Housekeeper, Henry Scherren to name a few that don't appeal to me). Although I agree that Wikipedia would be best served by having higher quality general topics, deriding contributions because they don't fall in someone's preconceived idea of what holds value and what doesn't is counterproductive. Wikipedia's purpose is to capture all knowledge, even from those topics that many consider to have little value. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 20:39, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Careful, please. There is all the difference in the world between a specialist but well-cited article, and a small bit of fluff that cannot be written up at any substantial length because it has only the smallest number of reliable sources. As for talk of value, I said above that I think that will be hard to measure, which is almost the opposite of what you're implying about me. Actually you shouldn't be making imputations about other editors at any time. In this particular case, this is not a personal matter, even leaving WP:NPA to one side, so don't try to make it so. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:44, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Chiswick Chap my apologies if I misread your comments or misunderstood your tone. I have struck the above. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 20:50, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

@Gonzo fan2007 Thank you for your clarification on the topic! I'm very pleased that I was able to pass your GAN as this is the first GAN I've been able to pass! CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 20:45, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Many thanks. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:53, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Max number of GAR to open?

I have been reviewing the articles listed at WP:SWEEPS2023, and also review articles as I complete WP:OTD sets. Currently, I have been sending five articles a week to WP:GAR and only post at GAR if an article talk page notice goes unanswered for at least a week. The five articles a week is a self-imposed limit, only based on my feelings about how many I could nominate before I got yelled at. I try to nominate articles on a variety of topics and geographic locations, to attract editors from different disciplines and interests.

My list of noticed GAs is currently 15 articles long. If I focused more attention on SWEEPS or the cleanup listing for GAs, the list could get longer real quick. However, I don't review as much because of the self-imposed limit. I would like to nominate more articles to GAR, but only if the community thinks the process can handle it. WP:FAR has a limit of one article a week per editor, and each editor can only have five open FARs at a time (unless they get an extension from the co-ords). Since the GA process is less intense, I think the limits should not be as strict.

What GAR nomination limits (if any) should be imposed/suggested to editors? Z1720 (talk) 21:23, 16 August 2024 (UTC)