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It is not because I don't want to be bold and change it but should we add (and we need a consensus on that) these criteria :
1(c) it follows the Wikipedia Manual of Style including the list guideline; 3. It is broad in its coverage. In this respect : (a) it addresses all major aspects of the topic (this requirement is slightly weaker than the "comprehensiveness" required by WP:FAC, and allows shorter articles and broad overviews of large topics to be listed); (b) it stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary details (no trivia).
With the first one being a guideline for list addition and the second one being blatant about the trivia (we don't want pure trivia). Lincher 22:40, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
It's implicit in 3 & 4 that there is a clear, unambiguous definition of the topic. But, for example, I can't figure out if the topic of USA is the geographical region or the contemporary nation state resulting from European colonization. It makes a big difference in how the non-white races are discussed. Fourtildas 05:47, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Criteria 2b says
This appears contradictory. Looking at the first Wikilink under Wikipedia:Cite_sources#How_and_where_to_cite_sources, three different citation styles are given (Embedded HTML links, Harvard referencing, and Footnotes). And the second Wikilink, the inline citation guide, also gives the same three citation styles. So what is the difference between "citation of its sources" (which is essential) and "inline citation" (which is only desirable)? I ask this because there are many articles that show sources, but never cite them. In the case of a Reference section at the bottom of a article, theoretically there should be citations using Harvard referencing (Author, Year) in the article. But I have never seen this used. To clarify this, the criteria should say either that "citation of sources is essential", i.e., mandatory or "citation of sources is desirable", i.e., optional, but not both. RelHistBuff 13:29, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
I think there is a problem with the definition of the word "citation". Citation to me means the "a quoting of an authoritative source for substantiation". That is what appears to be the meaning in WP:CITE guide. I believe you use the word to mean "a source so cited; a quotation", hence making citations to you means only making a reference list. Is that correct? If only a reference list is required then it should clearly state that.
If citing sources is required, we should be clear about it. I would recommend
I, myself, prefer the tougher standard, the latter. RelHistBuff 15:15, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I have to agree with you both suggestions are good, I don't know why we don't ask to comply with the citation style. If I can remember, it maybe has to do with the fact that we want to have sources given for good articles and leave the proper citation format for the featured articles format. I would like to see another reviewer voice his opinion on that subject. Lincher 16:37, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
FA's, can have a more lax sort of thing here, citations have to be there, but they don't actually have to be formatted properly. But that's just my opinion, I don't fail articles for not having citations in inline format, just if they basically aren't there. Homestarmy 19:39, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
I guess that in order to achieve having good articles that are sourced but not necessarily well inline cited, it would be better to have your first example of policy :
With that, there will be less confusion between what to ask as for the GA criteria. Lincher 14:15, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Every article must state references that can be used to verify all the information in the article. That is a requirement. The manner in which those references are tied to the rest of the article is a matter of editor discretion (and should remain so). All articles should have a list of references at the bottom. An article on a broad topic may only need two or three good works of reference, like books. You wouldn't need to inline cite these sources, because the entire book relates to the entire article. I'd say inline citations in this case would be a misuse of the inline format (which is intended to tie a citation or quote to a specific sentence or paragraph). Science articles, on the other hand, may need to cite 15 papers, but may only pull a few important facts from each. In this case, an inline format, like ref tags, or Harvard citations would be almost mandatory, in order to make it clear which sources connect to which facts. Other articles need a combination. Some articles may use general sources (that shouldn't be inline cited), as well as a few papers or news articles (which should be inline cited).
Making a blanket requirement for the use of inline citations isn't a good idea. We'd find ourselves failing legit articles, forcing unnecessary labor on editors, and causing the phenomenon (which is already pretty bad here), of just taking a 'general' source, throwing it into a ref tag, and then just sprinkling the ref tag around a few times so that it looks good. Its OK to have a distinction between the two types, and treat them differently. The important thing is that the information in the article be verifiable. Phidauex 18:51, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
How about this proposal for criterion 2b?
Inline citations remain optional, but it is stated clearly that they are preferred. RelHistBuff 14:28, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Lots of companies have great ideas<ref>"Use The News", Maria Bartiromo, ISBM 0-06-662087</ref>
Maria Bartiromo says "Lots of companies have great ideas" in her 2001 best-seller, "Use The News"
RelHistBuff 13:51, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
Quote: "these criteria and the good article review process are designed primarily with short articles (15kb or less) in mind." is this really still true? Most of the articles in WP:GA and WP:GAC are far from short. Perhaps we need to think of a new statement to replace that one.-- Konstable 00:22, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I have returned the refs section to the previous version. There have been discussions on mandatory inline cites, but no consensus. There is no basis in policy for requiring inline citations (just as there is no basis for requiring a minimum number of sources). In fact, WP:IC specifically says inline cites need only be used when a statement requires it. If an article makes a dubious or obscure statement, then it should be sourced. And if all those statements come from the same source, there's no problem with that.
Arbitrary changes that make it easier to fail articles is no way to deal with the backlog. Kafziel 17:42, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
How about his as a way of reducing the backlog?
We create a {{GA-NWIH}} template. Editors would be encouraged to take a quick glance at articles within 24 hours of nomination. If the article is seriously deficient, the editor marks the article {{FailedGA|14 September 2006}}{{GA-NWIH|NPOV|~~~~}} or {{FailedGA|14 September 2006}}{{GA-NWIH|Citations|~~~~}} or whatever, with the NWIH template generating text saying that a quick onceover showed that the article is seriously deficient in the area of (first parameter) and this needs to be corrected before a full appraisal is done, signing it with the reviewer's name.
If the article doesn't fit in the "no way in hell" category, then the reviewer edits the nomination to add Q1 - ~~~~ to the end, indicating that he's given the nomination a once-over.
This doesn't actually change the procedure at all. An editor can opt to review an article even though it hasn't yet gotten a Q1. (Usually, I review from among the oldest articles, but today, I reviewed one that had been nominated 20 minutes earlier. The subject looked intriguing.) But someone can do a Q1 if he only has five or ten minutes, instead of the 1-2 hours needed to do a complete review, and those who hate telling editors that their article is really, really, sucky, can more easily find articles that aren't nearly so terrible.
By getting a quick response back to the NWIH articles, their editors can go back to improving them (they've stopped, because the article should be stable), and the reviewers can spend more time on articles that may have half a chance of getting the GA. ClairSamoht - Help make Wikipedia the most authoritative source of information in the world 20:15, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
Inline citation is mandatory now? I don't think that's a good choice, and from a quick skim of one of the sections above, I don't think I see a consensus on making it mandatory. If nobody objects, I'm going to change it back to say that while proper citation is mandatory, the citation style used is not. -- Kjoon lee 10:35, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
I strongly oppose any such requirement. Some articles derive from a few pages in a standard reference and will always do so; regular number is the first example I can think of, but there are other and better articles of the same class. GA began as an informal project; that is the sole justification for the looseness of its proceedures. It should not be making demands that will worsen the encyclopedia. Septentrionalis 18:07, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Again, a bad example - the above Baron West is very far from GA standards, and I believe he's even borderline notable. For examples of well-inline-referenced relatively short Good Articles, see e.g. Joseph Hazelwood or Autobianchi Primula. It didn't hurt to do those inline references, and they can prove helpful in many ways. The occurence of a Good Article completely and forever relying on one source only is unlikely - I would actually have some problems with passing a GA nom with just one source. I don't see a problem here. Bravada, talk - 21:20, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
As a semi-regular reviewer of articles in which I have some knowledge, I'm seeing that there is an issue with the stability provision that is the cause of an recurring problem that can result in the de-listing of otherwise GA articles.
The stability provision is too easily gamed by pov-pushers on controversial topics to discredit articles and gain the upper hand in content disputes. Once an article has achieved GA status, pov-pushers can threaten and have made bad objections at WP:GA/R over bogus/contrived NPOV disputes, thereby forcing questionable content into article in the interest of keeping or regaining GA status.
Furthermore, the very nature of controversial topics, magnets for ideological ax-grinders, precludes them from being particularly stable. Now of course no reasonable person expects articles on controversial topics to be completely stable, but when reasonable, expected instability for the topic is cited as a justification for de-listing alongside other possible issues, some of which are clearly made in bad faith, then it becomes an issue. Add the absence of a meaningful metric for what constitutes acceptable/unacceptable stability, and you have a recipe for disputes of de-listing and more opportunities for gaming of system in the confusion.
Clearly some accommodation needs to be codified for articles on contentious topics, meaning a change to the provision. Any provision that fails to take into account pov-motivated objections is flawed. Failing to fix this issue puts GA at risk of becoming irrelevant to a large segment of WP articles - those on perennially controversial issues. FeloniousMonk 19:18, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Attribute #6 says it must "contain images" - does that mean there should always be multiple images on a Good Article? Or would a single image be enough in most cases? Essexmutant 17:10, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
People are starting to fail articles or put them on hold because images don't have a fair use rationale. The guidelines merely say that the images must be tagged. In many cases - the use of an album sleeve in an album article for example - the tag ought to be enough, unless the article is at FAC. Can we either stick to the guidelines please or make them explicitly state that fair use rationales are required for fair use images in GA nominated articles. -- kingboyk 11:42, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Considering how strict Wikipedia is about copy vio with images, I do think we should ensure any article that is listed as a "Good Article" should be at least properly tagged and not in violation of major Wikipedia policy. As for whether or not the article needs images, I think it depends on the content. The guideline says
6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic. In this respect:
(a) the images are tagged and have succinct and descriptive captions; (b) a lack of images does not in itself prevent an article from achieving Good Article status.
If an article needs an image to illustrate it topic (like an article about a painting or something that has to be described in the article) then it certainly should have an image. But not every article "needs" one (like most biographies) and that is why the criteria is somewhat subjective and needs to be applied on an article by article basis. Agne 08:10, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
As presently worded, this requirement would seem to be higher than the sourcing requirement for featured articles. The featured article criteria only demand the provision of a "References" section in which sources are set out and, where appropriate, complemented by inline citations, whereas this list states that the citation of sources using inline citations is required. Just pointing out that it might be worth clarifying that in-line cites need to be used where appropriate, not for every single sourced fact. -- (Lee) Bailey (talk) 18:27, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
How many people have to add a dispute or change that criterion before it's allowed to stay. There is a dispute. I was very disappointed to see edits like this one, which seem to claim that GA regulars have some special privilege in determining consensus for GA rules. You do not; we're all Wikipedians here. -- SCZenz 02:36, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Can we all agree on my addition that "this criterion is disputed"...? As CMummert notes, a significant number of people have disputed it. Or do people outside the "team of GA reviewers" really not get a voice at all? -- SCZenz 16:31, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, the Physics and Math editors (Out of the dozen or so projects and hundreds of other areas that GA articles affect) dispute it. That is a small group. As I compromise, I can see allowing mention of their dispute as well as their counter-proposal citation guideline. But just slapping the general "disputed" tag gives the appearence that it more broadly disputed then it really is and completely discounts the month long discussion and consensus building that among GA reviewers AND interesting editors who saw the prominent banner on the GAC nomination page. Agne 21:40, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
There are at least two straw man arguments above.
GA regulars do not have the authority to unilaterally declare the dispute resolved, without the agreement of those disputing it, of whom there are a significant number. Until it is resolved, the dispute should be aknowledged on the page. To continually sweep it under the rug seems to be a bullying tactic; if it were just applied to me, I would shrug it off and move on, but it's happened (as CMummert notes) to several editors. So all I can say is, please stop the constant reverting; criterion 2b is disputed, and a statement of that should be allowed to stand. We can by all means work on what the statement should say exactly; I still like "this criterion is disputed" as simple and accurate, rather than specifically identifying WikiProjects and all that. -- SCZenz 23:03, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
I've looked at Wikipedia:What is a good article? and Wikipedia:What is a featured article?, point by point, and at this time, there is very very very little difference that I can uncover between the two other than "broad" vs. "comprehensive" coverage and a GA guideline explicitly recommending images. Otherwise, it seems like the GA process is designed to be a one Support = "you're in!" FA-lite process, whereas the FAC is designed to be more demanding in the hope that (most) everyone reviewing the nom can be satisfied and hopefully beat an article into an even-better state.
I'm sorry, but I don't see the point of the GA apparatus if it's going to request 98% of what an FA would - except rigorous review by more than one party. That makes it much more prone to reviewer error/oversight, seemingly trivial in distinction, potentially confusing to newer editors, and a hell of a lot of unnecessary extra work in running the GA process. If you're going to run it like this, you might as well allow it to be purely an assessment class (which is what I've been doing lately), and ignore the review process, since it only requires one reviewer's approval anyway. This will both speed up and vastly expand the GA project, as well as making the arguments over what constitutes a "Good article" the domain of the WP 1.0 grading scheme. Does this seem at least somewhat feasible? Girolamo Savonarola 00:12, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Exactly. This is why the assessment groups from several WikiProjects have just started to ignore the GA process entirely and use the GA class at their own discretion. There is a huge gap between B-class and A-class, so it makes sense to have a middle class anyway. That it's called GA is a convenient coincidence, but it does highlight the point that given the way the GAs are approved at the moment, you might as well just allow it to be assessed as such - it requires the same number of people (1). This will expand the GA project rapidly - and effectively, as the assessors usually have a subject interest and thus are knowledgeable. Although FACs have no burden to go to any other groups prior, an article at the moment can theoretically go through peer review, GA review, and then FAC. That's about 1.5 reviews too many, if you ask me. GA through relatively fast assessment is more logical and effective in the long-term. Will it be completely perfect and flawless? No, but then again, neither should the articles - it just needs to be good enough. Girolamo Savonarola 12:56, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
There's been a lot of discussion about Agrippina (opera). I do not consider the language of its version to be enough to pass it as a GA. I find the sentences and the paragraph too long for it to be "compelling". Can someone else comment?
Fred- Chess 12:03, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
The general issue isn't going to go away. Believe me. -- Folantin 17:02, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
I would like to see "the citation of its sources using an accepted form of inline citation is required" replaced with "thorough citation of its sources using an accepted form of inline citation is required, particularly when POV statements are made". References are necessary and the more inline cits for POV statements the better.
On a similar note, I find "compelling prose" to be far too subjective - one man's compelling is another's doggerel - , far too close to what it says at WP:WIAFA, and unnecessary. GA is not FA. "Adequate prose" - implying correct spelling and grammar and a style that isn't anachronistic and full of archaisms and obsolete verbiage - should be better. Moreschi 13:22, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to see some discussion of the goals of GA. I'd like to emphasize quality, as well as emphasizing GA's role as a launching pad toward FA.
The current wording is just this:
However, there are also many articles containing excellent content but which have not yet reached Featured article standards or are unlikely at present to become featured due to very short length. So long as they meet certain quality standards and have passed through the Good Article review process, they may be listed as Good articles.
I'd like to see a more explicit mission statement. As I see it there is only one mission (but it has two subparts):
My main point is this: GA is not for .. what's the word they use on consolation prizes... uh, "participant" .. whatever. It reflects high quality standards.. as I repeatedly state.. that are something on the order of 75% or 80% of FA.
Talk amongst yourselves. -- Ling.Nut 17:31, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't like this idea that GA should automatically be seen as preparation for an FA. GA should be an end in itself. If some authors then want to bring their article up to FA standards, that should be their decision. Editors at Wikipedia are volunteers. They might see GA status as a reward for spending their time and effort here, without wanting to go through the agonisingly long drawn out process of FA candidacy. They might also think their time was better spent writing two or three GAs instead of concentrating on a single FA. The more GAs there are, the better it is for this encyclopaedia. I noticed that there used to be a section setting out the differences between a Good Article and a Featured Article on the GA criteria page. In September, it seems a small group of users decided to remove this section in a bid to blur the distinction between the two. This isn't really on. For all the talk of "raising standards", regular GA reviewers seem unable to cope with the stress of enforcing the criteria as they are at the moment in an even manner, so an added workload is hardly going to make matters better. If GA criteria were returned to a reasonable level, then I think it would improve things all round: the encyclopaedia would benefit from the increased number of good articles; more editors would have the incentive to bring their contributions up to GA standard; and quality control at the GA candidacy and review would be much easier to maintain.-- Folantin 18:34, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
(remove indents) As I see it, there is one and only one problem with GA: anyone can pop in, pass an article, and disappear into the mist. The only fix.. is.. the dreaded B word (that would be "bureaucratization."-- Ling.Nut 19:58, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict)
(added comment) also, what you said makes sense moreschi. I am listening.-- Ling.Nut 20:19, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
(remove indents): OK. Gotta quit for tonight; talk soon. Later. -- Ling.Nut 20:57, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I can't talk. I shouldn't have been doing all the talking I have been. I enjoy talking too much, as my wife will tell you.
I wanna leave a note for the whole WIAGA question. I hope you won't come to any conclusions for a while; not at least 'til Dec. 16 when the semester ends. But of course you may think the need is urgent.
My position in a nutshell:
Because although you guys reject my desire to see GA as a steppingstone to FA, I just couldn't live with my conscience if it didn't contribute meaningfully to all aspects of an article more often than not. If GA is not steppingstone to FA.. then at least.. it must be something that makes a meaningful impact on the encyclopedia! Otherwise my time is better spent writing articles about Taiwanese aborigines. :-)
Later -- Ling.Nut 20:31, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict)
I believe Moreschi's point was not that writing should not be a prerequisite, but that the writing standards were being unfairly applied. That said, I *do* think that readability is impoortant for GA, and that it should be looked at as a mediator-led process in many cases. Have a look at the good it did for topics like Whale shark in the period up to the GA, and several others. I'd like to think my GA reviewing helped it a lot. Indeed, Agrippina (opera), the source of the dispute, still improved a lot. The objection was, I think, more to the tone of the GA reviewer.
Yes, there's going to be problems, there will be objections, but we must keep up GA as a force of good for the encyclopedia. To that end, I prefer On Hold (an optimistic procedure that encourages work in the week it's on hold) to immediate failure in most cases. Indeed, that might be a good rule: Give it time to improvve and take in the recommendations. Adam Cuerden talk 15:40, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
I know lists cannot qualify as GAs, and I would (very safely) assume that portals, which are even further away from the concept of an "article" than a list, is also off-limits. I ask simply because someone put a portal- or, rather a sub-portal, on GAC, which I don't think I've ever seen before (possibly because nobody's ever done it). -- Kicking222 23:15, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Right, I was wondering where the guidelines stand in relation to articles on rather uninteresting topics. For instance, as, according to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Precedents 'Cities and villages are notable, regardless of size'. So, say I worked heavily on an article about a village (Which I have, and though isn't now, it is the article that I can most likely meet 'Good Article' criteria) of no particular relevence in the grand scheme of things, could this become a good article just as easily as an article about a city? In fact, would it not be easier to get this to Good Article status, as there is so little that is to be said? Any help on the matter would be appreciated, I would be fair proud if I got a Good Article under my belt. J Milburn 19:42, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines now has an elevated status as a guideline for WikiProjects Mathematics and Physics. So the question we are all eagerly awaiting is does this affect the GA criteria? -- Salix alba ( talk) 13:33, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
(undent) A straightforward and helpful reply! Thank you.
I have a question. Are you saying that any science article can be posted on Wikipedia Talk: WikiProject Physics? What about math articles? What about Space weathering?
I know that some contributors are vehemently against WP:GA delisting scientific articles for lack of inline citations. That's all well and good. But any crackpot could write any kinda shtuff about Flux capacitors, and who's to know? In short, what can be the process for dealing with all science-related articles? -- Ling.Nut 14:14, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
(undent) Huh? That doesn't make sense. You're saying "high quality referencing" is our wolfsbane against crackpots; the science folks are saying "we don't want no stinking referencing." Something's gotta give somewhere.-- Ling.Nut 20:33, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to make a proposel about compliance with the MoS, which the current criteria says is more or less mandatory. The thing is, I think many of the things in the Manual of Style, when their followed, simply make articles look final and polished, rather than necessarily just "good". Since many people seem to feel that having the criteria so similiar to FA standards is problematic, I think this will be an easy way to both make the criteria not be so similiar, and make articles which are actually Good be allowed to stay on the list, even when their contradicting something in the MoS which might not be very important. Furthermore, the MoS is quite large, and I don't think most people even know everything that's in there, I know I'm certainly not familiar with it all. I think what we should do is re-write the MoS compliance part to name just a few parts of the Manual of Style that Good Articles should rightly satisfy, so that it doesn't look like there's some demand that, for instance, text needs to be nearly perfectly formatted or exceptionally Captionalized.
In particular, I think that the vast majority of MoS related disputes i've seen concerning GA's involves only a few key parts of the MoS. In particular, I think WP:LEAD, WP:LAYOUT, WP:MOSDEF with jargon, WP:WTA which is like WP:WEASEL, and especially WP:WAF with fiction pretty much sums up the important stuff that comes up concerning Good Articles status. The special articles guidelines seem to be disputed, inactive, or developing, so I don't think we should be expected to grade articles by them. All of the supplementary manuals are just technical type stuff or how to format English correctly, and I don't think i've ever seen articles which comply with the GA criteria in every way except by having bad capitalization, improper dash use, or improper marking of trademarks. Command line use might be important at WP:MOSCOMM because programming articles would look a bit, well, un-good with improper use of it, but all in all, I don't think most manuals in this category on their own should really be helpful in deciding whether an article is "good" or not. Besides the fiction guideline, (Which is definently important in my opinion) in the other guidance section, most of those things are either redundent with other criteria anyway, or are fairly obscure, and things which I really don't think should impact whether or not an article is good. I propose that GA criteria 1(c) therefore be altered to read: "It follows the following elements of the Wikipedia Manual of style: Article lead guidelines, Article layout guidelines, Jargon guidelines, Words to avoid using, How to write about Fiction, and How to incorporate lists." Any thoughts? Because these seem to be the only major guidelines that really concern how "well-written" an article is that aren't redundent with something else in the GA criteria. Homestarmy 02:09, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
To make it necessary to comply with a GUIDELINE has led to more b'cracy and formalities that it has been useful. Articles don't HAVE to comply with the Lead Section guideline. They aren't forced to comply with anything of the MoS. That's why the MoS is a guideline, and not a policy! That is why the MoS starts with saying
So that when our reviewers look through an article and decide that "sorry, the lead section must have one more sentence per WP:LEAD", it is hurting more than helping.
Therefore I have rewritten the criteria to say that as long as an article does not seriously violate any part of the MoS it should be OK (provided that it is otherwise comprehensible).
I am happy if you want to "fix up" my edit in case I have used the wrong words, but I hope you will agree with what I am trying to say.
Fred- Chess 10:07, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
The "logical deducation" part draws flashbacks to OR advocates tossing that term around to try and defend the inclusion of their OR synthesis in the article. Is there a better way to phrase that? There is also a gap between what is Common "Joe Bloe" knowledge and Common "specialized" knowledge that is not made clear at all. A key point is that these articles are meant for the average reader who may not hold a Master's Degree in any given field that an article relates to. I've tried to cover the third issue about good faith requests for sources (especially for things that dance into that Common specialized knowledge area). Feel free to rewrite but try to keep the spirit intact because we certainly don't want to be hostile to good faith request for sources on things that may not be "common knowledge" to the reader. Agne 20:09, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
LOL...how about creating a subpage for WP:WIAGA/criteria 2b with all the legal disclaimers? :p Agne 20:24, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
(after edit conflict) I do think an area of common ground is setting the bar at passing WP:V and WP:NOR and if a reviewer or another editor makes a good faith request for specific things to be cited then it should be. If a reviewer thinks the article fails Criteria 2 for whatever reason, it shouldn't be unreasonable for them to place cite requested tags on the things that cause them to fail. That way the editors aren't left in the dark or thinking there is some magical number of cites they need to have. It's always about the content not the count. Agne 20:35, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
It is too long and I think trying to find acceptable wording for "common knowledge" or what are "logical deductions" is an impossible task. Why not just note the new guidelines? For example:
That really is already long enough and I see no contradictions nor any need for more text. -- RelHistBuff 23:17, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
What does "simple arithmetic" refer to? Does it mean that complex arithmetic needs a source? / Fred- Chess 10:35, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
It is not a good idea to have unstable criteria and as we are already discussing it here, I have put 2b back to the original version with a reference to this talk page. The last suggested version by Pmanderson is below:
I suggest getting consensus here first. -- RelHistBuff 11:55, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Anything wrong with the proposal above, namely:
?? linas 22:03, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Ahh, "inline", of course. I do believe that PMAnderson clearly states the opinion of the vast majority. Inline cites are great when a single sentence makes a single, citeable claim. I've started using them myself. But as the science-article guidelines make clear, inline cites are insane absurdities in most cases. The WP:Music stance should be no surprise, and I can't imagine any editors in any academic discipline, be it history, social studies, anthropology, linguistics, supporting inane inlining.
I'm guessing that inline cites mostly come in handy as a tool for edit-warring controversial articles, where every factoid, true or false, is questioned, argued. But I believe that edit-warring is the exception, not the norm, and demanding inline cites just because the propagandists love them is inappropriate in general. Does this correctly capture the majority opinion? linas 04:06, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
This is deplorable; I trust it will not recur. If we are going to have an interim form until consensus, it should either be the day before yesterday's text before Fred Chess's compromise, or the last undisputed form, from August. (It should also not make an incomplete and inaccurate account of the extent of the dispute.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:51, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
No one has objected to the following:
The examples listed for no element of novelty were:
We can put this back in if editors start claiming their revelations from Atlantis contain no element of novelty.
The following is sensible, although it would be well to make it non-prescriptive, as here. But it applies to most of the criteria, and should be a separate sentence away from the individual criteria.
That leaves:
This is compatible with every guideline and policy; it is expressly demanded by Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines. Under it any reader will know where to check any statement; if it's not specifically sourced in-line, go to the general reference for the section. Many scholarly books use it. What is the substantive problem here? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:52, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
I apologize for not contributing to this discussion, and indeed not even following it closely. Real life has intervened in 2 or 3 different ways.
I've skimmed bits and pieces. If my remarks are redundant, I apologize in advance. But I wonder if the nature of the topic that has been the center of the discussion ("Bach") kinda skews the outcome. I'm sure there are a few controversies about Bach and his work. I assume that based largely on human nature. ;-) But there's no way that Bach is the minefield that many other topics can be.
I have no problem at all asking for inline cites on every line, and even two or three per line, on extrememly controversial topics (TYPICALLY political figures such as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk or regions embroiled in controversy such as Lebanon).
Here's a list I put on Talk:Mustafa Kemal Atatürk:
- Direct quotes: "Culture is the foundation of the Turkish Republic".
- Acts of government: "Recent moves by the Turkish government have provided Kurds with greater rights and freedoms, particularly in areas such as the Kurdish language, education, and media."
- Numbers, figures, dates, etc.: "...succeeded in achieving a substantial increase of the public literacy rate from 20% to over 90%."
- Broad, strong generalizations: "...reforms to which much of the population was unaccustomed but nevertheless willing to adopt."
- Specific Historical events:"...he was appointed the commander of Derne on March 6, 1912."
I finally apologize in advance for not being able to participate much in the near future. I just wanted to throw these thoughts out for people to deal with as they wish.
Thanks -- Ling.Nut 18:22, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Regards. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:25, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
WP:V says "Editors should provide a reliable source for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, or it may be removed." Sure, consult any of the references. Mmm. That might work for Bach — you know, that really, really long article that somehow or other manages to have only half a dozen or so sources (one of which is uh Rasmussen which has its full reference.. uh.. wait.. it must be here somewhere....uhhh...). Well anyhow it might work for the six or so references in Bach. What about Irish phonology? What about Paul McCartney? What about... ummm... maybe half the high-quality articles on Wikipedia, which have something more than the mysterious "Rasmussen" plus five or so others? -- Ling.Nut 04:14, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
First of all, I think it is an inherent problem to write in a guideline that one of its criterias is disputed. I can think of several reasons why it is so bad, so I'll leave it to your imaginations to come up with your own. Instead we must strive for our glorious guiding star Wikipedia:Consensus.
Secondly: would it be OK to have as a guideline that every paragraph should utlize an inline citation? See Johannes Kepler for an example of an article that has done this (with some omissions).
Fred- Chess 02:26, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
When I proposed the change to the MoS guideline, I forgot all about WP:SELF, I don't think it was listed in the main MoS template :(. I want to bring it up here because I think there's now a conflict of interest with the Platform game article up for a review right now, and while I personally think self-references just plain don't look good at all, I don't know if it could be justified that it counts as bad writing :/. So what does anyone think about adding WP:SELF to the MoS list there? Homestarmy 02:04, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
I've added that inline citations are necessary for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged. To be frank, I find this particular formulation diffuse, and would prefer to write it differently. But it comes straight from a Wikipedia guideline.
Can we at least agree that referencing of "material challenged or likely to be challenged" ( Wikipedia:References#When_you_add_content) must be done through some sort of inline referencing? Is there anyone who thinks it can be done in some other way?
Fred- Chess 23:15, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Personally, I very much like the current version. It strikes me as eminently reasonable, a good compromise, and common sense, seeing as that's what I pretty much do anyway. Is there anyone who doesn't? Cheers, Moreschi Deletion! 12:19, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
It's a step backwards and will keep the GA tag in the low esteem it has carried because articles that are truly not good articles or are not anywhere close to FA status will still continue to receive and maintain the GA tag. Agne 20:10, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
An anon changed the MoS guideline to " It follows certain elements of the Wikipedia Manual of style, namely the Article lead guideline, Article layout guideline, Jargon guideline, Words to avoid using guideline, List incorporation, as well as the relative article specific guidelines as found on the {{style}} template.", adding the last part with the style template, which in effect makes the change I made compleatly pointless, and makes it so articles must adhere to basically the entire MoS again. The anon seemed to be User:Tarret but he/she never responds on his/her user talk page, so I have no idea who this person is, though they seem to mirror Tarret's editing style. Can I get a consensus about the changes I proposed above about the MoS guideline, Fred said it shouldn't be controversial, but I don't want to fight against an anon who might be someone I would trust, or might be just some random person who likes to edit everything Tarret edits. Now, admittedly, I have no idea what "article specific guidelines" means, if that's the special article types I really don't like that at all because several of them were formerly rejected, (they seem to of been taken off the template or something) are proposed, or are just plain not planned out as well as other recognized parts of the MoS. Homestarmy 18:43, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
I note above two people wanted the line about compelling prose removed as it is too subjective and I just wanted to add my voice to that consensus. If this is a standard below FA then there is no need to replicate all the criteria used there is there? Appreciate thoughts on this. Hiding Talk 21:04, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
I've done a (somewhat shorter) version, and used the room to say that we would like excellent prose if we can get it. (1b) and (1c) were in conflict as to whether a lead is necessary; I think short articles should at least be able to get GA, even if not FA. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:32, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Star Trek XI meets and exceeds all the GA requirements. The article has over 40 citations, and even though it is a future film, it certainly is stable judging by its history. However, when it was submitted for GAC, it was returned with the comment: "Wait until the film is released to nominate it, o and you missed this PLEASE DO NOT NOMINATE FILMS THAT HAVE NOT YET BEEN RELEASED AS DETAILS WITHIN THE ARTICLE MAY CHANGE BEFORE IT IS RELEASED. M3tal H3ad 01:24, 28 January 2007 (UTC)"
Since when are future films not eligible for GA? -- Wikipedical 01:38, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
We discussed this before in Talk:Harry_Potter_and_the_Order_of_the_Phoenix_(film)#GA_comment (there's also another comment in the section below that) and I also recently put a hidden comment to not include future films, mainly due to their lack of stability as the release date comes closer and there is a fury of new details, plot summaries, box office figures, critical reviews, etc. Also I'd say that this film is not going to be released until 2008, where a lot of details can change, there's a possibility of it being cancelled (highly, highly doubtful, but possible), and the cast changing. I'd wait for it to be released and then renominate it a month or so after the surge of editing dies down when it's released. I'll include a copy of this message on the film's page, and let the reviewing editor make the decision. It looks like a really good article though, so keep up the good work. -- Nehrams2020 02:09, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
The whole article is a bunch of rumors and speculation
Basically all it is are rumors, nothing is mentioned about the actual cast, storyline or production under their sections. When it is released, it will need to be completely re-written to include the cast and the story. This is why i failed it, it fails criteria 2, factually accurate and verifiable, (d) it contains no elements of original research. etc etc. Plus there's one sentence paragraphs, some references aren't formatted properly. etc etc M3tal H3ad 07:46, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
If you spot a list of works, or a list of awards, that is in reverse-chronological order, please either correct it to chronological order as per WP:LOW, or tag it with the template {{ MOSLOW}}. This template looks like this:
This article or section contains a list of works that does not follow the
Manual of Style for lists of works (often, but not always, due to being in reverse-chronological order) and may need
cleanup. |
Please also add WP:LOW to the list of manuals of styles to follow in WP:WIAGA.
Jews are defined as "members of the Jewish people". If you look in WP for Jewish people you get redirected to Jews. So this is a circular non-definition. The other definition given refers to the Israelites article, which is a description of religious beliefs, sourced from the Bible. This qualifies as a Good Article?
One of the criteria for good articles is that they have "a fair use rationale." for any non-free image used. It is not demanded that this rationale be, er, "accurate," or that the rationale be acceptable per our fair use policies. Many good articles violate our fair use policies (most of our articles with fair use images do, but that's another problem.) Can we consider changing this? Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:18, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Why? it makes articles accurate, verifiable, claims are backed up. On failing articles for having no inline citations the nominator uses the excuse "inline citations are not mandatory", or "this isn't an FA process" which questions one to where they got their facts from. I'm wondering why this rule hasn't changed yet? Some articles have 0 in-line citations and make good articles look like a joke - plus many articles at GA/R are being delisted due to having no inline citations. Can we have a vote or something? M3tal H3ad 08:32, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I think we should replace the following:
"(d) necessary technical terms or jargon are briefly explained in the article itself, or an active link is provided."
with the following:
"(d) the article can be understood by any likely reader. Technical terms or jargon necessary to understand the article are defined in it. Technical terms not necessary to understand the article are either defined or hyperlinked to an extant page."
As many people here are no doubt aware, far too many Wikipedia articles are incomprehensible to many readers. This makes them pretty much useless. (The point of an encyclopedia is to tell people things they don't know, so if you can't reach the people who aren't already knowledgeable about the subject, there's no point.) Therefore, I think we need a stronger statement here.
Note that I say the article should be understood by any likely reader. The likely reader of the article on Non-abelian gauge transformation, whatever that is, may be a university physics student, so there's no need to define terms like boson or quark. On the other hand, an article on atoms or molecules may be read by a high school student or an average person with a high school education and little if any background in math or physics. A good article would explain atoms or molecules in a way that such ordinary people can understand them.
I'm also recommending that we specify that terms that are necessary to know to understand the rest of the article should be defined in the article, not simply wikilinked. There are two reasons for this. One, it's annoying to be sent on a wild goose chase around the encyclopedia to understand each sentence. Also, the articles on technical terms or jargon tend to be more complex and more difficult to understand than the first article. To use atom as an example, it wouldn't make sense to say "An atom is a particle with baryonic nuclei held together by vector gauge bosons surrounded by an atomic orbital." If the reader doesn't know what an atom is, he or she is certainly not going to be able to understand the article on gauge bosons. -- Mwalcoff 00:42, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
I suggest that it is recommended (but not mandatory) that when paintings are used to illustrate an article, a reference is given to the whereabouts of the painting (museum, private collection, etc.), so that interested people can find out more about it and even visit it. I say this because I recently read an article about Marly le Roi in France, illustrated with a painting of the palaces, since demolished. But I found no reference anywhere in Wikipedia that enabled me to find out where the painting could be seen. It seems to me to reasonable and desirable that if a painting is used to illustrate an article, the caption should not only say what it is and who painted it, but also where it is. DavidLlewellyn 09:25, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Nowhere in Wikipedia is an article given such short shrift as is the case in the process of promoting articles to GA status. All it takes is one editor to make or break the article. While GA might not be FA, if there is any point at all in having this classification, editor vetting needs to be part of the process. Speedy delete takes only two editors, AfD requires at least three except in obvious circumstances, and I have never seen an article go to FA with any less than six inputs. If GA status represents the input of the community, then one editor does not cut it. I would like to see this category have some status within Wikipedia; if so, changes need to be made. Denni talk 23:08, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
I believe the "stable" requirement should read as follows: "It is stable, i.e. it is not the subject of ongoing edit wars. This does not apply to vandalism and protection or semi-protection as a result of vandalism, or proposals to split or merge the article content."
My firm belief is that editors should spend a few hours in the morning working on an article, and having that article promoted to GA status by that evening. There needs to be a distinct difference between GA and FA; otherwise, we'll have two redundant processes. We should make it so that most established editors can make a GA quickly and efficiently without problems. — Deckill er 23:55, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
There are a couple of articles I've worked on that I felt were probably too short for GA, though I thought they said everything that needed to be said. Venture Science Fiction Magazine is probably long enough, but how about Space Science Fiction Magazine? And if there is a lower limit, does it have to do with GA specifically? I guess it might be the case that if an article is too short for GA, it should be expanded; and if it can't be expanded, it shouldn't exist as a separate article -- it should be merged. That would imply any completed article, however, short, can reach GA. Anyway, what's the lower limit, in people's minds? Mike Christie (talk) 23:51, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 |
It is not because I don't want to be bold and change it but should we add (and we need a consensus on that) these criteria :
1(c) it follows the Wikipedia Manual of Style including the list guideline; 3. It is broad in its coverage. In this respect : (a) it addresses all major aspects of the topic (this requirement is slightly weaker than the "comprehensiveness" required by WP:FAC, and allows shorter articles and broad overviews of large topics to be listed); (b) it stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary details (no trivia).
With the first one being a guideline for list addition and the second one being blatant about the trivia (we don't want pure trivia). Lincher 22:40, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
It's implicit in 3 & 4 that there is a clear, unambiguous definition of the topic. But, for example, I can't figure out if the topic of USA is the geographical region or the contemporary nation state resulting from European colonization. It makes a big difference in how the non-white races are discussed. Fourtildas 05:47, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Criteria 2b says
This appears contradictory. Looking at the first Wikilink under Wikipedia:Cite_sources#How_and_where_to_cite_sources, three different citation styles are given (Embedded HTML links, Harvard referencing, and Footnotes). And the second Wikilink, the inline citation guide, also gives the same three citation styles. So what is the difference between "citation of its sources" (which is essential) and "inline citation" (which is only desirable)? I ask this because there are many articles that show sources, but never cite them. In the case of a Reference section at the bottom of a article, theoretically there should be citations using Harvard referencing (Author, Year) in the article. But I have never seen this used. To clarify this, the criteria should say either that "citation of sources is essential", i.e., mandatory or "citation of sources is desirable", i.e., optional, but not both. RelHistBuff 13:29, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
I think there is a problem with the definition of the word "citation". Citation to me means the "a quoting of an authoritative source for substantiation". That is what appears to be the meaning in WP:CITE guide. I believe you use the word to mean "a source so cited; a quotation", hence making citations to you means only making a reference list. Is that correct? If only a reference list is required then it should clearly state that.
If citing sources is required, we should be clear about it. I would recommend
I, myself, prefer the tougher standard, the latter. RelHistBuff 15:15, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I have to agree with you both suggestions are good, I don't know why we don't ask to comply with the citation style. If I can remember, it maybe has to do with the fact that we want to have sources given for good articles and leave the proper citation format for the featured articles format. I would like to see another reviewer voice his opinion on that subject. Lincher 16:37, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
FA's, can have a more lax sort of thing here, citations have to be there, but they don't actually have to be formatted properly. But that's just my opinion, I don't fail articles for not having citations in inline format, just if they basically aren't there. Homestarmy 19:39, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
I guess that in order to achieve having good articles that are sourced but not necessarily well inline cited, it would be better to have your first example of policy :
With that, there will be less confusion between what to ask as for the GA criteria. Lincher 14:15, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Every article must state references that can be used to verify all the information in the article. That is a requirement. The manner in which those references are tied to the rest of the article is a matter of editor discretion (and should remain so). All articles should have a list of references at the bottom. An article on a broad topic may only need two or three good works of reference, like books. You wouldn't need to inline cite these sources, because the entire book relates to the entire article. I'd say inline citations in this case would be a misuse of the inline format (which is intended to tie a citation or quote to a specific sentence or paragraph). Science articles, on the other hand, may need to cite 15 papers, but may only pull a few important facts from each. In this case, an inline format, like ref tags, or Harvard citations would be almost mandatory, in order to make it clear which sources connect to which facts. Other articles need a combination. Some articles may use general sources (that shouldn't be inline cited), as well as a few papers or news articles (which should be inline cited).
Making a blanket requirement for the use of inline citations isn't a good idea. We'd find ourselves failing legit articles, forcing unnecessary labor on editors, and causing the phenomenon (which is already pretty bad here), of just taking a 'general' source, throwing it into a ref tag, and then just sprinkling the ref tag around a few times so that it looks good. Its OK to have a distinction between the two types, and treat them differently. The important thing is that the information in the article be verifiable. Phidauex 18:51, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
How about this proposal for criterion 2b?
Inline citations remain optional, but it is stated clearly that they are preferred. RelHistBuff 14:28, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Lots of companies have great ideas<ref>"Use The News", Maria Bartiromo, ISBM 0-06-662087</ref>
Maria Bartiromo says "Lots of companies have great ideas" in her 2001 best-seller, "Use The News"
RelHistBuff 13:51, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
Quote: "these criteria and the good article review process are designed primarily with short articles (15kb or less) in mind." is this really still true? Most of the articles in WP:GA and WP:GAC are far from short. Perhaps we need to think of a new statement to replace that one.-- Konstable 00:22, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I have returned the refs section to the previous version. There have been discussions on mandatory inline cites, but no consensus. There is no basis in policy for requiring inline citations (just as there is no basis for requiring a minimum number of sources). In fact, WP:IC specifically says inline cites need only be used when a statement requires it. If an article makes a dubious or obscure statement, then it should be sourced. And if all those statements come from the same source, there's no problem with that.
Arbitrary changes that make it easier to fail articles is no way to deal with the backlog. Kafziel 17:42, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
How about his as a way of reducing the backlog?
We create a {{GA-NWIH}} template. Editors would be encouraged to take a quick glance at articles within 24 hours of nomination. If the article is seriously deficient, the editor marks the article {{FailedGA|14 September 2006}}{{GA-NWIH|NPOV|~~~~}} or {{FailedGA|14 September 2006}}{{GA-NWIH|Citations|~~~~}} or whatever, with the NWIH template generating text saying that a quick onceover showed that the article is seriously deficient in the area of (first parameter) and this needs to be corrected before a full appraisal is done, signing it with the reviewer's name.
If the article doesn't fit in the "no way in hell" category, then the reviewer edits the nomination to add Q1 - ~~~~ to the end, indicating that he's given the nomination a once-over.
This doesn't actually change the procedure at all. An editor can opt to review an article even though it hasn't yet gotten a Q1. (Usually, I review from among the oldest articles, but today, I reviewed one that had been nominated 20 minutes earlier. The subject looked intriguing.) But someone can do a Q1 if he only has five or ten minutes, instead of the 1-2 hours needed to do a complete review, and those who hate telling editors that their article is really, really, sucky, can more easily find articles that aren't nearly so terrible.
By getting a quick response back to the NWIH articles, their editors can go back to improving them (they've stopped, because the article should be stable), and the reviewers can spend more time on articles that may have half a chance of getting the GA. ClairSamoht - Help make Wikipedia the most authoritative source of information in the world 20:15, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
Inline citation is mandatory now? I don't think that's a good choice, and from a quick skim of one of the sections above, I don't think I see a consensus on making it mandatory. If nobody objects, I'm going to change it back to say that while proper citation is mandatory, the citation style used is not. -- Kjoon lee 10:35, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
I strongly oppose any such requirement. Some articles derive from a few pages in a standard reference and will always do so; regular number is the first example I can think of, but there are other and better articles of the same class. GA began as an informal project; that is the sole justification for the looseness of its proceedures. It should not be making demands that will worsen the encyclopedia. Septentrionalis 18:07, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Again, a bad example - the above Baron West is very far from GA standards, and I believe he's even borderline notable. For examples of well-inline-referenced relatively short Good Articles, see e.g. Joseph Hazelwood or Autobianchi Primula. It didn't hurt to do those inline references, and they can prove helpful in many ways. The occurence of a Good Article completely and forever relying on one source only is unlikely - I would actually have some problems with passing a GA nom with just one source. I don't see a problem here. Bravada, talk - 21:20, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
As a semi-regular reviewer of articles in which I have some knowledge, I'm seeing that there is an issue with the stability provision that is the cause of an recurring problem that can result in the de-listing of otherwise GA articles.
The stability provision is too easily gamed by pov-pushers on controversial topics to discredit articles and gain the upper hand in content disputes. Once an article has achieved GA status, pov-pushers can threaten and have made bad objections at WP:GA/R over bogus/contrived NPOV disputes, thereby forcing questionable content into article in the interest of keeping or regaining GA status.
Furthermore, the very nature of controversial topics, magnets for ideological ax-grinders, precludes them from being particularly stable. Now of course no reasonable person expects articles on controversial topics to be completely stable, but when reasonable, expected instability for the topic is cited as a justification for de-listing alongside other possible issues, some of which are clearly made in bad faith, then it becomes an issue. Add the absence of a meaningful metric for what constitutes acceptable/unacceptable stability, and you have a recipe for disputes of de-listing and more opportunities for gaming of system in the confusion.
Clearly some accommodation needs to be codified for articles on contentious topics, meaning a change to the provision. Any provision that fails to take into account pov-motivated objections is flawed. Failing to fix this issue puts GA at risk of becoming irrelevant to a large segment of WP articles - those on perennially controversial issues. FeloniousMonk 19:18, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Attribute #6 says it must "contain images" - does that mean there should always be multiple images on a Good Article? Or would a single image be enough in most cases? Essexmutant 17:10, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
People are starting to fail articles or put them on hold because images don't have a fair use rationale. The guidelines merely say that the images must be tagged. In many cases - the use of an album sleeve in an album article for example - the tag ought to be enough, unless the article is at FAC. Can we either stick to the guidelines please or make them explicitly state that fair use rationales are required for fair use images in GA nominated articles. -- kingboyk 11:42, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Considering how strict Wikipedia is about copy vio with images, I do think we should ensure any article that is listed as a "Good Article" should be at least properly tagged and not in violation of major Wikipedia policy. As for whether or not the article needs images, I think it depends on the content. The guideline says
6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic. In this respect:
(a) the images are tagged and have succinct and descriptive captions; (b) a lack of images does not in itself prevent an article from achieving Good Article status.
If an article needs an image to illustrate it topic (like an article about a painting or something that has to be described in the article) then it certainly should have an image. But not every article "needs" one (like most biographies) and that is why the criteria is somewhat subjective and needs to be applied on an article by article basis. Agne 08:10, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
As presently worded, this requirement would seem to be higher than the sourcing requirement for featured articles. The featured article criteria only demand the provision of a "References" section in which sources are set out and, where appropriate, complemented by inline citations, whereas this list states that the citation of sources using inline citations is required. Just pointing out that it might be worth clarifying that in-line cites need to be used where appropriate, not for every single sourced fact. -- (Lee) Bailey (talk) 18:27, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
How many people have to add a dispute or change that criterion before it's allowed to stay. There is a dispute. I was very disappointed to see edits like this one, which seem to claim that GA regulars have some special privilege in determining consensus for GA rules. You do not; we're all Wikipedians here. -- SCZenz 02:36, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Can we all agree on my addition that "this criterion is disputed"...? As CMummert notes, a significant number of people have disputed it. Or do people outside the "team of GA reviewers" really not get a voice at all? -- SCZenz 16:31, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, the Physics and Math editors (Out of the dozen or so projects and hundreds of other areas that GA articles affect) dispute it. That is a small group. As I compromise, I can see allowing mention of their dispute as well as their counter-proposal citation guideline. But just slapping the general "disputed" tag gives the appearence that it more broadly disputed then it really is and completely discounts the month long discussion and consensus building that among GA reviewers AND interesting editors who saw the prominent banner on the GAC nomination page. Agne 21:40, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
There are at least two straw man arguments above.
GA regulars do not have the authority to unilaterally declare the dispute resolved, without the agreement of those disputing it, of whom there are a significant number. Until it is resolved, the dispute should be aknowledged on the page. To continually sweep it under the rug seems to be a bullying tactic; if it were just applied to me, I would shrug it off and move on, but it's happened (as CMummert notes) to several editors. So all I can say is, please stop the constant reverting; criterion 2b is disputed, and a statement of that should be allowed to stand. We can by all means work on what the statement should say exactly; I still like "this criterion is disputed" as simple and accurate, rather than specifically identifying WikiProjects and all that. -- SCZenz 23:03, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
I've looked at Wikipedia:What is a good article? and Wikipedia:What is a featured article?, point by point, and at this time, there is very very very little difference that I can uncover between the two other than "broad" vs. "comprehensive" coverage and a GA guideline explicitly recommending images. Otherwise, it seems like the GA process is designed to be a one Support = "you're in!" FA-lite process, whereas the FAC is designed to be more demanding in the hope that (most) everyone reviewing the nom can be satisfied and hopefully beat an article into an even-better state.
I'm sorry, but I don't see the point of the GA apparatus if it's going to request 98% of what an FA would - except rigorous review by more than one party. That makes it much more prone to reviewer error/oversight, seemingly trivial in distinction, potentially confusing to newer editors, and a hell of a lot of unnecessary extra work in running the GA process. If you're going to run it like this, you might as well allow it to be purely an assessment class (which is what I've been doing lately), and ignore the review process, since it only requires one reviewer's approval anyway. This will both speed up and vastly expand the GA project, as well as making the arguments over what constitutes a "Good article" the domain of the WP 1.0 grading scheme. Does this seem at least somewhat feasible? Girolamo Savonarola 00:12, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Exactly. This is why the assessment groups from several WikiProjects have just started to ignore the GA process entirely and use the GA class at their own discretion. There is a huge gap between B-class and A-class, so it makes sense to have a middle class anyway. That it's called GA is a convenient coincidence, but it does highlight the point that given the way the GAs are approved at the moment, you might as well just allow it to be assessed as such - it requires the same number of people (1). This will expand the GA project rapidly - and effectively, as the assessors usually have a subject interest and thus are knowledgeable. Although FACs have no burden to go to any other groups prior, an article at the moment can theoretically go through peer review, GA review, and then FAC. That's about 1.5 reviews too many, if you ask me. GA through relatively fast assessment is more logical and effective in the long-term. Will it be completely perfect and flawless? No, but then again, neither should the articles - it just needs to be good enough. Girolamo Savonarola 12:56, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
There's been a lot of discussion about Agrippina (opera). I do not consider the language of its version to be enough to pass it as a GA. I find the sentences and the paragraph too long for it to be "compelling". Can someone else comment?
Fred- Chess 12:03, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
The general issue isn't going to go away. Believe me. -- Folantin 17:02, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
I would like to see "the citation of its sources using an accepted form of inline citation is required" replaced with "thorough citation of its sources using an accepted form of inline citation is required, particularly when POV statements are made". References are necessary and the more inline cits for POV statements the better.
On a similar note, I find "compelling prose" to be far too subjective - one man's compelling is another's doggerel - , far too close to what it says at WP:WIAFA, and unnecessary. GA is not FA. "Adequate prose" - implying correct spelling and grammar and a style that isn't anachronistic and full of archaisms and obsolete verbiage - should be better. Moreschi 13:22, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to see some discussion of the goals of GA. I'd like to emphasize quality, as well as emphasizing GA's role as a launching pad toward FA.
The current wording is just this:
However, there are also many articles containing excellent content but which have not yet reached Featured article standards or are unlikely at present to become featured due to very short length. So long as they meet certain quality standards and have passed through the Good Article review process, they may be listed as Good articles.
I'd like to see a more explicit mission statement. As I see it there is only one mission (but it has two subparts):
My main point is this: GA is not for .. what's the word they use on consolation prizes... uh, "participant" .. whatever. It reflects high quality standards.. as I repeatedly state.. that are something on the order of 75% or 80% of FA.
Talk amongst yourselves. -- Ling.Nut 17:31, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't like this idea that GA should automatically be seen as preparation for an FA. GA should be an end in itself. If some authors then want to bring their article up to FA standards, that should be their decision. Editors at Wikipedia are volunteers. They might see GA status as a reward for spending their time and effort here, without wanting to go through the agonisingly long drawn out process of FA candidacy. They might also think their time was better spent writing two or three GAs instead of concentrating on a single FA. The more GAs there are, the better it is for this encyclopaedia. I noticed that there used to be a section setting out the differences between a Good Article and a Featured Article on the GA criteria page. In September, it seems a small group of users decided to remove this section in a bid to blur the distinction between the two. This isn't really on. For all the talk of "raising standards", regular GA reviewers seem unable to cope with the stress of enforcing the criteria as they are at the moment in an even manner, so an added workload is hardly going to make matters better. If GA criteria were returned to a reasonable level, then I think it would improve things all round: the encyclopaedia would benefit from the increased number of good articles; more editors would have the incentive to bring their contributions up to GA standard; and quality control at the GA candidacy and review would be much easier to maintain.-- Folantin 18:34, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
(remove indents) As I see it, there is one and only one problem with GA: anyone can pop in, pass an article, and disappear into the mist. The only fix.. is.. the dreaded B word (that would be "bureaucratization."-- Ling.Nut 19:58, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict)
(added comment) also, what you said makes sense moreschi. I am listening.-- Ling.Nut 20:19, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
(remove indents): OK. Gotta quit for tonight; talk soon. Later. -- Ling.Nut 20:57, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I can't talk. I shouldn't have been doing all the talking I have been. I enjoy talking too much, as my wife will tell you.
I wanna leave a note for the whole WIAGA question. I hope you won't come to any conclusions for a while; not at least 'til Dec. 16 when the semester ends. But of course you may think the need is urgent.
My position in a nutshell:
Because although you guys reject my desire to see GA as a steppingstone to FA, I just couldn't live with my conscience if it didn't contribute meaningfully to all aspects of an article more often than not. If GA is not steppingstone to FA.. then at least.. it must be something that makes a meaningful impact on the encyclopedia! Otherwise my time is better spent writing articles about Taiwanese aborigines. :-)
Later -- Ling.Nut 20:31, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict)
I believe Moreschi's point was not that writing should not be a prerequisite, but that the writing standards were being unfairly applied. That said, I *do* think that readability is impoortant for GA, and that it should be looked at as a mediator-led process in many cases. Have a look at the good it did for topics like Whale shark in the period up to the GA, and several others. I'd like to think my GA reviewing helped it a lot. Indeed, Agrippina (opera), the source of the dispute, still improved a lot. The objection was, I think, more to the tone of the GA reviewer.
Yes, there's going to be problems, there will be objections, but we must keep up GA as a force of good for the encyclopedia. To that end, I prefer On Hold (an optimistic procedure that encourages work in the week it's on hold) to immediate failure in most cases. Indeed, that might be a good rule: Give it time to improvve and take in the recommendations. Adam Cuerden talk 15:40, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
I know lists cannot qualify as GAs, and I would (very safely) assume that portals, which are even further away from the concept of an "article" than a list, is also off-limits. I ask simply because someone put a portal- or, rather a sub-portal, on GAC, which I don't think I've ever seen before (possibly because nobody's ever done it). -- Kicking222 23:15, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Right, I was wondering where the guidelines stand in relation to articles on rather uninteresting topics. For instance, as, according to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Precedents 'Cities and villages are notable, regardless of size'. So, say I worked heavily on an article about a village (Which I have, and though isn't now, it is the article that I can most likely meet 'Good Article' criteria) of no particular relevence in the grand scheme of things, could this become a good article just as easily as an article about a city? In fact, would it not be easier to get this to Good Article status, as there is so little that is to be said? Any help on the matter would be appreciated, I would be fair proud if I got a Good Article under my belt. J Milburn 19:42, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines now has an elevated status as a guideline for WikiProjects Mathematics and Physics. So the question we are all eagerly awaiting is does this affect the GA criteria? -- Salix alba ( talk) 13:33, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
(undent) A straightforward and helpful reply! Thank you.
I have a question. Are you saying that any science article can be posted on Wikipedia Talk: WikiProject Physics? What about math articles? What about Space weathering?
I know that some contributors are vehemently against WP:GA delisting scientific articles for lack of inline citations. That's all well and good. But any crackpot could write any kinda shtuff about Flux capacitors, and who's to know? In short, what can be the process for dealing with all science-related articles? -- Ling.Nut 14:14, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
(undent) Huh? That doesn't make sense. You're saying "high quality referencing" is our wolfsbane against crackpots; the science folks are saying "we don't want no stinking referencing." Something's gotta give somewhere.-- Ling.Nut 20:33, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to make a proposel about compliance with the MoS, which the current criteria says is more or less mandatory. The thing is, I think many of the things in the Manual of Style, when their followed, simply make articles look final and polished, rather than necessarily just "good". Since many people seem to feel that having the criteria so similiar to FA standards is problematic, I think this will be an easy way to both make the criteria not be so similiar, and make articles which are actually Good be allowed to stay on the list, even when their contradicting something in the MoS which might not be very important. Furthermore, the MoS is quite large, and I don't think most people even know everything that's in there, I know I'm certainly not familiar with it all. I think what we should do is re-write the MoS compliance part to name just a few parts of the Manual of Style that Good Articles should rightly satisfy, so that it doesn't look like there's some demand that, for instance, text needs to be nearly perfectly formatted or exceptionally Captionalized.
In particular, I think that the vast majority of MoS related disputes i've seen concerning GA's involves only a few key parts of the MoS. In particular, I think WP:LEAD, WP:LAYOUT, WP:MOSDEF with jargon, WP:WTA which is like WP:WEASEL, and especially WP:WAF with fiction pretty much sums up the important stuff that comes up concerning Good Articles status. The special articles guidelines seem to be disputed, inactive, or developing, so I don't think we should be expected to grade articles by them. All of the supplementary manuals are just technical type stuff or how to format English correctly, and I don't think i've ever seen articles which comply with the GA criteria in every way except by having bad capitalization, improper dash use, or improper marking of trademarks. Command line use might be important at WP:MOSCOMM because programming articles would look a bit, well, un-good with improper use of it, but all in all, I don't think most manuals in this category on their own should really be helpful in deciding whether an article is "good" or not. Besides the fiction guideline, (Which is definently important in my opinion) in the other guidance section, most of those things are either redundent with other criteria anyway, or are fairly obscure, and things which I really don't think should impact whether or not an article is good. I propose that GA criteria 1(c) therefore be altered to read: "It follows the following elements of the Wikipedia Manual of style: Article lead guidelines, Article layout guidelines, Jargon guidelines, Words to avoid using, How to write about Fiction, and How to incorporate lists." Any thoughts? Because these seem to be the only major guidelines that really concern how "well-written" an article is that aren't redundent with something else in the GA criteria. Homestarmy 02:09, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
To make it necessary to comply with a GUIDELINE has led to more b'cracy and formalities that it has been useful. Articles don't HAVE to comply with the Lead Section guideline. They aren't forced to comply with anything of the MoS. That's why the MoS is a guideline, and not a policy! That is why the MoS starts with saying
So that when our reviewers look through an article and decide that "sorry, the lead section must have one more sentence per WP:LEAD", it is hurting more than helping.
Therefore I have rewritten the criteria to say that as long as an article does not seriously violate any part of the MoS it should be OK (provided that it is otherwise comprehensible).
I am happy if you want to "fix up" my edit in case I have used the wrong words, but I hope you will agree with what I am trying to say.
Fred- Chess 10:07, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
The "logical deducation" part draws flashbacks to OR advocates tossing that term around to try and defend the inclusion of their OR synthesis in the article. Is there a better way to phrase that? There is also a gap between what is Common "Joe Bloe" knowledge and Common "specialized" knowledge that is not made clear at all. A key point is that these articles are meant for the average reader who may not hold a Master's Degree in any given field that an article relates to. I've tried to cover the third issue about good faith requests for sources (especially for things that dance into that Common specialized knowledge area). Feel free to rewrite but try to keep the spirit intact because we certainly don't want to be hostile to good faith request for sources on things that may not be "common knowledge" to the reader. Agne 20:09, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
LOL...how about creating a subpage for WP:WIAGA/criteria 2b with all the legal disclaimers? :p Agne 20:24, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
(after edit conflict) I do think an area of common ground is setting the bar at passing WP:V and WP:NOR and if a reviewer or another editor makes a good faith request for specific things to be cited then it should be. If a reviewer thinks the article fails Criteria 2 for whatever reason, it shouldn't be unreasonable for them to place cite requested tags on the things that cause them to fail. That way the editors aren't left in the dark or thinking there is some magical number of cites they need to have. It's always about the content not the count. Agne 20:35, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
It is too long and I think trying to find acceptable wording for "common knowledge" or what are "logical deductions" is an impossible task. Why not just note the new guidelines? For example:
That really is already long enough and I see no contradictions nor any need for more text. -- RelHistBuff 23:17, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
What does "simple arithmetic" refer to? Does it mean that complex arithmetic needs a source? / Fred- Chess 10:35, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
It is not a good idea to have unstable criteria and as we are already discussing it here, I have put 2b back to the original version with a reference to this talk page. The last suggested version by Pmanderson is below:
I suggest getting consensus here first. -- RelHistBuff 11:55, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Anything wrong with the proposal above, namely:
?? linas 22:03, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Ahh, "inline", of course. I do believe that PMAnderson clearly states the opinion of the vast majority. Inline cites are great when a single sentence makes a single, citeable claim. I've started using them myself. But as the science-article guidelines make clear, inline cites are insane absurdities in most cases. The WP:Music stance should be no surprise, and I can't imagine any editors in any academic discipline, be it history, social studies, anthropology, linguistics, supporting inane inlining.
I'm guessing that inline cites mostly come in handy as a tool for edit-warring controversial articles, where every factoid, true or false, is questioned, argued. But I believe that edit-warring is the exception, not the norm, and demanding inline cites just because the propagandists love them is inappropriate in general. Does this correctly capture the majority opinion? linas 04:06, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
This is deplorable; I trust it will not recur. If we are going to have an interim form until consensus, it should either be the day before yesterday's text before Fred Chess's compromise, or the last undisputed form, from August. (It should also not make an incomplete and inaccurate account of the extent of the dispute.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:51, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
No one has objected to the following:
The examples listed for no element of novelty were:
We can put this back in if editors start claiming their revelations from Atlantis contain no element of novelty.
The following is sensible, although it would be well to make it non-prescriptive, as here. But it applies to most of the criteria, and should be a separate sentence away from the individual criteria.
That leaves:
This is compatible with every guideline and policy; it is expressly demanded by Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines. Under it any reader will know where to check any statement; if it's not specifically sourced in-line, go to the general reference for the section. Many scholarly books use it. What is the substantive problem here? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:52, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
I apologize for not contributing to this discussion, and indeed not even following it closely. Real life has intervened in 2 or 3 different ways.
I've skimmed bits and pieces. If my remarks are redundant, I apologize in advance. But I wonder if the nature of the topic that has been the center of the discussion ("Bach") kinda skews the outcome. I'm sure there are a few controversies about Bach and his work. I assume that based largely on human nature. ;-) But there's no way that Bach is the minefield that many other topics can be.
I have no problem at all asking for inline cites on every line, and even two or three per line, on extrememly controversial topics (TYPICALLY political figures such as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk or regions embroiled in controversy such as Lebanon).
Here's a list I put on Talk:Mustafa Kemal Atatürk:
- Direct quotes: "Culture is the foundation of the Turkish Republic".
- Acts of government: "Recent moves by the Turkish government have provided Kurds with greater rights and freedoms, particularly in areas such as the Kurdish language, education, and media."
- Numbers, figures, dates, etc.: "...succeeded in achieving a substantial increase of the public literacy rate from 20% to over 90%."
- Broad, strong generalizations: "...reforms to which much of the population was unaccustomed but nevertheless willing to adopt."
- Specific Historical events:"...he was appointed the commander of Derne on March 6, 1912."
I finally apologize in advance for not being able to participate much in the near future. I just wanted to throw these thoughts out for people to deal with as they wish.
Thanks -- Ling.Nut 18:22, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Regards. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:25, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
WP:V says "Editors should provide a reliable source for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, or it may be removed." Sure, consult any of the references. Mmm. That might work for Bach — you know, that really, really long article that somehow or other manages to have only half a dozen or so sources (one of which is uh Rasmussen which has its full reference.. uh.. wait.. it must be here somewhere....uhhh...). Well anyhow it might work for the six or so references in Bach. What about Irish phonology? What about Paul McCartney? What about... ummm... maybe half the high-quality articles on Wikipedia, which have something more than the mysterious "Rasmussen" plus five or so others? -- Ling.Nut 04:14, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
First of all, I think it is an inherent problem to write in a guideline that one of its criterias is disputed. I can think of several reasons why it is so bad, so I'll leave it to your imaginations to come up with your own. Instead we must strive for our glorious guiding star Wikipedia:Consensus.
Secondly: would it be OK to have as a guideline that every paragraph should utlize an inline citation? See Johannes Kepler for an example of an article that has done this (with some omissions).
Fred- Chess 02:26, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
When I proposed the change to the MoS guideline, I forgot all about WP:SELF, I don't think it was listed in the main MoS template :(. I want to bring it up here because I think there's now a conflict of interest with the Platform game article up for a review right now, and while I personally think self-references just plain don't look good at all, I don't know if it could be justified that it counts as bad writing :/. So what does anyone think about adding WP:SELF to the MoS list there? Homestarmy 02:04, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
I've added that inline citations are necessary for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged. To be frank, I find this particular formulation diffuse, and would prefer to write it differently. But it comes straight from a Wikipedia guideline.
Can we at least agree that referencing of "material challenged or likely to be challenged" ( Wikipedia:References#When_you_add_content) must be done through some sort of inline referencing? Is there anyone who thinks it can be done in some other way?
Fred- Chess 23:15, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Personally, I very much like the current version. It strikes me as eminently reasonable, a good compromise, and common sense, seeing as that's what I pretty much do anyway. Is there anyone who doesn't? Cheers, Moreschi Deletion! 12:19, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
It's a step backwards and will keep the GA tag in the low esteem it has carried because articles that are truly not good articles or are not anywhere close to FA status will still continue to receive and maintain the GA tag. Agne 20:10, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
An anon changed the MoS guideline to " It follows certain elements of the Wikipedia Manual of style, namely the Article lead guideline, Article layout guideline, Jargon guideline, Words to avoid using guideline, List incorporation, as well as the relative article specific guidelines as found on the {{style}} template.", adding the last part with the style template, which in effect makes the change I made compleatly pointless, and makes it so articles must adhere to basically the entire MoS again. The anon seemed to be User:Tarret but he/she never responds on his/her user talk page, so I have no idea who this person is, though they seem to mirror Tarret's editing style. Can I get a consensus about the changes I proposed above about the MoS guideline, Fred said it shouldn't be controversial, but I don't want to fight against an anon who might be someone I would trust, or might be just some random person who likes to edit everything Tarret edits. Now, admittedly, I have no idea what "article specific guidelines" means, if that's the special article types I really don't like that at all because several of them were formerly rejected, (they seem to of been taken off the template or something) are proposed, or are just plain not planned out as well as other recognized parts of the MoS. Homestarmy 18:43, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
I note above two people wanted the line about compelling prose removed as it is too subjective and I just wanted to add my voice to that consensus. If this is a standard below FA then there is no need to replicate all the criteria used there is there? Appreciate thoughts on this. Hiding Talk 21:04, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
I've done a (somewhat shorter) version, and used the room to say that we would like excellent prose if we can get it. (1b) and (1c) were in conflict as to whether a lead is necessary; I think short articles should at least be able to get GA, even if not FA. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:32, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Star Trek XI meets and exceeds all the GA requirements. The article has over 40 citations, and even though it is a future film, it certainly is stable judging by its history. However, when it was submitted for GAC, it was returned with the comment: "Wait until the film is released to nominate it, o and you missed this PLEASE DO NOT NOMINATE FILMS THAT HAVE NOT YET BEEN RELEASED AS DETAILS WITHIN THE ARTICLE MAY CHANGE BEFORE IT IS RELEASED. M3tal H3ad 01:24, 28 January 2007 (UTC)"
Since when are future films not eligible for GA? -- Wikipedical 01:38, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
We discussed this before in Talk:Harry_Potter_and_the_Order_of_the_Phoenix_(film)#GA_comment (there's also another comment in the section below that) and I also recently put a hidden comment to not include future films, mainly due to their lack of stability as the release date comes closer and there is a fury of new details, plot summaries, box office figures, critical reviews, etc. Also I'd say that this film is not going to be released until 2008, where a lot of details can change, there's a possibility of it being cancelled (highly, highly doubtful, but possible), and the cast changing. I'd wait for it to be released and then renominate it a month or so after the surge of editing dies down when it's released. I'll include a copy of this message on the film's page, and let the reviewing editor make the decision. It looks like a really good article though, so keep up the good work. -- Nehrams2020 02:09, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
The whole article is a bunch of rumors and speculation
Basically all it is are rumors, nothing is mentioned about the actual cast, storyline or production under their sections. When it is released, it will need to be completely re-written to include the cast and the story. This is why i failed it, it fails criteria 2, factually accurate and verifiable, (d) it contains no elements of original research. etc etc. Plus there's one sentence paragraphs, some references aren't formatted properly. etc etc M3tal H3ad 07:46, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
If you spot a list of works, or a list of awards, that is in reverse-chronological order, please either correct it to chronological order as per WP:LOW, or tag it with the template {{ MOSLOW}}. This template looks like this:
This article or section contains a list of works that does not follow the
Manual of Style for lists of works (often, but not always, due to being in reverse-chronological order) and may need
cleanup. |
Please also add WP:LOW to the list of manuals of styles to follow in WP:WIAGA.
Jews are defined as "members of the Jewish people". If you look in WP for Jewish people you get redirected to Jews. So this is a circular non-definition. The other definition given refers to the Israelites article, which is a description of religious beliefs, sourced from the Bible. This qualifies as a Good Article?
One of the criteria for good articles is that they have "a fair use rationale." for any non-free image used. It is not demanded that this rationale be, er, "accurate," or that the rationale be acceptable per our fair use policies. Many good articles violate our fair use policies (most of our articles with fair use images do, but that's another problem.) Can we consider changing this? Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:18, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Why? it makes articles accurate, verifiable, claims are backed up. On failing articles for having no inline citations the nominator uses the excuse "inline citations are not mandatory", or "this isn't an FA process" which questions one to where they got their facts from. I'm wondering why this rule hasn't changed yet? Some articles have 0 in-line citations and make good articles look like a joke - plus many articles at GA/R are being delisted due to having no inline citations. Can we have a vote or something? M3tal H3ad 08:32, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I think we should replace the following:
"(d) necessary technical terms or jargon are briefly explained in the article itself, or an active link is provided."
with the following:
"(d) the article can be understood by any likely reader. Technical terms or jargon necessary to understand the article are defined in it. Technical terms not necessary to understand the article are either defined or hyperlinked to an extant page."
As many people here are no doubt aware, far too many Wikipedia articles are incomprehensible to many readers. This makes them pretty much useless. (The point of an encyclopedia is to tell people things they don't know, so if you can't reach the people who aren't already knowledgeable about the subject, there's no point.) Therefore, I think we need a stronger statement here.
Note that I say the article should be understood by any likely reader. The likely reader of the article on Non-abelian gauge transformation, whatever that is, may be a university physics student, so there's no need to define terms like boson or quark. On the other hand, an article on atoms or molecules may be read by a high school student or an average person with a high school education and little if any background in math or physics. A good article would explain atoms or molecules in a way that such ordinary people can understand them.
I'm also recommending that we specify that terms that are necessary to know to understand the rest of the article should be defined in the article, not simply wikilinked. There are two reasons for this. One, it's annoying to be sent on a wild goose chase around the encyclopedia to understand each sentence. Also, the articles on technical terms or jargon tend to be more complex and more difficult to understand than the first article. To use atom as an example, it wouldn't make sense to say "An atom is a particle with baryonic nuclei held together by vector gauge bosons surrounded by an atomic orbital." If the reader doesn't know what an atom is, he or she is certainly not going to be able to understand the article on gauge bosons. -- Mwalcoff 00:42, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
I suggest that it is recommended (but not mandatory) that when paintings are used to illustrate an article, a reference is given to the whereabouts of the painting (museum, private collection, etc.), so that interested people can find out more about it and even visit it. I say this because I recently read an article about Marly le Roi in France, illustrated with a painting of the palaces, since demolished. But I found no reference anywhere in Wikipedia that enabled me to find out where the painting could be seen. It seems to me to reasonable and desirable that if a painting is used to illustrate an article, the caption should not only say what it is and who painted it, but also where it is. DavidLlewellyn 09:25, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Nowhere in Wikipedia is an article given such short shrift as is the case in the process of promoting articles to GA status. All it takes is one editor to make or break the article. While GA might not be FA, if there is any point at all in having this classification, editor vetting needs to be part of the process. Speedy delete takes only two editors, AfD requires at least three except in obvious circumstances, and I have never seen an article go to FA with any less than six inputs. If GA status represents the input of the community, then one editor does not cut it. I would like to see this category have some status within Wikipedia; if so, changes need to be made. Denni talk 23:08, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
I believe the "stable" requirement should read as follows: "It is stable, i.e. it is not the subject of ongoing edit wars. This does not apply to vandalism and protection or semi-protection as a result of vandalism, or proposals to split or merge the article content."
My firm belief is that editors should spend a few hours in the morning working on an article, and having that article promoted to GA status by that evening. There needs to be a distinct difference between GA and FA; otherwise, we'll have two redundant processes. We should make it so that most established editors can make a GA quickly and efficiently without problems. — Deckill er 23:55, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
There are a couple of articles I've worked on that I felt were probably too short for GA, though I thought they said everything that needed to be said. Venture Science Fiction Magazine is probably long enough, but how about Space Science Fiction Magazine? And if there is a lower limit, does it have to do with GA specifically? I guess it might be the case that if an article is too short for GA, it should be expanded; and if it can't be expanded, it shouldn't exist as a separate article -- it should be merged. That would imply any completed article, however, short, can reach GA. Anyway, what's the lower limit, in people's minds? Mike Christie (talk) 23:51, 1 April 2007 (UTC)