"
Comment by Mattchewbaca – I would just like to commend you THR, for putting forth the time and effort to put this problem into perspective. Hopefully, with the great investigative work you have demonstrated here, this will send a message to these editors that their GA reviewing buddy circle is not to be taken seriously. Beyond the reciprocity of this group and their articles is the depreciated level of their reviewing knowledge. Some in this group, with or without realizing it, are responsible for the current diminished state of GA class articles. While I can't speak for each and every one of these editors, I have had personal experience with a few of them, two of which are , and .

The article Halfway Gone, which was nominated by  and reviewed by , in September 2010, was selected by myself to undergo WP:GAR. As you can see, the article clearly does not meet the WP:GA requirements. Many of the refs are duplicates of one another, including: Refs 19 and 35, 20 and 37, 21 and 33, 22 and 34, 23 and 40. There is the use of both Nielsen Business Media and Prometheus Global Media for the Billboard references. There are refs that do not support actual claims. Two-thirds of the Live performances section is factually inaccurate, seeing as though they are not live performances but instead taped and aired later that evening. My attempt at a successful de-listing of the article was met with resistance and consequently it still remains as a GA.

 reviewed Howling Bells (album), an article which I nominated for GA. He quick-failed the article within 57 minutes of creating the review page. His review baffled me, it seemed as though he did not have the knowledge required to actually be reviewing an article because the majority of his claims, as far as faults in the article went, were unfounded, they simply were not true. The other points in the article he claimed as weaknesses easily could have fixed within ten minutes.

Fighting Temptation is another article that  quick-failed the day after my GA nominated article was failed by him. He proceeded to pass this article after he and the nominator came to an agreement to where he would allot a certain amount of time to the nominator to make corrections based on his GA review. David Lucas (composer) is another GA nominated article that he has had quick-failed just this week. After the nominator of that article reached out to him on his talk page stating that she could have fixed all of the issues addressed in a timely manner, he agreed to give put the nomination on hold and allow her time to make the changes. Within 48 minutes of leaving the message on his talk page, the nominator had made all the changes to the article brought up by him, and now he has passed the article that he initially quick-failed. In the past,  was warned here to stop reviewing articles and had a thread started about him and his bad GA reviewing.

In closing, I would like to say that getting any of the articles that I work on to GA status no longer is a concern to me. These editors have flooded the market with their paltry articles and now GA is not a true representation. I find it amusing that these editors still nominate their articles for GA as if it's a noteworthy achievement... it makes me ponder. They seem to not realize that their GA articles are in the same league with a C-class article masquerading as a GA. Even though my comments were a bit off topic, I would again like to express gratitude to you THR, for casting light upon this matter which needs to be properly addressed at an administrative level. This act of back scratching amongst these editors as well as their abominable reviewing standards has to cease if GA status is to exemplify what it truly stands for.  (meow) "