Wikipedia talk:Good article criteria/Archive 1

message: To me, these two points suggest the same thing:
* It is factually accurate - its content should be verifiable with good quality sources cited. Although citing of sources is essential, inline citations are not mandatory.
* It is well referenced.
Wintran 13:45, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree - they need a merge. --Celestianpower háblame 22:23, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree - the 'second' one is not needed. Flying Canuck 01:38, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I disagree. Original research may be factual, but it isn't well-referenced. NPOV articles may be well-referenced, but they are not factual. Neither would qualify as even acceptable Wikipedia content, much less GA content. ClairSamoht 13:00, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "What is a good article?" 

message: The FA system has its own set of critieria for articles which are lists, but we don't, so technically speaking, it seems no list can be deemed a good article since they aren't prose :/. How about we amend this so that the prose standards don't have to apply to lists? Homestarmy 15:27, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. And maybe the criteria should specifically mention lists. Maurreen 17:33, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm not sure what a 'good list' would be.  Can you give an example of what you might consider a list that contains excellent content but would probably not pass FLC?  Worldtraveller 17:59, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I assume you mean FAC, and I was thinking something like Timeline of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, because since its still a recent event I don't know if people would want to make it an FA, yet it isn't changing very quickly these days. Homestarmy 18:31, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Lists have their own 'featured' process: WP:FLC.  I'd say our one person review system would be completely inadequate to assess an article 112kb long so that particular example, I would say, we should not touch with a bargepole.  I don't know how the FLC process treats short lists, but if they generally look for lengthy lists, then there would be a place for us looking at short lists.  If they take lists of any length, 'good lists' would be redundant.  Worldtraveller 21:08, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you because the only real thing we could do is assess for the completeness of a list which is too basic to be done by the GA project. I'd say leave it as a FA-only process in order to prevent doing things twice and adding too much things to do on our hands. Lincher 19:39, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Good Lists?

message: I think a short paragraph explaining how these criteria are weaker than those for FA would be helpful. Hyacinth 22:57, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added a bit - hope it's useful.  Worldtraveller 21:19, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The addition tells us more about the differences between how the criteria are formulated than about what they tend to achieve. Especially in light of the next section telling us that "A good article may be any length", it is somewhat unclear what the criteria (and differences with the criteria for a FA) are for non-short articles. Assuming that FA quality requires that an article be good, what is additionally required of a somewhat lengthy "good" article to achieve featured status? --LambiamTalk 09:02, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Comparison with "What is a FA?"

message: I added adherence to the Wikipedia Manual of Style to the attributes of a well-written article, the rationale being (a) that in the peer reviews this is also used as a touchstone; and (b) that doing so is an entirely reasonable thing. I hope no-one is offended by this not being discussed in advance, but as far as I can see this page is not "policy" but really more descriptive. LambiamTalk 08:38, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adherence to Manual of Style 

message: It says:
"A good article has the following attributes. ... 6. It contains images."
"(b) a lack of images does not in itself prevent an article from achieving Good Article status."
The first part requires images, while the second part doesn't. It can go both ways:
If images are required for GA, then 6b shouldn't exist. If images aren't required, then why not just remove the entire Section 6? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 23:27, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the recent amendment by Tony has addressed this. The general idea is that where images are used, they must be appropriately captioned, tagged and otherwise adhering to image use guidelines, and that while images, maps, diags, etc are good to have, they are not a mandatory requirement.--cjllw | TALK 03:26, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Problem with that wording is it's very vague.  What is meant by appropriate?  When would havin images be inappropriate?  Right now, it says images should be included where possible, which acknowledges that many topics do not have suitable images availble to illustrate them, and is also internally self-consistent.  Worldtraveller 16:22, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

text: I don't see how that's contradictory, really - 6b is just emphasising that if it's not possible to illustrate an article, then don't fail it for not having images.  If it is possible to illustrate it, but it's not illustrated, then it falls short of what we would expect of a good article, and should be failed.  Images are not irrelevant at all - it's just that unlike references, they can be absent and an article can still be good.  Worldtraveller 08:43, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section 6 is contradictory 

message: I feel that it needs to be mentioned that if an article has any "negative" tags in the article, it should not be nominated until they are resolved. Personally, I automatically fail an article without further review if I see tags such as , , or  (failing #3, #2, and #5 respectively). It really shouldn't NEED to be mentioned, but too many people are submitting articles with problems that have big bold signs saying "I'M NOT READY YET!". They need reminding not to overlook such obvious errors, as we certainly should not. --SeizureDog 23:08, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed amendment

message: I've been adding a lot of info to the Winfield Scott (ship) article, which basically sat dormant as a stub since March.  Since I'm still adding info, I obviously don't think it qualifies as "stable" per se.  But once the bulk of the writing is done (by me, anyway), how long should I reasonably wait before thinking about a GA nomination?  --cholmes75 (chit chat) 23:30, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stability 

message: I'm happy with long articles that have bags of significant content. Example: Sicilian Baroque. I'm much less happy about long articles (or even shortish ones) that maunder on and on about the trivial. The last time I looked -- after a time, I gave up in complete disgust -- these were exemplified by articles on any aspect of tabloid staples such as Mariah Carey: what this or that "good friend" reputedly did, quotations of vacuous comments by the star, etc etc. I suggest that a good article has a word count that's somehow proportional to the significance of the subject in science, society, culture, etc. Of course this is next to impossible to judge, but the length-per-significance ratio of for example "Good Article" Mega Man X (character) (whose adherence to this isn't so obvious) strikes me as bizarre. These days a lot of books and movies seem to go on for ever; perhaps logorrhea is a Good Thing and I'm out of step with the times. But I suggest that these guidelines should at least attempt to dissuade editors from the pursuit of a soporific exhaustiveness. -- Hoary 15:04, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've come across an article recently myself which had a sort of smaller hint of the problem you've described, and I do think a change should probably be made. How about something else under the "logical structure" part of the well-written section, perhaps something to the effect of "Should flow in structure without getting off-topic"? Homestarmy 03:47, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Bloat is never good.  I'm sure at one point we had 'stays tightly focussed on the main topic' in the criteria.  It's certainly implicit in 'well written' and I wouldn't object to making it explicit.  Articles should say what needs to be said in the fewest words possible, and if they don't I'd say they're not well written.  Worldtraveller 09:58, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Concision and a sense of proportion

message: The definition listed in this section does not quite line up with that in the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment.  It may be a little confusing as to the quality and standards.  Morphh 12:14, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we may of changed it a few times, in particular clarified the dispute part, could you just update it on the 1.0's end? Nobody's tried to like stealth sneak in any new standards that I can see heh. Homestarmy 03:43, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Good vs. featured articles

message: ...but what we really need is a solid decision from somewhere. The bit I've added will discourage lists from being nominated but it's still a bit ambiguous as to where we actually stand on the issue.  -- Run!  23:25, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's good for now... we will re-open the subject when hordes of prosed lists that are well referenced and all are beginning to come in the process and ... we won't even know if they are lists anymore. Lincher 01:49, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  I've added a bit on lists... 

message: The current suggested attributes, point 2 (verifiability) require an assessor to have access to all the sources to check whether they actually support the facts that they are claimed to support. With most people having limited access to print and certain online media, this is not logistically possible, not to mention extremely time-consuming in the rare case of someone having all the requisite access. In the absence of such thorough checking, it is easy, for instance, to overlook original research that is indicated in the article as supported by a reference. Can we come up with criteria that can actually work in reality? - Samsara (talk • contribs) 13:31, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well it's always seemed to me that "Well-referenced" doens't have to mean "perfectly referenced", I mean, there can be some OR that slips in without making it no longer a good article. If an article only has book references or innaccessable material, I don't know if i'd be so quick to pass it :/. Homestarmy 18:38, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't really understand the point here, I thought I learned in school that book references were better than internet references in the first place. In terms of verifiability ... it is impossible to go through like 40 refs to make sure it is verifiable. Lincher 02:19, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We should be assuming good faith to all articles and editors, the intent of verifiability is not to have every reference checked, but ensure that articles are referenced and that the sources are clearly identifiable within the article. Gnangarra 04:32, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Taken literally... (verifiability) 

message: The requirements for GAs have become unreasonable recently. Historically, FA requirements have risen similarly, but now we have reached a stage where former (say 2003) FAs would not even qualify as a GA anymore. Stop turning the GA tag into another bureaucracy. GA means "good article", meaning an article is evolved and useful. Stroke order, imho, is easily a "good article". It may not quite be a FA, but that's the point for having an simple way of saying 'it's still good'. please, people. Much more of this, and I'll introduce "Fair Article", and of course, after a few months there will be swathes of instructions and review processes and templates to establish whether an article is "Fair". dab (ᛏ) 19:54, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't understand the point that your are trying to make. Please point to examples as I see more articles meeting criteria than those that don't. Also, please note that the GA process is not intended to be a downstep for the FA for small articles in the sense that if the article has just this to present (like 15kB of prose) then it will be too short for FA but can still be improved. Altough long articles will be pushed hard toward FA and may never even need to receive the GA tag as they will be past that point after the GA review. Lincher 22:37, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If I may chime in, that article did indeed fail the standards basically any way you look at it, it's a clear violation of WP:LEAD :/. That's not an amazingly hard criteria to follow, just put like half that introduction into another section or something. Homestarmy 01:02, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Escalation