Wikipedia talk:Good articles/Archive 2

message: I cordially invite you all to have a look at Wikipedia talk:Stable versions#Certification gang. Maybe Good Articles almost already resembles a certification gang to build stable versions for Wikipedia 1.0. Feel free to point out any good points or criticisms. -- Zondor 01:59, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia talk:Stable versions#Certification gang]] 

message: An interesting question has come up: how stable is "stable"? Jew was delisted (see also Talk:Jew#Delisted) as a good article because "it is one of the most unstable articles in all Wikipedia" on the basis that it is frequently vandalized. I pointed out in response that, other than vandalism, it is a very stable article and that this "rationale seems, in effect, to give any persistent vandal veto power over inclusion in 'good articles'." I'd be interested in hearing what others think on this. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:43, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Evolution is a featured article and it gets vandalised.  Joe D (t) 00:45, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My guess is that "stable" means: "not under a revert war", or at least "having a content that is mostly undisputed by (non-vandal) editors". Otherwise, there are very good articles that will never be WP:GOOD. - Liberatore(T) 14:14, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the solution is make sure that when (if!) Wikipedia:Stable versions is adopted as policy, we make sure that good articles are included.  The stable version can be the official GA.  Walkerma 17:58, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree; I think stable should define edit wars between users over different opinions/perspectives/ideas over a subject, not vandalism. AndyZ 22:18, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Seconded, popular articles are going to get the lion's share of edits (tending to make them better articles), but equally they are the most frequently targetted by vandal's. As mentioned above having vandalism as a criterion for a good article actually empowers the vandal's which is the last thing we need to be doing. Sfnhltb 13:24, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stable 

message: The list as it is now is practically unmaintainable, as there are articles that have been delisted still on it. Can we have an category? In which articles listed as good are automatically added and delisted ones automatically removed? --Tothebarricades 03:06, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What you are asking for depends on obtaining a reliable list of articles that are both in the category lists and have a  on their talk pages. You can't depend on a list created by the servers, because they fail to include somewhere between 60-80 of the articles with the template in their collection of links. This makes it very frustrating in to determining  which articles have been incompletely delisted -- or listed. (This is a fact I discovered shortly after publishing my response above to Allen3.) -- llywrch 03:36, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major problem 

message: Now, really, why do we need an alternative FA for those who didn't make it through FAC-purgatory? Can't we just add some well-placed and well-formulated praise to the relevant talkpages instead? Or, hell, why not even improve the article so that it can become an FA for real? This is like having a barnstar for articles.
Peter Isotalo 23:27, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is actually another level of quality that efforts such as this, Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team, and Wikipedia:Stable versions are looking for besides just the very best.  For want of a better term I will call this level encyclopedic quality and it is roughly the level of detail, reliability, and usability you would expect to find in a published encyclopedia.  Finding articles at or above this level of quality is useful if Wikipedia is to ever produce a version on CD, paper, or some other media that has limited capacity. The social engineering factors behind "Good Articles" might also get people to start citing their references on a consistent basis. --Allen3 talk 21:30, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: GA is not an alternative to FA - it's a list of articles that meet certain criteria, lower than those for FAs.  FAs are the very best that we can produce, but of course not every article can be the very best.  Many articles listed here are excellent short articles, for example, and I doubt anyone would want to see a 5kb article featured.  Merely leaving positive comments on talk pages, while a nice thing to do, would not give us a list of articles which meet certain standards, and as Allen3 says, identifying good quality articles is very useful.  It would also not provide the same incentive that this provides to ensure articles are referenced, structured and illustrated. Worldtraveller 03:02, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article barnstar 

message: Hi. Do any of you think that Papua New Guinea qualifies as a good article? Just wondering. --Khoikhoi 07:22, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It needs references. --ScienceApologist 15:10, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Neither does the Tibet article but it's on the list. --Khoikhoi 20:16, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Then Tibet should be removed from the list!  References are very important.  Worldtraveller 03:02, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question 

message: Just moved Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas from Computing to Sport and Games, which is where Final Fantasy VI is too.
It just seems mad to me to put things as "trivial" as games in the same category as Functional programming... Hairy Dude 03:15, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  GTA: San Andreas 

message: The article on the Russian famine of 1921 was rejected on grounds which are not those given on the project page; I would like to have it a GA,of course, but it is more important that the standards be stated and consistently applied. Please review Talk:Russian famine of 1921.Septentrionalis 04:41, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Lack of inline references shouldn't prevent an article being a GA, particularly if it is not a very long article.  Images are nice, but if there are none available then the lack of them should't stop an article being Good.  So, I think the article should be restored to the list.  I'll see if I can clarify the criteria a bit.  Worldtraveller 10:41, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  An appeal 

message: How to remove a bised article from the list? The authors have motivation to be biased and there are several of them to win any revert war. According to Gresham's law ignorants will every always win against competent people, because the number of ignorants is higher than the number of competent people.
Xx236 14:16, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Be clear in the comments you make on the article's talk page about why you're removing the article from the list.  List actionable objections based on the list criteria.  I had removed a few articles from the list a while ago and described why on the article talk pages; several of them had the objections addressed and the articles are now relisted. Slambo (Speak) 14:26, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How to remove a poor article from the list against motivated authors? 

message: I keep scrolling down the page but even though it's clearly visible when not being edited, I can't actually find it when I use edit page. I keep looking for it right after Geology, but it nor any of it's subsections come up, and I wanted to put Charlemagne in there, it seems like a good article, but I can't find the section at all, the only nearby edit button goes to a compleatly unrelated train project. Homestarmy 02:06, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Section editing had been disabled for some reason - I've just re-enabled it and you should be able to edit the history section easily now.  The reason it doesn't appear in the edit page is that it's a transcluded subpage. Worldtraveller 10:35, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! do I need to do something special to access transcluded subpages? Homestarmy 15:24, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, they're just like any other page, just that when you edit the page that transcludes them you'll see something like  instead of the text that appears on screen, and you need to edit project page:transcluded subpage rather than project page itself.  Hope that helps! Worldtraveller 15:26, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Cannot edit History section

message: Seeing as we've had our first Good Article become featured, it makes sense to Bold them on the list.  See the new  for a template I've used on F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (talk page) to show that the article has now become featured, the GA template conflicted with the FA template. --PopUpPirate 22:35, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. Deckiller 22:36, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually I don't think it's the first - previous articles that have gone on to become featured have just been removed from the list.  There shouldn't be overlap between the two lists as they identify different kinds of articles.  Worldtraveller 23:50, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I had heard some featured articles are occasionally demoted. If that happens, and it was a "good article" would it still be, or what? Just curious. Vaoverland 00:05, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

text: One would think it would still be considered a good article unless it goes so downhill it can't even qualify for that, people would need to know to put back the original good article template. Homestarmy 00:23, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, there have been a few good articles that have become featured. I don't see much of a point to the  template, why can't we just replace  with  and be done? --Pagrashtak 04:45, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As mentioned, if an article gets demoted from FA then the  template comes into its own, and looks less clumsy than the  template when shown next to Featured. --PopUpPirate 08:45, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Demotions are infrequent enough that adding  back to the article is not a problem. Also, if an article is demoted, it would probably be a good idea to reassess if the article is good anyways. I'm strongly in favor of deleting . Anyone else agree? --Pagrashtak 01:44, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: At any rate, GAF shouldn't put the articles it's in into the "good articles" category. This is really silly; if we are going to include a featured, formerly good, article, why not go through and include all featured articles as good? I don't think GAF is a necessary template; if you are worried about demoted FAs then it's better to keep an eye out on the demotions page rather than keep scanning through what will hopefully be hundreds of articles including GAF ;) TheGrappler 03:42, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I've nominated the template for deletion as stated below. Pagrashtak 05:48, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good Articles now featured 

message: I feel very tempted to remove Reduction (philosophy) and Ketuanan Melayu from the list. They are far-from-good articles with much, much room for improvement, and are not nearly good as other unlisted and more specific articles such as Eliminative materialism (kind of a self-nomination here) or Semantic holism. Also, I belive that listing Technological singularity under "philosophy" is misleading. --Kripkenstein 00:47, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Go for it!  Just leave a note on their talk pages noting that you've delisted them and explain your reasoning.  Worldtraveller 00:59, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I just read the two philosophy articles and found them both interesting and certainly well worth listing - three suggestions though, the intro to eliminative materialism is a bit impenetrable to me, and I would suggest rewriting with an intelligent but completely ignorant reader in mind; you have a 'further reading' section there but no explicit statement of what you used as references; and semantic holism could probably do with just a bit more of a summary of the article in the lead.  Worldtraveller 01:18, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Your suggestions are very much appreciated, Worldtraveller! I will get to it ASAP. --Kripkenstein 04:05, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with World Traveler about the lack ogff distinction between references and futher reading in Eliminative Materailism (FWIW, since I helped i writing and developing it). This is the reason I thought it was bit early to list it as a good article. I was plannning to take care of that today.
As to semantic holism (my own work) I appreciate and agree with the comments about summarizing in the lead and improving readability with a more general level of readership in mind. Coming from an backfropund of  constantly writing acamadeic papers, this is probably my greatest weakness. But I shall try to remedy this defect with help from others such as yourself.  On the other three artciles mentioned, I agree that techno singualrity is not a philosophy article and that the other two should be delisted. So I can back up Kripkenstien's position. Just go ahead abd do it. If someone wants the back, then can just go through the process again. No big deal.--Lacatosias 08:46, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not so "good articles" 

message: I recently nominated three articles on physics topics as "good articles". They were immediately accepted. However, as far as I can tell, no one (other than me) from Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics actually participated in this decision. I find this slightly disconcerting: the "Good Article" process is not making use of the domain experts that we have available on WP. Worse, it is even side-stepping the domain experts, who may quickly find major flaws that would otherwise be undetected.  I see this as a problem. What's the remedy? How can we do better?  linas 23:19, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals, the project has an ongoing assessment scheme for the project worklist - you could consider setting up a similar scheme in Physics. I know several WikiProjects such as Medicine, Anti-War Protests, Military History, Business & Economics have similar schemes. When GA was created, I was able simply to list all 28 or so of our "A-Class" articles as GAs, knowing that all 28 had undergone expert peer review here.  The system seems to work well - why not try it in Physics too? Walkerma 03:03, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps I expressed myself poorly. I'm concerned about the converse problem: that articles were promoted to "good" status without the review of the affiliated Wikiproject. Of course, any wikiproject can do as you suggest, but that is not the problem. The problem is that we could have, for example, a long and very impressive looking articles about quantum mechanics (or wave-particle duality) that are filled with subtle errors. And indeed, after a year of patrolling these, I can attest to this: most articles on (basic/introductory) QM topics are filled with subtle errors: as fast as you fix one error, some know-it-all high-school or college kid introduces another.  I'm concerned that these articles can be nominated, and accepted, for "good article" status, without actually undergoing the review of the Wikiproject that would be knowledgable on the topic. linas 20:04, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Linas has an excellent point, at the moment we have a real problem with this. Would somebody like to comment on my suggestions below? TheGrappler 22:26, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relation to Wikiprojects 

message: Following discussions above on tasks relating to this page that a Wikiproject could help greatly with, I have started a page for one.  I invite everyone with an interest to go over and take a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles.  I've just started the page off with a rough draft so input on what the project should be doing and how it should be organised is particularly welcome.  Worldtraveller 14:44, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles]]

message: Template:GAF has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:GAF. Thank you. Pagrashtak 05:47, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  TfD nomination of Template:GAF 

message: I recently listed a few maths articles that I felt fulfilled the criteria for a Good Article, but which were subsequently de-listed by someone who (corectly) pointed out these articles contained no citations or source. While I do not disagree with their decision to delist the articles in question, it did raise a wider point in my mind. The problem is that a great many articles are written purely from contributor's own knowledge. In the case of maths articles, the source was classes while at school or university. A similar case is articles about a town, where an author uses their own knowledge of their locality - if they write that a town has a river with a certain name flowing through it from north to south, where is the source for that? 
I'd like to stress that I feel citations and sources should be used wherever possible. However, how do we deal with articles like these where this isn't possible? When do we relax the rule on Good Articles needing citations / sources? Tompw 23:24, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There can be problems finding suitable references.  I am not sure myself what would be a good reference for an article I started, distance modulus.  However, I don't think there's a case for dropping the requirement for references - I can't really imagine a case where providing a reference is genuinely not possible, and verifiability is crucial to our credibility.  For maths articles, a textbook is probably a good reference to list.  Articles about towns should not include unverifiable local knowledge, really, as that would count as original research. Worldtraveller 23:44, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Verifiability is far too important; having references should be an important criterion for becoming good. If it isn't possible to add references to an article, there's a good chance that either the article isn't expanisive enough or the subject is not noteworthy. Pagrashtak 03:28, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Correct me if I'm wrong, but what Worldtraveller seems to be saying is that references should be added to an article which doesn't contain them, even if those references were not used to create the article. For example I could easily add several books that would count as refences for the Abstract algebra, but they wouldn't have been used to create the article. Wouldn't this would give a misleading impression that those books had been used as sources? (One could list such books under "Further reading" or similar... but this would count towards a Good Article's requirements for references? ) Further, in the case of local towns, I'm not talking about unverifiable local knowledge, I'm taling about very basic facts, such as the name of a river flowing through the town? How does one give a source for that? Tompw 13:03, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: References exist to corroborate an article's content, nothing more. If the reference cited corroborates the article's information, then there's no problem. Johnleemk | Talk 13:26, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Maths articles and citations 

message: Wikipedia:Article Assessment is another potential source of good articles. TheGrappler 20:42, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[WP:AA]]

message: 1. Is there an agreed procedure for what to do when a GA becomes an FA, as with Chew Valley Lake recently? 
2. What happened to the "silver star" idea? I quite liked it.
SP-KP 09:36, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is :Template:GAF for promoted articles. The silver star idea is only a serious proposal if WP:GA reaches policy status. TheGrappler 20:13, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And when we add that template, should we remove the article from the GA list? SP-KP 20:23, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Note that the  template is not consensus, so feel free to use it or not as you wish. Many users like myself and Raul654 maintain that it does not add any value to the talk page. And yes, featured articles should be removed from the Good Articles list. Pagrashtak 01:58, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two questions 

message: Hi all,
I have made a Perl script called GAAuto to automatically generate the list on the article page. From the script's page:
The script could be made to deal with subpages but it would require some substantial reprogramming. I noticed the History subpage was only really being linked from the article page so I substituted it back. For the Trains subpage this wasn't the case but I still made the substitution. The script is largely run offline and manually so if necessary editors can adapt its output to deal with a few subpages.
The script can automatically generate the current list without error.
Cedars 15:57, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not so sure that this would be the best method to maintain the list going forward.  Automated tools are all good and well, but adding Maglev train to the list today highlighted a couple issues for me.  The first was that I had to add it to both the list here and the rail transport list's former sole location (which is also transcluded into the Trains project page).  Shortly after I added it, the entry was moved, presumably by the script, to another section further up and had to be readjusted to its original location.  The main reason for making the rail transport section into a transcluded list was to make it easier to maintain as part of the Trains project; when it's subst'ed back into the main list here, it introduces the potential for error in list synchronizations.  Slambo (Speak) 21:36, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know what happened with the Maglev train article. I think it may have been a synchronization error. Whatever caused it, the article now stays listed with subsequent updates of the list. I could modify the script to print a message when the trains section is altered and then update the subpage by hand. Unfortunately without making the script commit page changes by itself the script will probably never master subpages. Despite its downfalls, the script has helped keep the list clean of delisted articles and made sure the list is kept up-to-date far more frequently. Cedars 09:30, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Cedars, I am probably just being really dense but I don't quite understand what the script does.  What is its input?    Worldtraveller 01:06, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Several files it downloads from the Internet using cURL and (if some articles are not listed but are in the category) some user input telling the program how to classify such articles. It outputs two files one telling the user of the list's headings and the other being a properly formatted version of the revised list. Cedars 20:16, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Introducing GAAuto... 

message: What thoughts do others have on how we judge when this proposal is ready for policy status? SP-KP 00:28, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a pretty active page now, I think it ought to be a guideline at least, isn't that the step before official policy? Homestarmy 02:49, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How do we go about promoting it to guideline status? SP-KP 21:25, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we just vote or...something. I dunno if there's some sort of process we have to go through. Homestarmy 23:37, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think Sj's points here need to be addressed, and also Worldtraveller's two points need to be resolved first. Walkerma 00:55, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ready for policy status 

message: I done been thinking see, and I was wondering if we could change how we upgrade pages to GAs. See what im thinking is that like many people are noting, many articles are being promoted to GA status, except it doesn't do much to lead to article improvement. So im thinking whenever articles get promoted to GA status, rather than just put the tag up, we make a section of the talk page on the article and copy all the criteria into it. Then we can go through each criteria one by one, listing how we thought the article met each category, naming any specifics, and noting any flaws we saw in the article under each category, whether or not it made it unable to have GA status. As an example:
What makes a good article? 
:A good article shares many characteristics with featured articles, and like featured content it must:
:be well written 
That's some good writing here
:be factually accurate 
Im not so sure about that "Christopher Columbus visited cambodia" comment, but the article does note that's probably wrong, so I guess it's ok
:use a neutral point of view 
 Now that "and then the peaceful indians were savagely tortured by having Columbus come ashore, violating their sacred lands, and causing several of them to think depressing thoughts, how dare Columbus do that!" Comment seems a bit over the edge, but all in all, this article seems good. 
:be stable 
 I noticed you got into a 3 month edit war over how to spell "Aluminium", but that was weeks ago, it's stable now it seems
:be referenced
Do reader rabbit prompts really count as sources for spelling? Might want to check that, but there certainly are references, don't see how it doesn't qualify in this category
:wherever possible, contain images to illustrate it. The images should all be appropriately tagged. 
 I thought that photoshopped picture of a black hole ripping a corridor in the space time continuum was pretty spiffy, nice work 
:be comprehensible to an intelligent layman. Jargon may be acceptable but only after short description in plain words. 
I thought your use of "antidisestablishmentarianism" was a bit over the top, but all in all the article wasn't that hard to read jargon-wise. 
:Good articles may not be as thorough and detailed as our featured articles, but should not omit any major facets of the topic.
This seems like a pretty good article to me, though if I may make a suggestion, try to go more in depth about how the moon was thought to be made out of cheese and how this affected the culture of Mexico. 
Of course, that's just me making up stuff, but what about a format type of thing like this? If everyone who upgrades articles makes suggestions and notes things about the GA criteria on talk pages sort of like this, would that give the GA system more of a point for everyone? I think it would make the system seem more, well, system-y anyway, it certainly gives people more reason to pay attention when they upgrade articles at least. Homestarmy 14:30, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps the simple critique used at WP:AA would work as a feedback method for GAs as well?  For an example see this review. Walkerma 15:13, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: I has a suggestion 

message: Er, what? What exactly has recently changed? —BorgHunter ubx (talk) 23:08, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It may have been a little late to put the notice up, but I am referring to the decision to have all potential good articles nominated. joturner 23:33, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How long do you reckon the notice should stay there? Worldtraveller 16:43, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm going to give it a week. Nifboy 06:18, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Policy change?