Wikipedia talk:Good articles/Archive 10

message: I suggest that "Meteorology and atmospheric sciences" renamed as "Environmental sciences" to allow articles like algae bloom (ok, i know it's not a GA article, I'm only giving an example) to fall into the newly renamed section because algae bloom is not strongly related to meteorology and certainly not atmospheric science. OhanaUnited 06:35, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Doesn't it belong in biology better? Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 06:36, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Environmental sciences is corelated to almost every topic if you can stretch it a bit. It can belong to Philosophy (humans shouldn't destroy forests because it's home to other animals), Recreation (eco-tourism), Economics & Law (how businesses change their practices to comply the law), Politics (reasons pretty obvious), and the whole department of Natural Science. It seems best to rename it to cope with the future entries that falls into multiple topics. OhanaUnited 07:26, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I still don't see why algae bloom is related to weather. Having a catch-all could be accomplished by a Miscellaneous category. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 07:30, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Algae blooms are one of the major proposed methods for alleviating global warming, since they suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Seeding the ocean with fairly small quantities of iron can evoke large algae blooms which can pull half or more of the carbon dioxide out of the local atmosphere. linas 03:39, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Apparently, the algae bloom article doesn't actually state this. Too bad :-( linas 03:45, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rename proposal 

message: Many editors have probably noticed all four of these, but for those who don't have all the pages on their watchlist, there have been conversations with a similar background at WT:GA/R, WT:GA, WT:FAC and WT:FAR in the last few days.  I'm posting this note at all four places, to make the point that incivility (of various levels) and needlessly aggravating language is noticed and has a real impact.  Here are some section links:
*WT:GA/R#Individual vs. speedy delisting and most of the following material
*WT:GA#Concrete proposal and most of the following sections.  Both this and the above cover much more than "aggravating" posts, but that's a topic in both these pages
*WT:FAC#Could everyone be a bit nicer? Note Raul654's comments about "snowball oppose" paralleling comments on WT:GA/R about "speedy delist"
*WT:FAR#Notification: I go fuck myself An extreme case, admittedly, but it worries me that Bishonen's response doesn't seem a surprise after reading the other pages.
I don't have a prescription for this, but it doesn't seem coincidental to me that these threads are all going on at once.  Mike Christie (talk) 02:37, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I tend to agree with that.  Frankly, many of these talk pages have become so contentious that it has driven me to other tasks at wikipedia.  My hope is that this will all blow over soon.--Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:21, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think you may have misunderstood what Mike is saying here, but I'm not sure. Geometry guy 12:19, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Civility and the zeitgeist 

message: I want to propose that GA has an indictator on the top right corner to indicate it's GA (similiar to FA). Other wikipedias have this already so english wikipedia should have this as well. An example is Sir Robin Black (Chinese Wikipedia). OhanaUnited 11:44, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The anti-metadata crowd may become very displeased were we to implement such a thing.... Homestarmy 14:45, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah - I believe someone added it at one point - maybe a year ago.  It lasted about a week.  Personally I think this is valuable to our readers because it enables them to see at a glance whether the information in the article is at least somewhat reliable. (It's never a cast-iron guarantee - but better than nothing).  As to the bloat of metadata - I'd get rid of all of the template junk saying that this is a stub or it's unreferenced or contains too much trivia or...any of that stuff.  That is all VASTLY more distracting (and less useful) than a teeny-tiny green '+' in the top-right corner. (I would personally go with a silver star - fitting better with the iconography of the FA gold star. SteveBaker 15:59, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Or you can just grab chinese wiki's GA image, copy and paste the code to here. It's readily made for us. All we need is put up a drive to ask people to put up the template onto each main page. Silver star is not obvious because monobook's background is white, doesn't stand out. OhanaUnited 16:32, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

text:  I copied the code from Chinese Wikipedia and adapted it for use here. If you want to see what it looks like go here. --Psychless Type words! 20:08, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

text: As Homestarmy says, people oppose such a thing as metadata. It has been implemented at least a couple times, and deleted almost immediately. Even the FA star is not without some controversy. Gimmetrow 20:13, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Still, we haven't stirred up nearly enough trouble already with people trying to move or radically re-write the GA system, we need to pile on more controversy, lets get an ArbCom going at least, whaddya say guys? :D Homestarmy 20:34, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

text: If GA requires substantial community input then there won't be any difference between GA and FA except its criteria (which many GA reviewers actually use FA criteria when reviewing GA). GA is the smaller version of FA and anyone is allowed to change the article status from GA back to B. So there is a mutally agreement in the GA system that if someone doesn't agree with the review, they can downgrade it as long as they give their reasons. And getting back to the meta-data issue, many admins use  on their userpage and nobody removes this from their pages. I have gone to Metadata's talk page and couldn't find the controversy mentioned by Gimmetrow. OhanaUnitedTalk page 13:12, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you would like to know we tried it once and this debate ended it. I would however suggest you take it to WP:DRV if you want to bring it back.  Many of us here will gladly support you. Tarret 01:28, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Status indictator 

message: I've implemented a bot which can keep up with the WP:GA list. The perl script messed up too many unicode characters. Relevant diffs:   and . I've fixed the bug in the first diff which listed an empty section as having two articles, and can remove underscores from links. Any other problems? I plan to have this script go manually after each FA promotion cycle, but it could be on a fixed schedule. Gimmetrow 20:13, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Huzzah! Homestarmy 20:36, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Is the bot capable of updating the most recent GARs in the Template:WikiProjectGATasks? That would be great if it could be updated daily instead of various users attempting to update it every few days when they remember. --Nehrams2020 21:40, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm sure anything could be programmed, but this would involve parsing an entirely different page for quite different information. Gimmetrow 19:20, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It also appears - as of June 3 - to be sorting the articles alphabetically. Unfortunately, it isn't making a good job of it. For example, look at the list of artists which now reads "Alan Moore — Astrid Kirchherr — Auguste Rodin — Banksy — Canaletto — Caravaggio — Han van Meegeren — Hiroh Kikai — Isidore van Kinsbergen — Jack Coggins — Jean-Claude Mézières — Paul Rand — Ralph Bakshi — Romaine Brooks — Vincent van Gogh — Yoshitaka Amano — " i.e. it's ordered them all by forenames not surnames. This now leaves us with a job of reordering all the sections. If you want to run this again, I suggest you drop the sorting code or find some way of improving it. - Joe King 20:05, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WP:GA list 

message: I propose a template for talk pages that would be used to chart the progress on various issus such as legality, neutrality, writing, sources, and citations.  For example look at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Progress
I want there to be something like this.  If the graph should be vertical, then horizontal lines should denote the level of completion of each category (I have just listed 5): "More than a little more is needed to be sufficient" (Stub), "A little more is needed to be sufficient" (B-class), "Sufficient" (GA-class), "Thorough" (A-class).  This allows the editors of an article to know which parts of the article require immediate attention.  To ease the read of the indicator, a color should be filled in on the basis of the progress on a given issue category.  The indicator, when the bars are very low, can also speed up the decision making process for those who are reviewing articles.
On a additional note, I think this template should be applied through a transcluded page onto the talk page, so that the actual values on the progress indicator can be discussed more throughly with noinclude tags around the dicussion.
Sincerely, ◙◙◙  I M Kmarinas86  U O 2¢  ◙◙◙ 01:08, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bar Graph Progress Indicator on Talk Pages 

message: Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_June_14#Category:Good_articles_by_quality
Basically, :Template:GA and derivatives are sorting articles into three separate categories, which are functionally identical. One of them, :Category:GA-Class Good articles is part of a sequence going all the way down to :Category:Stub-Class Good articles of which no other category has a single thing in it. Let's trim out some category cruft. Adam Cuerden talk 17:52, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I suspect these exist just for ease of processing information for WP 1.0. I will leave messages in a couple of appropriate places. Geometry guy 09:50, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Category deletion discussion 

message: Some editors forgetting to update the count. Can we make this automatic? --Aminz 20:41, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think there's a bot that does that already, User:GimmeBot. --tjstrf talk 21:12, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Aye, every once and awhile it'll run and update everything, replaces the old GAAuto script. Homestarmy 01:33, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Should we just remove the instructions on updating the count since the bot does it for us? Homestarmy 00:39, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  It would probably be better to direct reviewers to completing other parts of the process. Some reviewers are simply changing the project template ratings, without adding a  or  entry. It's confusing. Gimmetrow 02:30, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I also caught two invalid passes in the log, are some people treating the GA ranking as something thats the same as the 1.0 rankings? Homestarmy 02:31, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

text:  Operation Gibraltar was passed and properly listed on WP:GA, although the reviewer didn't leave a message on the article talk page. Does that make it invalid? Gimmetrow 02:44, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Oh, I didn't see the talk page template, that's why I failed it. I'll relist it back to GAC. Homestarmy 02:55, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Editors forgetting to update the count 

message: While leaving a note for an editor I noticed the GA icon in the upper right hand corner of his talk page.  See User talk:OhanaUnited.  I did a quick search of the page for a corresponding template, but found none.  I also looked on the user page, but didn't find it there either.  I'm sure that usertalk and userspace pages are exempt from GA status (for obvious reasons)... I'm confused as to how/why the icon appears.  Any ideas?  /Blaxthos 17:13, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The code doing it is in User_talk:OhanaUnited#Good_article_template.3F. People can decorate their user and talk pages pretty much however they want, as long as it's not divisive and doesn't employ fair use images. It doesn't mean the talk page is "GA", just as putting a star on a userpages does not make it a featured article. Gimmetrow 17:27, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sorry for the confusion. It's just a small thing that started by Psychless because on that page me and him are talking about the reviving the GA symbol on the top-right corner of the article and he found the code (see User talk:OhanaUnited#Sure) from chinese wikipedia. It's not really meant to be there. He used my talk page as a code testing ground, that's all. Hope this clears up.OhanaUnitedTalk page 18:28, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  User talk space listed as a good article? 

message: I have formally filed a deletion review for Template:Good article at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 June 24#Template:Good article. Please participate in that discussion. OhanaUnitedTalk page 16:25, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deletion Review for template 

message: A rewrite of WP:FICT is being proposed at Wikipedia talk:Notability (fiction)#Rewrite proposed. Needs polishing, clarification, and so on, but it's a start. — Deckiller 22:04, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WP:FICT rewrite 

message: Are there any special tricks or restrictions in the categorization of GAs? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hyacinth (talk • contribs) 
: When you review and OK an article, list it on WP:GA under the section you think most appropriate. It's OK to list an article twice now and then. Or are you asking about something else? Gimmetrow 03:20, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Categorizing 

message: can someone create a template page for this category as updates here means that you have to edit the Good Article page (110+ KB page). Instead, have this the same way we have the GA count template. Any views. --Kalyan 05:42, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recently listed good articles 

message: Is there a way to expand all the "show" links with one click, short of copying the whole page to a temporary page and editing it into the superior format used by WP:FA? I don't like having all the good article links hidden by default. That breaks Ctrl-f search in a Web browser. Another problem is that many articles might logically fall under more than one possible heading (for example, an article may be about a business, and the business is involved in sports or
the arts etc.). I prefer the default keep-it-simple Wikipedia format of having a table of contents and visible sections with visible content. That works fine in thousands of long articles. Why abandon what works and go with an idiosyncratic layout here? One of the things I like best about Wikipedia is its generally simple and straightforward page layout, so refreshing in a world infested with sites that use Adobe Flash primarily to show off. If we need to have a fancy idiosyncratic page, can we also have a simple version with the same content for people who prefer to scan large amounts of text without having to click dozens of little "show" links? --Teratornis 22:47, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It would be nice to be able to open them all up, but I don't agree with you in regards to the WP:FA page - that is a very poor and unorganised layout which is basically just a ball of mess.--Konstable 23:08, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Show all? 

message: Is there any way we can have an automated count for Good Articles?  Tcrow777  talk  20:37, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think Gimmebot already handles that. Homestarmy 20:55, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Then why does it give you a link to update the number?  Tcrow777  talk  22:34, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, the number is actually on a separate template, so I guess someone felt it more convienent to put a link there in case for some reason it needed to be updated manually. Homestarmy 04:06, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Gimmebot" does not exist.  Tcrow777  talk  21:35, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, wait! It does, but it is case-sensitive ("GimmeBot").  Tcrow777  talk  21:53, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Automated count 

message: May have to read whole article (- hard)	One look is sufficient to invalidate it (0 intermediate)                             	Easy to explain the failure to meet criteria (+ medium)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            	One look is sufficient to validate it (++ easy)
Well written (0 intermediate)                         	Well written (0 intermediate)          	Well written (0 intermediate)                                                        	Well written (0 intermediate)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      	Well written (0 intermediate)
Clear prose (- hard)                                  	Yes                                    	Yes                                                                                  	No                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 	No
Correct grammar (0 intermediate)                      	Yes                                    	Yes                                                                                  	Yes                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                	No
Manual of style (0 intermediate)                      	Yes                                    	Yes                                                                                  	Yes                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                	No
Factual and Verifiable (++ easy)                      	Factual and Verifiable (++ easy)       	Factual and Verifiable (++ easy)                                                     	Factual and Verifiable (++ easy)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   	Factual and Verifiable (++ easy)
References (+++ super easy)                           	No                                     	Yes                                                                                  	Yes                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                	Yes
Reliable sources for controversial material (+ medium)	No                                     	Yes                                                                                  	Yes                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                	No
No original research (0 intermediate)                 	Yes                                    	Yes                                                                                  	Yes                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                	No
Broad in coverage (- hard)                            	Broad in coverage (- hard)             	Broad in coverage (- hard)                                                           	Broad in coverage (- hard)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         	Broad in coverage (- hard)
Major aspects (- hard)                                	Yes                                    	Yes, if an expert (more so the specific subject than the field), No, if not an expert	No                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 	No
Focuses on topic (- hard)                             	Yes                                    	No                                                                                   	No                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 	No
Summary style (0 intermediate)                        	No                                     	No                                                                                   	No                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 	No
Neutral (-/0 hard to intermediate)                    	Neutral (-/0 hard to intermediate)     	Neutral (-/0 hard to intermediate)                                                   	Neutral (-/0 hard to intermediate)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 	Neutral (-/0 hard to intermediate)
                                                      	Yes                                    	Yes                                                                                  	Yes, if it is not due to perceived coverage issues as a result of the lack of expertise the editors and reviewers have in the subject or field (moreso the subject) who see a neutrality issue and think something else should be added but don't know or agree on what "major aspects" to add without getting further from the the topic's focus.  This is how some controversial articles can be seem at times of frustration to be eternally damned to B-status.	No
Stable (0 intermediate)                               	Stable (0 intermediate)                	Stable (0 intermediate)                                                              	Stable (0 intermediate)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            	Stable (0 intermediate)
                                                      	No                                     	No                                                                                   	No                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 	No
Images (+++ super easy)                               	Images (+++ super easy)                	Images (+++ super easy)                                                              	Images (+++ super easy)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            	Images (+++ super easy)
                                                      	No                                     	Yes                                                                                  	Yes                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                	Yes
As you can see from the chart, which obviously may be of some error, I attempt to list the nature of testing for each criteria.  They range in difficulty and time in which they completed.  Some activities require only a shallow level of skill in reviewing, while others are clearly more involved.  I hope this time you will appreciate why I singled out "clear prose" and "broad in coverage" as criteria that should be singled out for superior reviewers who wish to give A articles their just reward.  B-articles do not go through a thorough reviewing process since the key qualities are easy to check for (i.e. Factually accurate, Verifiability, and Images (if applicable) - see chart above).  The thoroughness of reviews of Good Articles are highly variable - i.e. some are much more strict than others.  So it is a good idea to reserve the A article status to articles which have met the basic requirements which involve an intermediate level of work to check for.
◙◙◙  I M Kmarinas86  U O 2¢  ◙◙◙ 07:08, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: My attempt to make it evident that certain GA criteria should become requirement for A-class instead

message: WinFS was recently promoted as a GA. But it does not appear to have been listed here. Can someone please list it? I am not doing it as I have a COI with the article. --soum talk 10:25, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Carson 17:36, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request 

message: A month-long backlog elimination drive has started. There are several awards to be won. For details please go to Wikipedia:Good article candidates backlog elimination drive. OhanaUnitedTalk page 04:55, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  GAC backlog elimination drive 

message: The page above indicates it's a GA, but your list on the page doesn't. Any idea what happened here? John Carter 19:42, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't see the template or any indication that it had ever been reviewed, so I changed the GA rank in one of the wikiproject banners to A rank. Homestarmy 19:44, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you. Please check Spanish missions in California as well. John Carter 19:59, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks to be the same. Homestarmy 20:06, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The copyrighted images need fair use rationales. --Nehrams2020 20:32, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Hillsong Church]] a GA? 

message: Jean Keene was listed for review under Misc. I have passed the article, however, I have no idea under which category to list it. Any suggestions? LaraLove 06:25, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Parks, conservation areas and historical sites (conservation specifically) I'd say. Giggy UCP 09:32, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But those are places. The geography section just doesn't seem appropriate for a biography. Why is there not a misc. section, or a biography section? LaraLove 04:28, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What category? 

message: Please see this regarding the mess at the article that used to be at Raëlian Church, passed GA yesterday.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:52, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Admin help sorting out GA/FAC mess 

message: Is there a place where we can see the GA growth against time?--SidiLemine 19:12, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: How about Wikipedia:Good article statistics? --Nehrams2020 21:31, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks so much! I always have a hard time finding the Wiki Stats.--SidiLemine 18:52, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Evolution 

message: Can an article be reviewed and listed (by someone not too involved with the article, of course) even if it is not listed. Or does it have to be nominated first? --soum talk 17:51, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It has to be nominated first. I'll have to double check, but I believe the WikiProject GA coordinator stated that if you feel an article is a Good article, you can nominate it and, providing you haven't contributed significantly to the article, you can review it. It does, however, need to be a thorough and honest review based on WP:WIAGA, so if you don't have previous experience reviewing articles for GA, it may be a better idea to just nominate it and let someone else review it. I'll double check and get back to you. LaraLove 20:01, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "It's ok to be the same person to nominate and review the article as long as you're not a major contributor to the article. Just make sure that no matter how much you liked about the article, it needs to meet ALL GA criteria before it can be promoted to GA." OhanaUnited 19:10, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The vast majority of articles i've seen passed without being on GAC first were not done with the GA criteria in mind, or if they were, the passing user convinently ignored or forgot them. Best to enforce nomination for the most part I think. Homestarmy 23:28, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks a lot. Yeah I am not too into reviewing articles, but have reviewed quite some. Yesterday I came across an article which matched all criteria. But as I wasnt sure if I could review it as it wasnt nominated. I ended up just listing it. Anyways, thanks again. --soum talk 16:39, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Listing without nomination 

message: In the same way GA are sightly less impressive aricles than FA, GL could be less impressive lists than FL. Buc 21:23, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This has been suggested before and rejected before. There is a lot to seperate FAs and GAs. But there is not a lot to seperate FLs and GLs. --Kaypoh 00:06, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Could we have good lists? 

message: I feel that the introduction is unclear about whether a featured article is also a good article under the classification.  Logically, it is, in terms of classification, ?.  I was looking for the number of articles considered "Up to scratch" by Wikipedians and am unsure about whether it is # FA + GA, or # GA.
:If an article is a featured article, it clearly would meet the GA criteria, however, not all FAs have gone through the GA process. Additionally, when a GA achieves FA, it's removed from the GA list. Lara♥Love 14:30, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi, I got the impression that GA evolved later than FA. I also got the impression that the path to perfection (?) is stub-start-B-GA-A-FA with A being higher than GA due to its requirement to meet the perfect article criteria AND a peer review. If this is true why isnt GA part of the path to FA shown here - ? Pardon my ignorance or if I have dropped a few bricks. Regards, AshLin 16:38, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The "path" you list is simply ratings or assessments given to articles by various wikiprojects. A-class articles are rated by experts in the field of the topic. These are usually articles of technical or academic topics. FA and GA are both simply projects. FA was, as you noted, created first. GA was later created for articles too short to qualify for FA. The consensus being that many short articles were of high quality and should be recognized for it. Currently, however, GA has evolved to encompass very long articles that, with some extra work, can become FA. In that respect, GA can be a stepping stone to FA if article custodians so choose to take that "path". Lara♥Love 17:20, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: GA started much later than FA, but no GA can be an FA at the same time, FA status supercedes GA status. This can be helpful, because some delisted FA's are very old, and often don't even meet GA criteria. Plus, by the time an FA becomes a former FA, the content may of changed signifigantly, so another GA review would probably be helpful anyway. Homestarmy 23:14, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, my bad. I wasn't sure, so I checked articles that I promoted to GA that have since become FA and they're not listed at WP:GA anymore. Lara♥Love 05:28, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've been noticing a very healthy proportion of GA delists in the 1.0 log are due to promotion to FA status.... Homestarmy 06:58, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Somewhat unclear introduction 

message: Further to MadmanBot's recent visit to Scotland, I notice a minor degree of inconsistency relating to island GA's. Raasay is an inhabited island and in 'Places- Europe'. Mingulay, Dubh Artach, Flannan Isles and Staffa are uninhabited. The former two are 'Landforms', the latter two, 'Places- Europe'. My suggestion would be to have sub-set of 'Places- Europe' called 'Islands' and put them all there. I'll come back and fix this myself later if there are no objections. Ben MacDui (Talk) 08:13, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Landform & Place confusion 

message: Is there a reason that people are listed (in particular, in the music section... I haven't checked the others) alphabetically by their first names? This seems rather difficult to follow, for me. Is there a particular reason for this and, if no, would anybody feel against me putting this (and those like it) into regular alphabetical order? --lincalinca 12:35, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm indifferent. Either way is fine with me. Lara♥Love 15:03, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Other sections use piped names with last-name-first. Do that and the bot will alphabetize automatically. Gimmetrow 06:50, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Cool. I'll do it today. --lincalinca 00:47, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sequence? 

message: Is  accepted by the community? If so then why is it currently used on one page? T Rex | talk 14:03, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, corner icons are controversial. Gimmetrow 15:07, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If they're controvertial, why are they used for Featured articles? I'm not for adding them, but that's the fact. We also use it for audio pages, like the constitutional pages (1st amendment is fully audio, from memory). --lincalinca 01:05, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Because many people are against the idea of GA's in the first place. It's fine how it is right now. -- Phoenix2 (holla) 07:31, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

text:  This may be useful reading: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-05-22/Templates for deletion. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 18:13, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template question 

message: I wasn't sure what category TIE fighter belonged to so I listed it under video game characters. I'm not sure if that is the best category though. Anyone else have an idea? T Rex | talk 14:03, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have a feeling it should be under Weapons and Military Equipment. Anyone?--SidiLemine 15:45, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Is there a movie or fictional character/fiction section? A TIE fighter is about as "military" as Snow White, considering neither exists. ;) IvoShandor 02:18, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The military section isn't called "real world weapons and military equipment" AFAIK. And you'll have to admit it makes for an awkward character.--SidiLemine 10:36, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I expanded the heading of the "Fictional characters" to "Fictional characters and technologies". If the section gets to large it can be split down the line. If anyone can think of a better name go ahead and change it. I don't think that it belonged in video game characters as the TIE Fighter originated in the film, so its current location seems more appropriate. --Nehrams2020 06:46, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  TIE fighter 

message: In order to consolidate discussion in one place, I moved my recent post to Wikipedia_talk:What_is_a_good_article%3F#GAs_and_Future_Events.  Please join the discussion there.  Thanks, Johntex\talk 18:14, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stability and completeness regarding ongoing and future events 

message: I put the original icon up at WP:DRV. Anyone who is interested may comment. Tarrettalk 00:38, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It appears that Template:GA-article is now the same thing, and isn't deleted...? Homestarmy 01:01, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Icon at DRV

message: So, what is the plan regarding the addition of the icon? Is the consensus to not add it until the GA process has changed? 131.111.24.187 15:19, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: By that same logic, is there any way to really guarantee that featured articles go through some sort of 'expert evaluation', either? I think GAs go through a reasonably good amount of fact checking, though certainly not as much as FAs (that's the point). But I would be quite surprised if even half of all FAs had some degree of expert evaluation in it. The lack of expert opinion is one of the greater problems with wikipedia as a whole, not just the GA process. Dr. Cash 00:59, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: FA's get a couple extra eyes on them, which helps, but on the whole the same problem applies. I don't believe we ought to have the FA star either. (Aside from the fact that it's depressing to see a star stuck at the top of your paper, an incentive usually reserved for elementary school students, also applied to Wikipedia editors.) Christopher Parham (talk) 01:05, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The FAC process isn't perfect either, expert evaluation and fact-checking are not guaranteed, and in my experience many articles pass without them.  GAC is not FAC, but let's not put FAC onto an undeserved pedestal simply for the sake of downplaying GAC. Drewcifer 01:09, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: what's the plan?

message: Reading some of the above debate in the 'getting far too long section so I thought I'd separate that out over here' section, got me thinking about something regarding the sweeps. I think going back through older GAs is an important process, so this must continue. But as the number of GAs seems to be ever-increasing, sweeping through the whole list over 6 months or 1 year is going to increasingly take more time. Perhaps, there's a better solution.
What about modifying GAbot to automatically list GAs with a review date older than a certain time (6 months? 1 year?) on a page so that that could be re-reviewed. It could either add them as a subcategory on the WP:GA/R page, or on a newly created WP:SWEEPS page. I don't think we want the whole list completely merged with the existing GA/R list, because it's unnecessary, and would probably just add to confusion and increase the backlog that's there already. There's certainly many older GAs that are still in good shape, and won't be contested, but there's also many more that will be contested. But if GAbot automatically could give us a listing of these older articles, then the sweeps process could become a more continuous thing, instead of something that would cycle in and out. Any thoughts here? Dr. Cash 21:50, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not a bad idea, I think the list would still be substantial, but it would be much more manageable and would probably be more likely to yield non-compliant old GA's. Homestarmy 21:53, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm all for it. Fantastic idea. Lara♥Love 02:13, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Would need an option to mark them after re-reviewing so they don't keep recycling through the "check again" list. -- Ling.Nut 03:16, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The sweeps list should still work, I would think. If the bot ran in cycles, you just update that all articles in each category had been reviewed for that cycle. Also, update the GA or AH template with the current date/review link. We could also put a little green button on the top corner of the ... no wait. Maybe not. ;) Lara♥Love 03:39, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  The idea looks good. We already have a Sweeps page, just that it's hidden from most editors (that is, only the invited reviewers know the link) so that Sweeps can go through the whole list of GAs without letting any bad ones slipping through our fingers. OhanaUnitedTalk page 04:42, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm all for it. Make that and the two-editors thing above work, and we've got ourselves a wonderfully consistent process.--SidiLemine 11:43, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  sweeps frequency 

message: There's quite a bit of scattered discussion about whether or not GA candidates should be reviewed by just one person or some other form of collaboration.  Since those discussions are so scattered about, I thought I'd start a topic devoted to just that.  So, the ideas posed so far (as far as I know) are the following:
#One initial reviewer, raise any questionable articles at GA/R. (the way it is right now)
#One initial reviewer, have sweeps of recently promoted GAs done every so often by established editors.
#Review teams, two people informally pair up based on their admitted strengths and weaknesses (style, content, etc).  (originally proposed by LaraLove I believe)
#Two stages of review, one reviewer initially reviews a candidate, either passing or failing it.  Then, each passed article is then re-reviewed by an established editor/Task force to make sure that it was a thorough review and that they didn't miss anything major.  After the "go-ahead" by that second reviewer/Task force the article is then officially granted GA status.  In a sense this still preserves the one-reviewer per article thing, but adds a check/balance to the process.  The details of this re-review (such as how strict to be, what to look for, how to actually set it up) can be discussed and finalized at a later point.  I guess my idea is somewhat similar to the FAC process: a review must be closed by Raul 654.  Instead of one person, we have a group of people.  (this hasn't been raised before: it's just my idea I wanted to bring up)
If I missed anything let me know.  I think all of these suggestions are good ones, and one or a combination of them might be a good idea to improve the reliability of the GA brand/status/icon/whatever. Drewcifer 03:31, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, my suggestion is somewhat as listed above, but more of a mix of a few of them. I think the informal team of two with sweeps by established editors to ensure articles maintain their quality (done 6 months after pass). Questionable articles still listed at GA/R. I like your idea, but more geared toward GA/R. I believe it would be beneficial to have a group of established editors be responsible for processing (closing and archiving) GA/R discussions. Lara♥ 03:58, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, I've numbered the proposals to make reference easier. Anway, #1 (status quo) is the most practical as there is too much to do and few to do it. However, I've seen GA reviews that look oddly like a tag team effort - and the article does not look like it actually meets GA status - where "go-ahead" from a second reviewer might be a good idea. But it will slow things down. Best to stick to the status quo and not re-invent FA. We still have the GA Review for the poor choices.  Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 15:33, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's another problem. Some editors say GA is poor quality because reviews are done by one person. So we try to fix that and people complain that we're trying to reinvent FA. We're not doing that. We're trying to reinvent GA. Teams of two is far from panels of reviewers. It's a matter of checks and balances. Two sets of eyes are better than one. Certainly articles will pass that shouldn't... that's a given. Poor FA noms have been known to fall through the cracks too.Lara♥ 18:41, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: At this point, are those editor's complaints really accurate? Have they presented any concrete data supporting the notion that currently, our reviews are very substandard due to there being only one person? Homestarmy 21:35, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: From many of the quality reviews I've done lately, I can't say they've presented any concrete evidence, but I could certainly provide some. LaraLove♥ 04:16, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There's no way to know for sure, but the possibility that substandard articles are sometimes passed by less than thorough reviews is real.  And, by my own experience, it does happen.  A simple checks/balances process would alleviate that to a great degree, I believe.  And really, all that would mean is one person out of a task force/group/board of an undetermined number of people double check the article for major errors, skim the text of the actual review, and officially promote the article.  Few minutes tops. Drewcifer 04:21, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

text: If the objective is just to check passes, I think a far more simpler solution would be for people to skim the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Good articles by quality log‎ a bit, and check some of the newly listed articles. I already check all the delists, but lately i've been having less and less errors to correct or wrongs to right, so many of the delists are actually promotions to FA's, and most of the speedy delists seem pretty fair for the most part.... Homestarmy 05:57, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with this. It's sort of what I was thinking of when I was saying there should be sweeps of newly promoted articles.--Peter cohen 10:03, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I can tell you that proposal #1 fails miserably, as we put that into test during GAC backlog elimination drive. Some passes were absolutely horrible and delisted immediately. Proposal #2 will overwork the few established GA editors, so that doesn't work out either. I don't like #3, since often 2 people will have contradict reviews (this person thinks there's enough references, another thinks not) so they'll fight for this matter, which is not encouraging. I will go for proposal #4, but instead we don't need just 1 person to pass everything (because we got more GAC than FAC). Maybe we can put a list of people that the GA community believes that they can take on this cruical role. OhanaUnitedTalk page 15:56, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think #4 was meant to say that it would be one editor, the Raul of GA, but rather a task force of experienced reviewers. LaraLove♥ 17:05, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Lara, that's exactly what I meant.  They would have the some responsibilities as Raul, but would be X number of people rather than 1. Drewcifer 21:29, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Doesn't that look a bit cabalish?--SidiLemine 10:28, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

text:  We have to find a balance between quality of article, its transparency, and openness. This is the closest that we can get. OhanaUnitedTalk page 21:57, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  One reviewer or two? 

message: I would like to propose that we add an agriculture category to GA. Thoughts? IvoShandor 19:16, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias where the bias is mentioned: " Wikipedians' areas of expertise and interest tend more towards computer science and popular culture than more specialized areas such as agricultural science or Medieval art."  Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 21:19, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see anything wrong with this proposal, I just don't see which top-level category this would fall under. I would think that it would fall under "Everyday Life" as it relates to food and food production but the topic cover a large set of categories. Tarrettalk 21:37, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd put it under Science. When you study it at univeristy you get a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture degree. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 04:11, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see any reason anyone would object. Put it where you think it most appropriate. LaraLove♥ 04:18, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Science might be good, though I would note that most topics that you can get a Bachelor of Science in you can get a Bachelor of Arts in, there isn't really a connection to art or science implied by the degree conferred. Many universities offer both in a wide array of subjects, for instance I could get a BS in History at the university I attended by taking a few extra math classes. IvoShandor 15:49, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Hmm. I don't know where to add it. Though, I think many would consider agriculture a core topic for any encyclopedia. Perhaps it needs its own 1.0 thing, I know next to nothing about this though. IvoShandor 11:42, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed new GA category