Jump to content

Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations/Archive 35

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 30←Archive 33Archive 34Archive 35

When does an article have too few sources available to ever practically reach GA status, if ever?

Recently I decided I wanted to try for the first time to get an article to GA status. Reading through the criteria and surrounding material and discussions and things, I started to feel confused about something I remain confused about even after attempting an article submission. Basically, I've read, both in the archives of this talk page and in the "Reviewing good articles" guide, both the perspective that "there is no minimum length for GAs" and the perspective that "some articles can never practically be GAs because the needed sources don't exist". "Reviewing good articles" essentially says both, in fact:

The good article criteria are achievable in almost any article…

and

Not every article can be a Good article. If the references to improve an article to Good article standards simply do not exist, then you should not overlook that part of the criteria.

If "the good article criteria are achievable in almost any article", to me that intrinsically implies that length alone shouldn't be a factor because many articles will remain fairly short even if they cover the available sources comprehensively (simply because many article subjects are too obscure to have many sources available). In turn, I would think that implies that the criterion of broadness should be evaluated based on the available sources—like, what the "main topics" are would be determined by what the available sources treat as the main topics, what it means to cover them well should be evaluated based on how much detail the sources go into, etc. That way, just about any article would be able to pass the broadness criterion as long as it really did cover the available sources well, whether there are many or few.

If "not every article can be a Good article" because the article should be failed "if the references to improve [it] to Good article standards simply do not exist," I would think that implies instead that the criteria for broadness would be based on something else than the available sources—something I think would, in practice, have to involve some kind of minimum article length or level of detail independent of the available sources (e.g. a list of required sections for the topic area and a standard of minimum depth each must go into for the article to be considered sufficiently broad). With this approach a large majority of articles would not and could not ever be GAs—only those articles with a large, wide ranging pool of available sources, which I would say is a select few based on the many times I've clicked the "Random article" link.

These perspectives seem to me to directly conflict, and yet they apparently coexist. Even though I've seen it said in many different places that "there is no minimum article length for GAs," most of the articles currently up for nomination do seem more on the side of satisfying the latter criterion, and the article I tried submitting was quickly failed on that same basis (lacking the needed sources to ever practically be a GA). On the other hand, I know there are some very short GAs, although I've also seen people express disapproval of that too, and suggestions like "stub-length articles should never be GAs" etc. Still, people do often say "there is no minimum length for GAs" and of course the GA criteria don't directly say there is. As someone totally new to the GA process, I feel deeply confused about this and unsure how to navigate it; I've worked on several articles that I feel are quite polished or at least close to, where I've gone to pretty great lengths to try to ensure that I've considered the vast majority of relevant sources anyone could reasonably find, and yet the resulting article is shorter than what it appears the average GA is simply because the subject just hasn't received that much in-depth coverage in RS (e.g. sometimes I like to press "Random article" and then just try to take whatever I get as far it can go). I don't want to waste anyone's time by submitting articles like that if there really is wide agreement that such articles simply can never be GAs, but I've seen people say that GAs can theoretically be of any length so many times that if there really is also wide agreement that many articles are just ruled out by having few available sources, people are finding some way to harmonize those perspectives that hasn't occurred to me. 🍉◜⠢◞ↂ🄜𝚎sₒᶜa𝚛🅟ම𛱘‎🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 09:22, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

You raise a good point and I think the project should probably have a discussion about rewording this criteria, if it's confusing and/or contradictory. I'm personally of the opinion that stub-class articles shouldn't ever be nominated for GA, but I'm not sure how much higher I'd set the lower bound for GA length. It would be interesting to know the statistics on our current good articles, so we could see what the average length is and what the shortest and longest articles are. --Grnrchst (talk) 09:46, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
Statistics on the longest and shortest can be found at Wikipedia:Database reports/Good articles by size:
The shortest articles seem to be covering roads, Olympics articles and some sports players. A lot of oversectioning.
Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 10:10, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
Haha, I was starting into the process of basically writing exactly this but you got there first, thanks for doing this ^^ The article I tried submitting is 646 words/3,847 prose size, so it's on the short side for a GA candidate but there are about 2,000 shorter existing GAs (which is part of why I thought it might be acceptable). 🍉◜⠢◞ↂ🄜𝚎sₒᶜa𝚛🅟ම𛱘‎🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 10:20, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
Seems like we have a few dozen stub-length articles at GA. I'm surprised that Ohio road made the cut, given it's entirely cited to state government reports without any secondary sourcing. GA criteria aside, I'm not sure it even meets notability standards. --Grnrchst (talk) 10:32, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
I've just gone through the articles that are >15,000 words long, as per our article size guidelines they should be trimmed at this length. I do think most of these articles are of a large enough scope to justify a >9,000 length, but at GA they really should be following the style guidelines. --Grnrchst (talk) 11:05, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
@Rollinginhisgrave: The Talk:2024 Men's T20 World Cup Super 8 stage/GA1 is pretty clearly AI generated. Worth giving a once over?--Launchballer 09:36, 11 June 2025 (UTC)
Geez, and a sockpuppet to boot. Talk:Golden Temple/GA1 needs to be reversed as well. CMD (talk) 10:01, 11 June 2025 (UTC)
2024 Men's T20 World Cup Super 8 stage is now back in the queue. Chipmunkdavis, I went to reverse Golden Temple but I saw it was already done in May at Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Golden Temple/1. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 12:15, 27 June 2025 (UTC)
For reference, the GA nominee in question is: Mr. Nutz: Hoppin' Mad. I think the review is lacking and strays from the criteria as written. The review focusses on three points: length, coverage, and media presentation. The article at 646 words/3847 bytes is sufficiently long to be considered for GA. It is not a perma-stub. The broad criterion is determined by available sources, not by editor expectations. If a section cannot be written from sources, then whether or not you might expect one is irrelevant. I'm not sure whether 'gameplay' might be excepted from inline citations like WP:PLOTREF which allows editors to write a plot section without citing sources because the work is the source itself. You can use that exception to write a fuller 'story' (maybe 'synopsis') section, at least. Any video-game oriented editors might be better positioned to provide input on this particular point. Media should be presented if possible. An article may attain GA criteria without a single piece of visual media if none is available. Considering the article length, without using a gallery, the article is already densely packed with the media presented. The reviewer might benefit from reading the essay WP:GACRNOT (note that the GACR aren't a guideline or policy) particularly regarding the broadness and appropriately illustrated criteria. Mr rnddude (talk) 10:19, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
I see that there are 12 reviews for this game. Generally, per MOS:VG rules, each review should also be present in the prose of the "Reception" section, and not only in the reception table. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 10:40, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
They are, right? Sometimes in brief but I think I made sure to give each a summary—is there one I left out? If several reviews said essentially the same points I would group them together and note that, but that's also recommended by the MOS. 🍉◜⠢◞ↂ🄜𝚎sₒᶜa𝚛🅟ම𛱘‎🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 10:44, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
The prose appears to be missing: Mega Fun, Amiga Joker, Mega Zone, and Games World. Mr rnddude (talk) 11:13, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
Oh! Thank you for checking, I'll incorporate those. I wrote that section kind of a long time ago now, so I don't quite remember what was going on at the time; I definitely intended to cover them all, but maybe I was working on that section when I was too sleepy or something and lost track of what I'd covered partway through. 🍉◜⠢◞ↂ🄜𝚎sₒᶜa𝚛🅟ම𛱘‎🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 11:26, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
Oh, thanks for the advice re WP:PLOTREF, I could definitely flesh out the plot summary on that basis. I kind of remember coming across that at some point now that you mention it, but I don't think I had seen it at the time I was writing that story section, and at this point I had kind of forgotten about it again. The WikiProject Video Games MOS section on gameplay says that the gameplay section should be sourced as typical, though. 🍉◜⠢◞ↂ🄜𝚎sₒᶜa𝚛🅟ම𛱘‎🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 10:41, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
Something else to note, maybe…WP:GACRNOT implies that the Video Games MOS should be disregarded entirely for purposes of evaluating game articles for GA status, but I get the impression based on my experience so far that many regular game article assessors would howl at that. 🍉◜⠢◞ↂ🄜𝚎sₒᶜa𝚛🅟ම𛱘‎🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 11:07, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
The GACR only mandate a very small amount of compliance with the MOS, see GA1b. It isn't prohibited to ask for improvements concerning other sections of MOS, but it isn't a requirement to follow them. Mr rnddude (talk) 11:13, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
I took a look at Wikipedia:Good articles/Video games (1990-1994) and found a few GAs of similar length and depth as the nomination: Captain Novolin, Navy SEALs (video game) (sub-700 words), Painter (video game) (~ 670 words long and attained GA in May 2025), and Somari among several others that are 800-900 words long. These were brief checks, as the point was to establish precedent for shorter articles in the same topic area. A few of these shorter articles combine story and gameplay in a single section, such as The Simpsons: Bart's House of Weirdness. I noticed that they were consistent in sourcing gameplay and the MOS link above confirmed that this is necessary, this may make combining the two sections difficult or undesirable. Mr rnddude (talk) 11:13, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
Thank you, those are great points of reference. 🍉◜⠢◞ↂ🄜𝚎sₒᶜa𝚛🅟ම𛱘‎🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 11:28, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
There are differing opinions as this is somewhat of an art rather than a science. Regarding "I would think that implies that the criterion of broadness should be evaluated based on the available sources", that is I believe generally true, but there are exceptions where new sources might be expected that don't exist. For example, media which is not yet released. CMD (talk) 11:56, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
I'm interested in how you see GA's broadness requirement compares with the broadness standard discussed in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ira Brad Matetsky (2nd nomination)'s close. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 12:27, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
The GACR are content curation considerations, and subordinate to policies and guidelines such as those relating to notability and BLPs. We've had GAs deleted/redirected before. CMD (talk) 12:46, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
My position is that if there's enough sourcing to confidently establish notability, then that's enough to create a GA. If there's not enough to create a GA, then the subject isn't notable. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 15:57, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
We have notability criteria that are not based on depth of coverage in secondary sourcing. But I would avoid nominating or passing an article whose notability is based only on those criteria and that does not also have GNG-worthy sourcing. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:52, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
I was thinking this, but then I remembered that GA criteria includes that the article is broad enough to comprehensively cover the topic. We can have enough sources to establish a topic's notability, without having suitable RS for certain levels of detail that would be needed to meet the broadness criteria. That's where "too few sources" can come into play. Kingsif (talk) 20:40, 15 June 2025 (UTC)
Well if the notability-proving sources don't care enough to cover it then I don't think it would ever be a piece of information that would be required. Comprehensiveness is FA, not GA. Broadness is not equivalent. PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:02, 19 June 2025 (UTC)
In the sense of the topic coverage would be incomplete, not the FA level of comprehensiveness. Kingsif (talk) 14:18, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

Inactivity

In Talk:Keyshia Cole/GA1 neither nominator nor reviewer has been active for a bit. Was wondering 1) If anyone (well, any any two really) would like to pick this up and 2) If I'm allowed to close it in this case. Thanks! GoldRomean (talk) 00:53, 27 June 2025 (UTC)

I'm not a GA process regular, but if the nominator is inactive I think you can just fail and close it. There's no way to have someone take over the nominator's role unless someone else has written about it enough to be not considered drive-by... AlphaBetaGamma (Talk/report any mistakes here) 05:47, 27 June 2025 (UTC)
Standard procedure is to put up a notice in the WikiProject to see if anyone wants to address it. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 15:29, 27 June 2025 (UTC)
Neither have been inactive for very long. Before any action is taken, they would probably appreciate a friendly message on their user talk page. —Kusma (talk) 17:48, 27 June 2025 (UTC)
Thank you, everyone! I’ll leave talk page notices and let the WikiProjects know, then fail if needed. GoldRomean (talk) 02:13, 28 June 2025 (UTC)

Feedback on a review

Apologies if this is a bit navel-gazey to post on here, but if anyone is willing then I'd really appreciate some independent feedback on my most recent review (The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien). It's been playing on my mind, and in hindsight it may have been a good idea to get a second opinion while the review was still open. Even so, if I did make any mistakes/misjudgements, I'm keen to confirm this and correct them, rather than allowing self-doubt to put me off reviewing in future! Fair warning: a quick Ctrl+A puts the word count of the review page at ~8000 words (not helped by the fact I checked all the sources). I'm particularly keen to get feedback on my handling of criteria 2C, 2D, 3 and 4, so feel free to just look over these. If this isn't the right place for this kind of request, please feel free to revert my addition of this section, and/or talk to me/email me about any feedback or concerns. Thanks in advance! Pineapple Storage (talk) 22:38, 27 June 2025 (UTC)

This is the right place, don't worry, and there's plenty of requests like this.
Re. crit 4, I think your open communication definitely helped. As a more subjective criteria, you're right to bring up concerns to be discussed and ideally quelled or addressed by the nominator. While your concerns may have been a bit out-of-scope, you approached discussion well to accept this. What I identify here is that beyond neutrality, your concerns seemed to creep more into broadness territory as that discussion went on. Perhaps in this case, your review could have been structured differently, to address a prose concern that touched on multiple GA criteria in one. But it resolved well, I think, and your crit 3 review does point to it.
Re. crit 3 - your 3A review is tied to the crit 4, same comment. As for 3B, I feel your first point is correct and well-explained - if I was encountering resistance from a nominator and being pointed to a lead summary as the excuse, I might have asked for another opinion or been a bit more insistent and then asked. What I feel is missing from your 3B review is that the article's reception section has four sub-sections, some of which are less standard and more topic-specific than others, and concerns stemming from this. E.g. reading this whole section, I am greatly questioning #Readership already (if the topic warrants its own section, how the topic is defined because it swings from fans' expectations to general readership potential, if it can possibly be balanced due to only having views from one person, why this one person's view on one topic of response is worth an entire decent-sized paragraph, and then there's the distinctly weak prose style and grammar...) - and then there's the question of if #Impact, a one-line main section, would be bundled into #Reception under this structure. "Is the #Reception section properly focused" is a question I feel hasn't been completely addressed, and I worry you may have been pressured into accepting it as-is. (I also feel, if discussed more, some of this information may have been given own sections, which could have addressed your crit 4 balance concerns, too.) As for the rest of the article, #Background sections often get addressed for focus - the appropriate level of context needed for the article topic - I'm not saying there's an issue with this, but it's not mentioned either way in your review and I might have done that (even just an acknowledgement that you think it meets the crit, as an often-questioned section).
Re. crit 2 - your 2C review is clear on why information cited to the book at least needs a reference to indicate this. I think the manner you addressed this is good. Your 2D review is clear on your potential concern, I think it can help doing some of the maths on 10% OVERCITE and all if there were any sources of particular concern, but it's not a necessary course of action.
And just because it sticks out when reading the article, your crit 6 review on the illustration is pretty good, but focusing more on 6B, a reminder that infoboxes and tables are "illustration" too, and where illustrations are in the article structure is relevant, and you've not commented on these. I know you asked for sample examples of poems in the #Content section, but e.g. the table not being contextualised or introduced could fall afoul of the "suitable captions" crit. It's also resulted in this section being sandwiched between two rather-large illustrations top and bottom - which there's no rule against, but how does it affect reading?
So, I guess you say the review is long - I think, because of your source review and explaining yourself well, things not to be discouraged - but I feel there may be things relevant to the specifics of the article that could have been acknowledged a bit more or differently. How you handled it, though, is good. Kingsif (talk) 13:26, 28 June 2025 (UTC)
Thank you so much for this comprehensive feedback!! Re 6B, I actually didn't realise that infoboxes and tables are also counted as illustrations, so I'll include them in 6B going forward. On 2D, I think I'd wanted to include some source-specific percentages, but before I got round to calculating them it already became clear that this was going to be a point of disagreement, so I guess I de-prioritised it and then didn't end up circling back. In future, if I have similar concerns, I'll include the stats straight away! As for 3A and 4, I think I was struggling to isolate what the problems with § Reception were; I felt like it wasn't quite right but couldn't put my finger on exactly how it could/should be fixed, so it wasn't immediately clear which criterion was most relevant. Now that you've pointed it out, I think the sub-section headings definitely formed part of this, as the number of sub-sections was an automatic 3B WP:DETAIL flag in my mind, but I guess I didn't make the connection. I was also aware of not wanting to nitpick, so I think I filtered out some of my more minor concerns to ensure the broader issues were addressed; as you point out though, maybe this wasn't entirely successful! In future I think I'll try to raise all the issues individually, even if this is just a short mention; if any particular points trigger extensive discussion, I'll be more likely to consider getting a second opinion. This feedback has been really helpful, thank you so much again!! :) Pineapple Storage (talk) 18:02, 28 June 2025 (UTC)
Hi Pineapple Storage, agree with Kingsif things were handled well. I won't repeat their feedback. Just as a note, page numbers are very useful for long sources as you noted, however the precise formatting and the consistency of references is not that important. If the sources are clearly identifiable, with specific pointers if long/changeable (eg. page numbers, access dates), they can be in whatever format. Don't let self-doubt put you off reviewing, you can always ask questions here. CMD (talk) 03:04, 29 June 2025 (UTC)
That's great, thank you so much! Just so I can be sure I understand, what prompted you to mention the page numbers and citation formatting? I hope I didn't say anything in the review that could be interpreted as mandating a certain citation format or total consistency, as that definitely wasn't my intention! I was just keen that page numbers be provided for long sources, especially when direct quotes are being attributed, but I'm keen to know if this wasn't clear. Pineapple Storage (talk) 03:59, 29 June 2025 (UTC)
I raised it as you said "References are consistently formatted" and there was some debate about rp vs sfn. A small point, and the keenness for page numbers is positive. CMD (talk) 04:13, 29 June 2025 (UTC)
Ohhh okay that makes sense, thank you! I think all I meant by that was that the refs complied with MOS:FNNR (specifically Editors may use any citation method they choose, but it should be consistent within an article) and so the references weren't a problem for criterion 2A. I was also keen not to crash through WP:CITEVAR re page numbers, so I went with rp initially as that seemed less drastic/intrusive than changing a bunch of citations to sfn unilaterally! Thank you again for the feedback, and clarification. :) Pineapple Storage (talk) 04:26, 29 June 2025 (UTC)
Although it is preferable for references to be consistently formatted, and helpful to note instances where they aren't, I think the longstanding consensus here is that consistency of formatting is not actually a GA requirement as long as the references are properly footnoted, collected into a reference section, and present enough reference metadata to clearly identify each reference. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:05, 29 June 2025 (UTC)
Makes total sense, I will bear that in mind in future reviews. Thank you for letting me know! :) Pineapple Storage (talk) 10:54, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

quick check on clarifications on Consciousness page

hello can I request a quick checkup on the Consciousness page recent edits? there was a misleading impression given by citing one and only one dictionary definition, when an academic peer reviewed paper notes FORTY separate uses for the word (!) to correct that false impression (on the basis that prioritizing one definition risks prejudicing / biasing this rather high priority topic) I moved what was previously a "box quote" to become the very first paragraph. the rest of the initial paragraph clearly highlights the fact that there is a massive overlap due to the many uses, making the use of ONE dictionary definition as "authoritative" a worrisome oversight / concern. thank you Lkcl (talk) 18:18, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

  • Three thoughts, one procedural and two substantive:
    1. Procedurally, as Consciousness is neither a good article nor a good article nominee, I don't know that this talkpage is the best place for this discussion
    2. Substantively, the current text of the lead paragraph looks like far too close paraphrasing of the source.
    3. On the general principle, I don't see any inherent issue with giving a single broad and simple definition at the beginning of the lead, even if philosophers argue over precise wording. Do many of these forty definitions actually dispute Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of a state or object, either internal to oneself or in one's external environment? Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:20, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

Merge templates

Do merge templates count as cleanup tags for the purpose of the cleanup banners quick fail criteria? I just noticed Firefox being nominated for Good Article, but there is an ongoing merge discussion on Firefox Lite that has not been closed yet. I will ping the nominator @D4n2016 so they will be aware of this concern. Gramix13 (talk) 03:13, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

Orange banners all should count, for one reason or another. In this case, you can't sign off on broadness and focus until that discussion is resolved. Kingsif (talk) 10:26, 1 July 2025 (UTC)
{{merge}} is not an orange banner, and is not listed at WP:CLEANUPTAG. I don't think being proposed as a merge target is a quickfailable problem – indeed it's not really a problem at all! That said I agree that I wouldn't sign off on an article which is proposed as a merge target until the merge request is resolved. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 13:22, 1 July 2025 (UTC)
The nomination on Firefox was reverted as drive-by, but in case this happens again, while a nomination is under review, I think the right thing to do would be to put the review on hold (after resolving other issues) until the merge is rejected or performed. For a nomination that is not yet under review, I think it can just stay on the nomination list as usual. Technically, one could consider this to be an issue under #4 (stability), but it isn't really the same thing as the sort of edit war that #4 is about. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:26, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

ChristieBot down

The bot is down at the moment and I won't be able to work on it until some time this evening at the earliest. I'll post an update here when I find out what's going on. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:53, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

Now fixed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:36, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

Should this article be failed?

May seem like an elementary question but I would like to clarify if Moto G54 5G should be failed in case any controversy rises up. I believe it doesn't meet the GAN criteria as there's a lot of missing info, such as having different variations like a 'J' and an 'India' version. Thanks, Icepinner (formerly Imbluey2). Please ping me so that I get notified of your response 01:18, 5 July 2025 (UTC)

Yes. Bgsu98 (Talk) 01:32, 5 July 2025 (UTC)
@Icepinner, I agree, personally I would quick-fail. GoldRomean (talk) 01:55, 5 July 2025 (UTC)
Yes. Comparing the depth of content to e.g. Pixel 6 (a current Good Article), I think it's far enough from meeting WP:GACR #3a that it can be quickfailed per WP:GAFAIL #1. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:16, 5 July 2025 (UTC)
Alright thanks @Bgsu98, @David Eppstein, @GoldRomean! Even though I started this review, I'm just gonna fail it tbh as it's pretty far from meeting #3a, unless y'all disagree? Icepinner (formerly Imbluey2). Please ping me so that I get notified of your response 02:36, 5 July 2025 (UTC)
Agree with the others above, David Eppstein's comparison to an existing GA is perhaps a helpful example to provide the nominator. CMD (talk) 03:57, 5 July 2025 (UTC)
I couldn't think of any GAs that are that long anyway (only 200 words). But I do agree with the quick fail. JuniperChill (talk) 16:43, 5 July 2025 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Good_article_nominations/Archive_35&oldid=1300164037"