Template talk:GA/Archive 1

Comments
Can someone fix the phrasing of this template please? It doesn't make any sense. If the article "has been identified as adhering to the quality standards leading to a featured article", then why isn't it a featured article already? &mdash; Timwi 14:13, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

TfD debate
This template survived a debate at TfD. The discussion can be foudn here. -Splash talk 00:56, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

new version
What a shame. Blindly characterising substantive and good faith revisions as vandalism hardly evers leads to a beautiful relationship. The previous version did not read well, lacked precision, and was partially informal in tone. In particular:
 * A "good article" may never graduate to featured article status. The wording "adhering to the quality standards leading to a featured article" obviously means "adhering to the quality standards which may make it eligible for featured article status", but this is verbose and so an alternative was needed.
 * We have a redundant link to the WP page; both "good article" and "identified" link there.
 * On the matter of form and being, a given article may appear on the good article list without actually being a "good article". It is more robust to note that an article has been identified as a good article. If you think that a "good article" is always a good article in an absolute sense, well even sub-standard articles manage to become featured articles. That's why we allow this status to be revoked in the appropriate case.
 * You cannot reasonably maintain that the statement "if you see a way this page (can be updated)…" is superior in tone, grammar of form to "If you can update (this article)…". It's not rocket science, it's just plain English fit for the project. Vandalism indeed. 203.198.237.30 03:55, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


 * This seems to be one of those cases where I agree with an un-logged-in editor. I think the new wording is an improvement.  Slambo (Speak)  12:00, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

That's just too pedantic and too tortured. Don't over-analyse this stuff! Restoring and lightening the wording. Dan100 (Talk) 11:01, 23 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Possibly valid observations, if you weren't ignorant of the background. The above was purely the result of an arbitrary reversion. In the interests of communication rather than edit conflict, the above explanation then got inserted. It didn't have to be thay way. On your modifications: So, you're from the let's improve things! school. Cool! What's not is your glossing over of the second last point above. The fact of the matter is that so-called "good articles" very often ain't. Use of the template in this form offers indefinite opportunities for embarrassment vis a vis this whole ongoing thing about WP's quality. Please reconsider and change back to "this article has been identified as a good article". 222.166.160.74 16:51, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Added Corrollary
See

at Template:FormerGA Benjamin Gatti 03:13, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Rewording
As part of a group of related potential changes, I have very tentatively suggested rewording this to:

Please see Wikipedia talk:Good articles for more details. TheGrappler 03:25, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
 * The wording has been changed substantially these past few days. Has a final result been reached? &mdash;Eternal Equinox | talk 14:23, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

cd selection?
It appears this now includes articles in the cd selection cat. However, the featured template doesn't even do this... I'll go ahead and add it to that one for now I guess. Anything think it shouldn't? RN 15:52, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Reviewed version
I'd like to suggest that the tag include a link to the reviewed version, but I'm not sure how to set it up. WP:FAs and WP:FL offer other historical information. Maurreen 15:30, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It would be fairly easy to add a new parameter (oldid) specifying the reviewed version, which if present would change the appearance to:


 * Is this sort of what you have in mind? -- Rick Block (talk) 15:17, 29 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Exactly! Thank you. Maurreen 15:24, 29 July 2006 (UTC)


 * OK, I still need clarification, please. I would copy the above to the template page and then delete the "66476881", and then the appropriate number would be filled in when the tag is placed, right? Maurreen 16:39, 29 July 2006 (UTC)


 * No, the above is just for appearance. The template code will be a little more complicated.  Assuming this look is what you're after, I'll add a parameter and change the template so that if the parameter is supplied the   bit will show up.  To use it, you'd put   on the talk page (replacing nnnnn with the id number of the reviewed version) rather than just  . -- Rick Block (talk) 21:21, 29 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh, thank you very much. I felt ignorant because I couldn't figure it out. Maurreen 21:29, 29 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Done. Feel free to try it out. -- Rick Block (talk) 21:33, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

It works. I appreciate your help. Maurreen 22:22, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Instruction
To indicate the reviewed version of a Good Article, use  on the talk page (replacing nnnnn with the id number of the reviewed version) rather than just. Maurreen 22:22, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Added clarification
I put this message on the template's page:


 * Do not add this template to an article if it has not had a review on the article's talk page. To nominate a good article, use .

I think this will be helpful with the common problem of users sticking the template on pages they think are pretty good, but which have not actually gone through the GA process, like iPod. Twinxor t 22:07, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Add warning note if not used with oldid
It should be useful to have a warning note for that.

Fred-Chess 02:52, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

It could look something like this:

and if oldid was provided

But I don't know, maybe the template shouldn't be cluttered. Fred-Chess 03:04, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

HOW to make pple replace this with ArticleHistory
I've added the following to make users replace this with Template:ArticleHistory: &lsaquo; It is recommended that you replace the template below in this article, with, which specifies nomination dates. &rsaquo; -- Andersmusician  $  03:48, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

New image?
Who thinks Image:Pictogram voting support.svg would look better than the current Image:Symbol support vote.svg, the new one is a better looking and more advanced image, who agrees in order to build consensus to eventually change it if consensus is in favour? Regrads &mdash; The Sunshine Man 19:31, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I like the three-dimensional look of the existing "logo." Also [[Image:Pictogram voting support.svg|15px]] is used for Likely as an inline comment image. Having the same pictogram might lead to confusion in certain contexts. Although this is not a vote, I would oppose on those grounds. (Although, Sunshine, there may be an expanded use for that image in other templates.)&mdash;Twigboy 01:37, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comments, I understand that the image is used in likely as I changed it yesterday. I wont change the image if consensus is not in favou of it. Thanks again. &mdash; The Sunshine Man 08:32, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Add "no oldid" category
In conjunction with clearing the backlog of WP:UCGA which is based on the lack of a topic parameter, is it possible to have this template create a category to indicate articles with GA templates that 1) lack the oldid field (easy) or 2) lack a non-numeric oldid field (eg "nnnnnn") (trickier)? While those of us helping on WP:UCGA are getting the oldids while also adding topics, there may be other articles where the topic has been set, but the oldid is not set or correct. I'm not sure what the best name for the category would be, maybe "Unversioned Good Articles" or something like that? Again, ideally this category would be empty but I'm sure there's articles that fall into it outside of those already in WP:UCGA. --Masem 15:52, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Tarret and 74.116.113.241 tried to do this recently (using Category:Good articles without an oldid), but there were errors in their code. I could easily add this functionality if there is a demand for it. There are probably more than 2000 articles in this category, though: are you sure you want it? Geometry guy 16:11, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Knowing that it can be done is good; having it done right now is not necessary, though certainly if want to create the code and category now just to have it done is fine. Of course, how the creation would affect WP performance may come into play (if 2000+ member categories puts a strain on the system, hold off for sure).  I'd wait until we've cleared the bulk out of articles at UCGA as there is likely many shared articles between these two categories.  Once that's completely, then tidying up the rest of GA that lack oldid with this added code would make for a much smaller and more managable category. --Masem 16:23, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The size of the category makes no difference to WP performance. Each time the template is changed, all 2600+ talk pages must be updated, but the servers process the job queue at several thousand jobs per minute, so it is hardly a strain! This is the reason, though, that it sometimes takes a short while for all the articles to appear in the new category. Correct code to implement this category is (I believe!)
 * placed in the "includeonly" section of the template. This only tests for empty or missing oldid, not for incorrect format. I'm happy to add this code now if someone else creates and organizes the category page itself. Geometry guy 17:41, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and did it: I'm curious to see how many articles are in there. Geometry guy 16:34, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
 * That's incredibly sparse for what I was expecting. But still good... --Masem 17:31, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I think you may have viewed the category before it was fully populated. Also I forgot to add a sort parameter to the category, so most of the pages appear under "T" for "Talk". I've fixed that now, but it will take another little while for the servers to process it. Sorry. Geometry guy 19:15, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Further to this, I count 839 pages now, and this seems to be complete. It smaller than I expected as well, but this may be because many GA's use now, which are not counted (and should not be: the use of oldid's there is different and more systematic). Geometry guy 19:33, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Further to this, I count 839 pages now, and this seems to be complete. It smaller than I expected as well, but this may be because many GA's use now, which are not counted (and should not be: the use of oldid's there is different and more systematic). Geometry guy 19:33, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Topic parameter parsing and expansion
This template didn't work very well because the topic parameter is a keyword, and so it didn't always link to the right place on the good articles page. I fixed it (I think) by introducing a subtemplate GA/Topic to parse and expand the topic parameter. The full name of the topic is now displayed in the template, and the links should now all work. This change also simplifies the code for the categories, although a special fix is still needed for Engineering (which appears in the category name, but not on the good articles page).

Additional advantages are that the topic parameter is now case insensitive, and the full name can be used instead of the keyword if desired. I also added "category=" as a synonym for "topic=" for compatibility with. Geometry guy 12:58, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Little bit of a grammar nitpick, but topic=Everydaylife generates the text "listed as a Everyday life good article". Not only does the a/an mismatch occur, but I would argue that the capital E does not belong in this use (as Everyday is not a proper noun). Also, is there a way to "unfold" the hidden section when one is linked to the everyday life section of the good-article list? Since you clicked to go there, you are intending to view the list. (Not a biggie, as it only saves one click.) &mdash;Twigboy 15:34, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The capital E is there because it is the beginning of a title (hence it is in italics). The a/an would be a pain to fix in the obvious way, but it could be fixed by rewording (e.g. "among the Everyday life good articles"). For your last query, the answer is "no", because there is no way to know which is the right section to open, and opening them all fills several pages in some cases. Geometry guy 15:59, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * You make a point that it is a title, but in that case, all key words are capitalized: Everyday Life or Social Sciences and Society. However, since we are actually considering these as subjects, it is appropriate to write subjects as lower case (mathematics, history, with an exception for proper names like American literature). This also leads to the hyphenation police labeling it as a social-sciences-and-society good article. Perhaps the way around it is to rephrase as listed as a good article about (subject) under the good article criteria. Sorry to be the pesky grammarian about something so small.&mdash;Twigboy 16:22, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * It is a matter of convention whether all key words are capitalized or just the first, but I like your suggestion, and will probably implement it, even though it complicates the code slightly. Anyway, this is all on a talk page, so is for editors, not readers, and is unlikely to attract hyphenation-police attention Geometry guy 19:41, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Tongue
This template is only in two other languages! Why? Basketball 110   what famous people say  18:14, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Leading vowel in topic parameter
The reason for this change is that the template currently reads "a Arts good article," etc. Another fix is to use #ifeq to add an s if topic = arts, everydaylife, or engtech. –Pomte 03:15, 2 March 2008 (UTC)


 * It was a clever work-around, but has been reverted. If anyone has any good ideas, please comment here, as the #ifeq to add an n would add a lot of code to the template. Geometry guy 09:30, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay, none forthcoming, and a #switch would not add so much code, so I'll just do that. Geometry guy 16:33, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

GA symbol at top of article page
Consensus was reached over at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Good_articles to have the GA symbol appear at the top of the article page. Is this supposed to be built into this template at some point? Or is this something a user should add separately? –  Ker αun oςc op ia◁ galaxies  19:40, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The icon has to be added to each GA article then, probably by a bot since there are thousands of GAs. Gary King  ( talk ) 20:04, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Makes sense. In the meantime, looks like created a template and mentioned it over on WT:WikiProject Good articles. –  Ker αun oςc op ia◁ galaxies  20:39, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

A(n)
In the template, is there any objection to it reading: "[Article] has been listed as a(n)"? Because working hard on an article, only to have it rewarded with "[Article] has been listed as a Arts good article" is ridiculous, to be entirely honest. –  Ker αun oςc op ia◁ galaxies  06:21, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It's already supposed to be doing that. The code wasn't working, though. I fixed it. I guess it hasn't been working since April 2008. Gary King  ( talk ) 15:23, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Ohh, so that's what the #switch code was for, I get it. That's fantastic, and far more professional looking than a(n). Thanks for fixing that, I freak out by little typos I guess. –  Ker αun oςc op ia◁ galaxies  18:56, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks Gary, for fixing it - I realised my goof as soon as I checked your diff! Oops, I must have been too busy to test it. Geometry guy 19:39, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * People like me, though, don't know what goes into making a template or realize how functional they may be, so for me it was kind of a neat behind-the-scenes look. It's a small piece of code, but an important one, that only took two years for it to be noticed lol. But you had the original idea to add it, so thanks for doing so! –  Ker αun oςc op ia◁ galaxies  20:04, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Proposed rewording
I think the wording should be changed to which is a little less awkward. Does anyone agree? —Designate (talk) 15:09, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Merge with
Right now has the exact same content as a one-entry, just with a minor inconsistency in formatting. In my opinion, this template should just call that other template directly. The template could still be used exactly the same way, it would just simplify the code. —Designate (talk) 20:54, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Broken?
Why is the template displaying as " Good articles/Philosophy and religion good article under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do, and if it no longer meets these criteria, it can be reassessed.
 * Philosophy and religion

I'm not sure what page to go to fix this issue. -- Khazar2 (talk) 15:35, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Documentation rewrite
I have rewritten the /doc page, because I found it unclear and out of date (with regard to GA topics). Instead of trying to list GA topics there, I have provided a link to Good articles/Summary, the subpage of WP:GA where the categories are actually defined. Hopefully everyone will see this as an improvement. Maralia (talk) 17:26, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Invalid topic backlog
Category:Good articles without topic parameter lists hundreds of talk pages where the GA template doesn't have a valid topic parameter. Many of these (maybe even the vast majority) have been caused by people insisting on using the parameter  instead of , despite the clear instructions at Template:GA (three random examples: A, B, C). seemed quite angry at me last time I tried to make mass changes to the talk pages (discussion here), so perhaps there is some way to fix this through the template. Is there a way to change the code of the template so that both "topic" and "subtopic" are accepted as valid parameter names? Or, failing that, could someone get a bot or use AWB somehow to make mass changes to all the talk pages incorrectly using "subtopic"? — Bilorv(talk)(c)(e) 17:16, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
 * It is not so much mass changes per se that I objected to, but the resulting inappropriate, not to say ridiculous, classifications that resulted. The classification computing can't be used as a shorthand for computing and engineering.  The article staggered tuning is about an analogue electronic circuit design used in radio recievers.  It has no connection with computing whatsoever.  The term computing is not a synonym for electronics.  This was one of the articles that brought the issue to my attention on my watchlist, but let me also point out that die casting and blast furnace are good articles under computing and engineering.  I would be interested to hear a defence of listing those articles under the overarching division of computing. Spinning</b><b style="color:#4840A0">Spark</b> 11:45, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Okay, yes, I understand that, but that wasn't the point of my message. Do you have any opinions or information relating to the question I was asking about the use of "subtopic"? — Bilorv(talk)(c)(e) 17:27, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

A(n) revisited
However this issue was fixed in 2010, I'm seeing "a Engineering ..." in the banner edited into a GA pass at Talk:Reed water tube boiler an hour or two ago: obviously this should be "an Engineering ..." Might someone have a go at fixing it again? Cheers. Nortonius (talk) 05:18, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Seems this code was removed by in September. I'm not sure it's "unnecessary" but this is what it was:  I don't think "Arts" or "Everyday life" are necessary though. Should just be Agriculture, food and drink as listed in Module:Good article topics/data? Rhinopias (talk) 21:57, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Although, I think it makes more sense to just reword it so it's less awkward and the distinction isn't necessary. Modified from the section below this,, what about this? Rhinopias (talk) 22:03, 4 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Hi Rhinopias, thanks for responding. It looks good to me, anyway! Cheers. Nortonius (talk) 22:20, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry Rhinopias, just to be clear, I was assuming this was a suggestion for a WP–wide change to the template that would need consensus, but are you suggesting I go ahead and fix the banner in this instance? Nortonius (talk) 00:16, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm willing to change it to that or something very similar if no one objects for a while. I don't think this needs a more formal route for a wider consensus? Certainly don't mind if you change it first! Rhinopias (talk) 04:07, 6 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Ok thanks Rhinopias, I had a go but it's all too codey for me, maybe one day I'll work it out! Cheers. Nortonius (talk) 17:09, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

I just made the slight rewording fix to avoid the "a" or "an" problem and to match the same wording used by the other GA template ArticleHistory. —Prhartcom ♥ 21:41, 6 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Excellent, thanks Prhartcom! Nortonius (talk) 22:05, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Makes sense, thanks! Rhinopias (talk) 23:31, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 5 September 2018
Add "subtopic" as an alias for "topic". I'm not sure where this misconception is coming from, but I've seen loads of users try to use the non-existent parameter "subtopic". — Bilorv(c)(talk) 17:22, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done I assume this is coming from GA nominee using subtopic Galobtter (pingó mió) 07:00, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, probably. Thanks! — Bilorv(c)(talk) 10:53, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Format for links in the GA template
Instead of:


 * style="width: 50%;" |
 * }

in the last line, I suggest changing it to:


 * style="width: 50%;" |
 * }

Took me a bit to realize that "Review" in this GA template was linking to the discussion. The goal here is to make the links more obvious, and to remove the need for "Reviewed version" by hyperlinking the date instead. We could also substitute "Promoted to a Good Article on:" if that phrasing sounds better. Thoughts or other suggestions? --GoneIn60 (talk) 19:43, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
 * This seems pretty good, actually. It could also say something like:

jp×g 03:26, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * style="width: 50%;" |
 * }
 * I'm confused about what the first proposal is even supposed to be because I don't understand where the links would go, and in the second one I only understand because I know what the two links are to and I know the second link is the review. That suggests to me that it's not a good solution, though I can see that the current situation may also be confusing to others. How about "Version [permalink number] passed as a good article following this review on [date]"? — Bilorv ( talk ) 17:06, 27 March 2021 (UTC)