User talk:Lincher/Good article establishment

Word from the wikipedian who wrote it
Feel free to modify it and adapt things as we find a way into briging GAs into the WP policy. Lincher 22:36, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Good Article Symbol
I agree that that green thing is ugly, but since GA is supposed to be a step down from FA, why don't we make it a silver star? ....(Complain)(Let us to it pell-mell) 23:16, 11 June 2006 (UTC)


 * The idea of another star is good, but we need to make it clear that good article status is below featured article status. The silver star may look superior than the gold star (which, to be honest, looks more like an orange star). joturn e r 19:59, 12 June 2006 (UTC)


 * It looks brown to me. --Alex S 21:11, 12 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Sure, I'll go with brown. Nevertheless, it does not look gold. joturn e r 22:34, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Would the star be nice if it was this color for GA?
 * My only little problem is: how do I remove the black background?
 * It was adapted from the smallest star of the FA stars. Lincher 20:30, 14 June 2006 (UTC)


 * How about one of the following...



...based off the largest featured article star? We could also use the other stars, used for featured article candidates, featured article removal candidates, and former featured articles, in the shade of choice.

As for how I made the background transparent, I saved the image to my hard drive and opened it in Macromedia Fireworks instead of right-clicking on the image and copying and pasting. The latter produced a black background like in your image, Lincher. joturn e r 22:17, 14 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I would go for the yellow one. Thus starting with nothing (white) and going along a yellow progression toward the gold star of the FAs.
 * Could you help me propose this as a basic GA star (and create the right-corner star) instead of the plus and also creating a progression of article (start->GA->FA). Lincher 22:24, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Consider the colours at this size I think green looks better, remember that most people will only see the stars at this size any way. The contrasting colour for effect needs to lightened more Gnangarra 13:11, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Swedish Wikipedia uses a blue star (Image:Lasvard.png, see left) for its "read-worthy" articles (sv:Wikipedia:Läsvärda artiklar). My opinion is for either blue or green. Tamino 11:58, 17 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I like that blue star, also. However, I don't like the term "read-worthy"; there are many articles that don't fall under "good", but are without a doubt, readworthy. joturn e r 18:41, 17 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that "read-worthy" is not a good name - after all, "good" speaks for itself! Tamino 10:24, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

You are right in saying that "read-worthy" is not a good name but remember that we already have a name (good article), so ignoring that point i believe that the Blue star is a good choice. The only thing is will them featured article idiots that are controlling wikipedia let us make it??? After all the last one was deleted --Ch ild zy  (Talk 18:13, 18 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Another thing, if we are not allowed to make this template then we are going to have to put the featured article star up for deletion, if they vote to keep that then they will make themselves look like hypocrites. Bascically what i'm saying is we need to use blackmail, we get our good article star they keep their featured article star


 * I can understand the frustration, but I think that turning their tactics back on them would be counterproductive. We need to make the positive case for good articles. I can think of several points off the top of my head:
 * The Featured article criteria are (rightly) very demanding, and there are only just over 1000 featured articles out of over 1,200,000 articles on English wikipedia. This can make bringing an article up to that standard a daunting task and make people less willing to nominate them for featured article status. People would feel more secure in nominating an article for "good" status because it does not have to be almost perfect. This could well bring more really good articles into the limelight and therefore make them potential featured article candidates.
 * Good article status (or a nomination) would provide a morale boost to the hardworking editors who spend so much time guarding NPOV and reverting vandalism, showing that there is a concrete reward for their efforts.
 * Articles that are too short for featured article status can nevertheless be good, especially if the subject is narrow and there isn't much to say. Even if there isn't much to say, if it is well-said it should be rewarded.
 * Casual readers may not come accross featured articles when on Wikipedia, and may suffer from the misconceptions common in the "old" media about the dangers of letting people participate in creating encyclopaedias and in media generally. Just because very few articles are so excellent that they fit the featured article criteria doesn't mean to say that all other articles are suspect or even mediocre. If a reader sees the Good article symbol at the top of an article then they may well pause to read the article and so find out how it is good.
 * On the subject of misconceptions of Wikipedia it might be a good idea to have a reader FAQ that answers the questions about accuracy, quality and impartiality that must be in readers' minds. Tamino 07:32, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I think that the green star is the best. I already associated the color green with the entire good article process, no need to make such a drastic change. Any change you could split up the star images so that we can pull out the one we want?-- SomeStrang  e  r ( t ) 22:05, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Why dont we just go ahead and do it then??? witht he green star of course. --Ch ild zy (Talk 17:38, 22 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Start it, we will follow. Lincher 17:49, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I left a note on joturner's talk page asking about the star. Let's see what happens (he has computer trouble right now it seems).-- SomeStrang  e  r ( t ) 19:38, 22 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I honestly think that a star system will be very unpopular. The chances of confusion with FA will only make it more so, and the previously trialled "+" icon was detested! TheGrappler 00:49, 28 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Most seem to want a symbol of some sort. We could make it the cross or a star.  I made a template with the cross and it was tagged for speedy and I put a hangon tag on it and changed it to the green star as that had the most votes.  The template works fine and is tested on George Thomas Coker.   If the star is confusing, let's just use the cross as there is no reason not to reward editors for writing good articles.  I don't see what the objection to a symbol of some sort is. Rlevse 11:38, 8 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I did not know of prior debate before I made the template, I still support it. See Speedy_deletions to vote on it this time. Rlevse 12:08, 8 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The deletion nazis didn't even allow a debate. Now we have to try WP:DRV, see 8 July. And they wonder why people get upset at them... Rlevse 12:33, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

article size
For GA to credible it will need to review all articles irreguardless of size to have suggestions on the nomination page that articles greater than 25k should go be sent to PR and FA need to be removed and the section on the page for articles over 25k needs also to be addressed Gnangarra 13:16, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I have removed the mentioned text, for your reason and because I will intend to assess these articles. Lincher 15:33, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Failed FACs
Firstly we need to establish that GA is a requirement for an article to be nominated for FAC. Failing FAC nomination doesnt necessarily mean the article still isn't GA suitable, especialy given that we want article to attain GA before FAC. Article failing FAC should be given time to address the concerns then be reviewed on GA criteria, 14 days - month after for continued GA status.

Oppossing this policy/guideline
No need for further steps/bureaucracy/procedures for acheiving FA. If an article fails just work on the objections and try again. Joelito (talk) 22:41, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
 * If this is an opposition to the whole GA paradigm, I'm in ageement. - brenneman  color="000000" title="Admin actions">{L} 04:10, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Good articles and article credibility
I believe that having another method of article certification is an excellent way to boost the credibility of the encyclopedia. At current, a reader has very little means of determining whether or not an article is credible and should be trusted. The media spotlight on the credibility of Wikipedia fails to notice that some articles are featured and others are not. The reading public should be better informed about what is to be trusted and what is to be taken with a word of caution on wikipedia. Good articles is one way to mark out the articles that have been widely edited and can be trusted. MyNam e IsNotBob  09:43, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
 * You've made a very good point. It would be especially good on controversial subjects where it is especially important for NPOV to be observed in order to maintain the reader's confidence in the encyclopaedia. Nuclear power is a good example of such a good article, and I think it should perhaps be nominated for good article status. Tamino 10:27, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Go ahead, do mass article nomination if it is what it takes but the real problem is is that the few wikipedians that don't think that good article is a good step in wikipedia will say that they don't need another step to create the featured article which is focusing almost absolutely on the editors. Though like you say, we should focus on the readers because they will always critisize our ways until we get it straight or we can show them our articles are somewhat stable. How do we convince the few wikipedians that GA is a good step and that we shouldn't focus on the editors but on the readers? Lincher 13:50, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
 * See my comment above about the positive case for good articles. Tamino 07:34, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

GA and FA overlap
What happens if a good article becomes featured? Does it lose it's good article marker? Should it be removed from the good article section? And if it should remain, shouldn't all Featured Articles, be considered good? Or are we not making this retroactive.-- SomeStrang  e  r ( t ) 22:04, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * For now, when they reach FA status they are removed from the GA list. So, if there would be a star in the top right corner, it would just change color. Though when articles are de-featured, they weren't GA before and aren't sent back to the GA nomination process. Lincher 01:39, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Please, no icon!
Please, no symbol. We've been here before - it's not the lack of prior debate that was the problem, it was (1) the addition of metadata into articles, (2) the "badge of quality" impression given being judged substantially over-indulgent, given the relatively small level of peer review that GAs receive. There is no way consensus is going to formed supporting the addition of an icon into the top right, and even the idea of bringing it up is going to make a lot of people unhappy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheGrappler (talk • contribs)

Article assessment
Several things seem clear to me regarding the use of GA as a form of article assessment:


 * It can't be made a precondition of FA. There is no reason for another compulsory roadstop along the route to FA being via the GA process. I am 100% certain that any attempt to make it such will fail - it will be labelled overbureaucraticization.
 * It will be used more widely, however, if it is mentioned in the documentation as part of article progression, in a similar way to peer review. It's possible that an article can reach FA without having a peer review, GA should be seen in the same way, as an additional but non-compulsory step.
 * This would rely on GA and PR having some form of sensible relationship. I don't think there's a set answer as to what should come first but clearly putting it up for both at the same time would be silly. One thing to bear in mind is that GA is a form of assessment whereas PR is done for a reason - sometimes it is a newbie editor trying to see if their article is okay, sometimes it is to push forward a stagnating article, sometimes it is done as the last step before FA. So for a longer article, having a PR to check that it's ready for GA doesn't seem a bad idea. It may even be possible to integrate PR and GA in some way in the future.
 * The article assessment scale currently doesn't handle GAs in an especially useful way. In fact, I think that GA has been very badly integrated into the system (largely because the two evolved separately to do the same thing i.e. deal with quality sub-featured articles). My suggestion would be to merge GA and A-class - effectively this would require A-class articles to go through the (limited) peer review process of GA. While that introduces an element of bureaucracy to the assessment scale, it's probably not a bad thing in terms of the way it enforces more consistency (at least in theory). TheGrappler 20:00, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Quality is not constant
You're going to have to have a very wide base of articles reviewed, or people are going to wonder why one article is considered good while another isn't. But more importantly, who is going to review existing Good Articles to be sure that they are ''still' Good? We don't have that problem with Featured Articles, because it's obvious that the tag only means that they were good articles at the time they were featured. -Freekee 02:51, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * We constantly re-review these articles and there is actually a page called GA Disputes for contested GA articles. Just hop on the bandwagon if you want to know what GA is all about. Lincher 12:14, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Okay, thanks. -Freekee 00:55, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

The point of GA
GA was never supposed to be a step on the way to FA. It is not designed to duplicate or overlap with that process at all. Almost all FAs are longer than 15kb, and there are untold hundreds of thousands of articles that simply do not need to be that long, but need to be high quality. HD 217107, for example. GA is for them. The one person review system works quickly and efficiently for short articles. For reasons I've never really understood, a lot of people nominate long articles for GA status instead of FA or peer review, when it really isn't at all the best system for assessing them.

GA is an extremely worthwhile process. 0.1% of our articles are FAs, and beyond that there is no large scale review process. High standards need to be universally encouraged, and GA is one process which is helping to do that.

To my mind, the two main problems that damage GA's credibility are a) accepting long articles as GAs. These should go to FA or peer review; and b) reviewers passing articles that have obvious flaws, because they're working on the misconception that because the system is informal, criteria don't need to be applied strictly. If these two problems can be addressed it will be even more worthwhile than it is at the moment. Worldtraveller 18:27, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I would say that people come here to GA for a review because A person takes the time to read and review the article where as PR all aticle get a bot review the first thing it says is this may not apply to your article. For the majority of PR reviewed articles thats all they get there no outside editor discussions about the article, that project GA is doing that so why the articles are coming here. Maybe there should be a minimum edit requirement before an editor can promote GA articles. Gnangarra 03:55, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, I do agree that one of the unexpected strengths of GA is that it has provided a much more useful alternative to peer review. In that sense, if we stopped taking long articles that would be a loss because PR seems pretty moribund these days.  I've been thinking I might write a little guide to reviewing articles, and point people to it in the reviewing instructions, to see if that helps problem b.  Worldtraveller 09:24, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I think the real problem is that we get so much demand for the few numbers who assess the articles that it is tough to cope with the increasing numbers here. Plus we want to continue to write other articles for WP, not only assess. Lincher 14:43, 14 July 2006 (UTC)