Wikipedia:Good Article proposal drive 2023/Feedback

Proposal 2: Make spot checking a requirement

 * See the discussion


 * Can someone take another look at Prop 2's closure? I don't think it reflects consensus. czar  04:56, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I added it all up. Prop 2 was slightly leaning towards support and prop 2a was slightly leaning towards oppose. There were concerns that there was no real mechanism to police this. I'll ping @AirshipJungleman29, the closer, for clarification. 🏵️ Etrius ( Us) 03:09, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I mean, on the most basic level, nine editors supported and four opposed Prop 2, with a couple of others neutral. I took the arguments on board, and felt that there was no way I could close it as anything other than a pass. I am perfectly willing to revert my close and post a request at WP:CR, if more people want that, . AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:08, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I think "mention spotchecking in the instructions" is a fairly decent compromise close. —Kusma (talk) 14:41, 25 January 2023 (UTC)


 * There's no consensus for Proposal 2a, but would it be a fair compromise to make it a suggestion in the WP:GA/I? Something like "a good rule of thumb is to check at least 10% of sources and no less than five in total" may help new users to give them an idea of what's considered a "sufficient" spot check. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 00:29, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
 * FYI, this is part of the draft (soon to be live) review template in Proposal 8 below: . Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 20:52, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Was there support in the discussion for 1 out of every 10 citations? For a long film article with 300-400 footnotes (I see these every now and then) that would be 30-40 citations to check.  That's about how many I'd do for a spotcheck at FAC, and those are only done for new nominators.  And for an article with 10 footnotes I'd check more than 1 citation.  Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 21:12, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Ping prop. 2 closer: @AirshipJungleman29 re. Mike Christie's question. Prop. 8's close did not decide on any specific wording, so the thumb rule quoted above is open to be modified (or deleted); I highlighted it here to get more input. Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 21:39, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm fine with Mike Christie's suggestion about the numbers (> 5% and > 5 sources), but I think the more important question here is what Thebiguglyalien asked – does framing it as a "rule of thumb" rather than a requirement satisfy the close? Or is the only acceptable wording one that mentions no numbers at all? Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 05:11, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
 * As an involved party who suggested a minimum number (albeit lower than 10%), my reading of the close is not to define the precise figures. A rule of thumb feels like crossing the spirit of that. CMD (talk) 05:33, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Changed to Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 08:15, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
 * What CMD said. AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:14, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Could we drop in a reference to checking for close paraphrasing as well?  Unexpected lydian♯4 talk‽  14:11, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
 * It's there in 2d – see here. Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 17:19, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
 * That's great, thank you!  Unexpected lydian♯4 talk‽  22:35, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Proposal has been implemented

Proposal 4: Proposed model reviews

 * See the discussion

Proposal 4A: Recognize exceptional reviews

 * See the discussion

Comment: Hold off on implementing this tell proposals 1 and 4 are passed/not passed. This implementation of this would widely depend on how these proposals turn out. 🏵️ Etrius ( Us) 23:51, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * , I've closed proposal 4 as it had broad support and hadn't been commented on in a while, and I put the heading directly above this one to keep it together in one place. As Proposal 1 has also been closed, it looks like discussion can begin on this one. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:50, 31 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Opened a proposal for workshopping here: Symbol watching blue lashes high contrast.svg Wikipedia talk:Exceptional reviews czar  03:52, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Proposal 5: Make the mentorship program more visible

 * See the discussion

So for the time being, by "the mentorship program", do we just mean the list of people that have volunteered to be mentors? If so, we should probably fix up the list a bit before making it more visible. At the minimum, inactive users should be removed. But like I said in the discussion, I also think that a simple list of users is intimidating to new users. It requires them to take the initiative, and it might feel weird to pick out one specific user from the list to reach out to. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:29, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Proposal 6: Limit open GANs per editor

 * See the discussion

This is going to be a difficult one to figure out. I am not seeing any particular consenus on what should be the limit, only that there should be a limit. Currently 10, 20, and a soft cap seem to be the 3 biggest contendors. Tentatively, I'd say 10 might be slightly winning out but I haven't added it up yet. I'll leave 6a open for a bit longer in the hopes we can get more clarity. 🏵️ Etrius ( Us) 17:39, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Proposal has been implemented

Proposal 6A: Cap concurrent GA nominations per editor at 10

 * See the discussion

I'm not totally confident in how this was closed. There's clearly support for a limit of 20, but it's a stretch to say there's support for 10. Between the 6 and 6A discussions, the number of people that supported a limit of 10 or lower was roughly the same as the number of people that opposed any limit. Neither of those obtained a majority or even a plurality compared to a broader limit. I think we can assume that support for 10 indicates support for 20, but not vice versa. And even then, a few of the supports for lower limits were conditional, requiring some form of soft cap or exemption if the limit is that low. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:54, 11 February 2023 (UTC)


 * @Thebiguglyalien I figured this was going to be controversial either way. The issue is that User:Eddie891 proposed an alternative cap of 10 GAs and some of the comments are up to interpretation on which cap they're preferring. In the end, people seemed okay with either limit so it shouldn't be too much of a stretch to swap to 20. I am counting that 10 wins out overall, if you come up with something different please let me know. There was continual talk about a 'soft cap' but no consensus on what that should actually look like.
 * Personally I'm not a big fan of a GAN cap but figured I'd have to close it inevitably, hence why I've abstained from the discussion thus far 🏵️ Etrius ( Us) 22:01, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm definitely sympathetic to the dilemma; even if I wasn't heavily involved in the discussion, I still wouldn't have been brave enough to close it. My reading of it was that if users didn't state what count they supported in 6A, then it should be assumed that they support 20, as that's what the proposal was. I suspect that as far as a soft cap goes, they probably had something in mind similar to what was implemented where the overflow is collapsed rather than rejected, which I think is a very generous compromise. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:10, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * @Thebiguglyalien I agree that a collapsible overflow had support, in fact, I mentioned it in the closing notes: "There was also discussion of collapsing GAs over the cap versus outright blocking new GAs, which appears to have support". In hindsight this could have been worded better. I'll ping @Mike Christie just to make sure this is seen. I'll go back over the numbers again to make sure it's 10 versus 20. 🏵️ Etrius ( Us) 22:25, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi -- yes, I saw this. Perhaps with the collapsible approach people might not mind too much whether the limit is 10 or 20?  It's a single click to see the extra nominations, after all, and they can still be reviewed.  But I can change it to 20 very quickly if we want that. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 22:40, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I can't speak for everyone, but I agree that it matters much less now that the collapsible approach has been implemented. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:07, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I didn't like the suggestion in the first place (and consequently opposed it outright), and I think 20 would be less bad ("better" would be a stretch) than 10. Having seen the implementation, I really haven't changed my mind about it. The collapsible sections are ugly and detrimental to navigating the list of nominations in search of something one might be interested in reviewing. A limit of 20 would be way less disruptive in that respect than a limit of 10 is. I think it's a fair assumption that anybody who opposed the suggestion would be more opposed to 10 than to 20. TompaDompa (talk) 00:24, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
 * @Mike Christie Go ahead and change it to 20 if you haven't already. I'll add an addendum to the closing notes regarding the change. 🏵️ Etrius ( Us) 00:47, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I just changed it to twenty; it should update the next time there's a new, passed, or failed nomination. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:53, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi Mike, just checking on how this works. Does it show the 10/20 oldest nominations, from whatever category, and then hide the rest, in whatever categories? (Or is it top to bottom?) CMD (talk) 03:30, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
 * The 10 or 20 oldest nominations from any nominator are shown, in whatever topic they happen to be in. Any more than 10 or 20 and the most recent ones are put into the collapsed sections, again in whatever topic they happen to be in. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 03:34, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

I've implemented this, currently with a limit of 10 since that what the close says. It's easy to change that number if a consensus emerges that we should do so. The additional nominations are now in a collapsed section at the end of each topic, and can be accessed as usual by uncollapsing. The change is also implemented for the topic pages, though it will only show up on those pages when the next new/promote/fail event happens. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:02, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

, re your note about the way the collapse template looks on the page, if you have a better way to display these, please let me know -- changing that formatting is a fairly quick thing to do. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:29, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Proposal has been implemented

Proposal 7A: Flagging articles with inactive nominators

 * See the discussion

I've implemented proposal 7a (flag inactive nominators). If anyone would like a different way to flag them, please say so. I set the "inactive" timer to 21 days; that's easy to change if we want to. I also flagged inactive reviewers; we didn't discuss it but it was easy to do and seems harmless. Inactive reviewers are not flagged if the status is in "second opinion", since in that case there's already a request for another reviewer. I can remove the "inactive reviewer" notes if we don't want them. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:22, 14 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I think the way you've implemented it is very clear, thank you for doing it so quickly!  Unexpected lydian♯4 talk‽  23:33, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Seconded, thanks for this Mike, I think it's really helpful. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 23:42, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Looks good. Now we just need a clear protocol for what to do whenever one of those notices pops up. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 00:25, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, consensus is clearly against expiry of GANs. I suggested 7A to be informative rather than prescriptive. Some people may take Bilorv's suggestion and evaluate the article as a static object. Others may try to seek someone else to implement suggestions, or if they're minor enough, might just make them themselves. Others may simply ignore these noms entirely. I think really it's going to be up to the reviewer. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 04:52, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
 * This discussion is copied from a prior discussion. 🏵️ Etrius ( Us) 04:11, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Proposal has been implemented

Proposal 8: Default instructions

 * See the discussion

In response to comments on the talk page, I've drafted a couple of ideas for pre-loaded instructions. Both of these have instructions embedded into comments, so if you are not using the visual editor be sure to edit the page to view the source code: I don't expect either of these to be the thing that goes into the box and am trying to create a starting point. Two questions raised in the previous talk page include: And this did not come up yet, but before implementing this we should define what a successful outcome looks like. Is it seeing an increase in new reviewers over a time span? Seeing people use the pre-loaded template a certain number of times? Reaching out to ask a specific number of new reviewers to ask about their experience?Rjjiii (talk) 07:59, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Mostly Static: I started out trying to make things as static as possible. I found the GA templates somewhat confusing/intimidating and my goal was to reduce those factors for potential new reviewers.
 * With templates for GA rules: I also did a draft very similar to the one above after commented that the first was bulky. This one uses the GA guideline templates which in the future will automatically update as the rules update. I also snipped the opening and closing comment areas.
 * What parts of a template should be hidden versus visible in the preview?
 * How should a pre-loaded template make it clear to an editor that it can be deleted to minimize confusion or potentially deleting too much?
 * Why not use one of the Category:GA discussion templates? (your draft is similar to GAList2, with hidden comments added). Those should be easy to delete if people don’t want to use them. I just noticed you said the templates are intimidating but when I started reviewing I was attracted to them because they’re shiny and concise. Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 08:46, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I tried this when I first did the proposal:
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Rjjiii/sandbox&action=edit&oldid=1131025766
 * It converted into wikitext and ate the comments within the template when I saved the page. Rjjiii (talk) 09:39, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I've implemented it at GAN/preload/sandbox. Here's a preloaded Talk:Example/GA1 ﹣ try previewing it. Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 10:41, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
 * This appears to do the same thing. If a reviewer saves the page before completing the form, all comments are deleted. Rjjiii (talk) 12:35, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Fixed – click "show changes" to see the comments. Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 19:06, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
 * That works?! It looks to be set up almost the same but the comments remained after saving the page. Testing in the visual editor shows that some comments appear correctly with their grey icons but some comments are completely invisible. Rjjiii (talk) 10:59, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
 * The visual editor issues should be fixed now; same link as before. Btw, if anyone wishes to change the text, feel free to suggest changes or edit directly (you need to edit two pages: the preload, which contains the pre-save comments, and the review template, which has the post-save comments). Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 17:15, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I took a stab at trimming it down. Any opinions? Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 11:40, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I really appreciate you building a template for this. If templates are the most common review format, this is likely the way to go. I'm hoping some other editors jump in to give feedback. Thanks for taking a stab at trimming. A few things I noticed:
 * a long way from meeting any of the following 6 criteria I wrote this as "one of" because I noticed a recurring confusion in the discussion pages. I believe that "any of" is meant to be taken literally, but some editors read "any of" as an emphatic phrase meaning that quick fail is only acceptable if the article is far from meeting "all of" the criteria.
 * 2a: Perhaps my wording was off here, but something that WhatamIdoing pointed out in the discussion was that GAC.2.a. only requires a list of citations to verify the content, but reviewers mistakenly bring up other issues with sources. I think this section needs something indicating that the goal is simply to have a list of citations in any format. The works have to be there; they don't have to use "citation" templates or anything like that. This criterion is just about the simplest to check and I wanted to make that clear.
 * mark this as a pass if no media is present This applies to 6b as well.
 * Pass or Fail Should there be actionable steps here? (Pass via this, fail via that, put on hold like so) I hope it's clear that I'm asking this as a sincere and open question.
 * I may step back from this discussion for a while. I want to give other editors the space to jump in and I don't know if I personally have much else to add.Rjjiii (talk) 08:02, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Good points: changed to "any one of" verbatim from WP:QF, re-added the relevant part of the 2a comment, fixed 6b and added actionable ending steps from GANI. It's all in a sandbox if anyone wants to edit. Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 10:35, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * We do have a long-standing consensus that online sources require access-dates, however they are formatted. Bare urls do not meet the GACR. CMD (talk) 12:09, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I believe you, but this rule appears to be a secret? It is not in the GA page or MoS page. I searched the talk page archives and only found an rfc ruling out a bare url if it's dead ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Good_article_nominations/Archive_18#Proposal_One ). Rjjiii (talk) 05:51, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Interesting, perhaps it is part of the unrecorded convention that has developed around sourcing expectations. We don't pass articles which have unsourced paragraphs now, for example. (We are in fact, actively delisting them for that reason.) CMD (talk) 12:49, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I'd argue that for the purposes of GA, "unrecorded" conventions are indistinguishable from the random whims of reviewers. We should be adhering to what's explicitly stated in the GA criteria. Whether the criteria and the instructions should be updated is definitely something that should be discussed, but the proposal drive really wasn't set up to accommodate open-ended questions. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:28, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
 * The convention emerged to deal with a gap in the explicit GA Criteria, where 2b is insufficient to assess 2c. The proposal drive explicitly went further than just accommodating this, by passing a requirement for spot-checking which extended a GA drive consensus into a general GAN consensus. CMD (talk) 01:23, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Presumably some requirement of spot checks will be included soon (it looks like the details are still being worked out). But that change would also need to bring with it specific instructions on what to look for in spot checks. Currently, if we're not talking about direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counterintuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons, then the only requirements are that the source is reliable, that the article complies with WP:OR (which doesn't necessarily require sources at all), and that there's no copyright/plagiarism issue. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 01:46, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Complying with WP:OR doesn't necessarily require in-line sources. However, evaluating OR is much more difficult without sources. Evaluating copyright/plagiarism is even further stifled by a lack of in-line sources. This is why in-line sources are needed these days, and as that has proved insufficient, why spot-checking will soon be required. Suggesting such requests are "indistinguishable from the random whims of reviewers" is at odds with existing practice and the outcome of the proposal drive. The access-dates for example, enable a reviewer to spot-check archived versions if the present page is insufficient. CMD (talk) 02:02, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
 * My point is that this discrepancy shouldn't exist. The fact that sources are needed but aren't required is a problem. Putting additional expectations on nominators that aren't in the criteria is also a problem. This is especially true when there's virtually no guidance or oversight for GA reviewers and every reviewer can have their own "existing practice". A new reviewer (which we're trying to get more of) strictly following the GA criteria will get a very different result than a reviewer that's following a bunch of unspoken rules. If an unspoken rule is valuable, then it should be codified. I think WP:GACN also applies, assuming the criteria have not been substantially updated since it was written. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:17, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
 * We certainly need to update GACN, which is a mishmash. The lack of requiring inline is out of date. On the other hand, "one system should be used consistently for inline citations" goes a bit further than what seems to be general practice and can perhaps be removed. There is guidance regarding what is needed in a citation in the "Page numbers (or similar details)" note, but it could be expanded. This also provides the opportunity to include a note on . (Beyond this specific topic, GACN could use more tweaks; eg. "Since information in an infobox is usually repeated in the body of the article" is a bit of naive optimism.) CMD (talk) 02:54, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
 * If we want to require inline citations beyond the current criteria, then there should probably be a separate discussion to change WP:GACR and WP:RGA (especially since there's a higher standard of consensus for substantial changes to a guideline). There was talk about merging WP:GANI, WP:RGA, and WP:GACN in the proposal drive, but it seems that didn't go anywhere. Maybe that's worth looking into more seriously. Of course, raising the citation standards of a GA might also mean a huge number of possible delistings. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:57, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
 * It would probably not affect delistings, as firstly delisting remains rare, and secondly as mentioned above current delisting already operates on the assumption of requiring in-line citations. As GAN drives and most GANs do as well, my feeling is that updating the GACN and even the GACR in this respect will cause minimal to no workflow changes. It will certainly cause less change than the spot-change requirement. CMD (talk) 04:08, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
 * For the moment I've  the potentially-beyond-GACR steps. I agree they're worth including in the criteria though. Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 08:15, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

There was a question about tracking usage. If anyone's curious about the popularity of review templates, GAList has been used in 9200 reviews, followed by GAList2 in 5300, GATable in 3800 and GAProgress in 3600. The preload above was based on GAList2, but it's easy to tweak it to look more like GAList – link. Same instructions and functionality as before; the change is cosmetic (what parts are visible vs hidden text) and might be a better choice per the stats. If this looks ok, we can go ahead after deciding what to say about bare urls above, and it should be easy to track usage. Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 10:06, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Feedback before implementation (proposal 8)

 * Update: I've tried to limit the instructions to a strict reading of the GACR. For example, criterion 3a refers to "the main aspects", but does it mean the main aspects in sources ? This has been debated at Wikipedia talk:Good articles/Archive 16 and other places, with apparently no consensus reached: so the instructions don't take a position here. I'll give it a day for any feedback before going live. Convenience link. Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 04:01, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
 * The "this criterion allows shorter articles" part should be removed. It's not directly related, and if it was it would be in 3b. "articles that do not cover every major fact or detail" should have "major" removed. The article should cover the "major" facts, it does not need to cover all the detail (comprehensiveness). CMD (talk) 04:25, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
 * The wording was from footnote 4 of WP:GACR, including "major" which did strike me as a bit contradictory. How do look? Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 04:54, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Seems good. Still not sure about that length part, but I think I understand the intention behind it and don't think it's harmful. CMD (talk) 05:35, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
 * A few things stand out to me, though I don't know how much of an issue each one is:
 * 1b and 2c both feel reductive. Most of the criteria are self-contained, but these two have specific policy and guideline pages that have to be met in their entirety, each with several different aspects.
 * The note about Earwig on 2d might need to specify that it should not replace a spot check.
 * 3a should probably focus on how specifically the reviewer should check it before considering when it doesn't apply. Of course, that brings us back to the issue that after all these years, we still don't really know.
 * For 5, I always check the talk page as well to make sure there aren't ongoing disputes about the content. Might be worth mentioning as a suggestion.
 * Thebiguglyalien (talk) 04:51, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
 * How would you instruct someone to check an article for Original Research? I mean that as an open-ended question, not a rhetorical one. This is something that is currently an issue where there is an ongoing cleanup task to deal with OC and plagiarism in several hundred GAs. I believe the Featured Article reviews just somewhat give up on checking this? I don't want to replace the official policy; I think we need some clear "at least do this" minimum though. Something that could be summarized in one sentence, or close to it.
 * I would argue that new reviewers need something reductive to get started, like a cross to build their scarecrow on. I pasted every linked policy in the Good Article Criteria into wordcounter.net and they clock in at around 90,000 words. And that 90k is without counting the words in the hundred or so essays and policies linked from those pages. Hamlet, Shakespeare's longest play, doesn't even get to 30k. Rjjiii (talk) 05:41, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't have an answer to that, and it doesn't seem anyone else does either. That's the problem. Questions about how to apply the criteria should have been asked in 2006, but the best answer we've come up with is that the reviewer can basically do as much or as little as they like when reviewing any criterion. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 05:58, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Good ideas about 2d and 5: added. Here's a that tries making 1b and 2c less reductive. Open to further ideas. Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 07:30, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Another thought: it says "Add comments here (if any)" for each criterion. I worry that the "if any" might encourage quickpassing. There should always be some sort of comment, even if it's just the reviewer saying what they checked. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 05:34, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Removed "if any". I'd inserted it because some people prefer to leave comments section-by-section instead (with the template just used as a summary). But yeah it could be misleading. Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 05:49, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
 * 1b is prescriptive and thus loses precision. Just as we do not need to explain what clarity and concision are in 1a, we do not need to explain what compliance with MOS is in 1b, especially when you cannot hope to cover everything (I note layout has been left out of the prescriptions entirely, presumably for that reason. The only thing you can say about it is "Check against the MOS".). AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:55, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
 * It's a compilation of the "in a nutshell" summaries of each page (layout doesn't have one, and I wasn't able to come up with anything), but I'm happy with saying less rather than more and deleting them. Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 17:19, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I think that would be for the best. AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:13, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

✅. There's a mode parameter at the bottom that you can use to customize the template's design. If you don't want to use it, you can either delete the template per instructions, or make it delete itself by setting the mode to delete. Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 20:30, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
 * This is a minor point, but for the benefit of those of us who don't plan to use these formats, would it be OK to change this to a one-line subst that would generate this format on saving? The first thing I'm going to do in a review is delete these instructions, and a Ctrl-Shift-End keystroke is a pretty quick way to grab all of it, but if a subst would be OK that would be even quicker.  Perhaps those who plan to use this wouldn't want a subst because they'd have to save it before re-editing it to start using it, though? Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 20:38, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, I can nest it inside a one-line subst. Alternatively, the mode parameter is a quick way to delete it: set delete and the template will erase itself on saving, but yes a one-line subst is doable; I'll try to code it up. Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 20:49, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I've drafted the one-line version here. It works, but I'm not sure whether it might confuse people though? The first time the page is saved, this is what you get; and the second time it's saved, this is what you get. (See the wikitext for the difference). Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 21:10, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
 * On reflection I think you should leave it as you had it. The users who delete it will mostly be the more experienced editors and they'll be able to figure it out easily; making the experience confusing for newer editors is definitely the wrong approach. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 21:24, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I've moved "mode" to the top rather than bottom, if that helps, and added a mention of the easy way to delete. Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 22:19, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Proposal 9: Change sort order of GAN page to prioritize frequent reviewers

 * See the discussion

This is implemented -- I had written the code for this sort order in the very first iteration of ChristieBot, months ago, so this was just flipping a switch.

I have a further suggestion which might be worth turning into a proposal above if others think it's worth it. A couple of commenters were concerned that this would push a user with just one or two GAs a long way down the list in a section. The way the sort order is set up now has a parameter called "free GAs": the number of GAs you can have before your nominations are sorted by your review/GAs ratio. Currently that's set to zero. To see the effect, look at the Songs section; in the new sort order "Lo Siento" is 28th of 29 -- the nominator has 1 GA and no reviews. If we set "free GAs" to 1, that nomination would be 5th. We could have a proposal asking everyone what the right value for "free GAs" is. Having seen the effect of the sort order I think the right answer is 0, 1 or 2; probably 1.

A second thought is that we might want to change the ratio to cover a finite time period, rather than all time. For example, a reviewer with hundreds more reviews than GAs can drop fifty GAs into the list and still be at the top, and a nominator with a hundred more GAs than reviews has no incentive to review because doing thirty or forty reviews would still not move them from the bottom of the list. So perhaps we could we make the reviews/GAs calculations refer only to the last 12 months? I wouldn't be able to implement this at the moment because I don't have data by date before ChristieBot took over on 31 October, but if everyone liked this idea we could run on the "all-time" numbers for a month or so, and then switch to "from November 2022" until a year had passed, after which it could be "trailing year". If a couple of people like this I'll make a proposal for it. Though if we were to do this, I think "free GAs" should apply to "all time GAs" -- that is, you don't get another free GA after a year has passed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:50, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Nice work Mike. Both your additional suggestions seem beneficial—I honestly can't see anything wrong with setting the "fGA value" to 1 right now, if you think it best. AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:05, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm off to work in a few minutes but if there are no objections I'll set it to 1 this evening and we can see how that looks. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:23, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Are the nominations sorted by the quotient at the time of nomination? It is a bit odd how multiple nominations by the same reviewer are now not sorted by age. Sorting by current quotient and then by age could help with that, but probably has other drawbacks. —Kusma (talk) 16:47, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Can you give me an example of a sort order that looks odd? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:21, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @Mike Christie: Floydian in "Transport", Chiswick Chap in "Language and Literature". —Kusma (talk) 17:29, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, that doesn't look right. It should be oldest at the top, within each nominator's nominations.  I should be able to take a look at the code tonight. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 18:04, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Should be fixed now. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:11, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Much better, thanks! —Kusma (talk) 14:57, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

I've now added a short note at the top of GAN explaining the new sort order -- see here. If anyone wants to change the wording, let me know and I'll make the edits -- the text is part of the bot configuration so can't be changed on-wiki. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:48, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Proposal has been implemented

Proposal 11: Ban drive-by nominations

 * See the discussion.

I've made WP:BOLD changes to WP:GAN/I and Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations/FAQ to state that substantial contribution to an article is required and that drive-by nominations are generally not allowed. Respective diffs are here and here. What should users do if we happen to see a drive-by nomination? Are we clear to just revert the nomination? What if it's borderline where the user made a handful of changes, maybe added a few paragraphs? Also, I think there should be a friendly warning template for drive by nominations if there isn't one already. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:00, 16 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I suspect that falls under reviewer discretion. CMD (talk) 01:34, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Good work on making the changes. Currently it reads Nominators who are not significant contributors to the article must seek approval from the community or the significant contributors before nominating and will be considered on a case-by-case basis at GAN/I. I have a few questions. How does someone seek approval from the community? What is meant by community? What happens to an article that has no active significant contributors? Should we be notified at GAN via a note linking to the talk page request, or is it up to the reviewer to check contributions (was there a suggestion of having edits to the page next to the nom somewhere, I sure I read it somewhere)?
 * If this is what we are asking for, would we be better just saying that they must post on the talk page querying if the article meets GA standard, or making a case why they think it meets the criteria, before nominating? WP:FA says Nominators who are not significant contributors to the article should consult regular editors of the article before nominating it. Like you say we also need some guidelines on what to do with such nominations as case-by-case (although I agree with it) is a bit vague and not terribly helpful to reviewers. Aircorn (talk) 07:59, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Also is the close to ban drive by noms or discourage them as they are two quite different things and will effect the wording? Aircorn (talk) 08:05, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @Aircorn Currently, drive by nominations are already discouraged. It's my understanding that the proposal was to outright ban them. Specifically, Changing the policy to explicitly forbid them will discourage such nominations or at least make it a bit easier to quickly revert them. There was also a general support that there needs to be some provision for edge cases.
 * I'll since they were the original proposer. 🏵️ Etrius ( Us) 13:50, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I am going to go with banning and removing the nomination as that seems to be the agreed upon practice. Left it at the discretion of the reviewer. That way a reviewer can still start a GAN if they want to or simply remove the nomination. See here. Aircorn (talk) 22:08, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Letting everyone here know that I've begun removing drive-by nominations whenever I see them (after checking the quantity and quality of the nominator's edits using Xtools and making sure there's no discussion of a proxy nomination on the article's talk page). As there's no talk page template for this, I've written up a boilerplate that I'm using to notify users, such as I did here. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:45, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Update: I did a quick check of nominations by users with 0 GAs, and I removed 22 unreviewed GANs where the nominator had little to no involvement with the article. There were a few borderline cases, but I leaned toward leaving these so as not to risk unduly removing a valid nomination. Unsurprisingly, most drive-by nominations appear to be pop culture related. I think some of these could be caught automatically in the future, but there are also going to be nominations where user discretion will be necessary. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:51, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Just a sec. These editors nominated the articles when they were allowed to. Seems a bit harsh to remove them now the rules have just changed. We haven't even worked out what they new ones are yet. Aircorn (talk) 20:30, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Users were instructed not to make drive by nominations well before this. Drive-by nominations are harmful to the GA process, which is why there's overwhelming consensus to ban them. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:42, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * No, that is incorrect or you would not have had to have changed the wording of the FAQ and instructions. Even your note admits as much. You need to slow down a bit, we don't need to rush these through a million miles an hour. What is harmful is implementing them incorrectly. Aircorn (talk) 04:31, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Usually drive-by nominations have articles with obvious deficiencies. For the moment, I suggest simply citing that those deficiencies as a quick fail when removing the template, rather than the new policy. For those which might lack such deficiencies (2020 Beirut explosion is an unusually good drive-by nomination), I suggest leaving for now as Aircorn suggests. CMD (talk) 04:41, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I stand by the removal of these specific drive-by nominations. There's overwhelming support for the prohibition of such nominations, every single one I removed was by users that had no experience going through the GA process, and none of them had any message on the article talk page discussing the prospect of such a review. I did not remove Science, for example, even though it probably shouldn't have been nominated in the first place either. Quickfailing would only create clutter where a user talk message would be far more efficient. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 05:00, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * All it takes to remove noting potential quickfailure is an edit summary providing a clear reason it does not meet GACR. For example, when removing the Beirut explosion template, you could add "removing drive-by GA nomination: article does not meet GA criteria, for example the lead does not summmarise all important content". CMD (talk) 05:07, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay, I thought you meant actually create the page and quickfail it. I don't expect to be removing any more templates in the near future (I intentionally chose not to touch borderline cases), but I'll keep that in mind. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 05:10, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Apologies for that, I fully agree with you that creating the page is suboptimal for really obvious quickfails. (Hurts my review count though, ouch!) CMD (talk) 05:26, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Here's another diff, please copyedit/improve. The instructions are in so many different pages... —Kusma (talk) 13:13, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm late to the party and have a question. I have seen editors and especially close collaborators make substantial contributions to an article and leave it lie for a while, whether the intention is to return to it or otherwise; I have a habit of taking these (with permission when I know the main contributor and they're active) and restoring/finishing them. In fact, my only active album nomination, The Ghost Inside (album), I placed in December from an editor who, at the time I contacted her in late November, had little activity since September. The article had previously been to GAN, and seemed pretty close to passing but ultimately failed due to inactivity, so I gave it a go myself. I also have several times "adopted" drive-by nominations or those with nominators which become inactive during the waiting period, as long as I believe they have a chance with some work to fulfill the nomination. I currently have around 25 music-related GAs, with several examples of these circumstances among them: Calculating Infinity, Count Your Blessings (Bring Me the Horizon album), California (Blink-182 album) (nominated on release day), Badmotorfinger and probably most notably Fall Out Boy (!) would be examples of finishing touches, while American Idiot (!), Kid A, and Discovery (Daft Punk album) were rescued. (Some of these, especially Fall Out Boy, had more prior edits than the others, but I'm concerned that under the same circumstances today, I would have nowhere near enough experience to be eligible for consideration.) Would I still be allowed to do this if my experience played a factor?  danny music editor  oops 01:03, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * The full discussion goes into more detail, but yes, it's mostly just to stop nominators that don't know what they're doing or have no intention to participate. Just a note on the talk page or a comment in the nomination acknowledging that you're taking over the nomination should be fine, I think. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 01:20, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * The best place to note would be the GAN template, where adding  or similar will provide an obvious explanation. The expectation would be that you are familiar with the sources and content of any article you nominate, and that you would follow through on the GAN once it is being reviewed, so if these are done then there shouldn't be an issue. CMD (talk) 01:42, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Proposal has been implemented

Proposal 12: Add open GAR listings to GAN page

 * See the discussion

Proposal 13: Coordinators for Good article reassessment

 * See the discussion


 * Taking place here: Symbol watching blue lashes high contrast.svg Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations czar  03:55, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Proposal 14: Merge individual and community good article reassessment

 * See the discussion


 * I have drafted an alteration to the current GAR guidelines in my sandbox; hopefully people with better technical skills can tweak it a bit, or the wording can be improved in some way. AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:51, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Oh shoot, @AirshipJungleman29, I didn't see that you'd drafted a set and I went and drafted one myself without having looked at this discussion first. Mine is at User:Premeditated Chaos/GAR proposal. Mine has some additions/ideas that yours doesn't have - not sure your thoughts. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 21:26, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @Premeditated Chaos / @AirshipJungleman29: happy to help working towards a final version / compromise here. I think working from PMC's proposal is easiest, as I like the structure, and bring it closer to AJ29's simpler proposal:
 * I dislike the WP:AFDHOWTO solution; it's likely people will follow the manual instructions before they see the picture on the right. If we get a tool, let's implement it like how we link the the GANReviewTool.
 * Agree that notifying Wikiprojects twice is redundant. "Consider requesting assistance from major contributors to the article and any relevant active WikiProjects" is not really needed. Asking major contributors may be useful to prevent a GAR however. Would also be okay with removing completely.
 * There is a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Good_article_reassessment to remove this. Discussion has low attendance, but leans towards emptying the list and then removing the process.
 * Good idea to focus more strongly on the fact people must specify how the article doesn't meet the criteria.
 * After at least one week, if the article's issues are unresolved and there are no objections to delisting, the discussion may be closed as delist. Discussions may be kept open longer at the discretion of the editor who opened the reassessment. After at least one week, if there are no responses to the original reassessment rationale and no improvement to the article in the meantime, the editor who opened the reassessment may presume a silent consensus and close as delist. You forsee closing happening almost always by the opener then? I think scrunity may be raised if we allow any person to close at this time..?
 * I think it's fine to ask for closure at WP:GAN and not a new location (which is a weird location for GAR coords to communicate, but yeah, proposal 17 has passed)
 * a neutral party (or the GAR coords if that passes) may be asked to step in -> this implies it should usually be done upon request. I think the current system of people stepping up without a specific request works okay, and will work better when there are coords. The wording by AJ29 seems to capture this well: "If there is no consensus, consider adding a new comment rather than closing the discussion. In controversial discussions, where consensus is difficult to determine, it should be closed by those with more experience of reassessment discussions, such as the GAR co-ordinators."
 * —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:55, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @Femke, sorry, for the delayed response. Do we want to move this discussion to a subpage? I have a feeling it could get big and I don't want to overwhelm this page. Plus if it does get big we can organize by subsection.
 * In the existing GAI, GANReviewTool is linked after the manual instructions for the relevant sections. I don't understand how that's a better implementation than a noticeable sidebar.
 * Reworded
 * Should we make that a formal proposal at the proposal drive?
 * Yes, I wanted to make it extremely clear to hopefully forestall any GARs based on vague, spurious issues, since a few people have been concerned about this occurring in a streamlined GAR system. (I don't necessarily agree that it will, but it doesn't hurt to include it.)
 * As to closing: the idea for this process is to enable GARs to be as streamlined as possible. Our current individual process already allows for (in fact, prescribes) closure by the opener, so my version retains that to allow for reasonably quick closures where there's no objection and no one stepping up to work on the article. On the other hand, my version explicitly precludes closing as delist if there is a good-faith objection of any kind (even a silent objection in the form of someone working on the article). I believe central listing of GARs will actually make the "silent consensus" closes more rare than they are now, as each GAR will be far more visible and therefore invite more public comment. (We could up the time limit to two weeks, or a month even, if that would feel better?)
 * I've removed the suggestion for other venues but left AN/RFC for now
 * I've done some rewording, including AJ29's wording about consensus as an explicit direction. I split reassessment process and closing a reassessment into their own subsections; I think that makes it clearer.
 * Any comments on the proposed dispute process?
 * &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 23:21, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
 * ,, perhaps let's move this discussion to your proposal's talk page? AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:44, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
 * This is close to launch now. More input on the proposed dispute process is welcome at the talk page. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 17:18, 2 February 2023 (UTC)


 * I have modified Template:GARMessage to remove the distinction. CMD (talk) 03:32, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * pointed out additional problems with the GAR templates here. Would you be able to implement solutions, ? AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:59, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * My fix was textual, nested templates should be done by someone with much more experience than I. The suggestion of a VPT post is good, once we have the non-technical work done. CMD (talk) 12:31, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Proposal has been implemented

Proposal 15: Invitation

 * See the discussion

Users disagreed on when the invitation should be sent, but users generally agreed it should be after 2-5 successful GA articles, so I think 3 would probably be a good compromise. There's also the question of whether it should be sent to users that already have at least one review done by this point. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:43, 4 February 2023 (UTC)


 * I don't think it should go to users who have already done a review, as its intention is to encourage new reviewers. We may want to re-encourage reviewers, but presumably that would be best with a separately tailored message. CMD (talk) 03:36, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Agree. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 07:42, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
 * This makes a lot of sense. So it would only go out to someone after their 3rd GA pass, and only if they had no previous reviews and no active reviews? Rjjiii (talk) 06:21, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I am not likely the best person to create a template or bot. But here is a rough draft of an invitation. Feel free to edit this page directly or provide criticism:
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rjjiii/Invitation Rjjiii (talk) 06:22, 8 February 2023 (UTC)


 * It might also be worth sending a second invitation as a reminder to users that still have zero reviews after a higher number (10?) of completed GA nominations. We'd need to make sure it doesn't come across as pushy, but just something to make people think "oh yeah, I was going to look into that". We might also want to consider retroactively sending invitations to users that have already achieved whatever number of nominations without doing any reviews. But overall, the invitations at any point should serve two purposes. First, to let users know that it's not scary and that they are welcome to review. And second, to provide links to resources that will make the process as painless as possible. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 15:07, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Proposal 17: Redirect talk pages to the GAN talk page

 * See the discussion
 * I wonder if that discussion would benefit from staying open a bit longer; do we also need to redirect WT:GAR? —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:26, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I could go either way on redirecting WT:GAR. Its purpose is different enough that it might be beneficial having a separate space for discussion, but centralization is good too. It really comes down to how active and how well watched WT:GAR is. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 15:10, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
 * It's awoken from a long slumber and quite active now. Because it wasn't before, it's not super well watched. A large fraction of GAR related messages end up on WT:GAN now, so that people mostly interested in GAR miss those. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 17:03, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Proposal 21: Make GA status more prominent in mainspace

 * See the discussion

A brief summary of several possibilities brought up in the discussion:
 * Make GA icons visible in mobile view.
 * Create a "GA of the day" on the main page.
 * Move GA icons adjacent to article titles.
 * Modify the tooltip description.
 * Change the color of the article's title.
 * Change the GA icon link from from WP:GA to the individual article's review page.

Also note that there was a recent discussion on adding GA icons to DYK on the main page. The DYK editors largely declined on the basis of either WP:NOBODYHASTIME and WP:RIVALHIGHSCHOOLANIMOSITY. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know#Making_GAs_stand_out? Rjjiii (talk) 08:30, 8 February 2023 (UTC)


 * GA icons in mobile seems like an obvious one (and would naturally include FA icons as well). I'm not a fan of changing the link to the review page, as people clicking on the GA icon will usually be wondering "what is this green plus symbol". I strongly oppose changing the color of the article's title, which would just be really confusing for readers. Neutral on the other proposals. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:39, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Adding a bit of research regarding icons in mobile:
 * Here's a brief discussion about indicators in mobile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_183#Featured/GA_topicons_for_mobile
 * Here's the phabricator page for the issue which has been open since 2014: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T75299
 * The Danish Wikipedia places quality indicators directly behind the title, but these still don't display on Mobile. Compare https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyndwropr%C3%B8ret?useskin=minerva to https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyndwropr%C3%B8ret?useskin=vector
 * And ctrl+F indicator on this discussion to get some perspective on WMF's attitude towards GA/FA and other indicator icons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_192 which includes this line Our view on this is that the order should be as follows (vertically): language button, tabs, indicators and coordinates.
 * Rjjiii (talk) 03:51, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I wanted to highlight something else from the discussion. Wugapodes made the point that the tooltip is a quick change to make. His full post with the potential new tooltip bolded by me: I generally agree with Kusma that we should be transparent about the limitations of our articles, but I also agree there's room for improvement in how the GA information is presented. I think the tooltip could be improved: "this is a good article" isn't much help to anyone. Being upfront about what the GA criteria are and how it got that little icon would be worthwhile taking some language from WP:GA: "A previous version of this article was reviewed against a core set of editorial standards". It makes it clear that it might not apply to this version, but also gives the reader some sense of what the GA process is without needing to click through. I also think it might help to change what the icon links to. Right now, it links to WP:GA, but maybe it should link to the GA review? The benefit is that it actually shows interested readers what the review process was, what issues were raised (and fixed), and gives them information with which to evaluate the current article's quality. The benefit is that these are changes that could probably be implemented without a project-wide RfC since it's not changing the interface or how other icons might work.
 * And here is the page where the template is located:
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Good_article&action=edit
 * There were several other suggestions and while I personally suggested something else, I really like the idea of taking the phrasing directly from WP:GA, especially if the link continues to point to that page. Rjjiii (talk) 04:05, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Proposal 22: Add short description and shorten

 * See the discussion
 * I don't know who is going to implement this (maybe ?) but I would like to suggest that whoever does it creates a GANentry2 template to test with so we can easily switch back and forth if there are debates about exact formatting. Also, a question for the closer:, there were a couple of reservations expressed in the discussion about including the short description.  Does your close mean that the short description should be included in a new template? Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 12:03, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 *   ( t alk   | [ h istory  ]   | ) –short description- (0 reviews, 0 GAs)
 * The extraneous links should be cut and a short description added. That being said, this should be work-shopped before implementation. Much of the concern was that people we're sure how it would look, and discourse will be much more fruitful once a working model is set up. Ideally, we should trial both if possible. We will likely need to continue discussion as implementation comes closer since this it going to be a bigger change, but the overwhelming consensus is that it should be changed. 🏵️ Etrius ( Us) 14:17, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @Etriusus: could you change your close please? It was certainly not "unanimous support" (I opposed half of the proposal). —Kusma (talk) 17:34, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @Kusma Done. 🏵️ Etrius ( Us) 17:40, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks. —Kusma (talk) 17:47, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I have removed the extra links but not added the shortdesc (no idea how to do that). If this breaks anything, just revert my edit to GANentry. —Kusma (talk) 15:22, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks. There was one extra link left, which I just removed. Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 17:02, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I tried tweaking to add the short description, and have tested it at . It seems to be doing fine? It takes a while to load, however. I also don't understand how the shortdesc code works – I simply copied the code from anl – so it needs someone to look it over. Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 18:05, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * The sandbox version (partially) transcludes all of the nominated pages to extract their short descriptions, something that will always load very slowly (unless we get the backlog down to just 30 pages). I don't think that is acceptable. —Kusma (talk) 22:43, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I see. Yeah I agree, it's too slow. Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 22:59, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * One way to resolve the speed issue is to extract the short description only once, when the article is nominated. I don't think this can be done in GANentry, but it could be implemented by ChristieBot, e.g. by writing  to the GAN page at the time of nomination. (PS: the GetShortDescription lua module is not live yet, but has a draft being discussed here by ). I don't know if  thinks this is feasible? To workshop the visual look, we could just use the testcases page – it currently has a snapshot of the full GAN page with short descs. (Linking archive.org since the live page will change if someone tweaks the sandbox) . Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 10:14, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * That call would return the short description string and nothing else? Are you thinking it could be added by ChristieBot into a new parameter of the GAnominee template, "|shortdescription="?  At nomination time?  If so, yes, I think ChristieBot could do that if it can't be done at the time the nominee template is added.  But it would be at risk of getting out of sync with the actual short description, and since it's slow I wouldn't want to recheck every short description for every nominated article every time ChristieBot runs. Or do you have a different mechanism in mind? Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 12:38, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I think the potential chance of going out of sync is low, and the potential issue for going out of sync is nothing. CMD (talk) 13:53, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Good enough. So to implement this, we need (a) the GetShortDescription lua module to be live; (b) a parameter to be added to the GAnominee template.  Can that template grab the short description using that lua module at the time the article is first nominated?  Then (c) ChristieBot would check each nominee to be sure it has a "|shortdescription= " parameter, and add it if the parameter is missing.  If the short description is missing or intentionally left blank, what should happen?  Perhaps just put "blank" or "intentionally blank" in that field.  Then when the GAN page is written, GANentry will have a field for it and can decide what to do if the value is "blank" or "intentionally blank".  Does that all sound right?  If so I guess we have to wait for the lua module to be ready, then figure out what can be done with the GAnominee template.  ChristieBot is sensitive to errors in GAnominee so when we're ready to change how it looks it'll take a bit of testing.  Then when that's ready I can look at adding the last bit of functionality to ChristieBot. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 14:23, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I would expect it to be reasonably common that newer articles don't have a short description. —Kusma (talk) 16:08, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Regarding blankness: GetShortDescription can get an explicit or fallback to a wikidata description or an explicit fallback e.g. (this article has an implicit short desc set via infobox television episode)   results in (ed for highlight):    15:36, 22 January 2023 (UTC) P.S. I still hoping to convince it to grab implicit short descs without using horribly expensive processing, but am not holding my breath. 15:40, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi there. Please let me know if there are any specific requirements regarding the possible intended use of Module:GetShortDescription (draft name) while it's in development; it's far easier to implement features by design than refactor later 🙂  14:07, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm not a template coder, so I don't know the answer to this: can the GA nominee template be set to add the short description field at the time it is added to an article? If so, that would address most of what is needed.  I would only need to make sure ChristieBot can handle the extra parameter and can put it in the GANentry call on GAN. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 14:23, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, we could set that up via GAN, which already substitutes a bunch of things at the time an article is nominated. Just change what it currently has to:    Need to double-check the syntax in a sandbox (perhaps one of the safesubsts is not needed), but something like the above should work. Then ChristieBot can pick up the shortdescription param and add to GANentry. Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 18:06, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * First draft documentation is done and the module is cleaned up for use (currently beta). I suppose it should be moved (and by the looks of things, protected) to a stable name without my name in it (effectively sandboxed). It appears already created Module:Get short description (August 13, 2022‎), but it's not currently in use (and has issues), so maybe a merge? I dunno and need to cook my dinner.   18:41, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @Fred Gandt, have you looked at Annotated link? My module works (it gets implicit and explicit values, but not WD) but adds categories as well (from the page being checked), and I have no idea how to get rid of them. — Qwerfjkl  talk  20:54, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * And it's expensive: CPU time usage	5 031 seconds Real time usage	5 425 seconds Preprocessor visited node count	38,338/1,000,000 Post-expand include size	1,576,595/2,097,152 bytes Template argument size	93,125/2,097,152 bytes Highest expansion depth	20/100 Expensive parser function count	112/500 Unstrip recursion depth	0/20 Unstrip post-expand size	0/5,000,000 bytes Lua time usage	4.987/10.000 seconds Lua memory usage	28,173,384/52,428,800 bytes — Qwerfjkl  talk  20:56, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * For Russia, which is admittedly pretty big. — Qwerfjkl  talk  20:57, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Hello there. Yes I have looked at (see its talk). Your module does not get implicit short descs e.g.   (an article with an implicit short desc) returns nothing, and it does so by preprocessing the entire content of the page, which, for a large page, will be truly horrible, and it's probably why you're getting unwanted categories. If you wish to discuss it further, where that discussion has no relevance here, please start that discussion on my talk, or ping me somewhere else 🙂   21:12, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Although use on the page you're getting the short desc for may be different.  21:15, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @Fred Gandt, as I found with Automatic redirect categories/applyRcat, it's really tricky (for implicit, that is). — Qwerfjkl  talk  22:00, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

if getting any implicit (set by another template on the page, rather than by ) descriptions is important; I think I've worked out how to do it without tearing a hole in the fabric of space-time, but it will still be horrible. It will only work if the invocation is from the page it's testing and will come with large, scary warnings in the docs. I'll let you know when it's running. 02:17, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * No hurry, but if you can let us know when it's working, we can pick up the testing for at that point.  I don't know how important it would be to get the implicit short descriptions -- what percentage of articles have them?  The goal for us is to add it via  to WP:GAN, to help readers of that page get a bit more information about each article.  If very few articles have implicit short descriptions it wouldn't matter too much if we can't get them. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 02:53, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you. alone has over 11,000 transclusions and I think it sets an implicit description everywhere it goes. Unfortunately (I tried a lot of searches but found naught) there seems to be no centralised category for Category:Templates that set short descriptions (kinda thing) so there's no way to tell (I know of). If you're good without implicits, that's great for everyone. Other than moving it to a final destination, it's good to go for explicit and wikidata descriptions now. I suppose I can move it when I have a fresh cuppa tea, then we can sort out the existence of two modules doing basically the same thing (not nice) later. I'll be back in a bit. If it's going to be highly visible, someone should protect it before it's deployed, but please don't protect it too much or I won't be able to maintain it 😆 (I have template editor rights)   03:11, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I actually found Category:Modules that create a short description which might help a bit, and might also indicate that there's less of this kind of thing happening than is challenging.  04:29, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree that implicit ones aren't needed. Looking at the above snapshot, which only shows explicit shortdescs, most of the GAN page seems filled out. Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 03:27, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * We can certainly go ahead and see if that's good enough, and go back to Fred if we think we need the implicits. Olivaw-Daneel, I'll outdent to start a thread about how to test this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 03:44, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I've move it to (as you probably already noticed) Module:GetShortDescription. Pretty sure I got all the old links and such; I'll triple check over the next minutes.  03:53, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Update: looking at known (from ^ that category) templates in use, mostly infoboxes, that might create implicit short descriptions; there are about 650,000 articles potentially affected.  10:54, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Testing implementation of proposal 22
Can we do the testing in the following order? -- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 03:44, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * 1) Change GA nominee so that it accepts a parameter of "|shortdesc=", but doesn't subst it in on creation.  I don't think it matters if it displays it on the talk page in some way so long as it doesn't complain about an unknown parameter.  Probably best to display it in case it gets changed in the article and the nominator wants to change it to match; they won't know to do that if it's not visible.
 * 2) Change one nominated article to add the parameter to the GA nominee template.  Then I can test that a ChristieBot run won't crash because of the extra parameter. It shouldn't, but I don't want to go to the next step without being sure.
 * 3) Once that's settled, we can change GAN to do the substing.
 * 4) Change GANentry to accept an optional shortdesc parameter (or is this already done?)
 * 5) Meanwhile I'll work on having ChristieBot put the shortdesc in the GANentry params on WP:GAN.  That's going to be a bit fiddly and I probably won't work on it till Thursday or so.  When it's working it should pick up all the shortdescs on the nomination talk pages.  Nominations from before step 3 above won't have it, but eventually those will all be reviewed and drop off the list.


 * Sounds good to me. I'll get started on step 1. Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 03:56, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm done with steps 1 and 2. See this diff at Talk: K-Meleon where I've added a shortdesc param. Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 04:29, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I think we probably should revert the change to Talk:K-Meleon for the moment -- you can see at WP:GAN that Christiebot is interpreting it as a note string. I'll have to get it to parse the shortdesc param separately.  I might be able to do that tomorrow. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 04:52, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, no hurry. I've reverted it. Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 04:55, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @Olivaw-Daneel That diff introduced a selfclosing to the GA nom template on Talk: K-Meleon before you reverted your test. GANom/Testcases also had this issue, so I checked the template and found that there was a selfclosing error in the template's code. I changed that in the template, but for some reason the issue didn't clear up on testcases after I purged and null edited the testcase page. About 15 minutes later it just cleared up with no changes on the testpage or the template (I'm a bit baffled by this), but the issue seems to be gone now. If I've broken anything unintentional, feel free to revert, but so far no pages are claiming any errors.
 * One concept question though, how does this proposed  differ from the current existing Template:GA nominee's   parameter? Zinnober9 (talk) 05:44, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @Zinnober9: Thanks for fixing that tag! The difference between the two params is that note is for a personal note to the reviewer (see WP:GANI for an example), while shortdesc is for the article's short description. The plan is to automatically populate that field when GAN is substituted. Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 05:58, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the clarification, sounds good to me. The template's  description "A miscellaneous note related to the article or the nomination" left it a little vague as to it only being a personal note to the reviewer about the nomination itself, so I hadn't thought the article's short description was much different at first glance (the note parameter description may need a slight clarifying adjustment later when this goes full hog live). Cheers, Happy New Year! Zinnober9 (talk) 06:17, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

, ChristieBot now copes with the shortdesc parameter without adding it to the note, so you can go ahead with steps 3 & 4. When 4 is done let me know and I'll start on 5. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:00, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * steps 3 and 4 are done. Here's an example of the output with the shortdesc. If there's no shortdesc in the article or it's intentionally set to none, that field will be left empty; and  accepts the same param. Inside, I've used the code from  rather than the GetShortDescription module due to an issue Fred and I discussed here. (I can later switch the code over to the module once it's ready.) Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 07:22, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the update. I should be able to work on this on Thursday. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 11:53, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I was able to get to this tonight. It's done; I need to wait for an update (pass/fail/onhold/new nomination) to occur to be sure the database side works correctly, but the GAN page part is done. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 02:17, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 02:53, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Proposal 30: Add a category separating GAs by month and/or year

 * See the discussion

When I'm done with the data extraction I'm working on, I'll have a fairly complete list of any GA that had a subpage for its nomination, and in most cases I should have the outcome and date. ChristieBot doesn't have approval to make category changes but I could apply if nobody is able to take the data I have and give it to an existing bot. There will be some missing data, and there will also be quite a few that predate the subpage system (introduced in early 2008). I have no idea how to do those. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:35, 7 February 2023 (UTC)


 * If possible an "Uncategorised date" category to hold all the others would help with any future developments. CMD (talk) 01:41, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Proposal 34: Create a page, Former good articles, for delisted GAs, similar to WP:FFA

 * See the discussion