Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Joss Whedon/1

Joss Whedon

 * • [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Good_article_reassessment/Joss_Whedon/1&action=watch Watch article reassessment page] • Most recent review
 * Result: consensus to demote AustralianRupert (talk) 09:29, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

This article does not meet the good article criteria demand for reliable sources and no original research. One example comes from the FAC nomination, where it was failed partly for not having sources fit for a biographical article, instead linking to "blogs, sketchy review sites, and sources like BuzzFeed". The reviewer was surprised it made it through to good article status in the first place. It still has a problem with prose in addition to the suspicious copyvio results, but I think poor verifiability is its chief offence. Cognissonance (talk) 09:30, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

There is something wrong with the header. I don't know how to fix it, it says "GA Reassessment" instead of linking to the Joss Whedon GAR like there other articles on the main WP:GAR page, but anyway... Also, it seems to me that the article possibly fails WP:GA criteria #5 "Stable" - it seems to attract a fairly constant stream of a certain amount of vandalism/reverts/edits/well-meaning edits not up to WP standards etc. Shearonink (talk) 00:08, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Ref #98 is dead.
 * Ref #168 handshake failure
 * Ref #249 fails.
 * Ref #324 is dead.
 * Ref #314 is malformed.
 * Header fixed. Thanks kind stranger. Shearonink (talk) 01:14, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
 * You're welcome, Shearonink. It was my fault to begin with; the reassessment was started as an individual one but because the nominator was a major contributor, it had to be done as a community reassessment; unfortunately, I didn't quite get the conversion right. Thanks for pointing out the issue; I'll do it better if such a conversion is needed in future. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:52, 29 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I've never quite understood how an article can have just enough bad sourcing and original research to fail an FA nomination but not enough to delist as a GA. I posted such a GAR back in late 2015 and it was closed as keep by default because there wasn't a "consensus to delist". Unless an experienced user goes through all the sources and checks that each one of them fully verifies the article content, I think the safest move would be to delist. (It's not clear if this is what User:Shearonink did above, or if it was just a search for sources with technical problems and/or that shouldn't be cited anyway.) Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 22:26, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Agreed that it should be delisted and marked down - to a C. I mean, it's been almost a month and none of the GA Criteria issues have been improved.  I have no idea if I can do do the Closing or if it has to be someone else - GAR's parameters are confusing to me.  I think I am following them and then?...apparently not. u|BlueMoonset, Wizardman - if someone else could close this that would be awesome. Shearonink (talk) 23:02, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Shearonink, once you have posted an opinion (such as that you think it fails the stability criterion), you are no longer considered uninvolved, so you shouldn't be closing this. It should be someone else. Maybe AustralianRupert might be willing to take a look? BlueMoonset (talk) 23:56, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I didn't say I was going to close it did I. That's why I called you here. Shearonink (talk) 00:33, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
 * No, but you did say I have no idea if I can do do the Closing or if it has to be someone else, which is what I was answering in response to your ping. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:38, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Ok. Shearonink (talk) 00:44, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
 * once you have posted an opinion [...], you are no longer considered uninvolved, so you shouldn't be closing this would be my opinion as well, and it is technically encouraged by the GAR guidelines, but it does seem like GAR has a weird loophole to get around that requirement, in that an editor whose personal opinion is that the page doesn't meet the criteria can open an individual reassessment and then close it however way they see fit. It's kind of off-topic for this page but the GAR process itself seems to be especially messy, and the guidelines were written by a user who by their own admission is not a fan of the process itself, and may or may not have deliberately made the guidelines as dense as they are in order to discourage use of the process. (I'm still trying to figure out if there's any time-efficient way to find out how many GARs were opened in any given 12-month period, but I would be surprised if the number of GARs hasn't dropped noticeably in the last year.) Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 01:59, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Going off-topic in my comment as well, but speaking as someone who's just stumbled into this corner of WP fairly recently...this is all very confusing and somewhat obtuse to me and I'm not a newbie. If we comment at all we can't close? If we open a GAR we can't close?...unless it's an individual GAR? etc...  It seems to me that the GAR guidelines/rules should perhaps follow the GA guidelines.  There's a nominator and then there's a Reviewer.  The Reviewer gets to do the Review and the Reviewer gets to close the Review.  The Nominator and other interested editors can work on doing the major adjustment to the article, the Reviewer can do minor ones, the Nominator can also withdraw the nom for whatever reason (no time, lost interest, doesn't work well with the Reviewer, etc).  It's a fairly-straightforward system, it makes sense to me that GAR could be set up in a similar fashion. Shearonink (talk) 17:48, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
 * It's not technically true that if we comment at all we can't close (see Prhartcom's most recent GAR involvement back in fall 2015), but if a commenter closes in a way that aligns with their own POV and was not clearly supported by consensus, they can expect a backlash. Basically it is considered out of line for an involved party to close just about anything, with the only borderline exceptions being where everyone is in agreement and there is therefore no one in whose interests it would be to point out that the closer was out of line. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 03:05, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
 * so if the comments are all unanimous, then there is no dissent and one of the commenters could then close the GAR and take appropriate action - keep the GA, delist it, downgrade it to a B or C or whatever. Oh well, I guess this will have to wait in GAR-limbo until someone who is uninvolved comes along and closes it. Shearonink (talk) 03:21, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Technically, if the comments were unanimous, then an involved closer would still technically be in violation, but usually on Wikipedia the only way violators face consequences is if someone reports them, and if everyone agrees with the closure then no one would have any reason to complain. (In theory, some random outsider who happens across it might want to report them, but that would be wikilawyering at best and more than likely a form of harassment. The same goes for other involved users who agree with the nature of the close but choose to enforce the letter of the law anyway, since it would be very hard to justify such an action in good faith.) Since a lot of GAs were promoted way back in the day and even if their original nominators don't agree with 2017 sourcing standards they aren't here anymore to complain, I imagine unanimous "delist" !votes are quite common. If, however, everyone was in essential agreement that delisting was the way to go, and you inserted into the closing statement some personal opinion that you don't have any reason to believe would be agreed to by others, that would be a fairly significant violation. Additionally, GARs generally only discuss whether or not to delist as a GA. If the article is no longer either GA or FA, you or any other user, involved or not, have the freedom to determine whether it is A, B, C, Start, or any other quality level according to the standards of this or that WikiProject; a fully uninvolved user (i.e., one who has never edited the page before and is not linked to any of the relevant WikiProjects) determining the class of the article would be a little weird, although it does happen and is not a violation. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 05:21, 22 February 2017 (UTC)