Wikipedia talk:Good articles/GAN Backlog Drives/July 2021

List of old nominations
, in the next day or so I'm going to add a list of nominations that are 90+ days old. Would it be possible to add a third line to the chart, showing the number of such nominations, and would there be a straightforward and consistent way of charting the progress? From what I can tell, it should be fairly simple—look at the daily report of "Old nominations," look at the number of 90+ day old nominations, manually subtract those that are on review/hold/2nd opinion, and then perhaps adjust for the fact that the report is at 1 a.m. rather than midnight. But please let me know if this would be more complicated than it sounds. --Usernameunique (talk) 18:42, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Usernameunique, it is more complicated, unfortunately. The table is created by template GAN changes, one template per day, and since we share the template with the Guild of Copy Editors, we cannot add fields willy-nilly. (They are also running a drive in July.) I don't know how an extra field could be manually added to the end of the template-generated line, and I won't have time to experiment prior to the beginning of the drive.
 * While the Report does generate at 01:00 UTC, it takes only a few minutes most days to backdate it to 00:00 UTC by seeing the changes in the nominations page in the hour since, so I've been making manual changes to get it exactly at midnight UTC. I've stopped using the numbers given on the WP:GAN page, since they are typically off by four or five, and there's no way I know of to fix them so they're reliable, since category counting is not exact for the GAN categories. (The Report counts what's on the GAN page, so it's always as accurate as that page is.) BlueMoonset (talk) 04:46, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * , thanks for your response. "it should be fairly simple"—famous last words once again. I may keep an informal tally here of the number of old nominations out of interest, but at the end of the day, the count of the total nominations outstanding is the most important. --Usernameunique (talk) 04:55, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * , come to think of it, we may have been speaking of different things. I had actually forgotten about the table, and when I said "chart," was thinking about the graph. It looks like this uses a more generic template—do you think it would be relatively easy to add a third line to the graph? --Usernameunique (talk) 05:50, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Looks like we started with 76 nominations that were 90+ days old, though knocked down to 71 in the first hour. --Usernameunique (talk) 01:22, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Down to 45 to start day 2. --Usernameunique (talk) 13:57, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * 39 for day 3. --Usernameunique (talk) 01:10, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
 * 32 to start day 4. --Usernameunique (talk) 21:06, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
 * 25 to start day 5. Although this number benefits from two quite short reviews, of Bad Times at the El Royale and Đakovo internment camp. As noted about the latter, the brevity may be cause for concern. --Usernameunique (talk) 02:44, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
 * 17 to start day 6. --Usernameunique (talk) 04:59, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
 * 16 to start day 7,
 * 12 to start day 8. --Usernameunique (talk) 04:12, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
 * 11 to start day 9. --Usernameunique (talk) 00:43, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
 * 7 to start day 10. --Usernameunique (talk) 00:27, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
 * 7 to start day 11, 9 to start day 12. --Usernameunique (talk) 17:38, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
 * 5 to start day 13, 6 to start days 14 and 15, 7 to start day 16, and 3 to start day 17. --Usernameunique (talk) 21:31, 17 July 2021 (UTC)


 * I think the extra credit for older nominations is definitely working. Next time I might suggest 0.5 point for any article older than 60 days. Not so sure about the word count because while we're keeping a list of the oldest articles needing review you have to click on the article and complete a process to determine the word count. It is more complicated and maybe not worth it. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  22:57, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
 * , agree the .5 point is working. Assuming we get (close to) zero 90+ day nominations remaining, I think we could start progressively offering the extra credit for nominations that are less old—say 75+ days to start, then (if that goes well) 60+ days. As to word count, I see your point. There's definitely a theoretical benefit, but might be worth dropping it next time and seeing if there's a noticeable difference. --Usernameunique (talk) 23:20, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
 * The Guild of Copy Editors does something similar for older tagged articles during a drive. They may start out by offering bonuses for copyediting tagged articles from the oldest months, but when they run out of those entirely, they'll add the latest month to get bonuses, but only if the copyedit is begun on or after the date added. I'd like to suggest you get all the way down to zero, and then add the next tranche. (You're at 16 now, down only 1 since yesterday.) There are another 16 in the 80 to 89 section, 15 in 70 to 79, and 13 in 60 to 69, after which new ones will continue to move into 60 and above. Plenty to fuel the next weeks. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:18, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it probably makes sense to get down to zero before changing the metrics. Among other reasons, it should theoretically prevent a few tough-to-review articles from endlessly lingering. --Usernameunique (talk) 04:14, 8 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Once the Arab Christians article goes on review, there will be no articles on the list that were 90+ days old when we started the drive. I think that's the moment to substantially expand the eligibility. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  03:17, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
 * , it's tantalizingly close. I'm fine with either option, but it's worth noting that after Stjepan Vukčić Kosača (102 days old), the next oldest unreviewed nominations are 86 days old (Steinitz's theorem and Affine symmetric group). Thus, there is a decent chance that both the current 90+ day nominations will be claimed before the next couple crack 90 days. Meanwhile, the 80+ day nominations are themselves being winnowed, and are down to only 9 (whereas there were 16 on 7 July, per 's comment above). Once the 90+ nominations are gone, it may be worth extending the extra point to all 70+ day unreviewed nominations, which would make 17 articles eligible (9 80–89, 8 70–79). --Usernameunique (talk) 21:43, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I think next time we should simplify the old noms process by not using a rolling window for eligibility. Instead, we should start with articles nominated before X date (probably 2-3 months before the drive starts, depending on what the backlog looks like), and when those are all gone, we move it up to Y date. This would be easier to calculate for potential reviewers as well; we wouldn't need to make a special list of qualifying articles since the nomination date is prominently displayed on the GAN page. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  22:36, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I would wait until both Arab Christians and Stjepan have been reviewed before making a change. Going to 75+ or 70+ makes a reasonable next step. Another approach for future runs is start with nominated before X date—three months before the start of the drive is usually good—and add an "or in the top 10 oldest unreviewed nominations", so people can make a quick check on the Reports page to see what's available. That has worked in the past when we had drives that offered a variety of bonus points depending on how old the nomination was: those in the top 10 oldest always qualified for the most points regardless of their age. Or you can do like GOCE, and just drop by a month (or half a month) when things run out. The only thing is that it's hard to search out noms by date unless reviewers do it manually, unless you assemble a list for them. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:31, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Adding 's excellent sandbox graph that includes a line for old nominations, in order to keep everything in one place. --Usernameunique (talk) 09:14, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Mass message
, did we get a mass message out at least to people who participated in former GAN drives? Last year I had to send out manual messages which was a pain. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  01:52, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * , good timing—I've been working on setting this up today. With any luck it will go out on the 29th. --Usernameunique (talk) 03:21, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Great! I've added notifications to Community bulletin board and Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) . (t &#183; c)  buidhe  03:45, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I just sent out a notification to all users on User:GA bot/Stats with 10 or more reviews & at least 1 edit in the last year and anyone else from the march drive. (Limited to 10+ because of concerns raised on a talk about spamming users). After Usernameunique made the request. Side note on notifications: There is also a request for a watchlist notification to be added for a few days here Terasail [✉️] 22:43, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks, . We have 14 signups since, and presumably more to come. And only 3 opt-outs, so (combined with having the ability to opt out) I think the concern about spam can be put to rest. --Usernameunique (talk) 19:27, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

How to participate
May anyone just enter their name in the participants list? Are there any particularly recommended requirements for a prospective reviewer to fulfill?

Asking because a few of these look like slam dunks, and I wouldn't mind getting a slice of the action. Horsesizedduck (talk) 22:36, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Comprehensive
A quite serious question: how can we know if some of these are comprehensive? For instance, Arab Christians is an absolute whopper of an article - how does someone even begin to know if it covers all the bases? - Aussie Article Writer (talk) 16:42, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Just to nitpick, "comprehensive" is a term usually associated with the featured article criteria. WP:GACR just requires "broad" coverage, addressing the "main aspects of the topic". As for determining whether that's met, for me it partly comes from within (i.e. just my intuition about what main pieces of information I would want if I were a reader interested in the topic - starting from the basics of who/what/where/when/why), and partly from without (I'll spot-check a few RS on the topic, possibly including some not cited in the article, and see if there are any areas that they treat as important which are unexplorer or underexplored in the article). It's a lot easier for certain kinds of subjects that are usually structured in a fairly formulaic way (e.g. articles about songs will usually have sections covering the composition, critical reception, chart performance, awards, music video, etc.), but definitely a lot harder for something like Arab Christians. Colin M (talk) 18:04, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Question regarding word count
To be clear, is the number of words that we are supposed to put next to the reviews that we've done the number of words that we wrote in our review, or the number of words in the article? Also, is there an easy built-in word count tool that I am able to use, or do I have to copy-paste into a word counter? — Mikehawk10 (talk) 04:58, 3 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Per these instructions, number of words in the article. You can use the Prosesize script to count. – Teratix ₵ 09:02, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
 * May you help please, as I've added the script to my toolbox but can't seem to use it? --K. Peake 09:32, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
 * If it's installed properly, you should have a small link called "Page size" in the right-hand pane under "Tools" which you can click to get the wordcount. Colin M (talk) 23:56, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for helping out, I spotted the link and used it properly for the article! --K. Peake 08:53, 4 July 2021 (UTC)


 * To follow up, is this the prose size at the beginning of the review, or at the end of the review? GeneralPoxter (talk • contribs) 04:11, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Beginning of review per Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 20:10, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Error
I looked at the top of the participants list, and noticed a problem: has listed Talk:Charles A. Cheever/GA1 instead of Talk:Charles A. Cheever/GA2, and  appears to not have noticed. I think the latter is still ongoing, in fact. Might be best to take a look at that. Horsesizedduck (talk) 22:29, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
 * , No, I did notice, I just didn't bother to fix the link. Both GANs were closed as failed. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  22:31, 5 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Sorry. I closed GA2 and by mistake listed the closing as GA1 Akrasia25 (talk) 22:46, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Rules update regarding old nominations
There are currently 7 unreviewed nominations that are 90+ days old, down from 76 when the drive began. If and when all nominations that are 90+ days old are placed on review, then unreviewed nominations that are 80+ days old will becomes eligible for the .5 point bonus. The same principle will hold true going forward—if and when all unreviewed nominations that are 80+ days old are placed on review then 70+-day-old nominations will be come eligible, and so on. More discussion here. --Usernameunique (talk) 21:42, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Individual reassessments?
Can a review be listed here if it's done as a reassessment? Colin M (talk) 23:13, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Colin M, good article reassessments have not been eligible in past drives so my assumption is that they are not. The idea here is to reduce the backlog by reviewing existing nominations to see whether they should be listed or not. Whether to delist current good articles is something else altogether: worthwhile, but not part of this effort to trim the backlog. I'll leave it to drive coordinator Usernameunique to confirm or contradict. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:49, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'd agree that reassessments are not part of this drive, although definitely worthwhile in general. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  03:19, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
 * , as and  said, good article reassessments are certainly worthwhile, and appreciated. But I agree that they're beyond the scope of the backlog drive, which is focusing on unreviewed nominations. --Usernameunique (talk) 07:38, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Talk:Abdurauf Fitrat/GA1
Hi all and sorry to bother you,

I'm not familiar with the nomination procedures in this wiki. Do I need to nominate this article again or is it still in the backlog? I am aware that the entire course of events (exotic topic, long time without reviewer, then lengthy process of rewriting the article, then withdrawal of the reviewer) was rather unlucky and I am not going to blame anyone for this mess. But I'd love to know where we stand ;-) Thanks, → «« Man77 »» 19:13, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
 * - it looks like it has been failed, so it'll be necessary to renominate. Hog Farm Talk 19:27, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I've undone the failure, which should be used as an indication of an article's quality, not a reviewer's (lack of) time. There are two options—the article can be placed in the list of abandoned good article reviews on the backlog page, or the review page (which doesn't yet include any substantive comments) can be deleted and another review begun in its place. I'd suggest starting with the former approach and switching over to the latter if the backlog drive ends without the review being taken over. Also pinging . --Usernameunique (talk) 19:44, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

4 but why not 5
Where does the number "4,000" come from when awarding an extra point? Why not keep it simple with "5,000"? Some Dude From North Carolina (talk) 15:15, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
 * , the relevant discussion is here. Basically, the thinking is that the average article here is ~2,000 words, so multiply that by two to get the extra point. As pointed out, however, it may be more complicated that it's worth. In future nominations the concept may be dropped; one other idea would be to award extra points for articles that are particularly long, but not keep a cumulative tally. --Usernameunique (talk) 21:28, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Last day
Friendly reminder to all participants to please ensure all articles you are reviewing are listed on the backlog drive page by the end of the drive tomorrow. And if anyone is still looking to participate or qualify for a higher barnstar, feel free to grab another article; any review started before the drive ends will count, even if it is finished afterwards. Pings:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,. --Usernameunique (talk) 19:03, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
 * FYI, the last time we did a drive, we only counted reviews that had been posted (not necessarily responded to) by the deadline. Otherwise, reviews could drag out a lot and impede the timely posting of barnstars. However, because of this comment I will be giving more leeway as you've promised that "any review started before the drive ends will count". For the next drive I suggest adding to the instructions: "any review posted before the drive ends will count". (t &#183; c)  buidhe  06:20, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
 * , by "posted," do you mean that the review has not just been opened (e.g., "Taking this, comments to follow"), but that the substance of the review has been given? Or do you mean that the review has been both opened and added to the backlog page? --Usernameunique (talk) 07:52, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
 * The first was what we did during the last drive. We also accepted reviews that were claimed before the drive began, but the actual substantial review was not begun until after the drive started. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  07:56, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Finishing off coordination work
Sorry I've been kinda MIA here the last week, but I hope to get around to validating more reviews later today. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  23:52, 1 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Not at all,, had a busy weekend myself. I'll also spend time today and tomorrow tabulating the overall numbers. --Usernameunique (talk) 01:05, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Another issue is that I'm never sure what to do with the very short reviews that just request a few superficial changes and/or post a checklist and leave me wondering how thorough the review actually was... (t &#183; c)  buidhe  06:14, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I think you're taking the correct approach in giving the benefit of the doubt to the reviewer, although I share your concern. I would like to think that in such cases, the articles are already in demonstrably good shape, such that the comments are just icing on the cake; I would also like to think, however, that each review would give each article the benefit of a close look, not just a check-the-boxes analysis. And then there are the nominations that sit around for months (likely because potential reviewers take a look, determine that significant work is needed, and move on), only to receive a short review and a pass... --Usernameunique (talk) 08:23, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

&, I've finished calculating the points. If you agree, I'll hand out the barnstars. As an aside, I've avoided officially calculating the points for myself; I believe them to be 20, but if one of you would like to sign off, please feel free. --Usernameunique (talk) 02:35, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Hearing no objections, I've handed out the barnstars. --Usernameunique (talk) 05:39, 19 September 2021 (UTC)