Wikipedia talk:Good articles/GA Icon IRC Archive

Welcome to #wikipedia-good-articles, the official WP:GA IRC channel | Please discuss addition of GA symbol on WT:GA Topic set by Juliancolton on Sun Apr 27 20:52:59 EDT 2008

20:53 Will381796 Okay. Now, were you active on WP before FA icons were included on featured articles? 20:54 Will381796 I wasn't...so I have no idea about how things changed once FA got their little icon. 20:54 Juliancolton I had an account a couple years ago, but I only became active 7 months ago, so yes and no 20:55 Juliancolton But I was only active while the star existed 20:55 Will381796 Same here. 20:56 Juliancolton What do you think the biggest reason why the addition of the GA symbol would help things? 20:58 Will381796 I think it will let people know that it exists. This can result in a few things happening: editors will have increased interest in improving articles as a way to get it up to GA status. Trying to get an article up to FA is a  daunting task for anyone. A novice editor may be more comfortable working towards GA and then later on try improving further to FA 20:58 Will381796 This, as you say, can result in an increased backlog of the nomination process. 20:58 Will381796 But, I see this as a small price to pay for an improvement in the overall quality of the articles. 20:59 Will381796 Second, I think that it will increase the number of reviewers that are willing to participate in the GA  project. I only learned about this project a few weeks ago and only learned about it from reading something on an article's  talk page. 20:59 Will381796 Many editors don't go to talk pages and therefore will have no idea that the entire process exists. 21:00 Will381796 This leaves out people that might otherwise be interested in reviewing unable to review simply because they lack knowledge of its existence. 21:00 Will381796 Third, it could do absolutely nothing. 21:01 Juliancolton Well, my biggest concern is that people might be confused as to whether it is part of the article 21:02 Will381796 I don't believe anyone will miscontrue the symbol as being part of the article. The little symbols fall above the horizontal line that separates the article title from the actual text of the article. 21:03 Juliancolton Good point 21:03 Juliancolton But, 21:03 Will381796 And as for the meaning of the symbol, this problem really doesn't seem to affect the FA project. That's  party because they have main page advertisement space. lol. but I also think its bceause when a curious person clicks the icon, they're sent directly to the FA page showing them exactly what the icon means 21:04 Will381796 party= partly 21:04 Will381796 A similar thing needs to be done with the GA icon, if it were implemented. 21:04 Juliancolton Hmm 21:05 Juliancolton I think it will just cause editors to care about the GA symbol, not the quality of the article 21:05 Will381796 but of course, this is all my opinion and i've only been with the project for a couple weeks, so i may be  completely underestimating the effect that this will have. 21:05 Will381796 you see, i don't care what they're reasoning is behind working for the little symbol 21:06 Juliancolton Editors will publish a bunch of mediocre articles, and send every one of them to GAN, even if they aren't  GA-worthy 21:06 Will381796 so long as the reviewers maintain their current higher standards, only those articles that have the necessary quality will be granted the icon 21:06 Juliancolton: Also, as I have said before, GA has to be just reviewed by one person, not by the community like FAC 21:06 Will381796 Then I would push for some kind of quick-fail option for obvious bad-faith nominations. 21:06 Will381796 It is, at least from the few that I've reviewed, easy to tell a viable GA candidate from the majority of articles on WP. 21:07 Juliancolton They wouldn't be bad-faith, but people will have even more of a reason to compete with other editors to see who can get the most GAs 21:08 Juliancolton People will be inclined just to get the GA symbol, rather then build an encyclopediac article 21:09 Will381796 But compared to most of the stubs and B-class articles out there, wouldn't anything GA status be an  improvement in the quality of the encyclopedia. And whether they're doing the improvements/nominations for purely altruistic reasons or for the selfish reasons to get more GAs, wouldn't more GA = better encyclopedia? 21:09 Juliancolton In theory, it would 21:10 Will381796 So long as the GA reviewers don't get so backlogged that they decide to lower their standards. 21:10 Will381796 But I don't think that will happen. From what I understand, GA has come a long way in the past couple years. 21:10 Juliancolton But not if people will do anything to get the GA symbol, whether it includes the addition of incorrect information 21:12 Juliancolton I'm not against GA or GAN at all, and I don't mind the assessment scale on the talk page 21:12 Will381796 I agree its a possibility. But that's where the GA review is necessary to be upheld most strictly. Its our responsibility to ensure that they are factually correct and verifiable before passing. And let's not forget that there are many other editors out there that will most likely be editing the article anyways...all of those new page and recent change patrollers. So its not like its going to be up 21:14 Will381796 And really, the success of this will require that additional reviewers also be brought over as a result of   the little icon. 21:14 Will381796 Because I agree, it is entirely possible that there might be an all-out race for the GA symbols. 21:14 Will381796 But I'm going to go ahead and think that along with these people will also come people interested in joining the project and reviewing. 21:15 Juliancolton It may very well attract new reviewers 21:15 Juliancolton But they will most likely not be good-quality reviewers 21:15 Juliancolton They will be people who pass everything because they like the way the symbol looks on an article 21:16 Will381796 The thing is that every new reviewer is going to be a crappy reviewer. 21:17 Will381796 Are you just worried that the increased "advertisement" will result in more nominations and that so long these things stay on the talk pages, fewer people will learn about it? 21:18 Will381796 because I'm sure there are people out there that are already competeing to say "i've nominated X number of GA articles" 21:18 Will381796 or something along those lines 21:18 Juliancolton Yes, I've heard many people say things like that 21:18 Juliancolton I once was speaking with a person who was braggin that he had 12 nominations 21:18 Juliancolton *bragging 21:19 Juliancolton So yes, in a way, I am concerned about that 21:19 Will381796 Do you know how many active GA reviewers there are? And by active I'd like to say, those that do at least one review a week... 21:20 Juliancolton I don't know specifically, but there is a list of people at WP:WPGA 21:20 Juliancolton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Good_articles/participants 21:22 Juliancolton The experienced, dedicated and willing editors are the only people who are going to look on the talk pages of articles for the article status, and those are the people that are a benefit to GA 21:22 Juliancolton If we have a million people who like the way the symbol looks, it will cause a stampede of new, inexperienced users who get way ahead of themselvex 21:22 Juliancolton *themselves 21:22  *** Mitchazenia quit ("http://www.mibbit.com ajax IRC Client") 21:24 Will381796 What do you think would be the downsides of a, perhaps, probationary period where the icons were rolled out for say, 3-6 months and then the number of nominations/passes/failures and the number of new reviewers over that time period could be compared to the previous 3-6 months so people could see what the effect of these icons would be. 21:24 Will381796 I mean, the addition of the icons I'm sure could be automated by some kind of bot, so its not like their addition would cause unnecessary work to people in the project. 21:24 Will381796 Same could be said for their removal. 21:24 Juliancolton No, I'm sure there is a bot 21:25 Juliancolton I don't see why that would hurt to give it a test-run 21:25 Juliancolton If a 6-month test-run could prove to me that the benefits outway the risks, then I will reconsider my opinion 21:26 Juliancolton But I think that 6 months run could cause just as many issues 21:28 Will381796 That way, when the review comes after the test run, everyone can base their decision on facts rather than what might happen. Then a shorter trial period could be chosen. Just needs to be long enough for word to get out to the community that the icon is now out. Even if the test run proves to be a failure, at least everyone would have the data to  see that it isn't worth it and this issue can stop bein 21:29 Juliancolton That doesn't sound like a good idea, and I think it is worth proposing on the GA talk page 21:29 Juliancolton If there are severe issues, we could always stop the trial before the ending date 21:30 Will381796 It doesn't sound like a good idea or doesn't sound like a bad idea? lol 21:30 Juliancolton I mean it does, sorry 21:30 Juliancolton It sounds like a good idea 21:30 Juliancolton I'll add it to the GA talk page 21:31 Juliancolton But I think that issues and problems may appear after the trial 21:31 Juliancolton And then we are stuck with a mess 21:32 Will381796 I think that if we'll see any major problems, half a year should be enough time for it to become apparent. But, even if problems do appear after the trial run, all it would take is one person to start the proposal to end the icons on the pages and this time they'd have data to back up their proposal. 21:33 Juliancolton Yes, I agree 21:33 Juliancolton I would just rather be safe than sorry 21:33 Will381796 Damage may be done, but none of it irreparable. 21:34 Will381796 I understand. May I go ahead and archive this conversation and link to it on the GA talk page? 21:34 Juliancolton Sure, that would be great