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I would like to propose that when any given topic is backlogged, nominators should have a maximum of two/three noms in that given topic (no penalty if the extra noms were before the backlog of course) as to alleviate the current flooding of certain areas. I know I contribute to that flooding myself, but I would happily abide by such a standard as a heavily backlogged queue makes me nominate more articles so I won't have to wait ages and ages for a review. Sandman888 (talk) ^{Latest PR} 23:04, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

interesting idea, but how would it be enforced? It seems to me that if there is a large backlog, nominators could consider reviewing other articles to decrease the backlog. Jezhotwells (talk) 00:18, 23 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

One problem is that putting back in doesn't necessarily correlate with fast service. I can think of a few people who have a very bad reviewer/reviewee ratio but since their topics of writing are somewhat popular, there is never going to be any penalty for them, at least not relatively YellowMonkey (new photo poll) 00:21, 23 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well if the numbers of noms were down to 2-3 per person, it would not be so off-putting for those new to the process, as everyone would have a 'fair' share of noms in the queue. It'll also create an incentive to review other stuff to eliminate backlog, as it is easy for his 2-3 noms to be lost in the queue. Sandman888 (talk) ^{Latest PR} 00:27, 23 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A overall cap on per editor nominations (perhaps something like 5 per editor?) might be easier to enforce. It wouldn't affect that many editors, but it would end situtations like we currently have where one editor who almost never reviews has 29 current nominations with plans to nominate more per his comment above. YellowMonkey is correct that if an editor writes in a popular area, they have to wait less time for a review even if they don't review other articles. Other editors who review all the time wait ages, just because no one wants to review in the area where they nominate. Dana boomer (talk) 00:28, 23 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hamiltonstone (talk · contribs) Almost FAC of his I can remember had no significant issues, but the average review time was 25+ days even though he reviews very regularly. Some other guys in the worst 10% for input/output get good service, typically on North American topics where there will be at least 2-3 other folks interested in the same topic YellowMonkey (new photo poll) 07:25, 25 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Gee you're un-PC Dana. I thought I was bad and hadn't named anyone yet :P YellowMonkey (new photo poll) 07:27, 25 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, technically I didn't name any names (well, other than you, and I was agreeing with you!)...But un-PC or not, my point still stands. Dana boomer (talk) 11:26, 25 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Seems there is support for the idea. A cap of five articles at any given time, in all topics? I can support that. Sandman888 (talk) ^{Latest PR} 00:45, 23 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

29.. that would be me. A couple years back when I had over 30 noms at one time a cap was considered and deemed to be counterproductive. There is a need for more reviewer and not less writers. I concede, I am an infrequent reviewer, but I am cranking out quality content as part of the WP:CUP. After the cup ends, I intend to spend some time focussing on reviews.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 01:35, 23 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Your cranking is appreciated, but the sight of a long queue at the theatre might make people opt to stay at home, thus not enjoying the fine experience the theatre can offer them. Instead there's just to guys in the audience who bought all the tickets. A question of a fair share is, I think, appropriate. We should have a system that accommodates the crankers and the infrequent GA nommers. Perhaps splitting the queue in two, one for multiple noms and one for single noms, but something should be put in place. Sandman888 (talk) ^{Latest PR} 20:58, 23 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is a perennial topic. Pertinent questions to ask are: "why is a backlog at GAN a Bad Thing?" and "how will the proposed fix improve matters?". From a reviewer perspective, having a wide range of choice of articles to review would seem to be a net positive. Those who nominate a great deal are also often active reviewers. With the exception of T³'s current effort to write articles on every Michigan sports season or player, the current GAN report shows that there are only 2 editors with more than 5 nominations (8 and 7 respectively), and even restricting editors to 3 nominations would only reduce the number of articles to choose from by 24 (not including the 26 from T³).

The GAN lists are not a queue in the same way that a theater queue is a queue, and they never have been. Reviewers are not obliged to review older articles first, merely encouraged to give them a higher priority. My suggestion (and I have proposed an edit to the guidelines) is that this higher priority does not apply when the nominator already has nomination(s) under review. Geometry guy 21:38, 23 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Restricting the number of nominations to 5 would reduce the number of articles by 32 articles, of those 24 or so are in one subtopic. A difference of 32 articles is not "only" it's "significantly", that's pretty many articles to review. When did you last review 24 articles?

Why is backlog a bad thing? Because a huge backlog will put off people from nominating. Why is that bad? 1) Keeping up morale: Getting a nice GA tag, a pat on the back is an important incentive to editors, like getting a star on your essay in school. 2) Diversity: comments from outsiders / a fresh pair of eyes can improve articles greatly, those articles which are wildly different, coming from different editors. 6+ articles from the same editor are not likely to be very diverse, as per the current GAN page. Sandman888 (talk) ^{Latest PR} 11:12, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think a cap will make much difference. Hopefully some form of reviewer points in next years' wikicup will help next year. The GA reduction push was great, and I think combined with the preceding will make a dent. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:24, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

PS: I must say TonytheTiger, I am in the competition too and I am trying to review articles here and there. I for one would appreciate it if you could tick over a few more reviews over time - I am not necessarily asking for a 1:1 ratio, but a few here and there to keep the backlog down would be nice. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:42, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And you review over at FAC, too... Aaroncrick ^TALK 11:44, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Tony, in all your articles are at the moment your doing the bare minimum - and sometimes not even that. Your season-by-season articles do not have any info on tactics or anything about what happened after the season. Basically just tables. Aaroncrick ^TALK 23:48, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Cracking down on barrel-scraping GANs would certainly help, ie N American sports, roads and some other things. But mostly N American topics for some reason. Somehow I am pretty sure diet-FA/GAs are inexorably increasing everywhere, cue the usual Cups, and metric-based awards. Maybe they should change these awards to how many kb of prose there are in GA/FAs (which explains why people deliberately write on dead-end topics and rarely or never on big umbrella topics). Plus with all these awards you have to make pit stops on the way to FA (ie A MILHIST and GA) to get all of them which can be pretty questionable YellowMonkey (new photo poll) 07:22, 25 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I contest the statement that I am doing barrel-scraping GANs. Half of my noms are Category:Princeton Tigers men's lacrosse players. Of the current 15 PUlaxer noms, 11 are articles I started from scratch. That alone makes these a lot more than barrel-scraping GANs. The easiest ones are articles where you make a few corrections and have a nom. Secondly, I am single-handedly trying to drag {{Infobox Lacrosse Player}} out of the dark ages. by getting the author to add featurs and improving the usage to be more like my other GAs. Of the expansions, look at the way I have defined incorporated meaningful succession boxes (which are optional to the barrel-scraper) into the articles like Jesse Hubbard. That is basically a DYK level 5x expansion now. By the end of the day today, Ryan Boyle will be also. On a scale of 1 to 10 these are not 1s for the most part. I have also created the PUlaxer category myself.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 14:25, 25 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Of course I'm biased, as the articles I like to improve fall into the same category as Tony's, but I wouldn't mind for there to be some procedure in place for there not to be 73 articles ahead of mine in line, 26 of which were nominated by the same person, 16 of which in the last four days (!). Wikipedia is many things, and like it or not, online community is one of them. I don't think this prospect is very inviting for newbies or even longtime editors like me. I've gotten used to waiting 2-4 weeks for a review, but if I nominated something new today, it might be 2011 before it gets to the top of the section. And I don't think that's right. Nosleep (Talk · Contribs) 03:00, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This never goes anywhere, but I think some sort of blind quid pro quo system is needed. Wikicup people could pad their stats by reviewing people in front of them, for one thing. I don't think any one person can be responsible, even in a small way though. We've had serious backlogs since (early 2008?, not sure), and we need to make reviewing derisable like nominating. Another good thing would be some sort of small green symbol that means you reviewed an article that you can put on your user page. This may preclude adminship for myself, but I took a few articles through GA because I wanted to brag about it. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 04:06, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Tony, it may also help if you finish reviewed nominations before you add new ones. I started my review on August 16. It still needs some work to get to GA-level. Since then, you have only fixed the easy-to-fix problems, but the ones that take more time remained untouched. However, you still found the time to nominate sixteen articles since. For your Cup-score, and for the other nominators' interest, it might have been better if you would have fixed the issues in already reviewed articles sooner. (This is not meant as an attack, even though it may be read this way, it is intended as a suggestion that may prevent similar 'problems' in the future. You have the right to nominate even 50 articles more, but I am only saying there are smarter things to do.)--EdgeNavidad (Talk · Contribs) 07:20, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The 16 noms are under construction at the same time because there are 11 new articles and 5 expansions. Since these are all articles from the same category, Category:Princeton Tigers men's lacrosse players, although I might not be able to qualify the expansions for DYK, I can get them all on the main page by writing hooks about the teammates. This afternoon I am going to put my hooks up, but of the expansions only 1 is 5x, 3 are about 4x and 1 has no chance. This is actually the opposite of me maxing my Cup score. If I was maxing my cup score, I would write articles at a more natural pace. Trying to push 16 up the quality scale at one time is just to try to get all the guys exposure with new content on the main page in spite of how impossible it is too do and regardless of DYK credit is different.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 07:57, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(OD) It's a bit unclear, so how many would support a cap of 5 nominations? Sandman888 (talk) 21:38, 27 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

First. Paralympiakos (talk) 21:39, 27 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would support a cap, either a hard cap, or possibly a 2:1 ratio of nominees to reviews. If you don't want to review - fine, but then you can only have one active nomination at a time. If you want to nominate more than one, you need to review at least half as many. I considered proposing a 1:1 ratio, but that is unfair to people who are just getting their feet wet. Canada Hky (talk) 04:38, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well I don't support any cap. I've reviewed over 300 GAN nominations in the last two years and submitted none; so under thoses rules I have either 150 or 300 nomination "slots" that I can "rent" out, and that is adequate to disrupt any cap that I disagree with. Pyrotec (talk) 07:03, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't really thinking of rollover or anything like that, basically, if at any given time you want more than one nomination - you have to have reviewed (or be reviewing) at least half as many. I think it is as easy to enforce a hard cap. I don't think the problem is too many GAs (that's a good thing), the problem is not enough reviewers.Canada Hky (talk) 13:13, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I do not think a ratio/slot solution would work, so it would have to be a cap which would render your pointy threats moot. Sandman888 (talk) 07:20, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support as nominator, cap of five. Sandman888 (talk) 07:20, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well in that case it is quite possible to give preferent treatment to anyone at your five nomination cap; thereby enabling them to nominate more articles (which I suspect will make the problem worse). However, I shalln't be reviwing any Sports nominations: you can cap those as much as you like. The real problem is lack of reviewers, I don't see a cap addressing that problem: firstly, it penalises prolific writters of (potentially) good articles; and secondly, it encourages "poor" reviews, especially "you pass my nomination and I'll pass yours" type reviews. I also suspect that of lot of the problems are "sour grapes": nominators waiting for a review see other nominators with multiple nominations and blame the latter for the long wait. Pyrotec (talk) 07:40, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe any sort of cap would work. Who is going to "police" it? There is a shortage of reviewers for sure, but most of the time pretty much 25% of nominations are under review. If teh backlog causes a problem for initiatives like the Wiki Cup then that is their problem, not ours. Jezhotwells (talk) 11:24, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The backlog isn't simply an issue for the Wiki Cup, its an issue for any random user who would like to nominate an article for GA status. There doesn't need to be set people to police it. Have the criteria set out (whatever they may be), and if someone is violating them, anyone can be bold and remove the excess nominations from the list. Canada Hky (talk) 16:34, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• These proposal are discrimatory. Why should anyone nominating an article for WP:GAN be regarded as a violation of wikipedia. Good Articles are to be welcomed not treated as unwanted acts. Its more a particularly nasty "me"-ism, i.e. "I want my article reviewed and I want it now, sod everyone else", I will remove their articles from the list until mine has been done". The answer unfortunately is rather simpler, submit articles that reviewers are willing to review, if the list is too long review some articles and stop using other nominators as objects of hate. Pyrotec (talk) 16:57, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Its not discriminatory, and I don't see any hate in discussing ways to make things go more smoothly. There are limits on how many articles one user can have nominated for FA status at one time to make the process go more smoothly - it isn't unreasonable to consider the same guidelines here to make things go more smoothly. Canada Hky (talk) 19:58, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Perennial suggestion that never gets enough support to overturn the decision. I have to agree that putting a cap is detrimental to the GA project. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 21:15, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The obvious solution is to scrutinise the noms of prolific nominators carefully. There is a very obvious possibility that those who write tons of GAs are producing very bad articles that are incomplete YellowMonkey (new photo poll) 01:47, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone can nominate an article at WP:GAN and there is no requirement for, and there never has been a requirement for, scrutinising nominators (prolific or not). Anyway, bad incomplete articles will at best be failed, or placed On Hold for corrective actions and if this is not completed in a reasonable time the nomination is failed. You have done some reviews (six in the last GAN backlog elimination drive, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/GAN backlog elimination drives/April 2010#Running total) so you know the system. Pyrotec (talk) 14:36, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would support a cap of five. It might be a good idea to do a "trial run" for a period of time. It the process isn't smoother, then go back to the way it is now. Nikki♥311 02:54, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Call it whiny "me-ism" if you must, but I don't think it's fair that I've now waited a month for a review on the one article I have listed, have reviewed five other articles in the meantime (all in the same section....boy am I sick of reading about soccer and cricket), and Tony not only has a billion articles listed and never does reviews himself (rhetoric), he's getting reviews on them sooner. I think I can fairly say I'm pulling my weight in this process. A cap is a nice idea, but no one would adhere to it, and no one would enforce it, and even if they did it would be far too easy to game the system, turning the whole damned thing into a big game like most of Wikipedia regrettably seems to be at times. Nosleep (Talk · Contribs) 01:16, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Thanks, I'll call it "me-ism" and I'll review it, but I've also reviewed four articles in the last month and I did 54 in one month during the last backlog elimination drive. So four reviews is not all that hard. I hope is a good article after all this whinging. Its probably also the last Sports and recreation article that I'm doing this year. Pyrotec (talk) 18:16, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Its already under review and has been since 27 August 2010 (see Talk:2010 Giro d'Italia/GA1), although the reviewer failed to copy {{GAReview}} onto the WP:GAN. Pyrotec (talk) 18:25, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Cap, ratio, or whatever, we need to try some things out. Let's do a trial of say 2 weeks, then stop doing it. Unless it's a huge success and there's consensus to continue it, it dies. I think we can all agree that the backlog is a problem, and I'm also pretty sure no one really has a solution. So, let's find a solution with trial and error. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 02:12, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The backlog is only a problem because there's a lack of reviewers. Why would anyone want to cap people writing good content for the pedia? It seems totally counter-intuitive to me. Recruit reviewers rather than quash good writing. Brad78 (talk) 19:51, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a cap for writing good content, it's a cap for putting articles into the queue. Sasata (talk) 19:59, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(ec)We're not going to get reviewers out of no where. The best place to find reviewers is among nominators. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 20:01, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. If nominators aren't willing to help cut down on the backlog via reviewing, then we should cut down on the backlog by making sure more people get a shot at having their article reviewed. Canada Hky (talk) 16:36, 2 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The reason we have so many nominations is that there are a lot of incentives to writing a GA, especially bragging rights. For reviewers, however, there are no such incentives. It is common practice for editors to display on their userpages all of the articles they worked on that have reached GA, FA, or FL status. It is not common practice, however, to list GA reviews. Therefore, we need to develop a way to make GA reviewing a bit more "honorable", for lack of a better word. I just don't know how to achieve that, though. Edge3 (talk) 03:27, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Its not a proposal that will change the world, but a userbox that gives the number of GA/FA articles reviewed might be a step in this direction.--SabreBD (talk) 06:50, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You mean like Template:User Good Articles reviewed? ♥Nici♥Vampire♥Heart♥ 07:08, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I mean exactly like that. Interesting that I didn't know it existed. Does it just sit inside the list of boxes or is it advertised elsewhere? Wikiproject boxes tend to sit on project pages and get picked up from there, but that is a bit hard to do here. Perhaps it could be mentioned in the procedure for GA review somewhere at the end (unless NiciVampireHeart is about to point out that it is already and I just cant find it).--SabreBD (talk) 07:14, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If it's about trying to recruit reviewers from nominators, how about getting a bot to send all nominators an automated message something along the lines of "Thank you for your GA nomination of PAGENAME. Currently there is a backlog of articles waiting to be reviewed so it may take time for your nomination to be given a review. However, why not try help reduce the backlog by conducting a review yourself." Brad78 (talk) 08:57, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In many sections, there is no real backlog (see Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Report#Summary). Sports and Recreation, Music, and War and military have traditionally had a long backlog. Most of the "noise" for change comes from the Sports and Recreation nominators, but with a few honourable acceptions they are never seen again after their article has been reviewed. (see for instance Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations/Archive 13#Nomination restrictions). The "traditional" solution is to do a Backlog elimination drive, and the problem goes away for a few months. Those nominating Sports (and other categories with long backlogs) articles know that there is a backlog, they also appear to have unrealistic expections they appear to demand a review in one or two weeks (typically it is nearer one month); and when that does not happen they want to delete other people's reviews from this list. Let's get one thing straight: anyone can nominate an article but they can't demand that it is reviewed, nor precisely when it is reviewed. However, there have been "deals" where nominators have requested a "mate" to review the nomination, and in some cases these reviews have been seriously flawed and have been overturned at WP:GAR. Editors can if they wish add multiple nominations at the same time, but I would suggest that reviewers are not going to look favourably on it: if I seee one nominator has 10 or 16 nominations in a list why should I review one of these, if I put it On Hold and several other reviewers do the same with other nominations, that nominator is unlikely to be able to address all the problems quickly? A reviewer can review any article they chose, looking at the list (see Wikipedia:Good article nominations#Everyday life) its quite obvious that nominators are not being reviewed in sequence, so someone complaining (for example) that they are 51st in the list and that the ten articles in front are all from the same editor is irrelevant, particularly as in this case that article is under review and articles 40 to 50 are not. It is suggested that GAN reviewers should have had previous experience of (sucessfully) nominating at GAN, but there never has been a requirement for a nominator to have previously reviewed an GAN, which is being demanded by some Sports nominators; and is complete nonsense. GA and (FA) is intended to promote quality: mutual "back scratching", where nominators passed other nominator's article so that their's is passed turn, is completely against the ethos of quality, but that is what is being pushed here. Pyrotec (talk) 11:12, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would strongly suggest that much of the problem cames back to the "attitude" of the nominators: articles are nominated, "demands" for a review are made on this talk page and eventually the article is reviewed and passed (or sometimes failed). The nominator then adds a (symbol) on their user pages. A few nominator's make some effort to thank the reviewer on their talk page, a few give the reviewer a barnstar (I've got six for 307 completed reviews), a few harass the reviewer, rather more add their thanks onto the review page or the talk's talk page; but a sizeable minority completely ignore that efforts made by the reviewer (so in my case, I just stop reviewing their nominations). Those that take the effort to acknoweledge the efforts of the reviewer, are more likely to get their next nomination reviewed quickly. Pyrotec (talk) 11:12, 3 September 2010 (UTC) I must also add that there are bad reviewers and also well-meaning but misguided reviewers. However, the problem is lack of competant reviewers in some sections. That is not going to be resolved by ignoring reviwers and/or baning nominations. Pyrotec (talk) 11:27, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, so let's try to find solutions for these problems. To fix the "nominator attitude" problem, we can add something like "Don't forget to thank your reviewer when you're done" to the end of the nominating instructions. As for the lack of competent reviewers, we could encourage newer reviewers to ask for a second opinion. Edge3 (talk) 13:49, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And will somebody be bold? *g* mabdul 16:08, 11 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Added. Edge3 (talk) 17:33, 14 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The "test" being carried out on User:RFC bot/Sandbox 2 has been going on for almost a full year. Granted, I became inactive last October and came back only recently, so I might have missed something important, but do we plan to implement the automated nominations system soon? Edge3 (talk) 20:55, 2 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure if anything progressed on that either, though we use them for the daily report. I'm going through and making sure both are synchronized, since a lot were on one but not the other, meaning something went wrong or a GA review was never done. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 02:56, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Are we ready to implement it? I'll contact Harej right now. Edge3 (talk) 16:46, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How does it work? what does this bot? mabdul 17:52, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Check out the history of User:RFC bot/Sandbox 2. Once automation kicks in, we get to reduce a lot of steps in the nominating and reviewing process. Edge3 (talk) 18:24, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry for being dense, but that doesn't really explain it. Does it merely copy the actions taken on the current GAN page? Does it trawl article talk pages for GAC templates? …the categories? Does it automatically pick up the reviewer line from the actual review? I'm for anything that removes the tedium from the GA review process, but it's a bit hard to !vote in its favour when I have no clue what it actually does. --Xover (talk) 18:34, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm....I guess it's time to pull out the archives. I don't recall exactly what the automation would involve. Edge3 (talk) 18:37, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Found it! Wikipedia_talk:Good_article_nominations/Archive_13#Automatic_listing_of_nominees_at_WP:GAN Edge3 (talk) 18:43, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Now a bot that would automatically nominate articles at GAN… :-) --Xover (talk) 18:40, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, excellent. A summary of that discussion could probably fruitfully be put on the bot account's user page (which was where I instinctively went to look for information). All the obvious issues mentioned in that discussion seem to be addressed (names of nom and reviewer are there, sections and headings can be edited, no apparent technocruft exposed to reviewers anywhere, etc.). What remains to be done before this can be implemented? --Xover (talk) 19:12, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The bot has been fully functional for a while. I stopped paying attention to it because no more attention needed to be paid. See for yourself -- does anything look wrong with User:RFC bot/Sandbox 2? harej 04:58, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I hate to pretend to be Steve Jobs, but "no apparent technocruft exposed to reviewers anywhere" actually played a huge factor in designing that bot and others. So I am glad someone has noticed! harej 05:07, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

lol...I see nothing wrong, but I do note that some nominations are appearing under level 2 section headers, and not level 3. This is probably due to nominators inserting the section name and not the subsection name in the {{GAN}} template on the talk page, right? (Talk:Dirac delta function, for example) Edge3 (talk) 13:20, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I just noticed that Dirac delta function has been placed on hold, but that "on hold" status doesn't show up on the sandbox. Does the bot function properly only in the subsections? Edge3 (talk) 13:24, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

- I checked out the edit history and made a test edit: the bot seems pretty robust now. I believe we are at the point where it would be worth giving the automated page a live trial at WP:GAN, to be reevaluated after a month, say. This needs to be well advertised and explained as it involves some changes to process: as well as making it unnecessary to edit WP:GAN (an enormous time saving), the automated process uses a different system to add comments to a GAN listing (a note parameter on the talk page template). Also the current update rate seems to be every 15 minutes, so nominators and reviewers need to be aware of the potential time lag. Geometry guy 21:20, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

People are generally aware of the time lag at RFC and WP:RM, I hope, so this'll just be another thing with a time lag. If you want, I can also make the bot run more frequently. harej 00:47, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How's this? Edge3 (talk) 02:10, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Less than an hour" is technically true but still, it gives the impression of "almost an hour, but not quite." I think "in less than 15 minutes" would work. harej 05:45, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I believe I've seen “a bot will be along shortly” used in other contexts and, speaking for myself, that seems sufficiently precise. --Xover (talk) 06:52, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've changed it to "within 15 minutes" to be precise. At first I wanted to give some leeway (in case something goes wrong with the bot), but I now agree that it's unnecessary. Edge3 (talk) 15:05, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Can we agree on a date to start the live trial? I suggest sometime next week (Wednesday 15?) to give time for editors to raise questions or concerns. I can be available 17:00 - 24:00 UTC, and later if necessary. Geometry guy 19:36, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should let harej pick the time; after all, he's the one who has to activate the whole thing. How long would this transition take? I imagine that if the transition takes a long time, then we'll have to momentarily shut down GAN.

Furthermore, I recommend that we put a detailed description of the bot's tasks on User:GA bot (as suggested above), to inform those who haven't been following the discussion. Edge3 (talk) 19:47, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My preliminary timetable is as follows. The initial awareness campaign will begin on September 11. This is my (and our) chance to make everyone aware of the impending change. I plan on coming up with a sort of banner and FAQ page. It'll be tight. The rollout itself will be the following Saturday, September 18. harej 04:19, 10 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Good to know that the GAN prozess finally gets easier. My first GAN was really something between a mess and a small nervous boy ^_^ mabdul 04:54, 10 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am mostly unavailable tomorrow (Saturday 11th), and may not be back online until late Monday 13th. I think Saturday 18th is a good target for the switch. I will be available 10-24 UTC on that day. Geometry guy 21:06, 10 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The good news is that you don't have to be around on Saturday, as the campaign will last the whole week. As for the switch itself, that will be mostly stuff on my end. harej 22:24, 10 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good to me. How long will the switch take on Saturday? Edge3 (talk) 22:31, 10 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A few minutes. harej 09:27, 11 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• I don't quite understand how the new system will work. I would assume that just starting a review subpage would induce the bot to add |status=onreview and transclude the GA review on the talk page, as it already does that, but the transition FAQ appears to suggest that the reviewer should add |status=onreview. Ucucha 03:38, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  The bot that does that adds it very quickly (he's edit-conflicted me trying to add it) so that ideally won't be an issue. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 03:44, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  The bot will continue to add |status=onreview and transclude the review subpage. harej 04:05, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I alerted Harej a while ago, but this thing is seriously screwing up somewhere. It keeps removing my nominations for some reason, saying that they've been failed, when in actual fact, no-one has reviewed them. Paralympiakos (talk) 13:59, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at it, the troublesome articles of yours seem to be The Ultimate Fighter and Ultimate Fighting Championship. The second will have been rejected by the bot (until now) because it was only partially listed - it was shown on the central list page, but the article itself wasn't marked on the talkpage as a nominee. The former was a template glitch which you seem to have fixed - I'm not quite sure where that came from.

It might be worth knocking off a quick list of all articles from the "old page" which were marked as failed by the bot, to see if there's any more transitional cases like these. Shimgray | talk | 14:35, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed that a few days ago Shinan District was passed as a GA, "as is", by User:Aaron north. The reviewer, User:Aaron north, had only 20 Wikipedia edits prior to reviewing that GA nomination, which is somewhat concerning since it usually takes a while to really get the hang of things here, especially of stuff like MOS. Could an experienced GA reviewer give the article a quick look-over to see if everything looks OK there? Nsk92 (talk) 18:16, 14 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Tourism section has a embedded list, which is discouraged per WP:EMBED (WP:GACR 1b). That's enough to fail on reassessment, in my opinion. Edge3 (talk) 19:19, 14 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've noticed that due to a large backlog and that it says any registered user can review. I would like to ask, Can a nominator directly ask someone else who they know is uninvolved in a nominated page to review it to see if its good enough to be a GA? The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 09:11, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, as long as the reviewer is able to remain objective and is not swayed by his or her relationship with the nominator. Edge3 (talk) 16:04, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The bot development and testing period which began on 26 September 2009 is now complete. User:GA bot is live! harej 18:35, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

But nominations are being dumped into Miscellaneous, even when the correct subtopic has been entered. Jezhotwells (talk) 20:31, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Under investigation. harej 20:33, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A few issues, mostly that the problem exists between chair and keyboard, but it's also a design limitation of the bot itself. The bot decides which categories exist based on the section headers on WP:GAN. This allows for the community to change the categorization scheme with no work on the bot's part, but as a result, it's hard to specify aliases. The two biggest issues is letter capitalization ("music" vs. "Music" with the latter being the recognized name of the category) and the presence of a serial comma (compare "Royalty, nobility, and heraldry" and "Royalty, nobility and heraldry" -- the bot recognizes the latter and not the former). Making the bot understand that there are other ways of capitalizing things shouldn't be too hard, but I'd like to note that on GAN, we are inconsistent with serial comma use. I have decided that GAN categories should not use the serial comma; while I personally prefer to use it, it is a lot easier to just strip it out than identify when it should be inserted ("Politics, and government" would be a bad idea). Thoughts on all this? harej 21:09, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the serial comma is not applicable to "Politics and government". Not sure if you meant that as hyperbole; just wanted to be sure. You need three or more items in a list to invoke commas. upstateNYer 21:20, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't debating the merits of the serial comma; instead, I was approaching it from a technical standpoint. The issue involves editors listing the subtopic on a nomination with the serial comma where one does not exist. This is something I would totally do because I use the serial comma out of habit. I decided to go with a technical solution, where the bot would either add the comma or remove it. By removing it, there is not a chance that it could screw up. But by adding the comma, the bot would have to determine whether there should be one or not. Removing the comma is simply the more feasible solution. Again, nothing to do with people's opinions on grammar. harej 21:27, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Gotcha. I missed the intention of your comment. upstateNYer 00:11, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if this is a bug with the bot or not but Ho Chi Minh City was nominated by User:NInTeNdO and then instantly marked as being under review by the same user.— Rod ^talk 21:40, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

NInTeNdO created the review page him/herself after nominating the article. harej 21:42, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that does not sometimes happens, we have to expect that not al nominators will understand the process. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:26, 18 September 2010 (UTC) Jezhotwells (talk) 23:02, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yesterday there were two articles in miscellaneous. Now there's 17, some going back to July. What's going on? Brad78 (talk) 15:18, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, something is wrong. The bot still isn't reading the categories correctly. Jezhotwells (talk) 18:38, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See the section beneath. Has nothing to do with commas in the nomination but an errant comma on WP:GAN itself. harej 21:21, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I nominated the article 2004 British Open (snooker) but it appears to have gone missing from the page. It appeared on DYK but to my mind there isn't a rule that says you can't do both. Does anyone know what happened to it? Christopher Connor (talk) 22:05, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You haven't placed a GAN template on the article talk page, pleae read the instructions on how to nominate at WP:GAN. Once you place a template on the talk page, it will automatically be transferred to WP:GAN. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:23, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for pointing that out. I've nominated other articles, but this time forgot. I see things have changed. Nevermind I'll just wait. Christopher Connor (talk) 22:33, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I recently nominated two articles. The first, 2010 University of Alabama in Huntsville shooting , which I added yesterday, has remained untouched in the law section]]. However, the second, Introduction to the Science of Hadith, which I just added perhaps ten minutes ago, was "passed" by the GA Bot and removed from the list. I can't imagine this means that this article is now a "good article", but what does this mean, and why the difference in handling of the two pages? Supertouch (talk) 22:06, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Now it has reappeared on the list? I am assuming this is normal and I didn't notice this process with the first article... Supertouch (talk) 22:16, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, neither of these articles has been passed, they are both sitting in the queue. Reviews are undertaken by volunteers who are free to pick whichever articles take their fancy. We have just changed over to a new system of updating the project pact page, please read the FAQ at the top. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:19, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Supertouch (talk)

The backlog is a major problem.

I am not a reviewer, and i do not want to review.

Would me working on articles that are on hold save reviewers time letting them review other articles?

--Iankap99 (talk) 05:05, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the nominators of articles on hold might welcome help. Speaking as a reviewer, I just review, and if necessary put on hold for seven days. If nothing has happened after seven days to address the issues found, then the nom is failed. I am not sure how this would help decrease the backlog, which is partly caused by lots of nominations for the Wiki cup, especially in music and sport; also some reviews which seem to drag on for months. More reviewers are needed. Jezhotwells (talk) 14:07, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I guess it really depends on both the reviewer and nominator. For some of those reviews "which seem to drag on for months", it may be useful to have Iankap99 addressing some of the issues which are making the article languish on hold. Some reviewers choose to give extra time when nominators show willingness to continue working on issues; in cases like that, having an extra hand in the article (assuming of course that this doesn't cause more problems with the article) would only speed up the process. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:35, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. At present, Kubera from the oldest-unreviewed-nominations box doesn't link anywhere meaningful. - Richard Cavell (talk) 07:00, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That box is updated by a robot, and figuring that the changes would break that bot, I have alerted its operator. harej 08:14, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, it was because the section heading Religion, mysticism, and spirituality hadn't had the second serial comma inserted. It works now, as I fixed it but I note that StatisticianBot hasn't updated Wikipedia:Good article nominations/backlog/items. Jezhotwells (talk) 14:15, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

not sure if this is a related issue or not, but the GABot does not seem to be listing articles under the "Religion, mysticism, and mythology" category. It is listing them under Miscellaneous instead.Aaron north (talk) 18:43, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And today's report has missed all of the nominations. I think the GANbot may need to be shut down if the changes made by it can't be dealt with by Statisticianbot. Jezhotwells (talk) 18:45, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The easiest thing may just be for me to take over the task currently handled by StatisticianBot -- would be unnecessarily difficult to have two bots maintained by two different people working on the same page. The religion category is an interesting case. harej 20:50, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Problem solved forever. I get this feeling the commas are out to get me. harej 21:18, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm looking at an old version of the page from before the automation and the title of the section of concern is "Religion, mysticism, and mythology" with the comma. Harej, your edit may conflict with Jezhotwells' earlier edit. I will study the situation and may revert. Lambanog (talk) 04:57, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

After looking at it a little, some of the article links on the backlog page Wikipedia:Good article nominations/backlog/items expect the comma to be in place. Since it isn't, they redirect nowhere. I would alter harej's change but Jezhotwells says that the backlog page didn't update regardless and I'm not sure what harej's reason for his edit taking out the comma is for so I will leave everything alone until harej can explain. Lambanog (talk) 05:07, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Did a manual edit to the backlog list so that the links to the current oldest articles work. Problem still needs to be permanently addressed by the respective bot managers though. Lambanog (talk) 13:24, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

User:Dvandersluis, who maintains User:StatisticianBot, hasn't edited since 7 June, so I think we have a problem. No report and no backlog updates is a serious concern to the project. Jezhotwells (talk) 19:55, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree it is a problem, though not one without precedent, in that StatisticianBot also did not edit between March 25 and October 24 2009. I hope the current situation will be resolved more swiftly this time! In the meantime, GA reviewers are renowned for their resilience and adaptability, as the previous incident shows. Geometry guy 22:52, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If Dvandersluis is unavailable then leaning on harej to improve his bot is indicated. One alternative is to simply let articles in the religion category get sorted into the Miscellaneous section if that will allow the backlog update to function. A consensus on what is more important—the maintenance of the "Religion, mysticism, and mythology" category or backlog updates—would indicate the course of action that should be taken if this issue cannot be resolved quickly. Lambanog (talk) 02:55, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have been emailing Dvandersluis. He says he'll update the parser as soon as he can. harej 03:37, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I nominated this article and now it has disappeared without trace -no explanation, nothing. Dapi89 (talk) 19:26, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Articles are nominated on the article talk page, and you did not do so. Please check out the instructions and try again. Thanks, Geometry guy 19:58, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So instead of a heads up it just gets deleted. Well thats nice. Dapi89 (talk) 20:01, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You are an experienced editor, and nominating articles on the article talk page has been the norm for several years. Previously nominators also had to update WP:GAN, but this is now done automatically. Please take this as a heads up that you should have read the instructions before, as not nominating on the article talk page created work for other editors. Thanks, Geometry guy 20:21, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Nominations page says these two are being reviewed. Upon inspection of their GA Review subpages, no one is yet reviewing them. Glitch? -- Cirt (talk) 10:56, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like the template was originally pasted in with status set to "on review" - not quite sure why - but of course it didn't show up as odd until the bot began updating. I've set the two talkpages back to "normal" status. Shimgray | talk | 11:30, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! ;) -- Cirt (talk) 17:26, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's amazing the things out there! It looks like we'll have a few of these to work through, but hopefully by the middle of October most of the oddities should be gone. Shimgray | talk | 18:21, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I see there's a new bot automating the updating of WP:GAN. Previously when I passed a GA review, I used {{ArticleHistory}} rather than {{GA}} to record the review in history. Is the bot able to detect this and remove the article from the nominations page? I didn't see this commented on anywhere. –Grondemar 12:16, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's a good question: the bot should recognize the end of the review with the removal of the GA nominee template, hence also remove the listing from GAN. It only needs additional information for the edit summary, and I do not know whether it parses ArticleHistory. Geometry guy 20:39, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The bot deems the article to be passed as long as either currentstatus=GA or {{GA show up, and {{FailedGA is specifically not present. harej 02:55, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I found multiple articles that are marked as being reviewed, but there's no review page; my fixes get reverted so I don't know why the bot thinks they're being reviewed. The articles are: Singer Model 27 and 127, History of botany, and SMS Tegetthoff. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 01:38, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Nevermind, I found the problem: the talk page templates were marked as onreview for some reason. The noms have to make sure that when they put up the template that they don't have that on; then no one will review it. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 01:41, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]