Wikipedia talk:Proposed very good articles

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Support required

Hello everyone. User:Tholly and I have been discussing the "six votes, 80% support" rule. Currently Anna Kournikova has four supports and no oppose. If the article gets one more support, but time expires, it won't get promoted under current rules. However, if it gets one more support and then an oppose, it'll have six votes and 83% support. That seems stupid to me - if I asked someone to arbitrarily vote against the promotion if it's on five supports, it'll get promoted, however a unanimous support of 5 doesn't get it promoted. Hmm. Why can't we go with the English Wikipedia method of "sufficient community support" being demonstrated with an independent editor from the nomination (e.g. an uninvolved admin or 'crat) promoting or archiving? The Rambling Man (talk) 16:02, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

The question was discussed for some time. - I think those who were involved in that discussion thought there should be enough interest in an article that at least 6 people bother to look at the article. To be honest I think it makes no sense to have six or more VGAs of pretty tennis stars instead of one sufficient article on State. --Cethegus (talk) 16:09, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, what part of the criteria precludes me writing VGAs on tennis players? Perhaps you could write a VGA on State if it means so much to you? You may have missed the American Airlines Flight 11 which was recently promoted - I was a major contributor to that. Anyway, that's irrelevant. Articles stand on their own. Otherwise you need to add a criterion which says "If Simple English Wikipedia has too many articles on the same thing, don't promote new ones". When I first got here I was astonished and pretty disgusted that the whole project had something like twelve VGAs which meant the same article rotates to the mainpage every few months. And then, the quality of some of the so-called VGAs was appalling. So I decided to do something about it on a subject I was interested in and knowledgeable about.

But back to the question. You agree that five supports and one oppose = promotion versus five supports only = no promotion? The Rambling Man (talk) 16:18, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

And two further points. Who has "six or more" VGAs about tennis players? Two at the moment, and potentially a third. That's not six. Secondly, since we have a reasonably active "Proposed demotion" page, there shouldn't be a real need to mandate a specific number of votes for promotion - consensus, not voting. If someone has issues with the page being a VGA later down the line, take it to the proposed demotion page where it'll either be demoted or improved to "satisfy the community". Funny thing is there's no similar criterion for demoting a VGA (i.e. it doesn't say six "demotes" are required) - this system is wonky. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:27, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

That's how Charles Spurgeon became a GA, 4 supports and at the last moment CM16 opposed, making 5. But I do think it should be changed. -- AmericanEagle (talk) 16:40, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

And that, in my opinion, is a complete joke. No doubt Mr Spurgeon deserves to be where he is today, VGA and all, but that's just ridiculous that you needed an oppose to secure a promotion. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:42, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I was just looking at the GA rules and saw that this could potentially happen there too, it is completely ridiculous. And in reply to Cethegus's comment, I totally agree with The Rambling Man: Any VGAs are better than none, and the subject will depend what the "main" author is interested or knowledgeable in - any user can edit an article of their choice to VGA quality. - tholly ^--Turnip-- 17:36, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

And for Cethegus' information, even English Wikipedia's article on State is not featured. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:38, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

In response to another part of Cethegus's comment, I don't think that it is always to do with people being bothered to read the article. Often I read it, but am not sure about whether it quite qualifies, or don't have time to check all the criteria or reference in the article etc.

Moving on, I think that Kournikova should pass now, as it has 5 supports and it makes no sense to wait for an oppose (or someone else to read it and then vote). - tholly ^--Turnip-- 19:30, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

(unindenting) Hello all, the Criteria for Good (or Very Good) Articles are a set of rules an article must meet in order to be promoted to the respective status; These rules say nothing about the subject of the articles (except that it must belong in Wikipedia). It is true that we now have two VGAs about tennis players (and possibly a third one soon). We currently have 6 subject groups; and 16 very good articles. So, most subject groups have 2 VGAs, and some have 3 VGAs. While ideally, the VGAs or GAs should be varied, an opposition to promote an article, because there are already so many similar VGAs (or GAs) is not a valid one. There are are only a small number of people bothering with the process; it is therefore clear that the current selection of VGAs or GAs will reflect their interests. Truck has not yet been promoted or nominated for any category, because no one is interested in making it meet the respective criteria and pushing it through a vote. But if it were, simply not being interested in Trucks would not be a valid reason to oppose the nomination. --Eptalon (talk) 19:43, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I think that's what I was trying to say... Thanks, - tholly ^--Turnip-- 19:50, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I know that's what we're trying to say. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:51, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

(unindenting) As to the six votes and 80% support, look at some of the articles that were demoted (esp. to regular status) here, and ask yourself if you would like to to have them at VGA status. I think the articles that triggered the discussion were Homer Simpson and List of Arizona hurricanes. --Eptalon (talk) 19:58, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean Eptalon? As I said before, we demand this level of support (in precise, mathematical terms) yet demotion is just a vague kind of "not suitable anymore" basis. Most VGAs I've looked at are marginal in terms of their quality but we don't apply the same rules to promotion as relegation. Why not? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:05, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I think that promoting should have the same rules as demoting, so the closing [uninvolved] admin decides whether it should be promoted, not on a flawed mathematical principal. - tholly ^--Turnip-- 20:07, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

You see: Anna Kournikova is attractive enough to become VGA and Jessica Alba will be so as well the present rules don't hinder it. --Cethegus (talk) 19:17, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

(unindenting) What I was actually trying to say was: Those two articles mentioned probably started the discussion (as they were VGAs); but they are no longer. And as for demotion: It can be expressed in very simple terms: Someone notices that an article no longer meets the criteria. In that case, there are two weeks to fix that (and agree that the problem is fixed), or after the two weeks demote the article.. --Eptalon (talk) 19:31, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

• Instead of saying "six votes, 80% support," why don't we say a minimum of six supporting votes and 80% support overall. It would remove the anomaly of an article getting promoted just because of a last minute opposite. Hippopotamus (talk) 22:01, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Cethegus, rather than making facetious comments, why not contribute to both the Wikipedia mainspace and this discussion in a positive manner? I noticed you're happy to avoid discussing my last VGA, American Airlines Flight 11. I don't see what your problem is. Hippo, I think that's a good start on fixing the anomaly. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:16, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

(unindenting) Six supporting votes, with 80% support -> 6 support votes of a total of (7.5) 8; 6 votes, 80% support: 6 votes total, (4.8) 5 of them in support.If I look at the last few promotions, they were all done with consideralby more than 6 people voting...--Eptalon (talk) 14:47, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

The fact it hasn't happened yet is somewhat irrelevant. With such low input at VGA, it's more than possible that it could happen. And when it does we'll be back here talking about the same thing. So, as they say, prevention is better than cure. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:59, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

The reason for change of rules for VGAs was that there were too few looking at the VGA-page. Therefore we had very unsufficent ones promoted. There was even a tendency of having a lot of hurricanes, each as a seperate VGA (that was my comparison with tennis stars). We had a months long discussion with the result, that there should be at least 6 who had seen the article and that there should be at least 80% in favour. - 6 who had seen the article meant at that time that the crew of VGA producers could not continue like that on their own. Now it means, the likelyhood that - in case an unsufficient article should be promoted - is greater that the community hears about it. Then others can be asked for help to look at the articcle as well to prevent a senseless promotion. A rule like in en:WP makes sense only if a lot of people look at the page (as it's there).

Your suggestion "a minimum of six supporting votes and 80% support overall" would be fine with me. But it means the chance to promote an article is a bit lower than at the moment and we had to change the rules again. At that time the community decided not to have the criterium that strict. (You may look at the discussion at that time. If it is long enough you go for a compromise not for the wording you prefer most.) --Cethegus (talk) 10:34, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I think that times have changed, there are some editors here now who wish for the VGA process to work without these anomalies. I'm also still somewhat confused by your viewpoint on the subject matter of VGAs. Nowhere in the criteria does it regulate what type of article should or should not be VGA standard. Editors have areas of expertise and as such will write more about those than about things they don't know. Having half a dozen hurricane VGAs is better than having no hurricane VGAs. If they meet the critieria then they are VGAs and whinging about it is a waste of time and has a negative impact on editors who are spending a lot of time improving articles in which they have an interest.

As for this change "lowering" the standard, then I disagree again. What tends to happen in the voting is that one or two editors leave comments, review the article thoroughly and then, when happy, leave a support. This then encourages other editors to vote (hence why the last few VGAs have had so many last minute votes) who may not be applying the same scrutiny as the first couple who left comments. Finally, since we have a process to demote GAs and VGAs which is working perfectly then I see no problem with "reducing" the level of support required. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:42, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I did not say that would lower the standard, but the chance of promotion, what is the opposite. - Concerning the subject matter: I am not at all against 100 VGAs on tennis stars, but I have not time enough to look at them when I want to contribute to an encyclopedia. And have sympathy with those who feel alike. I never said these articles should not become VGAs. If there are sufficient people who look at them then they should be promoted. But don't complain if others are not interested. --Cethegus (talk) 11:08, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I didn't complain that people weren't interested, just that as it stood, the voting exposed an anomaly which I want to address. Anyway, as I keep saying to you, I have also had American Airlines Flight 11 promoted and I'm on the way with Airbus 320, soon to be followed by Bury St Edmunds so please stop banging on and on about tennis stars, I'm not a one-trick pony. But I am making positive contributions to this Wikipedia, improving its content while you seem content to drop in drive-by cynicism. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:14, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Changing criteria

Hello all, the last time we changed criteria, it took a long time to agree on new criteria (at the same time, we introduced so called Good Articles which more or less have the old VGA criteria). We might need new criteria, seeing that 6 votes is no longer something that is hard to get. As to the subject of VGAs and GAs, it is completely open what they are about (as long as they belong here). Since last time, the change in criterias took a very long discussion, I think at least 5 regular contributors should agree that this is indeed what we want.

Also, no matter how many votes you need, and what percentage of support, there will always be those that do not look as thoroughly through the article as others, esp. when the voting period is nearing a close; no matter what we say, that will be something we cannot fix. Also please not that both Violin and Evolution are VGAs; they are very different though.

When we came up with the concept of VGAs and later GAs, we had in mind that 1% of the articles we have should meet the criteria (as a target). That meant 150 articles at that time; now it means 330. Given the criteria a GA is easier to make; I would say 110 VGAs, and 220 GAs. To reach that goal however, we need more people. Making an article meet GA or VGA criteria is a lot of work, even for a decently-written article. As a reminder, we are at less than 20 articles, for each category.

The queue for both good and very good articles is full though; we do have a few candidates for each. At the moment, I do not see the problem in the fact that the criteria are bad, but in the fact that we are too few people.

Another thing: I am a pragmatic; personal attacks will not get us where we want, listening to each other, and trying to work out a solution will. --Eptalon (talk) 12:24, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

VGA criteria

I believe we need to revise some of the criteria as it appear that the "old school" of VGA has now become a little unworkable. The voting scheme is inherently incorrect and the way in which we "advertise" these articles needs improvement. We have a good few dozen regular contributors so they should all be capable of, at least, saying "I saw it, no problems" and, at best, a full review and plenty of comments, before supporting or opposing. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:25, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

RfA recently moved to an EnWP style subpage system. Is it perhaps time to move towards something like EnWP's FAC system? —Giggy 04:41, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Let's be pragmatic, The Rambling Man: What are the changes you see that would greatly improve the workability of the system (without making quality suffer, if possible)? --Eptalon (talk) 12:57, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

1. Removal of seven-day time limit.
2. Removal of hard-and-fast rule on number of supports and % of supports.
3. Appointment of a VGA director to oversee promotions and understand community consensus and quality articles.

The Rambling Man (talk) 13:12, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

My opinions, very cquickly:

1. There has to be some kind of timeout, otherwise we will see articles that are not ready sit there forever. (see Peer review, if you don't know what I mean)
2. If it is neither a number of votes, nor a percentage of support, what is it? - At the moment, it is the community that decides, based on a certain minimal number of votes, and a support ratio. All a closing admin can do is actually say that some votes are invalid.
3. If I understand you correctly, then there will be one person who decides if an article is a VGA or not?--Eptalon (talk) 13:20, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

1. Fine, then make it a week of inactivity at either the review or the article.
2. It's a consensus we're looking for. Look at en-wiki. Some FAs are promoted with just one or two supports.
3. No, the community decide if it's a VGA, one person is just responsible for deciding when the consensus has been reached. You could make it two or three people if you want, whatever. It works fine at en-wiki with one FAC director and two FLC directors fulfilling the role. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:26, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

(unindenting) Thanks for clarifying; I have given my opinion; what do the others think? --Eptalon (talk) 13:30, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

• I would keep the time limit and the hard-and-fast rule as judging consensus is far too subjective (and complex). Voting seems to work relatively well here (and in the rest of the world away from Wikipedia) so I would keep it. It's inherently simple, and that's important. Whether the criteria need to be revised and the number of votes needed be increased is another question. I would say keep the percentage, but increase the number to ten or more. It's clear already that the right article can get that much support. Hippopotamus (talk) 21:38, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't see the 7-day limit as much of a hinderence. But if this were to be removed, PGAs would need to be advertised more (likely on WP:ST) to get more input than just the "PVGA regulars." I've only gotten more into this process, and that's only beacuse of the announcements. A hard number of supports is necessary to make sure enough people have reviewed it, though the emphasis on the exact percentages should probably lessened. As for a director, I don't think there is just enough activity for it. It never gets overwhelming. Creol kind of already acts like a director already. Cassandra 21:46, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't think a director is needed, but I think an extension to at least 10 days would be good, otherwise it is easy to miss them when you go away for example. Ideally though, there should be no time limit and the PVGA is closed when a consensus is reached. I really think that the main pass rule should be changed though. If there has to be a set rule, it should at least be "The article must have at least an 80% support with a minimum of 6 supports" type thing as suggested above. If the time limit is longer, we don't need to worry about not getting enough votes too. - tholly ^--Turnip-- 16:46, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposal

These are my thoughts for the process:

1. Change the discussion period to one week (instead of two), but make it mandatory with no early moves to vote, so that nobody misses it there.
2. Extend voting to two weeks (from one), so that plenty of time is available to address "oppose" votes.
3. Oppose votes should mention the specific criteria (possibly by number in list) that need to be addressed.
4. Make the thresholds
   1. Ten support votes required, excluding nominator (effectively double the votes since there's double the time)
   2. 80% support (as before)

How does that sound? Hippopotamus (talk) 19:32, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Not bad bar the duo 10 support + 80%. Why put numbers on it? Voting is evil and we should strive for consensus rather than mathematical certainty. This wiki will die if we continue to mandate such laws. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:16, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I see the current problem mainly in the process of voting itself (see also the discussion on Simple Talk). Given we don't know at the moment how many there are of us, raising the number of votes required is imo bad idea; If we are indeed 20 people, 5 votes means: 25% of the active editors (6 means 33%). The main problem at the moment is not that is not possible to make 6 votes/80% support, but that major issues come up like on the second-last day.--Eptalon (talk) 22:23, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Wiki=consensus. Consensus does NOT equal mathematical certainty. So, a defined "support" equation is inherently wrong. Don't forget this may be Simple English Wikipedia but it doesn't mean we have to be Stupid and Patronising English Wikipedia. It's a wiki so the concept of consensus should prevail. The Rambling Man (talk) 23:04, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

It's just enwiki that's so anti-voting, it's not a wiki thing in general. Anyway, consensus and voting are not mutually exclusive. Voting is a simple way to gauge consensus. Hippopotamus (talk) 01:27, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I think that there should be a guideline of, say, 6 support votes and 80% support. But they closing admin decides whether a consensus has been reached, not from maths, but from all the comments on the votes etc. I think we should keep people voting though, as it helps. - tholly ^--Turnip-- 10:57, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree entirely. If we trust our admins enough to delete pages and block users, we should be able to trust them enough to decide on whether a consensus has been reached without a mathematical "right answer". The Rambling Man (talk) 14:06, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, admins are meant to be the most trusted users, and should be able to use their judgement to close an P(V)GA correctly. - tholly ^--Turnip-- 14:08, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

On that note, is it made clear somewhere who is actually responsible for promotions? As far as I could see so far, it's just Creol that's done it - since we don't have directors, who's allowed to promote? The Rambling Man (talk) 14:42, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Admins? or just Bureaucrats? Ask Creol. - tholly ^--Turnip-- 14:48, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Bobby Robson PVGA

(moved from discussion on PVGA page)

Archiving of the discussion and the !vote

I archived the discussion of Bloc Party after BG7 moved it to vote. I think we can archive the discussions when the vote started. So it is better for the links. I think we don't have to wait until the end of the vote and archive then both, discussion and vote. Thoughts? Regards, Barras (talk) 18:35, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Let's stop voting

I'd like to propose that we stop voting for VGAs and simply have a new section that would be used after the initial nomination. It could be called something like Election discussion. We could stop using and emboldened Supports and Opposes and simply discuss whether or not the article is now ready to be promoted to VGA. It might'en be obvious but I don't like voting anywhere on wiki and am waging a one-man campaign to get us to stop. What do you think? Show of hands :) fr33kman ^talk 23:14, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a great idea. This has certainly been brought up before with people saying that articles were being promoted based on votes and not on comments. Perhaps rather than having a seperate section, expand the discussion to three weeks and include the "vote", sorry, consensus building comments as it should be in that. Also, not directly related, but I think we should disallow people from promoting articles that they nominated as it could be a potential COI - especially if vote counting is removed and consensus building added. Regards, Goblin 10:54, 14 July 2009 (UTC) I ♥ Kennedy! Cross-posted to Wikipedia talk:Proposed good articles

Change I would like to make to which script is used

In the lead section of Wikipedia:Proposed very good articles, I noticed that a prosesize script is used that was updated in 2010. I have a much more updated version that is from 2017; maybe we could do an upgrade? If not, that fine; it’s just a proposal. Regards, --sithjarjar666 ^{(my profile | my contribs | speak to me)} 15:37, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Close:

Can somebody close all the current requests? They have surpassed the inactivity schedule. 💠Ely - Talk💠 10:00, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Reduce to what we can actually deal with.

What that would mean is eliminating VGAs, and working more in GAs. It's pretty obvious that what drives VGAs is authors' egotism: just look who proposes them, and how they are almost all the lead editors. We can't copy En because we find it difficult to man a reviewing group who are disinterested. Also, not only are editors promoting pages which they themselves have mostly written, but they are not able generally to be dispassionate, and tend to make snappy comments when negative points are raised. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:57, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

If I look at what happened the last 2-3 months: It was basically a group of editors who promoted articles that had been sitting there a very long time. Unlike DYK which we seem to have revied, GA/VGA is ont a matter of spening half an hour, finding something interesting in an article. Yes, I am going to ptomote Neptune, soon. How long did it take from first nomination to protion, years? - Given that we are genrerally only few people, what do you expect people to answer, when you tell them that "George Washington is still deas"? - While I don't want to undo the whole process, I think it would be great if we could get to a "shorter process", that you can say that if it can't get done in, say, 3 nmonths, it won't get done... Eptalon (talk) 14:23, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Being disinterested in a page is a qualification for reviewing it. Editing a page is a disqualification. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:29, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Aside from what you state, our process has several shortcomings:

• In the process of getting something ready, there will be a small number of editors (usually 1-2) doing a large number of edits to an article. As a result, the article will change to whatever these editors want it to be. This is fundamentally against the idea of "There's an article that almost meets the criteria, and with a few small edits, I can get it to (V)GA status". We have seen that with the article nudity, at the start, I wrote most of it, and later on WriterArtistDC rewrote it. It failed GA, for being too much of the work of a single editor, amongst other things
• As we are a small community, and there are only very few people reviewing/promoting, the processes take far too long.
• If we give up VGA, we need to find something to replace the "featured article on the main page". I would hate to see that go.

Eptalon (talk) 11:44, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

I think youll struggle to find a suitable way of having something where you nominate articles someone else has worked on. The main point of GA is to improve articles. The way it works on enwiki is that someone does up an article, people say they think that bits aren't right, and they get fixed. In the process, the article becomes better.

That's always been why I participate in the GA process. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 12:44, 13 July 2024 (UTC)