Wikipedia talk:Requirements for good articles/Archive 2

Point 3

If several different editors have to touch the article, I'm never going to get a GA. Ever. Nobody touches my articles. Unlike en, in which almost every subject I'm interested in already has an article and you just build from there, I've since created likely a dozen articles from scratch. Whereas in en I have to constantly keep looking for changes, it's so quiet here that I've stopped worrying altogether. That's good, but that means that point 3 seems unfullfillable. Cassandra (talk) 19:23, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed - this criterion is irrelevant. If there's a community consensus to promote then why mandate a minimum number of editors? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:13, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

True. -- America ^†alk 20:21, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

And for clarity, this point should be removed for VGA as well. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:25, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

The idea is that no one writes perfect articles. When the article is listed under the "Proposal" section, it generally gets help in the form of addition, copyediting, etc so it isn't really that hard to fulfill. The article doesn't have to meet all the criteria until it's moved to the voting section. Therefore it's okay to post it under the "Proposal" section without having anyone else edit it yet--don't worry, they will! :-) I can see where you're coming from but I can also see the purpose of keeping this criteria as well. I see that it was changed without much discussion on both pages, but since it was originally implemented after much discussion by many editors who ultimately decided it was a good idea, I think it should not be removed rashly. Why not open the discussion up for further opinion? · Tygrrr... 21:32, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I attempted to remove this pointless criterion, but Tygrrr had the courtesy of reverting me and labeling my edits as vandalism. He also pointed to discuss this more... so let's discuss... what else? Maxim _{(talk | editor review)} 21:33, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I didn't see Tygrrr's edit above. Also, I don't see Tygrrr berating TRM for not using the Proposal section, skipping to the voting. The system en.wiki uses is that people can add comments to candidates at will, and not necessarily vote. That's a better system in idea, I notice Spurgeon got a grand total of zero comments. I also think that that part of the process, more than Cr. 3 needs changing the most. Maxim _{(talk | editor review)} 21:36, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I still hold the opinion that this criterion is pointless. If an article gains the support of the community it shouldn't matter if it is written by one or one hundred editors. However, I'm sure there was good logic applied when it was agreed this should be part of the overall criteria and I'm happy to stand by and wait. I'm sorry if I've bucked the system by going for voting simultaneously with the proposal - Spurgeon voting opened without the article meeting all the criteria either. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:14, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Counterexample

Suppose I wanted to propose the article City to be made a good article. (This is just an example). The article is (currently) a bit over 8k long (inculding a few images). Images seem to have decent labels. There are a few red-links (currently 6 of between 20 and 30 links, probably). At first sight, the article seems to meet all the criteria required for good articles (not sure about criterion 10 (referencing)). So community might decide to make this a good article. I do however argue that it is not listed in the appropriate categories. It is currently listed in category Cities, which seems straightforward. Cities is a subcategory of category Geography. While modern cities might only be about geography (and perhaps population), historical cities were not (that is: most cities in Europe). A city is also about Culture, about Economics. There are also certain social phenomena that can be observed in modern-day cities that are not observed elsewhere (For example: the "sprouting" of dormitory-towns, and perthaps slums at the outskirts of the city). While the community might decide that the article is fine the way it is, I think we should still stick to criterion 4 (appropriately categorized). In the case of City there are two ways to fix this; either the appropriate categories are added to the article, or they are added to the category Cities.

Similarly, item 3 is necessary. No one writes a GA in one go. If you look at the wording ..possibly by different editors., the different editors part is optional. It is highly unlikely that a one-edit article (with template added) gets promoted to GA, and as all people agree the article is good enough, at the second edit it gets the GA tag. The criterion I brought forward at the time (no idea where thatb discussion is now) is text-blindness. People from an academic background probably know this: If you edit a certain text for a long time, you stop seeing certain errors; at some point you know large parts of that text by heart. In that context it can be very helpful that a fresh pair of eyes look at the text (and possibly make the changes). --Eptalon (talk) 08:03, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I can certainly see the merit in having an article scanned over with fresh eyes, I have no problem with that at all. However, making it a fixed criterion is over-prescriptive. English Wikipedia does not have anything like this for featured content, it's simply assumed that an article will undergo revisions from different people before it achieves the right standard. For example, this history shows that I took an article from creation to featured list with only two other editors making a single minor edit each. The community reviewed the list and decided it was featured quality. That's the whole point - the community won't promote if the article isn't up to scratch. Mandating different editors is pointless. Encouraging discussion and improvement isn't, and that should take place naturally as a part of the GA/VGA drive. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:08, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I found the original discussion, see here--Eptalon (talk) 08:24, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, interesting. I'm not convinced. I think the criterion should be deleted. As Razorflame said in that discussion "as long as it doesn't stop VGA quality articles getting VGA" then he was happy. As far as I can tell, that's the only thing this criterion could achieve. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:15, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Since it is the same in both GA and VGA criteria, do you want to see it deleted from both, or just from one of them? - In any case, should we re-launch discussion? --Eptalon (talk) 10:25, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Delete from both since in both GA and VGA, articles are only promoted once the community consensus to promote has been reached. Who got it there is irrelevant. And yes, by all means re-open discussion! The Rambling Man (talk) 10:32, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

(unindenting) Posted a respective mesage to Simple talk. --Eptalon (talk) 10:43, 27 June 2008 (UTC)