Wikipedia talk:Good article criteria

Fiction criteria

Since there have been recent disputes over fiction (or "fancruft" and good article status, I 'copy and pasted' the discussion from the Good Article talk page in "Archive 2" onto this page (which was empty, I might add). I think this is a discussion that should have taken place here before it was made policy. I think more people should at least comment on it since at the present moment of time it seems the process was passed unilaterally by one or two users.

From my understanding, several of the fiction article nominations that were recently rejected follow the guidelines suggested on Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) page and are in line with the examples given on that page.Dmoon1 20:39, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

actually it was rejected for the reasons given on the amidala article's talk page (which you obviously didnt read). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zzzzz (talk • contribs) 21:31, 25 March 2006(UTC).

Fancruft (from Wikipedia talk:Good articles/Archive 2

i added a suggestion that "fancruft" type articles should discuss the subject outside of its hermetically-sealed fictional universe, i.e. why the author/creator decided to make it, how they went about developing it, what other things influenced it, why its important to the world outside the fictional universe, etc etc. somebody rv'ed it saying "if its fancruft it shouldnt even be an article" so i added "fancruft is not acceptable" as a policy. somebody *else* rv'ed that without expln.

what is the consensus here? Zzzzz 19:24, 11 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As the person who reverted the second time, the reason for the revert is that significant changes to a policy page I believe it should be discussed before being made part of the policy. I also have no objection to a requirement that works dealing with fictional subjects be required to include some information on the subject's influence in the real world. The big problem is working out the wording of the addition so that it does the correct job. --Allen3 ^talk 00:03, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"For "fancruft" type articles, significance outside of the "fictional universe" must be established and discussed, together with its process of authorship."

I think it may be outside the scope of this page to specify such a requirement for this specific type of article. I'd reckon the criteria requiring compelling prose aimed at the layman should cover this one. More detailed descriptions of what is expected of each type of article are usually defined by wikiprojects for the relevant subject area. Worldtraveller 00:44, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here's another suggestion for wording, to get rid of the negative and combatative word "fancruft".

For articles dealing with fictional subjects, characters, objects, or locations, significance outside of the "fictional universe" must be established and discussed, together with its process of authorship.

"Fancruft", as I understand it, is any minutia of fandom that HAS no relevance outside of the fictional universe. What we want is ANY article on a fictional subject to make sure that it is understood that the subject is fictional, and treat it as such. Fieari 20:01, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

i support adding the above to the "comprehensiveness" clause of the GA policy. Zzzzz 22:02, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

if there is no objections by the weekend, i'll add this to the GA policy. Zzzzz 20:31, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Stubs

I think that stubs or articles containing sections that are stubs should not be allowed under the criteria. Any commnets? Flying Canuck 01:18, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If there is no objections within 14 days (April 10 2006 (UTC)) I will add a note to the effect that stubs do not qualify in the comphrensive section of the critera.Flying Canuck 01:40, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Does this mean that we'll have to open up a "Featured Stubs" page? --User:Rayc

Stubs are by definition incomplete, so definitely don't meet GA criteria. I always assumed this would be implicitly obvious but would support adding it to the criteria if people feel it's not. Worldtraveller 13:04, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A good rule of thumb would be "If the article qualifies for Collaboration of the week it does not qualify for Good Article". --Barberio 14:47, 14 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is indeed a very good guidline to follow. --S iva1979^{Talk to me} 15:46, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"What is a good article?"

To me, these two points suggest the same thing:

It is factually accurate - its content should be verifiable with good quality sources cited. Although citing of sources is essential, inline citations are not mandatory.
It is well referenced.

Wintran 13:45, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree - they need a merge. --Celestianpower ^háblame 22:23, 29 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree - the 'second' one is not needed. Flying Canuck 01:38, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. Original research may be factual, but it isn't well-referenced. NPOV articles may be well-referenced, but they are not factual. Neither would qualify as even acceptable Wikipedia content, much less GA content. ClairSamoht 13:00, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Short articles and GA

If "shorter articles" are to be eligible for GA status (say, an article which fits snugly on a single screen or so), then perhaps the criterion "it is appropriately structured with a lead section and a proper system of hierarchical headings" needs to be relaxed a little. Quite often, compact articles present better when they are not broken up into multiple sections of a few sentences each; one would think that if at least some logical structure and flow is maintained within the text (appropriately segmented into paragraphs), then the same desirable end has been achieved. Thoughts?--cjllw | TALK 04:28, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that splitting a very short article into very very short sections isn't really doing it a good turn, but personally I think that such a short article would probably be better off merged into a broader topic. Are there any examples you could give of a very short article where a merger would not be appropriate? Worldtraveller 19:13, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sparging would be one example. It's too long for a Wiktionary entry. It isn't a stub; there's not much else to be said about sparging without getting far afield. Merging it with something else would annoy both people who are trying to look up sparging and don't give a hoot about something else, and people who are looking up something else, and don't give a hoot about sparging.

Merging articles A and B only makes sense when readers logically could use all the information on the page. Otherwise, it simply results in a larger page which slows down both the server and users when it is served up, and when the page gets edited for either A or B, both A and B end up getting saved.

As a principle of good writing, you should have something to say, say it, and shut up when you're done. And as a matter of organization, an encyclopedia should be organized according to "Trebek's Law": express it in the form of a question. "What is sparging?".

I don't think GA should be reserved for major articles. They are the hard ones to do well, and GA is there to show editors what to do, not as some sort of blue ribbon of accomplishment. If you can say everything that needs to be said about sparging in one screen or so, then it's easy to remain focused, and do a good job. It's when you ask "Who was Stephen King?" that things get difficult. That page is long, and it seems to get edited 6 times a day - and it's not edit wars, but contributors adding more detail. Will the editing ever slow down? ClairSamoht 23:20, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think Clair says it well, and they do not have to be "very short" articles, but I rather had in mind some I have seen (forgetting, for the moment, just which ones they were!) which ran to a page or perhaps a little more, well-structured, covering all the main points, with some well chosen images or even an infobox. Say an article on a minor town, or some historical figure notable for some particular deed, but whose life was otherwise undocumented. In the latter case, there may well be not much more which can be added after describing their claim to fame, but it would not be appropriate to condense them into some other article. It's really just a question of if a small but notable topic can be roundly covered, and has all the other attributes of a good article, there may simply not be enough material to pad it out to 20k or more, and the aesthetic presentation works best without the usual sub-section breakup (a valid and useful way to organise lengthier articles, but not always appropriate).--cjllw | TALK 08:43, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The last thing I would like to see is pages being padded out with unnecessary verbosity. Absolutely, GA is not in any way reserved for 'major' articles - they really should be worked up to FA standards. I see it as predominantly for short articles (say 3-15kb or so). Sparging I do think could be expanded a little bit without getting waffly. If it had references, and if some of the short paras were merged, would probably be the very essence of what I see an ideal GA as. If an article genuinely does cover its topic well in only a few paragraphs, then I don't think it should be excluded from the list. Worldtraveller 19:51, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I've taken a crack at rewriting that particular criterion in view of the above discussion; open to any further amendments.--cjllw | TALK 06:01, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've given it a mild rewrite: short articles are fine so long as they address the major aspects of the topic (contrast to FAs, where length doesn't matter so long as the article is comprehensive) TheGrappler 22:09, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good Lists?

The FA system has its own set of critieria for articles which are lists, but we don't, so technically speaking, it seems no list can be deemed a good article since they aren't prose :/. How about we amend this so that the prose standards don't have to apply to lists? Homestarmy 15:27, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. And maybe the criteria should specifically mention lists. Maurreen 17:33, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what a 'good list' would be. Can you give an example of what you might consider a list that contains excellent content but would probably not pass FLC? Worldtraveller 17:59, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I assume you mean FAC, and I was thinking something like Timeline of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, because since its still a recent event I don't know if people would want to make it an FA, yet it isn't changing very quickly these days. Homestarmy 18:31, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lists have their own 'featured' process: WP:FLC. I'd say our one person review system would be completely inadequate to assess an article 112kb long so that particular example, I would say, we should not touch with a bargepole. I don't know how the FLC process treats short lists, but if they generally look for lengthy lists, then there would be a place for us looking at short lists. If they take lists of any length, 'good lists' would be redundant. Worldtraveller 21:08, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comparison with "What is a FA?"

I think a short paragraph explaining how these criteria are weaker than those for FA would be helpful. Hyacinth 22:57, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a bit - hope it's useful. Worldtraveller 21:19, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The addition tells us more about the differences between how the criteria are formulated than about what they tend to achieve. Especially in light of the next section telling us that "A good article may be any length", it is somewhat unclear what the criteria (and differences with the criteria for a FA) are for non-short articles. Assuming that FA quality requires that an article be good, what is additionally required of a somewhat lengthy "good" article to achieve featured status? --Lambiam ^Talk 09:02, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Adherence to Manual of Style

I added adherence to the Wikipedia Manual of Style to the attributes of a well-written article, the rationale being (a) that in the peer reviews this is also used as a touchstone; and (b) that doing so is an entirely reasonable thing. I hope no-one is offended by this not being discussed in advance, but as far as I can see this page is not "policy" but really more descriptive. Lambiam ^Talk 08:38, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can't "specialist" articles be good?

A well-written article is supposed to be "readily comprehensible to a non-specialist reader". This means that, for example, the article Levi-Civita symbol can never become a "good" article; any attempt to make it readily comprehensible to a non-specialist reader will most definitely result in a very bad article. Most readers are somewhat unlikely to think: "Hey, let me look up what Wikipedia has to say about Levi-Civita symbol", and if they arrive there through the link at Rarita-Schwinger equation, say, they will probably expect a specialist treatment and would most likely be severely disappointed if they then find a text that has been made "comprehensible to the non-specialist". What about this relaxed criterion: the degree of non-accessibility to the non-specialist reader should be commensurate with how specialized the topic is? Lambiam ^Talk 09:30, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I had that issue when reviewing Ubuntu (Linux distribution) and moved it to disputes, which appears to be equally lightly travelled. :-) The main contributors to that article maintain a similar stance. I still think I at least should get some sort of more common reference point, i.e. Windows, if one exists. —Rob (talk) 18:26, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Trouble is, if an article is not comprehensible to a general reader, it's difficult to see how anyone can review it effectively to say whether it meets the criteria.

My own opinion is that what we're here for is to make information about our areas of interest and/or expertise available to as wide an audience as possible, without dumbing it down, and so I think every article on Wikipedia ought to be written so that an ignorant but intelligent reader can understand it. If an article cannot be made intelligible to such a reader, I'm not sure a general encyclopaedia is really the place for it, but I do think it is possible to explain even very complex topics so that the general reader can have an idea of what they are about. Worldtraveller 20:07, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Agree - an article which is not accessible to the layman is not a "good article" at all. Stevage 08:09, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So I think we clearly disagree here. We probably agree that the difficulty of a topic must not be used as an argument to shirk a valiant effort of making an article as accessible as possible. But should the mere fact that it cannot reasonably be made accessible to an ignorant – though intelligent – reader be sufficient reason to withhold the information from less ignorant readers? I think not. Remember: "Imagine a world in which every single person is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing." Or is that old hat? The ultimate consequence of the position that articles do not belong if they can't be made understandable to this reader (without turning them into textbooks), is that articles like Rarita-Schwinger equation should be deleted. As to the difficulty of reviewing a specialist article, maybe not everyone can do that, but certainly specialists should be able to. And is the only purpose of this project page to serve such reviews? Maybe editors come to this page in the hope of being enlightened on what makes an article good. The editor labouring on a specialist article is now made to think: "Whatever I do is in vain; my article cannot be redeemed." --Lambiam ^Talk 01:03, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is possible we could incorprate something in here about specialist type articles, but they would probably need to be reviewed by.....a specialist :/. I won't be going to collage for a couple years so we'll probably need some really good mathematicion to evaluate all those types of articles, and well.....who's gonna be our mathematicion? Homestarmy 02:11, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Much needed copy-edit

Dear contributors

I've gone over the attributes of a good article on the project page, and the text below it, to make it easier to read and to number the attributes so that reviewers can easily refer to them.

I made no substantive changes to the meaning.

Tony 02:35, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

1(b) is longish, but it might be awkward to divide it. I wonder whether the following change would be acceptable (this one would be a slight change in meaning, but would nicely simplify the language):

EXISTING (b) it follows a logical structure, introducing the topic and then grouping together its coverage of related aspects; where appropriate, it contains a succinct lead section summarising the topic, and the remaining text is organised into a system of hierarchical sections (particularly for longer articles)

PROPOSED (b) it follows a logical structure, introducing the topic and then grouping together its coverage of related aspects; a longer article contains a succinct lead section summarising the topic, and the remaining text is organised into a system of hierarchical sections;

Tony 02:40, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tony, those alterations look fine to me, at least, and the numbering system is a good addition- thanks.

Re the text of 1(b), the general idea here (per discussion supra) was that it should not be a pre-requisite for all GA-candidates to have section headers, as long as the information was presented in a logically-ordered and grouped fashion, with paragraphs of sensible length. I think your proposal still captures that intention, and IMO would be fine. --cjllw | TALK 08:36, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Section 6 is contradictory

It says:

"A good article has the following attributes. ... 6. It contains images."

"(b) a lack of images does not in itself prevent an article from achieving Good Article status."

The first part requires images, while the second part doesn't. It can go both ways:

If images are required for GA, then 6b shouldn't exist. If images aren't required, then why not just remove the entire Section 6? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 23:27, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the recent amendment by Tony has addressed this. The general idea is that where images are used, they must be appropriately captioned, tagged and otherwise adhering to image use guidelines, and that while images, maps, diags, etc are good to have, they are not a mandatory requirement.--cjllw | TALK 03:26, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, I just came here to make the same point. Someone reverted my change. It's ridiculous to say that "Good articles have images. Lack of images does not prevent an article being a good article."

So here are the possible situations:

If an article could be illustrated (ie, it is not an abstract concept with no appropriate illustrations), it must be illustrated to be a GA
An article does not have to have images. If it does, they must meet certain requirements for the article to be a GA.
An article does not have to have images. However, good images may increase its "GA" factor.

What is the real situation, so we can update the criteria as appropriate? Stevage 14:56, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What was wrong with yesterday's version ('where appropriate')? Should be reverted to that. Tony 15:41, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Problem with that wording is it's very vague. What is meant by appropriate? When would havin images be inappropriate? Right now, it says images should be included where possible, which acknowledges that many topics do not have suitable images availble to illustrate them, and is also internally self-consistent. Worldtraveller 16:22, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There will sometimes be a grey area, where an image might or might not be included; 'possible' forces the issue, whereas 'appropriate' leaves it up to a judgement of suitability. You yourself use the word 'suitability', so 'appropriate' is more consistent with your views. Tony 02:41, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This does not resolve the basic problem: Point 6 says good articles must have images, "where possible". Point 6b says good articles don't have to have images.

So, if an article could have images, but doesn't, does it still qualify as a good article (under point 6b) or does it fail (under point 6)? Why don't we just scrap the whole of point 6, if images are irrelevant to an article being a good article anyway? Stevage 08:04, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how that's contradictory, really - 6b is just emphasising that if it's not possible to illustrate an article, then don't fail it for not having images. If it is possible to illustrate it, but it's not illustrated, then it falls short of what we would expect of a good article, and should be failed. Images are not irrelevant at all - it's just that unlike references, they can be absent and an article can still be good. Worldtraveller 08:43, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with WT that it's not contradictory; but I'd still prefer 'appropriate'. Tony 10:06, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]