Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Balfour Declaration/1

Balfour Declaration

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Kept. No support for nominator's assertion that the article fails the GA criteria, and no response from nom in more than two weeks. — MShabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 12:08, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

The main issue here is that the article is not stable, which is a major GA requirement. While there is no actual edit warring, probably since the article falls under ARBPIA, the article has had hundreds if not thousands of edits since receiving GA, and there is talk page agreement that it's missing large amounts of information in both the Background and the Long-term impact sections. I think the article should be delisted until it stabilizes. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 19:07, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Disagree. The requesting editor has just added a neutrality tag (without contributing any useful edit himself) to a section of the article so as to support this reassessment request which otherwise would likely fail for lack of any good reason to suspend the listing. The claim that the article is missing large amounts of information is false. The editor is recommended to follow the Wikipedia article reassessment guidelines (reproduced here for ease of reference):-

Before attempting to have any article delisted through reassessment, take these steps:

   Fix any simple problems yourself. Do not waste minutes explaining or justifying a problem that you could fix in seconds. GAR is not a forum to shame editors over easily fixed problems.
   Tag serious problems that you cannot fix with appropriate template messages, if the templates will help other editors find the problems. Do not tag bomb the article.
   Make sure that the problems you see in the article are covered by the actual good article criteria. Many problems, including the presence of dead URLs, inconsistently formatted citations, and compliance with the Manual of Style are not covered by the GA criteria and therefore not grounds for delisting.
   Notify major contributors to the article and the relevant Wikiprojects. Remember, the aim is not to delist the article, but to fix it.

Selfstudier (talk) 22:06, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Also disagree. The nominator's concern appears to be re WP:GA? number 5: "Stable". The footnote attached to that criteria says "... good faith improvements to the page (such as copy editing), and changes based on reviewers' suggestions do not apply to the "stable" criterion". Since reaching GA status, the article has been undergoing a peer review over more than a year, including a GOCE Copy Edit, with considerable improvements being made, with the intention to reach WP:FA status.

Onceinawhile (talk) 22:26, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Neither of those comments addresses the issue I have raised. This article has gone through substantial changes since being listed, not just copyediting or "changes based on reviewers' suggestions". It is likely to receive more substantial changes in the near future.

I hope some uninvolved editors will show up here. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 02:32, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

For ease of reference, here's a diff that contains all the changes to this article in the last 3 months [1]. Those are not just copyedits and this is not a stable article. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 02:41, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

• Comment - it is common, if not the norm, that GAs evolve a lot on their way to FA (which is the purpose here), due to the higher standards there. Articles are required to be stable before being GA nominated, not necessarily after, as long as the instability is leading to improvements. The next step here would simply be to improve the article further, which is already happening, until everyone is happy. But yes, this article should be stabilised before an eventual FA nomination. FunkMonk (talk) 03:29, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
• Comment: this reassessment request seems to be based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what Stability means for a Good Article. To quote from the GA criteria: Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute. (Footnote adds: Vandalism reversions, proposals to split or merge content, good faith improvements to the page (such as copy editing), and changes based on reviewers' suggestions do not apply to the "stable" criterion. Nominations for articles that are unstable because of non-constructive editing may be failed or placed on hold.) There appear to have been extensive revisions—good faith improvements, I'm guessing—but as the nominator points out, no edit warring. Without a major and extended edit war/content disagreement, there are no grounds for delisting that I can see. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:21, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
• Comment I agree with the preceding comment. There has been no recent instability, so what is the complaint? — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 04:06, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
• Comment: It's not clear to me what "Good Article" status means. Does it refer to a point in time, or to the article itself? I would think the latter is much more consistent and coherent. Therefore, if an article has had major changes since its assessment, it should automatically be given a reassessment. I don't know how the GA process works, so I can't really say if this is common practice. But it seems sensible to me (modulo the effort required to actually assess the article). To that extent, I agree with NMMNG. However, do we really need a GA reassessment now, since other procedures (for FA) are already in the works? If the latter succeeds, the former is moot. Perhaps, just wait for the latter to be finished and then worry about the former. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 06:03, 21 July 2017 (UTC)ç
• Comment: Good Article Status is defined at WP:Good article criteria. To propose a delist (which in addition assumes that a fix is not possible), it is enough to show that the criteria are not met. A large number of changes since listing does not by itself affect good article status per the criteria.Selfstudier (talk) 09:04, 21 July 2017 (UTC)