Wikipedia talk:Good articles/GAN Backlog Drives/March 2024

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

We still on?[edit]

@Vaticidalprophet, Ganesha811, and BlueMoonset: is this drive going ahead? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:12, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say so, yes! We should probably send out a message inviting people to sign up in the next couple days. —Ganesha811 (talk) 01:03, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not up to me, but the coordinators. I'm happy to help out with the stats and the lists of noms over 90 days old, but it's up to those who would be in charge, which doesn't include me. I do hope so: we're up over 700 nominations! We've only been above 700 twice before: two days in 2020, and a stretch of a dozen days in 2023. We hit 722 a couple of days ago, which ties us for second-most GANs ever; the record is 726 at midnight on August 1, 2023—a drive started at that moment—and we may pass 726 before the end of this month. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:03, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've added it to the tab header. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 04:50, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! —Ganesha811 (talk) 14:09, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, if you could update the list of old nominations, that would be very helpful, thank you! —Ganesha811 (talk) 14:09, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, thank you for the ping -- I had this on the to-do list. I'll take a look over the boilerplate soon to see what can be simplified. Vaticidalprophet 04:55, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
buidhe, you did an MMS message last time around; could you do it again? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 01:46, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, I can take care of that. (t · c) buidhe 02:34, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Done, using the mass message list from last August. (t · c) buidhe 02:39, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've added the notification of the impending drive to the WP:GAN page. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:02, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@BlueMoonset, will you be updating and tracking the progress chart, as you did in the August drive last summer? Or should I put it on my list? Thanks! —Ganesha811 (talk) 19:11, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ganesha811, that's the plan. I won't always be home when midnight rolls around, and unfortunately it won't be feasible to use the Report numbers because they're taken at 11:06 each day, and it won't be feasible to based the numbers on them; I'll have to take a reading from the WP:GAN page whenever I'm around from after 00:00, and backdate to midnight, checking after the midnight run by ChristieBot to make sure all pre-midnight transactions are included. I'll be keeping an eye on the old nominations as well; everything's set up for the start, though I'll need to run through on Thursday night and remove any that have been taken for review prior to midnight. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:22, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, thank you so much! I'll focus mostly on checking reviews and answering questions from participants, then. —Ganesha811 (talk) 02:42, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Buidhe, could you send out another mass-message when the drive begins tomorrow? I'm not sure which list would be best but if it's been done before, perhaps a wikiwide notice would be good. Thanks! —Ganesha811 (talk) 14:19, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I believe a watchlist notice was sent out last year. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:27, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You don't need mms to request a watch list notice.
I'm willing to send out a reminder tomorrow, please ping me when you want to get it out (no way to schedule future messages) (t · c) buidhe 15:12, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I think that's ok, then - I'll make a request at WP:WLN for tomorrow. —Ganesha811 (talk) 15:15, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Asilvering has expressed interest in being the third co-ordinator at WT:GAN, but they are currently signed up to compete. Is that an issue? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 02:39, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't say so, provided they (as per common sense) do not review their own GA reviews. @Asilvering, feel free to add your name to the list of coordinators at the top of the main page. —Ganesha811 (talk) 02:56, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Before I do that, I'd want to clarify what exactly is needed here. Is it just that you need some help checking that the reviews are a reasonable length/depth/helpfulness? Or is there more to it that I should know about? I feel like I'm missing some kind of co-ordinator secret handshake. -- asilvering (talk) 03:23, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, that'll teach me to read to messages in chronological order... just saw your other message. Thanks. Still have to figure out the handshake. -- asilvering (talk) 03:25, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sometime in the next couple days, I'll set up an email thread so we can coordinate there, but hopefully it should be pretty straightforward for all of us, just a lot of checking reviews. Thank you for volunteering! —Ganesha811 (talk) 03:48, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Points[edit]

I am moving this here from the project page. The Barnacle article was quite a bit of work. So I was disappointed to see my review was penalized. I am hoping to have the half point tallied because I did a thorough review of Barnacle. I even had a follow up comment on the nominator's talk page.

  1. Talk:Barnacle/GA1 (2328 words) Green tickY 0.5 points (0.5 points deducted, short review, no evidence of source review). —Ganesha811 (talk) 01:29, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Ganesha811: I did a source check - I used the chart to indicate that the sources were checked; if that is not proper or it needs to be bullet points I can stop using the provided chart. I also called out an Earwig check above the chart - Number 6: I noted the reason for the high Earwig score. Thank you for considering. Lightburst (talk) 06:22, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

While Chiswick Chap did a fine job on the article, I think the review was fairly brief for a long article with a broad scope. On sources specifically, I took a look over the article. I wouldn't have deducted points for the lack of a detailed source review if there were no actual issues, but I saw some problems. Most of the sources are high-quality academic papers or textbooks, but there were things that should have been addressed. For instance, SparkNotes used a source, use of a tertiary source that is no longer available (Encarta 2005 DVD), use of a graduate thesis (with a page # missing), use of the Online Etymology Dictionary as a source, use of a children's book (Visual Factfinder), missing author/publisher info (Earth News/BBC), no questions on why a book called "Plant Magic" is used to cite a fact about birds and barnacles, etc. Given these problems, I think the source review should have been more thorough and felt the deduction was justified. However, I'm happy to hear what my fellow coordinators think and be overruled by them if they disagree - @Vaticidalprophet, @Asilvering, any thoughts? —Ganesha811 (talk) 06:54, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Ganesha811: I appreciate the response. I see two other reviews in this drive that are by any measure, perfunctory, yet you awarded the reviewers a full point for each. I did a complete review of 3 GANs and I have exactly ½ point.
I enjoy reviewing GANs and I thought that I was following WP:GAN/I#R3 by spot checking the sources. If I understand your message, my review was so inadequate that I only deserved 50% of the review point. If that is true, perhaps the article needs to be nominated for reassessment with my apologies to Chiswick Chap. Since I disagree with the subjectivity involved in awarding points and the interpretation of GA guidelines it is probably best if I do not participate in this drive. Thanks for coordinating the drive and I am sorry for any problems that I have caused you. Lightburst (talk) 17:16, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've addressed the issues mentioned, barring the Online Etymology Dictionary (see the "Reviews and reputation" section in that article) which is a good and reliable source, and flagged by the tool as such (and in any case the etymology section is multi-sourced). I'm more concerned by the treatment of the reviewer, who undoubtedly did their best. We need to encourage new reviewers — there are few enough of them already, and we're all only too well aware of the ever-growing backlog. I have no opinion on scoring schemes and the like, but it is definitely a priority to encourage, support, and retain reviewers. This is especially true of new reviewers, in particular when they fall short in some way, so that they don't immediately feel they have to sign off and do something else, as appears to have happened here. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:19, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Thanks for the kind words @Chiswick Chap:. It is a pleasure to review your work and I am now reviewing GANs outside of the drive: I have just completed a short one on an interesting football bloke. I would love to review another of your submissions soon! Regarding this drive, it is a curious point system that gives an editor two full points for two quick fails. I do not think there is anything nefarious about it, it is just a waste of valuable editor time to have me arguing over a half of a point. I plan to stick around reviewing GANs and I welcome everyone's advice. Responding to AirshipJungleman29 querry below, I do not want to call out other reviewers but there are only a handful that are posted on the project page so they are not hard to find. Cheers! Lightburst (talk) 20:43, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the need to encourage and support reviewers, and should have explained my reasoning in full (as laid out above) to Lightburst on a talk page along with the 0.5 point deduction. However, I do think that the role of a coordinator is to make sure reviews are of an adequate standard, and while there's obviously room for disagreement, I thought the source review was incomplete, as it missed clear issues. (Aside: the etymology dictionary has been discussed at RSN a couple times with skepticism and I don't think there's a consensus that it's reliable). Perhaps it's worth formalizing a way to judge deductions, or requiring 2 out of 3 coordinators to agree, or something along those lines. —Ganesha811 (talk) 20:40, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Which other reviews are you referring to Lightburst? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:23, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm very sorry if this has caused you to withdraw; you haven't caused a problem yet. I'm new to coordinating, so I want to get it right. Which perfunctory reviews did you have in mind? The reason I awarded 0.5 points is because all of our measures are in intervals of 0.5, so the only reasonable choice between 0 and 1 was 0.5 - I felt you certainly deserved some credit for the review, just not full credit. The other review was of an article under 800 words, so could not score points, which is a long-standing rule and not an individual decision. If a coordinator had been able to check your third review, you likely would have gotten 2+ points for that one. I hope you return to reviewing at some point soon. In any case, given that the issues have been fixed and the review has been discussed between us, I have no problem with giving 1 point of credit for the review now if you return. I'm happy to discuss this more here or on either of our talk pages. —Ganesha811 (talk) 20:33, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I second @Ganesha811 here. I wouldn't want to check off any review that showed no evidence of source spot-checking, and I agree those sources you mention are alarming. @Lightburst, simply saying "I checked sources x, y, z, all verified" would satisfy "evidence of source spot-checking", as far as I am concerned. I personally believe that sources should be checked in more depth than that, especially for an article with so many footnotes, but my read of various discussions on the GA talk page over the past while is that most editors consider a brief spot-check sufficient. -- asilvering (talk) 21:29, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Articles needing a new reviewer[edit]

There are a couple of older nominations (172 and 149 days old) that are technically on hold, but actually, they need new reviewers. In past drives, we've added them to the List of qualifying articles subsection, with "New reviewer needed" inserted in the Notes column. Did we want to do this again? We have given full credit for these nominations that otherwise meet the criteria, including bonus points. Please let me know; if the coordinators decide to do so this time, I can make sure they get added. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:43, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm fine with you adding those - good thought! —Ganesha811 (talk) 01:26, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Notice to all: the 800-word minimum rule for a review to get points has been revoked[edit]

Hello! In the first few days of this drive, a rule has been in effect that an article must have >800 words at passage to have the review eligible for points. This rule has not been used for many prior GA backlog drives. It will no longer be in effect on this one as it is not necessary to ensure good reviewing and may discourage reviewers. Any reviews already completed of articles <800 words will be awarded points retrospectively as appropriate. If there are any questions, or if I missed your review when awarding retrospective points, just ping me! —Ganesha811 (talk) 21:53, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

...hm. I wasn't able to check my email until just now, when I saw this. I'll check reviews, but I don't plan to approve anything under 800 words, and I intend to keep this rule in the future for later backlog drives. I think it's an important way to maintain quality in the drive context, when it's possible standards can slip under point-based motivations, and it definitely didn't seem to discourage reviewers in August. Vaticidalprophet 04:36, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think there's a baseline amount of work that a quality GA review requires, regardless of the length of the article, and so awarding credit for a well-executed review of an article, no matter how short, seems fair to me. Look at Talk:Sonny Bono Memorial Park/GA1, which I just checked - is that not a point's worth of effort? We award a point for quickfails, after all. If a review is genuinely perfunctory or too short, it's not because the article is too short, and we still have policies in place to address that scenario. —Ganesha811 (talk) 12:29, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Vaticidalprophet, what is it about the 800-word floor that maintains quality of articles? If it's important, shouldn't it be one of the GA criteria in the first place? I don't see any reason why a 600-word article couldn't meet the GA criteria, or why giving points for reviewing it in the drive would present a quality problem. -- asilvering (talk) 06:55, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I want to do this, but I would like some coaching[edit]

Does anyone have time to explain a bit about signing up? I did the reading about GA standards, but I'm sort of hesitant about jumping in because I don't quite understand the signup roster. I dread reviewing an article yay or nay and then getting corrected harshly for having made some basic mistake, but I do want to do this. You can see from my awkward stars that I've done a previous editing drive. Any hand-holders out there experienced in GA editing and willing to zoom for a few minutes? Fortunaa (talk) 18:20, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! As mentioned on my talk page, I'm happy to provide advice or examples of good GA reviews. I can't zoom, but if you decide to start reviewing, I'll keep an eye on it and advise as needed. —Ganesha811 (talk) 15:09, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Progress section is on hiatus[edit]

The Progress section is temporarily on hiatus since the bot that updates the GAN page, ChristieBot, is currently down for an undetermined length of time. See this message from Mike Christie for more information.

Unlike past years, where the Reports page was generated at 01:00 and could be used to determine the daily progress stats by backing out the post-midnight updates, the page now runs at 11:06. It's impractical to take those numbers and add in over twelve hours of transactions.

What I do this year is record the number of nominations and number not under review from the top of the GAN page as close as I can to midnight, and then back out any post-midnight updates if the numbers are from after midnight, or add in the subsequent updates if I wrote down the numbers prior to midnight. Unfortunately, without ChristieBot running, I can't see the latest nominations, noms claimed for review, or passes or failures.

Once ChristieBot is back up, I will do my best to fill in the missing dates and their stats, though it may take a while if this is a multi-day outage. Please be patient! Thank you very much. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:04, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the notice. That's unfortunate timing for all involved, but hopefully Mike will get it back up shortly. Sounds like the problem originated on toolforge; I really have no idea how that environment is all set up. I appreciate your and Mike's work to keep us up to date at WP:GAN and the backlog drive. —Ganesha811 (talk) 01:07, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You're welcome, Ganesha811. The Progress section is now up to date: the bot came back at midday for one run, then regular runs a few hours later. It took me a while to separate out the 8 March from the 9 March changes in that first run, and calculate the beginning-of-9-March stats, and have now posted it along with the beginning-of-10-March number. Barring some new glitch with the bot, we should be fine going forward. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:16, 10 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reassessments[edit]

Do reassessments like Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/The Blackstone Hotel/1 get points?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 20:13, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! My understanding is that GAN backlog drives in the past have not counted reassessments, and this one does not either. GAR is a separate process with different procedures and standards. However, I think a GAR backlog drive is certainly a good idea for a future month! —Ganesha811 (talk) 20:18, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reason for "backward" progress[edit]

The past several days, we seem to have been going backward in terms of reducing the backlog, which can seem discouraging. What has actually happened is that a single editor, TonyTheTiger, has made a total of 62 new GA nominations in four days (from 11:08 16 March to 11:08 20 March (UTC), according to the Reports page, going from 6 to 68 total nominations). Without this unusual flood of nominations, we would have decreased by 31 outstanding nominations and 24 unreviewed nominations. I thought it was worth pointing out that our reviewers would be making good progress on the backlog under normal circumstances. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:47, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for noting this because I actually have refrained from taking on more reviews because of the increase. It feels very "what's the point" now. Many of the noms aren't even recent improvement subjects by the nominator so it's like why now?? Give us a successful drive first! Grk1011 (talk) 14:50, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am in the WP:CUP. I have gone through all my successful WP:DYKs since the last time I was in the CUP to see if any might be close to WP:GA. I am trying to get them in the queue so that they can have date priority at WP:GAN in later rounds when I need more points.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:03, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@BlueMoonset, could you start tracking "number of reviews completed during this drive"? That would at least give us a "number go up" to look at.
I've gone and begged the WikiCup to take the GA queue into consideration and raise the number of points for doing GAN reviews. Hopefully that helps, but I doubt they would make any changes in the middle of a round, so it won't help this backlog drive in particular. -- asilvering (talk) 16:03, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
User:Asilvering, CUP should give bonus points for longer reviews. All three of mine were for articles that are less than 10k characters. I was thinking about doing the review for the Queensboro Bridge (since I once lived on 60th between 1st and York), but that is over 60k characters and would take me days.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:55, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Agree wholeheartedly. Please do suggest this on the wikicup talk page thread! -- asilvering (talk) 16:57, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe in future drives, the statistics that could be tracked are total number of nominations and old nominations (90+ days). These two, in my opinion, seem more important than unreviewed nominations. A nomination that has a review started can still linger for over a month per Wikipedia:Good_article_nominations/Report. MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 16:27, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Watching the number of outstanding and unreviewed nominations increase over the past few days has definitely been discouraging. For months I've been holding off on submitting new nominations that I thought were ready for GAN, as it was already taking so long for my existing nominations to get reviewed and I didn't want to contribute any further to the backlog. I've also always endeavoured to have reviewed twice as many GANs as I submit, so I am helping cut down on the backlog in the long term. But as the backlog continues to grow beyond a sustainable size, I'm beginning to worry if my approach is even worth it. It's not helping cut down the backlog, it's just limiting my own output.
I think there needs to be a larger conversation about how to better incentivise reviews. Because not only is the backlog already so unsustainable that regular drives are necessary, but now the backlog drives aren't even working as intended... Maybe we need a hard limit on the number of nominations one user can have open at any one time? --Grnrchst (talk) 10:16, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's been suggested before and although there was definitely some support, the proposal was not adopted. However, with the recent increase in the backlog, it's possible that the GA talk page would find consensus for such a change now. There's already consensus to hide nominations past #20 in those green boxes saying "Additional nominations". This discussion from last year contains some relevant statistics and perspectives. —Ganesha811 (talk) 11:12, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Please just submit your ready-to-go articles! I don't think there's any good reason not to put them into the queue, especially if you're trying to review more than you submit. Personally, it might make me feel a bit guiltier looking at various Article Alerts, but I'll live. -- asilvering (talk) 03:04, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

While it is tempting to suggest that next year's participants be forbidden from nominating more articles than they have completed reviews, it would be ultimately be useless as they'd just drop them some other month. What you may not be realizing, Tony, is that you're the cause of the delay in getting your own noms reviewed; if you'd dribbled them out 10 or 15 per month or whatever, potential reviewers might not be irritated by the size of your backlog and your corresponding failure to review other people's noms instead on working on more noms. Just like FAC, if you want reviews, you have to give reviews.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:05, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The GA Instructions say that nominators have to contribute significantly to the nominated articles, but Tony has no edits on most of his submissions? My bad, seems like his edits were a decade deep in the history. 76.170.72.17 (talk) 00:31, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
User:76.170.72.17 Bold-faced lie. Every one of my GAN submissions is from my own WP:DYK submissions. PLease point out an article that I don't have any edits on?-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 02:07, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I wondered this too and it may not be obvious up front since you have to look way back in the edit history, but for some, your last substantial edits were a longggg time ago. Heath Irwin (September 2011), Hands on a Hardbody (musical) (June 2013), House of Cards (season 3) (August 2016). I think many would feel a lot more comfortable if there was at least a quick copyedit to ensure that nothing weird changed in the decade since your last edit, even if you're already prepared to address any concerns a reviewer might have during a review. I feel weird piling on, especially since your GA review and nom counts are so high (thank you for being such a dedicated editor!). Frankly though, your nomination dump for the Cup is coming off as somewhat selfish to a number of contributors here. We're having this discussion because many folks feel like you crushed the spirit of the backlog drive. Personally, I feel it's great that you're working on two reviews (that's all I've done!), but how can we have a successful backlog drive when participants nominate several dozen articles but only review two? Grk1011 (talk) 13:58, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have no horse in this race but if we're going to have a conversation about whether someone contributed significantly to articles they nominate, the three articles you chose weren't good examples. Tony is the primary contributor on two of the articles you linked, and the 3rd most significant contributor on the other. I understand you feel that they should have edited more recently, but that isn't the criteria. Mokadoshi (talk) 03:01, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
this discussion has largely moved on to other venues (including ANI, unfortunately), but personally, i would consider an article not edited by the nominator in 13 years to be a drive-by nomination; it may adhere to the letter of the rules, but not the spirit. sawyer * he/they * talk 03:09, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Scoring question[edit]

I just finished a review, and signed up immediately after completing it. Can I still add it to my list? Thanks, QuicoleJR (talk) 13:16, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you can! You can add any review you've begun in March to your list. Thanks for participating! —Ganesha811 (talk) 13:20, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Last week[edit]

Hey all. It's the last week of the drive, but there's still about a dozen articles that have been waiting for reviews for more than 180 days. I've already opened a couple and will try to do more before the week is over (apologies that I haven't been pulling enough weight in this drive, I'm currently rather low on energy). Just wanted to check if there's any open that people here would be interested in reviewing before the week is over. It would be good to ensure that, at the very least, the half-year wait times are addressed by the backlog drive. --Grnrchst (talk) 11:24, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Of the articles that are over 180 days old without a review, only one has a nominator with a positive review-to-GA ratio (Exile (American band)), which I hope someone will pick up. For the others, I will choose not to review them unless the nominator chooses to rectify this concern. Z1720 (talk) 14:10, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We started out with 175 nominations 90+ days, 55 of which were 180+ days and 2 of those which were 270+ days. At the moment, only 2 of the original that were 180+ still remain; the other 9 that are 180+ have aged in from 90+, with one more aging in tomorrow. Our total 90+, with 46 hours to go, is 98 nominations, including 47 that have aged in during the drive, with one more aging in tomorrow. Note that these numbers do not include those that have aged in and have already been taken for review; it would take too long to manually find and count them all. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:03, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Mike Christie, this reminds me - on April 1st, can you calculate the change in average age of a GA nomination between March 1st and April 1st? I remember this stat being both interesting and meaningful at the last GA backlog drive. Thank you! —Ganesha811 (talk) 02:34, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Drive is now closed - thank you![edit]

Hello to all! The drive is now closed; no new reviews should be added, unless they were already begun in a substantial way in March. Thank you to everyone for your hard work reviewing. We successfully reduced the # of unreviewed nominations by over 250, clearing out many older nominations and reducing the overall backlog by over 37%! We had 64 separate reviewers complete at least 1 review during the drive. A full retrospective with more statistics will be posted in a little while on the main GA talk page.

In the meantime, please try to wrap up any ongoing reviews soon, so that point totals can be finalized and awards handed out. While you shouldn't rush an in-progress review, it would be good to have everything wrapped up by the 10th of April. Contact a coordinator if you have any questions. —Ganesha811 (talk) 23:14, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies! I completely looked over this during my last-minute review of Felipe VI. I was under the mindset that the hard limit was quite literally 23:59:59 (UTC), should I withdraw the review? Averageuntitleduser (talk) 00:08, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like you started (and finished) it in March, so not a problem! Looks like I got caught out by the fact that UTC and London time are not currently in sync and closed the drive a little early - my mistake. —Ganesha811 (talk) 00:30, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Got it, and no worries. Thanks for your coordination throughout the month! Averageuntitleduser (talk) 00:35, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for running this drive! I especially appreciated the nudge on my Talk page when I actually hadn't started any reviews halfway in... GA reviewing isn't a primary way I spend my time but I enjoyed getting to collaborate on some good content-building while feeling like I am really helping out! ~ L 🌸 (talk) 21:34, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for reviewing! I'm glad the nudge was helpful - I wasn't sure if it was a good idea but it did prompt a few folks to come start some reviews. —Ganesha811 (talk) 22:04, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I still have two reviews open, as I'm waiting for the nominators to get around to addressing my comments. One of them has indicated a willingness to work on the article, although appears to be preoccupied with others at the moment; and I'm not sure how active the other is. How should I handle this? I don't want to close them before they've gotten around to addressing the comments, as they've both been waiting months for a review, but I don't want to leave them open indefinitely either. --Grnrchst (talk) 11:55, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's up to your best judgement. My recommendation would be to give each a hard deadline - say 48 or 96 hours or whatever you feel best - and state that improvements should be done before that time. As long as both reviews have been open for more than a week when you close them, you'll be well within regular GA practice. The other option, if one of the articles is very close to GA already, is to simply make the necessary changes yourself and pass the article. —Ganesha811 (talk) 13:35, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've given them both another nudge. If I don't get any concrete time-frame for reportbacks or if see no progress by the 10th, I'll probably close the reviews. I don't think either is close enough to GA that I'd be comfortable making the necessary changes. --Grnrchst (talk) 14:09, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One of my reviewees is AWOL and another review caused a complete rewrite, so I don't think I will be able to have everything wrapped up by tomorrow. Whether the remaining open reviews count or not makes very little difference in my case, so please don't wait for me to close these when finishing up the scoring. —Kusma (talk) 15:14, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Post-drive progress[edit]

I thought it was worth noting that this is the first time I can remember that significant post-drive progress was made in the backlog.

As of midnight on April 1, we stood at 555 total nominations, and 399 nominations that were waiting for a reviewer. A week later, on April 8 (01:00 UTC) we had dropped to 512 total nominations and 368 nominations awaiting a review; three days later, on April 11, we hit a low point of 506 total nominations, while the number of unreviewed nominations had ticked up slightly to 371. Since then, things have been steadily on the increase, a more normal state of affairs, though we remain below April 1 levels for now.

Congratulations to everyone involved, and special thanks to the coordinators for all their hard work. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:03, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]