Template talk:GA

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Can someone fix the phrasing of this template please? It doesn't make any sense. If the article "has been identified as adhering to the quality standards leading to a featured article", then why isn't it a featured article already? — Timwi 14:13, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] TfD debate

This template survived a debate at TfD. The discussion can be foudn here. -Splashtalk 00:56, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] new version

What a shame. Blindly characterising substantive and good faith revisions as vandalism hardly evers leads to a beautiful relationship. The previous version did not read well, lacked precision, and was partially informal in tone. In particular:

  • A "good article" may never graduate to featured article status. The wording "adhering to the quality standards leading to a featured article" obviously means "adhering to the quality standards which may make it eligible for featured article status", but this is verbose and so an alternative was needed.
  • We have a redundant link to the WP page; both "good article" and "identified" link there.
  • On the matter of form and being, a given article may appear on the good article list without actually being a "good article". It is more robust to note that an article has been identified as a good article. If you think that a "good article" is always a good article in an absolute sense, well even sub-standard articles manage to become featured articles. That's why we allow this status to be revoked in the appropriate case.
  • You cannot reasonably maintain that the statement "if you see a way this page (can be updated)…" is superior in tone, grammar of form to "If you can update (this article)…". It's not rocket science, it's just plain English fit for the project. Vandalism indeed. 203.198.237.30 03:55, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
This seems to be one of those cases where I agree with an un-logged-in editor. I think the new wording is an improvement. Slambo (Speak) 12:00, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

That's just too pedantic and too tortured. Don't over-analyse this stuff! Restoring and lightening the wording. Dan100 (Talk) 11:01, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Possibly valid observations, if you weren't ignorant of the background. The above was purely the result of an arbitrary reversion. In the interests of communication rather than edit conflict, the above explanation then got inserted. It didn't have to be thay way. On your modifications: So, you're from the let's improve things! school. Cool! What's not is your glossing over of the second last point above. The fact of the matter is that so-called "good articles" very often ain't. Use of the template in this form offers indefinite opportunities for embarrassment vis a vis this whole ongoing thing about WP's quality. Please reconsider and change back to "this article has been identified as a good article". 222.166.160.74 16:51, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Added Corrollary

See Template:FormerGA at Template:FormerGA Benjamin Gatti 03:13, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rewording

As part of a group of related potential changes, I have very tentatively suggested rewording this to:

Good articles GA has been listed as a good article for adhering to certain quality standards. If you can expand it or improve it further, please do so!
If it does not reach these standards, you can follow the delisting instructions to remove it from the good articles list.

This template adds articles to Category:Wikipedia good articles.

Please see Wikipedia talk:Good articles for more details. TheGrappler 03:25, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

The wording has been changed substantially these past few days. Has a final result been reached? —Eternal Equinox | talk 14:23, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] cd selection?

It appears this now includes articles in the cd selection cat. However, the featured template doesn't even do this... I'll go ahead and add it to that one for now I guess. Anything think it shouldn't? RN 15:52, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reviewed version

I'd like to suggest that the tag include a link to the reviewed version, but I'm not sure how to set it up. WP:FAs and WP:FL offer other historical information. Maurreen 15:30, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

It would be fairly easy to add a new parameter (oldid) specifying the reviewed version, which if present would change the appearance to:
Good articles GA (reviewed version) has been listed as a good article for meeting the criteria for this category of articles. If you can expand or improve it further, please do so!
If it does not meet the criteria, or has ceased to since its inclusion, you can delist it, or ask for a review.
Is this sort of what you have in mind? -- Rick Block (talk) 15:17, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Exactly! Thank you. Maurreen 15:24, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
OK, I still need clarification, please. I would copy the above to the template page and then delete the "66476881", and then the appropriate number would be filled in when the tag is placed, right? Maurreen 16:39, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
No, the above is just for appearance. The template code will be a little more complicated. Assuming this look is what you're after, I'll add a parameter and change the template so that if the parameter is supplied the (reviewed version) bit will show up. To use it, you'd put {{GA|oldid=nnnnnn}} on the talk page (replacing nnnnn with the id number of the reviewed version) rather than just {{GA}}. -- Rick Block (talk) 21:21, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Oh, thank you very much. I felt ignorant because I couldn't figure it out. Maurreen 21:29, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Done. Feel free to try it out. -- Rick Block (talk) 21:33, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

It works. I appreciate your help. Maurreen 22:22, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Instruction

To indicate the reviewed version of a Good Article, use {{GA|oldid=nnnnnn}} on the talk page (replacing nnnnn with the id number of the reviewed version) rather than just {{GA}}. Maurreen 22:22, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Added clarification

I put this <noinclude> message on the template's page:

Do not add this template to an article if it has not had a review on the article's talk page. To nominate a good article, use {{GAnominee}}.

I think this will be helpful with the common problem of users sticking the template on pages they think are pretty good, but which have not actually gone through the GA process, like iPod. Twinxor t 22:07, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Add warning note if not used with oldid

It should be useful to have a warning note for that.

Fred-Chess 02:52, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

It could look something like this:

Good articles GA has been listed as a good article under the good-article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. (This template should be used together with "oldid" to denote the promoted revision, see Template:GA)
If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a review.

and if oldid was provided

Good articles GA has been listed as a good article under the good-article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. (reviewed version)
If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a review.

But I don't know, maybe the template shouldn't be cluttered. Fred-Chess 03:04, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] HOW to make pple replace this with ArticleHistory

I've added the following to make users replace this with Template:ArticleHistory:

--Andersmusician $ 03:48, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New image?

Who thinks Image:Pictogram voting support.svg would look better than the current Image:Symbol support vote.svg, the new one is a better looking and more advanced image, who agrees in order to build consensus to eventually change it if consensus is in favour? Regrads — The Sunshine Man 19:31, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I like the three-dimensional look of the existing "logo." Also is used for {{Likely}} as an inline comment image. Having the same pictogram might lead to confusion in certain contexts. Although this is not a vote, I would oppose on those grounds. (Although, Sunshine, there may be an expanded use for that image in other templates.)—Twigboy 01:37, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments, I understand that the image is used in {{likely}} as I changed it yesterday. I wont change the image if consensus is not in favou of it. Thanks again. — The Sunshine Man 08:32, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Topic parameter parsing and expansion

This template didn't work very well because the topic parameter is a keyword, and so it didn't always link to the right place on the good articles page. I fixed it (I think) by introducing a subtemplate GA/Topic to parse and expand the topic parameter. The full name of the topic is now displayed in the template, and the links should now all work. This change also simplifies the code for the categories, although a special fix is still needed for Engineering (which appears in the category name, but not on the good articles page).

Additional advantages are that the topic parameter is now case insensitive, and the full name can be used instead of the keyword if desired. I also added "category=" as a synonym for "topic=" for compatibility with {{WP1.0}}. Geometry guy 12:58, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Little bit of a grammar nitpick, but topic=Everydaylife generates the text "listed as a Everyday life good article". Not only does the a/an mismatch occur, but I would argue that the capital E does not belong in this use (as Everyday is not a proper noun). Also, is there a way to "unfold" the hidden section when one is linked to the everyday life section of the good-article list? Since you clicked to go there, you are intending to view the list. (Not a biggie, as it only saves one click.) —Twigboy 15:34, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
The capital E is there because it is the beginning of a title (hence it is in italics). The a/an would be a pain to fix in the obvious way, but it could be fixed by rewording (e.g. "among the Everyday life good articles"). For your last query, the answer is "no", because there is no way to know which is the right section to open, and opening them all fills several pages in some cases. Geometry guy 15:59, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
You make a point that it is a title, but in that case, all key words are capitalized: Everyday Life or Social Sciences and Society. However, since we are actually considering these as subjects, it is appropriate to write subjects as lower case (mathematics, history, with an exception for proper names like American literature). This also leads to the hyphenation police labeling it as a social-sciences-and-society good article. Perhaps the way around it is to rephrase as listed as a good article about (subject) under the good article criteria. Sorry to be the pesky grammarian about something so small.—Twigboy 16:22, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
It is a matter of convention whether all key words are capitalized or just the first, but I like your suggestion, and will probably implement it, even though it complicates the code slightly. Anyway, this is all on a talk page, so is for editors, not readers, and is unlikely to attract hyphenation-police attention Geometry guy 19:41, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Add "no oldid" category

In conjunction with clearing the backlog of WP:UCGA which is based on the lack of a topic parameter, is it possible to have this template create a category to indicate articles with GA templates that 1) lack the oldid field (easy) or 2) lack a non-numeric oldid field (eg "nnnnnn") (trickier)? While those of us helping on WP:UCGA are getting the oldids while also adding topics, there may be other articles where the topic has been set, but the oldid is not set or correct. I'm not sure what the best name for the category would be, maybe "Unversioned Good Articles" or something like that? Again, ideally this category would be empty but I'm sure there's articles that fall into it outside of those already in WP:UCGA. --Masem 15:52, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Tarret and 74.116.113.241 tried to do this recently (using Category:Good articles without an oldid), but there were errors in their code. I could easily add this functionality if there is a demand for it. There are probably more than 2000 articles in this category, though: are you sure you want it? Geometry guy 16:11, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Knowing that it can be done is good; having it done right now is not necessary, though certainly if want to create the code and category now just to have it done is fine. Of course, how the creation would affect WP performance may come into play (if 2000+ member categories puts a strain on the system, hold off for sure). I'd wait until we've cleared the bulk out of articles at UCGA as there is likely many shared articles between these two categories. Once that's completely, then tidying up the rest of GA that lack oldid with this added code would make for a much smaller and more managable category. --Masem 16:23, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
The size of the category makes no difference to WP performance. Each time the template is changed, all 2600+ talk pages must be updated, but the servers process the job queue at several thousand jobs per minute, so it is hardly a strain! This is the reason, though, that it sometimes takes a short while for all the articles to appear in the new category. Correct code to implement this category is (I believe!)
{{#if:{{{oldid|}}}||[[Category:Good articles without an oldid]]}}
placed in the "includeonly" section of the template. This only tests for empty or missing oldid, not for incorrect format. I'm happy to add this code now if someone else creates and organizes the category page itself. Geometry guy 17:41, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
I went ahead and did it: I'm curious to see how many articles are in there. Geometry guy 16:34, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
That's incredibly sparse for what I was expecting. But still good... --Masem 17:31, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
I think you may have viewed the category before it was fully populated. Also I forgot to add a sort parameter to the category, so most of the pages appear under "T" for "Talk". I've fixed that now, but it will take another little while for the servers to process it. Sorry. Geometry guy 19:15, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Further to this, I count 839 pages now, and this seems to be complete. It smaller than I expected as well, but this may be because many GA's use {{ArticleHistory}} now, which are not counted (and should not be: the use of oldid's there is different and more systematic). Geometry guy 19:33, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tongue

This template is only in two other languages! Why? Basketball110 what famous people say 18:14, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Leading vowel in topic parameter

The reason for this change is that the template currently reads "a Arts good article," etc. Another fix is to use #ifeq to add an s if topic = arts, everydaylife, or engtech. –Pomte 03:15, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

It was a clever work-around, but has been reverted. If anyone has any good ideas, please comment here, as the #ifeq to add an n would add a lot of code to the template. Geometry guy 09:30, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Okay, none forthcoming, and a #switch would not add so much code, so I'll just do that. Geometry guy 16:33, 27 April 2008 (UTC)