Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/guidelines

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Good article reassessment
Good article reassessment

Good article reassessment (GAR) is a process used to review and improve good articles (GAs) that may no longer meet the good article criteria (GACR). GAs are held to the current standards regardless of when they were promoted. All users are welcome to contribute to the process, regardless of whether they were involved with the initial nomination. Editors should prioritize bringing an article up to standard above delisting. Reassessments are listed for discussion below and are concluded according to consensus. The GAR Coordinators — Lee Vilenski, Iazyges, Chipmunkdavis, and Trainsandotherthings — work to organize these efforts, as well as to resolve contentious reviews. To quickly bring issues to their notice, or make a query, use the {{@GAR}} notification template, or make a comment on the talk page.

Good article reassessment is not a peer review process; for that use peer review. Content disputes on GAs should be resolved through normal dispute resolution processes. Good article reassessment only assesses whether the article meets the six good article criteria. Many common problems (including not meeting the general notability guideline, the presence of dead URLs, inconsistently formatted citations, and compliance with all aspects of the Manual of Style) are not covered by the GA criteria and therefore are not grounds for delisting. Instability in itself is not a reason to delist an article. Potential candidates for reassessment can be found on the cleanup listing. Delisted good articles can be renominated as good articles if editors believe they have resolved the issues that led to the delist.

Good article reassessment
Good article reassessment
Good article reassessment instructions

Before opening a reassessment

  1. Consider whether the article meets the good article criteria.
  2. Check that the article is stable. Requesting reassessment during a content dispute or edit war is usually inappropriate.
  3. Consider raising issues at the talk page of the article or requesting assistance from major contributors.
  4. If there are many similar articles already nominated at GAR, consider delaying the reassessment request. If an editor notices that many similar GARs are open and requests a hold, such requests should generally be granted.

Opening a reassessment

  1. To open a good article reassessment, use the GAR-helper script on the article. Detail your reasons for reassessing the article and submit. Your rationale must specify how you believe the article does not meet the good article criteria. GARs whose rationale does not include the GACR may be speedily closed.
  2. The user script does not notify major contributors or relevant WikiProjects. Notify these manually. You may use {{subst:GARMessage|ArticleName|page=n}} ~~~~ to do so, replacing ArticleName with the name of the article and n with the number of the reassessment page (1 if this is the first reassessment).
  3. Consider commenting on another reassessment (or several) to help with any backlog.
Manual opening steps
  1. Paste {{subst:GAR}} to the top of the article talk page. Do not place it inside another template. Save the page.
  2. Follow the bold link in the template to create a reassessment page.
  3. Detail your reasons for reassessing the article and save the page. Your rationale must specify how you believe the article does not meet the good article criteria. GARs whose rationale does not include the GACR may be speedily closed.
  4. The page will automatically be transcluded to this page via a bot, so there is no need to add it here manually.
  5. Transclude the assessment on the article talk page as follows: Edit the article talk page and paste {{Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/''ArticleName''/''n''}} at the bottom of the page. Replace ArticleName with the name of the article and n with the subpage number of the reassessment page you just created. This will display a new section named "GA Reassessment" followed by the individual reassessment discussion.
  6. Notify major contributing editors, including the nominator and the reviewer. Also consider notifying relevant active WikiProjects related to the article. The {{GARMessage}} template may be used for notifications by placing {{subst:GARMessage|ArticleName|GARpage=n}} ~~~~ on user talk pages. Replace ArticleName with the name of the article and n with the subpage number of the reassessment page you just created.

Reassessment process

  1. Editors should discuss the article's issues with reference to the good article criteria, and work cooperatively to resolve them.
  2. The priority should be to improve articles and retain them as GAs rather than to delist them, wherever reasonably possible.
  3. If discussion has stalled and there is no obvious consensus, uninvolved editors are strongly encouraged to add a new comment rather than closing the discussion.
  4. If discussion becomes contentious, participants may request the assistance of GAR coordinators at Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations. The coordinators may attempt to steer the discussion towards resolution or make a decisive close.

Closing a reassessment

To close a discussion, use the GANReviewTool script on the reassessment page of the article and explain the outcome of the discussion (whether there was consensus and what action was taken).

  1. GARs typically remain open for at least one week.
  2. Anyone may close a GAR, although discussions which have become controversial should be left for closure by experienced users or GAR coordinators.
  3. If a clear consensus develops among participants that the issues have been resolved and the article meets GACR, the reassessment may be closed as keep at any time.
    • If there is no consensus, the reassessment may also be closed as keep.
  4. After at least one week, if the article's issues are unresolved and there are no objections to delisting, the discussion may be closed as delist. Reassessments should not be closed as delist while editors are making good-faith improvements to the article.
    • If there have been no responses to the reassessment and no improvements to the article, the editor who opened the reassessment may presume a silent consensus and close as delist.
Manual closing steps
  1. Locate {{GAR/current}} at the the reassessment page of the article. Replace it with {{subst:GAR/result|result=outcome}} ~~~~. Replace outcome with the outcome of the discussion (whether there was consensus and what action was taken) and explain how the consensus and action was determined from the comments. A bot will remove the assessment from the GA reassessment page.
  2. The article either meets or does not meet the good article criteria:
    • If the article now meets the criteria, you can keep the article listed as GA. To do this:
      • remove the {{GAR/link}} template from the article talk page
      • remove the {{GAR request}} template from the article talk page, if present
      • add or update the {{Article history}} template on the article talk page (example)
    • If the article still does not meet the criteria, you can delist it. To do this,
      • remove the {{GAR/link}} template from the article talk page
      • remove the {{GAR request}} template from the article talk page, if present
      • add or update the {{Article history}} template on the article talk page, setting currentstatus to DGA (delisted good article). (example)
      • blank the class parameter of the WikiProject templates on talk, or replace it with a new assessment
      • remove the {{good article}} template from the article page (example)
      • remove the article from the relevant list at good articles (example)
  3. Add the GAR to the most recent GAR archive page. (example)

Disputing a reassessment

  1. A GAR closure should only be contested if the closure was obviously against consensus or otherwise procedurally incorrect. A closure should only be disputed within the first seven days following the close.
  2. Before disputing a GAR closure, first discuss your concerns with the closing editor on their talk page.
  3. If discussing does not resolve concerns, editors should post at Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations and ask for review from uninvolved editors and the coordinators.