Wikipedia:Good article criteria
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The good article criteria are the six standards by which a good article nomination (GAN) may be compared and judged to be a good article (GA). A good article does not have to meet the more demanding featured article criteria.
Criteria
The six good article criteria are the only aspects that should be considered when assessing whether to pass or fail a GAN. Other comments designed to improve the article are encouraged during the review process but should not be mandated as part of the assessment.
Immediate failures
An article may be failed without further review (known as a quick fail) if, prior to the review:
- It is a long way from meeting any one of the six good article criteria
- It contains copyright violations
- It has, or needs, cleanup banners that are unquestionably still valid. These include {{cleanup}}, {{POV}}, {{unreferenced}} or large numbers of {{citation needed}}, {{clarify}}, or similar tags (See also {{QF}})
- It is not stable due to edit warring on the page
- It has issues noted in a previous GA review that still have not been adequately addressed, as determined by a reviewer who has not previously reviewed the article
In all other cases, the nominator deserves a full review against the six criteria. For most reviews, the nominator is given a chance to address any issues raised by the reviewer before the article is failed. Often the nomination is brought up to standard during the review.
The six good article criteria
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A good article is:
- Well-written:
- the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct; and
- it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.[1]
- Verifiable with no original research:[2]
- it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline;[3]
- reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose);
- it contains no original research; and
- it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.
- Broad in its coverage:
- it addresses the main aspects of the topic;[4] and
- it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
- Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
- Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.[5]
- Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:[6]
- media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content; and
- media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
What cannot be a good article?
- Stand-alone lists, portals, sounds, and images: these items should be nominated for featured list and featured picture status, if applicable.
- Disambiguation pages and stubs: these pages cannot meet the criteria.
- Featured articles: a good article loses its status when promoted to a featured article. However, demoted featured articles are not automatically graded as good articles and must be reassessed for quality.
See also
- Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Instructions—step-by-step instructions on how to handle the GA process
- Wikipedia:Nominating good articles—advice for nominating an article for GA status
- Wikipedia:Reviewing good articles—guidelines for reviewing an article for GA status
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics/Quality Control/Reviewing Cheatsheet—useful suggestions for GA review
- Wikipedia:What the Good article criteria are not—GA reviews should be concluded only in accordance with the GA criteria, not personal preferences
- Wikipedia:Compare criteria Good v. Featured article
- Wikipedia:Did you know eligibility criteria—within 7 days of promotion, a GA article may be nominated for a DYK hook review
- Wikipedia:Featured article criteria—setting your sights on FA criteria may help with the GA review process
Notes
- ^ Compliance with other aspects of the Manual of Style or its subpages is not required for good articles.
- ^ Wikipedia:Reviewing good articles says, "Ideally, a reviewer will have access to all of the source material, and sufficient expertise to verify that the article reflects the content of the sources; this ideal is not often attained. At a minimum, check that the sources used are reliable (for example, blogs are not usually reliable sources) and that those you can access support the content of the article (for example, inline citations lead to sources that agree with what the article says) and are not plagiarized (for example, close paraphrasing of source material should only be used where appropriate, with in-text attribution if necessary)."
- ^ Dead links are considered verifiable only if the link is not a bare url. Using consistent formatting or including every element of the bibliographic material is not required, although, in practice, enough information must be supplied so that the reviewer is able to identify the source.
- ^ The "broad in its coverage" criterion is significantly weaker than the "comprehensiveness" required of featured articles. It allows shorter articles, articles that do not cover every major fact or detail, and overviews of large topics.
- ^ Edits that do not apply to the "stable" criterion include reverting vandalism, proposals to split or merge content, good faith improvements to the page (such as copy editing), and changes based on reviewers' suggestions. Nominations for articles that are unstable because of disruptive editing may be failed or placed on hold. Stability is based on the article's current state, not any potential for instability in the future.
- ^ The presence of media is not a requirement. However, if media with acceptable copyright status is appropriate and readily available, then such media should be provided.