Wikipedia:Good articles/GAN Backlog Drives/September 2019

The 2019 September GAN Backlog Drive is a month-long effort to reduce the backlog of Good Article nominations. Please ensure that you familiarise yourself with the Good Article review process before starting to review an article, and that you are familiar with the GA criteria and the Manual of Style. Also, it is recommended reading the essays What the Good article criteria are not and Reviewing good articles. The co-ordinator for this drive is User:Barkeep49 with User:Lee Vilenski. If you have any questions, leave a message on this drive's talk page. The drive began on 1 September 2019 at 00:00:01 (UTC) and ends on 30 September 2019 at 23:59:59 (UTC). This is the first backlog elimination drive to be held in over three years.

The ultimate goal of this backlog elimination drive is to cut the number of outstanding GANs and in particular those which have been in the queue 90 days or more. Awards will be given out to those individuals who do the most work in helping reduce the size of the backlog and reach milestones, such as reviewing 15 GANs, vice versa. This backlog drive is modeled on the highly successful December 2011 and August 2016 drives; as a result, points will not be rewarded nor will the reviewer be judged on how long their review is. This is to ensure a faster rate of decreasing backlog whilst maintaining quality reviews. Consequently, "quick-fails" are allowed, only if the article is in exceptionally bad shape. If a participant is found rapidly rubber-stamping GANs that do not meet the criteria, they may be disqualified. Each review will be checked by a co-ordinator to ensure that this does not happen.

1. Give preference to older nominations. While any review counts for the drive, please give extra consideration to nominations which have been in the queue 90 days or more.
2. Log completed GANs here. If you complete a GAN for an article, don't forget to list it here so that you can get credit for the review.
3. No rubber-stamping GANs. Good Article nominations tend to result in even better improvements if a reasonable amount of issues are brought up in a review. This can be especially useful when approaching Featured Article standing. Quick-fails are allowed if the article is in exceptionally poor shape or per the GA criteria page. Each review and its article will be checked by the co-ordinator to ensure that rubber-stamping does not happen.
4. Minimum length/quality Only reviews of a sufficient length will be counted; quick fails and very short reviews will generally not be given credit. As a rough guide, no review shorter than 1000 bytes will be considered, though the judges reserve the right to remove other short reviews. This is not to say that such short reviews are not worthwhile, it is merely to say that they will not be recognised in this competition.
5. Provide constructive criticism. If you see a problem or problems in a certain article you're reviewing, don't be afraid to point that out and indicate to the nominator what's wrong. Instead of merely pointing to the problems, guide the nominator to possible ways of fixing those problems. Similarly, if the article is not of Good Article quality yet, don't be afraid to fail, but make sure you provide guidance as to how to get the article up to GA quality.
6. Stick with it. An article isn't improved if it remains on hold for months. Instead, make the smaller corrections, make sure the primary writer is actively editing, and make the pass/fail judgement if concerns are/are not addressed in a timely matter. Generally, it is standard for a GA review to be on hold for seven days, however the reviewer may close their review when they see fit.
7. Have fun. We're here to help bring these articles up to their fullest potential and hence improving the overall quality of the encyclopaedia. If you do not enjoy doing that, then there is no motivation to improve these articles and the encyclopaedia as a whole.

To receive an award, please include your name and the number of reviews you have completed as part of this drive. Please keep a running total next to your name. Awards will be given by the co-ordinator after this drive ends.

This is the scheme for the awards:

At least 2 GANs reviewed: The Invisible Barnstar

At least 5 GANs reviewed: The Working Wikipedian's Barnstar

At least 10 GANs reviewed: The Tireless Contributor Barnstar

At least 15 GANs reviewed: The Multiple Good Article Reviewer Barnstar

At least 20 GANs reviewed: The WikiProject Good Articles Medal of Merit

At least 30 GANs reviewed: The Order of the Superior Scribe of Wikipedia

In addition, the person who reviews the most Good Article nominations during the backlog elimination drive will receive the Content Review Medal of Merit

Only passes and fails will be recognised as completing a review. If necessary, you can put the article on hold if the article needs to be edited further to be passed. Once you have passed or failed the article after putting it on hold, then include your review below. Article reviews started before 30 September but completed after 30 September are eligible to be counted into the running total. Reviews started before 1 September do not count. Please state if the article is a pass, fail, or on hold. Make sure you follow up reviews that have been placed on hold.

Please log entries in the following format:

====[[User:Username|Username]]====
{{Div col}} 
#{{icon|GA}} [[Talk:Articlename/GAn|Articlename]]
#{{icon|DA}} [[Talk:Articlename/GAn|Articlename]]
#{{icon|GAH}} [[Talk:Articlename/GAn|Articlename]]
{{Div col end}}