Talk:COVID-19 pandemic/GA3

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Tom (LT) (talk · contribs) 04:26, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi, nice to meet you, I will be taking up this review. I'll be reviewing this article against the six good article criteria (WP:GA?). As way of introduction, I mostly edit anatomy and medical articles. By way of background I've reviewed something in the range 75 - 100 articles including some prominent, complex and popular articles, amongst these China, Female genital mutilation, and Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. I will take my time for this complex and controversial topic and I realise this is GA3 so I will be expecting changes based on what has been written in the GA2 review. I will spend a few days examining this article carefully before posting my assessment and as always look forward to a dialogue after if there are no significant issues identified. Cheers, Tom (LT) (talk) 04:26, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

I want to thank you for your experience and knowledge on this and similar subjects. I'd like to make clear whatever amount of edits, adjustments, additional references or for that matter anything you suggest will be answered in a prompt manner, I want to extend to you my thanks for your valuable time, Ozzie--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:28, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

• I should add that this article has been copyedited by the guild, thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:38, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

this article has suffered from a history of censorship, the primarily due to false claims of MEDRS applicability to historical facts. This issue is documented on these talk pages. Until this balance issue can be resolved GA shouldn't be considered. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 22:03, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Preliminary assessment

I must admit this article is a big article to review. It's 300 kb in size and has > 500 references and has 46 talk pages. IT was at one point one of the 50th most viewed articles here and so to summarise, I anticipate many aspects of the article are carefully thought out, sourced or worded.

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	The prose is clear and the spelling and grammar correct but it could be more concise
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	I think so
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	In the main, the references seem to be from reliable sources presented in a standard way. I appreciate the difference between biomedical and historiographical information and take this into account. However, I'll cast a closer eye at this later in the review.
	2b. 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).	See above
	2c. it contains no original research.	Seems to represent a standard and encyclopedic position on the presented material
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.	Despite all the attribution tags on the talk page, I can't see any relating to COVID-19, yet the wording seems very similar. Was there any copying in either direction?
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	I'm leaning towards a 'no' for this aspect. See my comments below.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	At the moment leaning towards a 'no'. See my comments below.
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	See comments below
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	Surprisingly, does seem to be quite stable.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	I will check this later in the review
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	In the main, the images are relevant and captions. Will examine this in depth later
	7. Overall assessment.

Overall comments

• It's clear that a lot of effort has gone into this humungous article and I expect many sections are the result of careful concensus over the last few years. Many thanks to all the contributors and I recognise your efforts
• I have found it easiest in these complex reviews to make sure I am firmly reviewing against the six GA criteria above
• I also have to answer before I delve into things, as a review, can this article become a GA whilst the pandemic is active? I think so. So long as an article about a current topic isn't changing rapidly day by day (i.e. passes the stability criteria), I think it's possible. In particular when reviewing, I think it's possible to have an article that represents an excellent encyclopedic synopsis of a current event up until the present moment. The GA can be passed with the expectation that it may not be a GA in six months or even a year if things change, however at the time of the review I still think this is possible.
• I do not however think this particular article meets GA criteria and although I think it can be improved to meet those, I don't think it will be in a timeframe that is suitable to put the review on hold. Also (this might be a bit controversial), I am not certain that it would be a complete improvement for this article to be changed in a way that would get it there. I mean in particular that GA nomination reflects an article's encyclopedic nature however this current article, I think, serves a few masters - e.g. it is an extremely highly viewed article so has some content (I think) so that lazy readers don't change articles, it wants to be easy to read and accessible for readers at an approachable reading level and perhaps personally engaging (hence the scattered quotes), and provides some instructional and informative advice that may have helped some of the millions of readers yet am not sure would be the typical phrasing that I would expect in a GA.
• Some specific contents
  • Some parts of this are done, I think, particularly well. I think in particular elements of the worldwide impact section, and the images, give a good summary of the global impact of the pandemic.
  • Regarding scope: the page is very long (300kb). I compared the articles China (361kg), World War 2 (250kb) and Life (161kb) - all broad topics - for comparison and put their sizes here. Also important, I think, is that just reading the article it feels long to read and I think that's because it's not concise enough and some elements are semi duplicated. Whereas the three articles above are quite interesting to read without fatigue.
    • I think one reason is the section on the virus itself is very long. The pandemic article should be about the pandemic and I feel that the information on the disease should actually be placed on the COVID-19 article.
      • Well this was done to give the reader some background on the virus that is causing the pandemic--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:52, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Focus: the article has a scattershot focus which I think would make it a good magazine article but is sometimes a bit contextualless as to why particular examples are mentioned. Some randomly extracted ones:
    • "Singapore provided financial support, quarantined, and imposed large fines for those who broke quarantine" (did this not occur in many countries...?), "In February 2022, the Icelandic Ministry of Health lifted all restrictions and adopted a herd immunity approach" (the article later says the disease is endemic in many countries, I'm not sure how this is in fact any difference), "Many such measures were criticised as "hygiene theatre" by Derek Thompson, a staff writer at The Atlantic" (not sure why this is notable enough to include, was Derek Thompson an extremely notable COVID-19 pandemic person?), "The head of cardiology at the University of Arizona said, "My worry is some of these people are dying at home because they're too scared to go to the hospital." (why is this notable enough to include in this article? is this person's feelings representative of an issue notable enough to mention, as stated by a reputable source? Is it undue prominence to include this sort of quote?)
      • Yes the article, like in any other under review, can have certain text adjusted. I believe the usual hold given to GA nominations should have been offered...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:57, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Also regarding focus: for better or worse, the article is very heavy with 2019 and 2020 content, which, gosh, feels like an entire epoch ago in history. It is hard to crystalise or substantiate but I do think that this puts lots of weight on initial issues in the early days of the pandemic (where is it from, how to prevent it, the huge day to day impact of quarantine) and covers some of the more recent issues less e.g. the new strains and the change in the symptoms they are causing, the change to endemic nature, the reopening of the world, it is the lingering economic, social isolation, supply shortages and geopolitical impacts that are the current ongoing impacts of the pandemic. I don't think it is right for me to day how this issue should be fixed as that's probably quite complex, only that I identify it as a barrier to this GA review
    • Yes 2019, 2020 have more text because,at this point, this is how the world initially dealt with the pandemic, so it needed more emphasis however some of what you have indicated (not all) could be emphasized in the present, yet another example of an adjustment that would have benefited from a hold ...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:07, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Regarding focus: some sections feel in fact too small - particularly regarding misinformation and transition to endemic.
    • Doing so would have made the article even larger, though I suspect the latter will eventually have more text added as warranted by different countries endemic status--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:36, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
    • I have done a cursory review of recent scholarly and conventional sources regarding endemic phase and I haven't found anything due that isn't already covered. It may actually be appropriate to collapse the recent decisions by Indonesia and South Korea into the preceding paragraph--that is to say they might be better added to the list accompanying the other countries that have/are transitioning to endemic phase even though that would make the section more brief contrary to the review. I agree with Ozzie that more endemic commentary should be forthcoming. SmolBrane (talk) 06:26, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
• Neutrality --> I do agree with the commenter on this review. that this article seems to dwell a fair bit on the pandemic from a US point of view by both the amount of mentions of the US, and also the topics that are addressed which I think need to be more neutral and global. Examples: "Those diagnosed with COVID-19 or who believe they may be infected are advised by the CDC to stay home except" (CDC advice is not relevant to a worldwide audience), "On 23 April 2020, NASA reported building, in 37 days, a ventilator which is undergoing further testing" (again, not sure why this is relevant or worthy of mention). "Hundreds of millions of jobs were lost.[417][418] including more than 40 million Americans.[419] According to a report by Yelp, about 60% of US businesses that closed will stay shut permanently.[420]" (not sure why the US gets more mention than other economies and also not sure how to reconcile 60%... "permanently" with the low current unemployment rates
  • Per pure numbers the U.S. has the most fatalities and cases[1], logic dictates it is going to be mentioned more (while a world view, of course is what the article should always indicate)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:15, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

  I removed the ventilator. I don't think reported deaths is a good metric, given issues with reporting in the global south. That said, I think there are only a few instances of trivia that need removing, like the above, to get a reasonable balance + a bit added to the Africa section. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 20:14, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

[2]Have done that edit as well as many other edits based on suggestions in this review--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 00:20, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

• Neutrality --> the writing does at times stray into an instructive style (as above) which is not really an encyclopedic description of the COVID-19 pandemic, which would instead be something like "In March, the CDC had changed / reiterated advice to X". Also, the section on Africa in the worldwide coverage section feels smaller compared with its counterparts
  • The section on Africa can easily be expanded--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:42, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

In summary, I have identified some systemic and structural issues with this article that mean it does not meet the GA criteria at present. To get close to GA criteria I think the article needs a very thorough review of prose, needs to be more concise, and needs to be more recent. Yours, Tom (LT) (talk) 11:02, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

thank you for your review I have gone over the suggestions above, I am of the opinion the standard 7 day hold would have made a difference,

"Putting the article on hold-If you determine that the article could meet the good article criteria if a few issues are fixed and you wish to prescribe an amount of time for these issues to be corrected (generally seven days), you may put the article on hold by doing the following..."

(on the above rate column you indicated neutral or pass in 9 times- I'm certain that those 3 that indicate fail could be handled in a 7 day hold)

• I am not entirely clear what this means ..."although I think it can be improved to meet those, I don't think it will be in a timeframe that is suitable to put the review on hold. Also (this might be a bit controversial), I am not certain that it would be a complete improvement for this article to be changed in a way that would get it there."[3]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:20, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:46, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

You're welcome. On hold is intended for a 7 day period and I don't think that's suitable for my commentary. In my experience we'd probably have a detailed discussion which would stretch for several weeks, either by me indicating specific sentences or areas and/or with larger structural changes. In the event of detailed discussions, this would stretch over the 7 day duration, and structural changes should not in my opinion be made without some discussion with the other viewers / contributors to this article. Please don't see this as a failure on your or anyone else's part, it just that I don't think this article is ready for GA status. Rome wasn't built in a day and there is no rush to nominate or pass this article; I think it's better that it's done right, and that includes understanding this is a long, complex article with multiple parties that are likely to want to respond to changes along the way.

I'm happy if you'd like to reverse the closure and put this article on hold and get a second opinion, which, if it agrees in general part with the current structure, depth and scope (as compared with my suggestions) I would contribute to by being a bit more specific regarding wording and readability as well as in that case conduct the required review of images and sources. Yours, Tom (LT) (talk) 04:29, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

I thank you for your offer...after having discussed your reply with a fellow editor, I believe it would be best to go over the article once again as there seems to be yet another surge in Europe (one would have to wait to see how/if this surge reaches North America, as well as other parts of the world) therefore, of course incorporate its effects into the current version of the article. I thank you for the time you have invested in your review, and therefore accept (at this point) your result. Depending on the surge I will try again in about a month....Ozzie--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:13, 30 October 2022 (UTC)