Wikipedia talk:Did you know: Difference between revisions

Did you know?
Did you know?
Introduction and rules
Introduction	WP:DYK
General discussion	WT:DYK
Guidelines	WP:DYKCRIT
Reviewer instructions	WP:DYKRI
Nominations
Nominate an article	WP:DYKCNN
Awaiting approval	WP:DYKN
Approved	WP:DYKNA
April 1 hooks	WP:DYKAPRIL
Holding area	WP:SOHA
Preparation
Preps and queues	T:DYK/Q
Prepper instructions	WP:DYKPBI
Admin instructions	WP:DYKAI
Main Page errors	WP:ERRORS
History
Statistics	WP:DYKSTATS
Archived sets	WP:DYKA
Just for fun
Monthly wraps	WP:DYKW
Awards	WP:DYKAWARDS
Userboxes	WP:DYKUBX
Hall of Fame	WP:DYK/HoF
List of users ...
... by nominations	WP:DYKNC
... by promotions	WP:DYKPC
Administrative
Scripts and bots	WP:DYKSB
On the Main Page	T:DYK
Main Page errors	WP:ERRORS
To ping the DYK admins	{{DYK admins}}
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This is where the Did you know section on the main page, its policies and the featured items can be discussed.

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Minimum article length proposition

Propose to create a blanket rule of minimum 300 words to DYK articles. It is extremely hard to judge exactly how much text comprises "1.5 kb" (The current mandatory minimum).

This entry is an example of an article that fulfills all DYK requirements, but it seems a little short (at 255 words). Setting a minimum word count will make it easier for reviewers to judge whether or an article is acceptable. Occasionally "borderline stubs" do make it onto the main page. Instating this requirement would eliminate any further length-related problems. --Flewis^(talk) 09:51, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

1500 characters is 1.5kb. 1500 characters is the current minimum; the 1.5kb is an arbitrary figure that we decided to remove but no one got around to actually removing. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 09:58, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How about a straw poll (1500 characters or 300 words). That way the guideline will be decided by the community. --Flewis^(talk) 10:11, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A word can be of any length, so if there are a lot of long words in the article it may go well above the 1500 character limit but still fail to come within the 300 word limit. But the quality of the article may still be good. On the other hand, if a lot of short words are used, then again it may pass the 300 word limit, but the context of the article may be rubbish (BTW, I'm not saying that quality of an article depends on the length of the words, just trying to point this out). Either way, there seems to be a problem. How about we discuss this rather than go for a straw poll straight away? Then we might be able to spot any problems with the help of others, and hopefully it'll help us to come to some conclusion. Chamal ^talk 10:20, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest "300 words or 1,500 characters of text". -- Philcha (talk) 10:26, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

While we are talking about it, here's another one: This page, expanded on 25th October is a 5x expansion if you count the words. But it is not if you count the characters, it is short by about 40. Unless we decide on one method to do this, 'borderline' hooks like this are going to be in trouble. Chamal ^talk 10:32, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent) How about: The article itself must contain 300 words (regardless of whether a new article, or one that has been expanded). Other than that, I agree with Philcha: "300 words or 1,500 characters of text" --Flewis^(talk) 10:40, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article given as an example is fine. I have submitted articles of similar length, e.g. Clipping the church. I don't see what use a word limit would do, to be honest. – How do you turn this on (talk) 10:52, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Would that article pass as a stub? Possibly. Adding a definitive word minimum, will ensure that no definitive stubs will appear on the main page. --Flewis^(talk) 11:13, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The question here is practically one of what exactly DYK represents. Quality: A well written article that just misses out on GA status? or Quantity: Hundreds of interesting hooks which link to a paragraph of information? --Flewis^(talk) 11:04, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dyk also does two other things: it publicises short articles that the creator has expanded to the limit and others could expand further; and it rewards creators of articles with a little fame and therefore encourages editors to keep working hard for the little buzz that gives them. Both of these reasons are of benefit to WP and therefore too onerous a word/byte limit is undesirable. Malick78 (talk) 11:50, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Did You Know is for new, or recent expanded articles. NOT Good Articles. They're there not to showcase our best work, but our newest work. A one-line stub is out, but 1500 characters isn't short. – How do you turn this on (talk) 12:21, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just "our newest work?" I wish it was as simple as that - because the DYK will easily be automated then. The Main Page is a sensitive place in many ways. (Did you know that even some FAs will never get featured on Main Page? User:Raul654 made this clear himself.) *Any* link that gets bolded on Main Page will have to have certain degree of quality, be it DYK, OTD, or ITN. 1,500 characters isn't short? Sorry, but I couldn't disagree more; actually the minimum length requirement used to be a bit higher than that a while ago. Besides, we already have more entries than we can handle easily - as a result we almost always struggle with backlog. I've never seen any shortage of entries since I started the DYK maintenance; it's been rather quite the opposite. As soon as we eliminate the length requirement we will be overwhelmed with flood of submissions. --BorgQueen (talk) 13:02, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, not just our newest work, as I said, recently expanded articles too. Obviously ones that don't meet criteria aren't included, but what is DYK's purpose, other than to showcase new articles? Adding a length requirement seems a bad idea when articles can still be high quality, but have just 1,499 characters. – How do you turn this on (talk) 13:46, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent) it is also a great way of destubbing and improving the quality of the profusion of short stubs - anything under 150 words for a semi-notable subject is often pretty straightforward to expand. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:47, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FLewis, it's actually very easy to count 1500 chars, there's a little program you can add to your monobook.js page called prosesize, I think you just have to add the string {{subst:js|User:Dr pda/prosesize.js} . It gives you a link in the left hand column you can click which instantly counts the number of characters in the currently displayed article. You can find the full code for the program here. Gatoclass (talk) 13:39, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Lots of word processors can do it like Microsoft Word. I'd be happy to give you directions - just ask on my talk page if this works for you. Royalbroil 00:02, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

1.5kb has been removed from the rules. Good riddence. -- Suntag ☼ 07:18, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm still unclear why a 300 word minimum would be inherently superior to a 1500 character minimum. Unless there is a clear benefit to changing, I think we should retain the current approach. That said, one rule I think could be tweaked is the 5x minimum. I think that works well in most situations, but a moderately long article (say 4000-5000 characters) would generally be very difficult to increase 5x, and so editors may have less incentive to improve those. Sometimes leeway is given to these articles and an increase close to 5x gets accepted. But I would suggest formalizing this, as a 5x increase or a 10,000 character increase. That way, any article 2,500 characters or less would still need to meet the 5x rule, but a 5,000 character article could be DYK eligible if increased to 15,000 characters (3x). I think this would have several advantages:

It would encourage improvements to moderately sized articles
A 10,000 character increase is pretty substantial, so it would not dramatically increase the number of articles eligible for DYK
A 10,000 character increase would insure that a substantial amount of new content has been added, and so the pre-existing article is therefore worth being showcased in DYK. Rlendog (talk) 03:33, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to favor Rlendog's idea. I am not certain how many others will like it though. --BorgQueen (talk) 04:22, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My worry would be the extra work. However if a tool could be written then we might be able to do more than just check a simple 1500 character limit. Note when I say "simple", I do realise that the 1500 char limit is checked by the tool with some very clever programming ... (as our rules are not as simple as they appear at first reading). In summary. Yes it would be good to also recognise other substantial improvements, but it could get complex. What if we have a 20,000 character entry with the low amount of reffing of some of our 1500 character entries? Who is going to read all this? So .... Yes ....but Victuallers (talk) 16:10, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Christmas??

I really enjoyed writing for the Halloween Did You Know. Will we have Christmas related articles over the Christmas period? There's tons of articles out there for that.

Also, some points of how to improve next time: the main one, is start it earlier. I don't think we were well-prepared enough. Also, the actual posting of the hooks to the main page was late to start and end. If we're working in UTC, it would make sense to keep the articles around that time. Obviously, if we have a "Christmas themed" DYK section, it may last a little longer since it tends to last like 2 weeks. Maybe 3 days, Xmas eve, day, and boxing day, but people might be sick of it by then. Ideas anyone? – How do you turn this on (talk) 14:59, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Don't you think it would be a bit too early? I think it'd be best if we start somewhere around end of November or beginning of December. It'd look weird if we put up a load of one month old articles and expansions on the main page, won't it? We can do the planning from now though, because as you said we need to get it organized properly. Chamal ^talk 15:03, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I was just suggesting it, so we aren't all rushing around a week before. Now is far too early. – How do you turn this on (talk) 15:08, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Like I said earlier, let's start this on December 1. We have both the 24th and 25th to run the articles; the problem is getting admins for the updates, as surely most will be busy. Let's hope the adminbot is good then.--Gen. Bedford ^{his Forest} 15:20, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm really sorry that I missed the halloween, my ISP providor went difficult and Ive only just reconnected. The records look brilliant with so many articles! I tend to agree that the panic helped to create such a success. The General created quite a few (uk humour) and such good contributions from all. I think a last panic is probably right for all those with a Y chromosome :-) Victuallers (talk) 23:41, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Last year I think I promoted all 4 updates on Christmas and Gatoclass did an awesome job with loading the next update and I gave him a one of a kind barnstar as most of you probably saw. The updates luckily happened to work with my schedule that day. I won't promise so much for this year - hopeful the adminbot will be fully operational. Most admins will be busy like last year so planning early is the key. December 1 is a nice time to be working on it, with thinking happening right now. Royalbroil 00:01, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Halloween 2008 congrats

Belated congradulations to all those who contributed to DYK's Halloween 2008. We successfully generated 28 new/expanded Halloween themed articles, which lead to five sets of Halloween 2008 posts on the Main Page. The entire Main Page output is at Halloween 2008 Output on the Main Page. -- Suntag ☼ 07:06, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I notice that you created a page for the Halloween 2008 DYK. There's an area for the April Fool's Day Main pages at WP:AFMP. I think that all of these events/celebrations should be grouped together in name space and that there should be an infobox link. Please comment (or implement if you agree). Over the past year, there were some DYKs last Christmas, St. Patrick's Day, and Easter that should probably be added to. Royalbroil 16:20, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, something like Wikipedia:Themed Main Pages? – How do you turn this on (talk) 10:44, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I created a page for the Halloween 2008 DYK based on the requests in the discussion that originated that effort. WP:AFMP appears to have been a Main Page project whereas Halloween 2008 DYK was a DYK project. The General is planning on firing up a Christmas DYK effort on December 1, 2008, so what ever he decides is fine with me. -- Suntag ☼ 08:30, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Another problem: Transit of Venus

Further to the hoax above, the hook for this article - the first on in the template until recently - was a problem too.

... that John Philip Sousa's "Transit of Venus March" (listen) was rediscovered by a staffer at the Library of Congress in 2003 after it had been believed lost for over 100 years?

See the discussion at Talk:Transit of Venus March for pretty convincing evidence that this was not the case. More worryingly, it managed to last for two hours after my post at Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors . -- Testing times (talk) 14:25, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Washington Post article[1] (reprint) on which the hook was based read, "Loras Schissel, who works in the music division of the Library of Congress, found the old sheet music for "Venus" languishing in the library's files." Found languishing means that the sheet music had languished in the library with few people looking for it. It wasn't lost; The Washington Post made it clear that there was little to no interest by library patrons in seeking out the sheet music. The word "rediscovered" and the words "believed lost" do not appear in the Washington Post article. Chamal N gave the {{DYKtick}} green light for the article, confirming that the hook reference was read and verified. -- Suntag ☼ 07:30, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I think the original error was clearly an honest mistake - see Talk:Transit of Venus March - the reprinted Washington Post article by Reilly Capps here clearly claims that "...the "Transit of Venus March" never caught on, and went unplayed for more than 100 years. Sousa's copies of the music were destroyed in a flood. ... fans of Sousa are resurrecting the forgotten march" Unfortunately, that is plainly incorrect. It could be made a bit clearer in the article (I know - {{sofixit}}).

My main concern was that the WP:ERRORS report was left untouched for so long. -- Testing times (talk) 17:47, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed rule change

I suggest we add to Rule 3 the requirement that the hook citation be to a reliable, verifiable, independent third party source, per WP:RS and WP:V.

The previous two sections, and prior discussion at this discussion page (including discussion about a hook for a biographical article was sourced to an unpublished statement by the subject herself), demonstrate the necessity of this change. Kablammo (talk) 15:58, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, provided the interpretation of WP:RS is not over-strict - WP:RS is fine for academic subjects, but then quickly runs unto difficulties. Obviously self-promoting sources are out. -- Philcha (talk) 16:10, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. I think the "third-party" bit may on occasion be overly restrictive exactly for academic subjects. E.g. a hook for an academic X might say something like "X published an article asserting that ...". In non-controversial cases I don't see a problem with a hook like that even if the source is primary (namely the paper itself). I think that being overly proscriptive here may not be a good thing. Nsk92 (talk) 16:26, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the key here is that a bit more research and review is needed before any DYK item is posted to the main page. Both the text of the snippit, and the sources used to support it, should reviewed before the DYK item is accepted. I realize that this may require a lot of time and effort, but we are talking about the front page of the entire project after all... it should reflect Wikipedia at its best. We require an extensive review before featuring an article... we should at least double check the facts review prior to accepting DYIs. Blueboar (talk) 16:46, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with limiting it to third-party sources. A history book published by the Federal Highway Administration may be the best source for a fact about the FHWA. --NE2 16:58, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't the user who is verifying the hook be able to judge whether the reference used is appropriate for that article or not? Depending on the type of article, the reference type used can also differ. I mean, all articles can't get references from BBC or something like that, can they? Chamal ^talk 17:08, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent idea, and since we already require reliable sources, the nominations are at T:TDYK, the templates you need are {{DYKtick}}, {{DYKtickAGF}}, {{DYK?no}} and {{DYKno}}. Start from the bottom. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 17:11, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Furthermore, I fail to see how the previous two sections demonstrate any necessity to change anything. The previous was the result of an error published in the Washington Post, we can't account for mistakes published in highly reputable sources, in fact an error in a publication such as that works contrary to this 'proposal'. The section above that is about a hoax that is now deleted because while Flewis was checking the third-party, reliable sources they found that they didn't support anything in the article, which if anything demonstrates that the current system works. This is not a change, reliable sources are already required, which renders this entire discussion arbitrary. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 17:39, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

With respect, the need for reliable sources needs repeating, particularly where there is often a rush to create and feature these articles on the main page in a very short time frame. It will not hurt to remind both nominators and reviewers of the need to cite to reliable sources, not sources with a conflict of interest, partisan sources, fansites, or whatever else can be found on the internet. Kablammo (talk) 17:43, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That is certainly true, but I think that an explicit prohibition against using primary sources for DYK hooks may be counter-productive. Obviously, primary sources need to be treated with particular care (and WP:V already says that), but there are situations when their use is appropriate and sometimes necessary. I think rather than instituting a blanket proscription against using primary sources in DYK hooks, it is better to leave these things to be sorted on a case-by-case basis (although, of course, all references used in DYK hooks still need to pass WP:V). In cases of doubt there should be a discussion at the DYK nominations page (which I think already happens in practice) to see if there is consensus for using a particular source in a particular case. Nsk92 (talk) 18:09, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Give an example of an article that featured in DYK that had its hook verified by a fansite or by a source with a COI. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 02:28, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This one was vetted and approved despite an objection to the sourcing on the suggestions page, and then chosen and placed on the next update template. Neither the author nor the person vetting it applied sourcing standards. (As the result of the linked notice, a new hook was chosen before the main page appearance; the inadequate sourcing still appears in the article for what was to have been the original hook.) Kablammo (talk) 08:15, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I asked for an example that was featured on the main page, not one that was intercepted before it got there. If you have a problem with the checking of hooks, then read my original comment. In regards to the inadequate sourcing on the article you reference; {{sofixit}} ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 09:10, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Kablammo was the one who spotted the error for the Edith Killgore Kirkpatrick, so I wouldn't be too hard on him. Kablammo, the rules are fine. Mistakes do happen and the way DYK addresses them is to review the error. User:Billy Hathorn self nominated the the Edith Killgore Kirkpatrick DYK with two suggested hooks. Daniel Case approved the second hook. However, Royalbroil mistakenly picked up the first hook. Kablammo then caught the mistake and a new hook then was chosen. A thread has been started on Billy Hathorn's user talk page about reliable sources. -- Suntag ☼ 09:08, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry about picking up the wrong hook and causing problems. Looking back, Daniel Case was pretty clear that only the second hook was verified. Note that I started a thread saying that tv.com and imdb.com are not reliable sources and urging him to get some offline book sources. I'd support a much stronger sourcing requirement for the entire DYK article. More reliable sources and a much greater minimum number of sources should be required. Reliable sources wouldn't have to be at the Good Article level, but much not too much less. There at least needs to be a requirement in the written rules that says that a reliable source must be provided which is not user created. I frequently source the hook with a reliable source that would pass FA review! Royalbroil 20:56, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It was an honest mistake. We're all in this together. Adding 6+ new DYK hooks to the Main Page every six hours, every day, is alot of work and creates a situation where it is very easy to make a mistake. Feedback and not over reacting is how we can keep the DYK macherinery going. -- Suntag ☼ 01:42, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One of the reasons I do not want to discuss individual examples is it could result in criticism of hard-working volunteers who handle a large part of the DYK volume. The point is that we have sourcing standards, and DYK is not an exception to them. These articles appear on the main page, after all-- we should want them to be well-sourced.

NE2's point about the reliability of certain first-party sources is a good one, and those same concerns are under discussion on the sourcing talk pages. (But even while this discussion was going on, a DYK hook for a biographical article appeared on the main page sourced to the subject person's website. There is a difference between sourcing to a governmental agency and a private website, and the personal website is not a reliable source.[2])

As there are however some circumstances where first-party sources can be used, the sourcing requirements are not in fact as rigid as my summary suggested. I propose therefore that we not attempt to summarize sourcing requirements, but instead add to rule 3 that the hook be sourced "to a reliable and verifiable source." That should be sufficient. Kablammo (talk) 06:56, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If the current DYK rules don't emphasize WP:V policy enough, they should. All Wiki articles should conform with WP:V, and since DYKs appear on the main page, it's even more important that they conform with policy. Understanding about reliability of sources and appropriate use of sources is surprisingly weak throughout Wiki (we have to weed through legions of non-reliable sources that make it all the way through many other content review processes before appearing at FAC), and the earlier we can reinforce the importance of this policy, the better. Specifically, there are some editors who engage in award-seeking behaviors on Wiki via DYKs, GANs etc., and don't understand the importance of good sourcing. I strongly encourage DYK to look at this issue and consider reinforcing WP:V at the level of new content displayed on the main page. For example, many DYKs may be translations from other Wikis (non-reliable sources), as was recently revealed by the time the articles began to hit FAC. You all are in an excellent position to help editors understand sourcing policy early on: please don't pass up the opportunity. BTW, Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-06-26/Dispatches is not only for FAC: it's for y'all too. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:53, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Did You Know Suggestion

Here's my suggestion: I'm kind of annoyed with the Criteria for DYK, so i propse the following: 1 of the DYK (only 1 is needed) should be criteria free, like an interesting fact from any article. Because i find alot of interesting stuff out there, but the right criteria never applies? Any ideas? - -The Spooky One (talk to me) _{(Share the Love with Barnstars)} 00:45, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree. It's for our new articles. If you want to propose a separate process, feel free. There's so many articles out there for potential creation/expansion. – How do you turn this on (talk) 00:48, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So Why not a separate DYK for non new articles? - -' The Spook (TALK) _{(Share the Love with Barnstars)} 00:53, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

long time ago, I proposed the idea of maybe allowing a hook from a Good Article into each update on the grounds that a) it'd be nice to give GA content some Main Page recognition and b) it'd be nice to get some, uh... shall we say, less obscure articles into DYK. Unfortunately, it's generally difficult enough to keep up with the flood of new articles and adding more eligible articles would be like breaking a dam during a flood. If the amount of new articles ever slowed down I think it'd be worth maybe revisiting the GA idea. --JayHenry (talk) 00:54, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree. Per How do you turn this on (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 00:59, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I like JayHenry's idea.. If branched off into a seperate project; i think it could be managable. - -' The Spook (TALK) _{(Share the Love with Barnstars)} 01:03, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, but not sure how practical it is. Rlendog (talk) 03:11, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Much as I like my idea, it's not practical. T:TDYK is near permanently swamped. Only through pretty Herculean efforts of a few editors is it able to keep going. So it's hard for me to imagine where the manpower would come from for a separate project. If there are more people with spare time we need them here :) Maybe as the Wiki grows the production here will eventually slow down, and we could pursue other ideas. But for now, it seems it's hard enough to keep up with the load we've already taken on. --JayHenry (talk) 03:47, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

DYK is a reward for creating new content, not a general trivia section. I would support JayHenry's idea if it didn't result in 5,355 articles becoming automatically eligible. I completely oppose this proposal as it makes 2,611,519 articles eligible. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 02:33, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We could of course abandon new articles altogether and just feature GA's. It would probably cut the workload down quite a bit :p Gatoclass (talk) 05:17, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Would cut down the amount of new content being added as well. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 09:11, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Do you realize how many new articles are being created because of the DYK section? GAs etc. already have recognition in Wikipedia. Do we really need to stop the new articles getting noticed (and a chance for being improved) just so that we can get a bit of extra recognition for an already recognized article? There are a lot of people dedicated to creating or expanding articles for DYK. We shouldn't discourage that. I agree with Ameliorate. Chamal ^talk 12:21, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

GAs don't get any recognition at all, apart from a notice hidden away on the talk page. Did You Know articles not only have a notice, but the user gets "credit" and their work is linked from the main page. – How do you turn this on (talk) 12:31, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I guess so, but the DYK article gets noticed only for one day (a few hours actually). If you check with this tool, you'll see that after that the visits to the article drop down as it was before. GAs are listed here and recognised as some of Wikipedia's well made articles, and the recognition they received remain unless they are delisted. About the user, a user with a GA to his name is obviously regarded as a better editor next to one with a DYK (not saying DYK editors are rubbish - I fall into this category too, but this is the general understanding). Chamal ^talk 12:48, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

While I agree that GA articles go unrecognized, I frankly don't think we have the room to include them at DYK which consistantly has a backload. If you look at Wikipedia:Good article statistics the project has had anywhere between 38-73 new GA articles added every month, a load that would frankly swamp DYK. A possible option would be to raise the bar on new articles, thereby opening up room for GA articles. However, given the past objection to raise DYK standards in the past I doubt that will garner much support. Nrswanson (talk) 13:29, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One or two articles a day wouldn't swamp anything. Unfortunately you're looking at the number of new FAs, the average number of new GAs per month is well over 200. Still, there would have to be a nomination process, and I strongly doubt that all new GAs would be nominated. We're probably talking about a handful a day, or one or two per update. This is feasible if we tighten the DYK criteria a bit, as I've suggested below. Lampman (talk) 17:18, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The other problem is that I highly doubt authors of previously featured GAs are going to lie down while new GAs are featured on the main page. GAs need exposure, but I'm not not so sure DYK is the way to do it. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 13:33, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe we can add a part like from Wikipedia's newly promoted articles alongside from Wikipedia's newest articles? I guess this will require a lot of discussion though, since it's about changing the look of the main page. Chamal ^talk 13:39, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That might be a better solution. If GA articles were to have there own section it would also make sense for that work to be done by the GA project itself. Another possibility would be a section From the best of Wikipedia which could also give face to old FA articles.Nrswanson (talk) 13:45, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I really like the above suggestion about adding the from wikipedia's newly promoted articles because i agree with an above poster that good articles don't get enough attention. - -' The Spook (TALK) _{(Share the Love with Barnstars)} 21:51, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The main page is currently undergoing a redesign. The last I heard, it was down to 5 finalists. I don't think that any of them have a section for Good Articles. I don't remember where the discussion is located. As someone who has put significant work into 3 GAs, I would be upset if they couldn't be featured on the main page yet new ones would. I oppose allowing GAs in with DYK articles because DYK is already swamped. Royalbroil 05:17, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I see no problems with this scheme. We currently feature recently expanded articles as new articles, even though they're clearly not. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to also include one or two newly GA-promoted articles. After all, "quality, not quantity" has long been a Wikipedia principle.

As for the DYK backlog, I think we could reduce this a bit by introducing criterion 2b from the Good Article criteria to DYK. At the moment, a long, complex article can get on the main page with only one in-line citation. I've seen some of these (see e.g. the recent Li Zhengji), and I frankly don't think it would be a great loss to get rid of them. Lampman (talk) 17:00, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm inclined to agree with Royalbroil, we just don't have room for GA's and new articles, and in any case I'm not really convinced the GA process is stringent enough to ensure quality articles. Gatoclass (talk) 05:30, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And the DYK process is? Also not sure what you mean by room for GAs and new articles; we obviously don't have room for the 1,500+ new articles created each day, but it's a communal process to decide how many of them we feature. Lampman (talk) 14:02, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mistake with credits

Hi, I just got this message. I did not create or expand the article Hanwei Group. I just passed the hook, and did a slight improvement to few sentences in the article, that's all. It seems the real creator of the article, User:Malick78 has not been credited. Can someone fix this mistake? Thanks. Chamal ^talk 00:10, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done, I credited the user now with a note about the notification delay. Cheers, Jamie^☆S93 11:44, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks :) Chamal ^talk 11:51, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, it was my mistake. First time doing the credits the new way. Thanks for sorting! Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 12:41, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Template:DYKquestions

Politizer (talk · contribs) created the template, {{DYKquestions}}. It is used for notifying editors who nominated a DYK if a reviewer has left comments or questions that need to be resolved or looked over about a nomination. I'm sure the template would be useful, but I would first like opinions by more editors. I notice quite often that some nominations with comments aren't resolved, and eventually become stale so we can't use those nominations for updating Template:Did you know with any longer. Either people are ignoring those comments and just leaving the nominations there or they never check their nominations. Most users (like me) check their own nominations to see if there are comments they have to resolve in order for the nomination to be qualified for DYK, but how about those who are too busy to check their own nominations? With the template we can fix that by notifying them about it. Some more information can be found at User_talk:RyanCross#DYK_for_Zebda. Thoughts would be appreciated. – RyanCross (talk) 02:01, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hey everyone, I'm the user who made the template. I am still learning wiki syntax so there are still things that could be improved (for example, right now the template only links to the top of the section where the article was nominated, rather than linking directly to the nominated article's entry); let me know if there's anything you think is missing from the template or anything that could be done to improve it. Also, after creating the template I realized that its name is very similar to that of {{DYK?}}, which is used commonly, and could cause confusion; so if anyone has suggestions for a better name that would still be easy to remember and type but not likely to be confused with DYK?, please let me know! Thanks, —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 02:54, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This appears to duplicate User:Olaf Davis/DYKproblem. Art LaPella (talk) 18:25, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I created and populated Category:Wikipedia Did you know templates to address template dupication issues. -- Suntag ☼ 20:25, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent) You're right, Art LaPella...I also just noticed {{DYKusertalk}}, which How do you turn this on created. I hadn't noticed any of those two before I made this one. I don't know anything about whether or not those other templates are used frequently, but if they aren't used frequently then we could have all three of these template pages redirect to the same place. If one in particular is already used a lot, we could stick to that one.

On a side note, I like that template's name (DYKproblem) better than the name for my template, and I'm going to move mine to that name as well. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 22:18, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Heads up

I've updated but can anyone do the credits please? Thanks. --BorgQueen (talk) 03:10, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 03:33, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Backlog note

For those who are unaware of it, we are trying to flip the hooks every four hours or so to get rid of the backlog. Gatoclass (talk) 11:52, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Radical suggestion

It was suggested above that new GAs be included in DYK. The main objection seemed to be that this would swamp the DYK nomination list. To solve this problem, I suggest we scrap the current "new articles/recently expanded articles" criteria for "new articles/recently GA-promoted articles". The 5-fold expansion criterion is a ridiculous emphasis on bulk over quality, that goes against the basic principles of Wikipedia, and leads to endless quibbles over counting methods. Asking instead that the article be recently promoted to GA will be a wonderful incentive for editors to - not simply expand articles - but improve them. Lampman (talk) 16:54, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, very good idea...but there are not enough new GA's to accomplish this! —Ed 17 _{(Il Viquipedista)}— 17:03, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Let me clarify: new GAs would only be featured in addition to newly created articles - the vast majority of DYKs. Lampman (talk) 17:19, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I very much prefer to keep DYK for new and newly expanded articles. I would strongly suggest that if something like this were ever implemented, that thought be given to whether or not an article can be in the DYK section twice or not. If an article were in DYK when new, and then made GA, could it be in DYK again? I would say no, but this would need to be clearly in the rules if a change like this were made. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 17:12, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest we follow D1 of the unwritten rules: "No items that have already appeared on the Main Page[...]" Lampman (talk) 17:19, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with this proposal, I think this might discourage editors. Most of my work at DYK has been in articles expanded from stubs or poor-quality start-class articles, and I don't think the articles I've expanded are low-quality just because I didn't nominate them for GA; a lot of people take a stub or very bad article and improve it up to something moderately useful and well-written but still too short or superficial to be GA. If anything, the best way to respond to your concerns would be to change the strict "5-fold expansion" guideline to a guideline more focused on expansion and improvement of content (rather than bigger length or character count). Even that, though, is probably not necessary, as people working at DYK should exercise good judgment in verifying submissions (in other words, if an article has been expanded five-fold but still has major problems with sourcing, point of view, writing style, etc., or is just plain bad, it's easy enough for an editor to mark it with something like

and leave a comment saying it meets the length requirement but has other insurmountable problems).

Also, the whole idea of including GA-promoted articles would ruin what I understand to be one of the main purposes of DYK (and correct me if I'm wrong on this), which is to feature content that most readers have probably not seen before on Wikipedia. The GA review process often takes a week or two, or longer (I'm sure it varies by reviewer, but in all GA reviews I have been involved with, from either side of the table, it's taken one to two weeks), the article often sits at GAN for several weeks before being reviewed (again, this might vary by topic), and there's no telling how long and how gradual the article expansion was before the article was submitted to GAN. So if you featured new GAs on the front page, you'd be featuring content that has probably been on Wikipedia for one or more months. Sure, if the article is somewhat obscure (as many GAs are) then it probably has only been seen by a small proportion of readers, but it's still not "new" in the sense that DYKs under the current criteria are. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 17:22, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The specific issue of "a guideline more focused on expansion and improvement of content (rather than bigger length or character count)" is a perennial, oft-rejected suggestion, whose usual response resembles this quote from "Unwritten" Rule A3: "... we don't have enough time and volunteers to reach consensus on the quality of each previous article." Art LaPella (talk) 18:05, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I see...thanks for the clarification. What I was mainly trying to get at was just that it seems like most "endless quibbles over counting methods," which Lampman cited as one of the main arguments in favor of allowing GAs instead of recent expansions, could probably be avoided by using some common sense and not worrying about adhering exactly to the 5x limit (i.e., an article that was only expanded 4.5x but has some really nice stuff could maybe be accepted, and an article expanded 10x but full of junk would probably be rejected). That's probably more feasible than a new guideline. Anyway, I just think that disagreements over how to measure expansion shouldn't be enough to get rid of all recently expanded articles from DYK. Regardless of whether or not we want to have GAs in DYK, I think there's also a lot of good content in recently expanded non-GAs and they shouldn't be gotten rid of in favor of GAs. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 18:12, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The quibbles are not the main concern, the main issue here is quality over quantity, a central goal for Wikipedia since around 2006. As for A3 above, my suggestion would solve that problem, by shifting the vetting process over to GAN. Lampman (talk) 18:38, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you that we should be going for quality. But there are a lot of quality expansions that don't meet GA criteria; that doesn't mean they're bad articles, it just means that they're not the GA kind of article—especially if they were expanded from near-nothing (take, for example, Zebda, which was recently expanded from about 800b to about 4800b; it's not comprehensive enough for GA, but the information that is there is still good information and relatively interesting). Just because an article hasn't been nominated for GA doesn't mean it's bad.

Also, if we excluded "recent expansions" from DYK and only allowed GA-promoted expansions, might that cause GAN to get flooded with articles that people want featured on DYK—and possibly are not very good articles and wouldn't have been nominated if it weren't for DYK? We might just be moving our backlog over to GAN, rather than actually eliminating the backlog. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 18:53, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want to discourage the expansion of articles, quite the opposite. But the GA criteria aren't all that scary; it's basically just about covering the main issues, sourcing throughout and using reasonably good language. This should be the goal also when an article is expanded for DYK. The purpose of DYK is "thanking the editors who create new content and to encourage other editors to contribute to and improve that article and the encyclopedia." It is true that the GAN process will slow this down a bit, but the exposure the article gets during a couple of weeks of GAN is negligible compared to what it gets when it's featured on the Main Page. Lampman (talk) 17:51, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I do not like the idea of adding GAs. Leave DYK alone as it is.--Gen. Bedford ^{his Forest} 18:00, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Change is scary, but this is change we can believe in! Lampman (talk) 18:38, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I also don't like the thought of mixing GAs with DYKs, but I do think, now we have succesfully got minimum referencing accepted, there could be a bit more emphasis on quality of prose for example. You very rarely see a reviewer saying "criteria ok, but lots of prose mistakes" or similar, when this, or "needs basic prose copyedit" could & maybe should be said of quite a few, mainly by non-native speakers. At least at typical DYK length this doesn't take too long & a number of people, sometimes including me, do it anyway, but it could be made more systematic. Johnbod (talk) 18:52, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As noted above, this would add too great a workload on an already struggling DYK project. The good news is that there's a project that's happy to take on this job, and it's called Good article nominations. Lampman (talk) 19:20, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not saying reviewers should have to "approve" the prose, but that more articles should be put on hold or rejected when it is noticeably deficient. Lampman, haven't you noticed that (as usual) no one is interested in having GAs on DYK? Johnbod (talk) 21:33, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So everyone who has already got an article to GA status is just going to lie down while new GAs are featured and there articles never will be? And we're removing a motivation factor of encouraging people to expand previously existing articles. Terrible idea. Possibly one of the worst I have ever seen suggested. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 00:57, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Truly one of the most bizarre arguments I have ever seen. Is this a problem with regular DYKs? Also we would be adding a motivation factor of encouraging people to improve previously existing articles. I thought that was what it was all about. Lampman (talk) 13:51, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, and consensus clearly is opposed to this idea. --BorgQueen (talk) 02:19, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I would call it a consensus in a true WP sense, since the arguments range from Bedford's WP:IDONTLIKEIT to Ameliorate, who doesn't seem to understand the meaning of the word "new". But I see that there's a majority vote against it, and I'll just leave it at that. Lampman (talk) 13:51, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What exactly do you mean that I don't understand the meaning of "new"? My argument is, if we allow 'new' GAs will everyone who has previously had an article promoted to GA status be okay with new GAs featuring on the main page even though there is no chance that there GA ever will be? The answer is, of course, no. DYK is about encouraging people to spend an hour or two to expand or write a new article. Removing the 5x expansion criteria is the worst idea ever presented here, the criteria exists so people will still spend a little while working on an article that has already been created, rather than having people essentially punished because someone got to creating an article before them. As it stands right now the 5x expansion criteria is responsible for numerous articles being expanded from stubs or redirects, without it, people will check an article find it exists and go and write something else. I know that I won't spend the amount of time required to write a GA on any random subject, but I'll still spend a few hours expanding an article like Cerberus or Snuppy. Regardless this proposal falls victim to the perennial "lets allow new GAs" suggestion, but with the added twist of eliminating another criteria, we could accept new GAs without it adding too much pressure the problem is that it would be punishing people for having their GA promoted before the idea was implemented which previous GA authors are not going to accept, and the problem with allowing GAs in general is it will create a backlog of 5000 articles. In short, there is no possible way that GAs can be added to DYK, the main page redesign will have to account for GAs getting exposure on the main page. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 14:17, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I still don’t understand this argument. New content is the very essence of DYK, that is the reason why it’s there. Where does this apocalyptic vision come from, where thousands of GA-editors from the past descend on DYK to protest a perfectly reasonable requirement? It sounds like clairvoyance, but it has no background in reality. Is anyone today complaining that DYK only highlights recently created content, not content created years ago?

Anyway, I’m not hell-bent on killing the 5x expansion-rule, I just thought it was a good way to accommodate GAs on the Main Page, keep the DYK-project manageable and promote the “quality over quantity”-principle all at the same time. But if there’s such strong feelings against it, then forget about it. My main issue was trying to get GAs on the Main Page, and Geometry guy has made a different suggestion about this below. Lampman (talk) 02:45, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ameliorate expressed this all before I was able to jump in, but I just wanted to agree that the 5x expansion guideline is a good motivator for people to expand many articles, including articles on areas that the editor doesn't know much about but can easily find basic information online or at the library; expanding an article to GA is a much bigger commitment and requires a large amount of time and (I assume) some more expertise or at least familiarity with the subject. Requiring articles to be expanded to GA-class before adding them wouldn't motivate people to write better articles, it would deter them from writing most of those articles at all. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 14:31, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Further on BorgQueen's post, I don't think that DYK can unilaterally change the scope of what it puts on the Main Page. To add GAs, As, and FAs that don't make it to the FA Main Page space to the DYK Main Page space, I think it would require a widely participated discussion. Talk:Main Page is a place to launch a request to add GAs to the Main Page. -- Suntag ☼ 19:28, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am interested in the idea of a possible link-up between GA and DYK, but from a different angle. DYK currently presents to readers (and hence provides recognition for) articles in an early stage of development, while TFA showcases (and hence provides recognition for) our very best work. There is nothing for articles between these extremes. This is particularly an issue for short articles, which face a challenge to become FAs, and a further challenge to become TFAs. There has been much discussion about this at WT:FAC (check the archives), which was how I became interested. I am very open minded about how to do this, but using DYK is one possible route. I quite like the fact that DYKs can be unusual or quirky, and think that there are plenty of short GAs that fit such a model.

I would only want to see one or two GAs presented on the main page at the time, but I think it would be clearer to readers if they were presented separately (e.g. at the bottom of DYK after a sentence like "And here are some facts from a couple of less recent articles"). To compensate, perhaps the blurb for (say) the two articles could be three lines instead of two, and the updates could be less frequent (twice a day? I'm not very familiar with DYK processes). I don't think it is helpful to focus on recently promoted GAs: that could be damaging to the GA process and to the encyclopedia. We need to encourage good work by editors who love contributing content without creating new battlegrounds.

Other criteria than recentness are better in this respect: I have suggested shortness as one. Another is novelty: has something similar been featured before, or recently? DYK has an important role in countering systemic bias, by encouraging work on atypical articles rather than the typical ones. The point of view I have on GAs is that although they contain a large number of typical articles, they also are a good place to look for atypical ones of reasonable quality. As far as the main page is concerned, this is an unexploited resource. Can we find some way to exploit it? Geometry guy 19:49, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Requests to expand the Main Page to include GA articles should be made at Talk:Main Page. -- Suntag ☼ 20:28, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Which you already did. Never mind. -- Suntag ☼ 20:29, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sandy's recent post about the importance of verifiability reminded me of a couple of issues that were on my mind, but I forgot to include in my comments. GAs (especially recent ones) have typically only been checked by one independent editor. Hence they need to be checked again before appearing on the main page. This is why I think DYK could play a useful role: a check for verifiability and a copyedit for prose quality would be extremely helpful for almost all GAs. It is with this proviso that I think it is unhelpful to focus only on recent GAs: recent GAs may not have received adequate scrutiny, and older GAs may have deteriorated (just as FAs can); they cannot be presented to readers without checks. Geometry guy 21:15, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wish I had a nickel for every time I've read (at FAC, no less!!) a statement from a nominator along the lines of, "well, I'm not really sure what makes a source reliable". We need to get on this, earlier, throughout all processes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:26, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Do any of the proposed mainpage designs include new showcase space? I could imagine a section which including two or three blurbs (between DYK and TFA length) from a FL, FPo, or FS - and this might include GAs. Gimmetrow 22:10, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If GAs were to be featured as part of DYK, then I believe these would have to be only new ones – as I’ve tried to explain above – because the creation of new content is the very essence of DYK. If, however, they were relegated to a separate section, then they could be picked from past ones, like TFAs are today. Also like TFAs, there could then be a selection process based on certain criteria, like Geometry guy mentions above. As for using DYK to check the quality of older GAs, I think this would be an unreasonable burden on an already struggling project. The sweeps project is already working on this, though admittedly they’re facing a sisyphean task. None of the five main page redesign-finalists have a GA section. It could be brought up, though it might be a bit late to suggest a radical redesign now. Lampman (talk) 03:14, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strong support for adding GAs into the DYK space. Two GAs at a time seems sensible, and populating the rest with new articles as at present. There's obviously a need to demarcate the two (perhaps by putting from wikipedia's newest articles in between them). I'm ambivalent as to how these could be selected - newly promoted or a similar system the FAs are both good suggestions. If anyone is concerned that this would reduce the number of new articles featured, they should consider tightening the current requirements, which mean almost every new article that avoids being deleted can be featured in DYK. Modest Genius ^talk 23:03, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

About the whole idea of recognition for GAs...I don't remember exactly where this discussion happened, but I seem to remember a consensus being made not to give GAs external recognition because it could confuse readers. Specifically, people were talking about the little stars that FAs get on the top of the article, and the fact that GAs don't get that and only get a template at the top of the talk page (which casual readers don't see). Again, I don't remember all the details, but I remember people decided that GA should remain an internal classification, not something Wikipedia presents to the outside world, partly because of the fact that if there are 2,615,205 WP articles and only 5,386 designated as "good" (these numbers from WP:GA) then what does that say to casual readers about the quality of our work? Or, in other words, if a reader comes across an article and is like, "Ah, they say this is a good article," then what will that reader think about the rest of the articles he comes across?

I'm just saying, should we be seeking front-page recognition for GAs at all? And if we do seek that, is DYK the way to do it? The answer to the first question might be no (I will try to find a link to the actual discussion); and there is a clear consensus here that the answer to the second question is no, especially when it comes to this particular incarnation of it (ie, the proposal above that a GA requirement kick out the newly expanded article guideline). —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 23:15, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There was a big GA-symbol discussion last spring. Lampman (talk) 02:12, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The recent Main Page survey indicated, admittedly with a small sample size, that many editors felt that DYK was currently the poorest content section on the Main Page. The idea of including GAs in the DYK section received broad support, from even more people than wanted DYK to remain as-is, despite only appearing after the survey had been live for some time. The relevant discussion is at Wikipedia_talk:2008_main_page_redesign_proposal/Survey#Including_or_expanding_Did_You_Know.3F Modest Genius ^talk 15:35, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for linking to a discussion in which a whole three people agreed DYK is the least useful but are completely ignorant as to DYKs purpose; DYK is to encourage people to create new content, look at the suggestions page and see how many articles DYK is responsible for. Also, five people agreed that it is good how it is and five think that GAs should be included but didn't offer any ideas as to how we deal with a) an instant 5000 page backlog or b) 5000 articles automatically disqualified because they were promoted before a certain date. That is why straw polls are a terrible waste of space and are not binding to anything we do. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 15:50, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion makes the exact same point that has been made here: there should be more of a focus on quality over quantity, and including GAs would be a good way to achieve this. The idea of argument made from ignorance is entirely in your head; I saw little evidence of this. There seems to be a tendency among some contributors here to be very protective of their own turf, to value the exposure of their own work over the improvement of the encyclopaedia, and to not even bother listening to how the project is seen from the outside. Lampman (talk) 04:40, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Lampman, I'm sorry but I don't think you're getting anywhere like this. All you say is that "there should be quality over quantity" and this could be done by adding GAs to DYK. How about giving some points about why this is essential and why DYK should be the place to get GAs recognised? Ameliorate and Politizer have made very valid arguments, but you (or anyone else) have not answered them properly but keep more or less repeating the above statement. I don't think this is going to convince anyone.

My opinion is that exposure of new articles and expansions shouldn't be sacrificed for GAs. My only problem is that GAs will be "replacing" these. Other than that, I have no problem with GAs getting recognition. A lot of new editors contribute to DYK, and it's a good chance for them to get some recognition within the Wikipedia community. I mean, everyone can't build GAs can they? It provides these new contributors with some "glory" on a small scale and encourages them to contribute more to Wikipedia. I think it kind of helps to keep them interested. Featuring GAs on the main page will have pretty much the same effect (but mostly on established & experienced editors, since they are the ones who are mostly involved with GA). So obviously it's good if we can do it. But why in the world do we have to kick out that first category to accommodate them? As I mentioned in an earlier section, the best thing would be to have a separate section for GAs (newly promoted or otherwise) and have it alongside DYK, as part of DYK or as an independent section on the main page. If we are going to do it as part of DYK, then the original DYK process should be maintained without any "trimming", and also add the hooks from GAs. If that can't be done, then it's not the DYK contributors' fault and they don't have to be kicked out to allow for GAs. Chamal ^talk 05:45, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I still don’t understand Ameliorate’s argument, so I can’t really take issue with that. I’m not sure if he imagines 5,000 GAs on the MP at the same time, or exactly what catastrophe he fears. I can, however, explain why DYK has to change.

When DYK was initiated early in 2004 there were about 200,000 articles, and WP’s goal was to create as many articles in as short a time as possible. DYK was a tool towards achieving this goal. Today, with 2,6 million articles, the main goal of WP is not the unbridled creation of new articles, but the improvement of the ones that exist (this idea was in fact expressed by Jimmy Wales as early as 2006, when the project passed 1 million).[3] Much of WP has geared in this direction, but DYK has changed little. There is normally agreement in the general community that DYK is in need of reform, but within the project the attitude is conservative. Allowing GAs in DYK would improve quality in two ways: it would encourage the creation of more GAs, and as we would have to tighten the criteria for inclusion of new articles, these would get better as well. There was strong opposition against my suggestion to replace 5x expansions with GAs, and while I admit that this might not be the perfect option, I didn’t see many alternative suggestions to how the project could be improved. The general attitude was summed up by Gen. Bedford with his "I do not like the idea of adding GAs. Leave DYK alone as it is." I think that’s what they said about the steam engine and the horse. Lampman (talk) 06:20, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Stop being dense and get to the point. How do you propose we check 5000 articles? How do you propose we add a pool of 5000 articles to the main page when we can barely keep up with the current backlog? Where is this agreement that DYK needs to reform - the three people at the main page redesign survey? The reason for the conservativeness within DYK is we know what it involves, we know how time consuming it is to check one articles (not to mention 5000) and we know that we won't be able to cope with a massive backlog. So cut the rhetoric, explain how you propose we do it and we will listen. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 06:45, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I never suggested 5,000 articles, my suggestion has always been to include new GAs. There are about 7 or 8 of these created on an average day, but I suspect not all would be nominated for the MP. These articles have already been vetted much better than any DYK article, so that wouldn’t be a problem. It seems perfectly reasonable to me that a project dedicated to new content should feature only GAs that are newly created, so why anyone should rebel against this is beyond me. I certainly wouldn’t push any of the GAs from my back catalogue to get into DYK. I may be engaging in rhetoric, but at least I'm not making crazy doomsday predictions about the future!

Space would have to be made by tightening the criteria for new articles, which is not unreasonable seeing how you can get on the main page with 1,500 words of bad prose and one inline citation. As for the idea of featuring old GAs on the MP, you would have to ask those who brought this up, I think it’s a bad idea as it doesn’t encourage creation of new content.

In addition to the eight people in the straw poll, the idea of GAs in the DYK was recently brought up at the Main Page redesign debate, independently of this discussion. The reaction went about as follows: “Why not just make DYK include good articles instead of new ones?”, “I think that's a great idea”, “I love that idea”, “with the context of DYK, I will support GAs”. But then you seem to be of the opinion that anyone who’s not heavily involved in the DYK project is not entitled to an opinion, so you’ve got me in a bit of a Catch-22 there. I think perhaps those not heavily invested in DYK, who can see it from the outside, are in many ways better equipped to say what’s wrong with it. Lampman (talk) 07:40, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And those who aren't really into GA don't understand the number and magnitude of hardship we faced when we are stuck in the middle between DYK and FA. Attention was always focused on DYK and FA, and most don't give a damn towards GA. I remember some well-respected editor (forgot the username) mentioned that he only contributes to FA and DYK but never GA is simply because the first 2 appear on main page while the last item doesn't. Has anyone cared about our feelings? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 02:13, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Ameliorate that you should try to get at least basic idea of how DYK functions and its purpose. As you say, those who are not heavily invested in DYK are probably better equipped to say what's wrong with it, but only after properly understanding what it's about. Imagine someone going to a RFA and putting in a strong oppose saying that "user has an ugly picture on his userpage". Since you're talking about getting on the main page "with 1,500 words of bad prose and one inline citation", can you show us one article that has made it on to the main page with these criteria through DYK? The prose is checked before passing; if there are minor errors the reviewer will most probably perform a basic copyedit or mention that the article needs some improving before baing passed. If the prose is as terrible as you say, then it will definitely be rejected. The quality of the articles obviously will not be as high as a GA, but they are not rubbish. Check Template talk:Did you know, all the nominations there don't get onto the main page. Chamal ^talk 09:01, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One problem with disregarding newly expanded articles is that many existing articles are very stubby, and expansions shouldn't be discouraged. The best examples I can think of, incidentally, are the stubs created by User:Eixo, apparently an alias of the user who started this discussion. I don't see why expansions such as this shouldn't be allowed at DYK. It's practically a new article. Punkmorten (talk) 10:17, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It’s not an alias, but a defunct username. The article in question was part of a project to cover all Norwegian government ministers, and by all means, it’s great that it’s been expanded. But I can’t for the life of me see how it’s a human right that anyone who knows how to use a keyboard should have their work exposed to millions of people on one of the world’s most popular web sites. I don’t want to single out individual editors for criticism (I already mentioned one example above), but what I describe are the minimum requirements, and articles that comply with these normally get featured.

Anyway, all the arguments I’ve heard so far have been about how great DYK is, and that nothing should be done to change it. If this is the universal attitude on this forum, then I’m simply tilting at windmills, but it should be pointed out that the attitude of the community at large is a different one. Lampman (talk) 15:57, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I couldn't agree more with Punkmorten's statement. Not even stopping to consider what Ameliorate has brought up about introducing thousands of new articles into DYK's backlog, the main point is that DYK encourages people to turn horrible stubs into half-decent articles (not shining examples of quality research, but at least something that a user can look at and not think they wasted their time). Replacing recent expansions with GAs (when people already have plenty of motivation to work on making GAs) would get rid of that.

As far as I can tell, there are different kinds of editors around here, and we need each kind to keep things working: some people like taking a half-decent article and nursing it into excellency, while others like creating a half-decent article where there was previously nothing (and some people, like me and probably most of the others in this discussion, like doing a bit of both); both those kinds of editors are extremely valuable to the project. Right now, stuff like GA and FA reward the first kinds of editors, and stuff like DYK rewards the second. By taking DYK away from the article-expanders, it seems like you're punishing them and just giving more to the GA people.

I should also mention that the diff Punkmorten gave is an excellent example of how an expansion is often tantamount to a creation, and your plan of allowing new creations but disallowing expansions would put us in the messy situation of having to decide what constitutes a "new" article (sure, the creation log is easy, but that's a pretty arbitrary measure, given what Punkmorten pointed out). —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 15:59, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

From someone who contributes and reviews articles regularly at DYK I would oppose any move to replace the five fold expansion criteria with GA articles. It has been my experience that DYK's best articles tend to come from our five fold expansion policy. These articles typically take poor quality stubs and turn them into, if not GA quality articles, good articles of value to the encyclopedia. The DYKs that I am personally most proud of are not the new articles I have created, but the articles I have expanded and improved. In contrast, our newer articles can be barely more than stubs as the criteria is frankly not that stringent. Replacing the five fold expansion rule with GAs would therefore remove the incentive that currently produces the best fruit at DYK. Furthermore, I don't think adding GA in this way to DYK would encourage improvement encyclopedia wide. I personally find the GA process intimidating, as do many other editors, and am not interested in submitting articles for review at GA. However, I am more than willing to work on expanding and improving articles for DYK. If the five fold expansion was removed, rather than try for GA status, I would just simply no longer focus my efforts on improving already existing articles and merely write new ones. I think my response would be the typical one by the average editor and ultimately dropping the five fold expansion policy would result in a marked drop in the effort to improve articles; the opposite effect of what Lampman intended. Nrswanson (talk) 19:33, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A further comment to Lampman, I do not agree with your assertion that the wiki community at large is somehow unhappy with DYK. Not that there isn't room for improvement, but in my experience most editors across the encyclopedia like what we do here. I would venture to say that we have more editors involved here in one way or another than any other project, a fact which should speak for itself.Nrswanson (talk) 20:03, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

i support this idea. (being the one who sort of suggested it in the first place) I think the DYK's should include GA's and not five fold expansions. - -' The Spook (TALK) _{(Share the Love with Barnstars)} 23:59, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can we have your reasons, Spook? As for the idea of the majority of the Wikipedia community being unhappy with DYK, I don't agree with that. DYK is a section where almost every editor can participate, while GA is something reserved for the experienced & skilled ones. I don't see how the community dislikes DYK, since a larger number participates in it than at WP:GAN. We still didn't get any proof on the terrible quality of articles passing DYK (as you guys claimed) or on this "community cosensus". Chamal ^talk 04:36, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Egyptian Communist Organisation sounds like one of those marginal DYK articles. It's very short, not broad enough (didn't even mention the specific individual as party leader nor founder), and no lead section (the article only have the body and references). Of course, just like GA and FA, it's possible that I am just lucky enough to come across a bad one so I will admit what I am doing is a bit cherry-picking, but same cherry-picking phenomenon happens when FA or DYK crowd points out that some GA are in bad shape. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:03, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This might have been a feasible idea if not for the fact the timing for this proposal is way off. We are suffering a backlog that forces us to run four-hour cycles. Preparation of Main Page content is still rather labour-intensive (though helped by the semi-auto process that is implemented rather recently). If the backlog eases up we might be able to reconsider it.

If the day would come where DYK is short of hooks, GA might be able to provide some hooks to fill in. There are two possible ways to go around it. First is that GA hooks are prepared way in advance and would be considered as a "pool of last resort" when there are no more DYK hooks to fill up. The other way is that GA hooks run on a weekend schedule that FP used to share DYK with. The former would create tensions on whether priority should be given for DYK or GA hooks (editors would feel that DYK has slowly ceded power to GA). For the latter, DYK might suffer from another worse pileup that all of us can't envisage, though all hooks for GA could be featured and cleared easily in a year. (capacity of ~4,800 hooks) Even so, someone will have to prepare the hooks (is the GA community willing to help?). - Mailer Diablo 17:05, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is not the first time DYK has been faced with a great backlog, and the problem is unlikely to magically go away at any point; rather it will get worse. The problem is that the criteria have not kept up with the development in article creation. I was asked to provide examples of poor DYKs, one such was the recent Li Zhengji. It has only one inline citation, and a poor one at that, as it is an ancient source not supported by modern scholarship. I made this point on the suggestions page, and someone (don’t remember who) said he’d raise the issue at the appropriate forum. Nothing happened, and this article – along with several like it – was featured. The problem is that the DYK project is swamped, and participants don’t have the time to carry out endless discussions with editors based on vague policy issues.

If the criteria were sharpened, the selection process would be much easier, as low-quality entries could be quickly dismissed. Everyone seems hung up on vehemently defending the 5x expansion rule, but this was just one suggestion I made to help with the selection process, and I have seen no suggestions to alternative changes. Other options could include changing requirements on article length, sourcing, WP:MOS etc. Personally I can easily create an eligible DYK in about an hour, but I don’t think it’s fair that it should be this easy to get an article to a prominence almost on par with an FA, which can take months to make. DYK’s criteria have to keep up with WP’s development, otherwise we’ll get in a situation with a permanent backlog, and DYK won’t be displaying the best of WP’s new work, as intended. Lampman (talk) 18:01, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well here is where I agree with you Lampman. I have been advocating for some time that we raise the standards here at DYK but if you look through the archives you will see that any proposed changes to the criteria have been vehemently opposed by most of the editors involved here, most of whom are of the philosophy that DYK is under a mandate to encourage new editors to the encyclopedia who would be dettered by stricter policies. It's a valid perspective but one that I personally don't share. The other arguement against is that stricter policies make the review process more time consuming for editors, something that we just don't have the man power for. This objection is reality based and any changes in policies would therefore need to be practical from an administrative point of view. I personally feel inline citations throughout an article as well as a small increase of length to either 2,000 or 2,500 characters would be a welcome change here at DYK. But good luck convincing other editors of that. As for GA, my personal feeling is that GA needs a voice on the mainpage. However, merging GA with DYK is not the answer to that problem. GA needs their own section on the main page. Merging the two is just going to create conflict between the two projects that isn't likely to resolve. The goals of the two projects are so divergent that it isn't likely for a merger to work well and satisfy either party.Nrswanson (talk) 18:25, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you, Nrswanson. I think the minimum length should be increased, but guess what, some editors think even 1,500-character length is not short! The backlog is gone now temporarily but it is only matter of time we get swamped again. --BorgQueen (talk) 06:23, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I like Nrswanson's suggestion regarding GA having its own section. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 21:46, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think Lampman's suggestion of increasing requirements for sourcing and MOS is a good idea. After all, we are putting up articles on Wikipedia's first page and it would be weird if some of them were not compliant with Wikipedia's basic manual of style. As for GA having its own section, I think it's too late for that now. It should have been done when the redesign proposals were brought up. Chamal ^talk 03:48, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I oppose "increased requirements for sourcing" if that means more citations. Something that does bother me about DYK, however, are the number of articles on subjects of dubious or borderline notability, or referenced to dubious sources. Gatoclass (talk) 04:11, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't "late". We had that discussion going on for over 10 days already. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 04:16, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent) Do we really need new "rules" about MoS and every imaginable thing, when we can just all agree on a some principle along the lines of "Articles getting put on the main page should not suck" and exercise judgment in interpreting that? So far, it's been clear that all of the reviewers I've worked with at DYK are very intelligent people who are able to make judgment calls about these sorts of things; as for myself, even though there aren't specific rules about writing style and things like that in DYK articles, I know I've left my share of mean and nasty messages telling nominators to clean up their stuff (or I have gone there myself and cleaned up what I can, generally in as cantankerous and disgruntled a manner as possible, but hey, whatever gets the job done). Sure, there will always be people who whine and say "show me the specific rule that says X" but, in general, I think people are willing to listen to input from reviewers and reviewers are able to make judgment calls about article quality without having hard-and-fast rules telling them what to do.

No matter how many rules Lampman proposes about MoS, article length, and what have you, there are always going to be articles that suck in some way that's not covered by the rules, and so there is always going to be a need for reviewers to exercise some judgment. So if we're admitting that reviewers need to exercise judgment sometimes, why not just do the whole shebang and admit that most of the reviewing that gets done is essentially a judgment call?—Politizer ^talk/_contribs 04:30, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, I agree that there will always be some kind of loophole. As for the sources, how do we check those sources without more effort on the part of the reveiwers? I saw many hooks being rejected recently because of having only sources from sites such as IMDB, but those are the really obvious ones. I'm not saying that there should be a rule about MOS, but it'd be better if we paid some attention to MOS without just putting out a few passages of text as an article on the main page. It wouldn't be that hard, you only come across such an article once in a while and even then it wouldn't take too much work. BTW I couldn't comment on the examples given per my request. Well, they are not exactly badly written, in fact the prose is fairly good (nowhere near GA quality of course, but still...). Several sources are also there, although some are not given as inline cites. Not exactly articles with bad prose and one inline cite but no doubt they are borderline articles. As Politizer said, I think articles like that need to be "judged" by the reveiver without just looking at the rules. Chamal ^talk 05:22, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hook mysteriously dissappeared

I really haven't been hanging around DYK lately, but I am curious as to why my nom of Hubert Maga was rmoved. I submitted it for the 25th, and it met all the requirements. I've been waiting to see it on the main page, but for some reason it never appeared. I know this is discourages, but is it possible that this can be put on the main page? I've expanded it from 1kb to 17, and I'm still not done expanding. I've seen other hooks pass in which the 5 day rule only applies to when the expansion ended, not when it began. What do you think about adding it to the next update? ~one of many editorofthewikis ^{(talk/contribs/editor review)}~ 22:20, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like it was removed in this revision on November 3, a week after it was nominated; it seems no one verified it. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 22:34, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Random thought, EOTW: could you shorten your sig? It's long both on the actual screen and in the edit window (more than 4^1/2 lines!). Per WP:SIG, there is supposed to be a 255 character limit on signatures... Thanks. —Ed 17 _{(Il Viquipedista)}— 22:37, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I thought it was a bit too long anyway. Re to Politizer: I thought that they all have to be verified, not simply removed. ~the editorofthewiki ^{(talk/contribs/editor review)}~ 23:33, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

EOTW, I'm not sure about the specific rules as I am not in charge of removing old entries, but my impression is that once entries go "stale" (over 5 days old and no action, whether verification or rejection, taken) they are usually deleted under the assumption that nothing is going to happen with them. It might have been incorrect of the editor to have removed your entry when there was a discussion beneath it (it looks like he just removed most of the Oct 26 section at once, so it may have been a mistake), but I don't know the formal rules. I think your best bet would be to send a message to one of the admins at DYK and ask if an exception can be made to get your hook listed. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 00:18, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure about those rules either. But note that all the hooks removed in that edit, including Hubert Maga, have negative comments that might be considered "rejection", with or without the

symbol. Art LaPella (talk) 02:35, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Basically, what happened is that someone said the hook was not good enough and the author of the article did not supply an alternative. That's why it got deleted. You have to keep an eye on the Suggestions page to make sure you respond to any concerns raised or you risk missing out on the promotion. Gatoclass (talk) 02:56, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Twas me who Boldly deleted it... Gatoclass is right. I know it seems unfair that the admins who are trying to load the next set don't spend hours working out why and how they can possibly approve hooks with unresolved issues, but basically there is no time. Eventually someone has to go "enough is enough". I expect any hook that it still being watched to resurface... I try and make sure authors have 24 hours to repond to criticism. As it is, the owner didnt spot it had gone until the 6th. We havnt the space to keep this backlog of poor or orphan hooks which may be eventually have the issues resolved. If you feel that this should not happen then I agree. But don't moan... I think it would be a waste of effort.... why not instead spend your time trying to approve hooks? We do like loading good approved hooks and there is rarely enough. I guarentee that there are several duds or orphans at this moment that no one is looking at. Hope that helps. Victuallers (talk) 15:19, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(Outdent) I think if a hook that qualifies for DYK is deleted without being on the Main Page and no one has commented on it, it is possible to wave the five day rule if someone request a review of the situation. However, if there is any comment to the subsequently delete hook that has went unresponded to, then it seems unlikely that the five day rule would be waved. -- Suntag ☼ 19:21, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously I (or others) may delete articles that could be saved. I'm being bold here and making policy by deleting what I call orphan hooks because they just hang around. I woild support resuurecting a hook that had been deleted assuming that there was some argument as to why it had not been supported at the time (eg illness or a dispute template). Good point Suntag Victuallers (talk) 11:12, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And thank you for deleting expired, orphan hooks. So long as the hooks are on the suggestion page, there is an obligation to keep going after them until they are green lighted. As the five days tick down, there is more urgency to help the nom get a workable DYK suggestion because no one want's to see someone's hard effort not go rewarded. We spend a lot of time discussing expired noms that may barely meet DYK requirements (see the current expired noms for example) and that time can be better spent on the hundred or so noms waiting for review. Some hooks no one wants to respond to and it is easier to just let time take care of the problem. I've got no problem with someone taking charge and deleting expired noms. -- Suntag ☼ 02:20, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Standard average range of amount of DYK hooks

I changed the min/max average range of DYK hooks, from 6-8 to 7-9. The pool of submissions on average seems to be getting larger and this range is usually okay anyways for Main Page balance. Actually I think 8-10 would be a good average range (or just 8 min always) but we can move towards that idea later on. Cirt (talk) 12:06, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Another potential response to an increase in the number of submissions would be to shorten the standard time between updates. I notice there are five days worth of expiring noms at present. the skomorokh 12:38, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd prefer expanding the average number of hooks displayed, instead of shortening the time each set is on the Main Page. Cirt (talk) 12:52, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I never take any notice of 6-7 or even if it said 16-17. The amount loaded depends on the space available. Its not a coincidence that DYK (usually) neatly fills the gap between the featured article and the featured picture. Thats what we do. Victuallers (talk) 15:24, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think that hook number is not a DYK rule but more of background for what DYK puts onto the main page. Victuallers point about filling the gap seems to be what drives the number of hooks selected for the main page. -- Suntag ☼ 19:15, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just a general comment: If DYK wants to post more items, we could add another item on ITN. Just throwing that out there, Spencer^T♦^C 02:09, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That might help clear the DYK backlog. -- Suntag ☼ 02:13, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One point ... I think you need to negotiate about this. If I was active on Featured Picture then I wouldnt be happy about being even further off the top. The long term solution is to raise the bar. Go back to 2000 chars and restrict the length of hooks. Some seem to say very little in lots of words, parody follows... "the capital of France, this year, is Paris, a mostly French speaking large city that has won awards for being in France for a long time (south side of large tower pictured)?

Heads up

I've updated but can anyone do the credits please? Thanks. --BorgQueen (talk) 15:59, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It seems Victuallers is doing it. --BorgQueen (talk) 16:05, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Verify symbol for images

The DYK image noms require a review separate from the DYK hook. It would help to have a symbol to confirm free use of the image so that the DYK selecting admin can quickly see which images have been verified. Perhaps some sort of photograph in a small round frame would help distinguish the image reivew from the hook check mark symbol. Please add the new symbol to Template_talk:Did_you_know#Symbols. Thanks. -- Suntag ☼ 19:12, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I like adding a comment along with the regular DYK check. I don't think it's a big deal if it isn't checked - it's very easy to click on an image to see if it's on Commons (which is 90% of the time). Royalbroil 13:10, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've been adding a comment as well. DYK is such a labor intensive process, that I thought it would be quicker for the next update fillers to visually see a symbol approving an image rather than scanning for comments. If there is a need, there are images at Category:Vote symbols. Personally, I like

. -- Suntag ☼ 17:54, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Heads up

DYK has been updated by Victuallers, but can someone do the credits please? --BorgQueen (talk) 20:11, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, will start now. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 20:16, 7 November 2008 (UTC) ~ Done, and ready to start filling with new hooks. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 20:25, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

DYK templates and other DYK Categories

I just created and populated Category:Wikipedia Did you know templates. If you have the time, go through each template and see whether the DYK project still needs them. Thanks. -- Suntag ☼ 21:32, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Suntag. Does anyone but me regularly use User:Olaf Davis/DYKproblem? If so I'll move it into template space. Also my other user-space template, User:Olaf Davis/DYKTemplate, was basically an experiment with a proposal which never got taken up - but is there anyone out there using it? Olaf Davis | Talk 22:42, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I use Olaf's DYKproblem, but if the consensus is to change the template then that is fine with me. Art LaPella (talk) 02:19, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Olaf, I just recently made {{DYKproblem}} which is very similar to yours...I hadn't noticed your template until Art LaPella pointed it out to me. (There is also {{DYKusertalk}}, by How do you turn this on.) I think it's definitely good to have a template like this, and personally I use mine all the time (again, only because I hadn't noticed you had already made one)...if you want, you can check it out and see if it would be beneficial to merge them or have one redirect to the other or something like that. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 22:45, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That is pretty similar - even down to the name! Yours does basically everything mine does and has some added features in the parameter usage, so there's probably nothing worth merging. I guess mine could be redirected or deleted. Olaf Davis | Talk 23:18, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The name was different before...I just saw your name and liked it better! As for redirecting/deleting, I guess it would be better to redirect yours, so that anyone who is using it doesn't try sometime and think "wtf" when it doesn't work. But I don't want to step on your toes.—Politizer ^talk/_contribs 23:22, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I added and populated some more categories at Category:Wikipedia Did you know. I think most DYK stuff (except relevant user pages) now is there. -- Suntag ☼ 18:47, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Wow, that makes it a lot easier to navigate. Thanks! —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 01:11, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Heads up

I've updated but can someone do the credits please? Thank you! --BorgQueen (talk) 03:04, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Adminbot trial

Just a note that the admin bot is now approved for a 14 day trial however I won't be able to turn it back on until later tonight. I'll post here and leave a note on T:DYK/N when it's running again. I will also write instructions on how it all works, probably at Wikipedia:Did you know/Adminbot (shortcut WP:DYKADMINBOT). I just want to know if anyone has any questions about it or suggestions about changes to streamline its implementation, for example I will add some code to Template:DYK-Refresh to display what the next queue is. It will run from my account until it's fully approved. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 05:42, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I think there are still some unresolved issues which I already mentioned, but since they didn't get much response at the approvals page, I'm moving the discussion here. Gatoclass (talk) 06:23, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Admin bot discussion

I added some comments at the bot approval page but they didn't get much discussion so I'm crossposting the discussion here in hopes it can generate more debate:

Comment: I do think we need to think a little more about how to implement this though. For example, all those extra queued pages are not going to be much use for preparing updates ahead of time because there is nowhere to include the credits. I'm now thinking maybe we should just duplicate the "next update" page completely on each queue page and then just get the bot to select the hook section from the page. IMO things would be a lot more straightforward that way. Gatoclass (talk) 09:56, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My biggest fear there is that someone will change the formatting of the page for whatever reason, and if they don't know what they're doing it will cause problems (we get this now with the various helper bots that malfunction every time someone changes instructions to not a subst a template or alters the formatting of a page like WP:CHU). The only alternative for credits is that we have a list on the main Next update page for each queue, but I think you are right that it would be better to maintain consistent formatting across the DYK pages. Also, the update would still have to be prepared on the unprotected Next update, it isn't fair to the non-admins who help with the next update occasionally otherwise. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 05:54, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The bot now posts to WP:AN one hour before the update is due if the next queue isn't approved and works if the queue pages are replicas of the next update page. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 16:29, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(New comment) I don't think making it dependent on the next update page is viable. The next update page is essentially the "draft page" on which the new updates are created. If you make the bot dependent on its likeness with the next update page, it means users won't actually be able to use the next update page to create a new update after they've moved the current one to the bot queue. Users also tend to be tweaking the next update page all the time. So I think you should forget about that function. Gatoclass (talk) 06:27, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, that isn't quite what I meant. It now supports extra formatting on the page, only taking what appears between the  and  tags, previously it copied the entire contents of the page so it had to be bare with no extra formatting. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 06:31, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not following you there. My earlier point is that I think users should just be able to copy the entire next update page to a page in the bot queue, and that the bot should then just be able to lift the hook section out of that page and copy it to the mainpage. If that's what you are describing, I don't think I have any further concerns. Gatoclass (talk) 06:36, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes that's what I'm describing, even if it is in a language only I understand :p ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 07:44, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good, thanks for the clarification :) Gatoclass (talk) 12:36, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Has someone thought about training? Its frequently what messes up improvements. How many is the minimum number of admins for continued operation? .... because that is the the number of people we need trained before we could go live even if the work load is lighter. Oh and can I suggest we model it for a week wthen Gatoclass and BorgQueen are both on holiday... cos in those weeks others have to bear the strain of their generous contributions. Victuallers (talk) 11:07, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, there is something I'm still not clear about, which is, how does the bot know which queue page to use? I mean, if I use the Queue1 page, can I clear that page and just copy a new update to that page, or do I have to go on to the next Queue page, or what? Gatoclass (talk) 12:36, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

User:DYKadminBot/count - which it updates itself. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 12:49, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Couldn't the queue'd pages be named to provide more information. FA uses Wikipedia:Today's_featured_article/2008 to keep track of its pages. For example, Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 7, 2008 was for November 7, 2008. Couldn't DYK use Wikipedia:Today's DYK articles/November 7, 2008/0000, Wikipedia:Today's DYK articles/November 7, 2008/0600, Wikipedia:Today's DYK articles/November 7, 2008/1200, and Wikipedia:Today's DYK articles/November 7, 2008/1800. This way, the Main Page could be modified with something {{Wikipedia:Today's DYK articles/November 5, 2024/{{time}}}} where {{time}} is restricted to displaying only 0000, 0600, 1200, and 1800. As for the credits, those can be backlogged onto a separate page and made once the article appears on the Main Page. -- Suntag ☼ 02:10, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Adminbot enabled

It is now switched on and ready to use. Instructions are at WP:DYKADMINBOT. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 15:52, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

DYK notify bot

In view of the new Template:DYKproblem, User:Olaf Davis/DYKproblem, and the Adminbot, I was thinking that we would benefit from a DYK notification bot. Since we substitute , , and on the suggestion page when making comments, we can include a timestamp in the substitution and add a |user= parameter. If the |user= parameter is filled out, the DYK notify bot will grab User:Olaf Davis/DYKproblem or Template:DYKproblem and post it on the user's talk page. The timestamp can be used by the bot to keep track of which comments it responded to. If we want to get fancy, we could add an |article= parameter that would be used by the bot to identify the troubled DYK suggestion. We also could code the substitution of and to let the editor know that the article is ready for DYK. -- Suntag ☼ 01:38, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, that is some idea. A lot of hooks with problems or questions go unanswered till the last moment, so it would be great if we can have something like this. We can use it if there's any problem with the hook. I don't think it'd be much use telling people that their hooks are OK though :) Chamal ^talk 02:29, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If we created a DYK nomination template with parameters such as |nominate=, |created=, and |expanded=, then the bot could use those parameters to determine where to deliver the message. This would save those reviewing the DYK noms a step or two. -- Suntag ☼ 03:01, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Except that those who require messages such as User:Art LaPella/No qualifying article (for instance) don't even know they need a new article, so how would they know about the nomination template, if it's buried in the same rules they haven't read? Art LaPella (talk) 03:56, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the user who is reviewing the hook is supposed to place the template, not the nominator. This shouldn't be a problem, since all of us are more or less familiar with the rules. Only thing is, it might require some extra work on our part. This might have an effect on the backlog though. The extra work might reduce the number of hooks that people review. Chamal ^talk 04:14, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is something I thought about only much better (my idea was to have the bot find the template and then work out where the hook was which would have been prone to errors). What we really need is a more stable format for hooks. For example a template like {{dykhook|... that ''[[this]]''' is just an example?|authorsname|nomsname|articlename}} to make it more bot readable, then if the template is subst'd it can insert the other templates into the code inside HTML comments, for example . So it is something I would like to do but not until the adminbot is fully approved, as after that I was planning on starting a topic about what people would like to see a bot doing. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 04:24, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Trying to make nominators use a template would confuse them, but if we succeeded it would be much easier to automate some basic proofreading such as the parts of User:Art LaPella/Proposed Main Page proofreading bot that are relevant to Did You Know. Art LaPella (talk) 00:26, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Did you know/Next next update

Are we using Template:Did you know/Next next update? Right now, the Template:Did you know/Next update page is completed and I think it would help to create a backlog of Next updates so we don't have to scramble around. -- Suntag ☼ 14:46, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't even know that page existed, but there is nothing to stop you using it, or using the next unused bot page in the queue if you like. I suggest that you just copy the next update/clear page onto whatever page you use first as your starting point.

I used to create next next update pages in my sandbox, you can do it anywhere really. Gatoclass (talk) 15:01, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Queue system sounds like a better approach. Template:Did you know/Next next update seems like it could be CDSG6 deleted. So if I understand how things now are to work, once Template:Did you know/Next update is completed by admins and non admins, that material is moved by an admin to the next Queue at Template:Did you know/Queue. That will free up the Template:Did you know/Next update to be filled. And once filled, that can be moved to the next next queue. In this way, we can have five Queues of DYKs ready in advance for the bot to pick up. Correct? -- Suntag ☼ 15:10, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, we are still refining the system (see the discussion on Ameliorate's talk page). I'm currently leaning toward deleting the next update page altogether and just having the bot pages, so long as we can find a way to notify users which bot page is the current one. Gatoclass (talk) 15:39, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I read somewhere that the bot uses a counter to keep track of which page it's on in the queue, so could we just prominently translude that counter onto some page where users can see it (such as T:TDYK)? (sorry in advance if this suggestion is mind-numbingly stupid...I haven't been paying super-close attention to the bot discussions, so I may have missed something obvious.) —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 15:45, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(In answer to my own statement, see Wikipedia:Did you know/Adminbot). Perhaps move Template:Did you know/Next update to Template:Did you know/Queue/1 or Template:Did you know/Queue to preserve the history. If non admin help is desired in filling the Queues, then you may need to have the bot implement a rolling protection/unprotection scheme were the queue from which the next update will be produced is protected and perhaps the other completed queues are protected as well. A note at the top of the queue page such as Please add suggestions from Template talk:Did you know to queue 5 (or whatever number would fit best). -- Suntag ☼ 18:55, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are the queue pages protected? I didn't realize that. Maybe instead of protecting the pages, the bot could just check whether or not a user is an admin, and revert any non-admin edit that attempts to activate the bot? Gatoclass (talk) 04:06, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't really want to do that as it could be open to abuse. Perhaps it would be better to unprotect the queues and then prepare the update on there, once it is ready to go an admin adds {{DYKbotdo}} and fully protects it? The bot could be changed to check if the page is fully protected before it updates as well. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 04:56, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, that sounds like it would work. I think that will probably be the most straightforward way to go ahead. Gatoclass (talk) 05:01, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The alternative being that we just make it part of the routine to clear the next update page as soon as the update has been copied to a bot page (which is what I've just done for the current update). I'm thinking that maybe we should try this first. It's closer to what we are currently doing now and it would leave a central page that everyone knows is the "scratch" page. It might be worth at least trying it that way first, what do you think? Gatoclass (talk) 05:21, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds like a good idea, if it doesn't work we'll try just unprotecting and reprotecting the queues. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 06:19, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I've added the additional step to the Wikipedia:Did you know/Adminbot page. Gatoclass (talk) 06:35, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(outdenting) I think that's going to work, although we might eventually need to add some extra info to the next update page etc. to ensure that everyone knows what the procedure is.

Now, how do you feel about adding a function to auto-update the archive page? :p Gatoclass (talk) 06:56, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Next on my to-do list. It will be done by a different bot though, with no admin powers. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 07:26, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, you can't add it to the same bot? That's a shame, IMO it would be more straightforward that way.

It also occurs to me we need some way to navigate easily from one bot page to another. A little navbox of some sort perhaps? Gatoclass (talk) 07:32, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll create a navbox in a moment. And current community consensus is that adminbot's powers should be segregated where practical and it wouldn't be too difficult to make a different bot archive the hooks before DYKadminBot updates. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 08:43, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As long as they can co-ordinate with one another, that'll be fine. I just thought it would be easier to tag a function like that onto the existing bot, but you're the coder :) Gatoclass (talk) 10:50, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wheel warring rule

"Wheel warring prohibits one admin from undoing one another's administrative actions. In particular, wheel warring prohibits one admin from reinserting a DYK hook onto the Main Page that was removed by another admin." Not exactly. Literally speaking, that link doesn't prohibit "one admin from undoing one another's administrative actions". Instead, it prohibits the next move: reinstating the reverted action. That's what the rule says, although that interpretation is probably too literal: I presume it's intended more to discourage such combat in general, not to prescribe precise limits. I suggest the less specific "The wheel warring policy discourages one admin from undoing one another's administrative actions without consensus, such as one admin reinserting a DYK hook onto the Main Page that was removed by another admin." followed by the existing sentence "In one example, aggressive wheel warring over a Main Page DYK hook led to desysopping by Jimbo Wales." Art LaPella (talk) 23:47, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The thing is, the wrong admin got desysopped. The desysopped admin defended consensus, but when he needed support, the others threw him under the bus.--Gen. Bedford ^{his Forest} 05:25, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I personally don't believe drive-by admins should be removing hooks that are not copyright violations or proven to be factually inaccurate. It would be the equivalent of undeleting an article that was deleted via AFD. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 05:45, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps DYK could limit removing hooks from the Main Page ((and/or adding hooks to the Main Page) to admins listed at DYK Participation list. I'm not sure how that could be enforced, but it does provide a fair standard since any admin can eventually make it onto the DYK list merely by participating at DYK. -- Suntag ☼ 20:47, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't proposing a change to the sentence about Bedford. But since I haven't commented before, here's the point that others were too politically correct to make, grossly exaggerated for clarity: A traditionalist says "Oh my, that course language is the foulest I've heard in all my born days! Oh dear, I'm going to blush! Oh heavens, I'm going to faint!" A feminazi says: "THAT *@#$%& SEXIST PATRIARCHAL PARADIGM EXPLOITS WOMEN, YOU #@%!$##% ##@$$@@##*& #@!#$%&!!!!!" See the difference? Art LaPella (talk) 14:51, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

error in dyk timing clock

The credits need doing now and it needs loading and putting on the front page. Despite what the template says. Can you help? Victuallers (talk) 00:09, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I can start doing the credits that are on Next Update. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 01:09, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Heads up

I've updated but can someone do the credits, please? Thanks. --BorgQueen (talk) 02:34, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done. :) - Mailer Diablo 16:41, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Errr, my post was actually for a previous batch, but thanks anyway. --BorgQueen (talk) 16:43, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright

After this recent discussion about articles with a strong resemblance to entries in the ODNB, and a parallel debate at WT:CP, I note that another article written by User:Ironholds based heavily on a OBND entry has just appeared as a DYK on the Main Page: Terence Fox. Unfortunatlely, I missed the DYK nomination of this one, and only spotted it when the DYK notification appeared on User talk:Ironholds, three sections down from a discussion about copyright. All I can really do is point you to Wikipedia_talk:Copyright_problems#Another_one, and the examples of the substantial similarity between this article (and other ones) and the relevant ODNB entries. -- Testing times (talk) 11:24, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have nominated this article, and the one discussed earlier, at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2008 November 10 -- Testing times (talk) 14:58, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like it was a mistake. The article did not have the usual signs of copyvio see in a DYK review, such as peculiar wording and large chunks of uncited text. Also, Ironholds seems to be a regular contributor to DYK. -- Suntag ☼ 01:00, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's a problem... I'll be sure to look closely at his DYK nominations from now on. I don't remember clearly reviewing this particular hook, but I do remember only looking at the hook and the source verifying the hook, and didn't bother looking for copyvio. The text looks the same, just ordered differently with different punctuation points. Sneaky... but it passed my eyes. – RyanCross (talk) 02:04, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The source that it could possibly be a copyvio of is subscription only anyway. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 02:10, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That User:Ironholds is a regular contributor to DYK is a matter that causes me further concern, given that many of his DYK nominations are biographical articles sourced from ODNB in a similar way. It is unfortunate that the ODNB is is subscription only, which makes it harder for reviewers to check; however, many public libraries have a subscription, and make it available remotely to their members.

I would be interested in hearing further views on the underlying question - does the thin rewriting of the source material in these cases amount to a copyvio? The answer from User:Moonriddengirl there, on another article, is that it does where there is a "substantial similarity" between the text: has there been a "substantial taking" from the original which does not amount to fair use. There are some examples from Terence Fox and its ODNB entry at Wikipedia_talk:Copyright_problems#Another_one. -- Testing times (talk) 11:19, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Kind thanks to User:Testing Times for taking time out to inform me that this thread is here. "Sneaky" isn't it; I am not trying to riddle wikipedia with copyvio's. The problem is that the ODNB is written as an encyclopedia; the biographical format (broadly chronological, linked topics) is the same as that used in wikipedia, and there are only so many ways you can word something.Ironholds (talk) 21:20, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Pardon me for not notifying you of this particular thread, but it was intended to be a simple pointer to the discussions going on in parallel at Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems and Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2008 November 10 (and indeed on your own talk page). I was trying not to have another discussion over here, separate from the ones over there, but I can't stop people replying here if they want to.

I was rather troubled after the discussions here and here and here (and here and here) to find that you were adding more articles using essentially the same procedure, sourced solely or principally from the ODNB, and indeed that one of them ended up on the Main Page at a time when we were having a discussion about it on your talk page. It is probably my fault - I should have just added Alan Garrett Anderson at Wikipedia:Copyright problems last time around rather than trying to talk about it.

Perhaps the best place to continue this would be Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems#Another one, where I have already given some examples of the text in these particular articles which causes me concern, and an example (as you requested) using entirely different text to report essentially the same facts. There are lots of different ways of reporting the same facts in an encyclopedic manner, but the textual similarities in these cases are very clear indeed. -- Testing times (talk) 22:04, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Some updates have been omitted

At least one of the updates has been omitted. I've inserted the 06:30, 10 November 2008 update for two reasons, namely a) to greater further the accuracy and integrity of the 'pedia, and b) one of them thar DYKs was my nom, dagnabbit! If I've got the time wrong or messed up the bot, major apols, regards, Anameofmyveryown (talk) 20:34, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that. It's all a bit messy while we have a bot doing the update because normally the admin who updated the template would archive the hooks, but since the bot is doing the update the archive is getting neglected. So I'll have to start coding the archive bot, have some stuff to do first though ... ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 21:31, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I could see this problem arising, which is why I suggested you might like to look at auto-archiving next - when you're ready of course ;)

I'm also beginning to think that it would be better to have complete automation of the credits too, it would eliminate human error and ensure that credit pages aren't forgotten. I don't think that's such an urgent priority though, and it's something that probably needs more discussion anyhow. Gatoclass (talk) 02:29, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Archiving bot is done and approved for trial - WP:Bots/Requests for approval/DYKBot. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 04:12, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Gee, that was quick, I had no idea you would get it running so fast! If I'd known, I could have made a few suggestions.

So just for the record - in case you're not aware of it - the archiving admin also has to delete the pic from the previous archive, if DL'ed from commons, or remove the m-protect tag if from Wikipedia. And a string from the pic is inserted as a link to the (pictured) tag.

I'm not sure if your bot does the above already, but if not, for the sake of completion I think it should. Gatoclass (talk) 08:48, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This edit was made by the bot script, I think I should test it a bit more in my local wiki though. Unfortunately it didn't do the last update because WP:Recent additions was semi-protected and the bot account isn't autoconfirmed, and since it's only on trial it doesn't have the bot flag so it wasn't able to edit the page. Lacking other options I've removed the protection. I can keep an eye on the c-uploaded images category and delete them as needed. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 09:27, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That looks good! Are you saying though that it's not possible to autodelete the images, or just that you haven't had time to implement it? Gatoclass (talk) 09:46, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have a thought how to keep personalized DYK crediting. Could you design the bot to read a certain location in the queue? The approving admin who moves the next update to the queue would sign this spot with 3 tildes so that their signature is added without date. Then the bot could append that text to the end of its credit along with the current date and time. Is this feasible? Royalbroil 05:18, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I like that idea, especially since the person promoting the update to the bot queue is usually the one who prepared it, which means that the person who most deserves the thanks would be getting it. Quite frankly I often feel a bit embarrassed when someone sends me a thankyou note for leaving a credit template on their talk page when I know I didn't do a darned thing to get it promoted in the first place (and conversely, I sometimes feel a bit annoyed when I did work hard to promote someone's hook and they go and thank someone else!). So I think this is a fine suggestion, which would still retain the personal touch, but eliminate the element of human error and also cut down substantially on the manhours needed to keep things running smoothly. Gatoclass (talk) 08:37, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am still unsure if there are missing steps that the bot does not do, that admins will have to do - other than the credits. We still have to add the old batches to WP:Recent additions? A bot should really be able to do the archiving of the old most recent sets of hooks, and the credits. Then I think the process would be seamlessly auto updated, save for admins moving hooks to the queues as appropriate. Cirt (talk) 07:31, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I believe we now have a bot to update the archive. Don't have a bot yet to delete the images dl'ed from commons or to do the credits, so those things still have to be done manually for now. Gatoclass (talk) 10:43, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks everyone!

Just a word of thanks to everyone who pitched in to help clear the backlog. Those four hour turnarounds really did the job! Gatoclass (talk) 02:37, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome, and thank you for suggesting it. Royalbroil 05:19, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Increasing the minimum length requirement

It seems some editors here share the same opinion that DYK should tighten its requirements. The dreaded backlog is gone now but it is only matter of time we get swamped again. I believe that we should increase the minimum length as one of possible solutions. --BorgQueen (talk) 07:58, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Really not in favour of this. I thought we dealt with the backlog pretty well, we went from 85 hooks to virtually none in the space of a few days, and now everyone's getting the hang of the bot queue things seem to be proceeding nicely.

But if backlogs do become overwhelming, then rather than just increasing the length requirement, which really doesn't guarantee better quality at all, I think we should just be prepared to discard hooks after x number of days. So if your hook hasn't been chosen by day x, too bad. Doesn't mean there was anything wrong with it, just that nobody picked it. If we do this though, I think we will have to outlaw choosing one's own hooks, to make it fair for everyone.

One thing I've been thinking about more and more that I would like to see however, is a requirement that nominators state the total size of their article on the suggestions page (not the prose size, the size as recorded in the edit history). I think this would be a useful thumbnail guide for updaters to be able to quickly identify the more substantial articles and to give them priority, backlog or not. Gatoclass (talk) 08:27, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

By enabling "Navigation popups" in your preferences, you can preview such things as article size by hovering over links. Lampman (talk) 14:52, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Increasing the length would just encourage bloviating on the article page. 1500+ works pretty well. During the holidays we may need to extend the limit to 2000+, but until then, let's see how the bots work.--Gen. Bedford ^{his Forest} 08:33, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, it's just an inducement to bloviating. We have people bloviating just to get to 1500 chars even now! Gatoclass (talk) 08:39, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I personally support an increase in article length. The backlog is a recurring problem and if current trends continue (article submissions are continuing to rise in numbers) things are only going to get worse. We were only able to get through this last backload by cutting the time on the mainpage significantly, a measure that I wouldn't like to see become the norm. It's also required more time from us reviewers than we can keep up with on a regular basis. Something needs to be done. I personally would oppose the laissez-faire approach suggested by Gatoclass (the 'if we don't get to it than too bad' approach). That adds a level of subjectivity to the process which is only likely to result in wikidrama here at DYK (accusations of bias, cencorship, etc). Anything we do needs to be above board and impartial. As for bloviating, that is already a problem as you have pointed out. People do it with the five fold expansion as well as with new articles. Since its already a problem than we're not really any worse off are we? Chances are that for as many people who bloviate there will be an equal or even greater ammount who choose not to by either accepting a no to a DYK or finding more quality content to add the articles. We have more to gain than we do to lose. Nrswanson (talk) 09:00, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good point about the wikidrama. I'm still not convinced that increasing the minimum size is the way to go however. A temporary increase might do the job when we actually have a backlog, but I'm not keen on the idea of a permanent increase. Gatoclass (talk) 09:22, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm indifferent really, leaning towards weakly supporting an increase to say 2000-2500. I would rather we avoid instruction creep, and judge articles on their merits, ie. reviewers can request an article be wikified or copy-edited before being accepted but of course 1) we don't have the ~~man-power~~ man/woman/borg-power to do that and 2) it is nice to keep DYK simple for new(er) editors. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 09:14, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am not hugely in favour as some mushroom articles are hard to expand, but one benefit of an expanded prerequisite size is that it may make expanding some slightly larger stubs relatively more attractive. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:59, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We could just not put up the more boring hooks/articles? Johnbod (talk) 12:08, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- I think we need to be more discerning about which hooks we accept – we should only be ticking the "interesting" ones. Of course this will be a very subjective process because what's interesting to one reviewer may be boring to another, but perhaps a way around it is for more than one reviewer to "vote" on how interesting they believe each verified nomination is, and then let consensus decide. I know this implies more work, but maybe others can refine it. --Bruce1ee^talk 13:09, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In this case, the main thing is notifying someone preemptively if you think the hook is boring, so the nominator has time to ferret out some more interesting one(s). Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:13, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Consistently hitting 6 hourly updates would help (and the new bot may help there) but there is nothing magic about that length of time. 4 hours is also fine: any main page exposure is a privilege, not a right. Why not see how 1,500 characters does for the time being with the new system in place. The character count (which is really a rough proxy for "not a stub") can always be ratcheted up later if the backlog lengthens again, or the time on the main page can be temporarily decreased again.

To put it in context, 1.5k is still pretty good. According to [4] (which is very out of date - October 2006!), the mean article length was 3317 bytes, but presumably that was skewed by a long tail of lengthy articles, as only 34% of articles were longer than 2k. Both statistics had been drifting upwards, although the percentage was reasonably stable for the previous 2 years. Are there any more recent statistics on the average length of an article? -- Testing times (talk) 13:15, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the new bot should help, because updates have often been left ready but with no-one to post them. Also, I'm thinking we should probably adopt eight hooks as a standard minimum length for updates, because four groups of six articles which we have often had is only 24 hooks in 24 hours and I don't think that's enough.

I don't like the idea of discarding hooks because they are not interesting enough though. Sometimes there is an excellent article with no outstanding hook, and sometimes there is a lousy article with a terrific hook. IMO, the good articles should get priority, not the good hooks.

Nrswanson made a good point earlier about wikidrama, but I still find myself leaning toward simply dumping whatever hooks haven't been used at a certain point. It does open the possibility of some wikidrama, but with a number of different updaters, it would be difficult to argue they were all biased, and besides we don't get backlogs that often. Gatoclass (talk) 13:58, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A higher limit would lead to contributors bloating articles. I like the idea of decreasing the time on the main page when backlogged. I don't like the time limit because it would bias against the people who are spending the time to approve the hooks and moving them to the queues - us - the ones who are dedicated by doing the work! I don't think an average new DYK contributor could accurately determine the size of the text in the article in the way that we do it. We have historically done an occasional skip on shorter articles near the 1500 characters limit. I've had it happen to me once. Royalbroil 14:16, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd suggest revisiting this idea in a couple of months to see how the DYKAdminBot thingy is doing at that point. Cirt (talk) 14:19, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I, too, think that increasing the length requirement would lead to some bloviating, but my main concern would be fewer first-timer qualifying contributions. --Rosiestep (talk) 17:07, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So basically we are saying don't change anything. Just what I thought would happen. (See my comments under "radical suggestion" discussion above which summarized all your arguements before you even made them lol). To Bruce1ee and others, my comment would be that we should avoid using any subjective criteria as much as possible. My experience has been that subjectivity only leads to wikidrama which in turn causes headaches, burnt out editors, and a lot of time waisted. On a further note, the consensus right now seems to be that the automations to the system are significantly addressing the backload issue, a fact which may or may not be true. I think that we should start a study over the next three months to see if the automated system does in fact solve our backload problem. I'm not sure what that would look like but it would be nice to have some objective data to look at. We could then re-address the backload issue later once we get some perspective on how well the automated system is working. Sound reasonable?Nrswanson (talk) 19:24, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The bot is I think a big improvement. Given the tool it is possible to load while you sleep/work. I guess we need to find how this settles down. One rule I have been breaking is deleting hooks that appear to be what I call orphans. That is someone has made a suggestion to fix an article or hook but the author has either lost interest/ gone on holiday/ or worse is in denial about the criticism. Gatoclass tell me that we need to allow the author/nominator 5 days to come back with an answer to a criticism. In my mind 24 hours is reasonable and 48 allows authors to have a night off. As one of the people who regularly picks hooks it can take quite a time to sort through the "dead and dying". I propose that if an expired hook has been commented on and no action is apparent after 48 hours then we delete the hook. Victuallers (talk) 22:10, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh yes ... more hooks per hour? Reduce the length of the hooks. Some people seem to be padding them out to make the size. Not pnly do we know that Joe X was picked for Team Z but some include irrelevant (to the hook) facts like the year, month, and day and the name of the league etc. Victuallers (talk) 22:07, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I like your suggestion, Vic; 48 hours sounds reasonable. As for your second suggestion, I agree that a hook normally doesn't need a full date, but I think a bit of context, such as year or place, is often helpful for the reader. I always have been a ruthless trimmer as well but too short hooks may not be as interesting when lacking necessary context. --BorgQueen (talk) 22:23, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As far as the backlog discussion goes, I too think it is a little premature when we have just got ourselves some shiny new technology to help us out. I also agree with RB that flipping updates every four hours worked very well this time. So I don't think there's much reason to be contemplating more radical solutions at this point. Vic's suggestion of turfing expired hooks that have had no response after 48 hours might be worth considering though. Gatoclass (talk) 03:51, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The 48 hour limit will work for us wikipediholics who log in everyday just because we can't live without doing it ;) But for the less er.. "enthusiastic" and active editors it might be a bit harsh, don't you think? They might not be able to constantly monitor the progress. Chamal ^talk 04:13, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would support increasing the minimum length to 2000-2500 characters, especially when things get backlogged. Sure, people will bloviate to get to 2000, but that is just like what happens at 1500, and would also happen at 1000. I'm not sure why that is an issue. If anything, it will be more difficult to pad an article with limited information up to 2000 or 2500 characters than it is to pad an article to 1500, so there may be less bloviation. The only issue I would have with increasing the miniumum length is that some categories of articles (mushrooms, fossils) may be inherently more difficult to expand to such a length than most articles. But if that is an issue, the expanded minimum can be brought into play only when backlogged or, better yet, those categories could be listed and admins would have discretion to use articles between 1500 and 2000 characters within those categories. Still, I agree with Nrswanson that we should minimize any subjectivity, which I agree can only lead to Wikidrama. Rlendog (talk) 04:15, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent) I know I haven't been here very long at all, but it seems to me that in very few articles over the past week or so was the 1500-character limit even an issue...I know most new articles I looked at were long enough at first glance that I didn't even bother checking the page size. So, if raising the minimum length wouldn't rule out many articles anyway (and that is just a speculation, of course) then would it really help with backlogs at all? —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 04:19, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It would rule some out. Trouble is, it would also rule out some pretty good short, succinct articles along with the not-so-good ones. Which is one reason I oppose the idea. Gatoclass (talk) 04:50, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It would probably clear out most of the "borderline" articles. But then, it will create a new borderline and we'll be having the same kind of discussion in a few months. Chamal ^talk 05:25, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the easiest way is to ask the veteran DYK contributors, or to otherwise hold them to a higher standard especially wrt the cleanliness of the article, properly formatted refs and things like that. I have prodded some very high DYK-count people present their work more professionally but sometimes in the past someone else put it on anyway even though there wasnt much of an effort to make the article tidier. I think the senioes should be setting a better example sometimes, although I haven't done any processing for a few months and it might have changed. YellowMonkey (click here to choose Australia's next top model!) 01:37, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I do not favor raising the length requirement. I'd rather see stricter enforcing of things like referencing if we are trying to raise the bar to limit the number of eligible articles. And I'm not sure we SHOULD raise the bar. ++Lar: t/c 03:44, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Varying how strickly the DYK rules are applyed as a function of the backlog seems the way to go. As the backlog increases, require that more of the 1,500 characters be source to indpendent, secondary sources. Hopefully, the bot will give us a buffer to help us regulate things better. -- Suntag ☼ 12:02, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There seem to be a lot of people who are arguing for temporary raises of standards during backloads. I think if we are going to do that than we need it in writing so people aren't surprised by it. We would need to define what a backload is and to what extent criteria would be raised. Otherwise I don't think we should raise standards on a whim.Nrswanson (talk) 17:53, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

During backlogs just let the contributions from the more prolific DYK contributors expire. They should know better than to overload the system when there is a backlog; they are probably only keen to get them on DYK to get higher up a chart; they aren't likely to be demoralized and leave because one article doesn't appear on the main page (if it does upset them, it might even encourage them to work it up to FA in order for it to get out there); and there are probably people tracking the edits of well-known contributors just to correct those typos or add a little snippet, so they won't be losing out in that area. (I lobbied for the change from 1,000 to 2,500 back when we used to count everything,[5][6] but we settled on 1,500 which I think is just fine. Let the hogs go instead).Yomangani ^talk 18:37, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think if someone submits an article than the article should be evaluated for itself and not by who contributed it. Besides, how do we decide who is a "longtime contributor". I review articles much more often than I submit them. I haven't received a single DYK award. Would I be a longtime contributor? It's up for debate. Besides, we would be punishing the very people who make DYK work on a day in and day out basis. Not a good idea.Nrswanson (talk) 18:44, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't class not getting a DYK as a "punishment", though, if you do, the prolific contributors have been amply "rewarded" in the past. Look at the creations section in the chart if you want to know who qualifies. Still, as you say, they are the people who run the system so such a change would never be accepted. Yomangani ^talk 19:05, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the people that work here regularly do so because they like DYK and they like having their articles featured at DYK. They give their time here because they contribute here. In my view your policy is a demotivator to the very people we don't want to see getting burnt out, particularly during stressful times like whenwe have a backload. I also find your tone a bit cynical and snide.23:39, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

What are the benefits of viewing DYK as a competition where you are somehow cheated by having your hook expire? Why do you believe it would be demotivating to let the hooks of prolific contributors expire during times of high supply unless those contributors care only about pushing themselves higher up a chart? (I suppose that I should declare that, much to my chagrin, it was a conversation on my talk page that lead to the creation of the nonsensical DYK ranking chart in the first place). As to your comments on my tone: snide, no; cynical, I'd like to think not, but doesn't the demand for reward rather justify a disbelief in the selflessness of others? Yomangani ^talk 12:38, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How did this become a DYK??

... that professional wrestler Bret Hart is the only person that has won the King of the Ring tournament more than once?

List of King of the Ring winners automatically redirects to King of the Ring. I thought DYK only should be used for articles that are new, and I'm not sure that the article has been greatly increased 5 fold....--293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 20:00, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The list was a newly created article, but just yesterday, a user erased the content and turned it into a redirect. I don't have any more information (like why it was turned into a redirect or if there was consensus for the move), but as is, I don't believe the redirected article is appropriate for DYK.-Andrew c ^[talk] 20:18, 12 November 2008 (UTC) [reply]

Looks like the article King of the Ring has a better list than the one that was redirected. Anyway, shouldn't we do something to avoid situations like this in the future? Maybe protect the pages, like featured picture section... I guess that would be a bit too harsh, and probably unnecessary so how about at least placing a message on the talk page saying that it is going to be featured on the main page soon? (something like the messages saying that an article is currently a FA candidate) If any major changes are made, this will encourage editors to notify DYK about it, so that we can reassess it and decide if it will still be featured or not. Chamal ^talk 00:39, 13 November 2008 (UTC) [reply]

I agree that protecting DYKs is probably not a good idea; personally, one of my favorite things about when one of my articles makes DYK is that people come in and clean up all my silly typos, add some nice sources, and stuff like that. If we protected articles to keep them from getting messed with, we'd also miss out on the improvement that comes from having a couple thousand new sets of eyes on each article.

As for placing a message on the talk page of a DYK that's in line to go to the main page...I don't have any problems with that, except who will do it? Doing the credits is already a pain sometimes, and people are talking about trying to get a bot for it, so if we add another template that needs to be posted to 8 talk pages every time Next gets updated, will that just be too much work? —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 03:37, 13 November 2008 (UTC) [reply]

Woops, I redirected it because I saw there was a list in the main KOR article but then after it got a DYK, I decided to unredirect it.--S_RX 03:46, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How about a one-day moveprotection at least? It wont stop the redirecting problem, but it will prevent other...<censored per WP:BEANS>. the skomorokh 04:20, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Has this happened very often before? I haven't noticed it being much of a problem to be honest, and if it's just a few isolated cases we're probably fine just trying to correct them when they come up rather than adding an extra step to the process. Other people may have better data than me, though. Olaf Davis | Talk 20:49, 13 November 2008 (UTC) [reply]

Question: Was the KOR DYK listed on the main page, because I checked the archive and it wasn't there.--S_RX 21:59, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The italics at the beginning of the thread is the exact (sans hotlinking stuff; too lazy to transfer that) that appeared on the front page of Wikipedia in the DYK box. As for before, this is the first time i've encountered such a dilemma.--293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 08:43, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Pornography-related articles on DYK

Should this topic be allowed on the main page? Today Featured Article (TFA) director User:Raul654 won't let the Jenna Jameson article on the main page. Now the adult transexual Miki Mizuasa is nominated. Should pornography-related articles be allowed or not? Here's the discussion so far: Royalbroil 14:56, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

... that pre-operative transsexual Japanese adult video actress Miki Mizuasa was nominated for the Best Actress award at the 2007 Adult Broadcasting Awards? new article by Cherryblossom1982 (talk · contribs), nom. by cbl62 (talk · contribs) Cbl62 (talk) 02:46, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We decided last week to not feature pornography-related articles on DYK in the case of Who's Nailin' Paylin?. Royalbroil 14:29, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I understand the decision on the Nailin' video, given the use of a slang term for sexual intercourse that many consider crude. But was there really a consensus that no hook involving the adult film business can ever be featured on DYK? I have not nominated such an article before, but this individual's nomination for a "Best Actress" award despite being a man (pre-operative), is pretty extraordinary and unusual. I intentionally avoided a hook that uses any crude movie titles or the like. And we have had transsexual hooks before, e.g., the hook in July about Bethany Black being "Britain's only goth, lesbian, transsexual comedian." I don't think there should be a blanket rule about someone truly interesting just because he/she's an adult film star -- or a transsexual. Cbl62 (talk) 08:35, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I definitely think it was right to avoid "Nailin Paylin", but this hook is very modest in comparison - not crude or offensive at all (IMO). It does seem unfair to "disqualify" the hook simply because of the nature of the article (assuming that is does satisfy all WP policies and guidelines such as verification, tone, NPOV). —97198 (talk) 10:33, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure that the Jenna Jameson article could have a summary that wouldn't be crude either, but it won't be going on the main page as the TFA. I'm not questioning the notability of the subject. I'm questioning whether or not we want to see a porn article on the main page. I ticked it "no" so there's time to do a discussion instead of a last minute knee jerk reaction. I don't think it belongs. I hope others will see it and comment with their opinion. Copied to talk page - let's discuss it there. Royalbroil 14:54, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone give me a link to the Jameson debate? It might be useful to see what others have already said on this issue. Basically though, I'm inclined to think that this might be too big an issue for just the DYK regulars to try and decide for themselves. Gatoclass (talk) 15:38, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You can find the previous discussion by searching for "Who's Nailin' Paylin" on this diff under the November 3 nominations. Royalbroil 15:04, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(Outdent) DYK only determines whether something is or is not ready for DYK. See Symbols. Things that make it onto the Main Page require admin tools. This means that Wikipedia:Administrators#Administrator conduct is the standard to apply when determining whether something infact is added to the Main Page. It was not Raul654 that kept the Jenna Jameson article off the main page; it was the application of the Wikipedia:Administrators policy. DYK cannot overrule the Wikipedia:Administrators policy and DYK as a WikiProject should not override individual administrator judgment by censoring content. I don't think DYK is in any position to say that featuring a pornography-related article on the Main Page is an exercise in poor admin judgment that violates the Wikipedia:Administrators policy in all cases. As Gatoclass points out, this might be too big an issue for just the DYK regulars to try and decide for themselves. -- Suntag ☼ 17:28, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

While that may be true, we still have control over which hooks we offer up don't we? I'd like to find out if the administrators have a policy against porn related articles on the main page. If they do then fine but if they don't I would still like to establish a policy that we decline porn related articles here at DYK. I know we can't get rid of all objectionable material at wikipedia and I would never atttempt to do so, but the main page attracts a lot of kids.Nrswanson (talk) 17:49, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. One way to reduce the excess flow of articles too. Johnbod (talk) 17:56, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The adult film business is a legitimate business and one of the largest employers in the San Fernando Valley. The references to "porn" (as opposed to adult video) as "objectionable" is a matter of opinion. The hook is not explicit or crude, and those who are morally opposed to adult content can choose not to click on the link. As for the "the kids will see it" argument, I think that's a bit naive in this day and age. Kids who want to find adult content will find a way. It's all over the Internet and cable TV. Do we really think a non-explict hook mentioning a transsexual adult video actor/actress is going to turn our kids into freaks or persuade them to become transsexuals? If the hook were overtly crude, I'd agree it shouldn't be on the main page, but this is about a transsexual who accomplished something remarkable in being recognized as a "Best Actress" nominee. The hook is more about a person with a gender identity problem overcoming prejudice and being recognized for who she is than it is about "porn." Cbl62 (talk) 18:20, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with banning such hooks. While the hook is not crude or anything, and all notable subjects should be covered on WP, we should remember that the main page is for things we show people unsolicited, rather than something they have to search for, so caution should be used with porn for the sake of kids. Malick78 (talk) 18:23, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You can start a wider discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump. I'm not sure which category - policy or proposal. Royalbroil 18:34, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If we are talking about an internal "DYK policy", I see no reason to take this to the village pump. We're perfectly capable of establishing a policy not to approve porn related hooks right here in this discussion. Nrswanson (talk) 18:47, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But we don't want to be taking a harder line than we need to, nor I think can we approve the use of such hooks without wider community input. I do think this is one debate that is better handled by the community as a whole, there's no point in us deciding on a policy here only to have the community at large reject it. Gatoclass (talk) 23:44, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's a good point and very well put. I guess we should take it to the village pump then. In the meantime, as Gatoclass has suggested, I agree that we can not approve the use of such hooks without wider community input.Nrswanson (talk) 23:54, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Without commenting on pornography-related topics as a whole for DYK, I think the Jenna Jameson is in a different category. Please see this article in the Los Angeles Times entitled "Porn stars are the new crossover artists" that mentions Jameson in particular.--David Shankbone 19:20, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NOTCENSORED - we already have a policy which covers this. Porn-related stuff has already been on the Main Page several times before. Whether Raul654 would put the topic up as Today's Featured Article is irrelevant. - Mark 09:50, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Censoring it would mean not including it in the encyclopedia. Putting it on the main page is, in effect, promoting it. We can include it without promoting it. Royalbroil 13:15, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Censoring means DYK as a WikiProject taking the decision to include or exclude content on the Main Page out of the hands of Admins because of that content being objectionable. Being objectionable is generally not sufficient grounds for removal of content from DYK's consideration. DYK needs to gain a community consensus beyond DYK before DYK can outright censor such material from the main page. DYK is not going to decline all porn related articles based on the topic. That would violate WP:NOTCENSORED. Since admin tools are needed to place items on the Main Page, the decision to place items on the Main Page is an individual decision of each admin that is governed by the policy Wikipedia:Administrators. As an admin, User:Royalbroil can apply personal judgment under Wikipedia:Administrators to keep DYK length-date-hook approved suggestions off the Main Page and do so without violating WP:NOTCENSORED. Wheel warring will back that action. However, DYK itiself cannot come to a consensus that overrides WP:NOTCENSORED. The distinction is important because it treats everyone fairly and utilizes policy (rather than override policy) to make decisions. -- Suntag ☼ 16:37, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Suntag -- It sounds like you're saying we can't and won't censor, but if all the admins just silently use their discretion to decline to promote a hook on an objectionable topic, that's perfectly fine. If that is what you're saying, it's a distinction without a difference. It's censorship either way -- the former would be de jure censorship, the latter is still de facto censorship. Cbl62 (talk) 23:12, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That may be, but you can't force admins (or any other editor for that matter) to do something they aren't comfortable doing. The fact is that admins aren't likely to add controvercial material to the mainpage without strong community consensus that its ok.Nrswanson (talk) 00:01, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think we can and should ask admins to put aside their personal likes, dislikes, prejudices, and moral/religious preferences in performing their work as an admin, to act neutrally, and to follow the policy against censorship. I thought the hook was interesting, perhaps even inspirational to the transsexual community. There is nothing graphic, disgusting, or vulgar about the hook. I hope all the DYK admins do not choose to engage in de jure censorship of the hook due to its subject matter, but if they do, so be it. Cbl62 (talk) 00:14, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(deindent) Up to now, I haven't seen an adult article on DYK. What adult articles have appeared on DYK? A few stragglers don't necessarily make a strong precedent anyhow because they may have slipped undetected under most people's radar. The only precedent that I'm aware of it that TFA won't feature an adult article. So precedent says that adult articles aren't normally featured as far as I can tell. Things are gray on how to proceed. Administrators are allowed latitude in gray areas. What you need is black or white so that it doesn't come down to someone's interpretation. The only way to get black or white is to start a discussion. I am certain will be a very ugly discussion if you do and a lot of people on both sides will be hurt and offended. While WP:NOTCENSORED is a policy, it doesn't talk directly to this case, which is why a precedent/discussion is needed if you want to be certain to see the article on DYK. WP:NOTCENSORED is very gray: "Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive". Yes, Wikipedia does contain content that some people would find objectionable. Believe it or not, I don't find the content objectionable. A serious encyclopedia needs to have content of all types. I object to promoting adult content by placing it on the main page. WP:NOTCENSORED then talks about removal of content, which no one is questioning. Nothing in the policy applies to this situation at all. Royalbroil 04:51, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your opinion on whether the content is objectionable is irrelevant. As WP:NOTCENSORED says, discussion should focus "on whether it is appropriate to include in a given article". The hook in question satisfies the Did You Know criteria, and should be treated no differently to any other hook. WP:NOTCENSORED would come into play when someone adds this article to the next queue, and someone subsequently removes it. Then the removal of content bit would/will come into play. If you're unhappy with the WP:NOT policy, you should bring it up on its talk page or WP:VPP. - Mark 05:54, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Royalbroil brings up a good point. There is already a policy that the Feature Article on the main page won't feature an adult article. That seems like a precedent that would reasonably carry over to DYK. Also, I don't necessarily think WP:NOTCENSORED applies here. We aren't talking about the inclusion of content within an article which is what WP:NOTCENSORED was written to address. It's application here is tenuous at best, particularly when one considers the precedent set by TFA policy.Nrswanson (talk) 06:58, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please point me to the policy against adult-content articles appearing as Today's Featured Article on the Main Page? - Mark 08:35, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is no "policy that the Feature Article on the main page won't feature an adult article." There's just a statement by Raul that he won't schedule the Jenna Jameson article because he doesn't want to deal with the complaints that he believes would ensue. Note that many editors (including me) disagree with this stance, but the fact that Wikipedia has far too many featured articles for all of them to appear on the main page renders it difficult to argue that any particular article must.

In no way does any of this establish any sort of "precedent" against listing a pornography-related article in DYK. —David Levy 11:28, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was asked to comment here about my position vis-a-vis Jenna Jamison as daily FA. As David said, I'm not planning on scheduling it, because I don't want to deal with the inevitable controversy that would erupt. The decision is mine, and it is discretionary -- I decided of my own volition not to run it, not because of any particular policy. Nor is my position set in stone -- I may change my mind at some point in the future. But for the time being, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. Raul654 (talk) 16:02, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any other commenters about this? As this stands, I see no consensus for the formation of a new rule against adult-related articles on DYK, and none of the opposers whose arguments were built upon a nonexistant policy over at TFA have responded since Raul654 set the record straight. - Mark 10:26, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Porn DYK proposal for compromise for uninvolved editor

People don't propose a lot of porn articles for DYK, featured pictures, GA, FA, etc., so how about a temporary compromise to test the reaction? I think almost everyone agrees a DYK from hardcore pornography would be gauche and create a lot of time-wasting debate and ire, and be bad for our image. Here is the compromise: If a pornography-related topic goes beyond the bounds of pornography, then it is suitable. Under that, Jenna Jameson would qualify since she has a very diverse career, and possibly may crossover completely, and more successfully from another person whose career would qualify them for DYK - Traci Lords, or Sasha Grey). I learned a lesson when the right-wing media launched a campaign against my photographs for the pornography-related topics. It went nowhere. Nobody cared, despite the best efforts of Concerned Women for America (whose spokesperson is ironically a man). A conservative blogger who received an e-mail from a certain someone railing against me even responded that it should be no surprise to anyone that an encyclopedia article about pornography would have an example. Then he wrote me to let me know. Then that conservative sought me out and expressed his feelings that it was censorship. This Los Angles Times article confirms what I learned from the experience with the 14 photos (out of thousands) I took to illustrate the topics (Fluffer received the most attention, surprisingly). The same trend of porn going mainstream is reported about in the UK. Reasonable minds could differ, but porn is free, widely available, and widely watched over the net. So...the compromise:

If a person or topic is primarily porn-related, but that person or subject has also gone to be notable beyond pornography, the article is acceptable for DYK, but only if the non-pornography aspect of the subject is featured.

The non-porn trivia is likely less know, and it may be problematic with WP:NPOV to tar people who have done multiple things outside adult film as unfit to ever be on the main page because of that work. Jameson has a mainstream career. She has also I do think both sides have valid views, but I think the pro-Jameson side has to be particularly careful how they present it if it's decided it's suitable. Baby steps. --David Shankbone 09:25, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If a person or topic is primarily porn-related, but that person or subject has also gone to be notable beyond pornography, the article is acceptable for DYK, but only if the non-pornography aspect of the subject is featured.
-- So, what you're saying is, that we should have an innocent hook about a person, then when a kid clicks on it they will find out about the surprising porn career of that subject? I think that idea has to be a non-starter IMHO. Malick78 (talk) 09:52, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is your concern that a kid in a classroom will discover that porn stars exist, and Jameson in particular, who is very well known - didn't she used to date Marilyn Manson? I understand your objection when you're talking about most porn-related topics; with a subject like Jameson, I think it shows where a blanket ban fails to be fair, and is harsh. Jameson has excelled at many other pursuits. --David Shankbone 10:06, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your thinking of Dita Von Teese; Jenna claimed she was a boyfriend (not dating) to him thru her autobiography. --293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 11:02, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

{http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=3445724926 No, I was right], and Jameson even supposedly wrote about Manson in her book. --David Shankbone 12:55, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Objectionable" content

Many people are offended by religious beliefs that differ from their own. Will we therefore be banning religion-related articles from DYK? Won't somebody please think of the children?! —David Levy 11:28, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral I'm an Agnostic, and I don't care either way.--293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 01:24, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That was a rhetorical question, I think, to show why the suggestion to not mention port related topics may not be a good/viable/reasonable suggestion. At least I'm pretty sure it was. ++Lar: t/c 13:43, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Heads up

The credits for the DYK hooks currently on the main page (starting w/ charles curtis) were never done, and it's about 1.5 hours until next update. Can someone do them quickly? I would but I'm just catching this on a short break. Wizardman 19:56, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Any word on a bot or one-click-script to get the credits done faster? I believe this is the last part of the DYK-admin-update process that is not yet automated or semi-automated. Cirt (talk) 20:27, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ameliorate is our resident coder and according to his talk page, he basically does not contribute to wikipedia between Wednesday and Friday. So I guess we'll have to wait until next week for more goodies :) Gatoclass (talk) 23:37, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Did we lose a bunch of hooks somewhere?

As far as I can tell none of these hooks ever made it to the Main Page (granted, I'm interested because St. Paul's Episcopal Church (Troy, New York) was one of mine which apparently generated a great deal of discussion over its verifiability while I was sleeping a long day off). I cannot find where these were added to the main template. Daniel Case (talk) 21:10, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree we lost the hooks, probably because the new software or its human component has some bugs to be worked out. The link above shows the hooks deleted from Next Update at 12:58 11/13. But the history of Template:Did you know shows this update at 9:45 11/13, with no more edits until this update at 15:50 11/13. Neither edit shows the hooks in question, so they must have moved on to the bit bucket. Art LaPella (talk) 22:39, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing here is ever in the bit bucket. We could easily fish those out and put them back in as the next update. We owe the people who submitted those hooks and reviewed them (in addition to myself, of course) a chance for the Main Page. We cannot blame it on the software. Daniel Case (talk) 23:14, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I see, it's Queue 3 now. Daniel Case (talk) 23:18, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yep. Just to reiterate, those hooks are all in Queue 3 and will probably be up around 8:00 UTC. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 23:35, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Now that we are loading up to 5 queues with hooks, that gap between a hook being selected from the Suggestions Page and appearing on the Main Page can be over 24 hours. This does appear to be confusing some nominators and some have even put their hooks back on the Suggestions Page. Perhaps a way to make the process more transparent is instead of deleting hooks from the Suggestions Page when they are selected, rather move them to a new "Selected" section at the bottom of the page. This section can be boxed and labelled with something like "Selected, please do not modify". Hooks will remain in this section until they have appeared on the Main Page. Any thoughts? --Bruce1ee^talk 06:39, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is a good suggestion, although it does take away (or delay) some of that cathartic feeling you get when you can finally remove a nom that's been sitting there forever...but I guess we'll have to deal. Another suggestion that I just made to Otolemur crassicaudatus (one of the users who put his nom back on the page) was that for a week or so we put a prominent notice at the top of T:TDYK explaining to users that the promotion process has changed and that they should check queues before assuming their noms got deleted...I thought this might be helpful since I assume lots of regular DYK nominators don't necessarily check this discussion page and might be confused at how things have changed from what they're used to. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 16:05, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is it possible to transclude all of the queue subpages onto the same page (perhaps Template:Did you know/Next update or Template:Did you know/Queue, or a new subpage) so it is easy to see at a glance where a hook has ended up, without having to check each one individually? Like this (collapsed to avoid swamping this page):

Next Update

1

Queue 1

The hooks below have been approved by a human ( — Chris Woodrich (talk)) and will be automatically added to the DYK template at the appropriate time.

Sana, vocalist of Sajou no Hana

... that the name of the Japanese band Sajou no Hana (vocalist pictured) has no official meaning?
... that From Warsaw to Ojców, a 1897 Polish adventure and travel novel for young readers, was inspired by Jules Verne's works but reflects Polish patriotic and educational values?
... that a portrait engraver made the controversial decision to change a Sioux chief's war bonnet so that it would fit on the 1899 United States five-dollar silver certificate?
... that Charli XCX once followed George Daniel into a toilet but stopped halfway, and later wrote the song "Talk Talk" about the experience?
... that Rose O'Neill's marriage to Hugh Roe O'Donnell united two powerful noble families that had been rivals for centuries?
... that the practice of some Christians of making the lesser sign of the cross has been traced back to the 11th century?
... that Frederick Prigg and his predecessor as secretary of the Provisional Government of Oregon were both doctors who drowned in a river at Oregon City just three years apart?
... that a rainbow plaque marks the site of Peckham's Black Lesbian and Gay Centre?
... that one of the paintings sold by Beijing Hanhai was stolen by an emperor, and another was hidden in a well?

Queue 2

The hooks below have been approved by a human ( — Chris Woodrich (talk)) and will be automatically added to the DYK template at the appropriate time.

Issue 3 of The True Record

... that The True Record (issue pictured) closed shortly after implicating Provisional President Yuan Shikai in the assassination of Song Jiaoren?
... that Allison Reese has received millions of views for her impressions of Kamala Harris?
... that the embassy of the Philippines in Bucharest is the country's first mission in the Eastern Bloc?
... that the lyrics of Gigi Perez's "Sailor Song" were criticized by far-right conservative Christian communities?
... that the first Chinese driver to race in Formula One debuted at the 2022 Bahrain Grand Prix?
... that several major U.S. politicians have spread conspiracy theories about the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season?
... that Tenzin Doendrup, the 68th Je Khenpo and chief abbot of Bhutan, issued a decree to stop the practice of animal sacrifices?
... that Manhood was Josh Hawley's second book to be published by Regnery, after he was dropped by Simon & Schuster for his support of attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election?
... that Vivian Stranders, a British-born Jew, served as an officer in the Nazi SS?

Queue 3

Queue 4

Queue 5

Someone will have to play with includeonly, etc.

Oh, and "Next Update" is a bit of a misnomer now: that page is really the draft update to which non-admins can contribute; the next queue in rotation is the real next update. -- Testing times (talk) 11:24, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I like your idea of transcluding the next- and queue-templates. --Bruce1ee^talk 11:52, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As long as it doesn't slow down the page load. Might be an idea to have it on a separate page. Gatoclass (talk) 12:40, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with Gatoclass (talk · contribs) - having it on a separate page would be best, with a link and explanatory line or two about it on the other related pages. Cirt (talk) 12:44, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why not have a bot scan the DYK queues and send out a "Your DYK hook is in line to be posted on the Main Page November 16, 2008 between 06:00 and 12:00". I know I always get a kick of seeing my hooks on the Main Page. Also, this would allow the persons receiving credit for the DYK to take a snap shot for their scrap album. And it would avoid having to provide more handling for each hook. -- Suntag ☼ 16:47, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Queue 2 credits done

I just did the credits for Queue 2 (starting with Montigny mitrailleuse), so someone can clear it. I forgot that they're protected and have to be cleared by admins. My bad. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 23:41, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done, thanks for your help. It didn't occur to me that non-admins won't be able to do the credits. We may have to do something to rectify that. Gatoclass (talk) 11:33, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Or have a bot or script for a more automated or semi-automated process for the credits. Cirt (talk) 11:36, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What about having a separate, unprotected Credits page that the credits get dumped into after the bot flips the template, and then anyone can do the credits from there and then clear it? I don't know how Wikipedia bots work but I assume regex (or even something easier than that, if all the credits get included in some sort of tag that tells the bot they're credits) could handle it? —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 16:02, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, until the credit bot is developed, the credits-to-be-done can be moved to a common, non protected page so that the DYK clerks can post them. -- Suntag ☼ 16:54, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That isn't necessary, the credits can still be done from the queue page, the problem is just that a non-admin cannot clear the credits after he's finished. Gatoclass (talk) 01:01, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, but then my worry is that someone might, in a hurry, go through and do credits again after a non-admin has done them. When I did the credits earlier I posted a message here to let you guys know, but I don't know if you always check this page before doing credits (I know I don't). —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 05:22, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Very little chance of that happening. As soon as you post a credit, you can see whether the same credit has already been given, or you can check the preview page first if you're not sure. Duplicated credits actually happened quite a bit with the old system too, because crediters often didn't bother resetting the next update page after doing the credits. Gatoclass (talk) 10:26, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

DYK credits in queue 4 need fixed

I just got this message from Grk1011:

The DYK credits for Queue 4 have one incorrect article. It should be Portugal in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008, not Vânia Fernandes. I would fix it myself, but its protected. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 23:30, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So either an admin will have to fix it, or whoever does the credits will have to remember to manually put the credit in the right article (and to change the parameter in the credit template that he/she gives to the creator of that article). I'm about to go so I won't be the one doing the credits :S. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 23:35, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

New system

I recently nominated a few articles for DYK, and I'm not ecstatic about the new system. First of all not many know about the several queues now, I know that when my hook was selected, I couldn't find it anywhere, not on next update, not in the main page, and not in the archives, so I re-added it to the list and it was almost put on the queue for a second time. I noticed several other editors doing the same thing. Also, since it is updated automatically, no one is there to do the credits, my hook went on almost 12 hrs ago and I still haven't been credited. I also think there is a problem with people not knowing there are queues. As or right now all queues are empty and the regular old next update is being used, shouldn't only the queues be used? the regular next update doesn't work right for the bot I think. Right now everything is very disorganized if you ask me because there seems to be a lack of communication. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 01:48, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We're trying to persuade our botbuilder to automate the creds, hopefully we might see this next week.

There are always going to be teething troubles with a new system. Personally I think it's working extremely well, much better than I anticipated, but there are going to be a few kinks here and there that need to be ironed out. If you read further up this page you will see that the problem of users being uninformed about the location of their hooks is already the subject of discussion. Gatoclass (talk) 02:49, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I see, the other thing I wanted to mention was that it now takes a longer amount of time for a hook to be on the DYK. Before, when it was put on the next update, it would be on the main page within 6 hrs, now with the multiple queues it could be almost 30 hours. Does the 5 days rule just mean a hook has to be on the suggestion page within 5 days? Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 03:26, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Updates are automated except the credits; we would still want to keep a certain degree of human touch by crediting editors manually. I've just finished up the credits, having just woken up. Next Update at the old section is just a Sandbox, where it is copied over to the queues. The order is predictable going by the queues in ascending order (i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, ...) It takes time to word to go out that we're on a new procedure given that this is still on trial. - Mailer Diablo 02:54, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Speak for yourself please, I certainly don't want to continue crediting editors manually! Royalbroil above has proposed that users loading the queue should have their sig automatically added to the credits to retain the human touch, a proposal I strongly support, especially since it will recognize the person who is probably most responsible for actually promoting the article rather than the guy who just posted the credit. Gatoclass (talk) 03:24, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't notice the discussion above. That sounds good to me as well. - Mailer Diablo 03:57, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Credit bot

My current idea is to change the format that DYKbotdo appears on the queue, to have two optional parameters; eg. {{DYKbotdo|An optional comment|~~~}}, this way the bot picks up the signature and the optional comment from the DYKbotdo template when its going to do the credits. Would this be alright or is there a better way to do it? ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 00:03, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds OK to me. Chamal ^talk 04:25, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Support. Sounds excellent to me. Cirt (talk) 05:59, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But that method would only give you a boilerplate optional comment which would go to every user. It's better than nothing perhaps, but if you put the optional parameter into the DYKmake/DYKnom bots instead, crediters could leave messages for individual users. I do support the autosigning parameter in the DYKbotdo bot though. Gatoclass (talk) 08:18, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I can change that. DYKmake would become {{DYKmake|Article|Editor|Comment}}. It's mostly done except for the article talkpage tagging. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 08:41, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And can an option be defaulted so that it is okay for the Comment field to be left blank? Cirt (talk) 08:43, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This sounds good to me. - Mailer Diablo 10:55, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yip, the bot doesn't care if there's a comment or not. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 12:55, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really want to have to sign my name to every DYKmake/DYKnom though. I think it would be better to leave the sig in the DYKbotdo so that you autosign the lot with just one signature, and then just have an optional comment field in the individual make/nom functions. Gatoclass (talk) 15:39, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with Gatoclass (talk · contribs), actually, this is a much better idea. Cirt (talk) 15:42, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's how it's going to work. {{DYKbotdo}} becomes {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} and DYKmake becomes {{DYKmake|Article|Editor|Comment}}. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 02:37, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So the individual sigs will override the DYKbotdo sig? I guess that would be okay, as long as the individual sig/comment fields are optional not mandatory. Gatoclass (talk) 04:14, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

November 11 hook review

Please take a look at my self-nom for the article List of people deported from the United States. It is a list, but excluding the formatting, there is 2,973 characters of cited text. The page was created on November 11. The page is over 1,500 of cited WP:V text. The hook information is cited to multiple WP:V inline-cites. I would respectfully request that it be considered for T:DYK. Thank you. Cirt (talk) 07:02, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But as the reviewers have mentioned, isn't it necessary for the main body text (in the case of a list article, only the lead) should have 1500 chars? This has only 106 chars. Here are some of the recently passed lists. They all have the min. 1500 characters.

We have rejected several lists that didn't have this minimum character requirement. The selection criteria 2 clearly mentions that lists are not counted as part of this. Chamal ^talk 07:18, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I understand that consensus is against considering this page at this point in time. Thank you for taking a look. Cirt (talk) 07:21, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nevermind, has since been expanded, thanks. Cirt (talk) 08:42, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Did you know/Next update updating etiquette

If a third-party independent editor has already reviewed someone's hook and marked it with verify with the tickmark as appropriate, is it okay for the hook-nominator to themselves then add their verified hook to Template:Did you know/Next update? Cirt (talk) 08:41, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's not okay. Someone else needs to do it. Hooks from DYK regular admins/loaders sometimes wait a while. Other admins/loaders should be taking this into consideration when they load. Royalbroil 13:35, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would think that if something has already been verified with {{DYKtick}}, by an independent reviewer, that means that an editor other than the nominator has reviewed that hook and signaled that it is ready to be moved to Template:Did you know/Next update. Cirt (talk) 13:37, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to agree with Cirt. Can you give us a good reason why it is not okay, Royalbroil? --BorgQueen (talk) 13:53, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)If it is reasonable that a hook would have been added then anyway (ie. hooks above it have to be used instead) then I can't see why not; WP:BURO applies. I wouldn't advocate selecting it for the top pictured spot, but as an ordinary hook it shouldn't be a problem. Especially if a single editor is filling multiple queues, where articles created substantial periods of time after it would end up being used, and we hardly want to deter Cirt from keeping the bot happy. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 13:55, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with Ameliorate! (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 14:10, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cirt: That's technically true but we still in the past tended not to move our own hooks... it has in the past caused incidents where other folk thought it was bad form. Personally, I've recently been trying to pass/downcheck at least 5 hooks (usually quite a few more, actually) for every hook I myself nominate, but have stopped moving hooks. ++Lar: t/c 13:57, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Lar: I think the "in the past" you refer to was probably before we did reviews using {{DYKtick}} on the T:TDYK page with the current process we have now. Cirt (talk) 14:10, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes and no. However, in any case I still think there are those (including myself) who would just view it as not really good form unless there was a pressing reason. With the new system, time pressure is lessened, yes? ++Lar: t/c 17:57, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Should we do away with the {{DYKtick}} system? Cirt (talk) 18:05, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Do away with the {{DYKtick}} system? !!! ??? !!! Absolutely not. It's highly useful, very efficient, fairly easy to use (I just can't remember the names of the things without a cheat sheet :) ) and adds a great deal of clarity compared with just using words to give readiness assessments... X means no ? means something to fix and V(check) means good to go. Whoever helped bring it about deserves shedfuls of thanks. Not moving your own hooks (or in other words, avoiding the appearance of impropriety) and not using DKYTick (or in other words, avoiding the use of a great system that reduces error and speeds things up) are two completely different topics, and should not be conflated. I'm confused as to why you think we should. Or why you think I think we should. We shouldn't. ++Lar: t/c 18:40, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I do not think we should. Under the old system before {{DYKtick}}, suggested hooks would simply remain on the T:TDYK page for five days, and if no one objected or commented on them, someone would look them over, check the hooks against the criteria, and move them one by one to the Next Update page. Now that we have the {{DYKtick}} process, the review process and discussion takes place on the T:TDYK page itself, and is not instead an independent evaluation by the person moving the hooks to the Next Update page. That is my thought process, that is what occurs, and that is why, once an independent reviewer has marked something as okay and confirmed using the {{DYKtick}} process, anyone should feel free to move that hook to the Next Update page, because that symbolizes it has been independently reviewed. The next step, moving hooks to the Next Update page, no longer itself constitutes a review (that is the {{DYKtick}} process) - it merely is stylistic and a way to populate the Next Update template with a variety of hooks, but it itself is not the review process - the {{DYKtick}} process is now. Cirt (talk) 19:00, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

While not disagreeing with ANYTHING you say about the virtues of the tick system (is that at all unclear???) I disagree that we should pick our own noms.. There is still an element of "choice" in picking hooks, it's an art to pick several that go together well. Therefore I still think unless there is a dire emergency, we should avoid picking our own articles/noms. Avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest. Sorry to belabor this point but I don't think you've yet gotten what I'm driving at. It's not at all about the tick system (except to praise it) ++Lar: t/c 20:08, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I thought that we (consensus} had decided against it. I've passed over my hooks which had already been approved. I don't really care either way as long as others don't think that it is gaming the system. What about image selection - some might question if a person adds their own hook to the top spot with the picture. For instance, two weeks ago was the first time that I took a picture that appeared on the main page (FINALLY!) after many image noms. Had that option been available and within my discretion, it would have been tempting to add my own hook along with the image. Royalbroil 20:27, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to agree with the 'not even an appearance of a conflict of interest' school of thought. Also as Royalbroil points out, since many pictures end up getting dropped for lack of space moving hooks with images does actually constitute a choice and so could lead to contention. Anyway, do we lose much by avoiding it? Since there's a largish group of people involved in constructing updates, the worst that's likely to happen is that the hooks sits waiting for a few more hours than the week or so it's already been waiting. Olaf Davis | Talk 20:34, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

When Cirt is loading the entire queue, as she has done on two occasions now, I think it would be unreasonable to expect her to bypass her own hooks. I think the system we have now works fine - promotion of one's own hooks is discouraged, but not absolutely prohibited. If a problem arose whereby someone was continually promoting their own hooks in a questionable manner, we might have to review the rules, but that has never been the case. Possibly we could make a rule that promotion of one's own hook is not prohibited, but if you do it you are obliged to prepare the entire update. That would discourage drive-by promotion, and ensure that people promoting their own hooks were also making a larger contribution to the project. Gatoclass (talk) 04:11, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have read these latest points by Lar (talk · contribs), Royalbroil (talk · contribs), Olaf Davis (talk · contribs), and Gatoclass (talk · contribs), and I have to say I agree with everything you have all said. But Gatoclass brings up a good point. Sometimes there is no one else around, or no one else actively preparing the next update, and there will be times where I have self-nom (and verified) hooks of my own sitting at T:TDYK, and I will, under this notion expressed above by Lar, have to pass over my self-nom hook(s), perhaps even looking ahead a few days, whilst in the process of filling the 5 Queues (because it is neat to see these all active and working quite well with this process established by Ameliorate! (talk · contribs)). If consensus is determined to oppose this, given this rationale as pointed out by Gatoclass, I will respect that and not object. Cirt (talk) 08:42, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ideally, each DYK step should be made by a different person to keep troubled article content from being linked from Main Page. Pressing need exception - However, if the hook-nominator has not made any edits to the article (has no vested interest in the article content), then it doesn't seem to be a conflict of interest if the hook-nominator adds the verified hook to Template:Did you know/Next update if the hooks is in expired noms, no one has picked it up, and Next update is in need of hooks. As for picking up the image as well, probably not. -- Suntag ☼ 20:49, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Okay, sounds good. In the end, the more independent editors involved, the better. Thank you all for the comments. Cirt (talk) 00:20, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent) I haven't been paying attention lately and I missed this whole discussion, but I just wanted to add that, in addition to other reasons that have been given in favor of having separate people do the uploading, there is also the issue that the person verifying the hook maybe shouldn't have verified it, and having a third person do the uploading is a good way to guard against that. I'm not meaning to imply that reviewers suck...rather, for me at least, I often get involved in a situation where I'm negotiating a hook with the nominator for some time, exchanging messages and discussing things, and by the time that is over I still verify or reject it but I might be a little too much involved then for my verification to be as trustworthy as usual; in cases like that, it really benefits to have an outside person do the uploading, rather than letting the nominator do it, since the nom wasn't really verified by a "third-party independent editor" but by an editor who is only human and tries real hard but sometimes does stupid stuff anyway. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 04:55, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Miki Mizuasa Hook

The Miki Mizuasa hook is still up in the air. The alt hook version proposed by Politizer (which I think is better than my original hook) is:

...that pre-operative transsexual Miki Mizuasa was nominated for the Best Actress award at the 2007 Adult Broadcasting Awards even though she was born a male?

After several days of discussion, and as I read the comments, four persons have spoken up against allowing hooks mentionining someone who is in the adult film business (Nrswanson, Royalbroil, Johnbod, and Malick), six persons have spoken up in favor of the hook (cbl62, 97198, Mark, Politizer, David Shankbone, and David Levy), and two others appeared to be somewhat neutral (Gatoclass and Suntag). One thing on which there does appear to be consensus is that there can and should be no absolute policy against allowing hooks on DYK based on the subject's involvement with the adult film business. Rather, it should be a matter of good judgment and discretion for each individual to decide whether to approve the hook and move it to Next Update, and then to the Main Page. If that is correct, personal moral/religious opinions should not dictate, and I suggest the Mizuasa hook, which does not contain crude or offensive language and focuses on an extraordinary accomplishment by a transsexual, should be promoted. Cbl62 (talk) 16:13, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to do it, then do. I think the article (in this case) concentrates on the person and not the sensational aspect. We do need to make sure that we do not get banned by those who would judge a book by its cover. But protect it! Victuallers (talk) 18:24, 16 November 2008 (UTC) I would hide the film titles and the word "pre-opertive" from the hook Victuallers (talk) 18:28, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One caveat: If an objection is raised by another admin and it's removed from the Main Page, please do not wheel war about it, as that was the source of a desysop action not that long ago. howcheng {chat} 20:45, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I cannot promote it, as I nominated the article. I will leave that decision to others.Cbl62 (talk) 22:17, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like Mrswanson removed it from the NU page, so i guess that's the last word. Wizardman 05:41, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Missing hooks?

I had nominated Operation LAC and Operation Steel Box yesterday but don't see them on the suggestions page anymore, and it doesn't appear they were used. I know they are close to expiring and I didn't nominate them right away, so maybe you didn't want to use them, but I was curious as to where they went, perhaps accidentally deleted? --IvoShandor (talk) 22:34, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Check the staging pages. Use the history of the T:DYKT page. If you see an editor removed them, check their nearby edits to see which staging page they went to.... check Template:Did you know/Queue/1 through Template:Did you know/Queue/5. Hope that helps! ++Lar: t/c 23:37, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yep. LAC is on #5 and Steel Box is on #4... they've both now been queued to be added to the main page by the bot. Nice work. ++Lar: t/c 23:39, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Sorry, things work a bit differently around here than they used to. :-) --IvoShandor (talk) 00:23, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yea very different. We are in the midst of a 14 day trial with an adminbot to update the DYK automatically right at 6 hours. It has helped significantly decrease the backlog. Royalbroil 04:51, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd word it a bit stronger than that. This innovation is totally kick, and the folk who pushed it through and made it happen (proponents, thinkers, bot coders, etc.) need a lot of kudos/barnstars/beers/glory, etc. because it is a huge help. They all rock. No more missed updates. How cool is that? ++Lar: t/c 15:39, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure about this one

Hi all. I'm not sure whether or not this article, Mike Davis, is notable. However, the length and the sources are verified. The hook is about to expire and don't want to promote it on without getting some consensus. Thanks.Nrswanson (talk) 03:23, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your link goes to a disambig page... does the hook go there too? Sorry for being confused, but if they nommed a dab page, no it's not eligible. Too many dudes to check each one out, sorry :) ++Lar: t/c 03:41, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It looks notable enough to me; go with it.--Gen. Bedford ^{his Forest} 03:47, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Protest over removal of Miki Misuasa hook from Next Update

This hook has taken on a life of its own. Wizardman promoted it to the Next Update, and Nrswanson, who has been opposed to it from the outset, immediately removed it from the Next Update. See [7] Based on the discussion above, consensus seemed to be there is no rule that would support blanket censorship of the subject matter. Yet, as soon as one DYK admin nominated it, another removed it. Having said there is no rule supporting blanket censorship, one user is now imposing his own will on the community. That is wrong. Cbl62 (talk) 04:56, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

True, but people have gotten away with it before.--Gen. Bedford ^{his Forest} 04:57, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Correct me if I am wrong but I don't see a consensus one way or the other above. It's pretty much divided. Nor have we drawn a definitive conclusion yet. Nrswanson (talk) 05:25, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I believe there was consensus that a blanket ban based on content would violate the anti-censorship policy. Seven persons have spoken up in favor of the hook (cbl62, 97198, Mark, Politizer, David Shankbone, David Levy and Victuallers), an 8th (Wizardman) promoted it, and another (Suntag) agreed there should be no blanket policy against such topics. Further, it is unprecedented in my experience here for the decision of an administrator promoting a hook to Next Update to be unilaterally overruled by another user. If you wished to re-open the discussion, the proper course would be to do that, not to unilaterally reverse the promotion. Cbl62 (talk) 05:37, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I removed it becuase I thought the discussion wasn't done here and we hadn't made a definitive decision in the above conversation. (Would you care to point out where a decision was definitively made?) I didn't view my actions as a unilateral move but a reasonable decision to wait to add that hook until we are done discussing it. Further, I don't believe WP:Censorship applies here. We aren't ruling on keeping or removing content from an actual article which is what that policy was written to address. It's application here is tenuous at best. And I don't think that conversation ever "closed" so there is no reason to "re-open" it. Further, I don't think DYK can reasonably place an article like this on the main page without getting a broader consensus at the village pump or centralized discussions because I think this issue is bigger than DYK. I think we need an organized vote/poll to make a decision. Many editors are staying away from the conversation on purpose. I think your side is just a bit more vocal.Nrswanson (talk) 05:45, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The "decision" was made by Wizardman to promote the hook. That decision was supported by a lengthy discussion here and on the "Suggestions" page. Your advocacy of a blanket ban on any hooks having to do with anyone involved in the adult film business, even those that do not focus on crude or graphic content, was not adopted, and you then acted unilaterally to revert the promotion. I don't think that's how Wikipedia should work.Cbl62 (talk) 06:30, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Three points. 1. I didn't make the decision to not include the hook ever. I made a decision to not include the hook right now until the above conversation is resolved. 2. I don't think that a discussion limmited to DYK can make a decision a like this. 3. Assuming we disregard point 2, I don't think we made a clear decision yet. I think we would actually have to propose a course of action and then vote on it before making a policy here at DYK. As it is, all we have done is debate without making any clear decisions.Nrswanson (talk) 06:38, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm confused as to which basis the hook is being disallowed, what policy or guideline does its inclusion on the main page violate? ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 06:43, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Its not a violation specifically spelled out but nor is it policy anywhere either. We are in uncharted waters so to speak. What we decide will set a precedent. Hence why I think this needs a broader participation. Personally I think it violates Wikipedia:Common Sense and Wikipedia:Reasonability Rule. Those who advocate that WP:Censor covers it are extending that rule beyond its scope. That is instruction creep and Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy.Nrswanson (talk) 06:50, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What is different about this article that it needs discussion and precedent before it will be placed on the main page? There hasn't been any discussion about putting religious topics on the main page, or about wars, conflicts etc. all of which can be controversial. So just because this person is involved in the adult film industry they need discussion and precedent for their inclusion? Take a look at the next update for example; Li Ximing: a communist party boss and supporter of military action in Tiananmen Square, where is the discussion or precedent about whether that is acceptable? Or Cannibal Holocaust, which was featured as an FA? ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 07:07, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good points. I think the issue here is a matter of taste and sensibility and common sense. Most editors in the past have used common sense about which articles they offer up at DYK so we haven't needed to spell out what's ok and what isn't. I wish things were still the same. I don't like having to put a restriction on things, but at the same time I think there should be some discretion as to what goes on the main page. In my view we have crossed that line of common sense with Miki Mizuasa. It's a hard thing to define. I guess you could say, there's a difference between censorship and discretion. I oppose censorship but am for discretion and common sense.Nrswanson (talk) 07:46, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So anyone who would put up the Mizuasa hook lacks "taste and sensibility and common sense"? Obviously, I and others disagree. As for wishing "things were still the same," there always has been and will be controversy and debate. That's a healthy thing. This is not the white picket fence 1950s. Cbl62 (talk) 08:52, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to put it to a vote

Let's just vote and move on with respect to the Mizuasa hook. Nrswanson suggests a vote. Accordingly, I propose that Wizardman's promotion of the following hook be reinstated, and that in so doing that it sets no precedent, and does not limit DYK discretion to reject future hooks if they are deemed to be crude or inappropriate. I deleted the word "pre-operative" in case anyone considers that objectionable.

... that transsexual Miki Mizuasa was nominated for the Best Actress award at the 2007 Adult Broadcasting Awards even though she was born a male? Cbl62 (talk) 07:01, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Cbl62 (talk) 07:01, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Gen. Bedford ^{his Forest} 07:06, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose this vote. This conversation really should be postponed until a broader and organized discussion regarding adult content on the main page is discussed at either the village pump or centralized discussions. Going ahead without such a decision in place is only likely to cause further conflict in this area here at DYK and elsewhere. Let's do this the right way and get a difinitive policy set in place so we don't have to talk about this anymore. I don't think that DYK can reasonably make policy in this area since the main page involves the whole community. Until then, discretion is the better part of valor. My suggestion would be to hold this hook (and any similar ones), disreguard the time limmit, and wait for the outcome of a broader discussion.Nrswanson (talk) 07:08, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Less than two hours ago, you wrote, "I think we need an organized vote/poll to make a decision." See this diff. And four days ago, you wrote: "If we are talking about an internal 'DYK policy', I see no reason to take this to the village pump." See this diff Cbl62 (talk) 07:13, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I know it. But as we have gotten further into this I've got a better picture of the scope of what we're doing here. We're basically making a decision for the whole encyclopedia without involving them. The main page is everyone's page. It's not DYK's page. I wasn't thinking about it that way four days ago. I've been pondering similar comments about the need for a broader discussion by others, and I didn't get it at first. I get it now. I know I personally would feel better about putting up controvercial material if I knew that the community was behind it. Also when I said an "organized poll" two hours ago look at the sentence before that which advocated a broader discussion. I meant a poll at the village pump or some other broader discussion. This is what I wrote: "I don't think DYK can reasonably place an article like this on the main page without getting a broader consensus at the village pump or centralized discussions because I think this issue is bigger than DYK. I think we need an organized vote/poll to make a decision." Seems I meant a poll in a bigger discussion than at DYK.Nrswanson (talk) 07:26, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm Mailer Diablo and I approve this message! - 10:17, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support immediate restoration of the hook. WP is not censored, and the hook should not have been removed. If there were issues, they should have been discussed pre-promotion. GlassCobra 10:30, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support - There is no reason for a policy or guideline about this to be implemented, as currently nothing prohibits it other than WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Each project that is given main page coverage creates its own policies and guidelines as to what to include, Raul who co-ordinates FA has decided not to include one particular article and it just happens that the subject of that article is an actress in the adult film industry. As he explained in the other section related to this, that was a personal decision by him to prevent "headaches" that he sees will arise from it, I agree to a point that having an article about a porn actress displayed prominently on the main page would cause issues, however a simple hook in DYK will probably not even garner attention; chances are no one will even notice. If we start rejecting hooks on the basis that they may offend or "common sense says no" then we are going to be rejecting a lot of hooks. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 10:40, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support on this occasion While I generally do agree that we shouldn't be crass on the main page, and I think the "not censored" argument doesn't apply as that relates more to whether we have an article on it or coverage of it on the encyclopaedia more broadly rather than whether we feature on the main page, this hook is not crass and is simply factual. Porn is an industry, people are transsexuals, neither are in and of themselves sexual in character. However we do need to think about how we are seen by the wider community, especially given the growing tendency towards religious or other censorship of the Internet by national authorities around the world (even in developed Western nations). Orderinchaos 11:00, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hooks are promoted based on the judgement call of one admin. That's how this process works. I would not myself have picked this hook. But another admin did. I think removing it without first gaining consensus to do so was incorrect, and so, even though I would not have picked it myself (for my own reasons) I support putting it back, thus validating and affirming the decision of the admin who chose it. We're all working for a common goal here, let's not edit war. ++Lar: t/c 11:41, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Nrswanson makes a persuasive point about involving people at the VP or elsewhere, and in a more obviously controversial case I'd oppose the hook until that had happened. But the hook presented here seems so benign that, in my opinion, it falls within the area that DYK can reasonably make decisions about on its own. Perhaps a general discussion of the issue should be brought up at the VP for future cases, though. Olaf Davis | Talk 11:44, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support I have to agree with Ameliorate here. Even if we bring up a rule saying that pornography related articles shouldn't be displayed in DYK (which was the problem we had recently, I believe), ~~I don't see how that would apply here~~ (striked out - that was a stupid comment..) I think articles like this are OK, since they're not exactly promoting or encouraging readers to watch porn - it's just about the actress and nothing umm.. bad is included there. If we are going to remove this one, we might just as well remove all sex related articles from DYK. Chamal ^talk 11:53, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support restoration to queue. There seems to be a consensus forming here that this hook is not on the wrong side of whatever line there may be in relation to what goes on the Main Page, and that it should be restored to the next update. The dicussion about whether there should be a rule, and if so, where that line should be drawn, can continue here. - Mark 12:31, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I've said why enough times already. I will abide by consensus - I'm not interested in wheel warring. Royalbroil 13:43, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Your reason was that FA doesn't allow adult articles, however Raul has clarified that this is not the case. Afterall, what is Cannibal Holocaust if not an "adult" article? Or did you have another reason? ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 13:51, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Common sense is required. But, this is factual and not sensational. Victuallers (talk) 17:18, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support restoration into a non protected DYK page such as Template:Did you know/Next update, but if any admin decides to remove it from a protected DYK page (e.g., the queue), then keep it out. Once an admin removes a DYK hook from a protected page, that raises whether their use of their admin tools to remove a DYK hook from a protected page is justified under Wikipedia:Administrators. And resolution of that should be held at WP:AN or some location other than Wikipedia talk:Did you know. -- Suntag ☼ 20:16, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Alot more objectionable items have been put into DYK (I can cite the Confederate Monuments DYKs that have popped up in the last few months), so why is this no more different?--293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 20:32, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's valid to deny coverage of a topic because it is about an organisation that one regards as inappropriate, otherwise, a lot of politicians and world leaders would have to be deleted. YellowMonkey (click here to choose Australia's next top model) 04:09, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just so everyone knows... the article was featured in DYK a few hours ago and no drama resulted from it. Win/Win I'd say. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 03:50, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support no explicit details given at all. YellowMonkey (click here to choose Australia's next top model) 04:09, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright again

Several chunks of Tata Corus acquisition seem to be copied almost verbatim from here, particularly the second section ("The Tata Corus deal, once through, will bring Tata Steels to fifth position ..." to "... Jindal of Jindal Steel and Power Limited made initial plans to acquire it.") third section ("...beat notorious cyclical nature of steel industry..." through "...by bringing down the cost structure company plans to raise its bottom lines" to "Another crucial aspect of the deal was the product mix" and "thus giving thrust to the bottom line, in a highly competitive industry.") and the first paragraph of the sixth section ("Tata Steel had decided that the acquisition would be financed through "own funds and debt" " to "Tata Steel’s debt-equity ratio is currently 0.3 thus giving enough room for the company to raise debt").

The article itself is pretty poor, with obvious typos in the first sentence, and includes parts that were clearly written before the offer was completed in early 2007 (see above - "once through"). I suspect some other parts may be lifted from press releases and the like.

I found the copyvio by putting a couple of sentences into Google. Shouldn't the DYK approval process include such simple checks? -- Testing times (talk) 12:08, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah it isn't a great article I must say. Whenever I check hooks (which I don't often due to my busyness IRL currently) I always check the validity of the sources, and glance over them to make sure they aren't copy and pasted. A brief Google search is great for spotting copyvios as well. Is this kind of thing written into the instructions? – How do you turn this on (talk) 12:43, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for pointing out the problems with that article, Testing times.

As for including plagiarism checks in the DYK vetting process, this is something which comes up every so often. The answer is usually that, yes, plagiarism is unfortunate, but that a) it affects a small proportion of articles and b) requiring people to check entire articles against every source would take such a huge effort there's really nothing we can do to stamp it out completely. Not without drastically reducing the number of articles we process in a day - currently something in the region of thirty which make it to the main page, plus numerous failures. You can find many arguments on this in the archives of this page - for example, Gato's first comment here sums it up pretty well.

Of course, everyone at DYK remains grateful to any work done in fighting plagiarism, like yours on Tata Corus acquisition. But doing so for every article we process just requires more man-hours than we have. Olaf Davis | Talk 20:52, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

agreed Olaf. But just to underline... people who find copyvio problems are heroes. Well done. I personally do check articles that I think are suspicous and I guess others do too. You are a hero, those who present copyvio articles to DYK are ......not Victuallers (talk) 22:39, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I posted a request at Wikipedia:Bot requests#DYK Copyvio bot. Perhaps they can come up with something to assist us. -- Suntag ☼ 08:35, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Credit bot is now enabled

DYKBot (talk · contribs) is now in a 7-day trial to do the credits (BRFA #2). I've gone through all the queues and got them ready for the bot and added instructions inside hidden comments on the clear page. I've created more in-depth instructions at User:DYKBot/credits, mostly its not that big of a change just a few things that have to be remembered. The bot is not adding hooks at this stage though as it's too unreliable. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 01:40, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure what you mean about the bot "not adding hooks" but one thing I have noticed is the bot leaves an automessage which includes the phrase "on behalf of x". I'm thinking that perhaps the "on behalf of x" phrase should go because it only emphasizes that the credit has been done by a bot, thus depersonalizing the contact. Gatoclass (talk) 06:42, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

At the BRFA it was suggested that it add the hook to the credit which I said I would do but now I don't trust that it will work reliably. The edit summary is to clarify why a bot is posting to the talkage but signing using a different signature, I feel that it personalises the contact more (rather than the reverse), as if someone looks at the history of their talkpage and sees DYKBot posting a nomination credit and spoofing a signature with clarifying what is going on it looks like the bot is trying to deceive the user, while if it states "on behalf of X" then it asserts that yes a bot is doing the credits but it was specifically instructed by another person to do it. Would be interested in other views though, it's no problem to change it. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 07:04, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Christmas DYK

User:SandyGeorgia left me a message about whether or not I want to write something about the Christmas DYK for the next Signpost. Is anyone interested in writing a Signpost article to promote it? ~~Does anyone have the list of hook that we promoted last year?~~ Gatoclass, I remember how you and I did almost all of the promoting that day. Royalbroil 04:43, 18 November 2008 (UTC), strike out sentence Royalbroil 03:24, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(message) Royal, you all mentioned the Christmas mainpage at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-11-08/Dispatches; should we put out a Dispatch to encourage submissions ? Sort of like we did with Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-03-03/Dispatches? If so, we could aim for the December 1 Dispatch. If you're interested, you can sandbox something at WP:FCDW/December. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:41, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Do we really want to overwhelm TT:DYK? Advertising on Signpost sounds great at first, but I fear the deluge may be more than we can handle.--Gen. Bedford ^{his Forest} 07:07, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's Christmas-related only that we're after though. I doubt the current submissions would change a lot. As always, I'd be happy to work on something again. – How do you turn this on (talk) 11:37, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Even if we do get a lot articles through this 'advertising', I don't think the amount will be exactly overwhelming. I like the idea. But maybe there's a risk of flooding the page with too many articles failing the criteria :) If there are too many selected hooks to handle, we'll just have to adjust the time that we keep each set on the main page. We are likely to get more hooks than we did for halloween, so probably we will have a bit of a backlog with the normal hooks, which we will have to work on later. Chamal ^talk 12:28, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, write something about the Christmas DYK for the next Signpost. We can never have too many new articles. As for the noms, Christmas can be handled like Halloween with a section below "Expiring noms" on Template talk:Did you know]] entitled "Christmas 2008". The project will start December 1st. We can put it either in a DYK subpage or reactivate Wikipedia:WikiProject Christmas. ( A past Christmas effort: Wikipedia:Christmas 2004)-- Suntag ☼

I think your first idea is better, under the expiring noms, like we did for Halloween. We can make a subpage like we did for Halloween, documenting possible articles to use (there will be many, many more for Christmas than Halloween), and discussion of things like when it should run, so this page doesn't become too cluttered. – How do you turn this on (talk) 14:55, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I did my part for the April Fools and since I already have a non-qualifying article already (from 2007, so this answers part of your question Royalbroil), think i'll focus on another christmas related project. --293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 22:51, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I struck out one of my original questions as I found some answers. I also clarified that I meant it should be the Signpost article. Thanks for the tip about the defunct Christmas WikiProject. I never heard of it. It's worth a mention in the Signpost article. Royalbroil 03:24, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The DYK Halloween 2008 effort was followed by the new Wikipedia:WikiProject Halloween. These seasonal WikiProject may die out off season and pick up diring the season. They probably should be task forces of Wikipedia:WikiProject Holidays so that someone is there year round to tend to them. I do like how DYK expands to include topical article creation efforts, so I'm more in favor of DYK Christmas 2008 rather than using WikiProject Christmas. -- Suntag ☼ 08:19, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If we get a lot of hooks, we could do Christmas Eve or boxing day too. And we can make a bit of an effort to get a couple days ahead in the week before Christmas, by just adding a couple extra noms to each DYK. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 03:30, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is there going to be any discussion about the fact that we are highlighting a Christian holiday? Are we going to do a Ramadan-themed DYK? What about Divali? Are we going to make an effort to include other religions in our "DYK themes"? If not, I suggest we don't pursue such themes. Awadewit (talk) 20:50, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If people are interested they can. Otherwise, there isn't a problem here. If people think there's bias here, they're wrong. There's bias everywhere. If someone wants a Diwali-themed day, then they can propose it. No need to prevent editors from doing something fun just because some like to spoil it with claims of "bias". It's an encyclopedia, not a game. – How do you turn this on (talk) 21:25, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So, because bias exists and some people unthinkingly perpetuate it, it is not wrong? Wow. Awadewit (talk) 21:37, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea why you think there's any bias here. It isn't as if we've said "No, we're not doing a themed day for this day". Anyway, I never said bias was right. It is not right, and if you can show me some proof there is bias on DYK I'd be very grateful. Thanks. – How do you turn this on (talk) 21:41, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"US related topics"

Why is the note regarding US-related topics required on the next update/clear page? It's wrong for a start; there's often hardly any US topics. And US topics is a very vague term indeed. I don't see any point in having such a message there. It's been removed, and readded a few times. I'd like to know what purpose it really serves, and if it's actually necessary. I'm sure the admins dealing with this are careful to choose a variety of topics in a fair way. – How do you turn this on (talk) 00:11, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I tried removing it once. I think the general concensus is that we don't want an admin to buff up DYK with to many things from the US, though I agree with you that they have a brain too. I think "US related" is intentionally vague and open, though because of this it should be removed. There's also nothing about Briitish topics, which also come in by the dozens. That's my 2 cents at least. ~the editorofthewiki ^{(talk/contribs/editor review)}~ 00:20, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The note is there because we have had too many instances in the past of inexperienced updaters filling an update with all US hooks, or conversely filling it with hooks that include no US hooks at all. It also serves as a more general reminder about the importance of balancing the contents of updates. I will strongly oppose any move to have this note removed, as I know from experience that it creates more work for the more experienced updaters who have to come along and fix the imbalances. Gatoclass (talk) 09:31, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, the suggestions page currently includes 56 US hooks out of 121 - or about 46% US hooks. So the note is as valid as ever. I didn't count the British hooks, but they are far fewer - probably well below 20%. Gatoclass (talk) 09:52, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

suggestion regarding DYK articles' Discussion pages

Do we have a prior discussion (I couldn't find any) about requiring a wikiproject banner on a DYK article's Talk page? Though this would be "instruction creep", here are my thoughts:

When a reader goes from the Main page to the particular DYK article's page, he won't see a big red link at the very top of the article on the word "Discussion". It's one of my peevees with DYK noms, so maybe it's someone else's, too.
As DYK articles cannot be stubs, an assessment of "Start" (or higher), or "List" within the project's tag & assess would validate that the article isn't stub class. --Rosiestep (talk) 00:22, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we should mandate a project banner. There may not BE a project for a particular article. But I think the idea of making the talk page not be a redlink is a good idea. If a project doesn't jump out at you ASAP... just slap a {{talkpage}} template on it maybe? ++Lar: t/c 00:37, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What's wrong with a redlink for "Discussion"? Seeing a redlink there tells you there is no discussion as yet and saves you a click if you were thinking that there might be. Yomangani ^talk 00:43, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We already put {{Dyktalk}} on all the DYK articles' talk pages, so I don't see the issue here with redlinks. --JayHenry (talk) 00:59, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This question is obsolete with the new DYK crediting bot. The article should immediately get an edit to the talkpage when the bot adds the DYK banner. Besides, I've seen plenty of DYK articles that don't fit into any WikiProjects. WikiProjects don't cover every single topic. Royalbroil 03:51, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Heads up

The next queue is empty, and I have to go offline soon. Can someone fill the next update and copy it to the queue please? (Please be extra careful with the new credit format.) --BorgQueen (talk) 12:10, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Elf and writing

wth happened to the suggestion page?

Simply south (talk) 13:07, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Most viewed DYK update and proposal

Last summer, I started a sandbox page User:Cbl62/sandbox3 to track the most viewed DYK hooks using Henrik's page view tool. Though I've neglected it in the last couple months, BorgQueen has been diligently updating it. The Top 10 all-time are set forth below. I continue to think a permanent page, which other could help maintain, would be useful in demonstrating the types of hooks that work best in drawing readers to new articles, and would also to serve as an incentive for nominators to come up with more interesting hooks. Do others think that a permanent page would be helpful? Cbl62 (talk) 22:51, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Article	DYK views	DYK hook
Todd Palin	58,000	... that Alaska's First Gentleman Todd Palin won the world's longest snowmobile race four times?
Love dart	30,100	... that some hermaphrodite snails and slugs pierce each other with love darts (pictured) during mating?
Neel Kashkari	29,200	... that Neel Kashkari (pictured), six years after completing his MBA, was put in charge of the $700 billion U.S. Government bailout of financial institutions?
Lazarus syndrome	27,800	... that the Lazarus syndrome is named after Lazarus of Bethany (pictured), who the Bible says was raised from the dead by Jesus?
Omid Tahvili	27,500	... that in April 2008, Forbes listed Omid Tahvili (pictured) as one of the world's ten most wanted fugitives?
Scowle	25,600	... that the ancient opencast iron ore workings known as scowles (pictured) in the Forest of Dean, England, are believed to have been an inspiration for settings in J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings?
The Trons	25,000	... that New Zealand band The Trons (pictured) has no human members?
National Cleavage Day	24,000	... that National Cleavage Day was started in South Africa in 2002?
La Princesse	24,000	... that La Princesse (pictured), a giant mechanical spider, roamed the streets of Liverpool, England as part of the 2008 European City of Culture celebrations?
Scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow	22,300	... that 52 ships of the German High Seas Fleet were successfully scuttled in Scapa Flow (example pictured) in 1919, but many were later salvaged?

@@ Line 1,044: / Line 1,044: @@
 [[User:Simply south|Simply south]] ([[User talk:Simply south|talk]]) 13:07, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
+==Most viewed DYK update and proposal==
+Last summer, I started a sandbox page [[User:Cbl62/sandbox3]] to track the most viewed DYK hooks using Henrik's page view tool.  Though I've neglected it in the last couple months, BorgQueen has been diligently updating it.  The Top 10 all-time are set forth below. I continue to think a permanent page, which other could help maintain, would be useful in demonstrating the types of hooks that work best in drawing readers to new articles, and would also to serve as an incentive for nominators to come up with more interesting hooks.  Do others think that a permanent page would be helpful? [[User:Cbl62|Cbl62]] ([[User talk:Cbl62|talk]]) 22:51, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
+{| border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" class="wikitable sortable"
+|-
+! bgcolor="#DDDDFF" width="15%" | Article
+! bgcolor="#DDDDFF" width="10%" | Image
+! bgcolor="#DDDDFF" width="10%" | DYK views
+! bgcolor="#DDDDFF" width="50%" | DYK hook
+|- align="center"
+|[[Todd Palin]]|| [[Image:Todd Palin.jpg|100x100px]] ||58,000||... that [[Alaska]]'s First Gentleman '''[[Todd Palin]]''' won the '''[[Tesoro Iron Dog|world's longest snowmobile race]]''' four times?
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+|[[Love dart]]|| [[Image:Monachoides vicinus dart lateral.jpg|100x100px]] ||30,100||... that some [[hermaphrodite]] [[snail]]s and [[slug]]s pierce each other with '''[[love dart]]s''' ''([[:Image:Monachoides vicinus dart lateral.jpg|pictured]])'' during [[mating]]?
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+|[[Neel Kashkari]]|| [[Image:Neel-kashkari cropped.jpg|100x100px]] ||29,200||... that '''[[Neel Kashkari]]''' ''([[:Image:Neel-kashkari cropped.jpg|pictured]])'', six years after completing his [[MBA]], was put in charge of the $700&nbsp;billion [[Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008|U.S. Government bailout of financial institutions]]?
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+|[[Lazarus syndrome]]|| [[Image:Lazarus, Russian icon cropped.jpg|100x100px]] ||27,800||... that the '''[[Lazarus syndrome]]''' is named after [[Lazarus of Bethany]] ''([[:Image:Lazarus, Russian icon cropped.jpg|pictured]])'', who the [[Bible]] says was raised from the dead by [[Jesus]]?
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+|[[Omid Tahvili]]||[[Image:Omid Tahvili.jpg|100x100px]]||27,500||... that in April 2008, [[Forbes]] listed '''[[Omid Tahvili]]''' ''([[:Image:Omid Tahvili.jpg|pictured]])'' as one of the world's ten most wanted [[fugitive]]s?
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+|[[Scowle]]|| [[Image:Puzzlewood.jpg|100x100px]] ||25,600||... that the ancient [[opencast]] [[iron ore]] workings known as '''[[scowle]]s''' ''([[:Image:Puzzlewood.jpg|pictured]])'' in the [[Forest of Dean]], [[England]], are believed to have been an inspiration for settings in [[J. R. R. Tolkien]]'s ''[[Lord of the Rings]]''?
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+|[[The Trons]]|| [[Image:Thetrons.jpg|100x100px]] ||25,000||... that [[New Zealand]] band '''[[The Trons]]''' ''[[:Image:Thetrons.jpg|(pictured)]]'' has no human members?
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+|[[National Cleavage Day]]|| [[Image:National Cleavage Day.jpg|100x100px]] ||24,000||... that '''[[National Cleavage Day]]''' was started in [[South Africa]] in 2002?
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+|[[La Princesse]]|| [[Image:La Princesse.jpg|100x100px]] ||24,000||... that '''[[La Princesse]]''' ''([[:Image:La Princesse.jpg|pictured]])'', a giant mechanical [[spider]], roamed the streets of [[Liverpool]], [[England]] as part of the 2008 [[European City of Culture]] celebrations?
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+|[[Scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow]]||[[Image:SMS Hindenburg sunk.jpg|100x100px]] ||22,300||... that 52 ships of the German [[High Seas Fleet]] were successfully '''[[Scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow|scuttled in Scapa Flow]]''' ''([[:Image:SMS Hindenburg sunk.jpg|example pictured]])'' in 1919, but many were later [[marine salvage|salvage]]d?
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+|}