Wikipedia talk:Did you know

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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.

Do you have a suggestion for improving DYK, or would like to comment on the suggestions of others? Have your say at Wikipedia:Did you know/2017 reform proposals.

Transclusions on nomination page, suggested solution

background discussion from WT Village Pump (technical)

This problem has existed for a few months on Template talk:Did you know. Once you get down to the newest subsection dates, the templates don't transclude very well. We were told back in September that the problem was that page is exceeding Template limits Post expand include size. At that time, we had a large special occasion holding area for various special events. The holding area has very little in it now, and the number of nominations we have are otherwise a lot less. The problem is worse than ever. Regardless of what is causing this, can it be fixed? As the internet expands, so does the size of everything programmed into it, and DYK won't be the only ones this happens to. How do we fix it for the future? — Maile (talk) 21:52, 30 October 2016 (UTC) Abandoning Template limits would be a decision that would need to be taken at WMF level, and they're vanishingly unlikely to authorise it since it's not a bug, it's an intentional feature to prevent DDOS attacks. The way around it is to use fewer transclusions; remember that each DYK nomination includes {{DYK conditions}}, {{DYK nompage links}}, {{main page image}}, {{DYKsubpage}} and {{DYKmake}} plus whatever else the reviewing bot adds, so each transcluded nomination counts as six or more transcluded templates. ‑ Iridescent 22:02, 30 October 2016 (UTC) The standard fix for template size problems is to substitute templates and to remove any nested transclusions. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 22:13, 30 October 2016 (UTC) Exactly how would DYK go about that? — Maile (talk) 22:23, 30 October 2016 (UTC) On a quick skim, the {{DYK conditions}} template doesn't appear to have any great use and has three nested templates of its own, so getting rid of that would save four templates-per-nomination immediately (with the current 53 nominations, that's an instant saving of over 200 templates, which will probably solve the problem on its own). Basically, go through the five templates I list above, and anything that's not actually both essential to your process, and essential that it remains unsubstituted, think about whether it would be possible to do without it or enforce substitution of it. You could also probably shave quite a bit off by ruthlessly enforcing a "no untranscluded templates in discussions" rule, and clamping down on anyone who uses {{od}}, {{tq}}, {{done}} etc in discussions. ‑ Iridescent 22:41, 30 October 2016 (UTC) Neither {{DYKmake}} nor {{DYKnom}} should be of concern, since they're commented out. I imagine that increased use of the {{DYK checklist}} for reviews is also contributing to the problem. Does the use of the {{*}} template contribute to the problem or not? It's currently being used by the DYKReviewBot. One template that we absolutely need to retain is the {{DYKsubpage}} template, since it is the final substitution of that template that closes the nomination. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:14, 31 October 2016 (UTC) Every time this happens I hope it will finally be the motivating factor to do the seemingly obvious and move the reviewed/approved nominations to a different page. DYK that nobody can read that thing on a phone? Opabinia regalis (talk) 05:12, 31 October 2016 (UTC) Oh, and the answer is yes, templates that are actually transcluded all count, so if there's a bunch of templated bullets then that's definitely contributing. Opabinia regalis (talk) 05:19, 31 October 2016 (UTC) Then calling Intelligentsium, to see whether the templated bullets can come out of the reviews done by the DYKReviewBot, and any other avoidable templates. Also pinging John Cline, who created {{DYK conditions}}, to see whether there is some way to get the job done more efficiently templatewise, assuming that the job still needs to be done. I have no idea whether the 2015 conversion of {{NewDYKnomination}} to invoke a Module with the same name rather than do the work in a template would have affected the need for DYK conditions or not. BlueMoonset (talk) 07:52, 31 October 2016 (UTC) Thank you BlueMoonset for your kindness and astute manner; inviting me to join this discussion. I was not aware of it until now, nor did I know anything of the circumstances forbearing it. I am therefore disadvantaged from giving an answer; ore the research I've yet to do. When I catch up with the topic, however, I am confident that the answers being sought will be found. If I wasn't so Spock-like, I can imagine myself getting all butt-hurt about not being notified of questions being asked of these templates, perhaps others as well. I was told in the past, things about my style in writing; and before that, of many ill effects that style was cursed to engender. Here, it seems that enduring months of template malfeasance was preferable to enduring discussion where I would invariably be. Being all Spock-like; and all: I feel terrible that this may in fact be. I really do.--John Cline (talk) 11:24, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

We have to do something soon. The nominations page is quickly dissolving into nothing but wikilinks with no transclusions. Yes, I know the Prep/Queue page has always been used as the holding area. We cannot control how other people edit nomination templates - i.e. large amounts of text, template comments, additional image suggestions. The way it has always been is not the way that will work for the future.

Below is my suggestion. — Maile (talk) 16:59, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Suggested solution

• The nomination page stays but only includes those which have received no approval whatsoever.
  • Reviewers who only are only interested in non-problem hooks have less to scroll through to find something of interest.
  • This would make a cleaner page for first-time reviewers who get confused by the glut we now have.
• The Prep/Queue page stays exactly like it is, nothing changes about how it works.
• A new subpage is created where any nomination that receives an approval is moved there by a bot (or human).
  • Special occasion holding areas, including April Fools' Day, appears at the bottom of this page. It stays consistently as is, in the fact that hooks are only moved here after approved on the main nominations page.
  • Prep promoters draw from this page.
  • Reviewers who like to check for problem areas on approved nominations look here.
  • Any disputed approval and any post-approval ALT hooks added are worked out on this subpage
  • Any hooks pulled from Prep, Queue, or the main page are put back here.

Please add comments below

Comments

• Yep, sounds like an excellent idea to me too. Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:44, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

  The bot will now used the substed the template {{*}} - it's weird that the page exceeds the transclusion limit so easily though. The previous time involved {{hat}}, {{hab}} which were being used more than once per nomination, and had several transclusions underneath as well, whereas {{*}} seems to be just a Unicode character. However I think it may be a bit of a hassle to move hooks between two pages - if you move them the moment they are seen by a human, you would probably quickly get the same problem on the second page, but moving them back and forth would be a huge hassle. Intelligentsium 00:59, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

  I know you have worked hard on the bot, but we didn't have this problem before it was activated. If the problems with it can't be ironed out soon, I think we are just going to have to retire it. That would surely be a better solution than having two separate nomination pages. Gatoclass (talk) 17:30, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

  I agree it's more trouble, but I think having a place where approved noms are gathered, for further intense scrutiny by the "eagle eyes", will extremely helpful, as well as solving the overflow problem. EEng 18:58, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

  The bot had been down for a few weeks, and this problem continued even in its absence. — Maile (talk) 19:07, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

• Support, and... can we add the provision that nom page stays open until the bot closes it (maybe at the moment the hook moves to the main page, or -- better -- at the moment the hook comes off the main page)? EEng 18:58, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

  And have any dialogue on pulled hooks happen there, so that any nominator, reviewer, or other participant on that nomination would be aware of it as long as they watch-listed the open template. I don't know the mechanics of having a bot close the nomination, but it's worth asking Shubinator if that's possible to do in conjunction with whatever else DYKupdatebot does. — Maile (talk) 21:43, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

  Exactly. I'd also like to add a further suggestion that adding the green tick (which is presumably what will trigger the bot moving the nom page to this new "approved area") should always be accompanied by a tentative designation of exactly one of the (possibly several) ALTs as the one to used. Further discussion in the "approved area" might change that, but this way once the nom moves to the "approved area" there's just a single ALT that the "eagle eyes" (our precious editors who focus on quality control) will have to focus on checking. EEng 01:01, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

  If closing a nomination just involves subst'ing the DYKsubpage template and marking it as passed (with humans responsible for moving the noms between the various pages, except for queue -> main page), DYKUpdateBot can do this while promoting the set (not while taking it down). As BlueMoonset noted, the bot will not know about comments that should go into the "2" field. With this model, how will folks know which admin promoted the nomination into the queue? Shubinator (talk) 01:16, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

  The promoter simply posts on the bottom of the nom page e.g. ALT1 to Prep4 (without image). ~~~~. The bot closes the nom as it swaps the hook set onto Main Page (i.e. at the same time the credit boxes are posted to creator/nominator talk pages) and the 2= could be Swapped onto Main Page 0800 22 Jan 2017 UTC. This way, all concerns prior to the actual main-page appearance can be discussed on the still-open nom page, where it belongs; concerns arising after that time have to go through ERRORS as now.

  I think it would be ideal if, while we're at it, we changed the bot actions of posting credits to editor Talk, and closing the nom pages, to the moment the hook set is swapped off of the main page. Then the nom page really stays open for the entire life of the hook, "cradle to grave". But I recognize this might be more complex to do. EEng 02:14, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

  Mark me as opposing the further suggestion: the reviewer should feel free to check and approve as many interesting hooks as seem appropriate and are properly support in both article and sources, but not all reviewers are the best judges of which is the best, and sometimes the person assembling a prep set will pick one good hook over another good hook because it better balances the prep set. To limit it to exactly one hook of the reviewer's choice also reverses the deference we've given to the nominator regarding proposed hooks.

  As for the promoter, may I suggest that the promoter be required to fill in the 2 field with their promotion message? The bot's closing of the page will cause the time of closure to be added to the page. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:46, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

  The reviewer can approve as many ALTs as he or she wants, but (my suggestion is) that just one of them will be designated, tentatively, as the one that will appear. Further discussion might change that, selecting a different ALT, but starting at this point there would be only one ALT on the table at a given time for a given nom, so that attention can focus on it for error-checking and so on. To increase quality and reduce errors appearing on Main Page, it's essential that the checking process begin further upstream than it does currently i.e. currently this doesn't start until Prep, and now it can start when the nom is moved to this new "approved area". But it needs to focus on one potential hook at a time; if multiple hooks are in play, the checking just can't be thorough. I don't buy that this constrains prep set assembly enough to outweigh the advantages, and again I say that the designation of a single hook is only tentative, subject to change. EEng 05:40, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

• Support. It will make it so much easier to scroll through the set of approved hooks when building prep sets. Yoninah (talk) 19:01, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
• Support. This is an excellent suggestion. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 19:10, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
• Support sounds fine LavaBaron (talk) 01:55, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
• Support, since I have no major objections. I do have a couple of doubts though. First, my understanding of the technicalities is not great, but if this problem is arising from people using too many templates without substituting them, it would seem that this is relatively a small fix: and that unregulated use of templates in the review process is going to create a problem again sooner or later. So, wouldn't it make sense to create some guidelines for folks editing the nomination pages, to help with this? Second, I find that very many of the hooks that need reviewing at any given time, and indeed the ones requiring the most attention, are not "fresh" nominations, but those that have been reviewed already, but require a new reviewer for whatever reason. @Maile66: where would these fit in your scheme? Vanamonde (talk) 04:20, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

  Vanamonde93 Regarding the guidelines, it does begin to be instruction creep. We cannot control what editors really do, no matter how many guidelines we write. As we experience on this talk page, a lot of editors aren't reading the guidelines anyway. So, we can spend a lot of time spinning our wheels and complaining on the talk page about those who do what they want, but we cannot control others. As to your second question, perhaps I wasn't clear. The minute a nomination receives a passing tic, it gets moved to the new page. There it stays, and any further issues or comments happen on that page. That means turn-around ticks on review questions, pulled hooks that were already promoted. Anything. EEng has suggested we keep the template open until when/if the nomination is off the Main page. Keeping it on that page does not close out the nomination, but leaves it there in a way that anyone with a given nom template on their watch-list will be aware it needs attention. New (first time) reviewers will have an easier time with unreviewed templates than figuring out why an already approved nom is in the midst of revision for one thing or another. — Maile (talk) 13:20, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

  @Mail66 and Gatoclass: I think you're right about the guideline creep, but I didn't necessarily mean another page or another bullet point in the current set. What I mean is that we can do minor things that should still add up to something substantive. For instance, some folks mentioned templates (DYK checklist) that are only used at DYK: we can add a note to the documentation saying that they must be substituted, and also possibly have a bot substitute them every time. We can add to the DYK template edit notice, asking people to minimize their use of templates. And so forth. I imagine that other folks can think of other options. Vanamonde (talk) 16:03, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

• Comment: Per Vanamonde, I think what we need to be doing is working out why this problem is occurring, and take steps to eliminate or minimize it, because it never used to occur even with 350 nominations and now it's occurring with just 150. If the number of nominations builds up again, the problem will recur. Gatoclass (talk) 06:54, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
• Comments: Keeping the nom open up until (and even through) the main page appearance seems reasonable to me, so long as the technical template issues can be addressed. I think it is fine and appropriate for a reviewer to choose a hook, but also to leave the choice open to the promoter, but I would like to see some reasoning posted. I've had a few cases where I've wondered why a hook was chosen (or not chosen), which I find frustrating and yet asking the promoter every time could get awfully intrusive given the relatively small group of set builders. Having another approved hook available is also useful in cases where an issue arises, because sometimes swapping hooks rather than pulling might be reasonable and appropriate. I would also like to see an explicit requirement that all ALTs be reviewed because I've had at least one case of offering several and only the first being reviewed / promoted on the presumption it was my preference (an incorrect assumption on that occasion, but understandable and arising from poor communication on my part). EdChem (talk) 07:15, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

  I believe you make a valid point about the ALTs being reviewed. I've noticed the same thing. If all hooks are not reviewed, then the review isn't complete. It does a disservice to both the nominator and the promoter. Also, I have no problem with the promoter leaving a small note on the template about why a given hook among several available was promoted. — Maile (talk) 13:54, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

  Yes, Maile66, with my Timothy N. Philpot nomination, only the ALT0 has been reviewed and it was my fall-back option if all the others (which I think are more interesting) are rejected on undue negativity grounds. So, I posted here at WT:DYK requesting input, but the thread attracted no responses. I'm not sure what to do because the rules technically require all ALTs to be reviewed but making an issue of my case will focus on the reviewer, who is behaving as others do and does a lot of DYK work. EdChem (talk) 14:22, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

• Support Good idea. There are currently several structural problems and the proposal looks like a sensible way forward. If there isn't one already, it would be good to have a page to document the process flow so that it's clear how a nomination progresses from page to page. Andrew D. (talk) 12:33, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
• Comment I've just converted Template:DYK checklist to use Module:DYK checklist, which makes each checklist take up about half the post-expand include size that it did before. This has resulted in 12 more nominations being visible at the bottom of Template talk:Did you know, but we are still quite a bit over the limit. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 01:40, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
• Comment I find it worrying that there isn't one bit about why this is happening - I don't mean technically, I mean temporally. The number of new articles continues to decline, there appears to be no (major?) change in the number of noms being posted per day, and I don't see anything about the technical limit being changed. This is the only time I've noticed it - it seems to have happened before but I assume for a short period? So why now, in 2016? Maury Markowitz (talk) 15:38, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
  • @Maury Markowitz: I think the cause of this might be the bot, which adds a bunch to text to every nomination. Pppery 20:17, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

    Ahh, so it's based on the total text, not the number of transclusions? Maury Markowitz (talk) 20:44, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

    Yep. (It's actually more complicated than that, but) Pppery 21:01, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Maury Markowitz We have actually been discussing this a great deal on this talk page. A year or two ago, our individual reviews weren't so complicated, except in the case of drawn-out threads. Most were pretty brief. But graphics, text, little check templates, and a lot of thing have increased the size of the individual nominations transcluded. We also now have the bot that does a preliminary review. However, that bot was down for several weeks, and the problem continued. When we pushed it to the limits, the visual kind of went kaflooey. Think of what happens with your browser if the cache doesn't get cleared for a long time - eventually things aren't working right on a given page. It's kind of like that. Have you read the green hatted text at the top? We've exceeded our Template limits Post expand include size, and only WMF can give us more. And that isn't likely to happen, because WMF has safeguards in place to prevent a Denial of Service attack. Little things help some, like not putting checkmark templates on the nomination. But in the long run, we'll be pushing the limits and need to come up with a solution. — Maile (talk) 21:09, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

I did, and also visited the link you have here. Neither stated this clearly, nor included any specific numbers or examples. Maury Markowitz (talk) 21:24, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Summary and implementation?

So it's one thing for there to be a lot of support, but it's another for someone to do it. What next? EEng 01:30, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

• We do need to work the mechanics of this. And we need a bot to help, perhaps Shubinator's bot or something already in existence that just need extra code for this. — Maile (talk) 02:00, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

"Just..." EEng 02:20, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

The nomination page seems to have returned to normal. Has someone actually resolved the problem, or is this as the result of some faulty nomination being promoted and archived? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:56, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Isn't that interesting? — Maile (talk) 12:29, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Yes, but it's only a matter of time before the problem comes back, and there were other good reasons for doing this. Thus I hope the extensive paid and pampered staff in charge of doing things like this get right to it. EEng 05:37, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

EEng, the problem did not fade away gradually but came to a sudden conclusion. One moment there were a host of nominations not properly displayed and a few hours later, there were none. This happened, as far as I can tell, late on the 12th November or early on the 13th. I think it was due to a problem nomination which was promoted and archived at that time, and will likely not recur. I suspect, without good evidence, the Moses Bensinger nomination. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:36, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

It's been a problem in the past and (I repeat) there were other reasons for doing this. (Commenting mostly to keep the thread alive.) EEng 19:40, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

There is more than one theory about why this happened, and we don't know for sure. But at this point, it's not happening. This would certainly support the idea that exceeding Template limits Post expand include size was not the problem after all, or this would still be happening. We have recently seen how one background edit can affect DYK like the bottom card being removed from a house of cards. We don't know why this happened, and we don't know why it stopped. What I have proposed here about a separate page for approved nominations would be a large undertaking to implement and maintain, unless there was a bot involved. I think the above Supports are mostly because it would be easier for promoters if we had a separate page for approved nominations. I yield to the majority, however this turns out. But we still need to get it implemented if we go with it. — Maile (talk) 13:15, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

• @BlueMoonset, Cwmhiraeth, and EEng: I just noticed right above the special holding area, we are having this transclusion problem again. And it's getting worse. It magically clears up for a few days, and then clogs up again. One of the great mysteries of the universe. — Maile (talk) 22:27, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

• Maile, the number of active nominations (and therefore templates) has been steadily increasing, so it's natural that we'd run into the transclusion problem. It had been happening with 160 or more active nominations; now it's happening with 250/260 or more. That's quite a difference. If we had four or five prep/queue sets built at any one time, we wouldn't be having transclusion problems at the moment, though if the number of noms continues to build, we would regardless. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:41, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

• Let's not let the flame flicker and die. EEng 04:51, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

All hail Wugapodes!

I saw this and whipped together a script that managed to do the first part of the reorder: put any hooks that have been accepted onto a different page (and remove all the accepted/closed ones from the nom page). You can see the output on User:Wugapodes/Did you know/Approved hooks and User:Wugapodes/Did you know. If people like this and think this is something I should continue working on, I can make it so that the holding queues are on the other page like suggested. Let me know if this is helpful or not. Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 07:12, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

YES! YES! YES! Everyone, please review what Wugapodes has done so far. (Wugapodes, by "holding queues" do you mean the special holding areas for e.g. holidays?) Also, let's all remember that this was a package of ideas about changing the sequence of events in review, approval, and promotion, especially with regard to when nom pages get closed and so on. Let's make maximum use of this opportunity to implement as many good ideas for improving things while this sucker wonderful volunteer Wugapodes is willing to dig in and do the work. EEng 23:05, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Ah, yes, I did mean the holding areas. Poor phrasing on my part. Be sure to let me know of any ways I can procrastinate writing help. Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 23:20, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

I like what you've done. Please pursue this — Maile (talk) 00:54, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

It looks good. One thing I noticed, at the moment the nomination José Antonio Raón y Gutiérrez for 23 October appears on your approved list. The template is splattered with ticks but the nomination has not in fact been approved. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:22, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Awesome work! But yes, we do have to decide how to deal with "challenged" nominations, where the approval is superseded by a later comment. Also, perhaps approved nominations should remain visible until they reach the main page, to encourage discussions to occur there and not on the main DYK talk page if they get pulled from the queue. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 01:18, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Wugapodes, great idea. For your algorithm: it has always been the case that the final icon rules; that's how Shubinator's DYKHousekeepingBot builds the List of DYK Hooks by Date table on the DYK queue and nomination pages. So if the final icon of the six allowed is one of the two ticks, then the nomination goes on the approved page; if red arrow, question mark, slash, or X, it goes on the regular nominations page. I queried Shubinator a couple of days ago about updating his bot to combine the contents of the current noms page and a new Approved noms page, and he hopes to have something ready to test by the end of the week. We'd need to decide on a name/location for the approved page: I would suggest an /Approved page directly below the current nominations page (Template talk:Did you know/Approved). I don't believe we want to use the word "hooks" in the page name because each entry is an approved nomination, not an approved hook. Finally, because Special occasion hooks are supposed to be approved, they should be kept on the Approved page but in their own section where the new moving bot should probably not be allowed to make modifications. We may want a stub of a Special occasions section on the regular nominations page, also where new the bot should not go, with much the explanation that is there now, along with a link to the approved special occasion nominations. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:08, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Let me suggest the following:

• Once the green tick appears, move the nom to the Approved page.
• If the green tick is later overridden, don't move it back off the Approved page -- too confusing and doesn't happen so much that it matters. Thus the Approved page is really the "got approved at some point even if maybe it's not currently approved". This way more eyes get on a "troubled" nom, and that's a good thing.
• I thought about having a delay of X hours, after the green tick appears, before moving the nom to the Approved page, to give a little time in case the original tick is going to be overridden, but again I don't think it's worth the complexity (and sometimes we're trying to rush something through the process, so we don't want a delay).

Other points:

• Keep the nom page open until the hook is swapped off the main page. In fact, all the ancillary stuff that currently happens as the hook set is swapped onto the main page (closing nom page, handing out credits to user talk pages) can be delayed together to the swap-off.
• I'd like to make a plea for not importing, to the Approved page, the date structure of the main nominations page. Please, just add newly-ticked noms to the end of the page, so that those doing QA can simply watch for new stuff at the end. Please, please. This obsession with maintaining some kind of priority structure based on "date of creation or date expansion began" is completely stupid. (Having special-occasion holding areas is fine, and of course prepbuilders are free to jump around the Approved page in selecting hooks.)

EEng 04:20, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

@BlueMoonset and Antony-22: My interpretation of the proposal was like EEng's, even noms approved but later challenged would be on the approved page, and I think that's a good thing per EEng. Though if we'd like to discuss which is better, It's an easy change. @EEng: I'm not sure what you mean with your first other point, are you proposing a change to the way hooks get promoted to queues or is this something I can change in the script? I agree with your second point, and was how I wanted to set it up but I decided to not rock the boat too much. If others like that idea I would be glad to make that change. Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 04:58, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

The current procedure is that the prep builder selects a hook from a green-ticked nom page and adds it to a prep set; at the same time he/she closes the nom page (by changing some parameter in the enveloping template, and subst'ing it). Unfortunately, this means that if there's later trouble with the hook, there natural venue for discussing it (the nom page) is no longer available -- this is the main reason you see so much "pull" discussion at Talk:DYK. Also, in the current procedure, as the bot swaps a Queue of hooks onto the main page, that's the moment that the bot goes to the talk pages of the various involved editors for each article, to post congratulations.

My idea is this: when a nom is selected to donate a hook to a prep set, the nom is no longer closed; instead the prep builder simply posts a comment at the bottom of the nom, "To Prep 4 (without image)" or whatever. After the prep set becomes a queue set, and then is eventually swapped onto the main page, no credits are given as they are now. Instead, 24 hours (or whatever) later, as the hook set is swapped off the main page, at that time the bot passes out credits to editors (as it does now, just 24 hours later than it used to), plus (a new job for the bot) the nom page is finally closed. This way, the nom page remains open "from cradle to grave" for discussion of problems, no matter how late they arise. Also (hate to say it) if the hook is modified during its main page appearance, the credits that appear in various places will quote the final hook as of the moment it's swapped out, not the original (presumably inferior) hook that was swapped in at the beginning of the 24 hours. EEng 05:15, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

EEng, can I suggest that we take this in stages? There's an immediate issue: the nominations page is too big. There's going to need to be a lot of coordination between the new Wugapodes bot and the Shubinator bots. DYKHousekeepingBot is going to need to keep track of how many nominations there are between the pages, and be able to count both kinds (approved and not approved) on both pages. It's also going to have to figure out which nominations out there aren't yet transcluded, which involves checking both pages. Adding the rest into the initial separation stage is going to cause all kinds of delays in the separation. Let's concentrate on getting the pages separated before redesigning the whole process.

As for keeping the nominations open after promotion, I think this is going to cause more problems than it solves. Assuming we do keep the nominations open until they've been promoted to the main page and left it—remind me how we make sure that an open nomination isn't in one of the preps or queues or on the main page so it doesn't get promoted multiple times?—DYKUpdateBot (which puts the notifications on article and user talk pages) will have to do the close. The notification of promotion is now less friendly: instead of being told that the article you nominated is now on the main page and you can go see it there, you get notified after it has left the main page, so you probably missed it. I think you're being optimistic about the number of people who will see formerly approved hooks on the approved page; reviewers generally won't go there because the hooks are supposed to be approved. Special occasion hooks that run into trouble rarely find reviewers after the fixes have been made because they're in an area where only approved hooks should be; I think we'll be looking at the same thing here. Finally, the set builders select from both green- and gray-ticked nominations. It's the tick that counts, not so much its color. (With the gray AGF ticks, more care should be taken.) BlueMoonset (talk) 05:51, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

• Yes, for "green tick" I should have said "green or gray".
• I don't care too much when the credits are handed out -- do them during swap-in if you want -- but I feel strongly about keeping the nom page open until the final swap-out. Right now Talk:DYK is far too cluttered with discussions that should be going on back on the nom page, where all the relevant background already is. [Later-added point]: I do see the value of having involved editors notified at the moment of swap-in to the main page, since they can monitor for vandalism etc. Of course, that assumes they log in and find the notice, but we can but try.
• I'm not being optimistic about the # of people will be reviewing the Approved page, because I think there will be few such people -- people like TRM and Fram, our resident eagle-eyes (with eagle beaks and claws, of course). Right now serious post-tick QA doesn't start until the hook is in a prep set, by which time it's already a hassle to pull it back; this new Approved page, in addition to making prep-building easier and solving (we hope) the technical transclusion-limit problem, provides the perfect place for that final QA to take place. I think we'll find that most of the attention now directed at Talk:DYK (which should really be a place for policy and process discussions, not individual hooks) will switch to the Approved page. Obviously for any of this to work the nom needs to stay open until final swap-out.

EEng 06:14, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

• @BlueMoonset: EEng suggested writing a comment, but I think a template like they use for categories at AFD might be useful. It could keep track of the whole history, including who promoted it to prep and who removed it from a queue and when. Something like:

Wugapodes promoted this to prep 3 ~~~~

So it's obvious but not intrusive. I think the suggestion is a good one because I agree that discussions of a nom, even after being promoted, should take place there just so the history is easier to see. Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 06:54, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

(All hail!, indeed!) @Yoninah and Cwmhiraeth: The two of you do the major lifting in promoting to prep, so your input here would be good feedback. — Maile (talk) 13:55, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

When hooks are reviewed they are often clunky, ungrammatical or otherwise not ideal. As a promoter, I consider the wording of the hook and if I think only trivial alterations are needed, I will move it to prep verbatim, and make alterations when it is in the prep set. Afterwards, others may also think it needs rephrasing, so what appears on the main page may be far removed from that on the template. I think it would be useful for this history to be available from the nomination template. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 14:27, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

make alterations when it is in the prep set -- We've all done this, and we've all gotten in hot water at one time or another for it; it's the wrong place to be doing that. I submit that if you think a hook on the Approved page needs tinkering with, you should post something to the nom like, "Isn't there a grammar problem with ALT1? I think this ALT1a corrects it...", then propose your ALT1a and move on to find a hook elsewhere, giving time for those watching the nom page to evaluate your suggestion. In other words, either take the hook as approved, or suggest a change, but don't edit it on the fly or in prep -- the people who know the article, the topic, and the nom's history best aren't watching there. Because this is all happening under in the "Approved page fishbowl", our sharpest eyes will now be on these final adjustments. EEng 16:14, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

It would be nice to be distinguish the noms on the approved page by their status: approved, challenged, in prep, in queue, on Main Page. This could be either by having separate sections for each, or having an index or some other visual difference between them. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 16:45, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Whether a nom is approved-unchallenged or approved-challenged or gone-to-prep will be apparent by the ticks and comments at the end of the nom. (Perhaps we could have a "gone to prep" tick, but again I emphasize that it should be specified exactly which hook went, w/ or w/o image, which prep set, who moved it, etc.) ("Gone-to-prep" includes three sub-stages, really: in Prep, moved to Q, on main page; and swapped-off-off-main page closes the nom and removes it from Approved.) Weparate sections would make it a little easier on prep-builders, but at the cost of a lot of complexity, and we can always add that later if experience suggests it would be worth it. EEng 17:13, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

• Question @BlueMoonset, EEng, Wugapodes, Cwmhiraeth, and Antony-22: Depending ... if the hooks are left on the new "approved" page after promotion, then I think we need to do a little rewriting on the how-to of promoting to prep, etc. Specifically this part:

In the DYK nomination template

1) Replace the line {{DYKsubpage with {{subst:DYKsubpage

2) Replace |passed= with |passed=yes

3) Check in Preview mode - if it was done correctly, everything will be against a pale blue background. There should be no stray characters (like }} ) at the top or bottom.

4) Edit summary should indicate which prep area you are moving the hook to.

5) Save

So, will a bot actually close out the template once a hook has retired successfully from its main page appearance? — Maile (talk) 23:06, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're saying. My proposal is that the promoter do step (4) when taking a hook to put in prep. (As I said before, maybe we'll invent a new tick/template for "gone to prep".) Then, as the hook comes off the main page, the bot does the other stuff. EEng 23:12, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Step 1 and 2 right now actually close out the nomination template, and that's done manually by the promoter. So, you can't have a step 4 without 1, 2, 3. But...yes...that was the question. The template will stay open until the hook has had a successful run on the main page. Then a bot closes the template. Yes? — Maile (talk) 23:21, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Um, ok... I guess. I still don't see what the confusion was, but I think we're somehow saying the same thing. EEng 23:56, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Maile, at the point that this goes live, we're going to have to have already prepared numerous revisions to the various instructions, not merely to that one section, assuming all these changes are made to the process. We'll probably also want to put warnings on the Prep pages that there are changes and promoters should familiarize themselves with these before building sets. You never know when someone who's been away for a few months will come back and use the process they know, unaware of the changes since they left. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:57, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

I guess that was my main concern, that promoters wouldn't know the new routine. And I agree that the new process should be posted in numerous places. Even if promoters are currently active, and checking this talk page ... if they haven't participated in this wall of text on how it will be changed, they might be completely unaware. — Maile (talk) 01:18, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

You leave for a couple hours and suddenly there's a bunch of new stuff.

• @EEng: I'm not too concerned about edits that happen in prep. Like the guide says, we can't stop and ask the nom about every change, plus it's CC licensed so might as well take advantage of that. If it's a big change, send it back (or don't promote), but for small grammatical errors and rewordings that don't change the meaning, I think the way it's done is fine.
• @Antony-22: I actually like that idea. I think having, minimally, an "approved", "promoted", and "pulled" section would be useful for promoters and reviewers. I'll think about how to add something like that in.
• @Maile66 and BlueMoonset: I'm thinking about how to actually implement a lot of this and I think a lot of changes can be done on the back end of templates and bots to make procedure changes minimal. Essentially all that happens when the DYKsubpage template is subst'd is that it includes the archival template. If we just edit that template to not do that any more, we can keep it open but still keep the actual procedure similar.

If you need me, I'll be in template space trying to whip up some examples/proposals. Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 03:07, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

You know, actually, maybe the changes shouldn't be minimal? Perhaps this is a good time to actually streamline the process, simplify, and make it easier for editors. Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 03:20, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm not too concerned about edits that happen in prep -- Unfortunately experience shows that judgment, by persons not previously involved in a particular nom, about what constitutes a big change vs. a small rewording has been (to put it charitably) unreliable. It makes little sense for a detailed review and discussion process to be followed by a silent tinkering visible only in the edit history of the Prep template, made by someone who's been looking at the nom and the article for 90 seconds. And yes, we can ask the nominator and reviewer about every little change (in the sense of posting a suggested change to the nom change and waiting for comment) -- part of the reason it's healthy to have, to the extent possible at any given time, a large pool of approved hooks awaiting promotion is exactly so there's no hurry to promote any given hook, and thus comment can be invited on even apparently minor changes. This is the main page, after all, and there's many a slip twixt the cup and the lip. The guide says what it says currently because the current process forced us to make many such on-the-fly changes, and we were just closing our eyes and hoping for the best. One salutary outcome of the current effort should be to put an end to that by keeping the nominator and reviewer in the loop until the very end. EEng 04:03, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

• @EEng: Right now it takes some searching to figure out which puck is the most recent one; it's a minor annoyance right now when I'm scanning through the noms to find a hook to review. Even having a prominent banner at the top of each nom would work, if people don't want them divided into sections, though if a bot's controlling the page sections wouldn't be hard to maintain. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 03:28, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Well, if we rechristen the |passed= parameter as |status=, then it could take on values like some_hook_approved, hook_to_prep, appeared (i.e. has finished its main-page appearance, though maybe this is just closed), and these could manifest as the banners you're envisioning. Back on the giant concatenated nominations page, it could be the change to some_hook_approved that signals the bot to move the nom to the Approved page, instead of the mysterious scan-for-bottom-tick system used now. (We can still have the ticks, for humans.)

I really think having a bunch of sections is gilding the lily. Just add newly approved noms at the end, and prep builders should look for hooks, in general, near the top. Plus the special-occasion hold areas, of course. EEng 04:03, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Oh, wait, I misread Antony's post as talking about promoting hooks, when he was actually talking about finding noms to review. Since the reviewed noms (|status=some_hook_approved) will move to the Approved page, what is now the Nominations page will have only noms that haven't been approved yet, so finding a "virgin" should be easy. EEng 04:20, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

I was in fact talking about the new approved hooks page, but I was making an analogy with finding a hook to review. Just like people scan the noms page right now to find one to review, people may also want to scan the approved hooks to find one to promote or double-check, so it's important to be able to tell its status at a glance. Either displaying a prominent banner or having the bot keep them in separate sections would work for this. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 06:14, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

New template

For those interested in the idea I floated about an afd-like template, I made one that handles promotion and pulling. You'll want to see {{DYK moved}}:

{{subst:DYK moved|alt=1|toPrep=3}}

ALT 1 promoted to prep 3 – Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 04:51, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

{{subst:DYK moved|fromPrep=3}}

the nomination was pulled from prep 3 – Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 04:51, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

It has pretty intuative syntax (looking only add human-readable parts, "DYK moved alt 1 toPrep 3" and "DYK moved fromPrep 3"), it pulls left so it stands out and starts a new conversational block, it produces a standard output that is easy for bots to look for and parse. It could also be incorporated into the current {{DYKsubpage}} template in addition to the "status" parameter EEng mentioned above to automate the process perhaps. That will be my next goal. Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 04:51, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Please pace yourself. We need you for the long haul. The benefits of all this could be far-reaching. EEng 04:57, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Don't worry, it's all been rather simple. Believe it or not it's a nice break from my other work...not sure what that says about me. I tend to follow an iterative design model: prototype, seek feedback, and then scrap or adjust. I think it's easier for people to discuss changes when there's something to work off of which is more what I'm trying to provide than finished products, perhaps that wasn't clear. Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 05:31, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

@Wugapodes: Some comments/questions

(1) The blanks would be filled out by humans, for the bot to sense and do its thing. Right?

(2) If "alt=" is left blank, does it assume it's the non-alt hook?

— Maile (talk) 17:43, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

I think it would be better if the value was always explicit i.e. use 0 for "ALT0" i.e. the original hook. EEng 18:20, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

(1) That was my thought, yes. If you look at {{DYKsubpage/sandbox}} and Template:DYKsubpage/testcases you can see a mock-up of how it would work. Instead of subst'ing the dyksubpage template like previously, the promoter would fill in alt= and prep= which would automagically add this comment line. When it leaves the mainpage, a bot would subst the template closing it.

(2) For promotions it assumes alt 0, though that can also be explicit or treated as an error to leave it blank, for pulled hooks it just says what prep it was pulled from (if this gains traction, we'd want to add pulled from queue and mainpage also) but the specific hook that was pulled can be specified as well. Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 21:51, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree with User:BlueMoonset that we should take this in stages. As I've said previously, modifying DYKUpdateBot to close out nominations when taking sets off the Main Page isn't on the table right now. Let's focus on addressing the immediate issue of the nominations page, and then we'll have plenty of time to fine-tune other parts of the process. Shubinator (talk) 19:25, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

But it is on the table. We're discussing it now. Do you have any other reasons for not discussing it other than that you say we're not discussing it? EEng 22:02, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

EEng, what is being discussed here is going to require extensive modifications to DYKUpdateBot. Shubinator, the bot owner, has effectively said that this isn't something he can accomplish quickly: it's going to require discussion, specifications, and time to write and test, not to mention the necessity of getting the existing bot and Wugapode's proposed new bot not to get in each other's way. Right now, we have an immediate problem that needs solving: the nominations page is too big and dozens of nominations are not being transcluded, making it extremely difficult for people to work on them. To separate them, another of Shubinator's bots, DYKHousekeepingBot, needs to be modified to deal with two separate pages rather than one: a new Approvals page on top of the current Nominations page. Once that's done, we can safely separate the pages, the transclusion problem goes away, and the design of the new process can take center stage. It's a matter of priorities and time available to work them. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:13, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't care if the implementation is done in phases, but the design (rough, at least) should all be up front, especially if, as you say, it will require changes here there and everywhere, to avoid re-redoing stuff over and over. EEng 04:33, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

New page setup

"Conscience does make cowards of us all"

The native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pitch and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
– Hamlet III.1

Can the poetry, you loggerheaded onion-eyed strumpet! EEng 19:03, 24 December 2016 (UTC) Click here to refresh the Shakespearean Insult Generator

@Shubinator, BlueMoonset, EEng, Maile66, and Antony-22: It seems like we've all had wonderfully productive discussion, but what I think we need next is to decide what we are actually going to do and when. I think we all agree the first thing that needs to happen to get the nominations back in order is splitting the pages. I can do that literally whenever. What seems to be the biggest holds on actually doing it are (in order of my perceived importance):

• How such a change to the nomination page would affect with Shubinator's bots
• How a bot moving noms from one page to the other would interact with Shubinator's
• How the approved hooks page would look/function
• What changes to the DYK process would need to be made to document these changes

Given this, I have a few questions. The first is for Shubinator: what do you need from me to most efficiently modify the DYK bots so that they can work with the most minimal change of splitting the pages? The rest are general things to discuss, in order of imminent necessity:

1. How should the approved hook page be organized: like in the example (retain date sections), like EEng suggests (just add them to the bottom as we find them), like Antony-22 suggests (approved section, contested section, pulled section), or some other idea?
2. Are the more superfluous suggestions made so far worth discussion after the immediate problem is solved?
3. If so, how and where should that discussion take place? Like we have been already in this section, in a new section on this talk page, on a subpage to craft a proposal RFC, or some other option?

Hopefully we can get the immediate problem solved asap, while also improving the project. The discussion has been great so far, and I hope for more, but let's not "lose the name of action". Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 01:06, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Wugapodes

• In some ways, I wouldn't mind if this went to a separate page RFC. But what usually happens then, is out-of-sight-out-of-mind, and participation drops. On the other hand, this particular thread has been open since November 1, and it's down to the few of us to figure out the mechanics.
• I think it is probably visually essential to retain the date sections, so that we can focus on getting the older nominations promoted. Otherwise, I think older nominations would fall through the cracks. IMO, when BlueMoonset started the regular updated sections on older nominations needing DYK reviewers, it was an improvement in bringing eyes to nominations that had been forgotten. — Maile (talk) 01:32, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

• Wugapodes, I didn't see that there would be any significant changes to the Nominations page (Template talk:Did you know) itself insofar as the existing bots were concerned. There would be fewer hooks transcluded there with a bunch having been moved to another page, but varying numbers of transclusions are normal. (I suppose it might depend on whether the page changes while Shubinator's bot is reading it, but wouldn't that cause a collision error now if it could have happened?) There will inevitably be some textual changes to the instructions when the page splits, and then as the other proposed changes come on line, but it seems to me that the documentation modifications will take far less time than the design, specifications, coding, and testing. Please see below about the page split. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:46, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

I had posted to Shubinator's talk page a while ago, while this conversation had been moribund for a while, asking what he would need in order to revise DYKHousekeepingBot to check through two pages, of nominations and of approved nominations, and still be able to build the List of DYK Hooks by Date table that appears on the Queues and Nominations pages and lets us know how many hooks are out there and how many of them are approved. Losing this functionality (and knowledge of how many are approved) by separating the pages—the bot wouldn't see any on the Approved page—seemed to me to be a very bad idea. Per our discussion there, I've just created the bones of an Approved page, and seeded it with four hooks from December 6 plus the Special occasion hooks for next year.

My assumption was initially that the Approved section would have subsections by dates, but when I created a page today for Shubinator to test with—Template talk:Did you know/Approved (which I figured we could then populate for real once the bot was working)—I noted that the discussion seemed to be veering away from dates, so it might be best to just combined everything on the Approved page into one line on the List of DYK Hooks page. (I didn't populate any dates, just the main section as a whole.) Since Maile seems now to be heading back toward dates, maybe Shubinator should allow for date and non-date headers in the bot code revision, combining the dates from both pages, and adding lines for each additional category on the Approved page (but only one line for the entire Special occasions section). BlueMoonset (talk) 02:46, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

I noted that the discussion seemed to be veering away from dates to continue quoting Hamlet, "ay, there's the rub". I honestly have no feelings about how the approved page should be set up as all (except Antony-22's) would be trivial to implement (the sections-by-status would require some changes to the process to be viable, so perhaps we should stick a pin in that one). So trivial, in fact, I'll program it to do both and when we come to a decision on that, have it output the one we agree on. I'll get to work on that, incorporate the structure you have at Template talk:Did you know/Approved already, and should have something ready soon. Thanks for your response, it really helped clear things up. Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 04:23, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

So, perhaps a stupid question, but how will the special holding areas work? Will they be nominated on the nom page and then moved to a section on approved when approved? If so, is there some consistent formatting that the bot can look for to know to move it to a holding queue? If not, then this may be a minor snag. Two solutions could be to have humans do it (for now or forever), or to modify the way dates are requested to make it bot-readable. Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 04:53, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

After the bot moves it to the normal part of the Approved page, someone can then pick it up manually and move to the right special holding area; I really don't like locking too much structure into bot code. Since we're adding all the bells and whistles it might be nice to have a template parm |special_occassion= |special_occassion_requested=; it needn't be more than yes/no, and if it's yes that raises one of those famous colored banners to warn everyone it's not on the normal assembly line. EEng 06:26, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Special occasion should be a manual move: for one thing, it isn't an automatic grant. A human reviewer needs to take a look at it, and if they agree that this is indeed sufficiently special, and meets the criteria (it shouldn't be more than six weeks in the future, for example), then they can move it by hand to the Special occasion section and set up a new date section there if necessary. I would imagine that some of the time the reviewer will approve and move even before the bot takes action. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:58, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

The date separations is a valueless complication for no purpose. If newly-approved stuff is added at the bottom, and prep builders work from the top, it will tend to be FIFO, which is good enough. EEng 04:30, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Re dates, after having just read BlueMoonset post beneath mine, it occurred to me that we need Shubinaor's feedback on what might be the best avenue to take on that. I'll go with the majority opinion on this, as long as it is workable for Shubinator. — Maile (talk) 12:15, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

DYKHousekeepingBot can go either way on date sections. Right now it supports date sections, if we remove them the bot will need minor tweaking, definitely doable. Independent of the bots, when I was building DYK sets, the date sections were useful in reducing edit conflicts. Shubinator (talk) 23:43, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Unless I'm misunderstanding something only the bot will be editing the Accepted page anyway (adding noms that have just transitioned to some_hook_approved, and removing them at the end of their life) -- the exception being the rare time a hook is moved from the main Approved list to a special-occasion area. So I don't understand the edit-conflict argument.

One of the things I find really annoying about the date sections we now have on the giant nominations page is that new noms are popping up here and there all the time within the current 7-day window, so there's nowhere to watch to just see new noms as they arrive. If the date sections are just "date moved to Approved page" that's fine, but please don't arrange them by date nominated, because that means new stuff will always be appearing all over the Approved page, and those doing QA will have no way to find new additions systematically. EEng 02:59, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

---

I apologise in advance if this is a really bad idea, but what about a page that was a sortable table with a link to the nomination page, status, nomination date, etc. No transclusions, the bot could just add to the list, update entries, and remove items when they come off the main page. Length would be a non-issue. Wouldn't that help us a lot with working through the nominations in varying stages? An editor could sort by status if looking for pulled / needing review, or by date, or even by nominator / approver / promoter, if that was somehow useful. Include if there is an approved image, so we could look for older approved hooks with images, etc. EdChem (talk) 08:59, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

If, as I think you're suggesting, this would be an auxiliary structure that summarizes and indexes the content of the other page(s), then that really is something we can add later without impact on the design we're developing. EEng 09:07, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

EdChem I'm not sure if you're suggesting the table as the separate page we're talking about, or converting the nominations page to wiki links instead of transclusions. For one thing, wiki links also add to a page's size and bog it down. But the big issue is the visuals. Promoters should be able to scroll a page to eyeball potential hooks to complete a set. If we make it a system where they have to click on each link to see what it is, we discourage the incentive to promote hooks. Did I misunderstand what you are suggesting? — Maile (talk) 12:41, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm still concerned that when someone's scanning down the Approved page looking for a hook to promote, it's more difficult if the already-promoted hooks are mixed in. I agree that they should stay in date order within the sections, just without subsection headings. I know having the bot juggle noms between sections is a bit more work, but it also makes things a bit easier for promoters down the line. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:48, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

The colored banners you proposed should make things easy enough. Maintaining the structure you're proposing will require constant bot intervention. It's technical rococo. Simple is better. EEng 19:12, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

@EEng and Maile66: I didn't really have a concrete proposal, just an idea that was a thought-bubble. On reflection:

1. I would keep the nom page with the transclusions for the nominations yet to have an icon added (ticked, needs work, no, etc.).
2. I was originally thinking of the issue of which order is best, which a sortable table would allow each editor to tailor to their own needs. However, Maile's point on transclusions for the in progress / pulled / etc page is well made, so I guess what I am suggesting would be an adjunct.
3. My table page suggestion could summarise both pages and allow anyone to see every current nomnination in one place, by oldest, or status, or whatever else in the table. Statuses could be something like "nomination" (for on the current page), "new reviewer needed", "pulled", "GTG", "GTG (AGF)", "Waiting for action" (for when the nominator has been asked with a ? or / icon, or has acted and waiting for further input from the reviewer), "Promoted" or "In prep / queue". Having a table with no transclusions but only links means we don't run into the issue we presently have with too many templates.
4. Obviously any decision is contingent on consensus on the way forward, refinements / alterations / rejections / etc of suggestions made, and agreement from the bot operators on practicality and reasonableness, etc.

EdChem (talk) 22:10, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

@EdChem: have you seen Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Report? It seems rather analogous to what you're suggesting in that it augments the GA process by summarizing the nominations and directing attention to the older ones in each category (and overall). Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 23:22, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Wugapodes, I see that is one option. With nominations spread across two or more pages, a single page summary would (I think) be useful, and it needs to leave out the transclusions to be viable. I'm just throwing in an idea that seemed to me to address the concern over ordering and to be useful more generally, without advocating any single approach as the way forward. EdChem (talk) 02:53, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Wugapodes, DYKUpdateBot doesn't read the nominations page or the prep areas, so we're good on that front. DYKHousekeepingBot will need to be modified to 1) reflect the noms on the Approved page in the table generated at Wikipedia:Did you know/DYK hook count, and 2) not count nominations transcluded on the Approved page as orphaned nominations. DYKHousekeepingBot only reads the noms pages, so it shouldn't conflict with any nomination shuffling. #2 is a one-line change. As BlueMoonset mentioned, we've been iterating on #1, take a look at the modified bot's output here: User:Shubinator/Sandbox/DYK hook count. Feel free to provide feedback! Shubinator (talk) 23:52, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

DYKMoverBot Prototype

Happy holidays everyone, I have completed a prototype of the nomination mover script. It is currently set up to out put two styles, with date sections and without date sections. I have a few more things to work out before I can submit a BRFA, but the formatting for each page is set enough for feedback. Take a look, decide which you like best, make that preference known to me somehow. A possible option is to quasi-A/B test it. Use one for a few days, use the other for a few days and determine which was best for your workflow. Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 02:51, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

I have filed a Bot Request for Approval. Feel free to comment there. Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 23:20, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Too many cooks

I tried to consolidate the two sections above about Beryl Rawson as the content belongs together. This then resulted in a muddle as others rushed to revert while I was still in the middle of this. Anyway, here's my comment on the matter. I am putting this in a separate section for clarity, given the confused situation. Andrew D. (talk) 13:25, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

I received notification of this DYK appearance this morning and then had to waste some time establishing how and why the original approved hook was ruined. I discovered this correspondence which took place overnight while I was mostly asleep. And, in any case, there was no attempt to consult with the original authors, nominator or reviewer. The outcome here is exasperating. The topic was originally created at an editathon and I was planning to give the hook's appearance at DYK some follow-up publicity. Now, I don't want to do this because the hook now seems bloated and ugly. Please can people stop enabling such disruption of DYK. Andrew D. (talk) 13:16, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a collaborative project. The hook in question was bland and had no context whatsoever. The hook was vastly improved by adding context in that the use of computers at that time was quite novel and made it so much more interesting. I'd recommend it's used for follow-up publicity as a great example of how Wikipedia allows for communities to work out incremental improvements and that nobody owns anything. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:30, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

It's not about O-W-N, it's about R-E-S-P-E-C-T. EEng 15:23, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

"Post of the day!" The Rambling Man (talk) 15:26, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Whatever. Like I said, R-E-S-P-E-C-T. EEng 16:00, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes, we should respect the will of the community over the ownership of an individual. That's right. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:02, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Having the courtesy to consult the person who had the original idea, did most of the hard work, and probably knows the topic best has nothing to do with ownership. Go ahead and parrot yourself again now. EEng 16:20, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't think we need "expert opinion" on that hook, nor was there much "hard work", but bravo for trying. And, moving on from this rumbling!!!! The Rambling Man (talk) 19:43, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

And please, refrain from the personalisation yet again, especially in the edit summaries, you should know by now that you shouldn't be doing that, ever, no matter what. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:55, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

R-E-S-P-E-C-T. EEng 05:07, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Indeed. Try to avoid personalising these issues. At all times, refrain from personal attacks in edit summaries. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:15, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

I've said it before and I'll say it again, DYK sometimes lacks courtesy here of giving the original nominator the chance to comment on any changes made post review. Here clearly the nominator should have been informed/asked about the change if they agreed or not. It is not fair on them that admins can just run roughshod over what was originally intended just because they think its better than what the nominator wanted. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 10:57, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, bloody admins. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:49, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

• Here's a follow-up to see how that hook set scored. It's Gerda's music hooks that most need spicing up, as she won the wooden spoon again. The picture hook had quite a weak performance too. But I'm not surprised to see the mysterious Third Murderer coming out on top as I clicked through to it myself. Kudos to Ribbet32. Andrew D. (talk) 08:52, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

DYK vs OTD on 6 February 2017

White-browed robin-chat

• ... that the white-browed robin-chat sometimes nests on occupied buildings' walls and trellises covered with climbing plants?
• ... that under the 1850–1903 Oudh Bequest, six million rupees were transferred from the Indian kingdom of Oudh to the Shia holy cities of Najaf and Karbala?
• ... that Tilo Medek set Lenin's Decree on Peace for speaking voice and four percussionists, and wrote an opera based on a Böll novel?
• ... that the Precordillera Platform in Argentina may have originally broken off from rocks that are now in the southeastern United States?
• ... that in the late 1970s Beryl Rawson used computers to analyse the family life of Roman slaves?
• ... that the Big Sur Land Trust pioneered the "conservation buyer" method of preserving land, saving thousands of acres in Big Sur from possible development?
• ... that scholars have debated whether the mysterious Third Murderer in William Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth was Macbeth himself?

Page views

Article	6 Feb 2017
Third Murderer	7,085
Precordillera Platform	4,338
Beryl Rawson	3,464
Oudh Bequest	2,633
Big Sur Land Trust	2,484
White-browed robin-chat	2,203
Tilo Medek	880

February 6: Sami National Day (Sami people); Sapporo Snow Festival in Japan begins (2017); Ronald Reagan Day in most U.S. states

Duckworth's Action off San Domingo

• 1806 – Napoleonic Wars: When squadrons of British and French ships of the line engaged in the Battle of San Domingo (pictured) in the Caribbean Sea, the French ships Impérial and Diomède ran aground to avoid capture, but were caught and destroyed anyway.
• 1851 – The largest bushfire in a populous region in Australian history swept across Victoria, resulting in approximately five million hectares (twelve million acres) burnt.
• 1862 – Union forces earned one of their first important victories in the American Civil War at the Battle of Fort Henry in western Tennessee.
• 1952 – Elizabeth II ascended to the thrones of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and three other Commonwealth countries upon the death of her father, George VI.
• 2000 – Second Chechen War: Russia captured Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, forcing the separatist Chechen government into exile.

Page views

Article	6 Feb 2017
Battle of San Domingo	16,126
Battle of Fort Henry	13,672
Ronald Reagan Day	9,302
Battle of Grozny (1999–2000)	5,743
Sami National Day	5,694
Black Thursday bushfires	4,106
Sapporo Snow Festival	3,673

Are you going to copy-and-paste the hooks for each set here along with the bar charts every day? If so, I'd suggest you set up a sub-page somewhere where those actually interested in this kind of thing can read it without disrupting this talk page. If nothing else, the graph demonstrates that for all the work and templates and arcane rule-keeping, DYKs on average and pro rata receive considerably fewer views than the one-man OTD show. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:05, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

The OTD figures are good, but they have 24 hours not 12, and in most cases you can't be sure whether the hits arrive via OTD, as WP is far from the only site running such a daily list. An archive of DYK hits would be nice, but it should have its own page. Could it be bot-run? Johnbod (talk) 10:53, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

That's why I said pro rata, they still get more hits per hour than DYKs. Plus it's HIGHLY unlikely that other sites would be listing the same OTD elements as Wikipedia, they don't normally get selected until the day before in any case. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:15, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

I have added the equivalent figures for On this day, for comparison. The monarchs Elizabeth II and George VI have been omitted because they get much bigger numbers than this on an ordinary day. The Queen went from 79,318 on the previous day to 150,110 while her father went from 44,513 to 65,146. Those are serious readerships levels; the other items are all comparatively small beer. God save the Queen! Andrew D. (talk) 13:02, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Okay, enough now. It's well established that OTD readership is higher than DYK, and that OTD process is so much quicker and streamlined and less about ownership of hooks and more about the selection of good quality items for the main page. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:06, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

As has been explained before, OTD articles are established ones which have been on Wikipedia for many years and thus as a result have a lot more links to them which mean more views while DYK is new articles that haven't been around for long and so don't have the same level of links as OTD. It is not a like for like comparison. The Royal C (talk) 13:27, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

As has been explained before, the delta between the background hits and the hits they get on the day will be almost entirely attributable to their appearance in OTD. The delta is almost always 90 to 95% of the page views for that day. Hence why Andrew has elected to ignore Elizabeth II and George VI because they have background hits in the tens of thousands. Nevertheless, their deltas weree 70,000 and 22,500. The comparison is 100% valid. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:34, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

What nonsense! It is (adopting your style) HIGHLY unlikely that other sites would be listing EXACTLY the same OTD elements as Wikipedia, but it is TOTALLY INEVITABLE that dozens or hundreds of sites, papers, printed diaries etc list LOTS of them, thus totally destroying your faux-statistical claims. Johnbod (talk) 19:01, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Ok, indulge me. Where was the anniversary of the 1999 Battle of Grozny listed, printed, published online? Or if you don't like that one, try the Black Thursday bushfires.... The Rambling Man (talk) 19:28, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

The Black Thursday bushfires got 4106 views which was about the same as Beryl Rawson's 3464. This indicates that, if it's not a prominent anniversary, then an OTD entry will get about the same level of traffic as a DYK entry. That's just what one would expect as the level of traffic will depend mainly on the attractive qualities of the hook for such items. Andrew D. (talk) 09:50, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

That didn't answer the question, but thanks. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:52, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

But it is nonsense, nevertheless. Less than a week ago, for example, we had "Stephen, King of England was captured by forces loyal to the Empress Matilda at the Battle of Lincoln.", where Stephen drew 15,000 more hits than his baseline average. I don't think, somehow, that you would class that as a "prominent anniversary" and as we can see from above, DYKs rarely get above 5k hits, let alone 15k. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:57, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

That Battle of Lincoln was on 2 Feb. Checking the DYK for that day, we find that there were two batches. The lead hooks were Timoclea and Girl with Peaches which scored 14,062 and 24,550 respectively. Q.E.D. Andrew D. (talk) 10:21, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Nope, you've proved that a good picture gets good hits. Well that's a surprise! The Rambling Man (talk) 10:33, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

As has been explained before, OTD is run by one editor because it has drawn from a largely unchanging menu of items for 15 years. It gets large view counts because its items are selected for their broad appeal and because it's items appear on anniversaries, so huge amounts of traffic comes in from blogs and news items having nothing to do with the OTD appearance. EEng 13:48, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Not surprised to hear that, but sorry if you geuninely believe what you've written. The 20+ million vists to the Main Page per day will drive almost all the hits to OTD, not people typing in the (sometimes unorthodox) titles into the Search bar. Not to mention we'd see relatively large spikes either side of the day in question due to time zones. Your analysis is incorrect. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:53, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Nothing to do with the search bar, rather Google searches stimulated by coverage elsewhere or direct links from such coverage. Spikes on either side are easy to find. And even putting all that aside, that still leaves (again) that OTD carries items selected for their broad appeal rather than the unusual niche items typical of DYK. Go ahead and have the last broken-record word now. EEng 18:39, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes, somehow in the plethora of arcane rule workery at DYK, I must have just imagined that the hooks were supposed to be interesting to a broad audience!! Time to take some of your own advice and stop feeling compelled to respond to my every post. This project is more than just you, and me....!! The Rambling Man (talk) 18:55, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

More broken record. Both OTD and DYK items are meant to be "interesting", but OTD items are mostly familiar historical whose whose significance people recognize immediately. OTD and DYK serve completely different purposes, and would be expected to have different view rates, nothing to do with quality. EEng 19:06, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

DYK is not interesting most of the time. And even you know that so your position here is a little contrary! Honestly though, listen to yourself. No need to feel obliged to keep up the brave arguments! Just ignore my posts as you have suggested to so many others and get back to .... whatever you do. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:13, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

I've urged editors to ignore your posts when they're picayune rumbling on transient items; this subject has broader significance. Anyway, I see you've run out of strawmen, so as far as I'm concerned we're done. But you may wish to rumble on. EEng 19:20, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, I was waiting for you to make it personal, but at least this time it was on a talk page rather than via the backdoor, your usual MO. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:22, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Off-topic bickering

<rolls eyes> EEng 20:43, 7 February 2017 (UTC) Bravo, magnifico! The Rambling Man (talk) 21:36, 7 February 2017 (UTC) <continues rolling eyes> EEng 22:11, 7 February 2017 (UTC) Indeed, your regular program has resumed. But I must thank you for refraining from your usual backdoor tactics. Now then, more eye rolling? Or can we just put this one to bed? Either way, take your own advice and have a little break from this urgent need to keep responding to me. It's unhealthy. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:16, 7 February 2017 (UTC) <continues rolling eyes> EEng 22:21, 7 February 2017 (UTC) How about you two just go back to ignoring each other from a distance? Martinevans123 (talk) 22:26, 7 February 2017 (UTC) I've already suggested that Eeng follows his own advice and ignores me but he just can't. Do as I say, not as I do etc! They often say that those who can't stop talking about you want more. Wowsers! The Rambling Man (talk) 22:30, 7 February 2017 (UTC) Yes, and they often say "the emptiest vessels make the loudest noise", and that they're "so fed up with the constant bickering" they could "staple their own ears shut with a nail-gun""sew up their own eyelids with rusty pins" , etc. etc. Often. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:41, 7 February 2017 (UTC) You can hear this? Wow. Screen reader? The Rambling Man (talk) 05:40, 8 February 2017 (UTC) Easy fix, just stop following my edits! The Rambling Man (talk) 08:32, 8 February 2017 (UTC) Is there a user-specific watch page filter? Will ask at Village Pump. Martinevans123 (talk) 08:35, 8 February 2017 (UTC) I don't know, but it's easier than that, just stop feeding your obsession by not clicking on my edits! The Rambling Man (talk) 08:47, 8 February 2017 (UTC) Shucks, yes, you’re right. The nature of my condition means that I find it impossible to disengage, even on the most trivial matter, and I always insist on having the last word. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:27, 8 February 2017 (UTC) Just stop stalking my edits and everything will be just fine. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:46, 8 February 2017 (UTC) "Stalking"?? Surely you mean "offering polite and timely helpful responses"? Martinevans123 (talk) 10:06, 8 February 2017 (UTC) No, I mean stalking. I really do. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:13, 8 February 2017 (UTC) I see. Then I refuse to respond, in case I get dragged off to AN/I. Sorry for imagining this discussion was open to all. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:16, 8 February 2017 (UTC) It's nothing to do with this specific discussion, it's to do with your obsession of following me around, responding to everything I write, and then complaining about it all. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:32, 8 February 2017 (UTC) Now that certainly does deserve an AN/I report. Look forward to seeing the diffs. I hardly think 24 hours in one day allows time to respond to "everythingj you write." But I generally complain first. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:38, 8 February 2017 (UTC) No, no report necessary. I'm used to you being around, but I don't understand why you then complain about my edits if you've actively decided to follow them all. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:44, 8 February 2017 (UTC) But I'm not "actively following them all", am I. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:55, 8 February 2017 (UTC) Who knows what you're up to, but you show up at a statistically significant number of places just after me. Perhaps it's just a coincidence. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:03, 8 February 2017 (UTC) "Go ahead, dude and show me your Chi-squared." Martinevans123 (talk) 11:11, 8 February 2017 (UTC) There's no need. It's as obvious as the sky is blue. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:22, 8 February 2017 (UTC) Ah right, so it is. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:27, 8 February 2017 (UTC) That makes no sense. I'd quit while you're behind. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:41, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

TRM, if you really believe that the significance/importance of an article and/or its topicality have nothing to do with the number of views it generates, you are just being silly. Vanamonde (talk) 08:58, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

No, I didn't say it had "nothing to do with the number of views". But thanks for trying. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:19, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

If significance and topicality are actually a factor (as you just admitted) then DYK vs OTD views are an apples-and-oranges comparison, and tell us nothing, contrary to your repeated assertions here. It's bad statistics, as Johnbod already pointed out. Vanamonde (talk) 10:50, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Not at all, as I have already demonstrated above. Thanks though. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:22, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Tend to agree with your fruit analogy. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:41, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

I stumbled on this discussion by chance, found it full of intrigue, and find myself, now, drawn to opine. I believe Vanamonde93 has reached the correct conclusion; in effect that: DYK v. OTD based on page views is an apple v. orange comparison that leverages statistical misrepresentations to bolster a facade of dominance that factually does not exist. Consider, for example, this OTD v. Otd comparison from the same day with OTD being eligible titles that did appear on the main page, and Otd being eligible titles that could have appeared on the main page although they did not.

OTD page views

Article / Daily avg / Increase	6 Feb 2017
Battle of San Domingo / 862 / 15264	16,126
Battle of Fort Henry / 913 / 12759	13,672
Ronald Reagan Day / 538 / 8764	9,302
Battle of Grozny (1999–2000) / 441 / 5302	5,743
Sami National Day / 375 / 5319	5,694
Black Thursday bushfires / 221 / 3885	4,106
Sapporo Snow Festival / 399 / 3274	3,673

Net gain = 54567 views

Otd page views

Article / Daily avg / Increase	6 Feb 2017
Munich air disaster / 3948 / 42511	46,459
February 6 / 3281 / 39122	42,403
Michael Jordan / 20949 / 9078	30,027
Babe Ruth / 5367 / 5222	10,589
Gary Moore / 1613 / 2753	4,366
Arthur Ashe / 2070 / 1970	4,040
Treaty of Waitangi / 1062 / 2909	3,971

Net gain = 103565 views

This either shows that twice as many page views are gained by not appearing on the main page compared with titles that do, or it shows the results are in fact derived from "bad statistics". My sensibilities favor the later. Best regards.--John Cline (talk) 01:53, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

John Cline, that's a beautifully incisive approach; I'm genuinely ashamed I didn't think of it. I can't wait to see a certain editor struggle to denounce it. Should be fun to watch. EEng 02:22, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Why is February 6 listed in just the Otd views? The Otd view shows an increase in traffic to three articles, the OTD view shows an increase in traffic to .... ALL!!! .... articles. QED. The Rambling Man (talk) 05:45, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Could you do % increases as well please? The Rambling Man (talk) 06:47, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Ok, well at a hand-waving level, the average increase in traffic to the OTD items was by a factor of around 15 and to the Otd items an average increase of a factor of around 3. Excluding the big hitters (Jordan/Black Thursday), you get an average increase at OTD items of around a factor of 14, and an average increase at Otd of a factor of about 2. It's pretty clear that appearing on the main page has a huge impact on the traffic being directed to these articles, so thanks for clarifying that. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:57, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

And would you be able to tell me where Michael Jordan is listed at Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/February 6 please? I can't seem to find it at all. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:27, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Finally, the list of eligible items I'm looking at is not the same as you have listed above, i.e. I see Lockheed bribery scandals and Otto of Greece in the eligible (but not posted) section and I don't see e.g. Arthur Ashe or Treaty of Waitangi. Are you working from a different list? The Rambling Man (talk) 07:31, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Here you go, while we're all in the mood for bar charts...

TRM's version of Otd page views

Article / Daily avg / Increase	6 Feb 2017
Munich air disaster / 3948 / 42511	46,459
Otto of Greece / 323 / 440	763
Treaty of Alliance (1778) / 236 / 245	481
Treaty of Amity and Commerce (United States–France) / 42 / 123	165
Lockheed bribery scandals / 156 / 165	331

Net gain = 43484 views (97.8% of which went to the Munich air disaster).

John Cline, would you agree that the above is the actual eligible-but-not-posted list for 6 Feb this year? The Rambling Man (talk) 07:45, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes of course something appearing on the main page increases the number of views it gets; I have certainly not denied that, nor, I believe, has John Cline or Johnbod. The point is that significance/topicality matter even for things on the main page. I am far more likely to click on a topic such as "Munich Air Disaster" than on "Geological history of the Precordillera", regardless of the hooks they use. As long as DYK is showcasing new/expanded content, it is going to deal with articles less significant/topical than those at OTD; and a direct comparison continue to tell us what it always has, which is nothing. Vanamonde (talk) 08:56, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, but I'd like John Cline and EEng to confirm that the statistics I've put there are correct, i.e. that items featured on the main page get an average increase in readership of a factor of around 15 while those not get an increase of an average factor of around 3. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:57, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Adding a new route of exposure doesn't multiply views, it adds to them. And that you think it makes sense to "average" (by which you apparently mean "take an unweighted arithmetic mean of") multiplicative factors shows you have no idea what you're doing. Vanamonde93, John Cline, many of us have tried the patient-explanation route before -- doesn't work. EEng 13:31, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Either way you spin it, I debunked your assumption, I debunked this "beautifully incisive" approach (which was inherently flawed) and you're still here? I even did a barchart with the deltas as well. Still can't get enough... The Rambling Man (talk) 13:33, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

<rolls eyes> EEng 14:02, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Isn't this where I obsessively mention the thousand-yard stare again?? Martinevans123 (talk) 14:11, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Enough said! The Rambling Man (talk) 15:56, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

... because of my crippling last wordism personality disorder again? *sob* Martinevans123 (talk) 17:01, 9 February 2017 (UTC) [1]

Thank you TRM for assuming good faith and treating me with professional kindness. I am unavailable for editing right now, until this evening; literally stealing a moment from my obligations to advise you of my constraints and tell you that I look forward to answering your questions and furthermore, gleaning all that I can from every exchange that comes of this thread.

In parting for now, let me say: I am entirely green in all matters related to this discussion. My learning curve regarding these matters began yesterday when, as I had said, I stumbled on this discussion by chance. My comment was framed with generic language that I hoped would carry my meaning, not with jargon or the foreknowledge its use would imply. Anything said that resembled the actual inner workings of staging an OTD queue was entirely coincidental. I hope this will clear up a bit of the confusion for now, until I can better explain things later. Best regards until then.--John Cline (talk) 19:54, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

No problem, it's just that I couldn't quite determine how you'd got your statistics (i.e. some of those pages simply weren't there) and why you'd picked some and not others (e.g. the date page you added to the Otd analysis but not the OTD analysis, which massively skewed the conclusion that others were so quick to jump on and dare me to analyse it further). Let's, you and I, continue the discussion, without the DYK talkpage comedy act dragging it down to personal affronts and sarcastic/hilarious links. I appreciate your response. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:32, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Wow, Covering of the Senne, hardly a hot topic in anyone's front room, hit 30k views on 13 February, well done OTD! That compares to DYK's Nemegtomaia (in the popular "afternoon" slot that day!) which got 5,715 views. Both had images! Just goes to show that a boring OTD with a confusingly detailed sepia image will smash any DYK with a sexy "nesting dino" image out of the park, pro rata of course! OTD, A-, DYK, C+ (must try harder). The Rambling Man (talk) 21:56, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Felix Frankfurter, yes, just those two sacred words, scored an impressive 5152 hits yesterday at the bottom of the OTD section. It was the 52nd anniversary of his death, so I can't imagine it was widely publicised, yet the two words alone smashed most of the DYKs into the long grass. With no debate at all. Live and learn... The Rambling Man (talk) 21:46, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Prep 6 - Scottish record long jump

... that from 1973 until 2012, Myra Nimmo held the Scottish women's national long jump record?

Yawn. So it lasted a while, that's interesting but I'm not sure most people care less about the "Scottish" record here. What really is interesting is that it was broken by an athlete called "Jade Nimmo" who is not related in any way to Myra Nimmo. So perhaps something like "Myra Nimmo's Scottish women's national long jump record, which she held for 39 years, was beaten in 2012 by Jade Nimmo?" The Rambling Man (talk) 21:19, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

For example, The Scotsman has it nicely written: "39 years on, Nimmo loses long-jump record ... to Nimmo". The Rambling Man (talk) 21:22, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

I agree; for me, the name coincidence is the more interesting fact. Although Nimmo is a Scottish/Irish surname (according to our article), I don't think it has the prevalence that Smith has in England, or Jones in Wales. (And your suggested alternative hook includes the info from the first hook anyway). PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 09:45, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Pinging creator Joseph2302, reviewer User:7&6=thirteen and promoter, HalfGig. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:50, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

I didn't review this. My putting my review (which never did occur officially) on hold was due to my fascination with the name coincidence; they are not related. I did substantial research on Jade Nimmo and compiled a lot of information. My intent was to create an article on her; and then propose a double DYK. However, the breaking of the Scottish record seems to have been the apogee of her career. She suffered a serious injury and her Olympic dreams fizzled in the rain. So there is a question of her notability, and my interest in doing the article on her receded. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 09:57, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Well your name was in the nomination template as being satisifed with it. I'll ping Vivvt too for what it's worth. We know they're not related. We know that Jade won't have sufficient notability. None of that is important. The hook simply would be far embellished to carry the fact her 39-year-old record was beaten by her namesake. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:13, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

I agree with you. The hook would be embellished if the naming coincidence were put in play. "Namesake" might be a stretch, however. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 10:18, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

It's not in the hook, so it's not important. The fact is in the hook. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:23, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

The names could be in the hook. But "Namesake" is not, and it generally has the specialized meaning of: "A namesake is a person named after another." We have no sources for that.

Notwithstanding, your rewrite of the hook is accurate and supported by the sources. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 10:36, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes, the namesake thing is irrelevant. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:45, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

So I disagree the original hook was "not interesting", as it was the longest standing Scottish athletics record for a while. However, I'm fine to use an alternate hook about Jade Nimmo beating it. Joseph2302 (talk) 23:43, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

The current hook doesn't say that! The Rambling Man (talk) 07:16, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

WELL DONE ALL! This is running in its tedious, lack-of-context format. Despite a unanimous agreement here to actually improve the hook to something that would be interesting, nothing doing. Brilliant work. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:43, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

HalfGig you can do something about this right now. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:54, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Heures de Charles d'Angoulême

Re: Template:Did you know nominations/Heures de Charles d'Angoulême. This was assigned to prep 6 without the image. I (not an author) vote for having it later with the image for several reasons:

• The image is unique.
• The image illustrates the hook better than the link to "historiated letters".
• To show the image was the reason to create an article about the book, which was done, which turned out to be the wrong book (to increase the irony of the story: that hook was pictured), so another article on the right book was done, which caused extra efforts because the original French article was copyvio.
• One of the authors is harassed because of his brave initiative against the Daily Mail.

Please --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:38, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

I was going to move it to an open image slot, but they're all filled now. Perhaps someone could move this when an image slot opens up. Yoninah (talk) 20:40, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

It's now in Queue 6 and needs an admin to take it to a picture slot. Please! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:47, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Sad update: the harrassed user retired. Look before. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:39, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

@Gerda Arendt: I hate to hear the news... the hook has been replaced in the queue and moved to prep 6 with the image in place. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 09:50, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. Decorated my talk with the image. We do "need illumination", - that was the title of the thread that started it. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:54, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Gerda, for me the "brave initiative against the Daily Mail" is a childish initiative by childish people. Like all newspapers, the Mail is good in parts, and I guess the focus of politically-correct criticism is on its current affairs. However, its reliability as a source depends far more on the particular author than on the publisher, and the "brave initiative" leaves far worse newspapers around the world unchallenged, including some organs of totalitarian states. Moonraker (talk) 04:36, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

By all means raise such sources for discussion at WP:RSN. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:27, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

[Attention needed] Main page balance

Now OTD have added an extra line for notable births/deaths, DYK needs to step up to keep the main page balanced. That either means:

1. More hooks
2. Longer existing hooks
3. Addition of recycled hooks

Please come to a consensus on how to solve the problem soonest. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:01, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Given that approved hooks have been dwindling, I suggest adding hooks as needed for the balance, but make them stay for 24 hours to avoid running out of hooks. HaEr48 (talk) 03:55, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Prep set builders can consider the size of the whole set when they form it. Prep 5, for example, currently has 727 characters and is looking a bit sparse, whereas Prep 2 has 1072 and Prep 3 1033. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:49, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

It's been mentioned by me at errors now for every set. DYK is still presenting uber-short sets. DYK either need to go back to eight hooks or request OTD slims down by one blurb. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:35, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

And there's something else. A while back we switched to 2 sets/day to eat up the approved reserve. But after dropping at first, the reserve has stalled at around 100+ for a while now. All the current sets have 7 hooks. Suggest goingAgree we should go back to 2x8/day until the approved reserve drops below 50. EEng 20:42, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes, that's suggestion number one. And Cwmhiraeth has reiterated suggestion number two. So time to step up and decide, or else face suggestion number three which is easiest for our Main Page ERRORS admin patrollers to deal with. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:45, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

I have no issues adding more hooks and balancing the preps to ensure that we don't have prep sets with multiple very short hooks. I personally don't like recycled hooks when we have a backlog sitting around if we can at all avoid it. Mifter (talk) 04:31, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm fine with going to eight hooks twice a day, and for keeping the number at eight if we need to drop back to one set per day. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:07, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Sounds like we have a consensus then. Please implement this whenever convenient. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:47, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Twelve hours down and no sign of this being implemented. Attention needed here. The Rambling Man (talk) 05:47, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Any idea who's supposed to do such changes, or who knows how to do that? HaEr48 (talk) 06:02, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

I've edited the clearing template, such that when each prep is moved to the queue, the next prep is populated with 8 bullets. I will work on adding an extra hook to the queues; the preps that currently are being built also need to have eight slots, which any of you can work on. Vanamonde (talk) 06:37, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Okay, the next two queues have 8 hooks. I'm going to do other things now; two more filled queues, and forthcoming preps, need attention. Vanamonde (talk) 07:07, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Both Queue 6 and Queue 1 need an eighth hook, which should probably be taken from prep (but don't take either of the Washington hooks from Prep 2); I suggest that Queue 6's be the shorter of the two, since it has longer hooks than Queue 1. All of the preps now have eight hook slots. BlueMoonset (talk) 08:24, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Okay, queue's taken care of; now somebody just has to rebuild Cwmhiraeth's messed up prep set (2). Vanamonde (talk) 09:53, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Rebuilt Prep 2. Yoninah (talk) 23:59, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

WP:ERRORS

Note to the project, I have made a request to include a link to the "next" set of DYK hooks to be included at ERRORS, much like there exists for TFA, TFP, TFL and OTD. Primarily it's to continue to improve the quality of the Main Page, but also it's in response to the lack of responses from admins here to requests to changes in queues. Better to have more, and independent, eyes on the project, and better for the readers to get something they might enjoy or find interesting. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:53, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

I've added it. DYK admins may be interested enough to add it, but at least now we'll have far more eyes on the forthcoming hooks and be able to fix them before they spend too long languishing on the main page. The Rambling Man (talk) 23:10, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

That's a good idea. More eyes are hooksHaving more eyes reviewing hooks is always a good thing. Mifter (talk) 00:49, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

But syntax confused are sentence usually a bad thing. EEng 00:52, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Oops, thats what I get for multitasking... Mifter (talk) 03:25, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

It's now tempting to add the next three queues as they currently happen so frequently. Already errors are being promoted into queues with only admins having the luxury to fix them. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:10, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Queue 6 - commas

"that Charlottesville, Virginia's oldest" comma after Virginia (necessitating a reword I suspect), and " nonexistent massacre in Bowling Green, Kentucky went", comma after Kentucky. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:09, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Ok, ERRORS it is! The Rambling Man (talk) 05:47, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

These are still both in Queue 6; plenty of time for a passing admin to take care of them both. Pinging Maile66 and Cas Liber to start with to see if either is around and able to make the necessary fix. Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:35, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

 Done by David Levy and myself. Vanamonde (talk) 06:57, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Oldest nominations needing DYK reviewers

Over two months old:

• December 8: Template:Did you know nominations/Furra
• December 16: Template:Did you know nominations/Petra Hřebíčková
• December 18: Template:Did you know nominations/Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee
• December 20: Template:Did you know nominations/Ciomadul

Over one month old:

• December 25: Template:Did you know nominations/Ingeborg Weber-Kellermann
• January 1: Template:Did you know nominations/Lalchand Fulamali
• January 13: Template:Did you know nominations/Holman Rule
• January 17: Template:Did you know nominations/Bruce by-election, April 1865

Other old nominations:

• January 24: Template:Did you know nominations/Kathleen N. Straus
• January 25: Template:Did you know nominations/Winslade
• January 26: Template:Did you know nominations/Byzantine (video game)
• January 27: Template:Did you know nominations/Herbert Reiner Jr.
• January 27: Template:Did you know nominations/Gladiolus Amicitia
• January 30: Template:Did you know nominations/Romanian Senate election, 1868
• February 1: Template:Did you know nominations/Jadunath Singh
• February 1: Template:Did you know nominations/Call of Cthulhu: The Official Video Game
• February 2: Template:Did you know nominations/Wayzata Bay Center
• February 3: Template:Did you know nominations/The Vinh wiretap
• February 3: Template:Did you know nominations/Bouncing ball
• February 4: Template:Did you know nominations/Nyssa spatulata
• February 4: Template:Did you know nominations/Dissent Channel
• February 4: Template:Did you know nominations/John William Kalua
• February 5: Template:Did you know nominations/Nessa Carey
• February 5: Template:Did you know nominations/Snugburys
• February 5: Template:Did you know nominations/Where in Europe Is Carmen Sandiego?
• February 5: Template:Did you know nominations/Partnership for Civil Justice Fund
• February 5: Template:Did you know nominations/Sam Bat
• February 5: Template:Did you know nominations/Hamilton Waterworks
• February 6: Template:Did you know nominations/Murder of Joey Fischer
• February 6: Template:Did you know nominations/Reader Rabbit
• February 8: Template:Did you know nominations/1892 Legislative Session of the Kingdom of Hawaii
• February 9: Template:Did you know nominations/Exercise TROPEX
• February 9: Template:Did you know nominations/Planar transmission line
• February 10: Template:Did you know nominations/William Walsh (bishop of Dover)
• February 10: Template:Did you know nominations/Wallachian legislative election, 1857
• February 11: Template:Did you know nominations/Robert Lockhart Hobson
• February 11: Template:Did you know nominations/Qandala campaign

Please remember to cross off entries as you finish reviewing them (unless you're asking for further review), even if the review was not an approval. Many thanks! BlueMoonset (talk) 03:21, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Prep 2 - Hanover Lodge

There's a reference claiming it to be "the UK’s most expensive home". Does this really mean it was the highest sale price for a private residence purchased in the UK? For instance, Buckingham Palace is a home in the UK, and its value far exceeds that of Hanover Lodge, but because it hasn't been sold on the open market, it doesn't have that definitive figure. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:23, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

It would have been helpful for you to point out that you had already tagged the article for not having a lead—although I'm not sure what it means in a single-section article that would seem to be all lead (or all body)—meaning that it couldn't be promoted at this stage anyway. Under the circumstances, I've just pulled it from prep, since the article would need to be completely reorganized in addition to dealing with this hook question. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:23, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

It would have been helpful for the reviewer or the promoter to note these issues. It shouldn't be discovered when sitting in prep. But no need to thank me for my diligence. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:53, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Your diligence in inspecting articles and improving hooks is of great benefit to DYK. Thank you for these. Your comment on this hook is also helpful. Thank you. However, your addition of tags to articles in prep, here and on other occasions, is disruptive. There is no requirement in the DYK rules that articles should adhere to the MoS guidelines. Hanover Lodge has no lead because it has no sections. If you feel strongly that it should be divided into sections and have a lead, then why not "Be bold" and do this yourself. As it is, articles you tag may end up on the main page with maintenance tags still in place, which is very undesirable, and even if other people notice the tag in time, you are creating work for others to either action your tag or move the hook back to the nominations page. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:19, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

As I've already told you, these articles are in Wikipedia, not in DYK, so they need to be checked for quality. If they aren't of suitable quality then they can and should be tagged so they can be improved. As I have to spend so much of my time fixing up all the issues missed by reviewers and promoters, I'm not left with much time to do anything else. Such issues should actually disallow hooks from being promoted in the first place, but our reviewers and promoters don't have to do that, so I do it instead. If articles which are sub-par end up tagged on the main page, so what? They shouldn't be sub-par when they get there. I'm not creating work, I am pointing out deficiencies which should have been corrected before the articles make it to the main page. Try being bold yourself and spending some of that promoting time actively improving the quality of some of these sub-par articles. Stop putting the burden on me to fix up all the issues you all miss in each and every set. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:59, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

I think BlueMoonset has done an excellent job in indicating the issues in the comments at the nomination page. TRM is absolutely right about the "most expensive home" being problematic, but I don't agree that the article needs a lead section. A short article with no sections but ten (actual) paragraphs needs a lead section, but an article that is two to three paragraphs does not need sections, and may even be poorer and repetitive if they are created. BlueMoonset, on the other hand, notes the chronological confusion, the repetitive "From X ..." formulations, and the single-sentence paragraphs, and these are issues that need to be addressed. The reviewer noted that the article is list-like, but still gave a tick. I would prefer to see the reviewer asking for this to be addressed, and failing that, the promoter would surely have noticed the structural issues when checking the hook fact, and could have reasonably instead asked for some revisions. I would like to hear from the reviewer (Hybernator) and promoter (Cwmhiraeth). EdChem (talk) 13:07, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

No, it needs a lead. It's not a stub is it? The Rambling Man (talk) 13:10, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Why, TRM? Even the MOS guidance at WP:LEAD recommends a lead being needed once an article reaches 400 to 500 words, and it was about 350 when you tagged it. Yes, I know this is in a section on stubs, but I don't see why an article of 350 words can't be start class yet also not have sufficient content to need sectioning and thus a lead as summary / overview. The problem with the article was not the lack of lead, it was the five single-sentence paragraphs "From X (to Y), it was ...". I agree that the article was not ready for the main page, but I disagree on the reason. EdChem (talk) 13:30, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

It wasn't the only reason. It was a woeful article with a dubious claim for a hook. And as you can see, Gatoclass managed to conjure something up in less than a minute, good stuff! If an article has two or three salient points to get across, there's your lead. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:32, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

I have added a lead and consolidated some paragraphs. It took me all of a minute. Gatoclass (talk) 13:25, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Exactly. Not a problem was it? Well done! The Rambling Man (talk) 13:28, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

My thoughts, on reading it, is it is not reliably sourced. It’s sourced to RT, the propaganda arm of the Russian government. The RT report itself says it got the info from the Daily Mail, and we all know how reliable that is, especially when it comes to gossipy coverage of the rich and famous.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 13:40, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I would expect this purchase to be a matter of public record in any case, probably available if worth the dig here. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:43, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

A quick search and here’s another home with a better claim for "most expensive", sold for £20m more, three years earlier, reported in a proper newspaper: Park Place: Britain's most expensive home sold for record £140m.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 13:47, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Then both this article and the Andrey Goncharenko article which was run a while back are incorrect and need to be fixed too, as well as the hook being rejected. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:47, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Cwmhiraeth while you would tell me it's not part of your "job" as a promoter to spot these things, this one has turned out to be a humdinger. Incorrect claim, duff source, poor quality article. We need to start weeding this stuff out at source, reject it. You've seen enough of this crap to stop it passing through, so please work to prevent such articles getting a free pass to the main page. If you don't think you can or should be doing it, then stop building preps. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:17, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, what humdinger are you talking about? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 21:01, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

I never use dab links, unlike you. I meant humdinger, i.e. "a remarkable or outstanding person or thing of its kind." Well done! The Rambling Man (talk) 21:04, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

I looked up "humdinger" to see exactly what it meant, but only found an unhelpful disambiguation page. You make so many untrue and disparaging remarks about me. See here, here, here, here, here and here, here, for my disambiguations over the last three days. Please stop denigrating my efforts. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 07:42, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, you used a dab link just above. What are you on about? The Rambling Man (talk) 07:55, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Prep 2 - Recycled Orchestra of Cateura

... that children playing instruments made from scrap have recorded and played with Basement Jaxx and Megadeth?

Awkward wording (presumably if you "record with" someone, you naturally "play with" them?) but the article says they recorded with Basement Jaxx, and played with Megadeth, so it ought to be "recorded with Basement Jaxx" and "played with Megadeth".... The Rambling Man (talk) 10:27, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Looks like this has been fixed. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:03, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

No quirky

The set that just went on the MP, with striated thornbill as the lead, has a hook (about Canadian Parks) in the quirky slot that is not at all quirky. It used to have the managed alcohol hook there and that is quirky. HalfGig talk 00:08, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Landesfunkhaus Niedersachsen - missing credit

Funkhaus Hannover is on the Main page, but no credit on the article talk, nom here. I checked one other article of the set, it was credited. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:07, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

All fine now, thanks, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:00, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Queue 1

It might be a good idea to crop the lead image so you can see the palace. Also, "has mixture" should be changed to "has a mixture". Yoninah (talk) 11:56, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

I fixed the grammar, I didn't trim the image because it looks okay to me, but have no objection if somebody else wants to do it. Gatoclass (talk) 12:26, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

I think the image is not only a bit small, but also makes the hook less hooky. The hook is (I think) fishing for an "oh, I wonder what that looks like?" response, which is answered by the image. I am biased in that the set includes two of my hooks, one of which makes more sense to a non-chemist (I think) with the image (the hexamethylbenzene one, nomination), so I was disappointed that the image was not selected, partly as it is also a much more substantial article. Of course, I know and accept that it is up to the Prep Builder and not all proposed images will be chosen, but I am interested to see that my impression of the image was not unique to me. EdChem (talk) 13:22, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

I did think about cropping the image but when I took a closer look at the building, decided it wasn't going to be a very interesting image by itself anyway and that the image together with the background has a bit more appeal. I'm sorry your image didn't get selected for the lead, I would have probably selected it as we don't get many images of chemical structures but not everyone will necessarily agree. I do think more account should be taken of article quality when selecting leads, but again, many promoters just seem to focus on the image alone. Gatoclass (talk) 13:41, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

I moved the hexamethylbenzene article to the lead spot in another set as a check of the archives confirms that we have had only two chemistry leads in the last four months if not longer. Gatoclass (talk) 14:32, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, Gatoclass – much appreciated. EdChem (talk) 22:18, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Loch Ewe Distillery

Prep 1. Couple of points. The source for the hook is primary, which I wouldn't have thought was adequate for the claim? If it is adequate, I wonder about the grammar - shouldn't it be licensed rather than licenced, and in Scotland, not of Scotland? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 15:13, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

I fixed the dodgy grammar. The claim is dubious, especially using a primary source. A quick Google found Edradour claiming to be Scotland's "smallest traditional distillery", while our own article on Edradour distillery states that "Strathearn Distillery" is the smallest (they themselves say "probably"), so this needs to be booted back to noms. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:13, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

I've removed it from the prep. It has too many issues to fix in quick time here. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:15, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I haven't had much input at DYK so don't know the normal processes; I'm assuming it's standard practice to raise potential issues here? I didn't change the individual template myself because it instructs editors not to, though I see now that the template for the whole prep is still editable. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 20:04, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

• Smith, Gavin D; Roskrow, Dominic (2012). The Whisky Book. London: Dorling Kindersley. p. 115. ISBN 978 0 2411 8035 8. says, "...the smallest legal distillery in Scotland and quite possibly in the world"--Ykraps (talk) 20:37, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

• In a book published in 2012. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:47, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

So which distilleries, opened since 2012, do you think are smaller?--Ykraps (talk) 07:55, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

• FWIW, when I was reviewing the article I came across this link which mentions that it was opened through a loophole concerning still size that was closed immediately after (I was concerned that the distillery might not be notable enough for an article which is why I did some external digging). Doing some more digging, that appears to mesh with what the article states as well as above book and this one. Also, both books mention Edradour (they simply state it is "small" however neither mention Strathearn which would make sense as it appears to have opened in 2013). Doing some deductive reasoning, here says that loch ewe can make up to 600 litres of spirits per year, here says Edradour can make up to 90,000 litres, and here says that loch ewe makes three casks a year and Strathearn can make 30,000 litres. However, I am not sure if "maltmadness" is a RS and the number of logical hoops there leaves too much to chance in my estimation. In contrast, here says that Strathearn is the "tiniest" distillery (800/400L still capacity) and here says that Loch Ewe has the smallest legal stills (120L capacity). From this I think we may be able to source that Loch Ewe has the smallest stills while the overall size is not clear from any single source (though it may be inferable). Mifter Public (talk) 21:33, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

• Good sources, but most of them are at least four years old. Perhaps we need to date the hook. We certainly need more than the distillery itself saying it's the smallest, that's just not going to cut it. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:40, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

• I agree, perhaps along the lines of "when it opened in 20XX" as that appears to be verifiable with the older sources (even if it still is the smallest distillery there is still no harm in dating it to ensure that we aren't conveying incorrect info). I have to run but should be able to do some more digging later. Mifter Public (talk) 21:43, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Queue 2 - John Hore

Minor point, but the hook says he "... set a new standard ..." Well according to the article, Hore is described as "[setting] a new standard for inland waterways, and is an important forerunner of the canals of the Industrial Revolution".[2] . The key thing here is he was described as doing so. Did he actually set a new technical standard? Nope. In actuality, he modified things to match existing standards. I guess the summary is that in an article which talks about standards, this individual didn't set them, he ensured others complied with them, which in itself might be setting standards, but the hook is still ambiguous. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:57, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

I tweaked hook to read "canal engineer John Hore was described as setting a new standard for inland waterways with the Kennet navigation, also characterized as an important forerunner of the canals of the Industrial Revolution?" Its not perfect but it is more faithful to what the source stated. Mifter (talk) 02:34, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Just needs to be in Brit Eng, i.e. characterised. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:58, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

 Done - I wasn't able to make the switch before it made it to the main page unfortunately but of all the errors we can have, MOS ones are better than factual ones every day of the week. Mifter (talk) 22:14, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

question

Hi - I noticed that several nominations of both myself, and others, no longer appear in the nominations page. However, the nominations templates themselves don't appear to have been promoted so I don't think they've been move to prep/queue either? Anyway, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't do anything incorrectly. Specifically:

• Template:Did you know nominations/Propsteikirche, Leipzig
• Template:Did you know nominations/Robert Egan
• Template:Did you know nominations/Théâtre de la Michodière
• Template:Did you know nominations/Warren Gulley
• Template:Did you know nominations/Can You Hear Me? (telephone scam)

Thanks - DarjeelingTea (talk) 21:55, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

When you want to know where a file is look at What links here, on the left. They may be among the (new) approved nominations. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:01, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Got it - thanks! Sorry, I didn't realize these were moved to a different page once approved. DarjeelingTea (talk) 22:12, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

No worries, we had an issue with the nominations page having too many transcluded templates and therefore not everything loading correctly so we now have a bot move approved noms to a separate page to reduce the total number of transcluded pages. Mifter (talk) 22:15, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Proposal: Remove the noinclude tags that appear when a nomination is closed

Since the bot removes closed hooks, these tags now serve little purpose in preventing transclusion to Template talk:Did you know and its subpages, and they prevent completed DYK nominations from appearing on article talk pages where it makes sense to keep them after promotion. Pppery 02:22, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

• Comment: To quickly tack on to this discussion: having WugBot not remove closed nominations is also an option. It's something MusikAnimal and I have been discussing in the Bot Request For Approval, so opinions on whether the bot should continue with this would also be very helpful. Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 02:35, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
• Comment: I don't see any need to keep promoted DYK reviews on the talk pages. Like with GA reviews and any other, there's a link to the review in the DYK block in the top of the page (or, if combined in an Article history template, available there), so I don't see the benefit here. Also, as Wugapodes notes, it's premature to be discussing this anyway, since we aren't sure the bot will continue its deleting ways. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:29, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Prep 1 - Sheeran

... that Ed Sheeran's 2010 EP Loose Change entered the Australian charts six and a half years after its original release?

Not sure this precise claim is inline cited in the article, nor am I sure it's fair to imply that it could have entered the Australian charts any sooner, after all it wasn't released outside the UK until 2015. Pings: Cwmhiraeth, Mifter, HeyJude70. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:35, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

The article in question is Loose Change (EP). The hook is a factually correct statement; I don't think it implies anything. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:07, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

It's not inline cited per the DYK rules, regardless of the bogus hook. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:10, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

I have added an extra citation, but it was already cited inline. There is nothing bogus about the hook, it is factually correct. If you look at the history of Prep1 you will see that I had already amended the hook before you got to it. You have certainly introduced an error now, because the article does not state that the original release was only in the UK. Perhaps we should go back to the approved hook "... that Ed Sheeran's 2010 EP Loose Change entered the Australian charts after seven years due to his new releases?", but I don't like that because of the "due to" bit nor the inaccurate "seven years". Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:40, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't mean to base my claim purely on techinicallities, but in the DYK it states '...after its original release'. The EP was originally released in 2010, and it doesn't say '...six and a half years after its Australian release'. The line leaves it open to interpretation I guess; if interred literally it is correct, but if it is assumed that it implies that it was released in Australia in 2010 it is wrong. ThomDevexx ॐ (talk) 11:39, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

EDIT: I see that the hook has been corrected to include 'UK-only', thank you. ThomDevexx ॐ (talk) 11:42, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. Common sense and accuracy prevailed. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:00, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Prep 2 - Dhyan Chand Award

I realise that quality is not a concern of the project, but should we really be promoting articles with basic English failures such as:

• "The recipient(s) is/are selected by a committee constituted by the Ministry and is honoured for their contribution as a sportsperson and towards promotion of sports after their retirement from the active sporting career."
• "Instituted in 2002, the award is given only to the disciplines included in the events like Olympic Games, Paralympic Games, Asian Games, Commonwealth Games, World Championship and World Cup along with Cricket, Indigenous Games, and Parasports"
• "The first recipients of the award were Shahuraj Birajdar (Boxing), Ashok Diwan (Hockey), and Aparna Ghosh (Basketball), who were honoured for the year 2002.[6] Usually conferred upon only three sportspersons in a year, a few exceptions have been made (2003, 2012, and 2013) when multiple recipients were awarded in a year."

And that's just the lead. Please, I understand that many DYK regulars including those who promote these articles to the main page, think we should allow these kinds of things, but honestly, is this an encyclopedia or a kid's school project? Pinging Vivvt, Cwmhiraeth, HalfGig. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:42, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

I gave the article a copyedit. Gatoclass (talk) 09:59, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Good. Shame it was considered suitable in the first place. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:58, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Special occasion hooks being overlooked (including one right now)

There's a special occasion hook for February 26 at Template:Did you know nominations/2017 EFL Cup Final; the game begins at 16:30 UTC, which would require it to be in Prep 4. That had been full, but as it had two Utah-based hooks, I pushed one of them out to Prep 5, which has the unexpected benefit of leaving an empty slot for this special occasion hook. Since I was involved in the reviewing process, someone else should looking into promoting it. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:26, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

 Done by Cwmhiraeth. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 06:17, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

adding photo to nomination

I nominated Template:Did you know nominations/Souper Salad about a week ago. I have recently added a photo to the article which would also greatly improve the hook. It seems there is a little magic done at the time of the initial nomination regarding images. I don't know how to add a image to the nomination at this point to be used in a slightly altered ALT1 hook (just adding "pictured"). MB 04:18, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

 Done Gatoclass (talk) 10:13, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

[Closed] Prep 4 - Animals in professional wrestling

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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No action, just a note that this article contained not just one abuse of non-free images but two, yet was still reviewed, passed and promoted. It also features bare URLs and an unreferenced section. Yunshui, HalfGig, *Treker. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:45, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

And how would a free image of Stu Hart (dead) vs Chi-Chi the Tiger (also dead) be available? There is a good argument that a historic picture of a pro-wrestler wrestling an animal is encyclopedic in 'Animals in professional wrestling'. There are unlikely to be commercial uses as the animal rights activists would crucify them. As it stands there is now one image which is Teddy Hart holding a pussy. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:56, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

(Redacted)

I'm not debating that. I'm simply stating that the article was promoted with two non-free images incorrectly licensed for use in that article. This stuff really needs to be picked up either in review or before promotion. It's a legal matter. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:13, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. I could not find any other image of an actual professional wrestler wrestling a tiger so I used the image which was already on Stu Hart's article. The picture of Terrible Ted is also used in Ted's own article.★Trekker (talk) 12:16, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes, the licensing should be fixed. I've been lazy and not done it yet.★Trekker (talk) 12:18, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Unsourced BLP

Does "unsourced BLP" need to have zero source in order to qualify for articles that only need twofold expansion? I'm talking about the Leonard Patrick Harvey article which I found having one weak source and has a good scope to be expanded twofold. HaEr48 (talk) 08:33, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

HaEr48, zero sourcing for a 2x BLP is the rule. Leonard Patrick Harvey will need to be a standard 5x expansion if you want to submit it to DYK, from 1166 to 5830 prose characters. BlueMoonset (talk) 09:40, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Prep 6 - Kensington Railway Station

Again, no action required, but this was reviewed, passed and promoted whilst completely uncategorised. I've now addressed that but please, check that sort of thing before it gets accepted onto the main page. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:18, 25 February 2017 (UTC)