Wikipedia talk:Did you know

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

This is where the Did you know section on the main page, its policies, and its processes can be discussed.

Wikipedia:Did you know/Statistics/Monthly DYK pageview leaders oddly showing Joanne McCarthy (basketball) as lowest

Joanne McCarthy (basketball) ran on at DYK from 00:00 to 19:56, May 7, 2024 (7208 pageviews) and 20:08, May 9, 2024 to 00:00, May 10, 2024 (1777 pageviews). So in 23:48 it had 8985 pageviews. It is listed only for the second run, but as if the second run was 24 hours with some sort of adjustment making her pageviews 1303 with an average pageview of 1303/24=54.3, which is the lowest of the month at both Wikipedia:Did you know/Statistics/Monthly summary statistics and Wikipedia:Did you know/Statistics/Monthly DYK pageview leaders. Can this be fixed somehow?-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 08:49, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Moved it on pageview leaders, although I don't really understand summary statistics.--Launchballer 13:34, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

@TonyTheTiger: The bot seems to have undone our edits.--Launchballer 11:44, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

It looks like User:GalliumBot is run by user:theleekycauldron, who frequents this page. Hopefully, she checks in and can offer some advice.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 18:20, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

• @Theleekycauldron:-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 01:27, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

  @Launchballer and TonyTheTiger: gah. There's no current way to induce manual override. It's been on my list for a while, but I don't think I'll get around to it for a while. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 05:01, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

RfC: Should contentious topics be ineligible for Did You Know?

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Snow close.--Launchballer 15:02, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

---

Contentious topics are constrained and tagged per WP:CTOPICS. They are, by definition, controversial and so will generate additional contention and work at DYK compared to ordinary topics. The editing restrictions applied to these topics also tends to make resolution of disputes difficult, protracted and slow. As DYK is oversubscribed, it may not need this aggravation. The question is whether we should add a rule to WP:DYKCRIT making contentious topics ineligible for DYK?

Andrew🐉(talk) 11:54, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

There should be discussion before an RfC, and I feel confident it would quickly find that we should not ban all DYK hooks from India. CMD (talk) 11:58, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

This follows the recent extensive discussions here and at ANI. Looking for the most recent hook from India, this seems to be Asha Sobhana. That's not tagged as a contentious topic. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:14, 15 May 2024 (UTC) (edit conflict)

I don't recall in those extensive discussions someone proposing the idea that all articles falling under CTOPICS should be banned, let along there being specific discussion on that question. There has been a suggestion to restrict BLPs, but that is only one of the many CTOPICS. CMD (talk) 12:13, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Just to emphasise what I said below, any editor is free to add {{Contentious topics/talk notice}} to Talk:Asha Sobhana if they so desire. I mean I could do it right now. I'm not going to in part since some may argue it's WP:POINT. I'd disagree on that since it's not disruptive to do so considering the DYK has already run and there's no harm in having the notice there; but it also doesn't seem to be that important to have a notice so better to just tell and don't show. Nil Einne (talk) 13:22, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

We have lots of BLPs about sportmen and women like this. If such a template is added, at what point are constraints like 1RR and ECP activated? And at what point do you have to notify editors per the awareness clause? As this stuff seems quite bitey, it's good to understand it. Andrew🐉(talk) 14:07, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

This is unclear. Are you talking about "controversial topics" or about Wikipedia:Contentious topics? I definitely oppose any restriction on "controversial topics" because almost anything can be controversial (for example, anything with shock value or involving sex or crime or religion). —Kusma (talk) 12:00, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

This is clearly not ready for RfC, so I have removed the RfC tag. —Kusma (talk) 12:00, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

I thought it was quite clear that this meant those topics which are formally tagged as CT per WP:CTOP. I have revised the text to make this clearer. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:07, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Just for clarity, you are aware that anyone is free to tag any article where CT applies with the Template:Contentious topics/talk notice? There is no "formal" process for doing so, the only thing that really matter is whether CT applies so it can be done to any BLP to give one example. Normally this is no big deal since CT applies regardless of the notice, but your proposal makes it a big deal. Nil Einne (talk) 13:11, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

The specific example which sparked this was Killing of David Ben Avraham -- someone said they wouldn't promote this to DYK because touching it was too dangerous. The talk page for that has an {{ARBPIA}} template which says: "The contentious topics procedure applies to this article." and goes on to explain that WP:ECP and WP:1RR applies. It's this level of CT that I intended to cover. It's news to me that any BLP at all can be tagged in this draconian way and that bit of WP:CREEP seems to have happened at the end of 2022. Andrew🐉(talk) 13:35, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Looking at talk:Andrew Tate, as that's been the main bone of contention lately, it has a {{controversial}} template which just seems mildly informational and a {{contentious topics/page restriction talk notice}} which is the full monty. Andrew🐉(talk) 13:54, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose Biographies of living people are a contentious topic — are we really going to ban these from DYK? Multiple contentious topics are completely fine to be shown at DYK, we can't just ban all of them out of nowhere. Skyshiftertalk 12:19, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Contentious topics include all biographies of living people, India, Pakistan, Iranian politics, Sri Lanka, anything related to post-1992 US politics, COVID-19, Eastern Europe, gender and sexuality and climate change. Disallowing so many large content areas is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. —Kusma (talk) 12:20, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

No, BLPs are not all contentious topics -- they are a different class of topic per WP:BLP. Excluding all BLPs would be a much bigger deal. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:25, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

You are aware that "All living or recently deceased subjects of biographical content on Wikipedia articles are designated as a contentious topic." (Wikipedia:Contentious topics/Biographies of Living Persons)? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:37, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) This seems to be an example of why you really need to workshop before starting an RfC. It sounds like the OP is proposing that any article where the talk page is tagged with {{Contentious topics/talk notice}} or {{Contentious topics/page restriction talk notice}} is forbidden from DYK but this has been very poorly explained.

More importantly, I'd note that anyone is free to place the first template on any page it applies, so anyone can place it on a BLP talk page for example. Normally this is no big deal unless editors are confused how CT works. The presence or absence of the talk notice doesn't affect whether CT applies. However under this proposal any editor can place the CT notice on a talk page where it would apply and ban it from DYK.

So suddenly the presence of the notice becomes potentially a big deal leading to WP:gaming concerns and a likelihood of editors being dragged to ANI over concerns they're adding CT notices just to ban something from DYK. I'm not sure the wisdom of such a proposal, DYK is already controversial enough on the administrative noticeboards.

At the very least IMO, this proposal should require the notice is present before it's proposed for DYK.

Nil Einne (talk) 13:07, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

That is not a good solution either: new articles could still be nominated before anyone has had the chance to add a CT notice. The presence or absence of the CT notice at the time of nomination has very little to do with the contentiousness of the actual article and DYK hook. —Kusma (talk) 13:18, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. It is certainly true that CT's are more difficult to write about, which often means they involve more work to process at DYK (see Template:Did you know nominations/Environmental damage of Gaza caused by the Israel–Hamas war for another recent example). But that's not a reason to blanket ban them from DYK. RoySmith (talk) 12:55, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. I suppose there could be some way of flagging CTOP entries for review, but let's face it the vast majority of hooks related to CTOPs are completely unremarkable (especially as, technically, all BLPs fall under that flag). And, as we saw with Tate, most controversial issues arrive here anyway for discussion. Black Kite (talk) 13:19, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose Absolutely not. This is too large a category to exclude. Toa Nidhiki05 13:27, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose: as long as the article is in good shape (which includes a neutral point of view) and the proposed hook is not a contentious or controversial claim, a contentious topic article should be an article like any other for the DYK process (and for all article-related processes such as AFC, PR, GAN, FAC, etc; for that matter). Cambalachero (talk) 13:58, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose and suggest a snow close - The proposal is simply too broad. Now I know we just had a few discussions about contentious topics on DYK, including one that's ongoing, but I am not convinced that a blanket ban is the solution. It should probably be a case-by-case thing. Plus, having blanket bans would be unfair to editors who worked hard to bring the article to a good state if not create it, only to be told their efforts cannot be incentivized just because of the subject matter. There are times when precisely due to an article's subject it's not a good fit for DYK, but they are the exception and not the rule and we shouldn't have any strict rules about them. I know this discussion has only been up for a few hours but I would suggest closing this as soon as possible as this simply will not go anywhere. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 14:58, 15 May 2024 (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.

Future RFC on BLPs at DYK

Hi all. I an going to request that our regular DYK promoters, reviewers, talk page discussion participants, etc. participate in collecting examples of negative hooks on BLPs that ran on the main page, were pulled from the main page, or became contentious either at Wikipedia talk:Did you know or at the nomination page. This would include rejected hooks to be fair, because we want people to see where we have succeeded in the review process as well as where we may have failed. I know that some of our active project members do not wish for an RFC, but I think it best we allow for wide community discussion on this topic to help us be more consistent in implementing WP:BLP policy at DYK. The community needs to consider the challenges of meeting BLP policy within a DYK format where we limit content expression to 200 characters or less within a single sentence. I contend that the challenges of our format make compliance with WP:BLPBALANCE difficult in a way that is unique to DYK. The current BLP policy as written is article space targeted and its application at DYK is therefore challenging to work through. For this reason we need an RFC and we need to ask the community at large the questions within this RFC.

I am doing my best here to allow for as a wide a range of opinions as possible. Any thoughts on a better way to structure this RFC are welcome, as this is not something I normally do. We may stop the RFC earlier or expand the questions of exploration depending on the WP:CONSENSUS over individual questions. The goal here is to give us a community supported process for handling BLPs with either negative and contentious content at DYK nominations that specifically looks at how BLP policy should be applied at DYK review/promotion. That should benefit the project and hopefully prevent long protracted arguments at DYK (which are often over BLP policy) and elsewhere such as ANI. If we have a better articulated process with community support this will hopefully make our lives editing at DYK easier when it comes to reviewing proposed BLP hooks and will hopefully prevent conflict at DYK review and potential drama on project pages related to the Main page.

Opening statement draft

In the past year, I have either witnessed or participated in several contentious discussions concerning Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons policy within hook nominations at WP:Did You Know that have arisen from hook proposals involving "negative" material about BLPs where the information could be perceived as an attack on the BLP or an attempt to smear the BLP's public image. While the vast majority of BLP nominations at DYK are non-controversial, the project does receive a small percentage of hook proposals on BLPs where the subject is presented in a negative light on an on-going periodic basis. These hooks are sometimes submitted by seasoned DYK participants, and sometimes editors new to the project.

The reactions to these various "negative hook" proposals has been inconsistent on the part of the DYK community with a wide range of expressed opinions from active editors in the project as well as a wide range of responses within DYK hook review process. Negative hooks on BLPs have sometimes been rejected as violating BLP policy using rationales from either Wikipedia:Did you know/Reviewer instructions and Wikipedia:Did you know/Guidelines, or the WP:BLP policy page itself. They also have sometimes been approved by editors, have been promoted by DYK admins to Template:Did you know/Queue, and have made it to the WP:MAIN page. These various responses have sometimes been received with community support, no comment by the community other than the reviewer, or have been heavily contested either within the individual hook review template, or at DYK's talk page. Those negative hooks which have made it to the main page have sometimes been brought to noticeboards such as WP:ERRORS and WP:ANI where responses have equally been inconsistent; including the pulling of hooks due to BLP violations, no action, etc.

It's my contention that this pattern of inconsistent response is evidence of an on-going failure of the DYK community to consistently implement BLP policy. I believe the reason for this failure is two fold. 1) The BLP guidelines in the Wikipedia:Did you know/Reviewer instructions and Wikipedia:Did you know/Guidelines are currently poorly written, and in particular the words "unduly negative" have been interpreted as meaning the DYK community can run negative hooks on BLPs that individual editors have labeled as "bad people" because they deserve it. This has inevitably allowed for WP:POV pushing and politicization within certain hook proposals; drawing into question the integrity of the DYK platform and the encyclopedia when such hooks have successfully made it to the main page. 2) The current BLP policy page is written to address article space and does not currently address the unique format of DYK where we limit content expression to a single sentence of 200 characters or less. What is possible to do in terms of WP:BLPBALANCE within article space is not possible in a DYK hook by virtue of limited space.

The community needs to take a close look at how DYK should interpret BLP policy within the unique DYK hook format for the purposes of DYK hook review. The purpose of this RFC is to assist DYK in more consistently following BLP policy going forward by reviewing DYK's current processes and guidelines for reviewing BLP hooks; and making any necessary changes to Wikipedia:Did you know, Wikipedia:Did you know/Guidelines, and Wikipedia:Did you know/Reviewer instructions as it relates to BLPs. To help us achieve that goal, the DYK community has assisted in gathering real examples of potential BLP violating hooks that have either run on the main page successfully, been pulled from the main page after being reported to a notice board, or failed to be promoted but with contentious and sometimes lengthy discussion. Other types of evidence have also been put forward, and other kinds of potentially BLP violating hooks have been identified in the evidence gathering process besides just negative hooks. For this reason, I have crafted the RFC question process with some flexibility because there may be avenues of exploration raised by the community at this RFC that the community may wish to explore that could not have been anticipated earlier. It should be noted that the examples given are just a sampling of mainly recent examples of this problem, and this is by no means a thorough or complete presentation of all issues related to BLPs that have come up at DYK.

I want this RFC to be helpful no matter what conclusions ultimately are arrived at. I have my opinions, but they may not be the majority view, and my goal here is to make things better as a community space for DYK volunteers no matter what proposals are ultimately successful at achieving broad community support. I am hopeful we will come up with a better reviewing document for BLP hooks as a community which will prevent further incidents at WP:ERRORS and WP:ANI, and make the DYK review process less stressful for our dedicated volunteers by eliminating the need for repeating the same unproductive or contentious arguments in circles at DYK review.

RFC format: Questions and Proposals

Note 1. This is a presentation of this RFC's format, including planned guiding questions and a described process for future proposals. Please do not respond to the questions or make proposals in this space. Questions will be opened for comment one at a time, as answers to prior questions are important for informing responses to succeeding questions.

Note 2. The term "negative hook" may mean different things to different people, and individual hooks may be perceived as "negative" by a certain group of editors but not by others due to varying backgrounds among our editing volunteers. In examining policy language at WP:BLPSTYLE, a broadly construed definition of a negative hook could be any hook that may be perceived as an attack on the BLP or an attempt to malign their public image, or a hook that may be perceived as a partisan representation of the subject. These could include the use of contentious labels, loaded language, or terms that lack precision. Real examples of hooks that have been identified as negative by some editors have been gathered in the evidence section. See WP:BLPSTYLE and WP:BLPBALANCE.

RFC Questions

• 1. Can DYK feature negative hooks on BLPs and remain in compliance with WP:BLP policy? Consider the limitations of the DYK format and the language of WP:BLP policy in your answer. If no, why? If yes, why?

If the WP:CONSENSUS is yes or no consensus we move on to the next question. If the consensus is no we skip question 2 and move to question 3.

• 2. How can we determine when a negative hook on a BLP can and can't be used? What specific guideline(s) should DYK reviewers follow when reviewing negative hooks on BLPs? What language should we include in a guideline that assists reviewers in making decisions and prevents conflict at DYK, Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors, and other project pages? Consider the limitations of the DYK hook format and the language of WP:BLP policy in your answer.

Once opinions have been gathered and summarized we move on to the next question.

• 3. Are there changes that DYK should make to Wikipedia:Did you know, Wikipedia:Did you know/Guidelines, and Wikipedia:Did you know/Reviewer instructions as it relates to BLPs?

Once opinions have been gathered and summarized we move to question 4

• 4. Are there any additional questions we should consider as it relates to DYK and BLP policy before moving on to proposals?

It's possible we may need to ask a question that was not predicted at the onset of the RFC, after getting input to the first three questions. We will leave room to ask additional questions for community input if needed before moving on to proposals. We will discuss any other questions raised by the community. Once completed, we will begin accepting proposals that should come from WP:CONSENSUS input.

Proposals

• Proposals should come out of the discussion resulting from the above questions. This RFC will not start with a set list of proposals. These should come directly from the community input to the RFC questions. Proposal submissions will be open to all contributors in the RFC after the questioning period concludes. The goal of this RFC is to improve DYK's review process as it relates to BLPs in order to assist DYK and its volunteers in being consistently compliant with WP:BLP policy and prevent conflicts at DYK review on BLPs. Once a proposal has been made we will vote and arrive at a WP:CONSENSUS on each individual proposal.

That is it folks. I am creating a sub-thread below for evidence to aid in the RFC. I am not the most knowledgable person on historic negative BLPs, so assistance from others is a must if we are going to do this RFC fairly, neutrally, and with the best possible chance at a positive outcome for DYK as a project. Thanks to everyone in advance who helps. I will also create a sub thread on any suggested changes to the RFC questions/format. I want this RFC to be helpful no matter what conclusions ultimately are arrived at. I have my opinions, but they may not be the majority view, and my goal here is to actually make things better as a community space for DYK volunteers regardless of the ultimate outcome. I am hopeful we will come up with a better reviewing document for BLP hooks which will save us all unnecessarily repeating the same unproductive or contentious arguments in circles, and will make reviewing BLP hooks less contentious and stressful for our dedicated volunteers.4meter4 (talk) 16:54, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Suggestions on RFC construction

Please comment on the proposed RFC structure here. Any suggestions for improvements are much appreciated. Best.4meter4 (talk) 16:54, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Evidence

Please add examples below for the upcoming RFC. We need examples for the community at large to examine. The RFC can not go forward until there is a good sampling of evidence gathered.4meter4 (talk) 16:54, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

• NOTE Please just post links and do not editorialize or discuss examples unless for some reason they should be excluded. We need a working list, not a running commentary. Limit all examples to BLPs specifically.4meter4 (talk) 18:44, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Negative BLPs that were promoted to the main page without issue

Incident	Year	Hook/comments	Discussion
Murder of Jiang Ge	2024	... that the murder of Jiang Ge led to public debate in China over the actions of Jiang's roommate during her murder? The living person in question is Liu Xin, mentioned in the hook and discussed at length in the article.	Raised at ERRORS but no response: [1]
Going Infinite	2024	Hook draws attention to a negative comment made against a living person; it had to be toned down at nomination stage and again in prep.	WT:DYK: [2]
Diether Dehm	2020	Two "negative" hooks were proposed, one about the BLP employing a terrorist and the other one about the BLP being a former informer of the secret police.	The "terrorist" hook ran without controversy.
Hsinchu Kuang-Fu Senior High School	2024	Raised at ERRORs but alas, no pull as it was only an hour until it rolled off MP. @Theleekycauldron: said "This article looks like a straight NPOV violation to me". Therapyisgood (talk) 23:43, 17 May 2024 (UTC)	Raised at ERRORs
Debbie Currie	2024	... that Debbie Currie once worked as a lollipop lady? whole damn thing reads like a BLP violation. "reprimanded for smoking aged 13, and had to retake all of her A-levels after being accused of cheating; she graduated with a C and two Ds, and read English and Communication" " She used an October 2009 article in the Daily Mail to announce that she had become a single mother by choice after a drunken one-night stand aged thirty, and encouraged others to have their children before finding a partner." "claimed that she had enjoyed a four-in-a-bed orgy and lost her virginity at fifteen" Therapyisgood (talk) 00:08, 18 May 2024 (UTC) I feel like this was an issue with the article rather than the nom/hook? I think DYK should have caught it. Valereee (talk) 00:19, 18 May 2024 (UTC)	Raised at ERRORs with 4 minutes before the hooks rotated.

Negative BLPs that were pulled from the main page

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
A DYK on the death of actress Gemma McCluskie, posted only three weeks after her 2012 murder: ANI thread:[3] Talk:DYK thread:[4] I hope that it shouldn't prove necessary here to point out what WP:BLP says (and said in 2012) about taking consideration for friends and relatives etc of the recently deceased, the need to avoid tabloid-style sensationalism, and all the other obvious issues with this DYK. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:27, 15 May 2024 (UTC) I'm not sure an issue from twelve years ago is relevant now? Except to show Andy's been calling people names for at least that long. Maybe we should concentrate on the past year or two? Valereee (talk) 18:38, 15 May 2024 (UTC) This is from 2012, and shows that there is a long-standing issue with AndyTheGrump. It is an inappropriate hook sensationalising a murder, not a "negative hook about a BLP". —Kusma (talk) 18:40, 15 May 2024 (UTC) Attempts to stifle discussion of long-term systemic issues with DYK duly noted. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:44, 15 May 2024 (UTC) Andy, I don't think anyone would disagree these were bad. But let's focus on today's issues. Valereee (talk) 18:46, 15 May 2024 (UTC) Not without clear and unambiguous evidence that DYK has undergone systemic changes which would prevent a recurrence. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:47, 15 May 2024 (UTC) So is it your intention to bring in here as evidence every DYK you've ever objected to in the past 12+ years? Because I think your strategy would be counterproductive to fixing the problem. Something that has been pointed out to you before, including very recently. Valereee (talk) 18:49, 15 May 2024 (UTC) It is my intention to respond to the request made in this thread. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:52, 15 May 2024 (UTC) Which means you're going to completely jam up this apparently well-intentioned RfC by someone who agrees with you. Okay. Valereee (talk) 18:53, 15 May 2024 (UTC) That's exactly what is happening. Thank you. Viriditas (talk) 19:05, 15 May 2024 (UTC) If it hasn't happened in twelve years then it's not a recurring problem. This is why 12-year-old evidence sucks. Levivich (talk) 18:54, 15 May 2024 (UTC) How about actually waiting to see what other evidence is offered before dismissing it? I am still under the impression that this request for such evidence was made in good faith, even if some would apparently prefer to exclude anything they would prefer not to get scrutiny. Let other contributors provide their own evidence. If mine is all there is (which seems unlikely) you can then argue that there isn't a systemin problem. And no, I have no intention of bringing 'every DYK I've ever objected to in the past 12+ years' here. I brought up two, because they were clearly relevant to a discussion which seems on the face of it to be focussed around adressing systemic issues. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:04, 15 May 2024 (UTC) Do you have a suggestion how to get people to review more properly? Your method seems to be to reduce the number of DYK volunteers by insulting them. If you want to help, please review nominations and double check prep sets. All kind of issues are occasionally caught only at the prep-to-queue stage or at ERRORS. Some of them are comparatively minor (like repeating incorrect claims about "X was the first Y to do Z" from sources), others are bad (copyvios) or really bad (accusing BLPs of crimes that they have not been convicted for). It can be exhausting to check everything, and we do not have enough admins doing it. We need more (non-admin) eyes on the prep sets and queues. Yelling at volunteers like you do has as its most likely effect a reduction in our number of capable volunteers. Please stop making DYK worse and start helping to make it better. —Kusma (talk) 19:04, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Please note that I have raised the improper hatting above, along with what appears to be a more general attempt to prevent legitimate participation in this thread at WP:ANI. [5] AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:33, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Limit examples to BLP hooks only. All BLP examples, regardless how old, will be accepted. Editors are smart enough to recognize the age of the nom may impact its relevance. We don't have to trim them. All hooks not about a BLP will be hidden as above. Please avoid discussing examples unless there is a glaring problem (such as the hook isn't a BLP or the hook is not negative). Examples can be discussed at the RFC. We are just gathering evidence in list format without discussion at this time. All off-topic discussions will be swiftly archived to protect the RFC preparation process like the one above. Thank you.4meter4 (talk) 19:15, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

@4meter4, maybe put the information into a sortable table so people can at least sort by age? Valereee (talk) 19:26, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

If an editor skilled in templates wants to take that on, more power to them. I am not the best at table design.4meter4 (talk) 19:28, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

I am probably the editor least skilled in templates in any discussion on this page, so if anyone wants to fix whatever I did wrong, please do. Valereee (talk) 19:47, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Incident	Year	Hook/comments	Discussion
Gemma McCluskie	2012	Concerns about recently deceased BLP violation	ANI thread:[6] Talk:DYK thread:[7]
Nandipha Magudumana	2024	... that the celebrity doctor Nandipha Magudumana was imprisoned and investigated for twelve crimes, including murder connected to a fugitive's prison escape?	ERRORS discussion: [8] Article at the time of promotion: [9]
Angelle (singer)	2024	... that the British entrepreneur Sarah Bennett went from being "one of the biggest flops in pop history" to appearing on the Sunday Times Rich List 2017?	ERRORS discussion: [10]

Negative BLPs that were contentious at Wikipedia talk:Did you know

Incident	Year	Hook/comments	Discussions
Andrew Tate	2024	... that social media influencer Andrew Tate described himself as "absolutely a misogynist"? Concerns about BLP vio	WT:DYK: [11] WT:ANI: [12]
Sarah Jane Baker	2023	... that author Sarah Jane Baker was so desperate for gender affirming care in prison that she cut off her testicles with a razor blade? (one example of several contentious hooks on this person that were proposed)	WT:DYK: [13]
Shootings of Sydney Land and Nehemiah Kauffman	2024	Pulled from queue and then rejected, in part due to BLP concerns.	WT:DYK: [14]
Jews Don't Count	2023	Altered in queue, after it was argued that the original hook falsely attributed an anti-semitic POV to a living person.	WT:DYK: [15]
Lil Tay	2023	Pulled from prep due to poor sourcing of negative information in the article.	WT:DYK: [16]
Marvin Harrison Jr.	2023	... that one NFL scout compared watching Marvin Harrison Jr. (pictured) to "window shopping at a Lamborghini dealership for the model that doesn't come out until next year"? Concerns about objectifying people of colour.	WT:DYK: [17]
Child abuse in association football	2023	Pulled from queue for various reasons, one of which was BLPCRIME concerns.	WT:DYK: [18]

• I'm not sure how to add it to the table, and technically it was a BDP and not a BLP, but Killing of David Ben Avraham might be of relevance here even if it being contentious had more to do with IP rather than BLP per-se. Just leaving it here for the record. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 23:45, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

@Narutolovehinata5, tables are easily edited in the visual editor. Try this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know?veaction=edit WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:31, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Negative BLPs that were contentious during review but not rejected

Incident	Year	Hook/comments	Discussion

Negative BLPs that were contentious during review and rejected

Incident	Year	Hook/comments	Discussion

Other kinds of BLP violation concerns in DYK hooks

Incident	Year	Hook/comments	Discussion
HorsegiirL	2024	Pulled from prep; original hook used the article subject's real name against their wishes	WT:DYK: [19]
Matthew Charles Johnson	2024	Negative hook with unsourced info raised at ERRORS.	ERRORS: [20]

Evidence discussion

Please do not interrupt the list with discussions in order to keep information easily readable for everyone. Any comments/disputes over listed items can be commented on here.4meter4 (talk) 01:38, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Other issues

I can't predict what other issues might come up. So I created this subsection if anybody has further comments that they want to make on this future RFC. I want this to be an RFC the whole DYK volunteer community can feel good about going into it.4meter4 (talk) 16:54, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

A DYK on the 'Murder of Ayakannu Marithamuthu' was finally pulled in prep, just before it was due to go live, back in 2013. But only after a WP:BLPN thread, and another on WP:ANI, brought the matter to the attention of the broader community, DYK regulars having entirely failed to notice the numerous issues. The DYK stated as fact that this individual had been 'cooked in a curry'. This assertion was sourced in the article to a food blog. Note that not only have there have been no convictions for this alleged murder, it has never even been determined that Marithamuthu was murdered (or, apparently, that he is even dead at all), never mind being disposed of in this bizarre manner.

BLPN thread :[21]

ANI thread:[22]

Talk DYK thread:[23]

AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:38, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Again over a decade ago. Maybe let's focus on current issues instead of playing Andy's Greatest Hits? Valereee (talk) 18:43, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

No. Not without clear and unambiguous evidence that DYK has undergone systemic changes which would prevent a recurrence. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:47, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Andy, I mean this absolutely sincerely: why? If we want to fix now, let's focus on now. Valereee (talk) 18:53, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Ah yes, the "let’s hold DYK hostage until it gives into our demands" tactic. I originally suspected the Tate nomination would lead to this, regardless of the hook. This tactic is popular in some sectors, and it’s the preferred strategy of conservative legal activists who have used it to try and control the Supreme Court and get them to rule in their favor by bringing artificial cases for them to rule on. Viriditas (talk) 18:54, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

I go away for a few hours and it looks like a cyclone came through here. Maybe we need to close out some of these threads? There were relevant comments by others but I cannot even find them. I am seeing ATG throw a tantrum in here and at ANI. I agree with Kusma's advice in the hatted discussion Your method seems to be to reduce the number of DYK volunteers by insulting them. If you want to help, please review nominations and double check prep sets. This method of damning the volunteers and their ineptitude is not going to have the desired effect. Lightburst (talk) 03:58, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

@AndyTheGrump Undoubtedly, DYK has failed in other areas on occasion, but we can not handle every issue all at once. This RFC has a very specific focus. Please keep your examples limited to the specific topic area of this RFC. We are not looking at hooks that involve people who are dead, only those who are alive because the focus of this RFC is WP:BLP policy as it relates to WP:DYK. We have to keep the RFC. focused or it won't work and will be closed without any productive work being done. We can always look at another policy area in another RFC if it is needed. At this time, BLP issues have been the most consistent point of contention within the project which is why this RFC is needed. Best.4meter4 (talk) 18:58, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

As I stated above, it hasn't been established that Ayakannu Marithamuthu is actually dead. And both in 2013, and now, claiming, without proper sourcing that a named individual cooked another named individual in a curry to dispose of their body is clearly and unambiguously a WP:BLP violation. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:10, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

There's a consensus in this discussion to only stick to recent evidence. Since Wikipedia runs by consensus, you're beholden to it. Viriditas (talk) 19:12, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

I see no evidence whatsoever that there has been any sort of discussion sufficient to reach such a 'consensus'. And if there has, it should probably be brought to the attention of the broader Wikipedia community, who may very well have a differing opinion as to what is or isn't relevant to a discussion on the sort of systemic issues that this thread was apparently created to tackle. If we can't discuss it here, perhaps we need to do so in an environment where certain individuals cannot reject evidence because they don't like it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:19, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks isn't conducive to an RFC. Old evidence isn't helping us. If you want to study a problem and find a potential solution, you first have to ask the right question based on a set of assumed values. The evidence cannot tell you if those values are good or bad, it can only help you arrive at a solution you already agree is useful or helpful. Old evidence doesn't get us any closer to this answer. The majority of the respondents to this discussion have asked you to provide current evidence only. I'm asking you as well. Viriditas (talk) 19:21, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

This is why we can't have nice things. Valereee (talk) 19:28, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Andy, I'm trying to assume good faith, but it feels like you're torpedoing this effort, which seriously is making me wonder whether your actual intent is to prove DYK problems can't be fixed. I'm really sorry to say this. I think you're a well-intentioned editor. But it feels like...well, almost sabotage. I'm sure if anything it's subconscious, I know you'd never actually want to do that. This editor seems to be making a good-faith effort. Valereee (talk) 19:42, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Actually, I believe BLP is kind of incidental here, and not the underlying issue. DYK has three major problems:

• QPQ reviewers sometimes do not check the article and hook for policy compliance
• Prep builders sometimes promote the hook to prep without checking for policy compliance, assuming the QPQ reviewer did their job
• Admins sometimes promote the prep to queue without checking for policy compliance, assuming the QPQ reviewer and prep builder have done their jobs.

When these three problems occur at the same time, errors slip through and we end up violating BLP, NPOV, copyrights or other core policies on the Main Page. Additional rules will not help as long as people skip the checks for rule compliance. —Kusma (talk) 19:15, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Everything you've said is true, but it ignores the fundamental question that has been asked in previous discussions up above, namely, are all nominations suitable for DYK? Because right now, the problem is that we default to approve, even if people don't think it should run, instead of to discard, of which there is no mechanism to facilitate such a decision other than letting it time out, which rarely happens. Viriditas (talk) 19:23, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

I think having strict timeout rules would make it a lot easier to remove bad noms (for any reason) and would be worth trying, but I do not anticipate this to become community consensus. —Kusma (talk) 20:33, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Kusma, I'd add a fourth reason:

• Some editors expect perfection.

A 1% rejection rate would result in one "bad" DYK hooks every ten days. A Six Sigma standard would allow one "bad" DYK hook every ten years. We probably want something in between these two, but where? And how do we make the perfectionists among us accept a level of imperfection? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:42, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

• A different example of a BLP problem: Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_197#Pulled_Template:Did_you_know_nominations/HorsegiirL, which I pulled from prep because of a WP:BLPPRIVACY issue, see Talk:HorsegiirL. Things do not have to be "negative" to be a BLP issue at DYK. —Kusma (talk) 20:33, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

@Kusma This is a good point. I created an "other kinds" section for evidence. Please add that as an example to that section. Thanks.4meter4 (talk) 22:38, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

• The evidence categories seem too limited and debatable. For example, consider the case of Jimmy Carter who is remarkably still with us. In that case, several issues were raised at WP:ERRORS about a hook about him and multiple changes were made to the hook. That's often how it goes down – a discussion at WP:ERRORS and then a variety of possible outcomes. Pulling is not the only possibility. Andrew🐉(talk) 21:02, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

  Here's a list of cases from my records which I'll compile as I come across them:

1. Jimmy Carter
2. Killing of Sara-Nicole Morales
3. Murder of Alexis Sharkey
4. Mick Jagger
5. "35 people, including the President, First Lady, three senators, and a governor"

Andrew🐉(talk) 21:18, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

These probably belong in the tables above if we want people to consider them, rather than in "Other issues"? Valereee (talk) 22:04, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

@Andrew Davidson I created an "other kinds" of BLP violations section. Please add these. If there is another section you think we should create, I am open. This structure was not intended to limit us, I was just intending to get the ball rolling. If we need to expand (provided we stay focused on BLPs) we can. Thanks for participating.4meter4 (talk) 22:41, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm just getting started and gathering the raw data should come before attempts to classify it. My current impression is that examples are easy to find and so it's just a matter of looking. I looked at the current DYK set and immediately found two examples which I have reported at WP:ERRORS. What happens there is usually quite haphazard so we'll see how it goes. These fresh examples indicates that DYK is paying no particular attention to whether the topic is a BLP or MEDRS matter. As these are both quite serious, the checklist or other processing templates should highlight these aspects for special scrutiny. Andrew🐉(talk) 07:18, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

These are instructive discussions, so here is a permanent link. There seems to be no general agreement as to what constitutes a "negative hook"; any attempts to outlaw these would require more precise language than "negative". Was the Andrew Tate hook negative? Or was it allowing him to advertise his misogynist agenda? Was it both? —Kusma (talk) 08:25, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

The big problem with WP:ERRORS is that it's ephemeral and doesn't maintain archives or any kind of project files. That's why I record some completed discussions in my personal archives but just those that I took an interest in.

DYK keeps archives of its discussions and trawling through those with keywords like "BLP" will probably yield many more examples. As these issues are quite subjective, it may be good for DYK to keep a list of controversial cases, like it keeps a list of hooks which did well.

Andrew🐉(talk) 10:45, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

The issue raised with the Tate hook wasn't initially that it was simply negative per say, but that it's a quote taken out of context or otherwise over-inflated. The wording of such has since been changed after discussion on the talk page, from quoting "absolutely a misogynist", to the widespread attribution from RS of being a self-described misogynist see diff.

It seems plausible that this wouldn't of been such an issue (or an issue at all) if non-quoted wording would of been applied. Even if would of been a clearly negative hook, it would of been a lot more due based on widespread description from RS, unlike the quote in question. The article itself doesn't paint Tate is a good light (per weight of RS), so not convinced this is good advertising for him, quite the opposite. I highly doubt that people read the wikipedia page, or even the summary, and it inspires them to become a follower or fan. It's more likely to put people off him than anything else. CommunityNotesContributor (talk) 13:22, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

@CommunityNotesContributor: The context doesn't make it any better. He frames sexism as a privilege for wealthy men who can't be "canceled". He goes from the quote to saying sexism is realism and attempts to provide examples of where men should not trust women, like as pilots, surgeons, to build the Suez canal, etc. He goes on to say that there is "no such thing as an independent female". He has recently described his past comments as part of a persona rather than his actual beliefs, but reliable sources quote from this interview as reflective of his positions,[24][25] call him a self-described misogynist,[26][27], and quote Joe Mulhall from Hope Not Hate that he is attempting to "totally rewrite his own history".[28][29]

The reason I upset feminists so much is because the typical feminist tactic is to cancel somebody, right, to come at somebody and call a misogynist and call them all these things and then that person loses their career or they or they're slandered. You can't slander me because I will state right now that I am absolutely sexist and I'm absolutely a misogynist and I have fuck you money and you can't take it away so I'll say what i want because I'm a realist and when you're a realist, you're sexist. There's no way you can be rooted in reality and not be sexist. If you're about to get on a plane and that plane's gonna fly through a hurricane and there's a 50 50 chance of it crashing and dying do you want a male pilot or a female pilot?
— "Andrew Tate Tells His Life Story," Jun 20, 2021, 1:26:31

Regards, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 15:10, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

I think you somewhat missed my point here. I'm not arguing that the quote is out of context, I was referencing the initial issues raised with it being used at DKY (followed by at the BLP itself). I already argued that the quote is well within context on that article talk page as referenced. My point is that it was unnecessary and short-sighted to use the quote "absolutely a misogynist" that isn't widely referenced by RS, when the description of Tate as a "self-described misogynist" is referenced by several RS, per cite bundle. Then we don't need to argue over whether a quote is out of context or not, as we're not using it anymore. Notably ATG hasn't bothered to argue against attributing Tate to being "self-described as a misogynist" as a BLP vio, which is why I believe this controversy could have potentially been avoided, even with a negative hook. Hopefully that explains things better. CommunityNotesContributor (talk) 15:41, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

I did; thanks for the explanation, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 05:36, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Since I've been busy lately and missed the start of this fracas, I'm wondering just how much objection to this hook there was? Was it confined to the thread at AN/I initiated by ATG, or was it broader? Because if the former, I would suggest that this issue has been blown right out of proportion as the community at large appears to have greeted it with a shrug. Gatoclass (talk) 10:52, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

There was additionally this query at WP:ERRORS (basically a question about sourcing and whether Tate saying he has been quoted out of context means that any quotes of what Tate has said are unreliable). Overall, I think the community did not care much until ATG saw it as an opportunity to insult DYKers. —Kusma (talk) 11:20, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

• Comment. I have written an opening statement draft and added it above. If anyone cares to make suggestions on needed changes or possible improvements, let me know.4meter4 (talk) 16:00, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

I boldly added a sentence to WP:DYKBLP which I regard as spelling out what that section was unsuccessfully trying to say, but was reverted by @Theleekycauldron:. That could be a good starting point.--Launchballer 16:30, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

@Launchballer That new language could be a proposal to make during the RFC after the question discussions have been answered. You should present that as an idea in response to question 3. I am intentionally not making specific proposals or offering specific solutions in the opening statement. The opening statement is meant to identify and describe the problem, and set up a structure for the community to discuss the problem in order to arrive at a consensus over what may be working and what needs fixing, followed by brainstorming solutions, etc. Proposals then should come out of that discussion.4meter4 (talk) 18:58, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

• Comment. It's been quiet for a few days. So I started the RFC.4meter4 (talk) 14:55, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

"No BLP" rule

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.

---

• Adding this here for discussion because Andy and others are trying to propose it, so I'm just anticipating their future proposal. I can't say that I really oppose or support it, but I think we should start discussing it now rather than later. Viriditas (talk) 20:03, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

• I don't recall making any such proposal. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:26, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

It would certainly get rid of a lot of articles about minor sportspeople or opera performers. —Kusma (talk) 20:27, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

While BLP-related DYKs have clearly been amongst the most problematic, I'm not sure this is necessarily the best approach. To me, the underlying systemic issues are often more to do with the 'how' than the 'what' when it comes to DYKs. The problem lies in the process, more than the subject matter. Poor sourcing, poor judgement, and what appears to be an overwhelming concern to get something on the main page at any cost - even without proper agreement as to what - can happen with any topic. So yes, BLP-related material absolutely needs to be treated with great care, and if DYK can't do that, it shouldn't be permitted to, but that won't make the remaining problems go away. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:37, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

One of the biggest issues with DYK has always been the reluctance to reject nominations. We really should be more willing to do so if it's for a good reason (not necessarily BLP related), but most of us do not want to hurt editor feelings, and in several instances editors are reluctant to let their hooks be rejected without a fight. Indeed in some cases, nomination pages for articles that may not have been good fit for DYK ended up being longer than the article itself. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 23:49, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

As others have said, a blanket ban on BLPs on DYK will do more harm than good. Most BLP DYKs are uncontroversial and it would be overkill to throw the baby out of the bathwater, or to do something drastic just because of a few bad apples. It would be deeply unfair to ban DYKs just because of a handful of controversial cases, especially when in these cases the issues had more to do with a lack of proper enforcement of rules rather an issue with them being BLPs themselves. Banning BLPs should be an absolute last resort, not a first resort: instead we should focus on improving enforcement or trying other proposals like automatically timing-out stuck nominations. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 23:52, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

• This would be a sensible option in an omnibus RfC because it seems likely that some BLP-hawks might support it. The main complication is that almost any page is within the scope of BLP – not just biographies. The page just needs to involve living people in some way to qualify. Andrew🐉(talk) 21:07, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

• I sincerely hope a BLP topic ban isn't proposed. That seems a disproportionate response as the vast majority of hooks on BLPs are non-controversial. My hope is to see some limits placed on DYK in recognition of the challenges of meeting WP:BLPBALANCE within the DYK hook format. My own suggestion would be banning all negative hooks on BLPs. If we don't have something nice to say on a BLP we don't run it. It's as simple as that. A DYK hook doesn't have the space for contextualizing complex topics/controversies, displaying nuance, or providing balance within a single one sentence question.4meter4 (talk) 23:13, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

  I would oppose your simple suggestion "banning all negative hooks on BLPs", unless there is also wording that bans BLPs primarily focused on negative information about the subject altogether. I do not want to see us making happy feel-good hooks about bad people because hooks that more accurately represent those people are banned. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:33, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

David Eppstein You are welcome to propose that, and I can sympathize with that position. It may have been better to not run a hook on Tate for example, for that reason. That said, I'm not as concerned with presenting positive facts about people as I am negative ones because the risk of doing harm is not as high. I also have reservations about that as a policy because it provides a subjective moral judgment element into the review process. It's usually easy to identify a negative hook about a BLP, and making that call doesn't require that we evaluate whether the person is good or bad. It's harder the other way, where we have to evaluate is this a good person and do they deserve to be featured at DYK? I could see a lot of POV pushing and politics motivated decision making coming into play on this latter one, and that is concerning. I'm open to hearing more on that idea, but I have reservations on endorsing that within a DYK guideline. I would have to hear specifics on what that process would look like and how we prevent personal biases and politically motivated editors from sinking a DYK nom that probably should run. We have several editors with vehemently opposed ideas on the Palestine/Israel conflict active at DYK for example. I could see politics easily sabotaging a nom on a living Palestinian or Isaeli under that guideline in a way that wouldn't sit well with many people on both sides of that issue; particularly with the global increase in both islamaphobia and anti-semitism. I could even see someone like Minouche Shafik being labeled a "bad person" for political reasons. The potential for abuse within such a policy is pretty high which worries me. It smacks a bit too close to cancel culture which is not something I want to see endorsed at DYK. 4meter4 (talk) 00:55, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

The risk of doing harm to the article subject may not not high. The risk of triggering readers and of discrediting the encyclopedia as a whole is much higher. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:36, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

• Comment I oppose establishing any future restrictions. The system works fine now. --evrik ^(talk) 00:35, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
• I would also oppose any kind of BLP ban, if it came to that. Yes, this would theoretically solve some of the problems mentioned above, but it would also go overboard in that a large number of non-problematic BLPs would also be rejected (essentially, throwing the baby out with the bathwater). As mentioned by Andrew Davidson, such a ban could also be interpreted very broadly, to the extent that any article that talks about any living person might be subject to restrictions.
  I'd rather we try a much less drastic solution first. For example, perhaps we could allow reviewers to more easily reject BLP-violating hooks. – Epicgenius (talk) 00:54, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
• I have no objection to anyone closing this thread. My purpose was to investigate the window of applicable and acceptable discourse on the proposed proscriptive approach to dealing with BLP issues on DYK. This small sample of community discussion shows that the range is narrow and that contrary to the opinions of others expressed elsewhere, there is little perceived support for a "No BLP" rule. While a larger sample may show otherwise, I want to thank those who participated. Viriditas (talk) 08:05, 16 May 2024 (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.

• Comment: Uh, wait, bring back that proposal. I absolutely support a BLP ban at DYK. In general I think DYK has a quality issue, which includes boring, promotional, and inappropriately negative hooks about living people. I mean, the boring issue spans a lot of topics. But yes, let's ban BLPs—they are often of very low quality, and generate too many issues. Zanahary (talk) 07:54, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

• Zanahary, you will need to address the specific objections up above to continue the discussion. Otherwise, it’s just going around in circles. Feel free to reopen the discussion as a new community-wide RFC if you can make a proposal that takes those objections into account and counters them. Viriditas (talk) 08:16, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

  I think it is worth putting up "no BLPs" as a possible option in the RfC that is being drafted. I would certainly prefer this to a possible proposal of "all BLP related hooks must promote all of the BLPs in the hook" or "no BLP related hooks may contain content that can be perceived as negative". That said, I still believe the focus on BLPs is entirely misplaced and the whole premise of this discussion is wrong. The main issues of fact checking/policy compliance and sensationalism/neutrality affect all articles, and BLPs already tend to attract more scrutiny. —Kusma (talk) 09:34, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

  Agreed. Zanahary, this is the best way forward. Viriditas (talk) 20:37, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

• That "often" and "too many" are doing a lot of heavy lifting. I'd prefer to see statistics and examples. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:11, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

• Comment. DYK has quality controls on the articles it promotes, so I think it would be impossible to successfully make the argument that BLPs featured at DYK are consistently of poor quality, promotional, and use "poor sourcing". We require inline citations throughout to reliable sources per WP:Verifiability standards, no copyright infringement, a reasonable level of completeness, neutral point of view, encyclopedic tone, etc. Granted, many of them may be short and not at GA or FA standard, but they do tend to be much better than articles that don't go through some sort of submission process, and are usually better than those that go through draft review. I'm concerned that the comments here seem to be motivated not from a place of helpful critique, but derision of DYK, which to my mind is not the right attitude to have going into an RFC. If your goal is to discredit, dismantle. or damage DYK (which is what it sounds like when the hard work of hundreds of volunteers are dismissed as "poor", "boring" and "promotional") then it doesn't sound like you are coming into this with the desire to work with others and be collaborative. This is counter to the stated goal of the RFC, which is to assist DYK and its editors in doing its work as it relates to BLP policy.4meter4 (talk) 22:44, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

  For the record, I do agree with Zanahary that too many hooks are boring and promotional, but given the nature of open society (surprisingly, many people have a problem with this idea, particularly in the regressive era we are in now) I expect a certain number of hooks to be boring and promotional because we are part of a democratic tradition that allows these things to exist. I don't expect that comment will go over well with many people, but there is a lot of philosophy behind it, and not enough space to go into it here. Suffice it to say that I do not personally believe things like interestingness are entirely objective, and the promotional opportunity of the DYK space is difficult to completely close to all disciplines (people will always have new music, books, films, etc.) As for inappropriately negative hooks, I agree with others that I do not see this as a concern, but I understand and acknowledge that others do. Viriditas (talk) 23:03, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

I can definitely understand those critiques, but I don't think they are related to the current problem being examined. "Interestingness" as a concept is subjective, and it isn't an issue that is BLP specific or related in any way to BLP policy. In general I find people who complain about being bored are in that state for reasons other than the actual "interestingness" of a particular topic. For example, I find almost all sports related hooks boring because I have almost no interest in professional or college sports. I therefore am intelligent enough to recognize when reviewing a sports hook that just because I find some piece of sports trivia boring, doesn't mean that it is in fact boring to other readers. In general, people with wider interests, and more curious minds tend to find more hooks interesting, and are less likely to complain of boredom.

As for promotion, that too is a wider topic not limited to BLPs. We have notability guidelines for products like films, books, etc. which aid us in minimizing promotion, and writing content is a way appropriate for an encyclopedia. For example Madame Web (2024) is a recent film which I don't think anyone could say we are promoting given the large number of negative opinions in the criticism section. Just because something is a product doesn't mean that it isn't encyclopedic or that its content is inherently promotional. I get that the proposed limitations being placed on BLPs in terms of negative content may impact issues of promotion and that will be a point raised at the RFC. I am expecting that. I would argue though, that we have a responsibility to place negative content on BLPs in context, and with appropriate nuance, for ethical reasons enshrined in BLP policy which is something that can't be done in a 200 character hook. I would also argue that not all non-negative hooks are inherently promotional (in fact most aren't). It's a false argument to state that they are, because many interesting verifiable facts are neither positive or negative and are entirely neutral and non-promotional. 4meter4 (talk) 00:41, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

I laughed out loud when you brought up Madame Web. Made it through an agonizing five minutes and then had to turn it off. Did they intentionally try to make a bad film? It sure feels like it. Viriditas (talk) 02:44, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

List of pulled hooks

I think 4meter4 is right that the first step towards reform is the collection of data. One of DYK's problems, it seems to me, is that it has no institutional memory. Yesterday's errors are literally wiped from the record each morning. Any time serious concerns are raised, there's always someone to characterise the situation as a one-off event, a statistical anomaly. And it may well appear that way to each individual editor, but that's only because there are no logs kept that might provide a bigger-picture view.

As just one data point, then, I've revived a long-defunct process and created Wikipedia:Did you know/Removed/2023–24, which lists all the hooks that have been pulled from the Main Page in the past year and a half. Hopefully some among you will find it useful. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 20:46, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Your preliminary results lend weight to Kusma's hypothesis up above, namely that BLP is incidental and not the issue. It also shows that the main problem is basic fact checking, not NPOV. Viriditas (talk) 20:54, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

I agree with that. BLP violations are the most harmful manifestation of the problem, so I understand why some want to focus on that specifically, but the question to be asking is not what kind of hooks are appropriate, but why bad hooks get through. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 21:13, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

An uncomfortable part of that question is "who lets bad hooks through?", which would need to be compared to the reviewer/prep builder/promoter's overall output (looking at hooks pulled from prep or queue by admins would also be interesting and give a larger sample size). Another question to ask is what kind of error rate (and what type of errors) are acceptable. All kinds of websites, be it newspapers or encyclopaedias, get things wrong occasionally, for some value of "occasionally". —Kusma (talk) 22:46, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

I saw someone somewhere on the project said that an issue they saw was that we have no coordinator; like nobody is captain of the ship so everyone is trying to steer. Another issue someone raised somewhere (sorry to many discussions going) is that we have up to 18 separate hooks promoted a day and no other other main page project does that. So many individual hooks, articles and sources to check. Also every article is from anywhere in the world and on every subject imaginable from cartoons to cartographers. At errors editors are sometimes not pinged. Errors has no archive as Sojourner in the earth has said, any errors are literally wiped from the record each morning.

Maybe we go back to 8 hooks or 7 seven. If we worry about filling empty space we could promote two image hooks? I am just highlighting a few observations that can help explain slips and maybe a way to slow us down. I have previously highlighted that we are either sprinting (two sets a day) or walking (one set a day). We never jog and the eighteen hour set idea is always waved off as not a viable option. Bruxton (talk) 01:59, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

A few observations and thoughts:

• Even good publishers make errors. Our goal can't be zero errors, or it becomes unachievable and folks walk away.
• A list of pulled hooks is a great idea. Is there any way we could automate that so it just happens?
• Are DYK noms more or less likely to violate a policy or guideline? At a glance, it seems they are less likely to be bogus but more likely to be scrutinized. DYK nominations are at the very least more heavily cited than the average article. For all the problems the process may have, it would never, for example, pass the largely uncited gang articles like Simon City Royals or Spanish Cobras to the main page.
• When building preps, I encounter approved nominations with issues. I usually leave some kind of comment and move on. Is that the norm? This seems like a great place to introduce scrutiny.
• Template:DYK symbol list and the nomination header offers several options to tag comments ranging from approving to rejecting the hook. Could we come up with some kind of alternative to and ? These are used to indicate issues that don't fail the nomination but require work on the article or clarification. Could we have one for more serious issues () or change how is treated. I'm thinking of something that could flag major issues on a nomination that will somehow autofail it if not addressed within a week.
• I don't think this is BLP-specific or editor-specific issue. Check out the nominations and reviews from a prolific editor who was blocked for ongoing plagiarism:[30]

Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 02:31, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

I do not think a coordinator is the way to go. We need more people to take some responsibility, not a few people with more responsibility. We need better QPQ reviews, and we need to either (a) make it easy and common for prep builders to send noms back for further review and discussion or (b) automatically time out and reject hooks that multiple prep builders have not used although given the opportunity.

At all stages, it needs to be easier to reject hooks, and rejections should be more common. —Kusma (talk) 10:08, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Making it easier to reject nominations is almost a perennial proposal for DYK but it never happens because editors don't want to hurt other editors' feelings. Understandable but one can argue that this sentiment is doing more harm than good. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 23:37, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

That is why I am advocating for time-out rules: instead of having one editor explicitly reject a nomination (at whatever stage), the DYK community would collectively reject a nom by not processing it and just waiting for it to time out. I would like for us to not spend ages arguing over questionable hooks, but have an option to give up on a nom. —Kusma (talk) 06:48, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

I think that's a great idea; if a hook nom is just not getting any attention one way or the other (beyond perhaps QPQ) then maybe that's a sign it's not meant for the main page. JoelleJay (talk) 16:58, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Kusma at the moment, the top nomination at WP:DYKNA has been sitting there for ten days; I haven't promoted it because I don't feel it meets standards, the nominator disagrees, and I think other promoters concur with me. It was nominated on February 28, and has been twice pulled from prep. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:19, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

@AirshipJungleman29: Yes, that is an unreasonable amount of time for a DYK nom to linger, I have closed as rejected. I suggest to make such time outs the norm and not an exception. —Kusma (talk) 09:43, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

+1 Valereee (talk) 13:54, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

...[W]e have up to 18 separate hooks promoted a day and no other main page project does that. So many individual hooks, articles and sources to check. Also every article is from anywhere in the world and on every subject imaginable from cartoons to cartographers.

This is the Fundamental DYK Problem. Wikipedia doesn't have the human resources necessary to vet that many hooks every day in such a wide variety of topic areas. Until this problem is addressed, any other reforms are just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Maybe we go back to 8 hooks or 7 seven.

That's still too many for the available resources, but it would be a significant step toward reducing errors, perhaps by half.

The way to fix this is to use evidence-based decision-making; i.e. objectively measure performance, and then appropriately throttle the system so the number of hooks is not more than the review system can handle. Set key performance indicators (KPIs) like "all queues and all preps should be filled at all times," and "99% WP:ERRORS-free," i.e., less than 1 out of 100 "bad" hooks get through. (Maybe shoot for 99.9%, or 1/1,000.) So cut down the number of hooks drastically to something like 5 per day and run it for two weeks or a month to make sure DYK hits those KPIs (all queues and preps filled every day; less than 1% bad hooks get through), then increase it to 6/day, then 7/day, etc., until KPIs start slipping, and then we'll know how many hooks DYK can have while still hitting its KPIs. Levivich (talk) 19:37, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

According to the data above, our "pulled at ERRORS" rate is something like 5/1000. But DYK is more than its error rate; it also aims for audience engagement (can be measured by clickthrough rates) and to encourage Wikipedians to create more new articles of a minimum standard (harder to measure). —Kusma (talk) 20:12, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Good point, click thru (reader engagement) and "more first-time noms than last month" (editor engagement) could be KPIs. Levivich (talk) 20:19, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Reducing editor time wasted arguing with each other would be a better one. —Kusma (talk) 06:37, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

That would also improve if the volume did not exceed capacity as it currently does. Levivich (talk) 16:18, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Considering that we only switched to nine-hook sets two months ago (i.e. before all but the top four hooks in that removed list) I highly doubt that errors would be reduced by half if we reduced the number of hooks. But that's not all, because between 26 March–15 April we were running 12-hour sets (i.e. 18 (!) hooks per day) and that period had 0 hooks pulled. That's one hell of a performance indicator. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:58, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

That's great, but it's also three weeks, which is a small sample size. When I say errors reduced by half, I'm thinking over the course of like a year. And I didn't mean WP:ERRORS, I meant all errors, including those caught at the queue, prep, and nom levels. Levivich (talk) 16:16, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Figuring out how many of those we have in a year is a rather massive research project. I am not sure it is worth any DYK volunteer time (a rather limited resource). —Kusma (talk) 16:38, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

It's not a research project at all, unless you're talking about past error rate, and past error rate data would be of little use going forward. However, tracking errors going forward, on an ongoing basis, would be a good use of time, as would reviewing the data on a regular basis, and making adjustments to the process as needed. Levivich (talk) 21:11, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be easier to just write a monthly "error report" and scrape the data every 30 days? Viriditas (talk) 23:17, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, that's the kind of ongoing error tracking I had in mind. Levivich (talk) 23:26, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Are all the errors reported in one place? It looks like they are split between ERRORS and this talk page. Viriditas (talk) 23:32, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Idk but some (most?) errors caught by prep and queue builders are probably just dealt with on the nom pages and don't get reported anywhere else. Levivich (talk) 00:36, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

It should be expected that errors will be caught in prep, that's part of the process. But if a system is developed to track pulls from the Main Page, it should also include pulls from queue. Hooks in the queue have already been signed off by three reviewers and the rest is left to the bot, so it's a sheer fluke if someone spots an error in the queue before it hits the Main Page. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 15:50, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

We need more eyes on the queues. Or improve the quality and independence of the three reviews. (I would prefer a system with two thorough and dependable reviews to three sloppy ones). —Kusma (talk) 17:15, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Re: An uncomfortable part of that question is "who lets bad hooks through?" is indeed uncomfortable, but maybe it needs to be faced. I hate to do anything that makes it less appealing to do the work, and I wouldn't want to handle it in a way that shamed people, but it's actually valuable feedback to those who are letting errors through because it allows us to learn and adjust. Valereee (talk) 13:52, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Wow, great work, @Sojourner in the earth, thank you for pulling that together.

Given that there were only two hooks pulled for BLP vios in nearly a year and a half, maybe a simple solution would be that all hooks with any negative content about a BLP, target or not require a discussion here plus notification of that discussion at WP:BLPN? That wouldn't seem like it would overburden anyone, and it would help alleviate non-regulars' concerns that DYK is a walled garden. Valereee (talk) 13:47, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

@Valereee: If we want a BLP-focussed approach, we could explicitly put a "BLP compliance check" into the nom template and force reviewers to comment on any BLP aspects, no matter whether the article is a biography or not; such a check could possibly involve BLPN if there is any doubt. I do not think "negative" is the right focus, though. Consider the very fresh I'm really excited about the opening of Tuen Ma line (nom): nothing about the hook is negative, but there is a possibility that further wide dissemination of this meme will lead to more harrassment of an autistic young man. I am mentioning this here because protecting people from unintended meme attention is part of the early history and the DNA of BLP as much as the Seigenthaler incident was: Jimbo legendarily unilaterally deleted Brian Peppers (see List of Internet phenomena if you do not know about him) back in 2006, and the real name of the Star Wars Kid was kept out of the article for many years. —Kusma (talk) 09:52, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea. Valereee (talk) 13:33, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

And re: Tuen Ma. @S5A-0043, I'm kind of thinking the same as Kusma. This kid has been doxxed, had his phone number posted online, and had to shut down his Facebook. I'm a bit uncomfortable about the article, even. Valereee (talk) 13:44, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

I made a comment at the nom page. Perhaps the article should just be merged into Tuen Ma line, but I do not know enough about current Hong Kong internet trends to know whether the meme is notable enough for a standalone article. —Kusma (talk) 16:09, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm not convinced this is the right approach. DYK has often been criticized for excessive bureaucracy, needing to involve an entirely different board for theoretically multiple nominations a month would just add to the right approach. The issue has always been more of quality assurance and enforcement rather than our processes themselves. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 10:11, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

We've had two pulled in the past year and a half, and then this Tate one that wasn't pulled but started this whole discussion. Are you saying we're running multiple negative BLPs a month that aren't generating opposition? Valereee (talk) 13:36, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

No, I was thinking we can just do our regular processes. A WT:DYK discussion is sensible and probably even encouraged. Involving BLPN, especially making it mandatory, seems overkill. At most it could be considered an option but more of a case-by-case thing. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 14:35, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

We're criticized for bureaucracy, and we're criticized for lack of transparency. Personally I'd rather increase the transparency, even at the expense of more bureaucracy. Honestly we can't even get people to ping nominators when they raise a question here or make a change in prep, even though we've repeatedly begged them to do so. BEGGED. Some just won't do it, for whatever reason. Should we start nagging, to which they can respond, "I'm not actually required to do that"? Is that better than simply making a rule?

It's our regular processes that those not involved in them are criticizing. We keep saying we need to increase quality assurance and enforcement, but we repeatedly exhibit reluctance to do it because we might hurt a nominator's feelings or have people think their work reviewing/promoting has been wasted.

I think notifying BLPN of discussions of BLPs that may be of interest to them would help make our processes, which often seem opaque even to regular nominators, seem less so. It might help with the perception the project is a walled garden, which would be a positive. And it's a pretty small job to open a section at BLPN and place a link. I feel like bringing the Tate to the attention of BLPN would have prevented a lot of drama. Valereee (talk) 16:37, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't know if it helps, but I've copied a couple of sentences from WP:DYKTRIM to Template:Editnotices/Page/Template:Did you know/Preparation area.--Launchballer 17:21, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

I've added the subpage to the archive navigation links at the top of this page.[31] If there's an issue with that, I feel fine with removing it but think we should have some clear link to this.

Regarding a way to timeout nominations, what is preferred between:

1. All nominations time out beyond a certain limit (2 months?).
2. Approved nominations time out beyond a certain limit if not promoted (x weeks?).
3. Nominations time out if flagged with errors beyond a certain limit (2 weeks?).

Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 20:37, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

All three for me. —Kusma (talk) 20:39, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Queue 1

Philomena Franz

@Lajmmoore, AirshipJungleman29, and Launchballer: I'm having trouble verifying the hook fact. The source talks about her various experiences, and says that she wrote an autobiography, but doesn't explicitly say that those experiences are covered in her book. It's reasonable to assume they are, but that's not what the source actually says. RoySmith (talk) 19:34, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Hello @RoySmith - thanks for picking this up de:Zwischen Liebe und Hass describes the plot of book, and that it includes these things. Of course that can't be used as a reference to the page, but can the book itself be the reference? I left it out initially Lajmmoore (talk) 19:50, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm not very familiar with our sourcing rules when it comes to book plots, so I'll leave that to somebody else to answer. RoySmith (talk) 20:01, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Plot sections about fiction are generally exempt from our guidelines on sourcing, but this is not the case for nonfiction books. If the hook is from the autobiography itself, I guess simply citing the book itself and the page number would be enough. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 23:35, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Live into 85

@AirshipJungleman29, Launchballer, and Sammi Brie: The article says "sexually assaulted", which got turned into "groped" in the hook. Not quite the same thing. RoySmith (talk) 19:40, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Didn't think there was a difference, but the source says "groped", so I've adjusted the article.--Launchballer 19:48, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

One is a subset of the other. Thanks for the adjustment. RoySmith (talk) 19:49, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

@AirshipJungleman29, @Launchballer, @Sammi Brie, @RoySmith -- the hook is

• ... that over the course of Live into 85, John Grieve forgot his lines, Chic Murray spent his set berating the floor manager, and Maggie Moone was groped mid-performance?

Moone is still alive. I think we need a discussion about negative content in a BLP, here. It's in Queue 1, which is up next. Valereee (talk) 14:01, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

I had a similar thought when I reviewed this, but decided it was adequately sourced so OK. However, if somebody else is also thinking it's a problem, then it's a problem and needs to get fixed or pulled. RoySmith (talk) 14:10, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

... that the Hogmanay special Live into 85 was sufficiently shambolic for the BBC to promise that the following year's offering would be free from bagpipes, accordions, and kilts?

... that the Hogmanay special Live into 85 was so shambolic that it ended a 32-year tradition?--Launchballer 14:21, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

I've swapped to P4. Valereee (talk) 14:28, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

It's in prep 2, and right now queue 1 has three adjacent bios.--Launchballer 14:37, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

I think the second of those hooks works well, if anyone wants to slip it in. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:41, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Note that the hook is now in a different prep area, as there was a TV hook, a film hook, and a theatre hook in prep 2.--Launchballer 15:46, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

I've replaced with the hook suggested by Launchballer, approved by AJ29. Anyone should feel free to check my work, been a long day. Valereee (talk) 20:35, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Amie Parnes

@Launchballer, Juxlos, and Pac-Man PHD: This is a WP:BLP citing tweets for biographical information. That's pretty dubious. Surely some better sources could be found? RoySmith (talk) 19:45, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Both uses (birthdate and birthplace) comply with WP:ABOUTSELF.--Launchballer 19:52, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

One tweet says "There are a million of those on Calle Ocho. I was born here :)", the other, "For my covid birthday today, I’m putting on a fresh pair of pants." I don't see how those support the stated facts. RoySmith (talk) 20:14, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Okay, so I just checked the Calle Ocho tweet, and 'here' appears to be a reply to another tweet, which isn't there any more. I've taken it out. "April 15" refers to "today" on a tweet posted on 15 April, and the other source gives her age as 35 in October 2013, which is permissible per WP:CALC.--Launchballer 20:33, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Are we supposed to assume that "covid birthday" means "actual birthday during covid lockdowns"? It could and maybe even likely does mean that but this medium is so terse and fluid that it's hard to be sure. Also, when I view the tweet, I see its date as "5:33 AM · Apr 15, 2020". Do we know what time zone it was when it was posted? Do we know whether that's the same as the time zone shown? Do we know whether the poster thought of that time as being late at night on one day or early in the morning on the next day? That's why we need better sources for this sort of thing. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:42, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Or "covid birthday" could be "the anniversary of when I got covid". I see https://wikibiography.in/amie-parnes-wiki-bio/ says "15th of April 1977", as does https://www.marathi.tv/amie-parnes/. https://wikinetworth.com/politician/amie-parnes-wiki-bio-age-married-husband-education.html says April 19. I don't count any of those as WP:RS, but neither do I count guessing what some tweet really means to be a RS. I agree with David; we need better sourcing for this. RoySmith (talk) 20:55, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Cut, and merged the rest of that section per WP:OVERSECTION. It won't mean "anniversary of when I got COVID" as it wasn't really a thing in April 2019.--Launchballer 21:01, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Queue 2

Jonathan Stoklosa

@BeanieFan11, TonyTheTiger, and AirshipJungleman29:

The source link used to verify this hook is broken, and I could not find an archived link. Is there another source that can verify this? Z1720 (talk) 02:04, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

• @Z1720: The same text should be here. BeanieFan11 (talk) 02:09, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
• I suggest making the bolded links include less text, to avoid the WP:SEAOFBLUE effect. RoySmith (talk) 01:16, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

• I moved some words out of the links, but I think there will always be a little bit of SEAOFBLUE unless someone proposes alternate phrasing. Z1720 (talk) 02:11, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
  • @Z1720: I don't think that looks better; hooks of that type will inherently be SEAOFBLUE (see similar ones such as Template:Did you know nominations/Patricia Kenworthy Nuckols and Talk:George B. Chadwick at Wikipedia:Did you know/Multiple Article Hook Hall of Fame) – why should, for example, in the statement "include a man with Down syndrome who has lifted 425 pounds (193 kg)", we only link "who has lifted 425 pounds"? One option would be to delink the "the"'s and "a"'s to be something like this:
    • that the 2024 inductees to the Delaware Sports Museum and Hall of Fame include a man with Down syndrome who has lifted 425 pounds (193 kg) (pictured), an "average gymnast" turned Olympics judge, a "preeminent sportswriter", the state's "greatest high hurdler", the "inventor" of the modern sports mascot, a record-setting 10-year-old, a champion gymnast, an Olympic field hockey player, and a pro baseball player in five countries?
  • I think that or the previous hook would be better than the changes that were made. Thoughts? (Hoping to make this quick as we've got an hour and 40 minutes till publication). BeanieFan11 (talk) 22:19, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

• I changed it to the one above. Z1720 (talk) 22:21, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

• Thanks! BeanieFan11 (talk) 22:23, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Empty queues

@DYK admins: All the queues are empty. --evrik ^(talk) 00:08, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Lunch (song)

Template:Did you know nominations/Lunch (song)

@User:Launchballer@User:PSA@User:Prince of Erebor

Currently in prep 7. Hook doesn't appear to be neutral. If I'm reading the sources correctly Eilish is rejecting the term outing which the hook uses.©Geni (talk) 05:35, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

My reading of the sources is that Eilish is objecting to actually being outed; if she had a problem with the term, she wouldn't have used it in the Instagram post mentioned in the Background section.--Launchballer 14:30, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

From what I read in the source [32], she said "i like boys and girls leave me alone about it please literally who cares." so I am not sure focussing on her sexuality (instead of on the song) is appropriate for the Main Page. —Kusma (talk) 14:46, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

"... that Billie Eilish included a song about lesbian sex on her third album?"--Launchballer 14:58, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Not very hooky but its really up to @User:PSA in terms of what they want to do.©Geni (talk) 08:48, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

@Launchballer @Kusma @Geni: ... that Billie Eilish included a song about lesbian sex on her third album after gradually becoming more public about her sapphism? PSA 🏕️🪐 (please make some noise...) 02:17, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

I prefer Launchballer's version because it does not talk about Eilish's sexuality in the hook. —Kusma (talk) 05:52, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

From the gay times article "Eilish also criticised the notion that a person has to ‘come out’ as queer" I read that has Eilish rejecting the term.©Geni (talk) 08:48, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

It's more like "no one has to feel pressured to tell people theyre LGBT" to me. not necessarily a rejection of the concept PSA 🏕️🪐 (please make some noise...) 08:52, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Well perhaps. In practice Z1720 aproved the hook some time ago so its all moot at this point.©Geni (talk) 19:33, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Moved to Template:Did you know nominations/Lunch (song)

Queue 5

Drake–Kendrick Lamar feud

• ... that the "beef" between Kendrick Lamar and Drake (both pictured) dates back to the 2013 song "Control"?

@Cadenrock1, Evrik, and PrimalMustelid:

While "Control" is the first song listed in the article, I could not find in the article where it explicitly states that it started with "Control", and the GQ source used in the DYK nomination suggests that the feud started with "Like That". Can this be clarified?

Also, the following sentence needs a citation: "It also mocks Lamar's short stature of 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 meters)." Z1720 (talk) 13:49, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

• I added the citation. --evrik ^(talk) 16:01, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

• @Z1720: This is what GQ says, "but the collaborative vibes stopped a year later, after Drake was one of the many peers Kendrick named in his timeline-stopping, call-to-arms verse on Big Sean’s “Control." I think that should be good enough to let this go forward. --evrik ^(talk) 16:09, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

The whole article is a bit of a BLP issue, full with accusations of crime and other misdeeds. —Kusma (talk) 09:16, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

@Kusma: and others: do you think the article should be pulled because of this concern? Z1720 (talk) 00:40, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

I'd say it would send Errors into overdrive. Schwede66 03:09, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

No. It describes a messy feud. It is well-written. It's no worse than the feud itself. ;-) --evrik ^(talk) 03:11, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

I posted a note at ERRORS, hopefully this can be resolved before it reaches the Main Page, to avoid the concerns experienced the past few days. Z1720 (talk) 03:40, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Now you're starting a beef. --evrik ^(talk) 04:12, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

One can only be thankful that WP wasn't around in the 90s. You'd probably have articles for every single two artists involved in the East Coast–West Coast hip hop rivalry, instead of just one. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:14, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Given the massive page views this already has (why??), it probably makes no difference either from a "causing harm" or from an "advertising" perspective whether we run this or not. —Kusma (talk) 05:49, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

The Skeptical Environmentalist

@Arcahaeoindris, Sdkb, and PrimalMustelid:

The following text in the article is a quote, but does not have a citation:

• "Lomborg designated the report "one of the best-researched and academically most ambitious environmental policy publications," but criticized it for using short-term trends to predict disastrous consequences, in cases where long-term trends would not support the same conclusions."

Also, the following needs a citation:

• "The charges stated that The Skeptical Environmentalist contained deliberately misleading data and flawed conclusions. Due to the similarity of the complaints, the DCSD decided to proceed on the three cases under one investigation."

These will need to be cited before the article goes on the Main Page. Z1720 (talk) 14:04, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

• @Arcahaeoindris: has not edited Wikipedia since May 10. I am going to pull this hook and re-add it to WP:DYKN. Z1720 (talk) 00:42, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

@Z1720: Joel Breman and St. Trinitatis should probably be swapped, as there are two adjacent bios in this set.--Launchballer 22:58, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Swapped them. Schwede66 23:37, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Today's mass-hook DYK, from WP:ERRORS

(Where gatekeeper Schwede66 won't let a simple discussion play out, per NOTBURO, especially one that might actually be on the verge of reaching a compromise.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Serial Number 54129 (talk • contribs)

Endorse Schwede66's decision. WP:ERRORS says No chit-chat. Lengthy discussions should be moved to a suitable location elsewhere, such as the talk page of the relevant article or project. It's standard practice that ERRORS is intended for quickly resolving clear mistakes, not debatable potential ones. The BURO leeway was already exhausted, especially when there's precedent, right or wrong, in a "hall of fame".—Bagumba (talk) 18:09, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

• What the hell is up with the amount of DYK articles in the first blurb? Is that necessary? wound theology◈ 06:33, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

  I suggest you calm down. People can nominate as many articles for a hook as are eligible. Schwede66 08:06, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

  It's not only an eyesore, but it arguably makes the blurb less accessible for those who are visually impaired. I guess there's precedence for this sort of thing, but I still think that slamming a million bolded articles for the novelty of it is a bad idea. wound theology◈ 08:19, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

  Multiple article hooks help prevent having many individual hooks that all say the same thing. They are not common and seem to cause more good than harm overall. —Kusma (talk) 11:25, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

  @BeanieFan11: pinging. BorgQueen (talk) 13:49, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

• I understand the reasoning for combining blurbs like this, but I also agree with the OP that this example is excessive. The blurb is unreadably long, the syntax and punctuation is difficult to follow, and the sheer number of bold links is overwhelming. This should have been split into two or three blurbs (in different sets). It's not worth changing now, but for future related sets DYK should have a maximum of maybe 3 or 4 bold links in one blurb. Modest Genius ^talk 11:39, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

  I do think we should always reduce the overall number of hooks when we run an extra-long one and not run nine overall like today. We should perhaps try to make multi-hooks that are less of a wall of bold blue text. —Kusma (talk) 11:51, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

  A messy blue muddle of Bf links that ignores the DYK ethos of grab the reader at a glance. Suggest sub with something readily readable. -- Sca (talk) 12:44, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

  Agreed. We're supposed to be a serious encyclopaedia, and this is not representative of our best work.  — Amakuru (talk) 13:53, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

• It's an absolute abomination. It will actively drive readers away who will see a mass of bold text that makes no sense combined. It's an outrageous way of treating the punter, and as as for MOS:ACCESS, can we not do slightly more than merely play lip service to those of our readers who are partially sighted? Of course, the early 21st-C. feral fanboy's desire to cram as much as possible onto the front page for gratification is easily recognizable, but WP:NAVEL, please. ——Serial Number 54129 13:55, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

  Since there's an increasing consensus that this isn't a compliant hook, perhaps we should consider paring it down to just the first entry:

  Alt ... that the 2024 inductees to the Delaware Sports Museum and Hall of Fame includes Jonathan Stoklosa (pictured), a man with Down syndrome who has lifted 425 pounds (193 kg)?

   — Amakuru (talk) 14:27, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

  Speaking just personally, I think that's an excellent suggestion. While the Delaware Sports Hall of Fame is clearly a most notable event for the state, I'm not even sure we'd use this kind of mass blurb for something like the Kenneddy Assassination, and all things being equal, I think the two events are on slightly different magnitudes. ——Serial Number 54129 14:41, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

  Please no. Anything but removing the vast majority of the entries – I put too much effort into this to see it pared down like that. Would removing the amount of blue in the hook be a better solution? BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:13, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

  I stopped caring about your opinion when you said "feral fanboy's desire". If you have a point, please make it without personal attacks (and I don't even know who you are attacking). —Kusma (talk) 15:25, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

  BeanieFan11, for the record. Serial called Beanie a "feral fanboy" whose "desire to cram as much as possible onto the front page" was "easily recognizable". I'd agree, that's a personal attack. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 10:11, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

• Paging those that commented: @Wound theology, Kusma, BorgQueen, Modest Genius, Sca, and Amakuru: ——Serial Number 54129 14:47, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

  What the hell is up with the overblown hyperbole in this thread? An absolute abomination which compromises the idea of a serious encyclopedia, an eyesore which actively drives readers away, the work of feral fanboys obsessed with gratification? Talk about navelgazing! Newsflash: none of our readers will care one bit! (and no, it is perfectly comprehensible) ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:21, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

  While we're on the topic, could someone please point out 1) which part of MOS:ACCESS this violates, and 2) why our DYK images don't have alt text? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:52, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

  Consider this your pong. wound theology◈ 06:24, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

The tone of the complaints are needlessly hostile, but I'm not sure why WP:SEAOFBLUE should not apply to DYK. Having as many bolded links as possible in a sentence just doesn't seem like something anybody should be aiming for anywhere on any website. Multiple Article Hook Hall of Fame is a hall of shame if you ask me. Levivich (talk) 15:29, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

I think the length of the links (more than their number) is what causes the issue here. (Compare Wikipedia:Did you know/Multiple Article Hook Hall of Fame for other examples). "Try to keep bolded links short in multi-article nominations" would be my suggestion for the future. —Kusma (talk) 15:36, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Will be away for some of today, but I could try to develop another version with less blue if necessary. BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:56, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

I think the folks that worked on this did manage to avoid violating the letter of SOB (after some discussion above at #Jonathan Stoklosa. In spirit, I think we all agree that tightly packed blue links are worse than well-spaced-out ones, but I see it as something that will recur in many main page sections (ITN, OTD) due to the brevity requirements. I think the value of multi-hooks—highlighting DYK-quality work without flooding the MP with closely-related items—outweighs the negatives.

I would appreciate hearing more about the accessibility concerns; I have some basic familiarity with the ways in which color and bold formatting affect accessibility, but I haven't encountered advice to avoid clusters of links. Open to changing my mind on this. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:10, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Firefangledfeathers, I think the main accessibility issue is tap target size on touchscreen devices. Inline links are an exception to tap target minimum settings because they generally need to match the size of the text. If you have one link here and one link there, that usually isn't an accessibility problem because it's still difficult to tap the wrong thing. But if you slap a bunch of links (especially long ones) into the same paragraph, people with dexterity issues and related challenges cannot as easily tap the specific link they want to follow. Indignant Flamingo (talk) 18:56, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for responding, IF! I had been prompted to consider accessibility for the visually impaired, so I hadn't considered—and am grateful to now be considering—the issue as it pertains to fine motor skills. I would suggest that such an accessibility concern needs wider evaluation, since tightly packed links are not at all limited to multi-link DYK hooks. For examples, see the current OTD section or the lead of Mount Edziza volcanic complex, currently today's featured article. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:02, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the insight. It'd be worthwhile to get that nuance into MOS:SEAOFBLUE. A number of times I see reverts to the effect of "it's not that much blue", the thinking being that it's purely a visual issue. —Bagumba (talk) 19:31, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

I've proposed some additional language about this at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking#Multiple links and touchscreen navigation. Indignant Flamingo (talk) 22:18, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Is there other existing guidance for multiple-link hooks aside from WP:DYK200?

For articles with multiple boldlinks, text in boldlinks after the first do not count toward the limit

—Bagumba (talk) 18:25, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

• WP:DYKTRIM seems relevant:

  In general, the shorter and punchier the hook, the more impact it has

  —Bagumba (talk) 18:32, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

  If needed for the hook to stay, I could try to quick develop one with less blue, though starting at around ~20:45 I will be away for the rest of the day. BeanieFan11 (talk) 19:00, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

  I don't think pulling the hook is really on the table anymore, and Schwede66 was right to see this as a broader norms/guidelines discussion and move it here. That said, I think most of us would prefer less blue, and I'd encourage any work on that in the time you have available. Presuming that any fixes are uncontroversial, feel free to ping me and I can implement them on the main page. Thanks for your attention to this, BF11. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:04, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

  One small change that could make it a little less blue would be delinking "who has lifted 425 pounds...", like this:

  * ... that the 2024 inductees to the Delaware Sports Museum and Hall of Fame include a man with Down syndrome who has lifted 425 pounds (193 kg) (pictured), an "average gymnast" turned Olympics judge, a "preeminent sportswriter", the state's "greatest high hurdler", the "inventor" of the modern sports mascot, a record-setting 10-year-old, a champion gymnast, an Olympic field hockey player, and a pro baseball player in five countries?

  Just a thought. BeanieFan11 (talk) 20:13, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

  I still think there should be some reasonable cap on how many links a hook can have, like 3 or 5, but if a hook were to have significantly more links, I would go further with that:

  • ... that the 2024 inductees to the Delaware Sports Museum and Hall of Fame include a man with Down syndrome who has lifted 425 pounds (193 kg) (pictured), an "average gymnast" turned Olympics judge, a "preeminent sportswriter", the state's "greatest high hurdler", the "inventor" of the modern sports mascot, a record-setting 10-year-old, a champion gymnast, an Olympic field hockey player, and a pro baseball player in five countries?

  Looks better, doesn't it, and at least slightly easier to tap the right link? Maybe if the guidance isn't to cap links in hooks, the guidance should be to link as few words as possible. Levivich (talk) 21:05, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks, Levivich. I've moved your suggested modification to the main page. Schwede66 21:49, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

  The hook will roll off soon, so I'm not looking for a change for this specifically, but it's generally more concise and less MOS:EGGy to include "a"/"an"/"the"/etc in a pipe to distinguish that the link is to a specific instance, not an article on the general topic, esp. "10-year-old". At any rate, I suspect the actual sea of blue is only a minor point of contention, compared to perhaps the length of such hooks and its laundry list of links. —Bagumba (talk) 22:10, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

There is a lot of hyperbole here. The multiple hook DYK is a long-standing practice. We need to step back and change the policy if people are unhappy. Right now, It's just a couple of people. --evrik ^(talk) 02:46, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Pointing out that the final version of the hook with more text out of the links came in at 291 prose characters with the bold links after the first excluded from the count, far more than DYK will allow. I suspect it's why the links were made so long: to get under 200 prose characters excluding bold links after the first. I think avoiding WP:SEAOFBLUE is important, because it's easier to read and to deal with; with the bolding it rather feels like one is being shouted at. Something to think about for future multi hooks. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:02, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

If the consensus is that the main objective is to encourage content creation by offering an easier process to nominate en masse, then so be it. But let's not pretend that the average reader probably doesn't find the hooks to be long-winded and bizarre to view with their wave of bolded blue. —Bagumba (talk) 04:18, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Ah, very good point about that technicality, BlueMoonset. Ah well, we didn't add any real content (everything was already there), but I sure had not considered the prose count. Sorry for that. Sometimes, you can't win. Schwede66 04:48, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

An IAR technicality: the displayed wording remained the same, only the piping change. But just because DYK rules didnt count the text before doesn't mean the hook wasn't already equally long to the reader. —Bagumba (talk) 05:00, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't mind multiple hooks, that's not really what I meant when I brought this up. It was the fact that the bold blue text was immediately noticeable and distracting the second I opened the main page. There's not a real purpose for this many links, even the nominator admits to trying to make it to the Multiple Article Hook Hall of Fame. Making things ugly and inaccessible for the novelty of it is not a good practice even if it's a long-standing one. wound theology◈ 06:31, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

The question would be how to objectively control it from becoming "ugly and inaccessible"? —Bagumba (talk) 06:57, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Or whether that's a bigger problem than not having the articles at all, as I suspect would have been the case if BeanieFan declined to attempt this on the grounds of ugliness. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:00, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

The whole point of the multiple hooks is to create something different, something to catch the eye. Looking at the comments above, this was successful. --evrik ^(talk) 15:59, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

even the nominator admits to trying to make it to the Multiple Article Hook Hall of Fame. Making things ugly and inaccessible for the novelty of it is not a good practice – I never said that? BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:21, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

• Now for the statistics: 45,000 views total, by far my best DYK viewership performance ever (and ~3 times my previous best). BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:18, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

  So... it's about getting a page view WP:HIGHSCORE? The reason it got 45k is because that's the sum of 9 articles. The power lifter with Down syndrome got 20k of that 45k; the other 8 got between 1 and 5k, which is average, right? Btw: if the power lifter article had his own hook, would it have gotten more than 20k? If the other 8 had their own hook, would they have received more than 1-5k each? I suppose we'll never know, but I think so; I don't think they'd have received any less than 1-5k if they were on their own.

  If the goal is to bring maximum attention to the articles, I don't think that goal was served by combining them instead of letting them have their own hooks.

  But if the goal is to make it onto a leaderboard...good job? Levivich (talk) 16:34, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

  Not about getting "high scores"; but it does prove that some of the statements above such as that 'no one would read past the first line' and that It will actively drive readers away who will see a mass of bold text that makes no sense combined were clearly not true. BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:36, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

  No it doesn't. The first link got 20k and the rest got 1-5k. That supports the argument that no one will read past the first line. The first link got almost half of the total views; the other 8 got below average or average views. Combining the hooks did not increase page views, and possibly decreased them (for 8 out of 9). Levivich (talk) 16:43, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) The first link was already the most interesting IMO; not to mention that a number of the other hooks would likely not have been featured otherwise. I don't think the alternative – having nine separate DYK hooks on similar subjects all in a short timeframe – would have been better. BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:51, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

  Why would they likely not have been featured otherwise, and why would they have had to be run in a short timeframe? Levivich (talk) 16:56, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

  What would the hooks for, e.g. Van Sickle and Levine have been? They wouldn't have to be run a short timeframe, but since they were all created at around the same time it would require intentionally waiting timespans before promoting, more work, etc. – Just having the multi-hook on the day they were inducted was a better option in my opinion. BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:10, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

  Van Sickle: DYK... that UNC's "popsicle" was a 3-time MVP? (Or: ...that UNC named its Defender of the Year award after its star "popsicle"? Or any number of variations on that theme.)

  Levine: DYK... that a "fall-down comic" won a gold medal on the balance beam? (Not currently in the article but source-able to ref 1.)

  No intentional waiting had to happen; these could have been nom's separately and the hooks added to separate preps/queues. They could have been combined into two or three multi-hook hooks (instead of one 9-hook hook). Lots of possibilities for how these could have gotten to DYK; a 9-hook hook wasn't a requirement here.

  Those two articles got like 1500 views each. I bet my hooks above would have beat that. We could test it out by IARing and running those two hooks tomorrow :-) Levivich (talk) 17:39, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

  But would you be in a hall of fame ;-) —Bagumba (talk) 17:51, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

  "no one" is just hyperbole in this culture of trying to "win" debates. —Bagumba (talk) 16:49, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

  I think all this nattering about "the other articles deserved better" is sort of missing the point—if it hadn't been for this nomination, they wouldn't exist. Which would you rather have? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:58, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

  Please natter about why these articles wouldn't exist if it hadn't been for this nom, because I think that's a false choice. Levivich (talk) 17:06, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

RFC on DYK and BLP policy

1. Can WP:DYK feature negative content on WP:Biographies of Living People on the WP:MAIN page and remain in compliance with BLP policy? Consider the limitations of the DYK format in its section on the main page (see Wikipedia:Did you know, Wikipedia:Did you know/Guidelines, and Wikipedia:Did you know/Reviewer instructions for more information on DYK). Consider the language of WP:BLP policy in your answer. If no, why? If yes, why?4meter4 (talk) 14:58, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Note: "A "Did you know" (DYK) item on the main page of Wikipedia is called a "hook" and in this RFC, "hook" refers to the text portion of that item"

Opening Statement

Background on inconsistent application of BLP policy at DYK

In the past year, I have either witnessed or participated in several contentious discussions concerning Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons policy within hook nominations at WP:Did You Know that have arisen from hook proposals involving "negative" material about BLPs where the information could be perceived as an attack on the BLP or an attempt to smear the BLP's public image. While the vast majority of BLP nominations at DYK are non-controversial, the project does receive a small percentage of hook proposals on BLPs where the subject is presented in a negative light on an on-going periodic basis. These hooks are sometimes submitted by seasoned DYK participants, and sometimes editors new to the project.

The reactions to these various "negative hook" proposals has been inconsistent on the part of the DYK community with a wide range of expressed opinions from active editors in the project as well as a wide range of responses within DYK hook review process. Negative hooks on BLPs have sometimes been rejected as violating BLP policy using rationales from either Wikipedia:Did you know/Reviewer instructions and Wikipedia:Did you know/Guidelines, or the WP:BLP policy page itself. They also have sometimes been approved by editors, have been promoted by DYK admins to Template:Did you know/Queue, and have made it to the WP:MAIN page. These various responses have sometimes been received with community support, no comment by the community other than the reviewer, or have been heavily contested either within the individual hook review template, or at DYK's talk page. Those negative hooks which have made it to the main page have sometimes been brought to noticeboards such as WP:ERRORS and WP:ANI where responses have equally been inconsistent; including the pulling of hooks due to BLP violations, no action, etc.4meter4 (talk) 14:49, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Reasons for inconsistent pattern

It's my contention that this pattern of inconsistent response is evidence of an on-going failure of the DYK community to consistently implement BLP policy. I believe the reason for this failure is two fold. 1) The BLP guidelines in the Wikipedia:Did you know/Reviewer instructions and Wikipedia:Did you know/Guidelines are currently poorly written, and in particular the words "unduly negative" have been interpreted as meaning the DYK community can run negative hooks on BLPs that individual editors have labeled as "bad people" because they deserve it. This has inevitably allowed for WP:POV pushing and politicization within certain hook proposals; drawing into question the integrity of the DYK platform and the encyclopedia when such hooks have successfully made it to the main page. 2) The current BLP policy page is written to address article space and does not currently address the unique format of DYK where we limit content expression to a single sentence of 200 characters or less. What is possible to do in terms of WP:BLPBALANCE within article space is not possible in a DYK hook by virtue of limited space.4meter4 (talk) 14:49, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Why community action is needed

The community needs to take a close look at how DYK should interpret BLP policy within the unique DYK hook format for the purposes of DYK hook review. The purpose of this RFC is to assist DYK in more consistently following BLP policy going forward by reviewing DYK's current processes and guidelines for reviewing BLP hooks; and making any necessary changes to Wikipedia:Did you know, Wikipedia:Did you know/Guidelines, and Wikipedia:Did you know/Reviewer instructions as it relates to BLPs. To help us achieve that goal, the DYK community has assisted in gathering real examples of potential BLP violating hooks that have either run on the main page successfully, been pulled from the main page after being reported to a notice board, or failed to be promoted but with contentious and sometimes lengthy discussion. Other types of evidence have also been put forward, and other kinds of potentially BLP violating hooks have been identified in the evidence gathering process besides just negative hooks. For this reason, I have crafted the RFC question process with some flexibility because there may be avenues of exploration raised by the community at this RFC that the community may wish to explore that could not have been anticipated earlier. It should be noted that the examples given are just a sampling of mainly recent examples of this problem, and this is by no means a thorough or complete presentation of all issues related to BLPs that have come up at DYK.

I want this RFC to be helpful no matter what conclusions ultimately are arrived at. I have my opinions, but they may not be the majority view, and my goal here is to make things better as a community space for DYK volunteers no matter what proposals are ultimately successful at achieving broad community support. I am hopeful we will come up with a better reviewing document for BLP hooks as a community which will prevent further incidents at WP:ERRORS and WP:ANI, and make the DYK review process less stressful for our dedicated volunteers by eliminating the need for repeating the same unproductive or contentious arguments in circles at DYK review.4meter4 (talk) 14:49, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

RFC format: Questions and Proposals

Note 1. This is a presentation of this RFC's format, including planned guiding questions and a described process for future proposals. Please do not respond to the questions or make proposals in this space. Questions will be opened for comment one at a time, as answers to prior questions are important for informing responses to succeeding questions.

Note 2. The term "negative hook" may mean different things to different people, and individual hooks may be perceived as "negative" by a certain group of editors but not by others due to varying backgrounds among our editing volunteers. In examining policy language at WP:BLPSTYLE, a broadly construed definition of a negative hook could be any hook that may be perceived as an attack on the BLP or an attempt to malign their public image, or a hook that may be perceived as a partisan representation of the subject. These could include the use of contentious labels, loaded language, or terms that lack precision. Real examples of hooks that have been identified as negative by some editors have been gathered in the evidence section. See WP:BLPSTYLE and WP:BLPBALANCE.

RFC Questions

• 1. Can DYK feature negative hooks on BLPs and remain in compliance with WP:BLP policy? Consider the limitations of the DYK format and the language of WP:BLP policy in your answer. If no, why? If yes, why?

If the WP:CONSENSUS is yes or no consensus we move on to the next question. If the consensus is no we skip question 2 and move to question 3.

• 2. How can we determine when a negative hook on a BLP can and can't be used? What specific guideline(s) should DYK reviewers follow when reviewing negative hooks on BLPs? What language should we include in a guideline that assists reviewers in making decisions and prevents conflict at DYK, Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors, and other project pages? Consider the limitations of the DYK hook format and the language of WP:BLP policy in your answer.

Once opinions have been gathered and summarized we move on to the next question.

• 3. Are there changes that DYK should make to Wikipedia:Did you know, Wikipedia:Did you know/Guidelines, and Wikipedia:Did you know/Reviewer instructions as it relates to BLPs?

Once opinions have been gathered and summarized we move to question 4

• 4. Are there any additional questions we should consider as it relates to DYK and BLP policy before moving on to proposals?

It's possible we may need to ask a question that was not predicted at the onset of the RFC, after getting input to the first three questions. We will leave room to ask additional questions for community input if needed before moving on to proposals. We will discuss any other questions raised by the community. Once completed, we will begin accepting proposals that should come from WP:CONSENSUS input.

Proposals

• Proposals should come out of the discussion resulting from the above questions. This RFC will not start with a set list of proposals. These should come directly from the community input to the RFC questions. Proposal submissions will be open to all contributors in the RFC after the questioning period concludes. The goal of this RFC is to improve DYK's review process as it relates to BLPs in order to assist DYK and its volunteers in being consistently compliant with WP:BLP policy and prevent conflicts at DYK review on BLPs. Once a proposal has been made we will vote and arrive at a WP:CONSENSUS on each individual proposal.

Evidence

This evidence was initially gathered by the wiki community in a discussion preparing for this RFC. If new evidence is found, please add it to the tables.

Negative BLPs that were promoted to the main page without issue Incident Year Hook/comments Discussion Murder of Jiang Ge 2024 ... that the murder of Jiang Ge led to public debate in China over the actions of Jiang's roommate during her murder? The living person in question is Liu Xin, mentioned in the hook and discussed at length in the article. Raised at ERRORS but no response: [33] Going Infinite 2024 Hook draws attention to a negative comment made against a living person; it had to be toned down at nomination stage and again in prep. WT:DYK: [34] Diether Dehm 2020 Two "negative" hooks were proposed, one about the BLP employing a terrorist and the other one about the BLP being a former informer of the secret police. The "terrorist" hook ran without controversy. Hsinchu Kuang-Fu Senior High School 2024 Raised at ERRORs but alas, no pull as it was only an hour until it rolled off MP. @Theleekycauldron: said "This article looks like a straight NPOV violation to me". Therapyisgood (talk) 23:43, 17 May 2024 (UTC) Raised at ERRORs Debbie Currie 2024 ... that Debbie Currie once worked as a lollipop lady? whole damn thing reads like a BLP violation. "reprimanded for smoking aged 13, and had to retake all of her A-levels after being accused of cheating; she graduated with a C and two Ds, and read English and Communication" " She used an October 2009 article in the Daily Mail to announce that she had become a single mother by choice after a drunken one-night stand aged thirty, and encouraged others to have their children before finding a partner." "claimed that she had enjoyed a four-in-a-bed orgy and lost her virginity at fifteen" Therapyisgood (talk) 00:08, 18 May 2024 (UTC) I feel like this was an issue with the article rather than the nom/hook? I think DYK should have caught it. Valereee (talk) 00:19, 18 May 2024 (UTC) Raised at ERRORs with 4 minutes before the hooks rotated. Negative BLPs that were pulled from the main page Incident Year Hook/comments Discussion Gemma McCluskie 2012 Concerns about recently deceased BLP violation ANI thread:[35] Talk:DYK thread:[36] Nandipha Magudumana 2024 ... that the celebrity doctor Nandipha Magudumana was imprisoned and investigated for twelve crimes, including murder connected to a fugitive's prison escape? ERRORS discussion: [37] Article at the time of promotion: [38] Angelle (singer) 2024 ... that the British entrepreneur Sarah Bennett went from being "one of the biggest flops in pop history" to appearing on the Sunday Times Rich List 2017? ERRORS discussion: [39] Negative BLPs that were contentious at Wikipedia talk:Did you know Incident Year Hook/comments Discussions Andrew Tate 2024 ... that social media influencer Andrew Tate described himself as "absolutely a misogynist"? Concerns about BLP vio WT:DYK: [40] WT:ANI: [41] Sarah Jane Baker 2023 ... that author Sarah Jane Baker was so desperate for gender affirming care in prison that she cut off her testicles with a razor blade? (one example of several contentious hooks on this person that were proposed) WT:DYK: [42] Shootings of Sydney Land and Nehemiah Kauffman 2024 Pulled from queue and then rejected, in part due to BLP concerns. WT:DYK: [43] Jews Don't Count 2023 Altered in queue, after it was argued that the original hook falsely attributed an anti-semitic POV to a living person. WT:DYK: [44] Lil Tay 2023 Pulled from prep due to poor sourcing of negative information in the article. WT:DYK: [45] Marvin Harrison Jr. 2023 ... that one NFL scout compared watching Marvin Harrison Jr. (pictured) to "window shopping at a Lamborghini dealership for the model that doesn't come out until next year"? Concerns about objectifying people of colour. WT:DYK: [46] Child abuse in association football 2023 Pulled from queue for various reasons, one of which was BLPCRIME concerns. WT:DYK: [47] Template:Did you know nominations/Killing of David Ben Avraham 2024 There was a contentious discussion on the DYK talk page. That link should be added. Please assist. Template:Did you know nominations/Hal Malchow 2024 Concerns raised over BLP/BPD hook being negative WT:DYK: Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 198#Hal Malchow Other kinds of BLP violation concerns in DYK hooks Incident Year Hook/comments Discussion HorsegiirL 2024 Pulled from prep; original hook used the article subject's real name against their wishes WT:DYK: [48] Matthew Charles Johnson 2024 Negative hook with unsourced info raised at ERRORS. [49] 4meter4 (talk) 14:49, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

RFC Discussion Questions

Question 1 is now open for comment.4meter4 (talk) 14:50, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Question 2 is now open per discussion below. I will leave question 1 open as well in case new participants wish to continue to comment.4meter4 (talk) 20:16, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Question 1

Can DYK feature negative hooks on BLPs and remain in compliance with WP:BLP policy? Consider the limitations of the DYK format and the language of WP:BLP policy in your answer. If no, why? If yes, why?

• No. We have the responsibility to present negative information on BLPs ethically, and with more care than what is required on other topics. WP:BLPBALANCE requires that we present negative information in context, with nuance, and with care. That is not something that is possible to do within a 200 character single sentence. We have other options in what content to feature. Most BLPs have at least one interesting non-negative/ non-positive fact that we can feature that is entirely neutral. Concerns of neutrality are mostly spurious for this reason with only rare exceptions. Those that are rare, should simply be rejected from being featured, because the tendency is to promote negative hooks from personal bias rather than measured neutral intent.4meter4 (talk) 14:54, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
• Yes. We need to get BLP right, but prohibiting "negative hooks" impacts neutrality. The "unduly negative" of the current rules is the right balance between neutrality and not causing harm. This RfC totally misses the mark in terms of the actual BLP problems we have at DYK: many of the biggest problems are not related to "negative hooks" (see "lollipop lady" above, or "HorsegiirL"). —Kusma (talk) 15:09, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
• No. While having some trivia on the main page through DYK is a good idea, not every topic can be featured in such a way, and people primarily known for negative events shouldn't be featured on the main page. If it's impossible to find a positive/neutral hook, or if having one impacts neutrality, the BLP shouldn't be on the main page at all. Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 18:14, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

  I believe WP:ITN should be allowed to report on convictions of war criminals. (And so should DYK and TFA). —Kusma (talk) 18:25, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

• No. 4Meter4 covers what I consider the strongest argument above, which I'm not going to pointlessly reiterate. Additionally, the lead of BLP has the sentence Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid: it is not Wikipedia's job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives. I fail to see how "Did you know so-and-so is a misogynist?" is not titillating in the extreme.

While it is true that the principles upon which [NPOV] is based cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, nor by editor consensus, the due/undue argument is facile since not every word of NPOV is applicable. The first sentence of DUE reads Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources. DYK does not do this; ITN does not do this; OTD does not do this; POTD does not do this; even FAC does not do this. The policy does not read "neutrality requires that mainspace pages when combine with all pages they link to represent ..." A moment's consideration suggests two possibilities: A) the entire main page as we know it should be radically redefined in scope B) not every word of NPOV, including much or the entirety of DUE, applies to the main page. I'd prefer the latter approach.

As to Kusma's war criminal point, I'm afraid that's just a fundamental disagreement over the nature of DYK since I believe war criminals should never be on DYK. I'm aware neither side will be convinced on that issue so I won't argue ny point. Sincerely, Dilettante 18:33, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

@Dilettante and Kusma I would argue that the potential for problems at DYK is greater than at TFA or ITN. TFA has lots more space to present negative facts in context given it has an entire paragraph to introduce its topic. ITN pulls its content directly from global news headlines. An ITN report isn't going to broadcast negative content that isn't already widely distributed. Both of those allow for WP:BLPBALANCE compliance, at least in some measure . There is no such guiding force applicable to DYK, and because we feature trivia, not all of the negative content is necessarily widely known or distributed. This increases the risk of harm in a way unique to DYK as compared to other sections of the WP:MAIN page. There is a proven track record of abuse at DYK as evidenced by multiple ANI and ERROR reports. You don't see that happening at TFA or ITN to the extent it happens at DYK for a reason.4meter4 (talk) 18:39, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

The existing rules say that all the negative content must be DUE, in particular it should not be trivia that has not been widely distributed. The vast majority of problematic content referred to above was against the existing rules. If we want to prevent bad hooks from coming to the Main Page, we do not need to ban one more class of potentially bad hooks, we need to get to a point where reviewers stop approving bad hooks (and unsuitable articles). Fix DYK's actual problems, don't just outlaw "hooks about BLP that potentially could be read as negative", i.e. anything involving sexuality or religion or stupidity or politicians changing their opinion or football players missing a penalty. An extremely wide class of hooks. —Kusma (talk) 18:53, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

That's a pipe dream Kusma. There are experienced editors at DYK that actively argue for inappropriate hooks, and I don't see that changing. Politics and activist paradigms inevitably allow for partisan behavior which leads to abuse of the DYK format. The current system isn't working, and the DYK community has repeatedly shown poor editorial judgement and that it can't be trusted to know when and when not to promote negative hooks. We can't just blame reviewers either, because reviewing admins have to move hooks into queues after they have been reviewed and double check it was a proper review, and we do have editors who look over the content in queues while they sit in them. It's time to acknowledge, that the DYK format and review process is not suited for presenting negative content on BLPs.4meter4 (talk) 19:05, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

That is incorrect: there are experienced editors at DYK that actively argue for hooks that you find inappropriate. There is no general and neutral definition of "inappropriate hook". If we prohibit any hooks that someone finds inappropriate (your proposal's vague definition of "negative hook" indicates that you might go in that direction) then anyone can censor any hook involving any BLP for any reason. —Kusma (talk) 19:30, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

See the evidence section. I was referencing specifically hooks pulled after being taken to WP:ERRORS and WP:ANI, a small sampling of which are provided above for your convenience. I had nothing to do with determining whether they were "inappropriate". A working definition for negative hook was already given above that was pulled almost verbatim out of WP:BLPBALANCE and WP:BLPSTYLE (basically copy pasted). Your bad faith accusations are baseless. 4meter4 (talk) 19:37, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

• Yes No to unduly negative hooks, but I don't see how every hook about a BLP that is even slightly negative violates BLP. Obviously we don't want to put libel or slander on the main page, and we do not want tabloid-like speculation on the main page either, but "negative hook" is way too broad to outright ban. QuicoleJR (talk) 00:10, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

  I will also agree with Kiana that some of the examples listed are not issues with negative facts being used as hooks, and are therefore not relevant to the question at hand. QuicoleJR (talk) 00:14, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

• Yes (Coming from WP:RFC/A) - Sometimes the WP:NPOV option is a negative option. Wikipedia prides itself on reporting only what others say. The WP:BLP policy itself says: In the case of public figures, there will be a multitude of reliable published sources, and BLPs should simply document what these sources say. If an allegation or incident is noteworthy, relevant, and well documented, it belongs in the article—even if it is negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it. I do not see a major distinction between the main page and an article's text that would bypass this. Sometimes, what is notable about a BLP is negative. Sometimes, what is most interesting about a BLP is negative. Note that I'm not disputing the DYK may have gone over the line sometimes... but a blanket ban, a categorical denial of the ability to use negative material when the negative material is well sourced, given WP:DUE weight, and the most notable thing about an article's subject... that just seems like it's against the core of what wikipedia is. Fieari (talk) 00:20, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
• Yes, but only in unusual cases and I would suggest a discussion before using them. The problem here is "negative" has a massive range of values, from mentioning someone's criminality all the way across to highlighting a famous mistake made by a sportsperson during a game. The former is clearly problematic, the latter may well not be. Or, to take an example from above, highlighting something negative in someone's life but also mentioning how they turned the problem around or became successful later. Black Kite (talk) 07:27, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
• Yes as "negativity" is not clearly defined. Many articles are created on the basis of the misbehavior of the subject. If they are found to be acceptable as BLPs, they should not be excluded a priori from DYK.--Ipigott (talk) 09:25, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
• This is a bit fuzzy as it depends on what a "negative hook" is, but in spirit No. DYK hooks cannot follow WP:NPOV in the same way articles can. They are 200 characters, and the format is not designed to be something needing balance. They should in spirit, but the ways we balance articles are often unavailable. Furthermore, DYK hooks can never be modified once concluded, they appear on the main page and then live on the talkpage forever. Hooks should be handled with caution, WP:BLP ones especially so, and DYK should go further than articles in being careful. I disagree with those who say presenting something banal or mildly positive about an individual people consider negative is whitewashing, but even taking that as the case, trying to find the right "negative" things to say is not a great solution. CMD (talk) 09:54, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
• Yes First of all, "negative" is a sloppy and vague term, as already pointed out. The examples above include a misogynist self-describing as such, a bland hook to an arguably sensationalist article, and the story of a career turn-around... I'm tempted to say that these examples define "negative" so badly that this is a bad RfC. But, people are already talking, so: Sometimes a fact about a person will be "negative" in a way that admits no qualification, and that fact will be interesting enough for a DYK hook. The idea that "balance" can't be fit into 200 characters presumes that NPOV is about saying a positive thing for every negative thing, which it isn't. I agree with Fieari's comment above. XOR'easter (talk) 15:43, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
• No, but with some very narrow exceptions, since "negative" is overly broad, and encompasses some noncontroversial nonperjorative types of hooks. I believe you have to answer in your own mind question 2 before answering question 1, which is how I arrived at no. How can we establish a rule that addresses potential negative hooks? So much judgment must be exercised regarding whether the lack of context inherent in a hook renders the negative hook problematic that I cannot see any potential for a bright-line rule. However, there are minor "negative" hooks that no one would object to. For example, mentioning that someone is an orphan could be seen as negative but not perjorative. I would change the prohibition from "negative" to "including content that could diminish the subject's reputation." — rsjaffe 🗣️ 16:25, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
• No. At least, not until it can be demonstrated that the broader issues with regard to DYK content have been properly dealt with. In my opinion, the ongoing problems that are evident are more due to process, and to questionable judgement resulting from the pressures the process entails, than to specific subject matter, but given the potential damage 'negative BLP' content can cause, this seems a sensible precaution, as a starting point. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:51, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
• Probably? - Way too much introductory RfC material. To the point, however, "negative" is just too broad. If a claim is in the article and there's consensus it meets BLP in the article, that's what matters. If that consensus is unclear, put a hold on the nomination until it's resolved. If the hook includes a BLP claim that misrepresents the article, that's already a problem for DYK. If the hook includes a BLP claim that's unduly negative given the context of the article (extracting the only line of criticism in an otherwise neutral, descriptive article), IIRC that's also something covered by existing DYK guidelines. I don't see a need for a blanket rule like this. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 03:13, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
• No This comes down to politics and culture wars. We have to have the no-neg-rule simply because editors and politics of those editors change. We can certainly find something interesting to "hook" readers without going negative. Lightburst (talk) 03:34, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
• Yes, and it's a pretty clear interpretation of policy that sometimes running a positive hook would be an NPOV violation. If you don't see how that could be the case, consider the hook "... that Harvey Weinstein was one of the most thanked people in Academy Award speeches for thirty years and holds seven Tony Awards?". theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 05:24, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

  Just because we don't run a negative hook doesn't mean we have to run a positive hook. We have the option of not running a hook at all. – Teratix ₵ 05:01, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  It wouldn't be an "option", it would be a discussion (potentially contentious), which would require elements to determine why it would not be run. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 06:20, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  By "option", I mean "something within our power to do". – Teratix ₵ 07:11, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  Assuming that's true, it would not be a NPOV violation. It could be read as a "positive" hook, and we'd probably change the wording a bit, but at the same time it reads as what I'd expect to find in one of the many news pieces throwing critical shade on the various awards bodies and their relationship to Weinstein/the studios. A quick look finds for example "In fact, the producer elicited more gratitude on the stage of the Academy Awards than any deity". If there is no agreement on this, then as Teratix mentions rejecting nominations remains an option. CMD (talk) 06:26, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

• Yes - it's not a violation of BLP to call somebody a "terrorist" if reliable sources do so, and there is nothing wrong with that reflecting on the main page. GiantSnowman 11:55, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
• No neutrality is a pillar (WP:5P2) in main space and it is even more important when we select a <200 character hook to say something about a person. We do not have to highlight the positive but we do have to be neutral. We all have COIs based on our disparate backgrounds and interests. As 4meter4 said above we have to be careful because, tendency is to promote negative hooks from personal bias. edit:also just read CMD's rationale and I very much agree.Bruxton (talk) 14:43, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
• Yes "Andrew Tate self-identifies as a misogynist" is neutral. It's his whole shtick. NPOV doesn't mean we can't show the negative, it means we have to present it in a balanced way in accordance with sources. – Muboshgu (talk) 14:53, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
• Yes. BLP does not disallow us from describing negative information about living people, as long as it is properly sourced. DYK is not subject to any exceptional requirement on this issue coming from BLP; it is the same as the rest of the encyclopedia in this regard. The internal DYK rules do have a separate requirement to avoid unduly negative hooks, but that word unduly is important; it is a nod to WP:NPOV. Symmetrically, NPOV does require us to use negative hooks, or not to have a hook at all, in situations where anything but negativity would be undue. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:45, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
• Mild no. The question of whether content is BLP-compliant in an article where it is contextualized and balanced with other content is different from the question of whether that same content is compliant when it is featured on the Main Page with no context at all. Compliance with WP:NPOV and particularly WP:DUE is virtually impossible in a DYK hook, which raises grave concerns with respect to WP:BLP's directive to employ the greatest care and attention to [...] neutrality[.] I recognize the concern that focusing on negative BLP hooks also risks NPOV -- and for my part I would not restrict my position to negative hooks. At the very least, the same concerns apply to promotional hooks (if any). And at the risk of jumping ahead in the agenda, I would question whether it's particularly wise to feature BLP content in DYK at all. BLPs are an inevitable and sometimes necessary product of our encyclopedic mission, but it seems unlikely that we really need or want to incentivize their creation, or that they are likely to showcase the kind of content that makes DYK a benefit to the main page. (Bot-summoned.) -- Visviva (talk) 04:40, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

• Yes - some material is inherently negative but that does not mean that we should censor them. Say we had a DYK on a recently created article, e.g. Killing of Roger Fortson. Fortson is recently deceased, and the police officer that killed him is, as far as I know, still a living person. A negative hook will very likely ensue, with either information that portrays Fortson or the police officer in a negative manner. Does that mean that we cannot feature the article at DYK had it been nominated early enough? I think not. Or how about South Africa's genocide case against Israel that did make it to DYK? The material in the article is likely to portray either some living South Africans, or some living Israelis, or maybe the judges, lawyers negatively. starship.paint (RUN) 08:14, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

  Do the headlines in that article's references contain negative statements about a living person? Many newspapers acknowledge that readers stop at the headline and will offer a descriptor rather than a name. That's where they get "Florida Man threw live gator in Wendy's drive-thru window, police say"[50] with the full name pushed down into the actual article. In the article you mention, the BBC source headline is "US airman shot and killed by police in Florida".[51] Couldn't a hook be piped as something like, "... that Florida police shot a US airman six times in his own home?" If that's a "negative hook on a BLP", then I'd say yes it is compliant with WP:BLP. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 18:21, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

• No. Going out of our way to get negative content so prominently displayed isn't NPOV, it's POV pushing. Featuring negative content about living people on the main page is incompatible with our BLP policy, not to mention simply unethical. I'd go even farther to say that DYK shouldn't feature anything contentious or charged. That's just not appropriate for the main page. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 01:51, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
• Yes. We should not be using the exceptions to make a rule. The vast majority of hooks, "work". --evrik ^(talk) 03:40, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
• Yes as already the statement in the hook has to be verified, and in the article, which has to comply with policies. So it would mean that the hook also complies with BLP policy. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:46, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

  A statement might be neutrally weighted when given as part of a 2000-word article but become undue in a 200-character hook. – Teratix ₵ 05:09, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

• No, because the policy on biographies of living persons is a non-negotiable policy, and Did You Know is a nice-to-have. We have seen that negative hooks inevitably result in conflict. While it probably is possible to develop a policy within the policy as to when negative hooks are consistent with BLP policy, that will be too difficult to be worth the effort. We cannot risk compliance with BLP policy in order to enhance the optional feature of DYK. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:27, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
  • It appears that there is likely to be No Consensus on whether negative BLP hooks are sometimes allowed, and then we will get into the weeds of Question 2, which we will not be able to resolve, because the simple answer is to Just Say No to Question 1. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:37, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
• Yes, this can follow the neutral point of view in some instances. We allow leeway so hooks can be interesting, but they should not fundamentally misrepresent the topics they are about, which can sometimes be entirely negative facts about living persons. Theleekycauldron and starship.paint make good points. Note that it is possible for other sections of the main page to include negative information about living people, such as In the News (I was thinking about politicians but the current ITN has a blurb mentioning a sportsperson's loss) or Today's Featured Article (it would be wrong for a blurb of a controversial figure to be a hagiography). — Bilorv (talk) 17:09, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
• No Dilettante's comment and 4meter4's reply speak to my concerns. DYK is unique in that it is not intended to summarize the article/topic. It incentivizes the most interesting details from an article, which often means presenting information from BLPs with very little context. The Andrew Tate or Matthew Charles Johnson hooks are good examples where effort gets placed on finding something interesting to say about these people (an edgy interview quote, behavior during a trial), while excluding some of the most relevant information about why these people are notable (charges of "rape, human trafficking, and forming an organised crime group to sexually exploit women"; "convictions ranging from burglary, armed robbery, serious violent offences, and murder"). The idea that DYK would run a positive hook about Harvey Weinstein suggests to me that the community's will to exercise good judgment in deciding which topics are suitable for this type of treatment has atrophied under the current guidelines. hinnk (talk) 21:47, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
• Yes. The current wording, "unduly negative", is overly-broad and prone to an argument saying it's possible someone will perceive it as something negative. I experienced this with my hook of Hal Malchow, where I suggested a hook (ALT1) that was written as quirky and non-negative, but others disagreed. We should act with the presumption that our readers are intelligent enough to know that a single-sentence blurb is not the entire character of a person. To repeat what QuicoleJR said above, I don't see how every hook about a BLP that is even slightly negative violates BLP, and especially when well-sourced. SWinxy (talk) 23:02, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

  Important context: ALT1, in this case, was ... that Hal Malchow was detained in a Lima, Peru, airport because he was accused of smuggling cocaine in his arm cast?. Malchow was never charged, let alone trialled, let alone convicted for this accusation and it has nothing to do with the reasons he's notable. Honestly, even mentioning it in the article is verging on a WP:BLPCRIME violation.

  It's honestly alarming you think that highlighting an unsubstantiated accusation of drug trafficking is "quirky and non-negative" and that you repeatedly doubled down on the nomination when other editors pointed out the problems with this. I don't think you're competent to be commenting on questions of BLP policy. – Teratix ₵ 04:55, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

• No. DYK hooks, by their nature, don't present a neutral overview of the subject but pull isolated facts out of context to pique people's interest. So for a negative BLP hook to be acceptable, the isolated fact it highlights would have to miraculously accord with how we would neutrally describe the subject in a balanced overview with full context. Not completely impossible, but because DYK process has strong incentives to sensationalise and quickly promote hooks I don't trust it to reliably make these judgements. The Tate hook is the only one of those examples which even gets close, but, as others have pointed out, it omits mention of his serious criminal charges in favour of highlighting an edgy self-description. – Teratix ₵ 04:31, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
• Yes Fully concur with @Theleekycauldron. The emphasis here is that negative DYKs are a problem, but very few are considering the opposite: we could equally argue that overly positive, hagiogrpahic, trivial BLP DYKs are a problem; these potentially create equally undue characterisations of the subject. The implication of "no" here is less concerned with overall neutrality, but rather with only one side of the neutrality spectrum. There is somewhat of an inherent tension between the purpose of a DYK hook (clickbait?) and writing an NPOV encyclopaedic article. As long as DYK exists I cannot see this tension (positive and negative) being fully mitigated; completely ruling out "negatives" only deals with one part of the problem. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 06:29, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  This is a non sequitur and closers should give it no weight. Whether overly positive BLP hooks are a problem has no bearing on whether negative BLP hooks are a problem. – Teratix ₵ 07:09, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  This misrepresents my intervention, I did not state "overly positive BLP hooks are a problem", you've missed the point of argument from counterfactual. Claiming NPOV as a reason to curtail "negative" hooks is arbitrary, all BLP hooks are (potentially) problematic from an UNDUE perspective. I'm not arguing that there is no problem whatsover with negative hooks, just that I cannot see how the proposal resolves the problem of DYK mischaracterising subjects in some fashion. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 12:01, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  I cannot see how the proposal resolves the problem of DYK mischaracterising subjects in some fashion It does not need to and was never intended to do so. It is specifically intended to deal with mischaracterisations arising from negative BLP hooks – the most damaging kind – not every sort of mischaracterisation. – Teratix ₵ 12:29, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  "negative BLP hooks – the most damaging kind" that's an assertion based on anecodote, without even picking apart the notion of damage (damage is done not just to a BLP subject). I can think of damaging positive hooks, as the Theleekycauldron's Weinstein example demonstrates. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 04:56, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

• Mu, but closer to No but on different grounds. Invoking BLP is overkill here. We can and do present negative information on BLPs when sufficiently well-sourced in articles. However, the front page is not an article. It has its own rules and responsibilities. We already have lots of DYK-specific rules; clarifying and strengthening the existing discouragement of hooks that "unduly focus on negative aspects of living people" is something we can do just because it's a good idea. It's better to play it safe for reputation-affecting items on the front page, not necessarily because it's a BLP violation, but just as a common courtesy and "mood" deal - DYK should be fun facts, not a crime blotter or the like. (This would allow the occasional "fun" negative hook that isn't meant particularly hostilely, but get rid of more of the weak "here's a criminal" hooks.) SnowFire (talk) 15:52, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
• Yes Without an equal prohibition on positive hooks, this makes little to no sense. Toa Nidhiki05 18:52, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
• No There are further issues with controversial issues on DYK. Some editors seem to think that everything that meets the basic criteria should be included in DYK, but DYK is not a good/featured article listing. The short one line sentence poses serious issues when dealing with BLP and contentious issues. Traumnovelle (talk) 00:31, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Question 2

How can we determine when a negative hook on a BLP can and can't be used? What specific guideline(s) should DYK reviewers follow when reviewing negative hooks on BLPs? What language should we include in a guideline that assists reviewers in making decisions and prevents conflict at DYK, Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors, and other project pages? Consider the limitations of the DYK hook format and the language of WP:BLP policy in your answer.

• Comment I do not see enough support for this RFC at Question 1 to proceed further. I say we close this RFC now. --evrik ^(talk) 20:24, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
• I'm going to break several thoughts into separate bullet points in case there is consensus for one idea but not another. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 02:20, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
• Negative accusations against living persons cannot go into a hook (WP:SUSPECT & WP:BLPGOSSIP). Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 02:20, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
• Negative and subjective evaluations of living persons cannot go into a hook. A standalone hook cannot meet WP:BLPBALANCE, which requires that we, "Do not give disproportionate space to particular viewpoints". Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 02:20, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  I can agree with this, but one of the biggest arguments regarding this whole topic is "what counts as disproportionate balance"? In the case of the Andrew Tate hook, the argument in favor of the hook that eventually ran was that Tate is largely known for negative reasons, and so the hook also has to be negative. A positive or even neutral hook about it would be "disproportionate" or "unbalanced". That is a sentiment I personally disagreed with but was ultimately the prevailing one, so that has to be kept in mind when discussing whether or not such hooks should even be allowed in the first place. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 02:28, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

• A negative hook about an individual not known for the fact in the hook, should pipe their name to best meet WP:BLPNAME. For example, use "... that Florida police shot a US airman six times in his own home?" instead of "... that Florida police deputy Joe Bloggs shot Roger Fortson six times in his own home?". This is in line with newspaper headline standards based on the understanding that some people do not read past the headline: "Headlines should include people's names only if they are highly recognizable by most readers.".[52] Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 02:20, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
• Again, wrong question. Many "negative" BLP hooks are fine, while "positive" hooks can cause harm to BLPs. We should avoid harm, respect privacy where appropriate (i.e. where the people affected by the hook are not public figures like, say, Andrew Tate), and generally be careful, independent of whether people think something is is "negative". My detailed comments were moved; they show areas where we need to be careful with BLPs to avoid causing harm. —Kusma (talk) 05:39, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

This is a red herring. We have no evidence that positive hooks have been pulled from the WP:MAIN page for BLP violations, been brought to a notice board such as WP:ANI or WP:ERRORS, or have been promoted to the queue after a contentious discussion. While theoretically a positive hook could be a POV problem, in practice there aren’t any real systemic problems with positive hooks at DYK. There is a systemic problem with negative hooks with supporting evidence.4meter4 (talk) 07:59, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

There is a "red herring", and it is the focus on "negative hooks" instead of on BLP issues. Running the Tuen Ma hook could cause harm to a BLP, running the Andrew Tate hooks caused contentious discussions inside the Wikipedia community but no actual harm to a BLP. The last thing we need is a rule that limits BLP attention to "negative hooks". —Kusma (talk) 08:46, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

None of that is actual evidence of a problem with promoting inappropriate positive hooks. It looks like you are handling the Tuen Ma Line hook review which proves my point. There are no systemic problems with positive hooks and BLP violations at DYK. Nobody is going to be convinced positive hooks are an issue without having multiple pieces of significant supporting evidence such as hooks being pulled from the main page or a report at ERRORS or ANI. I’m not going to discuss this with you further. If you aren’t going to engage productively with question 2 and are going to continue to make arguments not based in any meaningful evidence there’s no point in discussing with you further in this thread.4meter4 (talk) 09:22, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

There are no systemic problems with positive hooks and BLP violations at DYK

Not sure that is true. Please remember the negativity bias, This could simply be a matter of cognitive bias, as we may simply be ignoring problems with positive hooks because they don't pose immediate red flags. Meta-ironically, the voting pattern bias comes into effect in this very RfC. Viriditas (talk) 23:09, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

I disagree that there is a negativity bias. I've never seen a positive hook on a BLP cause protracted arguments at DYK. Nor have I ever seen a positive hook pulled from the main page or brought to ERRORS or ANI. Meanwhile, we have lots of evidence demonstrating those exact issues with negative hooks on a repeating basis. The evidence just isn't there to demonstrate positive hooks are an actual problem. For someone who accused me of offering a "solution in search of problem", I find it highly ironic that you are arguing for a problem with no supporting evidence, and willfully ignoring a problem with supporting evidence.4meter4 (talk) 23:55, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

This sounds like an argument from ignorance to me. We don't see systemic problems with positive hooks because of the negativity bias. The positive hook bias may be there, but we are just not aware of it. I have as much supporting evidence for this as you do. Viriditas (talk) 00:03, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

I disagree with your premise. Positive hooks by their nature have a much smaller chance of violating BLP policy, and as a result are statistically less likely to cause harm or violate policies. This is particularly true because we require the use of independent secondary sources, encyclopedic tone, and we require a balance of POV with DUE weight. In most cases POV issues get sorted appropriately in review and without much fuss. In short, our review system on positive hooks at DYK is working well and there aren't any systemic issues. Arguing that there is a proportional issue, just isn't based in reality, and frankly insisting that it is makes your bias plain to anyone who is objective on this topic. If you can't accept evidence that is right in front of you there is no chance of working with you productively on this issue.4meter4 (talk) 00:16, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

If we are defaulting to writing positive hooks about BLPs, that’s automatically a NPOV violation. Nobody has even bothered to examine this issue, yet you discard it as immaterial because it doesn’t violate BLP. Sounds like you are preferring one policy over another, when they should have equal weight, hence the importance of avoiding unduly negative hooks. This is the kind of thing Conservapedia is famous for, except in their formulation, an editor is never allowed to say anything negative about the idea of conservatism (if you don’t believe that’s true, then have a look at the site). If we can’t say anything negative about a BLP, that’s a violation of NPOV. I don’t see how you can get around that. The negativity bias here refers to the idea that negative hooks are perceived as a problem, hence they are getting more attention, while the positive hooks go unremarked, partly because they don’t violate BLP as you say, but might still violate NPOV. There’s no way around this, which is why the proposal is so bad. But it does work for Conservapedia, so there’s that. Viriditas (talk) 03:49, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

It's not a violation of NPOV; NPOV applies to articles (encyclopaedic content). BLP applies to every page on en.wiki, up to and including talkpages. Hooks are not articles, and cannot be expected to "proportionately" cover the topic. Not a single hook does this, whether positive, negative, or some other tive. CMD (talk) 04:22, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

I think you are putting the cart before the horse. Question 2 is specifically about determining how we can feature negative hooks without violating BLP policy. Work productively and we may be able to continue featuring negative hooks, but with some defined limitations to prevent BLP violations.4meter4 (talk) 04:36, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Your claim is flat out wrong. Even our DYK guidelines say the hook must adopt NPOV. The more important thing is that your claim basically undermines the intent and spirit of our policies, all of which interact with each other as parts in a working whole. If you and others have this unusual and erroneous interpretation, you may want to start by reviewing DYK guidelines. Viriditas (talk) 04:51, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

The DYK guidelines explicitly mention the issue I raise, "a sentence that might be due weight in the article can become undue if used in the hook". The policy and the spirit of all the guidelines and policies remain completely intact and if the main page is handled differently to articles, where we regularly make different considerations to the article space regarding issues like sourcing strictness and censorship. There are currently 3 BLPs on the main page (depending on how you determine recently dead), "... that Richard Osman, who wrote "the biggest thing in fiction since Harry Potter", lost confidence in his writing ability after his experience with Boyz Unlimited?", "... that Green Bay Packers player Travis Glover started at three separate positions along the offensive line during his college football career?", "... that for his first recital as the organist of the restored Frauenkirche in Dresden, Samuel Kummer chose music by Bach, Brahms, and himself?". None of these proportionately represent all significant views that have been published on these topics, which is the letter of NPOV. They are as far as I can tell broadly positive, with even a hooky promotional edge, but I don't read any as significantly violating the spirit of NPOV and/or BLP. The dichotomy of negative/positive is at any rate a false one, we usually have a range of hook options, and avoiding potential BLP issues does not force us towards the binary of having to violate WP:PROMO. CMD (talk) 05:36, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

No. This is some kind of weird, post-truth revisionism with the purpose of gaming the original intent and spirit of the policies. I wasn’t aware that people actually do this, but here we are. The guideline says "Hooks must adopt a neutral point of view". That’s pretty clear to me. You then selectively quote the following material which applies to BLP and NPOV, based on whether a hook about living people is used in an undue manner. Sorry, but words have meaning. Viriditas (talk) 06:10, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

And the proposal would not stop hooks from keeping a neutral view, but speaking of post-truth revisionism, the proposal in question was compared to Conservapedia above. CMD (talk) 07:44, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

• Improperly posed question presupposing in its wording that we must add something to the wording of the DYK rules. We do not need to do any such thing. We can already use WP:NPOV to decide this. The DYK rules already contain the word "unduly" pointing to this. Continuing to railroad this multipart RFC through is a mistake. Stop now. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:13, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

  +1 Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 09:14, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Other comments

4meter4, this RfC will not transclude properly, since it lacks a "brief, neutral statement" preceding the first signature. Since your intention is that only Q1 be open for comment right now, perhaps you could simply ask Q1 right under the rfc tag and follow it with your sig? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:53, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

How do I fix this?4meter4 (talk) 14:57, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Firefangledfeathers Did I fix it?4meter4 (talk) 14:59, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Yep. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 15:00, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Is Question 1 really the right question? There are two separate issues here: do negative statements violate BLP, and should DYK feature negative statements about living people. There are many good reasons to answer no to both issues. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:09, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

I think it is the right question. Negative statements on BLPs don't violate BLP policy in article space when they follow WP:BLPBALANCE and WP:BLPSTYLE. I contend that its inherently impossible to follow BLPBALANCE in a one sentence 200 character question statement on the WP:MAIN page. There's no room for context or nuance on complex content in a DYK hook, or presenting differing opinions together, etc. Not everyone reading a hook will go to the article, so whatever we present in that one DYK sentence must be balanced on its own. We could always ask a follow up question, should DYK feature negative hooks on BLPs? if you still think its needed.-4meter4 (talk)

(invited by the bot) The way this is worded, you really need people with "behind the scenes" DYK experience/expertise to understand and participate rather than the general net cast by the RFC bot. Starting with the whole RFC being about "hooks" without explaining what a "hook" (in DYK) is. But the RFC creator did a very thorough job of researching and presenting this to people who already have "behind the scenes" DYK experience/expertise. North8000 (talk) 17:43, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

@North8000#top Do you have a suggestion for making this better for the average editor? Should I modify the open statement is some fashion?4meter4 (talk) 17:49, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm a dummy on DYK so you asked the perfect person.  :-) I'll work on an answer. North8000 (talk) 17:53, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

I tweaked it a bit. Did that help?4meter4 (talk) 17:57, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

@4meter4: I second North8000's query... what is a hook. Perhaps provide a definition for it the first time you use it, or a wikilink to where it is defined (for those of us who arrive here by other means, for me was WP:BIOGRAPHY, and who don't know anything about DYK process).   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 18:02, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

@4meter4: Well, I went and learned what a "hook" is and now it looks simple to fix. Just add this sentence at the beginning of the RFC. "A "Did you know" (DYK) item on the main page of Wikipedia is called a "hook" and in this RFC, "hook" refers to the text portion of that item" North8000 (talk) 18:06, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

• I think it would be a bit more helpful if Wikipedians from other parts of the project were not immediately confronted by a verbose and rambling 1,000-word WP:WALLOFTEXT. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:11, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

@AirshipJungleman29 I did put a draft forward for public review prior to making this RFC. I even asked for input at Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment. Nobody complained. This is a complex issue. It needed explaining.4meter4 (talk) 18:16, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

No one complained that they didn't know what a "hook" was, yet you were happy to tweak that. Anyway, it's your RfC—if it's too complex to get wide community input, so be it. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:21, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

DYK is inherently different than articles in many ways. It is inherently very short and so can't be expected to be coverage of anything much less balanced coverage. It's designed to be a lesser known fact which is the opposite of balanced coverage. It's selected to have "surprise" value, again the opposite of balanced coverage. It is material which is already in the article and presumably BLP compliant and so perhaps BLP compliance is not the best way to frame the discussion. It also elevates the factoid to immensely higher visibility. From being buried in the body of one of millions of articles to being on the main page of Wikipedia. IMO DYK can and should set it's own higher standard regarding negativity due to the above factors that are unique to DYK.North8000 (talk) 19:22, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

• Comment. I think some responders have misinterpreted the question. The question was specifically targeted at hook content, not article content. Article space, as long as it is policy compliant with WP:BLP and WP:NPOV, can absolutely contain negative content on BLPs, and in doing so it should not impact its ability to be featured at DYK. The question here is whether we can cherry pick a negative fact on a BLP out of the article and feature it as a stand alone fact within a hook where that fact is no longer placed inside the context of a bigger picture of the subject. Can this really be considered compliant with WP:BLPBALANCE? It's telling that most yes voters failed to engage with parts of the question, specifically considering the DYK hook format. There seems to be a general view among the yes voters that if the article is balanced the hook may do whatever it wants. I think this is a fundamental overstep and is ill considered. Remember, many readers of DYK will not click on the article to read the negative fact in context. For this reason, I contend the hook itself must be balanced on its own to be policy compliant.4meter4 (talk) 17:32, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

  That is exactly why we have a "not unduly negative" rule. —Kusma (talk) 19:04, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

  Remember, many readers of DYK will not click on the article to read the negative fact in context

  Not sure that is remotely true. As the reader, I will always read the hook in context. That's the entire reason I'm clicking on them. And all of these comments should be moved to the comment section below. Viriditas (talk) 21:41, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

  "many readers" != "you in particular". – Teratix ₵ 05:05, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

@Viriditas You can't read a hook in context unless you go to the article page. If you look at page viewing statistics, there is a wide discrepancy in page views from hook to hook which shows not every hook gets as many readers going to the article page. It's common for people to read through the hooks on the MAIN page and only go to the one or two article pages that are of interest to the reader and leave the rest alone. Some people may not go to any articles after viewing the main page. We know that from page viewing stats.4meter4 (talk) 18:05, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

• Comment Today, we ran a clear BLP violation. [53] Matthew Charles Johnson and his co-accused hurled abuse at the judge and threw human excrement at a member of the jury. There was no source provided supporting the claim that Johnson threw excrement. Sincerely, Dilettante 18:12, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

  That hook was factually incorrect, but not actually nearly as negative as the article overall. A failure of fact checking more than one of adherence to the BLP policy. —Kusma (talk) 19:03, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

  I'm not presenting it as concrete evidence that negative hooks should be banned, but it is relevant to a discussion on pulled BLP hooks with negative info in that it provides an additional datum on what kind of hooks tend to be problematic, and for what reason. It may be interpreted in favor of either a yes or no !vote, or as of minor significance either way. Sincerely, Dilettante 19:40, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

  The subject farted into a microphone and his co-defendant threw excrement. If that's your best argument for negative hooks being banned, then we should probably close this discussion at this point. Viriditas (talk) 21:47, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

  I'm not presenting it as concrete evidence that negative hooks should be banned, but it is relevant to a discussion on pulled BLP hooks with negative info in that it provides an additional datum on what kind of hooks tend to be problematic, and for what reason. It may be interpreted in favor of either a yes or no !vote, or as of minor significance either way.

  Thankfully it's not my best argument, nor even an argument at all. Sincerely, Dilettante 23:11, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

  The hook writer failed to note the subject farted into a microphone and accidentally attributed the excrement throwing to both of them instead of one. This is hardly a major problem. The hook writer messed up and needs to write carefully in the future. This does not say anything about problems with negative hooks or BLP application. My opinion only, of course. Viriditas (talk) 01:39, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Comments on proceeding to Question 2

Are Questions 1 and 2 out of order?

A quick review of the responses to Question 1 makes me think that Question 1 and Question 2 are being considered in the wrong order. Question 1 asks whether DYK can feature negative hooks and remain in compliance with BLP policy. Question 2 will be asked if there is a Yes consensus on Question 1, or if Question 1 has No Consensus, and is: How can we determine when a negative hook on a BLP can and can't be used?. I voted No on Question 1 because I do not think that there will be agreement on Question 2. Question 1 is a Yes-No question, but Question 2 may require lengthy discussion to formulate the rules.

When I voted No, it appeared that No Consensus would be a likely final result, in which case we would move on to Question 2. It still appears that No Consensus is a likely final result. In that case, we will move on to Question 2. What happens if Question 2 results in several versions of negative BLP rules, none of which has consensus? Then we are right back where we started, with no rule against negative BLPs, except that we know that we don't know what negative hooks are permitted.

In my opinion, it would have been better to try to agree on a proposed rule for negative hooks before voting on whether negative hooks are sometimes permitted. However, since we are here, I suggest that we start the discussion of Question 2 in parallel with Question 1. If we can't agree on Question 2, then it might be a good idea to leave Question 1 open so that people know that a Yes vote means a vote on something undefined. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:32, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I think we have firmly established a no consensus on Question 1. I'll leave it open in case people still want to comment on Question 1. I agree that we can move on to Question 2. It's a bit late to complain about order now that so much input has happened. The questioning process was open for input at a pre-RFC discussion for about a week. It is what it is. 4meter4 (talk) 20:11, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Comment from evrik

Comment I do not see enough support for this RFC at Question 1 to proceed further. I say we close this RFC now. --evrik ^(talk) 20:24, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

@evrik That suggestion is a terrible idea. This was the question to ask if there was no consensus at Question 1 as outlined in the RFC plan. The fact that there is no consensus at Question 1 indicates the use of negative hooks at DYK is controversial and does not have firm community support. In order to continue to allow negative hooks on the main page we need to create some guidelines that does have broad community support. The attempt to shut community discussion down is not helpful. We need to solve this on-going community problem, and it is a problem with about half the people saying we shouldn't be promoting negative hooks. I further note, that at the WP:ANI discussion there was a mention of taking this to WP:ARBCOM. If we close this now and shut down necessary community input, I would support going forward with an ARBCOM investigation of DYK and allow them to set community policy for us.4meter4 (talk) 20:43, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I do think there is room for productive discussion about how to best deal with BLP issues at DYK. I wish that you would drop the focus on "negative" so we can try to find ways to give more guidance on how to deal with (or at the very least raise awareness of) other BLP-related problems like Template:Did you know nominations/Lunch (song) (perhaps unwanted focus on the BLP's sexuality) or Template:Did you know nominations/I'm really excited about the opening of Tuen Ma line (possibly unwanted attention on a vulnerable person who has been subject to abuse after a viral video). The question should not be so much "is this hook negative?" but more "would posting this hook harm an identified living person?", something where the answer does depend on how public the person in question is and how widely the information is already known (WP:BLPPUBLIC). General classes of BLP hooks that I think should usually not be posted include anything involving rumours (Template:Did you know nominations/BBL Drizzy) or accusing living people of crimes they have not been convicted for (Template:Did you know nominations/Hal Malchow). All of these are recent discussions where at least some people are trying to do the right thing, but better guidance could be helpful for everyone (and certainly more eyes and a generally more cautious approach would be beneficial). —Kusma (talk) 21:50, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

@Kusma The RFC is what it is. It was formed during a pre-RFC discussion that was open to community input and comment. I'm not going to go in and change the RFC's structure or questions after having gone through a community vetting period. That will only increase invalidity of the RFC. There's some room for further questions built in. Raise them when we get to that part in the RFC. Best.4meter4 (talk) 21:58, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

To me and others, it has the appearance of a solution in search of problem. Others have already pointed out that in spite of its minor issues due to reviewer deficits, DYK is operating at peak efficiency and accuracy. For some reason, a certain segment of Wikipedia doesn’t want to acknowledge this. For all of its flaws, people are doing a great job. Viriditas (talk) 23:25, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

That’s a red herring. The issue here isn’t about accuracy or efficiency, but repeated BLP violations; a few of which had wide community input at DYK but ended in a bad choice on the part of the DYK community. (Such as the Tate hook) 4meter4 (talk) 23:35, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I don’t see the Tate hook as a violation, nor do a lot of other editors. But assuming what you say is true for the sake of the argument, given how many hooks we publish and how many are problematic, what you’re describing is a drop in the bucket. While it would be nice to have statistics, it looks like DYK is doing a good job. Viriditas (talk) 23:52, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

You don't need to continue making your case in side threads. The Tate hook was widely condemned at the WP:ANI discussion by commenting admins, and many editors expressed regret in the related DYK talk page. Additionally, I personally have no interest in making this discussion into a broader case against DYK. As you know, I regularly contribute to DYK and am a constructive member of the DYK editing team. This discussion is not intended to become a broad attack on the project, which is something you seem to be attempting to allege. This RFC is meant to deal with a real and continuing problem within the project that happens in a limited context of hook submissions. It's specific, but it matters. I care about DYK and I want it to contine doing what it does well but also improve where it can work better. This is one of those places where DYK must do better. I find it distressing when the project does something I perceive to be genuinely unethical and against WP:BLP policy. The fact that nearly half of the people in response to question 1 also have similar views, should indicate that there is a problem. Good policies don't have such a wide range of discrepancy in an RFC. If you can't see the other side and that we are genuinely acting in good faith and with what is intended to be in DYK's and wikipedia's best interests than there's nothing I can do about that.4meter4 (talk) 00:12, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

I appreciate your dedication, but I also continue to disagree that the Tate hook was "widely condemned". Well meaning and intentioned editors can often have vastly different perceptions of an elephant in a dark room. Enjoy your day or night. Viriditas (talk) 00:19, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

One interesting thing I noticed about the RfC is that there's an overlap between those who saw the Tate hook as unproblematic and those who think negative hooks should be allowed (and vice-versa). The opinions are so polarized that it's clear that there really isn't any consensus here on how to handle things. Even DYK itself is divided and finding a solution is not easy. What's clear is that I disagree that "DYK is doing a good job" in this case, because if it was, it wouldn't have ended up on ANI and we wouldn't have this RFC in the first place. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 00:37, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Understood, and even though you and I aren’t often on the same page, I want to tell you that I truly appreciate your clear and direct communication. Earlier in the overall discussion (perhaps on ANI, or here, I can’t recall), someone mentioned metrics or at least the impression of them. What percentage of DYK hooks have historically been a problem? It looks like it’s far less than 1%. Why isn’t this a sign that DYK is doing a good job? It’s an incredible achievement. Viriditas (talk) 01:02, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Most DYK hooks aren't problematic at all, and when problems are found, they're usually fixable things like factual errors, sourcing problems, or unclear wording. Rejecting nominations outright is relatively rare (and is something I and some editors wish wasn't the case if only to prevent noms from dragging out). It's one of the reasons why I'm so opposed to a blanket ban on BLPs on DYK. It would do more harm than good and most BLP issues can be resolved by our existing system. The issue has always been more to do with enforcement and quality checking rather than something wrong with BLP DYKs itself. With the Tate case, the main issue was simply the community could not agree on whether or not the hook was appropriate or even if the article should run at all. With the benefit of hindsight, just rejecting the nomination completely due to a lack of consensus probably would have been the best option; it wasn't an unreasonable one anyway, and I think a large part of what happened was due to reviewers being unwilling to say no due to fear of backlash (a fear that is to be fair not unfounded). Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 01:17, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Maybe I misunderstood the parameters of this RFC. I think that this is a solution in search of a problem. Really, we need to strengthern the DYK policies, but I'm not sure this is the vehicle to do so. --evrik ^(talk) 02:01, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Queue 7

Gyōji

@OtharLuin, Evrik, and AirshipJungleman29:

• ... that since 2022, gyōji can be seen wearing Pokémon-inspired kimonos (example pictured) in the ring to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Pokémon Red and Blue?

The above hook implies with the phrase "since 2022" that the Gyoji are wearing the Pokemon-inspired kimonos today, in 2024. However, the article implies that the kimonos were only worn in 2022. Can this be clarified in the article, or should the word "since" in the hook be changed to "in"? Z1720 (talk) 21:13, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

• @Z1720:, they started wearing them in 2022, and still do so today. --evrik ^(talk) 02:34, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

@Evrik: Can this be more explicitly stated in the article, with an accompanying source? Thanks. Z1720 (talk) 12:51, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm going to have to pass this along to @OtharLuin:. --evrik ^(talk) 16:06, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

@Z1720 and Evrik: another source by Waraku Magazine. I'm adding it to the original article. - OtharLuin (talk) 13:10, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Queue 1

Elizabeth Storie

@Lijil, Discott, Sohom Datta, and AirshipJungleman29:

There are a couple sentences that need citations, which I have indicated in the article with citation needed tags. Z1720 (talk) 23:09, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Should be fixed now? Sohom (talk) 17:07, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Citation issue has been resolved. Z1720 (talk) 21:28, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Questions

Is here the appropriate place where I can have input/tips/answers about questions? I wanted to nominate pansexuality in which "Did you know... Machado de Assis, a renowned Brazilian writer, was the first to use the term omnisexual, in 1878, ten years after Karl Maria Kertbeny coined homosexual and heterosexual?"

But it passed more than 7 days it was added to the article and omnisexuality is a redirect, not the main topic, and the term was coined before pansexual, not meaning a sexual orientation in original context. --MikutoH ^talk! 01:21, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

What is the question? --evrik ^(talk) 01:49, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Doesn't matter what the question is; it's not eligible for DYK as it's not a new article. Schwede66 01:52, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

But don't expansions count? --MikutoH ^talk! 01:56, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Yes, expansion counts, but it has to be 5x in the past 7 days. Unless there's something going on that's not obvious from the history, this doesn't meet that. RoySmith (talk) 02:02, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

The other way to qualify for DYK is to become a good article. At a quick glance, this looks like it's already pretty close to meeting the requirements so that might be a route to take. RoySmith (talk) 02:04, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Oh thanks for the tip. I will try to improve the history section eventually. --MikutoH ^talk! 02:16, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Queue 2

Boyz Unlimited

@PrimalMustelid, Launchballer, and B3251: We might want to include "has been called" in the hook, but perhaps the fact that it's in quotes is good enough. Other opinions welcome. RoySmith (talk) 21:25, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

I say leave it out. The quotes make it quite clear it's not wikivoice and the hook is snappier without it.--Launchballer 21:28, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Le Touquet

@Launchballer, Szmenderowiecki, and Evrik: The article says "tens of thousands of mines", which isn't the same as "about 100,000" stated in the hook. RoySmith (talk) 21:33, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

fix ping RoySmith (talk) 21:34, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

I see about 100,000 in the lede. --evrik ^(talk) 21:48, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

That's because I just changed it.--Launchballer 21:51, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Next problem is that the statement needs a citation. RoySmith (talk) 22:00, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Cited in body, last sentence of Wartime destruction.--Launchballer 22:02, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Queue 3

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan

@Keivan.f, MSincccc, and Evrik:

Earwig came back with a high match with [54]. The site says it was published in 2021 and there is a lot of exact matches for sentences in the Wikipedia article. I also noticed that the GA reviewer, MSincccc, is the one who approved the hook, which is not allowed per WP:DYKRR. Z1720 (talk) 23:56, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

• I searched through archived versions of the website with archive.org, and I believe that Bollywoodfever is pulling from Wikipedia because various text appears in the Wikipedia article before its inclusion in the article: while the source says it was published in 2021, it is being continuously updated without the site noting the changes at the top. My concern with DYKRR still stands. Z1720 (talk) 00:29, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

• @Z1720: That website appears to be a mirror of Wikipedia. Unfortunately, Earwig cannot distinguish between a legit source and a mere copy and this is not the first time this issue has popped up; I have talked to the admins about this, and they advised me to contact the bot operator, which I might do. With regards to the DYK, even though I have contributed to multiple GAs this was the first time that I actually put one up for a DYK nomination. I'm not entirely familiar with the process and I certainly did not ask the GA reviewer to approve it. If there is a way to add it back to the unapproved nominations list for review again, please bring it up. Like I'm not sure what the solution is. Has this happened before? Keivan.f^Talk 03:35, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

• Not sure if this has happened before, but if anyone can do another check of the DYK hook, and indicate their check below, I don't think we will need to re-add this to the unapproved list. Z1720 (talk) 03:49, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

• Thanks for the prompt response. What you said makes sense. The more eyes the better, to ensure everything is alright. Keivan.f^Talk 04:32, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

@Z1720, Keivan.f: Consider adding {{Backwardscopy}} to the talk page to note that it's not WP with the copyvio. —Bagumba (talk) 06:29, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

@Bagumba Done. Thanks for the suggestion. Keivan.f^Talk 20:26, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Sunlight before signing

@GobsPint, 4meter4, and Evrik:

There are two tags in the article: one for excessive citations and one to provide examples for the sentence with excessive citations. These need to be resolved before it goes on the Main Page. Z1720 (talk) 00:05, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

@Z1720: The issue has been addressed. --evrik ^(talk) 02:43, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

• After checking the article, I think the issues have been resolved. Z1720 (talk) 02:46, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

North West (rapper)

@Launchballer, Thriley, and Evrik:

• ... that North West was originally going to be called Kaidence?

The source says that Kim Kardashian, North West's mother, preferred the name Kaidence, but the source does not say that this name was decided upon, then changed later. Are there any sources that verify that this name was decided upon, instead of just considered? If not, I think the phrasing of this hook will need to be changed. Z1720 (talk) 00:15, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

... that North West was nearly called Kaidence?--Launchballer 00:37, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

This hook needs to be updated as the article has been moved.--Launchballer 21:09, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

I have removed the redirect in the queue. Z1720 (talk) 21:27, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

@Launchballer, Thriley, and Z1720:

• ... that North West's mother wanted to name her Kaidence?

I suggest the above hook. --evrik ^(talk) 02:17, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

• I like this hook best. Z1720 (talk) 02:20, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

North West's what?--Launchballer 07:00, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

• Added mother in this hook. Z1720 (talk) 17:28, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

• Should we be poking fun at a 10 year old's potential name on the main page? CMD (talk) 07:06, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't say this was, but I can also suggest ... that the then-10-year-old North West debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 2024?--Launchballer 07:27, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

... that a 10-year-old debuted at 30 on the Hot 100? Levivich (talk) 17:08, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

• I'm not sure that the first alt presented above makes fun of a potential name: I find it interesting but not negative that Kim wanted to continue the K-starting names. However, the alt hook is also acceptable and if others prefer that one we can use it instead. Z1720 (talk) 17:28, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

My preference is the 'nearly' hook.--Launchballer 17:44, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Lock's Quest

@GraziePrego, ResonantDistortion, and Evrik:

I added two "citation needed" tags in the "Gameplay" section of the article. These should be resolved before it goes on the Main Page. Z1720 (talk) 00:21, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

@Z1720: Would they not come under WP:PLOTSOURCE?--Launchballer 11:03, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Gameplay refers to how the game functions, or how the player interacts with the game, which to my understanding does not fall under WP:PLOTSOURCE. I also checked two recent video game featured articles: OneShot and BioShock 2, and they required citations for the gameplay section, but not the plot. Z1720 (talk) 21:50, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Citations added. GraziePrego (talk) 01:10, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Prep 6

Looking ahead a bit, I don't think File:Benjamin Tanner - The Burning of the Theatre in Richmond, Virginia, 1811.jpg works as a image; it's barely recognizable in small size. Is there a better image we could use? RoySmith (talk) 23:56, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

RoySmith I promoted it with the image, and I'm fine with it not receiving an image slot. Pinging 4meter4 as nominator. SL93 (talk) 00:03, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

I think the image works well personally.4meter4 (talk) 00:57, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

I think it is rather dull/muted and busy. Bruxton (talk) 03:09, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

I just noticed that there are two theatre hooks from 4meter4 in the set. That will need to be fixed. Along with two sports hooks from BeanieFan. SL93 (talk) 11:07, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Kicked both back to prep 3.--Launchballer 11:33, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

@Launchballer I'm a bit disappointed that the Richmond Theatre (Richmond, Virginia) article, which is substantial and took a tremendous amount of work to write, and is probably one of my best submissions of all time, is now buried somewhere down at the bottom where its now likely to get ignored after it was originally promoted to the featured spot. I also find the board game image to be worse than the theatre image in terms of clarity. I can't make out the image without getting my face extremely close up to my computer screen, which is not something I had to do for the theatre image. If our objections are recognizability, this image wasn't an improvement. 4meter4 (talk) 20:17, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

I think that your image is fine and easy to see with my glasses on. I mostly chose the board game image because that spot needs a non-bio image and there are very few. I would like to swap it out for the painting because I don't find it barely recognizable. I was initially fine with leaving it out just because I didn't feel like arguing over an image.SL93 (talk) 20:33, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

@4meter4: Pings don't work without a signature. I can tell you that when multiple different editors are saying 'it shouldn't be in that exact slot' for multiple different reasons, then it should probably be moved. Prep 3 should probably have a bio image, so I moved the hook to the second slot anyway.--Launchballer 07:48, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

I've swapped in a better image for the Ur board. RoySmith (talk) 17:45, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Prep 1

Yuba County Library

@Evrik, BeanieFan11, and Bruxton: can I query the hook

• ALT1: ... that when built in 1906 Yuba County's library had a smoking room? Source: www.yuba.org/departments/library/history_of_yuba_county_library.php

I think this is misleading as, according to the source, the 1906 building was Marysville City Library when built, not Yuba County Library or Yuba County's library. Also the 1906 building has its own article, the Packard Library. TSventon (talk) 09:47, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Misleading? The Marysville Library was the organization that became the Yuba County Library, and it was housed in the building known as the Packard Library. Have any alternates? --evrik ^(talk) 02:47, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

I would pipe to Marysville City Library rather than Yuba County's library. TSventon (talk) 07:15, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

That entity does not exist [55]. The Marysville Library was the organization that became the Yuba County Library. --evrik ^(talk) 01:26, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Prep 2

Qin Huasun

@SL93, Toadboy123, and Launchballer: I'm having trouble seeing how this meets WP:DYKINT China vetos stuff at the UN; how is this "unusual or intriguing"? RoySmith (talk) 00:32, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure. But like at least half of DYK, it's not one of my interests. SL93 (talk) 00:34, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

@RoySmith Prior to 2011, China's vetoes in the UNSC were rare and only four times were it used prior to the start of the 21st century. Since the mentioned vetoes were related to sending peacekeeping troops, it might be interesting as the users would look into the article to see why the peacekeeping resolutions were vetoed. Toadboy123 (talk) 03:20, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

DYKINT says "The hook should be likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing by readers with no special knowledge or interest". If you have to know the history of how China voted historically for this to be interesting, it doesn't meet that. RoySmith (talk) 12:04, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

RoySmith I can pull it for further discussion. SL93 (talk) 19:12, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

That works for me. RoySmith (talk) 19:14, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Now done. SL93 (talk) 19:20, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

I tried to find an alternate hook for the article but I can't. In that case, you can terminate this hook. Toadboy123 (talk) 18:51, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Surely, there must be a hook in United States bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Toadboy123. Schwede66 19:09, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

I have already closed the nom, but something like ... that the Permanent Representative of China to the United Nations Qin Huasun termed the United States bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade "barbarian"?--Launchballer 19:33, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

How about:

... that Qin Huasun criticized Taiwan's bid to join the United Nations as a "brazen attempt ... aimed at splitting a sovereign state"? although https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/240758/files/A_52_255-EN.pdf would probably be a better source for that than what's there now. RoySmith (talk) 21:04, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm getting 502 on the PDF, and I'd lose "aimed" for concision.--Launchballer 21:10, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

The link works for me. It does confirm the quote. Schwede66 00:08, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm fine with dropping the "aimed". In fact, it's better that way. RoySmith (talk) 00:57, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

In that case, we can bring back the nomination of the article? Toadboy123 (talk) 05:52, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Peale's Philadelphia Museum

@PrimalMustelid, TSventon, and Voorts: This is another image that doesn't work well. It's a complicated composition, dark, and low contrast, all of which makes it difficult to make out what it is. RoySmith (talk) 12:12, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Would File:Working_sketch_of_the_mastodon_rembrandt_peale_(cropped).jpg work better? TSventon (talk) 13:25, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I think that would be perfect! RoySmith (talk) 13:28, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and put that in place. RoySmith (talk) 13:32, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

And, purely accidental, but I'm amused by the juxtaposition of the Mastodon skeleton and my Tad's Steaks hook :-) RoySmith (talk) 13:44, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Older nominations needing DYK reviewers

The previous list of older nominations was archived several hours ago, so I've created a new list of 38 nominations that need reviewing in the Older nominations section of the Nominations page, covering everything through May 13. We have a total of 218 nominations, of which 93 have been approved, a gap of 125 nominations that has increased by 10 over the past 9 days. Thanks to everyone who reviews these and any other nominations.

• April 14: Template:Did you know nominations/Cora Babbitt Johnson
• April 28: Template:Did you know nominations/Travis Clayton
• April 28: Template:Did you know nominations/Lineage (anthropology)
• April 30: Template:Did you know nominations/Claude Hamilton Verity (two articles)
• April 30: Template:Did you know nominations/List of roles and awards of Liza Soberano
• April 30: Template:Did you know nominations/Sebastian Zouberbuhler (two articles)
• April 30: Template:Did you know nominations/Larmanjat guided rail system
• May 2: Template:Did you know nominations/Peewee Jarrett
• May 2: Template:Did you know nominations/Bar Kokhba refuge caves
• May 2: Template:Did you know nominations/Jordynn Dudley
• May 4: Template:Did you know nominations/Aurora Gaming (two articles)
• May 4: Template:Did you know nominations/C. J. Hanson
• May 5: Template:Did you know nominations/Adnan al-Bursh
• May 5: Template:Did you know nominations/Professor Layton and the New World of Steam
• May 6: Template:Did you know nominations/Chronotropic incompetence
• May 6: Template:Did you know nominations/Homeworld: Vast Reaches
• May 7: Template:Did you know nominations/The Star Beast (Doctor Who)
• May 7: Template:Did you know nominations/Toro de fuego
• May 8: Template:Did you know nominations/Climate change in Asia
• May 8: Template:Did you know nominations/Felipe Lara
• May 8: Template:Did you know nominations/A Modern Mephistopheles
• May 8: Template:Did you know nominations/Florida Hospital Oceanside
• May 9: Template:Did you know nominations/Fourth All-Russian Congress of the Party of Left Socialist-Revolutionaries (internationalists)
• May 9: Template:Did you know nominations/AdventHealth North Pinellas
• May 10: Template:Did you know nominations/Mary Ann Wells
• May 10: Template:Did you know nominations/Party of Revolutionary Communism (five articles)
• May 10: Template:Did you know nominations/Manganese nitride
• May 10: Template:Did you know nominations/Suicide of Fat Cat
• May 11: Template:Did you know nominations/Ang Ating Musika
• May 11: Template:Did you know nominations/Eddie Halliwell
• May 12: Template:Did you know nominations/Guardian Cap
• May 12: Template:Did you know nominations/Ceasefire proposal for Israel–Hamas war (May 5)
• May 12: Template:Did you know nominations/Grace A. Johnson
• May 12: Template:Did you know nominations/Interstate 85 in North Carolina
• May 12: Template:Did you know nominations/Vinland Saga (TV series)
• May 13: Template:Did you know nominations/Alexandru Talex
• May 13: Template:Did you know nominations/Devizes Plot
• May 13: Template:Did you know nominations/Episode 8851

Please remember to cross off entries, including the date, as you finish reviewing them (unless you're asking for further review), even if the review was not an approval. Please do not remove them entirely. Many thanks! BlueMoonset (talk) 03:55, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Queue 1

Olga Lander

@AirshipJungleman29, Mary Mark Ockerbloom, and Gerda Arendt: There's no reason to convert 50mm to inches; lens focal lengths are universally quoted in mm, even in technological backwaters like the US which uses freedom units. But more than that, this fails WP:DYKINT; only somebody who knows photography would understand the implications of a 50 mm lens on subject distance, and even then, I had to go on a scavenger hunt to learn that the camera she was using was 35 mm film; only with that information does the 50 mm focal length gain the required context. So, let me suggest:

• ... that Olga Lander's camera required her to work close to the dangerous wartime subjects she photographed?

Leaving out the details about the lens makes the hook snappier, and creates some mystery to entice the reader to click though to find out what it was about the camera that imposed this requirement. And finally, as much as I hate to say this, I don't think that image works for us. Low contrast, soft focus, busy composition. The soldier might as well be wearing camouflage. In fact, I just clicked through to the full-sized image and was surprised to discover it's not "soldier", but "soldiers"; I didn't even notice in the small size that there's a second person in the photo. That doesn't detract from the importance of the photo or the photographer, but it's just not working in the format we need to present it on the main page. RoySmith (talk) 13:02, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

(reviewer) For me, the hook without detail is fine. I suggested to use a picture, because - even when not perfect - it illustrates the period. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:32, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

I've updated the hook text. I've been looking for a better photo to use. There's lots of good images out there but unfortunately they don't come with licenses we can use. RoySmith (talk) 18:38, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm also fine with the changes. There's a great photo of her but it's only on Russian Wikipedia, I assume due to copyright. Many thanks, Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 20:36, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

There's a problem with the formatting on the hook now: there are two question marks, one after the original text and one after the "(example pictured)", and the first one should be deleted. RoySmith, can you fix this before midnight, when the set goes live? BlueMoonset (talk) 15:37, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks for spotting that. RoySmith (talk) 16:00, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

It looks good now - short hook and image - but there seems to be an extra space before the question mark. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:28, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I was actually wondering about the space, but it seems to be part of the {{-?}} template, so I assume it's intentional. RoySmith (talk) 16:29, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

As WP:DYKMOS explains, we must use the spaced question mark template when this punctuation follows italic font. Schwede66 19:36, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm really asleep at the formatting switch today. We're not supposed to be including the apostrophe-s in the bold link, or bold it at all. Can "Olga Lander's" be changed to "Olga Lander's" so it's formatted properly? Sorry to bother you again, RoySmith. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:10, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Done. RoySmith (talk) 22:18, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Environmental damage in the Gaza Strip caused by the Israel–Hamas war

I don't know if it really affects DYK, but I've proposed a title change for this article RoySmith (talk) 13:20, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

That proposal makes sense to me. We should move it before it goes onto the main page, or afterwards, just so that we don't end up with a redirect whilst it's on the homepage. Schwede66 20:30, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Makes sense to me too. Lightburst (talk) 04:41, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

There isn't a rule that prohibits the main page linking to an article with a move request box at the top. It would likely be ideal to move it before the main page appearance, if only for cleanness. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 06:55, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Done.--Launchballer 07:39, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

I was having a look at the herbicide sentence in the article, and that sentence ("since 2014, Palestinian farms bordering Gaza's perimeter have had crops sprayed by airborne herbicides and have been regularly cleared using bulldozers.") is an extremely close paraphrase of "Since 2014, Palestinian farmers along Gaza’s perimeter have seen their crops sprayed by airborne herbicides and regularly bulldozed" from this source cited later (ie. not for the relevant sentence) in that paragraph. Checking Earwig, it finds a 72.8% match to this Guardian article, and I do not think the Guardian copied us. Some of this is quotes, but this is also not catching the very close paraphrasing. Also concerning was the article's "Saeed Bagheri, a lecturer in international law at the University of Reading, stated "there are enough grounds to investigate the damage done to Gaza's environment"", which is closely paraphrased from the Guardian's "Saeed Bagheri, a lecturer in international law at Reading University, says that while there are disagreements about how to apply these articles, there are enough grounds to investigate the damage done to Gaza’s environment already.", but more critically invents a quote for Saeed Bagheri that is not a quote in the Guardian article. CMD (talk) 08:09, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Launchballer, you have reverted the article back to a 26 May version, removing the close paraphrase tag. Is the tag still needed? TSventon (talk) 11:28, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

My mistake, yes it is.--Launchballer 11:34, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

The hook needs to be updated to link to Environmental damage caused by the Israel–Hamas war at some point. TSventon (talk) 13:19, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

@Launchballer you also moved it to the wrong title. I fixed that. And I fixed the link in the queue. RoySmith (talk) 15:12, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Regarding BBL Drizzy (BLP) (resolved)

Issue is resolved. Details at nomination: Template:Did you know nominations/BBL Drizzy
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The approved hook for BBL Drizzy highlights "rumors accusing Canadian rapper Drake of receiving buttock augmentation surgery".(link) This is probably fine within the article, but as a standalone hook on the mainpage may violate WP:BLPGOSSIP. There are other aspects of the track (contest, "AI") that could be used for a hook. Pinging nominator Liance and reviewer AryKun. Rjjiii (talk) 17:02, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Requesting a hand with Gravity Blanket

Hi all! Ironic that I am requesting a hand with an immutable force, but alas here we are. Wondering if I could get an (anti-gravity?) hand with promoting Template:Did you know nominations/Gravity Blanket? Ideally I would want to get it up on May 31st as is discussed on the nomination page. Thank you! TheSandDoctor ^Talk 00:32, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't think this is an appropriate special occasion request, since the date is related to Pizza Hut's founding, not Gravity Blanket itself. I've also noted this on the nomination page. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:41, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Set balance

There are currently two adjacent bios in queue 2, Peggy Pond Church and Bob Noel. This can be solved by moving Boyz Unlimited between them; two Green Bay Packers hooks in one set is technically compliant with WP:DYKVAR but I'm noting this anyway. More seriously, however, is that there are six American hooks in queue 3, in two blocks of three. Queue 1 has one American hook, two if you count "an 18th-century hymn" (the hook for which may well invoke an American president, but the poem itself was written by an English poet). One solution is to swap Giovanni Manu and North West (with a revised hook per #North West (rapper)) and Giovanni Manu with Evgeniia Subbotina and I Gusti Ngurah Jaya Negara, and then swapping Boroline with "an $8,000 antique".--Launchballer 18:54, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

• Go for it Be bold. --evrik ^(talk) 19:05, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, so I can't edit sets. If I wasn't making so many unforced errors I'd run.--Launchballer 19:08, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Samuel Kummer

In Queue 2:

• ... that for his first recital as the organist of the restored Frauenkirche in Dresden, Samuel Kummer chose music by Bach, Brahms, and himself?

No, he didn't. He chose - as the proposed hook said - Music by Bach, Brahms, Reger, Vierne and himself. We are talking about a programmatic choice of a person who recently died, and I feel that shortening it distorts it, by placing too much emphasis on "himself" and omitting his interest in those less known. Do you understand? -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:09, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I’ve seen this kind of issue come up many times before. In one particular review, I made a similar decision due to length and relevance. I can see arguments for doing it this way from both sides, so it really comes down to editorial style and preference. I suspect this response will make you angry, Gerda, but I did want to make the comment. Viriditas (talk) 23:18, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm [unusually ;)?] quite sympathetic to your hooks, Gerda, but this change seems good. The shortness doesn't detract from his career, and I don't see any undue emphasis on himself - in my view, the hook really communicates, "he played a range, running the full gamut from Bach to himself" (who readers have presumably not heard of), which is respectful. I'm usually quite irritated by changes to hooks that shorten them, especially when it detracts from their lifelong trajectories or achievements, but this is good IMO. Urve (talk) 03:06, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

I hear you two, but don't quite understand. The names are all short, we'd have room for five easily. If we really think it's too long, let's take Brahms (who is not known as a composer of organ music, therefore informative), Vierne (standing for all the French literature he was particularly good at, and of course for Vierne specifically whose complete works he wanted to record) and himself. Telling people that an organist will play Bach is like saying the sky is blue, - it's the others that tell his personal focus, instead of some "full gamut". - We recently had a hook with five composers, and all five received views above 1k. Readers are perhaps more open and interested than we assume. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:02, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

This is not a good look

So, lots of times the link to a DYK article is the name of the article, and lots of times it's piped so that the visible text of the link is more intriguing, accurate, fun, useful, or whatever. So in the DYKs I'm looking at for today (March 28 2004) we've got some of each... For "...that Olga Lander's camera required..." and "...that the antiseptic cream Boroline was..." and "...that although Evgeniia Subbotina failed..." and "...that Denpasar mayor I Gusti Ngurah Jaya Negara became..." and "...that Elizabeth Storie's doctor..." the text shown is the name of the article. For "...that King Christian IX and Queen Louise of Denmark were the parents of a Danish king..." has the text ''King Christian IX and Queen Louise of Denmark were the parents" while the article linked to is titled Descendants of Christian IX of Denmark, and "...that John D. Rockefeller Jr.... secretly authorized the purchase of an $8,000 "antique"?" has the text "an $8,000 "antique"" while the article linked to is Ludwell–Paradise House. This is all fine.

But wait. We've also got an entry where the text is "that Israel's systematic destruction of trees and farmland in Gaza has..." and the article is linked to Environmental impact of the Israel–Hamas war. Hmmm. These are different statements. Those other piped links are anodyne as are all our piped links I assume. This one isn't.

"Environmental impact of the Israel–Hamas war" is pretty neutral and descriptive. "systematic destruction of trees and farmland in Gaza" isn't. "Impact" just says a thing happened, and let's let the reader drill down and make up her own mind about the event. "Systematic" implies intent (of Israel, it says so), and we don't know if the Israelies are doing this out sheer bloody-mindedness, or for military reasons, or as collatoral damage or what. And "destruction" sounds a lot more like "total eradication" than "impact" does, and apparently there are still lots of trees and farms in Gaza. This does not feel NPOV. We wouldn't use "...Allies' systemic destruction of Dresden..." for Bombing of Dresden in a DYK and so forth.

OK, mistake, hey mistake are going to happen.You guys work hard, for free, and have to work fast too. We all get that.

But why was this mistake made on this topic specifically? Do I have to say? It's not a good look. In addition to leading the reader which is never good, we wouldn't want people to say that we're picking on any countries in particular because then then they might say insulting things about us. Which is bad, if they're accurate.

You're good guys, and sorry to rant and maybe I'm overexcited about it, but this stuff just frosts me. A whole lot of people read the Wikipedia, and trust it to give the straight deal on recent events (maybe naively, but like it or not they do), and so we do affect the real world, and every drip-drip of this kind of stuff is going to contribute to lowering the turnout in Ann Arbor etc. and so we have a good chance to lose Michigan (and similar for other states), and that might end up badly for a lot of people. Including the Palestinians. Herostratus (talk) 03:20, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Because no-one wants to reject a nomination, everyone was worn down, and this was a massive improvement on the hooks suggested by the nominator. Although, on the specific point you raise about "systematic", that was directly taken from the sources and does reflect intent. CMD (talk) 03:24, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

The article does describe systematic agricultural destruction and intentional targeting, cited to reliable sources, so I'm not persuaded by OP's characterization of the hook that there's a severe problem here, or for that matter a severe problem somehow distinctive to this mistake made on this topic that makes for such a not a good look. (What topic? Forensic agriculture? Probably not. Does OP mean the military action that an international court considers plausibly in violation of the Genocide Convention?) In any case, turnout in Ann Arbor (electorally?) is not Wikipedia's or DYK's prerogative. We share to readers new and/or recently GA/FA-status promoted content on the project. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 03:33, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

We wouldn't use "...Allies' systemic destruction of Dresden..." for Bombing of Dresden in a DYK ...

Why not? That's what happened. And Israel's systematic destruction of trees and farmland in Gaza is also what happened. Read the article, read the sources, or just look at the before and after satellite photos. The Gaza ecocide really happened. And you're right, it's not a good look... for Israel. But it's a fine look for Wikipedia, because Wikipedia is doing what it's supposed to be doing: educating readers. Levivich (talk) 03:47, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

On a technical point the sources do not describe "trees" as a systematic target, so that should not have gotten into the hook, but they do describe it for farmland and other kinds of agriculture. I will raise this at ERRORS. CMD (talk) 03:59, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

This whole DYK nomination was rather POINTY. --evrik ^(talk) 04:04, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

And the article remains extremely plagiarisy, but those are distinct questions to the use of "systematic" in the hook. CMD (talk) 04:08, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Queue 5

Lie Kiat Teng

@AirshipJungleman29, Crisco 1492, and -Soman: This isn't strictly a DYK problem, but there's a bunch of CS1 errors in the references that should get fixed. See Category:CS1 maint: ref duplicates default. RoySmith (talk) 20:08, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

@Soman: Fixed ping.--Launchballer 20:11, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Fixed article. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:33, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Democratic Yemeni Union of Peasants

@AirshipJungleman29, Soman, and Evrik: the article says "imprisoned", the hook says "arrested". I'm not sure those are the same thing. RoySmith (talk) 20:13, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Ok for me to change to "imprisoned" in the hook. --Soman (talk) 23:35, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Okay by me. --evrik ^(talk) 23:55, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Actually, as I look at this closer, I'm not convinced this is cited to a WP:RS. https://m.adnlng.info/news/103013 is in arabic, which I can't read, but the google translation of the text at the bottom of the page is "All rights reserved to [Aden Ling] ©2024 Development and hosting" which sounds like some personal blog. And (again, via google translate), the text is written in first person: "My acquaintance with this activist dates back to my youth..." RoySmith (talk) 02:41, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Jarrett Kingston

@AirshipJungleman29, Launchballer, and BeanieFan11: the hook is so similar to Travis Glover currently in Queue 2, I thought I had done this one already and had to go hunting to find where I had seen it before. Do we really want to be running two hooks so similar to each other a few days apart? RoySmith (talk) 20:22, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

I didn't review this hook, @SL93: did (all I did was fix an error and flag a lack of QPQ). There is also a Green Bay Packers hook in queue 3 (which itself has six American hooks, I flagged this already at #Set balance). Nothing wrong with special-interestism, but these should probably be staggered a bit more.--Launchballer 20:34, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

And on that note, I see we've also got two football hooks in this set. One Canadian, the other American, but I suspect that's a distinction which will be lost on most readers. RoySmith (talk) 20:40, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

I reviewed the hook, but I don't go hunting for similar hooks before I review. That would be on the promoter. SL93 (talk) 22:21, 29 May 2024 (UTC)