Wikipedia talk:Did you know

Did you know?
Introduction and rules
Introduction	WP:DYK
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Nominations
Nominate an article	WP:DYKCNN
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Preparation
Preps and queues	T:DYK/Q
Prepper instructions	WP:DYKPBI
Admin instructions	WP:DYKAI
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Just for fun
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To ping the DYK admins	{{DYK admins}}

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

Main page features

A RFC is underway to discuss what features the community desires to see on the main page. Please participate! Thanks. AD 19:22, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

• Still looking for participants. 110.136.175.79 (talk) 01:12, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

All the queues are empty. All the preps are full.

Also, please try to have France-themed articles show up on the front page during a part of July 14 when France is awake, not asleep. Thanks! Sharktopus ^talk 01:09, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

I have filled out one and a bit prep areas. If someone could continue loading prep areas, that'd be great. I can upload to queue later. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:48, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

I've done four more, and Crisco 1492 has done another. The biggest problem I see is that most of the many nominations from before 9 July had not been reviewed at all. I've spent several hours today wading through a lot of these, and have posted initial evaluations. Most of those that checked out have already been moved to a prep area. As for the others, I've marked some as having unusable hooks, or as needing copy editing of the article itself. However, there are still many nominations in need of checking, even if it's just a preliminary check. Most of these are biographies or buildings.

Prep areas 1, 3, and 4 currently contain nominations I've selected, so someone else should double-check and set those into a queue (when space allows). A few of those nominations were older, unreviewed noms that I reviewed and moved in one fell swoop, so a double check of my work is in order. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:00, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Up or out: "From Wikipedia's newest content"

When I was making up Prep last night, I wanted to clear some of the backlog of older articles but most of them didn't have the magic checkmark. Three items created July 2 do not have even one review. I suggest we review articles from the backlog, NOT articles recently added, until the backlog is cleared. Sharktopus ^talk 11:39, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

As I say above, I noticed this problem as well. I've reviewed and moved quite a few of these, and have noted problems with a few more.

Current statistic: about 25 nominations in 2-6 July, but only 3 of those cleared for use.

However, I've now been at DYK for nearly four five hours straight and will need a break to do other things now :P --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:07, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, EncycloPetey, your work is appreciated! Sharktopus ^talk 23:50, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

A good few more have been reviewed. Hopefully the backlog is more manageable. Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:29, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Verifying science articles

I've seen a fair number of science articles get posted to DYK lately that have absurd claims or outright misinformation in them. I'm not talking about scientific controversies, just basic facts that are wrong or extremely outdated. Can reviewers PLEASE post requests to review scientific or technical articles to the relevant WikiProjects BEFORE the DYK goes live? Otherwise our DYK section is going to erode Wikipedia's reputation for accuracy. Kaldari (talk) 21:39, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

There is already a lot of work going on just to keep up with DYK without requiring the volunteeers to post an additional set of notices. If the relevant projects wish to check in and review nominated articles, they can always do that, and it will help the overtaxed DYK project when they do. Any nominated article can be checked, often a week or more before selected for the Main Page. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:49, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

You mention "a fair number" of articles "lately" with "absurd claims"; please do give a few recent examples so we can see where we went wrong. We haven't had many chemistry or physics articles, but we do have a lot of articles about animal and plant species. As a member of WikiProject Life, I posted an invitation over there,[1] more eyes are always welcome. Sharktopus ^talk 21:59, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

We could try including the specific source, page, link, etc. in the comments for all science articles? The main problem with them is that their 'facts' are often not as clear cut and easy to find as normal news, website, or book-cited articles By providing source info, we save the reviewer the hassle of searching for them inside journals.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 22:13, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Kaldari, these should be raised at the time and on an individual basis. Even retrospectively is helpful so we can review process. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:48, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that no matter how well DYK volunteers review the articles and check the sources, if the article is on an obscure topic, only people from the respective WikiProjects are going to be able to tell if the articles are actually accurate or not. In the case of science articles especially, we have a problem with people using outdated sources, since those are generally the ones most likely to be accessible online (ironically). Then there is also the problem of people simply not understanding the subject they are writing about. I think if no one is available to review a technical or scientific article for accuracy, it shouldn't be approved for DYK, no matter how many citations it has. Otherwise, we are just spreading misinformation. Kaldari (talk) 07:26, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

• The rule change you propose would be a substantial one. Could you give examples of a few recent science DYKs showing a problem with "spreading misinformation" and/or "absurd claims"? Sharktopus ^talk 12:28, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
  • I'd rather not embarrass the authors as I'm sure they were written with the best of intentions. Perhaps I should amend my proposal to say articles on obscure topics, as this doesn't seem to be much of a problem with run-of-the-mill science articles (where the reviewer would probably have a basic knowledge). And I'm sure the same problem could happen with an article on 17th century Russian literature or any other obscure topic. Basically, I would suggest that if the reviewer has no knowledge of an article's subject whatsoever, they request the nominator to get someone from a relevant WikiProject to vouch for the article. And they don't have to vouch for every detail, just vouch for the fact that the article wouldn't sound absurd to someone familiar with the field. Kaldari (talk) 19:18, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
    • Well, there's not much the project can do for you if you want to come here insisting on horrible problems that are occuring but refuse to point out any of them specifically. rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:56, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Kaldari, I don't know if you're referring to any of the DYKs I have written, but if you are, please tell me, so I can fix them and avoid similar problems in the future. Ucucha 12:00, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Good articles redux

Given this trial at Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_62#Introduce_Good_Articles_to_DYK which ended 22/18 after one month of voting - is it worth relooking at as a trial? There is some discussion at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Main Page features. I'd normally not do anything but I doubt there will be clear consensus or plan of action on that page for a couple of months. So how about the following, which is modest and doesn't disrupt the existing process much. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:58, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

To whit - I am proposing a modest trial outlined below, that doesn't impact greatly on the current process but give us a flavour of possible how it'd work?

• Recently Listed Good Articles eligible - i.e. within five days of Listing.

• A limit of 1 (or 2) GAs per set of hooks (please specify number below).

• Change mainpage from "newest articles" (which 5x expansions aren't anyway) to "newest and newly-improved articles"

• Review after a month and see how folks feel about it.

Support

1. Support It has to be acknowledged that Wikipedia is ten years old and needs to slightly shift focus from quantity to quality. Since DYK includes quantitative improvements (i.e. 5x size) it should also allow major qualitative improvements (i.e. reaching GA status). I think a short trial as proposed is a good idea with no major risks involved and it would be fair to test the assumptions of both supporters and opposers of the proposal. GA's which already featured as DYK should be excluded IMO. I think one GA per set of hooks would suffice for the trial, but I would like to see it at the top of the group. --Elekhh (talk) 01:43, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
2. I don't see any harm in a trial, but care must be taken so that we aren't biased towards a certain topic area. The arts and sports articles have a higher GA rate than other areas. —Adabow (talk · contribs) 03:33, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
3. Support, with a caveat, which is probably obvious anyway, that newly made GAs that had previously been on DYK are not eligible and don't get to be featured twice. For the most part this is of no practical significance, but I have seen some articles go from new->DYK->GA very quickly (one of mine travelled this path in less than two weeks). The inclusion of GAs in DYK should be a reward for genuine old-article improvement, which is the essence of this proposal as I understand it.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:47, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
4. Great idea, let's at least try it and see how it goes. Malleus Fatuorum 07:13, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
5. I'm a bit wary, but let's see how a trial goes. There's no harm in that. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 07:21, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
6. I'd like to see a trial of this. It seems like a way to get some more high-quality content on the main page, encourage GA writers and reviewers, and foster a bit of crossover between DYK reviewing and GA reviewing. The Interior (Talk) 17:20, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
7. Strong Support. Elekhh hit the nail on the head - we need to shift our focus from quantity to quality. As mentioned in the section above this one, some of the articles that appear on DYK are really quite embarrassing as they haven't been checked for sanity by anyone familiar with the topic. More importantly, since DYK articles have to consist of a substantial quantity of new content, this excludes anyone who takes a slow collaborative approach to building articles - i.e. the wiki way. Instead it rewards authors who write their articles offline and then post the finished product. These articles are then rushed through DYK before anyone familiar with the topic has had a chance to look at them. Good articles have none of these problems and are much more deserving a spot on the main page. At the very least, we shouldn't be completely excluding them. Kaldari (talk) 19:34, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

   Rushed? nominations typically sit for a week or two before being used. Can you provide examples of articles that haven't been checked for sanity? This isn't a DYK problem in any case, as I've seen embarassing GA approvals as well. Why haven't editors in the various projects stopped in to help with that? I typically check articles against their sources, and evaluate sources when I approve hooks. You could do the same, and so can others. With a week or more before the nominations are used, that gives you plenty of time to help. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:37, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

   I agree we sometimes have embarrassing GA approvals as well, but if the article has been around for a while it's far more likely that someone knowledgeable on the topic will have stumbled across it and fixed the glaring errors. Now that I've noticed the problem, I'm definitely going to try to be more active at looking at DYK nominations before they go live (rather than after), but regardless, I don't think adding in some GA articles will hurt anything. Kaldari (talk) 00:49, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

8. Support There are a fair number of GAs which don't have much FA potential. The proposal both allows for more of our better articles to be brought to public attention and for users who improve Wikipedia to get their work seen more by the public. I don't see it as greatly increasing the workload here as the articles will already have been vetted to some extent.--Peter cohen (talk) 21:08, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
9. Support per Elekhh. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 21:58, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
10. Strong Support Sounds like a great idea, I think it will probably lead to increased interest in improving articles. Perhaps we should give the top slot with a picture to a GA. Qrsdogg (talk) 22:10, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

    I would expect to see the opposite result. On Wiktionary, we feature a "Word of the Day", and this is never a fully-polished entry. When the word goes up, we get lots of activity adding trandslations and quotations, and other sorts of improvements. When an article is already at GA, I expect there to be less involvement in improvement, since there will be less opportunity for a general reader to participate if the article has alreay gone through a review process. Putting the GA first is also a bad idea, as it overemphasizes that article, limits the GA choice to a suitably-illustrated one, and prevents the new articles from having their photos featured. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:31, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

    My comment about "increased interest in improving articles" was in regards to people being more interested in bringing articles to GA if they knew they could get main page territory. I don't see why we shouldn't give the slot that gets the most hits to the best written article. I also don't see the problem with drawing illustrations from GAs, from a reader's perspective at least. (Of course people writing new DYK articles with good pictures or GAs without good illustrations wouldn't like it, but you can't please everybody.) Qrsdogg (talk) 23:21, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

11. If DYK were limited to new articles, this would be radical. But it isn't - it already includes articles that have substantially improved in quantity (5x expansion) - so on what basis are we excluding articles that have substantially improved in quality as measured by peer review (Good Articles)? Frankly, a lot of the opposition to this would seem WP:OWNery if exhibited on an article. Rd232 ^talk 21:14, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
12. I think it's good to give GAs some exposure; a trial won't hurt. Ucucha 12:16, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
13. It would be good to gives articles a chance to be featured if someone revamps a fairly large article (impossible to make eligible under DYK rules) and gets it to GA status. The only caveat is making sure the article is thoroughly examined because of the potential for substandard GAs. – VisionHolder « talk » 12:26, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
14. Support DYK is a good idea, but not for new articles. I'd much prefer GAs to be put in their place. At the moment, we award an article GA status, but nothing comes of it. This would be the ideal place to feature articles that are good but not as good as featured ones. We have long since passed the time of needing an incentive to create new articles. AD 11:03, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
15. Support I've thought this for a long time now.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:35, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
16. I'm not so sure about the idea, but we rather ought to run a trial and I don't see any harm in that. —innotata 19:33, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
17. Support, DYK isn't working at all, and there is no longer a need to encourage new article creation on Wikipedia; there is a much greater need to encourage article improvements to Wikipedia standards than there is to put up new content that does not often meet standards and requires cleanup by experienced editors, of which we no longer have enough. Replace DYK entirely with daily GAs, perhaps two can fill the space currently occupied by DYK, and they need not be recent-- they need to be vetted by a directorate, which DYK does not have (I suggest GA-experienced editors, so the DYK crowd doesn't just move over to GA to put up inferior content on the mainpage under a different name). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:31, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
18. Support. One GA hook per set. This is a modest proposal which would help to put more quality content on the front page, while still allowing traditional DYK hooks to appear there as well. No plausible arguments have been presented as to why it could possibly be a bad thing. This is not an attempt to destroy DYK, it is not the thin end of the wedge of some conspiracy against DYK, it is just a minor and much-needed improvement. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:50, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Oppose

1. The way GA has been running lately, there is little difference between GA and FA for many reviewers. Articles up for GA are often pushed to FA standards, so those articles should soon have a chance for the Main Page anyway. I also prefer a uniform set of criteria, not a this-or-that blend in DYK. It makes the entire process much easier to manage. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:33, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

   Please consider that in the last ten years there were 3,335 FAs produced while 12,336 GAs which means there are four times more GAs than FAs. Most FAs have been promoted without being GAs before. Those editors who wish to bring the article from GA further to FA most likely will not bother to nominate for DYK. So doubling wouldn't be frequent, probably not more than between DYKs and FAs anyway. Your other argument is about the difficulty to manage an extra rule. Well, why not be friendly towards those who think that this is a good idea and allow for a trial. Than the results could be evaluated and your concerns proven to be justified. --Elekhh (talk) 02:56, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

   Your argument supports my point, in that if so many articles are making FA without ever going through GA, then the function of those two processes has become largely the same. We don't need to double-dip the highly improved articles. Featuring the new articles will do much more to encourage newbies that will featuring GAs. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:22, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

2. In just the past couple of weeks I have seen proposals from Tony1 to reduce the number of DYKs per day to 8 and to replace an unspecified fraction of DYK with a large image promoting one article. SandyGeorgia now proposes getting rid of DYK entirely, to make more room for more featured content. DYK is a wonderful feature of the Main Page and it is there to promote creation of new content. There are many other wonderful goals in the world, but it would be better to do a very good job on DYK's own good goals than to start pursuing radically different good goals. Sharktopus ^talk 03:46, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

   I thought DYK and GA have the same goal, which is to improve Wikipedia. This is a proposal to trial a possible improvement of DYK. If this minor proposal cannot be tested, I'm afraid the number of those calling for truly radical change will increase. --Elekhh (talk) 06:08, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

   The goal of DYK is giving "publicity to newly created or expanded Wikipedia articles. This serves as a way to thank editors who create new content, encourages editors to contribute to and improve articles and the encyclopedia, and brings new and expanded articles to the attention of readers who view the Main Page." That is the way we "improve Wikipedia" here. Of course the goal of every feature on the Main Page is to improve Wikipedia," but reviewing and selecting GAs for exposure is much closer to the mission and expertise of the FA section than to DYK's. Sharktopus ^talk 11:54, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

   I'm afraid you're misguided, GA is not about reviewing and selecting, it is about qualitative improvement. I don't think the concept of having a DYK which stands only for quantity is tenable. --Elekhh (talk) 14:07, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

   DYK is about reviewing and selecting new content of quality. But I don't want to WP:BLUDGEON this discussion, and perhaps you don't either? Sharktopus ^talk 14:24, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

3. If there is a need to feature recently promoted GAs on the main page, why not propose just that as its own section? DYK's purpose is to feature new content, encouraging both new editors and frequent content creators. Diverting 25-33% of the slots to freshly-minted GAs would divert DYK from its mission, create a slippery slope towards the de facto destruction of DYK as the same tiny group of editors propose these changes over and over until something sticks, and only add to the workload of DYK reviewers with no benefit to DTK's mission. - Dravecky (talk) 10:19, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

   There are about 100 times more new articles than GAs. That's 1% not 25-33%. No reason to be scared. --Elekhh (talk) 14:07, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

4. For the same reasons I have given in all the previous repetitions of this perennial proposal (e.g. Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Plagiarism and copyright concerns on the main page#break, Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 62#Allow some DYK hooks to go into newly promoted Good Articles?, Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 33#Radical suggestion). GA status means nothing to our readers, most of them don't even know what a GA is; this proposal has always seemed to me to be more about editors wanting to scratch their own backs then about improving the experience for readers. Is there anything new in this proposal that hasn't already been gone over in the numerous previous discussions? rʨanaɢ (talk) 11:41, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

   Why do you think that including Good Articles would not improve the experience for readers? Considering how abysmal some of our DYK articles are, I think we could only stand to improve from this change. Kaldari (talk) 19:38, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

   This is already discussed at length in the numerous links I posted above; please take the time to read them. And, as Sharktopus pointed out above, take care not to bludgeon the discussion. There is no need for you guys to respond to every single opposing comment; your opinions are already known. rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:50, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

5. I agree with Dravecky that this would be better done in a separate section (and I'd support it there), as mixing these two in one section would confuse and dilute the important mission of DYK in encouraging new content creation. -- Khazar (talk) 14:19, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

   Isn't writing good articles part of new content creation? More importantly, isn't it about adding high quality new content, which is the one thing that Wikipedia really needs to support more of? Last time I checked, we weren't suffering from a lack of articles. Kaldari (talk) 19:43, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

   First, what's with the badgering of each oppose vote here? Second, I think you're missing the point a bit. I agree that encouraging the refinement of articles is important, which is why I'd be fine with a section of the front page that recognizes GAs as we do FAs. But I also think that quality first-stage content creation is equally important to recognize.
   Because the truth is, Wikipedia is suffering from a lack of articles, at least on certain subjects. Check out the DYK section of my my user page, if you like; all of those appeared on DYK since May of this year, and I'd estimate that 49-50 of the 53 were wholly new. You can argue that Ali Salem (Egypt's most famous playwright), Zayar Thaw (a well-known Burmese hiphop artist, now a political prisoner), Thepchai Yong (an internationally-recognized Thai journalist who heads the country's largest TV network), or U Gambira (leader of the monks in Burma's 2007 "Saffron Revolution") don't belong in Wikipedia, I guess, and that we should stop encouraging people to create articles like those. But IMHO, you'd be wrong; to keep the encyclopedia growing, we need to continue to expand our coverage in both breadth (quantity) and depth (quality), and our awards and front page should reflect that. I get a bit tired of those interested only in the latter dropping by to deride even the idea of working on the former. -- Khazar (talk) 04:02, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

   First, it is not badgering, is a good faith attempt for dialogue. Second, the proposal is not to stop encouraging new articles or expanding articles. It is about a sensible shift after ten years of creating new content towards encouraging quality improvement. There are still 100 times more new articles created than GAs and there are 1,813,206 stubs waiting for expansion. --Elekhh (talk) 07:17, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

6. Per the other opposes, in particular rʨanaɢ and Khazar. This suggestion is step towards disbanding DYK as it is today - by reducing the newness and the variety. Manxruler (talk) 13:43, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
7. Per the other opposes, for a broad international and cultural representation, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:42, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
8. For many of the reasons above. DYK encourages new content, and that remains an important element in the continuing development of Wikipedia. Placing featured articles on the main page promotes those who work to elevate articles to top quality level. Both elements are important. Already, FA is more prominently featured than DYK, but the current balance is appropriate in my mind. By watering down DYK with inclusion of GAs, it shifts the focus further toward the top quality element at the further expense of new content. Cbl62 (talk) 21:13, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
9. Per Rjanag and Khazar. cmadler (talk) 14:34, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
10. I agree with just about all of the oppose reasons given above. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 18:06, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
11. The point of DYK is to foster new content and feature users' work on the main page, if only for a moment. I think it works fabulously as an incentive to create new articles, and I have to oppose any proposal to modify it with GA material. Nomader (talk) 20:03, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
12. DYK should encourage new content. Personally, I would like to see new GA's replace the stagnant "On this day".--William S. Saturn (talk) 22:57, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

• I think if GAs are going on the front page, they should be highlighted as good articles. That is, I don't want them mixed in the same box with new articles. I think a better idea would be to highlight GAs some days and new articles other days (like every other day), or have a separate box for GAs entirely. —Designate (talk) 03:43, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

  DYKs are a mix of new articles and old articles improved through quantitative expansion (5x). Adding qualitatively improved articles does not really change the current new-old mix. The difference between new, 5x-expanded and GA articles might be important for editors, but readers just want to see quality content. --Elekhh (talk) 04:13, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

  The 5x expanded articles are at least 80%-new prose and usually more than that so they genuinely are 'new' content. I do support the idea of a separate box for newly promoted GAs, perhaps in a screen-wide box under the featured picture. - Dravecky (talk) 10:25, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

  I don't think GA has the strength to support a section on its own on the main page. I think the proposal would benefit both GA and DYK. --Elekhh (talk) 06:53, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

  • Some folks (like me) are in favor of eliminating the "featured picture", as this is something Commons already does. I would think it could be replaced with a GA section. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:28, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

  FPs often get more views than DYKs, so there is clearly interest for them. Also the current poll shows that editors appreciate FPs and rather consider the main page should have more, not less images. --Elekhh (talk) 06:53, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

  If people cared about providing readers with quality content, then they would be arguing for the inclusion of new FAs, which are of higher quality than GAs. Ever since this was first proposed nearly 3 years ago (and there may be earlier proposals I'm not aware of), people have been wanting this as a way to reward editors who write GAs, not as a way to improve the experience for readers. rʨanaɢ (talk) 12:15, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

• I argued with Tony1 about this over beers on Friday night. I am thinking we do this instead of reducing, and was thinking of 1 (or 2) initially so the reduction would be minor only and we could see how it goes and how folks enjoyed it. I also think that as many GAs are only reviewed by one reviewer, it might be a good way of a fair number of them just getting a second pair of eyes on them before (hopefully) going to FAC. Casliber (talk · contribs) 07:06, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
  • How about suggesting to Tony1 next time you get together for beers that your joint project be hosted by FA for a month instead of by DYK? They have more pixels than DYK, the mission and editor expertise there are more similar, plus this would give FA an inside track to overseeing GA. Furthermore, since writing the actual FA blurb seems to be a last-minute job with little oversight, it might be good to make FA blurbs shorter. Sharktopus ^talk 20:40, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
• Should we set a designated 'end' date to possibly blunt some of the opposers' wariness? Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 07:21, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
  • It's part of the proposal, it says clearly that is for one month. --Elekhh (talk) 14:07, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
    • But the proposal says nothing about how we will gauge the success/failure of all this. Is the proposal simply saying that we'll do it for a month, and then go through the same set of arguments again, or is there some objective way we can gauge whether all this wrangling has resulted in something positive? --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:30, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
      • Surely being a bit more empirical could help... I would have thought. --Elekhh (talk) 13:47, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
        • Every empirical scientist first establishes a plan for the experiment, so that he or she will be prepared to watch for and interpret the data, and will have set up the equipment necessary to collect the data generated by the experiment. Will the data be temperture changes, and thus reuire a thermometer, or will the data be in the form of spectrum absorbancy, in which case a spectrophotometer is needed. Not being prepared means that data will likely be missed, and almost certainly misinterpreted. Setting out raw meat which then produced maggots spontaneously was long thought to support the concept of abiogenesis, principally because the empirical approach was uncontrolled and so the results were grossly misinterpreted. The proposal has no plan for interpreting data, nor even a statement about what kind of data we expect to get. Good experimental design is a fundamental part of collecteing and interpreting any data. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:19, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
          • Oh wow, really confusing. What have natural sciences in common with this? Are you really expecting a comprehensive social research to be set up before any modest change is tested for DYK? --Elekhh (talk) 06:35, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I think some people are missing the point here: some opposers state that DYK is for new/expanded articles, and they seem to be unable to budge on this opinion. The fact is, DYK can be for anything, if there is agreement to change it. We don't have to stick with new articles just because it's always been that way. As I noted in my support we are long past the time where we need an incentive to create new articles. Why should new articles get exposure on the main page, over someone who slaved away making a good article who will get no such time? AD 11:10, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

In part because we are not long past the time where we need an incentive to create new articles. There are many, many thousands of topics not yet covered on Wikipedia, or that are covered only as a short stub in need of vast expansion. Thus, an incentive to find and start/expand articles on those topics should not be eliminated. Also, featuring new artiicles on the Main Page will draw attention to what may be articles in their infancy, and infants need more help and care than the adult articles that already have their diploma. Opposers are not missing the point; we're disagreeing with the premise behind it. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:12, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

But the proposal does not replace any of these. It is a modest shift. I fully agree that there is huge scope to expand stubs (55% of articles are stubs!), but the need to provide incentive for new articles has massively decreased, and is time to provide a bit more incentive for quality improvement. I can't see any vital article missing. --Elekhh (talk) 06:35, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I remember the beer with Cas, and putting the point that the focus should move from quantity (achieving a set number of DYKs per day come what may), to quality (properly reviewing each nom and exposing it only if it meets the policies and quality benchmarks); in other words, the main-page exposure time for DYKs should be a movable valve to match the number of DYKs that have passed review at any particular time, and no more stress-outs for the queuing admins. I'm not sure Cas agreed entirely with my view.

On another matter he contended—that GAs are themselves newly expanded and/or newly improved articles—I was skeptical, but went away thinking about it and was won over. To have even one GA as a DYK each day seems like a win–win, for these reasons:

(1) DYK is the natural start-point for the trajectory towards GA, both in terms of individual articles and as a training ground for editors;

(2) DYK articles via the existing rules would benefit by association with one GA per day on the main page;

(3) DYK, let's be frank, loses reviewers at least as fast as it gains them, and can't nearly manage the flow—a good way of dealing with this would be to get DYK and GA to work with each other, not against each other;

(4) GA really really needs more official recognition: it is second to FAC as a model for article quality, and creating a five-day window for one newly promoted GA per day to be DYKed would lift GA's presence in the project and motivate more editors to participate at both forums; and (5) WP:peer review is moribund, isn't it? We need to coordinate and strengthen the fabric of article improvement, not maintain such separate islands. Tony (talk) 07:10, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Somewhat separate but not really thought

Regardless of the vote above, I think the wording on the Main Page should be changed to some form of "newest and newly-improved articles", as 5x expansions are never "new" articles. Am I alone in thinking this? Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 07:21, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

It says "From Wikipedia's newest content:", which is not the same as "new articles". The content is new, in the form of at least 4/5 new prose. —Adabow (talk · contribs) 07:31, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

What Adabow said. Furthermore, adding "newly-improved" is not a good idea, as it opens the door to precisely the kind of nominations DYK has been rejecting for years (e.g., articles that have been copyedited or otherwise improved without any substantial expansion). rʨanaɢ (talk) 12:17, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

If the proposal above is successful, I think we should just axe the text completely. Readers don't care if the articles are new or not, they just want to read interesting, well-written articles. Kaldari (talk) 00:52, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

How do you know what readers want?

If all readers want is to read well-written content, then why not just have four TFAs? DYK is meant to serve a different purpose than what you are insisting on (as are ITN and OTD, which also are not necessarily showing interesting or well-written articles). rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:53, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

To Rjanag I will outline my idea of how the article treadmill has worked at wikipedia - essentially getting a bite of the mainpage cherry has been great at pushing editors that little bit, from stub or nonexistent article to DYK, and then finally at the last hurdle, FAC. Over the past few years, FAC has become more and more exacting. I personally don't see this as a bad thing but as a natural development as wikipedia looks more and more like a professional encyclopedia. In this production line, GA has become more and more important as a waypoint for review on the road to FA status. I was thinking that as GA status can be achieved with only one reviewer, that sending a few through DYK might be a good carrots-rather-than-sticks approach at getting more eyes on them and giving them more of a shove to FAC. I have always been happy having good content which has some incompleteness accessible from the mainpage so that the reader sees WP as a work in progress. Anyway, help in bridging the step between GA and FA is what I see as more of a development in the past 18-24 months as opposed to previously. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:20, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Related RfC which has been announced to people at FA but not here at DYK

People including many commenting here are !Voting on Main Page features. The RfC asks what features of the Main Page should be eliminated, including DYK. It seems to me a bit off to be !voting here to change DYK and !voting there to eliminate DYK entirely. I also notice that when the RfC listed the goals of the Main Page, somehow the goal of DYK, to motivate creation of new content, was left out, but I just put that in there. Sharktopus ^talk 19:17, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Realistically, I was thinking it'd be a couple of months before anything really happened to the mainpage. That is one RfC that really needs to run its course, have results analysed and figure out where to go from there, which I suspect would be more proposals. I figured this would be a trial to try in the meantime. My initial idea (when arguing with Tony) was that cycling 4 queues a day containing average 5.5 DYK and 1 GA meant 22 DYK and 4 GA cycling through vs 3 x 6.5 DYK which leaves us 19.5 DYK hooks going through. This is based on an off-the-cuff calculation of between 6 and 7 hooks per set. I thought this'd be a net gain for everybody.Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:25, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I should bloody well hope the Wikimedia Foundation has more sense than to let its front page be redesigned by a random walk through !voters with COI. Of course the FA people think we should have more featured content, and of course getting rid of DYK, ITN, and OTD would create more room for featured content. Of course I like DYK because I like creating new content and I often notice that Wikipedia needs something it doesn't have. If you offered me twice as many "ribbons" for critiquing other people's metric conversions, I'd drown in boredom. That's my COI. Of course new articles do not have the same smooth proof-read-ness of articles that have been vetted for months, but I follow Main Page/Errors, and we rarely have more errors picked up in 3 or 4 runs of 7 hooks each per day than FA has in their one blurb per day. People don't come to Wikipedia because they want to read polished prose about arbitrary topics, they come here because they are curious and lively and hope to learn something. Sharktopus ^talk 21:00, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't think the voting in and of itself there is going to dictate the changes. There has been talk on wikimedia pages before so some foundation input might take place as well. Hence why I think it'll be a few months yet. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:22, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

The other "!voters with COI" have no more conflict of interest that you do, with your support for putting DYK above FA. The community needs comments from everyone, because the whole page belongs to all of us, not just to DYKers—or FA folks, or ITN stringers, or any other group you care to name. You should feel free to share whatever opinions you have about the Main Page, even if it's not about "your" area.

This is the first unified discussion, and it is basically a brainstorming session. The majority of ideas will be rejected. Those (if any) that seem to have some significant support will be discussed separately, and probably for months on end, before any actual decisions are made. I would realistically not expect to see any changes as a result of this discussion until 2012. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:18, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Disagreement that I would like others to look at

One of our waiting-a-while hooks connects 4 articles -- a nonfiction book and three people who were the subject of the book. To my regret, I think the articles overlap so much that a reader clicking through from this hook on the main page would not discover 4 articles "worth" of new content. The creator disagrees. Could others check out the issues described in this thread? [2] Thanks for taking a look. Sharktopus ^talk 03:11, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Needs new text, not re-use of text that's already in other articles. That's already in the DYK rules. Simple as that. Re-use of text is not eligible. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 03:29, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I requested a citation for your "simple as that" claim already. You didn't provide it there, do you care to do so here? The four articles were created in main space more or less simultaneously; it seems obvious that since the four are connected there would be re-used text...simple as that, to borrow a phrase. If the rules really state that "re-use of text is not eligible", I'll withdraw the nomination. I've gone back (again) and read both Wikipedia:DYK and Wikipedia:DYKAR, and I just don't see it. The fact that these four articles were added simultaneously precludes use of WP:DYKAR#A5, since none of these articles is being nominated on the basis of expansion but rather as newly-created articles. Invoke WP:IAR, call WP:IDONTLIKEIT, or something else...but without a citation for "not eligible", you'll have to send this to /dev/null without my approval.  Frank  |  talk  03:51, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

General reply. Reuse of one's own new content is well allowed, unless it is misused (willingly or not) for reaching the 1500 char (or 5x expansion) limit in the individual articles, or is simply unreasonable. Whether or not this is the case depends on a personal view on what information should be in what article. My personal view is that the current overlap is such that Zoya Fyodorova, Victoria Fyodorova and The Admiral's Daughter articles could well be merged into one article. They could also stand on their own, provided they are expanded individually and the overlap is reduced. Materialscientist (talk) 04:56, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Practically speaking this seems to be just a disagreement over semantics. There is at least one DYK article in there, right? So pick one article, feature it, with that particular article's title bolded, de-emphasize the rest in the hook (though of course retain the wlinks) and we're good to go. The only way I can see this mattering is if somebody's bean-counting their DYKs and wants to have "credit" (whatever that really is) for 4 DYKs rather than 1. But I'm not sure that should really be a consideration.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:51, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks everybody for very helpful replies, and to Volunteer Marek for a practical suggestion on resolving the disagreement. I have suggested a couple of alt hooks that would point to two out of these four articles. I feel that having a DYK hook pointing from our Main Page to 4 articles that all tell essentially the same story is not appropriate. If somebody else could review the nomination so we can move it up to Prep, that would be good. Sharktopus ^talk 14:01, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

User:EncycloPetey

I would like to complain how User:EncycloPetey reviewed the article First Lady of the World. I have withdrawn it because he distrusts a Wikipedian like me. Wikipedia belongs to everyone. What he did is against the Wikipedia way of openness and collaboration. He must be removed as an administrator because of this. - AnakngAraw (talk) 01:05, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

He won't be. The diff is here. The nom dates back to July 4, so it's a pity the issues weren't addressed earlier. Including the name of the main character in a plagiarism comparison is a bit, er, harsh, but otherwise his removal seems reasonable. Johnbod (talk) 01:20, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Is it a striking feature of the plot or public perception of the novel, that the main character worships Hindu gods at an altar in the United Nations building? If so, how else would one word a quick summary of that fact? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 01:33, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

AnakngAraw, having articles featured on DYK is a privilege, not a right, and the project doesn't need people calling for desysopping/banning every DYK editor who doesn't agree with them. If you can't work with DYK reviewers civilly, then maybe your privilege of nominating DYK articles should be removed. rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:55, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that there was a "privilege of nominating DYK articles" that could be removed, other than by a block etc. Where does this strange idea come from? Johnbod (talk) 02:12, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

People can be topic-banned from any project. Likewise, DYK reviewers can simply refuse to review anything edited by that editor. If someone is going to make threats against every DYK editor who criticizes their nomination, that person clearly is not ready to be a constructive member of the project, and the people who volunteer their time to run DYK shouldn't have to worry about getting this kind of crap for their reviews. rʨanaɢ (talk) 12:31, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

That doesn't amount to what you said. Frankly here your language here is inappropriate. Johnbod (talk) 12:56, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Topic banning is removing an editing privilege. How is that different? AnakngAraw's complaint above was the only inappropriate thing in this thread and I will not apologize for calling it inappropriate. Do you have something to contribute to this discussion (which seems to be stale anyway, as the OP hasn't commented in days), or are you just looking for a fight? rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:28, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is "the encyclopedia anyone can edit" (until blocked or banned). Talking about "privileges" is bullshit and fundamentally wrong, re DYK or any other normal editing function. I've made my point. Johnbod (talk) 23:52, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

So you don't disagree with the point I was making in any way, you just felt like going off on a tangent to complain about my word choice. I'm glad that is cleared up. rʨanaɢ (talk) 14:05, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

(And by the way, longstanding consensus is that editing Wikipedia is a privilege, not a right. rʨanaɢ (talk) 14:49, 22 July 2011 (UTC))

Do quotes count as main prose for fivefold expansion?

Hi all. I've been working on expanding Star of Love (Crystal Fighters album). It's gone from 10,177 bytes to 29,730 bytes in total... My question is: given that the article constituted of a full third of quotes beforehand, is that counted when ascertaining the prose length to determine fivefold expansion? Also, is there an easy way to see the prose-only byte count? Thanks =) Nikthestoned 18:58, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Bytes are not what you count, see the rules, but re quotes this is a good borderline example. I would say that quotes that ought to have been taken out of running prose per MOS principles should be excluded from before & after counts, but that leaves a fair amount of room for personal taste. I noticed recently that the rules re expansions do not specifically mention quotes. Full declaration: when I did the nom for Tipu's Tiger (July 18) my "before" count excluded a huge 868 char quote that was then in running prose but in the "after" version was separated as a quote, as it clearly should be. I think this was right - at that point it made a difference to the 5x but now it doesn't as the article has grown. It would be silly to include it before and exclude it after. Johnbod (talk) 22:57, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Expansion is counted based on the size of the previous article, no matter what shape it was in; this is stated clearly in the rules. A character of prose in the pre-existing version is counted as a character of prose, even if it happens to be in quotes. So your article is not 5x expanded.

If an article was already 10,000+ characters before you started expanding it, you should consider WP:GAN rather than WP:DYK. rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:57, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

No bytes dude. The previous version contained little prose, but lists, refs, templates etc etc. Johnbod (talk) 02:10, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

As for your second question, you can calculate prose size using User:Dr pda/prosesize.js, User:Dr pda/prosesizebytes.js, or WP:DYKCHECK. rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:59, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• Previous version is 2854 characters, current version is 7568. Less than 3x expansion. rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:13, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Indeed you are correct - though given that block-quotes are discounted by the script and the former has 2 massive inline quotes, the original should only be 1982 chars and as such the goal is far more attainable! Either way, thanks for all your help =) Nikthestoned 07:44, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Daily DYK scandal

There's always one, whether faulty sources, plagiarism, or sensationalism, but y'all have exceeded even your own low standards with:

reporting one negative fact based on one source which places the subject of a BLP in a negative light. Have you all no shame, or simply no processes for assuring you don't trash the main page? All one has to do is take a daily glance at DYK to realize it's gotten worse and worse. By the way, who verified the hook this time, because the source says he "may" be able to, not that he did. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:41, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

For reference: this hook was moved to the prep area here. Ucucha 02:47, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Ucucha: am I reading that correctly? It appears to me that TK verified the *first* hook, and yet DYK *ran* the second (alternate) hook.[3] If correct, amazing. How did that happen? Get it off the main page, folks-- it's a debacle. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:52, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Done by Dom. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:00, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Yup, Dominic got to it before me (or MZM, apparently!). Nice catch Sandy. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 03:02, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

(But you both got here in time to edit conflict me!) Yes, I removed it. I intended to replace it with the other hook, but it seems that it wasn't chosen because there was an issue with self-published sources being used. I'd rather leave it for more experienced DYKers to decide what to replace the spot with, whether it's another one from that article or something new. Dominic·t 03:03, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, all, but can y'all go back and figure out how that happened? Am I correct that the first hook was the one verified by TK, yet for some reason the second hook was chosen even though it wasn't checked? Y'all have got to find a way to plug these holes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:05, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

No, TK didn't specify which hook he verified; so in effect, he verified both. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 03:15, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

As far as I remember there was a hook about a water board. How can you see from this diff that there were two hooks there? Once these are processed they're gone. At any rate, if there was an alt hook, which looking back at the page, I see there was, I wouldn't have expected it to run unless I suggested it, which I didn't. In my mind alt = something wrong with first, and I never commented on the hook, I was focusing on the content. But at any rate, am prepared to admit I screwed up here. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 04:18, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

From reading the discussion, it does not appear that TK was looking at the alt hook, and no where in this mess of a process can I understand WHY Crisco chose to run the second hook. Another user (OCNative) ce'd it in the prep area 1, and then Materialscientist moved it to queue. None of those people saw the problem? There is a systemic breakdown here. You've got one person proposing a hook, another reviewing, another moving to prep (Crisco somebody), another copyediting the hook (OCNative), another moving to queue (Materialscientist), and no one saw the problem, or noticed that apparently TK verified the first hook, not the alt? How is Crisco empowered to choose the alt, based on that discussion? Are you all simply pushing through too much volume to pick up things like this? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:20, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

No, TK's first review of the DYK submission was here, at which point there were already two hooks there; he put his comments (which discussed various aspects of the article, not just hooks) underneath the second hook. There was nothing to suggest he wasn't looking at the second hook. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 03:25, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• Absolutely correct. TK did not specify which he checked, or which he agreed with, so I chose the hookiest hook. Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:46, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• DYK can be as obtuse as you all want for as long as you want, but it doesn't take any amount of effort to read the discussion there and realize that TK (a new reviewer) did not verify the alt hook. But, at least Crisco has now told us why he chose the alt hook in spite of that-- he prefers the sensationalist hooks, which is another big problem driving the DYK daily scandal. One editor can put a debacle on the main page, that three other editors up the DYK line don't catch. No accountability, no transparency, no archives, no institutional memory, no decency wrt human beings. And you're still putting BLP vios from the same editor who wrote this one on the main page. Tsk, tsk. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:36, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• I said hooky / sensational, not sensationalist. Please do not twist my words around. Naturally, if one hook reads "... that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii?" and the other reads "... that President of the United States Barack Obama has won two Emmys?", the Emmy hook is hookier. As for the reviewing process, please feel free to join in the reviewing process. Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:46, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Or, for an example of a somewhat negative hook, "... that President of the United States Barack Obama smoked marijuana as a teenager?" Still hookier than "was born in Hawaii" Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:35, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

• Perhaps there was an error in the review here, which is certainly worth checking, but I believe the DYK hook used is well-verified and the subject of many news reports in Texas. Its not even that shocking really. Too many DYK hooks are totally boring bollocks, at least this allows readers to check into the controversy and understand it.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 03:26, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Agreed - in fact, the first hook here was indeed extremely dull (and yes, maybe even close to "boring bollocks"), which may be what encouraged choice of the second hook. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 03:29, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Would it be possible to have one, just once in a while, just one discussion about the obvious problems at DYK that focuses on solutions? A BIG part of the DYK problem is the desire for sensationalism which leads to junk like his being run on the mainpage. Choosing one negative sensational fact from a BLP, based (in the article) on one source isn't the way we should be doing things. Again, are you all trying to push through too much volume, with too many hands in the pot, no accountability, no archives, no means of checking, that things like this can too easily get through? Boring is better than the sensationalist crap that often makes it into DYK-- and that article for darn sure did not allow any readers to check into the controversy and understand it-- the entire controversy is reported from *one* source in the article. Please stop the drive for sensationalist hooks, and institute a process where there is some accountability for what goes on the main page, instead of too many cooks in the broth, no archives, complex processes, and no one in charge. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:38, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

There is almost never a good reason to put even true and cited negative facts about living people on the main page of Wikipedia, and certainly not recent controversies for local politicians still in office. Putting a negative claim about a living person on the main page, which gets millions of hits, without the context of the rest of the article gives an incredible amount of undue weight to that aspect of the biography. Dominic·t 03:41, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

The DYK rule is that hooks must not focus "unduly" on negative statements about a living person: "Articles and hooks that focus unduly on negative aspects of living individuals or promote one side of an ongoing dispute should be avoided." Let's get a grip on what actually happened here. Somebody approved a hook the described an amendment Christian verifiably supported, one that was verifiably limited to beach property in the exact area of his own beach property. There is nothing in BLP that says you can't mention a verifiable fact about somebody that others might perceive in a negative way. The bar is set higher for a DYK hook because it is short, and you can't typically balance something negative once it is mentioned. This was a mild infraction at DYK of one of DYK's own rules. It was not a "scandal." Sharktopus ^talk 03:48, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia, to answer just one of your questions, yes I think you all are trying to push through too much volume. There's a proposal above, at Wikipedia talk:Did you know#Good articles redux that would reduce that volume by a small amount - what should in my opinion be an uncontroversial amount. But it doesn't seem to get much support. Some more thoughtful input there would be useful. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 03:51, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

The basic problem is the number of submissions we get, fiddling with the means of dealing with them will not alter the workload, because someone still has to vet every submission and make decisions about it. Tightening the criteria for DYK would be the only way to reduce submissions, but no-one seems to want to do that and there is no guarantee it would change anything, since many of the people who do most of the work now would probably just see it as a means of reducing their own workload.

In any case, this is not such a big deal, DYK only has occasional slip-ups but they occur in every part of the project, and there seems to be some disagreement over whether this hook should have been pulled anyway. Debate is healthy, but let's not blow things out of proportion. Gatoclass (talk) 04:24, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

It is a big deal, and should be taken more seriously as it's a BLP. Yes people make mistakes, but then again, people should learn from them and not make them again and again. AD 11:05, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

What Aiken drum just said. This is not a minor glitch that should be swept under the carpet. A negative fact about a living person was put onto the most viewed page on the fourth largest website on the internet. There was no need for that and it should be taken seriously. Worm^TT · (talk) 11:37, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Except that there's a steady turnover of people so that mistakes are made by those less experienced. And while I agree that the hook probably breached our rules, it was on the main page for less than three hours. Gatoclass (talk) 11:34, 21 July 2011 (UTC)::

So let's look at solutions that deal with these mistakes so they don't hit the main page? Don't just accept it as a problem. I see this as a very good reason to reduce the number hooks on the front page, so only the best get on (something I wasn't really for before). NB In 3 hours, the page is seen by ~600k people. Don't underestimate that power. Worm^TT · (talk) 11:41, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

As I just said, reducing the number of hooks will not reduce the number of submissions, so it won't reduce anyone's workload and won't make the end result more reliable. This kind of thing happens once in a blue moon, occasional mistakes are always going to occur, they occur even with FA from time to time, and they are not a reason for proposing radical changes. Gatoclass (talk) 12:03, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough, TCO mentioned to me that he was after some data on DYK, I'll do my best to get that together before commenting further. I've done a fair amount of DYK work myself, I'd almost consider myself a reg and I've seen enough that I think that some sort of change is needed. Worm^TT · (talk) 12:14, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Catching up on multiple: Dominic has it just right, and anyone who doesn't get that shouldn't be working on anything that goes on the mainpage. Gatoclass has a very valid point about the high turnover of people working here-- there's a new crowd of people in here about every three months, so the old mistakes keep repeating, even though MANY of us have been harping on the same things for years now. Perhaps good and experienced editors eventually leave this area because the turnover is too high, the workload is too high, the process is too complex, or they become embarrassed when they realize the poorly sourced sensationalism and plagiarism they often put on the mainpage? It is NOT an occassional mistake-- any time one chances to look at DYK (as I did yesterday), one can find something egregious-- whether plagiarism, copyvio, non-reliable sources, inaccurate representation of sources, and now gross BLP situations. You all need to figure out how to fix this-- editors are NOT entitled to have time on the mainpage, and the volume of turnover needs to be reduced. You also need, IMO, a directorate made up of experienced editors-- a place where the buck stops and someone is responsible when this happens. I think it's pisspoor to blame this on TK, even if she accepts responsibility, when it's quite clear from the discussion that she vetted the first hook, yet the second ran. Will someone PLEASE tell us what possessed that Crisco person to run the alternate hook? What is your process? Who is in charge? Nothing has changed even though many of us have been harping on this for years, and Gatoclass points out why (there's a new crowd in here every three months claiming there's no problem when the problems go back years, the Shark character is the latest DYK apologist in a long stream of same)-- you all know best how to fix it-- others from outside can't pretend to tell you how, but you do need to fix it. You need lower turnaround and accountability. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:13, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

If I may, Sandy, I would suggest it's not helpful to use this as another stick with which to beat DYK over the head or to blame a specific editor. Everybody here has acted in good faith, but mistakes have been made—I think we all agree on that much. So instead of insulting DYK (regardless of whether it deserves to be insulted or not), why don't we have a collegial discussion about how (or even whether) DYK can be improved. Without that discussion, we'll all waste a lot of space discussing these issues every time they come up. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:25, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I thought that's what we were trying to do, and who is trying to blame any specific editor? Or better stated, who is trying to brush this under the rug? This cannot be blamed on TK-- it took multiple (systemic) process failures to cause this. Until some regular denialists here start looking at the process problems, and considering for how long this has been happening, it may be time to take up a stick rather than drop it. As soon as the regulars here start discussing much needed change, rather than resisting it, I'll be glad to unwatch for the gazillionth time after finding egregious DYK issues on the main page. And until DYK begins to seriously discuss how to change the problems, rather than deny them and claim they are occassional, it may be time to start assigning blame. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:35, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Have started reading this whole discussion, starting from this section and working down to the recent RfC at the bottom, and I'm trying to concentrate on the issues at play here, but the tone of the discourse is varying wildly from person to person, so it is difficult to avoid getting distracted by comments like "that Crisco person" and "the Shark character". Can we use people's usernames rather than dismissive terms, as failing to follow the basic courtesy of using someone's username properly only distracts from the systemic issues you are trying to get people to see? I agree there are systemic issues, but it seems to me to be people having different standards and not agreeing on what is a reliable source, or having the time to explain to users how to write properly from sources and what needs rewriting or not. Just pointing something out is sometimes not enough. Sometimes you have to demonstrate by editing the article what should be done instead. Carcharoth (talk) 09:52, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Break

• One feature that all Main Page programs rely on is Wikipedia:Main_Page/Errors, where people swiftly report problems to get swift correction. I encourage everyone to look at the history of that page to search for past "scandals", let alone daily scandals, at DYK. Errors occur in all the Main Page features. This page is commonly used to suggest changes in DYK process, many of which have been or are being implemented. This particular article was reviewed by a novice reviewer. I had proposed a while ago that some more experienced reviewers make a practice of reviewing Prep instead of reviewing individual articles; I would be happy to see that proposal reconsidered. Another recent proposal to help novice reviewers resulted in cmadler's very kindly posting a reviewer's guide to help new reviewers. I just added a more prominent link to that guide and a strong suggestion to new reviewers that they read it before proceeding. The rule about "unduly negative" BLP hooks is in there. It is regrettable that mistake was missed by the more experienced people who made up Prep and Queue, but I am betting they don't make that mistake again. Sharktopus ^talk 12:04, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• I'd advise you not to put money on that-- every mistake made at DYK recurs quite regularly, and has for years, because there's a new crowd of editors in here every few months. ERRORS should be for errors-- not systemic, long-standing, well-documented, ongoing process failures. Please stop glossing this over and pushing it under the rug. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:16, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

First of all, I apologize for this, and take full blame. Whoever said I was a novice reviewer is partially correct; I don't review often at DYK. This particular situation arose from this discussion where Demiurge1000 challenged me to review a DYK. Honestly I was only looking at the content and made two very serious mistakes. One is that I assumed the article creator would scrub all the problems after a spotcheck, and two I assumed the first hook would be used, as it seemed fine and no reason to go to the alt hook, about which I didn't comment. We all know what happens when a person assumes, and for that I'm completely culpable. Not much more to say, otherwise. Oh, except to thank Sandy for being on the ball, to thank whomever pulled the submission from the frontpage. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 12:28, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

No, you're not completely culpable-- it is QUITE clear from the discussion that you reviewed the first hook, yet for some reason, that Crisco editor chose the second hook. The problem here is too many queue turnovers and no one in charge-- after you reviewed the first hook, three different experienced DYK editors worked to put the alternate hook on the mainpage-- it took multiple cooks in the broth to cause this to happen, and therein lies the problem-- no accountability even as an obviously bad hook moves up the chain. Further, that this could have happened with an experienced editor (TK, who did NOT review the alternate hook, yet it ran anyway) only highlights the problem-- that is, DYK requires nominators to review regardless of their editing experience, so you get inexperienced reviewers, who are even MORE likely to make a mistake than an experienced editor like TK. Bad, bad process here. I hope you all will decide how to fix it, and stop relying on faulty RFCs-- you need to DO something. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:23, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

After so many edit conflicts (and a cuppa tea :D) - TK, you're a link in a chain. The nominator[4][5], the reviewer[6], the "prepper"[7] and the admin who moved it[8] to the queue all failed. Worm^TT · (talk) 13:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• • Well I'm afraid it's not working—at least for DYK it's not. And as far as I'm concerned, Sandy is right: daily is no exaggeration. Do we need to start a public DYK bloopers page to convince people that the current system makes the safe, secure, functional reviewing of DYKs virtually impossible? Apart from the dangers to the main page, there can be no proper role of mentoring less experienced editors and inducting them into the process of improving articles from scratch. It's painfully obvious that the system needs to be reformed in several ways to ensure that DYK fulfills its own objectives and those of the whole project. The number of hooks per day needs to be reduced, and the system of nominator reviews needs to be a little more demanding than tick tick tick, count the characters. The time has come to drop the inflexible coloured ticks and crosses that assume lightening quick reviewing, and to create a proper checklist of the urgents that need to be OKed before exposure. Tony (talk) 12:32, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but we're not GAN, and there's never been a requirement that DYK articles have to be perfect or anywhere near it. The basic idea of DYK is that it's a process that is accessible both to new users and to prospective users who might read one of our new articles and think "I could do that!" DYK articles are not supposed to be perfect.

As Sharktopus pointed out, there is a page here specifically designed to catch and rectify mainpage errors, which occur routinely in EVERY mainpage project. Why DYK gets singled out for this negative attention I don't know, but I suspect it's because some users just don't like the format and philosophy behind it. We've had many attempts to change the working of DYK in the past and they have all failed, most people like it the way it is. Gatoclass (talk) 13:33, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

No one is asking for perfect, but we don't need apologists for plagiarism, sensationalism, and BLP issues. It is NOT acceptable to put this level of debacle on the mainpage. As an experienced DYK editor, I hold you and other experienced DYKers responsible for fixing them, not denying it or apologizing for it. Your process stinks; fix it. DYK deserves this negative attention-- it is NOT an error, it is a sytemic process failure that has been going on for years. You're on old-timer here-- work on it, or take your lumps. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:38, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

As someone who contributed to DYK in the past - but only extremely rarely now - it seems to me that the problems have worsened significantly since the decision was made to require self-nominators to also be reviewers. What that meant is that some nominators found an easy hook to skim-review, with little concern for the article's accuracy or for finding the best or most appropriate hook. So long as they could tick the "reviewed another article" box, their own hook was likely to be promoted. But there has never been any reason to assume that new article contributors would have any expertise or interest at all in reviewing other people's articles or hooks. The system worked better when reviews were in the hands of experienced and dedicated (albeit, I'm sure, overworked) reviewers who took the responsibility seriously. But, of course, it's also true that far, far too many articles are promoted through DYK. Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:48, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm afraid I've been largely inactive at DYK for quite some time. The main reason is that I got tired of the almost total lack of support for combating POV pushing in the I-P topic area. Many users either don't see the problems (presumably due to systemic bias), or else run a mile when they see a dispute in contentious areas come up - some admins won't touch politically sensitive submissions as a matter of policy. I guess at some point I came to the conclusion that it just wasn't worth the hassle.

So I can't pretend to have my finger on the pulse of the project as it currently exists - possibly standards have slipped somewhat due to the implementation of QPQ, as admins have come to rely on it too much instead of verifying hooks themselves. DYK is a constant grind and it's usually left up to just a handful of admins to run it. Sometimes I think WP should have some sort of roster system where admins were encouraged to take part in one part of the project or another for a set period - there are lots of areas that are short of manpower. Gatoclass (talk) 14:07, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

But if those are, in fact, the identifiable issues (quid pro quo and too much volume), why can't both of them be solved? Eliminate the QPQ reviewing, get a directorate, and reduce the turnover volume to one queue per day. I don't mean to propose solutions-- you all should know best-- but who is the "you all" at DYK, if knowledgeable editors move along and denialists and apologists move in? Who will fix this? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:18, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Not being an old hand at DYK, I dont understand this statement "Eliminate the QPQ reviewing, get a directorate". Could you please elucidate, SandyGeorgia? AshLin (talk) 14:25, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I too was a bit lost in the shorthand introduced in Gatoclass's post, but I assume that when he used QPQ he meant Quid Pro Quo reviewing. DYK instituted in the last year a process that requires nominators to review another editors' hook (QPQ)-- I believe that to be a big step in the wrong direction, and it is something we have studiously avoided at FAC, for a number of reasons that I would think are obvious, but I will elaborate if necessary. By directorate, I mean that FAC, FLC and others have directors and delegates in charge, so that some real person is responsible if repeat issues aren't corrected. We had one bad, and well publicized instance, of copyvio at FAC, and we took responsibility and got on it and corrected the problem. By directorate here, I mean a core group of experienced knowlegdeable editors who are where the buck stops before a DYK is put on the main page-- in this case, it took at least five editors to contribute to the mistake, but there is no one "in charge", no one "responsible", no bottom line of accountability. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:53, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

As I've said, reducing the number of hooks which appear on the main page does nothing to reduce the workload, because the number of submissions remains the same. We could increase the DYK requirements but such proposals have always been shot down in the past.

I guess one thing that could be done is to have greater accountability at the update level, where admins have to actually sign off on some sort of boilerplate statement saying they have checked all the hooks thoroughly for compliance with DYK rules before loading them. ATM admins have the option of signing off on the update, but they are not obliged to vouch for its quality. Just a simple change like that might go a long way toward improving the output. It would discourage admins from treating the update process as nothing more than a series of mechanical actions. Gatoclass (talk) 14:37, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Gato, whatever you all decide to do, another thing to consider is the kind of thing we had to do at FAC to address the backlog from repeat offenders: if a FAC is archived, the nominator can't bring another for two weeks. If you make some kind of change, perhaps whenever you find a problem, that person then either can't review or can't submit for several weeks-- that may help slow down the high level of submissions, and encourage folks to get it right the first time. Just an idea, that may or may not be applicable here as it is at FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:58, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm, that could also work at T:TDYK level too - if users verify hooks that turn out to be problematic, they could be banned from submitting any more DYKs for a set period of time. That would be one way to increase the quality of reviews, especially QPQ reviews. Gatoclass (talk) 15:47, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

But take care not to phrase it as "banning" or "sanctions", as that can be off-putting. Allow them to save face-- frame it as a means to reduce the backlog and assure adequate review and give nominators and reviewers time to address previous mistakes, rather than as some kind of penalty, ban or sanction. Honestly, we had to put a FAC rule change in place to deal with one nominator's abuses, but it isn't helpful to call attention to individuals and their mistakes-- it's more helpful to simply put processes in place that improve quality and encourage better submissions without blame. If nominators know that an archival means that can't come back for two weeks, they will hopefully bring increasingly better prepared articles to FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:51, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

What's an "archival"? I'm inclined to agree that wording is important - I was shocked at the amount of resistance just to QPQ, which was seen as an unreasonable imposition by some contributors. We wouldn't have to be confrontational about it, but the point would need to be made clear. Gatoclass (talk) 15:58, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

A FAC is either "promoted" or "archived" (we used to call it failed, but that's hard on nominator ego :) The problem we had was that some nominators were serial offenders, bringing repeatedly ill-prepared articles to FAC that sapped a lot of reviewer time. As soon as one was archived they put up another, equally deficient FAC that just took reviewer time and increased the backlog. So, we added the two-week wait after archival. See my suggestion in the section below for implementing something similar at DYK. FAC has also seriously rejected-- and will always reject AFAIK-- QPQ reviewing. Nominators are not necessarily good or experienced reviewers, and personal motivations may become an issue. I think doing that at DYK has directly resulted in lower quality: only experienced editors should be vetting mainpage content. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:05, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for the explanation. FYI, QPQ is not a requirement for every nominator - only those who have at least 5 DYKs to their credit already. The assumption is that anyone who has accumulated five DYKs knows enough about the process to review other noms - but whether they are all bothering to do so adequately is obviously another question. I'm thinking that auto-rejection of their next nomination would be an effective method of improving reviewers' concentration, although I have little doubt after the QPQ experience that there would be howls of outrage from some quarters over such a proposal. Gatoclass (talk) 16:18, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Glossary for those who are confused by the TLAs (my interpretation) -

• QPQ Reviewing = Quid pro quo reviewing, as part of your nomination you are required to review another nomination, certain editors believe this causes sloppy reviewing. <-- Current situation
• Directorate = A group of editors "in charge" of reviewing, who have the experience to do so and the accountability if something gets through. Certain editors believe this will cause a backlog.

Hope that helps AshLin ;) Worm^TT · (talk) 14:45, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• Oops, sorry for the repeat above :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:59, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

  Thanks SandyGeorgia and Worm That Turned for the explanations! Whenever I have reviewed a DYK I was conscious to try to follow the rules & additional rules to letter and spirit. I was not aware there was a QPQ involved - I thought that unless the other person reviewed my DYK in return for my reviewing his, no QPQ was involved. AshLin (talk) 15:53, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

  Correct-- I would not have labeled it QPQ, but QPQ is a potential side effect of requiring nominators to review, which is one of many reasons we have always rejected that proposal at FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:08, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• Seeing as my choice of the ALT for this DYK is causing more problems than a volcano in downtown Los Angeles, I will try and explain why I chose the ALT. As DYK regulars have probably noted, I prefer the more sensational (a.k.a. hooky) hooks. In this case, the original hook was something that could apply to any old politician. Meanwhile, the ALT was something quite unique (and which I honestly did not see as too negative). As TK did not state which hook he preferred, I went with my gut. Preppers are not required to double check the referencing of hooks, so I assumed it was okay. Sorry for any misunderstandings. Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:52, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Instructions/rules additions needed

One part of the problem here, is that the reviewer approved the nomination apparently without checking (or even looking at) the alternative hook. Their assumption was that the alternative hook wouldn't be used unless there was some sort of problem followed by a further review, and that therefore they only needed to look at the first hook. This might seem obviously wrong to someone experienced with DYK, but not to a novice reviewer. More to the point, alternative hooks, despite being a well established and widely used practice, aren't mentioned at all (that I can find) in Wikipedia:Did you know or in Wikipedia:Did you know/Additional rules. They are mentioned in Wikipedia:Did you know/Onepage under "Proofreading Template talk:Did you know" ("you need to check ALT's, some of which occur in the middle of a paragraph full of comments. Just because an ALT isn't formalized as an ALT, doesn't mean someone can't copy it to a preparation area") and under "Glossary" ("Often an ALT is selected instead of the original version"). Really, there should be some mention of this in the other DYK instruction pages; it might have prevented the problem in this instance. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 14:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

You're quite right. I looked at the plagiarism, and as it happens didn't even catch all the plagiarism on the page. I also looked at the hook which seemed appropriate and no need for an alt hook, so let it be at that. I've apologized. There's nothing wrong with the instructions; you challenged me to review a page, I did, and screwed up. Happy? All this after your quite frankly disparaging comments that continue above. I did look at the hook - am not that stupid. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 15:17, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

With respect, I don't think more instruction creep is the solution-- this process is already so obtuse and hard-to-follow, that it's unlikely that adding to it will address the recurring issues. A complete revamp of the process is needed-- this whole business of nominate, prep, queue, move to mainpage, no archives just makes for no accountability or transparency, and this is something we've been discussing for at least a year. Someone needs to take the bull by the horns and revamp the technicalities of how DYK works-- it's impossible for an outsider to follow. And my opinion is that that task would be much eaiser if you reduced it to one queue per day. Everyone who writes a DYK is NOT entitled to mainpage exposure if we don't have enough peoplepower to assure mainpage quality-- tighten the requirements, reduce the submissions, go for one change a day, get a directorate, and if you can avoid these kinds of issues under an improved system, then move back to four queues a day. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:04, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I find it astounding that no one seemed to notice this problem. I suggest a simple new rule: Each did you know needs two "good/assume good faith" reviews. Thoughts? Hurricanefan25 ^{tropical cyclone} 15:08, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

That would just destroy the whole point of QPQ, which was to reduce the reviewing burden on the regulars.

IMO, if a double-check system was to be implemented, it would make more sense, as Sharktopus suggested above, to implement it at the Prep level rather than at T:TDYK. But I've already suggested a less onerous alternative to this, which I think should be tried first. Gatoclass (talk) 15:20, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Continuing

Um, POV on the mainpage is also something we should watch for. The same editor who put up the nasty BLP that led to this has another DYK today, which raises eyebrows at least. Hollis Downs. Looks like a pattern of editing with an agenda to me: YMMV. And can someone tell me why we use a primary source to discuss his $250 contribution to the Republican party? Have reliable sources mentioned it? Houston, don't look now, but you've got big problems. Also, I can't locate any info about the reliability of the source for the hook; perhaps I'm missing it, but I've reviewed their entire "About" page and don't find anything qualifying them as a reliable source. Who reviewed this time? Does DYK really want to continue in the business of allowing such clearly biased content to be put on the mainpage, because someone claims to have checked one sentence? We have another purely negative, unbalanced article on a politician on the mainpage-- now a pattern. Please someone consider whether it should be removed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:37, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but I'm not seeing any great problem with that hook or article. There is nothing wrong with primary sources, AFAIK there is nothing sinister about the Republican National Committee, and I don't see how supporting an "anti-bullying bill" represents an attack on a politician. Gatoclass (talk) 16:40, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Interesting-- the problem is more systemic than I thought. Well, it must be a good time to go the ballgame and unwatch DYK, which is rather clearly beyond help. See y'all next time round. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:42, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh come on, that's a total copout, apart from being a slight on my own capabilities. Please explain the nature of your objections so that I at least have the opportunity to defend myself. Gatoclass (talk) 16:45, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps Dominic will come along, and perhaps some CUs will come along. I'm afraid it looks like DYK is part of a much larger systemic problem than even I thought. Honestly, clean up your act. If you don't know the problem with using primary sources and non-reliable sources in political bios, I can't help you. What's going on here is alarming in how long it's been happening, but plainly disgusting in the levels to which it has reached. I'd much rather go to the ballgame now, bye. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:53, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I concede that I've missed the public figure/primary source issue up to now, it's the kind of nuance that as a regular FAC contributor you would be well aware of but you shouldn't assume everyone has the same level of familiarity that you and your fellow FAC contributors have accumulated. As for unreliable sources, of course we don't accept them. Had I reviewed this article myself, I would certainly have raised questions about it, however, many articles get promoted that I myself would not promote, and one cannot get too far out of step with one's colleagues. It seems you are trying to bring FAC standards to a process that is radically different - we simply can't give articles that kind of scrutiny. I can't possibly go through every source in every article in every update to ensure that every fact is verified - one has to rely on the wider process to some extent. Gatoclass (talk) 17:19, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

And BTW, referring to the contributions of other good faith editors as "plainly disgusting" is uncivil in the extreme - I must say I am deeply disappointed with your attitude and your comments in this thread. Gatoclass (talk) 17:22, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Without disparaging the legitimate concerns that Sandy's raising--I agree that this hook's the Wayne Christian hook's appearance on the main page was a problem and we should discuss how to better prevent its recurrence--the have you no sense of decency tone strikes me, too, as both off-putting and likely to generate more heat than light. -- Khazar (talk) 18:03, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for any confusion created by my comment above; I lost track of where I was posting. It's the Christian hook that seems objectionable to me, not the Downs. -- Khazar (talk) 18:45, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Looking at the particular article in question in this thread, I'm having trouble following Sandy's description of it as "purely negative", "clearly biased", "plainly disgusting", etc. The language describing Downs' history and legislation seems to me neutral and (for the latter) to give due weight to both sides of arguments, and while I agree that the mention of the donation to the RNC was silly and rightly deleted as irrelevant, I have trouble seeing how it was an attack. The guy's a Republican state representative; why would anyone be surprised by this? If anything, I think this article makes Downs sounds rather good. I see no reason to remove it from the main page. -- Khazar (talk) 18:45, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• Question: Do you mean the creator or the prepper? If you mean the prepper, I will let you know that I have no opinion on US politics, especially on the state level. Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:42, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

The author of this article has something like 800 DYKs to his credit, and though his contributions have been serially problematic in one way or another, I've never heard anyone accuse him of "having an agenda" against Republicans - AFAIK his political bios are almost exclusively on Republicans, and I've always made the assumption the writer is a Republican himself. So I think Sandy is just plain wrong on that score. I agree that the bio is a little rough, but so are lots of DYKs, perfection is not the goal here, these are Wikipedia's newest articles and it's expected that there will be room for improvement. Judging by Sandy's dummy spit in this thread, what our most trenchant critics are expecting to see at DYK is FAC- or at least GA-level rigour, if that's what they want then we should just hand DYK over to the GA process and scrap this process altogether, because we don't remotely have the resources for that level of reviewing and never will. Gatoclass (talk) 02:11, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Gato, that's alarmingly like what Rlevse said to me when I first questioned his approving of nominations where almost all of the article was basically copy and pasted from a single scouting website of unknown provenance. "These articles can be tricky to source", and "this isn't GA you know" ... and onto the main page they went. No-one else saw a problem with it, and I was too new to put up a fight. Are we sleep-walking to a new disaster? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 07:00, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Not at all. I wouldn't for a moment endorse putting plagiarism or copyvio on the mainpage, and in the past I've argued for the strongest possible sanctions for those who submit such articles, proposing that any such articles be automatically disqualified and that repeat offenders be banned. As usual, I got little support for my views. As for Rlevse, I had ongoing serious misgivings with the quality of his reviews, but made few comments since (a) he was at the time a sitting arbitrator who ought to have known what he was doing, and (b) he was a prolific contributor whom I didn't want to alienate. In retrospect, it's clear we all should have been more vigilant, but let's not forget that Rlevse's plagiarism also got a free pass for an extended period at FAC, where there really is no excuse. Gatoclass (talk) 09:23, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Despite making a mistake on the hook, I didn't make a mistake on the close paraphrasing issues with Wayne Christian. The Downs page has the same problems, fwiw. I'd think this would be case where an editor should have a greater level of scrutiny, or something. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:54, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Am I crazy or did we not have a discussion awhile back about the author of this article (Billy Hathorn (talk · contribs)) and plagiarizing? Or was it sourcing? Either way, this is a really really bad thing to find in someone who has written so many pages. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 07:59, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Billy has an ongoing problem with the use of substandard sources for his articles, it's not that all the sources he employs are substandard but he doesn't exercise much discrimination. He also used to have a problem with writing articles on people who failed WP:NOTE, although he has improved in that regard.

I'm not aware of any plagiarism issues in his articles, if this is a recent concern I've missed it. He appears to have good language skills and is able to put things into his own words and usually does in my experience. If he's starting to take shortcuts, obviously that's something that will need to be addressed but I'd have to see some evidence of that. Gatoclass (talk) 09:40, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

No, this would have been awhile ago. It was probably over sourcing. Anyway, TK above says that she found close paraphrasing in two of his articles – that's what I was going off of. Could you (TK) provide some examples? Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 18:18, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Next scandal of the day, keep 'em coming

The sourcing problems, BLP problems, and plagiarism are easily found, including in today's DYK[9]-- that no one here is aware of them in someone with this many DYKs is not surprising, considering the history of serial plagiarizers who have gotten away with it for years at DYK with no regulars here detecting the problems. But, again, plagiarism and copyvio are not the only problems DYK is showcasing on the mainpage-- poor sourcing is an equal concern.

Have some easily found examples (we can go on for pages and pages, but perhaps one of the good folk here will get off their duffs and open the copyright investiation on the work enabled by this process):

Gordon Dove (Louisiana politician) nominated for DYK on July 12.

Article:

• Young Dove's vehicle careened across the highway, crashed into the right guardrail, and overturned several times. His seat belt was not fastened. Partially thrown out the back window and pinned beneath the SUV, he died at the scene.

Source:

• The SUV careened back across the highway, crashed into the right guardrail and flipped several times. Dove, who police said was not wearing a seat belt, was partially thrown out the back window and pinned beneath the vehicle. He died at the scene.

Article:

• Dove is chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee and works to raise awareness of the importance of coastal passes and barrier islands. He supports the north-south corridor for hurricane evacuation and the funding of the hurricane protection system from Morganza to the Gulf of Mexico. Dove also supports the state charity hospital system by removing the Medicare and Medicaid caps placed on the hospitals

Source:

• As chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, Dove will be a coastal floor leader for some years to come. In particular, he is interested in raising awareness of the importance of coastal passes and barrier islands. ... On health care, he supports funding the state’s charity hospital system by lifting existing Medicare and Medicaid caps placed on the hospitals. On coastal protections, the planned north-south corridor for hurricane evacuation and the funding of the Morganza-to-the-Gulf hurricane protection system are top objectives.

Deny away. DYK has got more than one prolific editor who doesn't know reliable sourcing, doesn't know BLP, and doesn't know how to paraphrase content in their own words, and you have no mechanism for preventing this systemic issue from being displayed on the mainpage. Why, again, is it that we MUST display new content, rather than vetted content, on the mainpage? And why is it that DYK has no directorate, no one responsible for these messes? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:05, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:05, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I didn't see this as a scandal but a controvery in which Mr. Christian prevailed. Billy Hathorn (talk) 19:09, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I did do some rewording to minimise some of this - looks like some more would be prudent. Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:34, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I can't think of a way to equate "careen" with something else, nor "north-south corridor", "raise awareness of the importance" should be doable. Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:57, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Next

• Chuck Kleckley. After removing all the text in a BLP not cited to reliable sources, does it still meet the size needed for DYK? How can you all be passing DYKs on size needed without checking that sources are reliable, and why are you putting BLPs on the mainpage with non-RS? More importantly, why are you still passing DYKs from this particular writer, given the number of issues already identified? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:32, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Nexxxxxt

• The Paul Winchell Show; I'll let some other genius spot the close paraphrasing, plagiarism, or whatever you want to call it, but the article is built almost entirely from non-reliable sources, so how does it meet the expansion criteria? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:42, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Sandy, your hyperbole on this page is becoming increasingly irritating. More than once now you have described articles with minor flaws as "egregiously bad". The supposed "BLP violations" you are finding are at best technical, and at times questionable (what is wrong with votesmart.org?). There's a difference between constructive criticism and mudslinging, the latter only causes resentment so please try to exercise some restraint. We are already discussing ways to improve the process so this ongoing documentation of alleged errors is just becoming a distraction. Gatoclass (talk) 06:20, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

• I agree with Gato. What's next? Something like this?

  "The End of Wikipedia is Upon Us! Erwin Gutawa has a Typo! DYK can be Blamed for all of Our Problems on Wikipedia! Get that Misspelled Stuff Off the Main Page!"

You have raised valid points, which has ignited a longer discussion than most threads in the history of DYK. I think that participating in said discussion, rather than adding trivial or questionable mistakes to the "list" here, would be a better way to improve Wikipedia. As Gatoclass said, there is a difference between constructive criticism and mudslinging. Crisco 1492 (talk) 11:52, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that the copyvio really needs to be addressed. From the source [10]: 'in which contestants would have to guess the identity of a celebrity based on a few given clues.' From the article: "and a section called "What's My Name?", in which contestants sought to guess the identity of a celebrity based on a few clues. This from the first sentence I've checked. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 11:59, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

That is a somewhat close paraphrase, but information cannot be copyrighted. I don't think it would qualify as a copyvio, as there is paraphrasing. Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:25, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

No, you are wrong. Simply changing a few words most certainly can constitute copyvio. I don't know what you mean by your statement that information cannot be copyrighted. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 13:33, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm not trying to deny the seriousness of problems like copyvio and close paraphrasing, and the examples raised are valid and will require action, but many of the other supposedly "egregiously bad" examples are relatively minor and in some cases, nonexistent. This particular article, for example, hasn't even been reviewed - and yet it's being used as an example of DYK's supposedly broken processes. Threads like this are just becoming a distraction when we are already discussing methods of improving the system. Gatoclass (talk) 13:35, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

In one sentence (5 words out of a total of 15 or so)? No. A few words in a whole article? Most definitely. As for information, perhaps facts would have been a better term. Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:35, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

@Crisco - I looked at one sentence from one source in one article. We don't count words - we look at similarity. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how to rewrite source material that I find worrying. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 13:48, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I understand that, but using one example that is only one sentence long is not the best way to show a possible violation. Numerous structural and lexical similarities would be best. Naturally, if we are worried about it we could rewrite the article, with more paraphrasing and whatnot. Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:52, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Pretty big problem here when two DYK regulars don't understand the seriousness even when it's black and white. No, people who don't get this should not be working at DYK in *any* capacity-- we cannot be putting this kind of thing regularly on the mainpage, and the reason it hasn't been fixed in more than a couple of years of awareness is the the DYK regulars either don't get it or don't care. I don't know if this is incompetence or indifference, but it's quite alarming. By now, someone should have started a copyvio investigation on the Billy editor doing this (and no, Carcharoth, I can't keep all the players straight here, nor do I presume to remember in the midst of a discussion that Crisco is 1942-- there's something to be said for choosing a username others can remember). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:55, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

An investigation of the nominator would be acceptable, although I take offence at the suggestion that I do not understand basic copyright law. As I have noted above, facts cannot be copyrighted; it would be ridiculous to try and copyright the fact that Wikipedia was founded in 2001, for example. The wording of the facts themselves may be copyrighted, but a single sentence is not always indicative of a violation, especially when efforts were made to paraphrase it. As for the user name, I have had it for nearly 5 years now and the meaning is explained explicitly on my userpage. You are the first to complain that it is too hard to remember, and if you feel so please call me Crisco. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:03, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Using a single sentence is called spotchecking. It's how it's done. If I were a teacher or a professor, spotchecked and found that, I'd know all I needed. This is pretty much best practice for finding copyvio. We have 3 million or more articles - the best that can be done is spotcheck a few at a time. That's how it works, and the example is quite clearly copyvio. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 14:10, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I am quite clear on what spotchecking is; I've done it myself with my students. However, spotchecking and demonstrating copyright violations are two completely different balls of wax; a spotcheck helps to find the copyvio, but numerous similarities prove it. You seem to have submitted the above as proof of a copyright violation. Perhaps a link to the tool's readings would help? I forget its name. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:16, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Disagreement over a hook

Would be great if this disagreement receives some third opinion. _morelMW^illiam 08:06, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I commented in the thread, although I was pre-empted by another comment from Binksternet. Gatoclass (talk) 08:53, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Suggestion/question

Reading the commentary above I very much agree with Gatoclass that there is a need to reduce the number of DYK submissions and in order for us to do that DYK nomination standards have to be raised (basically we need to make it harder to write DYK-worthy article - I'd start with a simple no brainer of raising min character count to 2500 characters). But the other side of the problem is potentially sloppy reviewing. I was wondering then if it would be possible to somehow change how reviewers mark articles they've checked.

Right now, if I go to review an article I'm told where to put my comment and given the list of 'ticks': · · · · . But there's nothing on the page which will tell or remind me what the actual rules for DYK are. Back in the day when doing reviews I often had to go back and look up the Rules (particularly since I kept thinking articles had to be 2500 characters) each time just to make sure.

What I think would better is if there was a built in template that pops up new nominations when you open the edit window to give your review of the article. It shouldn't be a all or nothing one either (though to get it passed all aspect would have to be approved) but should specifically list the things that need to be checked, as a reminder to reviewers. I would include in the template something like

{{hook length=|hook source=|adequate sourcing=|article length=|vintage=|close paraphrasing=|sources accessible=|comment=}}

which would be very much like the template for DYK nominations themselves (and you can stick the cute little 'ticks' in there). Of source these sections of the review template can be named whatever but basically such a template should remind reviewers that they need to check all of these things (the last one "sources accessible" would just indicate whether they sources are available easily (which basically means online and in English), with "agf" an option).

While this would probably not deter any kind of unscrupulous reviewers, it would make it immediately explicit to everyone what is expected of them in the review process.Volunteer Marek (talk) 13:05, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

That's a very clever and interesting idea, VM. Right now, a potential reviewer who clicks "Edit" on an article entry at T:TDYK sees a Page notice with templates designed to help people nominating articles, not people reviewing them. Reviewers don't need that information but they could use different information, and a different template. Does one of our resident ninjas know how to implement this? Sharktopus ^talk 13:42, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) That's one possibility I guess, although it would make for a more cluttered page. I think the main problem is that DYK admins tend to get a little slack from time to time. Perhaps we just need to more strongly emphasize the need for admins to check hooks thoroughly for problems before loading them into the queue. It's what is supposed to happen, but overworked admins sometimes resort to cutting corners. Gatoclass (talk) 13:45, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes but this is exactly part of "more strongly emphasize". How else would you do it? Tsk tsk people after the fact?Volunteer Marek (talk) 14:26, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I really like this proposal to improve the supporting structure. It is simple, it is targeted, and it is quantized (easy to tell whether it has been implemented or not). Sharktopus ^talk 15:13, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

It could work provided it doesn't take up too much space. I guess it could be implemented something like article rating templates - you have a series of questions to which you respond "y" or "n", and based on your input, the template outputs the appropriate icon. Gatoclass (talk) 15:26, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree that some version of this seems worth trying. -- Khazar (talk) 18:04, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

you have a series of questions to which you respond "y" or "n", and based on your input, the template outputs the appropriate icon - yes, that's exactly the idea I had in mind. The only wrinkle would be that the "checked sources" entry would have an "AGF" option for sources that are not available online or are not in English.Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:43, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

DYK is almost overdue

In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:

1. Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
2. Once completed edit queue #3 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
3. Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page

Then, when the time is right I will be able to update the template. Thanks and have a good day, DYKUpdateBot (talk) 14:06, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I've dropped a couple of new updates into the queue. Gatoclass (talk) 15:11, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

...and I've now moved 2 more preps into the queue, and have populated 3 prep areas for double checking by someone else. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:47, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Proposal - minimum character requirement increase from 1500 to 2500

It is regularly pointed out, correctly, that reducing the number of hooks that rotate through the main page, will not solve the problems, because it will not reduce the number of submissions that need to be evaluated. Therefore, a proposal is to increase the readable prose minimum requirement from 1500 characters to 2500 characters. This should not be very difficult to achieve for the vast majority of articles (I just checked one of my own rather start-class DYKs and it came to 2275 chars, so certainly possible to improve it a bit), and it should act to reduce, slightly, the number of incoming submissions. This would give reviewers and administrators more time to deal with reviewing and checking, and also in turn support a reduction of the number of hooks rotating through the main page, to focus more on quality (and less on plagiarism, sensationalism, boring hooks).

• Support as proposer. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 15:07, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support for a start. Worm^TT · (talk) 15:11, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• Comment - I think this !vote is premature. !Votes should never be proposed before thorough discussion, and this notion has barely been discussed at all. Gatoclass (talk) 15:23, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• I agree with Gatoclass. There are already a bunch of proposals and discussions, and "voting" on any one is premature. I think that's how the QPQ problem came about-- the desire for a quick fix without a serious analysis of how to get a long-term fix. I for one would want to know how you're going to check even more content if smaller articles aren't being checked now? It is not OK that, even if the hook is checked, we're putting some really faulty articles on the mainpage-- why would this not mean we're putting even more faulty content linked from the mainpage? Perhaps this is the only way to slow down submissions; isn't there another way? Editors who don't understand how to correctly represent sources in their own words can do 2,500 words just as fast as they can do 1,500-- the original editor whose plagiarism brought this problem to my attention was one of DYK's most prolific editors. He turned out plagiarized bios from obits that set records, and no one caught it here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:35, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• Quite frankly, I don't want to slow down submissions, I like the fact that lots of different hooks get featured and that less talented editors can get some encouragement through this process. And I think we would have to slow down submissions a lot before it started having an impact on quality of reviews. IMO we would be better to stick to trying to improve the reviewing at Prep level for the present, we don't want to start making radical changes when they may not be necessary. Gatoclass (talk) 15:44, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• Good points. My gut feeling is that having a panel of directors where the buck stops might be a better way to address all of the issues, but you really really really need a clearer, easier, more transparent process with archives, as well. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:47, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Actually, we are doing the archives thing, it was recently decided to have a separate page for each submission, it's just that the coder is unavailable right now. I think your notion of sanctions for sloppy reviewing may also have merit BTW. Gatoclass (talk) 15:53, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I didn't know that-- that's good news, glad to hear of the improvement. We don't need to point fingers, but you can't solve problems unless you know who is committing them and why (and that's why I keep asking why Crisco ran the alt hook instead of the one TK reviewed-- why did s/he do that? You can't solve the problem without knowing what went into making the problem.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:56, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Well the discussion here is endless, so many pages of it that every time a major concern is raised (which, let's face it, could be done on a daily basis given the quality of some of the material going through) then the process gets backlogged because the people who keep the system running are busy replying to yet another round of discussion. (As just happened). You all need to work out how your proposed directorate is going to keep up with maintaining quality for that level of submissions, if there's never going to be any willingness to increase the standards for submissions or tell anyone they don't have an absolute right to put their article on the main page if they can get it to meet a very basic list of requirements. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 15:55, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, I don't like to further my proposal when you all know better, but my idea is something like this. Admins move the queue to the main page. That is the point at which problems should be identified-- the critical point that matters. Ditch the "any admin" can move it, set up a panel, a directorate at that level, only that panel can place the content on the main page, and they are responsible for EVERYTHING about that hook-- not only that plagiarism and copyvio are avoided, but that other policies are upheld as well. At that level, if an already approved hook has to be rejected, then that nominator can't put up another DYK for a month, and that reviewer can't approve a hook for another month. Just an idea-- you all can make it better. IF a "director" makes repeat mistakes, resulting in mainpage debacles, that director will find him/herself out of business soon, in a vote of no-confidence. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:01, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

That would be an ideal system, but I doubt we would ever have the manpower for it. However, I think it might be possible to start doing a few things to tighten up quality control until an appropriate standard is reached, some of which have already been suggested in the various threads above. Gatoclass (talk) 16:09, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

But what would that achieve beyond a blame game? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:11, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

It's not about "blame game"-- putting some brakes on like this encourages nominators and reviewers alike to get it right the first time, hence lowers wasted reviewer time. OK, Gato, how about a middle of the road compromise? You're at four queues per day now, right? Lower it to only three-- you're not losing that much, the directorate will have more time to review, and quality will improve and those that submit faulty articles will be ..... ummmmmm ... exposed and less likely to continue submissions, so submissions will decline slightly while improving in quality, so that you can hopefully move back to four queues daily once the new system is working. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:14, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Too many people have come to see it as their right to have their article on DYK if it's 1500 characters—even if it's crap, and even if the hook is boring. I don't think that will stop if we up the character limit, and I think folks here are unwilling to say no to nominators, especially prolific ones who throw their weight around to get their article on DYK. Most importantly, though, meeting an arbitrary character count is not an indicator of the quality of the article. It would be difficult to write a decent article in less than 1500 characters, but it's relatively easy to write a long, crappy article. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:11, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• No. This has been brought up numerous times before; it would be nice of the proposer to provide links to past iterations of this proposal. The reasons it has been opposed include: 1) quantity != quality; 2) increasing the length limit won't decrease the number of noms (if someone wants to nom, they'll write as much as they need to to do it); 3) increasing the length limit will just increase the fluff. rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:26, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose I have found numerous articles that are quite tricky to get from 1500 to 2500 chars, but more importantly recently-promoted GAs I think provide a better ground of recently-improved-vetted articles. Their introduction will slow the rate down a little. Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:28, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support as I've suggested this before. To address some of the comments made above:
  • Sandy, this of course isn't meant as a fix-it-all approach, in fact, I don't see why it wouldn't be complementary to some of the suggestions you're making. Second, I don't see that this proposal would increase the amount of content that needs to be checked. By eliminating shorter noms it would decrease it.
  • Gatoclass, your contention that this hasn't been discussed before contradicts Rjanag's contention that this has been discussed before. Basically, it has been discussed before but I've never seen a good argument not to implement it and the discussion usually gets derailed by "it won't solve all the problems", or in other words, people making the perfect the enemy of the good.
  • HJ Mitchell, of course character count isn't a perfect indicator of quality but let's face it, a 1500 character article is barely more than a stub (honestly, it is a stub). As long as sourcing is required - which it is - then in fact it is harder to write 2500 character article than a 1500 one. And one way or another we're gonna have a character minimum and it's always going to be somewhat arbitrary. Obviously we don't want 500 character articles. Or 5 character articles. So some line has to be drawn. And I think the current line is too lax/low.
  • Rjanag, 1) yes, quantity does not necessarily imply better quality but I think in this case it does. A 1500 character article is better than a 15 character article, no? And a 2500 character article is likely to be better than a 1500 character article? Now, if you're talking, I dunno, 5k vs. 10k then maybe you'd have a point. But that's not what is being discussed here. 2) increasing the length limit won't decrease the number of noms - how do you know? Seriously. You got data or something? Evidence? At least a logical argument for why that would be so? By upping the character count you're increasing the cost on the writer which means the laziest people won't submit noms. And that's the whole point. 3) increasing the length limit will just increase the fluff - how in the world do you get that? You just pulled that out of thin air. Completely unsupported assertion that doesn't even make sense. It might be true if sourcing isn't required, but it is.
  • Casliber, I have found numerous articles that are quite tricky to get from 1500 to 2500 chars - yes and that's exactly the point! If a topic doesn't have 2500 chars in it, it shouldn't be featured. Maybe as a list or something but not a DYK at least. recently-promoted GAs I think provide a better ground of recently-improved-vetted articles - sure and I supported that idea above. But why does it have to be either/or? Why can't it be both? I've never seen a GA that is less than 2500 characters (and if there are such out there somebody needs to review them again) so this proposal is not going to affect that proposal in anyway.

Basically it's hard to escape the feeling that the opposition comes from the "it's not perfect, hence it's not good" attitude or something like "I didn't think of it first, so it can't be good". I'll stop there.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:04, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

In response to your comments addressed to me: more in-depth discussion of all these issues is included in the previous discussions of this perennial proposal. The person proposing it this time neglected his responsibility to share links to the past discussions, but if you look up those discussions you can find answers to these questions. rʨanaɢ (talk) 13:59, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose - I don't agree with the rationale for this proposal. The idea seems to be that a longer prose requirement will reduce the number of submissions. Well, maybe. But will it "give reviewers and administrators more time to deal with reviewing and checking"? No. The problem isn't that we don't have time to review nominations. Rather, the problem is that there aren't people reviewing half of the noms until they're two weeks old, and by that time it's difficult to get an editor/nominator to make changes within the expected timeframe. If DYK participants just spent more time reviewing newly nominated articles, instead of bickering, there wouldn't be a problem for us to have to fix. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:46, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. I think it's silly that we're !voting on this at all without a more comprehensive discussion as a preamble, but if other editors insist we are, I guess I might as well cast my !ballot. My first instinct is that this is likely to do as much harm (more cluttery submissions, potentially suppressing quality submissions) as good (reducing workload, encouraging longer new articles). While I'm interested in looking at ideas to improve DYK quality control, this seems to me to be one of the less promising of the ideas proposed today, and I'm reluctant to introduce too many of these at the same time; attacking the issue nine different ways at the same time seems likely to create confusion, and be potentially less effective than if we applied solutions one at a time. And finally, I'd to show V. Marek that not everybody opposing this is doing it because only because they "didn't think of it first", since I've agreed with one of his excellent proposals elsewhere on this page, which I didn't think of first either. =) -- Khazar (talk) 06:29, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose Sorry, I think the quality is hardly correlating with the quantity in a simple linear relation. The more concise the better, encouraging "fluff" is not the way to improve article quality, imo. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:31, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose Quantity does not always mean quality, as shown by numerous POV rants found in the histories of controversial articles. Someone could write 50k of readable text that is a POV rant and it would be less worthy than 1,500 bytes of well researched information on a difficult to research subject. Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:22, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose Length does not equal quality.♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:49, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Oppose I do not think that's a good idea as it is hard to get some new articles up to 1500 let alone 2500 based on certain sources that avaliable at the time. And in support of Blofeld's comment, quality not quantity. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 13:56, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. We've considered this many times before; read what I wrote then. cmadler (talk) 19:50, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

blame game (or some nicer name for it)

Picking out one of SandyGeorgia's ideas, "if an already approved hook has to be rejected, then that nominator can't put up another DYK for a month, and that reviewer can't approve a hook for another month" - what is wrong with this suggestion, even separately to any other change? (I would change it to the reviewer being prevented from approving hooks or nominating them, since the current QPQ system means that one reason for doing a rushed review might be that they want to get their own nomination on the main page fast.) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 16:39, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Demiurge by your own admission, the current fiasco was created by a "novice". Don't worry I won't come around here again. You don't need to add more instruction creep to ensure that. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 17:31, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

A variation of what Demiurge proposes seems reasonable to me, though I'd suggest adding more room for discretion to account for new users making mistakes. In my first weeks on DYK, I approved two hooks that were later changed to requested revisions for minor causes, and also rejected one hook that an admin overturned as okay; I was doing my best, but just missed some of the less-emphasized criteria. Since DYK is a more likely starting point for new editors than other projects, I don't want to slap them down too hard or make them feel unwelcome.
Still, I could name 2 or 3 regular DYK contributors who appear to give incomplete reviews that I've seen repeatedly overturned by other editors, sometimes just putting the check icon without even a word. DYK doesn't seem to have a system to deal with that yet, but I think it's reasonable to ask these reviewers to be more thorough, and if necessary, to ask them to take a break for a bit. -- Khazar (talk) 18:27, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

(ec)I think some version of Demiurge's accountability idea would be good, though I personally think a week would be better. A penalty too stiff will just spawn meatpuppet nominations. Hey, TK, you probably did us a favor by coming in as a relative novice and making an innocent error that somebody else should have picked up and set right. It was generous and helpful, the way you stepped up and explained your process, so that we could look for ways to improve. And apparently your skills in other areas picked up a couple of copyvio problems somebody else might have missed. What happened was a mistake in adhering to DYK's own rule, not a violation of BLP policy and certainly not a scandal or a fiasco. It resulted in an Error on the Main Page, and we are trying to figure out more and better ways to prevent such. Driving away a conscientious, intelligent reviewer like TK is not something anyone wants. Sharktopus ^talk 18:35, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Indeed not - I certainly don't. And this proposal wouldn't be retrospective anyway. The implementation of this challenge has helped fix some copyvio issues and also resulted in further improvements to the DYK documentation. That's not instruction creep, that's (a bit of) progress in the right direction.

A week sounds a bit short to me... some problematic nominators/reviewers might only do one article a week or less anyway. How about two weeks? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I've not yet thought about this proposal enough to support or oppose it, but if such a proposal is to be enacted, I'd suggest that a month is probably the right length. I'll agree that it's probably reasonable to (somehow) penalize a "reviewer" who fails to give a thorough review. It might be reasonable to penalize a nominator who nominates an unusable (rejected -- whether initially or after a erroneous approval) article/hook, though I think good-faith allowances should be made in the case of a suitable article with an unsuitable hook nomination (as in the recent case that sparked the discussion) and particularly in the case of new-to-DYK nominators. On the other hand, experienced DYK nominators (not going to name names here, but I'm sure most regulars can think of a few) who regularly submit unsuitable articles, especially when it's the same problem repeatedly, should be given very little slack. cmadler (talk) 19:23, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• This is quite a storm I seem to have inadvertently caused. I do not support an extended limit. However, if possible we should add another rule for somewhat negative hooks, roughly reading "any hook fact that can be construed as a negative should be cited in at least two reliable sources. Hopefully that can avoid most problems of a similar nature. Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:01, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Imposing timeouts for reviewers will be quite ineffective since they will leave their articles in their sandbox and then just submit them at the end of the timout. I guess what we could do, if a QPQ review gets pulled from the queue for some reason, is to scrap the reviewer's accompanying submission. It would be harsh, but would I think be a very effective way of ensuring that QPQ reviews were thorough. We might need to outline the precise conditions under which a submission is scrapped however, which could be a little tricky. Gatoclass (talk) 02:33, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

That would be interesting, but perhaps difficult to implement. It is a rare event that a hook gets pulled back from the queues, AFAIK. Even being pulled back from Prep isn't that common an occurrence. I have a question though: what should we do if the hook is pulled back from the queue or prep due to a problem that could not reasonably be foreseen, such as the lizard hook currently scheduled for August 9? Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:41, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I know, that's why I said it would be difficult to come up with a clear criteria. I'm not sure it would actually be practical, it's just something to think about. Gatoclass (talk) 07:00, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

dunno, I think this proposal comes over as quite heavy :( no easy answers though. Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:29, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Some thoughts from a semi-regular

1. The somewhat enforceable request for an interesting hook encourages sensationalism.
2. A raise in the character limit will lead to more padding and chattiness---not to better, or even less fewer, submissions.  Done This is an argument in favor of the status quo. cmadler (talk) 14:29, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
3. The request for reviews ("QPQ" reviewing) was a bad idea. We tried it, it did not work, we should scrap it again.
4. To "ban" editors or reviewers for a period of time will not work: Who's going to check this with 40-odd submissions per day?  Done This is an argument in favor of the status quo. cmadler (talk) 14:29, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
5. The mose basic of all rules is missing: That the hook ref must be a reliable, independent source.  Done Issue #5 is solved. --Pgallert (talk) 13:56, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Suggestion: Implement a subset of Good article criteria without a minimal length and with a drastically reduced request for comprehensiveness. Then run one hook set per day. --Pgallert (talk) 19:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• According to the guideline Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources, Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. This applies to everything on Wikipedia, so I figured that it would go without repeating, but since you mention it, I've added that in appropriate places to the DYK rules, with a piped link to that guideline. cmadler (talk) 20:15, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Pgallert's words are some of the most eminently sensible I've seen on this site for some time. Support. Ghmyrtle (talk) 20:24, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the kind words, Ghmyrtle. --Pgallert (talk) 20:59, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

cmadler, the articles must indeed be based on reliable sources, but the hook fact need not, according to current standards of reviewing. In fact, for the DYK hook often the shadiest of all article sources is employed because that one allows the most surprising hook. --Pgallert (talk) 20:59, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

The hook citation must be in the article, and therefore it is subject to the same strictures as articles. It may be that this has not been regularly enforced or investigated before a nomination made it to the Main Page, but that does not mean the stricture does not apply. It does. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:05, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Sorry to disagree. Articles may contain unreliable (for instance self-published) sources, as long as notability is not derived from them. Articles must be based on reliable sources, not exclusively employ them. The problem is that nothing in the DYK rules forbids editors to pick this very reference to build a hook. --Pgallert (talk) 21:17, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

You need to read the rest of the opening sentence of that policy: ..."and, all majority and significant minority views that appear in these sources should be covered by these articles". Since a sensational DYK hook is either a majority opinion or significant as a minority opinion, its citation is covered by this policy. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:54, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

... or at least, we can infer that. So Pgallert is right, we need to add more rulecreep to make that explicit. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:09, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Either way, this is something many (most?) of us have been enforcing already, such as in cases where a place-article's hook comes only from a travel website. So, I would see an emendation to "Da Rules" more as a codification of existing practice, in order to make the point explicit (and easier to justify to nominators), than as rulecreep (which carries a pejorative connotation). --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:22, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

We don't need to change the rules in this regard. Of course hooks must be reliably sourced - reviewers shouldn't need to be reminded of such basic principles, if they do, they shouldn't be reviewing. AFAIK this has not been raised as a problem in any case. Gatoclass (talk) 01:58, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

The fact that they shouldn't need to be reminded doesn't mean that they shouldn't be reminded. Better to be safe than sorry, particularly with "over-enthusiastic" reviewers. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:52, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

It's instruction creep - in this case, completely redundant instruction creep since it's just a reiteration of a core wikipedia policy. And I don't believe it will have the slightest effect on the quality of reviews. Gatoclass (talk) 09:15, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Almost whenever you see a hook in the form "A said X", someone has violated that principle. Currently for instance Sam Johnson (New Zealand) where all hooks are sourced with (1) a commentary and (2) a University press release. None of the hooks received a tick so far but the discussion is not about reliable sources. Already okayed is Hunter Greene, the independence of the reference is not apparent to me. See also George McGavin where a reviewer just argues in the direction that hook refs need not be reliable and independent. This is what I found in 15 minutes on a very slow Internet connection; I bet 1000 major edits that there are more in the current set of submissions, and I remember a variety of cases from the past. This is not an isolated incident. --Pgallert (talk) 10:03, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Greene and McGavin look problematic to me too; see how easy that was? You can do it too! cmadler (talk) 13:28, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I wanted to explain that DYK in general operates like this, to an extent that editors specifically argue that a reliable source is not necessary for a DYK hook. Your addition to the rules solved the problem, see a few posts below. --Pgallert (talk) 13:41, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm concerned that when you read the comments that raised the problem of reliability of citations for George McGavin, you re-interpreted those comments as meaning "that hook refs need not be reliable". That's the opposite of what the comments are saying. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:05, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Well-intentioned editors often disagree about what constitutes a suitably reliable source in a given situation (as in the case above, where it's a question of whether a self-published source is acceptable -- and remember that sometimes it is), but I don't recall anyone ever suggesting that a reliable source is unneeded. cmadler (talk) 14:42, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Quite frankly, I'm struggling to understand what it is exactly that you are proposing. Our current rules state (I quote):

The hook fact must be cited in the article with an inline citation to a reliable source, since inline citations are used to support specific statements in an article. The hook fact must have an inline citation right after it, since the fact is an extraordinary claim; citing the hook fact at the end of the paragraph is not acceptable.

That seems to me to explain the requirement quite clearly. What do you think is missing? Gatoclass (talk) 10:56, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

FYI, I just added "to a reliable source" to that rule yesterday afternoon. cmadler (talk) 12:54, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

After that addition my point 5 is solved, thank you. I just wasn't sure that this change of rules would stick but judging from the discussion elsewhere on this page I guess it has consensus. Somehow I feel this is a fundamental change that should be published somehow. --Pgallert (talk) 13:42, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

That's odd, I'm sure I checked the history to see when that clause had been added and didn't see any recent changes - possibly it was one of those occasions when the history page lags behind the actual edit. Anyway, I thoroughly approve of your change cmadler :) Gatoclass (talk) 14:14, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

It's more than a wee bit appalling that anyone working at an area that puts content on the main page doesn't know that all Wikipedia content needs to be cited to reliable sources, much less what a reliable source is, but I'm more troubled that Gatoclass claims this discussion has not been about reliable sources, when in fact I pointed out early on that a failure to use reliable sources, and misrepresentation of sources, was as prevalent in hooks as plagiarism and BLP bios are, and I have in fact indicated one in this very discussion that uses a non-reliable source. Is there no sense of decency here? I suppose my alarm is just continuing to fall on tone deaf ears. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:40, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

You have misinterpreted my comments - I didn't mean reliable sources are not an issue, I meant no-one had suggested merely rewording our instructions as a solution. As for the fact that some unreliable sources might be used - as long as the bulk of the article is reliably sourced, and the questionably sourced content is not controversial, I am not necessarily going to make an issue of that. Again, this is not GA, it's DYK, we don't have a week to spend on every article, we aim at ensuring there are no major defects, we don't have the time or resources to address every minor detail. Gatoclass (talk) 17:41, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification-- that helps. I do find it astounding that we have to mention anywhere at any time that *all* Wikipedia content should be cited to reliable sources. But the bigger problem that is emerging at DYK is that you are putting BLPs sourced to non-reliable sources on the main page, and you continue to do that today,[11] with editors who are known not to understand sourcing. If you don't have the time and resources to assure that you aren't putting egregiously bad articles on the mainpage, you should not be putting anything on the mainpage. GA has better quality control, and we no longer need to encourage article creation, particularly when so many of those articles created are just messes someone else needs to clean up, and we no longer have enough editors to clean up these messes. Let's encourage quality content improvements, not the kind of stuff DYK runs on the mainpage, hoping someone else will bring them to Wikipedia standards, not to mention standards of human decency. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:15, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

So, will you be actually helping here, or merely criticizing the volunteers who do the actual work? Have you ever looked at the Queue for problems before they went up on the Main Page, or do you wait for them to appear on the Main Page first and then come here to complain? There is a Queue where hooks are placed in advance of appearing on the Main Page, and you can help spot problems before they appear on the Main Page (which would be helpful), or you can sit back and just complain (which is unhelpful). Instead of telling the volunteers what to do, why not actually pitch in and show us how to do it? --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:48, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

That you have to ask those questions shows that you aren't paying attention. Perhaps you weren't around DYK last Halloween, or perhaps you aren't familiar with how often I tried to help and how often the denialists scream when I do? Please do your homework before making statements about me-- the delightful thing about Wikipedia is that it's all there in history. Including the fact that no matter how many times I looked *before* articles ran, you still ran them, just exactly as you are still running articles from a serial offender. No accountability, and yet, what, you want me to do your work for you? Fix your process-- it's broken. Soooo ... in addition to rampant plagiarism and close paraphrasing, and BLP vios, we have numerous DYKs built extensively on non-reliable sources. So, if you must have a minimum expansion and size, how can you verify that criteria are met without looking at whether articles are reliably sourced? So, anyone can put any ole crap on a page and get a DYK, and then you expect *real* editors to come along later and clean up the mess? How is this helping Wikipedia? You still have Quid Pro Quo reviewing-- nominators who may know little to nothing of Wikipedia policies reviewing nominations from other nominators who may know even less. What are you all doing about the systemic problems here, other than complaining that I'm complaining about it? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:58, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I did in fact look at your recent edit history. I'm sorry that I didn't realize I'd have to go all the way to last October (9 months ago) to find your participation. Such an absence strongly suggests abandonment. You do seem to have a lot of time in recent days to point out flaws and to spot mistakes after they happen, but in the recent weeks and months have not worked to prevent the problems you're pointing out. This creates a self-fulfilling phophecy. You haven't worked to prevent the problems, because if you do, then you won't be able to complain about them afterwords. The biggest problem right now with DYK (and always) is that there aren't enough people taking the initiative to review nominations. If people actually did that, in a timely fashion, we wouldn't need to wrangle about all the other issues.

And what have I been doing? I've been reviewing articles, pointing out uncited hooks, encouraging explicit citations, and contributing to the project. The DYK is a developmental effort that points new editors towards the standards of Wikipedia through interactive education. GA and FA processes only deal with elitist advanced editors. --EncycloPetey (talk) 09:16, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I have avoided this conversation for the past few days but I do have to throw in that I agree with Sandy and others about QPQ reviewing being a problem. Granted, it was implemented to solve another problem (and I feel partially responsible for it, because last year during the DYK plagiarism ruckus I remember complaining about editors who nominate tons of articles and never review, although I didn't personally propose QPQ), but it hasn't solved that problem (the backlog is still as long as always) and it has created new problems (crappy reviews). We should just get rid of QPQ and go back to the way things were before: an understanding, similar to at WP:PR, that if you nominate it would be nice to offset your nomination by also reviewing, but that it's not required. Forced reviews from people who don't want to be doing them are not worth the trouble they cause. rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:05, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Eliminating the QPQ would be a good start, but wouldn't solve all of the problems here. Some seem to think that mainpage exposure is a right, and that it's up to others to solve DYK's problems. An experienced Wikipedian came over here because she was challenged to help here, reviewed a hook, found numerous problems, got them corrected, and then some DYK regular came along and ran a *different* hook because it was splashier, and then three DYK regulars up the line missed that it violated UNDUE. So, these challenges to just get in here and help make no sense-- the process is broken, has been for as long as I've been editing, and the *process* needs adjustment, since there will be another new crop of regulars in here three months from now who don't know the history of DYK. It is not up to others to solve DYK's problems-- if DYK won't solve them, they should not be on the mainpage. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:20, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Well Sandy, that's not right, as I already explained above. I'm not quite sure why you keep repeating that inaccuracy, when TK has certainly made no attempt at any such pretence. There were two hooks for that nomination when TK came to do the review, and TK put their review underneath the second hook. TK did not specify which hook they were approving. The principal responsibility lies with the admin picking the hook and putting it in a queue (that's why only admins can do it...), but repeating yourself over and over in an attempt to re-write the facts of the incident according to your taste, makes your case weaker, not stronger. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 03:33, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I keep repeating it because it is right. TK did not review the alt hook becuase she didn't know she was supposed to (the process here is too complex), and the discussion at the thread makes it abundantly clear even to an idiot like me that she did not review the second hook. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:48, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Demiurge, you've been trying mighty hard to blame this on me. You know and I know that you challenged me to review a DYK for copyvio or plagiarism (which you seem to believe doesn't exist). I accepted your challenge and found problems. I did not comment on the hook. Although I don't have them displayed on my page, I've had plenty of DYKs and reviewed plenty of them. Usually the alt hook is exactly that: an alternative. I didn't comment because it didn't seem necessary; the primary hook was fine, except I didn't actually check the wording of the hook and if I had I would have found it too was plagiarized. In the future if you want to throw stones please come to my page to do so. Thanks. 13:59, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

(ec, re Sandy) I wonder if it would help if the project regularly appointed a "director", something along the lines of what Raul is for TFA, who is expected to personally review all hooks before they go up? Right now the project has several experienced editors like Gatoclass, but they're not necessarily able to be involved all the time (or, like me, have more or less lost interest), and thus much of the grunt work is done by inexperienced editors, since DYK has a high turnover (it gets boring quickly). It might be better if there were someone who agreed to check every queue before it went up, for a year or something like that, and who knew that that was his/her responsibility. I think it would not actually be a huge job (assuming people get the queues prepared beforehand, the "director" could check all the queues once per day and just reject hooks that are inappropriate, without necessarily having to spend a whole lot of his/her own time trying to figure out how to fix them). Such a "director" should probably not be able to reject hooks based on boringness in this capacity (although he/she could still comment on boringness at T:TDYK like any other reviewer), since it's too subjective, but any experienced editor in this position would be able to keep hooks with, e.g., BLP problems from making it to the main page. (Catching plagiarism is a much bigger task, though, since it requires much more reading, and would be too much or one person to do on a daily basis like this.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:36, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I have always advocated that DYK (and GA as well) should have some sort of directorate or clearing panel-- someone responsible when a debacle occurs. FAC put plagiarism on the mainpage once: I (we) did something about it. I would expect to be "fired" if we didn't. But I would strongly oppose putting Gatoclass in any position of DYK responsibility-- he doesn't see the issues, and didn't even a year or so ago. The notion that those of us who think DYK does a huge disservice to the main page are supposed to dig in and review, in a faulty process, is absurd. If I disagree with any corrupt, inept political system, does that mean I should join their party to change them from within? How silly. Those of you who participate here and know you are putting plagiarism, BLP vios, incorrectly sourced articles, and plagiarism on the mainpage are responsible to stop it. The problem seems to be that so many of the regulars here don't know verbatim copying and poor sourcing even when it's put right under their noses, hence have no business writing anywhere on Wikpedia, much less putting content on the mainpage. I haven't looked at the new proposals added here-- there are 144 posts since I last read here-- will go there next. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:48, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

(Edit conflict): QPQ wasn't introduced to help with the backlog but to relieve the workload on the handful of users who were doing all the reviewing. And on that score, it's actually made a huge difference, there are currently 205 articles at T:TDYK and almost half of them are verified. Before QPQ, it was not unusual to have less than a dozen hooks verified - sometimes not even enough to create an update.

If a problem has arisen it is that those people who used to make the effort to do the reviewing have not used the extra time available to do other things at DYK - they've just cut the time they spend at DYK instead. Which means less oversight on the project overall. So I think it's premature to start talking about dumping QPQ. If we are going to make changes, IMO we should start by looking to improve the oversight at the Prep level. I suggested a method of doing so earlier, by making admins involved in moving updates from Prep to the Queue more accountable. Right now, the move is often treated as nothing more than a mechanical process instead of being also an editorial one. So if there's a perception that standards at DYK have slipped, I think that would be the place to start. Gatoclass (talk) 04:00, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree that a combination of what Gato proposes here and what Tony proposes below would create a better sense of accountability. -- Khazar (talk) 04:12, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Two fold expansion

Would I get a two-fold expansion DYK credit if a 650-character article has one ref in the text but no refs needed BLP tags?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 14:10, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

The two-fold expansion rule is for unreferenced BLPs. If it has one reference already, it does not quality. cmadler (talk) 14:20, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Prep areas need filling

I have nearly finished prep area 4 but really need to do stuff elsewhere. So folks, fill away...Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:33, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks folks. Now to get an admin on commons to protect the prep images. Will ask posthaste. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:01, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Just asked now. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:08, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Nom deleted without discussion?

I assume this was an accident, but my nom, Wittorf affair under July 19 was deleted today (see diff) without any discussion. The edit summary says "need source" and although the edit summary says "Wittorf affair, the comment is made for the nom following it, Dorothy Reitman and Wittorf affair is simply deleted, section header and all. It being DYK, I would rather not just restore it myself and am not sure if that would be appropriate anyway. I would appreciate someone restoring the nom. Thanks in advance. Marrante (talk) 21:02, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I guess that was an accident and tried to restore it, please check, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:15, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Freddie Mitchell in queue 4

I'd like a second opinion on the Freddie Mitchell hook in queue 4. It asserts that Mitchell "received racially threatening hate mail in 2003, apparently due to his appearance on a reality television show, A Dating Story?" This doesn't sound correct linguistically. While the hate mail appears to have been "racially motivated," I don't think it's correct to call it "racially threatening." I think the word "racially" should be stricken, or changed to "racially motivated hate mail." Cbl62 (talk) 00:10, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

How about just "hate mail"? I don't really like these tabloid headline hooks, I have to say. There was another one at T:TDYK about some recent guy getting enslaved and beheaded. DYK is to motivate people to create new content for encyclopedia articles, and I'm not sure we achieve that by front-paging ugly trivia. Just off the top of my head here, but what do others think? Sharktopus ^talk 00:43, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I'd use a different hook altogether. It's a minor point in the article, and using it as a hook is not very sensitive to potential BLP concerns. --JN466 04:38, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

RfC: DYK quality assurance and archiving

Extensive discussion above shows that there are serious quality and policy-compliance problems in the current DYK process, and that many editors are concerned that plagiarism and close paraphrasing, sourcing issues, verification issues, copyvio, and wrong facts are regularly going through under the radar. This RfC is to determine whether there is consensus for two changes to the process as partial steps towards fixing these problems.

The RfC does not cover issues that might need to be resolved if one or both of the current proposals gains consensus. These include whether:

• there should be a directorate;
• nominators (after their fourth successful DYK) should still be required to review another editor's nomination when they nominate a DYK;
• a template should be created to provide for the explicit checking off of the explicit requirements listed in the first proposal, below; and
• the system of pasting in coloured ticks and crosses should be binned or modified.

Implicit in the proposals is the likelihood that the maximum four six-hour shifts per day of five to eight hooks (≥ 32 DYKs) will more often than now be altered by the queing admins to longer exposures and fewer shifts per day, and be treated as normal practice. This would not be necessary if there is a sudden influx of reviewers and more nominators who can manage the time to respond to the issues they raise. However, please note that the primary consideration of the two proposals is effective quality assurance and compliance with site-wide policies, not reduced flow.

Please respond under the proposals below with brief "support", "oppose", or "neutral" entries; longer comments may be made in the "Discussion" section underneath each proposal. Long comments in the !voting sections may be relocated to the related "Discussion" section.

RfC proposal: a proper reviewing checklist

Proposal: "No DYK article should receive main-page exposure unless the article has been checked and explicitly passed for:

1. adequate sourcing, including verifiability, reliability of sources and BLP policy;
2. neutral point of view;
3. plagiarism and close paraphrasing;
4. other copyright violations, in files and text; and
5. obvious faults in prose, structure, and formatting."

These checks are in addition to the existing requirements concerning hook length, hook source, article length, and time since article creation/expansion.

• Support as proposer. Tony (talk) 03:32, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support as yet another proposal that I can't possibly see any sensible objection to. Long overdue. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 03:37, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support. These are all things a reviewer should be checking anyway, although they aren't yet required to "explicitly" say they did. rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:39, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support I remember a checklist was brought up last year but not implemented. Copyvios are most common of problems to slip below the radar.--NortyNort (Holla) 04:00, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Qualified support - on reflection, I think I will support this, but only on the basis that QPQ is retained. We don't remotely have the manpower to check and fix absolutely every problem in every submission without QPQ. But I do think a requirement like this would help guide and remind reviewers of the issues they need to be checking. Gatoclass (talk) 04:04, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support Any obvious errors should already be sounding warning bells in reviewers' heads. —Andrew_stalk 04:12, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support per Rjanag. -- Khazar (talk) 04:05, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support. per Rjanag - not sure of the reason for explicitly stating this unless it is to ensure that folks tick it off explicitly when reviewing. Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:14, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support. --JN466 04:16, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support, but with more specific minimum guidelines like those at GAN, specific to the problems critics see most often slipping through DYK. Quigley (talk) 04:26, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support. DYK needs to be done more professionally, and this will help (so will reduced throughput, but that's another issue...) Sasata (talk) 04:35, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support. DYK articles needn't be FA or even GA, but they should comply with minimum standards. Everything that appears on the main page should be work of which we can be proud.   Will Beback  talk  04:40, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Qualified support. Seems pretty motherhood and I agree. Seems like we should slim down and simplify the instructions. Points 1, 3, and 4 seem like same concept ("plagiarism" loosely defined.) Maybe just say "close paraphrasing". Mechanics will be tricky for offline content. Also, I think we need to be reasonable (even at FA it is a spotcheck, not a complete text search). (2) neutrality...sure...and maybe important given the Cirt kerfuffle. I think they try to do it, but put it in the checklist. (5) I think they already say that it needs to be half decent. Would be good to understand somehow what standard we are really looking for "halfway to GA"? GA quality? (even if not length?) I don't want to get legalistic, just want some better instruction as this could be no change or could be FA-lite. Also, I LOVE the idea of a checklist, but would want to add all the stuff they do now (the hook ref and one ref per para and allthat).TCO (reviews needed) 04:59, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. In general, the proposal requires a GA-level review. Is that what is meant? Remember that a 5x expansion may be quite large. A straight answer, please. --Philcha (talk) 06:01, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
  1. N "adequate sourcing, including verifiability, reliability of sources and BLP policy" for the whole article, every word? --Philcha (talk) 06:01, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
  2. Yneutral point of view; --Philcha (talk) 06:01, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
  3. Nplagiarism and close paraphrasing; OK re plagiarism. NO re close paraphrasing, which at present is a proposal, and needs refinement and wide wp:consensus, e.g. a widely advertised RfC of its own. --Philcha (talk) 06:01, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
  4. (?) other copyright violations, in files and text; Please explain. --Philcha (talk) 06:01, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
  5. Nobvious faults in prose, structure, and formatting." That is subjective, and WP history suggests that prose issues are contentious and that "prose experts" try to impose their own standards. --Philcha (talk) 06:01, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I share your "GA-Lite" concerns to some extent, but on reflection I think it does no harm to remind reviewers of the kinds of issues they should be looking out for. As Rjanag said, most of these points are things reviewers are supposed to be checking for in any case, so it shouldn't add an undue burden. And it will act as a guide to reviewers as well as promoting a greater sense of responsibility and accountability. Gatoclass (talk) 06:38, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. The theory is okay, but to 100% verify all this stuff is a massive task. Combined with the automatic 7 day rule below this will just result in masses of DYK noms being deleted for no good reason other than they're out of time and no one has the time or inclination to fully check them out. We wait long enough for other editors to comment as it is. Far too bureacratic. --Bermicourt (talk) 06:23, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support I very much support this, but how will this be handled unless the number of noms is decreased or number of reviewers increased? Or, I guess more precisely, how will this be enforced? Why aren't people doing this already?Volunteer Marek (talk) 07:10, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• I support the principle, but oppose in this form. This amounts to a WP:GA review, which is excessive for short new articles. I am not aware of recurring problems with DYK articles that would require this. Verifiability and neutrality are often controversial and cannot be properly determined except through a formal consensus-based discussion in the style of WP:FAC, which is not suited to the high volume of DYK articles. Our disclaimer states that we make no guarantee of validity or correctness, so readers will occasionally encounter suboptimal articles linked to on the main page, just like they will occasionally encounter deficient articles via Google. Moreover, "close paraphrasing" is an essay, so compliance with it cannnot be made mandatory. It is sufficient to check that the article does not contain clear copyright and BLP violations or clear formal faults, and does not obviously and indisputably violate important content policies such as V, NPOV and NOR.  Sandstein  10:22, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support I don't know why DYK produces frequent errors but I do know the main page isn't the place for repeat error. Lightmouse (talk) 11:19, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Qualified oppose: I do not think that this would be most effective at review time, but when moving hooks from Prep to Queues. If the proposal were for that, I would vote support. Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:03, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support per Rjanag, Cas, Sasata, and Will Beback. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 13:45, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Discussion about "proper checklist" proposal

Long posts in the !voting section above may be relocated here.

• Comment - I think this RFC should be pulled, it's a fishing expedition that is proposing outcomes rather than solutions. We need to stay focussed on improving the project, all this RFC is likely to do is give DYK critics a venue for sounding off without addressing any of the actual problems. Gatoclass (talk) 03:55, 23 July 2011 (UTC) Changed my mind about this, and submitted a !vote with comment above. Gatoclass (talk) 04:06, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

• @Tony1 - I guess what you're getting at here is that the reviewer should explicitly state that they've reviewed these issues, in which case it should be in a proposal. Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:17, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

  • Response to Cas: Indeed, but I should point out that it wasn't my intention to propose that every reviewer should have to tick off on every aspect. Specialist reviewers should be encouraged, IMO. Tony (talk) 04:21, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

    • KISS. Better to just have one person run through the whole thing. We don't want to duplicate FA and/or have all kinds of moving parts (shared checklist pages and the like). Sure. some people will be better at one task than the other, but it will drive learning anyway. We ALL need to learn more about looking for close paraphrasing. Mottenen is only one person. Making everyone do it, will raise the level of community knowledge and over time the standards of the project as a whole.TCO (reviews needed) 05:24, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
      • I don't know diddley-squat about which pop-music or sporting sites are reliable and which aren't; nor do I know much about image copyright and checking for plagiarism and close paraphrasing (some people do; maybe we need a pointer to the how-to-do-it pages); and many reviewers won't feel they are equipped to review prose, formatting and structure. That's why we should all be grateful if an editor is willing to zap through a tranche of DYK noms using their specialist knowledge of these matters. What distinguishes DYK noms from FACs is their size and, usually, lack of comprehensiveness; and I suppose there's more acceptance of less-than-perfect prose and a few other areas (but not obvious glitches, please). Tony (talk) 06:01, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
        • As long as I'm not doing much subject matter expertise and just looking for common sense inconsistencies, than I can review a new article on anything. (I would expect more for FA, we don't do enough subject matter and coverage consideration there. but here? Nah. I can review anything.) We don't have infinite resources, Tony. How much time and manpower do you think will do a review. Then moving parts and coordination? And now you have a 7 day limit on it? KISS, baby. You can learn the basics of image copyright just by writing a few articles and having some deletions come up of your own. All you do is go to the file page and check the source and look for obvious inconsistencies. Or just do a few reviews and figure it out. Or read what someone else says. It won't be CLindburg/Dcoetze quality, but we only have a few of them and need to do some work ourselves. It doesn't need to be a nuclear assurance. Just a second screen and then move the thing along the path. We don't have infinite experts on call. Rather move along with something workmanlike than develop intricate dependencies.TCO (reviews needed) 12:43, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Comment What does "obvious faults in prose, structure, and formatting" mean, exactly? I am concerned about the potential for standards creep here, in part because I see DYK as having an article incubation/improvement role. Because any article featured on DYK pulls in so many eyeballs, there are certain things like unsourced/ill-sourced BLP and copyvio and plagiarism that should never appear in such an article. On the other hand, I think an article that lacks completeness, for instance, should remain a DYK candidate, in part because the exposure at DYK might pull in the right person to complete it. The checklist should forbid such things as a policy-conscious editor would never put in mainspace, but should permit usages that might be left for later development. Choess (talk) 05:55, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I think the interpretation could probably be left up to the individual reviewer, not everybody has the same notion of what constitutes an unacceptable flaw but if some reviewers want to take a harder line over such matters, it's not such a big deal. Gatoclass (talk) 06:54, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm uncomfortable with this one as well. Out of the whole list it's the least important and arbitrary. The key word in there is obviously "obvious" but I'm guessing most reviewers won't pay attention to that. I'd hate to see a good DYK nom turned down because, for example, someone didn't use citation templates or something.Volunteer Marek (talk) 07:13, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

When noms are turned down, they are usually turned down by consensus not by a single user, so I see little prospect of this occurring in practice. Gatoclass (talk) 08:37, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

• One of the problems with greater scrutiny like this is that to fix some of the issues will require an extensive rewrite of the article. What happens to articles that get rejected, but the nominator doesn't fix? Does the reviewer then have to find the time to rewrite and fix the article? Articles with this level of problems should be picked up earlier by another process, or get sent somewhere else for fixing. The few times I've reviewed articles for DYK, I've found myself thinking "this article is poor", and the temptation was great to go find another article to review that was of a better quality. It would be very liberating to be able to say "this article is not good enough", to give a list of reasons, and then reject it, and list it somewhere where it would get fixed. But it would be very depressing to see no follow-up to that and no fixes made to the article. What might help is some examples of articles at different stages of development, with indications of where minimum standards have been met, maybe even with specific diffs that show the correction of particular problems. Carcharoth (talk) 10:44, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

• Checking for plagiarism and copyvios should be easier using the Duplication Detector. MER-C 13:27, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

• One thing we can be sure of is that there will be no "sudden influx of reviewers and more nominators who can manage the time to respond to the issues they raise". Did You Know has always had more than enough people to demand error correction, and not enough to do it. Every added procedure, subprocedure and exception will detract from time to actually fix anything, not add to it.Art LaPella (talk) 14:19, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

RfC proposal: archive unsuccessful nominations after seven days

Proposal: "A nomination that has not met the requirements seven days after it is first edited by a reviewer¹ should be declined and archived, unless an administrator involved in DYK queuing grants an application for an extension of a specified number of days. Time limits include time spent in a preparation area."

¹Or a similar arrangement decided on by editors at DYK, such as a template expiry date.

There has never been a clear process for removing from the "suggestions" page nominations that have not reached acceptable standards. This is essential if compliance with site policies and other standards are to be upheld in DYKs on the main page. Expecting the queuing admins to tip-toe around removing the odd bum nomination is hardly a professional procedure. A professional DYK process involves rejection as well as passing, and the nominations page needs to be kept under control by the admins.

• Support as proposer. Tony (talk) 03:32, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support tentatively. I have also flirted with this idea (although in response to a different problem--hook boringness) at Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 48#What is DYK for? (long, sry) and User talk:Rjanag/Archive5#Inquiring minds want to know. I have a lot of concerns about the details of how it would work (see those links and the discussion below) but in spirit I think it's the right move. rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:50, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support this would probably help to move along some of the nominations that develop lengthy and largely unproductive discussions. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 04:01, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support. Excellent idea. -- Khazar (talk) 04:04, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support. yes, long tails on the suggestion queue are somewhat distracting. Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:15, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Weak support There will be articles that are sent to AfD and kept after the seven day period has ended, but I suppose a few casualties isn't a huge issue. —Andrew_stalk 04:20, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support. Hooks should be well-prepared, interesting, and inviting to reviewers from the start. Quigley (talk) 04:26, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support. Increases efficiency. Sasata (talk) 04:31, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support. If standards for DYK articles are increased then some streamlining will be necessary. While some last minute fixes for new articles may be needed, DYK is not an article nursery.   Will Beback  talk  04:44, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Sure. This will ease the stress for the whole infrastructure and give a bit of a kick in the ass to weaker submitters.TCO (reviews needed) 05:02, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support with Tony's last change (otherwise, no). I'm thinking there will need to be a special page made with instructions for reviewers.Volunteer Marek (talk) 07:16, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Qualified support It needs to be changed to a week that a reviewer's comment has remained unanswered - a point raised by Gatoclass below, support if that is actually the proposal. Mikenorton (talk) 10:25, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support. Agree with this. Carcharoth (talk) 11:04, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support Due process requires criteria to be enforced. Lightmouse (talk) 11:21, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Qualified Support: Not 7 days since the first review, but 7 days since the last comment. Some require major discussion, like the Children of the Stork hook at T:TDYK right now. Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:07, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Discussion about "archiving unsuccessful nominations" proposal

Long posts in the !voting section above may be relocated here.

Does this mean that if a nominator nominates their article on 1st August, and no-one has gotten round to reviewing it by 8th August, then the nomination fails? I'm assuming not, but this needs to be clearer...? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 03:39, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I think it does mean that; that is how I'm understanding it. rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:42, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

• This may be hard to keep track of, given that for example an article may be nominated on August 5 but placed under the August 1 header (if that was the date it was actually created). The way the proposal is currently written, this nom would expire on August 12 (7 days after nomination), not August 8 (7 days after the header under which it's included). I'm not necessarily saying that's wrong, just that it might be a pain to keep track of (although I suppose people could just remove old noms whenever they happen to notice one, without necessarily needing a system to remove all new old noms at once). rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:42, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
  • Thanks for these points: I've boldly changed "seven days after nomination" to "seven days after it is first edited by a reviewer". Does this resolve the problem? Tony (talk) 03:51, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
  • (ec) Actually, it would probably be easy to work in something in the template that says "this nomination expires on DATE", similar to image speedy deletion templates. After that, we could just have an understanding that any editor is free to archive any nomination with an expired date. rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:52, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
    • Thanks: I've added a footnote above to this effect. This kind of flexibility in the mechanics is good: the principle of time limitation is the main concern of this second RfC proposal. Tony (talk) 04:00, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
      • The problem is that on some occasions, I have placed science-oriented DYK nominations with few/no problems of the kind mentioned above which took longer than 7 days to find a reviewer. Yet when they were finally checked by a reviewer at archive time, they were good to go and made it without remark to the main page. Certain classes of articles which people may shy away from are likely to be discriminated. AshLin (talk) 04:07, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
        • I've had your problem before also, so this concerned me, too. But if I understand right, Tony's just modified it to now count off seven days after review rather than nomination (which sounds fair to me). -- Khazar (talk) 04:18, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

The more I think about this, the more impractical it sounds. What happens if someone reviews a hook, the nominator responds and then no-one gets around to having another look for a week? Is that the nominator's fault? Of course not. But under this system, his nom will be deleted unless an admin gives it a reprieve. But do we really want to have nominators running around pestering admins for extra time? IMO it would make more sense for a nom to be deleted if the nominator hasn't responded to a concern within a set period. Gatoclass (talk) 08:47, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

In practice, I would hope that those archiving/closing/promoting older nominations would look at the discussions and make a judgment on whether more discussion is needed, or whether archiving/closing/promotion is needed. Effectively, the proposal is asking for a decision to be taken within 7 days of the review starting (though the decision could be to extend the discussion period). This sounds reasonable to me, and is a lot like how AfD works. Carcharoth (talk) 11:01, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

As far as I know, we already do remove noms if a nominator hasn't responded to a concern in a while, although there is no official time period. rʨanaɢ (talk) 11:57, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes we do, but as you say there is no set time period, I think if we made it five days, or even three days, it would help get rid of those lingering noms. Other than that, I can see this proposal creating more problems than it solves, because there are going to be disputes about whether or not a nom should have been given more time, and there is also the possibility of factions gaming the system to delay a nom until it gets deleted. A system that relies on the continued attention of the nominator, on the other hand, places the responsibility on the shoulders of the person most involved, and if he fails to stay abreast of the discussion, he has no-one to blame but himself when the nom is deleted. Gatoclass (talk) 14:04, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Five days would be best, methinks. Three would be cutting it too close, especially since some Wikipedians take the weekends off. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:08, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

RfC question: has the obligation to review been a net positive or negative?

This is a question for DYK regulars - has the introduction of the obligation to review (i.e. QPQ) been a net positive or negative? I'm not sure myself. Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:20, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

net positive

1. I think it's a major net positive but I think it's becoming clear it needs some refinement. Specifying the issues that reviewers need to be checking as in the first proposal above is a step in the right direction, but we may need to add some further checks. I would strongly oppose any attempt to scrap QPQ ATM, there are plenty of other things we can try first and going back to the old system of relying on a handful of reviewers would be a last resort in my view. Gatoclass (talk) 05:27, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
2. I think it's been good to have so many more people doing it, even if some of us do it imperfectly on occasion. I don't mind having "experts" double-check reviews (especially if we someday reduce the number of articles reaching the main page), but I want to keep the diversity of reviewers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:32, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
3. Pros: encouragement of collaboration, learning DYK and WP policies and reviewing process, provision of some review. Cons: sloppy reviews. Solution: cover up, check the reviews and provide additional ones. Hook promoter is the key person in the current DYK scheme, and most proposals should be focused here, for example: (i) formally disallow promoting hooks to any editor who hasn't reviewed xx noms in their lifetime (unfortunately, we don't count reviews; but with the QPQ system, reviewed=submitted, and this we do count at stats pages, thus 50 or 100 successful DYKs may do). (ii) keep the whole review thread in the prep so that the promoting admin could check the promotion. Materialscientist (talk) 05:42, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
4. Net positive. Reviewing DYKs made me familiar with rules especially in those areas where I normally dont edit such as BLP. It made me a better and more confident DYK nominator. AshLin (talk) 09:13, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
5. What if we required two editors to green-light a hook before it is sent to prep? That would still be faster than having a handful of editors doing all the (tedious) work. —Andrew_stalk 10:40, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
6. Positive, but with room for improvements. I like Tony's comment done in the discussion section that an extra aspect of the article could be checked. Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:14, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

net negative

1. While I do not think that everything about the QPQ turned out bad, I believe "net negative" is the right description. Those are my main concerns:
   • First in line of course is the entirely subjective observation that there are more unsatisfying reviews than before. And as it is not visible who is new and who is experienced, you just cannot trust the DYK tick symbols anymore.
   • Less obvious but maybe even more important is the situation that the average reviewer is not as bold as before. Every once in a while a review should start with or if the problems are many, or if they cover the entire article---not just for purely numerical concerns about length.
   • Thirdly, particularly due to DYK's quality problems I believe it is the wrong place to learn Wikipedia rules, or how to review. I think WP:Peer Review is a much better place to do that, but one might also think of specific adoptions or a particular lesson in WP:Tutorial.
   • From a pure project management point of view, I think there is little doubt that reviews are at least not better than before. But the process has become more difficult. To me, this is added complexity without benefit.
   • Finally, I never liked the idea to force anyone to do voluntary work. I know of at least one very prolific DYK writer whose creations often get GA status before DYK, and who does not edit T:TDYK anymore. In this respect, DYK currently is stricter than GA and FAC, and that is not a healthy thing. --Pgallert (talk) 11:37, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
2. Gatoclass raises good points at #Some thoughts from a semi-regular and the section above this one. Overall, though, I still think requiring reviews from new editors who aren't interested in reviewing is a net negative. rʨanaɢ (talk) 11:54, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

discussion

• I have no objection to requiring nominators to do a bit of character-counting and examining of page histories as clerical verification of eligibility. But in the interests of making DYK a bit more of a training ground, I'd be inclined to add a requirement that in addition, they review at least one other point, of their choice, listed in the first RfC proposal. Tony (talk) 04:28, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

• I can't answer as I'm not a DYK regular. But I really like the idea and have debated this with Sandy before and been pretty unsatisfied with the responses. Working scientists who write papers, review them also (not tit for tat, but regularly). I think if someone can write a capable article, he can review one. And I sure get sick of the "build it and it will come" hope that reviewers will descend out of the sky or the begging for more reviewers on FAC talk (or articles not progressing because no one reviewed it). Plus it's fair giveback for people burdening the sytsem. Plus reviewing teaches you things that help with writing! And I think the concerns over poor reviewers are over-rated. We need to use what we have. This is not nuclear code security carefulness...this is content creation...let's get on with it. TCO (reviews needed) 05:05, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I endorse the above comments by TCO. Gatoclass (talk) 05:31, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

• I would like to see someone articulate the "net negative" position. I see some folks in other discussions above say "this has been a failure" but I'm not quite clear on why this is so. And pointing out that during the time that this has been in effect a couple of bad noms slipped through is not sufficient - DYK has come under more and more scrutiny over time so we really don't know how many bad noms slipped through before the implementation of this feature.Volunteer Marek (talk) 07:19, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
  • I'm sure someone will; the big negative to me is that it has enabled the system to deceive itself that proper reviewing is occurring, beyond the merely clerical minima. We should want to augment it, not remove it, I believe. Tony (talk) 07:36, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
    • One of the problems with reviewing in general (not QPQ) is that reviewing can be silent. If people actually put a tick on a checklist, it tells others what got checked. Though you do want some thing double-checked as well, as some aspects need more than one person for a proper check. Carcharoth (talk) 11:08, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

It also increases accountability, people can't say "I forgot to check that" or "I didn't know I was expected to do that". They will have to take responsibility for their errors. Gatoclass (talk) 14:12, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Proposal to replace DYK with new Good article DYKs and demote the current system to a sub page

My feeling on this is that we should replace did you know of new articles on the main page with did you knows of recently passed good articles. Then I would have a link underneath like in the featured article section, more DYKs of recently created/expanded articles and then I'd demote the DYK for newly expanded article as it currently appears on the main page to a sub page. This way it gives credit to those who've recently had a good article promotion, general quality on the main page would be much improved without obvious blunders and the often embarrassing did you knows would appear on a sub page and be hidden from appearing on the main page. The problem is we can't paint all DYKs with the same brush. There are some very good DYKs which are new GAs anyway which I've seen today, but to keep that sort of level for every entry would be great in my view. Maybe I'm biased I don't know but the deal with DYKs for me has never been an excitement about it appearing on the main page so I could accept that the current system could be demoted to a sub page and replaced with GA DYKs. The problem is how to accommodate those editors who enjoy creating start class articles and having their articles appear on the front page and to retain the system that motivates them to expand content. I myself would be perfectly happy to see my did you know hooks appearing on a sub page of the main page as page views illustrate a small percentage actually view them anyway.

What I propose is a nicely designed sub page for new hook DYKs rather like User:Gerda Arendt's user page (but tidier in format) linked from the main page and for every hook if possible to have an image by the side and to include more hooks in the list. Every hook created on a certain day would be listed on this sub page for 24 hours maybe with a 5 day approval period leading up to it. So any proposed and authorised article created today would appear on this list on 28 July and be listed for 24 hours with all others created/expanded on that day. Any which have not been approved within that time period because of issues will be scrapped. This would easy the pressure on those who have to regularly update the main page with new hooks, editors would see their new DYKs featured for much longer than the measly few hours at present and many of the beautiful images which would not appear on the front page because they are not the top entry there would be room to list them all. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:17, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

• Support. DYK is heavily biased towards promoting the mass creation of content in obscure areas, with minimal quality control. Promote good editing, not fast editing. --Mkativerata (talk) 11:26, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support—nice one, Dr. Blofeld, and Mkativerata sums it up well. I'd also support drawing on GAs, FAs, and FLs. DYKs must be from content that contains an interesting, catchy, punchy hook in the first place, and as SandyGeorgia has pointed out, it can easily become forced if you're not selective (the cheap hook). A good proportion of articles at whatever stage or status are just not DYKable, something that has plagued the current DYK model. So changing the scope so it's classier and broader makes a lot of sense—solves a bunch of problems in one go. Everyone knows I'm not a Jimbo groupie, but he has just injected a fresh view with the benefit of distance from the process, having moved from a position of supporting solely FAs as DYKs earlier today. Tony (talk) 12:02, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose to this perennial proposal, for all of the same reasons every time this is brought up. Since it's the same small group proposing this over and over, hoping it will eventually stick or wear down the regulars, I feel no obligation to repeat myself for the umpteenth time. If there is a burning need to display not-good-enough-to-be-FA content on the Main Page, propose a new section for GAs without targeting a useful extant project like DYK for destruction. - Dravecky (talk) 12:14, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I didn't say DYK would be destroyed. To accommodate those who enjoy contributing new articles for DYK and being credited I think that it should be kept but demoted to a sub page, if anything it could be a big page of hooks just like the DYK nom page is right for those who are interested in viewing new articles. But I believe that articles which have been shown to be poorly reviewed and many containing a plethora of problems are not front page worthy even if for just a few hours. I believe the front page should be reserved solely for the cream of wikipedia. We need to clean up our act and deal with this.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:21, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

• Support This proposal would see a measurable improvement in the content of the main page, and show readers (and potential contributors) what writers should be aiming for. Nev1 (talk) 12:19, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Strong oppose. Most of what is used in DYK could never reach GA simply because the sources aren't there. If we were to limit DYK to GAs, systemic bias would rear its ugly head immediately; if FAs, FLs, and GAs, we'd be invading on TFA and TFL's turf, which could theoretically cause major conflict. This is not the way to improve DYK. Quality control may need to be improved, but not to GA-level standards; GA length alone would preclude many otherwise sound DYKs from reaching the main page. Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:20, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Did you not read the proposal? I have not proposed to scrap new article/expanded DYK. Rather to keep them off the main age when they are often poorly reviewed and reserve the main page purely for reviewed material. As I've said there could be a direct link from the main page for new DYK articles on a smart looking sub page.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:23, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I did read the proposal, but a sub-page is not the main page itself. We'd be expecting interested readers to click on one link to open the subpage, then another to choose the article they want to read. Effectively, we'd lose around 50 to 80% of our readership. Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:28, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose: I like the multicultural flavour of DYK, written by many for whom English is a second language, covering a broad range of interests. I don't envision that quality for GAs. The opposite might work: have a subpage on GAs. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:22, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I like it too, but is it really a good idea to have poorly reviewed material with problems hitting the main page in the eyes of millions on a daily basis?♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:25, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

The "millions" would only see the hook. Less than 100k would actually have any exposure to the sub-par articles themselves. As for Gerda's idea, I'd support such a motion. A mix of new DYKs and recently promoted GAs may be acceptable too. Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:30, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

For some reason I fail to see the multitude of poorly reviewed poorly written DYK. I reviewed more than 80 this year, only 4 had to be rejected. I hope they were reviewed well, smile. I keep a collection of DYK Germany, didn't see a single bad one there. I also collect DYK opera, same thing. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:40, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Respected editors such as Sandy Georgia claim to have never seen a DYK set without multiple issues. I think she knows what she is talking about. I regularly see articles hit the main page with suspect sources, POV and needing a jolly good copyedit even if many of them are absolutely fine. The problem is there is an inconsistency and I think the main page should not be inconsistent.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:56, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

How about accepting the fact that man is inconsistent? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:02, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Accepting that should not be used as an excuse not to progress and improve. Improving the quality of the content that appears on the main page certainly sounds like a good idea to me. Nev1 (talk) 13:12, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose I'd prefer other options of solving the problem raised by Dr. Blofeld. Extending the scope of DYK to also include new GA's and FA's ect but not removing new content altogether. Extending the timeframe from 5 days to about a month to allow for more scrutiny. Agathoclea (talk) 12:34, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

New content would be featured on a sub page linked from the main page and would allow more room for multiple photographs and some additional features which at present cannot be presented on the main page because of its restrictions. This proposal is not to entirely scrap new DYKs, just keep poorly reviewed articles off the main page.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:38, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Baby with bathwater ... Out of sight out of mind. New articles do benefit from mainpage exposure. Therefore I do dislike the subpage idea. Agathoclea (talk) 12:44, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Actually if you compare DYK page views and main page views an extremely small percentage actually visit the articles.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:46, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

True. But from my experience with Funtensee there is a spinoff and that would be severely reduced by having an extra page inbetween. Agathoclea (talk) 12:56, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Arbitary break

• Oppose for all the reasons stated above.Jim Sweeney (talk) 12:40, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Tentative Support. I think something like 3 GAs per day in the same space as DYK would make sense. "Today's Good Articles". I would want a director(s) like person(s) to pick them and would draw from the whole bank, not from new ones only. Think the implicit named difference (and lower down and 3 versus 1) makes it clear to reader that articles are not as polishd as TFA. but good to show some (still strong) difference of article quality on Wiki. We could have some proposal thing on the side like TFAR, but that is just mechanics. (KISS though.) The only bad part of this is it basically blows up DYK and takes their main page space away from them. And hurts the individuals who like DYK. And I really don't mind if we just leave DYK in place for avoiding hurt feelings from blowing it up.TCO (reviews needed) 12:55, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose The current DYK process works well enough and so doesn't need fixing. If GAs feel the need for some love too then maybe we could add achievement of GA status as a qualification to appear in the DYK queue. Warden (talk) 13:13, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Sorry but I don't think it is working well enough, even many of the most active DYK contributors and operators including myself claim it is not like it used to be or has problems and I think if we created a DYK Hall of Shame it would expose that there is a problem which exists. I personally have felt under pressure recently from DYK operators like MaterialScientist in regards to sourcing and standards and quite rightly and I'm not the only one. Do you realize how many complaints there have been in the last month alone about certain articles hitting the main page? Of course there are many regular DYK contributors who work incredibly hard at producing quality and interesting new content but its got to be said that to some it has almost become a sort of game and that the notch on the board is more important than the article itself.♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:36, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

• Support. The current system is broken and doesn't deserve to be on the main page. A radical change has to be made. Lightmouse (talk) 13:18, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support At what point will people realize that incentivising new content might not be our top priority anymore? When we have 10 million articles, 20 million, 50 million? Articles on previously not covered content are always a good thing, but quality content on any subject we cover should be a priority, especially now that have over 3.6 million articles. I don't think this proposal will destroy the incentive for new content. What it does is create incentives for people to improve current content, and/or to create new content with the goal of making it top quality instead of simply making it passable enough to get another notch on the old DYK belt.Griswaldo (talk) 13:36, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

• Just because something isn't our top priority doesn't mean that we shouldn't be proud of our new articles. Getting some of them on the main page, even for a few hours, generates interest and may lead to more editors signing up to create articles. Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:46, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose this half-baked idea, and for the umpteenth time, why do some users feel the need to continually start polls when there hasn't been any preceding discussion? Polls are supposed to occur at the end of a discussion, not the start. Gatoclass (talk) 13:47, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Well for such a "half-baked idea" I count at least 5 problems it would solve in one go.♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:53, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

• Support. I'd also link the new-content-DYK subpage with the new "interested in contributing?" section I hope we'll see on the Main Page. These would be candidates for improvement and expansion. At the end of the day, the act of creating a new article carries one of the highest intrinsic rewards, I think; and therefore rewarding this action further with Main Page exposure like now never made much sense to me. A subpage is a bit of a compromise, allowing the system to persist but with less use of scarce Main Page space. Also worth noting that a lot of the problems with DYK-as-is may be traced, I think, to over-incentivising. Over-incentivise something (like easily measurable quantity) and you inevitably under-incentivise something else (like hard-to-measure quality). Rd232 ^talk 13:51, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Multiple RFCs confusing, simply remove DYK from the mainpage

There are at least five RFCs running now on DYK, so I can't endorse the idea of weighing in on any one of them specifically. What is abundantly apparent is that the DYK regulars who endorse the poor quality they are putting on the main page are doing so because they truly do not understand Wikipedia's sourcing policies or copyvio. DYK does *not* have enough knowledgeable editors to prevent the daily debacles that have been occurring for over a year, and DYK is encouraging editors who never improve their skills to the GA or FA level to plagiarize, commit copyvio, violate BLP, and put up articles based on blogs and other non-reliable sources. It is not a service to Wikipedia, as we no longer have enough editors to clean up the deficient content these editors create. Good and able editors do use DYK, but those editors will go on to get GAs and FAs, while those who never improve their editing knowledge beyond the rudimentary level of DYK continue to fill Wikipedia with content that violates our policies. There is no solution to DYK: this discussion has gone on for years, and many of the regulars here are tone deaf.

Remove DYK from the main page, period. We have plenty of other options that can take that space, and we can use those where editors improve the quality of our articles rather than churning out hundreds of deficient articles that DYK regulars don't even recognize as deficient.

• Support. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:09, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

• Strong oppose. Vide the reasons I gave in previous RFC. AshLin (talk) 14:17, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. If Dr. Blofeld's suggestion above was likened to throwing the baby out with the bathwater, this is throwing all the interior plumbing as well. Working to improve DYK (and perhaps participating in some reviews) would be much more effective than sensationalistically suggesting it be scrapped altogether. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:13, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Messiah Part II

From discussion to work: I have an admittedly unusual nomination running for Messiah Part II which might profit from more eyes. I will be off for now. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:08, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

As the first reviewer of this article, I would like to second the request for more eyes and opinions. Thank you. Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:15, 23 July 2011 (UTC)