Wikipedia talk:Did you know

Did you know?
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This is where the Did you know section on the main page, its policies and the featured items can be discussed. However, proposals for changing how Did You Know works are currently being discussed at Wikipedia:Did you know/2011 reform proposals.

2011 DYK reform proposals

Numerous threads moved to the Wikipedia:Did you know/2011 reform proposals subpage:

• Wikipedia:Did you know/2011 reform proposals#Good articles redux
• Wikipedia:Did you know/2011 reform proposals#Proposal - minimum character requirement increase from 1500 to 2500
• Wikipedia:Did you know/2011 reform proposals#Some thoughts from a semi-regular
• Wikipedia:Did you know/2011 reform proposals#Proposal to replace DYK with new Good article DYKs and demote the current system to a sub page
• Wikipedia:Did you know/2011 reform proposals#Multiple RFCs confusing, simply remove DYK from the mainpage
• Wikipedia:Did you know/2011 reform proposals#Brainstorming related to RFC

N.B. This list and the subpage are currently incomplete and other threads have been archived by the bot to the main archives.

Getting rid of the checklists?

It's been over a week since I added the checklists into the nomination template (see here) so I think it's a good time now to start reviewing the pros and cons this trial has revealed. Here are my thoughts so far (in what follows, when I link to examples, I am not trying to rat out any particular people, I'm just providing examples; in all cases, these are things that more than just one or two reviewers are doing):

• It seems that many reviewers are choosing not to use the template checklist (see e.g. Template:Did you know nominations/8 Air Maintenance Squadron). For reasons I detailed at WT:Did you know/Archive 73#Mandatory?, if the checklist template is going to be optional then it should not be automatically loaded into the nomination pages; and in fact, if it's going to be optional it probably shouldn't be used at all, as it just makes the page more confusing.
• It seems many reviewers are filling the template out however they feel, in spite of what the instructions say. (Using symbols instead of signatures, using full signatures, signing problem areas rather than leaving them blank, leaving lengthy comments in the template rather than below it.) I tried not to be a nazi about the instructions since they were just something I made up and I figured during a trial period there should be some flexibility to try and reach a descriptive (rather than prescriptive) consensus about how the templates should be used. But now it seems that, with such a variety of ways people are filling these out, they hinder more than help the process of seeing how much of a nom has been reviewed.
• They add a lot of visual clutter to the page and, contrary to what I and probably several of us expected, I think they actually make it harder to skim through the page and find noms that have been reviewed. (Noms that haven't begun being reviewed are perhaps a bit easier to find, but I don't think they were that hard anyway.)

All in all, for the reasons I described above, I think these templates are just making the page and the reviewing process more confusing and probably more alienating. I also don't think they provide any benefit (as some people have pointed out in previous discussions, someone who's going to do a bad review is just going to do a bad review; forcing them to go through the motions of signing off a few things, as far as I can tell, just gives us more ammo if we want to bite their heads off about it later, but doesn't actually help the project in any way). For these reasons, I think the checklist templates should no longer be auto-included in nominations, and I think their use should be discouraged.

I welcome further input. rʨanaɢ (talk) 10:52, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Alternative proposal

I have hinted about this in the discussions linked above: I think rather than having a form reviewers must "sign off" every time they complete a nomination, a less cumbersome way to meet the "community demand" would be to include in every nomination's editnotice a clear "checklist" of things that should be checked in any review. This checklist, a draft of which can be seen here, is basically a version of WP:DYK#DYK rules that is written for reviewers rather than nominators, and made as concise as possible. This would obviate cluttering T:TDYK with a lot of messy table, and obviate forcing reviewers to enter a million signatures every time they want to complete a nom; thus, I think both reviewing noms and skimming T:TDYK would be easier. Also, with this stuff in an edit notice it's easier to make the checklist points actually clear (that is to say, they each are explained in normal prose, with links, whereas the checklist template in the nomination's edit window itself is just a list of obtuse parameters and people have to go to some other page to see what they mean). And, since it would be in a prominent place (the edit notice), it would still serve as a reminder of what needs to be checked in every review, which after all was the whole point of having a checklist. (Some others may argue that the point of a sign-able checklist is "accountability", but personally I don't buy that; all a sign-able checklist gives us is the ability to point fingers even more after something goes wrong, it doesn't actually prevent bad articles from making it to the main page. Besides, editors are still accountable for articles they review, even if they don't sign every point of a checklist individually; placing on an article is, or at least should be, a shorthand way of saying "this article meets all the criteria".) rʨanaɢ (talk) 10:52, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

• Support this one. Dump the checklists for now. If there are complaints about removing the checklist, run another RFC. Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:59, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support this less cumbersome way to meet the "community demand", --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:08, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support per Rjanag. The "community demand" is less likely to be met if burdensome checklist and hoops to jumps through are driving quality contributors away from the DYK project. I know that my personal activity here has dropped considerably simply because it is such a headache now to nominate and review articles, despite Rjanag's admirable efforts to try to streamline the process with templates. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 16:42, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support Yes, I think this is best. Having a list of the points to be checked appear right there in the edit window would assist those who are concerned they may not remember to check them all, or what the rules are, but expressing it in prose is easier than a checklist when one needs, as one usually does, to say something qualificatory like "There are no refs in the plot section but that's ok" and "I checked 3/4 of the refs for copyvio/close paraphrasing." And more conducive to careful, article-appropriate checking than making a symbol and then appending a note below on anything special, IMO. I agree that in addition, the checklist still looks daunting in the edit window, especially to someone who hasn't previously mucked about with templates. Accountability is accountability; I don't think those of us who personally prefer not to use review templates are in any way wishing to cut corners on the actual review, or to condone it. This came out pretty clearly in the discussion over length of time that a review takes, IMO. If a review doesn't mention a criterion, it's entirely reasonable to ask - or to do a second review and check just that thing. Those who like to use checklists can always fake one up using short names for all the criteria interspersed with check/tick and X symbols. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:15, 13 September 2011 (UTC) Here's an example of a review I did in running prose, to serve as an example. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:49, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support - the checklist in the edit notice is ideal, and those who want to can copy and paste the headings of that into the review subpage. The running prose example given by Yngvadottir is ideal as well. The article writer gets good feedback but not too much that might overwhelm them. I would also urge reviewers that find articles that may need lots of work to put a nomination on hold and then discuss things at the article talk page, engage in a bit of editing, and then restart the nomination when things have been sorted out. It is a matter of whether only a few points are found in the review, or lots. This will also avoid long discussion on subpages cluttering up the main DYK submissions page. Finally, it would be great if there was a way for the background of the subpage to change colour, or some other prominent change occur, to enable people to pick out DYK submissions that need attention or not. Carcharoth (talk) 23:02, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support. The checklist lures editors (at least me, on one occasion) into only checking the points explicitly mentioned. Here I forgot completely that the image license needs to be reviewed because it is not in the check list. As far as I remember, I never forgot that when reviewing without templates. --Pgallert (talk) 10:12, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
• Strong support, for various reasons given by others. Ideally, all items in the list of review criteria would be numbered to facilitate writing of abbreviated review comments along the general lines of "AGF on items 4 and 5 due to offline sources." Also, ideally, the list would be formatted to limit the vertical real estate required to display it, so that reviewers can see the whole list of items at one time. --Orlady (talk) 14:06, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
  • For me it's possible to see the whole list at once (my screen is at 1366x768) but I don't know if it is for everyone. Also, the "others" list at the bottom is not necessary to review in all nominations, so for the most part I think just being able to see hte top 75% would be fine. To some extent I think it would be good for the list to take up a lot of space, so people can't help noticing it. rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:51, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
    • I can see the whole list on my screen, but there's no room for anything else. As a result, I estimate that while I'm reviewing a nomination, chances are good that the only parts of the review checklist I will be able to see (without scrolling up) will be "Other" and possibly "Hook content". --Orlady (talk) 02:58, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
      • I guess it might be possible to put this into two columns, which might make it all visible at once. I don't think there's any way to make it shorter content-wise (I feel I already trimmed & simplified the rules pretty relentlessly). rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:27, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

• I don't understand what an "edit notice" is. How would this work? Is this system going to stop partial reviews and require a single editor to review for everything? If so, it is unrealistic, and is at loggerheads with QPQ and the idea of inducting new editors into WP. Tony (talk) 05:48, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
  • An edit notice is a message that appears above the edit box when editing. (For example, when you edit this page you see an orange box that says "This purpose of this page is to discuss Wikipedia:Did you know.") I don't see any reason why the system I outlined above would preclude partial reviews. rʨanaɢ (talk) 06:07, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
    • OK, so all that stuff here will appear in a rather large coloured notice at the top of the edit box. I must say, it's nicely formatted ... could be trimmed a little (may I try?). So then, say I come along and want to say the image doesn't work at squint-size; I just make a comment to that effect, but leave all other issues. This is rather as it was before the community insisted on an explicit ticking off of the aspects via a checklist. How will we know who OKed what? When someone has to tick off that the hook is suitable (i.e., sufficiently interesting, as required by DYK rules), they're taking direct responsibility for that aspect. If there's no signing off of the separate aspects, can you convince us that one or two reviewers won't just make brief comments and wave it through, despite the edit notice? Isn't this a back-door way to return to the previous situation, when reviewing (especially QPQ reviewing) was seriously inadequate? Tony (talk) 13:34, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
      • I've tried to make the list as concise as possible while still including all the major rules, but I'm open to suggestions for trimming it. (In particular, things like the 2x expansion rule for BLPs are rarely used; Other could maybe hidden inside a {{show}} or something, although I don't think that should be overused; and using bullets rather than level-3 section headers for the headers like "Criteria for the article" may save space.)

        Regarding who OKed what, as I explained in the section above I don't think that's really important. First of all, it should still be easy to know who OKed what (if someone ed the article, that means they are either saying they OK'ed everything or they OK'ed some stuff and they made sure that someone else OK'ed the rest--and the latter should only be happening if someone else has already explicitly said on the nom page "X is ok"). That information may not be visually organized into a table, but it should still all be easily available, and I don't think it makes sense to ask 100% of the reviewers to jump through the hoops they are now just to make it even easier for us to find information that should already have been easy to find, in the maybe 5-10% of cases where there is a need later on to revisit an old nomination.

        Regarding "making brief comments and waving it through", people can still do that no matter what kind of checklist they have to check off—nothing can stop people from just going through the motions of putting their signature in every part and then saying "ok". Either way, they're taking responsibility for their review regardless of whether they sign it once or ten times, and if they're reviewing poorly it will still be possible to notice that and chide/educate them.

        Of course there are some aspects of this proposal that look similar to the previous situation, because as I explained in the section above I don't think the check-off checklists are a net benefit. But I am also trying to honor the outcome of that checklist RfC (which some people here don't even consider valid) by implementing a change that I believe is in the spirit of the checklist thing. Please read my comments in the section above, where I explained clearly what the goal of this proposal is. I'm not just trying to preserve the status quo at all costs (I daresay I've spent a lot more of my free time than you and the DYK critics in trying to make improvements). rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:31, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

• Comment - Seems to me that a week is not nearly long enough to trial something, there is obviously going to be a settling in period, I would have thought a month would be a more reasonable interval to trial the checklist. I do however see some teething problems, with some users commenting in the fields instead of just ticking or adding their signature, which confuses things, but I would think that would rectify itself over time. I also think the checklist could be made more compact by combining the hook checklist and article checklist together, which would aid in legibility. I'm not sure how the system is currently working, but if the checklist was embedded in every nomination in some way it might make for a more consistent appearance.

  I guess we can try the editnotice if that's what people want, but I'm not sure how effective editnotices are, if it proves ineffective we may have to revisit this debate. Gatoclass (talk) 17:45, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

  • A week is plenty long enough to see that the checklist has not been working out well. Reviews like Template:Did you know nominations/Biological control of gorse in New Zealand and Template:Did you know nominations/Sonargöltr, which are almost entirely wordless, are impressive to look at, but reading them gives me very little information on what the reviewer looked at and how s/he judged it. Additionally, it's been apparent that people aren't always remembering what some of the shorthand headings in the template are supposed to mean. The one for "formattedcitations", in particular, seems to be inducing reviewers to withhold approval of hooks for such alleged shortcomings as not using the reviewer's preferred citation format in the article. --Orlady (talk) 00:20, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but as I said there are bound to be teething problems with any new system, you have to give people some time to adjust. The checklists are really not that complicated. But I think automatically embedding them in every nom would help encourage conformity. Gatoclass (talk) 04:14, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

• • As I recall, the rationale for having separate hook and article checklists was to deal with noms with multiple articles and/or multiple ALT hooks (I think the relevant discussion was here). Of course, multi-article nominations are a minority (but still one that might be hard to handle with a single checklist) and personally I think having to fill out a checklist for ever ALT hook is silly, as hook reviewing is less involved than article reviewing. rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:18, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree about the multis - there should only be one checklist for all the articles in a multi, it's impractical to have multiple checklists. I also think it would be worthwhile to combine the hook and article checklist to reduce clutter. I know I argued for checklists for each alt hook originally but it isn't practical and I now think one checklist for the hook and article is sufficient, so there's no reason not to combine them. Gatoclass (talk) 04:10, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

• Gato, hook and article are two very different aspects of DYK, and need to be reviewed discretely.
• Orlady, I agree that a week is far too short a period for a trial; I also think that you use a trial to refine the system. It's abundantly clear that Rjanag et al. need to write in more explicit instructions, and that no nom should be moved to the next stage without compliance with these. Otherwise, the trial is not given a fair chance.
• Rjanag: I meant the wording of the notice. I'll quickly do it now for your review, even though I can see it's leading nowhere good.
• To all, the community's support for an explicitly ticked-off checklist was and still is based on the perception that the individual DYK and site policies and rules were not being applied properly. If we go back to a no-tick-off system, as before, we will be back to square one, and will—it seems to me—go through the same process in which the community comes in to express its disapproval. The glaringly obvious way of proceeding is not to be concerned about what is framed as "clutter", or what is essentially a more rigorous and exacting process for both nominators and reviewers, but to match the output with what can be produced at high(er) quality. There should be no conceptual nexus between (i) newly created/expanded, and (ii) poor quality and policy compliance. So the tools for managing the system are at hand. Tony (talk) 05:47, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

I didn't say the hook and article should not be "reviewed discretely", I said we don't need two separate checklist boxes to achieve that. We can combine the two checklists into the one checkbox to cut down on clutter. But the checklists themselves would remain the same. Gatoclass (talk) 06:02, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

"If we go back to a no-tick-off system, as before, we will be back to square one" – from this and similar comments, it seems as if you think any solution that is not your proposed solution is not a solution. To the contrary, numerous editors above have said they feel "an explicitly ticked-off checklist" is not necessarily the only way to solve any problems. rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:37, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

• Support proposal, per Yngvadottir. Manxruler (talk) 19:14, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support - I just came back from the project after a WikiBreak of a few months, and was horrified to see the DYK page as a morass of tables with the "checklists". As noted, the checklists can back reviwers into a box where the checklist is the be-all and end-all; clear, concise explanations in the edit box would make a lot more sense to me. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 08:36, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support getting rid of the check-list table as it is: visual clutter, and does not help reviews. --Elekhh (talk) 07:27, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Second opinion requested

Hello all, the reviewer at Template:Did you know nominations/Extermination of Evil has requested a second opinion regarding the use of sources and paraphrasing issues. Could somebody take a look? NB: It is one of my noms. Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:55, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

• Still looking for extra eyes for paraphrasing. Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:33, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Queue 5: "}" missing

The {{DYKbotdo}} in Queue 5 is missing a right curly bracket. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 18:46, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Fixed by Howcheng Art LaPella (talk) 20:11, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

I think I missed the explanation...

Hey guys, can someone point me at the explanation on how to close one of the new subpages when moving it to prep? I wanted to help out by making up a couple of prep areas as there isn't any currently made up and only one queue standing too - however I don't know how the new things work! Thanks, Miyagawa (talk) 19:49, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

T:TDYK#How to promote an accepted hook. Instructions for most things like this are all in the table of contents at T:TDYK. rʨanaɢ (talk) 21:57, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, seems I wasn't far off doing it right - although I have no idea how I missed that seeing as it's whack bang in the middle of the page. Miyagawa (talk) 12:10, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Posible problem with nomination

Hi I nominated the 3rd Parachute Brigade (United Kingdom) on 12 September. As it is still waiting to be reviewed I accessed the noms page and using the review or comment link attempted to add an ALT1 suggestion. However the link just goes to a blank page. I cannot duplicate this with any other nomination, and there seems to be a problem with the link. This may be something I did yesterday as when checking the nomination was a red link and I had to reinstate the {{}}. To complicate matters even more if searching for the nomination page in article history (here Template:Did you know nominations/ 3rd Parachute Brigade (United Kingdom)), it does display the check lists etc, when you try to edit. Any thoughts or suggestions on how to fix this. 07:21, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

It's fixed. You had put an extra space before the beginning of the article title when creating your nomination. rʨanaɢ (talk) 13:05, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Jim Sweeney (talk) 13:40, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Q6

I appreciate that this has gone straight to queue at the 11th hour, but a couple of tweaks I would suggest:

• The picture is of one of the frescoes (or frescos? my dictionary is ambivalent), not of knight's armour.
• While each saint is shown wearing a knight's armour, they are (presumably) not sharing the wardrobe of a single knights, so suggest knights' armour?
• Although the subject of the verb to rain is usually the impersonal it, in this sentence it is ambiguous, and gives the impression that Hurricane Estelle rained even after its demise. Suggest ... that even after Hurricane Estelle dissipated, rain continued over Hawaii for three days? Kevin McE (talk) 08:23, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Tweaked, thanks. I think pictured is Ok, as it refers not to armour, but to the whole phrase "frescoes of military saints in full knights' armour"; placing it after frescoes would also break the phrase. Materialscientist (talk) 08:38, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Prep2

There is no evidence that File:Kirsopp Lake.jpg is in PD (say, taken in 1914, first published in the 1950s - there are very few, unconfirmed, possibilities it is in PD). If no other ideas, I would use the file to the right (with a minor crop) from hook No. 4. Materialscientist (talk) 10:10, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

• Go for it. Crisco 1492 (talk) 11:39, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

• Dealt with. Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:35, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Running out of hooks?

All hooks at T:TDYK up to Sep 12 have had at least one review, and I've noticed that we are essentially pulling brand new hooks that have already been approved to fill preps. Are we running out of articles? The number on the page has been getting steadily fewer, I believe. Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:18, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Not entirely surprising. Now might be an ideal time to start a trial run of adding a recently promoted GA to the mix. Resolute 16:24, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

• I'd prefer going to two sets a day as a temporary measure, as a GA mix would require further discussion. Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:30, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I'd also strongly oppose putting in Good Articles - a completely different kind of thing. Better to encourage people to propose new articles that others have written. I'll also propose one of mine now that I wasn't sure would be accepted, and let the reviewer(s) decide. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:49, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Temporarily include only 5 hooks in the DYK. --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 17:33, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Please don't use any fewer hooks. This will restrict the space on MainPage for ITN and SA/OTD, or result in left-right imbalance on MainPage. --PFHLai (talk) 00:49, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

• Of course, another way would be to drastically increase our output, but even 5 or 6 very active DYKers would still fall short. Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:52, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I meant "Please don't use any fewer hooks per update." --PFHLai (talk) 01:05, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

• That appeared clear. I don't know if you are responding to me, but mine was a third suggestion. (BTW, I think the Swahili rule should work for most things you can find that are under 10 days old ATM) Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:11, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Please let's remember that fewer shifts per day means longer exposure for good DYKs. I don't know why on earth people worry about a reduced flow: it's still way above that of any other main-page forum, even on two shifts a day. Tony (talk) 02:13, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Concur with two sets per day, which should go a long ways towards addressing problems long discussed here, and has always been a good plan IMNSHO. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:57, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Only 75 hooks and we've been running on three updates a day for weeks? I've never seen it remotely as slow as this. I guess all the argumentation and the changes over the last few months have driven many contributors away. We will have to go to two updates a day for now, in the meantime, we might consider adding a notice to the Signpost encouraging more participation. Gatoclass (talk) 02:54, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Yep, harassment of DYK contributors is taking its predictable toll. --Orlady (talk) 15:29, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

DYK has not been this slow since late 2005/early 2006. The big difference is that Wikipedia as a whole was still undergoing exponential growth back then so it was easy to find new volunteers to help with the project. With the current linear growth curve there is a much smaller pool of potential volunteers and the imposition of WP:FAC-type civility upon DYK is driving contributors away faster than they can be replaced. --Allen3 ^talk 16:36, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Watch out for snipers then! It is just about the end of summer, start of term etc. Things may pick up, & the longer exposure may tempt some back. Johnbod (talk) 03:14, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

• Does this mean we'll go to two shifts a day? Starting when? Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:48, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, two shifts a day, starting now! Gatoclass (talk) 10:17, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

• Okay, could somebody please ensure that the hook for Teguh Karya is shown tomorrow UTC (22 September). It has been in holding for that day. Currently prep 4 Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:41, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Another idea could be to turn a blind eye to the maximum character limit, the extra text filling up the space. Jim Sweeney (talk) 09:27, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

The maximum character limit is good: it's a hook, not a blurb—although as long as it's an explicit agreement to go beyond 200 characters, it could be stretched a little occasionally. What is of such benefit about a reduced flow is that hard-working nominators and reviewers have their work exposed for longer, like the other forums. 12 hours, when necessary, up from 8 hours, is still on the short side. Tony (talk) 10:19, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

• Could someone convince DYK bot that we are at 2 sets a day? It seems to still think we are at 3 per day. Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:53, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I can't remember how to do this, but I've changed User:DYKUpdateBot/Time Between Updates to a 12 hour cycle assuming that is still in use. There are other things to fix - the late template for example - but I can't recall what else. This stuff should really be documented somewhere. Gatoclass (talk) 14:57, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Shubinator rewrote Template:DYK-Refresh and Template:Did you know/Queue/LocalUpdateTimes to key off of User:DYKUpdateBot/Time Between Updates about 18 months ago. As a result there is normally no need to change anything other than the one file containing the time between updates. The one gotcha is that the code in Template:DYK-Refresh only understands 6 and 8 hour updates. Should be a simple matter of a couple more if statements to add the logic for 12 and 24 hour updates. I have other commitments today but can make the appropriate changes in a day or two if nobody beats me to the punch. --Allen3 ^talk 15:51, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Update: There is a modified version of DYK-Refresh at User:Allen3/DYK-Refresh that removes the assumption of either 6 or 8 hour updates. It appears to fix the problems with Template:DYK-Refresh, but I have not had the opportunity to fully test the changes for possible problems. --Allen3 ^talk 16:43, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Can you copy your version onto the template if you haven't already done so? I doubt it will cause any serious problems even if it doesn't work. Gatoclass (talk) 09:03, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I have performed all the test I could think of without the ability to change the clock on the servers or forcing an error in the update process. The new code appears to work as it should. As a result, the updated code has been moved into place. --Allen3 ^talk 21:28, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Revier engaging in original research

Could an independent reviewer take a look at Template:Did you know nominations/Estevan Ochoa. As best as I can determine, the current reviewer is objecting to the proposed hook based upon the assumption that the distance between the center of a circle and a point outside said circle is shorter than the radius of the circle (an impossibility within Euclidean geometry). Alternative proposals from the reviewer have been similarly problematic by either directly contradicting the article's sources or requiring events to occur in reverse chronological order. --Allen3 ^talk 17:50, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

DYK error? Stats error?

I have never seen a page view count fall when someone was included in DYK before, but look at http://stats.grok.se/en/201109/Heath_Irwin for September 19th. What kind of error am I looking at with page views falling from 462 to 81 on the 19th.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 12:38, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

That's because it didn't actually appear until the 20th, Wikipedia:Recent_additions#19_September_2011, no idea why it says 19th on the talk page. Mikenorton (talk) 13:08, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

The talk page has the date of appearing, the recent additions have the date of archiving, the stats depend on the clock and sometimes need to be calculated using both days when it was over midnight. The situation is not great, because the other date may be another year, decade ... --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:12, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, so it was the last set displayed on the 19th - yes that wasn't that clear, but I see it now. I don't know how the page views count works, but I know to wait for a couple of days before checking the numbers. Mikenorton (talk) 13:18, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Looks like some type of missing day in the raw data. In addition to traffic apparently from the 19th credited to the 18th it appears the article rewrite activity which happened on the 17th is showing up on the 16th. Simplest explanations would seen to be either the date being reported incorrectly or a day earlier in the month being skipped/lost and everything since shifting one position to fill the gap. --Allen3 ^talk 13:21, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

The Page view tool is currently posting monthly figures to the wrong day. At http://stats.grok.se/en/201109/Heath_Irwin the 462 views occurred on the 18th (not correct), whereas at http://stats.grok.se/en/latest/Heath_Irwin the 462 views occurred on the 19th (correct). —Bruce1ee^talk 13:27, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Attempts have been made to contact the tool author here about this problem. —Bruce1ee^talk 13:31, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Ah! That explains why Lokomotiv Yaroslavl plane crash got 8,000 views the day before the crash! Resolute 14:14, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Update: the monthly figures are now two days off (see the graphs linked in my post above). I don't know what's going on. —Bruce1ee^talk 05:50, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

multinoms follow-up

I know it was briefly discussed about two weeks ago or so, but I am uncertain if a consensus was ever reached regarding the number of reviews a nominator should do when they nominate multiple articles in one hook. Is it one review per hook or one per article in the hook? Im trying to figure if I should review two for the double nom I am finishing up now.--Kevmin § 17:32, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

It's one review per hook. Gatoclass (talk) 15:01, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Good to know, though to me it still seems unbalanced to only review one if the person reviewing my multi-nom hook will have to do at least two full reviews. --Kevmin § 15:34, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

• I'd still do more than one review, especially if you feel that it is unfair for the person who reviews your articles. Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:10, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
• My memory of what was being said around the time this was raised earlier and it was generally agreed that the quid pro quo requirement was one per hook, was that we encourage multiple eyes on each nomination, including having different people review the different articles in a multi unless one reviewer personally wants to do both/all? Yngvadottir (talk) 20:15, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

• I have only seen a reviewer take care of only part of a multi-nom once. Nobody touched the nomination for a week afterwards because they thought it was being reviewed. Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:30, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

• Here's a link to where this was discussed at some length when qpq was being implemented. Cbl62 (talk) 00:09, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't looking here when quid pro quo was originally hashed out. I suspect this very definite "review one hook for each hook" guidance may have been the exchange I was thinking of. Feelings on this do seem to have swung, perhaps because the people participating here have changed. I see above in the section on review templates / edit boxes people strongly preferring that a review cover all articles in a multi; but apart from the evaluation of the hook, that seems to me like multiple reviews. Yngvadottir (talk) 19:48, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Eternal Diet

Now in Prep 1, Eternal Diet is playing with words nicely. I would like to see a link which explains "Youngest Recess of ...", --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:57, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

• No article yet, and no redlinks on the MP. Recess here probably means a break, I think. I'm not big on Vatican history. Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:06, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

• No Vatican knowledge needed, the empire (Reich) just was called Holy. Now I don't understand if it's the recess of the Diet or the empire, and both articles don't tell me, nor what it means. The hook lets me assume it's the recess of the empire?? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:48, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

• Deer in headlights time. I have no clue; guess we can go macro and say European history isn't my strong point. Regarding the hook proper, I don't think it is overly "cute" Crisco 1492 (talk) 10:32, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

de.wiki has an article on it, and fr.wiki has a stub. I've never studied German and my school French is very rusty, but a recess appears to be a document released after a diet, similar to the communiquées after intergovernmental conferences today. As this document declared that the following diet was to be permanent, this would be a never-to-be-followed recess, and thus would forever be the most recent (= youngest) of its kind.

But I'd have to agree that the blurb lacks enough meaning to most readers to even qualify as a pun or a stab at irony. Kevin McE (talk) 10:40, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Read and released at the disolution. Which why there no newer. Found de:Jüngster Reichsabschied and de:Reichsabschied. Agathoclea (talk) 11:07, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Learning. If a Recess is a document, that should be said at least in the article if not also in the hook. I had no clue, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:17, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Give me a chance to get home from work and if no one else has done so, I'll throw up a translation of de:Reichsabschied. --Yngvadottir (talk) 12:38, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Propose that we postpone appearance on main page until this is addressed. Kevin McE (talk) 13:06, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I changed the hook to read "... that the Eternal Diet of the Holy Roman Empire lasted less than 150 years?" Far less obscure, but still sort of cute. --Orlady (talk) 13:21, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

see also de:Rezess Agathoclea (talk) 15:06, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Recess (Holy Roman Empire) now exists. I will be tweaking it and adding refs, and an explanation linking to it needs to be added to the article in question. But right now I must co-walk a dog. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:21, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

After several decades of being a German I now suddenly realised why when a new law comes out they call it "verabschieden" which sounds like good bye. Then again with living in the UK with its own idiosynchracies for most of my adult life I never had much reason to think about it. It actually makes sense: It is formally send on its way. Agathoclea (talk) 17:23, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Yup, German is so logical, it's sometimes scary :-) The explanatory article now exists and has refs (in English), so if desired, the hook can return to the ALT that was decided on, with this amended linkage: "... that the Eternal Diet, "a bladeless knife without a handle", followed the Youngest Recess of the Holy Roman Empire?" . . . or someone else can whip out a translation to make Youngest Recess a blue link. I must now go to bed, I am afraid.Yngvadottir (talk) 19:48, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I hope your fears were eased by a good night's sleep. Kevin McE (talk) 10:01, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

• Thank you! The weekend will see me here, singing Monteverdi and Byrd, so I can't help, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:21, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Requested image protection at Commons

FYI to admins: I have requested protection at Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/Blocks and protections#Pls protect images to be used on EN main page for the next two images (Queue 4 and Prep Area 2). They aren't protected yet, but that should happen within the next 4 hours (before Queue 4 hits the main page). I'll be asleep, so I won't be able to check... --Orlady (talk) 04:19, 24 September 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 #5 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) 19:00, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

• All taken care of. Thank you for your concern, Mr./Ms. Bot. --Orlady (talk) 20:24, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

New Harmony and Owenism

FTR, I moved the James Elliott Farm hook from prep area 2 (which was about to go to the queue) to prep area 1 because of concern about two non-new articles linked in the hook. New Harmony Historic District is the link provided for the term "New Harmony commune" and Owenism (a very short unsourced stub) was linked to explain the philosophy behind that commune. Nether article is a particularly satisfactory source of information about the topic identified in the link. I think that other articles exist that would be better items to link to, but I have not thoroughly researched the situation. For example, New Harmony, Indiana has more information about the commune than the historic district article does, and Robert Owen has far more information on the topic of Owenism. I intend to try to resolve this before the hook goes to the main page, but I won't squawk if someone else finds a solution before I get back to this... --Orlady (talk) 20:43, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

The situation is still far from perfect, but I am now satisfied that the links in the hook are OK for DYK on the main page. I linked "New Harmony commune" to New Harmony, Indiana, changed "Owenist" to "Owenite" in the hook, and made some modest improvements to the article Owenism, which the word "Owenite" links to. --Orlady (talk) 04:10, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

DYK Stats question

Now that DYK is on a 12-hour cycle, I have a question regarding that updating of DYK STATS. Should the number of page views be adjusted (normalized) to put them on an equal footing with the traditional 6/8-hour cycles? We've never bothered when switching between 6 and 8 hours, but this is a big jump to 12 hours. —Bruce1ee^talk 05:48, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it can be truly "normalised", as the conditions are never the same (weekday vs. weekend, 6 h during the day vs. 6h in the night), and what matters in the end is how many people read the article. --Elekhh (talk) 06:08, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree, these stats have never been all that meaningful anyway. rʨanaɢ (talk) 06:36, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree, thanks for wording that, Rjanag, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:38, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

archaic Greek alphabets (prep 1)

There was some IAR discussion in the proposal discussion over this hook, but I would like to flag it up for further consideration. For example, is it saying that there was an eta that looked like a beta, an epsilon that looked like a beta, an eta that looks like a modern B, an epsilon that looks like a modern B? It is not based on a claim that is explicit in the article, and it is semantically confused to say the least. Kevin McE (talk) 17:11, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

and article is not new