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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Launchballer (talk | contribs) at 14:37, 21 May 2024 (→Live into 85: +comment). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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

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

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

Moved it on pageview leaders, although I don't really understand summary statistics.--Launchballer 13:34, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@TonyTheTiger: The bot seems to have undone our edits.--Launchballer 11:44, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like User:GalliumBot is run by user:theleekycauldron, who frequents this page. Hopefully, she checks in and can offer some advice.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 18:20, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

ANI thread - "BLP issues with Andrew Tate DYK hook"

I've changed the thread title to match the current ANI thread title (that title was changed too). The original title was insulting. But if the original title was insulting enough to cause offense and be changed, then we can't really simultaneously quote it verbatim here and say it's OK.--Floquenbeam (talk) 16:35, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

FYI - Here is the permanent link.. I imagine there are a few here we may not be aware that they were discussed here. Lightburst (talk) 19:54, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the link. I'm not going to comment on the ANI myself, as there often seems to be much more heat than light there. However, I think this could have been avoided with a less-controversial hook, like I mentioned earlier. – Epicgenius (talk) 13:28, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It would have been avoided, and going for dramatic and pointed hooks extends beyond just BLP. See also the above discussion on Environmental damage in the Gaza strip. CMD (talk) 16:18, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am mad at myself for not sticking to my arguments about BLP hooks. Honestly, It felt like a losing battle. Many wanted a negative hook and so we went with the subject's own words. ALt0 in the nom was great but nobody was having it; and so was your suggestion EG. Thanks for being the great editor that you are and for your suggestion. Bruxton (talk) 22:11, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is probably going to be an unpopular opinion here, but the way the Andrew Tate discussion turned out felt like a case of DYK wanting to put politics above anything else, even Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 22:47, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. I remember AirshipJungleman29, Lightburst, Epic G and maybe a few others like you who tried to reject neg hooks. It was my fault for relenting and approving the hook - I wanted to reward the editor who brought the article through GA. I think it was hard to reject the actual words of the subject, but as EpicG has said it was not necessary to use it. Anyway it is important that we debrief so that we move forward and grow. Bruxton (talk) 23:25, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Given that this is intended to be a debriefing I wonder if it would be a good idea to ask for their thoughts and opinions here now that the hook has run. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 23:38, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to be honest here: I felt that any negative-sounding hook about Tate, regardless of personal feelings and politics, was going to be a bad idea. Even as someone who doesn't like him at all, I felt that a more neutral hook would have been a more suitable compromise (my preference was simply not running Tate at all, but that was never going to gain consensus). I felt that the discussion was more like a case of trying to right great wrongs or trying to insert politics into DYK, where personal political opinions were given precedence over our policies and guidelines. Yes, Andy may have been too grumpy and I agree that the tone of his comments were outright personal attacks, but he does have a point here: was the hook a good idea in the first place? It probably wasn't and like Bruxton I have regrets about not pushing against the hook more. However, I felt it was a losing battle since several editors wanted it and there seemed to be no way of that happening so I just stayed silent. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 00:12, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You keep saying that removing negativity is a way to be "more neutral". It can be a way to be less neutral. Neutrality means reflecting the sources accurately, not eliminating anything charged. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:27, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you, I think that the way that Narutolovehinata5 conceives of neutrality and the way that wikipedia consensus generally has are incompatible, if Narutolovehinata5 edits in the way that they think is neutral they're going to be doing things which are the opposite of what the community thinks is neutral. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:12, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think there's any BLP violation here; the hook was well-sourced. But this does point up a fundamental clash between two DYK principles, that we avoid (unnecessarily) negative hooks on BLPs, and that every eligible and nominated article should eventually be allowed to run on DYK. The latter may not be explicit anywhere but it seems to be very difficult to decline nominations where there is no DYK problem with the article (like being too short or improperly sourced). Here, the coverage of the subject is so relentlessly negative that it would have been a neutrality violation not to run a negative hook, so we eventually decided that the word "unnecessarily" allowed us to run a negative one. Maybe we should instead have decided that, if the only NPOV hooks are negative, then we shouldn't have a hook at all. But I would very much not want to see this lead to anodyne hooks on subjects whose notability is primarily negative in nature; we might want to avoid those subjects, but we should not whitewash them.
Over on the ANI discussion, some have suggested DYK bans on BLPs and on currently-available commercial products. Maybe we should consider that? —David Eppstein (talk) 00:15, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with the idea that just because a topic is controversial or negative means that any non-negative hook about them would be a neutrality violation. Take for example Russia, which was brought to GA and nominated for DYK but ultimately rejected. That was after the war had started but there were plenty of possible neutral hooks that could have been used; back then the issue people had was if it was in good taste to run a hook on Russia, even if neutral, given the war and all, and I guess we just had a similar case here. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 00:21, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If someone is mainly known for negative things we should not become the go-to way for them to rehabilitate their image by publicizing their love for puppies. At the time of that Russia nomination, all news about Russia was about their invasion of Ukraine. Despite their long history, it would very much have been a neutrality violation to portray them in any other light. It would have made us look like shills for the Russian invasion. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:24, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The idea that having a non-negative hook about something known for negative reasons would be a case of righting great wrongs, and just because we don't run a negative hook does not mean we are endorsing, condoning or supporting them. I know other stuff exists, but it would be like having a positive hook about the United States or China on DYK instead of them being rejected on neutrality grounds, even though both nations are seen in a negative light in much of the world. My point is simply that ideally we should be separating our own personal politics from that of DYK or even the encyclopedia and there was probably a better way of handling this than how it turned out. For the record, I was opposed to Russia running back then, but in hindsight I wonder if it is unfair to deny a country with a long history of being featured on DYK just because of recent events (and thus recency bias), even as someone who supports Ukraine in the war. It isn't rehabilitation: you can describe neutral facts about something while still acknowledging their negative aspects, just as how you can say negative things about things largely seen in a positive light. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 00:35, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If we run a non-negative hook on a subject for which the bulk of coverage is negative, then we are in fact going to be seen as endorsing, condoning or supporting the subject. It will be non-neutral promotion and it will be seen that way. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:43, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
+1. Just reject the nomination if anything positive would be UNDUE. Valereee (talk) 01:44, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As for the bans, I would strongly oppose that. DYK in part is meant to reward contributors or at least incentivize them for improving articles, and not allowing them just because the subject is a BLP or a currently-available product would be deeply unfair, not to mention essentially disqualifying much of Wikipedia. Our normal guidelines and activities already seem to work relatively fine, and cases like this are rare enough that they're more of the exception rather than the rule, but in most cases any issues would already be easily dealt with. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 00:23, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It may be meant to reward neutral-minded Wikipedia contributors, but what it has turned into for BLPs and products is a way for publicists to push Wikipedia into being an advertising site for their clients. That's a much worse problem than a reduction in the possible scope for rewarding contributors would be. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:27, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Cases of DYK being used to promote products are so rare that I can only remember one recent case of it happening, and even then it wasn't even a paid promotion. The closest would be fans writing about things they are fans of, but that isn't really the same. Of course a fan of, for example The Simpsons, would be the one most likely to write an article about something Simpsons related, or how a Taylor Swift fan is more likely than a non-fan to write articles about her songs and albums. If it was actually proven that a DYK was nominated to commercially promote a product, that would be dealt with through the usual means. I just don't see it as a regular enough occurrence to warrant such a drastic measure when other measures can already take care of them. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 00:38, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the ALTs about commercial products are promotional in nature because that's what RS are talking about and there's nothing else interesting about the subject. Things like "...that as of its release in May of 2024 the RXK7 was the smallest widget ever made?" We don't like to discourage editors who are interested in cell phones or video games or whatever, so we try to work with them. Maybe we should stop. It's not like being unable to go to DYK is going to prevent someone from creating iPhone 87. Someone will still create it.
In the case of Tate, my feeling was that the ALTs being suggested were either mealymouthed or were no less negative that the one we ran with. He ran a Hustler's University -- which was a pyramid scheme -- is either disingenuous (if we don't say what it was) or negative (if we do). I think we just need to stop running hooks about living people. It's too fraught. Valereee (talk) 01:21, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It should probably be a case-to-case basis because many if not most BLPs that are nominated for DYK are uncontroversial. Tate was really just a special case. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 01:24, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So how do we decide? Do we really run "...that Andrew Tate is a surfer?" when literally 98% of RS are covering negative things? I don't want to unduly include negative shit, but when that's almost literally all that's out there, do we really want to have to cherrypick something neutral? And honestly does Taylor Swift ever need to be mentioned again on DYK? Valereee (talk) 01:31, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Can't we just remove the "unduly" from WP:DYKBLP? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 01:35, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what you're proposing, @AirshipJungleman29? That we shouldn't worry about something being unduly negative? Or that we should never run anything negative? I would actually object to either. Maybe you're saying if we can't say something nice, we should reject the nom? Valereee (talk) 01:39, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The latter, yes. I don't think blanket-banning all BLPs is a good idea—for one thing, they're around a quarter of the hooks. Saying "if saying something positive about [person/product/controversial current event] could reasonably be described as POV, just forget about it and move on" is good with me. No DYK hook is worth tens of thousands of bytes of discussion. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 01:46, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Bios are a quarter of hooks, I don't think living people are? But I get your point. Agreed that the discussion over Tate here and elsewhere is not worth our time. I'm not actually sure the nominator would disagree. Valereee (talk) 01:54, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Tangent: just did a count of hooks from this month's sets, and came up with 20% for BLPs. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 02:01, 14 May 2024 (UTC) [reply]
Another reason to just get rid of them. 02:04, 14 May 2024 (UTC) Valereee (talk) 02:04, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Seems a bit drastic to me. Most are perfectly fine. I also suspect (with no evidence other than my experience in promoting) that BLP hooks are less WP:BIASed than the average bio hook. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 02:19, 14 May 2024 (UTC) [reply]
Yes. Seems drastic to shoot them just to get around WP:BLP. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:25, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I broadly agree. I think one of the main problems with this nomination, and many like it, is the sunk cost fallacy attitude that if a nominated article receives massive amounts of attention and discussion, it has to get onto the main page (as Bruxton admirably admits above, they "wanted to reward the editor who brought the article through GA"), otherwise it is a waste of time and a betrayal of the DYK process. In practice, all this usually leads to is everyone getting worn down and a controversial/substandard hook getting allowed onto the main page. We don't have to do that to ourselves—we can, if we really want, but we don't have to. I think a line to that effect at WP:DYKCRIT wouldn't go amiss. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:35, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. We err too much on the side of "Someone worked hard on this, we should find something we can use." Valereee (talk) 01:32, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We had other choices. If you revisit that thread of our discussion many of the editors seemed to hate the person so much that they were unwilling to consider any hook that did not take him down. As Epic Genius says in the thread, you had a choice. So it is not a BLP thing if we follow our own rules. Lightburst (talk) 02:26, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I was talking more about the DYK culture than about this specific hook or about BLP, Lightburst. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 02:31, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Other choices like Uday was relatively neat and Qusay seldom raped the disabled? It's a choice, but it's a bad choice. If we're considering saying something positive about someone whose coverage in RS is 95% about bad things they've done, we're whitewashing. If our choices are
  1. Say something extremely well-sourced that is negative and not undue, and end up with someone losing their shit over it
  2. Say something trivial and unduly positive and end up whitewashing
  3. Reject the nomination
I think #3 is the best of bad choices. Valereee (talk) 11:59, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But #1 is better than #2 per WP:NPOV. —Kusma (talk) 12:23, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And I agree, which is why I supported it. In retrospect I think Black Kite was correct; 1 may be better than 2, but 3 is better than 1. Valereee (talk) 12:28, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Then we block the person losing their shit and move on, how is that even a question? We don't let editors who can't edit civility get a heckler's veto, we block them for disruption which losing their shit over DYK would by definition be. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:17, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It appears to be a question at that ANI, though. Valereee (talk) 14:34, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is it? At that ANI they seem to have done a good job of separating someone losing their shit (hence a discussion about a 24 hour block for the disruptive editor) and the underlying issue. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:48, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Still catching up here, re: "wanted to reward the editor who brought the article through GA". The irony being is I said I already didn't care about the DYK anymore, given the controversy, prior to the DYK being approved. So while this statement is probably accurate most of the time, in this case, it was because an alternative hook was provided that it was then approved. I specifically chose not to include that hook, to avoid all these inevitable issues (that enough users warned about over use of negative hooks). So it might be worth being more mindful of the nominees opinion, and then this could have all been avoided. The article is already an WP:1M, so no offence, but getting on DYK doesn't make any difference here. CommunityNotesContributor (talk) 00:53, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"currently available commercial products" is a massive area: books, movies, music would be reduced to things that are out of print. Various sports events are also highly commercial. If we ban these for advertising, I hope we also ban all hooks relating to religion (proselytising), beaches and other extant geographic features (good for the travel industry), museums, trains and TV stations.
It is natural for DYK hooks to bring attention to their subject. It is always possible that this attention results in additional sales. The only way to make sure it never happens on the Main Page is to remove all content from the Main Page. —Kusma (talk) 12:42, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And I agree, it's too massive, and unfortunately I'm not Czar. I do think we should tighten up on the brand-new whizbang that there really isn't anything interesting to build a hook around. I've always been a little torn -- it feels unfair to editors whose main editing interest is each new iteration of the iPhone or whatever -- but we've got nominated right now ... that RuPaul's Drag Race Live! replaced the eleven-year run of Donny and Marie Osmond's concert residency at the Flamingo Las Vegas? To me that seems pretty ho-hum. Show ends at venue, another show begins in that venue. Valereee (talk) 13:01, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That is a boring hook, and I think we should avoid this type of hooks independent of whether this replacement happened yesterday or 100 years ago. The problems is that our mechanisms for rejecting hooks are terrible and cause lots of drama, so I am trying to find new (or old) ways for us to get rid of bad hooks and other problematic nominations without the drama of explicit rejections, for example by allowing them to time out. —Kusma (talk) 13:08, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How does that work? You're right that we don't have a mechanism...things just sort of automatically get moved through the process, and it's often at the prep>queue stage that some admin brings a hook here. Often multiple hooks in a single prep set. By which time so many people have been involved with the nom that there's a sunk cost. Valereee (talk) 13:18, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Any nomination that hasn't been accepted by a reviewer after three weeks or promoted to a prep set after six weeks is automatically closed as rejected" would both kill the backlog and give us a means to pocket veto any nomination. It is like DYK was in 2006, just with a lot more time before noms are rejected. —Kusma (talk) 13:24, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But how do we encourage reviewers to not review and promoters not to promote? Reviewers just want to get their QPQ, and promoters want to get the sets filled. That's why stuff ends up here at the prep>queue phase, when some admin questions multiple hooks that got that far. We create a list every week or so asking people to review hooks that have been languishing. Valereee (talk) 13:42, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I can’t say I am surprised. I knew something like this would happen which is why I was so adamant against running a negative hook initially (and I never really felt good about it even after being worn down to change my position). I would have been ok with a neutral non-negative/non-positive hook, but clearly that would not get support. We probably should not have run a hook at all on Tate.
I would support a burn clause where we simply say we won’t run a negative hook on any BLP if it’s contested at nomination. Meaning that if there are any objections to a negative hook raised in review it doesn’t run by default. Likewise, if people insist we must run a negative hook when others oppose it’s an automatic reject of the hook nom and we simply won’t run any hook. Best to err on the side of caution and only run negative hooks on BLPs when there is unanimous support. We don’t often have contentious BLPs so I don’t think this clause would impact the vast majority of BLPs at DYK.4meter4 (talk) 05:13, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That is only half the problem. If we insist on not running negative hooks, but insist on running hooks on those subjects anyway, we will force ourselves to violate neutrality. We need a way to tell nominators that their article is not suitable for DYK despite being nominally eligible, and we need to enforce this rather than softheartedly giving in every time to boring or negative hooks because we can't find a way around them but we can't get ourselves to refuse a nomination. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:38, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I like AirshipJungleman29's suggestion of adding something like if saying something positive about [person/product/controversial current event] could reasonably be described as POV, just forget about it and move on to WP:DYKCRIT. I think it's understandable that, once an editor has put in the work to improve an article, reviewers want to find a compliant hook that showcases it. Clarifying in advance that some of these articles aren't suitable for DYK means submitters don't get an unpleasant surprise and reviewers don't have that impossible responsibility on them. hinnk (talk) 06:13, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think softheartedly giving in every time to boring or negative hooks because we can't find a way around them but we can't get ourselves to refuse a nomination is close to one of our central problems. We do not want to explicitly refuse to run a hook or an article, because people have it in their head that any article satisfying a bunch of more or less arcane rules has a right to appear on the Main Page. My suggestion is to go back to the roots: just remove all nominations that have not been promoted after a certain time, as we did back in 2006. That way, QPQers and prep builders can collectively reject any nomination for any reason without fighting huge arguments about what is and is not boring. —Kusma (talk) 07:53, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This. It was suggested before and remains even more relevant now. CommunityNotesContributor (talk) 01:09, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
DYK has many issues (sensationalism, boredom from dominance by regulars and their topic areas, sloppy reviewing, understaffing) but I think avoiding controversial topics would make DYK worse without solving anything.
Any hook about Tate would have attracted controversy; we should not let fear of controversy censor our range of topics. I am actually surprised this one was attacked for being "negative about a BLP" instead of for allowing Tate to "advertise" his misogyny on the Main Page. —Kusma (talk) 06:25, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Controversy is worth considering for reasons other than fear, but I do agree that we should probably not be making a sweeping rule change based on the Andrew Tate article hook, that is prime hard cases make bad law. CMD (talk) 06:59, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. @hinnk. AirshipJungleman29, Valereee I would oppose any rule change making it harder to add a positive hook. We shouldn't enshrine the idea that saying something positive is automatically or even potentially a POV violation into DYK policy. That will cause lots of drama in normal reviews, and it could have an unintended consequence of increasing not decreasing negative hooks when it comes to BLPs. Any policy we make needs to focus on negative BLP hooks specifically, and not become an unnecessary barrier to featuring positive hooks on people.
@Narutolovehinata5 I notice your examples did not actually involve BLPs, so they aren't good examples. Making analogies to non-persons like countries isn't useful as these rules are specifically limited to living people. I also note that in my proposal I didn't outright ban negative hooks, it only made it much harder for them to go through in the narrow context of BLPs. @David Eppstein and Kusma As for "boring" hooks, that isn't the issue at hand. Don't make this conversation about something that isn't relevant to BLP policy as it applies to DYK. We aren't getting in trouble outside DYK for being boring. In comparison to the volume of hooks we receive, there are a minuscule amount of negative BLP hooks being proposed, so this issue has almost zero impact on the percentage of interesting hooks we run. Don't create a red herring.
I am saddened that editors are unwilling to do anything meaningful about the problem at hand. It looks like we will do nothing based on consensus at the moment. That in my opinion is a mistake, because frankly we aren't currently compliant with BLP policy as a project, and we are likely to end up being chastised again and may end up being the subject of an RFC or other type of review that could result in punitive consequences against the project in which we will be forced to change our rules, and not necessarily in a way that we will like. We could even see our project disappear from the main page, or be given a blanket BLP topic ban (both would be awful). It's better to do the right thing now, then to do nothing and put the project's longterm health/survival in jeopardy. This issue isn't just going to go away, and this conversation here won't make the project look good when it does come up again outside of DYK. It will only show we knew there was problem and enabled it to continue.4meter4 (talk) 11:00, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On the contrary 4meter4, before your comment it looked like consensus was near-unanimous. Also, please note the details of WP:PINGFIX. Finally, I don't see any connection in the paragraph directed at me to what I actually said, so I won't reply to it. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:09, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
AirshipJungleman29 I was specifically referencing your comment "if saying something positive about [person/product/controversial current event] could reasonably be described as POV, just forget about it and move on" is good with me." I think that language is problematic for the reasons I articulated above. Best.4meter4 (talk) 12:17, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
4meter4, in that case, I have two points. First, please try to use the correct language so there is no confusion—"policy" should only refer to those pages defined as such, and not to a page that is essentially a WikiProject essay. Following on from this, "the idea that saying something positive is potentially a POV violation" is already enshrined in Wikipedia policy (the actual one, not the WikiProject essay). The idea that we at DYK can somehow overrule this basic standard of Wikipedia is far more likely, in my opinion, to end up in "punitive consequences against the project". ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:26, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with both your comments. Where I have a problem is that I think editors are likely to take the earlier quoted text as a guide that all positive hooks are inherently bad and biased, which is not what I think you were intending to communicate. Many positive hooks are balanced and neutral when examined in light of the sources and the subject. The issue with DYK is we can only feature so much in 200 characters, so providing balance as described in the policy you linked is more often than not impossible on contentious topics. We can’t say pick a positive assessment to feature and balance it with a negative assessment in two hundred characters. We can only feature one side in a hook if there is more than one side by virtue of space.4meter4 (talk) 15:42, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"We can’t say pick a positive assessment to feature and balance it with a negative assessment in two hundred characters" that is WP:FALSEBALANCE not what our policy is. Balance for us basically just means following the sources including in proportionality, that sometimes means that 100% negative is entirely balanced and the same with 100% positive. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:50, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A positive hook in the case of Tate would have been undue. ...that a kickboxer ran a Hustler's University? to me feels like both an easter egg and whitewashing a pyramid scheme. Literally there are people who would be nauseated to click on the innocent-sounding 'kickboxer' and end up at Andrew Tate.
I'm not unwilling to do anything. The next time such a situation arises -- and maybe it won't -- I'll be arguing to reject the nomination for being something we can't in good conscience create a positive hook for. Valereee (talk) 12:09, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Valereee I was referring to tightening written policy as a project, not individual choices. We need to make other editors go the same direction through updated policy language.4meter4 (talk) 12:20, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Start an RfC. I would support some neutrally-worded version of what you said below: If people think saying something nice or neutral isn't cool we just don't run it at all and reject it. Valereee (talk) 12:37, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Respectfully, I would disagree about the Easter egg part. People propose this kind of hook at DYK all the time, and I'd argue that the Easter-egginess of the hook would do more to attract readers than saying "that Andrew Tate is a kickboxer who ran a hustler's university".
As for whitewashing, if the only other alternative is an unduly negative hook, I say such a DYK should probably be scrapped altogether. We really should not let this reach a situation where either of the alternatives (a negative hook or one that gives the appearance of whitewashing) will agitate readers. Epicgenius (talk) 14:09, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This ^ Lightburst (talk) 14:24, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Easter eggs aren't the issue. It's the fact that this particular easter egg may take the reader somewhere they'd be nauseated by. I agree, we should have just scrapped the nom. Valereee (talk) 14:25, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@4meter4, in discussions about possible Andrew Tate hooks, I strongly opposed anything that would mention the crimes he is accused of, but has not been convicted of. I have also pulled hooks over BLP concerns. I am not convinced we have a general BLP problem (as opposed to a general "reviews are too superficial" problem) and the AndyTheGrump issue has not made me change my mind so far. What do you think the problem is? —Kusma (talk) 12:13, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Kusma I think we are too permissive of negative BLP hooks. The short length of a hook makes it impossible to present negative facts in context, which is required by WP:BLP policy. Given our limits on space, I think an outright universal ban on negative hooks should be implemented on all BLP nominations. That's what I would say if this went to an RFC. I proposed a more middle of the road approach above because I recognize not everyone would agree with this view.4meter4 (talk) 12:27, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'd support 'no negative BLP hooks'. I wouldn't support 'find something nice to say about all BLPs'. Valereee (talk) 12:29, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
+1 ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:31, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Valereee That is where I am too. Tate should have not run for exactly the reason you just said. If people think saying something nice or neutral isn't cool we just don't run it at all and reject it.4meter4 (talk) 12:34, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am opposed to that as it has wide reaching implications. For example, it means Radovan Karadžić can not be featured on DYK until he dies, unless the hook omits the fact that he is a major war criminal. Stuff about BLPs that would be OK to run at ITN (say, a major war criminal is convicted at The Hague) should be OK to run at DYK. —Kusma (talk) 12:51, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's a fair point. It's unfortunate for us that ITN seems to have fewer haters. :D Valereee (talk) 13:09, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. The hook is essentially one sentence from the article. It is not necessarily the most important aspect of a BLP's life. There is more to Radovan Karadžić's life than his war criminal activity so there is plenty of hook fodder without dealing with the negative aspects. Nor is a neutral or positive hook about a "bad" person "whitewashing". The article would contain all the reliably sourced bad stuff and the hook isn't meant to be a summary of the article. Rlendog (talk) 15:53, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On wikipedia neutral is not in between positive and negative, it is separate from them. Both a positive and a negative hook must be neutral. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:55, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The difference is that DYK trivializes the subject go a greater extent than ITN. Sure, putting a war criminal being convicted next to the World Darts Championship is less than ideal, but it's a lot less diaparate in subject and tone than putting a hook about the aformentioned war criminal next to before becoming a voice actor, Kikunosuke Toya was the keyboardist of an all-male Princess Princess cover band in high school? Sincerely, Dilettante 15:36, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@4meter4: Do you have any recent examples where we have featured BLP content on DYK that could have harmed the person? (I do not think the Tate example falls in this category). Without more examples of the problem you are trying to solve, I think making additional rules is ill advised. —Kusma (talk) 12:59, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Kusma, here's a nom from yesterday:
It's a twofer: commercial product + BLP Valereee (talk) 13:03, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, that is not an example. It is a nomination from yesterday, not something we have featured on the Main Page. If this gets a decent review, the obvious BLP vio should be called out by the reviewer. (Seriously? rumors about people having cosmetic surgery?? the whole Drake–Kendrick Lamar feud sounds super lame, but has more than a million page views in the past four weeks, so obviously I am out of touch). —Kusma (talk) 13:15, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would say nominations count as we are specifically looking at our procedures for reviewing hooks. I think we should compile a list of negative BLP hooks that have run and have been proposed. We should also look for hooks that have cropped up on the DYK talk page and have been contentious. We should probably create a thread on preparing for an RFC and the first step should be evidence gathering. It may be that the community decides that what we are doing is mostly working, and that nothing need change. Or it may be, that an issue will be clearly identified after we gather evidence. Either way, it would be helpful to have community input to guide what we do going forward, if only to affirm what we are doing is correct. After we gather evidence, we could take some language proposals for updating DYK procedures/guidelines. That way when the RFC begins we can have some well articulated issues and proposals.4meter4 (talk) 13:31, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that work needs to be done before any BLP rule change is proposed. (And perhaps we do not need to change our BLP rules, but just enforce them, i.e. find ways to increase review quality). —Kusma (talk) 13:42, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
When the colonists in America took up arms against the British in America they called it a war for independence. The British called it a rebellion. George Washington was a traitor and a terrorist to the British but America named streets after him. It is about perspective and many editors have none when it comes to a person with a different view than their own. Even the person who you call evil, is admired elsewhere. So in the Tate hook experience we had editors making suggestions against policy based on their political leanings or their inner moral compass. If we look at misogyny it offends the sensibilities of many editors here, yet many major religions and societies practice it. You cannot do what the media in America is doing daily: represent editorial views as fact. Saying a hook that is neutral is undue is the height of silliness and is not based on policy. We can see this same silliness playing out every day, especially here on Wikipedia where we punish or promote based on the politics of whatever editors are active when an issue arrises. We can do better without rejecting nominations. Lightburst (talk) 14:03, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So Wikipedia needs no "inner moral compass"? Convicted murders, rapists or paedophiles should all be treated the same as anyone else, as they may be "admired elsewhere", yes? Martinevans123 (talk) 14:09, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Your comment is exactly my point. Hyperbole personified. Lightburst (talk) 14:18, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Was your answer yes or no? Thanks. I wouldn't want to be accused of "white-Washington". Martinevans123 (talk) 14:20, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I see only two editors in this discussion who have made political arguments, you and Narutolovehinata5. Your argument in particular appears to be 95% politics and only 5% policy and guideline, its an incredibly weak argument on just its wiki grounds... Its only compelling if you attach a lot of fringe political baggage to it. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:27, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am sorry you feel that way. It is difficult for some to consider different views. For instance right now there is an image of a man in a dress on the main page. Do you think some readers may find that offensive? We force our views all the time. We promote and now we want to reject if it does not fit the narrative - whatever it is. Lightburst (talk) 14:36, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In the Tate discussion many editors would not allow any neutral hook. I sympathize with 4meter4 and Airship29 who mentioned how editors can get worn down. Bruxton (talk) 14:46, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We ran a hook that literally quoted him about himself. How is that not a neutral hook? Valereee (talk) 14:55, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I accepted it, Like many, I found it hard to reject the person's own words. I preferred the EG hook. I am glad that we are discussing. I now see Any The Grump at ANI saying we may have missed a retraction? Bruxton (talk) 15:10, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Bruxton, just checking to see if maybe you have a diff or a search term that'll help me find that more easily? I've been reading there, so maybe I just missed it? Valereee (talk) 16:29, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Valereee, see here. TSventon (talk) 16:38, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, TSventon...so in 2021 he said he was "absolutely a misogynist" and in 2022 he complained that people were digging up "old" dirt. Pretty unconvincing, but okay. A retraction's a retraction, I guess? He's no longer calling himself a misogynist. The guy was like 34 when he said he was and 35 when he called it old news. He was raised Christian, became an atheist, in early 2022 identified as Christian again and by the end of the same year had converted to Islam. The guy is, um...not maturing very fast. Sort of confirms that we just should have not accepted the nomination. :D Valereee (talk) 16:52, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's ITN. Different animal, for me. I think you're making an incorrect assumption that there's something inherently political about not wanting to find something nice to say about someone who calls himself a misogynist and says he moved to Romania because he wanted to live in a country "where corruption is accessible for everybody" and where people don't get charged with rape as often. If you're trying to say conservatives would admire that, I think you're not being fair to conservatives. Valereee (talk) 14:50, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah lets be clear, the vast majority of conservatives either despise or have never heard of Tate. He is not a mainstream conservative figure and e-pimping etc is incompatible with conservative values as held by most. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:56, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
While that’s very kind and polite of you to say, please add me to the list of dissenters and so-called miscreants who believe "conservative values" are entirely compatible and consistent with what Andrew Tate supports and promotes. In fact, Tate is widely considered to be a product of the alt-right echo chamber, whose set of values are mostly indistinguishable from Trumpism and the current version of the GOP. Furthermore, conservative values in the US today are highly aligned with pre-enlightenment values that oppose democracy, feminism, and progressivism, and support theocracy, patriarchy, and a return to aristocracy. I realize people may disagree with me, but I wanted to make sure my position is known. Viriditas (talk) 18:42, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
IMO thats why the distinction alt-right exists at all, if it was just mainstream conservatism we wouldn't need a different name for it. There is also something to be said for hypocrisy, just because someone holds certain values doesn't necessarily mean they live by them. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:52, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I mean, pollsters and the NYT agree with you.[1] And what you said about hypocrisy is very important. But I think in terms of specific values themselves, the numbers are far different. What initially began as a "radical, obstructionist faction" has become mainstream. The NYT and other media outlets aren't quite there yet. Viriditas (talk) 19:10, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure how that picture forces a view on anyone, can you explain? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:52, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, we've got a picture of Nemo because they won Eurovision, not because anyone wants to "force our views" on dress-wearing? DYK isn't exactly Eurovision. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:53, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Valereee: there is really no discussion possible on these issues. You said If you're trying to say conservatives would admire that. I pointed out in that thread about Tate that we put a former kidnapper on the main page but only highlighted the thing we wanted people to know. People are in an echo chamber much of the time here. We did not have to be positive about Tate, we just had to not be negative. You have stated over and over that was not possible. Lightburst (talk) 15:03, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, Lightburst, long discussion, I'm not following...what have I said over and over wasn't possible?
And is the hook about Baker any less negative than the one we ran about Tate? To be clear, I don't think that was a particularly interesting hook, but it's certainly not positive. It says she was imprisoned for thirty years. The fact she was transgender was purely context (and is the part I kind of find boring...so what?) And I certainly don't admire her or want to treat her kindly simply because she's transgender. She's clearly a horrible person in many ways. Valereee (talk) 15:51, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, that's not the case, as I said at ANI. Yes, the best thing would have been not to run the hook at all, but given that we did, if we bent over backwards to find a not-negative one, given that the vast majority of reliable sources about Tate are negative (for quite obvious reasons), then we're not serving the readers anyway because we're misrepresenting the article. Black Kite (talk) 22:53, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not running Tate at all was actually my preferred option and was suggested by some editors, but it was never going to reach consensus due to DYK's general reluctance to reject nominations especially if they're salvageable. Plus it would seem unfair to the nominator to not allow it to run despite their hard work, going back to the "sunk cost" mention above. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 23:03, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Do we have a WP:DYK/null rule? If not, maybe should have one? "If all reviewing editors cannot agree to run a hook on a controversial topic, and at least one editor recommends invoking the null rule, then without 100% agreement, the hook(s) should be discarded and the nomination should be closed as not promoted." Viriditas (talk) 23:30, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That is not a good option and seems unworkable. We have editors that would kill topics. If you have been on here any length of time you will see that we are not at 100% for anything. Lightburst (talk) 23:33, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I did stipulate controversial, and if you look at the nominations, 90% appear non-controversial. Of the controversial noms, 90% of those appear to have full agreement on the hooks that are chosen. Tate was highly controversial and did not have anything approaching consensus or agreement. A null rule would give people the ability to default to discard instead of what we have now, which is defaulting to approval (for the reasons mentioned elsewhere in this discussion). Another proposed solution is to think about implementing a temporal embargo, as there is an inverse relationship between controversy and the length of time a hook claim has been in circulation; although there are exceptions to such a thing, as the Reagan and AIDS discussion showed. Viriditas (talk) 23:43, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I could see needing X% support in cases of controversial nominations. Valereee (talk) 23:59, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Context is important here, I didn't propose the hook that ran. I had also long given up on the nomination and discussion, believing it was better avoided, long before the hook was approved. CommunityNotesContributor (talk) 01:15, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For instance right now there is an image of a man in a dress on the main page. Do you think some readers may find that offensive? We force our views all the time.
History is a great subject that more people should study. One of the first things you learn about the history of fashion is that men have been wearing dresses, skirts, and tights since the beginning of civilization. Viriditas (talk) 15:29, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I can't find a photo of a "man in a dress" anywhere. I see a non-binary person in a dress whose article makes no mention of them currently being a man, only that they won awards nearly a decade ago under the category "male". Or are you misgendering them? Funny, for some reason I was under the impression you had less social capital than other users and would be blocked for insulting or otherwise being rude to people, which misgendering certainly is (even if they're not a Wikipedian). Sincerely, Dilettante 16:30, 15 May 2024 (UTC) Retracting. I'm sorry for the rude tone and it won't happen again[reply]
@Dilettante, this reads as angry and sarcastic. I'm sure you didn't mean it that way, but could you please try to edit yourself? This is a collaborative project. Valereee (talk) 16:33, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Easy. ... that the celebrity doctor Nandipha Magudumana was imprisoned and investigated for twelve crimes, including murder connected to a fugitive's prison escape? Sincerely, Dilettante 15:40, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That one is a bad hook that should not have been posted (thank you for reporting it at ERRORS). It is already clearly prohibited by the current rules, so it is not a good example for changing the rules, it just shows that our review processes are too sloppy. At least four people failed to notice that this is an obvious BLPCRIME/DYKBLP violation. —Kusma (talk) 15:59, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
+1. I'm a little concerned this is even in the article, with Wikivoice saying "Nandipha Magudumana aided Thabo Bester to escape from the Mangaung Prison"...she hasn't been convicted? And also in Wikivoice that she "abandoned her family"? Ping to Dxneo. Valereee (talk) 16:06, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Dxneo, you wrote (at a user talk) I thought the DYK error on Dr Nandipha was addressed the very same day it was removed from the main page. Why is it referenced here again?; taking to that article talk. Valereee (talk) 18:08, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On the contrary, I expect there are quite a few people who would argue this passes DYKBLP. The recent RS coverage of Dr. Magudamana is largely negative. At least for some, this means we should only run a negative hook (lest we violate the ever-unerring, ever-applicable policy known as NPOV; perish the thought of IAR), or at least that's what they said about Tate. The fact is that DYKBLP allows for far too many interpretations—some (including mine) would clearly prevent both the Tate hook and this one; some would allow both to be posted.
The BLPCRIME issue is outside the scope of this discussion, but from what I can tell, Dr. Magudamana was a public figure in South Africa prior to the criminal charges. Sincerely, Dilettante 16:13, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You're misinterpreting. And for the second time I'm seeing what seems to be sarcasm. Maybe we should take this to your user talk. Valereee (talk) 16:34, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've opened a section there. Valereee (talk) 16:38, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Replying there. Sincerely, Dilettante 17:46, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am a strong believer in "innocent until proved guilty", and I do not think we should ever run any hook about living people accused of crimes, and have made it very clear that such a hook would be unacceptable for Andrew Tate. The BLPCRIME policy basically tells us to include content accusing people of crimes only when it is unavoidable, and so it can't ever happen in DYK hooks. This is not even a matter of DYKBLP. —Kusma (talk) 17:00, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate your work here Evrik. I want to say we did do something wrong or there would not be such consternation across the project. It is not pandering for me to say that I appreciate the editors here. I have become a better editor from my experiences in DYK and I have also been able to evaluate GAs and new articles at NPP. I think the editors here are quality and while I have had disagreements with a few I respect them. 4meter4 for instance, was right about this situation. We should be less binary in our good vs evil opinions. I am guilty of talking at people instead of to them and of this kind of rhetorical flourish. I think we make conscious choices to promote items that fit our world view and some suggestions above are to reject those that do not. I think that It was good for us to discuss the Tate nomination. I want to note that Leeky has been absent from the conversation. Leeky is a DYK regular who we often look to for guidance, yet they were the most vociferous in arguing for a negative hook here. Thanks for the discussion Valereee I feel heard and I want to say I heard you. Lightburst (talk) 17:01, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Lightburst, that's very kind, and I'm very glad you feel heard. I hope there's no question that you know I respect your input and also your point of view. Valereee (talk) 17:04, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I also oppose any form of rule or procedure change. This was a one-off rare incident and the fact that it's so rare is a good thing. It being so rare also means it's not indicative of anything other than an odd outlier that resulted in a lot of (probably unnecessary) discussion. We can and should continue to deal with any such issues on a case by case basis. None of the methods used at DYK need to be altered. SilverserenC 16:59, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I think when we get expressions of concern from other community members, it's worth considering their point of view. We actively don't want to be or to be perceived as a walled garden. Valereee (talk) 17:06, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • To my mind the issue here is not BLP. I just can't wrap my mind around how it could be that. I do, however think that sometimes, out of a desire to get as many pageviews as possible and/or an effort to be funny, DYK reviewers loose their way. I have submitted a number of DYKs myself and I get it, you want people to see your hard work, and a good hook makes that more likely, but this was entirely avoidable. Just because an article meets the basic criteria for DYK doesn't mean it has to be on the main page. This was brought up right at the begining of the initial review of the submission but apparently wasn't strongly considered. Just Step Sideways from this world ..... today 22:08, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    By the way I've closed the ANI thread as it was not going anywhere productive.
    And just to expand on my point, the main page is not a tabloid, bot sometimes the DYK hooks feel like they are slipping into clickbait territory. Case in point from yesterday:"that singer Frank Croxton performed a duet with his father for the unveiling of a monument to a Confederate States Army general?" Technically true, but somewhat deceptive as it was basically a burial marker, in a cemetery, at the gravesite of the general in his hometown, in 1895, but the way it is worded implies the imagery of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy and their pushing of Confederate monuments in public places. Just Step Sideways from this world ..... today 22:14, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Some of us also follow WO and I can see this critical tidbit is from where they skewer DYK daily. The fact that you are still in there jostling around with the anti-wiki folks and then closing discussion about one of their favorite members is a travesty. Lightburst (talk) 23:39, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Everyone at ANI is ipso facto jostling around with pro-wiki folks, and I think it's fair to say ATG was one of our most controversial members yesterday. Is it a travesty that an enwikipedian closed the thread? Should only people with no involvement with both enwiki and Wikipediocracy close threads? Sincerely, Dilettante 15:45, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    One person's interesting hook is another's click-bait. --evrik (talk) 22:20, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    My point is that I don't think the purpose of DYK is for those composing the hooks to show everyone how very clever they are, nor is it to titilate. It shoudn't be, anyway. Just Step Sideways from this world ..... today 22:46, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I think it was a mistake to shut down everything, @Just Step Sideways. No discussion here can result in any sanction for ATG. Valereee (talk) 22:31, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Here's just minutes ago AndyTheGrump accusing DYK of intentionally "making it harder for outsiders to participate", Just Step Sideways. Valereee (talk) 22:39, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    That no admin had issued a 24-hour block after 48 hours of discussion indicated to me that a block was not going to be forthcoming. I've not personally taken a position on whether one was warranted or not, but issuing it days after the offending remark just seemed very unlikely. And the issue under discussion was personal attacks, the link you provide doesn't seem to be directed at a specific person and is not otherwise uncivil. Just Step Sideways from this world ..... today 22:42, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    That is not a reason to shut down the entire discussion. Valereee (talk) 22:46, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Obviously I don't agree, but also this is not the subject of this discussion. Just Step Sideways from this world ..... today 22:47, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Just Step Sideways: Geez it was open less than two days. Why on earth are you closing? when I was being discussed at ANI it was open for two weeks. There was a support viote just hours ago. I feel like this was not appropriate. I also want to say that you are quite involved with ATG at WO so you are 100% the wrong person to close that discussion. Suggest you back out your close. Lightburst (talk) 23:00, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Guess I should've blocked him right off the bat like I almost did, instead of allowing for discussion. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:47, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Honestly, that probably would've been better. I can't really recall another time I've seen a discusion of issuing a 24-hour block go on for two days with no admin willing to issue the block. Just Step Sideways from this world ..... today 22:49, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not sure I'd necessarily disagree myself, with hindsight. I'd probably still consider the block improper, but it might have encouraged me to try to get a little more sleep. For the record though, I'd draw people's attention to ScottishFinnishRadish's warning on my talk page. [2] Even if anyone else is under the impression that I'm somehow getting away with my unwise comments without potential consequence, I'm most definitely not. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:59, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    And yet just minutes ago you accused this entire project of intentionally "making it harder for outsiders to participate", @AndyTheGrump. I'm thinking you think you got away with something. Up until then I was in a forgiving and forgetting mindset. Valereee (talk) 23:04, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, I'd expand that comment to cover Wikipedia as a whole, so singling out DYK for it was probably unfair. If I were inclined, I could probably write a 4000-word essay on why I think Wikipedia actually needs to make things hard for outsiders to participate in order to function at all. So yes, I have negative opinions about DYK, and per my limited qualifications as a former anthropology student, I'd find it difficult to argue that such apparent obstructionism wasn't the consequence of human agency. 'Intent' is perhaps harder to pin down, so perhaps I should retract that suggestion, and instead ascribe it to an emergent property of collective behaviour, rather than to the intentions of individuals. The end result is the same though - trying to figure out who said what, and when, and how exactly collective decisions were arrived at - if they were actually arrived at at all - is nigh-on impossible to discern without reading everything three times, and hoping that one hasn't missed another discussion somewhere else that makes sense of it all. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:22, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    That wasn't the only proposal in that discussion. IMO a 24-hr block is almost always silly unless it's a case of high passion edit-war that people just need to sleep on and get less crazy about. Even then I'd rather see a p-block. Valereee (talk) 23:02, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Discussion and voting was continuous, and I have left a message on JSS talk page. The close was not appropriate and involved. I will ask for an admin review if JSS does not back it out. Lightburst (talk) 23:10, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As an aside, Template:Did you know nominations/Killing of David Ben Avraham has been sitting on the approved list for around a month now. The article describes the killing of a Palestinian Jewish convert by an Israeli soldier. The nomination discussion lasted two weeks, and spilled over onto this very page (link here); it resulted in the following hook: "...that David Ben Avraham was posthumously granted an Israeli residency after having been killed?" I can honestly say that I do not intend to promote this hook, because that might attach my name to a controversy caused by the presence of the article on the main page. Am I wrong to think so? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:44, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is that a controversial hook? The subject matter of the article, by its very nature, is controversial, but that hook seems sufficiently neutral without going overboard in its wording or POV on one side or the other. SilverserenC 23:56, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't really know what is a controversial hook anymore. Personally, I wouldn't have said that the Frank Croxton hook mentioned above was anywhere close to "tabloidy", but Just Step Sideways clearly felt different. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:05, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That nonsense came from WO. I started an AN discussion which mentions the ANI close and the banter on WO. Lightburst (talk) 00:35, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's possible the long winding discussion might be a put-off, I've crossed off the old alts and restated ALT3 at the bottom of the page, which might help. CMD (talk) 01:32, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@ AirshipJungleman29 I don't think it was "tabloidy" either. I wrote the Croxton article and that hook (although it was altered slightly without my knowledge). I never made the connection in my mind to the Lost Cause of the Confederacy when writing it... I pulled the hook fact directly from the cited source, which is why the hook fact ran. It was entirely accurate, and frankly I only suggested it because of the trend at DYK to call many proposed hooks about opera/classical music boring. It seems like hooks following something personal about classical singers tend to get chosen more and pass DYK review. That's the only reason why I picked that event as a hook. This is a case where someone's own experiences reading on a particular topic has shaped their perception, expectations, and assumptions about not only the hook but also the hook's author.4meter4 (talk) 14:58, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That nonsense came from WO. is a pretty funny accusation to make, as if WO is pulling my strings, when, as Lighburst is perfectly aware, I was the one who raised the point over there. Just Step Sideways from this world ..... today 16:58, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That David Ben Avraham hook is redundant. Posthumously means after he died. If we need 'was killed' for context -- which I'm not sure we do -- then we can get rid of posthumously. Pinging Makeandtoss Valereee (talk) 15:42, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of nominators

I suggest we make it a requirement that nominators be notified via ping on their user talk of discussions here of their hooks/nominations. Valereee (talk) 00:07, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would support a requirement for pings, such as when I modify hooks post-promotion per WP:DYKTRIM, but I think notifications on user talk is a bit excessive in both instances. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:17, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It seems excessive until you start looking at how many hooks are modified in prep with no notification to anyone. One single person making sometimes major changes unilaterally. A hook of mine about Martin Luther King was changed to use BrEng date format. Valereee (talk) 00:23, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. Anyone want to draw up a helpful notification template? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:25, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's actually two discussions, I suppose. Discussions vs. modifications. We've asked people modifying to ping, and they simply don't do it. Discussions are a second issue. Most discussions probably do include pings, often to not only nominators but also reviewers and promoters. Some slip through. Valereee (talk) 00:29, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Revised. We can deal with the annoying problem of revisions in prep later. This one's more important. Valereee (talk) 00:32, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll be honest. I try to ping people (the nominator, the approver, and the promoter), but it's just too much of a pain so sometimes I don't bother. Many people have signatures that don't match their user names, so you have to click through to their user page to be sure. RoySmith (talk) 00:42, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think basic effort is enough. If someone has a difficult-to-ping username and it gets mangled, that's on them. Valereee (talk) 00:59, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What about simply posting a notification on the template page of the DYK nomination? Such as "There is an active discussion about this nomination link here". The nomination may concern more than just the nominee, and saves the issue of pinging users. If the nominee isn't watching the page then that's their own problem really. CommunityNotesContributor (talk) 01:07, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, that's an extra step, whether the change is made in prep/queue or bringing it to talk here. Pings can be done in the edit summary of changes in prep/queue, or they can be done in the post on talk. Valereee (talk) 01:13, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yup, then 100%, unequivocal support. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:50, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support The preface to this is a discussion elsewhere and issues I raised regarding an entire discussion occurring without my knowledge as the nominee (no notification or reference on template page). So I support and appreciate the efforts these two users are currently making on this matter, as some pings definitely slip through. CommunityNotesContributor (talk) 00:36, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely support. I'm rather surprised this hasn't been made a requirement years ago. If you're discussing someone's content (or actions), it should be required that you notify them. Just like what ANI requires. SilverserenC 00:41, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a perfect example of what I was talking about. If I click on the signature just above, I get to a page which ostensibly belongs to User:Silver seren, but when I copy-paste that, I get a broken ping. Why did you have to install some fancy CSS on your user page that makes it harder for people to communicate with you? RoySmith (talk) 00:44, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think that one's on you RoySmith—the {{u}} ping system doesn't use the "User:", so {{u|Silver seren}} should work, but the above doesn't. That said, I have definitely seen someone try to ping Silverseren (no space) before, which didn't work, so they might want to adjust the signature a little. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:53, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But Silverseren isn't Silverseren. It's Silver seren. Valereee (talk) 00:55, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And I agree with this, @Silver seren. If you want pings, make your username easy to ping. Valereee (talk) 00:54, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Whenever I ping someone, I just copy paste their username from their HTML signature, to make sure it's right. Since plenty of people have signatures that aren't their exact username. Also, RoySmith, the link you made there uses {{u}} wrong. The link you made is User:User:Silver seren because User: isn't a part of that template. As a direct link, without ping, User:Silver seren works perfectly fine. SilverserenC 01:07, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, yeah, I got that I shouldn't have pasted the user: But the gist of my point was that some people have signatures that don't match their username and that makes it a pain to ping them. RoySmith (talk) 01:20, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, some of us have no idea what "copy paste their username from their HTML signature" means. And that's not something we expect people to know. What I do when I really want to make sure is click to the user page, copy from there, and come back to paste. But we don't expect people to go to that much trouble either. If you want pings, make pings easy. Valereee (talk) 01:41, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have boldly added a line to WP:DYKTRIM, although I'm not entirely satisfied with the wording. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:59, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Which I removed due to lack of consensus. RoySmith (talk) 01:02, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, we probably need more input. I (obviously) think this is what we should do, but we can't require it without consensus. I'd support adding it as 'best practices' until then, though, I don't think anyone would disagree with that. Valereee (talk) 01:04, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support enforcing pings - actually on user talk doesn't seem excessive to me. If people want to tinker with hooks (and many do), they should do it earlier in the process. Johnbod (talk) 01:19, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment it should be a best practice and not an absolute requirement. --evrik (talk) 02:30, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    So insinuations of running a PR campaign for a BLP or bad faith nominations can go unchallenged by the nominee then, if they are not notified of the discussion, for example? CommunityNotesContributor (talk) 02:38, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment agree with Evrik. We do have many rules and guidelines already. Bruxton (talk) 02:33, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Nominators should be involved with their DYK hook nomination every step of the way, and having them be pinged in these discussions ensures that they involve themselves in addressing issues as soon as possible. Being pinged to be notified of DYK statuses is a regular expectation of the DYK process anyways despite what some may suggest. PrimalMustelid (talk) 05:46, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Sounds like a no-brainer and would help avoid confusion and needless discussions. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 07:37, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nominators and reviewers should probably be pinged as best practice, but like some above hesitant to write it into a rule, for risk of ending up with AN/I-like situations where the initial comments are all make sure you ping. Other examples exist, it is probably best practice to link to the nom page, but I am not sure making it a rule would help. CMD (talk) 07:54, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am trying hard to do this (usually I want nominator input when I raise an issue), but let us keep it a suggestion and not a must-do rule. (I.e. if an admin forgets to ping the nominator, then the next person who sees the thread should just do the pings instead of berating the admin for Not Following The Rules; DYK admin work is unfun enough already). Also, would/should something like the mention (by Valereee) of the butt implant rumor nomination somewhere above require a ping? —Kusma (talk) 09:21, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    In an ideal world, we would have an easier way to raise an issue with a hook in a prep or queue. I need to copy the hook, link to the nom and the prep/queue, and figure out who the nominator(s) and other involved people are and ping them, all of this in addition to explaining my query. Admin queries are far too common to be this cumbersome. (In an ideal world, QPQ reviews would catch all of these issues and we would not need to discuss whether or not to ping). —Kusma (talk) 09:28, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    A bot could do that, I'd think. Valereee (talk) 11:25, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]


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

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

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

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

There should be discussion before an RfC, and I feel confident it would quickly find that we should not ban all DYK hooks from India. CMD (talk) 11:58, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This follows the recent extensive discussions here and at ANI. Looking for the most recent hook from India, this seems to be Asha Sobhana. That's not tagged as a contentious topic. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:14, 15 May 2024 (UTC) (edit conflict)[reply]
I don't recall in those extensive discussions someone proposing the idea that all articles falling under CTOPICS should be banned, let along there being specific discussion on that question. There has been a suggestion to restrict BLPs, but that is only one of the many CTOPICS. CMD (talk) 12:13, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just to emphasise what I said below, any editor is free to add {{Contentious topics/talk notice}} to Talk:Asha Sobhana if they so desire. I mean I could do it right now. I'm not going to in part since some may argue it's WP:POINT. I'd disagree on that since it's not disruptive to do so considering the DYK has already run and there's no harm in having the notice there; but it also doesn't seem to be that important to have a notice so better to just tell and don't show. Nil Einne (talk) 13:22, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We have lots of BLPs about sportmen and women like this. If such a template is added, at what point are constraints like 1RR and ECP activated? And at what point do you have to notify editors per the awareness clause? As this stuff seems quite bitey, it's good to understand it. Andrew🐉(talk) 14:07, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is unclear. Are you talking about "controversial topics" or about Wikipedia:Contentious topics? I definitely oppose any restriction on "controversial topics" because almost anything can be controversial (for example, anything with shock value or involving sex or crime or religion). —Kusma (talk) 12:00, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is clearly not ready for RfC, so I have removed the RfC tag. —Kusma (talk) 12:00, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I thought it was quite clear that this meant those topics which are formally tagged as CT per WP:CTOP. I have revised the text to make this clearer. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:07, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just for clarity, you are aware that anyone is free to tag any article where CT applies with the Template:Contentious topics/talk notice? There is no "formal" process for doing so, the only thing that really matter is whether CT applies so it can be done to any BLP to give one example. Normally this is no big deal since CT applies regardless of the notice, but your proposal makes it a big deal. Nil Einne (talk) 13:11, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The specific example which sparked this was Killing of David Ben Avraham -- someone said they wouldn't promote this to DYK because touching it was too dangerous. The talk page for that has an {{ARBPIA}} template which says: "The contentious topics procedure applies to this article." and goes on to explain that WP:ECP and WP:1RR applies. It's this level of CT that I intended to cover. It's news to me that any BLP at all can be tagged in this draconian way and that bit of WP:CREEP seems to have happened at the end of 2022. Andrew🐉(talk) 13:35, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at talk:Andrew Tate, as that's been the main bone of contention lately, it has a {{controversial}} template which just seems mildly informational and a {{contentious topics/page restriction talk notice}} which is the full monty. Andrew🐉(talk) 13:54, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Biographies of living people are a contentious topic — are we really going to ban these from DYK? Multiple contentious topics are completely fine to be shown at DYK, we can't just ban all of them out of nowhere. Skyshiftertalk 12:19, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Contentious topics include all biographies of living people, India, Pakistan, Iranian politics, Sri Lanka, anything related to post-1992 US politics, COVID-19, Eastern Europe, gender and sexuality and climate change. Disallowing so many large content areas is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. —Kusma (talk) 12:20, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, BLPs are not all contentious topics -- they are a different class of topic per WP:BLP. Excluding all BLPs would be a much bigger deal. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:25, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You are aware that "All living or recently deceased subjects of biographical content on Wikipedia articles are designated as a contentious topic." (Wikipedia:Contentious topics/Biographies of Living Persons)? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:37, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

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

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

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

That is not a good solution either: new articles could still be nominated before anyone has had the chance to add a CT notice. The presence or absence of the CT notice at the time of nomination has very little to do with the contentiousness of the actual article and DYK hook. —Kusma (talk) 13:18, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. It is certainly true that CT's are more difficult to write about, which often means they involve more work to process at DYK (see Template:Did you know nominations/Environmental damage of Gaza caused by the Israel–Hamas war for another recent example). But that's not a reason to blanket ban them from DYK. RoySmith (talk) 12:55, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. I suppose there could be some way of flagging CTOP entries for review, but let's face it the vast majority of hooks related to CTOPs are completely unremarkable (especially as, technically, all BLPs fall under that flag). And, as we saw with Tate, most controversial issues arrive here anyway for discussion. Black Kite (talk) 13:19, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongly oppose Absolutely not. This is too large a category to exclude. Toa Nidhiki05 13:27, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose: as long as the article is in good shape (which includes a neutral point of view) and the proposed hook is not a contentious or controversial claim, a contentious topic article should be an article like any other for the DYK process (and for all article-related processes such as AFC, PR, GAN, FAC, etc; for that matter). Cambalachero (talk) 13:58, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose and suggest a snow close - The proposal is simply too broad. Now I know we just had a few discussions about contentious topics on DYK, including one that's ongoing, but I am not convinced that a blanket ban is the solution. It should probably be a case-by-case thing. Plus, having blanket bans would be unfair to editors who worked hard to bring the article to a good state if not create it, only to be told their efforts cannot be incentivized just because of the subject matter. There are times when precisely due to an article's subject it's not a good fit for DYK, but they are the exception and not the rule and we shouldn't have any strict rules about them. I know this discussion has only been up for a few hours but I would suggest closing this as soon as possible as this simply will not go anywhere. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 14:58, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Future RFC on BLPs at DYK

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

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

Opening statement draft

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

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

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

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

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

RFC format: Questions and Proposals

Note 1. This is a presentation of this RFC's format, including planned guiding questions and a described process for future proposals. Please do not respond to the questions or make proposals in this space. Questions will be opened for comment one at a time, as answers to prior questions are important for informing responses to succeeding questions.
Note 2. The term "negative hook" may mean different things to different people, and individual hooks may be perceived as "negative" by a certain group of editors but not by others due to varying backgrounds among our editing volunteers. In examining policy language at WP:BLPSTYLE, a broadly construed definition of a negative hook could be any hook that may be perceived as an attack on the BLP or an attempt to malign their public image, or a hook that may be perceived as a partisan representation of the subject. These could include the use of contentious labels, loaded language, or terms that lack precision. Real examples of hooks that have been identified as negative by some editors have been gathered in the evidence section. See WP:BLPSTYLE and WP:BLPBALANCE.

RFC Questions

  • 1. Can DYK feature negative hooks on BLPs and remain in compliance with WP:BLP policy? Consider the limitations of the DYK format and the language of WP:BLP policy in your answer. If no, why? If yes, why?
If the WP:CONSENSUS is yes or no consensus we move on to the next question. If the consensus is no we skip question 2 and move to question 3.
  • 2. How can we determine when a negative hook on a BLP can and can't be used? What specific guideline(s) should DYK reviewers follow when reviewing negative hooks on BLPs? What language should we include in a guideline that assists reviewers in making decisions and prevents conflict at DYK, Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors, and other project pages? Consider the limitations of the DYK hook format and the language of WP:BLP policy in your answer.
Once opinions have been gathered and summarized we move on to the next question.
Once opinions have been gathered and summarized we move to question 4
  • 4. Are there any additional questions we should consider as it relates to DYK and BLP policy before moving on to proposals?
It's possible we may need to ask a question that was not predicted at the onset of the RFC, after getting input to the first three questions. We will leave room to ask additional questions for community input if needed before moving on to proposals. We will discuss any other questions raised by the community. Once completed, we will begin accepting proposals that should come from WP:CONSENSUS input.

Proposals

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

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

Suggestions on RFC construction

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

Evidence

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

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

Negative BLPs that were promoted to the main page without issue

Incident Year Hook/comments Discussion
Murder of Jiang Ge 2024 ... that the murder of Jiang Ge led to public debate in China over the actions of Jiang's roommate during her murder?
The living person in question is Liu Xin, mentioned in the hook and discussed at length in the article. 		Raised at ERRORS but no response: [3]
Going Infinite 2024 Hook draws attention to a negative comment made against a living person; it had to be toned down at nomination stage and again in prep. WT:DYK: [4]
Diether Dehm 2020 One of mine: Diether Dehm. A 2020 nomination where the less negative of two hooks was chosen, but certainly both can be understood as saying something negative about a living person. Not my best hook and not my best article, but it ran without controversy (and did not attract a lot of views). Not sure how to put this into the table, sorry! —Kusma (talk) 20:24, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hsinchu Kuang-Fu Senior High School 2024 Raised at ERRORs but alas, no pull as it was only an hour until it rolled off MP. @Theleekycauldron: said "This article looks like a straight NPOV violation to me". Therapyisgood (talk) 23:43, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply] Raised at ERRORs
Debbie Currie 2024 ... that Debbie Currie once worked as a lollipop lady?
whole damn thing reads like a BLP violation. "reprimanded for smoking aged 13, and had to retake all of her A-levels after being accused of cheating; she graduated with a C and two Ds, and read English and Communication" " She used an October 2009 article in the Daily Mail to announce that she had become a single mother by choice after a drunken one-night stand aged thirty, and encouraged others to have their children before finding a partner." "claimed that she had enjoyed a four-in-a-bed orgy and lost her virginity at fifteen" Therapyisgood (talk) 00:08, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I feel like this was an issue with the article rather than the nom/hook? I think DYK should have caught it. Valereee (talk) 00:19, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply] 		Raised at ERRORs with 4 minutes before the hooks rotated.

Negative BLPs that were pulled from the main page

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

A DYK on the death of actress Gemma McCluskie, posted only three weeks after her 2012 murder: ANI thread:[5] Talk:DYK thread:[6]

I hope that it shouldn't prove necessary here to point out what WP:BLP says (and said in 2012) about taking consideration for friends and relatives etc of the recently deceased, the need to avoid tabloid-style sensationalism, and all the other obvious issues with this DYK. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:27, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure an issue from twelve years ago is relevant now? Except to show Andy's been calling people names for at least that long. Maybe we should concentrate on the past year or two? Valereee (talk) 18:38, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is from 2012, and shows that there is a long-standing issue with AndyTheGrump. It is an inappropriate hook sensationalising a murder, not a "negative hook about a BLP". —Kusma (talk) 18:40, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Attempts to stifle discussion of long-term systemic issues with DYK duly noted. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:44, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Andy, I don't think anyone would disagree these were bad. But let's focus on today's issues. Valereee (talk) 18:46, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not without clear and unambiguous evidence that DYK has undergone systemic changes which would prevent a recurrence. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:47, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So is it your intention to bring in here as evidence every DYK you've ever objected to in the past 12+ years? Because I think your strategy would be counterproductive to fixing the problem. Something that has been pointed out to you before, including very recently. Valereee (talk) 18:49, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It is my intention to respond to the request made in this thread. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:52, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Which means you're going to completely jam up this apparently well-intentioned RfC by someone who agrees with you. Okay. Valereee (talk) 18:53, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's exactly what is happening. Thank you. Viriditas (talk) 19:05, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If it hasn't happened in twelve years then it's not a recurring problem. This is why 12-year-old evidence sucks. Levivich (talk) 18:54, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How about actually waiting to see what other evidence is offered before dismissing it? I am still under the impression that this request for such evidence was made in good faith, even if some would apparently prefer to exclude anything they would prefer not to get scrutiny. Let other contributors provide their own evidence. If mine is all there is (which seems unlikely) you can then argue that there isn't a systemin problem. And no, I have no intention of bringing 'every DYK I've ever objected to in the past 12+ years' here. I brought up two, because they were clearly relevant to a discussion which seems on the face of it to be focussed around adressing systemic issues. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:04, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have a suggestion how to get people to review more properly? Your method seems to be to reduce the number of DYK volunteers by insulting them. If you want to help, please review nominations and double check prep sets. All kind of issues are occasionally caught only at the prep-to-queue stage or at ERRORS. Some of them are comparatively minor (like repeating incorrect claims about "X was the first Y to do Z" from sources), others are bad (copyvios) or really bad (accusing BLPs of crimes that they have not been convicted for). It can be exhausting to check everything, and we do not have enough admins doing it. We need more (non-admin) eyes on the prep sets and queues. Yelling at volunteers like you do has as its most likely effect a reduction in our number of capable volunteers. Please stop making DYK worse and start helping to make it better. —Kusma (talk) 19:04, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Please note that I have raised the improper hatting above, along with what appears to be a more general attempt to prevent legitimate participation in this thread at WP:ANI. [7] AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:33, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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

@4meter4, maybe put the information into a sortable table so people can at least sort by age? Valereee (talk) 19:26, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If an editor skilled in templates wants to take that on, more power to them. I am not the best at table design.4meter4 (talk) 19:28, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am probably the editor least skilled in templates in any discussion on this page, so if anyone wants to fix whatever I did wrong, please do. Valereee (talk) 19:47, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Incident Year Hook/comments Discussion
Gemma McCluskie 2012 Concerns about recently deceased BLP violation ANI thread:[8]

Talk:DYK thread:[9]

Nandipha Magudumana 2024 ... that the celebrity doctor Nandipha Magudumana was imprisoned and investigated for twelve crimes, including murder connected to a fugitive's prison escape? ERRORS discussion: [10]

Article at the time of promotion: [11]

Angelle (singer) 2024 ... that the British entrepreneur Sarah Bennett went from being "one of the biggest flops in pop history" to appearing on the Sunday Times Rich List 2017? ERRORS discussion: [12]

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

Incident Year Hook/comments Discussions
Andrew Tate 2024 ... that social media influencer Andrew Tate described himself as "absolutely a misogynist"?
Concerns about BLP vio 		WT:DYK: [13] WT:ANI: [14]
Sarah Jane Baker 2023 ... that author Sarah Jane Baker was so desperate for gender affirming care in prison that she cut off her testicles with a razor blade? (one example of several contentious hooks on this person that were proposed) WT:DYK: [15]
Shootings of Sydney Land and Nehemiah Kauffman 2024 Pulled from queue and then rejected, in part due to BLP concerns. WT:DYK: [16]
Jews Don't Count 2023 Altered in queue, after it was argued that the original hook falsely attributed an anti-semitic POV to a living person. WT:DYK: [17]
Lil Tay 2023 Pulled from prep due to poor sourcing of negative information in the article. WT:DYK: [18]
Marvin Harrison Jr. 2023 ... that one NFL scout compared watching Marvin Harrison Jr. (pictured) to "window shopping at a Lamborghini dealership for the model that doesn't come out until next year"?
Concerns about objectifying people of colour. 		WT:DYK: [19]
Child abuse in association football 2023 Pulled from queue for various reasons, one of which was BLPCRIME concerns. WT:DYK: [20]
@Narutolovehinata5, tables are easily edited in the visual editor. Try this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know?veaction=edit WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:31, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Negative BLPs that were contentious during review but not rejected

Incident Year Hook/comments Discussion

Negative BLPs that were contentious during review and rejected

Incident Year Hook/comments Discussion

Other kinds of BLP violation concerns in DYK hooks

Incident Year Hook/comments Discussion
HorsegiirL 2024 Pulled from prep; original hook used the article subject's real name against their wishes WT:DYK: [21]

Evidence discussion

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

Other issues

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

A DYK on the 'Murder of Ayakannu Marithamuthu' was finally pulled in prep, just before it was due to go live, back in 2013. But only after a WP:BLPN thread, and another on WP:ANI, brought the matter to the attention of the broader community, DYK regulars having entirely failed to notice the numerous issues. The DYK stated as fact that this individual had been 'cooked in a curry'. This assertion was sourced in the article to a food blog. Note that not only have there have been no convictions for this alleged murder, it has never even been determined that Marithamuthu was murdered (or, apparently, that he is even dead at all), never mind being disposed of in this bizarre manner.
BLPN thread :[22]
ANI thread:[23]
Talk DYK thread:[24]
AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:38, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Again over a decade ago. Maybe let's focus on current issues instead of playing Andy's Greatest Hits? Valereee (talk) 18:43, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No. Not without clear and unambiguous evidence that DYK has undergone systemic changes which would prevent a recurrence. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:47, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Andy, I mean this absolutely sincerely: why? If we want to fix now, let's focus on now. Valereee (talk) 18:53, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ah yes, the "let’s hold DYK hostage until it gives into our demands" tactic. I originally suspected the Tate nomination would lead to this, regardless of the hook. This tactic is popular in some sectors, and it’s the preferred strategy of conservative legal activists who have used it to try and control the Supreme Court and get them to rule in their favor by bringing artificial cases for them to rule on. Viriditas (talk) 18:54, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I go away for a few hours and it looks like a cyclone came through here. Maybe we need to close out some of these threads? There were relevant comments by others but I cannot even find them. I am seeing ATG throw a tantrum in here and at ANI. I agree with Kusma's advice in the hatted discussion Your method seems to be to reduce the number of DYK volunteers by insulting them. If you want to help, please review nominations and double check prep sets. This method of damning the volunteers and their ineptitude is not going to have the desired effect. Lightburst (talk) 03:58, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@AndyTheGrump Undoubtedly, DYK has failed in other areas on occasion, but we can not handle every issue all at once. This RFC has a very specific focus. Please keep your examples limited to the specific topic area of this RFC. We are not looking at hooks that involve people who are dead, only those who are alive because the focus of this RFC is WP:BLP policy as it relates to WP:DYK. We have to keep the RFC. focused or it won't work and will be closed without any productive work being done. We can always look at another policy area in another RFC if it is needed. At this time, BLP issues have been the most consistent point of contention within the project which is why this RFC is needed. Best.4meter4 (talk) 18:58, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As I stated above, it hasn't been established that Ayakannu Marithamuthu is actually dead. And both in 2013, and now, claiming, without proper sourcing that a named individual cooked another named individual in a curry to dispose of their body is clearly and unambiguously a WP:BLP violation. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:10, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There's a consensus in this discussion to only stick to recent evidence. Since Wikipedia runs by consensus, you're beholden to it. Viriditas (talk) 19:12, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I see no evidence whatsoever that there has been any sort of discussion sufficient to reach such a 'consensus'. And if there has, it should probably be brought to the attention of the broader Wikipedia community, who may very well have a differing opinion as to what is or isn't relevant to a discussion on the sort of systemic issues that this thread was apparently created to tackle. If we can't discuss it here, perhaps we need to do so in an environment where certain individuals cannot reject evidence because they don't like it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:19, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks isn't conducive to an RFC. Old evidence isn't helping us. If you want to study a problem and find a potential solution, you first have to ask the right question based on a set of assumed values. The evidence cannot tell you if those values are good or bad, it can only help you arrive at a solution you already agree is useful or helpful. Old evidence doesn't get us any closer to this answer. The majority of the respondents to this discussion have asked you to provide current evidence only. I'm asking you as well. Viriditas (talk) 19:21, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is why we can't have nice things. Valereee (talk) 19:28, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Andy, I'm trying to assume good faith, but it feels like you're torpedoing this effort, which seriously is making me wonder whether your actual intent is to prove DYK problems can't be fixed. I'm really sorry to say this. I think you're a well-intentioned editor. But it feels like...well, almost sabotage. I'm sure if anything it's subconscious, I know you'd never actually want to do that. This editor seems to be making a good-faith effort. Valereee (talk) 19:42, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I believe BLP is kind of incidental here, and not the underlying issue. DYK has three major problems:
  • QPQ reviewers sometimes do not check the article and hook for policy compliance
  • Prep builders sometimes promote the hook to prep without checking for policy compliance, assuming the QPQ reviewer did their job
  • Admins sometimes promote the prep to queue without checking for policy compliance, assuming the QPQ reviewer and prep builder have done their jobs.
When these three problems occur at the same time, errors slip through and we end up violating BLP, NPOV, copyrights or other core policies on the Main Page. Additional rules will not help as long as people skip the checks for rule compliance. —Kusma (talk) 19:15, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Everything you've said is true, but it ignores the fundamental question that has been asked in previous discussions up above, namely, are all nominations suitable for DYK? Because right now, the problem is that we default to approve, even if people don't think it should run, instead of to discard, of which there is no mechanism to facilitate such a decision other than letting it time out, which rarely happens. Viriditas (talk) 19:23, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think having strict timeout rules would make it a lot easier to remove bad noms (for any reason) and would be worth trying, but I do not anticipate this to become community consensus. —Kusma (talk) 20:33, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Kusma, I'd add a fourth reason:
  • Some editors expect perfection.
A 1% rejection rate would result in one "bad" DYK hooks every ten days. A Six Sigma standard would allow one "bad" DYK hook every ten years. We probably want something in between these two, but where? And how do we make the perfectionists among us accept a level of imperfection? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:42, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Kusma This is a good point. I created an "other kinds" section for evidence. Please add that as an example to that section. Thanks.4meter4 (talk) 22:38, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • The evidence categories seem too limited and debatable. For example, consider the case of Jimmy Carter who is remarkably still with us. In that case, several issues were raised at WP:ERRORS about a hook about him and multiple changes were made to the hook. That's often how it goes down – a discussion at WP:ERRORS and then a variety of possible outcomes. Pulling is not the only possibility. Andrew🐉(talk) 21:02, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Here's a list of cases from my records which I'll compile as I come across them:
  1. Jimmy Carter
  2. Killing of Sara-Nicole Morales
  3. Murder of Alexis Sharkey
  4. Mick Jagger
  5. "35 people, including the President, First Lady, three senators, and a governor"
Andrew🐉(talk) 21:18, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
These probably belong in the tables above if we want people to consider them, rather than in "Other issues"? Valereee (talk) 22:04, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Andrew Davidson I created an "other kinds" of BLP violations section. Please add these. If there is another section you think we should create, I am open. This structure was not intended to limit us, I was just intending to get the ball rolling. If we need to expand (provided we stay focused on BLPs) we can. Thanks for participating.4meter4 (talk) 22:41, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm just getting started and gathering the raw data should come before attempts to classify it. My current impression is that examples are easy to find and so it's just a matter of looking. I looked at the current DYK set and immediately found two examples which I have reported at WP:ERRORS. What happens there is usually quite haphazard so we'll see how it goes. These fresh examples indicates that DYK is paying no particular attention to whether the topic is a BLP or MEDRS matter. As these are both quite serious, the checklist or other processing templates should highlight these aspects for special scrutiny. Andrew🐉(talk) 07:18, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
These are instructive discussions, so here is a permanent link. There seems to be no general agreement as to what constitutes a "negative hook"; any attempts to outlaw these would require more precise language than "negative". Was the Andrew Tate hook negative? Or was it allowing him to advertise his misogynist agenda? Was it both? —Kusma (talk) 08:25, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The big problem with WP:ERRORS is that it's ephemeral and doesn't maintain archives or any kind of project files. That's why I record some completed discussions in my personal archives but just those that I took an interest in.
DYK keeps archives of its discussions and trawling through those with keywords like "BLP" will probably yield many more examples. As these issues are quite subjective, it may be good for DYK to keep a list of controversial cases, like it keeps a list of hooks which did well.
Andrew🐉(talk) 10:45, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The issue raised with the Tate hook wasn't initially that it was simply negative per say, but that it's a quote taken out of context or otherwise over-inflated. The wording of such has since been changed after discussion on the talk page, from quoting "absolutely a misogynist", to the widespread attribution from RS of being a self-described misogynist see diff.
It seems plausible that this wouldn't of been such an issue (or an issue at all) if non-quoted wording would of been applied. Even if would of been a clearly negative hook, it would of been a lot more due based on widespread description from RS, unlike the quote in question. The article itself doesn't paint Tate is a good light (per weight of RS), so not convinced this is good advertising for him, quite the opposite. I highly doubt that people read the wikipedia page, or even the summary, and it inspires them to become a follower or fan. It's more likely to put people off him than anything else. CommunityNotesContributor (talk) 13:22, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@CommunityNotesContributor: The context doesn't make it any better. He frames sexism as a privilege for wealthy men who can't be "canceled". He goes from the quote to saying sexism is realism and attempts to provide examples of where men should not trust women, like as pilots, surgeons, to build the Suez canal, etc. He goes on to say that there is "no such thing as an independent female". He has recently described his past comments as part of a persona rather than his actual beliefs, but reliable sources quote from this interview as reflective of his positions,[25][26] call him a self-described misogynist,[27][28], and quote Joe Mulhall from Hope Not Hate that he is attempting to "totally rewrite his own history".[29][30]

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

Regards, Rjjiii (talk) 15:10, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think you somewhat missed my point here. I'm not arguing that the quote is out of context, I was referencing the initial issues raised with it being used at DKY (followed by at the BLP itself). I already argued that the quote is well within context on that article talk page as referenced. My point is that it was unnecessary and short-sighted to use the quote "absolutely a misogynist" that isn't widely referenced by RS, when the description of Tate as a "self-described misogynist" is referenced by several RS, per cite bundle. Then we don't need to argue over whether a quote is out of context or not, as we're not using it anymore. Notably ATG hasn't bothered to argue against attributing Tate to being "self-described as a misogynist" as a BLP vio, which is why I believe this controversy could have potentially been avoided, even with a negative hook. Hopefully that explains things better. CommunityNotesContributor (talk) 15:41, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I did; thanks for the explanation, Rjjiii (talk) 05:36, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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

There was additionally this query at WP:ERRORS (basically a question about sourcing and whether Tate saying he has been quoted out of context means that any quotes of what Tate has said are unreliable). Overall, I think the community did not care much until ATG saw it as an opportunity to insult DYKers. —Kusma (talk) 11:20, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I have written an opening statement draft and added it above. If anyone cares to make suggestions on needed changes or possible improvements, let me know.4meter4 (talk) 16:00, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I boldly added a sentence to WP:DYKBLP which I regard as spelling out what that section was unsuccessfully trying to say, but was reverted by @Theleekycauldron:. That could be a good starting point.--Launchballer 16:30, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Launchballer That new language could be a proposal to make during the RFC after the question discussions have been answered. You should present that as an idea in response to question 3. I am intentionally not making specific proposals or offering specific solutions in the opening statement. The opening statement is meant to identify and describe the problem, and set up a structure for the community to discuss the problem in order to arrive at a consensus over what may be working and what needs fixing, followed by brainstorming solutions, etc. Proposals then should come out of that discussion.4meter4 (talk) 18:58, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"No BLP" rule

WITHDRAWN
Withdrawn by OP.--Launchballer 08:17, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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

  • Adding this here for discussion because Andy and others are trying to propose it, so I'm just anticipating their future proposal. I can't say that I really oppose or support it, but I think we should start discussing it now rather than later. Viriditas (talk) 20:03, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It would certainly get rid of a lot of articles about minor sportspeople or opera performers. —Kusma (talk) 20:27, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
While BLP-related DYKs have clearly been amongst the most problematic, I'm not sure this is necessarily the best approach. To me, the underlying systemic issues are often more to do with the 'how' than the 'what' when it comes to DYKs. The problem lies in the process, more than the subject matter. Poor sourcing, poor judgement, and what appears to be an overwhelming concern to get something on the main page at any cost - even without proper agreement as to what - can happen with any topic. So yes, BLP-related material absolutely needs to be treated with great care, and if DYK can't do that, it shouldn't be permitted to, but that won't make the remaining problems go away. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:37, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One of the biggest issues with DYK has always been the reluctance to reject nominations. We really should be more willing to do so if it's for a good reason (not necessarily BLP related), but most of us do not want to hurt editor feelings, and in several instances editors are reluctant to let their hooks be rejected without a fight. Indeed in some cases, nomination pages for articles that may not have been good fit for DYK ended up being longer than the article itself. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 23:49, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As others have said, a blanket ban on BLPs on DYK will do more harm than good. Most BLP DYKs are uncontroversial and it would be overkill to throw the baby out of the bathwater, or to do something drastic just because of a few bad apples. It would be deeply unfair to ban DYKs just because of a handful of controversial cases, especially when in these cases the issues had more to do with a lack of proper enforcement of rules rather an issue with them being BLPs themselves. Banning BLPs should be an absolute last resort, not a first resort: instead we should focus on improving enforcement or trying other proposals like automatically timing-out stuck nominations. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 23:52, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • This would be a sensible option in an omnibus RfC because it seems likely that some BLP-hawks might support it. The main complication is that almost any page is within the scope of BLP – not just biographies. The page just needs to involve living people in some way to qualify. Andrew🐉(talk) 21:07, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I sincerely hope a BLP topic ban isn't proposed. That seems a disproportionate response as the vast majority of hooks on BLPs are non-controversial. My hope is to see some limits placed on DYK in recognition of the challenges of meeting WP:BLPBALANCE within the DYK hook format. My own suggestion would be banning all negative hooks on BLPs. If we don't have something nice to say on a BLP we don't run it. It's as simple as that. A DYK hook doesn't have the space for contextualizing complex topics/controversies, displaying nuance, or providing balance within a single one sentence question.4meter4 (talk) 23:13, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I would oppose your simple suggestion "banning all negative hooks on BLPs", unless there is also wording that bans BLPs primarily focused on negative information about the subject altogether. I do not want to see us making happy feel-good hooks about bad people because hooks that more accurately represent those people are banned. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:33, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
David Eppstein You are welcome to propose that, and I can sympathize with that position. It may have been better to not run a hook on Tate for example, for that reason. That said, I'm not as concerned with presenting positive facts about people as I am negative ones because the risk of doing harm is not as high. I also have reservations about that as a policy because it provides a subjective moral judgment element into the review process. It's usually easy to identify a negative hook about a BLP, and making that call doesn't require that we evaluate whether the person is good or bad. It's harder the other way, where we have to evaluate is this a good person and do they deserve to be featured at DYK? I could see a lot of POV pushing and politics motivated decision making coming into play on this latter one, and that is concerning. I'm open to hearing more on that idea, but I have reservations on endorsing that within a DYK guideline. I would have to hear specifics on what that process would look like and how we prevent personal biases and politically motivated editors from sinking a DYK nom that probably should run. We have several editors with vehemently opposed ideas on the Palestine/Israel conflict active at DYK for example. I could see politics easily sabotaging a nom on a living Palestinian or Isaeli under that guideline in a way that wouldn't sit well with many people on both sides of that issue; particularly with the global increase in both islamaphobia and anti-semitism. I could even see someone like Minouche Shafik being labeled a "bad person" for political reasons. The potential for abuse within such a policy is pretty high which worries me. It smacks a bit too close to cancel culture which is not something I want to see endorsed at DYK. 4meter4 (talk) 00:55, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The risk of doing harm to the article subject may not not high. The risk of triggering readers and of discrediting the encyclopedia as a whole is much higher. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:36, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I oppose establishing any future restrictions. The system works fine now. --evrik (talk) 00:35, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would also oppose any kind of BLP ban, if it came to that. Yes, this would theoretically solve some of the problems mentioned above, but it would also go overboard in that a large number of non-problematic BLPs would also be rejected (essentially, throwing the baby out with the bathwater). As mentioned by Andrew Davidson, such a ban could also be interpreted very broadly, to the extent that any article that talks about any living person might be subject to restrictions.
    I'd rather we try a much less drastic solution first. For example, perhaps we could allow reviewers to more easily reject BLP-violating hooks. – Epicgenius (talk) 00:54, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have no objection to anyone closing this thread. My purpose was to investigate the window of applicable and acceptable discourse on the proposed proscriptive approach to dealing with BLP issues on DYK. This small sample of community discussion shows that the range is narrow and that contrary to the opinions of others expressed elsewhere, there is little perceived support for a "No BLP" rule. While a larger sample may show otherwise, I want to thank those who participated. Viriditas (talk) 08:05, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
  • Comment: Uh, wait, bring back that proposal. I absolutely support a BLP ban at DYK. In general I think DYK has a quality issue, which includes boring, promotional, and inappropriately negative hooks about living people. I mean, the boring issue spans a lot of topics. But yes, let's ban BLPs—they are often of very low quality, and generate too many issues. Zanahary (talk) 07:54, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Zanahary, you will need to address the specific objections up above to continue the discussion. Otherwise, it’s just going around in circles. Feel free to reopen the discussion as a new community-wide RFC if you can make a proposal that takes those objections into account and counters them. Viriditas (talk) 08:16, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I think it is worth putting up "no BLPs" as a possible option in the RfC that is being drafted. I would certainly prefer this to a possible proposal of "all BLP related hooks must promote all of the BLPs in the hook" or "no BLP related hooks may contain content that can be perceived as negative". That said, I still believe the focus on BLPs is entirely misplaced and the whole premise of this discussion is wrong. The main issues of fact checking/policy compliance and sensationalism/neutrality affect all articles, and BLPs already tend to attract more scrutiny. —Kusma (talk) 09:34, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Older nominations needing DYK reviewers

The previous list of older nominations was archived several hours ago, so I've created a new list of 36 nominations that need reviewing in the Older nominations section of the Nominations page, covering everything through May 7. We have a total of 231 nominations, of which 116 have been approved, a gap of 115 nominations that has increased by 10 over the past 9 days. Thanks to everyone who reviews these and any other nominations.

Please remember to cross off entries, including the date, as you finish reviewing them (unless you're asking for further review), even if the review was not an approval. Please do not remove them entirely. Many thanks! BlueMoonset (talk) 01:07, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Did you know nominations/Han Bong-zin

I'd appreciate if another user could chime in at Template:Did you know nominations/Han Bong-zin, regarding whether the hooks are sufficiently interesting. Thanks, BeanieFan11 (talk) 13:17, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The hooks relating to the North Korean government/media seem interesting to me, but there seems to be a notability question separate to that. CMD (talk) 13:54, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Chipmunkdavis: I think I sufficiently addressed the notability question in my comment there, FWIW. BeanieFan11 (talk) 14:04, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@BeanieFan11: You still need the QPQ. --evrik (talk) 15:49, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

BeanieFan has seven nominations with QPQ outstanding at WP:DYKN, a couple of which are almost a week old. I have previously suggested that they do their QPQs when nominating so that other editors don't have to ping them on every nomination, but they seem unwilling. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:52, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
QPQ added. Its not that I'm "unwilling" to do QPQs with the nominations, but more that I've got too much I've written currently to do all the QPQs immediately. BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:14, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You might try doing the opposite. I do the QPQs before any nomination, and that leaves me with too many QPQs so that when I eventually do have a nomination, I don't have your problem. If you have seven nominations with outstanding QPQs, you're holding up the reviewers, so do the QPQs before the nominations in the future. Viriditas (talk) 19:29, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Chipmunkdavis, Evrik, AirshipJungleman29, and Viriditas: The reviewer also questioned the reliability of the Liverpool Daily Post (see further discussion at nom). Would either of you be willing to give thoughts on whether it is reliable? BeanieFan11 (talk) 00:35, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Viriditas (talk) 00:46, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

List of pulled hooks

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

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

Your preliminary results lend weight to Kusma's hypothesis up above, namely that BLP is incidental and not the issue. It also shows that the main problem is basic fact checking, not NPOV. Viriditas (talk) 20:54, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with that. BLP violations are the most harmful manifestation of the problem, so I understand why some want to focus on that specifically, but the question to be asking is not what kind of hooks are appropriate, but why bad hooks get through. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 21:13, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
An uncomfortable part of that question is "who lets bad hooks through?", which would need to be compared to the reviewer/prep builder/promoter's overall output (looking at hooks pulled from prep or queue by admins would also be interesting and give a larger sample size). Another question to ask is what kind of error rate (and what type of errors) are acceptable. All kinds of websites, be it newspapers or encyclopaedias, get things wrong occasionally, for some value of "occasionally". —Kusma (talk) 22:46, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I saw someone somewhere on the project said that an issue they saw was that we have no coordinator; like nobody is captain of the ship so everyone is trying to steer. Another issue someone raised somewhere (sorry to many discussions going) is that we have up to 18 separate hooks promoted a day and no other other main page project does that. So many individual hooks, articles and sources to check. Also every article is from anywhere in the world and on every subject imaginable from cartoons to cartographers. At errors editors are sometimes not pinged. Errors has no archive as Sojourner in the earth has said, any errors are literally wiped from the record each morning.
Maybe we go back to 8 hooks or 7 seven. If we worry about filling empty space we could promote two image hooks? I am just highlighting a few observations that can help explain slips and maybe a way to slow us down. I have previously highlighted that we are either sprinting (two sets a day) or walking (one set a day). We never jog and the eighteen hour set idea is always waved off as not a viable option. Bruxton (talk) 01:59, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A few observations and thoughts:
  • Even good publishers make errors. Our goal can't be zero errors, or it becomes unachievable and folks walk away.
  • A list of pulled hooks is a great idea. Is there any way we could automate that so it just happens?
  • Are DYK noms more or less likely to violate a policy or guideline? At a glance, it seems they are less likely to be bogus but more likely to be scrutinized. DYK nominations are at the very least more heavily cited than the average article. For all the problems the process may have, it would never, for example, pass the largely uncited gang articles like Simon City Royals or Spanish Cobras to the main page.
  • When building preps, I encounter approved nominations with issues. I usually leave some kind of comment and move on. Is that the norm? This seems like a great place to introduce scrutiny.
  • Template:DYK symbol list and the nomination header offers several options to tag comments ranging from approving to rejecting the hook. Could we come up with some kind of alternative to and ? These are used to indicate issues that don't fail the nomination but require work on the article or clarification. Could we have one for more serious issues () or change how is treated. I'm thinking of something that could flag major issues on a nomination that will somehow autofail it if not addressed within a week.
  • I don't think this is BLP-specific or editor-specific issue. Check out the nominations and reviews from a prolific editor who was blocked for ongoing plagiarism:[31]
Rjjiii (talk) 02:31, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I do not think a coordinator is the way to go. We need more people to take some responsibility, not a few people with more responsibility. We need better QPQ reviews, and we need to either (a) make it easy and common for prep builders to send noms back for further review and discussion or (b) automatically time out and reject hooks that multiple prep builders have not used although given the opportunity.
At all stages, it needs to be easier to reject hooks, and rejections should be more common. —Kusma (talk) 10:08, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Making it easier to reject nominations is almost a perennial proposal for DYK but it never happens because editors don't want to hurt other editors' feelings. Understandable but one can argue that this sentiment is doing more harm than good. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 23:37, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That is why I am advocating for time-out rules: instead of having one editor explicitly reject a nomination (at whatever stage), the DYK community would collectively reject a nom by not processing it and just waiting for it to time out. I would like for us to not spend ages arguing over questionable hooks, but have an option to give up on a nom. —Kusma (talk) 06:48, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

Maybe we go back to 8 hooks or 7 seven.

That's still too many for the available resources, but it would be a significant step toward reducing errors, perhaps by half.
The way to fix this is to use evidence-based decision-making; i.e. objectively measure performance, and then appropriately throttle the system so the number of hooks is not more than the review system can handle. Set key performance indicators (KPIs) like "all queues and all preps should be filled at all times," and "99% WP:ERRORS-free," i.e., less than 1 out of 100 "bad" hooks get through. (Maybe shoot for 99.9%, or 1/1,000.) So cut down the number of hooks drastically to something like 5 per day and run it for two weeks or a month to make sure DYK hits those KPIs (all queues and preps filled every day; less than 1% bad hooks get through), then increase it to 6/day, then 7/day, etc., until KPIs start slipping, and then we'll know how many hooks DYK can have while still hitting its KPIs. Levivich (talk) 19:37, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
According to the data above, our "pulled at ERRORS" rate is something like 5/1000. But DYK is more than its error rate; it also aims for audience engagement (can be measured by clickthrough rates) and to encourage Wikipedians to create more new articles of a minimum standard (harder to measure). —Kusma (talk) 20:12, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Good point, click thru (reader engagement) and "more first-time noms than last month" (editor engagement) could be KPIs. Levivich (talk) 20:19, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Reducing editor time wasted arguing with each other would be a better one. —Kusma (talk) 06:37, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That would also improve if the volume did not exceed capacity as it currently does. Levivich (talk) 16:18, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Considering that we only switched to nine-hook sets two months ago (i.e. before all but the top four hooks in that removed list) I highly doubt that errors would be reduced by half if we reduced the number of hooks. But that's not all, because between 26 March–15 April we were running 12-hour sets (i.e. 18 (!) hooks per day) and that period had 0 hooks pulled. That's one hell of a performance indicator. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:58, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's great, but it's also three weeks, which is a small sample size. When I say errors reduced by half, I'm thinking over the course of like a year. And I didn't mean WP:ERRORS, I meant all errors, including those caught at the queue, prep, and nom levels. Levivich (talk) 16:16, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Figuring out how many of those we have in a year is a rather massive research project. I am not sure it is worth any DYK volunteer time (a rather limited resource). —Kusma (talk) 16:38, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a research project at all, unless you're talking about past error rate, and past error rate data would be of little use going forward. However, tracking errors going forward, on an ongoing basis, would be a good use of time, as would reviewing the data on a regular basis, and making adjustments to the process as needed. Levivich (talk) 21:11, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wouldn't it be easier to just write a monthly "error report" and scrape the data every 30 days? Viriditas (talk) 23:17, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, that's the kind of ongoing error tracking I had in mind. Levivich (talk) 23:26, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Are all the errors reported in one place? It looks like they are split between ERRORS and this talk page. Viriditas (talk) 23:32, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Idk but some (most?) errors caught by prep and queue builders are probably just dealt with on the nom pages and don't get reported anywhere else. Levivich (talk) 00:36, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It should be expected that errors will be caught in prep, that's part of the process. But if a system is developed to track pulls from the Main Page, it should also include pulls from queue. Hooks in the queue have already been signed off by three reviewers and the rest is left to the bot, so it's a sheer fluke if someone spots an error in the queue before it hits the Main Page. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 15:50, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Re: An uncomfortable part of that question is "who lets bad hooks through?" is indeed uncomfortable, but maybe it needs to be faced. I hate to do anything that makes it less appealing to do the work, and I wouldn't want to handle it in a way that shamed people, but it's actually valuable feedback to those who are letting errors through because it allows us to learn and adjust. Valereee (talk) 13:52, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, great work, @Sojourner in the earth, thank you for pulling that together.
Given that there were only two hooks pulled for BLP vios in nearly a year and a half, maybe a simple solution would be that all hooks with any negative content about a BLP, target or not require a discussion here plus notification of that discussion at WP:BLPN? That wouldn't seem like it would overburden anyone, and it would help alleviate non-regulars' concerns that DYK is a walled garden. Valereee (talk) 13:47, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What happened to these edits?

Wondering what happened. I saw that edits have been suppressed? I noticed this because my own contributions showed similar. If this was private feel free to email me or ignore me. Bruxton (talk) 22:39, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I was wondering that. I guess it's in the nature of oversighted edits that you don't get to know what or why... It's a shame to lose attribution and history on such a large chunk of edits to this page, but if the functionaries feel it's necessary then so be it.  — Amakuru (talk) 23:18, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed it was, and the loss of talk page history is not very important in comparison. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:35, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I was just thinking I had inadvertently done something until I saw many more edits were suppressed on WT:DYK. I was as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Bruxton (talk) 00:19, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Go to the first instance. That should explain it. Viriditas (talk) 00:37, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've never seen anything quite like that. --evrik (talk) 02:11, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It’s pretty common on the noticeboards. Viriditas (talk) 07:47, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, that's a huge amount. I'm trying to follow it...Barkeep49, was that your edit? Valereee (talk) 17:14, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm guessing my response is going to feel pretty unsatisfying. On a procedural matter, it's not always possible to reveal who performed specific suppression. In this case I'm ok confirming I did the suppression which happened after a user notified me. I consulted with another member of the oversight team before doing so and we both agreed suppression was appropriate. As noted suppression at noticeboards always are unfortunate and difficult when not caught ASAP given the number of edits they end up including. At least for me this did include consideration of the amount of time/edits that happened prior to suppression. Beyond this I'm not really able to say much. Barkeep49 (talk) 17:25, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No worries, just thought such a huge suppression was worth asking about. Valereee (talk) 17:32, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Prep 6

Two same subject matter hooks in Prep 6

I thought we may want to separate two related hooks in Prep 6 Looks like @Launchballer: added the second one with Special:Diff/1224285221 about Billie Eilish who wrote a song about lesbian sex. There was already a song about a queer anthem in the set. I know this happens when three editors build a set, so I posted it here rather than undo anything. Bruxton (talk) 04:33, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nxdia is one of mine, so I knew she was there. WP:DYKVAR says two such hooks are allowed, so what I did was technically fine. However, with the benefit of hindsight, most of the views interested in that are probably going to go to Eilish, so I've kicked her back.--Launchballer 10:14, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

26 May

is Trinity Sunday this year. I created an article about a church dedicated to the Trinity, because it was a red link in a recent deaths article. It then occurred to me that it would be sort of quirky to have a DYK about it on Trinity Sunday, which is in eight days, or rather almost seven, Template:Did you know nominations/Trinitatiskirche, Wolfenbüttel. If you agree please review fast and have room for it in prep, pictured preferred because it looks unusual for a church ;) - I am not married to the hook but think it matches the unusual looks. -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:14, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Evrik: You sure about that? Prep 6 is 27 May, and the request is for the 26th. (The lead hook of prep 6 is a church, and there should not be two adjacent churches in the lead slot - but there is my Boyz Unlimited hook in prep 5, which I'm happy to move.)--Launchballer 16:24, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Launchballer: Math are hard. As long as you see this request, that's what is important. :-) --evrik (talk) 16:27, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Promoted. I will say that if you're going to put 'a palace' in the hook, the article should probably include the word 'palace', which I've now added.--Launchballer 16:44, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Noted. --evrik (talk) 17:10, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Queue 1

Philomena Franz

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

Hello @RoySmith - thanks for picking this up de:Zwischen Liebe und Hass describes the plot of book, and that it includes these things. Of course that can't be used as a reference to the page, but can the book itself be the reference? I left it out initially Lajmmoore (talk) 19:50, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not very familiar with our sourcing rules when it comes to book plots, so I'll leave that to somebody else to answer. RoySmith (talk) 20:01, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Plot sections about fiction are generally exempt from our guidelines on sourcing, but this is not the case for nonfiction books. If the hook is from the autobiography itself, I guess simply citing the book itself and the page number would be enough. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 23:35, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Live into 85

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

Didn't think there was a difference, but the source says "groped", so I've adjusted the article.--Launchballer 19:48, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One is a subset of the other. Thanks for the adjustment. RoySmith (talk) 19:49, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@AirshipJungleman29, @Launchballer, @Sammi Brie, @RoySmith -- the hook is
Moone is still alive. I think we need a discussion about negative content in a BLP, here. It's in Queue 1, which is up next. Valereee (talk) 14:01, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I had a similar thought when I reviewed this, but decided it was adequately sourced so OK. However, if somebody else is also thinking it's a problem, then it's a problem and needs to get fixed or pulled. RoySmith (talk) 14:10, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
... that the Hogmanay special Live into 85 was sufficiently shambolic for the BBC to promise that the following year's offering would be free from bagpipes, accordions, and kilts?
... that the Hogmanay special Live into 85 was so shambolic that it ended a 32-year tradition?--Launchballer 14:21, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've swapped to P4. Valereee (talk) 14:28, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's in prep 2, and right now queue 1 has three adjacent bios.--Launchballer 14:37, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Amie Parnes

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

Both uses (birthdate and birthplace) comply with WP:ABOUTSELF.--Launchballer 19:52, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One tweet says "There are a million of those on Calle Ocho. I was born here :)", the other, "For my covid birthday today, I’m putting on a fresh pair of pants." I don't see how those support the stated facts. RoySmith (talk) 20:14, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, so I just checked the Calle Ocho tweet, and 'here' appears to be a reply to another tweet, which isn't there any more. I've taken it out. "April 15" refers to "today" on a tweet posted on 15 April, and the other source gives her age as 35 in October 2013, which is permissible per WP:CALC.--Launchballer 20:33, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Are we supposed to assume that "covid birthday" means "actual birthday during covid lockdowns"? It could and maybe even likely does mean that but this medium is so terse and fluid that it's hard to be sure. Also, when I view the tweet, I see its date as "5:33 AM · Apr 15, 2020". Do we know what time zone it was when it was posted? Do we know whether that's the same as the time zone shown? Do we know whether the poster thought of that time as being late at night on one day or early in the morning on the next day? That's why we need better sources for this sort of thing. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:42, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Or "covid birthday" could be "the anniversary of when I got covid". I see https://wikibiography.in/amie-parnes-wiki-bio/ says "15th of April 1977", as does https://www.marathi.tv/amie-parnes/. https://wikinetworth.com/politician/amie-parnes-wiki-bio-age-married-husband-education.html says April 19. I don't count any of those as WP:RS, but neither do I count guessing what some tweet really means to be a RS. I agree with David; we need better sourcing for this. RoySmith (talk) 20:55, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Cut, and merged the rest of that section per WP:OVERSECTION. It won't mean "anniversary of when I got COVID" as it wasn't really a thing in April 2019.--Launchballer 21:01, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Queue 2

Jonathan Stoklosa

@BeanieFan11, TonyTheTiger, and AirshipJungleman29:

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

Unreviewed backlog mode

Over at WP:QPQ we discuss "unreviewed backlog mode." Can we create some sort of shortcut that points to that passage? --evrik (talk) 02:41, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have created a shortcut with the title "DYKUBM". If others would like to use a different shortcup, feel free to ping me. Z1720 (talk) 16:28, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I will have a tallcup please. :) Bruxton (talk) 18:44, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. --evrik (talk) 15:52, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

QPQ tool

This is really a quibble about a specific tool, rather than about the DYK process itself. I noticed that the QPQ tool doesn't show any DYK credits for me after February 2024.

The last nomination shown on that tool is Template:Did you know nominations/Henry Clay Frick House, which is a nomination by another user a decade ago. My nomination of the article is a DYK rerun, at Template:Did you know nominations/Henry Clay Frick House (2nd nomination). After that, it seems like none of my DYKs from March, April, or May are displayed on the tool. However, it seems that the tool works correctly for other users with nominations from the past three months.

I forgot who maintains this tool, so I'm posting here in case anyone knows who can fix it. – Epicgenius (talk) 01:34, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It also doesn't show any credits for me from before the start of this year.--Launchballer 22:21, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Based on the toolhub info, it is maintained by Sohom Datta (github repo) who I assume is Sohomdatta. RoySmith (talk) 22:57, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Or Sohom Datta, one of the two.--Launchballer 23:38, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That me. I'll take a look once I reach a compute. Sohom (talk) 23:55, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've applied a quick fix for the issues surround the fact that it did not report credits from the last few months. (We were caching a response from 3 months ago Facepalm Facepalm) Wrt to the misattributed DYKs, I will need to take a far deeper look. Sohom (talk) 01:31, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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