This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:Did you know. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
We still have 121 verified hooks left. Either we need to bring in more active, experienced people to fill in prep areas, or we can reduce three sets into two. --George Ho (talk) 15:21, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
I would like to promote hooks, but I've never done it before. I rejected ones that do not pass fivefold requirements. So how are they done? I know that lead hook requires pictures. Still, are they ranged from most exciting to least exciting in one set? --George Ho (talk) 15:27, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
They're just done as long as there aren't multiple hooks from the same person. Ones with pictures always lead if there is one avaliable and only one picture per set. Other than that, theres no specific order, just try to avoid mixing hooks that have similar themes (ie. 2 cricket hooks in the same set should try to be avoided). The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 19:06, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Quite a bit more to it than that. Some people try to give earlier placement to the longer articles, the set typically ends with a "quirky" hook, similar hooks need to be separated (i.e., don't put two bios in a row, or two US hooks), etc.: see the guidelines about building sets in WP:DYKSG#Rules of thumb for preparing updates. Another thing that is important to remember is to look over hooks before you promote them; many hooks have been approved that still have problems (or their articles do), and the prep set assembly stage is a point where these are identified and sent back for more work. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:25, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps you should get more practice approving nominations first. Promoting adds an extra layer onto hook and nomination approvals. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:58, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
Of course, part of the problem is that only administrators can edit the hook queues. There are a whole lot more people who could manage the queues but can't because we don't have the required permissions, there's no way of delegating, there's too few new admins coming through RFA and there's too much resistance to reform. Ultimately we're being stymied by Wikipedia's failed system of administratorship. It might be time to start thinking about working around it - could we look at ways of populating queues without needing admin permissions? Prioryman (talk) 23:49, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
The original issue (above) was with preps. I've been doing some queues, as have Orlady and Casliber (and a couple others). We've enough to manage, although I admit it's not as well staffed as it could be. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:09, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
Well, quite. That's what, half a dozen people at most to manage an area of the main page that needs frequent attention? We don't seem to have much spare capacity here. Prioryman (talk) 00:17, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
Yep. Without that critical mass, it's harder to get ahead of the game and keep those warnings/reminders from being raised. Here, it's been hard to build up a backlog of filled queues, because the preps sometimes have to wait a while for promotion. (When they're filled, that is, which does happen.) It's been a long time since we last had all six queues filled. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:58, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
Not Rlevse (now PumpkinSky (talk·contribs) - he no longer has admin permissions and has been inactive since October 2012. As for Ameliorate!, if an admin is inactive for a long time it's legitimate to alter their protections in their absence. WP:RPP wasn't intended to freeze protections indefinitely if the admin who placed them is no longer active. Prioryman (talk) 08:41, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
This discussion seems to have switched to be working on the premise that the queues are going to be unprotected, rather than asking whether editors think the queues should be unprotected, which seems like a false premise. Or am I misreading? Harriastalk22:32, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
Are there any detailed instructions on how to promote a set to the queue (including all the necessary steps to protect the image)? Every time I think about it, the massive warnings on the page's edit screen put me off. Also how much rechecking of hooks/articles/image licence do admins who do this regularly actually do? Espresso Addict (talk) 04:39, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
Either a) hope the bot at commons protects the image, b) protect the image at commons, or c) upload the image locally and protect it, adding {{Uploaded from Commons}} to the page
Thanks, Crisco. I'm sure there used to be instructions to admins for doing this, but I couldn't find them. Given that I'm not an admin at Commons, it's the image protection step that usually floors me. How often does the Commons bot run? If you upload locally, do you have to actually protect the mirrored image page or just add the "Uploaded from Commons" template to extend cascading protection to it? Do you have to delete the uploaded mirror, or does that happen automatically? Less importantly, what happens with notifications these days? Can you add a personal message to the bot notifications? Espresso Addict (talk) 05:35, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
The bot runs automatically, but service is spotty. You can request protection there, or, if you upload locally, manually protect the page. The template is just a notification. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:41, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
Old unreviewed DYK hooks
Even though we have well over 100 approved hooks, we have eight of ten empty queues and prep areas, and plenty of lenguishing DYK submissions that need reviewing. I've included the one large multi with many unreviewed hooks, and those Gibraltar hooks left over from the now-ended GibraltarpediA competition. Many thanks for your assistance.
Finally, here are eight Gibraltar-related hooks that need reviews, three of which are from October; all are in the special holding area, where it's hard to find them. Gibraltar hooks still need two careful reviews, but seven of these already have one review and only need a second review. There's also one there from early 2013.
Template:Did you know nominations/"Where are your keys?"
Currently in prep 3, we have from Template:Did you know nominations/"Where are your keys?", the hook " that you can learn to speak any foreign language fluently by playing the game Where are your keys? with a native speaker?" How is this hook a) not an advertisement and b) supported by the article and reliable sources? As far as I can tell, this is sourced from [1] which looks suspiciously like a blog. Are there any scientific studies or at least mainstream sources that confirm that this game means that you (yes, you!) can learn to speak any language fluently? Fram (talk) 15:23, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
Is there any idiots' guide to what image licences are ok to appear on the main page? Obviously cc images are fine and fair use are not, but there appear to me to be lots of grey areas in and around old works of art, where my understanding of the guidelines just isn't adequate to decide. Espresso Addict (talk) 02:56, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
The complete idiot's guide to image licensing, a la Crisco
Published before 1923 in the US, from the US - Free to use
Author died 100 years ago or more - Free to use anywhere
(Realistically) CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, or CC-0 - Free to use
Thanks, Crisco. It's what to do in case of (4) that I keep running up against... Is there a DYK image expert who can be called in to decide in such cases? Otherwise hooks with pretty images tend to languish while no-one knowledgeable stops by and offers an expert opinion. Espresso Addict (talk) 04:26, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:
Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #4 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page
I have gone through the rules and supplementary guidelines and I haven't found any rule or guideline that prohibits using one image for two hooks (two article nominations). Have I overlooked something? Surtsicna (talk) 19:52, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
There is nothing to stop you doing that but at most only one will be featured, because it's highly unlikely anyone is going to want to feature the same image twice. Gatoclass (talk) 06:05, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
Heads up on the Feb 11 Medal of Honor ceremony happening at the White House. We already have a DYK on it (above) that I did the review on. This is only the 4th living recipient of this honor. CNN article on him Don't know if you want to run it on the day of the ceremony. Too bad we don't have this young man's photo to go with the DYK. — Maile (talk) 00:40, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
Fourth living recipient of this honour from the current war, so out of 11. Not of all time. That being said, this should be saved for the date. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:50, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
I'm still reeling from reading Template:Did you know nominations/Paleontology in the United States. Honestly, why was such a monstrous hook ever accepted, with 54 separate linked articles? This is no reflection on the quality of those articles, but it's not sensible to have such a huge number of articles in the same nomination, especially as they make the hook 3 times longer than the supposed character limit. I think there needs to be a limit on the number of articles per hook; at the most, perhaps half a dozen. I suggest amending the DYK rules to restrict the number of new articles to a sensible limit in future. Prioryman (talk) 14:20, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
I don't see a problem with the number of links if the hook stays within the character limits, but extending the limit to support extra links is something I'd be opposed to. In all honesty I think multiple links in one hook hurts the nominator's work, as it divides attention among the links when we really want to be showcasing each article for the work that's gone into it. GRAPPLEX14:25, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
If we have something as enormous this in future, it might be worth considering splitting it across multiple lines and giving most of the DYK box over to it? Especially if we can find something else thematically linked... Andrew Gray (talk) 14:30, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
I have to agree about the paleontology one. It's an interesting topic but just listing that fossils can be found in practically every US state is not very compelling even if it would be the largest multi-hook ever run. Maybe set the cap at 10 for related articles and allow more only if it makes the hook stand out? Froggerlauraribbit17:56, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
I agree with most of what has been said. While there can be an advantage to linking two or three articles (mostly to avoid a lot of repetitive hooks in a short space) I find the long ones ungainly and somewhat irritating to be honest. I would similarly back some sort of a limit (albeit with exceptions being allowed in exceptional circumstances) being placed upon this. Harriastalk18:04, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
I don't think we need to set a limit, it should be enough to remind in the instructions that readers will not click a tenth or twentieth time, so the "poor" articles in the end of a multi-hook won't get attention, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:29, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
I don't know what the answer is here. If someone nominated 54 articles as individual hooks, there would be those (here and elsewhere) who complained that DYK was going overboard on theme X or theme Y or theme Z, however well they were spaced out, and even if they were combined to some extent into n hooks (n>1 and n<54). At least one mega-hook gets the DYK decks cleared at once and the complaints dealt with within 24 hours before being forgotten. Unless and until DYK starts saying "no more than # hooks on topics within # weeks" or "no more than # articles created by the same author within # weeks", variations on this issue will be there, although admittedly not normally in 54-hook size. BencherliteTalk23:18, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
There always used to be the rule that hooks had to be interesting -- though there were perennial arguments as to what constitutes interesting, of course. Espresso Addict (talk) 23:42, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
Considering the first time I got caught in one of those, when I was still a DYK newb, I was ready to up and leave... I'd rather we not get back to that. Coincidentally, that was over a multi-hook as well (five articles related to Badai Pasti Berlalu) — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:50, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
If we're not selective to some degree on interest, we might as well just have a rolling list of all new/expanded articles with adequate referencing. (Which, to my mind, is what some of these giant multi-hooks have devolved into.) Espresso Addict (talk) 00:15, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
Some degree of interest, certainly. But let's not hope for all hooks to be exploding rocks to save them or Dairi farms producing fish. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:25, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
I know that I, personally, immediately clicked on the one for my state. Because that's what makes this one interesting. All of our US readers (and likely many outside the US who have some personal preference for a certain state) will click on the one affiliated with themselves. I think it's a brilliant method of designing a hook. SilverserenC03:57, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
Personally, I don't feel that aiming hooks at US readers only is a good idea for the international appeal of the main page. With a proper hook, many of these articles might be of interest to a wide audience, but for those outside the US, "did you know that there are no dinosaur fossils in state X" is a bit of a paint-drying hook. Espresso Addict (talk) 20:16, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
That's fine, no hook is expected to be of interest to everyone. These were legitimate articles with an acceptable hook, and featuring them all together in the one hook saves having to have another 53 hooks on similar topics. Gatoclass (talk) 06:11, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
Hooks for individual state articles (or small groups of state articles), could have dealt with a myriad of different subjects: petrified wood at Native American archaeological sites in New Jersey, the fossil discovered in South Dakota by the Lewis and Clark expedition, the state fossils of several states, the presence of fossil dinosaur footprints in Connecticut and Massachusetts, etc., etc. --Orlady (talk) 06:26, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
As stated elsewhere, I didn't like that hook. The purpose of DYK is to highlight new content -- and get people to read it. Our purpose is not to demonstrate that we can stuff a large number of article links into a single sentence -- and hooks like that don't get very many people to read the articles. Moreover, given the need to publish a lot of hooks daily, the cost (in human effort) to review all those articles for just one mega-hook was disproportionate to the benefit to DYK. --Orlady (talk) 06:26, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
I did wonder about the latter issue, but it occurs to me that it would be the same amount of effort (if not more) to review 54 separate nominations. Reviewing them all at once is perhaps more daunting but it might actually be less work overall. That said, I do wonder if it might have been better to split the hook into a series of related smaller hooks - for instance, instead of listing all 50 states at once, breaking them up into a series of smaller hooks grouped by region (South, West, Midwest etc). That would probably have been more user-friendly. Prioryman (talk) 11:08, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
Reviewing all of the hooks separately definitely would be more work in total, but we'd get more benefits from that work -- more hook slots filled in DYK and more click-throughs to the articles (possibly resulting in more positive editing attention to those articles. --Orlady (talk) 16:21, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
I thought the same thing you did, but from what I can tell it looks like everything is on the up and up. The image in question, File:The Splatters blob.jpg, is cropped from File:The Splatters 08.jpg. The parent image in turn has a Creative Commons Share Alike license with supporting WP:OTRS ticket verifying the claimed license has been granted. Unless someone has evidence casting doubt upon the validity of the OTRS ticket then there should be no licensing issues with the currently selected image. --Allen3talk21:56, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
Just saw this. Yeah, the source image was uploaded under a free license / OTRS tag. The uploader (Sven) is fairly savvy, so it's safe to assume that the OTRS tag is legit. If you want someone to confirm, you can contact Sphilbrick or Moonriddengirl; both have OTRS permissions. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:23, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
I'm happy to take the OTRS ticket on faith, I just didn't scroll down far enough looking at the uncropped image. Should the OTRS tag be added to the cropped version, too? Else I suspect we'll get some repeats of my mistake when it goes live in main-page errors. Espresso Addict (talk) 03:26, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know the OTRS ticket only applies to the original image and not works derived from it, which are licensed CC-BY-SA or whatever normally. That being said, I'm not very well versed at OTRS (batting something like 0.05 with getting people to agree to donate pix) — Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:48, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
Can someone please review this DYK? nomination of mine--Template:Did you know nominations/Demographic history profile of Detroit? I already left messages on the talk pages of the two users who previously reviewed this article, but neither one of them has responded to me yet and it's already been several days. That said, can someone here please finish reviewing this DYK? nomination of mine. Thank you very much. Also, if someone is in a similar position to mine, I can review your DYK? nomination as well, but please let me know first. Futurist110 (talk) 05:05, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
DYK is almost overdue
In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:
Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #3 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page
The current situation is that Drmies still rejects the article as non-notable, and the article currently has one reviewer in favour and one opposed. While I'm neutral on the notability issue (I didn't participate in the AfD), I don't think it's viable for one editor to reject an article on the grounds of notability when a clear majority of opinion has rejected the claim of non-notability at AfD. I think that outcome has to be respected and as far as I'm concerned, once the issue has been adjudicated by the wider community it's off the table as far as DYK is concerned. It would be helpful if other editors could advise on whether DYK reviewers have to defer to the outcomes of AfDs when considering notability issues. Prioryman (talk) 10:46, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
Only if the AfD closed as Delete. Otherwise, the proper process was followed by nominating for AfD and it wasn't deleted. End of story, nomination continues on as normal. We've had plenty of past nominations that were AfD'ed while nominated, were ultimately kept, and were then posted to DYK. Simple enough process. SilverserenC11:55, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
What Prioryman asked wasn't the real question, and frankly, Prioryman, I'm getting more than a little bit pissed at your constant misrepresentations of my argument: I can't tell if you're incompetent or just unwilling to read what I wrote. By now, I think the latter, since otherwise your knowledge of English seems passable. I don't care one whit about the AfD article: I rejected the article because it is a bad article. I must have said that three or four times by now. Next, Prioryman is not an uninvolved editor and should, in my opinion, not be reviewing Gribaltar DYKs. That's all. Drmies (talk) 14:25, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
I'm not misrepresenting you at all. I'm perfectly well aware that you said it "is just not a very good article" as part of your reason for rejecting it. That's fine, and I respect your views on that, but that's not what I'm discussing above: I'm only addressing the narrow issue of notability which we disagreed on. Your wider argument is essentially an aesthetic one on what makes a "good article". I don't get into those sorts of questions because they are too subjective for my liking and they are not part of the DYK criteria. That's why I've not disputed it with you, because it's not something I want to get into. Maybe it's just a difference in reviewing philosophies, but personally I wouldn't be comfortable rejecting an article on grounds that boil down to "I don't like it". My view is that as long as it meets the criteria, it should be accepted, whatever the topic might be. Prioryman (talk) 14:38, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
Quality is not subjective. You have 12 FAs on your userpage, and the process through which you got them says otherwise, so don't give me that crap: you can't have it both ways, Prioryman. Pont du Gard is fantastic, and anyone who knows how to read will agree with that (and that photo brings back a lot of memories). Do I need to say again that I don't give a damn about this notability issue? The article was kept--fine. I don't care. I don't care. That's not my problem with it. Demiurge, for your benefit, let me rephrase "a very good article": it's a bad article. I was trying to be diplomatic. It's really a bad article. It should be part of the requirement that an article is at the very least decent--that it's on topic, that its content is about its subject, that it doesn't consist of a bunch of trivial notes that are thrown in because they're sourced, et cetera. DYK is our shop window; articles like this do not help advertise us. This talk about "oh eh it's not in the guidelines"--the guidelines don't say much at all; only item 4. of the eligibility criteria says anything about content.
But all of this is beside the point anyway. My last point of contention at the DYK nomination was that this article needs two reviewers to OK it: one because I rejected it for what I think are acceptable reasons, and one other because I don't accept Prioryman's neutrality in this matter.
Prioryman, the problem with all this is that you keep dragging it up, and as a result I have to say things like "it's a bad article", which are things I don't want to say at all. You refuse to address the neutrality point, practically forcing me to paint you as a COI contributor every single time. I don't like that. The article isn't terrible, but it's bad enough to not be on the front page. You're involved with Gibraltar/pedia, but not to the point where I want to bring charges or something like that. This DYK nomination has been languishing for months and may well continue to do so, and what would anyone have gained from it? Nothing. Even if it makes it to the front page, the only thing it'll do is up the DYK count for someone; it won't make anyone else a Wikipedia editor since it's a bad article and there've been a million Gibraltar articles on DYK (and I know since I reviewed and helped edit a number of them). On top of that, we get the usual disposable commentary like that from Demiurge above: none of you would put something on the front page that's simply not good, even if it meets the criteria. Drmies (talk) 15:33, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
I think it's pretty clear whose commentary here is "disposable". If there was actually a point you were trying to make in all that, you failed to make it. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 17:23, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
At the risk of pointing out the obvious, DYK is not FA or even GA. There are all kinds of criteria for those that simply aren't part of DYK. The question raised by this particular article is whether it's "good enough". Obviously opinions can differ on this point. I felt it was. You felt it wasn't. An AfD found that it was at least good enough not to be deleted. In that kind of situation it's fine to ask for a second or third opinion to break the deadlock. Don't take it as a personal slight - it's not. It really is just a question of different perspectives. In the case of an article like this, it's quite possible that someone with local knowledge might step in to improve it if they saw it on the Main Page.
As for "neutrality", I'm getting very tired indeed by the persistent undeserved hostility and paranoia being directed towards anyone writing articles relating to Gibraltar. I have no COI whatsoever. I have only a marginal involvement with Gibraltarpedia itself - my own interest is due to founding WikiProject Gibraltar years ago, long before Gibraltarpedia even existed. I haven't participated in Gibraltarpedia's article-writing competition, nor have I written any articles for Gibraltarpedia. I've had no involvement whatsoever in any of the issues that led to the controversy about Gibraltarpedia. Simply contributing to a topic area doesn't somehow magically generate a COI and I reject any suggestion from you or anyone else that I shouldn't review articles in that topic area. The way innocent contributors have been treated on this issue is a disgrace and it needs to stop. Prioryman (talk) 17:33, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
Absolutely. It appears to follow the strategy of "if you throw enough mud, some will stick", and it's very sad that a number of editors stoop to that level. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 17:45, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
I don't think "bad article" is one of the listed failing criteria, nor should it be, since it seems very subjective. DYK, unlike GAN and FAC, has a very specific, extensive set of rules on what is required for an article to be nominated. If it meets all those requirements, then it isn't a "bad article". Drmies, your reasoning doesn't have any backing. One of your points is that it doesn't focus on its subject, which is clearly not true. It specifically discusses the history of the road and the changes that have been made to its construction over the years as Gibraltar has grown. It seems to me, Drmies, that your issue is more that you consider road articles in general to be boring. However, that is merely your opinion. SilverserenC04:26, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
I suggest we put "an article being a bad article is not one of the criteria for appearing on main page" explicitly in the DYK instructions, at the top of the page. We should also put it on the main page, like this: From Wikipedia's newest content (an article being a bad article is not one of the criteria for appearing in this section):..."
As soon as you explain why we should put bad articles on the main page. Oh hell, I'll start first: fluff and cruft, badly written, reads like a promo.Volunteer Marek08:39, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
A "promo" for what? A road!?
I guess we could have a discussion on whether roads articles should be banned from the main page, but I suspect it would go the same way as the proposal to ban Gibraltar and Morocco-related articles from the main page. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 09:02, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
For the government of Gibraltar and its planned construction projects. Which, if you've been following these whole Gibraltarpedia shenanigans - oh wait, you have! - makes perfect sense.
And don't be daft. No one's proposing to ban road articles from DYK. Just because THIS particular road related article isn't very good and just because THIS particular road related article is on a non-notable or a borderline notable road, doesn't mean that this is true of all roads and road related articles.
So quit it with the obvious strawman. Like someone said above, it makes for disposable comments which don't add anything of value to the discussion. In fact they subtract from it.Volunteer Marek09:13, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
Please look at the featured article linked by Rschen above. Look at its content. You've got a description of the route it takes, you have its construction history and the money spent to build it, and you have re-namings and the addition of new roads, routes, and alignments. This is the exact same kind of information that is included in the Devil's Tower Road article. Furthermore, you have a list of the important intersections. Having a list of notable places along the road is not all that much different.
No, it seems to me that you either have an issue with how all road articles on Wikipedia are written and the information they include or you have a bias because its related to Gibraltar and therefore you want to get rid of it. Likely, it's a combination of both. SilverserenC09:29, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
Okay, really now. All of you just calm down. This is not the N+1 siege of Gibraltar or a venue for anti-Gibraltarpedia hate. The project is kaput, done, finished, and it and the negative reaction to it have done enough damage to the once quasi-collegial atmosphere at DYK. I'm quite honestly tired over the bickering about this... who'd have thought Gibraltar would be as controversial as abortion?
Let's look at the article as an article and not as part of Gibraltarpedia. If it's not up to par, it's not up to par. But let's not go into the review with our minds made up. AGF still applies, and most (if not all) of the people who have written Gibraltar articles are established editors who are doing it because they thought it would be interesting, fun, or worth a challenge.
It is certainly not any more inappropriate than you jumping in as the first reviewer to rubber stamp any Gibraltar related DYK noms. It gives the impression you are... well, rubber stamping any Gibraltar related DYK noms. And then getting your chums like Silver Seren to act as the second reviewer, thus doing a nice little run around the 2-reviewer restriction on Gibraltar DYKs. Gaming the system? Volunteer Marek22:41, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
I've weighed in there and given the article a thorough scrubbing, dropping its character count by 1300. Still a tag to deal with — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:23, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
As a side point, the DYK rules state (in the first sentence no less) 'DYK consists of a series of "hooks", which are interesting facts taken from Wikipedia's newest content'. Likewise in the guide for reviewers, on reviewing hooks - 'Consider whether the hook is "hooky"' (interesting). VM rejected it on the basis of 'The article is 90% filler, with little substance. One of the requirements for DYK appearance is that the hook should be interesting. It follows from that that another minimum requirement should be that article should have some substance.' It naturally follows on that if the article lacks the info required to make an interesting 'hook', it should be rejected. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:53, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
That's a good one because it actually made me blink when reading the article - socialists have not always been known as the most eager to want to honour religious figures. (The other thing that made me blink is the plan to have a weird immigration arrangement where air passengers not intending to travel to Spain would remain on the Gibraltar side of the border while being "checked" by Spanish officials who would remain on the Spanish side of the border - that's a hook for some other article though.) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:31, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
Those are actually pretty good hooks and if Prioryman and Silver Seren weren't being so confrontational and dick-ish in this situation, they'd probably be enough to change my mind as to the viability of the article.Volunteer Marek22:43, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
Great! By George, Espresso Addict, I think you've got it! This last one - "... that Gibraltarians would rather their road belonged to the Devil than to a bishop?" - for April Fool's is priceless. — Maile (talk) 15:35, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
Regrettably it isn't. The nomination is still deadlocked at two reviewers for, two against (though VM's statement above that he is opposing because he doesn't like the reviewers should really be enough to get his review stricken). However, given that you've substantially changed the article, it might be worth getting one more person to review it. Prioryman (talk) 21:25, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
No, what I say above is that the hooks changed my mind, NOT that I'm only opposing it because I don't like reviewers. Is it really too much to ask that you stop lying and generally behaving like a complete jerk about this? I mean, it's not like people can't read the original statement for themselves. Anyway, as far as the review goes, yes, I am now satisfied that this could be a DYK.Volunteer Marek21:39, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
Well, good - if you're satisfied could you add the green tick thingy to your review so that we can get this over and done with? Prioryman (talk) 22:24, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
Hmm, well, I looked at it again. Like I said, those hooks are interesting. But one more thing before I tick it off - WHY did the Gibraltar Socialist Labour Party want to name it after this Devlin guy? He was a former pastor of a local church. But why the support from the Socialist Labour Party here? This is sort of the problem with the article - obviously this is something that somebody did a google search from, found a snippet and then slapped it into the article without any kind of context. Like I said before, filler. So before I check it off, how about providing that context, since at the moment it seems like what you got is an interesting hook, but it references a completely random fact.Volunteer Marek23:05, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
The reason why is set out in this source from the article and I've added a bit of extra context to make it clear - that it was to commemorate him (which the article already says) and to posthumously address his discomfiture over the name of the road on which his church stands. Prioryman (talk) 23:10, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
Could use another prep-to-queue promotion sometime in the next three hours. Many thanks. (Note: if done within 80 minutes, we avoid the bot reminder.) BlueMoonset (talk) 20:40, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
Done. Got to do some work stuff now, but will look at the others later if I have time, and no-one else has done them. Harriastalk21:10, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
No, I'm afraid it will have to be selected for a new prep set. Once they're pulled and require a new review, the promotion process starts all over again. (The set UDAC had been with is already on the main page.) BlueMoonset (talk) 01:17, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
How misleading does the hook have to be? I've reviewed Shitterton, which seems to me to be amusing & perhaps difficult to credit, yet is completely straight. Espresso Addict (talk) 01:01, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
It should not be deliberately misleading, but phrasing can be non-standard and key bits of information can be dropped. If you can do it on the up and up, more the power to you — Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:02, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
Deliberately misleading is fine, and even desirable, for April Fools' Day, as long as the hook is actually true and verifiable. Just having profanity or amusing names in a hook does not make it a good AFD candidate. I agree with Espresso Addict's concern above – that first hook was not April Foolsy, and I'm glad some alts are being discussed. MANdARAX•XAЯAbИAM22:58, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
Can't use <h2> in table header
The DYK section on the Main page includes:
! style="padding:2px;" | <h2 id="mp-tfa-h2" style="margin:3px; background:#cef2e0; font-size:120%; font-weight:bold; border:1px solid #a3bfb1; text-align:left; color:#000; padding:0.2em 0.4em;">{{#ifexpr:{{formatnum:{{PAGESIZE:Wikipedia:Today's featured article/{{#time:F j, Y}}}}|R}}>150|From today's featured article|Featured article <span style="font-size:85%; font-weight:normal;">(Check back later for today's.)</span>}}</h2>
This results in a validation error: "The element h2 must not appear as a descendant of the th element." See the W3C markup validation for Main Page. Per the HTML Living Standard, the <th> element may contain "no header, footer, sectioning content, or heading content descendants." That is, you can't use <h2> in a table header. --— Gadget850 (Ed)talk21:08, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
...redesign the main page, of course. That's actually the code for the Today's featured article section, although I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the same code is used in each section, with variations. Apart from that, I have no idea what Gadget's comment means in simple terms or why it is a problem (and if so, to who), nor what I (or others) can do about it. BencherliteTalk00:56, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
Considering the bulk of it was coded some years before many of us were active, and how standards have changed, I don't doubt it. As for coding... this is certainly the wrong place to put it. Most of the editors who comment here are content contributors, not code junkies. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:07, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
The bot didn't update at midnight UTC; there's an error showing up on User:DYKUpdateBot/Errors that says "Time at Template:Did you know/Next update/Time is not formatted correctly". Since the bot made the changes to the file its own self, I have no idea what's wrong.
I've left a note on Shubinator's talk page, but if someone around here knows how to do the delayed update with or without the bots cooperation (and can reset things afterward), we would all greatly appreciate it. I'm about to start loading a prep set so there's something to follow the what's in the queue. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:23, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
Looks like I was typing the above as Materialscientist was manually updating the main page. Many thanks to Materialscientist, and I am also pleased to report that Prep 2 has just been filled, so we have something in the pipeline for the next update. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:46, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:
Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #5 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page
For DYK to operate in a stable manner long term the number of hooks removed from the suggestions page, either via promotion to the queues or by rejection, needs to equal the number of new nominations. This is done by looking at the # of Hooks column of Wikipedia:Did you know/DYK hook count. The # Verified column can tell you when a call for additional reviewers is needed but it should never be used as the basis of determining how many hooks need to be promoted to keep things running properly.
During the two week period that DYK has been running 3 sets of 7 hooks each day, the backlog of pending nominations has decreased from 262 to 245 hooks. This indicates a backlog that is still large but slowly declining in size. Unless a significant change in the weekly nomination rate occurs, it would be better to hold off on reducing the run rate till the backlog is reduced to around 140 (a level first popularized by Gatoclass). --Allen3talk23:04, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
Agree with Allen3: we have a great deal of progress to make before we will be ready to reduce the number of hooks per day, George. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:49, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
Fuzzy lead picture
Is there any reason why the thumbnail of David Gunness in Prep 4 has to be so fuzzy? So far as I can tell, it's an uploaded photo by Gunness himself with all the proper licenses, but the thumbnail, while cropped, is done so at the lowest possible resolution. Something with better resolution should look clearer; as it is, I don't think it looks good enough for the main page. Can someone please do something to upgrade the image? Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:55, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
It's not coming out fuzzy for me. You're not using some kind of image compression on your Internet connection, are you? I've had that issue before, but only when using a mobile phone connection that relies on images being compressed upstream to reduce the amount of data needing to be downloaded. Prioryman (talk) 20:13, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, George. It's much better now. Prioryman, I'm on a laptop with an extremely good connection, and went back and forth between viewing the original picture and the image in the prep area; the latter was distinctly less sharp there and on commons. It's amazing what those extra kilobytes will do. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:09, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
Rule D3 says "Many bare-URL references can be automatically completed with Reflinks." All reflinks does is to give the link in the ref a title, exactly as the references appear in the article in question. More complete citations using templates are preferred, but not required as I understand it - I sure that someone will be along to correct me if I have this wrong. Mikenorton (talk) 20:52, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
If that's all Reflinks does, then that's not a very useful suggestion, and it should be removed from the rule. It makes the bare URLs look a little better, but does not solve the actual problems of bare URLs. DYK has higher standards. The article in question has very inadequate referencing. Urarary (talk) 21:07, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
It seems that 9 out of 12 are not really bare URLs, as they do include the name of the author and the title. Am I missing something? Surtsicna (talk) 21:12, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
"Bare URLs" is simply a URL with nothing else. None of the references here fall under that definition; they may not be full citations, but they do have a title to stop them appearing in the ugly bare-URL format. Do we need to insist on yet another bit of DYK standards-creep? Andrew Gray (talk) 21:27, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
DYK is almost overdue
In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:
Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #6 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page
In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:
Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #2 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page
In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:
Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #3 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page
In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:
Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #5 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page
In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:
Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #1 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page
Proposed minor wording change to Gibraltarpedia restrictions
I'm proposing a small change to the terminology of the Gibraltarpedia restrictions to resolve an ambiguity. When the restrictions were (rather hastily) written in September 2012, they were specifically intended to cover Gibraltarpedia nominations (hence Wikipedia talk:Did you know/GibraltarPediA Options). However, they were worded to cover only "Gibraltar-related" nominations and not specifically Gibraltarpedia articles.
This has caused uncertainty about what exactly is covered by the restrictions. A good example is my own article on José Cruz Herrera, a Spanish painter. He had nothing to do with Gibraltar so the article was not treated as "Gibraltar-related" and was reviewed in the normal way. However, it was given a Gibraltarpedia article banner on its talk page. There were subsequently some arguments about whether this article should have been subject to the restrictions, but this question was never resolved.
To avoid future confusion of this nature, I propose to amend the wording of the restrictions to replace the term "Gibraltar-related" with "Gibraltarpedia". This would not in any way change the substance of the restrictions - Gibraltarpedia articles would continue to need two reviews, be put in a special holding area, not be reviewed by IPs and Victuallers, etc.
Please indicate below whether you support this bit of tidying up. I propose to keep this discussion open for 10 days (i.e. until 18 January). Prioryman (talk) 15:15, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Oppose - I think I'm done with pleasing the paranoia. What if a "Gibraltar-related" article is not tagged with Gibraltarpedia? --George Ho (talk) 15:37, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
That's just the problem, what is a "Gibraltar-related" article? José Cruz Herrera wasn't born in Gibraltar, didn't live or work there and had nothing to do with it as far as I know. I counted it as non-Gibraltar-related for that reason. Others counted it as Gibraltar-related because he was born in the nearest Spanish town to Gibraltar. What constitutes a "Gibraltar-related" article is subjective and open to dispute, but what constitutes a "Gibraltarpedia article" is easy to check just by looking at the talk page templates. It's a clear and objective standard. Prioryman (talk) 19:03, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Prioryman, if you want to send me e-mails, do not send me again messages that demand me to change my vote. I don't get why Gibraltar is an issue other than very low amount of prior publications, accusations of COI and/or advertising, and stuff. If you do that to me again, I'll report this to WP:administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. --George Ho (talk) 19:29, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Support - I'm the one who originally wrote the "Gibraltar-related", and I was flying blind on the issue. Without knowing it, I had unintentionally worded something that penalized editors who had nothing to do with the contest. Change it to "Gibraltarpedia". I'm not sure which paranoia George Ho is referring to, but I'm tired of the quarantine and all the hysteria that has happened over this topic. — Maile (talk) 15:50, 8 January 2013 (UTC).
Oppose. This looks like it would open the door to gaming the system. Also, the aggressive reaction by Prioryman against George Ho calls into question the ethical nature of this proposal. Binksternet (talk) 13:43, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
Support: Really, Gibraltar related topics are most likely to be in the Gibraltapedia project however I do agree that the original intention of the wording has mutated into meaning all Gibraltar which is a bit unfair, I'm all in favour of clarification (or total removal since the cause, the competition, is over) The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 22:14, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
That's actually an argument I don't buy. Whether the drafting editor did or did not intend it or knew what he was doing, Gibraltar is what was supported at the time when the restrictions were put into effect, not merely Gibraltarpedia. It was clear from comments on the [far-too-]many Gibraltarpedia threads that a number of people thought this should affect all Gibraltar-related hooks regardless of Gibraltarpedia affiliation: when I read the original proposal, I thought it was deliberate and probably a good idea to make sure all bases were covered. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:54, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
I had always thought that the discussion was about Gibraltarpedia - that's why it was called "Gibraltarpedia options", after all. It was only later that the inconsistency in the wording became clear, as did the collateral damage to other WikiProjects. "Gibraltar-related" impacts on a lot of other WikiProjects. For instance I wrote Carteia as part of my ongoing work on classical archaeology, just after I'd finished rewriting Volubilis which I'd also visited on the same trip. It wasn't written with Gibraltarpedia in mind (it's covered by Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome and Wikipedia:WikiProject Spain) but because it's near Gibraltar and was rediscovered by Britons from Gibraltar it could be considered "Gibraltar-related" and therefore subject to the restrictions. What sense does it make to cause collateral damage to other WikiProjects? If the intention is to restrict Gibraltarpedia, then restrict Gibraltarpedia and avoid damaging other WikiProjects that have nothing to do with the controversy. Prioryman (talk) 08:57, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
The original discussion started out as being about Gibraltarpedia, its use of DYK in determining its prize structure, and its association with organizations on Gibraltar. It became an issue of access to Wikipedia's main page, via DYK, for Gibraltar-related hooks—Gibraltar was making frequent appearances on that page. Gibraltar presumably benefited by a DYK appearance whether the article was inspired by Gibraltarpedia or not, and they clearly believed they were benefiting by the competition-inspired Gibraltarpedia articles. In this case, the upstart Gibraltarpedia WikiProject has caused collateral damage to the more venerable Gibraltar WikiProject by covering the same topic area, Gibraltar, and making main page access a prize goal. It's not fair that they did this to you, but it's been done, and we all have to live with the repercussions, which makes Gibraltar-related articles have to jump through extra hoops to get to the Wikipedia main page via DYK. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:26, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
WTF are you talking about? I've not sent any "secret emails" to any of the supporting voters. If you can't bother assuming good faith, you're not contributing anything useful to this discussion. Prioryman (talk) 08:57, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
I was commenting in good faith, and haven't received any emails on the topic (or, from memory, ever from Prioryman). I'd suggest assuming good faith rather than making accusations. Nick-D (talk) 22:45, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
It should probably be pointed out that Prioryman did email George Ho on the subject after George opposed above, so he's understandably sensitive on the subject. And Prioryman has been letting people know about the proposal on their talk pages (I was one). BlueMoonset (talk) 01:27, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
Oppose: I've been struggling with this for ten days, and ultimately I can't see separating Gibraltarpedia and Gibraltar-related hooks. The original restrictions hit all Gibraltar hooks equally, as noted above, and I think they need to come off all Gibraltar hooks together when they are lifted (and I'm assuming they will be at some point in the not-too-distant future). This is not a small change, as advertised in the description, it's a fundamental one, as evidenced by the original discussions: the meaning was not ambiguous to me. If the restrictions are fully removed, I'm ready to dismantle them, but I don't think redefining them in midstream is appropriate. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:50, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
Question: Has there been any other DYK's which have had a similar problem where people have had differing opinions on whether an article was "Gibraltar-related" or "Gibraltarpedia". If it is happening infrequently, I suggest leaving the current wording in place, and let uninvolved people decide. John Vandenberg(chat)01:16, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
John, since the restrictions put in place were to "Gibraltar-related" articles, which covered all articles related to the territory of Gibraltar whether written for Gibraltarpedia or not, the question has not been relevant: if an article was seen to be about the European Gibraltar in some way, it was subject to the restrictions and treated as such. The only differing opinions were on whether Gibraltars in Australia or the US ought to be considered "Gibraltar-related" because they had the same name; the general (but not unanimous) feeling is that they weren't related and shouldn't therefore be subject to the restrictions. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:42, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
However I'm wondering how often there has been a general feeling that they weren't related. I saw a few strange cases, like the one in Australia, but there are a limited number of Australian places named after Gibraltar, and they have been done now. If its not a regular problem, I think its worth keeping the current definition in place and focusing on lifting the whole restriction. John Vandenberg(chat)08:51, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
Added comment to above proposal
I have to retract my statement that I'm the one who first-used used the phrase "Gibraltar-related". This is Who Originally Said What to start the whole mess. I had requested input from Yngvadottir and BlueMoonset (perhaps also Orlady, but I'm not sure) so we might come to some sort of a resolution on the Gibraltarpedia arguments going on at that time. I didn't know what I was doing, and I wanted so badly to make this better for all concerned. They responded in good faith on my talk page (later moved to DYK). It was actually Yngvadottir who came up with the original test draft on this and used the phrase. I built on what he had written. In my intent, it was all about Gibraltarpedia. The others can answer for themselves - or not, but their involvements were the same reason as mine, to make an uncomfortable situation better. As some DYK nominators/editors proved shortly afterward, there is more than one Gibraltar on this earth. There are several Gibraltars on the earth and on Wikipedia. So, if we cannot fine-tune this to Gibraltarpedia, than we must apply the rules to any and all DYK nominations that are related to any Gibraltar anywhere on the earth. Is it all Gibraltars on the earth, or is it just the project Gibraltarpedia? If there's one thing I regret to my soul being involved in, it's this. It's never-ending, and it often looks like a personal grudge against anyone who is willing to pitch in and get the job done. — Maile (talk) 15:06, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
While in theory there is no reason that those non-Mediterranean Gibraltars would fall under this restriction, in reality these DYKs were created by the exact same people, and were generally badly written, badly sourced, and badly nominated DYKs, with the same small group of people involved in each of them. The problem is not really with the topics per se, it is with the conduct of some people. The below subsection on Prioryman is relevant to this, others involved in these and similar pronlems include LauraHale and Hawkeye7 (perhaps others, these are the ones that I immediately associate with it). Fram (talk) 15:39, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Yes, this was to try to find a way to deal with a very uncomfortable situation and find a way forward that would work and satisfy the concerns raised about the project and the way it was employing DYK. It definitely helped. I do note that all of the proposals on that page are stated as "Gibraltar-related" DYK submissions; Gibraltarpedia is hardly used on that page (6 times in the body vs. 35 for "Gibraltar-related", and half of those refer to the possibility of reviewing restrictions on Gibraltarpedia members). Your desire may have been Gibraltarpedia, but the intent—as you say so yourself—was to reflect Gibraltar-related because that's what the other people were looking for. In short, you went with what you believed was consensus.
"...then we must apply the rules to any and all DYK nominations that are related to any Gibraltar anywhere on this earth." I'm sorry, but that's absurd. This has been, from its beginning, about that little piece of Europe called Gibraltar. Yes, those DYK nominators did make their point that there was more than one Gibraltar on this earth, but the underlying articles—most of which were pretty mediocre, and took quite a while to meet DYK standards—did not advance any interest in the sites and history of the original Gibraltar, and there's no reason to include them in the restrictions. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:02, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
Fram and BlueMoonset, let me ask you both something. First of all, Fram, I believe your overall concern is about DYK quality and what you believe to be editors who clog up the system with nominations that don't meet that quality. While I believe BlueMoonset is concerned about intent and controversy caused by the Gibraltarpedia project, whether it has that label or not. Let's say an editor not connected to any of this, someone who walks in off the virtual WP landscape, self-nominates an article that just happens to be about something over on Gibraltar. I don't know what - pick any subject - Irish jig dancing on Gibraltar or something. And the nomination is of decent quality and doesn't clog up the system. Does this editor get subjected to the same system now in place, just because they happened to write about something on Gibraltar? I think I already know the answer, but go ahead. — Maile (talk) 16:16, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
Yes, of course you know the answer. Everyone who writes a Gibraltar-related article has to jump through a few extra hoops for the time being, whether they're new, old, Gibraltarpedian or non. This sort of thing happens all the time when something goes wrong in the world: extra restrictions for a while on doing something, which are eventually loosened, but while they're in force they affect everyone. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:27, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
How long?
How long do we have to wait for the rather inane restrictions to be removed though? Its been 4+ months since the furor or a possible conflict of interest. All of hte conditions that were being complained about are gone, yet the restrictions and extra hoops are purposely being maintained here.--Kevmin§04:32, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
As said above, I wouldn't mind the restrictions being changed to just name a few people who aren't allowed to review any Gibraltar-related articles and any articles by each other instead, which would basically remove the need to have the two reviews. But the current restriction is an acceptable second-best option as well. Fram (talk) 08:20, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I know. The restrictions serve no useful purpose at all now that the original issues are gone. I suggested a lifting of the restrictions above at #Ending the Gibraltar restrictions, which resulted in 10-3 majority in favour, but for reasons I don't pretend to understand the closing admin decided that there was not a sufficient consensus to act on the proposal. So here we still are. So where do we go from here? The closing admin mentioned two issues of (debatable) relevance: a report on Wikimedia UK (including Gibraltarpedia, though WMUK didn't sponsor it, and the report won't address editing issues on Wikipedia such as DYK) is due to be released on 31 January and the discussion linked above was not advertised outside this page. I'm looking at essentially re-running that discussion in February following the release of the WMUK report, advertising it on a number of pages including Talk:Main Page and Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals), and probably notifying the 100 or so editors who participated in the discussion at WT:Did you know/Archive 87#Gibraltar, again. If anyone objects to this, please let me know in advance. Prioryman (talk) 08:31, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
Kevmin and Prioryman, I'm sectioning this out in case it gets long.
Carcharoth closed with this comment, "Consensus to lift restrictions is forming. More discussion needed for precisely how this should be done": Carcharoth's Post-consensus comments. And while it does seem like a never-ending issue, Carcharoth did suggest rewording the proposal and publicizing more widely. There's merit in that idea.
BlueMoonset also had some valid comments in the Post-consensus comments, which referred to This Here One from Fall 2012. I don't discount what BlueMoonset said, because that particular discussion had been well-participated in, and BlueMoonset was correct in his comments. That one was 39 in favor of a ban and 66 Opposed to a ban. But there just seems to be a hill we can't get over on this.
The original proposal I had put together was only publicized here at DYK, and very few people bothered to vote. Shortly after it closed, this talk page had a heated debate by many saying they were unaware there had ever been a vote at all. There was some discussion that the ones who posted were part of a set community.
DYK talk page is good, but we all tend to be set in our opinions. As long as the input is limited to a handful here, this is just going to go around in circles forever. I don't know anything about Carcharoth except that this person is an Admin who is also part of Overslght, who has been on board since 2005. Maybe Carcharoth is pointing in the right direction. Prioryman, this is something you would be good at constructing, allowing all voices to be heard on both sides of the issue. Publicize it at Centralized discussion and on the Watchlist. Redo the original proposal and expand it into a comprehensive proposal much like the GA thing you ran up a rough draft on. Open it up to all of Wikipedia. — Maile (talk) 15:44, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
I think waiting for the WMUK report to be released will be essential - two of the no voters referred to it as the reason for their opposition (though admittedly one of those opposes was barking mad). Additionally I think it would be useful to clear the existing backlog of Gibraltar-related DYKs, some of which are three months old, which is inexcusable, and get the accepted DYKs out of the way and onto the Main Page. Ideally I would like to be able to say that there are no more Gibraltar DYKs in any nominations, prep areas or queues. I'm also not sure how I can expand any further what I posted earlier. The competition was the main reason why the restrictions were imposed and now it's over. There's no ongoing controversy and no further media coverage. What more is there to say? Prioryman (talk) 22:53, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
What is the WMUK report? I don't know what else you can say, either. (I would like to see a proposal that bans the use of the phrases "Jimbo said" or "Jimbo Wales is on board with this..." or any variation that assumes that name carries the day at DYK) I like to think many who originally opposed Gibraltarpedia did so in good faith and had genuine concerns about DYK selling out. That said, it got way out of hand. It would not be hard to draw similarities to a mob riot, where some go with the flow just because everybody else is doing it. This has not been DYK's finest hour, and it's an experience I could have lived my whole life without. A lot of it was - and sometimes still is - about personalities. And so much anger, just so much anger. COI is a fair issue, as is the issue of quality of product and reviews. But some of these people just seem to have a grudge that isn't reasonable. Maybe they're like that in RL. I don't have an answer for you. I do find it interesting that the Admin who originally stirred this up has not been heard from since. Makes you wonder. — Maile (talk) 23:35, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, the WMUK report is the report that Jimbo ordered outside consultants to carry out concerning Wikimedia UK's affairs. See here. As I've already pointed out in an earlier discussion, it has very limited relevance to DYK as its authors are not experts (or even editors) on Wikipedia and editing on Wikipedia is not part of their terms of reference ([2]). Nonetheless some people seem to think that it is relevant. It's apparently due to be released around 31 January. Realistically speaking, we are not likely to be able to move beyond this until the report has been released. I don't know what will be in it but I anticipate that (unless it gives WMUK a totally clean bill of health) some people will use it as a justification, however thin and unreasonable, to filibuster any changes to the restrictions. As for your suggestions about advertising a new discussion, I think using the watchlist would be over the top - surely this isn't an issue of such monumental importance that it has to be advertised to absolutely everyone on Wikipedia? I guess one of my concerns is that it will turn into a circus once again. Prioryman (talk) 23:47, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
Number of DYKs
Has the number of "Gibraltar-related" and "Gibraltarpedia" DYKs dropped in number now that the competition is over? Or is there a backlog still in effect? I think I was one of the people keen to wait for the WMF-WMUK report before dropping the restriction (and I might even be the barking mad person that Prioryman refers to), but if we're back to a trickle of DYK's then the restrictions are unnecessary provided people working on these topics don't resume previous patterns of overexposure of Gibraltar-related articles. John Vandenberg(chat)01:27, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
I asked Prioryman on my talk page (when he asked if I was willing to close the discussion) how many of these DYK nominations are left. I remember thinking it was quite a small number. The backlog is less to do with the number of these DYKs, but the general slowness of DYK at this time of year (when a large influx arrives from the WikiCup) and the added slowness caused by the need for a second review. If everyone commenting in these discussions reviewed one Gibraltar-related DYK nomination, and one non-Gibraltar DYK nomination, then the backlog of unreviewed Gibraltar-related nominations would go down quite a bit and it wouldn't take long to clear. Whether that should be done or not is another question. For the record, I disputed Prioryman's 10-3 characterisation of the close here. I stand by my assertion that those supporting a partial lifting of the restrictions cannot be counted as supporting a full lifting of the restrictions (in effect, they count as people supporting a continuation of some form of restrictions). Carcharoth (talk) 02:44, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
There is now, I think, only one unreviewed Gib-related nomination left - all the rest have been reviewed and are waiting to go in queues. There are no more pending. There has never been an "overexposure" anyway and since the restrictions were imposed the number of DYKs mentioning Gibraltar has dropped steadily throughout the second half of 2012. (I've done a graph on this point, which I'll post later). I don't think the backlog has had much to do with the WikiCup. The main reason has been (and has always been) that the nominations have been hidden away in the special occasions area where nobody ever looks. When I nominated Fourth Siege of Gibraltar and Fifth Siege of Gibraltar in the regular date area, rather than putting it straight into special occasions, they were all reviewed within a matter of hours. When they were moved to special occasions it then took another month to get a second review, and that only because I'd posted an appeal to WP:MILHIST. The requirement to put these nominations into special occasions has been an unmitigated disaster, causing delays of up to three months (!) in getting reviews completed, and should never be repeated if we ever find ourselves in a similar situation in future - that area of the page was never meant to be used for doing reviews.
John, I wasn't referring to your comments as "barking mad" but rather to Kilopi's earlier suggestion here that, and I quote, we should see what the forthcoming report on WMUK "reveals about how deep the conspiracy goes". I've no idea what will be in the report - I've had nothing to do with it - but one thing I'm sure of is that it won't and can't reveal anything about something that doesn't exist. There's about as much chance of it revealing a "conspiracy" as there is of it revealing the existence of the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot. Prioryman (talk) 13:35, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
I do not believe in the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot, but am open to evidence. For example, if I was shown a memorandum of understanding signed by Nessie and Bigfoot which had the intent and effect of sabotaging the neutrality of Wikipedia's most visible page for their own gains, then I would say they were conspiring to harm Wikipedia. Now it turns out that neither Nessie nor Bigfoot signed that contract. But other people did, and I consider those people to have conspired against Wikipedia. Kilopi (talk) 07:20, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
Graph of DYKs which mention GibraltarGraph of numbers of DYKs in selected topics
I've added the graph I mentioned of DYK hooks which mention Gibraltar. The peak was in August, just before the restrictions were imposed. Since the restrictions were imposed there has been a steady fall month on month. There has been a slight uptick in January as a result of the backlog mentioned above being cleared. There is only one unreviewed nomination left, so on current trends it seems unlikely that there will be more than one or two DYKs in February, and perhaps not even that if the unreviewed nomination gets run before the end of this month. The Gibraltarpedia competition ended a month ago so there is no longer any ongoing spur to create new articles in this topic area. Prioryman (talk) 08:36, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for creating the graph and for your estimates of future DYKs. There are quite a few people who believe that 17 is overexposure; you can disagree, but as a subjective assessment I think you shouldn't negate their opinion, but could instead change their opinion by providing pretty graphs of similar peaks of 17 DYKs. Maybe an analysis of the bacon WikiCup would show similar peaks..?
Anyway, based on that, I think we may as well hold one more month, by which time we can confirm your prediction of only a few DYKs in January and February, and then remove the restriction irrespective of the status of the report, which is anticipated "will be published by January 31 2013, and in any event by 15 February 2013."[3] But if someone is counting votes now, count me as happy to have the restriction lifted now. John Vandenberg(chat)09:04, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
I can't see any justification for a further month's restrictions given that there is only one unreviewed nomination left. There's nothing more to be restricted. As for pretty graphs, here's a new graph comparing the numbers of DYKs in six selected topics - Indonesia, mushrooms, horses, Olympics, Paralympics and Gibraltar. As you can see, Gibraltar (the thick orange line) is dwarfed by the numbers of the other DYKs, some of which (Indonesia, mushrooms and horses) have been the work of a single editor. There were 131 Olympic DYKs in August alone, with up to 11 running per day. The number of Gibraltar DYKs in the peak month of August was less than the number of Olympic DYKs in just two days that month. Frankly, that demonstrates how completely bogus the claim of "overexposure" is and always was. Prioryman (talk) 20:02, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
Second reviews
Comment - I'm not seeing the significance of this. But it does bring up another issue. Does it really seem appropriate that Prioryman reviews Gibraltar, or Gibraltarpedia, related articles, basically rubber stamping their approval? That seems to defeat the whole purpose of having two reviewers for these articles. So we're basically back to one reviewer, per standard DYK, which is NOT how this is suppose to work. Add to that that in some cases the second reviewer is some friend of Prioryman's and we're back to a situation where the whole restriction designed to address the COI issues are made a mockery off. It's almost funny how quickly they figured out a way to make a run around community consensus while keeping to the letter of the "law". Probably says something more general about the DYK process.Volunteer Marek22:50, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
I'll split this off for convenience since it's at a tangent to the main discussion. Wikipedia talk:Did you know/GibraltarPediA Options specifically states: "Gibraltar-related DYK nominations require two reviews by two separate reviewers (One of the two reviewers should not be connected to GibraltarPediA)." This was agreed after I pointed out that many of Gibraltarpedia's contributors are in fact native Gibraltarians and therefore subject matter experts (I suppose I count as one too, as I was responsible for starting Wikipedia:WikiProject Gibraltar several years ago). Excluding them is wholly counter-productive and unnecessary, as there has never been any suggestion from any sensible person that anyone other than Victuallers has had any actual or potential COI. I know I certainly don't. As for "rubber stamping", that's simply not true, as (for example) my review of Template:Did you know nominations/Political development in modern Gibraltar shows. If I was "rubber stamping" I would have added the green tick straight away instead of asking the nominator to fix various issues. Your comment about "some friend of Prioryman's" doesn't deserve a response except to say that you aren't doing yourself any favours by gratuitously smearing other editors. Prioryman (talk) 23:02, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
I'm fine with this being split off, though really it should have its own section, as in "Proposed wording change to Gibraltarpedia restrictions - should Prioryman be excluded from doing reviews". As to the essence of the matter, let me get a better feel for the issue. Out of all the Gibraltar related articles that have appeared/been approved in the past several months (since the restriction has been imposed), how many of them have you been one of the two reviewers on? I'm fairly sure it's a sufficiently high number of observations to give us an idea of whether this is a problem or not. If that proportion is low, then I'll be happy to drop this. If it hasn't then there's obviously a problem and potential gaming of the restriction going on here.Volunteer Marek23:11, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
Since the restrictions explicitly allow Gibraltarpedia contributors to review these articles, your premise is invalid. I don't propose to contribute further to your troublemaking. Prioryman (talk) 23:28, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
Since the restrictions explicitly allow Gibraltarpedia contributors to review these articles - yes, but that exactly appears to be the problem. Let me state/ask again: how many of the Gibraltar related DYK noms have been reviewed/approved by yourself? If it was a small proportion, then no problem. If a high one, something fishy's going on, obviously. Don't try to derail the discussion and poison the well through name calling, it's very unprofessional and non-collegial.Volunteer Marek02:09, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
I have posted a review to Template:Did you know nominations/Bill Cosby in advertising which highlights many issues with the article. I would welcome input from others as to how much of what I raised must be fixed for the article to be approved for the main page. The article has had a GA review but the comments made have gone unaddressed. I haven't been around DYK much for quite a while and I don't want to deviate too far from the accepted standards, but equally I would not be comfortable signing off on this article appearing on the main page. Maybe I am being too harsh. Feedback and comment would be helpful. Thanks. EdChem (talk) 13:28, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
Well, it's too old. New articles should be nominated within 5 days of creation. The way I read the article's history, it was moved from the user space on January 5, which is 17 days ago. You could go for 5X expansion, but that would require a 5X expansion of 10217 characters "readable prose size" within 5 days, which would make a hefty article. There are also bare urls, and the reliability of the sources has been questioned on the talk page. Without going through the talk page items one by one, there are enough issues to bring this into doubt for a DYK review even if it was new enough. — Maile (talk) 01:30, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
Facepalm indeed. Duh. I just went straight to the article instead of the template. Double duh. Yeah, it was nominated in time, but there sure are a lot of other issues. — Maile (talk) 01:35, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
Based on what I see at the DYK review, there are several issues which need work (most pressing of which is referencing/ref formatting). The article is legible enough, so polishing the grammar isn't quite DYK material... although I commend Ed for a very thorough review. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:42, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
Well, I agree that Ed did an extraordinary review. — Maile (talk)
Thanks for the compliments on my review, Maile. Does anyone have any other input that might help the nominator of this DYK? EdChem (talk) 12:09, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
So people continue to add new, unreviewed nominations to the April Fool's subpage, where they are getting next to know attention. Could we please make it explicit that "Please do not nominate new articles for a special time in this section." at T:TDYK applies not only to that section, but the subpage as well? Nobody will be able to build an April Fool's prep without reviewed hooks. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:44, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
The only problem with doing so is that April Fools hooks operate under different rules in that the size requirements, both 1500 for all articles and the additional 5x minimum for older ones, doesn't need to be within 5 days, but only since the most recent April 2. Someone will need to keep their eye out to make sure hooks aren't flunked when they actually meet the looser AF time frame. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:40, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
How many fish hooks (sorry, I couldn't resist that pun) do we need anyway? Assuming that the unverified ones are all signed off we will already have 18 ready to be used. Prioryman (talk) 22:50, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
@Blue: A comment, clearly. Although several editors still follow the DYK rules more or less exactly when expanding an article for April 1
From the supplementary guidelines, it seems that if an article has major copyvio issues and is stubified, it can be eligible for DYK following a x5 expansion from the stub version. Is this correct? Further, what is needed for establishing copyvio? For example, if I see a case I think is an old copyvio from an editor who worked on only that article quite some time ago, I know I can revert to the version before the copyvio occurred - but would I need more to establish that this was a copyvio? Thanks. EdChem (talk) 13:33, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
The 5x expansion from the stub version would be eligible. I'm assuming you know what the article is copyvio of, if so that should be all you need. I usually get it revdeleted. You can ping an admin or use {{Copyvio-revdel}} for that. RyanVesey13:42, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
I think that supplementary guideline is just making difficulties for us to tell if it is satisfied or not. There needs to be proof of a copyvio, and it would be best if someone else does clean it out and not the person claiming the DYK credit. If I see and editor delete text and then claim to have expanded, I will count before the deletion. The benefit should be to our readers. To demonstrate a copyright violation you should give the link or reference of the material infringed. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:31, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
The highest I've ever had was 430,000 for RMS Titanic on the centenary day (and it got over 1 million for that weekend). I don't think I'll be beating that any time soon. Prioryman (talk) 09:24, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
TAFI
This relates to DYK only in the sense that it has been recommended that the new feature Today's Article For Improvement be added directly below DYK on the Main Page. Here's the test page for TAFI's presentation on Wikipedia's Main page
I don't believe that long note will still exist, but is it possible to have the blurb cover the length of the page rather than being split? RyanVesey16:44, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
The link up there in the first sentence is the talk page about it. I think they're still figuring out the exact details, but it seems open for comment. — Maile (talk) 18:50, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
Prematurely scheduled DYK - needs rolling back urgently
I found several other approved April Fool's DYKs on the main nom page; I've removed them as well. They're all on the Fish Day page though. Prioryman (talk) 00:54, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
Old unreviewed DYK hooks looking for reviewers of any age
We have 250 DYK nominations submitted, of which only 61 are approved, leaving far too many languishing. All included hooks are over two weeks old, plus there's one large multi with many unreviewed hooks and one old Gibraltar hook from those still sequestered in the special holding area, and thus harder for reviewers to find. Many thanks for your assistance.
Please remember to cross off entries as you finish reviewing them, even if the review was not an approval. Thank you very much! BlueMoonset (talk) 04:58, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
Please do leave a note on the nomination template that the article should run during March for Women's History Month. That way, when the nomination is approved, it will automatically be moved to the special holding area. There's a six-week limit for holding articles. If the articles can run any time in March, you're all set today. If you want them to wait for a particular day later in March, then you might want to hold off creating it until six weeks before you want the article to run. (By mid-February, it won't matter any more, because there will only be six weeks left.) BlueMoonset (talk) 03:01, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
I saw this. And it is by an editor who admits on their user page "I'm really here because I feel Scientology has terrible representation on Wikipedia and believe neutral point-of-view is not utilized in many of the Scientology-related pages." A speedy deletion would seem to go around any discussion about the deletion. How does a user stall this? — Maile (talk) 18:54, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
I removed the speedy. It seems to be sufficiently sourced from secondary sources necessary for GNG and is clearly not an "attack" page. Whether or not there are POV issues is a legitimate issue that should be reviewed. At a glance, it seems okay to me, but I didn't evaluate it closely for NPOV, just N. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:57, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
There is an issue that needs to be resolved about this editor, since they have a chronic conflict of interest in the matter and they are a de facto pro-Scientology single-purpose account. I'll discuss the matter with them to see if some way can be worked out to handle their COI - they plainly shouldn't have attempted a speedy deletion. Prioryman (talk) 18:59, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
There's nothing de facto about it, that editor is an SPA. A quick glance at their contribution history makes that obvious. I haven't looked into the specific nature of their contributions to see if this is problematic or not, however. Resolute19:02, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
I've pointed out to the editor the problem with COI and SPA editing [5] and have invited them to discuss any NPOV or sourcing concerns they might have. I don't think any further action is needed at the moment, and hopefully they will have something useful to contribute on the article talk page. Prioryman (talk) 19:19, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
This is actually only the second new article I've created in that topic area (the first being R v Registrar General ex parte Segerdal earlier this month) in probably four or five years. I'm not exactly a prolific editor there. "Involvement" is also not exactly an issue here for anyone, it's more a question of COI and NPOV. Prioryman (talk) 19:55, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
I would also check the view statistics for all revisions of the DYK section since January 22 and re-featured the revisions with low view counts. It wouldn't be fair otherwise. --Moscow Connection (talk) 04:46, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
I'm seeing exactly the same thing. It appears that the servers are serving up an old (~24 hrs) version of Wikipedia for logged-out users and an up-to-date version for those logged in. This appears to be affecting everything - articles, talk pages, even pages histories. The history for this page, for instance, shows the last edit as supposedly being at 11:48 UTC yesterday. This is going to have a big impact on readership for DYKs and TFAs until it's sorted out, unfortunately. Prioryman (talk) 13:04, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
I think this is resolved, based on the fact that I am now seeing the same content whether logged out (I accessed Wikipedia with a browser that had never previously accessed the Wikipedia mainpage) or logged in. --Orlady (talk) 15:10, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
Just so you know, DYK/N wasn't designed to point to the nomination page: DYK/N was created in 2007 as a shorter version of Template:Did you know/Next update, the next update area, which was later moved/renamed to Template:Did you know/Preparation area 1. Given the history of its creation, redirecting WP:DYK/N to the nomination page wouldn't be useful if it was being used in the other sense.
On the other hand, I'm not sure how useful the old meaning is with its hard link to P1, since we now have four separate prep areas feeding six queues that in turn feed the main page. "What links here" doesn't show it being used anywhere in particular: the only DYK page linked to is this one, doubtless due to this discussion. Still, I'm not sure why a new meaning for WP:DYK/N is needed for the nomination page when we already have T:TDYK which points there, and uses two fewer characters to boot. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:53, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
I was aware that of the fact that DYK/N was initially intended to point to Did you know/Next update; however, since that page is no longer in use, it is virtually deprecating the redirect and pointing it somewhere else. If I had my way, Template talk:Did you know would be Wikipedia:Did you know/Nominations (or candidates, as is done for ITN) but the change in the destination of a currently unused redirect certainly doesn't harm anything. RyanVesey17:57, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
More old unreviewed hooks than ever need reviewing
We have 261 DYK nominations submitted at the moment, of which only 60 are approved, a difference of over 200. All included hooks here are over half a month old, plus there's one large multi with many unreviewed hooks. I'm happy to report that we're finally caught up on the old Gibraltar hooks. Let me urge you to take a look at the December hooks needing review, most of which are quite straightforward. Many thanks for your continuing assistance.
All hooks in the 54-article nomination have been reviewed as of January 28; however, I'm just waiting for the page creator to add a cite to two paragraphs and then it's ready to go. Yoninah (talk) 09:47, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Please remember to cross off entries as you finish reviewing them, even if the review was not an approval. Thank you very much! BlueMoonset (talk) 16:13, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
DYK is almost overdue
In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:
Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #2 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page
Right folks, I am uploading - will be done in about ten minutes. Feel free to check mine and keep uploading. I will move across into queues in an hour or two. Casliber (talk·contribs) 11:11, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Preps
I've built two preps but have to go to sleep now. Two more need to be built, but at least we have a set in the queue in case nobody gets around to moving anything. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:32, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
There are a couple of issues with the Eddie Macon hook in Queue 6. The hook says he "is the first African-American drafted by the Chicago Bears", which is problematic in a number of ways:
The article notes that "(George Taliaferro was drafted by the Bears in 1949, but he chose to play in the All-American Football Conference)", which to me indicates that Macon was the second drafted, even if he was only the first who played for the Bears. Indeed, FN3 from the article specifically credits Taliaferro as the first African-American drafted by the Bears.
The tense is odd: Macon is still alive, but the Bears have drafted a great many African Americans since 1952, so I think "was" is better.
The other hooks on offer are also problematic. Since FN3 is a Bears source, it casts doubt on ALT2, which is based on FN5, an Oakland Raiders "nation" blog. ALT1 is not directly referenced in the sentence after the hook fact, as required by DYK rules, though it can be found in FN5 (with the same caveats of it as a hook source).
Since the hook presumably wants a "first", this might work (wording can probably be improved):
Thanks, Crisco. That wording works for me and it matches the sources, but is not stated in the article. (It's possible that an African-American player could have been traded to the Bears before that.) I'll see if I can reword the article so it says what it needs to, so we can leave the hook as it is. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:19, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:
Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #5 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page
Some of our hooks intentionally mislead the reader into believing that the article might be about something different. There's no rule against this sort of little deception, so I guess it's considered generally acceptable at present... Or, is it? The only relevant rule is H7 which reads, quote: "When you write the DYK item (or "hook") please make it "hooky", that is, short, punchy, catchy, and likely to draw the readers in to wanting to read the article..." The question is whether there's a consensus about this sort of situation where the proposed hook is "hooky" only because it is not telling the whole truth about the subject of the article? Please comment, whether you're OK with this? — Here's the latest example: 1 February 2013, Did you know ... that Tyrannasorus rex had wings and six legs? The nominator went as far as actually removing the dinosaur part from the lede of the article in order to generate more hits by confusing the reader even further (... the popup window would not inform upfront that the beetle was named after a real dinosaur).[6] I believe, some 15,000 visitors might have been taken for a ride solely in the name of DYKSTATS. A word play technique should be at least mentioned in the rules. What do you think? Poeticbenttalk07:05, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
Nothing wrong with the hook IMO, regarding the rephrased intro, I don't see a problem with that either as the reason for the name is probably more appropriate for the main body text in any case. I do agree however with your overall point that some hooks go too far in attempting to mislead, I just don't think this is one of them. Gatoclass (talk) 17:46, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
Any hook that makes any attempt to mislead, or which is even indifferent to the possibility of misleading, is thoroughly unencyclopaedic, and should have no place in our publication. Kevin McE (talk) 19:31, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
While perhaps in the example above, the efforts to remove dinosaur from the lead (if true) are problematic, I am strongly against any subjective and vague rule against "not entirely forthright" hooks. The point of DYK is to show off our newest articles and our new and improved BLPs. Hooks are a way to do that, even if sometimes funny or misleading. Would people think of the dinosaur and see something different, yes. But that momentary surprise isn't something to fret about; it makes DYK interesting and allows it to serve its purpose. So long as this doesn't interfere with the encyclopedic material -- the articles -- themselves, this shouldn't be an issue. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 19:43, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
I agree, there is a difference between misleading and misinforming. If a hook is misleading but accurate, there is no problem, and if it leads to more readers clicking on the article to find out something they wouldn't otherwise have learned, so much the better. Gatoclass (talk) 21:11, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
DYK is almost overdue
In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:
Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #5 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page
The blurb claims that Moore was the first competitor to die of injuries sustained during the X Games, but the article says that he was the second. Does nobody bother to check these things before passing an article for the main page? George Ponderevo (talk) 01:00, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Anyone checking up to and including this version would have found this CBS Sports reference, which called his death "the first in the 18-year history of the X Games." In this edit, 24 minutes before your complaint here, someone added a claim that Sarah Burke was the first to die in the X Games. The "reference" given is the Wikipedia article on her, which in fact says she died in a training event. Does nobody bother to get their facts straight before complaining about articles on the main page? BencherliteTalk01:07, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Except you weren't simply pointing out an inconsistency. You were casting aspersions on the reviewer without checking that your implied accusation was accurate. Resolute01:18, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
"Does nobody bother to check these things before passing an article for the main page?" was completely uncalled for. An apology on your part for your failure to check even the source given for the claim, let alone the history to see when it was added, as well as the gratuitous criticism of those involved in the DYK for this article, would be more appropriate than your present attitude. If you show up being aggressive... BencherliteTalk01:18, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) :In fairness, the original source does clearly say he was the first to die, and the correction wasn't added until after this went on the main page. This is one of those rare cases of the WMF dogma of "main page appearances can improve articles" actually working. 84.13.26.181 (talk) 01:08, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
The original was certainly right. Burke died in training for a corporate event. Her death was unrelated to the X Games. Resolute01:14, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Bencherlite beat me to the revert. In the future, let's remember to assume the people reviewing the article did their jobs correctly and check the edit history. RyanVesey01:11, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Wouldn't you at least agree that there's clearly a problem if changes to the article can so easily invalidate the blurb, whatever the rights and wrongs of this case? George Ponderevo (talk) 01:19, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
I do not see that as a problem. Someone could easily change Huia to say it is a species of fish, that wouldn't invalidate the featured article. I don't have a problem that you brought it here, that was the correct step, especially if you're busy. The problem was your statement "Does nobody bother to check these things before passing an article for the main page?". Everything's fixed now, so I hope the issue can be dropped. RyanVesey01:26, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
All I see is a reader enticed into reading the article because of a claim that's contradicted in the article itself. You may not see that as a problem but I do. But at the end of the day it's small beer of course, because DYKs are so ephemeral. George Ponderevo (talk) 01:36, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
I certainly agree that there is a problem when the article and hook contradict eachother. There's just not a structural problem, as I thought your question was implying. RyanVesey01:51, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
There's clearly a structural problem if the article and hook contradict each other, but equally clearly nobody can admit that. I'm done here. George Ponderevo (talk) 01:56, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Don't you think you are overreacting? You had a valid complaint, but in making your complaint, you unfairly called into question the efforts made by the reviewer. You probably didn't intend to be unfair, but as it turns out, you were and this was understandably pointed out. It's not something to leave over. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 02:11, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
No, i don't. And as I've never been a member of this DYK project anyway I'm quite certain that my insignificant efforts will not be missed. All I ever did was to tickle a few DYKs on the main page, but I've learned my lesson. George Ponderevo (talk) 02:28, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
The addition of incorrect information to an article while it is on the main page does not invalidate its review or hook fact. As noted above, checking the sources themselves is preferable to instantly targeting an indirect personal attack on the DYK reviewer. Articles change, not always for the better. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:17, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
This is the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. We don't want to protect an article just because it's in DYK. Of course it's a problem if the hook and article don't match, but protection is a cure often worse than the disease. Potential for both good and bad edits is a feature of any article. Thanks for spotting this inconsistency so the bad edit could be identified and fixed after 32 minutes, not too bad. Many people get annoyed when they get blamed without having done anything wrong. That's just human nature. If you spot a problem without knowing who caused it then it's best to point out the problem without making assumptions, or even better to fix the problem if you have the time and knowledge. You are welcome to help out in DYK or anywhere else in Wikipedia. Your help isn't unwanted just because somebody gets a little annoyed over a minor incident. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:06, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
This reminds me of the recent POTD of Antonov An-124, in which an IP editor inserted incorrect information and it was raised at POTD. Didn't have anyone ping me on my talk page saying I did not review the article though. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:15, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
This week's old hooks needing reviewing
We have 254 DYK nominations submitted at the moment, of which only 50 are approved, a difference once again of over 200. All included hooks here are over half a month old. Let me again urge you to take a look at the December hooks needing review, several of which are quite straightforward. Many thanks for your continuing assistance.
Please remember to cross off entries as you finish reviewing them, even if the review was not an approval. Thank you very much! BlueMoonset (talk) 02:39, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Move processed nomination to special holding area?
I filed the nomination for Betsy Blackwell under the standard date (Feb 04), without realising that there was a special holding area for articles relating to Women's History Month. Would it be okay or desirable to move it over, even though comments have already been made to it? MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 23:13, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
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.
In WP:DYK, it is mentioned that "New nominators (those with fewer than five DYK credits) are exempt from this review requirement", but when you click edit after reviewing a DYK nomination you get this "QPQ – nominators who have more than five DYK credits and are nominating their own articles must review another article." I recently passed a nomination for an editor who already had 5 DYK credits (based on what I read in the edit screen), and it was posted shortly. I only noticed this inconstancy now. Mohamed CJ(talk)10:06, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
Unfortunately, the editing template is not correct: as it's the sixth article that requires a QPQ, the person has the first five as free passes (though we never object to people starting their reviewing career early). However, the recent update of WP:DYKSG#H4 makes it clear that it isn't merely five articles already published on the main page, it's five articles passed or in process. So "more than five" should be "five or more" BlueMoonset (talk) 03:19, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
Forgive me if I'm still confused, are you saying that the fifth is free or isn't? On another note, let's say an editor does a QPQ on their first three noms. Do they still get the full 4 or 5 free ones or do they only have 1 or 2 left? RyanVesey03:22, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
@Ryan My understanding is that you only get the 1 or 2 left, because by that time you'd already have accumulated 4 or 5 DYK credits (5 is the correct number).
@Blue I should have said it is 5 or 6 "free pass"?, the correct answer being 5 as you stated. The current editing template says "QPQ – nominators who have more than five DYK credits and are nominating their own articles must review another article." This means it would be fine if I had five DYK credits to still nominate my sixth article for DYK without having to review. The solution is to simply correct it to "less than five" instead of "more than five". I hope this makes sense. Mohamed CJ(talk)10:11, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
History of Canadian women DYK hook
As a note, I've just edited this hook to remove the totally obvious statement that women are 'a group' who make up half the population of Canada before someone complains about it here. This change doesn't affect the meaning of the hook at all. Nick-D (talk) 06:53, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
DYK is almost overdue
In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:
Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #4 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page
A little embarrassing that the article Albert Stewart Meek, which is now part of a DYK on the main page (though not the main focus of the hook; still, it is wiki-linked), has zero inline refs supporting its text.--Epeefleche (talk) 16:12, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:
Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #5 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page
I think as long as it was stated who the opinion was held by, then it should be ok. If the hook was missing "according to analyst Jay Bilas" then I might see a problem. Miyagawa (talk) 15:37, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
DYK is almost overdue
In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:
Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #1 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page
Less than half an hour before we're late, and there are four prep sets ready for promotion. An admin's help would be most welcome right now. Thank you! BlueMoonset (talk) 15:33, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
The Medal of Honor hook on Clinton Romesha in the holding area hasn't been put in a prep yet and it is being held for a Feb 11 date. I'm not sure what preps will be put in what queues or what time period is wanted for the hook. Froggerlauraribbit22:44, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks so much for pointing this out, Froggerlaura. Clinton Romesha has just been inserted so it runs during US daytime on February 11, as was intended. (I had to displace another lead hook, but it'll still be a lead hook.) BlueMoonset (talk) 23:46, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
It is the first time I see that template on a DYK page and I have no idea what does that mean. Was it promoted? Was it not promoted? Is this a new standard or is something this user added without previous notice? I'd really appreciate the help. Thanks! — Hahc21talk01:26, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
It would be very nice if User:My76Strat would explain to the DYK community what is going on. I was about to ask for just that when I saw this new section. Is this part of a major redesign of DYK template functionality? It looks quite involved. Is it going to involve new ways for reviewers and promoters to work? Do we get any chance for input on what we think is helpful or not?
I found some of the new terms or explanations introduced on other pages changed by My76Strat (the edit template, for example), to be confusingly worded, and made some adjustments. (I believe some of the new templates under development have already been added to the edit template.) Can we have a discussion here before any further changes are introduced, nomenclature devised or repurposed, and nomination template comments reworded? Thanks.
As for Hahc21's query, the "closed" declaration is incorrect, if not premature: at present, DivaKnockouts has said he's addressed Crisco 1492's most recent issue, and the nomination is waiting on Crisco to take another look and see whether the nomination is indeed ready to be approved. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:48, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
I am still working out some final issues before I submit this as a proposal to the DYK project. I've just updated the documentation at {{DYK reviewing/dated/doc}} if anyone is interested to see where things are currently. This started as a way to prevent one reviewer from starting a review only to find someone else started reviewing the same nomination and posted comments before they were finished. It happened to me once, and that was enough. I am also developing other ways to use some of the templates I've been working on, that may be useful. I'm all ears if anyone wants to suggest anything, to include dropping the whole idea. I apologize again for letting some tests slip into live material.—My76Strat • talk • email07:24, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
The problem, as shown at User:DYKUpdateBot/Errors, is that the image in the set has not been properly protected. It is possible the admin who approved the set thought it would be protected on Commons and did not realize how inconsistent KrinkleBot tends to be in actual practice. --Allen3talk18:20, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Right now, the backlog amount is close to 270 hooks. However, we are still having "almost overdue" messages lately, and one queue was three hours late. What shall we do? Do a temporary 12-hour DYK system at a risk of backlog, or try to solve backlog issue with 8-hour system at a risk of too many delays? --George Ho (talk) 03:02, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
The "almost overdue" messages are a reminder to passing admins that the queues need updating. There's not been a delayed DYK recently because of empty queues, so the reminders are actually working as intended. The two actual delays was due to first a toolserver issue so the bot wasn't running, and an unprotected image when the bot *was* running, neither of which would be helped by making things 12 hours. -- KTC (talk) 03:17, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) George, I disagree with your premise that one could be more important than the other and thus direct our choices; we should keep on as we're doing. The "almost overdue" messages only come when admins aren't feeding the queues from prep areas; we haven't yet had a case when there weren't any prep sets ready for promotion to the empty queues. We can run as easily into the same overdue situation at 12-hour intervals as we can at 8. We simply can't afford to get further behind. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:18, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
Main page not updated at 00:00 UTC
It appears DYKUpdateBot did not update at 00:00 UTC as it should have. Queue 2 is ready and waiting to go, and could be used for a manual update if an admin knows how to do that. I have notified Shubinator on his talk page, and with luck he'll see it soon and get DYKUpdateBot up and running again. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:15, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Both bots are back online. Unfortunately due to toolserver maintenance DYKUpdateBot will likely miss the February 12 00:00 UTC update, so an admin will have to manually update DYK (or wait a few hours until I can start up the bot again). Shubinator (talk) 05:03, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:
Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #6 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page
Seems like the update is now half an hour overdue. There is a full set in the prep area, but it needs to be moved over. Miyagawa (talk) 19:58, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
Hello everybody. The below posting was on the WP United States. I'm copying it here, because DYK is one of the more likely places where new hard-working editors are found. Just as an FYI. — Maile (talk) 16:11, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Hi...I am a member of a few of the subprojects here. I do a lot with the Editor Retention Project, and we have started an editor recognition program. I am just gonna post the ad, and you all can do what you would like with it. Hope some of you would contribute a nomination or two! Gtwfan52 (talk) 05:47, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Do you know an under-appreciated editor that should be recognized?
Hi! The folks over at WER-Editor of the Week are looking for some help! We need nominations for "Editor of the Week". The ideal candidate is an editor who works hard, possibly doing behind-the-scenes kind of stuff, that just doesn't get recognized as much as they should. Although we have a preference for newer editors, any under recognized editor is eligible. So please make a note of this, and give us your nomination at: WP:EotW/N. Gtwfan52 (talk) 05:09, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:
Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #3 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page
Proposal to lift the Gibraltar-related DYK restrictions
A few months ago, there was a discussion on this page about Gibraltar-related DYKs on the Main Page. I am proposing that the temporary restrictions on such DYKs, which were imposed in September 2012, should be lifted and have set out a case for doing so at Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Gibraltar-related DYKs. If you have a view on this, please comment at that page. Prioryman (talk) 22:09, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
The antipathy that Andrew Orlowski holds towards Wikipedia is well documented, but for his views to have any relevance to that discussion, he'll need to comment there - at the link Prioryman gave you. "Reg readers have written in", indeed - how we laughed. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:20, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Oh... I eliminated two subsections because of the subpage. Since there are votes, I think I'll hold off separate lift proposals until the current proposal is over. --George Ho (talk) 14:47, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
DYKupdateBot automatically adjusts the time between updates in an efforts to resync the update schedule (see User talk:Shubinator/Archive 19#Suggestion for new DYKupdateBot feature for additional details). The trick is finding enough people to build sets in the prep areas and admins to promote them to the queues. I used to perform a large portion of this work but the disproportionately poor treatment of my self nominations during the last year (only 10 of 26 scheduled to run during daylight hours, 50% of my special date requests arbitrarily moved to a date other than the one requested, and 0 of the 13 nominations with usable images being selected for a lead position) has convinced me that my time and efforts are better spent at other pursuits. --Allen3talk22:48, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) The bot is currently adding 15 minutes per set promotion in its quest to get back to regular schedule (UTC 00:00, 08:00, and 16:00). Tony, your hook ought to end up in what's currently the last of the four empty preps, P1, which would run as Queue 5. Assuming we don't have any further delays due to bot downtimes or empty queues, Q5 should hit the main page at 09:48 eastern time on the 16th, not 08:48 as is shown now. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:45, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
DYK nominations for song articles from Christina Aguilera's album Lotus
There are currently five nominated articles on songs from Lotus. There have been issues with both previous and current Lotus articles, since many reuse a version of the album's Background section in the song, which puts the reused text squarely under WP:DYKSG#A5: "If some of the text was copied from another Wikipedia article, then it must be expanded fivefold as if the copied text had been a separate article." The overlap has been considerable as article follows article, and one article, "Around the World" has a 2278-character overlap with "Cease Fire" and 2124-character overlap with "Circles", which would require a 5x expansion resulting in a minimum of 10620 or 11390 prose characters, depending. None of the articles approach that length.
However, there's also the issue of notability, especially under WP:NSONG. All 17 songs on the deluxe edition of Lotus have now been given articles, with these five, and I find it hard to believe that all 17 are notable, although most have come through DYK. 16 of the album's 17 songs charted in the South Korean the week the album debuted, 12 of these in the 101–200 range; these 12 include the current five articles, and is the only charting they have done. Only one song from the album, which charted in the top ten, lasted more than one week in South Korea. "Around the World", a more typical example, charted at 158 that one week on the basis of sales of 1958 downloads, which strikes me as non-notable for a US artist.
So I guess the issues are twofold: first, are these articles sufficiently notable for individual songs by Wikipedia rules, and second, if they are notable, is there any reason they should not be rejected out of hand for failing rule A5's 5x expansion requirement in the same way past song articles from the album have done so. I'd appreciate hearing from other DYK people, especially those with experience in song notability. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:07, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
I'm not going to get into the notability of the tracks (which is dubious), but in terms of original content, there's not enough there. Repeated text, and the reception sections are very quote heavy, 60-70%. Of those three you've linked, I wouldn't pass any of them. The Interior(Talk)02:59, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
Note: I've separated off Kevin McE's concerns about recent releases on the main page because it isn't germane to this topic. Lotus was released a full three months ago, so it's hardly recent, and I'd really like this to focus on notability and expansion issues. I'm duplicating Aaron's response below in this section, though it also addresses the recent release issue. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:26, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
Literally cannot believe the amount of crap that is being written here, some of what you are saying is actually laughable. All of the articles are notable, they all charted, they all received a lot of reviews, a lot of compositional information is known about them, and Aguilera herself spoke about several the songs specifically in interviews. And to who said about waiting 28 days, that means the articles can't be nominated at all, as they have to be nominated within 5 days of creation. P.S., nothing is copied the articles which I have written, Background sections (which are extremely important to these songs as it relates to them) are written differently. I cannot say the same for "Cease Fire" and "Circles", for example, as FanofPopMusic directly copies and pastes what I have written. — AARON • TALK 17:48, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
Aaron, as you nominated FanofPopMusic's articles, and you are also aware of rule A5 and the expansion requirement for copied material, you had to have known they wouldn't be acceptable under DYK rules. Saying "they all charted" about the individual song articles when I've pointed out that this is based on the bottom reaches of a South Korean chart and under 2000 in sales is unconvincing. And, to be blunt, it wasn't just FanofPopMusic: you copied much of the Lotus background section into a number of your own song articles: "Lotus Intro", "Red Hot Kinda Love", "Let There Be Love", "Blank Page", "Best of Me", and "Just a Fool". Not all of these were relevant for the DYK nomination (the "Just a Fool" material was added after DYK), but "Best of Me" is current, is yours, and is copied. What makes "Best of Me" notable? I don't think charting at 172 in South Korea with sales of 1,840 establishes any kind of notability; do you? BlueMoonset (talk) 19:51, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
It was me who wrote the Background, and re-wrote it for each article. Copying from myself isn't really a valid statement to make. If a song receives reviews and considering information about, which "Best of Me" does, and if a song also charts, it passes GNG, regardless of what position the song charts at. I am fully aware of what GNG entails, or else I wouldn't have created the article. (Note: The three bonus tracks also charted, but there is next to no information, hence why articles for "Light Up the Sky", "Shut Up" and "Empty Words" do not exist, and shall not exist). — AARON • TALK 20:09, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Aaron, it's clear that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what DYK is about: it's for new material to Wikipedia. Not simply new articles, but those articles also need to be almost entirely new material: at least 80%. Whether you copy from yourself or others, you're copying material that is no longer new, and is therefore not eligible for DYK unless offset by four times as much new material. That's how DYK works, and when you reprint substantial identical (or slightly rejiggered) Background sections, it means your article no longer qualifies as new.
That's one issue, which affects DYK only. The other issue here is notability, which affects not only DYK but Wikipedia as a whole. I'm not convinced that all 13 of the songs on the non-deluxe version of Lotus—or indeed, all songs on just about any album—do (or should) qualify for individual articles. I've looked around, and the reviews being cited seem to all be Lotus reviews that take a song-by-song approach, and strike me as giving notability to Lotus, not to its constituent songs in and of themselves. (In other words, most of the individual songs are not separately notable.) Since you say I'm wrong, perhaps we ought to test this by my running an AfD on one of the songs. I have no particular ax to grind, but it makes no sense to me that every song on any album could be considered notable. Finally, I do need to apologize for my error: while 16 of the 17 songs on the deluxe version of Lotus made the South Korean chart, there are only Wikipedia articles on the 13 songs from the regular version. I accidentally inflated the number of articles, and gave incorrect information above. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:54, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
New topic: concerns about recent musical releases
I really think we should be exceedingly cautious about posting recent releases to the main page. It is one of the most viewed internet pages there is, and we should be careful to avoid anything that might lead to accusation of promotional activity. Kevin McE (talk) 08:44, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
Maybe creating a new DYK rule/guideline for music might help. Something along the lines of any single or album has to have been on general sale to the public worldwide for at least 28 days before it becomes eligible to appear on the main page. it could still be nominated, it just would need to be placed in a special holding area until a time it becomes eligible? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk)11:45, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
Something like that would do the job, although forthcoming releases would have to be included: my preference would be for a longer embargo (2 or 3 months), but there again my musical taste is mainly for releases from 28 years ago+, not 28 days ago. Kevin McE (talk) 13:12, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
What should happen in the case of movies which are yet to be released? I know we get one every now and again nominated - generally prior to release (its unusual for a film to make it all the way to release and be nominated around the same time, although it can happen with smaller films). Would that not be so much of an issue because there's less exposure and it'd only be a single article rather than multiple singles sharing similar information? Miyagawa (talk) 15:40, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
I would be in favour of an embargo also applying to films, unless it is at an early stage in the production (before explicit marketing). Wikipedia should not be seen to be as back up to marketing campaigns, or even open to the misplaced criticism that it has such a role. Kevin McE (talk) 20:53, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
Literally cannot believe the amount of crap that is being written here, some of what you are saying is actually laughable. All of the articles are notable, they all charted, they all received a lot of reviews, a lot of compositional information is known about them, and Aguilera herself spoke about several the songs specifically in interviews. And to who said about waiting 28 days, that means the articles can't be nominated at all, as they have to be nominated within 5 days of creation. P.S., nothing is copied the articles which I have written, Background sections (which are extremely important to these songs as it relates to them) are written differently. I cannot say the same for "Cease Fire" and "Circles", for example, as FanofPopMusic directly copies and pastes what I have written. — AARON • TALK 17:48, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
Try to take part in a discussion without reverting to insult and expletive.
No-one is questioning the truthfulness or notability of anything, or, in this discussion, about copyvios. And your concerns about the 5 day rule has already been accounted for in CofE's reply. Kevin McE (talk) 20:53, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
If someone hadn't of copied and pasted my comment into this sub section then it would be less confusing. But in this entire section, people are doing just that. — AARON • TALK 22:55, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Not in this section.
And as to your claim below to have mastered standard English: you disprove it in this sentence. I would mark "hadn't of" as poor English in the work of any able 9 year old in my classes. Kevin McE (talk) 07:28, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
English failings
I've been reviewing another nomination of Calvin999/AARON, which I have stopped because the hook and article-lede are not written in standard written English. Calvin999 has stated that he has not had problems in his 45 GA articles. After looking at the cookie-cut articles, I suspect that both the DYK and GA projects need to address the quality of these articles.
I wouldn't have thought that a temporary ban was neccessary, as neither editors have done anything deliberatly wrong and so such a punishment would be a bit over the top. What should happen is that each article is reviewed properly and taken on its individual merits. Miyagawa (talk) 15:35, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
A temporary ban is pretty insulting to be honest. How the article was not written in English I do not know. I am English and I live in England. I speak English. I know how to construct English sentences. It was perfectly understandable, but I asked someone to copyedit it anyway, but you still have not acknowledged that on the DYK nomination, Kiefer. — AARON • TALK 20:09, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
KW doesn't live in an English-speaking country, so may have been innocently confused by any deviances from "standard written English", whatever that may be. He might like to take a step back at the nomination page, though, as it's beginning to look rather fluorescent. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:19, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
It has been copyedited, KW, I just said that but you clearly haven't paid attention. If English isn't your first language, perhaps you should ask for second opinions on the DYK review. — AARON • TALK 22:29, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
If English is his first language, then it doesn't matter where he lives now, he should still be able to understand the article. The American dialect has some different meanings and different words for things in the British English language, but not that different that it is incomprehensible. — AARON • TALK 23:02, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
I copy-edited part of the article. The rest continued to suffer from gross syntactic errors.
Despite being blocked at DYK, the article continues to be championed by Calvin999 AARON, who nominated the article for GA status. I failed it. Kiefer.Wolfowitz10:49, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Review needed (time value): Hook for special occasion Feb 18
Please note that a DYK hook for the new article Gurudas Banerjee has been nominated for a special occasion for Feb 18, which is less 6 days away:
After you have created your nomination page, please add it (e.g., This is not the proper page to nominate your DYK article. If you have arrived here by accident, please return to T:TDYK and create your DYK nomination page by replacing the text "YOUR ARTICLE TITLE" in the form, with the title of the article you intend to nominate.) to the TOP of this section (after this comment).
This is the current message that pops up when one posts a new nomination template to the nominations page. The post ordering, new nominations posted to the top of the section, is a relic from the bygone era of all nominations being posted to the nomination page and the oldest nominations were placed at the bottom. I don't see any problem with changing it so the new nomination are placed at the bottom of the nomination day. Could it be changed?--Kevmin§02:30, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
I thought new nominations were still supposed to go to the top of each section, and it was just the order of the days themselves which had been reversed, but it seems that is not the case. I'm not sure why new noms have to go to the bottom of each section, it seems to me that with regard to individual days it doesn't make a lot of difference where they go. Gatoclass (talk) 11:36, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
BTW, I have grown to dislike the reversed order. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but judging by the length of the older nominations section now, it's had no discernable impact, indeed the section is routinely far longer now than it was when the reversed order was first implemented, and I know that for me personally the reversed order is an active discouragement to review since I have to scroll right down the page to find the less problematic hooks now. Gatoclass (talk) 05:21, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
Feb 18 has special occasion hook
To our valiant prep-area assemblers: Please be aware that a hook (HERE) has passed review for a Feb 18 special occasionHERE.
I recommend using it for New Delhi time 18 February 04:33 (now Queue 3), since it's likely to be of interest in many places, but of greatest interest in India.
I'm inserting this reminder because I've occasionally had special occasion hooks be overlooked.
I admit, I think this is crazy. Where an ALT1 is suggested that is a completely different hook, I can appreciate that it should not be approved by whoever suggested it. But, like in this case, the changes are purely grammatical, I don't see an issue at all with it being approved by the same person who wrote it. I have frequently made grammatical tweaks to the main hook before approving them, and see absolutely no issue with doing this, or with anyone doing this. But then, with the number of rules that some people seem to want to apply to DYK, I'm reasonably certain that I must contravene at least one with any nomination or approval! Harriastalk23:14, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
If you change the hook facts, you should not approve your own hook. Nobody is going to worry about you approving a hook just because you made a few grammatical changes or minor tweaks of that nature. Gatoclass (talk) 05:13, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
DYK is almost overdue
In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:
Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #6 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page
It looks like the template was set up with a space between the slash and Paranapiacaba. Although we're supposed to avoid renaming templates, that's just too weird, so I renamed it and fixed the T:TDYK transclusion and the contents of the template itself. You should be able to get to it now. BlueMoonset (talk) 07:49, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
We have 268 DYK nominations submitted at the moment, of which only 54 are approved, a difference which continues to be over 200. All included hooks here are well over half a month old. Many thanks for your continuing assistance.
Please remember to cross off entries as you finish reviewing them, even if the review was not an approval. Thank you very much! BlueMoonset (talk) 06:49, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Do you think it would be feasible or helpful if we had something along those lines just permanently at the top of the nomination page? Something similar to the one on the WP:GAN page? Miyagawa (talk) 19:56, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
That is a very good suggestion, and something I've missed; it's always hard to find the oldest nominations at t:tdyk.. Wouldn't be that much work to keep a list of the 20 oldest unreviewed nomination at the top of the nomination page, would it? Mentoz86 (talk) 15:08, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
DYKbot off by twelve minutes
For a reason I can't understand, the bot is updating pages twelve minutes before normal, e.g. here at 14:48 instead of 15:00. Accordingly, I've adjusted the timer so that it gets an additional twelve minutes. I'll be at church when that update goes through, so I'll be unable to perform the needed self-revert, and I'll probably forget about it by the time I leave. PLEASE REVERT my edit immediately after the next update! Nyttend (talk) 22:22, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
If you check the times at which DYKUpdateBot began the last four updates you will find they occurred at:
The common theme is that while User:DYKUpdateBot/Time Between Updates has been set for updates every 8 hours, for the last few days updates have been 8 hours and 15 minutes apart. This is an intentional feature of the bot that allows it to automatically resync with midnight (please see Wikipedia talk:Did you know#DYK schedule for the most recent discussion of this issue). Your change of the time between updates has been reversed as unneeded. Once the updates are resynced the bot will automatically return to 8 hour updates. --Allen3talk22:44, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
But...that doesn't help the problem. No matter how many 8-hour-and-15-minute updates it makes, it's always going to be twelve minutes off. Eventually it will be updating at 07:48, 15:48, and 23:48 daily, rather than at 08:00, 16:00, and 00:00. Nyttend (talk) 05:01, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
No, it doesn't. The adjustment process is smart enough to know where its end goal is, and makes a final sub-15-minute adjustment (if necessary) to get to the even hours it's looking for. As it has done now, and on many past occasions. BlueMoonset (talk) 07:50, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
I think so - it would be new on Wikipedia, which is what counts. There may be a problem with the MNopedia sourcing though. Although it has an attribution to the Minnesota Historical Society, it appears to be an open wiki and as such it would be excluded as a reliable source by WP:SPS. Prioryman (talk) 20:38, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) The material reused from MNopedia (or any other public domain source) is not considered new for DYK purposes. There need to be at least 1500 prose characters that are not from the PD sources. (It can be fine for Wikipedia yet not qualify for DYK.) BlueMoonset (talk) 20:42, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
I stand corrected! But I think we would have to exclude the MNopedia content as an unreliable source anyway, unfortunately. Prioryman (talk) 20:47, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
Very true about the exclusion for open wiki material. If it's sourced, the original sources (if online or otherwise available) could potentially be mined for the same basic information, though it would have to be paraphrased differently under the circumstances. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:10, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
MNopedia is not an open wiki. The text in question was written by Molly Huber and is without a doubt a reliable source. I'll withdraw the nom; I overlooked the fact that reusing made the prose ineligible. Gobōnobō+c01:17, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
Proposal to ban DYKs relating to Spain and Morocco
It's hardly WP:POINTy to post a notification. Jayen466's proposal would affect an area covering approximately 500 square miles (1,300 km2) and including three countries. That's definitely something that needs to be widely discussed. Prioryman (talk) 14:48, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
I hate to say it Priory but in my opinion that looks slightly like scaremongering. You neglected to mention Gibraltar as what the actual suggestion was to stop any Gibraltarpedia related hooks from coming through, not just Spain or Morocco related hooks. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk)18:01, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Fact is that the vast majority of editors have no idea what Gibraltarpedia is - it's meaningless to them. Jayen466 takes the view that any article within the Gibraltarpedia geographical area is a "Gibraltarpedia article", even if it has no connection with Gibraltar or Gibraltarpedia; he cited my own article Royal Fair of Algeciras in support of his proposal. The practical effect of his proposal is that anyone in WikiProject Spain or Morocco who wants to write an article about a place or person or event within the Gibraltarpedia geographical area will be caught by his ban. That's the point I was making. Prioryman (talk) 21:14, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
No, the fact is that the proposal covers Gibraltar and Gibraltar-related articles. To the extent that some (!) editors have been trying to skirt around the present restrictions, or any potential restrictions on Gibraltar by coming up with very-close-to-Gibraltar-but-not-exactly kind of DYK noms - in other words, engaging in a lot of GAMING - it's possible that the current proposal would also affect these GAME-Y "very-close-to-Gibraltar-but-not-exactly" kind of DYK noms. But that's on the people who like to play games. Not on the proposal.
You're basically saying "here is a way to game restrictions", then blaming others when they come up with proposals that would take account of this gaming. It's backwards and your wording above is, to put it politely, "inaccurate".Volunteer Marek21:21, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
No. As I pointed out in my proposal on the subpage, the original restrictions are badly worded. They do not restrict Gibraltarpedia articles, they restrict Gibraltar-related articles. An article (let's say about a north Moroccan village) might come under Gibraltarpedia but it has nothing to do with Gibraltar. Jayen466 is pushing a bogus claim that any article produced on any place, event or person in the 500 square miles (1,300 km2) covered by the project is somehow a "tourist promotion" for Gibraltar, even if the place was destroyed 115 years ago, the event happened 700 years ago or the person never lived or worked in Gibraltar. His position is, not to put too fine a point on it, batshit crazy. Fortunately the vast majority of people can see that and are opposing it. What are you doing supporting a batshit crazy position, though? Prioryman (talk) 21:33, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
"Batshit crazy" Prioryman, and twice in the same paragraph? Whatever else I may have thought of you, "vocabulary deficient" wasn't on the list. This scare tactic goes right along with your opening remarks in this section: over-the-top to the point of absurdity. You do yourself and your cause only ill with such tactics. Lest we forget, the original restrictions on Gibraltar-related DYKs was a result of a "product placement" commitment for the WP Main Page that Bamkin had sold to the Gibraltar Tourist Board - a commitment he had no right to sell. Thus, anything considered a part of the Gibraltar Tourist Board's remit should be a part of any restriction. Eminently logical, I would have thought. Bielle (talk) 22:27, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
The only thing that's "over-the-top to the point of absurdity" are the proposed restrictions, and words conveying that sentiment are scarce but welcome. GRAPPLEX22:31, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Prioryman has said it how it is, it is utterly ludicrous to think that an old tower in Andalucia is an advert saying "Come to Gibraltar". I'm surprised at you Volunteer for not seeing this. Contrary to what you think, the Gibraltar Tourist Board doesn't own any of our articles or DYK, they continue to function as encyclopedia articles. That Roger succeeded in selling this to Gibraltar doesn't change the fact that the articles are ours and DYK is ours. Most readers couldn't give a baboon's left testicle about Gibraltar or Gibraltarpedia and I'm certain if you did a survey to see how many people directly came to Gibraltar after seeing a DYK on an old tower not even in the country which appeared on wikipedia at the bottom of a front page for 6 hours it would be extremely low. The Indonesian film production companies could pay Crisco and myself to create articles on old movies to raise interest in Indonesian cinema and attract new investment, so we would get lucky and earn personally from it but the fact is it changes nothing about the articles themselves which would be a neutral and independent of any commercial value that has been placed upon them. It is fact that most of the articles being DYK'ed are well withint content guidelines. i'm sure Gibraltar are not the only ones who indirectly gain from having articles on wikipedia, arguably anybody and anything would and as we speak people are writing content on here which have a commercial value. What about all of the Beyonce songs and such articles, how much are the record companies benefitting from it? Yet most of them were written by an obviously innocent young lad from the Seychelles who simply just loves Beyonce. Most of the Gibraltarpedia contributors have some interest in Gibraltar and Cadiz, regardless of whatever commercial label has been placed on them. You are giving more power to the Gibraltar government by implying they have the power to dominate DYK and manipulate us than they actually have in practice, regardless of whatever package you believe has been sold to them. And I don't believe that the sole goal on both sides of the agreement is entirely about money. There is a lot of cultural interest in Gibraltar and people who genuinely want to build up knowledge resources. DYK above all is insignificant in comparison to any long term benefit any article on Gibraltar might reap for them anyway! ♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld22:42, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Then again, considering the value of the rupiah... I agree wholeheartedly with Dr B. here. I'm not any more interested in going to Bone or Dairi after writing about them, or reading hooks on them. Maybe some of the churches and mosques, because I do like architecture, but that's it. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:15, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
It is fun, but it also distracts from the fact that the title of this section was over the top, and while I don't think references to blocking are useful, it might be worth Prioryman considering more neutral, and accurate, wording about this subject. Harriastalk23:55, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
The title of this section is "Proposal to ban DYKs relating to Spain and Morocco", and the effect of the proposal is to ban DYKs relating to Spain and Morocco. Don't believe me? Here's the map of the area that Jayen466 wants to ban from DYK. (The bit at the top is Spain, the bit at the bottom is Morocco.) Prioryman (talk) 23:59, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Gibraltarpedia scopeAnyone reading the section title will think that this applies to all articles about Spain and Morocco, rather than the perhaps 200 sq mi. of land area (not 500; Tanger is 30 miles from Ceuta; Tarifa is less than 20 miles from Gibraltar: so we are talking an area of about 150 sq mi. in Morocco, and perhaps 50 sq mi. in Spain) that are actually within the paid-for scope of the Gibraltarpedia tourism promotion project (an area which is quite obviously based around the ferry ports of Tarifa, Algeciras, Tanger and Ceuta, all of which enable day trips from Gibraltar). Of course, if you count the open sea as well, you arrive at 500 sq mi! This sort of presentation goes wonderfully well with the dodgy ethics of the project's business model. AndreasJN46600:56, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
Andreas, the problem with your position is that you claim that absolutely every topic relating to the entire region on either side of the Strait of Gibraltar has some kind of "tourist value". I concede that some places are genuine tourist attractions; see for instance Category:Visitor attractions in Gibraltar. But what on earth is the tourist value of a Muslim warlord who died nearly 700 years ago? He's not commemorated anywhere, nobody knows exactly where he died (and he didn't even die in Gibraltar), there's nowhere for a tourist to see that relates to him. And yet you consider this to be somehow promotional and worthy of restriction. Your problem, Andreas, is that you are obsessed with that YouTube video. You interpret everything in the light of that video, without ever justifying your claim that a particular article has the commercial usefulness which you're ascribing to it. That's why you're getting into ridiculous overreaches like claiming that Gibraltarian tourism will benefit from an article on a demolished tower in Spain or an historical figure who died centuries ago or a remote village in Morocco (seriously, who is going to be going there from Gibraltar?). You haven't even attempted to justify such claims - you just present off-the-wall claims as facts and expect everyone else to take you seriously. That might work for someone in a cult but it doesn't work on people who have actual critical thinking skills, so you shouldn't be surprised that your proposal is currently being thrashed to within an inch of its life. Prioryman (talk) 01:36, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
I'm sorry but the cynicism and dishonesty in the above comment by Prioryman is just staggering. He says:
But what on earth is the tourist value of a Muslim warlord who died nearly 700 years ago?
Answer: The DYK hook you put it under.
Well, let's freaking see. The hook for that DYK article was:
... that Abd al-Malik Abd al-Wahid, the one-eyed son of Moroccan sultan Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Othman, captured GIBRALTAR in 1333 but fell victim to a Castilian ambush six years later?"
That's what this whole DYK Gibraltar campaign is about, and if a Moroccan sultan who is only barely related to the place can be used as an excuse to put GIBRALTAR one more time on the front page, then you do it. That's how product placement works. You don't put a flashing sign that says "Visit Gibraltar Drink Pepsi Now!" everywhere, you just put the word "Gibraltar Pepsi" where everyone can see it as much as possible as many times as possible. This is Marketing 101 and it's obvious to anyone with half a brain but hey, I guess your estimate of the average Wikipedian's intelligence may not be that far off from the objective value.
That's insane. The current set mentions Cornwall, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Mexico, Spain, and Niger. They all sound like good holiday destinations to me. It also mentions Usher, the musician, and the Huffington Post (and a drug cartel). They could all potentially benefit from this publicity.--Carabinieri (talk) 17:16, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
Okay, I think all parties involved should just step back from the situation for awhile. Does the word "Indonesia" on the main page make me anymore likely to visit there? No. Is there some sort of subliminal product placement going on to get me to eat mushrooms, spend money at the racetrack or buy Beyonce CDs just by having the words on the mainpage? If that is the case we should not have any article links on the mainpage, just a giant search bar. Then no one could be influenced by anything ever again. But to ban a word is just silly. Froggerlauraribbit03:39, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
And are you aware that you are getting into the "size matters" argument that has thwarted many a man for centuries? If I was to do multiple articles on Lesotho, Luxemburg or Vatican City, would they then be banned from the mainpage because the size of the city/country doesn't warrant multiple articles? Froggerlauraribbit04:29, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
Actual pay for editing would be a conflict of interest and the parties involved should be dealt with (as they were in this case). What is going on here is that one organization may have been paid for services and there was a contest incentive to generate articles. There is no longer a monetary incentive and the parties involved have confessed and moved on. What is left are editors that never received a tangible reward for their services (some that even have no affiliation with Gibraltar and are writing on different subjects). Now it just has an aura of a witch hunt and unjustified retribution on people that have nothing to do with WMUK or Victuallers. Froggerlauraribbit05:11, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
Are you saying that the Gibraltarpedia project is now dormant, and that the consultancy contract has run its course? That would change things, but it doesn't seem to be the case. Wikimedia UK said the other day that their future involvement in the Gibraltarpedia project would still have to be defined, so it seems the project will be ongoing for some time. The purpose of that paid project has always included getting people to create Wikipedia content within the project scope, and someone has been—and, as far as I know, is—getting paid to coordinate that. I really don't have a problem with the content, or the editors creating it; but if Gibraltar keeps being overrepresented on the main page because of that project ... AndreasJN46606:19, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
They spent something like three minutes explaining how they "made the front pages of the main Wikipedias", and how many thousands people read the corresponding articles. And as the video says right at the end, the whole thing is "a phenomenally cheap, very very imaginative way to absolutely energise a city and put a city on the map." Whether it works as well as they claimed in their sales pitch does not matter: that was the pitch that Gibraltar bought. And if my ideas are so off-the-wall, why do you go to all the trouble to canvas dozens of people with bogus and inflammatory messages? AndreasJN46604:09, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
Just a word . . . like "Coke" or "Microsoft" or Bell" or. . .. "Just a word" is what brand marketing is all about. Just a word on the main page of Wikipedia, what wouldn't any one the above three pay for 10 mentions a month? Instead, the Tourist Board of Gibraltar seems to have bought for an undisclosed sum paid to a WMUK trustee. And we are continuing to permit it to happen. Bielle (talk) 04:10, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
Well then ban those words too. The point I am trying to make is what makes "Gibraltar" a bigger marketing device (if it is they got a lousier deal than the free Olympics coverage) than any of the multitude of TV shows, music, products or companies featured at DYK over the years? Is it the connection to WMUK, edit for hire? Is it some sort of retribution to ban mention of an entire geographical area? If that's the case should we continue to punish Gibraltar for the next 20 years, eye for an eye style? Froggerlauraribbit04:38, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
Well, this gives away your agenda, doesn't it. It's all about your hatred of Victuallers. This has nothing to do with the frequency with which the articles have appeared, or their quality, or their effect on tourism. All you're concerned about is whether Victuallers is getting paid by the government of Gibraltar for his involvement in the project, even though he has no involvement whatsoever with DYKs. Prioryman (talk) 10:08, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
That's complete nonsense. [9][10][11][12] This was a new situation. For all the great points of the project, Roger and others mishandled various aspects of it. I can quite understand how that happened, and it is not a capital crime. My opposition to the DYKs is rather based on the spectre that we may have one day Volkswagen hooks on our main page, resulting from a similar collaboration with someone like the Volkswagen Auto Museum. The main page should be kept at arm's length from editing drives coordinated by a paid consultant; that's all. AndreasJN46613:06, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
I confess to having paid little attention to this debate up to now. But don't we currently have a restriction of no more than one Gibraltar-related hook at DYK per day? That seems to me a sufficient check. Gatoclass (talk) 06:00, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
We do have that restriction but it is no longer necessary given that we have only had 2 nominations for new Gibraltar-related hooks since the start of this year. Prioryman (talk) 10:08, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
To be fair, Andreas has said that he doesn't have a problem with the articles being created and the editors creating them and does see their encyclopedic purpose. I just think he's concerned, perhaps excessively so, about showcasing Gibraltarpedia articles on the front page and resents that anybody would even think about linking the main page of an encyclopedia with the promotion of tourism. Which is fair enough, I can see why he dislikes it. But I think its a rather extreme view to topic ban all articles including towers which no longer exist in Spain which don't even mention Gibraltar than those articles are automatically part of some advertising scam. And it also implies that we've put the articles there and through DYK as employees of the Gibraltar government rather than being independent editors with our own interests. I'm pretty sure Roger isn't solely focused on tourism and DYK, I think he would have mentioned that having a high number of articles on wikipedia which raise interest about a place through the google search engine would have a positive impact upon local tourism, but I don't believe he is solely commercially oriented as he's been labelled. And even in Gibraltar I don't think the purpose is entirely tourism, I am aware that there is a cultural interest in Gibraltar to build up resources on Gibraltar which can be accessed through the Qpedia codes making Gibraltar an encyclopedic place. If that increases tourism, great, and I'm sure that was Roger's view on it. I believe his first and foremost purpose is to run an effective Qpedia project which provides detailed information about landmarks, I seem to be one of the few people here who still respect the guy for this. ♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld10:12, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
Given that this debate has been going on so long, it's difficult to identify the core concerns here, but if the concern is that some people might be motivated to write lots of articles on a given topic because of some sort of promotional competition being run, couldn't we just ban any articles from DYK on the given topic that were written or nominated by anyone involved in the competition? Gatoclass (talk) 17:45, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
The competition ended on 26 December and there have been only 2 new nominations of Gibraltar-related articles in the whole of 2013. What is happening now is that people are explicitly voting to sustain the restrictions as a means of punishing Gibraltar and Victuallers personally. Prioryman (talk) 18:35, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
The competition only brought the "product placement" purchased by the Gibraltar Tourist Board to light. I am unsure what Prioryman means to suggest by "there have been only 2 new nominations of Gibraltar-related articles in the whole of 2013", except to mislead us. The whole of 2013 so far is 7 weeks (out of 52, in case he has forgotten). In those 7 weeks, 18 mentions of Gibraltar have appeared on Wikipedia's main page. Each placement is a fulfillment of Bamkin's paid consultancy - a commitment he made to abuse Wikipedia's success for his personal financial gain. Far from "punishing" either Gibraltar or Victuallers (Bamkin), we have not even stopped the abuse. I am still uncertain as to why this blatant sale of Wikipedia's main page does not offend more Wikipedians. Bielle (talk) 19:30, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
Bielle, only two new nominations have been submitted so far this year - Martin's Cave (5 January) and CITIPEG (16 February). Only Martin's Cave has run so far. Of the 18 other mentions that you cite, 17 were from nominations submitted in 2012 - some as long ago as October. There's no "misleading" involved, just a misunderstanding on your part. Prioryman (talk) 22:28, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
That would be a good arrangement going forward, and I would support writing that in the DYK rule book. If this had applied to Gibraltarpedia, a key part of the problem would have been avoided. And it sounds like Roger (Victuallers) would not have a problem with that. Please suggest it as rule to apply in future. AndreasJN46622:08, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
"there have been only 2 new nominations" - If you did not misunderstand this, perhaps owing to a lack of familiarity with the DYK process, then you deliberately misinterpreted it. Nomination =/= a blurb running. See T:TDYK for nominations which may or may not run. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:48, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
Like. Might even make up for a good April Fools Day hook. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 21:55, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
Great! By George, Espresso Addict, I think you've got it! This last one - "... that Gibraltarians would rather their road belonged to the Devil than to a bishop?" - for April Fool's is priceless. — Maile (talk) 15:35, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
Resolved
Facepalm Check the nomination date... no comment on content issues. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:32, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
Unresolved
Lord Roem ~ (talk) 01:15, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
--Lord Roem ~ (talk) 22:17, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
Done - reviewed by User:CorrectKnowledge. Thank you! -- Presearch (talk) 18:17, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
