Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/Did You Know requests

On the main page, below today's featured article, is a section devoted to oddball facts from Wikipedia's article base. The section, named "Did You Know?" aims to highlight the strange, bizarre, funny, amusing, interesting, fascinating, or otherwise noteworthy facts from our newest articles or from those articles on site that have been expanded five-fold.

DYK is one of the ways in which our contributors can have their hard work recognized on the mainpage. This method allows for an article to appear on the main page in the DYK column, and since DYK articles are expected to be new or nearly new they are not required to be featured article to have an appearance. DYK articles are also less likely to be vandalized because vandals are more apt to target the featured article of the day since the TFA receives the lions share of traffic from the main page.

Getting an article to the DYK page requires that you have a "hook" - an interesting fact of some sort - that is sighted to a reliable source. Once you have that you may nominate the article for an appearance on the DYK page, and if the hook you have is deemed noteworthy it can be selected to appear in the DYK section out on the main page.

Eligibility

For an article to be eligible for a DYK nomination it needs to meet three criteria.

First, the article in question needs to be new or expanded fivefold. A new article must be at least 1500 characters in length. If an article is not new, or if it has not been expanded by at least 500% (fivefold) then it will be suspended until such time as it is expanded a full fivefold. If the article can not be expanded a full fivefold, then it will be disqualified from a DYK appearance. Also note that only the article's prose is considered when calculating length; tables, lists, quotes etc. are not counted. When expanding an article, check its talk page to make sure it has not been featured on DYK or ITN before – an article gets only one chance. Make the article visually appealing using infoboxes, images and sections if possible; some reviewers are reluctant to pass articles that contain only a single block of text.

Second, for both new articles and those expanded fivefold, the time limit for a DYK nomination is seven days. In other words, you have a seven day window from the time you either created the new article from which you are seeking the DYK hook or expanded an article to make it eligible for a DYK nomination. If you do not file for a DYK nomination within seven days then you lose your chance to have the newly created or expanded article appear with the DYK hook.

Lastly, for purposes of the DYK process, the "hook" - the interesting fact from the article you wish to have featured - must be precisely cited either immediately after the information in question or at the end of the sentence in question. This differs from the standard practice of the military history project, which is to cite information on a rounding basis. In addition, the article should be supported by multiple sources. The references should be properly formatted in one of the accepted methods (the easiest way is to use citation templates).

Adding your nom

When your reasonably sure that your nomination is ready then head for the DYK nomination page, located at Template talk:Did you know. Add you nomination there using the DYK template to the appropriately dated section and hit save. Once saved, you nomination will be reviewed by those who frequent the page and if all the information presented in your DYK nom checks out then its cleared for an appearance on the main page in the DYK section.

Once you have completed the nomination, keep an eye on it in case any issues are raised. You may need to clarify something about the hook or article, or fix some problem with it.

If accepted

You should note that it may take several days from the time that the nomination you filed is accepted to the time that it appears on the main page, perhaps as long as a week. Note also that the main page appearance is not for 24-hours like the TFA, it only last for roughly 8 hours. As a result then you should be prepared to accept that you may not see your nomination on the main page.

If you nomination is accepted and does appear on the main page a bot will add a main page DYK appearance template to your new or recently expanded article and leave a message on your talk page informing you of the appearance.