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Cannabis Day special occasion

There is a proposal at Template:Did you know nominations/Lil Stoner (not by the nominator) to save the hook for a special occasion posting on Cannabis Day, April 20. See 420 (cannabis culture). Would there be consensus to waive the 6-week time limit for special occasion proposals? Pinging Cbl62 for awareness, but it's helpful to emphasize that the nominator is not the person requesting this special occasion. Edge3 (talk) 01:17, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

I've seen that around and intentionally not promoted it so it can go up on 4/20. Entirely happy to IAR/waive here. Good hook. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 12:14, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
Agree. The six week limit is from a different time when there were 24 hooks a day and no separate approved hooks page, I don't see how it's that useful now. CMD (talk) 12:27, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
@Chipmunkdavis, oh, very interesting! I wonder if we should consider eliminating that rule? —valereee (talk) 18:15, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
What are they smoking down here? Oh wait a minute... The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 18:26, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
valereee, I don't think we should eliminate the special occasions time limit, though perhaps it might be loosened a bit. Indeed, I believe we had a discussion on this within the last year and decided that the time limit should be retained, so I very much doubt you'd get support for removing or greatly expanding it now. Whatever the original reasons, keeping hooks for very long periods isn't a great idea: after all, the idea behind DYK is presenting newly created/expanded/GAed articles on the main page, and hanging on to them for months on end goes against this. Do we really want an overly large special occasions section? BlueMoonset (talk) 19:36, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
I find that the juxtaposition of this person's name with 420 culture is disrepectful. Flibirigit (talk) 19:41, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
Hm, that's an interesting question. I wonder if this person's family would have the same reaction? —valereee (talk) 21:04, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
Here are the relevant links to previous discussions of the special hold dates: 2011 [1] and 2019 [2] — Maile (talk) 21:09, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
I don't think the rule needs to be altogether scrapped, but six weeks is too short. Some hooks don't even get reviewed in six weeks, so as it is many will spend little time hanging around in special occasions. The six weeks rule has never been blanket either, with the April Fool's Day exception being in place since the beginning. CMD (talk) 01:36, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
I don't support saving this. Yes, "stoner" is associated with cannabis culture and so is 20th April. That does not mean that any hook that has the word "stoner" can be saved for that day. The hook, and person, have nothing to do with cannabis culture - and it is only through the use of the phrase "smokeball" that it comes even close. This is not what a "special occasion" hook/article should be. People clicking an article in a hook that implies, through itself or the day it's posted on, a relation to cannabis will expect it to be a cannabis related article - or at least some information on the relation. This has neither. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 21:08, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
Come to think of it, nobody has mentioned that the mere placement of this article among what almost certainly will be 5-6 other overtly-cannabis-related articles on the main page may in fact constitute a WP:BLP violation be undesirable. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 23:02, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
The guy is dead. BLP doesn't apply. Edge3 (talk) 23:38, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
eek my bad, that's what I get for monitoring weather/power conditions where I live while having too many articles open at once. Still, it is an insinuation that may not be desirable, even if BLP doesn't strictly apply. Will strike that part of my comment. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 23:41, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
@Berchanhimez: No worries. You're making a fair point. Would you also have concerns about the weed insinuation in the proposed hook itself, even if we don't publish it on April 20? Edge3 (talk) 00:02, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
That depends. I do not have a problem with the word "smokeball" being used in the hook with his name because that is both reliably sourced and the article makes clear it has nothing to do with cannabis. On the subject of "baking" and "growing flowers", both are reliably sourced as well, but I can't help but think that there may be a better way to say that (maybe just change it to "gardening" or "horticulture" or something). To me, the primary problem is that on April 20, there is almost guaranteed to be 5-6 other cannabis-related hooks that I do not think this should be ran with - as that is the real problem. On any other day, perhaps the insinuation is okay for DYK - but even still changing "growing flowers" would likely be best. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 00:09, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Since this is not an April Fools day hook I have a problem with running this hook, even in the quirky slot, to sync with Cannabis Day, because the article subject had absolutely nothing to do with Cannabis. This just seems wrong. The man was a sports figure who had nothing to do with drugs, legal or otherwise. This is not right. — Maile (talk) 02:20, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

  • I didn't ask for this to be featured on 420. The hook is 100% accurate as is and (hopefully) interesting and intriguing. There is no negativity to the hook. Nor is there any conceivable BLP concern with someone who died nearly 60 years ago. As noted in the last section of the article, Stoner has become more popular in recent years precisely because of his name. I ask that the hook run in the normal course and that it not be gutted. Cbl62 (talk) 02:21, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
Not you. Edge3 started this under the section heading "Cannabis Day special occasion", and is asking that we run it in coordination for that. I'm not objecting to the hook, just the scheduling to make it look like a tip of the hat to 420. — Maile (talk) 02:24, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
Thank you for clarifying. Then, as the nominator, I ask that it simply be run as approved in the normal course. Cbl62 (talk) 02:32, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
(edit conflict) The article is relevant to cannabis, so I disagree that the article subject had absolutely nothing to do with Cannabis. (See the last paragraph of Lil Stoner#Family and later years.) I should note that I did not make the original proposal on Template:Did you know nominations/Lil Stoner to post this on April 20, and I likely would not have made the recommendation myself if I were promoting hooks to prep at the time. However, I did indicate my support on that nomination's thread, and I brought the discussion to this page for a similar reason. When we promote hooks, we usually give deference to the nominator and/or reviewer. In this case, the reviewer made the initial suggestion, and even the nominator stated, While not opposed, I'm not requesting that it be held for 4/20. So I still think the discussion on this page is appropriate, even if you disagree with the suggestion. Edge3 (talk) 02:38, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
I would suggest that anyone interested in this thread read the article and the sources. And then honor the nominator's request to just run it like other hooks. — Maile (talk) 03:19, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

No level two header generated on Talk page

I just nominated the James Kendall Hosmer article for DYK. After completing the nomination I posted {{Did you know nominations/James Kendall Hosmer}} on the article's Talk page, which, according to the DYK nomination page, is supposed to generate its own level two header there. This has not occurred, at least for me, the last two times I've nominated an article. Before this, by adding the template to the talk page, it not only generated a level two header, but it also generated a DYK nomination banner with DYK icon. Any ideas? -- Gwillhickers (talk) 00:04, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Might be some miscommunication here, but after you create a nomination, you are supposed to post it under the existing appropriate date subheading at Nominations page. I just now did that for you. Is that what you mean by "level two header"? There used to be (maybe still is) a bot that would also post it on the article talk page. After I create a nomination, I immediately post it on the Nominations page. Then I'll manually also put the nomination on the article's talk page. — Maile (talk) 00:42, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
Ohmygosh.. got wrapped up in this. Thanks for posting my template. Anyway, the DYK nomination I did before this did the same thing.  i.e. No level two header, and no DYK banner was generated on the Talk page.. When you added the template under the appropriate date did the level two header automatically appear on the given Talk page, or did you have to manually effect this? What about the DYK banner and icon that used to automatically appear on a Talk page also? What happened to that? No biggie I guess -- just curious. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 02:32, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
Didn't Wugapodes write a bot that added transclusions of DYK noms to the article's talk page at some point after a new nom was added to the main nominations page? It could be that when the bot does it, it also adds a level-2 header; so far as I know, there isn't a level-2 header included with the nomination template itself, just a level-4 one. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:40, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
I manually added your nomination to WP:DYKN. The date subheaders are already there for the nominator to add their nomination template. I then went to the article's talk page and manually added the subheading above where you had the nomination template. Wugapodes did create WugBot that transcludes the nomination. The only other "banner" that appears on the talk page is a bot-generated notice after the hook has run on the main page. — Maile (talk) 02:52, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
I double checked and indeed the template was added by me under Feb.9. Was it missing when you added it? According to edit history, it wasn't. Anyways for years a level two header was automatically generated, along with a DYK nomination banner, w/DYK icon. Now, from my experience, this doesn't happen. Oh well. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 03:00, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
I added it under February 13, the date you created the nomination, so now we have it under both dates. BlueMoonset am I incorrect that a nomination should be added under the date the nomination is created,? I have just noticed that there are more listed under February 8, where the actual date on the nomination is a later date. — Maile (talk) 03:30, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
Maile66 I thought that it was the day that the article was created or expanded 5x. I have always did it that way. SL93 (talk) 03:39, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
Maile, as SL93 notes, nominations should be placed under the date the article was created/expansion started/moved from draft or user space/listed as a GA. The date the nomination page was created is not relevant. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:08, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
Thanks. I guess where my thinking went astray, is that I've always created my own nominations on the date the new article or expansion has been completed, so it's never it's never been an issue with mine. — Maile (talk) 15:47, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

The original question remains. Why hasn't the template on a given Talk page generated a level two section title, along with a DYK nomination banner, witch included the DYK icon? As I've said, this is what has always occurred time and again with other DYK templates posted on a given Talk page. Not a big deal I suppose, but it would be nice if the 'powers that be' could get this resolved. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 06:24, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

I think the only person who can answer that question is Wugapodes — Maile (talk) 18:58, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for all the input everyone. Let's see what happens from here. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 20:25, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
Gwillhickers, it appears that Wugapodes removed the header functionality from {{DYK conditions}} on April 20 of last year; the reason given in the edit summary was that both WugBot and DYK-Helper added the header automatically when they transcluded the nomination to article pages as part of their own processes. (Presumably, between them, the two processes were supposed to do the transclusions for all DYK nominations to article talk pages, so there shouldn't have been the need for manual transclusions.) I couldn't find where on the nominations page it says that level-two headers will automatically be added to article talk page transclusions, or even where it instructs nominators to do this. Can you please point me to that section? Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:18, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
Yep, between WugBot and DYK-Helper, transcluding DYK noms on talk pages is rarely done manually. When it is, the editor should decide whether they want a level 2 header or not rather than have the template decide for them. If the instructions are incorrect, they should be fixed--forcing a level 2 header in all situations is a bad idea imo. — Wug·a·po·des​ 20:52, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
Thanks, but what's still at question is that the DYK banner and icon used to appear automatically by simply adding, for example, {{Did you know nominations/James Kendall Hosmer}} to the Talk page in question. When one is creating a nomination it says in the pink box above the form:
Also consider posting this nomination to the article's talk page (probably Talk:James Kendall Hosmer) by posting the following:
{{Did you know nominations/James Kendall Hosmer}}The template generates its own level 2 header."
That was my original concern. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 21:25, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
Oh, I see. That text is generated by Template:T:TDYK/editintro (add another esoteric, poorly named template to the pile). I've removed the instructions about adding the template to the talk page since it's no longer needed. See this edit. — Wug·a·po·des​ 22:09, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Prep 5 - date request missed

I've noticed that Prep 5 which is due to run on 2 March has been filled. However it has forgotten to include Template:Did you know nominations/Rhodesia/Zimbabwe government buildings that was being held for that day. Could I ask if someone could switch the Tiffany's hook to Prep 6 and put the government buildings one in instead please? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 07:36, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

I made the swap, but somebody better double check what I did. It's been a long time since I've promoted to prep. — Maile (talk) 11:40, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
  • I realize that Mugabe is dead and thus BLP doesn't apply (and he was a horrible person and a dictator but that's beside the point), but I do have some reservations about the "drunk" quote. We probably need some discussion on whether or not that quote is appropriate. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 13:22, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
It doesn't strike me as inappropriate, even considering C of E has some prior questionable hooks. BLP twice-over doesn't apply -- it's clearly referencing the statue. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 18:55, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Older nominations needing DYK reviewers

The previous list was archived a little while ago. The list below includes all 33 nominations that need reviewing in the Older nominations section of the Nominations page, covering everything through February 11. We currently have a total of 176 nominations, of which 67 have been approved, a gap of 109, up 8 from eight days ago. Thanks to everyone who reviews these.

Over one month old:

Other old nominations:

Please remember to cross off entries as you finish reviewing them (unless you're asking for further review), even if the review was not an approval. Many thanks! BlueMoonset (talk) 03:30, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Regarding Antique Bakery (Q5)

So I promoted the hook (and the rest of the Q5 hooks), but I've been wondering if the wording it has is a poor wording. It's full-protected now, so I can't modify it myself. The hook refers to a gay character being straightwashed in an adaptation to "merely hav[ing] a fear of women", and I'm wondering if the 'merely' phrasing is something someone would get upset about in WP:ERRORS rather than, say, "instead hav[ing] a fear of women". Any thoughts? Pinging @Morgan695, who wrote the hook, and @Krakkos, who approved it. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 18:53, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm fine with "merely" being removed or re-phrased. Morgan695 (talk) 19:57, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
I have changed the hook to read "... a character who was gay in the source material was changed to having a fear of women?" Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:10, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Queue 4 hook

Might just be me, but something about

doesn't parse right. Is it unclear whether it's the video or the song that wasn't politically motivated? Is there a word missing from "which featured Indonesian politically satirical song"? Or have I just been awake too long? Courtesy ping: Amakuru, Gerald Waldo Luis, Krakkos, and Vaticidalprophet, those involved in the hook. Cheers, Eddie891 Talk Work 00:24, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

It did scan a little odd to me, though not in any way the alternatives didn't. The whole "obviously second-language speaker" thing gives me pause, in that correcting that without mention can be a bit of a faux pas (and yet so is putting oddly structured language on the front page). We're having a number of thoughts about full-protected hooks today, aren't we? Vaticidalprophet (talk) 00:26, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
Vaticidalprophet, if a grammar fix is needed then feel free to, I'm fine with that. As a 2-language speaker, I'm utilizing Wikipedia to also learn more about the English grammar. GeraldWL 01:08, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
@Vaticidalprophet, Gerald Waldo Luis, and Eddie891: I'd guess the simplest way would be just to change to "denied that *the video* was politically motivated", to make it clear? Incidentally, the hook also doesn't capture some other aspects of this story - as far as I could gather, the video was principally an aerobics video, with events from the coup simply being shown in the background. It would have been good to make that clear too, and it's an interesting aspect, although unfortunately we struggle with the number of words we're allowed!  — Amakuru (talk) 08:34, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
Amakuru, well you know more than I do, what's best for the hook to pop up at MP, then that's best for me. Rewrite maybe? GeraldWL 17:15, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
"... that the creator of a video depicting the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, which featured the politically satirical Indonesian song "Ampun Bang Jago", denied that the video was politically motivated?"--Khajidha (talk) 21:42, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Discussing solutions for promoter crisis

So we've had several suggestions for fixing the crisis with promoters.

  1. Be less critical of new promoters. I think this is a nice ideal/goal, but promoters/admins/regular workers at DYK can only correct their own behavior. If the criticism is coming from noms, which it often is, those are people who have very little skin in the game and may not even realize there's a problem with recruiting promoters and that their criticism could mean DYK eventually goes away. I guess we regular workers here could make a habit of actively responding to complaints about promotions by asking people to stop, but even then...I don't know how to fix this one.
  2. Make the job less daunting. Two suggestions have been made:
  • Create a script for promoting so new promoters can easily move hooks. One of the problems recruiting promotes is the fact promoters have to work in multiple windows and remember fiddly stuff that breaks easily. If we had a script, this would be less daunting.
  • Split the job of promoting into two parts: the first would be the recheck, the second would be building the prep from the twice-checked hooks. This would make the job much less time-consuming for the builders, as the rechecks could be done by any experienced reviewer. This likely would require additional qpqs, although it would be expected that the second review in many cases would be quite easy as for any review of an experienced nom/experienced first reviewer, there should be few issues to deal with. And of course it would be just one more check, not the eight the promoters currently do to build a prep. We'd likely still have to require such reviews, maybe after ten DYK noms as we'd want those reviewers to be experienced. We'd likely need to require noms get the second review before being moved to the approved list. Prep builders would no longer be required to be part of the review process, although of course they'd be free to provide review-type input.

Personally I think all of these ideas have merit. I think splitting the job probably requires an RfC, so I'd like to discuss. I'd also like to get input from people who understand our templates and bots, BlueMoonset, Wugapodes, and also script writer SD0001 who wrote the DYK help script and may be able to talk to the possibility of a script for moving hooks to prep (and back, when necessary.)

I'd like to discuss these ideas, and in particular to workshop a possible RfC on splitting the job in two, which will likely require a second qpq from experienced DYK nominators. —valereee (talk) 19:12, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Discussion of defending new promoters from criticism

  • Personally I invite anyone who has built fewer than ten preps to ping me to any complaint they get, because I'll be happy to tell anyone to lay off a new prep builder, and if they're complaining on a prep builder's user talk, that the place to discuss concerns is at DYK talk or at ERRORS. —valereee (talk) 19:12, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
(edit conflict) My position as a new prep builder (I don't exactly think the 'two full preps single-handedly in one day' rate will be sustainable, so please don't build DYK models that incorporate "Vat will indefinitely be a high-activity prep builder", but it's a fun puzzle and I've taken a liking to it) is that criticism is the biggest axis; the logistics of prep-building frankly aren't that hard. A script to simplify it might be useful, but I can see it being problematic with DYK's intrinsic "multiple different options at the discretion of the promoter" concept, especially considering the number of alt hooks varies from 'none' to 'five or more' (and can get very unwieldy for hooks that have been workshopped for a long time). I don't see the need for a second QPQ, and I think it risks being seriously counterproductive -- it would make the process look more bureaucratic and complex from the outside, plus increase the degree to which you see the same people doing the same things all the time (and so make it look like an insular deal of people rubber-stamping one another while biting newbies -- persistently one of the biggest image issues for content-quality aspects of Wikipedia).
From the nominator perspective, an article you've written primarily alone is an important thing to you, and seeing someone misrepresent it (from your position) on Wikipedia's front page can genuinely hurt. I understand why nominators can get overly critical, and I think it's important to instill the sense of perspective of "while we recognize your concerns, being quick to jump on a prep builder is actively counterproductive". While I haven't personally had this, I've heard quite a lot of people being upset that their hook didn't have the picture version in particular, and this has consciously influenced my prep-building -- I hesitate to use preps with images because I want to avoid getting jumped on by a nominator upset I used the wrong version. The shape of the DYK backlog gives me the sense I am not alone.
I also think it's important for experienced prep builders themselves to avoid unintentional biting, though I think we all have that quite forward in mind at the moment. I've been very cautious to justify my thoughts when I've disagreed with how someone's built a prep (e.g. having wanted to use a certain hook in a different place). "Be kind to one another", always and forever. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 21:53, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
You don't want to bite a new prep builder, but if what they've done is not optimal, it's also important to guide them with suggestions on what might be more effective/better/clearer. I would hope that such comments would be constructively written. There are always more layers to building prep sets, even beyond reading through the article and checking the hook sourcing—I remember when someone pointed out after I'd had months of prep-building experience that I'd put together a set with six "... that bold link" hooks in a row, which didn't look good at all, but it's not something you run into with any frequency so I'd never thought about it. Still, without any reminders to alternate bio hooks, to alternate U.S. hooks, and so on, the builder isn't going to improve their set-building skills. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:06, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Discussion of script

  • Multiple people who've taken a look at the instructions for promoting to prep have said the mechanics looks daunting. —valereee (talk) 19:12, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
  • One set of guidlenes would be helpful. --evrik (talk) 23:46, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
  • My suggestion for a script (adjusted from my post above): Create a panel/popup (like the current DYK nom script) to receive 8 Template page names (inc. specific image slot). This could be created on the prep page, or it could have a field noting which prep you are working on. Then the script could put all the make templates and the image into the prep and do all the promotion coding on the template pages, leaving the promoter only the hooks to deal with mechanically. This means the promoter task is in 3 parts: Identify and check good hooks (no need to do any editing to anything if hooks are fine), fill in template, and then just copying hooks over. CMD (talk) 02:38, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
  • I have (very slowly) been working on a userscript to build preps at User:Wugapodes/DYK promoter.js and anyone can feel free to fork it and try to improve. — Wug·a·po·des​ 20:44, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
  • DYK promotions are something that can and should be done using a script – one which automates a fair part of the process if not the whole, though it won't be an easy script to write. I can put this on my todo list, but it's crammed anyway so won't be able to get to it in quite a while. – SD0001 (talk) 12:54, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
  • If we can build a script, could we please move DYK out of the Template: namespace at the same time? It's a mere accident of history that DYK operates in the Template: namespace at all, and it really is a silly location for it. I know it's work to switch things over, but if we're building a new tool, then building it for what we actually want, instead of what we've muddled along with, would definitely be better. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:31, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Discussion of splitting the job

  • I agree building a prep is a large and time-consuming job right now, and I think splitting is a good idea. I believe this will require a second qpq from experienced reviewers, maybe anyone with more than ten DYKs? And therefore I believe it needs an RfC. At TRM's talk I started on draft wording: Prep builders' jobs are too big, and it's discouraging new prep builders. They currently are required, in addition to building good prep sets, to do a full quality control recheck. These two tasks should be split. We should create a job of promoter, who okays a reviewed hook for promotion to the approved list. That person should be in charge of checking the quality of the review the hook received. This job should be done only by experienced reviewers, so the qpq for this will kick in at ten DYKs. Prep builders will no longer be responsible for checking whether reviews were done correctly or completely. —valereee (talk) 19:12, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Vaticidalprophet, so you didn't find being responsible for 8 complete reviews to be kind of burdensome in building a prep? That was the idea behind splitting the two parts of the task (and the reason behind requiring a second qpq -- because each hook/article would need someone to do that review, if we don't require the prep builder to do all 8.) —valereee (talk) 22:25, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
It felt in-depth, but I don't know if 'burdensome' would be the word. I'm not sure it would have better consequences to split the 'second QPQ' role. It might be worth a trial period, because I can make good arguments with myself both for and against splitting. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 22:27, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
  • While I can see where the argument for this comes from, I don't feel comfortable about this proposal. For one thing, not all experienced DYK contributors want to or are interested in building preps or re-checking, so making it a requirement would be an additional burden on editors. There's also always the chance that the "checker" may miss issues that only the promoter manages to find. Adding another step also feels like additional bureaucracy, something that's been a long-running criticism of DYK for years (and adds to the "this process is daunting" feeling that has been expressed throughout this discussion. I'd be more open to it if it was implemented with other QOL changes, like for example the proposed prep builder script. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 00:05, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
    @Narutolovehinata5, but the proposed requirement would be only for a review, nothing different than the current qpq. There's no requirement for prep building. All this does is remove the requirement for re-reviewing from the prep building. (And shifts it to experienced reviewers.) Not trying to argue, just to clarify the proposal. —valereee (talk) 00:15, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
My concern is really bureaucracy. Our backlogs can already get pretty bad and it's not uncommon for hooks to wait weeks or even months before being promoted. It's not unthinkable that the process could end up something like "one month for review, another month for the recheck, and at least another week before it finally gets promoted". Many nominators (particularly newer ones) already complain about how long it takes for hooks to actually be on the main page. And finally, it's entirely likely that a nomination could be approved twice and still end up being found out to be problematic while in prep/queue. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 00:20, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
Yes, I get it. The issue we're trying to solve -- hopefully without causing other problems like the ones you're envisioning -- is a staffing issue. Without enough promoters, the project collapses. It's the biggest, most important, most time-consuming job. Losing one prolific promoter, as has happened recently, has caused a crisis. Like you I don't want more bureaucracy. But promotion is a bit of a weak link. —valereee (talk) 00:35, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
  • I can see the merits of this proposal, and I think it would be worth a try if people are happy with it. We still have the issue of making sure each task gets done regularly, but at least with this you can say it's one thing or another, and not two unrelated skills that have to be brought to bear at the same time. Incidentally it seems like there's been a flurry of new activity on the prep building side this evening - sets I promoted to queues got new Hooks almost immediately. Let's hope it's a longterm uptick rather than a brief flurry!  — Amakuru (talk) 01:13, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
  • There seems to be an assumption that new prep builders should be building entire sets on their own right out of the gate. Why is this? When I started, I added one or two hooks at a time: there was a lot less pressure, and I learned while asking more experienced DYK set builders to check my work. As I grew more experienced, and steps became more familiar, I did more at one time, and started taking on other issues, like prep set balancing. Even with experienced set builders, taking on what you have time to do thoroughly might mean doing three or four at a time rather than all eight. I feel very uncomfortable about the possibility of a person doing the promoting not doing any checking at all on the nomination being promoted: anything could have happened to the article since it's most recent check. Also, are we actually in crisis at the moment? We have 6 of 7 queues filled and nearly 7 of 7 preps: seems to me like we have a glut. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:50, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
I'm a relatively new prep builder, and I did start with small numbers of hooks at a time -- I found quickly I like working in large bunches better, though. I've given the advice to start small, but this is an odd time, because yeah -- quite a lot of people have been encouraged to start prepping at once. The glut is a reaction to the crisis, and it'll be interesting to see where things balance. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 12:49, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
@BlueMoonset, I personally don't think it is necessarily a problem for there to be a team effort. Some prep builders, including Yoninah, prefer to build a prep primarily alone -- that is, get at least as much done as they could, maybe with one or two open slots left for either someone else to fill or because maybe by tomorrow there'll be a couple of hooks that fit well. Not so much ownership of that prep but enjoyment of putting the puzzle together themselves. No, we're no longer in crisis at the moment -- the discussion has encouraged a lot of people to at least give it a go, and for some of them, maybe it'll be something they enjoy! :) —valereee (talk) 17:44, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Amakuru, see my comment above - this always happens in my experience. When DYK nominators realize more hands are needed, they step up to assist, because they realize that if they don't, their own hooks won't get promoted. It just takes a little while for word to get around and for everybody to make the adjustment.
With regard to this particular proposal, it's worth consideration IMO but it may be a little premature. Let's wait and see how things go for the next week or two, if there's still an issue with a shortage of set promotions, we could then revisit this. Gatoclass (talk) 02:57, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
It has been most heartening to see the response to this crisis. Many thanks to the several editors who have promoted hooks and built sets, and as BlueMoonset points out, there is no need to promote a whole set at a time, although it does give a sense of satisfaction. I hope some of these editors will continue to do this valuable task. Returning to one set of hooks a day has eased the pressure, and I doubt we need to split the job and introduce another layer of complexity. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:27, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Prep building can involve many editors over the course of one set, and is a work in progress until it gets moved to Queue, and sometimes even after that. Every prep builder works differently, but not all set out to build one prep by their sole efforts. Some do, but many don't. Then they later move hooks around from one prep to another. And then others come along and move around hooks from, or to, whatever preps are involved. It would be counter-productive to try to split the process, adding unnecessary bloat to instructions of who and how. — Maile (talk) 15:28, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
    I don't know what all the fuss is about then if it's that simple, leave it as it is because it sounds like it's working fine. I could have sworn people were being put off creating preps because of all the work involved in re-validating reviews before being able to create a varied set. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 15:41, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
    I don't know, either. But everybody does it differently, I guess. It's just that there is no criteria that any one prep builder is required to do anything but add one hook. — Maile (talk) 16:09, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
    So if there's no crisis, what's this whole discussion about? The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 16:12, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
    Your guess is as good as mine. Perhaps some have mistaken "prep building" to be a process whereby one lone promoter needs to create an entire set. If they want to, that's fine. But it's not a requirement. What I've noticed Yoninah dong over the years, is carefully building sets, one hook at a time - either by promoting a new hook, or moving some around. Even after a complete set is built, it's likely other editors will move things around to balance one thing or another. Others can answer for themselves, but I would suggest new promoters try just one hook and go from there. — Maile (talk) 16:21, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
And, oh yeah, one thing that seems to have set this off is that "Instructions on how to promote a hook" that I wrote eons ago. Originally written for myself, because we do need to do a basic visual check that the review was done right. There were no step-by-step instructions, and I'd always miss something. Maybe some editors know all that by memory and don't need a check list. I personally needed a list to know everytime what I should be looking for before promoting a hook. But it's not a bad thing to have handy. But the bottom half of that is literally a step-by-step of the mechanics of doing it. — Maile (talk) 16:31, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
Well I had mentioned that "in the olden days" I'd seen preps being built slowly, drip-feeding one hook at a time across all preps. Where the sudden need to complete a prep in one sitting has come from is a mystery and perhaps is the root of the issue. If prep builders can be encouraged to go back to "short and sweet" runs where they approve and promote one or two hooks each per day, then the problem goes away one imagines. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 16:38, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
I agree with you completely. Just encourage people to try to promote one or two hooks, and let the rest play out as it will. Even after a set makes it to Queue, there are likely to be changes. One hook at a time. — Maile (talk) 16:47, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
FWIW, when I first started building preps, I was in particular interested in looking for quirkys and slotting them, (because to me that was fun and I sometimes found I could by slightly tweaking a hook turn it into a great quirky), and I was instructed that building as full a set as I could, one set at a time, was a more helpful approach. Since I didn't at the time understand much about the process, that's what I switched to doing, and that was fine, too. But I think a team approach is also great, and I could see a couple-three editors who particularly work well and enjoy working together forming a consistent team. :) —valereee (talk) 17:52, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
And side benefit: if multiple people are working on a set, they're all inevitably going to be doing at least a hook check on every hook in the set. So win-win on getting more eyes on hooks! —valereee (talk)
  • I certainly think the re-check function could be split out, but I don't think it should become a qpq requirement, not least because it then probably won't be done terribly well (sometimes). But I think some editors will do re-reviews, & there should be a little tag to say this has been done. Possibly, at least initially, only certain editors should be able to do it - a quick & dirty approval here would cover that. Johnbod (talk) 18:50, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
  • As someone who is only involved in the creation of DYK hooks and not the queueing aspect of the job, I'm fine with whatever approach results in fewer DYK coordinators feeling like they're being stretched too thin and burnt out. If that means hooks might end up queueing longer before they see the main page, I'm fine with that. Morgan695 (talk) 19:23, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Special occasion March 7

I had orginally requested Template:Did you know nominations/Robin Schreiber for special posting on March 7. It was intitially added to the Mar 7 holding area, but it seems a bot duplicated a regular entry for it as well (at the Feb 6 nomination date). Presumably because of the duplicate entry, it's now been promoted to Template:Did_you_know/Preparation_area_7, where it would be posted on March 3 instead of the preferred March 7.

Could someone familiar with the workings of the queues and bots mind placing this back into the March 7 holidng area and find a replacement for the prep area? Thanks in advance.—Bagumba (talk) 08:31, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Rather than reopening this nomination, we could just wait a couple of days and move it directly to the correct prep area when it becomes available - Prep 3, I think. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:26, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
Cwmhiraeth: Thanks.—Bagumba (talk) 10:10, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
I have now made this move. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:10, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Quick notes about dates

Adding this as a subsection here: there's been a couple date mixups in the recent preps, but rest assured that these problems will be solved as soon as Prep 5 opens. I promoted Joel S. Levine to prep 3 without noticing Template:Did you know nominations/Tom Acker should be the picture hook for that date, and @Edge3 promoted a NASCAR-related hook to prep 4 without noticing how many of our hooks held for that date were sports-related (interesting themes this year for the March 8th hooks), but both will be moved to prep 5 as soon as it's available (and accordingly don't need to be moved by anyone else). Vaticidalprophet (talk) 04:50, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Harrison Fitch DYK

I've just approved this DYK nom, which would be very desirable for Black History Month. Recommend it be added to Prep2 or Prep3 to run before February is over.  JGHowes  talk 01:52, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Cwmhiraeth, I was thinking that this might go better in one of the upcoming queues instead—I've moved it into the special occasions section in a new header for Black History Month—but when I tried to figure out why, I realized that most of the queues have two or three U.S. hooks in a row, and I couldn't figure out which queue to recommend. (Actually, Queue 7 only has a single U.S. hook; unfortunately, it's a sports hook, also about an athlete, and a special occasion hook at that, though for Feb. 25, not Black History. I'll let you decide on the placement. Also, while you're there at Queue 7, the seventh hook is missing a space between "..." and "that".) Thanks for taking a look at this. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:06, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
Done both. I put Harrison Fitch into Queue 6. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:45, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
Thanks, Cwmhiraeth. Can you make a minor edit to the Fitch hook before it hits the main page in ten hours? It has "169-7", but per the MOS, the hyphen should be an en dash: "169–7". Thanks again. BlueMoonset (talk) 14:00, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
Done. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 14:13, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
Cwmhiraeth, thank you. I've just moved a hook that had requested Black History Month to the special occasions section. Can you please check to see whether you think it's appropriate to go there with the main hook (the other hook is not appropriate for BHM), and if so, put it in a queue to run by February 28? Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:20, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
Just a comment: at current schedules, DYK hooks are scheduled about two weeks in advance. The few remaining queues for February are in a full-protected section that only admins can edit, and where last-minute adding a hook involves delaying another for most of a month (after already being there for a possibly long time). I applaud your desire to show more of this underrecognized history, but there are some pretty significant considerations for last-minute DYK scheduling, and these aren't hooks that are strongly attached to a certain time like a birthday or anniversary. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 06:05, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
I had made the hook move before I read Vaticidalprophet's comment. I put the hook in Queue 3 for February 28, and moved the hook that was previously there to Prep 2, which is only 6 days later. I don't think Dumelow, the article's creator, will be too concerned at the delay. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:29, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
Can someone address the factual issue I raised on the article's talk page? --Khajidha (talk) 12:41, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Ave Maryam Q4

In the hook for Ave Maryam, we talk about an Indonesian nun and her pastor. In Germany, pastor would rather be a Protestant clergyman, while a Catholic one would be priest. I don't know if that's different in Indonesia. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:33, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

April Fools Day Dictators?

With April Fools Day just under 6 weeks away, the above comment has made me think. Potentially we could be running several sets on April Fools Day and there could be a trend that we might be able to exploit if people think so. Currently we have 3 Hitlers and a Mussolini (plus maybe the above Mugabe) as hooks, looking at it in theory we could have a dictator's set. I have been thinking of an article for Franco we could use to add to it but I do not want to be accused of commandeering the day by doing this unilaterally. What do people think about that? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 08:33, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Why? What is the connection between dictators and April Fools? 97198 (talk) 08:40, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
Only because a natural trend appears to be emerging this year. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 09:30, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

I was planning Cake and Cunnilingus Day for 1 April. If you can find a link between dictators and that, I'd be impressed. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 20:32, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Crisis

DYK has a crisis on its hands. Yoninah, whose presence was ubiquitous on DYK, has not edited since 18 January, and I hope that all is well with her. Besides keeping up the standards in hooks and nominations, she did much of the prep set building. So in her absence, we need people to move hooks into the prep area and build prep sets. Without this essential task, DYK will grind to a halt. You don't have to be an admin to promote hooks, you just need a familiarity with the DYK rules. You will find instructions for promoting hooks just above the Prep area on the Queues and Preps page, and you can always ask for help if you need it. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:54, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps go back to one set per day instead of rushing things, until it's clear that quality isn't being compromised. It doesn't really matter if the backlog increases a bit, but it does matter if DYK sets go downhill. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 08:23, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
That sounds sensible, although the proposal might be opposed because the number of sets per day is calculated by a "strict formula", devised by RFC no less, based on the number of outstanding approved nominations.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:29, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
Going to one set a day won’t make there be more people interested in building prep areas. Maybe the project should end if not many people want to build preps. SL93 (talk) 09:41, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
No, but it might stop half-arsed sets making it to the main page because more time will be afforded to those who are around. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 12:23, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
That is still assuming that there will even be a few promoters at all times. SL93 (talk) 21:09, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
Uhhuh, goes without saying. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 21:12, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
The problem is that every time some new people try and build preps, they get criticised for reasons that are often pointy and so get discouraged from building preps. If people in this project didn't scare all the new prep builders away the first time they build preps, then maybe we wouldn't have an issue. Joseph2302 (talk) 09:43, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
I do think we need to be a bit less nitpicky. After all, the J sections of WP:DYKSG is supposed to be a broad rule of thumb guideline, not a strict rule. I have just made Prep 1 but its not always easy to stick to the guidelines depending on what hooks are available. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 09:49, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, I got pinged accusingly because I copied and pasted a different hook to the one I thought I did... Vaticidalprophet (talk) 10:01, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
Luckily apparently I had a lovely time building a prep, but I also agree with The Rambling Man that creating a backlog is less of an issue than quality dipping. Another potential bottleneck is not prep builders, but admins who shift preps to queues, and lower quality preps will cause more work on their end. CMD (talk) 10:35, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
@Chipmunkdavis I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree a bit. Not that I don't want quality to be high, but the answer isn't going back to 8 preps a day unless we can limit the number of nominations somehow. Because when we go to 8 hooks a day but are receiving 20 and sometimes 30 -- which is what happens during the first rounds of WikiCup -- we develop a backlog that breaks the pages. We can't simply slow down during WikiCup because we've lost a prep builder. —valereee (talk) 17:44, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
It's slowing down to maintain quality not to deal with the WikiCup. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 18:31, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
TRM, but that doesn't fix the fact that if we slow down, we'll end up breaking the pages. This is a perennial problem here. We are just up against it during WikiCup. We can't slow down. —valereee (talk) 19:05, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
Well, I mean, we could find a way to limit nominations, that would allow us slow us down without breaking the pages, but I don't think anyone wants that. —valereee (talk) 19:10, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
This is a software-driven project. There are myriad workarounds to almost every problem. Saying "we can't slow down" is not correct. We can slow down and then speed up again once the situation is resolved. Indeed there was a time when three sets a day was the norm. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 19:24, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
So, yeah, software: I guess we could fix the problem by fixing the page templates to not break at 500 noms or whatever -- maybe make it infinite? No idea what that entails, but maybe someone who understands it will explain. GA doesn't fret if backlogs are years. I have no real objection to that, personally, and I'm not being facetious. I don't really care whether my creations get attention now or next year. But I think a lot of folks wouldn't want their DYK appearance to take years. We get complaints because noms made two weeks ago haven't been scheduled. —valereee (talk) 02:02, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
Who's talking about years? That's a proper hyperbole, goodness me. What I'm saying is to reduce the throughput to guarantee quality temporarily until practical solutions for prep-building are implemented. Then run three sets a day, whatever. Making claims like taking years to run a DYK is not helpful at all and derails the conversation at hand. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 09:09, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
@Vaticidalprophet, one thing I will say...giving someone instruction isn't easy to do without risking also giving offense. It's possible the ping felt more accusatory to you than the pinger intended. :) When people start to build preps, there are a ton of little details they may not have realized are part of that because they didn't realize that the fact we've got a German opera singer hook means we don't want another German hook or another music hook, and that the opera singer doesn't get placed beside another bio but instead between two non-bios, etc. So other workers can either quietly fix your preps, which you may not notice or may notice but not want to ask about. Or they can tell you, "Hey, you've got two music hooks in that prep, move one somewhere else, and break up the bios, they shouldn't be next to one another." Which may feel terse or critical, when all it was meant to do was give you information. —valereee (talk) 19:04, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
  • I'd support going to one set until we get more stable. I so far avoided building prep, as not a native speaker, unfamiliar with what the audience wants (see about performing poorly), and supplying too many myself. I volunteer to look at newly created preps and comment or change, - how is that? Today, I wonder how Innisfree Garden will perform, and how it would have performed with an image. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:36, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
    You strike me as probably being good prep builder material, Gerda. You certainly have an impressive amount of experience with the rest of the project. If you want to review, how do you feel about how prep 6 is working out, and what might you add? I added 3/5 of the ones there at the moment. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 12:58, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
    It looks good at a glance, and I have no time for more right now. Perhaps a few longer ones in addition. Thank you for promoting the lead hook that I approved ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:38, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
  • I've never had confidence of completing DYK preps. You're asking me to overview reviews on 6 topics I am almost certainly going to know nothing about, which takes hours of my time (as TRM says, better to do the job right than quickly). Andrew, the instructions can really be distilled to simple common sense - "is the article in reasonable shape", "is the hook interesting and factually accurate", "would we compromise the main page if we put this up". Anyway, I think one set per day is essential for now. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:54, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
My thoughts above re. Gerda probably go double with you, and really spells out how much the prep-building idea is imposing to people who haven't done it (it's still absolutely terrifying to me having just worked on a couple). Re. the distillation of the instructions, I wonder how much that can be a guide to building a new set of instructions that aren't so immediately imposing? Vaticidalprophet (talk) 12:58, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
Prep-building is imposing in part for similar reasons that nominating to DYK can be so imposing: it's prima facie quite a complex system that requires keeping multiple tabs open and juggling between them. Prep builders have to copy two things into the preps, hooks and credits (occasionally images), and yet the locations to paste these two items are separated by a sea of wikitext. Hook wikitext in nominations is not alone on a line, and thus mindless to copy and paste, but kept on the same line as sources, thus requiring more attentive selecting. DYKmake/nom templates are included below the initial comments but before subsequent comments, rather than right above the hook where they would be easier to access. The two lines you have to adjust when closing a nomination are inexplicably separated by a line you don't have to touch. The image code is hidden within other irrelevant text on the opposite side of the big "Please do not edit above this line" than the hook and credits which you also have to copy. All small annoyances on their own that are easily overcome by experience, but which make the initial impression more daunting. CMD (talk) 13:16, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
It's technically imposing at first, which is a barrier on that aspect. I think even bigger, imo, is the matter of having that sort of influence on the main page -- combined with the degree to which people get upset if it goes wrong. It's [surprisingly/unsurprisingly] high-stakes. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 13:23, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
I think it needs someone clever to write a script to be able to parse the DYK template and extract hook and credits etc and add it to a prep set. You're right, the process is completely off-putting. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 13:25, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
Chipmunkdavis, On a couple of occasions, where there's basically going to be no DYK update because the queues are empty, I've said "Okay, I can fill the queues but any problems with the noms, not interested, don't have the time, put them on WP:ERRORS". Interestingly, I don't have this problem with OTD or ITN, because the topics are generally far better known and discussed, as you might expect. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:26, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
I agree, ITN has fewer problems because each individual item is discussed by many people. Despite DYK's complexity, hooks are effectively evaluated by as few as three people! (My impression is OTD has no problems because almost nobody looks at it until Rambling Man posts on ERRORS.) CMD (talk) 13:41, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
@Ritchie333 what we really need is more people with that attitude. This isn't brain surgery. No one is going to die because someone missed something in a DYK review. "Hey, I know what! Next time you do it, and I'll provide feedback after it hits the main page, 'kay? C'mon, it'll be fun!" :D @Chipmunkdavis IMO the reason OTD has no problems is because 1. it's a one-man show and everyone figures SHHH don't piss 'em off! :D and 2. no one has skin in the game. No pissed-off noms dropping into ERRORS red-hot demanding that heads roll because a word was changed on their hook and they didn't notice until they saw the post on their talk. And, yes, at ITN there's an entire community evaluating each of the new suggestions and coming to some level of consensus for, what, a few blurbs per week plus RD articles? DYK has 112 per week right now. And at FA they've got 1 per day to get right. I'm not sure we can really even compare the processes simply because they all appear on the same page. —valereee (talk) 18:17, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
A good point in there about nominators: there should be a much better notification of when DYKs are going to run too, enabling nominators a last chance saloon to make sure what they wanted wasn't too corrupted throughout the Chinese whispers of the DYK process. You only get told once it's on the main page and that's far too late. If DYK wants to keep its place on the main page it has to understand that it needs to keep up its current standard as a minimum, and if that means double-checks, unbundling prep-building from promotion, finding scripts to semi-automate the process, seeking to find bots who can send out notifications to nominators when queues are locked and loaded etc. It's evident that the process is somewhat stuck in the past and needs a refresh to make it more efficient and more approachable. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 18:29, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
TRM, nominators can see when their hook gets promoted, as that goes by on their watch, so they should know it's been scheduled, which gives them a couple days at minimum. Maybe a script to tell them it's in Next-but-one? Although stuff gets changed after that, too. Queues are never locked and loaded, not even after they've gone on the front page. Maybe a script for showing people where their nom is in the system and what the last change made to that prep/queue was?
I'm not sure who this DYK that wants anything is...I mean, I guess that's the nominators? I love being able to get more people to look at my newer efforts because usually someone improves them. So as a nom, I'd hate DYK to go away. That's why I bother to work here: because I value getting other editors to look at my new efforts, and I'm willing to do the work to make that happen. But purely as a worker bee here, my concerns aren't whether a nom doesn't bother to keep track of their hook or whether the average non-DYK worker thinks our quality control isn't up to snuff. Whether we need to unbundle promo from prep to keep from burning people out, that I care about; we'll need an RfC. Semi-automating the prep-building process so it doesn't look daunting and will maybe encourage new prep-builders, that I care about; we'll need one of our script-builders to be willing to take a look at that. —valereee (talk) 18:56, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure you know exactly what I mean. Right now the level of quality of DYKs is acceptable. If that is compromised because of a perceived required rush to get two sets a day out to the main page then the quality will doubtless drop and if it goes too low that it becomes conspicuous again and then it becomes a talking point for removal from the main page by the community. Nominations are hard to keep track of, especially if one does a lot of different things and has a large watchlist (I seldom know when anything I've nominated is ready until the announcement on my talkpage that it's already on the main page arrives). Prep-building should not require a re-visit of the review, that is clearly the root of the problem here when it comes to building sets, far too time-consuming. If we split the re-review and the prep-build down the middle, we're hardly creating any extra work at all as that is (in total) what a current prep-builder needs to do anyway. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 19:35, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
Agreed, it's no extra work. It's an extra worker, though. Possibly 50% more workers than we have now, because someone who reviews can't promote, and someone who promotes can't move. If we insert an extra set of eyes in there, we're also inserting an extra conflict. When I was promoting, I tried to put something Cwm had touched into every set, because if she nom'd it or reviewed it, she couldn't promote it. Today she was cut off from moving two sets because she'd promoted both, so she needed to ask other admins to move those sets.
And, no, I don't know exactly what you mean, which is why I asked for clarification about who "wants to keep its place on the main page". Who do you think is benefiting from DYK? To me, it's the noms. I work here because I nom here and enjoy the people here. The promoters and movers and folks who do the gnomish work on preps aren't getting any benefit beyond the fact that their own noms are moving through the process and they want to help with the work of that. But most noms don't actually work here. Most reviewers review because they have to, which unlike for GA is necessary. If DYK ended, I'd be sad because I wouldn't have that opportunity to get multiple other editors to help improve my work, but I really don't care that it's necessarily appearing on the mp. All those clicks are just fun. It's that other editors are helping me that I'm here. —valereee (talk) 01:06, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
I've made plenty of suggestions as to ways to improve the process, both here and on my talkpage, but as there seem to be perceived blockers every step of the way, I'll just quit suggesting and allow the DYK regulars to decide the way forward, it's obvious that a view from the outside is just too difficult to consider or implement. Keep it as it is. Good luck. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 09:09, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
@Chipmunkdavis, there's a script you can use for nominations at User:SD0001/DYK-helper, makes it very easy to nominate! —valereee (talk) 15:30, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
If only such niceties works for prepbuilding too. Thinking about it now, you could set something to receive 8 Template page names, along with which prep queue you want them to go into, and then a script could put at least all the make templates into the queue and do all the promotion coding, leaving the promoter to fiddle with only the hooks. CMD (talk) 15:37, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
  • I would build sets, and would be willing to donate the time, but I find the circular firing squad mentality of some veteran editors off-putting and is a barrier to me volunteering. --evrik (talk) 15:26, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
    @Evrik, I can't remember if you've built preps before. If you haven't, and one of the barriers for you is feeling like building the first few is running a gauntlet, I'd be more than happy to help. (Sorry if you've built dozens! I can't always remember whose name I've seen where!) —valereee (talk) 18:35, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
  • For the reasons stated above, I have not. I'm not sure I have the attention to detail and fortitude. --evrik (talk) 18:38, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
    Well, it's more a puzzle-solving thing, and if you like puzzles, it's actually a ton of fun. But at first, yeah, it can seem like a lot to keep in mind. If you want to discuss the idea, just ping me to your talk. :) —valereee (talk) 18:58, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
  • I'm another one who tried it once and got their fingers burned. I'd be willing to try again but being reverted with a hostile edit summary when I'd complied with all the instructions isn't my idea of amusement. Espresso Addict (talk) 19:48, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
    @Espresso Addict, I'm really sorry that happened. I would be very happy to work with you to build some preps. If you'd like to discuss that, ping me to your talk. —valereee (talk) 01:09, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Shortage of promoters

I wonder if it's worth revisiting this discussion. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:29, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, well, the thing is that there could be any number of reasons for one editor not being around for a few weeks. I can think of two of three, or more, here who are excellent at the task at hand, but just aren't here lately. The thing is, people reach burn out, people take vacations, or the current world situation that none of us is 100% safe from the effects of the current pandemic. And then we have admins who sometimes do double duty at preps and queues, while trying to avoid COI between the two. — Maile (talk) 13:42, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I've recently been reading some old talk page archives out of a hyperactive sense of curiosity/wanting to understand references I see/wanting to Learn Things, so this isn't the first time lately I've seen the "end DYK" position. I'm sympathetic to the frustration involved, but I think -- paradoxically -- it comes from an overly insider viewpoint. One of the big things that gets reiterates is "most TFAs/DYKs/etc don't actually get that much views as a % of the main page", but this feels like entirely the wrong axis to me -- the views they get compared to their baseline strikes me as much more significant, and in that respect even the worst-performing DYKs are resounding successes. As the discussion there notes, 'visitors to the Main Page' and 'actual views of the Main Page' come apart quite significantly. When I've been a reader, and I've been on the Main Page for more than a split second, more than a few DYKs have caught my eye.
The thing is -- the 5k or so people who click on a DYK (and the far higher proportion who read it and get some enjoyment without necessarily clicking) are far more important than the ultimately small group of people who work behind the scenes on them. Some parts of the process might have reputations for drama or instability, but a TNT (so to speak) solution would be cutting out a section of the main page that readers demonstratably value as a bandaid solution on the general matter of "parts of Wikipedia get reputations for drama and instability". The point of writing encyclopedia entries is that people will read them, hopefully learn some things, hopefully be happy they read it. DYK is one of the better means towards that end we currently have, even if it's flawed. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 13:46, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
@The Rambling Man I'm not sure anyone here has yet taken on "planning" DYK staffing. Maybe you'd like to take that on? :D Maybe you could draw up a schedule so that one person/team is in charge of prep 1, another of prep 2, etc., ditto for queues.
@Ritchie333 my feeling about volunteer work is that if no one is willing to do a job, it's not worth doing. The problem with DYK is that it's so visible. The work is closely scrutinized, and hundreds of people who aren't willing to do that work are happy to criticize how it's done. —valereee (talk) 14:26, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
Valereee LMAO! Hee...hee..hee! Assigning schedules would be like trying to keep frogs in an open box. Hee...hee..hee! — Maile (talk) 15:08, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
@Maile66 :D That's a great image! —valereee (talk) 15:53, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
I was thinking of this. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:56, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
LMAO? Planning is a good idea. How do you think TFA works? Co-ordinators plan who is around and who can make promotions etc. That way, there's not a blank space at TFA suddenly. Still, I can see that the concept of a little forward thinking may not be appreciated, so I'll just let the project continue as-is. I still believe reducing to one set a day, even temporarily, is not the worst idea ever postulated, to avoid any quality crashes. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 16:01, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
Ritchie333 That's perfect. — Maile (talk) 16:25, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
The Rambling Man - I know how TFA works, because I've been through it a few times. Yes, planning is a great idea. No argument on that issue. But TFA is a much more simplified process. Not the least of which, is that they don't have the dictate of a newness factor on the article or the nomination. And they deal with fewer submissions, each of which is voted on before it's approved for the main page. We deal with 8 articles on the main page a day, 16 if it's 12-hour sets. That's 480 articles a month to review and promote from nomination to prep and from prep to queue. But as mentioned above, you are certainly welcome to come up with a workable plan. — Maile (talk) 16:25, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
I know I'm welcome to come with a workable plan, thanks, your invitation to do so is "noted". Prep building should make basic assumptions that people who have "promoted" the articles can be trusted. If that isn't the case, the problem isn't with prep building, it's with the review and promotion process. Pulling eight different hooks together isn't rocket science if you can assume the hooks and articles have been appropriately quality controlled. If there's overhead associated with actually coding up the prep set, find someone to create a script to help do that. Then it's literally just a case of feeding in eight DYK templates and a prep set comes out the other side for final verification. But as I said, if builders are worrying about the quality of reviews/promotions then the problem needs to be addressed at source. Perhaps two people need to review each nomination before it's promoted, for example. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 16:31, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
@The Rambling Man, the promoter is the person building the prep. I think you mean the reviewer? Remember that many of our reviewers are brand new themselves, and often they're reviewing hooks from brand new nominators. This is the training area for peer review. Two reviewers means two qpqs, of course, but that might actually help to decrease the overwhelming numbers of noms we get, so win-win.
TFA has one item to promote per day, and that promotion is of a featured article, which we assume is in good shape? DYK currently has 16, all of which need rechecks, sometimes including pinging people to talk for discussion. Scheduling yourself to build a prep means planning for a possible a 2-hour time commitment, occasionally spread out over a couple days while you wait for responses to your pings. I agree that scheduling would be ideal, but many people want to build a prep when they feel like building a prep rather than because two weeks ago they agreed to build one today. The coordinator could schedule two people as a team, I suppose, to make it more likely at least one of them will actually be free on the day/days, but that means 32 slots a week. We could drop to 8, so 16 slots per week, but if we do that for more than a very short time during WikiCup, while we're getting ~20, sometimes more, hooks per day, that puts us so far behind that when we do go back to 16, we're looking at months and months of 2-a-days, which everyone hates, with no end in sight. I seriously considered walking away from DYK last year over it. —valereee (talk) 16:41, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
Then go to splitting between promoting and prep building. There's no reason that promoting and prep-building have to be done by the same person. Promoting can just be verifying that all the aspects of the review has been conducted correctly, like a second review. Then the hooks all go into an "approved" melting pot for a "prep builder" to select from. It all seems to boil down to trusting the quality of the reviews because so much time has to be spent making sure they're okay before then trying to conjure up a set. Divide and conquer. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 16:45, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
@The Rambling Man, so a set of eyes inserted between review and prep -- I guess a third list, which has noms that have been both reviewed and promoted -- from which prep builders could build preps. It would probably protect prep builders a bit, at any rate, if they only had to put the puzzle together rather than re-review. But you've just increased the number of regulars DYK needs by 50%. I suppose we could require noms do both a review and a promotion. That might slow down the number of noms we get, so win-win, especially during the first couple rounds of wikicup. :D And that would certainly require an RfC, the doubling of the qpq requirements, basically. —valereee (talk) 17:04, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
There is an approved list. So "promoters" are simply taking hooks from there, mixing them up and adding them to a set? No further reviewing at all? The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 16:52, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
No, promoters also do a full rechck. The approved list is just hooks that have been reviewed. You know, maybe you could go build a prep, then you'd understand this all a lot better? Totally willing to help you through that! Seriously, I am. —valereee (talk) 17:05, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
Here's how it works: Hook is nominated. Hook receives what is supposed to be a full review. When it's been reviewed, it's moved by a bot to the approved list. Promoters come in, do a re-review, and promote, slowly building a prep. Admins do another re-review and move to queue. —valereee (talk) 17:08, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
Here's what should happen: Promoters should promote to "approved" status. Prep builders should take from the approved list. It's pretty clear that prep builders are being expected to do far too much quality control. Put that back into the review cycle, not the promotion cycle. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 17:09, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
And we get the extra reviews from...doubling qpq? That'll take an RfC. I'm thinking it might not be very popular with nominators who've never built a prep and don't see the need, but I could be wrong. We could try. —valereee (talk) 17:11, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
Ease the mechanics of prep building and this issue is solved from the other direction, as the prep builders then are more focused on second-layer quality control rather than dealing with lots of code. CMD (talk) 17:28, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
@Chipmunkdavis are you talking about a script? That would be helpful for new prep builders. For me after I'd done it a few times, it wasn't the mechanics that was the time-consuming part. It was the quality rechecks (not fun) and the multiple trips through the approved list trying to put the puzzle together (fun) that took the time. And unfortunately no script can prevent the criticism from the peanut gallery. :) My very strong feeling is that the most common reason someone builds a prep and decides not to do it again is because someone criticized their, or even simply instructed them how to improve in a way that didn't feel good. It's not easy to say to someone, "Thanks for building that prep! Now, here are all the things you need to correct!" without making them feel like their efforts weren't appreciated. Maybe we need a DYK prep-building school. (talk) 18:02, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
Going through "approved" is a mess. If all we had was a pure list of approved hooks, it would be much easier than wading through pages and pages of reviews and commentary. Add in the second line check when moving a hook from nominated to approved, and prep builders are literally just picking from a list of hooks, not nominations. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 18:32, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
—valereee, a script is one option, just reorganising the wikitext would be a useful interim step. What you raise is an issue with prep builder retention, whereas my comments are concerned with the initial barrier to entry. Different aspects that both contribute to the wider problem. CMD (talk) 01:41, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
@Chipmunkdavis, wait, what?! You're suggesting we might organize these multiple pages into one coherent set of instructions?! Crazy talk. :) Yes, I do agree that however we can figure out to make it less daunting to even consider putting a toe in, that would be great. —valereee (talk) 01:51, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
  • How difficult would it be to develop a DYK prep script or gadget? It would be pretty helpful and in my case would probably encourage me to try helping building preps again. I used to help out in the past but the demands and pressure felt too much since I was scared of promoting inadequate nominations, or hooks that I promote end up being pulled due to issues. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 13:54, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
    Technically it wouldn't be particularly difficult, if it was clear what the rules for such a script were and that all parts of it were fully automatable, not requiring any subjective judgement. (So the "balancing" part of the prep building would have to be left to a human, unless each hook is labelled with a clear category of some sort). I could potentially write such a script myself, although that would be dependent on whether I had the spare time, which varies a lot day-to-day....  — Amakuru (talk) 22:21, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
    Amakuru, above I wrote "you could set something to receive 8 Template page names, along with which prep queue you want them to go into, and then a script could put at least all the make templates into the queue and do all the promotion coding, leaving the promoter to fiddle with only the hooks." I think this covers the automated portions, leaving the subjective portions to the human. CMD (talk) 02:07, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm finding it difficult to see such a huge problem here. We've lost Yoninah, at least temporarily, and that's unfortunate because she was such a ubiquitous presence at DYK. But nobody is indispensable. Every time this has happened in the past, others step up to take their place - it just takes a little time for word to get around, that's all.

In the meantime Cwmhiraeth, I'm not sure how active you have been at set building lately, but you have been our other go-to set builder for many years, so you could quit queue promoting for a while and go back to set building for a while until we stabilize again - just a suggestion. Gatoclass (talk) 02:43, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

I still haven't seen a clear answer as to why promoters and prep builders are having to re-review things? Aren't the reviewers actually reviewing? And what consequences does reviewing-without-actually-reviewing have for the so-called reviewer? Make it simple. Once it's reviewed it just moves to a pool that is simply pulled from and sent along. If a hook is found to have errors after being put on the Main Page , pull it and toss it. No do overs and no DYK credits. --Khajidha (talk) 11:03, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

That would be punishing the nominators for the mistakes of the reviewers. Time and experience have shown that the more eyeballs on nominated articles, the better. If anything, we could use more quality control, not less. Gatoclass (talk) 09:30, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
I think it's generally agreed that the quality of QPQ reviews at DYK leaves a lot to be desired, but perhaps the onus could be more on the nominator to do all the heavy lifting when nominating, i.e. prove that it's been expanded 5x (for example), prove that there's no copyvio, prove that their QPQ has been done and completed, all of these with diffs that a reviewer simply has to click to confirm. Mandate that the hook is demonstrated to be as-written in the article and mandate that the source is supplied in the nomination rather than just strongly recommend it. Then reviewing is much simpler, much less error-prone, and can be done in one step rather than requiring someone to review the review, which is frankly a timesink. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 10:18, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
That could work -- Guerillero Parlez Moi 00:25, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Maria Guarnaschelli

Good work by everyone involved. Article completed its stint at the homepage. Closing thread. Ktin (talk) 00:15, 27 February 2021 (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.


Ktin Narutolovehinata5

I think this is too negative. The woman just died. Can we come up with something more positive? —valereee (talk) 23:08, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Valereee, I was afraid of the same as well, as I was writing it. Happy to change it -- appreciate some additional inputs here. Thanks in advance folks. Ktin (talk) 23:24, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
@Ktin and Valereee: from someone here who will watch cooking shows, but hasn't picked up a cookbook in a very long time, there's a whole paragraph of this article that leaves my mind blank. Like, "brought an intellectual curiosity to her works and pushed cooks and chefs to think beyond French, Italian and European cuisines" doesn't mean a thing to me. Especially, since I'm more likely to pay attention to cooking shows that are Asian, British, Vegetarian, etc. etc. Also, "Her books were noted for their rigor and accuracy, and her works contributing to the change in how cookbooks were produced" doesn't mean anything to me. That whole paragraph is probably best understood by readers with a knowledge of cookbook publishing. Not to criticize the article, but expanding that article for a more general readership might also give rise to a different hook. — Maile (talk) 23:31, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
If an alternate hook is needed, the "credited with introducing American households and chefs to international cuisines beyond just European cuisines" angle sounds promising, even if that's not exactly the best wording. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 00:06, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

ALT1: ... that the first cookbook edited by Maria Guarnaschelli helped introduce US cooks to Indian cuisine?

ALT2: ... that the first cookbook Maria Guarnaschelli edited was also "the first comprehensive Indian cookbook for American kitchens", according to The New York Times?

—valereee (talk) 01:10, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Those two hooks seem pretty good. I prefer ALT1. I'm not sure about ALT2, given the 1980 publicaition date, because I think the Beatles - and George Harrison in particular - might have had a prior influence on all things Indian in the US, including the food. — Maile (talk) 01:19, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
Cool folks. Lets go with a minor variant of ALT1. If someone can re-open the nomination. I will write the hook there. Thoughts? Ktin (talk) 01:30, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
Sounds good. ALT1 is good to go. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 02:16, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
Narutolovehinata5, minor request -- Does "American cooks" read better than "US cooks"? Cheers. Ktin (talk) 04:12, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
No real preference either way. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 05:12, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
I have changed the hook in Prep 1 to "... that the first cookbook edited by Maria Guarnaschelli helped introduce American cooks to Indian cuisine?". Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:21, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
Cwmhiraeth, thanks much! Looks good. Ktin (talk) 07:57, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
@Valereee, Cwmhiraeth, Narutolovehinata5, and Maile66: -- Folks, I want to take a moment and thank you all for coming together to spot, stop, and remediate this one. Nice collaboration. Thanks again. RIP Ms Guarnaschelli. Ktin (talk) 08:04, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
@Ktin: looking good. That's a really nice hook, now. — Maile (talk) 22:40, 19 February 2021 (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.

BOT DOWN

Hello DYK-ers. Please note, User:DYKUpdateBot is currently blocked and locked so will not be running. Please take other means to update DYK. Feel free to follow up at WP:BN to see the evolving status. Best regards, — xaosflux Talk 20:06, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

I guess that leads me onto two questions
  1. Is the bot code open source? (If not, shame on you making a free encyclopedia dependent on nonfree code, what would RMS say, grumble grumble) UPDATE : it is
  2. Assuming 1. is true, can another established bot owner (eg: Galobtter, Cyberpower678) take it over? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 20:28, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
Is there any reason to suspect that Shubinator, the bot's creator, has been compromised, or that the DYKUpdateBot account itself can't be secured? More to the point, we need an administrator to do a manual update of the main page at midnight UTC tonight, and each day until the bot can run again. Pinging @Casliber, Amakuru, Cwmhiraeth, Maile66, Valereee, Wugapodes, Lee Vilenski, Gatoclass, ONUnicorn, and Guerillero: the hope is that one of these admins can take care of a manual promotion of Queue 1 to the main page tonight, about three and a half hours from now. Depending on how this develops, we may need to continue having manual updates for an indefinite period. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:39, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
I can do it if nobody else does it, although in general I'm probably not the best person to take it on as it clicks over at midnight in my timezone, when I may not always be awake! (And after late March it will be even worse as we'll be one hour ahead of UTC).  — Amakuru (talk) 20:44, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
BlueMoonset, I don't think Shubinator's account has been compromised, otherwise it would be locked too. I don't have any more information, though I can take an educated guess as to what happened; however per WP:BEANS I'm not going to speculate. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 20:49, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
Linking to instructions, I'll try to learn how, but yeah, we need someone to fix this. —valereee (talk) 21:10, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
Instructions say to ping Mandarax —valereee (talk) 21:09, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for the advance notice. Yes, I can take care of the user talk credits and article talk page notifications. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 21:24, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
  1. Ritchie333, I’m flattered by the ping, but my time is stretched thin already. I cannot take on any more tasks at this time. —CYBERPOWER (Around) 00:09, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
Source code is at [3]. It's updated as of 6 June 2020. Assuming no bugs have been reported since then and that code is latest, and there's obviously consensus for the task, is there any reason this can't be speedily approved (or well, speedily approved for trial) through BAG and flagged with admin, xaosflux? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:09, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
that's assuming someone wants to run it and that it would be more expedient to do that than wait for Shubinator. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:14, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
ProcrastinatingReader, Ideally, it needs somebody who has a bot with existing admin rights, and I don't actually know of anyone that does. DYK is rather unusual in that, as far as I can tell, it's the only main page template regularly updated via bot. TFA and TFP are accessed programatically (which can be done because they are fixed to rotate every 24 hours), ITN and OTD are hand cranked by admins. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 21:23, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
@ProcrastinatingReader: from a BAG perspective if a sysop wants to run this, I'd have no problems getting them a speedily approved trial provided they are going to be online to verify the task results when they are scheduled. — xaosflux Talk 22:28, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
Also, with out anything to actually go on, I think it was a problem with the hosting environment of the bot, not the operator -- others are looking in to it further. — xaosflux Talk 22:28, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
@Xaosflux It was not an issue within Toolforge's infrastructure. It was an issue on the bot operator's end. Feel free to ping me on IRC if you wish. Martin Urbanec (talk) 23:12, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
It absolutely requires someone with admin rights. It makes no sense to grant an admin bot account to a non-admin. Otherwise I would take it on. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:38, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
About a handful exist, the most accurate list is Category:Wikipedia adminbots. Shubinator (talk) 04:13, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
Looking into this. To keep things centralized I'll post updates at BN since the crats will need to flip bits in the end.seems this board is where the discussion is happening — Wug·a·po·des​ 22:17, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
I will not be able to have a replacement by midnight. If anyone is sleeping on a python implementation of the update bot, now's the time to cough it up. @Valereee: Were you planning on doing the update? If not then I can, but we should coordinate. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:21, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
@Wugapodes I was not, because looking at the instructions I'm finding a couple that I don't know what they mean. —valereee (talk) 23:27, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
I'll do it then. Feel free to point out what's unclear and/or skim my contribs once I'm done. I think the make more sense once you see them in action. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:58, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
Working on the credits.... MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 00:05, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

I have server space if we need someone to run it --Guerillero Parlez Moi 00:27, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

That's good to know, Guerillero. I hope that Shubinator will be able to deal with things. If not, it would be great to find someone to run both DYKUpdateBot and DYKHousekeepingBot, which has also been blocked and locked. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:43, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Full source code of this bot is available in /data/project/dykbot for those with toolforge access. It was last updated there on 6 June 2020, which matches the last update of the on-wiki code page. It does rely on a hidden "UserInfo.class" file which if I'm not wrong can be generated by compiling a java class with this code:
 
public class UserInfo {
    public static String getUser() { 
       return "YourBotUsernameHere"; 
    } 
    public static String getPassword() { 
      return "YourBotPasswordHere"; 
    } 
}
As pointed out the operator needs to be admin. But in all liklihood you should be able to get it working simply by copying all files from the aforementioned tool account and generating the private file by compiling the above code. – SD0001 (talk) 06:00, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm online and working on unraveling things. I wouldn't recommend recreating the bot with my code until we get to the bottom of the security concern, as it may be with the implementation. Shubinator (talk) 06:39, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Okay that's great – I posted the above under the impression that you weren't active, sorry! – SD0001 (talk) 07:29, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
No worries :) As a broader update, I've replied to the one communication from the Tools people and I'm waiting to hear back from them. At this point I don't have any more details to share on the security issue, I've seen what y'all have seen here and at BN. Depending on what the security issue is, to get everything back to normal it could take anywhere from a few hours (during normal working hours) to reset passwords and adjust permissions to a few weeks to rewrite the bot. Sorry for the disruption everyone. Stay tuned. Shubinator (talk) 07:43, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
Shubinator, Yeah, that makes sense. You shouldn't be using plain text passwords on bots (especially with admin flags) for reasons I'm sure you know about. I've been loathe to say "why don't you rewrite the bot in a nicer language like Python" because that's, well, snarky and undeserved - but there are legitimate reasons for that view, such as wider support for things like OAuth authentication. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:36, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
Both bots are globally unlocked, thanks to the stewards. Next up, will reach out to ArbCom to figure out a path forward, as ArbCom can give the go-ahead to lift the enwiki blocks and restore DYKUpdateBot's sysop bit. Depending on what ArbCom requests, this could still take anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks. Stay tuned. Shubinator (talk) 16:28, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
Just wanted to confirm that ArbCom is in receipt of the email and is actively working on this. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 19:18, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
I will just note that I have unblocked DYKHousekeeping bot as an individual administrator action. Discussion about DYKUpdateBot continues among the committee. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:53, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
Thank you! DYKHousekeepingBot is back online. Shubinator (talk) 23:10, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
DYKUpdateBot back online after ArbCom motion, and just in time for the next update! Thank you to all the sysadmins, crats, ArbCom members, etc who pitched in. Shubinator (talk) 23:44, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Delinting font tag from old DYK templates

Several old DYK templates have been listed in Special:LintErrors/obsolete-tag. Many of these are becuase they contain the obsolete <font> tag in signatures. The font tag has been targeted for removal from Wikipedia as explained in WP:SIGFONT and WP:HTML5. These DYK templates have a "no further edits should be made" message on top of them and was directed here for making any changes. I would like to know if Lint error cleanup of DYK templates is allowed? AVSmalnad77 talk 07:24, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

If it's causing the pages to be listed in an errors page, then they should be fixed. Joseph2302 (talk) 15:58, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
Does it really make much difference visually to normal readers of the page? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 17:51, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
The font tag is still supported by most browsers. However it is obsolete and support may be dropped at any time in future. When support is gone, the colors, font size and other properties will revert to default. So it doesn't make a visual difference now but will in future. That is why they are being replaced. AVSmalnad77 talk 18:58, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
I don't think this is a DYK issue, but a more general question of whether it is appropriate to edit the signatures of other editors. If there's consensus to do so, I don't see an issue with minor edits to DYK templates to help cleanup an error backlog. CMD (talk) 05:16, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
Before editing archives, one should gain wide consensus. -- Guerillero Parlez Moi 06:07, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

2 hooks in queue 4

Two of my hooks are in queue 4 (1959 Michigan football and David Schoen). Should one be moved to another queue? Cbl62 (talk) 20:58, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Ugh, ideally, yes. I swapped to get Robyn Smith out of Q4 and didn't notice there was another hook by the same nom. If anyone can make a swap, no objection! I'm in the middle of something right now —valereee (talk) 21:13, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
This isn't an actual rule, it just something someone made up a few years ago.... Joseph2302 (talk) 21:52, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
Do we even have real rules on hook sets, other than suggestions about variety and about the quirky slot? — Maile (talk) 22:09, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
we have Wikipedia:Did you know/Preparation areas, which already has 12 rules. Joseph2302 (talk) 22:12, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
@Maile66, hm. I'm thinking this is one of those "ideal but not a dealbreaker" things? Though I'm actually trying to think of a reason to not use two hooks from the same nom. Mostly 2 hooks from the same nom would be excluded because it was two football hooks or radio hooks or classical music hooks. If Gerda wants to nom a German politics hook, why would the fact there's already a classical music hook from Gerda in the set be an issue? —valereee (talk) 22:24, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
If they are 2 hooks about different topic areas, I don't see what the issue is. I have had 2 run at the same time- one about a buiding England, and one about a Spanish person. Literally no reason why they shouldn't run together. Joseph2302 (talk) 01:54, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
Joseph2302, valereee, the idea has been around at least as long as I've been participating at DYK, which puts it at over nine years. It isn't a rule, it's just something set builders try to avoid if feasible (though it sometimes isn't when balancing a set given other considerations), and it's generally nice as a nominator to have one's nominations spread out. (I wouldn't go above two per nominator in any event, since it's a good idea to share the wealth.) BlueMoonset (talk) 02:39, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Older nominations needing DYK reviewers

The previous list was archived a couple of days ago. The list below includes 36 nominations that need reviewing in the Older nominations section of the Nominations page, covering everything through February 20. We currently have a total of 260 nominations, of which 131 have been approved, a gap of 129, up 20 from thirteen days ago. Thanks to everyone who reviews these.

Over one month old:

Other old nominations:

Please remember to cross off entries as you finish reviewing them (unless you're asking for further review), even if the review was not an approval. Many thanks! BlueMoonset (talk) 04:33, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Timing of Brian Sicknick

First of all, many thanks to SL93 for promoting Template:Did you know nominations/Brian Sicknick! I see that it has been promoted to prep 7, but I wonder if there's openness to swapping with the image hook in prep 2? (Template:Did you know nominations/George Poynter Heath). The storming of the Capitol happened on January 6, and Sicknick died on the following day, January 7. Swapping with prep 2 — scheduled for March 6-7 — allows us to recognize the 2nd monthiversary of this event, while also preserving the balance of bio vs. non-bio image hooks. (I did not request a special occasion in the original nom because I didn't anticipate the timing would work out this way, but hopefully the request can be considered now.) Edge3 (talk) 02:29, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Edge3 Done. SL93 (talk) 02:51, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Return to two sets per day

According to Template:Did you know/Queue, there are now 136 approved hooks, which exceeds the threshold of 120. Flibirigit (talk) 03:21, 27 February 2021 (UTC)Hopefully

Until we have all of the bots running and people building queues, I oppose this --Guerillero Parlez Moi 06:09, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
Agree, it's not faesible until we have more prep builders, and especially not if the bot is still down (which adds lots of manual work for admins). Joseph2302 (talk) 10:00, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
Just a note that DYKUpdateBot is back up and running and has resumed its usual functions with the 00.04 update on 27 February. DYKHousekeepingBot was brought back online around the same time - Dumelow (talk) 10:49, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
The bot is working and editors have been building preps so I fail to see the issue. SL93 (talk) 22:23, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
I guess you have to then juggle the date requests. For example, the Zimbabwe/Rhodesian lead set was held for 2 March and the set for International Women's Day on 8 March. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 22:37, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
The date requests have been juggled just fine every time we switched to two sets a day. SL93 (talk) 22:38, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
I'd prefer to wait until more people volunteer to build preps... a lot of the slots have been empty for over a day. Edge3 (talk) 05:13, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
I agree that we need to return to 2-a-days, we're building up fast right now and probably will continue to through March and April. 39 hooks submitted on the 18th, yow! :D Yes, it means shuffling date requests, as always. —valereee (talk) 15:04, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
Okay, so if we change the times at just after UTC 00:00 tonight, the Zimbabwe/Rhodesia hook currently in Queue 5 (March 2) will need to then be moved before 12:00 UTC to Queue 7, which will put it at March 2b. It looks like those two hooks can just be outright swapped. There don't seem to be any other special occasion hooks that need to be adjusted that quickly. Pinging @Casliber, Amakuru, Cwmhiraeth, Maile66, Wugapodes, Lee Vilenski, Gatoclass, ONUnicorn, and Guerillero: in the hopes someone will be around after 00:00 UTC, about nine and a half hours from now, when it will be safe to set User:DYKUpdateBot/Time Between Updates to 43200 (from 86400) which does the necessary change from one set to two, and if possible the swap also, although I'm usually up early enough for that! —valereee (talk) 15:32, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose switch per above until the prep builders are certain that we can handle it, even if that means the backlog getting bigger. I'm sorry to those who like rules and following the RFC, but I think IAR may apply here.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:37, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
  • I agree with Amakuru, it doesn't seem like we'll be able to build preps quickly enough to handle 2 sets per day with the same quality of article checking. We should IAR as it's the best thing to do to avoid mayhem. Joseph2302 (talk) 15:41, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
  • We only have TWO prep sets unfilled. We have seven full queues. The only prep builder saying we can't build fast enough is Edge3, and they're saying it's because slots are going unfilled for "over a day." We don't need 7 constantly filled preps and 7 constantly filled queues in order to say it's safe to go to 2-a-days. And BTW, we have in the past couple weeks have had all preps and queues filled. I'm happy to switch to building preps instead of moving queues, if that's what's needed. —valereee (talk) 15:53, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
  • For those who say that prep areas haven’t been being built fast enough, I disagree and I have all prep areas in my watch list. SL93 (talk) 16:02, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
  • I'm a new promoter, so maybe I just have high expectations of how quickly promotions should happen, but I remember seeing 4 preps that still needed to be filled last night before I went to bed. But if you think that's normal then I'd be fine with moving to 2 sets per day. Another option is to set the cycle time at 18 hours instead of 12. Edge3 (talk) 16:38, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
    Edge3, it's totally normal to have only half of preps and queues filled at any given time. —valereee (talk) 16:49, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
Edge3 fix ping. —valereee (talk) 16:50, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
@Amakuru it has nothing to do with liking rules. It has to do with the fact we have seven full queues and five full preps and on February 18th, 39 nominations. What is making you feel the prep builders don't think we can handle 2-a-days? Only one person who works on preps has expressed a concern, and they've been working on preps for about two weeks. —valereee (talk) 16:48, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
Having one half of preps/queues may seem "normal" to you, but maybe not to someone else, and "normal" might not be "acceptable" to the group of people that's actually volunteering to help with preps. Also, I'd hate for us to start evaluating people's opinions based on how long we've been involved in the project. (Apparently two weeks isn't enough time to form an opinion?) As noted in #Discussing solutions for promoter crisis, the promoter role has had high turnover lately, and it would be prudent for all contributors to make the task less daunting to new promoters. Edge3 (talk) 17:31, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
Trying two updates per day at first sounds better than the backlog of unpromoted hooks growing. If we remain at one update per day, we still have to have a solution for the ever-growing backlog. SL93 (talk) 17:39, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
@Edge3, I'm so sorry, I didn't intend offense! You asked if it was normal to have some queues or preps empty, I answered that it was. The comment about the fact you'd only been working on preps for a couple of weeks was only cogent because in the past few weeks, we've actually had preps and queues full more often than usual, and you may have thought that 7 full preps and 7 full queues were the norm, because during your time working here that's what you've seen, and that maybe you weren't aware that having 3 or 4 queues and preps filled wasn't unusual. Sometimes we'll have 7 full queues and only 1 prep, and then those of us who work on both will switch. Other times it's the opposite -- all preps full, and prep builders have nowhere to work, so people need to move some preps to queue. —valereee (talk) 17:52, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

I appreciate the explanation! If that's the norm, then I'd be fine with switching to 2 sets per day. You're correct that I'm used to seeing all queues full and only 1-2 preps open, due to my more recent experience here. Edge3 (talk) 18:29, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

@Edge3, FWIW, because we recently (and I hope temporarily) have lost a prolific regular prep-builder, we had a bit of a crisis and started trying to onboard multiple new prep-builders. It's been fabulous, multiple people have stepped up, and because of all the new people learning to build preps, we've actually had our preps more often full than we usually do as various people try doing it to see if they'll enjoy it. I hope this also will continue, as building preps is something that takes skill, and we can use as many people who can develop that skill as we can get! I think it's possible it's one of the most complex tasks on Wikipedia, and I love seeing people interested in learning how to do it, so thank you for working in this area. —valereee (talk) 18:52, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
Yes, I'm aware. I stepped up because I noticed there was a backlog with preps, and reviewing in general. I'm happy to help! But just know that I tend to meander between DYK, GAN, and editing my favorite articles, so I hope nobody expects me to become a fixture at DYK! Edge3 (talk) 19:20, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
@Edge3, we're hoping you become familiar enough with how preps are built that even if you don't work here regularly, when we're in a bind, we can ping you and if you have time, you can come help. If we have 10-14 people willing to build a prep a week and another ~10 willing to help out when needed, we're golden. —valereee (talk) 19:30, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
I think we should move to two sets a day. There are several people who tried building prep sets recently, and I think and hope these people will do some more. I am flexible with what I do, and can fill prep sets or move prep sets into the queue as required. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:47, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Time to switch. If it should happen that the prep building cannot keep up with promotion rate over the next week, we can certainly decide to go back from two a day to one a day before we get down to 60 and an automatic switch back. However, we have seven queues and five preps filled, which gives us a full six days of sets at a minimum, more than we frequently have filled when it's time to change frequency. I don't see that this is an IAR situation at the present time. It made sense to hold off the switch when the bot was down, but that no longer applies. I'll take a look and see what special occasion hooks would need to be moved. Note to valereee: February 18 did not have 39 nominations, as the columns on the table are not additive for a date. It was 24 (now down to 23), 15 of which (now 14) were approved. Mind, that's still three sets worth from a single day, and all the more reason why we should be promoting two sets a day to the main page. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:53, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
    @BlueMoonset, oh, interesting! I'd figured the numbers immediately after we went into the red (that is, the first ones after no further additions could be made) were a fair rule of thumb. Is there somewhere we can see how many noms were made on a particular date in total? —valereee (talk) 21:05, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
  • valereee, I'm not sure I explained well. The total noms for a particular date are listed in the "# of Hooks" column of the "Count of DYK Hooks" table. More accurately, it's the number of hooks created/expanded/GAed for that date that still remain. As its nominations are promoted to prep or moved to the special occasions section, the total for a date goes down. The "# Verified" column is the number of approved (but unpromoted and not special occasion) hooks out of the total given in "# of Hooks". There isn't a good way to find out what the highest number of hooks was under a particular date, and there's no guarantee that a date just in the red will have the highest total: I've seen newer noms (ones still in the white) promoted or moved to special occasions, and slightly late nominations being accepted for review. So the numbers in the Hooks column are a pretty good guide, but not guaranteed perfect. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:05, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Fine, objection withdrawn. I was only concerned that it seemed like our prep builders might not be able to cope, and I don't want to move to 2 sets dogmatically if the human process can't cope. But it sounds like that's not the case. I'll continue doing my share of queue promotions as I have been. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 20:39, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Done, switched us to 2 sets / day, and swapped the lead hooks in queues 5 and 7 to keep the Zimbabwe / Rhodesia hook on March 2nd with the new schedule. Shubinator (talk) 02:26, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Shubinator, thanks. If you're still around, it would be better if the Zimbabwe / Rhodesia hook for March 2 run as the lead in Queue 6 rather than Queue 7, since that's 2am to 2pm local time for Zimbabwe; it is currently set to run from 2pm local time until 2am on March 3. Also pinging Cwmhiraeth, since she's likely to be around in another few hours in case Shubinator or another admin hasn't seen this before then.
There are two more sets of special occasion hooks that will need adjusting. The first can be done now: two hooks in Queue 3 for March 7 should be moved to Prep 3: the lead (Acker) hook and the third (Schreiber) hook.
The second set, for March 8/International Women's Day, will have to wait: between preps and queues, we only go through the end of March 7. It has just been temporarily swapped into Prep 6 to keep it from getting promoted to queue (it had been in Prep 4). Five of the eight hooks were from the special occasions section for March 8/IWD, the other three are also about women, but hadn't specifically been nominated for that purpose. There will now be two sets running on that date. Once the current Prep 4 has been promoted to Queue 4, my suggestion is to simply swap Prep 6 with the newly vacant Prep 4, and subsequently split the hooks between preps 4 and 5 once Prep 5 has been cleared after its set has been promoted to Queue 5, choosing which goes where by appropriate time zone. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:59, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
As a follow-up, I have just moved the International Women's Day set to Prep 4, currently set to hit the main page on March 8 at 00:00 UTC. Once the following set is available, the hooks can be split per my last comment, and if any new articles have been submitted in the special occasions section, they can be added to the appropriate set. Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:52, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
Done, swapped the March 7th special occasion hooks Acker and Schreiber to prep 3. Shubinator (talk) 03:49, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
  • I'm late to the party, but for the sake of building consensus I agree that we should avoid running two sets per day if the update bot is down or if prep builders don't feel like they can keep up with that pace. It seems neither of those problems are the case right now, so a big thanks to Shubinator, prep builders, and promoting admins for helping to keep everything running smoothly. — Wug·a·po·des​ 22:46, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Attention needed: Special occasion hooks

Now that we've moved to 2 sets/day, two special occasion hooks orginally slotted for March 7 at Queue 3—Tom Acker and Robin Schreiber—should now be moved to Prep 3. I'm leaving it for someone more versed, as Acker has an image and prep 3 already has a lead hook w/ image. Thanks in advance.—Bagumba (talk) 01:59, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Done, swapped the March 7th special occasion hooks Acker and Schreiber to prep 3. Shubinator (talk) 03:50, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
Shubinator: Thanks! —Bagumba (talk) 04:34, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Zimbabwe buildings

Template:Did you know nominations/Rhodesia/Zimbabwe government buildings

Apologies if this is not the right forum.

This hook, which is in one of the prep areas, is fairly unparseable: ... that the president of Zimbabwe has access to State House, with a "drunk" "Superman" statue of Robert Mugabe in the grounds; the former Rhodesian prime minister's house; and formerly Mugabe's Blue Roof mansion in Harare, in addition to the former Government House in Bulawayo (pictured) that was the home of Cecil Rhodes? The adding of semi-colons in place of commas now at least gives some hints, but it is still hard going and the former...formerly...former doesn't help (though at least it avoided the temptation of going for the quadruple with 'the former home of Cecil Rhodes'). I'd split out the the statue of Robert Mugabe into a different hook if that's allowed; it's catchy by itself but just adds to the mess here. Crispclear (talk) 17:01, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

convenience link: Template:Did you know/Preparation area 5 Ping The C of E —valereee (talk) 17:11, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
That hook is an overstuffed mess and should be tossed out.--Khajidha (talk) 18:34, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
Well @Crispclear: I was thinking about April Fools Day for Mugabe if we did split it off (since we seem to be potentially able to build a dictator's set based on what we currently have). But apart from that, I'm happy to keep it all together. If needs be we could just get rid of the "formerly" before Blue Roof (Mugabe's I think makes it clear it's not the president's) and also we should get rid of the former before Government House as it is still used as a government house. What do you think @Valereee:? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 20:45, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
Since the Prep 5 is about to be promoted from prep to queue, it seemed a good idea to try wordsmithing the hook now, since only admins can edit it later. I reordered things so the first three are the buildings still used by the president and Blue Roof is last as it isn't; I did leave two iterations of "former" since they both no longer go by the given name, and dropped Cecil Rhodes since virtually no one will know who he is and his name isn't linked in favor of noting that Blue Roof was built for Mugabe. I think it reads better; if the statue is repurposed for April Fools' Day, then a new edit with four articles rather than five could be done. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:09, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
No, could you please put the Cecil Rhodes line back @BlueMoonset: because that was the main hook for that part given many people in Africa and the UK DO know who he is (Rhodes Must Fall and the current controversy about his Oxford statue). If we need to link him, fine but I feel we should have a reference to the founder of Rhodesia, without whom these buildings would never have been constructed. We could easily do "the home of Cecil Rhodes Government House in Bulawayo". or stick with the original wording. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 07:17, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
Unfortunately, The C of E, Prep 5 was promoted to Queue 5 overnight, so I can't do anything at this point. It will require an admin to modify things. Before one does, I'd like to suggest that you first decide whether the statue will or won't be detached, and then come up with a new wording. I don't think "the home of Cecil Rhodes" would work, because that isn't what it is, even if he originally built it. (The original wording was problematic, so something needs to change.) BlueMoonset (talk) 20:14, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Comment - I just came here to say the same thing as this thread, and it seems there are several editors who've questioned the wording of this hook. I concur that it's is an unparse-able jumble at the moment. I will remove it from the queues unless I'm missing something, or someone can come up with a good suggestion for how to reword it ASAP. @The C of E, Valereee, Khajidha, Crispclear, and BlueMoonset:  — Amakuru (talk) 14:50, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
    • No don't do that. How about ...that the president of Zimbabwe has access to State House which had a "drunk" "Superman" statue of Robert Mugabe in the grounds in addition to the former Rhodesian prime minister's house and Cecil Rhodes' Government House in Bulawayo (pictured) but not Mugabe's Blue Roof mansion?" The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 15:54, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
  • To properly format the above proposal and include at least some punctuation in the middle (and changing "in addition to" back to "and to", and adding "to" before "Mugabe's"):
Amakuru, does this address your concerns? If not, then I'm not sure where this goes from here. The C of E, I have reverted your change of "has" to "had" with regard to the statue; if there's anything in the State House or statue articles to indicate that the statue has been removed, I don't seen it, and there are no recent changes to that effect in either article. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:48, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
@BlueMoonset: sorry, only just circled back to this and I see it already went live. That text looks much better, and I've gone ahead and replaced it in the live version. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 13:28, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
@Amakuru: Sorry, I just realised I made a bit of a typo, could you remove the extra "to" before "Mugabe's" please? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 13:40, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
@The C of E: Well, the extra "to" was part of BlueMoonset's formulation actually, and I have to say I prefer the version which includes it - it helps us to remember what we're talking about, by the time we reach the end of what is a very long sentence. Do you feel strongly about that? BlueMoonset what do you think? Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 13:56, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
Amakuru, thanks for the ping. I added that "to" before "Mugabe's" for clarity, and think it should remain. (I do feel strongly about its retention.) BlueMoonset (talk) 14:40, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
Fair enough, I just thought it was me going mad thinking I had made an error when I was copyediting it. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 17:05, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

IWD

It looks like prep4 is for international women's day. It has Polly Batic who remained quite Austrian, while Andréa Guiot (now in prep1) appeared internationally, and the hooks says so, and is the cuter hook, no? Swap perhaps? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:55, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Since we need to spread the hooks in Prep 4 between it and Prep 5 (both are IWD), we could put one of them in Prep 4 and the other in Prep 5, if we want to move in more women for that date. As far as I know, IWD isn't about women who travelled or were known internationally, but about women from all over the world. (If there's more to it than that, by all means correct me.) BlueMoonset (talk) 03:25, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
In fact, I did just that and also moved and promoted hooks so both Prep 4 and Prep 5 have six filled slots and two that still need filling. Prep 5 also needs a lead hook that isn't a person since we have three hooks for people in a row (preps 2 through 4), and four would be too many. We have time to finish building them. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:56, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Hook revision

I recently revised a hook in prep 3 (now queue 3). Since the nominator Moonraker has complained at length in the past about his hooks being altered, I thought it best to open a discussion about it before it goes to the main page rather than after.

The original hook was as follows:

  • ... that Stephan Westmann, assaulting a British machine-gun emplacement on the Western Front with a German infantry unit, was amazed when the British stopped firing and sent stretcher-bearers to rescue Germans?

I had to read the hook several times before I understood it as it seemed to be ungrammatical. On reflection, insertion of the word while before "assaulting" would probably have rectified this issue. However, I also had a number of other issues with it. Firstly, it's too long at 207 characters. Secondly, it has multiple repetitions, specifically of the words "British" and "German". Thirdly, it says he assaulted it "with a German infantry unit", which is ambiguous as it suggests he wasn't part of the unit and was just accompanying it in some other capacity. Fourth, it mentions the "Western Front" without indicating whether this is the Western Front of World War I or World War II. Finally it is, as I already mentioned, awkwardly phrased in my view and difficult to parse. I changed it to:

  • ... that during a bloody assault with his unit on the Western Front in 1914, Stephan Westmann was amazed to see the British stop firing and send stretcher-bearers to rescue his wounded German comrades?

I am therefore requesting some feedback on the changes from third parties. Gatoclass (talk) 16:22, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Gatoclass, that is fine by me. There was no problem with the grammar, but the review discussion did make it very cumbersome. I always think the shorter the better. Moonraker (talk) 13:18, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Preps 2, 3, and 4

Preps 2, 3, and 4 currently has biography hooks in the image slot. Should the biography hook in prep 3 be moved to a different prep area when more open up? I personally don't care myself about how it is currently, but I'm thinking there is consensus to not have three image hooks in a row be biographies or even two of them. SL93 (talk) 03:03, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Per the discussion Attention needed: Special occasion hooks above this, it look like it's unavoidable with the special occasion biography hooks. SL93 (talk) 03:07, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
It gets even more complicated when you consider that the article might be a bio but the image is of an object (e.g. a painting), or the article might be a non-bio but the image is of a person associated with the article. I don't think we're going to perfectly strike that balance, especially with so many special occasion bio hooks as you've pointed out. However, I'm going to try to balance out the series of bio images with a series of non-bio images. Maybe that'll help. Edge3 (talk) 22:17, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Verna Grahek Mize

Verna Grahek Mize has special significance to the people of Michigan for her environmental activism in saving Lake Superior. She is currently in queue 3 which is set to hit the main page between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. in her home state. Is there any way she could be swapped to appear in a queue when the people of her home state will be awake? If nothing can be done, I understand, just thought I'd ask. Cbl62 (talk) 14:00, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

This could have been done, but by the time I looked at the request, it was already too late, and the hook is currently on the main page. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:18, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

P3 currently March 14

Template:Did you know nominations/Robyn Smith

Kncny11 Ktin Hawkeye7

Moved this from Q4, which is due on MP in just a few hours, to P3 as I'm concerned that this is too negative for a BLP? ALT1 had been struck, and ALT2 is kind of iffy, too. Can we come up with another alt? —valereee (talk) 18:26, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Valereee, how about ALT2? It is a tad 'click-baity' but can be considered. Thoughts? Ktin (talk) 20:28, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
Ktin, the problem with ALT2 is that we don't know it to be true as written. Indeed, given Smith's penchant for lying about her past, the likelihood is that there is a birth certificate somewhere, though perhaps with a different full name, birth date, and/or place of birth. What the source establishes is that there was no Robyn Caroline Smith born in San Francisco in and for years around her given birth date. We cannot therefore put in Wikipedia's voice that no birth record exists unless appropriate qualification is added, which may also end up seeming negative. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:54, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm guessing there's a birth record, probably under another name or in another location. She's likely lying about something -- date, location, birth name -- but that doesn't mean there's no record of her birth. I'm sure she's no saint, but WP probably shouldn't be saying so until she's been dead 50 years. :) —valereee (talk) 21:09, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
BlueMoonset, Agree. I had noted that in my review as well. How about a variant of ALT0.
ALT0.1 ... that, in 1975, jockey Robyn Smith once won won three races in one afternoon? Ktin (talk) 23:13, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
@Valereee: not sure if this is common in the racing world. But, I am thinking the above might be alright. Thoughts? Thanks in advance. Ktin (talk) 00:02, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
@Ktin hm. I don't think it's uncommon for top jockeys to have more than one winner in a day's racing, but I would assume three winners in a day is not common, especially among less experienced jockeys? Dick Francis wrote multiple stories about UK jump jockeys who won multiple races in a day, one I can recall was four, but as far as I can recall these were experienced jockeys at the top of their game and it was treated as a highly unusual circumstance. Also: fiction. :D —valereee (talk) 00:23, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

ALT3: ... that Robyn Smith, Fred Astaire's second wife, had been Northern California's first woman jockey? —valereee (talk) 22:54, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Valereee, Not fully convinced on this one. I think there is something going on with the commas in the statement. "Former movie starlet Robyn Smith became North California's first female jockey Thursday, finishing second in the third race at Golden Gate fields aboard Swift Yorky."[4] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ktin (talk • contribs)
Ktin, it says, "Former movie starlet Robyn Smith became Northern California's first female jockey Thursday, finishing second in the third race at Golden Gate Fields..." ? ETA: Sorry, edit conflict, what look odd about that? —valereee (talk) 23:32, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
@Valereee:, if you are convinced and it looks good, let's go for it. To me it reads odd because it combines participation with victory. "became first female jockey when she won" and not "became first female jockey to win the race". She would have ideally become the first female jockey from North Cal (if indeed) when she participated in her first race. Ktin (talk) 23:39, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
@Ktin, oh, I see...so maybe TPTB don't consider one a jockey until one places or finishes or something? —valereee (talk) 23:45, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
Valereee, I kept scratching my head about the abbrev TPTB, thinking it had something to do with the racing world. Finally figured it out. lol. Ktin (talk) 01:28, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
@Ktin lol, sorry, The Powers That Be, in case anyone else is still wondering! —valereee (talk) 01:45, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
I'm catching up on this, but if you need another option:
ALT4: ... that in 1973, Robyn Smith won a race while riding a horse named after her? Kncny11 (shoot) 23:49, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
I like ALT4 a lot better than ALT0.1 (which we don't know is unusual); I've added that "victory" to the article, since it was in the given source supporting the race at Aqueduct. (The two had come in third the week before, but won this time out.) I also think it would be better with the word "jockey" in it—valereee, what do you think about ALT4 or ALT4a? (We may need to mention Aqueduct unless you think people will assume this was a professional race and not just a head-to-head amateur thing.) BlueMoonset (talk) 05:24, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
  • ALT4a: ... that in 1973, jockey Robyn Smith won a race while riding a horse named after her?
I like both ALT4 and ALT4a! —valereee (talk) 14:48, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
Went ahead and changed to ALT4a, since this is in queue; if anyone wants it tweaked, ping me! (Although I'm unusually busy IRL right now, so anyone else, feel free to make any changes!) —valereee (talk) 14:51, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Symphony No. 6 (Prokofiev)

I'm trying to get consensus on if Template:Did you know nominations/Symphony No. 6 (Prokofiev) can be approved per IAR. The nomination hasn't made any progress since February 20. SL93 (talk) 08:44, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Join the club. Almost no nominations have been reviewed since February 18, leaving a whole week’s worth in the red zone. I wonder why? Usually QPQ keeps the approvals flowing, but that doesn’t seem to be happening now. Looking again it isn't as bad as I thought, but there are still quite a few in that range that are unlooked-at. Maybe a lot of us should just go ahead and review half a dozen nominations, even though we aren't required to by QPQ, just to get help clear out the backlog. -- MelanieN (talk) 18:15, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
The accumulation of unreviewed articles has been gradually growing. For some time it was around one hundred nominations but has recently grown to 130. It would be useful to have a backlog reduction drive, or perhaps nominators could be required to do two QPQs for a while. Meanwhile, people can help by doing voluntary extra reviews. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:22, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

P2 Mar10b

Template:Did you know nominations/Stop AAPI Hate

@Cbl62, I'm not finding in Stop AAPI Hate 'increased racially motivated violence against Asian people' cited. It says this in the lead, but not in the body, and no citation? There's "a broader wave of racially motivated attacks on Asian-Americans" in Vicha Ratanapakdee, but it's not actually saying increased? Can we get this specified w/citations in both articles? —valereee (talk) 22:44, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

@WomenArtistUpdates: A question has arisen about the Stop AAPI Hate article. Do you have a source for the statement that there has been an increase in racially motivated violence against Asian people. If that hook is plugged in, this will be ready to see its day on the Main Page. Cbl62 (talk) 22:58, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
Cbl62 and Valereee, Thanks for the pings. Stop AAPI Hate's formation in 2020 in response to increased racially motivated violence against Asian people as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic is mentioned in Kara Takasaki's article, "Stop AAPI Hate Reporting Center: A Model of Collective Leadership and Community Advocacy". Journal of Asian American Studies. I added a sentence in the body of the article. The sentence that immediately follows; "The group takes a grass roots approach to soliciting data and providing that data to the general public and other advocacy groups." is also cited to that article, so I did not add an additional citation. In the "Murder of Vicha Ratanapakdee" article, the phrase "a broader wave of racially motivated attacks on Asian-Americans" has the citation to "Alarm at hate crimes targeting Asian Americans in US". The Straits Times. February 12, 2021. So I have edited "Stop AAPI Hate" and left "Murder of Vicha Ratanapakdee" as is. I have not edited the hook. Thank you for considering this subject and articles for the Main Page. Let me know if there is something else you need. Best, WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 01:07, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Capitalization in queue 2

In Template:Did you know/Queue/2, "murder" should not be capitalized. —Granger (talk · contribs) 13:01, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Done, thank you. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:45, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Swap out for March 8

Susan B. Anthony II was sitting in Approved with a request for it to be in March 8. Queue 5 perhaps?. I promoted it there, and to make room, I moved 129 (barge) from Queue 5 to Prep 2. — Maile (talk) 23:22, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

For the Night

The dyk nomination for "For the Night" was approved by Kyuko and has not been promoted yet. Is there any way one of the admins from DYK can promote it? The Ultimate Boss (talk) 17:53, 8 March 2021 (UTC)  Done — Maile (talk) 21:16, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Help Needed - 164 approved nominations - 3 empty Prep areas

I've been doing some prep building and promoting since Valereee made a plea above two days ago. That thread quickly got overtaken by the April Fools Day hooks. Can anyone else help build preps? I shouldn't be promoting the preps to queue on the ones I helped build, which is numerous preps. Thanks to anyone who can help. — Maile (talk) 21:22, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

I filled the last hook in prep 2, filled prep 3, and filled three hooks in prep 4. What happened to the promoters we had? SL93 (talk) 03:56, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
I alternate between moving preps to queue, building prep sets and doing extra reviews, wherever I feel the need is greatest. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:30, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
I'll have time later today, will fill at least one prep, but yes, we need more regular nominators to start moving stuff to prep. Even if you aren't sure where exactly, check a hook and make your best guess where to slot it in. Those of us more familiar with prep building can always shuffle; it doesn't take as much time to shuffle as it does to do the initial move to prep because the second check has already been done by the mover.
If you are a regular nominator who hasn't yet learned to move a hook to prep, please consider helping with this crucial task. If we burn out the very few people who are doing this, like we may have done with Yoninah, DYK will collapse. If you like having this outlet for your work, please consider helping make it possible. I know of at least two regulars who have talked about walking away from the project. —valereee (talk) 13:55, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
Well, we hope all our promoters are well, and just have other priorities. This is one of those times when we realize Yoninah did a lot of prep building, and look forward to their re-appearance here. — Maile (talk) 13:55, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Request expedited review in order to feature an opera on its 50th anniversary on the main page

Hi everyone. I just created an article on Gian Carlo Menotti's opera The Most Important Man which had its world premiere 50 years ago on March 12, 1971. I know it is unusual to speed an article through to the main page in just two days, but it would be cool to have this work featured on the main page on the opera's golden anniversary. See Template:Did you know nominations/The Most Important Man. Thanks.4meter4 (talk) 05:19, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

I have reviewed and passed this nomination. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:41, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
Thanks. I just need someone to swap out a hook and make room for the hook in Template:Did you know/Queue/6.4meter4 (talk) 07:18, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
I'm not an admin, so can't do it myself. That queue has a sculpture (lead), a poem and a painting, - with an opera also, it will be a lot of culture, so I'd move the poem or the painting. I can't offer one of our production because - while today I have one in both sets - I don't have on in that set. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:22, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
I have  Done this request. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 16:21, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

bios?

Are prep builders generally finding that we're low on approved bios right now? Prep 1 has only a single bio, and I just built prep 5 with only 3 because I was having to go so far down the list. —valereee (talk) 19:36, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

P3 Mar14b

I've changed the caption in Darktown Comics based on https://gallery.currier-ives.com/gallery30017.htm, looking more closely I realize the other is handwritten, don't think we should use it. I think it's possible it was never the actual Currier & Ives caption. This is a hook of mine so I don't want to make this change in prep. —valereee (talk) 20:00, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Done. —Granger (talk · contribs) 20:25, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Self-requesting review of prep 6

I just tried assembling a prep set for the first time. Could an experienced user review it and make sure things look okay? Any feedback would be appreciated. It is prep 6. DanCherek (talk) 16:01, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

@DanCherek, selection of image slot was good, as it's a bio and the previous set had a non-bio in the image. You've got alternating bios/non-bios throughout, also good! Two sports hooks, not ideal, but not uncommon when (as now) we seem to have a lot of sports hooks. You've put one of Cwmhiraeth's hooks in, that's good because she can't promote a hook she nom'd. 3 US hooks is good, we generally need between 2 and 4. Other than Brazil and Germany, it looks like no non-English-speaking countries...might have been good to pick something from Asia or Africa if possible, but I think it looks pretty good. —valereee (talk) 19:43, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
Thanks, valereee! I somehow forgot that the image slot was sports-related when I moved on to the others. This is all helpful, I'll keep it in mind for the future. DanCherek (talk) 21:25, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

P6 12Marb

Template:Did you know nominations/Guston, Colorado

Pbritti, divine intervention is a dab, and I am not sure how to resolve. To miracle? —valereee (talk) 22:40, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Good catch. I think Divine providence is the same thing as divine intervention, without being a dab. — Maile (talk) 22:52, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
Works for me, Pbritti, if you disagree we have plenty of time! —valereee (talk) 23:11, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
Divine Providence works for me, but perhaps divine retribution is more approximate. While I initially had the latter, the source explicitly uses the words “divine intervention.” I defer entirely to the judgement of any DYK contributors. ~ Pbritti (talk) 00:09, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
The real problem with the hook, and the reason I'm pulling it and reopening the nomination, is that the fire was not in the town of Guston but in Red Mountain Town, another of the towns in the Red Mountain district. The reason it was thought to be divine intervention is that Rev. Davis was not allowed to open a church in Red Mountain Town, but on the day after he succeeded in opening one in Guston, Red Mountain Town's commercial district was destroyed by fire. Perhaps if "divine intervention" is used it should simply be in quotes rather than linked to a page that doesn't accurately explain the term (which is pretty straight-forward language). BlueMoonset (talk) 06:10, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
MelanieN, there doesn't appear to be a specific, detailed review of Red Mountain Town, Colorado. I suspect that you didn't notice that it had been added as a bold link, and, thus, a second nominated article to be reviewed. (The hook has been promoted to Prep 5.) MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 20:32, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
User:Mandarax: Can we just unbold it? At their talk page the author had suggested doing it as a twofer, but I advised against it, partly because of the time span of more than a week between the creation of the first article and the creation of the second. I suggested they do a separate DYK later for Red Mountain Town. I think they just didn't realize (and I didn't think of it either) that bolding it made it a second DYK item. Pbritti, is that all right with you? -- MelanieN (talk) 00:05, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
Mandarax and MelanieN, I understand the concern but believe Red Mountain Town's article has since been reviewed. If there is a deference against the use of two articles featured, I accept it being unbolded (please tell me if I must do that myself). That said, I would love to have it feature both articles. Let me know! ~ Pbritti (talk) 00:12, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
Yes, Pbritti, a double hook seems fine to me – since the glut of nominations has caused us to shift to two sets per day, a double is preferable to two singles. The time between article creations isn't an issue, as each article was nominated (explicitly or implicitly) within a week of creation. And, yes, I know that valereee reviews noms in the process of promoting them, but it should still have a formal written review, either by MelanieN or someone else. It's currently scheduled to run in about five days, so there's plenty of time for a review. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 01:20, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
Excellent, User:Mandarax. I know extraordinarily little about these behind-the-scenes operations. Thanks to all involved for your patience! ~ Pbritti (talk) 01:24, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
OK, thanks for input, all. I have formally reviewed the second article and it now good to go as a twofer. First time I have dealt with a twofer, so a learning experience for me! -- MelanieN (talk) 04:09, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for taking care of that, MelanieN. And remember that, when needed, you can claim two QPQs from your reviews. Pbritti, congrats for achieving the rare distinction of having a double hook as your first DYK. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 07:13, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

My first attempt at a review

I have attempted my first DYK review at Template:Did you know nominations/Luis Salvador (politician). Any feedback will be gratefully received. Thanks. William Avery (talk) 10:52, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

The review looks good. If the issues found are minor, I tend to use {{subst:DYK?}}, not {{subst:DYK?no}}, as it feels more encouraging to me, although I have no evidence of an actual impact. You do not need to review an image unless that image is submitted as part of the DYK nomination. CMD (talk) 15:45, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
True, the quality and suitability of the image are less relevant, but it would still be worth checking if the images in the article are compliant with policy, i.e. is the image licensed correctly and permitted to be used on Wikipedia.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:48, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you William Avery (talk) 11:10, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Older nominations needing DYK reviewers

The previous list was archived a few days ago. The list below includes all 33 nominations that need reviewing in the Older nominations section of the Nominations page, covering everything through March 4. We currently have a total of 281 nominations, of which 160 have been approved, a gap of 121, down 8 from eleven days ago. Thanks to everyone who reviews these.

Over two months old:

Over one month old:

Other old nominations:

Please remember to cross off entries as you finish reviewing them (unless you're asking for further review), even if the review was not an approval. Many thanks! BlueMoonset (talk) 04:42, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Excessive focus on negative aspect of a living person?

I'm concerned that the following hook in Queue 5 may "focus unduly on negative aspects of living individuals" as discouraged by WP:DYKHOOK:

... that Governor Greg Abbott initially and incorrectly blamed the 2021 Texas power crisis on frozen wind turbines?

It seems this was discussed in the nomination, but I'm not sure if consensus was reached. Thoughts? —Granger (talk · contribs) 11:42, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

It doesn't seem undue to me. He said it, he said it publicly, he said it to try to score political points, and he said it either without checking if it was true or without caring. If we could only use intelligent, well-considered comments from politicians then we wouldn't be able to feature anything they said. Crispclear (talk) 15:00, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
The problem is the "incorrectly" bit. Yes, IMO, too negative, but it could be fixed by just removing the incorrectly IMO. —valereee (talk) 20:01, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
That seems reasonable to me. —Granger (talk · contribs) 20:26, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
I've made that change, but of course as always any one who feels it's not an improvement should feel free to change it back. —valereee (talk) 13:12, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Let's just say he was lying, which he was. It's not undue to say that a liar lied. EEng 03:19, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

It's not "unduly negative" to simply state that somebody was incorrect about something. So long as the statement is well sourced and accurate there is no reason not to include it IMO. Gatoclass (talk) 05:35, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree -- Guerillero Parlez Moi 05:39, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Queue 1

Currently in Queue 1:

@Reywas92: This hook is not backed up by the article. This was mentioned in the review, but no action was taken and the hook was approved. We need the information to be added to the article and cited inline, or we need a new hook. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 07:10, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

  • The article does not use these exact words but is supported by [5] and [6]. An alternate hook that is more direct could be "... that Amber McReynolds's advocacy for vote-by-mail supported states' expansion of absentee balloting during the pandemic so millions of people could vote from home in the 2020 United States elections?" A line in the second link sourcing that would be "Secretary of State Alex Padilla enlisted McReynolds to help with a detailed assessment of what, precisely, each county would need—from new equipment and trainings to voter education efforts—to switch to a full mail-in election. McReynolds has “been a tremendous resource,” Padilla says. Reywas92Talk 07:36, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
    • This should probably go back to the nomination page to be honest. It looks like a legitimate objection was raised about the hook fact not being supported, but then it somehow got approved following a tangential discussion about whether her nominee status was in the past or present tense, without the original issue being dealt with. I personally think it's a bit of a stretch to go from "crediting her work in Denver as influencing California’s vote-by-mail policy" to "helped millions of people to vote", when the source doesn't say that. There was also a note saying that we should clarify what is meant by "the pandemic" as although it is kind of obvious now what is meant by that, it would be more encylcopedic to say the COVID-19 pandemic.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:05, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
      • The alternate hook I just gave does not use "helped" so just use that please? The Time source and its quotation I just gave clearly say the she directly advised multiple secretaries of state in their offices' expansions and the quote you just used is not the full picture. Yes I saw that note and I included a wikilink to COVID-19 pandemic in the United States right below where that was raised but it was not included in the queue's version, sorry that wasn't transposed to the top. "... that Amber McReynolds's advocacy for vote-by-mail supported US states' expansion of absentee balloting during the COVID-19 pandemic so millions of people could vote from home in the 2020 elections?" if you insist that be specific. Reywas92Talk 20:27, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
Thank you. I have substituted your new hook for the original one in the queue. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:32, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Could a hook exist for this that doesn't violate BLP negativity rules?

I've just written Sophie Jamal, which is a BLP about a subject whose notability is for negative reasons. What's the preferred route for writing DYKs on such subjects, or is it not possible to balance 'any NPOV (and vaguely interesting) statement about this subject is negative' with 'don't put negative things about living people on the Main Page'? Vaticidalprophet (talk) 10:10, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

@Vaticidalprophet, ideally you'd find a hook that isn't negative. Wikipedia articles can be about people who mostly are notable for the bad things they've done, but when they're living/not long deceased we don't like to shine a spotlight on the negative stuff by putting it on the main page. If there's literally nothing about Jamal that is interesting and not negative, my feeling is maybe it's just not a great article for DYK? —valereee (talk) 21:16, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
Maybe something about how she regained her medical license after being disciplined for scientific misconduct? Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 06:18, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
Yes, a hook explaining that after being stripped of her medical license and banned for life from receiving research funding, she did eventually get the license back in a 3-2 split decision under the proviso that she "remain in therapy for her mental health", one panel member expressing concern about her "sense of decency, integrity, and honesty" and failure to deal with the professional and personal consequences of her misconduct – that would be a really positive hook. EEng 09:11, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
I like EEng#s's suggestion for the hook. I agree that taking a positive spin is the way to go even if the reputation of the individual is known for a negative action. Jurisdicta (talk) 03:54, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
I hope you're joking. I was. EEng 03:21, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
I guess I need to be clearer. She's already pretty much ruined her life. We don't need to rub it in on Wikipedia's front page. EEng 11:37, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Tricky nomination

I need help. Per the talk of BWV 227, I am invited to nominate the article for DYK, but Francis Schonken who nominated it for GA, so is the one who made it eligible, does not want to be mentioned. (He also expressed the wish not to be pinged.) How would I do it? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:55, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, under WP:DYKRULES it only says "Any user may nominate a DYK suggestion; self-nominations are encouraged.", it doesn't say anything about having to name the person who made it eligible. I think the way around that if the person doesn't want the credit is in the nominations template, just put "Anonymous". Bit of legal gymnastics @Gerda Arendt: but I think this is possible. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 09:06, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
And then the credit would go to user:Anonymous? That article had many editors from its beginning. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:10, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
You'd still get the nominator's credit. I guess then @Gerda Arendt: you could just name the second main contributor? The reason I suggested Anonymous is because no such user exists. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 09:14, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
Don't even think there's much legal gymnastics. Just nominate without including a second author, with a plaintext explanation if thought helpful. Per Talk:Jesu, meine Freude, BWV 227, there is an explicit request not to receive DYK credit in addition to not being pinged, and so long as their name is not in the DYKmake templates I think this will not be an issue. CMD (talk) 13:56, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
I made the nom. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:06, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Queue 7: Fotheringham Crossing Pyramid

  • ... that although remaining a little-known monument in Neuquén, Argentina, the Fotheringham Crossing Pyramid, inaugurated in 1947, is considered to be a symbol of the neighborhood of Sapere?

I'm not sure the fact about it being little-known is cited in the article. The text in the article says "Despite remaining little-known among the general public in Neuquén, the monument is considered to be a symbol of the neighborhood of Sapere by its inhabitants" and the source seems to be this one:[7] That source says that the monument is a "símbolo del barrio", but it doesn't say that it's the inhabitants who consider it that, and also doesn't appear to say that it's little known. Am I missing something? Cheers @Gunt50: as nominator.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:15, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

prep help needed

We're going to need some folks to help with moving approved nominations to prep, as with always at this time of year we're building up a backlog. If regular nominators and reviewers here could start moving approved nominations into preps, it would be helpful. Otherwise we'll have to move back to 1-a-days, which will end up with huge backlogs, pages breaking, etc. I personally don't care if the pages break, but apparently it causes issues. —valereee (talk) 21:14, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

I promoted 6 to prep, which should help some. Please feel free to moving them around. — Maile (talk) 22:54, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
I've filled in Prep Areas 5, 6, 7, 1 and 2, and added three hooks to Prep Area 3. Hope that helps. Are we sure we don't want to save Cthulhu for President for April Fools Day. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:47, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

And now for something completely different (discussion of Aptil Fools criteria)

I would LOVE Cthulhu for President for April Fools Day!! Valereee, how about it? Only 3-1/2 weeks until April 1, and Gatoclass suggested the same thing on the nomination template, but no one responded. Judging from April Fool's Main Page/Did You Know, we're going to have to do two sets that day anyway. — Maile (talk) 23:56, 7 March 2021 (UTC) Also, I find the image for the hook just wonderful. — Maile (talk) 00:08, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
Zero issues with moving Cthulhu to April Fool's! —valereee (talk) 00:12, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
For the time being, I've moved it to Prep 3 in case others want to weigh in on this. Who is putting together the April 1 hook(s)? — Maile (talk) 00:29, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
EEng I've left my opinion over there, which may not be the same perspective you have on the quality. I agree there's a lot to be desired on the list. But not because they're quirky - more because they appear to be catering to the lowest common denominator of reader - adolescent sex tee-hees, and too many using Hitler and Mussolini as click bait. If that's all we have to offer, with April 1 being just a little over 3 weeks away, maybe we should skip it this year.— Maile (talk) 22:00, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
It's all of it. Just not funny. EEng 00:18, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
Well I don't know, I did take a brief look at them a couple of days to go and was relieved to see that there weren't any absolute clunkers - at least, none that caught my eye. I agree that there are too many Hitler/Mussolini hooks, but we don't have to run them all. I'll take another look over them later today. Gatoclass (talk) 02:21, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
Okay, I took another look, and yes, there are a few duds, and way too many Hitler hooks - but some amusing hooks as well. We ought to be able to get at least one decent set out of them - especially with the addition of the Cthulthu hook. But I will probably suggest some alts for one or two of the submissions as well. We've still got nearly three weeks to straighten things out, so no need to panic yet. Gatoclass (talk) 02:41, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
I'll say it again: we run amusing hooks all year. AFD is for fool-ing. EEng 06:45, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
Well, what we usually look for are facts that sound preposterous but are actually true - which is a form of deception. There are in fact quite a few of those in this year's submissions (some of which are also funny) - as well as a few clunkers that, I agree, shouldn't be run. Gatoclass (talk) 11:55, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Here's one possible set (note that some of these hooks have been tweaked slightly):

Gatoclass (talk) 12:28, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

  • IMHO Mr. Bean and Hitler might be AFD-worthy, but not the rest. The rest are just quirky. EEng 15:32, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
You are trying to apply an impossibly high standard - or at least, a purely subjective one. The April Fools criteria state: April Fools Did You Know items should present some trivia that can be presented in a manner that is possibly unbelievable to the reader. This can be done through words or names that mean two different things, shortened names, unbelievable facts, unrelated facts, etc. The hooks above all meet those criteria. And what exactly is the difference between a quirky and an AFD hook anyway? They are both about the presentation of oddball facts that border on unbelievable - AFD just allows for a little extra deception where appropriate. Also, if you look at past sets, you will find plenty of hooks that according to you would only fit the definition of "quirky". Gatoclass (talk) 23:08, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
Yes: AFD standards have been too low for some years. It's not am impossibly high standard, just a highly selective one, and of course it's subjective. And whoever wrote that AFD stuff should be unbelievable to the reader must be a very unsatisfying AFD joker in real life; if the hook is unbelievable then by definition the reader won't believe it and therefore isn't being fooled, which is essential. AFD hooks should be simultaneously astonishing (not unbelievable) and also misleading on their face, so that the reader feels the humorous relief when they click and find out the truth. In practice there's a spectrum from astonishing to unbelievable, and while ideally AFD hooks will be squarely at the astonishing end, in practice you can't always achieve that. To illustrate, I'll repeat here a list of past AFD hooks (by -- ahem -- yours truly):
  • ... that Trump is directly connected to Russia?
  • ... that Hillary's portrait is now being printed on the $5 bill?
  • ... that Obama was born in Japan?
  • ... that the US National Gallery of Art has a picture of Trump urinating?
  • ... that police found a corpse in Bernie's freezer?
In the above, the Obama and urination hooks are probably somewhat unbelievable, while the others are pretty close to merely astonishing (except the Russia hook -- everyone knows that's true so nothing astonishing there). EEng 01:46, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
You are seriously overthinking this :) Yes, misleading hooks like those you mention are a type of April Fools hook, but the sets would be very samey if they all relied upon the same ruse - as this list itself demonstrates. Also, we'd be very likely to get complaints if all the hooks were of that type, as it would draw more attention to the method. One needs more variety to make a successful AFD set. Gatoclass (talk) 04:57, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
That actually was an AFD set, and as I recall a successful one (or maybe one or two were regular days and the rest were AFD -- can't remember). But I assure you I'm not overthinking this. I take humor very seriously, as is well known. The above set is sui genesis because its amusement comes from the sheer achievement of so many topical gags at once (and pretty good ones, if I do say so myself). But -- I'll repeat -- if we want our readers to truly feel a satisfactory, smiling release, we'll run three sets that day, each with 4 regular hooks as usual and 1 really good AFD-worthy hook meeting the qualifications I outlined earlier. The problem with DYK is allowing quantity to trump quality, and it would be nice to hold the line at least one day of the year. EEng 11:49, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Well actually, only three of those appeared in one set, but they worked because they were of a theme. And as you yourself said, this was a sui generis event. My objection was to the notion that every AFD hook has to be deceptive in some way. How you got this idea into your head I cannot imagine, but it's never been the sole criterion for an AFD hook, and a look back through the archives confirms that we've always run a variety of hooks for AFD, ranging from the deceptive to the quirky to the just plain funny.

As for the notion that we should run "three sets that day" for AFD, "each with 4 regular hooks as usual and 1 really good AFD-worthy hook" - to start with, we don't run five-hook sets any day, we run eight-hook sets, and having just "one good AFD hook" per set would essentially mean running sets no different than any other day of the year. Finally, regarding "quality [versus] quantity", the set I put together above contains pretty much all the hooks that I think AFD-worthy this year, the others IMO were either duds or repetitions of the same topic, so it's a serious mischaracterization to suggest that I am in favour of shoveling every AFD submission onto the main page - anything but. Gatoclass (talk) 13:39, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

I didn't say anything about you personally; DYK quality is a longstanding problem that many editors -- rich and poor, famous and obscure, powerful and humble -- have struggled valiantly with for many years; all have been bested by the ogre. Meanwhile, it's been a while since I did much DYK work, and I rarely look at the main page, so excuuuuuse me for forgetting how many hooks in a set. The suggestion remains to have only one or a few AFD hooks (but really good ones) per set, perhaps randomly placed within the set, and that's not sets "no different than any other day of the year". But anyway, I pretty much gave up years ago on helping DYK pull itself up from being the Laurel and Hardy of Wikipedia, so I'll just leave it at that. EEng 01:33, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
If only DYK was the Laurel and Hardy of Wikipedia. I could support an entire AFD set of nothing but Laurel and Hardy trivia, perhaps with the image being an animation of them, and accompanied by their "The Dance of the Cuckoos" music. — Maile (talk) 02:17, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
My initial thought was the Three Stooges, and probably I should have gone with that. EEng 04:44, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
AFD hooks tend to be so short that we have previously expanded the sets: I think we've had nine and even ten in a single set and not overrun our section of the main page (we might even have come in a tad short). Even if we're still at two sets a day for the regular sets at that point, we might want to do a single set for that 24-hour period and then return to two per day. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:18, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Special occasion question for March 21

Hi all, I have an approved hook Template_talk:Did_you_know/Approved#Aedes_de_Venustas nominated March 6 and suggested for March 21, International Fragrance Day, but it looks like it didn’t make it to the special occasion section. It’s not terribly pressing as far as “occasions” go, but so that I know in the future, is there something else I need to do or should have done? Thanks muchly. Innisfree987 (talk) 20:26, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

I've moved it to the special holding for that date. The bot just moves to the approved page for the date it was created. Someone other than the nominator has to then manually move it to the special date. This was more likely just missed. I suspect we might be understaffed lately on issues like this. — Maile (talk) 20:51, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
Ah I see — thank you Maile66 for taking care of it. Innisfree987 (talk) 21:16, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Hakodate consulate hooks on consecutive days?

I heard this is where you request special conditions for hooks. Could the ones for the former British and Russian consulates of Hakodate run on consecutive days? Thanks in advance. MSG17 (talk) 17:13, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Am I correct that these are both located in Japan? Let's ping some prep/queue editors and see. @Valereee, Cwmhiraeth, Amakuru, Yoninah, BlueMoonset, and Gerda Arendt: — Maile (talk) 21:10, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
That should be no problem. I suggest we use the second set of two consecutive days so that they appear in day time in Japan rather than when everyone is asleep. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:08, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Template:DYK tools - Character count not working

@BlueMoonset and Wugapodes: Template:DYK tools - Clicking on "Character count" returns a message that the site is no longer available. Also, that link, plus the the Toolserver links for Disambig Links and External Links are the old unsafe "http:" links. — Maile (talk) 21:41, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Maile, I've never been involved with those tools, so I'm afraid I can't help you. When dealing with prose counts, I use WP:DYKcheck; another tool is User talk:Dr pda/prosesizebytes.js, which just does a prose size check without the rest of the DYK-based checks, so I've never used it myself. As I'm not an admin, I can't edit the DYK tools template anyway. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:27, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
OK, thanks. Thought you might have some ideas. I can edit the template, but I have no idea what to substitute for the Character count, as it's helpful for checking a hook size. As for the Toolserver urls, if I click on those, it looks like they were tools created by Dispenser who has made no English Wikipedia edits in a year. And I can't access those tools, or would even be qualified to edit them. I wonder if Shubinator would know anything about these. — Maile (talk) 00:19, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
Well, I did find "A Simple Word Counter" at Toolforge and substituted it for the broken tool. It seems to work OK. I couldn't find anything at Toolforge for Disambiguation or External Links tools. As the current ones have only the "http" URLs, I wonder if we should take them out completely. Thoughts, anyone? — Maile (talk) 01:26, 14 March 2021 (UTC) Never mind. Answering my own question, Disambiguation and External Links tools were dead links, so I removed them completely. — Maile (talk) 01:39, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
Way back in the Olden Days, when all nomination text was on a single page, DYKcheck used to report hook lengths. After the conversion to nom templates, I asked Shubinator (in 2011) if this could be enabled on nom subpages, but nothing ever came of it. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 07:26, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
I guess you could still do it the old fashioned way with Javascript. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 07:38, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

St. Patrick's Day

Is there ever a St. Patrick's Day related DYK? I recently nominated Clare Grady with a hook relating to an action she took on March 17th, St Patrick's Day. I think it would be best if it were included on the March 17th DYK. Is there enough time to do that? Thriley (talk) 21:06, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

I note that the preps are already full for the 17th, but for what it’s worth I have reviewed the nomination and after revisions, approved it. Innisfree987 (talk) 02:10, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
I have slotted it into the set for March 17. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:24, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
Oh, thanks very much Cwmhiraeth, appreciate your work, as ever. Innisfree987 (talk) 11:19, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Special occasion hooks for March 19

Could either one of the images of Peter Thorburn or Ángel Mangual (in preps 5 and 6, respectively) be used? Seems kind of odd that neither made it to the picture slot (and Thorburn's was relegated to the second-last hook). Cheers! —Bloom6132 (talk) 23:31, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Bloom6132, I've moved Peter Thorburn to the image slot in prep 5. I thought it made more sense to put Ángel Mangual in the other prep, due to time zone considerations and similar subject matter (i.e. sports) as Thorburn. DanCherek (talk) 23:38, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
@DanCherek: thanks very much for that! You're spot on with the time zone considerations (I was going to mention that if the promoter didn't notice the ideal times for NZ and US). And yes, Thorburn's image is better quality than Mangual's. —Bloom6132 (talk) 23:44, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Prep 7

Prep 7 has Audrey Forlani in it, but that article is already on front page DYK section today. Can someone please remove it from prep 7, as it shouldn't run twice? Joseph2302 (talk) 16:23, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

@Joseph2302: Weird... I've removed it. Thanks! DanCherek (talk) 16:45, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
It looks like Amakuru added the Audrey Forlani hook to Queue 5 to replace the pulled Alice Saxby hook, but didn't remove Audrey Forlani from Prep 7. Thanks for catching this, Joseph2302. BlueMoonset (talk)
Oh, apologies for that. An oversight on my part, and thanks for the catch Joseph.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:28, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Warning: math!

The last hook in Queue 1 (Template:Did you know nominations/Boonie Bears: The Wild Life, nominator: Mx. Granger):

... that a three-minute segment of Boonie Bears: The Wild Life took an average of 20 hours per frame to render?

Let's do the math. There are generally 24 frames per second of film. So 20 hours/frame × 24 frames/sec × 60 sec/min × 3 min = 86,400 hours. That's 3600 days, or about 9.9 years, for 3000 machines to render 3 minutes of a 99-minute film.

According to Google Translate, the source says "it takes several months to complete", and for the 3-minute passage, "the average rendering time is up to 20 hours per frame". An "average" of "up to 20" doesn't mean much. (It also says the 20 hours on 3000 machines is equivalent to 120 machines working for 30 days; that's 1⁄25 the number of machines, so it should take 25 times as long, but 25 × 20 hours is 500 hours, or just 20.8 days, significantly less than 30.)

Can we believe, based on this source, that at least one frame took up to 20 hours to render? Maybe. The average is certainly not 20. I don't know if the hook can be salvaged, but it's not acceptable in its current state. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 00:12, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

I apologize for promoting it. I am terrible at math and my brain automatically tuned out most of your equation. SL93 (talk) 00:17, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
If someone would willingly say of themselves "I am terrible at English", would we let them edit Wikipedia? Why is "I am terrible at math" something people can utter without embarrassment? —David Eppstein (talk) 01:08, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
David Eppstein I'm not getting your point or if you're trying to start drama that isn't needed. SL93 (talk) 01:17, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
If you have a diagnosed disability, then I apologize, because I don't want to make fun of that. But my intended point was that you should make more of an effort rather than automatically turning your brain off as soon as you see a number and using "I'm bad at it" as an excuse for not trying. Your comment came across as saying that even after your mistake was pointed out, you were not going to try to understand why it was a mistake or to do anything different the next time something similar came around. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:21, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
David Eppstein It's fine and I understand, but it has been found that part of my autism is trouble with math. I didn't turn my brain off myself and life would have been so much easier if I was good at it. I'm not embarassed to say it because I have learned to not be embarassed to say I have autism. SL93 (talk) 01:25, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
The promoter has apologized. We need to fix it and move on, no sense badgering someone who has already apologized for making the mistake. Just fix it. Then move on. We don't need this drama. — Maile (talk) 01:27, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
[edit conflict] Ok, then I do apologize, because I didn't realize it was part of autism for you. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:28, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
I forgive you and I will avoid promoting such hooks in the future. SL93 (talk) 01:33, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
SL93 thank you for all your efforts at DYK. I've made some bloopers in my time, here and elsewhere. We all have equal value here. — Maile (talk) 01:38, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
@Mandarax: I believe what the source means is that on average each frame took one computer 20 hours of computation time, which the computers presumably did in parallel.
20 hours/frame × 24 frames/sec × 60 sec/min × 3 min = 86,400 hours = 3600 days (of computation time)
3600 days/3000 machines would be a little over one day (of calendar time, if all 3000 computers were working on this 3-minute segment at once)
And 120 machines × 30 days × 24 hours/day = 86,400 machine-hours, which is consistent with the other figure.
The source is somewhat more precise than the hook – it says "the average rendering time for each frame". I apologize for the lack of clarity and agree it should be phrased more clearly. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 05:54, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
I have substituted the approved alternative hook in Queue 1. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:32, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
Mx. Granger, thank you for clarifying, and for your tweaks to the article. However, to me, the article still looked like it could have been saying that all 3000 computers were working on each frame, so I further tweaked it to explicitly say that one computer worked on rendering each frame.
Cwmhiraeth, as far as I'm concerned, with the explanation and tweaks, the original hook may be restored. I think it's more interesting, because it looks so impossible, until you go to the article and see that 2999 other computers were each working on their own frames. (Or, if the current hook is kept, the piped Coronavirus disease 2019 link should go directly to COVID-19, since the page recently moved. And hooks should be moved around so that there aren't two COVID hooks right next to each other.) MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 19:09, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
OK, I have done that. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 20:31, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Queue 1: Solidary Encounter Party

Perhaps not a major deal, but I have a slight concern with the above, in that the name "Solidary Encounter Party" appears to be more or less a made-up English translation of the Spanish name Partido Encuentro Solidario. And really the article should be titled under its Spanish name. (I found exactly one non-Wikipedia source using the translated name, which is here: [8]). Also, "solidary" is a pretty obscure word in the English language, at least to my ears! That said though, I can see an argument for keeping the current formulation in that the two hook focuses on the two names "Social Encounter Party" and "Solidary Encounter Party" being initialled the same way. Any suggestions? I guess the main options would be either to keep it as is, or switch the hook to use the Spanish name for both of the two (and in fact it's the Spanish initials PES which are the actual matching one). Cheers. Courtesy pinging @Moondragon21, Sammi Brie, and The C of E: as parties involved in the nomination.  — Amakuru (talk) 11:18, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

I think it would be fine to change the article title to the Spanish title. But equally I would say it's fine to keep the English translation in the hook because we do tend to do translations for foreign titles in hooks. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 11:29, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
Yep, I guess that's fair enough. It is sometimes sensible for hooks to deviate from the actual title of the article if there's a good reason for them to do so.  — Amakuru (talk) 11:37, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
@Amakuru: Trust me, I'd have rather titled these in Spanish, but all the other Mexican political party pages are titled in English, so the three I created recently were also: this, Force for Mexico (Fuerza por México) and Progressive Social Networks (Redes Sociales Progresistas). I wonder if an RM is merited here, frankly. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 18:17, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
Is "solidary" some sort of approved English translation or did someone just plug "solidario" into Google Translate? I have never come across this word before in my life and am struggling to see how it is different from the common term "solidarity". --Khajidha (talk) 19:10, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
"Solidario" in that context is closer to meaning "in solidarity", which "solidary" seems to mean... maybe. It appears it has been used to keep the party name structure (and initials). The political party might have an official translation, but otherwise you could try to get consensus for some other user-generated translation. Kingsif (talk) 20:20, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
@Khajidha and Kingsif: They're pretty naked about this being the second act of the first PES. Their website has no English-language materials on it at all. I found one English-language mention of the "Solidarity Encounter Party" [9] but that's it. I would not object if the article were moved to the Spanish title (as I've said, I would likely have put it there if not for the existing set of translated party names), though translation may be useful for the hook. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 22:06, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
There's no need to enforce a consistency in article title language if none such appears in English sources. See any English-language coverage of Irish politics for example. CMD (talk) 01:40, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Four open queues—admins needed to promote preps

We're in that unusual situation where the Queues page is noting that there's a backlog: only three queues are filled, with four currently empty.

Pinging admins @Casliber, Amakuru, Cwmhiraeth, Maile66, Valereee, Wugapodes, Lee Vilenski, Gatoclass, ONUnicorn, and Guerillero:, in the hopes that some of you can promote a prep or two. There are four filled preps (and one with a single slot open), so enough to fill as many queues as admins can handle. Thanks one and all. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:00, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Moved two across Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:50, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Queue 7: Allen Mawer

I can't see the last part of this hook, about it being the first scholarly survey of English place names, in the article. There is a note saying "There had long been a feeling in England that it was time for English scholarship to undertake a systematic survey of English place-names on lines similar to those followed in Scandinavia", but it is not obvious to me that this implies it was absolutely the first of its kind. Pinging @Krakkos and Flibirigit: as reviewer and nominator.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:12, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

My impression from the sources is that a systematic survey of English place names had not been done before Mawer initiated the English Place-Name Society. However, since this is not explicitly stated in the sources, I'm fine with changing the hook to the following:
Krakkos (talk) 16:27, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
@Krakkos: thanks for the speedy response, and it's one of those cases where I'm sure you're right - it hadn't been done before. But as ever, unless it's directly cited, it feels safer to stick with a weaker assertion. I have amended it as you suggest above, that works for me. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 16:38, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Prep 6

Hi all, I'm glad to see Template:Did you know nominations/Ringyuichon Vashum was able to be promoted, but can the hook not quote the predatory journal which has been removed from the article? How about something like:

Sorry to be a bother, just trying to get it right. The source is a twitter post from the Official Account of the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India, so reliable. Thoughts, Victuallers, Cwmhiraeth, SL93, others? Eddie891 Talk Work 21:46, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Eddie891 As the original promoter, I will be glad to change the hook depending on this discussion's result. I wasn't sure if it was quoted from the journal because I saw another approval after it was mentioned. SL93 (talk) 21:49, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
I think it might have been missed in the shuffling around, which is completely understandable-- happens to me all the time, for one. Eddie891 Talk Work 21:52, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
Eddie891 I can take some blame though. I somehow managed to check an old revision for the quote. I'm not sure how that happened, but I didn't question it when my browser's text finder found the quote. SL93 (talk) 21:55, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
Cwmhiraeth, SL93 Some very reliable people tweet some very reliable information. There is nothing implicitly wrong with Twitter. We know this is the Indian Government (blue tag) and they will be a reliable source. Thanks for saving it. Victuallers (talk) 10:51, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
I switched the hook earlier today. SL93 (talk) 20:08, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Problem verifying hook currently in queue 3

... that the small number of African-American scientists and technicians on the Manhattan Project indicates the structural discrimination that affected them?

In the article, this hook is cited only to one source that is a master's thesis. Per the third bullet at WP:SCHOLARSHIP, dissertations in general are deprecated unless peer reviewed, published in a scholarly journal, supervised by recognized specialists in the field, and have been cited in academic literature. As far as I can glean, none of these is the case for this source. Indeed, the dissertation actually says that it is WP:SELF-PUBLISHED on the author's own website. Moreover, master's theses, rather than doctoral theses, are considered reliable "only if they can be shown to have had significant scholarly influence." I don't see any evidence of this. (Also, this is information that should most likely be repeated and cited in the body, not int the lede. See MOS:LEADREL). Ergo Sum 15:19, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

That article further is a bit concerning in that it does not seem to be focused on the topic of "African-American scientists and technicians on the Manhattan Project" as a whole, but towards a more narrow examination of the sociopolitical impact/issues relating to these individuals. This is reflected in the specific thrust of the hook mentioned. A rename might address this. CMD (talk) 16:09, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
  • I've cited a couple more sources that discuss the impact of structural discrimination on African-Americans in science, medicine and engineering, as both a past and present problem. Regarding the focus of the article, it reflects both the focus of the sources that have been written on the topic, and to a lesser extent the limitations of the books I have access to at present. It is impossible to understand the position of these African American scientists without addressing where they came from and their varying working conditions. Ideally one could discuss both women's and people's scientific achievements (and their later career paths) in more detail. Given the difficulty of getting library resources these days, I would rather leave that for possible future expansion than try to patchwork something together. Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 04:02, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
I don't have access to the NATL2020 source, but the Pager source doesn't seem to mention the Manhattan Project at all. On article content, I don't think there is much doubt knowing the working conditions/social situation is important, but being important is different from making up most of the article. It's perturbing that the article lead doesn't seem to actually say anything about the individuals mentioned by the article title. Paragraphs 1 and 3 are introductions to the Manhattan project, with paragraph 1 also including the statement these people existed, and one sentence on the reflections others have on them. Paragraph 2 is all about structural racism, and paragraph 4 is like the end of paragraph 1 about the views others had of these individuals. There's a difference between not having detail on achievements/careers, and having almost nothing at all. I think this should be pulled for now, pending changes. A new hook would be good too. The current one is quite general, the article has plenty of specific examples of structural discrimination that would make for a more engaging hook. CMD (talk) 05:00, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
This level of critique might be appropriate to a GA review (which this is not), but is it really appropriate to a DYK? Also, there are multiple proposed hooks on the page if you prefer to use another. Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 15:01, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
Mary Mark Ockerbloom is right. These are critiques that aren't, strictly speaking, DYK critiques. I would recommend that they be continued on that article's talk page. Since time is ticking in the queue, I encourage the DYK coordinator to replace the hook with one of the others on the nom page (assuming they check out against the DYK criteria). Ergo Sum 15:58, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
Hook verifiability is a DYK critique. My comments on content relate to supplementary rule D7, which includes "Articles that fail to deal adequately with the topic are also likely to be rejected". CMD (talk) 16:41, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
Indeed. Even aside from the hook there is a "minimum standard" which applies to all bold-linked articles on the main page, which is largely the same between the ITN, DYK and OTD sections. It's not GA-level, but the article must be fully verified and, importantly, it should not omit important aspects of the topic altogether. It sounds like this one may be not meeting the latter.  — Amakuru (talk) 19:44, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
Touché. I do share many of the serious concerns about the article as have been mentioned. Ergo Sum 21:49, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
Amakuru, the existing hook may still not be adequately supported by the sourcing, and the D7 issues have been raised. Under the circumstances, with only 20 hours left before it would hit the main page, it would be wisest to pull the hook and reopen the nomination rather than simply substitute the existing hook with another, but something needs to be done, and an admin needs to do it. (Pinging Cwmhiraeth and Maile as backup admins to make sure this is accomplished if Amakuru isn't immediately available.) BlueMoonset (talk) 16:04, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
  • I'm fine with the prep team using whichever hook they prefer. ALT3 is fine with me. Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 17:35, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
 Done — Maile (talk) 17:45, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Maile, a number of people above—CMD, Amakuru, and Ergo Sum|—felt there were D7 issues with the article itself, which would militate against leaving it in the queue. The phrase many of the serious concerns about the article as have been mentioned was used. Did you not feel this was an issue? BlueMoonset (talk) 22:56, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
Actually, I have only had time today to deal with Wikipedia in short spurts. I just read your post when you pinged me, and I made the (erroneous) assumption that the D7 was with the specific hook. But if it's the article as a whole, then can another admin please deal with it this one time? Thanks, and sorry for my missing the obvious there. — Maile (talk) 23:19, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
Since people have raised the concern that the article did not contain enough information about the scientific contributions to the Manhattan project of African American scientists and technicians, I've added a section of "Critical contributions" that highlights several of the scientists discussed in the article and points to the importance of the scientific work they did. I've also listed some of their names in the lead paragraph. Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 06:43, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Yikes!

Just a reminder to check all the links in hooks being promoted. I just happened to discover that the "killer" linked in the Andrew Russell Murray hook in Prep 7 was not the killer, but a completely innocent person with a slightly different last name (Karl Katz had been linked rather than Kast Kast). Eek! I corrected the prep hook, and the DYK template. MeegsC (talk) 00:01, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing the mistake, though I would have rather had you post this on my talk page after being basically attacked for a simple mistake at Warning: math! above. Though I do know you might not have noticed that discussion or realized it was an issue. SL93 (talk) 00:04, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
SL93, this was most definitely not a poke at you. I myself hadn't done more than a cursory check of the links in the set I promoted before I stumbled across the bad link in the Andrew Russell Murray hook; then I went back and rechecked all of mine. I didn't even look to see who'd promoted the Murray hook, so please AGF. This is a general reminder to everybody to check all links. MeegsC (talk) 10:33, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
Don't take this kind of post as anything personal; for one thing, this got by three extremely experienced DYK regulars. With all the new people currently promoting, it's worth a reminder that everyone who touches a hook needs to check multiple things about that hook. This was a hook by an experienced nominator, reviewed by an experienced reviewer, promoted by an experienced promoter. When we're reviewing/promoting hooks and moving preps to queue, it's very tempting to look at that and think, "I don't need to do much of a recheck on this one, everyone who's touched this before me is highly experienced and can be assumed to know what they're doing." Or at least, it's tempting for me, especially when I've got limited time. But anyone can make an error like this one. —valereee (talk) 13:48, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Backlog notice

Pinging @Casliber, Amakuru, Cwmhiraeth, Maile66, Valereee, Wugapodes, Lee Vilenski, Gatoclass, ONUnicorn, and Guerillero: to see if anyone can promote preps. Also, I'm glad that we have more prep builders even if they have to learn the ropes. SL93 (talk) 00:39, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

The prep set builders are doing well! Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:08, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
Finished up prep 1 but now can't promote it, it's ready to promote to give the prep builders room to work, and if someone promotes it I'll promote prep 2 —valereee (talk) 14:10, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Signpost obituary suggestion for Yoninah

I just submitted a suggestion to the Signpost to have an obituary for Yoninah. If anyone here (who knew Yoninah well) wants to volunteer, I'm sure the Signpost would appreciate your contributions. Edge3 (talk) 22:03, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

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