Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 41

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Did you know?
Introduction and rules
IntroductionWP:DYK
General discussionWT:DYK
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Reviewer instructionsWP:DYKRI
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Nominate an articleWP:DYKCNN
Awaiting approvalWP:DYKN
ApprovedWP:DYKNA
April 1 hooksWP:DYKAPRIL
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Preps and queuesT:DYK/Q
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Monthly wrapsWP:DYKW
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... by nominationsWP:DYKNC
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Administrative
Scripts and botsWP:DYKSB
On the Main Page
To ping the DYK admins{{DYK admins}}
One proposal
User:Rjanag/DYKbox
Popular proposal
User:Rjanag/Totally popular DYKbox

The rah rah rah up above is not much fun, and this other thing is something that still needs to get dealt with, so here goes:

Any more progress/thoughts about what to do with the nav box? We had a discussion here, back in the day, about it, and some good ideas were thrown around, but then we all got distracted and bla bla bla. Anyway, if we can reach an agreement on what to do with it, then I can whip up the new box and I'd just need someone with admin superpowers to edit the real box for me. To the right I've reproduced the current box, one idea that I floated back in the day, and a mock-up of what seems to be the most popular idea right now. rʨanaɢ (formerly Politizer)talk/contribs 20:19, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

If we adopt my rules rewrite, the Additional Rules will be integrated, so there will be no need for them in the nav box. There may be a need for navigating among my subpages, but that can wait. For now, removing the Additional Rules is no biggie because they're linked from WP:DYK#DYK rules. Art LaPella (talk) 20:41, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
It would be nice to have a few sentences on when to delete nominations in the rewritten rules. Sometimes I'm confused about when I can/should. For example, the Jack Youngblood nomination has been withdrawn by the nominator. I don't want to delete it though because I found the problem. A good policy is that the DYK reviewer that found a problem with a nomination should not delete the nom. The Jack Youngblood case is pretty clear, but I could see editors getting angry if they think they've been misinterpreted. I have a couple more policy questions: does the 200 character hook length include "...", "that", or "?"? What about "(pictured)"? I know a few characters here and there don't matter, but I'd like to have the script I'm writing reflect consensus (I'm working on getting it to check hook length). Also, prosesize does not count reference marks like [1]; do we want to keep the policy as is or not? I can easily have the script do either way. Personally I think referencing should be rewarded. Shubinator (talk) 01:55, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
About removing noms: what you've said about not removing a nom that you found the problem with is pretty accurate. My habit is to put {{DYKno}} on it, and wait 2-3 days; if no one else has removed it by then, I remove it. (Always be explicit in your edit summary, to make it easier for people in the future to go back and find that diff if there is an issue with it.) On the other hand, I sometimes would BOLDly remove hooks that are in the last day or two of Expiring Noms and haven't been responded to in days and still had pretty insurmountable problems (or at least problems that I didn't have the time or inclination to surmount, and no one else was working on surmounting). rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 12:30, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
Unfortunately I can only rewrite the rules I know about (which helps motivate me to re-explain the rules I understand), and deleting nominations is among the many DYK tasks I have never tried, largely for that reason. Hook length I understand as well as anyone; it isn't in Additional Rules so others count in different ways. But as User:Art LaPella/Long hook explains, my habit is not to count "..." or the oft-forgotten space that comes after "..."; I do count "that" and "?"; I also count "(pictured)" to simplify a time-consuming job, but my guess would be that the automated ideal would be to not count "pictured" but do count any words that go with it (purple zebra pictured), (pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis pictured), although others have occasionally expressed an opinion on "pictured". And I interpret "about" in "about 200 characters" more loosely than others; I'm not sure that word makes any sense if we're automating. As for [1], unless you expect everyone to remember to use your script and never use prosesize.js and prosesizebytes.js again, the most important consideration is to keep both counts consistent. If referencing should be rewarded, then it isn't obvious why we exclude the references themselves – or all the other excluded things like categories and infoboxes, which should also be rewarded. If your bot can measure hook length, it must already be programmed to distinguish hooks, including ALTs and maybe even unlabeled ALTs, from comments, signatures etc. If you can do that, you've done most of the work necessary to go on and do proofreading like this. Art LaPella (talk) 03:05, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
I'll try to get the script to calculate hook length as you do. It is a script though, not a bot; no automated edits. It's a tool like prosesize with a button on the left. I suppose once I'm done it wouldn't be too much work to upgrade it, but I'm shooting for a prosesize-like tool. Much more powerful though. It will check for certain things and display the results at the top of the page. It's up to the human to act on the results; the tool does not make any edits by itself. Yeah, it makes sense to keep the script's count aligned with prosesize for now. I'll be able to get the script to pick out the original nominated hook...because nominators use DYKsug, the formatting should be exactly the same at the start. Now that I think about it, checking for ALTs is possible...I might look into it later. Right now I'm seeing if I can get around stray question marks inside the hook...for example, if the article is a poem with a question mark. (The script figures out the end of a hook by the question mark.) I'm pretty sure I can do this too as long as the stray question mark is bolded (in other words, part of the article's name). Shubinator (talk) 05:00, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
Like I said, distinguishing hooks is the hard part. You seem to have overlooked this quote from WP:DYK#The hook: "... the first sentence should end with a question mark." Multi-sentence hooks are controversial but not unheard-of, and a nominator who doesn't know about the length limit (or perhaps doesn't take it seriously) is much more likely to use more than one sentence. He's also less likely to cooperate with DYKSug. The first sentence needs a question mark because anything starting with "Did you know" is an interrogatory sentence. The second and third sentences should normally end with a period. Art LaPella (talk) 05:30, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, my script will not go past the first sentence. However, a nominator who ignores the rules will throw up multiple other flags that the script will catch. And I will be surprised if the script works 100% of the time...right now 90% or 95% accuracy is fine for me, especially if it notes an error in processing. Shubinator (talk) 05:59, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
The "Popular proposal", er, proposal, is elegant and efficient in my view. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 21:30, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
The "popular proposal" looks good to me. Cbl62 (talk) 01:46, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
Me three. The popular proposal appears to be the popular choice! Gatoclass (talk) 07:55, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
Then my work here is done! Anyone with magic admin fingers can just take the code in Popular DYKbox and paste it in its entirety into Template:DYKbox. (After you're done you're free to delete that user subpage.) Then we will have a flashy new box to impress the natives. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 12:30, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 Done Gatoclass (talk) 16:52, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Prosody

Resolved
 – through most excellent detective skillz. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 12:33, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

A hook currently at T:DYK/N about Nagavarma II links to the prosody disambiguation page, but there aren't enough clues to determine how to fix it. Art LaPella (talk) 20:50, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I dab'ed it to Prosody (poetry). While I don't have access to the original source to check, I think it's pretty reasonable given that the person was an 11th-century writer; even though the article does describe him as a "grammarian," AFAIK the study of prosody (linguistics) didn't really exist that long ago (what little linguistic study there was, was in most parts of the world based almost entirely on written language) so that only leaves the poetry kind. Plus, another recent DYK article by the same author, Nagavarma I, is explicity about the poetry version of prosody, so I imagine this one is too. If you want to make doubly sure, we could always contact the article writer/nominator. rʨanaɢ (formerly Politizer)talk/contribs 20:55, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Darwin Day/Lincoln anniversary hooks

All the available eligible hooks have now been promoted to the queue. Thanks everyone for your hard work in putting these articles together and getting them on the front page at the right time! Gatoclass (talk) 07:47, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Bot gave credits without updating ?

[1] - Did the bot just give credits and do other steps, but not update the actual T:DYK template itself? Cirt (talk) 09:29, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Nevermind, it was just a tad slow. Cirt (talk) 09:37, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

It's been doing this for the last couple of updates. It'll take from one queue, and then eight minutes later take from another queue.--King Bedford I Seek his grace 09:38, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

This time it looks like it worked okay. Cirt (talk) 09:40, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
No, it hasn't worked okay at all. It skipped the hooks in queue 1 - and after I spent half an hour swapping hooks around like crazy to get lincoln darwin hooks alternating.
I have had it with this useless bot. We should disable it and go back to manual updating until it is FIXED. Gatoclass (talk) 09:43, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
Well, of course it'd be best to fix the bot, so it can continue to be used, but in the meantime thanks for fixing that update. :) Cirt (talk) 09:50, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Proposal for change to mainpage layout

I have made a proposal at WP:VPR concerning a change to the mainpage layout to better showcase the effort that goes into commemorating anniversary days on Wikipedia. The proposal can be read here for anyone who would like to contribute to the discussion. Thanks, Gatoclass (talk) 09:35, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

2 questions

I'm working on a rules rewrite, including links to several new pages of explanation. One such page is for impatient nominators who can't wait for approval, or for selection for Next Update. That page would be easier to write, and sometimes it would be unnecessary, if Template talk:Did you know#Expiring noms were renamed "Nominations expiring if there are unsatisfied objections". But is that true? How often do we delete hooks with no objections, just because they have reached the bottom of the page?

My other question is, what does "history" mean in an approval, in a phrase like "Length, history, and references approved"? Art LaPella (talk) 01:41, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

It'd be a little misleading to name it "Nominations expiring if there are unsatisfied objections" IMHO. Most of the hooks there are ones that have not been reviewed at all, plus the problematic ones waiting for replies or corrections. Name it as you say would make it seem like that the unreviewed hooks don't comply with the rules and we are going to chuck them out.
History means just the date expansion/creation began, and also verifying if the person listed as the creator/expander is actually the one who has done it, right? Chamal talk 01:54, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
"Name it as you say would make it seem like that the unreviewed hooks don't comply with the rules and we are going to chuck them out." I'm puzzled. I thought that was the problem with "Expiring noms"; it sounds like everything, even the unreviewed hooks are "expiring" and we are going to chuck them out, which in turn inspires impatience as nominations (approved or not) near that ominous heading. That's why I qualified it with "if there are unsatisfied objections", thus excluding unreviewed hooks and approved hooks. But if it's unclear to you, it's unclear to nominators. Do you have another suggested wording, or do you think nobody would mistake "Expiring noms" to mean that everything is about to expire? Art LaPella (talk) 04:49, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
What about "Nominations over 5 days old"? From my brief experience, the vast majority of noms in this section don't really "expire" (either they get put up a bit late, or rejected for other reasons and with a "and oh it's also expiring" tacked on to the end of the rejection rationale), and people coming to DYK can check the rules to see what the significance of "5 days" is. rʨanaɢ (formerly Politizer)talk/contribs 04:53, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
Why don't you go back to whatever the "rules" used to be, back in the days when it was not too stressful for me to participate both in the checking and rewriting of hooks and in submitting my own hooks? Something has changed. In the past, I enjoyed checking and putting up ALT hooks. Now I would not dare step in. —Mattisse (Talk) 04:59, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm thinking of you (Matisse) in particular as I redesign, so I hope you like it when I'm done! My version has more explanation, but much less requirement for you to read through everything else first. Especially when compared to "whatever the 'rules' used to be", which required studying the suggestions page for weeks to predict what their decision might be. Art LaPella (talk) 06:11, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
Poli...Rjanag's suggestion works. Other ideas – "Old Nominations", "Stale Nominations"; maybe "Moldy Nominations"? When I use the phrase, history means checking if the date of expansion/creation matches up, if the expansion/creation was done by the correct user, and checking for moves from userspace. That reminds me, I got the script to check for moves from userspace and start of expansion date. Shubinator (talk) 06:03, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
Yes, "Old Nominations" works too, although "stale" and "moldy" might inspire impatience again. We could at least try it and see if people complain when their hooks disappear due to unanswered objections. Art LaPella (talk) 06:11, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
If you think "Expiring noms" is causing panic, I guess you could just rename that section "Older nominations". If you call it "Old nominations", some people might think that means the same thing as "expired". Gatoclass (talk) 09:58, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
The discussion died, so I'm going with the last suggestion "Older nominations". Template talk:Did you know#Rinku Singh may (or may not) be the latest example of "panic" or at least impatience, and I think such comments surface every couple weeks. Art LaPella (talk) 21:11, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Special occasion hooks distribution

Don't forget folks that the 14 special occasions hooks we have need to be distributed over about another six updates (maybe five), so there should be no more than two or three special occasion hooks per update. Gatoclass (talk) 12:36, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I've added a note to the Next update page so people can't miss it. Gatoclass (talk) 12:40, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
I think there's five updates to go on February 12, so it will be three hooks apiece per update. Gatoclass (talk) 12:42, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
Is it possible to get a Lincoln hook leading atleast once with a picture? Grsz11 17:34, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
I prepared the first, with a Darwin picture, this one has a Lincoln picture. Alternating would be the best course of action. :) • \ / (⁂) 20:38, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
Now he tells me! :/
Okay, I have promoted some Lincoln pics so that Darwin/Lincoln hooks will lead alternately over the next few updates ;) Gatoclass (talk) 09:12, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

There's another "special occasion" tomorrow. Looks like the particular Valentine's hook idea hasn't quite caught on yet. Punkmorten (talk) 11:59, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Let's face it; two days isn't much time.--King Bedford I Seek his grace 17:30, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Question about prose lists

I noticed that Ron Hayes has been added to the queue. This article is almost entirely a list in prose. Since we don't count lists in the prose counter, an easy way around that is obviously just to make the lists into paragraphs. (Note that for readers, this article presents its information rather poorly.) For future reference, are we going to accept articles like this? Thanks. Awadewit (talk) 09:58, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

The user who wrote this article is pretty known for bringing in articles of this standard, often with poor referencing (ie, articles sourced entirely or mostly to IMDB, etc), and as far as I can tell has pretty much ignored numerous requests and discussions to clean up his act; as far as I know he's a well-intentioned user who's just a bit oblivious. As for this article, I would not have accepted it for DYK since almost all of the information is from IMDB and, as you pointed out, it doesn't really have any structure....I guess whoever accepted it reasoned that DYK doesn't have GA-like standards and so we could accept an article that is written poorly but doesn't have glaring ugliness. (Some people have that viewpoint, some people like me like to be a little stricter, I guess it's just a matter of taste.) I guess one issue is whether the hook fact comes from the good ref or from the IMDB stuff...if the hook fact is from the IMDB reference then I would say remove it. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 16:59, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
I was hoping to have a discussion about prose lists by using this as an example. You seem to be suggesting that sourcing is more important than writing. I would agree with that, but I did want to raise the issue that articles written like lists are not really articles at all. I want to be sure we are considering this somehow. Awadewit (talk) 23:27, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
Hm...that's a tough question. When I used to review a lot of hooks, if there were glaring issues like this I might give the article a cleanup tag of some sort and then mention at the nom "length is good and hook fact verified, but there are major writing/style problems with the article that need to be cleaned up before it can go to the main page." Again, though, I don't think there's an official rule on how prose-y the prose has to be (mainly because I think most of us here don't have time to assess the writing quality that carefully); I would just go with whatever my gut feeling was. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 23:32, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
  • There are two kinds of lists: There are pages that are "list of" type pages. They are acceptable if they are "new" or "unique" in general (according to the old way of things). Then there are lists that are parts of pages, which aren't counted. Since lists are not counted in any form in a normal article, nor are they encyclopedic, they articles containing large sections of them and fail to meet the size requirements should be mentioned as problematic. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:36, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Bot not working

It was seven hours late again so I did a manual update. I think we are going to have to go back to manual updating until it is fixed. At the very least, we will have to keep a close eye on it. Next update is due six hours after the time sig for this post. Gatoclass (talk) 11:35, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

It looks like Rootology and BorgQueen took care of it at 18:30-ish, so the next update should be at 1:30-ish UTC (if my math is right). —Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 19:14, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, you're right. I'll try to grab an admin to fix the timer. Big thanks to Rootology though for doing the update. Shubinator (talk) 19:36, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
Wow, I can't count. The timer's fine. Queue 5 needs to be cleared and the previous image should be deleted from en though. Shubinator (talk) 21:39, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
I cleared the queue and deleted the Sputnik image. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 21:51, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
Excellent. And to think we get to do this all again in 4 hours. Shubinator (talk) 22:17, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Lots of BIO hooks

We currently have heaps of BIO hooks in Suggestions so if you are preparing an update please try to remember to include four bio hooks, thanks. Gatoclass (talk) 13:37, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Nom for feb 28

I just nominated a hook that I'm hoping can go up on February 28, since it's about a holiday that will be observed on that day. (It might also be ITN-relevant, but I doubt it; I left them a message about it just in case, but I think they'll say it's not a big enough deal or something.) I assume it's ok for me to nominate it in the holding pen like that?

Also, for any nerds to are interested in templates, this was the first time the ballin' new template was used live on T:TDYK. Hopefully you all like it, because sometime I'm going to try to get everyone using it. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 18:53, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

The template doesn't say whether it's an expansion or a new article? Shubinator (talk) 22:28, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, it was suggested to me that I could do away with that because (in theory) reviewers will be checking the article history anyway. Actually, though, I did make the template so it can say whether it's new or expanded, using status = new or status = expanded (I just forgot to put it in this time). Using that, it would have looked something like this:
{{subst:NewDYKnom
 | writer=Rjanag
 | article=National Organization for Rare Disorders
 | article2=Rare Disease Day
 | hook=... that ...?
 | status = new}}

National Organization for Rare Disorders, Rare Disease Day

Created by Rjanag (talk). Self nom at 22:47, 14 February 2009 (UTC)


rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 22:47, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
Hmm, interesting. I'll see how my script handles it. The script can automatically check both expansion and creation. However, checking expansion takes much longer...it gets info from the server up to 9 times sequentially. (By much longer, I mean noticeable time...about 3-15 seconds. Everything else is done within 5 seconds.) I was thinking of not having it check expansion unless 5x showed up in the nom. But I was also going to have a paramater for when you're installing the script so you can have it always check 5x if you want. Let me know what you think. By the way, I plan to release the first edition of my script on Monday. It'll be amazing! Shubinator (talk) 23:12, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
Luckily, when status = expanded is entered, the template does produce the text "5x expanded" in the nom, so I think the script would probably handle it whenever people remember to type status=expanded. Here's what it looks like:

Example

  • hook

5x expanded by Rjanag (talk). Self nom at 23:23, 14 February 2009 (UTC)


rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 23:23, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Casual use of prosesize

I just figured out that prosesize can be used without installing it, without logging in even. All you have to do is enter this

javascript:importScript('User:Dr pda/prosesize.js'); getDocumentSize();

into the URL bar and press enter when you're on a page. Maybe we can advertise this on the rules page; it's a quick and easy way for nominators to see what we see. Shubinator (talk) 03:28, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh wow, that is nice to know. I imagine that snippet of code might intimidate some people (not to mention it would be hard for most people to remember), but maybe if we put it somewhere prominent to allow for easy cutting-and-pasting then it could be useful. (The only problem with that is we would have to stick it somewhere on T:TDYK, a page which we tried to de-clutter not too long ago.) rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 03:31, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
How about we put it on the editnotice? Chamal talk 03:50, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
(EC) I think nominators are most likely to glance at the rules first...maybe a sentence on WP:DYK#Selection_criteria? The edit notice works too, but it might be too late in the process...that's the last thing a nominator sees before nominating. For semi-casual use (not enough to install) prosesize can also be bookmarked; just make the destination page the line above. Again, no need to log in. Shubinator (talk) 03:55, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
I thought of that too, but then I figured people probably do the counting before they hit the edit button. (Oh, I just noticed that Shubinator just said that.) rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 04:01, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Heads up

Any admins around, the DYK template needs to be updated again. Shubinator (talk) 01:27, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks go to Ruhrfisch! —Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 02:12, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I just completed the latest update of template, timer, credits, and whatnot. - Dravecky (talk) 08:31, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh good, I can go to sleep. Thanks! Shubinator (talk) 08:42, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Queue 3

This states at the moment "... that on Stac an Armin, the highest stack in England, the last great auk (example pictured) in the British Isles was clubbed to death in 1840 because it was thought to be a witch?" Er, England? Ericoides (talk) 11:16, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Fixed, thanks :) Gatoclass (talk) 12:42, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Apostrophe template

Remember the chat we had at Template talk:'#Extra space before the apostrophe? (And by "we," I think I mean "Art, BorgQueen, and me.") Anyway, if people are still concerned about how {{'}} leaves some leading space, I just made {{`}}, which makes an apostrophe and doesn't leave leading space. (There's also now {{`s}}, which does the same thing but adds an s if you want). Compare:

  • '''Example'''{{`}}s yields Example's
  • '''Example'''{{'}}s yields Example's

rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 22:01, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I've used it. Thanks. Art LaPella (talk) 02:16, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Image copyright

I believe this should be reported here instead. Art LaPella (talk) 02:08, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I see no problems. Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike images are used very frequently at DYK. The image is attributed because they're a link on the image description page to the source on flickr. See Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#User-created_images. Royalbroil 03:19, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

DYKAdminBot...

...skipped articles in it's first update. See Talk:Empress_Dowager_Guo_(Muzong), Talk:Showdown_(Pendulum_song). And it is currently updating twice... -_- —Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 03:17, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

It's been doing it for two days now, taking from one queue and than another in a span of less than eight minutes.--King Bedford I Seek his grace 03:38, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
I've restored the correct update. Gatoclass (talk) 05:38, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Maybe we should create a centralized page for bot glitches instead of having them scattered around this page. It might help us find a pattern, and help nixeagle debug. Shubinator (talk) 16:21, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I thought of that, but it's probably just as easy for nixeagle to look through T:DYK to figure out what is going wrong. Gatoclass (talk) 06:00, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
BTW, does anyone know what language the bot is written in? Maybe I could pick up a book on it and try a little debugging myself. Although one appreciates their efforts, it's frustrating having to wait for overworked bot managers to get around to taking a look at our little corner of the project. Gatoclass (talk) 06:04, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
The bot appears to be written in PHP code (quick reference: '$' in front of a word makes it a variable, and ';' ends a statement). Perhaps I should learn PHP instead of Python ... so similar to Java. -- CB...(ö) 23:12, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Son of a... the bot, which skipped most of the previous update, has skipped the most recent update altogether. I waited 70 minutes past the due time and nothing so I've done a full manual update. I won't be at the PC most of this weekend. If the bot is really dead (again) then we need somebody who can make the manual update on schedule for the next couple of days. - Dravecky (talk) 04:27, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
Well, it appears that the bot messed up somewhere between getting the current T:DYK page and finishing up...oddly enough, there seems to have been no actual break in the bot's acitivites, but rather a 3-minute interruption in communication between the bot and the "wikipediaindex" ($wpi). I have no idea yet why the bot hasn't resumed its responsibilities...I'm unsure of how to actually run parts of the code that cause threads to "die()" and test them out. -- CB...(ö) 17:54, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Heads up

It's that time again. Another update needed, admins. Shubinator (talk) 22:09, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to VS! Shubinator (talk) 22:38, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

The latest update (from queue 3) is now complete. - Dravecky (talk) 04:59, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Update needed. Shubinator (talk) 01:28, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to YellowMonkey! Shubinator (talk) 01:34, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

And yet another manual update (including credits) is in the books. - Dravecky (talk) 07:51, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Again, another manual update. (How's that bot coming?) - Dravecky (talk) 19:57, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you to YellowMonkey! Shubinator (talk) 01:50, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Run this in an image slot

This should also be reported here instead. Art LaPella (talk) 03:15, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I believe it's Queue 4. Shubinator (talk) 03:38, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Flickr image could be replaced with this image from the same queue File:Mont Saint-Michel de Brasparts1.jpg. Flickr image has no good description and it should have been uploaded to Commons. Its uploading to English Wikipedia was wrong. Please take a look Wikipedia:Upload/Flickr Thank you.--Mbz1 (talk) 04:21, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
As I already said on my talk page when you asked for the same image to be promoted, the building which is quite striking at 1024x768 is an indistinct gray blob at 100px across and given than a dozen images a day are nominated for the maximum 4 available slots, it's unlikely to find its way to an image slot.
If the current image in queue 4 needs to be uploaded to Commons, then I encourage somebody to take care of that. However, since DYK procedure for images at Commons is for an admin to have to copy it and upload it here temporarily anyway, I'm not sure it's a disqualifier for this attention-grabbing image. - Dravecky (talk) 08:02, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
I still believe that the image has a bad description and a very low resolution. Besides IMO we should rather promote an image taken by Wikipedian than an image from Flickr. Thank you.--Mbz1 (talk) 12:31, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Who wants a new nomination template?

The new DYK nomination template is all ready (in fact, it has been used a couple times already at T:TDYK, by Hassocks and by me), and if everyone is ready to switch over the only thing that really needs to be done now is to update the T:TDYK edit notice (MediaWiki:Editnotice-11-Did you know) so that it has a big thing saying "hey everyone there's a new template"), and updated instructions. I have drafted a sample new edit notice at Template:NewDYKnomination/neweditnotice; if it's acceptable, someone can just paste the code from that edit notice (excluding the <noinclude> and everything following it) into MediaWiki:Editnotice-11-Did you know, and update {{DYKsugstrings}} (the template that shows instructions on T:TDYK) with the sample strings from that same edit notice. I can then update the instructions at T:TDYK#Sample DYK suggestion strings. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 04:53, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

(By the way, if anyone here was not around for my messages in the past about this template: the main reasons this new template was made are that a) it's, hopefully, simpler than the current setup and won't confuse people as much; and b) it will greatly lower the byte count on T:TDYK, so that the page will hopefully not take forever to open.) rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 05:00, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
someone can just paste the code from that edit notice (excluding the <noinclude> and everything following it
Shouldn't that "noinclude" have a matching "/noinclude" somewhere? Gatoclass (talk) 06:54, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Meh, I think it should be ok because it's at the end...and the little message box after it was basically just a note for myself so I don't forget where MediaWiki:Editnotice-11-Did you know is; that stuff doesn't need to be copied into the actual edit notice, so for the actual edit notice I don't think there needs to be a "noinclude" at all. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 11:23, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
  • As long as you can explain why it's needed in the first place to my satisfaction (and assuming it works properly) I see no issues with this one. - Mgm|(talk) 12:46, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
  • This question just now occurred to me: How will this new nom template interface with Shubinator's new DYKcheck tool? In particular, I note that the tool checks for 5x expansion only if the nom indicated that the article was an expansion. --Orlady (talk) 03:42, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
It's possible to indicate 5x expansion in the nom (status=expanded); as for how stuff works with DYKcheck, though, Shubinator will know more about that than I do. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 03:54, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
It looks like the script will be able to read 5x expanded from the HTML. Of course, the nominator will have to specify expansion for the template to show 5x expanded. DYKcheck will also pick up if 5x expan is mentioned anywhere in the comments for the nom, so if one nominator forgets someone can just add a note. Shubinator (talk) 04:50, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Who wants a script to check DYK nominations?

At long last, the script I've been working on is finished. It's called DYKcheck, and it checks nominations for routine things like prose size, inline citations, stub tags, ITN or DYK appearances, date of creation, date of expansion, moves from userspace, and hook length. Its description page does a good job of describing it; I'll just say it's quite amazing. Thanks to Art for giving me the idea for customizable options with his comment on interpreting about more loosely than others. And thanks to 74.14; I've made sure the tool works for anons. Let me know what you think! Shubinator (talk) 05:54, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

  • We still need to check for sources and verifiability, but this tool would definitely help ease the repetitiveness of checking all the other things. I'll definitely try this. - Mgm|(talk) 12:38, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
    • I just used it on Casliber's nom, and it worked out very nicely. For the time being, though, I think we should still check the histories ourselves, just since the script has just been released and there might be a bug or two that hasn't revealed itself yet.
    • Also, when I reviewed the nomination I felt like I should write something like "length and history verified (checked by User:Shubinator/DYKcheck)" just to let people know that I was using the tool. Would people find it useful, for the next week or so at least, to have templates to quickly and easily show that text? Something like {{DYKtickwithscript}}, yielding

      (checked using User:Shubinator/DYKcheck)

      That might act as sort of a disclaimer until we are 100% sure that the script is bug-free? rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 13:21, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I tried with a few hook, and there seems to be a problem. All of them shows the hook length fine, but shows prose size as 0 and says "no inline citations". The line that is supposed to show information about expansion/creation is blank. What's wrong here? Chamal talk 13:51, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh wait... reloading the page seems to fix it. So do we have to refresh WP:TDYK to check each hook? Chamal talk 14:00, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
For me it works without reloading the page. Different browser? I'm using Firefox. Shubinator (talk) 15:40, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Another problem: This hook is shown as "Article has not been created or expanded within the past 10 days (1958 days)", but article has been expanded today by more than 5x. Maybe we could use User talk:Shubinator/DYKcheck for reporting bugs/problems btw? Chamal talk 14:06, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
  • I see the issue. The article was quite massive before (for example here). The tool will get confused if the article length yoyos a lot, because it uses a binary search algorithm which assumes the prose length has only crossed the 1x line once. And sure, you can use the talk page for bugs if you want. Here or my talk page works fine too. Shubinator (talk) 15:40, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
  • The tool works well, mostly, but I got a similar erroneous result on Middle Colonies. The result it gave on my own 5x-expanded hook is better, but a user would still need to go in to check the history and determine the pre-expansion article size (among other things, it got the date of the expansion wrong, as the expansion started on 16 February -- what time zone is the tool using?):
DYK eligibility scan results: (See here for details.)
  • Article: Rural Cemetery Act
  • Prose size (text only): 5018 B (819 words) "readable prose size"
  • Article created by Nunh-huh on June 29, 2006
  • Assuming article is at 5x now, expansion began 20 edits ago on February 17, 2009
  • Original Hook: 126 characters
--Orlady (talk) 14:39, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
The tool gives the date the article crossed the 1x line. For Rural Cemetery Act, that would be this revision on February 17. DYKcheck uses Wikipedia time. Shubinator (talk) 15:40, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Interesting. I figured that I started expanding it 8 hours earlier, when I first touched the article, but I guess the tool is actually correct -- the expansion of prose content did not begin until 17 February.
Do I understand you to say that the tool measures when the article was increased beyond one-fifth of its current prose size?--Orlady (talk) 15:57, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Yes. Technically it finds the last revision that was below one-fifth its present prose, and then displays the date of the edit that took it above one-fifth. Shubinator (talk) 17:52, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
  • I didn't read the documentation closely, so throw a bucket of wet noodles at me if my question is already answered there. Is there some way to tell the tool where on the page to start checking? By default, it starts with the newest hooks, which is not the way DYK-checkers normally work. --Orlady (talk) 14:39, 17 February 2009 (UTC)--Orlady (talk) 14:39, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Bucket of wet noodles thrown :). If DYKcheck sees a # in your URL, it will start at that section. So if it sees http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Did_you_know#Articles_created.2Fexpanded_on_February_16, it will start with the February 16 noms. Shubinator (talk) 15:40, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Wipes noodles off face. Thanks, that works! --Orlady (talk) 15:57, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
  • If you want to try the tool on a multiple article nom, try this one out. (The script won't check for 5x since the string 5x expan is not in 5x+ expansion. I'd add a note for the benefit of the tool, except this nom would take forever to complete with the expansion check.) Shubinator (talk) 06:43, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

A few bugs to report

This has great potential, but there are a few glitches on Internet Explorer. I'm on v7. It seems to report "No inline citations" consistently ... I wonder if the use of <ref name="XXX"> as opposed to <ref> is causing it? Also, on T:T/DYK, I get a really weird layout problem: the tabs (Template, Discussion, Edit this Page, New Section, History and Watch) drop down and overlap the page title, and the quick links at the top right (Hassocks5489, My talk, My preferences, My watchlist, My contributions, Log out) disappear completely. I'll report any more oddities I spot. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 20:56, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Inline citations bug fixed. For geeks: IE processes the innerHTML method differently than Firefox; it doesn't show quotes for ids and the tags are in all caps. I'll look through the code to see where else it might be affected. The layout problem is probably caused by fixing the sidebar, since it only happens on T:TDYK. You can configure DYKcheck to never fix the sidebar and you shouldn't have that problem (but of course the sidebar won't be fixed). I'll see if I can make the fixed sidebar work though. Thanks for catching these! Shubinator (talk) 23:51, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
I can't find a way to fix the sidebar and not have layout problems with IE. The meta user styles page where I got the code actually says it shouldn't work at all; I think it hasn't been updated for IE 7. If you do turn off fixing the sidebar with the options, you can still get DYKcheck to run if you're in the middle of T:TDYK by putting javascript:dykCheck(); into your URL and pressing enter. Sorry I couldn't fix it. Shubinator (talk) 17:05, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

When I ran a check on St Cosmas and St Damian Church, Keymer, the tool said the article was created by Paste on February 12, 2009, but it also says that was not in the last 10 days, but was 1316 days ago. I can't figure out why the tool has that notion; the page logs do not show any move activity or an earlier deleted version. --Orlady (talk) 03:38, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure you weren't looking at the results for Eccles, Greater Manchester? That one shows 1316 days for me; St Cosmas and St Damian Church, Keymer is not showing any flags. Shubinator (talk) 04:53, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
The tool gives me accurate results now, but I'm sure I wasn't looking at Eccles earlier. The tool accurately gave the creator's name and date ("Paste on February 12, 2009"), but it also inaccurately said the article was not created in the last 10 days and was 1316 days old. --Orlady (talk) 05:01, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
How odd. The article creation function is passed the same variables as everything else. If you clicked on the tool before the last nomination was done processing you could have run into concurrent threads. Otherwise the variables might be remembering something...but all the ones that count are cleared for each title. Let me know if you can reproduce the bug. Shubinator (talk) 06:17, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

This script could be very useful for GA reviews, Peer reviews, and Featured article candidate discussions, as well. Cirt (talk) 18:27, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

User:Rjanag/DYK_non-admin_participants

Hey everyone, a while back, I remember a while back Politizer (Now Rjang) put together a list of active non-admin participants in DYK (User:Rjanag/DYK_non-admin_participants), and I was wondering if we should make the list official? I can't really remember anyone objecting to this and I think it would help to increase DYK's transparency. So what does everyone think about possible making this official and moving it into the Wikipedia: namespace? Thanks and All the Best, Mifter (talk) 14:27, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I totally forgot about that! Anyway, I wouldn't have any problem with either moving it to mainspace or just pasting it into WP:DYK. And by now we have some new contributors who might be interested in adding their names to the list :) rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 14:32, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
How is any participation list "official" in any way? Ottava Rima (talk) 16:11, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
A participation list never can be official, what I am proposing is moving it to the Wikipedia: namespace and making it like WP:DYK/A so that its easier to find and is not buried in Rjang's userspace ;). All the Best, Mifter (talk) 16:22, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Then why not do that? And it wouldn't be named space. That's still a subspace. Named space is if it was at WP:DYK Participants, or something similar. Subspace is non-controversial (mostly). Ottava Rima (talk) 16:38, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
This sounds like a great idea Mifter (talk · contribs), to move User:Rjanag/DYK_non-admin_participants to Wikipedia-space. Also would be best to update it again to see who is active/inactive. Cirt (talk) 18:25, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
Moved to Wikipedia:Did you know/Non-admin participants, shortcut WP:DYK/NAP. • \ / (⁂) 20:40, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
By the way, does anyone mind if I nominate DYKable as a redirect for deletion? It's a pretty improbable mainspace redirect. • \ / (⁂) 20:43, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
No problems here...nothing links to it and I doubt anyone will ever use it. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 21:13, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Hooks need checking ASAP

Could editors make a special effort to check out the "older" hook nominations? There are dozens and dozens of hooks that need attention and verification so we can continue to promote queues to the front page. Certified biographies are in the shortest supply but all of them need to be checked as soon as possible so balanced queues can be constructed. (Oh, and a thoughtful look at the two remaining February 8th hooks would be especially welcomed.) Thanks! - Dravecky (talk) 07:35, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

They still need checking, now more than ever, and another wee hours update is complete. - Dravecky (talk) 09:26, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
I just verified a bunch of hooks (including a bunch of bio hooks ;) ) but there's still a lot of hooks left and any help would be appreciated :). All the Best, Mifter (talk) 16:25, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
I'll get right on it. Rosiestep (talk) 20:18, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Recent additions 240 issue

Just noticed this at Wikipedia:Recent additions 240: "... that coaches of the Great Western Railway were built up to 13 feet (4 m) longer than most other British railway carriages of the time? [redacted link" A forum link amongst the DYKs? Surely this must be some kind of mistake. Manxruler (talk) 07:36, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Removed. I'll search and try to find who added them. • \ / (⁂) 07:39, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
Appears some spammers were trying to boost their Google rank. Redacted link and removed it elsewhere. I'll see if I can get it blacklisted. • \ / (⁂) 07:41, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Update

It's been 8 hours since the Main Page was updated. I'd do it myself but am still not confident about the process for protecting an image. Cbl62 (talk) 23:04, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:DYK#Pictures. Shubinator (talk) 00:32, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
Thanks to Ruhrfisch! Shubinator (talk) 01:44, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Can an admin take care of some temporarily uploaded pics that never got deleted? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Shubinator (talk) 02:18, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Will do, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 02:27, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
Thanks! The archives aren't very consistent...a lot don't have the pictures linked, some pictures haven't been deleted, the articles before archive 49 don't have the dyktalk template, etc. I'll see if sometime I can make a script/bot...but first priority is the DYKadminBot. Don't know if I'll get the time any time soon though to program a new one. Shubinator (talk) 02:45, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

WP:DYK#DYK spring cleaning

This subsection of the DYK front page claims that "the DYK process is organized over 19 pages" and proceeds to list all the DYK subpages. I think a lot of the pages listed here are not actually part of the "process" and don't need to be listed. For example, Template:DYKbox and Template:DYK archive header are simply navigational tools, and WP:DYK/G, WP:DYK/A, WP:DYK/NAP, and Category:Wikipedia Did you know contributors are more like directories and reference materials, not actual process pages. Would anyone mind if I did some spring cleaning of this list? rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 17:11, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

No idea where to put this

So I will ask here. Despite an egregious lack of superfluous inline citations, Tottenham Outrage seems to have managed to get on the Main Page, according to its talk page at least (and Wikipedia:Recent additions 240 says "14:08, 7 February 2009 (UTC)" although the main page tempate was updated some hours earlier [2]).

Should I have received a credit on my talk page? Because I have not. More importantly, if I have been missed out, were some of the other contributors to that update (and possibly others) credited? I thought the bot was meant to make this sort of thing easier... -- Testing times (talk) 19:49, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

The bot was getting forgetful on its way to halting altogether. I have put the credit tag on your talk page. The time discrepancy between the front page appearance and the move to the archive is because the archive is not updated until the next set of hooks is moved to the front page. This ensures that any errors caught during the time on the front page do not appear in the archival copy. - Dravecky (talk) 00:24, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Posted update, but...

Wikipedia is so hopelessly slow right now I can't do any more. It took six minutes just to load the time template in order to reset it! So all I've done is post the update and reset the time, someone else will have to do the archiving and the credits later.

Also, I skipped queue #5 and posted queue page #1 as I couldn't get the pic in queue #5 to load at all. So #5 will be the next in line. Gatoclass (talk) 17:42, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I've completed credits for this update and will be happy to do the next update in about 45 minutes but I'll be away from my PC most of the weekend so some folks will need to keep a sharp eye on this and try to complete regular updates. Thanks. - Dravecky (talk) 22:49, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
I'll try and poke other admins if I see it's late. Shubinator (talk) 22:59, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
By the way, maybe we can make a list of admins willing to do updates if prompted? I know we already have two lists of DYK admin participants, but I get the feeling that isn't current. One of the admins on the list has explicitly not updated the template in fear of messing up the main page. Also, I see the proposed list as being less of a commitment...just that if an update is late and a non-admin is looking for an admin to update it, these admins should be checked first. Shubinator (talk) 23:43, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

April Fool's

Was thinking about writing an article about the fungal species Cyathus gayanus (yes, it's real) and perhaps doing a double hook with Phallus impudicus (would required a 5x expansion). I think it would be hilarious, as people would click to see the joke (the joke is that there is no joke, they're just both ridiculously named species). Is this doable, or pushing the limits of main-page decency? Sasata (talk) 18:14, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

You could add the grasses Andropogon gayanus and Holcus gayanus. The latter is in the Pooideae sub-family.
I think they are all named for Jacques Étienne Gay.[3] (another redlink), like Eupatorium gayanum, Polemonium gayanum, Ribes gayanum, Leucanthemum gayanum, Lycopodium gayanum, Stigmaphyllon gayanum, Hippeastrum gayanum, Chloris gayana, Anarthrophyllum gayanum, ... -- Testing times (talk) 19:45, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
LOL! I see big multi-hook potential! Sasata (talk) 20:53, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
Having the word "gay" or "gayanus" in it doesn't make it funny. You can propose April Fool's Day hooks at Wikipedia:April Fool's Main Page/Did You Know. You can already post the articles, as we accept content written in the past year before April Fool's. Royalbroil 05:13, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
Implying "gayanus" is funny and should be on DYK for April First will definitely be insulting to many members of the community. I would tread carefully with many of these names. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:27, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. Surely we can do better than gay jokes. • \ / (⁂) 05:38, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
Ok, I will defer to those with better judgment than me :) Thanks Sasata (talk) 05:58, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
I liked the phallus one, though. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 15:43, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Commons images at DYK

I just noticed that on a recent DYK, File:Adam-Mickiewicz-Monument-by-Rygier-Krakow.jpg was used. This image was from commons. Although the cascading template protects the en.wiki page, it does not protect the commons page. That means that before anyone noticed this (time did pass), someone could have uploaded a vandal photo at commons and had it displayed on the main page. In order to fix this, any future images from commons should probably be protected for 24 hours during the time it is to be displayed on the mainpage. This would require communication with admin at commons to ensure that this happens. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:25, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I think DYK admins are supposed to upload Commons pictures to en temporarily for the Main Page. See Wikipedia:DYK#Pictures. Shubinator (talk) 05:30, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
We used to do that, but my understanding is that all images that appear on the front page are now automatically protected. Gatoclass (talk) 08:17, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
From what I heard, there use to be a bot that took care of it, but the user of the bot is gone. Perhaps we need to try and find someone willing to take charge on this issue? Ottava Rima (talk) 16:25, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
Pictures that appear on the main page (either as featured, news ect) having been getting protected locally on commons to prevent the need for a temporary reupload to en.wiki, If you ask their admins nicely they should do it for DYK photos as well, under this template. Peachey88 (Talk Page | Contribs) 01:01, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Correction needed in queued hook

The picture hook in Queue 5 needs to have (''pictured'') inserted in it. --Orlady (talk) 14:57, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

checkY Done Thanks for pointing it out! Royalbroil 15:35, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

No manual update this round please!

I'm trying to poke the bot back into behaving again. Finally a time I'm online and the DYK is updated intersect :P —— nixeagleemail me 16:32, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Bah!, we will have to try to fix the bot later I suppose, I won't be around in 6 hours. —— nixeagleemail me 17:40, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
Currently there are no queued hook sets, and the next update is due in about one hour. I think that means that the bot cannot do the next update? Is this deliberate? If not, is there an admin in the house who can move Next Update into the queue? --Orlady (talk) 04:38, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
Judging by his contribs, nixeagle isn't online. He posted that message two updates ago. Shubinator (talk) 04:43, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

St. Pat's hooks

I noticed we have a St. Pat's hook already. Is it time to start creating the hooks, or should we hold off a week or two more?--King Bedford I Seek his grace 01:42, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

If people are already submitting St. Pat's Day hooks, I guess we might as well start a special occasion section for it. Gatoclass (talk) 05:47, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Shortcuts may be deleted

There is a discussion here on whether the shortcuts T:DYKT and T:TDYK should be deleted. The reason for deleting them is that a cross-namespace redirect to a talk page should not be used. If I understand correctly though, the real problem is that a template talk page is being used for DYK nominations. A template talk page should be used only for discussing the template. IMO, Template talk:Did you know should be moved to Project space (maybe Wikipedia:Did you know nominations). The shortcut could then be something like WP:DYKN. —teb728 t c 02:54, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't really see how discussing nominations in template talk is a problem, since T:DYK is (like T:ITN) very different than most templates—it's a template that has an entire project revolving around it. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 03:08, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
Agreed with Rjanag. Is this really a problem? —Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 03:18, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
The DYK template is updated regularly, therefore the updates need to be discussed. By using it for DYK nominations, we are discussing possible updates to the template. If anything, just change T:TDYK to TT:DYK. [[TT:DYK]] is a shortcut for a different language Wikipedia, so the current redirect is a good work-around. • \ / (⁂) 03:27, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I think teb728 has a good idea. Cross namespace redirects are generally a Bad Idea as they clutter the search engine (technically, T: is in articlespace, according to WP:Namespace), and even if it is accepted that T: represents a short cut into template space, the target is in template talkspace. There is only one place that shows a shortcut from namespace to template talkspace, that that can be corrected by either piping the link on the template itself or following teb's suggestion, thus staving off other problems that might arise. As pointed out, TT: cannot be used as an abbreviation for template space as it links to Turkish Wikipedia. B.Wind (talk) 20:29, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's really a matter of piping, as the main point of T:TDYK isn't to be posted in places, but for DYK regulars to be able to type it into the search bar and get there in one click, rather than having to go to T:DYK first and then click through. (It doesn't sound like much, but it would get annoying if you did it a couple hundred times.) rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 20:39, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Bacon is sizzling hot at DYK

Child of Midnight and Drmies have been raking in the DYK views with their hooks on unusual bacon edibles. The top 5 so far this month are below, and chocolate-covered bacon also had almost 10,000 views. People seem to love the bacon hooks! Cbl62 (talk) 08:10, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Article Image DYK views DYK hook
Bacon Explosion 40,500 ... that the 5,000-calorie Bacon Explosion (pictured) was created in response to a Twitter challenge to develop "the ultimate bacon recipe"?
chicken fried bacon File:Sodolak's chicken fried bacon.jpg 26,500 ... that the recipe for chicken fried bacon (pictured) was developed in the small town of Snook, Texas, at Sodolak's Original Country Inn?
Folkestone White Horse 17,700 ... that the European Commission declared the creation of the Folkestone White Horse (pictured) unlawful?
USS Connecticut (BB-18) 17,600 ... that when the pre-dreadnought battleship Connecticut (pictured) ran aground in 1907, the U.S. Navy tried to cover it up, prompting Congress to consider an official inquiry?
Ernest Allmendinger 14,200 ... that American football player "Aqua" Allmendinger (pictured), once described as "a young giant in perfect physical condition," acquired his nickname after working as a waterboy for railroad building crews?
Can we say that the bacon hooks are hogging the spotlight?--King Bedford I Seek his grace 08:15, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, I have to admit, unusual recipes do make pretty good hooks :) Suprised to see the sporting one there though, IMO it wasn't a very good hook at all. I guess there are plenty of sports fans out there. Gatoclass (talk) 08:39, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
BTW How would one of you guys like to put together an update? I've been doing quite a few lately, and I could use a break. We only have one in the slot currently. Gatoclass (talk) 08:40, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
I put together an update. Will try to do another later today. BTW, the Allmendinger hook was mine, and though I thought it was not a bad hook, I was also surprised that it drew such a large volume of hooks. I think the image must have played a big part. Cbl62 (talk) 16:49, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
I just thought the hook was a bit long, but judging by the reaction, I guess our readership didn't think so :) Gatoclass (talk) 09:59, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
I would expect long hooks to get more reaction, at the expense of crowding out other stuff. Art LaPella (talk) 19:29, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
While not based on any rigorous analysis, my anecdotal experience in doing the "DYKSTATS" is that longer hooks don't do better than shorter hooks. Regardless of length, the hook needs to be clear and attention-catching. Overly wordy and convoluted hooks are not likely to do well. Cbl62 (talk) 21:06, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
I take it back. 24 winning hooks averaged 137 characters, and 24 hooks from the main archive averaged 149 characters. Art LaPella (talk) 23:13, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Queue empty

The queue is empty and another update is due in under six hours. I don't have the energy to do another one tonight, so will somebody please help out by putting an update together. Thanks, Gatoclass (talk) 12:33, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Your post worked! I did one. Royalbroil 14:27, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
Thanks RB. Very much appreciated :) Gatoclass (talk)
I did, too, but I'm new to this, so someone should check my work. :) Awadewit (talk) 14:53, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
That's very good! I can see you have potential... Gatoclass (talk) 15:32, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
That looks good; I added an eighth, though, because it looks like we have been doing 8 lately, and it looks like tomorrow's On this day... is pretty long. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 15:00, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
I just did another one. Queue 5 needs some cleaning up; multiple "that" and "..."s. Shubinator (talk) 18:37, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
The next update and next next update are now full and ready to be moved to Queues. Cbl62 (talk) 07:07, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
Would someone please credit Queue 4? I just had enough time to do the admin part. The update was about 3 hr late. Thanks! Royalbroil 12:57, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
The credits have been completed and the queues have been updated. - Dravecky (talk) 14:19, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

New template

The new template is up and running, and has just been used by someone random, and seems to have worked.

I'm about to be away from the computer for a bit, and I made some quick changes to the template (mostly trying to get rid of the tons of whitespace it was making). If anyone sees something major going wrong with it, please revert the template to the last working version. Thanks, rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 15:09, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I just used the new template on the 2/23 article Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War. It worked fine except that "self-nom" and the date stamp didn't appear. As this was a self-nom, I followed the directions of leaving "Nominator" blank. Let me know if I should have done something differently vs. a glitch. Thanks. Rosiestep (talk) 20:28, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
Oops. You didn't do anything wrong; I had messed up that bit in a recent update and didn't realize it. I fixed it now and it should be working fine. Thanks for pointing this out. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 23:18, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
You're welcome. Btw, for those entries, like mine, that are missing the Self-Nom/date stamp, how can we get that to appear? Here are some others: Charly Manson, Mosby Tavern, Anguillan general election, 2005. Rosiestep (talk) 23:34, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
At this point, for the ones that have already been done, we would have to do it manually; I'm not sure if that's worth the trouble or not. For future noms, it should show up automatically now that I've fixed the template. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 23:36, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Copied content and DYK eligibility

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Rjanag says it nicely. Let's not let this turn into another dispute. —Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 23:33, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

In response at first to a request, I've evaluated two recent DYK submissions and judged them not eligible for DYK for reasons including that they contained content copied verbatim from a source. The nominator believed the content to be public domain; i do not; that will get sorted out in other discussion at wt:NRHP and elsewhere. But further, I have asserted that DYK standards are higher than general wikipedia article standards, namely that an article with copied content from a public domain source is not DYK-eligible, while such an article could be acceptable in wikipedia as long as the public domain source is properly credited. On this further matter, could some experienced persons here comment and/or provide references to guidelines on this? I have not been active on DYK recently and don't have the guidelines or precedents handy. (There's yet another issue: what is proper attribution, and I assert that requires crediting a source for wording by use of quotation marks for any verbatim passages, but that is not immediately being discussed.) The nominator, a new editor is not happy, and I sympathize but think it is best to be clear, sooner rather than later. However as noted here the nominator believes I am making it up about DYK standards being higher, and I would certainly like for that to be clarified for the person and for anyone else. doncram (talk) 20:51, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Everyone knows my feelings on the matter as per previous discussions, but verbatim copied information with no attempt to quote, use in an academic way, and the rest, should not count. We are supposed to be making new articles or expanding articles, not copying other people's entries. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:02, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
What this of course omits is that even the non-copied content in any of these articles, the stuff I wrote in a manner even Doncram hasn't figure out how to object to yet, exceeds the 1,500 character requirement of DYK. But really, how many pages is he going to be allowed to start threads about me on? At current count it's at least 5. --Miss Communication (talk) 21:34, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
(@ Ottava) - I actually agree with you here. Copied content should not count in expansions.
(@ Communication) - A) would it be possible for you to just re-word the text? B) What other pages? —Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 22:15, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Thanks Ottava. I was elsewhere given a link to this recent DYK discussion about ships articles and danfs material. That refreshes me, the policy is that block quoted material doesn't count towards DYK word counts. And, presumably if an article fails to block quote stuff that should be block quoted, that that stuff shouldn't count either.
To respond to Miss C just now, I guess the 5 places i've commented are
  1. at t:tdyk on the 2 articles
  2. at Talk:Boxhill (Louisville), where i raised objections re DYK eligibility
  3. at Talk:Ronald-Brennan House, later, raising parallel objections re DYK eligibility. (The article and its Talk seems to have just been deleted, i don't know whether that was actually necessary or not, and I did not request that.)
  4. In response to Miss Communication's request on the first talk page, that she would like for anyone elses' opinions, I asked for others at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places#Nomination forms US-GOV-PD? to come help at the Boxhill article. This was within a thread opened by Matthiasb who had asked for help in dealing with the Boxhill article, which had brought me in in the first place.
  5. In response to Miss Communications comment on the second talk page, which i interpreted to be mostly calling for documentation of DYK policy, I opened this thread.
Did i miss anything? Oh, i guess i gave a courtesy notice to Miss C's talk page, where i note Bedford is offering to whisper into her ear, off-line, presumably about me and my objections to a series of DYK nominations of his, some time ago. Anyhow, I think I have been polite enough and quite helpful in the substance of what i have done. Note, the Boxhill article has been rescued by the friendly participation of NRHP regular members who responded to my request at wp:NRHP. Miss C's tone, particularly regarding the entire NRHP wikiproject, despite their help, is beginning to rankle me a bit though. doncram (talk) 22:22, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
It's clear to me that this endless hounding of me on page after page will continue until I quit editting. If this episode produces anything, hopefully it will be an investigation of the way Doncram makes Wikipedia miserable for you once he sees your edits are the slightest bit out of step with policy (or his ideas of policy). --Miss Communication (talk) 22:33, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
If you can just reword the text, there will be no problem.
And assuming this is public domain text, what's wrong here? If the whole article was PD text, I see the problem, but if only a small part of the article is copied over...
That was assuming PD, though. If it's copyrighted, then it has to be rewritten. —Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 22:53, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
(outdent) @ doncram and Miss Communication: making drama out of this is not helping. Please, let's just talk about the content; neither one of you is out to get the other, so there's no point making accusations.
As for how PD text should be used, that has in the past been a matter of some disagreement among DYK people. Personally, I never pass a hook that has PD text anywhere, even if it's just a single sentence, because I don't feel like looking through the rest of the article to check all of it; likewise, I never pass a hook that has a PD attribution tag.
But it seems there is disagreement over whether the text is PD or not. If that is the case, this is not the place to be discussing it; you guys need to come to a conclusion about the copyright status of the text at whatever noticeboard you are at before anything can be done here. If the source is not PD, then we don't even need to discuss anything here; if it is, there might be some people who will pass the DYK, but in the meantime we'd have to wait for the conclusion of your other discussion elsewhere. Or, as Ed suggested, you could just avoid this whole argument by rewriting the problem sections, using the NPS document as a ref rather than copying its text. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 23:29, 24 February 2009 (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.

Next update overdue

Is there an admin in the house? The bot is still not working, and it's been 8 hours since the last update. --Orlady (talk) 01:08, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to Royalbroil for handling that. I've been unexpectedly away all day after killing my laptop with a Coke Zero. (It's not been my day.) - Dravecky (talk) 04:45, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
And YellowMonkey. Shubinator (talk) 04:52, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
Now another update is in the books and I've completed the requisite updates, archiving, and credits. It's 2am here (08:00 UTC) so if somebody could be on standby for the 14:00 UTC update it would be appreciated. - Dravecky (talk) 08:03, 26 February 2009 (UTC) (from a borrowed laptop)
 Done Gatoclass (talk) 15:11, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Manual update from Queue 1

I've done yet another manual update, reset the time, incremented the counter, updated the archive, and such but the credits still need to be completed. (I've got to run out for a bit.) Anybody, not just an administrator, can do these. Here's the page you need to start from. Thanks. - Dravecky (talk) 20:03, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Done. Shubinator (talk) 20:53, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Thanks! - Dravecky (talk) 23:56, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Time for another update. Shubinator (talk) 02:07, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I will do it Ruhrfisch ><>°° 02:22, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Er, just to make sure, should I use Queue 1? Ruhrfisch ><>°° 02:26, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Dravecky just updated the template from Queue 2. ∗ \ / (⁂) 02:33, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Haha, there are more than enough admin tasks to go around...want to delete a previous DYK pic? Shubinator (talk) 02:36, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
I do not want to delete it as it is a Featured Picture on Wikipedia and the file was created here before it was a DYK picture. I will move the queue. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 02:48, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Oh, my bad. Consolation admin task: Upload/protect the current DYK picture. Shubinator (talk) 02:57, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
It is uploaded and protected. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 03:50, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Thank you! Shubinator (talk) 04:52, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Rare Disease Day hook

If it's not too much trouble, could an admin move the Rare Disease Day hook from T:DYK/Q3 to T:DYK/Q4, and use one of the ones from queue 4 to take its place? I'm just asking because it's a somewhat US-relevant hook, and if it stays in Q3 it will be on in the US from around 3 AM EST to 9 AM, when most of the lazies like me are sleeping. If it's in Q4, it will be on during daytime or early evening in both the US and Europe. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 05:08, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

checkY Done Sounds reasonable to me. I'll be sleeping too! Royalbroil 05:47, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
To be fair, I'll probably still be sleeping at 3 in the afternoon when queue 4 ends...but it's worth a shot ;) rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 05:49, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Joan Waste

I see that Joan Waste has been added to the queue, despite serious sourcing issues that I raised. Note that the hook is currently sourced to a sixteenth-century martyrology (Foxe's Book of Martyrs) and an 1829 local history that simply repeats local legends. The 1829 text is clearly a quotation from a much older source - look at the spelling and language - it is not nineteenth-century language. However, no indication is given from whence the quotation cometh. This kind of shoddy sourcing is what makes Wikipedia look bad and leads us to include misinformation in our articles. This article should not be linked from the main page with such a poorly sourced hook. Awadewit (talk) 13:46, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

This is the diff of when the article was promoted; if any admin is around they can paste the discussion from this diff back into T:TDYK and remove the hook from the template. If it is removed from the main page now, though, I imagine we won't be able to put it back up no matter what the eventual outcome of the discussion is (ie, even if better sources are added and we decide everything is fine, we probably can't put it on the main page a second time)—so there may be no point reviving the discussion if we take it off the template now. Someone else can decide what to do about it. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 18:16, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Dravecky yet again. Its blatantly obvious that Dravecky needs to be banned from promoting hooks. He has a nasty habit of promoting hooks when they have major concerns in regards to them. This is completely unacceptable and ignores how DYK works. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:46, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
We really shouldn't be adding any hooks to the queue while there are concerns raised, so who happened to do this? And it should be removed right now until the concerns can be addressed. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:06, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Removed for now. PeterSymonds (talk) 18:55, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Concerns had been raised, yes, but I felt they had been adequately addressed with the addition of additional sources. Perhaps there needs to be a debate about the reliability of specific printed sources but I'm far from convinced that the DYK nomination page is the place for that debate. - Dravecky (talk) 19:17, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
I think you need to reread WP:CONSENSUS. Just because -you- think that have been addressed does not give you the right to pass them. This is unacceptable. The longer you are allowed here, the more problems you keep producing. For the sake of DYK and respectability, you cannot be allowed to continue to pass such outrageously problematic hooks that even a quick glance would reveal major problems. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:47, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
OK, I just reread WP:CONSENSUS, including: "In determining consensus, consider the strength and quality of the arguments ... " Without taking a position on Awadewit's complaint, I point out that approving a hook necessarily requires a subjective judgment of whether the approver thinks problems have been addressed. As for who should be banned from promoting hooks, I think it's relevant that Dravecky has never been blocked, unlike someone else I could mention. Art LaPella (talk) 23:47, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Hmm, lets see... a person who has promoted three hooks so far this year with serious problems and lack of foresight vs a person who isn't an admin and thus talking about them in terms of putting hooks on the main page would be moot. This is a constant trend that is revolving around Dravecky. He has severely disrespected DYK and DYK reviewers. He needs to be banned from promoting hooks because he has proved that he has no understanding of how to abide by consensus nor follow DYK guidelines. He has a constant history of ignoring the concerns of people, of putting copyrighted problem filled pages on the main page, and has shown a lack of judgment throughout. Ottava Rima (talk) 00:17, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
I wouldn't call it a lack of respect. I'm aware Dravecky has put a few hooks in the Next Update that perhaps should have stayed a little longer, but I feel he just needs to be more careful, rather than being banned from moving them. He has promoted many hooks without issue. ∗ \ / (⁂) 00:25, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Right now, Awadewit is one of our very top content contributors. She has an incredible amount of FAs, DYKs, and the rest. Her opinion was basically deemed worthless by Dravecky. Last month when we were talking about Doug's hook, the whole lot of us were deemed worthless by Dravecky. This is a community project. This is not Dravecky's project. This is not about unilateral decisions. Dravecky has proven that he is ignoring concerns and not looking closely at what he promotes. This is extremely bad since it deals with the main page. Ottava Rima (talk) 00:38, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
At worst, I think this shows that Dravecky is human and gets tired once in a while. I would too if I was the admin running manual updates every 6 hours for days on end. Perhaps if other editors helped out more (checking hooks, assembling the next update) the load on the DYK admins would be more bearable. Shubinator (talk) 00:49, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Being fallible is not an excuse to avoid punishment for constant mistakes. Ottava Rima (talk) 04:09, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
edit conflictStill, banning is over the top. I think Dravecky simply needs to avoid verifying and promoting hooks in one action, instead promoting hooks that have already been looked over. I'm not sure many would've promoted the hook at that stage, but he is far to useful to ban, he just simply needs to avoid the borderline cases. ∗ \ / (⁂) 00:51, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
I appreciate the vote of confidence and, in the cold light of day, I might have made a different decision on promoting that particular hook. \ / makes a useful reminder that verifying and promoting should be more separated. It's often quite difficult to build a well-balanced queue with the proper mix of US/non-US, biographical/non-bio, modern/older hooks keeping in mind not to overload with sports, politics, vehicles, science, plants, and so on. I am grateful for all of the DYK hook reviewers and only wish there were more of them so that more hooks were available for selection. On a related note, any editor can use the Next Update and Next Next Update queues to promote a hook at DYK. That's not solely reserved for the admins and, given the amount of time and care it takes to construct each one, I welcome any careful editor to take up the task. - Dravecky (talk) 01:03, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
As stated by the community, only admin get to promote hooks that will be displayed on the DYK section of the mainpage. This is also in the rules. Going around that by the queue is not a viable option and your promotion of it is disturbing. We have an RfA process to ensure that those putting items onto the mainpage are trusted. If our own admin, who have gone through this process, keep screwing up by putting bad hooks, encouraging admin to have access is utterly disastrous and the equivalent to anarchy. Ottava Rima (talk) 04:09, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Are you serious? We went through this whole song and dance before, and everyone agreed that you are wrong. Anyone can update Next Update. Even outside editors told you you were wrong: see here, "your telling him not to do an admin-only task that apparently was not an admin only task." Find something else to whine about. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 04:31, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
I checked and that was added without community consensus. To allow an end around system for people to add things to the main page who aren't admin is completely against our guidelines and policies. If you want such a major change, it has to go through Village Pump Proposals. This did not. Your claims are in violation of the editing restrictions of the main page. Admin promote the hooks. Admin are responsible for the content that is added to the mainpage. A non-admin cannot rightly promote hooks no matter what kind of system is put in place. Ottava Rima (talk) 04:37, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Then start a proposal to have that wording removed from WP:DYK. I'll be here taking bets on how quickly it gets shot down. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 04:50, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps you don't understand how things work. Unless there was a proposal, the wording is invalid. Not the other way around. Ottava Rima (talk) 04:52, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Nope. You've already been told before that DYK is a project and is able to make its standards; have you forgotten this and this? Oh, never mind, I'll wait for the big boys to explain it to you. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 04:56, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
You can say no all you want, but you really lack the knowledge and experience to know what you are saying on this, let alone have any sort of rational basis for it. Smugness and references to things that are not on topic only reinforce that you just don't know. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:01, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Dravecky has stated above "Perhaps there needs to be a debate about the reliability of specific printed sources but I'm far from convinced that the DYK nomination page is the place for that debate" - I take this to mean that he will disregard all discussions of sourcing concerns at DYK. I find this very troubling. Sourcing is at the heart of Wikipedia's claim to legitimacy. Awadewit (talk) 14:52, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I strongly feel that if this kind of thing was brought up at Dravecky's RfA, just two months ago, that he would not have been promoted. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:55, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
I will respect all discussions of sourcing concerns, whether at DYK or not, but I think that serious discussion of the sourcing concerns for an individual article should be on that article's talk page where the discussion will be preserved rather than on the DYK page where it will be lost in the tsunami of comments. - Dravecky (talk) 19:12, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
I don't think you understand. It doesn't matter -where- the concerns are being addressed (DYK page, WP:DYK page, the article talk page), hooks are not supposed to be promoted until the concerns are completely addressed, which means that normal consensus takes place, which is not a majority vote or any kind of vote. There are plenty of hooks, but you keep passing along hooks that are being challenged and have serious concerns. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:18, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

"Anyone" can update error

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Dravecky has realized his error, so ending this before we waste as much time here as we did the DANFS discussion. —Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 23:11, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Considering that I am now being threatened with "I'll take you to AN/I" on IRC for archiving this, I'll explain more here. 95% of this is "OMG desysop and topic-ban Dravecky" and the subsequent replies to that. If you want a real proposal discussion, start a new section with no drama. Thanks. —Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 02:34, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Here is one reason why the claim that "anyone" can update the next update section is wrong - if anyone can update, that means that trolls, vandals, etc, can add content and it will be moved forward. Since most admin don't look, the content wont be caught until it is on the main page. With the admin bot, this is even more true since no one will be looking at what is promoted.

The main page is very sensitive. Admin are responsible for controlling the content of the mainpage. Thus, admin are the only ones who should be promoting anything. Promotion means moving to the mainpage, and if admin are not going to be looking at what is moved onto the DYK template, then there is a serious problem. This needs to be fixed with a restoration that conforms to every other mainpage declaration that only admin are allowed to control the content of the mainpage. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:00, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Been through this before. Template:Did you know/Next update isn't the main page. It's not even the queue. Nothing gets to the queue without going through an admin. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 05:02, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Admins do look at whatever gets onto T:DYK. The updates are only done from the numbered queues, which are protected and can only be edited by admins. The next update not being protected allows non-admin DYK editors, such as yourself, to help out our overworked admins and assemble an update. However, they must be looked at by an admin to get into a numbered queue. Shubinator (talk) 05:07, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Apparently not, or Dravecky's promotion would have been removed as being blatantly wrong. Admin are not looking, which means that the update page is being abused. The Queues need to be removed because they were never supposed to exist to begin with. This is obviously a major problem. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:11, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Dravecky is an admin, and probably promoted the hooks himself. ∗ \ / (⁂) 08:19, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Yep. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 08:24, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
No has ever stated that Dravecky was not an admin. Please reread and see that it was pointed out that no one checks the hooks once they are put on the Next Update as proved by Dravecky's actions. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:33, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Do you even know what "next update" means, by chance? And for your information, even the queue pages state: "By showing the content of all the queue and next update pages in one place". They aren't magically separated. There is no special protection between update and queue. There is no measure of content control. Hell, people like Dravecky are able to get content right from a dispute onto a mainpage before people are even able to see it. This last one was removed from the mainpage even though Awadewit was right here watching. That shows a severe corruption and abuse of the system. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:11, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Funny thing... there actually is a "magical separation" between Next Update and Queue, it's called this. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 05:24, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
As you have requested Rjanag, I make a request of you: please refrain from the snide comments and personal attacks. I have no previous quarrel with you. Dravecky is an administrator, so an admin (Dravecky) was looking when the promotion occurred. And yes, the Next Update name is quite confusing. It is a relic from before DYKadminBot, when updates were in fact taken from Next Update to T:DYK. If you look at DYKadminBot's contribs you will see it never took hooks from Next Update. There is a special protection between Next Update and the numbered queues: 1) The numbered queues are protected and cannot be edited by non-admins 2) After DYKadminBot went live, updates are from the numbered queues and not Next Update or Next Next Update. If you believe the numbered queues should be removed, maybe you can start a straw poll to gauge consensus. I do not think the proposal will be popular. Shubinator (talk) 05:24, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Shubinator - There is no point to the queue system as any DYK bot will fail. There is no way to automate the mainpage system. There will always be an error or a problem. The queue system only exists for the bot. However, having the bot, as with having admin who are not held accountable, only breeds laziness in reviewing the hooks. At other times, there could be a lack of respect for concerns of reviewers, such as Dravecky ignoring Awadewit. Both of these are serious problems. A portion of the problems from lack of admin paying attention is to cut down on the promotion by non-admin, which means that they review on the template talk page and that is it. Another part is to hold admin who promote bad hooks more responsible, like we did for Bedford. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:28, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
I'd disagree that any DYK bot will fail. Yes, the current one has failed, but with the proper programming and server we can get a decent bot. That's more of a philosophical question though. I do not think having a bot is a detriment to DYK. I actually think Dravecky's slipups are because the bot is down now and he's overworked. I don't see the bot as breeding laziness, but giving the admins a break. Cutting down on Next Update non-admin editors would only make the DYK admins even more overworked. I'm not too familiar with the Bedford situation, but I thought he was desysopped for gender-related comments on- and off-wiki. Shubinator (talk) 05:42, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
You can disagree on the point, but I don't think you understand how bots work. Proper programming cannot account for the thousands of variations or the technical limitations. Overworked? Not even a chance. We have had non-bot updates for over a year. Dravecky has been an admin for two months and screwed up three major times. That is unacceptable. He should have never been made an admin, especially with his lack of respect to our copyright guidelines and policies. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:33, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
I think my understanding of bots is better than the average Wikipedian's, seeing as I've programmed a script and am currently programming a new update bot. For variations, bots can be programmed to detect odd formatting and send a flag (possibly by posting on a talk page) that something is wrong. I don't think there are technical limitations here, other than the occasional server crash. We're not dealing with reverting vandalism constantly, it's just an update every 6 hours. I suppose another component of the formula is an effective operator.
Before the bot, a lot of admins helped out with updates. After the bot went live, those admins found other things to do. When the bot crashed, then, it was up to the two admins left to do all the updates. Thankfully more admins are getting the message that the bot is down and pitching in.
I'd rather look at the error rate by average errors per promotion. I think it is a better measure of the error rate than average errors per time. I'm sure there are admins who've promoted less than five times this year, and I don't think that automatically makes them less error-prone. Dravecky has done hundreds of promotions in the past few months. He's human, and bound to slip up once or twice. Shubinator (talk) 16:37, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Seeing as how we don't have a bot that has been proven to work, your comments about such a bot are moot. And any promotion of a problematic page that ignores consensus discussions is unacceptable. Hiding these among a large amount of promotions is not acceptable. And Gatoclass, BorgQueen, etc, who have done this for a very long time haven't had these mistakes, so claims about being human are meaningless. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:51, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
We'll see if/when I finish the bot how well it works. If you have any suggestions for the bot, let me know. Dravecky slips up occasionally. I really doubt he's doing it intentionally and trying to "hide" it. Perhaps you can suggest ways to help Dravecky not slip up, instead of calling for his desysopping/block/ban. I suppose a fundamental difference between us is that I do not believe that "we have more than enough admin right now". Shubinator (talk) 17:35, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
He stated above that he blatantly ignored Awadewit's concerns. He ignored the concerns for Doug's 16 part hook. There were discussions. You are not to promote any hook when it is being challenged. He failed to abide by that simple rule and put problematic hooks on the main page. There is no excuse for that. It is not a "slip up". It is a direct disregard for consensus and a lack of respect to reviewers. Regardless, a bot will only cause problems as admin are not checking the hooks before they go onto the main page, and the bot will only further this. All hooks need to be checked and all concerns need to be addressed. Dravecky seems unwilling to do this. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:22, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Uh, sorry tiger, but I don't see where you're getting "blatantly" ignored. Dravecky said that he weighed Awadewit's concerned and didn't think they were a problem—so if anything this is a difference of opinion, not an intentional choice to ignore people. But I do so love seeing your creative reinterpretations of obvious facts. Keep up the good entertainment! rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 19:18, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Saying they aren't a problem is ignoring. I don't understand how you can claim there is a difference. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:20, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Ok, maybe we can politely ask Dravecky to, from now on, wait for a tick symbol from another reviewer before promoting, or if he himself has verified a hook, to put a tick symbol up and wait for 24 hours before promotion. I don't think there is a "direct disregard" here; he thought that the concerns were addressed. Anyways, does my solution work for you? Shubinator (talk) 19:11, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
This has been brought up before and he still persists. Hence, the temporary ban until he acknowledges the importance of this. A ban would not be saying that he can't review hooks, or manually update the mainpage. It would only be that he cannot -promote- the hooks. He needs to acknowledge the consensus base processing and detailed checking of hooks for problems. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:20, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
You mean until I acknowledge the importance of this? Like I did yesterday on this very page? I know OR has run off several key DYK people as part of his months-long vendetta against DYK (we miss you, Ameliorate!) but, taking a cue from Barack "No Drama" Obama, I'm going to keep trying to improve the encyclopedia and continue critical tasks. - Dravecky (talk) 22:59, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

(outdenting) You are not to promote any hook when it is being challenged

Sorry, but there is no such rule here. It is important to take comments and challenges into account, but DYK operates on consensus like everything else on wikipedia, and if there is only one person challenging a hook and the updater disagrees with the challenge, there is nothing to stop him or her promoting it. Gatoclass (talk) 19:28, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

No such rule? Really? Did you notice "If an entry is disputed, don't add it to the template until the problem is resolved." By chance? Its right here. And consensus is not majority nor one on one. Please reread WP:CONSENSUS. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:18, 28 February 2009 (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.

Foreign-Language Articles

(This refers to Template talk:Did you know#St.GIGA) I can't find a rule or consensus opinion on what length limits are required for articles translated from the other language wikipedias ... should we impose the 5x expansion, or just a good 1500+ character translation? Personally, I would think the mere transfer to English Wikipedia, meeting all other requirements, should be acceptable. CB...(ö) 06:50, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Articles translated from elsewhere are considered new articles when they come here, so they just need to be 1500+ characters and meet our standards for sourcing and writing style (which means you will rarely be able to get away with just a direct translation, but will often have to do some extra research and source-adding as well; for example, my DYK article Suanmeitang was translated from zh:酸梅汤 originally, but by the time I submitted it for DYK it was barely recognizable because I had added a lot of stuff). rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 07:50, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Updating queues

I was going to fill up all of the queues, but I can only edit "next update" and "next next update". How do I edit queues 1-5? Thanks. Awadewit (talk) 15:55, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

The queues are protected and only can be edited by admins, so all we can do is prepare updates in Next and Next Next and then wait for an admin to move them over. Sometimes people prepare updates ahead of time in a personal sandbox when Next and Next Next are both full...if you do that you just have to be paying close attention so that when an admin updates the queues (and clears Next) you can move your stuff into Next. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 15:57, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Awadewit waits. :) Awadewit (talk) 16:01, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm willing to fill up all of the queues this morning, if an admin is willing to keep moving out the ones I fill up. Thanks. Awadewit (talk) 16:53, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
I can move them, but have a concern with Stand in the Schoolhouse Door = the hook is that it was re-enacted in the film FOrrest Gump and the reference is just someone website summary of the film, no indication that it meets WP:RS Ruhrfisch ><>°° 17:06, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
It was checked off as ok by someone - I took their word for it. Am I supposed to recheck all of the hooks that I add to the queue? (The source is clearly unreliable - we should remove that one.) Awadewit (talk) 17:08, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
You generally shouldn't have to recheck all of the details (length, references, etc.); just glance at the hook and make sure there aren't glaring problems (like POV concerns). That means things like this sometimes slip through the cracks, but that's unavoidable human error...and it's not really your fault for promoting it, it's someone else's fault (who knows, it might have been me, I don't remember) for incorrectly ticking it.
As for this particular hook, I think the fact can be appropriately sourced with a citation to the behind-the-scenes bonuses or whatever of the Forrest Gump dvd, where they talk about how they made that scene and they specifically say that they used footage from the Stand. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 17:15, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

The hooks in queue 3 need a good shuffle. Maybe Kossak, cyclone, charles hoff, innovative comps, tunnel railway, chicago marathon, haejangguk, A.B. Bowman, Joseph Ferguson? Shubinator (talk) 17:13, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

This is only my second time updating - what are the guidelines for ordering the hooks? Awadewit (talk) 17:16, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
There are no hard-and-fast rules, but there are some general guidelines at Wikipedia:Did_you_know/Additional_rules#Rules_of_thumb_for_preparing_updates. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 17:17, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
I shuffled the hooks in Queue 3 per the suggestion. I look at each article, make sure the hook is in it and cited with an inline ref, and if anything odd catches my eye I check that out further - here the ref for the hook just looked off and is. I will add the DVD ref. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 18:12, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
I looked at the DVD listing on Amazon.com and did not see the commentary there - I am not comfortable adding this ref. Should we try for an alternate hook for Stand in the Schoolhouse Door or just add a different article to this set and bump it back? Ruhrfisch ><>°° 18:42, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
You might have been looking at the wrong DVD. I have the collector's edition (long story short, I have an awesome girlfriend who totally knows what I like) and there is a special feature thingummy that talks about that scene. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 19:16, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
This is a much better source to use, as it explains what the scene in the movie is really about. Awadewit (talk) 18:51, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Another source. Shubinator (talk) 18:52, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
I've patched in the last two sources. Is the set good now? Shubinator (talk) 18:57, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
No, because the sources you "patched in" don't say what the article does - did you even read them? The source I provided, for example, gives a detailed interpretation of the scene. It doesn't say anything about "popularization". Awadewit (talk) 18:59, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Hmmm, "popularized" is subjective. Change to "depicted"? The hook doesn't have any subjective comments, so is the hook ok? Shubinator (talk) 19:19, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Done. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 19:26, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) The next next all check out ok now - thanks. All 5 queues are full and I will be away from my computer for several hours shortly, so I did not move anything. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 19:21, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

If anyone still wants to assemble hooks, feel free to use my sandbox queues. They're for bot test edits, but I won't be doing any this weekend. Shubinator (talk) 20:32, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Heads up

Update time, admins. Shubinator (talk) 22:02, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to Useight! Shubinator (talk) 22:32, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Question - is it a purge problem?

What is the problem that sometimes when I try to access a hook, I cannot get to it. Another hook appears under the "edit" instead? I have to edit the whole page to edit the one hook. Is that an issue of the page needing a purge by me, or a purge in general, or what? Thanks! —Mattisse (Talk) 02:53, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

The edit function goes by number (see "section=" at the top). When someone creates a new section by the time the page is loaded, then the number changes. So, you get bumped about. It is very annoying. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:59, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
(e/c) Someone added a new section (read: a new hook) and shoved all of the sections down. So you tried to edit section 51, say; well, the hook you wanted has now been shoved to 52. Either refresh or try to edit the section below instead. (Was that even understandable?) —Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 03:01, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes, thanks! That is more or less what I have been doing. Now I know that there is nothing I am neglecting to do! —Mattisse (Talk) 03:04, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, I usually just hit the "back" button right away and then edit whichever section is appropriate (if I tried to edit X and instead I got the section 2 below it, then I just hit "back" and edit the one 2 above it), or manually change the number in the URL up above. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 04:25, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Bot

What happened to DYKadminBot? It hasn't edited since February 13. Just wondering if this is a technical problem or if it has been decided not to use it? If it is technical, I've sorted out a lot of IRL stuff and have a bit of spare time, so I could try to get it back online and run it again. I have a more stable server to run it from now too (I was going to keep running it but the server I was using had other uses so I couldn't). If I do this I would rewrite it from scratch first as the original version was awful. Aside from that I'm sorry I left you guys in the lurch like I did. ~ User:Ameliorate! (with the !) (talk) 11:34, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi Ameliorate, nice to see you again :) Yes, it would be great if you could fix the bot for us :) I don't think we need your server though, the bot has been moved to an in-wiki server now. The problem is that it started behaving a bit erratically a few weeks ago, and then finally appeared to stop working altogether, so we went back to manual updating. Gatoclass (talk) 17:37, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
On a related note would an admin mind changing User:DYKadminBot/time to "21600". Thanks, ~ User:Ameliorate! (with the !) (talk) 12:10, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, I made the change. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 13:06, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Ameliorate! If you could get the bot up and running again on a reliable basis, life around here would improve roughly 350% (give or take). Welcome back and don't let the goobers get you down. - Dravecky (talk) 17:55, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm about to wet myself

Can we please get rid of the Xiuhtecuhtli picture on the front page? It scares the living daylights out of me everytime I get onto Wikipedia. Right now its 11:00PM here in Australia, its dark, and the wolves are howling. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 12:03, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Liar! ∗ \ / (⁂) 20:25, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Hook typo

In the current set of hooks on T:DYK, can someone change "coca leave tea" to "coca leaf tea"? rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 14:22, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

 Done Gatoclass (talk) 14:38, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Proposal

Recently, at "Billie Jean", an editor turned a 31,000 bytes (full wiki text) unsourced article, into a 53,000 byte article that was completely sourced. See here. Because the article was created ages ago, and because he had no realistic prospect of expanding it 4/5 fold, he could not submit it to DYK.

In the future, if not already, article creation will slow down. Our main focus will shift from creation, to improvement (sourcing what we have). I would like to propose that article such as "Billie Jean", that are drastically overhauled, should be open to the DYK process. Kind regards. — R2 17:21, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

If you can find someone willing to do a full-out assessment then we might be able to take it. But the main reason for the rules we have is that, with the number of noms there are, we usually don't have time to assess articles in this much depth; we need a quick turnover. If this much work has gone into a non-new article, it's more appropriate for GAN or FAC anyway; not being eligible for DYK doesn't mean there's no way at all for you guys' work to be acknowledged, it just means DYK isn't necessarily the best place for it. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 17:24, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
This is why we see proposals for GAs to appear on the main page, I think, in addition to FAs. People try for DYKs because they want main page time. I wonder if a proposal at the village pump to feature GAs on the main page might be a solution to this? Awadewit (talk) 17:27, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
WP:PEREN. The latest incarnation of this proposal is at Wikipedia talk:2008 main page redesign proposal#Display GA list (proposal). rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 17:30, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Per Rjanag - neither of these proposals are new, we have had them numerous times before, and they always get shot down. But as for Realist's suggestion that "article creation will slow down", I'm afraid I see no prospect of that for a very long time :) I myself find that for every article I research, I find another dozen articles waiting to be written. The amount of subjects remaining to be written about is vast, and I suspect Wikipedia has barely scratched the surface yet. Gatoclass (talk) 17:31, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
As the community changes, the consensus might change. I've always found the "perennial" objection strange. Awadewit (talk) 17:34, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Maybe so, but the last debate about including GA's was only a few weeks ago, on the grand debate about the mainpage, and it got shot down rather badly. I should probably add that I myself am firmly opposed to the inclusion of GAs, I think they are pretty worthless awards to the extent that I've never even bothered applying for one :) Gatoclass (talk) 17:44, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Well, at least with GA, the entire article is reviewed and there are some basic standards. Awadewit (talk) 17:51, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I do apologize if this has been proposed before (I rarely follow DYK). I know you guys a very busy over here, so feel free to archive this if it's just going over old ground. Kind regards. — R2 17:38, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

No worries; you guys have done great work on the article and should definitely take it to assessment somewhere. Don't think of it so much as DYK rejecting your article, but as your article being too good for DYK! (it's not you, it's me) rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 17:42, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
You could always request that the wikiproject have a "recently improved/created" section that operates like DYK but doesn't have all of the restrictions. Although the audience would be smaller, there would still be an audience. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:41, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Thinking out loud here guys (and gals)...
Maybe we should allow 'special' scenarios like this to go through. I mean, it takes two seconds to look at a diff to see what it was before (i.e. totally unreferenced info/loads of bs/etc.) and two more seconds to see if it's a good article (not meaning GA, just a 'decent' article). Maybe say that 3.5x or 4x is acceptable for pages that were over 20,000kb before but have been expanded further now and are fully referenced? I know that there might be opposition to this, but think: why exclude massive content expansions just because they've only gone from 21,000 to 53,000kb especially when they are now one of Wikipedia's above-average articles? —Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 20:32, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I remember having a similar thought in the shower a couple days ago. My understanding is that, if someone (like you or me) wants to take the time to read the article closely and make sure it is really a quality rewrite and that it is pretty much new content (and that the original version really was junk) they are free to do the assessment, ignore the rules, and verify it; we just aren't required to, as they're sort of an exception to the rule and we're sometimes too busy to be "bound" to do them. But if someone wants to go out of their way and do the assessment, there's no reason to deny them that. It's just that they're no point writing anything into the rules when it's basically an IAR scenario anyway...it's just that with articles like this you have the option to review them and verify them if you have time on your hands, but you also have the right not to if you don't. That's my understanding of the consensus, at least. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 20:47, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Problem is though, we will set a precedent in which every article that has been improved can be submitted, slowly moving DYK away from being our 'newest articles'. I love the article, but DYK doesn't really use the quality scale save for the ban on stubs, and I don't want to have to consider whether a Start-B, C-A or GA-A is a valid improvement. ∗ \ / (⁂) 20:55, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

How to remove a hook from the queue?

I raised plagiarism issues with the 2008–2009 Irish financial crisis article which were apparently disregarded. The hook has been added to a queue. However, we cannot seriously put plagiarized material on the main page. Could someone help out with this? (For anyone interested, there is a side-by-side comparison of the text at Talk:2008–2009 Irish financial crisis). Why are hooks being added to the queue that are marked as having problems? I'm mystified by this, frankly. Awadewit (talk) 15:05, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

It was promoted here, and I don't think your concerns were "disregarded"; I think people just weighed your arguments and didn't think they were a problem. For what it's worth, I agree that the passage you cite on the talk page is not very well reworded...but I haven't looked at the rest of the article, and don't know what it's like. Anyway, as far as I can tell from that diff, people did discuss your concerns and three editors (Mifter, Bsimmons, and Candlewicke...all of whom have been editing here for a long time, which doesn't necessarily make their opinions gospel, but should at least be taken into account) thought it wasn't a problem. So what we have here is not people circumventing the rules or ignoring you, but just a disagreement over what constitutes plagiarism.
Again, I agree with you that we need strict standards about plagiarism...but this should probably be started as a DYK policy discussion, not an argument over a single hook. The thing to do right now isn't try to figure out who "messed up" or who circumvented DYK process by promoting the hook, but to talk about what DYK policy towards plagiarism and paraphrasing should be.
And, by the way, I think you have been doing great work here and are a huge asset to the project...but I just also wanted to say that I think a lot of people have been somewhat offended lately by comments from you and Ottava suggesting that they are "ignoring" you when all they are really doing is disagreeing. (I'm not trying to discourage you from contributing; I just want to remind you that there is always going to be disagreement between people.) There's a major difference between ignoring someone's concerns, and weighing those concerns but deciding you don't agree with them. So, again, the appropriate thing to do here isn't finger-point, but have a discussion about plagiarism and paraphrasing so we can decide when concerns like this are valid and when they aren't. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 15:22, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
This kind of plagiarism is not subjective, though. That is the issue. Awadewit (talk) 15:42, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
My point is, apparently to some people it is subjective, given that the three people mentioned above didn't agree that it was a problem. Which is why the appropriate course of action would be to discuss changing (or adding to) the DYK rules about copied content, rather than trying to figure out who's right or wrong. Everyone in this dispute has acted within the rules (at least, their interpretation of the rules) so it's more constructive to clarify the rules than to try and determine who broke them. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 15:50, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
DYK's rules about copied content cannot be any different than the rest of Wikipedia's - it is a legal issue. Awadewit (talk) 15:58, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Our rules are not any different to the rest of the project, but whether something constitutes plagiarism or not is often very much a matter of opinion. If that were not the case, there wouldn't be multimillion dollar court cases about it. Gatoclass (talk) 16:14, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Some cases are clearcut and some are not. This case was clearcut. Sadly, as a writing teacher, I deal with plagiarism on a daily basis - I know which cases are borderline. For those cases, I would simply leave a note mentioning my concerns about similarity of language between the source and the article. In clearcut cases, we have to take more drastic action, as the legal issues are paramount. Awadewit (talk) 16:19, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
You may be right - I haven't looked at the article myself - but apparently three other users thought it was okay, and as I'm sure you know Wikipedia operates primarily by consensus. Gatoclass (talk) 16:48, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Consensus cannot override one of the prime regulations of the Wikimedia Foundation. Please read up on WP:OFFICE, Wikipedia:Copyright violations, and the rest. Consensus cannot be determined to put in or keep copyright infringing material. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:55, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Agree - consensus does not trump the law. We do not make our own laws here. :) Awadewit (talk) 17:01, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
This was a clearcut case of copyright infringement. The law is clear that three words or move of a unique phrase is a violation. There is some leeway, but the Wikimedia Foundation is clear on the matter. They say that it must be reworded or, in major cases, deleted through Office action. Awadewit, if you see a hook in the future on the queue, please join the #wikipedia-en channel and type in !admin. There are many admin that will jump in and remove the hook immediately if no one here is able to. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:37, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
I don't recall reading such a policy. Would you mind pointing it out to me? Gatoclass (talk) 16:56, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Please read the resolution, which requires that all material must conform to GFDL, which means that any copyrighted material must be used within the regulations of "fair use", which requires quoting of direct phrases, with a phrase being more than three consecutive words. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:07, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
I seem to recall we've had this discussion before, but could you point me to the page with the statement about the "more than three consecutive words"? I'm having trouble locating it. Gatoclass (talk) 18:29, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Go back one or two archives; it's the DANFS mess. That's a totally different box of chocolates though, as this is copyrighted and that was (mainly) about public domain text. —Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 23:11, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
For a note - I was involved with some of the Free Republic copying of news articles lawsuit(I was a member of the forum at the time). The court decision laid out some structure to what "fair use" is. They basically defined it based on the legal understanding of "phrase" and original wording. This section discusses how to approach copyrighted text, but doesn't address what wouldn't be copyrighted (i.e. coincidental phrasing). The issue surrounds section three of the law. Normally, the issue doesn't matter if the language is directly attributed as coming from another source and only a small portion of the source. This essay on quotations (which should probably be made a guideline if Wiki is to be deemed more academic) lays out some good structures surrounding quoting. They provide the academic rule of thumb, which has appeared in various textbooks for students working on research papers: "In general, using three or more consecutive words from a source is a quotation." A quote is still a quote if it has quotation marks or not, by the way. Even copyrighted material with quotation marks that lacks an attribution is infringing. There are two parts of a whole that are required, especially to meet the fair use requirements. The above links discuss that. I hope this helps. I should probably put together a crash course on Wikiversity about the matter. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:52, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

If anyone wants a comparative analysis to reinforce what Awadewit states: 1. Direct copying of text in the previous version, still some "too similar" phrasing in the current. Also, no clear evidence in the article that "redundant"="lay off":

  • Article: A statement issued by the receiver, Deloitte's David Carson, confirmed that, of the 670 employees, 480 of them would be laid off.
  • Previous: A statement from the receiver, David Carson of Deloitte, confirmed that 480 of the 670 employees had been made redundant
  • Source: A statement from the receiver, David Carson of Deloitte, confirmed that 480 of the 670 employees have been made redundant.

2. Some tenses change and some phrases rearranged, but there are major similarities plus the "scuffle" becomes "scuffles" against what the source provides:

  • Article: The workers responded angrily to this unexpected decision and at least 100 of them began an unofficial sit-in in the visitors' gallery at the factory that night. They insisted they would refuse to leave until they had met with Carson. There were some scuffles at one point and a main door to the visitors' centre was damaged.
  • Source: At least 100 Waterford Crystal employees are refusing to leave the visitors' gallery at the factory tonight and are staging an unofficial sit-in. The employees say they will not be leaving until they meet with Mr Carson. Following the revelations, there was a minor scuffle during which the main door to the visitors' centre was damaged.

3. Similar phrasing, introduction, etc:

  • Article: Local Sinn Féin Councillor Joe Kelly was amongst those who occupied the visitors' gallery.[53]
  • Source: Local Sinn Féin Councillor Joe Kelly, who is one of those currently occupying the visitors' gallery, said the receiver had told staff he would not close the company while there were interested investors.
That sound help show what Awadewit saw (from one section). Ottava Rima (talk) 16:55, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Not interested in commenting on the rest of this, but for the record, in Britain (at least) "redudancy" is synonymous with "layoff." rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 17:05, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
These are very innocuous phrases. Remember that ideas cannot be copyrighted, only the expression of them. Do you mind informing me in how many other ways you can say "unofficial sit-in"? Or "Sinn Féin Councillor Joe Kelly"? These are just descriptive terms, nothing more. Gatoclass (talk) 17:01, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
If you read the source, you will see that the entire style of the passage has been copied - diction, syntax (that is, the expression). This is not a paraphrase. For an explanation of how to properly paraphrase, see here. Awadewit (talk) 17:03, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
You may be correct, I haven't looked at the article and thus haven't formed an opinion, and I'm afraid I'm too tired tonight to do so. Thankyou for the link though, very useful. Gatoclass (talk) 17:14, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Gatoclass, the appearance of "similar phrasing" along side of directly used phrasing undermines the idea of "coincidental language" within copyright cases. Thus, similar phrasing that does not necessary meet copyright infringement on its own will count towards such when it is blatant in other instances. As can be seen from number one, it is a directly taken sentence. Thus, the other two "similar" phrasing are deemed as part of the larger problem. However, number two has enough taken to also be comparable to number one. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:07, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree that he could have worked a little harder to change the structure of the paragraph. Gatoclass (talk) 17:16, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Awadewit is absolutely right here. This is clearly a case of plagiarism. (And in my experience, plagiarism is rife at DYK.) --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 17:38, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Can I thank Awadewit for laying his case out so clearly. I think that if I came across text like this then I would copyedit to remove the identical phrases.... and I would record why I had done so in the edit log. That would have achieved this correctioo without all this debate. (If it was "my" text then I certainly would not reach for a lawyer.) If there is a single editor who thinks that plasgiarism is OK then lets ban them from the project. However I don't think that is anywhere near this situation. Lets assume good faith, unless there is clear evidence otherwise Victuallers (talk) 12:41, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

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