Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 73

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Next step

As T:TDYK is looking much more manageable since the daily archiving system was dropped, I think it's time we started considering the next step in the proposed new reviewing system. We may all want to take a break for a few days to let things settle down, but after that, I think the next step will be to trial Rjanag's checklist. The best way to do this IMO would be to introduce one of the new checklists into the nomination template so that it is output for all the new nominations.

Since we never resolved the question of which of Rjanag's two checklists to use, either the one with the signature or the one without, we need to make a decision on that. I would probably favour using the one without a signature at this point because people are going to be unfamiliar with it and it requires a much easier "y" or "n" response to the fields. If it seems to be working okay after a couple of weeks trial, we can revisit the question of which checklist would be best. I'm inclined to think it might be best if we could eventually give users the option of using either one or the other checklist in the nom template, assuming that is technically possible. Gatoclass (talk) 12:01, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I'd be for the signature one. Good idea, Gato. Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:41, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I really don't care and would be fine with either one. Since so many people have strong opinions one way or the other, let my vote here just be "yes, I saw this, happy to accept a majority choice either way."

Sharktopus

^talk 14:53, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Agree with Sharktopus, but I'd defer to Gato since he and Rjanag have devoted the most time to thinking this through. Cbl62 (talk) 15:10, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

It occurred to me since the previous post that we can just trial one for two or three weeks, then trial the other, and go with whichever one gets the most support. It makes a lot more sense to trial them both IMO than try and guess which one will be preferable. In which case, I think it would be better to trial the simpler one first because it's easier to understand. Gatoclass (talk) 15:58, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

That sounds very sensible, I fully support a more "scientific" approach to this question. Prioryman (talk) 17:30, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I would say the sooner the better so that we keep some forward momentum. Mikenorton (talk) 22:12, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

What has one to do to get a picture displayed?

I cannot recall how long ago I had a dyk with a picture. Recently I created a DYK about a famous picture, and I though to myself - surely, the picture of this (famous, PD) painting will make a great DYK feature. I specifically asked that this nom be delayed if necessary so that it can be used with a picture. I even designed the hook so that it would interplay with the picture, and I think the picture is clear enough to be interesting even as a thumb on the front page. Yet now I see that this request was ignored, without any comment, and the the nom is going to the front page in a set which features a different picture (and IMHO, a much less clear one). See: Template:Did you know nominations/Constitution of May 3, 1791 (painting), Template:Did you know/Preparation area 3. If there are any DYK admins reading that, I'd like to ask for reconsideration - either switch the pics, or please move my nom to a set where it can have the picture. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 01:47, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Here is your image at the 100 x 100 px resolution used on the Main Page. Detailed images are hard to see, and non-square images are shrunk more severely than square ones. Would you consider cropping a square detail from the painting that could show up better when shown at this size?

Sharktopus

^talk 02:09, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

It has never been the case that submitting a nomination with a picture guaranteed the hook would run with the picture. DYK generally gets more picture nominations than it has spaces to use, and it's up to the people putting together the next updates to decide which pictures to use and which pictures not to. I assume the reasons your picture wasn't used are related to what Sharktopus points out above. rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:13, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Exactly why I did not include the image. Not good at 100px, although at higher resolutions it is fantastic. Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:33, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm, personally I think the image is still relatively clear at 100x100. With all due respect, I think it is more meaningful that the current green-gray blurry image for the hook in Prep 3.

The painting is notable and recognizable even as a thumb; for example a thumb of similar size is found on a Polish governmental "visit Poland" site here, in this numismatic item... the point being, the painting is iconic and recognizable (at least to Polish people) even as a thumb. It's a little like the US flag: you may not be able to count all the stars on the thumb, but that doesn't matter, does it? PS. I'll link this discussion from WT:POLAND for more opinions. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 07:03, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Independently of this thread, I noticed that the lead in prep 4 is on a weaker side and am going to replace it with your picture, but crop a fragment out of it, if no objections. Materialscientist (talk) 07:07, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

If you think you can make a good crop, go ahead. I made two today for other purposes, btw - check my recent commons uploads. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 07:10, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

A crop of the image should be fine. Both approved hooks with images (and not American, as most of previous leads being about the US) that I saw when building preps had pretty bad images at 100px. Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:34, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Error in Aug 20 DYK

Mandy Rice-Davies should be removed from the Aug 20 2011 DYK. Please see Talk:The_Mangrove for details. Wwwhatsup (talk) 06:42, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

I assume you're referring to the entry for "Mangrove restaurant" at Wikipedia:Recent_additions#20_August_2011. That page is an archive, and as such, old hooks are not removed from it or modified, even if it turns out later that they were incorrect. rʨanaɢ (talk) 06:57, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Understood. I have corrected the article. Wwwhatsup (talk) 08:12, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Depth of review

Many reviewers have reverted to a very lax format in the review sign-offs. See, e.g., "check mark with no commment at all, "All checks out OK", Date, length, hook checks out.", "Date, size, hook ref all fine.", "Hook's inline cite (the article's only online ref) confirms the claim.", "5-fold expansion achieved. source checked. OK.". It was my understanding that we, as reviewers, were to be verifying (either by use of checklist or some narrative verification) that we've checked for such things as copyvio, close paraphrasing, and reliable sources. The reviews above do not have any of these verifications. Are such review notations acceptable? If not, should we be notifying people who leave these sorts of reviews that they are insufficient? Cbl62 (talk) 16:41, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

As I understand the current situation, we are about to embark on a test of some alternative review templates, see section Wikipedia talk:Did you know#Next step above, which will hopefully concentrate minds to make reviews more explicit. Mikenorton (talk) 22:15, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

I personally don't find them acceptable. My recent review is "subst:dyktick 1,506 characters, no copyvio, sourced to reliable sources, a new article, and ready to go. Something like that would even be sufficient in my opinion. Joe Chill (talk) 22:47, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

This is an inevitable side-effect of requiring DYK submitters to review another DYK. A template with a checklist will help. Will Beback talk 22:58, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Nominating articles

Used to be so easy. Can't fathom out what is wrong with the nom for MV Nyon. I followed the instructions but summat's gone wrong somewhere. Mjroots (talk) 20:01, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

[1] You didn't enter the title of your article. This part of the nomination process has been the same for over 2 years (none of the recent changes have changed the fact that you need to enter the title of your article when filling out the template). rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:28, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure I entered the title before clicking on the link. Mjroots (talk) 21:25, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

You did. You didn't enter the article title in the actual template, the part that looks like this:

 | article         = Article title in plain text; no [[ ]]

rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:26, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Wording change needed (queue 1)

In Template:Did you know/Queue/1 wording of the hook got changed from into a rather weird "Poland–Lithuania's 1791 constitution". Granted, this happened few days ago at Template:Did you know nominations/Constitution of May 3, 1791 (painting) which I okeyed back then, but I caught it now. Poland-Lithuania is not clear (it's a disambig for a reason), it should be Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth or a pipe to that from Polish-Lithuanian; and the constitution is usually known not by just the year, but by he year and exact date, as in Constitution of May 3, 1791. So I'd strongly suggest changing the Poland–Lithuania's 1791 constitution to [[Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth}Polish-Lithuanian]] [[Constitution of May 3, 1791]]. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 07:01, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Done Calmer Waters 07:18, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..................

Should be me in about eight minutes - it's late where I am and I started loading prep 4 and fixing up refs for Soldan International Studies High School. Anyone is more than welcome to get stuck into it/them. Was going to do more but am overcome by a wave of fatigue so thought I'd pass the baton and go to sleep...'night all. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:26, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Preps are done. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.... (huh?) zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:17, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

I've returned one to the nominations page as the hook fact wasn't cited, so Prep 2 is now one short. Yomangani ^talk 16:48, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

..and I've returned it to prep thanks to a speedy response from the nominator. so all is well once more.Yomangani ^talk 17:41, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

All queues are empty, admin help needed

Preps full, queues empty. Thanks for helping if you can. $Sharktopus$ ^talk 17:30, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

One set done. I can look at at least one more set before going offline for a bit. Kindly Calmer Waters 18:14, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks!

Sharktopus

^talk 18:37, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Maybe it is time for articles to be on the main page for 12 hours instead of 8. The queues are never full which shows that there just aren't enough DYK's for them to be on the main page for only 8 hours. Ryan Vesey Review me! 18:41, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

The filling or not of the queues is less informative about the number of DYKs nominated that the filling or not of the preps, in my opinion. The number of hooks per set has been reduced to 6 as an alternate way to slow down the flow. $Sharktopus$ ^talk 00:32, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Earl Best

Hello, all. I just found out about this, have no clue what the best thing to do is, but have to go offline soon. I hope someone will help take care of this. The DYK candidate article Earl Best was created on July 23rd, nominated on July 24th, approved on August 2nd, promoted to prep on August 3rd, but was removed from P4 about 10 days ago, and no one else seems to have noticed the remover's notice on Talk:Earl Best. While the drive-by editing was probably done with good intentions, this messes up the due process. This DYK candidate came from a new contributor and the approved nom deserves to be better processed. I'm putting this back on T:TDYK#Articles created/expanded on July 23 for now. I don't know how to undo the wikicoding to unhide the nom template. I'll be away till the weekend. Can someone take care of this, please? Thanks. --PFHLai (talk) 03:35, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

For future reference: the best way to undo the wikicode and re-open a nomination is to open the history and revert to the last version before it was promoted. rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:16, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

On second thought, it's probably also good to leave a note in the nomination page (not on T:TDYK, where people might not see it) explaining that the article was removed from the queue, and why. Here Casliber promoted it again, I assume because he wasn't aware people had raised problems about it here and at the article talk page, since no one had mentioned these problems at the nom page itself. rʨanaɢ (talk) 18:16, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, Rjanag. (I almost started a new template, a la AfD on a second nomination... good that I did not.) --PFHLai (talk) 13:50, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

FWIW I have found it pretty difficult to navigate around and find out what happened to this article. Attempted to re-edit to address concerns, but at one point while clicking through these pages I found an online tool indicating if you use 3 words in a row that match any given source it's unacceptable. Not sure how to find that tool again to check my work. One person says too many references, one says not enough; luckily some of you folks helped out on that. This article is relatively short, straightforward, and cleaned up compared to some of what's in DYK, but it's sure proving complicated to figure out how to get it right. Trilliumz (talk) 23:55, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

In the past, it has proven futile to try to get them to accept re-explanations for newcomers as quickly as they change the rules. Art LaPella (talk) 00:31, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Is anyone checking for close paraphrasing?

This is one reason the community has insisted on a checklist. It's just too easy to wave noms through with a "good to go", or by mentioning a short list of hook and timing attributes.

Quick spot-check of Kenneth_Bryden, which is on the main page now.

opened the first constituency office in Canada, at their own expense. (was the plural in the original wrong, BTW?)
opened the first constituency offices in Canada at their own expense.

he introduced door-to-door canvassing to Canada (on the boundary of acceptable change, perhaps)
he introduced the concept of door-to-door canvassing to Canadian politics

He was described by historian Desmond Morton as "the shrewdest political mind in the party."
He was described by historian Desmond Morton as "the shrewdest political mind in the party." (might have at least turned it from passive to active)

Ref 1 (cited nine times) says Presbyterian Record, but the copyright is now owned by "Gale, Cengage Learning", and who knows what changes they made to it. The website is CBS Business Network. I cannot check the other sources, because they're in Amazon books. Tony (talk) 03:17, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

The checklist hasn't been implemented yet. Regarding these examples, they are minor and arguably categorized as simple statements of fact, that are not subject to copyright. In any case, spotchecking can't be expected to find every possible violation. Gatoclass (talk) 04:34, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

And here we see the problem writ large. Apologists for DYK can't even see obvious plagiarism when it's in their face. Malleus Fatuorum 04:50, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

It seems that what is obvious to you Malleus is at times far from obvious to other users, like your objections to the above hooks. Gatoclass (talk) 06:26, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

With due respect to Gatoclass, who has been shouldering a lot of the work of trying to get DYK to a point that is acceptable to both regulars and reformers, I do think these are plagiarized. Has anyone had a word with the article writer? Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 06:44, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I didn't actually say they weren't plagiarized Ed :) I said they were at worst minor examples. As it happens, I agree the last example is plagiarism, however, I feel the first two examples express simple facts in common phrases and would be borderline examples at best. Gatoclass (talk) 07:28, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

"Is anyone checking for close paraphrasing?" Searching T:TDYK shows that many reviewers specifically mention having done so. A few of us paste in Tony's review-template. Others specify having done such checks by mentioning Duplication Detector or saying "No copyvio, plagiarism or close paraphrasing." Completed reviews, which vanish from T:TDYK after moving to Prep, presumably show even higher percentages of source-checking. The minimum generally approved, IIRC, was to do a spot check of one major online source using Duplication Detector, since the CorenBot and its clones remain sadly unavailable. This will not catch every instance of close paraphrasing; it should have flagged the incident Tony mentions. I too would like to see a review-template back in the nomination template, one that includes a check for copyvio/platiarism/close paraphrasing. $Sharktopus$ ^talk 13:06, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to give Duplication Detector a try, where can I find it? Gatoclass (talk) 13:22, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

http://toolserver.org/~dcoetzee/duplicationdetector/ Yomangani ^talk 13:29, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Yomangani :) IMO it would be a good idea to link this tool, along with any others of the same type, to the top of the nominations page where everyone can find them. Gatoclass (talk) 16:36, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

The tool can be used to compare the article to the article's frequently cited on-line sources. That doesn't take a lot of effort and would have caught the issue raised by Tony with Kenneth_Bryden. Cbl62 (talk) 22:24, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

The close paraphrasing in that article was caught during the review and the main editor did some work on it. The follow-up left a little to be desired, but there's no reason to believe the checklist would have helped with that; a checklist can only act as an aid to reviewers, it doesn't improve the quality of reviews by its mere existence. Yomangani ^talk 23:05, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Is anyone seeing the improvements?

Only a few days away, I notice even more improvements: article history to nomination, review history to talk page automatically! This should increase the transparency of the review process, thanks! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:58, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Rjanag has done a fantastic job. WT:DYK is calmer too (we're to only 130kb from 700 a month ago) and DYK appears to be getting fewer complaints at Talk:Main page than any section other than FA and FL. Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:33, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Help needed with DYK review

I'm reviewing a DYK nomination at the moment (Template:Did you know nominations/Deaths at the Berlin Wall) but it raises an issue that, frankly, I'm uncertain about. Could other editors please take a look and provide some second opinions? Prioryman (talk) 20:58, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I've left a comment there. Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:16, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Lame hooks

I'm starting to see them again:

... that the Fairey Stooge was a surface-to-air missile powered by air-to-ground rockets?

... that Sanzo Nosaka trained Japanese prisoners of war to fight for Mao Zedong?

These are just workday facts. For a DYK, a hook needs to be more than that. Otherwise, I don't want to know, as a reader. Tony (talk) 01:39, 23 August 2011 (UTC) PS Actually, Prep areas 3 and 4 have more lame hooks than these. A penny for each one you spot? Tony (talk) 01:40, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Tastes differ, I guess. I thought the hook about Sanzo Nosaka was so interesting that I used it as a quirky for the end hook -- Japanese prisoners being recruited to fight for a Chinese revolutionary leader? You don't think that's cool? I also like the contrast of surface-to-air and air-to-ground.

Sharktopus

^talk 01:54, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

If DYK is what it says on the tin then the hooks ought to be genuinely surprising, or at least something that more than three people in the world care about. Perhaps it really ought to be re-labelled as "Do you care"? Malleus Fatuorum 01:59, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Putting everything to "taste" is an old technique that you've used here before to discredit complaints about other aspects. Technically, they are not out of the ordinary as they stand now. The Mao hook needs more wording in the hook if readers aren't going to gloss straight over it. Tony (talk) 02:15, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

If you're replying to me, as your indentation suggests, then I'm rather puzzled. My view quite simply is that DYK has outlived its usefulness, and ought to be allowed a dignified death. Malleus Fatuorum 02:26, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Sharktopus. I also found the Sanzo Nosaka hook interesting. I always find it odd when individual editors think that their personal view of what is interesting/lame simply must be representative of what the worldwide readership of Wikipedia thinks. Also have to love the omniscience in being able to predict what "more than three people in the world care about." Looks like we've already got two for Sanzo Noska... :P Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 02:14, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Response to Sharktopus: Putting everything to "taste" is an old—and by now tired—technique you've used here before to try to discredit criticisms of other aspects. Technically, these hook-statements are not out of the ordinary as they stand. The Mao hook needs more wording if readers aren't going to gloss straight over it. Tony (talk) 02:15, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

This one gets a 3/10 for interest, from me: "... that the five largest public library systems in the United States are in Boston, New York, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, and Detroit?"

BTW, this one needs chopping back. Isn't anyone copy-editing the hooks? "... that handball goalkeeper Andrea Farkas achieved both an Olympic bronze ~~medal~~ and ~~Olympic~~ silver medals with the Hungarian national team?" [Interest level 5/10, bare pass, I suppose. I'd avoid it or beef it up.] Tony (talk) 02:22, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Response to Tony's response to Sharktopus: Surely I am allowed to disagree with somebody else's opinion without being accused of trying to discredit all opinions other than my own by putting "everything" to "taste." I did think your change to Andrea Farkas was an improvement to my copyedit of that hook, and that my copyedit of that hook was an improvement of the version I found in Prep, which I often copyedit. I invite you to join me in copyediting Preps whenever you have time; your really good editing skills would be very welcome there.

Sharktopus

^talk 18:34, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Tony -- Your proposed edit of the Farkas hook was helpful. I went ahead and modified the hook. Cbl62 (talk) 03:13, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

It's been self-evident for a long time now that those passing DYK nominations don't even read the article, never mind copyedit the hooks. Malleus Fatuorum 02:31, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Sharktopus and Agne on the Sanzo Nosaka hook. For someone with knowledge of/interest in 20th Century history, the notion of WWII Japanese soldiers being trained to fight for Mao is striking. That's a solid hook. And a well developed article that is quite worthy of Main Page exposure. Cbl62 (talk) 03:07, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

@Malleus_Fatuorum: would you please stop using this page as your personal spittoon. Thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 03:11, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

In a word, no. Spittoons get what they're designed for. Malleus Fatuorum 03:34, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Some editors are in the habit of getting away with more than others, and this confrontation is relatively mild. However, there is no way it can be "self-evident" from article quality, that the number of editors reading the article is one (the author) but not two (a quid pro quo reviewer). Nor can there be a way to know nobody copyedits hooks before they go to the Main Page, because that would be to know a falsehood; I do exactly that (the word was "copyedit", not "copyedit to Malleus's satisfaction"). Art LaPella (talk) 04:12, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

My only expectation of "copyedit" at the DYK spittoon is no spelling errors and no glaring errors of grammar. Malleus Fatuorum 04:21, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Presumably referring to misspelled articles; WP:ERRORS reports of misspelled DYK hooks are probably less than one a month. It's OK to want to do away with DYK, and it might even be OK to call it a spittoon – without the hyperbole. Art LaPella (talk) 04:34, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

No, just referring to the obvious problems with almost every DYK. They're generally quite short, so it's not much of a job to check them. Malleus Fatuorum 04:46, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Eh. Personally, I do indeed find the first of the example hooks given to be boring, though I can see how a tech geek brought up on reading Jane's might find it potentially tantalizing (it holds the vague promise of gear head talk). The second hook though was good enough for me to go and actually read the article, which I really had no purpose in reading except sheer interest (I suspect that just the very fact of invoking Mao works a little bit like invoking Hitler - it'll get you some hits no matter what).

That's basically a round about way of saying that we should just leave it alone. Who's u to say it's lame? At the end of the day, if a particular hook is boring then... well, what exactly? The article is gonna get, what, 50, 100, 300 fewer hits while on main page? Not exactly end of the world is it? And ultimately it's likely going to be the nominator/author who is in the best place to judge what makes for an interesting hook, as they know the subject best. Of course reviewers can make suggestions but the article creator should - provided there is no sourcing or similar issues - be the person who actually decides what we go with. And even if the author/nominator is wrong about the aesthetics (is there any reason to think that the reviewer will have better taste? They all get pulled from the same non-random population pool; Wikipedia geeks) it's really just their loss, not Wikipedia's.

The only thing here I would watch out for is excessively sensationalist hooks, particularly with respect to BLPs, which has also been something that's been brought up (between a rock and a hard place - too interesting and it's "sensationalism", too kosher and it's "lame"). Other than that, hands off!.

Seriously folks, focus on the issues that are actually important - like potential copyvios on the main page. There are reasons enough to criticize DYK but criticizing DYK just cuz it's the cool thing to do these days is just .... lame.Volunteer Marek (talk) 03:57, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Great points Marek, especially regarding the greater problem of having too sensational hooks. I just think these arguments about boring hooks/interesting-ness all boils down to a great deal of hubris and me-centric thinking. If someone took the time to research a topic and write an article about it, then guess what? It's interesting. Maybe not to you or whatever imaginary number of people you omnisciently know find the hook boring but the article's mere existence (and the presence of reliable sources needed to even craft the article) proves that to some people, it is interesting. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 04:08, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I maintain that some hooks are objectively substandard, namely those which present an everyday fact rather than an unusual one. Regarding the above two examples, the first is not uninteresting, but is inadequately phrased, it should have been made clear these were booster rockets. The article itself should not have been promoted since it contains several uncited paragraphs, but again, a checklist hasn't been implemented yet. The second hook I too find quite interesting, turning POWs into combatants in a different war is a pretty unusual event in my estimation. Gatoclass (talk) 04:46, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

As noted above, neither hook could be considered objectively substandard. The "Fairey Stooge" hook is hooky in my opinion since Fairey is a homophone of Fairy, and stooge makes me think of Larry, Moe, and Curly. The Japanese hook was interesting too; training Japanese POWs to fight for the Chinese in the period around WWII? You might need a little background knowledge to see how odd that was, but it is safe to say that there was no love lost between either group. The library hook is an interesting fact for those interested in libraries. The copyedit to the Farkas hook was a good suggestion, no doubt. Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:53, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I found the first hook interestingly enough to read the article, and the second hook exceedingly interesting. That some people doesn't know enough about war to enjoy war related hooks, doesn't make said hooks actually poor. Many people find war hooks interesting. These "lame" rants are ridiculous, and serves only to push good contributors away from the project. Manxruler (talk) 07:08, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

New nominations page section

I added a new section to the nominations page named Reviewing tools, and added a link to Duplication Detector to it. Any other tools helpful to reviewing can also be added to this section.

For some reason, the full url to the Duplication Detector link is appearing; I'd appreciate it if someone who knows how to prevent that would do so. Gatoclass (talk) 05:10, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Got it. Will Beback talk 05:14, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Oops, looks like I inadvertently double posted the url! Thanks for your help. By sheer coincidence, I just finished reviewing your hook :) Gatoclass (talk) 05:46, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I've moved that into Wikipedia:Did you know/Reviewing guide#Resources; feel free to add others there. cmadler (talk) 12:47, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I restored it. It's fine to have the tools linked at the Reviewing guide page, but many people may never look at that page and I think the tool needs to be in a prominent place on T:TDYK. Gatoclass (talk) 13:40, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Template:Did you know nominations/Cuban Friendship Urn

Hi all, I asked for a second opinion on the reliability / independence of the sources ~~seven~~ nine days ago. Could one of you please have a look, as the discussion went stale? Thanks, --Pgallert (talk) 08:23, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Cmadler and I have both taken a look at the article and agree that it can be promoted. Thankyou for bringing it to our attention. Gatoclass (talk) 15:05, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I'd actually prefer to see the citations adjusted a bit, as I described on the nomination page, but I don't think it's a big issue. cmadler (talk) 15:21, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't realize you were actually recommending changing the cites, I thought you just meant "these facts are reliable because they could be just as well cited to ... ". In any case, I don't think it's necessary. They both fit the definition of reliable sources IMO, the fact that they don't totally conform with one another is covered by WP:Conflicting sources as Orlady suggested. Gatoclass (talk) 15:44, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Prep areas need filling

I begun prep 4, but (again) need to sleep. Just giving folks a heads up that anyone is welcome to fill prep 4 and others. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:51, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Prep 4 is done... but now I need sleep. Crisco 1492 (talk) 17:39, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Thx - up now. Preps 3 and 4 are in queue and I've asked for protection over on commons. They are pretty quick at doing this, but someone would be prudent to check this in an hour or two. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:55, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Prep 4

Can anybody understand what this hook is trying to say (bolding mine): ".. that Michael Herrmann (pictured), who founded the Rheingau Musik Festival in 1987, has directed it to around 150 concerts every summer season, in vineyards and historical buildings?". Obviously he's not pointing the way on the road. Unfortunately the article doesn't make it any clearer and the cited source only says it has grown to 150 concerts. Yomangani ^talk 15:06, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Tweaked to conform with source and avoid clumsy phraseology. Gatoclass (talk) 15:13, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Try ... that Michael Herrmann (pictured) has managed the growth of the Rheingau Musik Festival from 19 concerts in 1987 to about 150 concerts per year in recent years? Or something like that. See Artistic director (music) for clarification on the term. cmadler (talk) 15:20, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

(ec) @ gatoclass: Thank you! But: it's not exactly 150, if that matters - the source is too simple there (but English), sometimes 153, sometimes 149. I also don't know which year those high numbers were reached, the first festival had 19 events (some sources say 18 but are wrong). I tried to say that there was a process but didn't know how, - and wanted to avoid the most horrible thing around here, close paraphrasing, smile. - Needless to say, it's good as it is.

@ cmadler: as if you read that (or my mind), --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:25, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Trying (to say also, that he had the idea, the first season was 1988, now many events are not concerts, missing the summer and the vineyards, but can't have it all) ... that Michael Herrmann (pictured) founded the Rheingau Musik Festival in 1987 and managed it to grow from 19 concerts the first season to about 150 events per year? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:33, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I changed it to "that Michael Herrmann (pictured) is founder-director of the Rheingau Musik Festival, which holds about 150 concerts every summer season in vineyards and historical buildings?" Gatoclass (talk) 15:39, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! - In a way I think such a discussion should still go to the nom-template. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:49, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed a couple of your latter comments, I will re-edit the hook accordingly. Gatoclass (talk) 15:51, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I edited to remove "summer" and added a comma so the hook doesn't mean all the concerts are held in vineyards and historical buildings. Gatoclass (talk) 16:00, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

It didn't seem worth removing the hook from the prep area and unarchiving the nomination for the sake of a couple of words, and the nom talk pages' only visitors are rattlesnakes and tumbleweed. Yomangani ^talk 16:08, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Tumbleweed: what I wanted to suggest (in general) is to "close" that template only after the hook appeared, not when it's promoted to prep. The creator should keep watching it, smile. I saw this discussion only by chance, "Prep 4" told me nothing, I had no idea it went to prep, plus too many things are coming and going here ... Perhaps we should split this page in the actual running of the DYK process and more or less philosophical contemplations about what is plagiarism ... --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:23, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Personality rights and DYK

At Template:Did you know nominations/Premarital sex, Muria people, User:Antidiskriminator has expressed concern that using a picture of a person in a rather... racy... hook may be a violation of personality rights. Could somebody give feedback at the nom page? Thanks. Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:15, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick feedback. Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:45, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Plot synopsis

I understand that the "plot synopsis" section of an article need not have in-line citations. Under our DYK rules, does an uncited plot synopsis count toward the 1500 character minimum for article length? Cbl62 (talk) 22:43, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I think it does; I know I have submitted (and gotten passed) at least one DYK that wouldn't have been 1500 characters without a plot synopsis. Although in that case there was also a reception section and sources; I think reviewers have the right to reject an article if there is nothing but plot synopsis (I have rejected noms for that reason before). rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:01, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I think Rjanag is right. I know my Badai Pasti Berlalu articles would have not been approved if the plot synopsis didn't count. Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:18, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Huh. I nominated Strange Son for DYK and the reviewer told me that I needed to cite the plot summary. For a long time, I have been not citing plot summaries and entire plots because I was told that the book, film, or whatever was the source so I found it weird when the reviewer said that I needed to cite the plot. Joe Chill (talk) 01:58, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Where did the reviewer tell you that? I don't see anything to that effect at Template:Did you know nominations/Strange Son, the article talk page, or your talk page.

In any case, it shouldn't be necessary to cite the plot summary. Even most FAs don't. rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:00, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

The reviewer indirectly did by adding citation needed to the plot summary and in response to me saying on his talk page, "I also had editors repeatedly tell me that the plot didn't need to be cited because the book, film, or whatever is the citation" plus a question about my citation format. He skipped over the first point and pointed me to a link for the second point. Another problem with the reviewer was that he said that it wasn't clear what source cited the hook in his edit summary even though the next source said it in the very first sentence. Despite all of this and adding two citation needed tags, he passed my hook. Joe Chill (talk) 02:05, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Sometimes the person who reviews an article for DYK will be unfamiliar with Wikipedia conventions related to the article topic. That cross-fertilization of experiences makes DYK interesting, and it's also an excellent reason for multiple people to participate in reviews -- we may make mistakes in review, but we can correct one another's mistakes and we can learn from each other.
Having said that, I don't think that the "plot summary" in Strange Son truly qualifies as a plot summary, and I don't think it was a mistake to ask for sources. The term "plot" normally applies to works of fiction. This book is, however, a work of nonfiction; the section called "plot summary" is a description of the factual events described in the book. Since the facts presented are details of the lives of living people, it was important to make sure that the source of the information is clearly identified. --Orlady (talk) 13:51, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Like Rjanag, I've always understood that the work itself is the source for a plot summary, although any commentary, analysis, etc. does require citation to a reliable source. Also, I've alway counted a plot summary for DYK purposes, but objected if the plot summary appeared to be excessively detailed (possibly padded to meet length or expansion requirements) or made up an excessive portion of the article (subjective, to be sure, but in really bad cases this is clear). cmadler (talk) 03:26, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I think that DYK review criteria needs a big overhaul if they could be like this example. Even though it was wrong for the reviewer to add citation needed to the plot summary, Epeefleche should have also not approved my hook if he thought that the plot summary and the hook were not sourced. Joe Chill (talk) 03:39, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I've also raised some concerns on the nomination page. cmadler (talk) 12:16, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Is it possible to move my hook to a different prep area?

... that, though cancer pain can usually be eliminated or well controlled, nearly half of all patients receive inadequate treatment and suffer pain needlessly?

I gather this is impossible but, no harm in asking I guess. Presently it's in Prep area 4 and, if that moves to Queue 4, it'll be on the front page from 1:00 am (LA), 4:00 am (NY), and 9:00 am (LON). If it were to appear in Queues 2 or 5, it would appear from 9:00 am, noon and 5:00 pm, and so get much more exposure. I think this is a really important issue and would appreciate it if anything could be done to give it a bit more exposure. I intend taking it to FA eventually. Cheers. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 08:57, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Everyone wants their article to get more exposure. It's not customary to honor requests for people's article to show at a particular time unless the nom is mainly relevant to one part of the world (e.g., some admins will try to make noms about something like New Zealand wildlife show up during the day in New Zealand). For what it's worth, the time at which your article showed up on DYK will have no effect on the success of an eventual FAC. rʨanaɢ (talk) 13:37, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

[EC] For a topic of global interest (which cancer is), any time slot should be just fine. And with 8 hours on the main page, any time slot gets fairly good visibility. Regardless, even hooks about topics of relatively provincial interest (example: the history of major league baseball, which is of interest only within North America) don't generally get moved to fit the time zone of the likely audience. --Orlady (talk) 13:41, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Sometimes a hook was moved on my request, and I liked it, like three living composers mentioned in one hook, who would all sleep. But I agree that with eight hours now - instead of the former six - the problem is reduced. I think it's ok to ask, the one who moved to prep may just not have noticed. - I am quite happy with the lead hook right now at the perfect time for Europe. (This time I even took the pic.) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:49, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I timed it wrong. Sorry! Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:46, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Fair dealing - Queue 2

The fair dealing hook in Queue 2 shouldn't have a capital "F" on "fair". Yomangani ^talk 13:42, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Decapped. Thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 13:51, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Request for hook changes in queues ...

I missed getting these suggested copyedits into Prep, sorry.

... that Hugo Steinhaus (pictured) "discovered" Stefan Banach and helped to re-establish Polish mathematics at the University of Wrocław after World War II?
... that Tadeusz Szeligowski (pictured) studied composition with Nadia Boulanger and orchestration with Paul Dukas?
... that Rod Stewart forgot the name of the mandolin player for his song "Mandolin Wind"?

Use you own judgment of course, but I think these are improvements. $Sharktopus$ ^talk 22:46, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Done all and replaced the lead in Q5 (Tadeusz Szeligowski) - too lame, IMO. Any reason there are 4 music hooks in Q5? Materialscientist (talk) 23:34, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Sorry missed the boat - lots of RL chores intervened. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:02, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

No worries, thanks for making up those queues in the first place! But I also have a suggestion for the new lead hook on Queue 5, which is a bit hookier (more mysterious) without being at all misleading:

... that a kichō (pictured) made of silk came into use in aristocratic households during and following the Heian period in Japan?

I need to do a better job of suggesting these while still in Prep, but my RL chores are also intruding on DYK.

Sharktopus

^talk 00:14, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I am glad for a new hook for that one - ~~will tweak~~.aah done already Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:29, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Passing article

Hi folks just a question. I reviewed the Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker and commented that it was not yet a x5 expansion. Another editor has expanded the article and passed it as now suitable for DYK. They only added around 500 bytes but is this acceptable? Jim Sweeney (talk) 11:12, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

That other editor is me, but I'm not quite sure what your question is. Is what acceptable? Yomangani ^talk 11:15, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

The article looks fine to me. Should I give it one more green as an independent reviewer who didn't work on it (if that is the question)? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:25, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I think those edits collectively may have been just substantial enough that the DYK nomination should have been left to a different editor to approve. I think that was the question -- that Yomangani added significant content (not huge, but still, more than just cleaning up what's already there) to the article, and then also approved the nomination. cmadler (talk) 11:55, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

So I also approved it (not going to count that as a review, smile), --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:08, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't seem sensible, having done all the checks, not to give an opinion on the article's suitability for DYK. If I edit an article while it is up at FAC that does not disqualify me from giving an opinion on the FAC, and I'm sure we were trying to steer away from making DYK more rigorous than FAC. That said, I can't see any objection, other than efficiency, to giving any nomination another review even if it has previously been marked as passed or failed, so if a reviewer doubts the validity of a review they can just re-review the nomination. Yomangani ^talk 12:26, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I personally didn't question that, just added green for the formalists, trusting your thorough look at the article. - I recall a nom (Mainz Carnival) when the reviewer got so deeply into adding refs to the article that she asked someone else to review. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:33, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I make it a practice to leave the hook for someone else to "approve" if my review efforts included substantial article edits and/or suggestions for new hooks. Unfortunately, those "all but approved" noms often sit on the noms page for days waiting for attention, possibly due to a mistaken perception that only the person who started the review is entitled to complete it. --Orlady (talk) 12:53, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, great point Orlady. I wonder if it is worthwhile to have a flag icon of some sort that the "original reviewer" can put on the nom asking for attention? Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 20:27, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Review notification

sort of like the way ITN does it, i propose we tag reviewed articles with a [Reviewed] before the title so as to easily find articles that have not been reviewed. this would also help new reviewers easily go back and find older unreviewed articles, as right now the tendency is to go to the bottom where its easier to find unreviewed articles per the criteria for noms. should be deadly simply to impose and write into the rules.Lihaas (talk) 22:37, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Removal

I have just removed Tadeusz Szeligowski from queue, can someone work out how to re-add it to T:TDYK? Nikkimaria (talk) 13:50, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Done. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:14, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

T:TDYK#How to remove a hook from the prep areas or queue. rʨanaɢ (talk) 14:30, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I messed up a DYK nomination

I created the nomination Template:Did you know nominations/Bomb Pop, but it says 5x expanded by [[User:|User:]] ([[User talk:|talk]]). I tried fixing it, but I am unable to. I will add it to the DYK nominations page when this issue is fixed. Joe Chill (talk) 17:17, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Credited to Joe Chill, can be moved to page. Froggerlaura (talk) 18:29, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
- Thank you. Joe Chill (talk) 18:31, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I left a note on the nomination's talk page explaining what went wrong. For future reference, when these sort of errors happen the easiest way to fix them is just to click "Back" on your browser, fill out the template again (most of these errors happen because something was left blank in the template) and save again. rʨanaɢ (talk) 21:00, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Just so no-one uploads...

I have asked the next four images in the four prep areas be protected there. They are pretty prompt so should be done pretty quickly. If someone can do preps to queue. I feel a bit COI uploading a prep area with my own hook in it..cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:01, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Update - all on commons are protected there now. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:05, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Lontar Project and DYK

As noted on my talk page, I have been chosen by Wikimedia Indonesia to help with collaboration between Wikimedia and the Lontar Foundation (which focuses on Indonesian culture and literature). One of the things this entitles is helping the Lontar Foundation staff learn to write for the English-language Wikipedia, including but not limited to copyright issues, English-Wiki MOS, language, and referencing standards (all of which are stricter here than on the Indonesian Wikipedia). If I were to give an assignment for them to get an article promoted in DYK, are there any things I should do beforehand? Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:58, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Congratulations, Crisco, and congrats to the foundation for getting such a helpful, competent person to help them. Maybe some of Wikipedia's help-pages for teachers with classes editing Wikipedia would be relevant to what you want? It would be helpful if you would look over new articles to exert some quality control before they get nominated. You could catch basic errors before DYK reviewers tackle them and likely prevent some cranky reviews hurting feelings among the novices.

Sharktopus

^talk 18:17, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Sharktopus, I'll take a look at the help pages. I will also discuss this with my go-between at WMF Indonesia. Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:21, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Although I was wondering if DYK would have any specific terms / conditions, considering how 90% of the psychology projects didn't pass last month. Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:30, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

WP:AMBASSADOR will have some very helpful basic-editing materials for you. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 05:20, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Removal

I have just removed Tadeusz Szeligowski from queue, can someone work out how to re-add it to T:TDYK? Nikkimaria (talk) 13:50, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Done. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:14, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

T:TDYK#How to remove a hook from the prep areas or queue. rʨanaɢ (talk) 14:30, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I messed up a DYK nomination

I created the nomination Template:Did you know nominations/Bomb Pop, but it says 5x expanded by [[User:|User:]] ([[User talk:|talk]]). I tried fixing it, but I am unable to. I will add it to the DYK nominations page when this issue is fixed. Joe Chill (talk) 17:17, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Credited to Joe Chill, can be moved to page. Froggerlaura (talk) 18:29, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
- Thank you. Joe Chill (talk) 18:31, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I left a note on the nomination's talk page explaining what went wrong. For future reference, when these sort of errors happen the easiest way to fix them is just to click "Back" on your browser, fill out the template again (most of these errors happen because something was left blank in the template) and save again. rʨanaɢ (talk) 21:00, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Just so no-one uploads...

I have asked the next four images in the four prep areas be protected there. They are pretty prompt so should be done pretty quickly. If someone can do preps to queue. I feel a bit COI uploading a prep area with my own hook in it..cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:01, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Update - all on commons are protected there now. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:05, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Worrying about Americanism and colloquialism

This recent addition gives me pause: DYK "... that "Little Luke"'s Ponzi scheme may lead to the "death penalty" for Miami?"

Little Luke is a nickname for Nevin Shapiro, and not a widely known nickname at that
"Death penalty" is a colloquialism and not the formal name of the NCAA sanctions
"Miami" should be University of Miami, and not the city.
The combination of all these together makes for a really puzzling headline for not just those outside the US, but for folks who don't follow American college sports.

As someone who has edited the Univ of Miami scandal page a lot, and had to help normalize that article to make it readable, I fear this DYK item is just too insider. -- Fuzheado | Talk 16:17, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, I follow CFB and I have to say that even I didn't know what this hook was talking about at first read. That is not necessarily a bad thing but this has the feel more of an April Fool's Day hook which I doubt anyone would want to save this for. I would recommend axing the nickname and writing out the University of Miami. It would be good to leave in the "death penalty" line, provided it is linked to an appropriate article that explains the term, as a catchy angle. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 16:36, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

My feelings are that I am a little uneasy with this hook being on the mainpage. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:55, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm an American, and I don't follow college sports at all (except to know when I need to avoid certain parts of town because of the traffic). I would have no clue what that hook is talking about. LadyofShalott 22:04, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I nominated that. I mentioned in my nomination that I though the hook was a little rough, but could be polished into something pretty interesting, but the reviewer liked the hook as it was, so that's the way it went. FYI, all the terms were linked appropriately: "Little Luke" to Nevin Shapiro, Ponzi scheme to Ponzi scheme, "death penalty" to death penalty (NCAA) (not the official name, but the most-widely used term for it), and Miami to 2011 University of Miami athletics scandal. cmadler (talk) 14:46, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Prep 3

Would it be possible for someone to promote prep 3 first? It doesn't seem to have shuffled to the front, and it has a hook meant for the 30th. Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:41, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

FTR, which hook is meant for August 30? --Orlady (talk) 12:25, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

The Ballad of Salah hook. Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:39, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Gun Hägglund

Interesting article, but I thought DYK was trying to raise the bar and makes its articles better. So, I have to ask, how did this one make DYK, much less the lead? The refs aren't remotely formatted properly. What's up? PumpkinSky talk 11:30, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

There are many reference formatting styles, and this one is acceptable. Yes, the article is too short for a lead, IMO, but the hook is well above average, +young female image .. :). Materialscientist (talk) 12:04, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

The format is not acceptable, no retrieve dates, no publisher, no language parameter, etc. PumpkinSky talk 12:17, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Most of them have the work; MS filled in another, online ref. Some reviewers don't consider access dates a valid reason to hold a nomination back. Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:21, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

[EC] DYK does not require perfect references, and most definitely does not insist on one particular style. The only firm requirement related to citation format is "no bare URLs." --Orlady (talk) 12:23, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

General question: I thought accessdate is needed only if there is no real date/year available? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:28, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

For Gbooks they aren't, but for a web-based reference they are preferable. They allow us to use something like this to recover the source in question. Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:35, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

If the page goes down, I mean. Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:36, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

(ec) I see, they do "go down". Two websites I frequently use changed design, Deutscher Musikrat and mica (music information center austria), I keep repairing broken links there. - And yes, I add publisher and language (below). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:52, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Not just the dates, it should have publisher and language if not English too.PumpkinSky talk 12:49, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

The work in many cases would qualify. If, for example, I were to quote Kompas, I wouldn't want to have to write {{cite news|url=http://www.kompas.com/foo|title=Foo|trans_title=English foo|language=Indonesian|work=Kompas|publisher=Kompas Gramedia Group|date=1 January 2001|accessdate=29 August 2011}} Having Kompas Gramedia group in this case would seem overdone. Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:03, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

There is a lot of leeway concerning different ways to format citations, as per WP:CITECONSENSUS, which adds "Citations may be accompanied by metadata, though it is not mandatory." $Sharktopus$ ^talk 13:25, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Yea, but certain minimal info should be present and this article's refs don't meet that, so if DYK wants to continue to be known in this manner, you guys have at it.PumpkinSky talk 14:13, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't really see a problem. Even before this complaint was raised, it looks like the references all at least had "work" and a date listed. Sure, it's not the full bibliographic citation (also having the author would be preferable), but it's enough to find the reference. rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:19, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

There is a slight problem with the hook, as other sources contradict the claim that Hagglund was first in the world. We do not have an article for her yet, but Barbara Mandell was a news reader on ITN from 1955 to early 1956: [2]. Cmprince (talk) 15:49, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

At least presently, the article doesn't say anything about "first in the world", just about "first in Sweden." Either the info should be added back into the article (if it can be verified) or the hook should be removed. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 15:52, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Image protection requested at Commons

FYI to admins: I've asked for protection for the 4 images currently in the prep area. --Orlady (talk) 15:56, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Queues 5,6

A contemporary setting is a setting, not a genre: suggest that despite the fact that the majority of submitted films are set in contemporary times, the Academy Award for Best Costume Design has only been awarded to films with such a setting twice since 1967? Kevin McE (talk) 22:48, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Michael Socha (Queue 6). Is there any reason for recording the county of birth of this actor? It is not usual practice in UK reporting outside of regional papers from the county in question. There is no suggestion in the article that he ever performed in the county other than in school. If we are reporting the filming of his scenes, it is probably superfluous to define him as an actor as well. If he was not responsible for all seven injuries, is it true to say that he injured himself, rather than that he was injured? Kevin McE (talk) 22:48, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Erementia (Q6). There is no suggestion at MOS:DATE that the word century should be capitalised in such contexts. Kevin McE (talk) 22:48, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Corrected all. Thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 23:28, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Grateful thanks to Kevin McE for changes and suggestions that improved many hooks in our current preps and queues. I am especially grateful because Hurricane Irene, despite having disappointed so many predictions, knocked out power and quite a bit more to the small summer town where I was visiting. Home again at last, so glad to be clean and warm and dry and looking at a big computer in a lit room.

Sharktopus

^talk 02:07, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Uploading prep areas to queues

Hi all, I'd do this myself but have a hook in prep area 3 - can another admin please upload? I'll drop a note at WP:AN too. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:58, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Dear admins: 5 empty queues, 4 full preps ...

... and a partridge in a pear tree to the kind admin who mops preps into queues! $Sharktopus$ ^talk 01:59, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Done. Now where's my partridge? ;) HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:19, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Done Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:36, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Loading preps and checking some older hook/articles

I've loaded up prep 3 and a bit of prep 4 - there are some older hooks which I guess should either be re-reviewed, improved or discarded. Anyone else is free to get stuck in as I am going to do some article work for a bit. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:26, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Queries

if ive reviewed 2 noms can i save one credit for my next nom? or at least per a pre-set deadline?Lihaas (talk) 00:09, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

No, whenever you nominate an article you should review an article at that time. It's not very difficult, it shouldn't be a big deal. rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:29, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

It shouldn't be a big deal to do a review, but I think the question was, is there a rule at DYK about when to do a review. I often do reviews when I have time and then "use" them when I finally get enough time to make a DYK. I have done more reviews "on spec" than I ever cashed in, so DYK is the better for letting people do that.

Sharktopus

^talk 01:54, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I just keep reviewing and use my most recent review for my nomination. By my count there must be 50 reviews that I've never used, and probably won't. I know some people keep reviews for months, and they have never had people complain. Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:01, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Thx.

I suppose for the regulars know one is going to query a review. Im currently a semi-reg here but i think ill be upping the ante soon.Lihaas (talk) 11:24, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Censorship in DYK article

I was reviewing Template:Did you know nominations/Murder of James Craig Anderson and I noticed that the article has the words nigger and fuck written as n***** and f*** respectively. The words are in direct quotes. Should we apply WP:NOTCENSORED and write the full word, or leave the words censored? Thanks. (I'm asking here as more people watch this page, and I couldn't find the proper noticeboard) Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:59, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

The source spells it with ****, so it should remain that way. The censorship originates elsewhere. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 02:05, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree, but with different logic. Since its a quote it should say as is. (at most write a "sic" beside it if you want). Outisde quotes i dont see why not to write it out unless someone challenges its meaning and can prove altenratives.Lihaas (talk) 11:21, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Please copy-edit Haugtussa (song cycle)

I reviewed the article Haugtussa (song cycle) and think you still feel a lot that it is translated. I am not the right one, English-wise, to change that and hope for a volunteer or two ... for a good subject. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:05, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I gave it a whack. Have a look. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:51, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Brilliant! You should be a co-author, imo, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:07, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Reporting quid pro quo

My article Nail Men was reviewed and promoted to prep before I did my quid pro quo review (I wasn't going to do it last night, I had been up for 26 hours and it would not have been responsible). I have now reviewed Barry Locke and am reporting it here in lieu of breaking into the closed template to add it there. Yngvadottir (talk) 19:35, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Yngvadottir. I continue to be delighted and impressed by the articles you bring to DYK – Nail Men, Architecture of the Night, and so many more that really improved the encyclopedia. I need to get back to writing more, arguing less.

Sharktopus

^talk 21:36, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

You can report a review the same way you'd make any normal comment during the nomination process (just by saying "Hey, I reviewed X"). It's not necessary to do it using the template; that template is just there to make it more convenient to add a review at the same time you nominate, if it happens that you've already done the review by then. rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:55, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

No offense, Rjanag, but the nomination was closed already. I think Yngvadottir could have put it on the nomination's talk page, which is why we made it its own template page anyways. Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:09, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Ah, my mistake; I didn't read the OP carefully. rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:10, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I cause problems by reviewing after I nominate; in most cases the 5-day deadline means I don't have time to review an article first, I'm too busy fitting building my own article or expansion around the chaos of my off-wiki life '-) (And as I said, it would not have been responsible for me to review someone's article before getting some sleep.) I actually thought of using the nom. template's talkpage, but I wanted to be up-front and above-board about it, since it is a requirement. My fault, sorry, carry on :-) (And @ Sharktopus, thanks, eek. But Architecture of the Night took too damned long to write, so it was Jan Buijs actually featured in that DYK '-) ) Yngvadottir (talk) 06:20, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

No problem, imo. Thanks to this discussion I now know where to put things that happen after the nom discussion was closed: on the nom's talk page! I was not aware of that, thanks for pointing it out, Rjanag. It's really great to see the complete process documented, thanks to you! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:56, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Community consensus brazenly disregarded

I see no checklists in use, which is a blatant breach of the "checklist" RfC consensus. It is reasonable to conclude that DYK promotions are not legitimate without the implementation of a checklist. I'm afraid that WP:IDONTLIKEIT doesn't hold any water—people had the chance to declare that, and did, but the !vote was some three-quarters in favour.

If DYK participants don't want to use a review checklist, they will need to launch another RfC to countermand the decision of the first one. Tony (talk) 06:53, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

The one notable exception where any sort of checklist is in use can be found at Template_talk:Did_you_know/3rd_Battalion,_10th_Aviation_Regiment_(United_States)#3rd_Battalion.2C_10th_Aviation_Regiment_.28United_States.29. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:56, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
Actually, that's a template. If you hunt around a bit you'll find many more noms that have been assessed against the checklist. Yomangani ^talk 09:20, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
The checking seems to be following the model of old, where some of the checked details are mentioned in no particular order; no specific mention of what hasn't been checked. If the work has been done in all cases, you're not doing yourselves any favours by burying it in the less obvious running prose format. The explicit requirements are growing in number, and if it isn't obvious 'at a glance' that the issues have all been ticked off, peer review becomes more complicated, and it is easy to omit one item. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:34, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

It's not being "brazenly disregarded" Tony, the reason no checklist is currently being used is because I suggested we delay its implementation for a week or two, in this thread. Personally I think we could probably leave it for another week or so before trying one out because I have neither the time nor the energy to participate much ATM, but if others want to push ahead with it I won't stand in the way. Gatoclass (talk) 02:52, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Why is it that I don't have much confidence in the delaying tactics? Tony (talk) 02:56, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps for the same reason I don't; there's no will to put DYK on a proper footing that might go some way towards justifying its main page presence. Malleus Fatuorum 03:01, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

It's part of the problem with DYK. If nothing's done (which will probably happen), then we'll see the problems we've always seen. If everything is implemented the detractors want, it' will be impossible to use and bureaucratized to death. Only one solution for all this. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 03:04, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Either the present DYK slot is relabelled something like "Here's a few new articles that need some help", or to match what it says on the tin it truly becomes reader-oriented. But we all know that DYK will change nothing until it's forced to, on pain of death. Malleus Fatuorum 03:20, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

If I'm not mistaken, the number of complaints by editors not involved in DYK (either supporters or detractors) regarding it has dropped in the past month. This is a good sign. Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:25, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Whether or not it's a good sign would depend on why they've stopped commenting. Discussions elsewhere would lead me to believe it's not because they feel DYK is now well on the right track. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:19, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

(out) I asked people at this page over and over again for feedback concerning various aspects of how the template should be designed; I did this because, for some silly reason, I actually cared about making a template that would be useful to people. I usually got very little response. It seems everyone wants change to happen but few people want to lift a finger to help make it happen, or to even state clearly the details of how it should be done. Since people have taken their time giving me the feedback I asked for regarding various aspects of the template, I ended up taking my time making the template. Once you guys actually decide what you want the template to look like, I can make sure it's added to nominations. The options are all clearly spelled out for you (see [3], [4]). Or, if you guys can't make a decision about what the format of the template should be, you can always go ahead and open a new discussion or RfC regarding whether a review checklist template is needed in the nomination page at all (as opposed to a review checklist stored in the reviewing guidelines elsewhere, like what's done with WP:WIAFA; see proposal here). To be honest, I'm tired of the crap I've been getting from some people when I volunteer my free time to work on these issues, so I'm not going to go off and make some decision like this by myself just to let people give me more crap. I'm not putting any of this stuff into the nomination process until the community has made a decision on it. rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:53, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Most people here are grateful for your work and sorry for the complaints aimed at you as a result of your work. Some people will not reply to your requests for feedback no matter how long you wait. How about a deadline, just a few days more, during which anybody who wants to advise you should do so?

Sharktopus

^talk 04:49, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. Rjanag, you have done fantastic work (pretty much all on your own) and it is working like a charm. Don't worry about the criticism, it is impossible to please everyone. Regarding the checklist, I think one of your horizontal ones would work best. Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:15, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Just to reiterate - I suggested we delay implementation of the checklist because (a) there were a bunch of other changes made to the DYK nom process that had created a lot of confusion, which I felt needed some time to sort out, and (b) because I felt we could all use a break from the often acrimonious discussion that had gone on for a month or two prior. Things are going more smoothly at T:TDYK right now, so (a) has diminished as an issue. With regards to (b) I am still personally committed to the notion of at least trying out Rjanag's checklist(s), it's just a matter of the DYK community deciding when is the best time to do so. Gatoclass (talk) 06:11, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Nail Man hook

As said before, Nail Men was promoted fast, now in q5. I saw the hook only now and think it's good but could be better.

... that people in Berlin raised over a million gold marks for charity in World War I by hammering nails into a wooden statue of Hindenburg 12 metres (42 feet) high?

"Nail Men" seems too precious a term to be hidden as "wooden statue", even if the text describes it to certain extent. Also World War I without a link or separator made me see "I" as in "I see". This is invitation to the hook specialists. My humble approach:

... that in World War I, people in Berlin raised over a million gold marks for charity by hammering nails into a wooden statue of Hindenburg, a Nail Man 12 metres (42 feet) high? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:28, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Template:Did you know nominations/Vigneshwara Temple, Ozar

This article is requested for tomorrow. Can someone please take a look? There are 2 references. --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 15:53, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm at a loss...

… to come up with a hook for Numbers (software). Any suggestions? Maury Markowitz (talk) 00:25, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Dolores Alexander (Q1)

I would contend that the verb "co-open" is not well established in the language. I don't think anyone imagines every role in a restaurant to be undertaken by one person, so simply saying that she opened a restaurant would be sufficient. If not, "opened with Jill Ward" should avoid the neologism. Kevin McE (talk) 09:04, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Good point. neologism avoided. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:12, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

John E Carroll (P4)

The claim that this man was the first to carry the nickname is based on one paragraph in a 35 paragraph story about Dustin Pedroia in a regional magazine. The sports journalist, one Tommy Craggs, is, I don't doubt, well qualified in his field, but is not a lexicographer, and the claim is one of many subjective comments in the article that are scarcely authoritative. Would we be willing to describe the politics of California as wackadoodle, or to attribute "an endless capacity for cultivating a sense of victimhood" as a characteristic of athletes, on the basis of such content in this article? Kevin McE (talk) 09:28, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

It's light-hearted and qualified with a "probably"...Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:15, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Probably = more likely than not, more than 50% likelihood of being true; is this really sufficient evidence for a "probably"? Light hearted is no excuse for inaccuracy. Kevin McE (talk) 11:57, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Changed to "may have been". Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:46, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Richard Bacon (Prep 4)

HMS Richard Bacon in prep 4 has a hook and an alt. I'm not sure from looking at its DYK page what was supposed to be promoted. Template:Did you know nominations/HMS Richard Bacon. SL93 (talk) 01:04, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

There was no preference indicated, so I chose the hookier of the two. Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:06, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

There are TWO hooks for Richard Bacon on prep4 now. Pick one, please. --174.89.158.199 (talk) 06:01, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. I have fixed it. Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:38, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Turn to queue 3 for the full story.

"... that Katy Perry's song "Circle the Drain" is reportedly about her former relationship with Travie McCoy?". Are we doing gossip in DYK now? Yomangani ^talk 12:52, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Was discussed at the nomination. Another ALT was suggested, "... that shortly after its release, media outlets began to speculate that Katy Perry's song "Circle the Drain" is about her former relationship with Travie McCoy?" Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:37, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
That's fractionally better, but not mentioned explicitly in the article. Avoiding the press tittle-tattle entirely would be better still. Yomangani ^talk 16:04, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

... that when singing "Circle the Drain" in a 2011 concert, Katy Perry was dressed in a catsuit and the stage was decorated with meat?

Better? Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:08, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but unfortunately the tabloid rumour version has made it onto the main page. Yomangani ^talk 09:14, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

An admin could still change it there, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:29, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Changed. Materialscientist (talk) 11:10, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:43, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Darn time zones. Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:32, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

prep 4

... that John E. Carroll may have been the first baseball player to be nicknamed "Scrappy"? is an impossible fact, as there is no historical records for all of them. The source [5] is quite uncertain on that too. Materialscientist (talk) 14:18, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

See above. I think it is OK as it says "may have been" and that's all that is claimed. Yomangani ^talk 14:26, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Liza Dalby

Can someone please delete this nomination. There's a dispute on the talkpage, that honestly I don't understand, about the hook and in deference to others I wrote the hook in such a way that it's vague. In rewriting per the reviewer's request, I'm afraid we're opening it up to edit warring, and frankly I'm not interested in dealing with that. Thanks. Truthkeeper (talk) 18:35, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Nominations aren't deleted. If you don't want to continue the nomination, you can leave a comment there stating that you withdraw the nomination, and someone will archive it afterwards. rʨanaɢ (talk) 18:50, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Okay thanks, I'll do that. Truthkeeper (talk) 18:53, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I've closed it (it says I rejected it, but I wouldn't be so harsh, that's the template talking). Yomangani ^talk 00:00, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I've just noticed this; I thought it meant you'd rejected the request. Thanks for rejecting the submission. Truthkeeper (talk) 01:57, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Discussion on main page talk

Talk:Main Page#DYK: community consensus disregarded. Nobody seems to have mentioned it here, probably because they didn't think anybody here would be interested. Yomangani ^talk 00:04, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I noticed, but figured no point in linking to a ~~rant~~ discussion that already took place here. Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:02, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
- Looks to me like a long discussion that mostly just duplicates an identical rant here on the same day, and doesn't add anything new except for looking quite a bit like there's less demand for a checklist than there was in Tony's RfC. And as usual, Tony taking a lot of pot shots at me for removing his checklists even though the DYK community supported it. rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:38, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

QRpedia

The Wikimedia UK event to which the nomination for QRpedia ({{Did you know nominations/QRpedia}} takes place at 10am BST (just under 9.5 hours from when I type). As I'm just off to bed, can anyone help make sure it gets actioned for then, please? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 23:41, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Done Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:18, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 15:18, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Template:Did you know nominations/HMS Richard Bacon

The DYK hook for HMS Richard Bacon is apparently deliberately misleading, making it sound like a man, as opposed to the boat named for him. Why? Is today the equivalent of April Fool's Day in some other country? -- Zanimum (talk) 01:09, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I should note that it is common to refer to ships without the HMS, SS, RMS, or whatever. Note how the article only uses the HMS once, afterwards it is just Richard Bacon. The same goes for RMS Titanic, which is referred to mainly as Titanic. Using a common name for something isn't misleading, IMHO. Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:49, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
The hook article title is also italicized, which should key in the reader that it is something other than a person. Froggerlaura (talk) 02:04, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

It's obviously designed to be misleading - otherwise there would be no objection to the adding of HMS. The purpose is to hook the reader and I guess that might be a successful ploy, but even if not, it isn't really going to do any harm, is it? It is italicised after all, so it does make a concession to the correct formatting (we don't italicise men's names). I think "World Wars" should be capitalised though as it refers to WWI and WW2 which are proper nouns rather than the concept of world wars in general. Yomangani ^talk 02:12, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I support the capitalization, but adding HMS is overdoing it. Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:14, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

It's good to see the capitalization changed. But not everyone is familiar with the conventions of italicizing boat names. Titanic is as famous as anything in this world, so something like that, the Lusitania, no prob. Or the Disney Dream, no prob, it's obvious the name of something. But when it's a human name, the first instinct is to go with the article being a human. Especially when there's no context. If I had never heard about the Titanic, but I read a hook saying it sank, it had 50 decks, it was featured in a movie, that would hint "gee, it must be a boat". Nothing here does. -- Zanimum (talk) 03:16, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

That wouldn't be a very good hook; I'd go with "... that the "unsinkable" Titanic sank?" Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:59, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

A great hook that would be ruined by the inclusion of HMS. violet/riga _^[talk] 02:21, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Why would it be ruined? Because it would make sense? -- Zanimum (talk) 03:16, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

It makes sense as is due to the italics. HMS would be redundant and ruin the hookiness of it; pretty much anything else that is usually italicized (book, album, film) would not make sense in that sentence, so a boat is implied. Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:57, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

It would be ruined because the whole point of the hook is the deliberate ambiguity. Far more people will have looked at the article because of the way it which it was written. violet/riga _^[talk] 15:40, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I can't fix it, but "world wars" absolutely should not be capitalized. World War I is a proper noun -- it's the name of a specific war. Likewise with World War II. "World wars" is not a proper noun -- it's not the name of any specific thing -- so it should not be capitalized. cmadler (talk) 05:14, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
- I fixed it at some point last night. violet/riga _^[talk] 15:40, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

The Preps

I think that the instructions for the promotion of preps should be clarified, as I have seen administrators sometimes promoting prep 1 when it is second or third in line. When we have articles set for a specific date or time, that can mess things up a bit. I have two suggestions:

Clearer instructions for promoting preps, or better socialization of the exiting rules.
Different names for the preps, which do not have an alpha-numeric order. For example, ~~Wind~~ Air, Earth, Fire, Water or something of the same ilk.

Any thoughts? Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:28, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

It's Air, Earth, Fire and Water. The suggestion is a good one. Mjroots (talk) 14:50, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Corrected. Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:16, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't see any harm in clearing up the instructions. I can see why changing the names of the preps might alleviate this concern, too, although I wonder if it might cause confusion? Given the small number of admins who are dealing with queues anyway, maybe an easier solution would be to just let them know. (Are we having similar problems at the queue level--i.e. admins populating queue 1 when the next queue up is queue 4 or something?) rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:54, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't see how changing the names would alleviate the problem and it would probably just create more confusion. There isn't actually any obligation for admins to take the first available prep. If there's a date-sensitive hook, it would probably make more sense to leave a note about it in the prep itself or at this page. Gatoclass (talk) 02:19, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Gatoclass: renaming them would be unlikely to result in less confusion. Clearer rules is the answer. Yomangani ^talk 02:34, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Clearer instructions for promotion of preps to queue is my first choice too. It should be noted that it is generally better for preps to be promoted in order, with the order reset after every promotion. As far as I understand the current rules, preps are not promoted in order generally when a preceding prep has some unaddressed issues. Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:45, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

@Gato: Where would this be noted? Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:45, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

GrubHub Food Delivery & Pickup in prep 1

... that GrubHub Food Delivery & Pickup enables users to order food from restaurants online in eighteen different US cities? will be considered by someone as blatant advertisement on the main page. I don't think we can feature this. Thoughts? Materialscientist (talk) 08:59, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

... that GrubHub Food Delivery & Pickup advertises its food delivery services as free, but has been sued for alledgedly charging a customer an extra dollar?

Perhaps? Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:09, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Good hook. Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:29, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

New ALT to Prep 1. Crisco 1492 (talk) 10:41, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Good, but the word is spelled "allegedly". cmadler (talk) 12:54, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Cripes. This is why I should not multi-task without a cup of Java. Thanks for the fix. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:38, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

The alt hook is also inappropriate. It gives undue emphasis to an unproven claim that the company is engaged in fraud. The referenced lawsuit was filed a couple weeks ago and has not yet been answered in court. It was filed by a single customer who, according to the source, "claims he was charged a dollar more for fettucini alfredo from Pompei Pizza." It would be grossly unfair to feature such an unproven allegation of fraud on the Main Page where it is based on one customer alleging he was overcharged by one dollar. Cbl62 (talk) 15:14, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Any suggestions? Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:25, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Ummm ... "... that Grub Hub was named by Inc Magazine as one of the fastest growing private companies in America in 2010?";

"... that Grub Hub lets users search for the closest source of pad thai using GPS? Yngvadottir (talk) 18:33, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

So famous software can never lead?

Reading over the rules, it appears that commercial software could never get the lead position in DYK. Screen shots of commercial software are always fair use, so that's that. Seems wrong. Maury Markowitz (talk) 12:27, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

First of all, this is not a DYK rule. Fair use images aren't allowed anywhere on the main page.

Secondly, there is no rule saying that hooks about commercial software can't be in the DYK lead spot if they're illustrated with a picture that's freely available. (That is to say, not necessarily a picture of the software itself, but some other relevant picture if such a thing exists.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 12:35, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Or notable open-source software... Although a screenshot would probably not be interesting. Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:39, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

A big ask

I've just nominated an article that would be good to run on 4 September, the first anniversary of the first Christchurch earthquake. I know, I'm cutting it really fine. But it's four months of solid work, so it would be nice if somebody could swiftly review it. There isn't much work in reviewing it, as the prose size of this list article is quite short (under 3000 bytes). A big ask - I know... Schwede 66 05:54, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I'll review it, but there should be a consensus as to running it on the fourth or not. Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:40, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Done review. Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:53, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I Support the running on 4 September. An anniversary is significant, a lot of work has been put into this list. Mjroots (talk) 17:14, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

It is in Prep 2, meaning that it should run around noon Christchurch time (UTC+12 or +13). Let me know if I goofed. Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:11, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Now set for roughly 8PM Christchurch time. Crisco 1492 (talk) 10:31, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for making it happen - much appreciated. Schwede 66 16:30, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Bomb Pops

Is it normal that an admin changed the hook for Bomb Pop without discussing it? SL93 (talk) 00:24, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

It was removed as a dumb marketing promo. Bull. SL93 (talk) 00:27, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

It seems a bit unusual for an item which has already been vetted as DYK to be suddenly changed to something which had not been vetted or mentioned by the process, especially in live mainspace. BusterD (talk) 00:48, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

The admin also said that it was only celebrated once although the 5 event books above prove otherwise. SL93 (talk) 00:55, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

It just so happens that whoever vetted the thing vetted it badly. Wells Enterprises ~~issues~~ a press release on one year, and one year only. The masses of websites and books picked up on the press release. One of the books lists June holidays like: Yell Fudge at the Cobras in North America Day, Hug Your Cat Day, Cheer Coach Day, National Gardening Exercise Day, Ball Point Pen Day, Name Your Poison Day, Crowded Nest Awareness Day, The Wicket World of Croquet Day, and even Leon Day. Leon Day is six months to Noel, Christmas. It's called "lets use Google to fill up our book." There is no evidence that it happened any more than once. None of these books provide squat for insight or references into the topic. -- Zanimum (talk) 01:00, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. You should have posted that before pissing me off. SL93 (talk) 01:02, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

You should have read the books that you claim to cite. -- Zanimum (talk) 01:06, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I did read the books. I just didn't know about the yearly press release. You should not make accusations without proof. SL93 (talk) 01:07, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Without proof that the holiday existed in some sort of substantial way, even as just a giveaway to residents of LeMars, Indiana, you shouldn't have implied that it did exist in any greater way, let alone taken that assertion to DYK's nominations page. -- Zanimum (talk) 01:13, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I thought that the books were proof. You shouldn't change any DYK hooks without discussing it first. LeMars is in Iowa. SL93 (talk) 01:16, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Admins have the right to change hooks without prior discussion or notification. However, in some cases another admin will disagree and revert the change (see below section). In those cases, there should be a discussion; if the first admin reverts it again, that would be wheelwarring, which is not allowed. Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:50, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I have no problem with an administrator making any change intended to protect the pedia, but this seems like a weakness in the review process, doesn't it? If a hook is so inappropriate it could be pulled off the live mainpage by any admin, how did such a hook pass the vetting process? It sat in the queue for half a day before going live, without any comment, so why wasn't it caught there? BusterD (talk) 12:21, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

What is considered advertising is different for everyone. The admin who changed the hook is not a DYK regular, and as such would not have checked the queues. The reviewer did not see any problems nor did I (who brought it to prep). The admin who moved it from prep to queue probably did not either. Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:44, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Thing is, when talking about a product, virtually anything about the product could be considered advertising by someone. When I reviewed the article I made some recommendations to fix an issue and the nominator salvaged the nomination. I made a recommendation for which of the three hooks that were put up but the person moving the hook to the prep area was free to choose another but agreed with me. Of course an admin is free to change the hook but frankly the reaction was a bit over the top, posting both here and an overly aggressive comment on my talk page. If an admin doesn't agree with a hook and sees a better one, then I expect them to change it, and I expect that my opinion will not be agreed with all the time - I don't expect to be attacked for having an opinion. The whole point of the hook was that I found it surprising that a piece of confectionery would have a national day. Anyway, I'm not here to slam anyone here nor get into an argument over this, but I think this whole thing could have been dealt with better if WP:GOODFAITH was applied. Miyagawa (talk) 13:18, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. When I promoted the hook I chose the hookiest of the set, which I agreed with you on. Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:24, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Checklists added into nomination template

I added the checklists to the nomination template so they are automatically placed into new nominations, starting now. They don't actually appear until a review starts (i.e., after someone "checks off" at least one item), which I figured would help make it easier to notice unreviewed noms.

For those of you following the discussion at home, I went with the signatures only version of the template (although if you're sharp, it's still actually possible to use the signatures + doodads version by simply signing off with {{subst:DYKY}} instead of ~~~).

To be honest, the recent discussion at Talk:Main Page#DYK: community consensus disregarded leaves me with the impression that "demand" for checklists is not as strong as some people think it is and it would be worthwhile to reconsider whether they're even needed. But since at least a vocal minority is insisting on them, here they are for now. I hope everyone's ready for another big pile of people complaining about how complicated DYK is. rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:41, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

The first nom posted after that is Template:Did you know nominations/Coventry Cross (monument). I took the liberty of starting the review so you guys can have an example of how it should work. rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:02, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Though I'm sure it will come in handy for some people, presumably the intention is not to make the use of the checklist template mandatory for reviewers? That is to say, presumably there will be no objections to reviewers removing the template from nominations if they wish approach the review in a different way? Whatever your opinion on the outcome and validity of the RFC vote (and the subsequent accusations of breaches of community consensus) with regard to the checklist the matter of any checklist template was clearly and explicitly excluded from the RFC proposals: The RfC does not cover issues that might need to be resolved if one or both of the current proposals gains consensus. These include whether: ... a template should be created to provide for the explicit checking off of the explicit requirements listed in the first proposal, below. Yomangani ^talk 23:44, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Personally I have never thought a single template should be mandatory (see e.g. User talk:Gatoclass#Back to the review checklist, where my suggestion was basically not to have a review template at all but just to put this in the editnotice) but I think I'm in the minority, and I have a bunch of people breathing down my neck wanting something to be automatically included, so that's what I did. It's up to everyone else to decide whether it should be mandatory. rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:47, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Add one to your minority. Yomangani ^talk 00:00, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, good luck getting any more feedback on this now that there's a new big, juicy, completely unconstructive fight going on at this page. I'm pretty much getting resigned to the fact that ~~most people involved with this project~~many people seem more interested in playing with trolls than actually getting real changes made. rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:22, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Forget the grumpy troll; nobody at the Main Page wants to play today. The checklist looks fine, and should hopefully keep others off our collective backs. Good idea to keep it hidden until filled out. (BTW, a little bit of advertising, I have another discussion regarding improvement above) Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:35, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, Rjanag, for creating this. Your work is truly valuable and appreciated. $Sharktopus$ ^talk 04:48, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, Rjanag, for creating this. But I don't want to see it mandatory. A friend died last Friday. I am planning an article and nomination and don't look forward to seeing two technical templates attached to it. - What I would like to see for all nominations is one box which shows the latest state of review, which could be one of the symbols we had so far. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:03, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Can we please have an example of the output? I don't see the explicit points for checking off, as insisted by the community. Tony (talk) 08:14, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

As noted above by Rjanag, an example can be found at Template:Did you know nominations/Coventry Cross (monument). Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:19, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Tony, why don't you actually pay attention to what I wrote above. I'm wasting my time on this mainly because of your incessant complaints, and yet you can't even take two minutes to read a simple message? rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:01, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

(ec) :*What is it you don't see, Tony, in the example mentioned above, repeated here: Template:Did you know nominations/Coventry Cross (monument)? (And I seem not to belong to the community because I certainly did not insist.) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:21, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Not to nag, but could we add the shortcuts to the reviewing symbols to the edit notice, at least until the old nominations are eliminated? They don't have a checklist, but still need a sign to show they've been reviewed. Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:54, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
- I'll re-add it. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:01, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

(out) Guys, I have no power to decide whether the checklist should be mandatory or not. I just put it there; it's up to you guys to take the initiative to start a discussion, poll, RfC, or whatnot, to decide whether it should be mandatory. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:01, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Mandatory?

Several people above had questions/comments about whether or not the checklist should be mandatory. I can try to spell out your options here, but it's up to you guys to actually reach a decision about this.

Checklists mandatory. Pretty much what it is now (although since now there are new noms mixed in with old noms, it will take about two weeks before you start seeing checklists on all nominations).
Checklists included in the template, but reviewers allowed to remove them if they prefer to enumerate the stuff checked off using prose. (My two cents: I think this would make T:TDYK quite complicated, as people doing promotions wouldn't be able to just skim through the page looking for completed templates, and people looking for unreviewed noms couldn't just skim through the page looking for noms without templates; in other words, whatever we do I think it should be the same for everyone, either no template or yes template.)
Checklists not included in the template, but reviewers allowed to use them if they want to. (Again, I think this has the same problems as above, and I bet most people won't want to use these templates or even be able to find them if they aren't automatically included in the nomination page.)
No "checking off" within the nomination page's editbox itself, but a review checklist included as sort of instructions for reviewing (like I said above, that would basically entail sticking User:Rjanag/DYK review criteria into the editnotice), along with the understanding that reviewers should review every item of that list before signing off.

rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:45, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I'd suggest sticking with the checklist we're using now for a bit, to give it a fair trial. If it is opined that it is not for the best of the project, or shouldn't be mandatory, another RFC could be opened. Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:34, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

What makes these reliable sources?

OmniPeace is on the main page now.

"Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox Arquette and Sheryl Crow Come Together for the Congo" People.
"Fashion Scoops: No No Notorious... Givenchy A-OK... Party All The Time...", Women's Wear Daily. Tony (talk) 03:10, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

What makes them unreliable (in the context of the article, which is fashion?) Choess (talk) 03:19, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I must note that People Magazine is one of the foremost fashion and celebrity magazines in the US, so I wouldn't call it unreliable. Never heard of WWD though. Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:40, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Tony -- Did you even bother to check before asking? Women's Wear Daily is a fashion-industry trade journal sometimes called "the bible of fashion." It's been publishing for more than 100 years. People magazine is one of the most widely read magazines in the world with a circulation, as of 2006, of almost 4 million. It was named "Magazine of the Year" by Advertising Age in October 2005, for excellence in editorial, circulation and advertising. Both are reliable sources. Cbl62 (talk) 03:55, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

They read like trivia/gossip rags. Did you look at the text? Tony (talk) 08:09, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

As noted above, they are mainly for fashion and celebrity "news". I don't know what kind of language those kinds of publications use in Australia, but its safe to say that in the US they have never read/abided by the rules for writing academically; it wouldn't sell. As long as the information sourced to those publications is presented neutrally and encyclopedicly (sp?), I don't think their writing style should be an issue. The publications themselves, as noted by CBL above, are leaders in their field. If you are truly concerned, we could ask at the reliable sources noticeboard in order to have a precedent for future nominations. Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:25, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Information regarding Solomon in Prep 1

This is just a note that I have changed the hook for Solomon (Byzantine general) while moving it to Prep 1 to increase its hookiness. If anybody disagrees, please feel free to change it back to the original:

... that the eunuch Byzantine general Solomon, who succeeded Belisarius in command in Africa, defeated the local Berbers in several battles and rebuilt and fortified dozens of towns?

Thank you. Crisco 1492 (talk) 10:37, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Quick-failing without the checklist

I think for obvious fails (articles that are not new or recently expanded) it should not be necessary to fill out any of the checklist; just rejecting as normal, like this, should be sufficient. Feel free to tweak the instructions (at Template:Editnotices/Group/Template:Did you know nominations and/or at {{DYK hook checklist}} and {{DYK article checklist}}) accordingly. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:33, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Good idea. Tony (talk) 16:35, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:59, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Psychology Class

Ok. First let me say I'm sorry for any headaches my students caused anyone this summer. I am planning to have my students contribute to psych-stubs again this semester. They mainly pick awful stubs and make them slightly less awful. Some students manage to elevate stubs significantly. I use the DYK guidelines as a goal for my students because they are achievable (even fro freshmen). As such I imagine some will want to submit their articles for DYK at some point. It'll still be a couple of months before they get to the point where they might be submitting, and I have made it a requirement that articles are copy-edited by other class members before any sort of nomination. Also, I will try to police them and when they nominate an article that clearly fails to meet DYK criteria I'll go ahead and review it with a fail (although I think it'd be problematic for me to pass articles). You can view details of the actual assignment on WP:SUP (or directly). I think DYK is a great program and a clever way to both encourage new editors and develop new content so please feel free to advise me on ways that I can help. Thanks! --MTHarden (talk) 16:35, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the notice, and DYK is glad to have people who are interested in psychology. I think it would be a good idea for students to be required to keep an eye on the nomination and address any concerns raised, as it would give them experience with a peer review process, which they would have to deal with before being published in a reputable journal. Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:53, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I think I should just point out here that with the new nomination template, keeping an eye on it is the default - nominating an article creates a subpage that goes on your watchlist. I assume the students know to check their watchlists, but probably not with the obsessiveness with which I check mine . . . Yngvadottir (talk) 20:39, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Ryan Lavarnway and editing article in order to justify the hook

What on Earth are "tools of ignorance"? Kevin McE (talk) 17:52, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Are we actually having odd phrases introduced into articles simply so that they can be cited in a DYK hook now? This seems to be a strange journalistic reference to the simple fact that he is a catcher. Kevin McE (talk) 21:39, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

It was discussed at the nomination. The term is used in baseball, and is wikilinked in the article. Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:30, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

The following (up to the next unindent) is copied from WP:ERRORS after the hook in question reached (unedited) its expiry on the Main Page. Kevin McE (talk) 17:12, 4 September 2011 (UTC) I understand that the phrase "tools of ignorance" refers, rather depreciatingly, to the equipment of a catcher in baseball. It is a joking journalistic cliché, certainly not the formal tone that is encouraged in an encyclopaedia. As such, it should not be in the article at all. An IP intervened with a similar observation, but this was reverted on the grounds that the phrase is in the DYK hook. We seem therefore to be in a position now whereby articles that are to be featured on the main page are being deliberately written in contradiction to the MoS purely to accomodate a hook. This seems a ridiculous state of affairs. Kevin McE (talk) 08:37, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps it should be wikilinked to Glossary of baseball (T)#tools of ignorance. Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:58, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

That does not address the fact that it is thoroughly unencyclopaedic language. Kevin McE (talk) 12:02, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

It is quotation marks, however; it is also used in the source. If it were not, I would share your view. I cannot testify as to the actual commonality of the term in American English. Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:11, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

But there is no-one being quoted! Sticking it in quote marks is surely an admission that it is a cliché, a piece of jargon, and not formal language fit for an encyclopaedia. Kevin McE (talk) 13:33, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, scare quotes should be avoided in sober encyclopaedic writing. If it's a direct quotation, use it and include quotation marks. If it is not, don't use the phrase. Modest Genius ^talk 15:08, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Two references cited in the lead use the term in relation to the catcher, including ESPN which IMO qualifies as a reliable source for American sports. Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:24, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Journalists, such as those employed by ESPN, are perfectly welcome to use clichés, puns and "humour" to the full extent of their editors' patience: encyclopaedic contributors should not. The phrase is not included in the article as part of an attributed quote. Kevin McE (talk) 16:28, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Off the main page now, but I will address the issue in the article. Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:52, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

I've edited the article accordingly. The DYK item has expired, so any further discussion probably should occur at Talk:Ryan Lavarnway. —David Levy 16:53, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

So you are happy to remove this from the article, but defend its temporary inclusion in the article so that it justified a hook. No longer relevant to WP:ERRORS, but I'll move the discussion to WT:DYK, as it requires (I think) further consideration as a precedent that should not be followed. Kevin McE (talk) 17:12, 4 September 2011 (UTC) Withdrawn, see below Kevin McE (talk) 19:47, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Did you intend to direct that reply to Crisco 1492? I'm in complete agreement with you and noted in my edit summary that this wording shouldn't have appeared on the main page. (And I just removed a second instance from the article.) —David Levy 17:19, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for confusion: it was to Crisco, but I've been reprimanded here for indenting achronologically. Kevin McE (talk) 19:40, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

No worries; I just wanted to ensure that my position was clear. —David Levy 20:34, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

The issue of edits to the Ryan Lavarnway belongs to that article's talk page. Within minutes of it dropping from the front page, the inappropriately toned language was removed from the lead of the article. I raise this here as it seems very clear that in this instance the article has been written in a manner that is not compliant with proper encyclopaedic style specifically for the purpose of generating a hook for DYK. Are editors here happy to condone such a practice? Is it appropriate to incorporate something into the rules for a hook to prevent such a thing again? Kevin McE (talk) 17:12, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

1. I removed the wording from the article shortly after the DYK item's expiry because that's when I read the discussion. Had I seen it earlier, I would have edited the hook to excise the phrase "tools of ignorance."

2. Of particular concern is the fact that the article's primary editor doesn't regard the text as temporary and is continually reverting removals (including mine) on the basis that it was "approved" at DYK (as though that formally locks in an article's content). —David Levy 19:15, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

With respect, and full agreement, I'd rather keep that for the talk page at the relevant article. I think there is a greater principle here that we need to air: whether or not it is acceptable to construct and phrase an article so as to enable a particular DYK hook, and whether specific instruction is required to prescribe against such practice in the future. Kevin McE (talk) 21:09, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree that this is the core issue.

Needless to say, I strongly oppose the modification of article content specifically for the purpose of enabling a DYK hook. This is not to say that it's unreasonable for a DYK review to spark actual improvement that also makes for a better hook, but that's quite different from what occurred at Template:Did you know nominations/Ryan Lavarnway. As you know, an editor was persuaded to insert inappropriate terminology purely to justify its presence in the hook (though I assume that the promoter mistook this for an actual improvement). —David Levy 03:23, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

The phrase used in the hook was already in the article on August 20 when it was submitted to DYK:[6] In 2007 he moved from right field to catcher, a position whose equipment is referred to as "the tools of ignorance". The phrase was added to the article (diff), 20 minutes before the article was submitted to DYK (diff.) The editor was not "persuaded to insert inappropriate terminology" during the review. The editor was persuaded to insert additional references. The terminology, which some have called inappropriate and others have felt to be appropriate, was in the article for six days before the review began.

Sharktopus

^talk 03:50, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

The original instance, while highly trivial and largely irrelevant to the article's subject, was not the main problem. I'm referring to this instance (inserted as a result of the DYK review), in which the term "tools of ignorance" was used in a manner closely resembling the DYK hook — one in which it simply appeared in ordinary prose (as opposed to the original instance, which at least constituted a factual statement about the term).

However, thanks for pointing out that the original instance was added only twenty minutes before the DYK submission (which I hadn't noticed). This, combined with its incongruity, suggests that it too was included to justify the DYK hook.

Incidentally, you state above that "some have called [the terminology] inappropriate and others have felt to be appropriate." It should be noted that "others" = "the editor who added it and you" (and I'm unsure of Crisco 1492's current position). Everyone else opposes its inclusion. —David Levy 04:51, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Regarding Kevin's comment at me, I did not remove the text but rephrased it to be a more or less direct quotation per your comment that "the phrase is not included in the article as part of an attributed quote". It was removed 15 minutes later by David Levy. As such, I would appreciate not being indirectly called a hypocrite. Regarding phrasing, it can change and in the face of overwhelming consensus should; however, if the consensus is against the change then it should be left alone, as noted below. Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:32, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Apology: I confused your edit with David's. Kevin McE (talk) 19:47, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Let the record show that Crisco as reviewer did conscientious work to improve the article based on his own beliefs about what was or was not appropriate. He later tried to improve the article further to take account of later criticism. He did not originate and he did not remove the phrase some have objected to. $Sharktopus$ ^talk 13:51, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. It's my opinion that Crisco 1492 erred in approving the hook, but he/she clearly did so due to a sincere belief that it was appropriate (following an honest attempt to see to the article's improvement). —David Levy 15:31, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Many Wikipedia articles cite informal terms that are relevant to their subject. For example, the FA Texas A&M University mentions that the official school greeting is "Howdy." FAs about movies, music, or sports ware more likely to mention relevant slang than FAs about science or history. Material that is inappropriate to Wikipedia should not be approved in DYK articles, no matter what the hypothetical motive for including the material. $Sharktopus$ ^talk 13:51, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

The operative phrase is "that are relevant to their subjects." An official greeting is a relevant fact about a school.

Likewise, the nickname "tools of ignorance" is relevant to the subject of baseball terminology or a person to whom the expression is widely attributed/applied. It is not relevant (to any significant degree) to the subject of Ryan Lavarnway, who merely belongs to a group (catchers) whose equipment sometimes is described in that manner.

The statement "In 2007 he moved from right field to catcher, a position whose equipment is referred to as 'the tools of ignorance'." is analogous to the hypothetical statement "He was born and raised in California, which is referred to as 'the Golden State'." While factually accurate, these sentences end with information of no direct relevance to the article's subject.

This insertion of tangential trivia obviously was performed specifically to enable the terminology's use in the DYK hook submitted immediately thereafter.

I agree that an editor's motive shouldn't be a determining factor when evaluating material's appropriateness. But if such a motive is widespread (and I don't know whether it is), it stands to lead to the creation of inappropriate material (and therefore should be discouraged). —David Levy 15:31, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Why is article expansion considered an improvement as far as DYK is concerned?

My question is prompted by having watched for the umpteenth time the 1946 film version of Great Expectations, for which the plot section in the Wikipedia article had been tagged since December 2009 as being too long and/or detailed. I edited it to fit the 3–4 paragraph guideline for that type of article, so the disfiguring tag could reasonably be removed. But it raised the question in my mind; for older articles especially it may well be the case that they are best improved by reducing their size, not by increasing it. Malleus Fatuorum 00:04, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

The simple answer is because DYK is not about improvement, it's about new content. None of the DYK rules specify that articles have to be improved to be eligible. Articles that are improved without necessarily having been expanded are more relevant for WP:GAN. Likewise, DYK is mainly geared towards new and short articles; if someone wants to improve an older article, they're better off setting their sights on GAN or FAC (and yet the "Wikipedia-needs-improved-not-expanded" crowd is still not satisfied with having two article quality projects, and wants to turn DYK into one too). rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:06, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Your answer is indeed simple, but it's inconsistent with the very clear statement on the DYK main page: "This serves as a way to thank editors who create new content, encourages editors to contribute to and improve articles". Malleus Fatuorum 00:10, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

The sentence right before that says "The DYK section gives publicity to newly created or expanded Wikipedia articles." Nothing about improvement. Expansion often involves improvement, and vice versa, but not necessarily; and the DYK main page doesn't ever say that the project aims to encourage every kind of article improvement there is. (For comparison: FA doesn't exist to encourage people to scripts to add, say, persondata to the bottom of biographies, but that's still article improvement; and I don't see anyone going to FA complaining that "I added persondata and improved the article, why can't I get an FA"). Essentially, it seems that you're saying that because DYK doesn't encourage the kind of improvement you just did (cleaning up a plot summary), it must not be encouraging any improvement at all. rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:12, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

You may waffle as much as you like, but it's very clear that you're in denial. Malleus Fatuorum 00:15, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

To make it clearer for you, my point is that DYK is not about article improvement at all, and to claim that it is is at best disingenuous. Malleus Fatuorum 00:20, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

If that was what you were trying to claim, you could have said so ("Hey guys, the first paragraph of WP:DYK says DYK wants to encourage improvement, but I don't think it does"). That is not what you said in your first message here. Why don't you make up your mind what you actually are trying to say here before you come waste people's time. rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:58, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

As I said, you're clearly in denial, and are continuing to be abusive. Shame on you. Malleus Fatuorum 01:01, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Denial of what? rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:02, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

That there are many unresolved problems with DYK, of which this is but one. Malleus Fatuorum 01:08, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Please find one diff of me ever saying that I don't think there are unresolved problems on DYK. rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:13, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Saying expanding articles never improves them is just silly though. Yes, some articles are improved the opposite way, by cutting out a bunch of crap. DYK isn't applicable to every article on the site just like FA isn't. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 00:26, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

It certainly would be, but I didn't say that. I said that expansion =/= improvement, and Rjanag responded by saying that DYK wasn't about improvement anyway, despite what it clearly says on the main page. Malleus Fatuorum 00:29, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

All this is hardly relevant to DYK 5x expansions. As any fule kno, the number of WP articles that would benefit from expansion massively exceeds the number that would benefit from trimming. Or do you think our work here is drawing to a close? Johnbod (talk) 01:00, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Oy I very much take an exception to the claim that As any fule kno, the number of WP articles that would benefit from expansion massively exceeds the number that would benefit from trimming. Sure there is a buttload of articles ... most of them on very minor topics ... which could use expansion. But the number of "large" articles on very broad and significant topics which would benefit from the chainsaw approach is very large. So if you weight the relevant articles by their importance/relevance then Malleus is right. If you consider stubs on some minor celebrity or tv show character as equal in weight to an article on some fundamental concept in, say, economics, or history, or geography, then, yeah, sure, any fule kno, what every fule kno.Volunteer Marek (talk) 01:16, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

We must work on completely different wikiplanets. On my one we have thousands of significant topics that have stubs, starts, or no article at all. Take a look at Chinese art or Indian art, or Italian Renaissance sculpture (and no, there's nothing you can redirect it to). Johnbod (talk) 02:09, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

OK, that I can agree with. It is slightly perverse, that in theory, you could go for a DYK for spinning off articles on subtopics but not for rendering the subtopic into a tasteful paragraph on the original article. But that sort of activity is also a bit hard to capture in a snappy hook, which, after all, is the feature that gives DYK its name. Choess (talk) 01:31, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

So are you arguing that expansion = improvement? Malleus Fatuorum 01:10, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

He is clearly not saying that, and no one in this discussion has said that. His message says "some articles can benefit from expansion"—that is a far cry from saying that expansion is always improvement and improvement is always expansion. You know this, and you don't need me to explain it to you; I know you're not as stupid as you're pretending to be, so I can only assume you're being deliberately dense to waste everyone's time. I suggest you stop putting words in people's mouths and stop insisting on misinterpreting simple statements. rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:14, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Then why does DYK consider a five times expansion to be an improvement worthy of main page exposure? Malleus Fatuorum 01:21, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't. It considers five times expansion to be new content, not an improvement. Once again (how many times do I need to say the same thing before it gets through your skull?), "improvement" is not a requirement in any of the DYK criteria. rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:24, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

That's clearly absurd. What's the logic of considering a five times expansion worthy of main page exposure but not a four times exposure, if that expansion had included a reduction in some parts of the article to improve its quality, as in the example I started with? A simple question for you: is DYK about article improvement or not? Malleus Fatuorum 01:30, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Five times is an arbitrary amount that was chosen years ago (long before I was here) and has become status quo by now. Lots of Wikipedia projects have arbitrary amounts like this (for instance, ITN has a [somewhat flexible] five-sentence, three-reference criterion).

In response to your second question: no, DYK is not about article improvement. This is the third time you've asked me to repeat myself; I hope it's enough. rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:36, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

The philosophical question is interesting, but is it particularly germane? My experience leads me to believe, first, that the number of articles in Wikipedia that are too long are vastly outnumbered by those that are too short, and second, that it's much more likely that a given editor will complete a 5x expansion of one that is too short than complete a 5x expansion that makes an article too long. Now, the related question of whether rewarding 5x expansion encourages plagiarism might be worth taking up, but I find it hard to believe that DYK is encouraging articles to become too long per se. Choess (talk) 01:05, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

That might depend on whether you think that the purpose of DYK ought to be clarified. Is it, or is it not, about article improvement? If it is, is a 5 times expansion a proper measure of improvement? Malleus Fatuorum 01:07, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

DYK is not and has never been about article improvement; it's about new content. You're picking one throwaway sentence (which is, FWIW, the only place on WP:DYK that even mentions "improvement" of articles) from a page that, to be honest, almost nobody even reads, and twisting its meaning (it doesn't even say "DYK is about article improvement", it says that showing new and expanded articles--what DYK is about--might encourage improvement, and it doesn't even word it in a way to make it sound like that's the main purpose of DYK). I doubt anyone else sees a problem here. If there is a big problem, a simple edit to that sentence will solve it. rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:12, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, I think Malleus brings up a good point. Why isn't DYK about improvement? I must have read the same page Malleus read, because stupidly I thought it was about improvement. If an editor improves an article, but it's too long for a fivefold expansion, or for whatever reason, it doesn't qualify for DYK, and it isn't worth working up to GA status, where's the incentive? If DYK is an incentive for new articles, and churns out a lot of new pages, shouldn't the project, at this point, start looking at giving incentives to articles that have been improved? Truthkeeper (talk) 01:19, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I'd say that expansion ≈ improvement, although the approximation has gotten worse than it was in the earlier days of Wikipedia. A 5x expansion will probably but not certainly represent an improvement. I think DYK should be a place to recognize improvement, rather than to create improvement through extensive reviewing as at FA/GA, but a corollary to that is I think it needs speedier mechanisms to recognize when DYK noms are not improved and simply remove them, rather than going through a long back-and-forth trying to fix everything that reaches the page. For myself, at least, I'd like to preserve the relatively speedy aspect of DYK (nominate and get a yes or no rather than see-sawing through a review for weeks) even at the expense of throwing out some relatively good but still subpar articles. Choess (talk) 01:25, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Break 1

(some serious edit conflict here) DYK is not and has never been about article improvement; it's about new content. - yeah but perhaps that's the very essence of the problem. Think of it in terms of "the encyclopedia" as a whole. Does new content benefit the encyclopedia? Yes, if it's done well. Does it benefit more than the improvement of existing content of the encyclopedia? Mmmm, maybe, maybe not. Certainly the existence of big-topic articles which are of frankly embarrassing quality is not going to be counter balanced by having a series of "quality" articles on sub-sub-sub-sub topics. But the way we have it right now, is that the creation of "new content" (of quality which we can argue about) is very heavily subsidizes and incentivized, while there are no comparable inducements for article improvements (except from some hippy shit about how that problem will take care of itself because this is a "collaborative" problems, hence there really is no problems to begin with).

Why exactly is "new content" being privileged over "article improvement"? Cuz the first is easy (particularly if you can just copy/paste somebody's website into Wikipedia) and makes it look like "work is being done", while the latter is a pain in the ass (i.e. real work)?Volunteer Marek (talk) 01:27, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Exactly. Truthkeeper (talk) 01:30, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, it seems like some people want DYK to do everything. I don't see why you think that just because DYK awards new content somehow Wikipedia is privileging new content over improvement. Don't forget that we have a slue of other projects (especially WP:FA and WP:FA) to reward and encourage improvement. Why exactly does DYK need to also focus on these things? And what makes you think DYK is in a better position than, e.g., TFA, to encourage improvement of "big articles". (To take one example: French Revolution and Science are two articles I've often seen used as examples of articles that are too "big" and complicated to attract much serious improvement. If the allure of a possible TFA has never gotten someone to take these articles under their wing and improve them, what makes you think the allure of a DYK bauble will do so?)rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:30, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

So if DYK is not about article improvement then why is it explicitly mentioned as one of DYK's goals on this main page? Malleus Fatuorum 01:36, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I already responded to this point above (1:12, 4 September 2011). rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:39, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Surely there must come a time when even you realise that you're talking bollocks? Malleus Fatuorum 01:43, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I've responded to your question again (02:00, 4 September 2011). Second time's the charm? (Probably not, given your unwillingness to even try to understand simple concepts.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:09, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Malleus succeeds at trolling again. Joy. Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:32, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm bailing out of this conversation after this - but I have news for you. Bringing a page to FA is hard work. It takes me months. Sometimes I don't want to spend months on the same page. I spend a lot of time improving pages, but I rarely create new pages, so I guess it's not really considered an improvement to the encyclopedia. And only new content gets recognized. Okay. Fine. Truthkeeper (talk) 01:35, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Except that, like I said above, it's not true that "only new content gets recognized". DYK is not the only project in the encyclopedia that gives out shiny awards, and not the only project in the encyclopedia that gives out main page exposure (I assume by "recognition" you mean one or both of those things). rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:37, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

No I'm not talking about shiny awards, I'm talking about when editors wonder why the fuck they're spending so much for nothing when others are cheerfully copy/pasting their way through life. But as Yomangani wrote below, if it's not about improvement, which I have always thought it was since I started editing here, then DYK has lost its way. Truthkeeper (talk) 02:01, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Malleus succeeds at trolling again. Joy. Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:32, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

It ain't trolling Crisco - it's a serious question. Truthkeeper (talk) 01:36, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Any time serious questions are raised the cult closes ranks. And not just here. Malleus Fatuorum 01:42, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

(ec) [The reason new content is privileged is] Cultural inertia, and the fact that "new content" is an easy metric to measure, while "article improvement" in the broadest sense is highly subjective and difficult to measure. Choess (talk) 01:37, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

This - "As I said, you're clearly in denial, and are continuing to be abusive. Shame on you." is not a constructive statement or part of a serious question. Bollocks too. I consider it trolling and possible a violation of WP:NPA, which is not the first time Malleus has done so on this talk page. As for the issue, it is fairly useless to discuss since those new articles or expanded articles which do not improve the encyclopedia are often thrown out quickly, and DYKs mission statement clearly notes that it is for new content. If some expansions or improvements don't reach 5x, there are other venues for recognition. Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:46, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Have you actually take the trouble to read this article page, which quite clearly refers to article improvement? Malleus Fatuorum 01:50, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

You're just too stupid for your own good. The whole sentence you're upset about, "This serves as a way to thank editors who create new content, encourages editors to contribute to and improve articles and the encyclopedia", does not even say the purpose of DYK is to encourage article improvement. It says that DYK showcases new/expanded articles, and doing so might encourage editors to improve articles (along with a bunch of other things listed in this same sentence). Nowhere on WP:DYK does it say the purpose of DYK is solely to promote article improvement. rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:00, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Have you ever read Wikipedia's WP:NPA policy? Or do you just think it doesn't apply to you? Malleus Fatuorum 02:04, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Oh, the irony. SL93 (talk) 02:06, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Quite. Many think the policy only applies to those they don't like. Malleus Fatuorum 02:11, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

What I meant is that it is ironic that someone like yourself who frequently violates WP:NPA would say that. SL93 (talk) 02:13, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

You have simply displayed your own dishonesty, but no surprise. Even if it your allegation were true that does not give your friends carte blanche to abuse me. The "he started it" argument surely even you can see is childish. Malleus Fatuorum 02:24, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

For god's sake, could you quite frankly leave all of your collective vanity behind before you sit down and type this stuff and just focus on the point?! ^{(shrinks back into the shadows)} 94.8.98.105 (talk) 02:33, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Break 2

If DYK isn't chiefly about article improvement then it has lost its way. Now, if anybody can come up with a non-subjective alternative to the fivefold expansion rule, I'm sure we are all ears.Yomangani ^talk 01:51, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

The obvious suggestion is to abandon the fivefold expansion, as it makes no sense at all. Malleus Fatuorum 01:55, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Not really. We are looking for some measure that the article has been improved in some way (despite what Rjanag says). A fivefold expansion is an arbitrary way of deciding on that but, as a starting point, it is better than nothing. Yomangani ^talk 02:02, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You and Rjanag can't both be right. Malleus Fatuorum 02:09, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

5x expansion is not a measure of deciding whether an article has been improved. It's just an arbitrary measure for deciding whether the article is mostly "new content". In its strictest sense, the 5x expansion criteria doesn't care about the quality of the new article (as long as it's not copyvio, plagiarism, or some other violation of core policies). rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:06, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Yomangani: I don't see how this is "losing its way", since as far as I can remember (since about October 2008, which is when I started here) DYK has been about new content and at that time WP:DYK even included wording specifically saying we wouldn't do quality assessments to gauge how much an article had "improved". As several other editors and I have pointed out above, there are plenty of other projects that focus entirely on article improvement; I don't see why some editors seem to think that every project should do so, and that any article that doesn't focus on article improvement like GA and FA do is somehow a waste of space. rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:06, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

A quality assessment isn't an improvement to the article, but that aside: what is the purpose of DYK if it isn't to improve the articles that pass through the process? When we ask the nominators to comply with the rules we are asking them to improve the article, as it passes through the review process surely we are hoping it will improve, when it hits the main page surely we want it to be edited and improved. If the purpose of DYK is to pass an article untouched to the main page where it will bask in the glory of its perfection for 8 hours while the nominator gets a shiny template and warm feeling then DYK is a worthless process. Yomangani ^talk 02:19, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I didn't mean a quality assessment is an improvement to an article. What I meant was, DYK didn't do quality assessments because DYK wasn't going to accept nominations of the form "This article is the same length as before but I made it a lot better". My point is, even back then, DYK didn't recognize quality improvements; it recognized content additions that happened to also meet some basic policies (no copyvio, etc.).

Regarding the expectation that noms comply with certain rules, that is more about making sure we don't feature copyvio, violations of core policies, etc., rather than out of a principled desire to make people improve their articles during the process. Sure, if an article is improved d uring the DYK process that's great; but it's not in of itself the main purpose of DYK. (If people think it should be, you're welcome to discuss that; but it isn't presently). The whole process is just a way of making sure the article complies with DYK rules. If an article already meets all the rules before it's nominated, it's possible to pass through DYK without any improvements being made.

This is not all to say that I don't think article improvement is a good thing. Of course it is. But it's not the be-all and end-all goal of DYK. There are plenty of other projects that focus mainly on article improvement. rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:37, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Then what is DYK for? If it is just a reward programme for editors then we are wasting a lot of effort. Yomangani ^talk 02:48, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I have in past discussions here linked (several times) archived threads arguing over this very issue. My short answer is: why can't DYK be for encouraging addition of new content, just as GA/FA are more about encouraging improvement of content? Maybe you and some other people think that's not as worthy a goal as GA/FA, but that's your own choice. (Personally I myself am not sure what DYK's main goal is--for instance, there are other things it does, such as showing readers new content, demonstrating that Wikipedia is still growing, and once upon a time wowing readers with interesting content--but this is at least one possibility.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:57, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

(ec)Well, it seems like some people want DYK to do everything. , DYK is not the only project in the encyclopedia that gives out shiny awards, and not the only project in the encyclopedia that gives out main page exposure, and DYK showcases new/expanded articles, and doing so might encourage editors to improve articles (along with a bunch of other things listed in this same sentence). Nowhere on WP:DYK does it say the purpose of DYK is solely to promote article improvement. - yeah ok, but the problem is that the incentives to improve existing articles are slim or nonexistent while the incentives to "create new content" (sometimes of dubious quality) are very strong.

So what does give "main page exposure" (which, let's be honest here, for most editors is a much stronger incentive than some barnstar or FA check mark trinket that only a few other people will see). We have the "Today's featured article" (and picture) which is like the creme-de-la-creme and completely unattainable for most editors/articles. And then... we take a jump off a cliff to DYK, OTD and ITN. Not a single one of these rewards article improvement. The first one - as has been discussed - rewards "new content". The other two reward accidents of history/time. So I can perfectly understand why people who improve articles are pissed that their contributions are going unappreciated. I also do think - and I've said this elsewhere - that DYK is a bit of the wrong thing to focus the criticisms on (the criticism have been provoked by previous problems like plagiarisms etc.) OTD and ITN are much worse and serve no purpose other than just being "topical". So if I had my say I'd split the DYK institution into a "new content" and "most improved" sections and replace either ITN or OTD by one of these.

I am actually seriously wondering why ITN and OTD are not catching as much flak, as from at least the little bit I've looked at them, they seem to be much more worse culprits in terms of badly written/plagiarized/unsourced etc. Maybe it's because they don't end up getting as many views as DYKs.Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:14, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek: Two points. First of all, I have been hearing for a long time that main page exposure is the biggest motivator and everyone cares about that (or, alternatively, passing an RFA) than any other possible reward, and that's why the DYK slot should be given to better articles. A lot of people seem to just take that as a given. But do we know that the vast majority of editors really cares more about a 6-hour slot in a corner of the main page than about any other incentives? I know, speaking for myself only, that I rarely cared very much about the DYK main page slot when I used to submit articles; I did it mainly just because when I thought of a new topic that deserved an article (or a more in-depth article), DYK gave me a good personal goal. Anyway, all I'm saying is, I don't know if it's reasonable to always assume that the main page exposure is the only good motivator or that DYK offers stronger incentives for content creation than GA does for content improvement.

Secondly, I don't think it's true that FA is unattainable for most editors. Tons of editors have FAs, and I believe if someone is truly interested in improvement then s/he can get an FA, perhaps with the help of collaborators if there are things that make it difficult (for example, if the person is not a native speaker of English). (Granted, some topics are more difficult than others due to their breadth or complexity.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:27, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't know if it's reasonable to always assume that the main page exposure is the only good motivator or that DYK offers stronger incentives for content creation than GA does for content improvement - I'm not saying it's the only good motivator, though I do think that main page exposure is a stronger motivator than the standard slew of Wikipedia trinkets. If you get your article on DYK a thousand people or more will see it. If you improve an article up to GA or above, a dozen or so may see it, though you might get some accolades within the community. For editors who don't really care that much about within-Wiki recognition (which is probably the main pool here) the first one matters a lot more than the second.Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:50, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

How about we just all agree that some people are motivated by some things and some people are motivated by others? Clearly you care more about main page exposure than, say, pats on the back from other Wikipedians; some editors are like you and some aren't. I seriously doubt we are ever going to have a reliable measure of what proportion of editors cares how much about what things, so I think discussing it any more than this is moot, and I think drastically restructuring a longstanding part of the main page based on our personal hunches about what a few thousand strangers might care about is not a good idea. rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:55, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you to Malleus for raising the serious question "Is DYK a panacea for every single problem at Wikipedia?" I am shocked, SHOCKED, to realize that DYK's mission to encourage the creation of good new content does absolutely nothing to reward people for removing excess bad content. My impression is that GA does recognize content's being improved, which would surely include shrinking articles that need to be shrunk. But not every good contribution to Wikipedia gets recognized, except by people justifiably proud of the work they have done. My own most useful work at Wikipedia was not suitable for DYK, GA, or anything else. This did not make me want to eradicate any of the many different warm-heartedly collaborative communities working on projects that did not stop work to remark, "Oh wow, Sharktopus really improved the BLP Mehriban Aliyeva" or "Holy Toledo, Paederus dermatitis and Blister beetle dermatitis were a confused slumgullion until good ol' Sharktopus stepped in and put them in better shape." $Sharktopus$ ^talk 02:17, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

(ec) I hope DYK isn't completely decoupled from improvement of the encyclopedia. I think what's happening here is the old assumption from the early days of the encyclopedia that writing any new content about a subject that wasn't total nonsense was an improvement is proving less true. I don't think that DYK is necessarily encouraging over-expansion of particular articles, but I think there is a case to be made that generating new content is less important, as a form of article improvement, than it once was and we should re-think our incentive structure. But what criteria shall we use? And if we can't figure out any, is it really better for the encyclopedia to shut down DYK and leave GA/FA as our only avenues of recognition? Choess (talk) 02:18, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Indeed - it would be a good experiment to make DYK only for expansions for a test period. I think the plagiarism problems are less frequent with expansions too. Johnbod (talk) 02:21, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

VM: To start with, ITN and OTD don't pump through a tsunami of hooks (still about 20 a day), which virtually forbids proper checking and improvement to main-page standards. And they typically don't start with raw stubs or post-stubs, which in view of the next statement, really puts you up against a mountain. They may have their problems, but these are an order of magnitude less than those for DYK.

ITN and OTD don't pump through a tsunami of hooks (still about 20 a day), which virtually forbids proper checking and improvement to main-page standards - so? This is an empirical matter. And based on my own experience ITN and OTD are far worse than DYKs in that regard, whatever the process that generates each one of these actually is (and actually DYK has *some* review process, however imperfect it may be, ITN and OTD, really has none). The fact that they don't start with raw stubs - in light of the fact that there's so many crappy *long* articles on Wikipedia - is a minus, not a plus. ITN and OTD have far worse problems than DYK. It's just that nobody has paid that much attention to them.Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:50, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Rjanag: "DYK is not about improvement"—that statement above is reason enough to close down DYK in its present form immediately.

Wizardman: "Saying expanding articles never improves them is just silly ...". Not "never", but "often": there's a tendency to pump up the word length of some DYKs by doing to the opposite of what writers are trained to do (be economical). This has been a problem ever since the × 5 rule. Tony (talk) 02:24, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Ha, funny. ITN and OTD aren't about article improvement, either; for that matter, neither are WP:RFA, WP:ANI, and most other pages outside the main namespace. Guess it's time to shut them all down.

In all serious, though: how selfish do you people have to be to keep on insisting that every project on Wikipedia that doesn't focus on the one aspect of the encyclopedia you care most about, needs to be shut down or changed immediately? rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:29, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I think that there may need to be another part of the main page to recognize certain content. I just created an article that was a redirect since September 21, 2007. There is most likely enough content out there to get it to DYK, but there is no interesting DYK hooks. I probably won't get any thanks for creating an article that has repeatedly been redirected to different articles since 2007. I would also like it if certain major WikiProjects rotated on the main page with content only related to those WikiProjects with different criteria. More contributions will be rewarded that way. Maybe DYK should have two groups - expansion and new articles. SL93 (talk) 02:27, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Seems to me this debate has largely been about semantics. DYK is about a certain kind of improvement, namely, adding new content to the encyclopedia. There is an assumption that the new content will be of an acceptable standard of course.

The reason DYK does not accept other kinds of improvement (for example, pruning) is because judging whether such edits represent an improvement or not is much more subjective and time-consuming. We don't have the manpower for making such assessments. Improvements of that sort go to GAN or FAC for assessment. Gatoclass (talk) 02:39, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Break 3

OK, here's a radical suggestion. Appoint a directorate, as Sandy suggested when this round started. Any article that has never been at DYK and is not in FAC/FA or GAC/GA can be nominated. Nominations remain in the pool for one week. Every day, the directorate picks, say, 6 (perhaps 12) articles that they feel have the most engaging hooks and are neither plagiarized, copyright violations, based on unreliable sources, or negative/controversial BLPs and puts them on the main page. Articles which age out of the pool are ineligible for 1 month. Articles which are passed over for cause (plagiarism, etc.), as identified by the directorate or outside reviewers are ineligible for 3 months. (Times are arbitrary.) In essence, it's sort of a "content lottery"—if you write something that is catchy, appeals to the directorate, and doesn't contain any major sins against the encyclopedia, go directly to the front page for half a day. The clause about FA and GA is so articles that are being recognized by those processes don't crowd out the rest, but reserving some of the slots for them instead would also be in keeping with the spirit of the proposal. Discuss. 02:45, 4 September 2011 (UTC) typoed my signature Choess (talk) 02:55, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I appreciate your creative and enthusiastic spirit but ... Just fyi the directorate idea has recently been discussed (and not rejected), for example here. DYK already gets so many incoming nominations from new and expanded content that the (controversial) quid pro quo reviewing system was recently implemented. You suggest adding even more nominations (from FA and GA) previously ineligible. Instead of expanding the number of reviewers, you propose shrinking responsibility down to a few people in a directorate. I foresee some practical problems here, would you care to offer some ideas about how to meet these?

Sharktopus

^talk 03:27, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

By giving the directorate the authority to pick the 6 or 12 or however many articles per day, you relieve them of the responsibility to review every single article nominated. They can pick out the few they like best, check those, and if some of them have problems, go back to the pool and dip out a few more. The bulk of nominations, with uninteresting hooks and indifferent quality, will simply age out, instead of burning reviewers' time in a lengthy back-and-forth.

As long as an unlimited number of articles can get nominated for DYK and reviewers are obliged to check every nomination for plagiarism, copyvio, etc., DYK will continue to attract unwanted attention. We have checklists now? Great. That helps me as a clueful reviewer, but is it really going to bring QPQ reviews by the clueless up to standard? Doubtful. If this rolls around next year and DYK keeps popping up plagiarized articles, incompetently reviewed, it seems rather likely that the whole process will be shut down. Giving reviewers or some authority discretion to reject nominations with a minimal investment of time seems to be like a reasonable way out. Choess (talk) 04:28, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

No offense, but I don't think the point of these big dramafest threads is ever to actually bring about change...a lot of people will just vomit all their opinions onto here for a few hours and then things will go back to business as usual.

Regarding the specifics of your proposal.... How does this address "improvement" in particular? With no criteria (other than regular WP policies), what's to say there wouldn't be like a thousand noms--and what's to stop people from fussing when their article doesn't get picked when everything's entirely subjective? And most importantly (and related to my first question), why is this even necessary? It doesn't address "improvement" in a principled way and, unfortunately, looks to me like a solution in search of a problem. rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:50, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, the fact that an article exists and is not a complete load of fertilizer is, by definition, an improvement over when the article did not exist. And the idea is to some extent inspired by the way WP:TFA is done: rather than try to come up with elaborate, objective criteria for picking which FA should be TFA every day, it's left to the discretion of a trusted director.

I think, to some extent, the "thousand noms" and "people fussing" objections cancel out. If three people in the office are competing for a promotion and you lose out, you're terribly incensed at your former co-worker and the managers. If you're competing with a thousand others, you know the odds are against you even if you've done a very good job.

What I am trying to grapple with, among other things, is the need to balance comprehensiveness and time. Carefully evaluating goodness of content and improvement is a long, tedious, labor-intensive process, which I would rather leave to GA and FA. If DYK is to have a separate mission, it can hardly hope to exceed the most basic checks for plagiarism and sourcing. Even so, checklist or no checklist, DYK does not appear to have the resources at present to process articles at its current rate and still make those basic checks.

The solution, as I see it, is to break the notion that DYK is an entitlement for creating new content. If we acknowledge that the number of articles coming in exceeds the number that can be reliably checked, and that we will only display them at a rate that we're sure we can check, then it follows that there will be some arbitrariness in deciding what does make the grade. In that case, why not go the whole hog, open the doors to as much good content as we can get to make those arbitrary picks, and in the process provide a better experience for the reader. (Don't you think a directorate picking from a large pool of nominations would be able to find better hooks than some of the dull dogs that get by now?) I can think of some other tweaks I might make to the proposal, like throttling the number of nominations per person over a given time, but I think it's within the spirit of DYK as I remember (or misremember?) it of old. Choess (talk) 03:46, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

But TFA does have elaborate criteria for picking out the given TFA; they're described at WP:TFA/R. And I really still don't see how this proposal encourages "article improvement" any more than DYK currently does; if anything, your proposal encourages browsing Wikipedia looking for interesting articles to nominate, since there is no requirement about article recentness, improvement, quality, etc. rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:52, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

And for what it's worth, the idea that DYK is not an entitlement and DYK selection should be limited to a smaller number of DYKs based on more subjective criteria is not new; I myself have proposed a version of this before (Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 48#What is DYK for? (long, sry)). You can review those discussions (and there are some more recent similar discussions that link to it) for more background. rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:56, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Taking a step back for a sec, we do 2x expansions for unreferenced BLPs, so what about some formula for inline referencing slabs of text? Say an article that goes from under 25% unreferenced to over 75%? Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:53, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Because DYK is about Wikipedia's newest content, not about Wikipedia's most recently improved articles. And we can't keep adding caveats to the existing rules regarding eligibility, it would make the process too complicated. Gatoclass (talk) 02:59, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

So why is "improvement" one of the goals on the article page? Malleus Fatuorum 03:03, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Because it's not. I already explained this to you twice (02:00, 4 September 2011, 1:12, 4 September 2011). Try to wrap your brain around it. rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:05, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

You have explained nothing, you have simply obfuscated. The page says "This serves as a way to thank editors who create new content, encourages editors to contribute to and improve articles". I assume that you can read? Malleus Fatuorum 03:10, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

"This serves as a way to do A, B, and C" does not mean "the sole purpose of this is to B". rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:12, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

No, but it does include B as a statement which means that one of the motives towards DYK is (as Malleus has been saying) improving articles. I'm not sure he ever said that that was its sole purpose. Even if you two share some hostility, your approaches towards considering the other an idiot are not helpful towards the project. 94.8.98.105 (talk) 03:20, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

The way it's worded, "encouraging improvement" is included as an ancillary benefit of DYK, not necessarily it's goal. And anyway, I already suggested way back at the beginning of this thread that if it is really so ambiguous, we could just change the wording. Alas, people would rather just get their drama on them find a simple solution to a simple problem. rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:27, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

(ec, re Casliber) It's quite difficult to measure objectively "how much text is referenced", since it's not always clear how much of the preceding text is "covered" by an inline reference. I don't think this sort of thing would be feasible. For what it's worth, I'm not sure how much the 2x expansion for BLP thing is even done here, I have never paid much attention to it and as far as I can remember it was adopted hastily like some of the stuff going on now. Personally I'm not a fan of it, because I think it makes the scope of DYK more ill-defined (as Gato suggests above). rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:00, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

All I ever hear is "no we can't do that" or "no we don't want to do that", or comments along the lines of "go away", we don't like you and your ideas. Calling Malleus stupid was not nice - he brings up a very valid point that really should be addressed. Accusing me of wanting to collect shiny trinkets is also not nice. Listen to Cas - he has a good idea. Lots of good ideas get shot down here, and it's really really discouraging to content editors who don't just churn out new pages but instead work to expand badly written unsourced pages. Truthkeeper (talk) 03:08, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

What do you mean, all you ever hear is "no we can't do that"? Maybe you haven't noticed all the changes to the nomination process in the past month (including one just a few hours ago), but I have have been spending a lot of time working rather thanklessly to implement a lot of you guys' requests. As for my responses to Cas and Choess' ideas, are you suggesting that we shouldn't be allowed to think critically about new ideas? I won't apologize for pointing out what I think are valid concerns with a proposal. rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:11, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I think what you've done is fantastic. I even started a thread called praise mentioning your work. I'll say it again - when I made a nomination the other day it was very very easy and I was impressed. But I don't like the "you guys" attitude - we all contribute to wikipedia. Are some of us not the same as others. Are some welcome at DYK and others not? Clearly that's the sense I've had all along and it's very disturbing. Here's an example of a page that was expanded and sourced - from this to this in five days - then I gave up because a fivefold expansion is impossible. So why bother? Truthkeeper (talk) 03:19, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

As has been said many times: if you've put a lot of work into improving an article, but it was already pretty long at the beginning so 5x expansion is not feasible, why not just take it to GA? rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:25, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Because not every page is good enough for GA. Truthkeeper (talk) 03:42, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

But if you were interested in improvement you could take it up to GA level. Or are you just saying that you want to get some sort of recognition for precisely the amount of work you already did on the article, no more and no less? rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:45, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I might walk away from that page for as long a year before coming back to it, and certainly hadn't even considered taking it to GA because it's not good enough - so yeah, I'd like the recognition for what I've done. I've improved and added sources. I don't know what you mean by no less. I've worked on many pages that I've sourced and expanded. A few have gone to GA and a few to FA - but the majority of work I've done in over two years is just out there. And I can't think I'm the only person. Truthkeeper (talk) 03:51, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, with all the other issues going on at DYK these days, I just don't think the project's top priority should be appeasing editors who say "I want recognition but I don't want to have to more work to get it, even though I could". It's the responsibility of editors who want recognition to make sure they meet the criteria for whatever they are submitting to (DYK, GA, FA, whatever); it's not the responsibility of the project to revise its criteria to suit what every editor has already done.

Now feel free to go criticize me for not listening your concerns, since apparently all I do here is not listen to editors' concerns. rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:59, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm not asking you to appease me - either I'll choose to keep doing what I've always done or not. What I'm saying is that it's hard to swallow if DYK is only about new content, and often the new content isn't great or has copyvio problems. If that's the case, we should rethink DYK. I was only giving an example per Cas' suggestion which was a good suggestion. I once met someone at a meet-up who does nothing but add references to pages - shouldn't we consider giving someone like that credit every once in a while. That's all. Truthkeeper (talk) 04:05, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, this point has been rehashed over and over again in previous discussions about DYK, but I guess I'll say it again now. There are a lot of people who do a lot of different things that improve the encyclopedia. I don't know where people get the idea that suddenly it's DYK's responsibility, and only DYK's responsibility, to congratulate all of them. DYK has a somewhat specific niche, as do many projects here. rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:09, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, your reasons really resonate with me, Truthkeeper. I work, perhaps, on more new articles than old, so my work tends to be DYK-eligible, but I agree that the distinction is arbitrary and it would be nice to break it down. Again, the question is "How can we pick out this sort of work without a lengthy review process?" Choess (talk) 04:13, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for saying that. It's not for the reward or congratulations as Rjanag seems to think, but rather how can we bring more and better pages to DYK. I really didn't realize it was only for new pages here and the area I tend to work in, literature, has so many bad pages that I think my time is better spent improving instead of adding more. I also don't think this is a drama-fest, I think it's worthy of discussion. Truthkeeper (talk) 04:39, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

TK, you specifically said that you wanted recognition for your work and the reason you were dissatisfied with the DYK criteria was because they didn't allow you to get a reward for an article you had done some work on but weren't willing to devote GAN time to. That might explain why I "seem to think" you're in it for the reward. rʨanaɢ (talk) 05:17, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

You asked a question and I answered honestly. It's absurd to think that I'm posting here because I want credit for a specific page. I've expanded countless pages like that, most not on my user page because I usually don't keep track. But if I'm to be really honest, yeah it's wrong that people create crappy articles to get recognition, and those who improve articles don't. Taking a page to GA involves library books, library fines, time, more time, and I think anyone who improves anything should be equally rewarded if we reward people who create pages and source to Imdb or something like that. But the rules are the rules and I'll shut up for now. Again - the example I gave was in response to Cas. He said something about improving sources, you said not possible, I said why not this, you said I only did it because I want a reward. That's just so not true. Truthkeeper (talk) 05:30, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Am I really hearing editors defend the concept that DYK promotes content to the front page without any requirement that the content be improved? DYK exists officially only for the writers and not our readers. RxS (talk) 03:16, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

You certainly are. And anyone who says otherwise is branded a troll. Malleus Fatuorum 03:21, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

RxS: why should their be a requirement that content be improved? Improvement of existing content is not the only way to improve the encyclopedia. rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:26, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Rjanag: Let's say, as a hypothetical, someone takes a 1kb prose film article and just throws up a 4k plot summary. Is that acceptable? Based on what I'm reading the answer to that sounds like a yes, when I can name more than enough problems with an addition like that and would think that DYK knows better than to accept that. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 03:32, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

No, it's not acceptable. We have, and do, rejected nominations where the content is mainly plot summary or in-universe information. rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:37, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Likewise, two can play at this game of taking one another's comments overly literally and extending them to ridiculous extremes. For the "improvement is all that matters" crowd: let's say, as a hypothetical, someone takes a 3kb prose film article and corrects a spelling error on it. Is that suitable for main page exposure? After all, they did improve it. rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:38, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Of course not, but I also consider DYK both an expansion and improvement process. I know my question above sounded stupid but that's really how this entire debate has been coming across: my hypothetical versus yours, and obvious both of those are wrong. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 03:40, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

@Rjanag: If it's not obvious why there should be a requirement for content to be improved in order for it to be featured on the front page then I'm not sure what to say. I can't imagine any other reason we'd feature something on the main page. The phrase Improvement of existing content is not the only way to improve the encyclopedia is meaningless. Encyclopedia = content.

Unless DYK is there to serve our editors, then encyclopedia = barnstar-like self congratulations for adding content to the mainpage without any reference to quality or our readers needs. RxS (talk) 03:59, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

What about the addition of new content? Since "encyclopedia = content", I assume that adding new content also helps the encyclopedia. So why are some people so insistent that the only thing worth anyone's time here is improving existing content?

For the umpteenth time: I have not said anywhere in this discussion that improving existing content is not good and not worthwhile. But it's also not the only way that people can improve the encyclopedia. I have a feeling you and I are using the phrase "improving existing content" to refer to different things, because this entire huge useless thread is mostly just nitpicking over semantics. rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:03, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

That's the point, adding new content does not automatically improve the encyclopedia. That seems obvious. And since that's the case, adding content can't be the only criteria to add to the main page. Improvement might be a great start. RxS (talk) 04:08, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Sheesh, I take a nap once and I wake to this. Not reading all that, so I may repeat others. To answer the original point I made, as well as the original question, I consider DYK an expansion process, with improvement being a given in articles. In practice, we know that this is not always the case, as articles can be fluffed up with unneeded junk to push them to a certain number. The "improvement" process and "expansion" process of an article are far from mutually exclusive, and I'm not a fan of that being implied. I also disagree with the interpretation that improvement means nothing, since if the articles are worse when nom'd then when they started, I would hope that those are quickly trashed. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 03:15, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

DYK is about improving the quality of Wikipedia's coverage and content. That's why I'm here, and I hope that's why most of us are here. Creating new articles on notable subjects furthers that purpose. The 5x expansion rule was intended to serve that same purpose but was originally limited to "former stubs (or redirects) that have been greatly expanded are also encouraged." See the 2006 rules on expansions here. Over time, the 5x expansion rule was loosened to allow 5x expansions even of articles that were not stubs. In my opinion, 5x expansion of a stub serves the same function as creating a new article. Padding problems are more likely to arise when a 5x expansion is attempted on an article that already has substantial content. I would not be opposed to returning to the old system in which DYK is again limited to 5x expansions of stubs. This would eliminate the problem with adding fluff so that a 10,000 byte article can be expanded to 50,000 bytes. Cbl62 (talk) 04:31, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I think that should be made clear. Expanding a stub is the same as writing a new page. And then the information should be updated that DYK is only for new content. Truthkeeper (talk) 04:57, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

That would probably be acceptable, though exactly what qualifies as a stub for DYK will need to be defined better. This, for example, is classified as a stub but a 5x expansion is quite difficult (it is currently 2600+ chars, and the rewrite I'm working on isn't even 3x) Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:27, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Sticking an oar in here, since a lot of assumptions are being brought out again and since I've done several expansions . . . I can live with the existing wording and with most of the suggested changes, but "improvement" needs to stay. I don't think it's either necessary or desirable to make a distinction between a stub and a non-stub; the 5x expansion rule takes care of that. Also, I think some of the issues raised here touch on the undesirability of increasing the minimum length requirement: some topics that are assets to the encyclopedia do not lend themselves to great length (for example: many species articles), and I agree that we do not want to equate improvement with adding padding. However, Wikipedia editors (and those who submit things to DYK) are motivated by many different things. DYK for me is neither a trophy nor a reward I expect - it's a way for me to share something with people who likely didn't know about it. I do many other things, including writing and expanding articles that are not eligible for DYK for various reasons (including lack of an interesting hook), and I am pretty sure we all do. But all these things are improvements to the encyclopedia. DYK is just a particularly good way to encourage improvements - it's not the only one, nor can it encourage all of them, but yes, that's one of its purposes. Yngvadottir (talk) 20:31, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Suggestion for review

One thing I've noticed that seems to be happening on DYK is that often certain hooks get ignored at first and then when the comments flood in on the nominations around it, it gets orphaned and just left there for ages. A case in point of this is in the current nomination for The Bouncy, the nominations above and below it are covered in comments wheras that one is left unanswered.

But the suggestion I'm trying to make is maybe there should be a paragraph that asks that people adding new requests should try to review the nomination directly below the new one to prevent a pile-on and orphaning of any nomination. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 08:13, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I think we should ask people to deal with the oldest first. We have two nominations from the 20th of August or prior that have not received full reviews yet. (Disclosure: They are mine, and as such I cannot review them) Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:07, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Template:Did you know nominations/Darlenys Obregón

Can someone close this as withdrawn? That is unless someone has a new hook idea. SL93 (talk) 14:39, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I'll take a look. No matter what, nice find. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:43, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
- Your hook looks good. I guess that the article is so filled with her accomplishments that it was hard for me to choose a hook. SL93 (talk) 14:50, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Glad you like it. She has quite a few medals, but wording the hook is rather difficult. I hope this convinces you to not withdraw the nom yet. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:51, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Reel Moments

I rarely make timing requests at DYK, but the 1AM-9AM LA time slot for Reel Moments is terrible because this is the kind of story we hope the Hollywood types might IM, email, tweet each other about.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 16:08, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Moved it forward. Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:24, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

HD 85512 b in today's DYK

Relevant discussion here. The original hook I proposed was "... that the extrasolar planet HD 85512 b is one of the best candidates for habitability ever discovered, with temperatures that could be similar to that of Southern France?", but the detail about temperatures being similar to Southern France was not reliably sourced then. I just found a reliable source (an Italian newspaper La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno) here. Any chance the additional details could be added to the main page now to make the hook look better?? Suraj T 06:21, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Probably not, especially since it only has another hour to go. Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:55, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Hadn't noticed the time left. Thanks anyway. Suraj T 07:04, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Here's a challenge

Given the lengthy and and largely fruitless discussion above, might it be possible to come to a generally acceptable form of words to replace the present:

The DYK section gives publicity to newly created or expanded Wikipedia articles. This serves as a way to thank editors who create new content, encourages editors to contribute to and improve articles and the encyclopedia, and brings new and expanded articles to the attention of readers who view the Main Page.

Clearly article improvement is no concern of DYK, so ought that not to be dropped? Malleus Fatuorum 03:43, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

So when I make this exact same suggestion it's bollocks, but when you make it it's worthy of its own section and a nice new proposal? Glad we're on the same page. (I'm also glad you were able to consider this simple solution to this simple problem before starting a long and unconstructive dramafest...oh, wait.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:48, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't see anything wrong with the existing wording. As Wizardman and myself said above, creating new content is "improving articles and the encyclopedia", there is no contradiction there. Gatoclass (talk) 03:57, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Creating new content does not automatically improve articles and/or the encyclopedia. I think that's obvious. RxS (talk) 04:03, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Clearly not obvious to Rjanag though. Malleus Fatuorum 04:09, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I never said I think new content automatically improves the encyclopedia (if you think I said that, please bring a diff). So what exactly is "not obvious" to me? rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:11, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Do we really have to spell out that there's an expectation the "new content" will be worthwhile? Surely some things go without saying. Gatoclass (talk) 04:06, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Have you actually understood anything that's been said here? Malleus Fatuorum 04:09, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

What in your view have I overlooked? Gatoclass (talk) 04:20, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes you probably should since it's not a concept that's been faithfully adhered to lately. RxS (talk) 04:11, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

"The DYK section gives publicity to newly created or expanded Wikipedia articles."

I hadn't realised that this gives the green light to the inclusion of GAs that are newly expanded. It says "or".

"This serves as a way to thank editors"

Very bad idea, this serotonin-fuelled culture of thanks. We need editors who will edit for other reasons, like everyone else. Tony (talk) 04:14, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Even worse idea is that the editors thanked are those who create the mini-articles, not those who toil to bring them up to scratch. Malleus Fatuorum 04:20, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Tony, I now have a little tab on my talk page labelled "wikilove". Apparently the community at large feels that users are not being rewarded for their contributions enough.

Malleus, you seem to be renewing your perennial gripe about DYK quality. If so, I think you should be more straightforward about it, rather than complaining about phraseology on the rules page. Gatoclass (talk) 04:31, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I really do not think a spirited defense of the WikiLove tab is a good position to incorporate in one's lines of argument. Just saying. Choess (talk) 04:33, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I was hardly defending it Choess - simply pointing out that the community as a whole has concluded that editors need more encouragement for their contributions, and that Tony's attitude is therefore out of step with the prevailing view. Gatoclass (talk) 04:42, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I continue to favor Yomangani's suggestion as the clearest way forward for DYK.

Accept DYK for what it is: a shop-front for works in progress. Change "From Wikipedia's newest content:" to "From Wikipedia's newest content; these articles may need improving, correcting or deleting. If you'd like to help, pick one and start editing." Do a quick check that the articles don't obviously breach any core policies (just as you would on New Page patrol) and then tip them out on the main page for editors and potential editors to fix up. All you are doing then is sifting the new page creation list for articles that have potential. This is supposedly the encyclopaedia anyone can edit, so why should the main page be filled only with content that discourages editing by its apparent completeness?...Encourage visitors to become editors by giving them something they might want to edit.

cmadler (talk) 13:40, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Oh come now: let's not persist with this fiction that the main motivation is to encourage visitors to become editors. If that were the case, you'd put some kind of limit on established WPians' trophy hunting. Tony (talk) 14:06, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Oh come now: let's not persist with the fiction that I wrote anything that fits that interpretation. Yomangani ^talk 22:30, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Kiefer's proposal

Proposal:

The DYK section publicizes expanded articles, for example new articles, after an informal quality review. This publicity rewards editors for their contributions.

Current description:

The DYK section gives publicity to newly created or expanded Wikipedia articles. This serves as a way to thank editors who create new content, encourages editors to contribute to and improve articles and the encyclopedia, and brings new and expanded articles to the attention of readers who view the Main Page.

My proposal avoids the redundancies while stating that the DYK items have received a quality review (for minimum standards) and avoiding the word "improvement". Kiefer.Wolfowitz 21:20, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

While I don't think there are any inaccuracies in the current version (for reasons I explained in the TL;DR above), I agree that your proposal is a more elegant wording. My only suggestion is that I think "brings new and expanded articles to the attention of Main Page readers" could still be included (at the end) in the new version; I guess that is also expressed by "publicizes" but I'm not sure how clearly that comes out. rʨanaɢ (talk) 21:23, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind words, which I really appreciate.

We should drop "Wikipedia" and "Main page", which are non-informative. "Omit needless words! Omit needless words!" Kiefer.Wolfowitz 21:33, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Rjanag, you are welcome to preface my suggestion with "On the Main Page". Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:19, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't care for Kiefer's version, and since someone else has already removed the "improve articles" clause, I see little reason to make further changes. Gatoclass (talk) 08:29, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi Gatoclass! Would you please supplement your lack of caring with a reason, which might help us craft consensus language. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 14:21, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I shortened the first sentence, which I failed to quote in my proposal here; keeping the information of the first sentence addresses Gjanag's concern (I think). I then inserted my suggestion, which seems to have had general support (apart from Gatoclass, who has not responded here, despite my prompting on the user page). Kiefer.Wolfowitz 01:03, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Change to the rules should be discussed and agreed to

A change has just been made to WP:DYK supposedly on the basis of discussion on this page.[7]

Any debate about whether or not "the purpose of DYK is to improve Wikipedia" falters on the challenge of assessing relative worth among different kinds of improvements to Wikipedia. The text that was removed from the rules did not say, "the purpose of DYK is to improve Wikipedia." The text that was removed said that one of the goals of expanding content is to "improve articles." I reverted the change, asking the editor to seek consensus before making it; the editor reinstated the novelty saying that consensus had already been achieved. Is there such consensus? $Sharktopus$ ^talk 04:20, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Sharktopus's reinstatement of the "improve" phrase. In addition, it is unconscionable that the culture of "thanks" should be ensconced in the same sentence, which appears towards the top of the official DYK page. Tony (talk) 04:44, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I also agree with the reinstatement of improve, and think that Tony's suggestion has merit. The "culture of 'thanks'" can be kept an open secret (i.e. not written, but essentially known by everyone). Please note that this is not an endorsement or detraction to the value of such a culture. Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:56, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Like I have said in the discussions above (most recently, at the bottom of #Here's a challenge), I don't think there was anything inaccurate about that sentence to begin with (rather, I think the OP of that discussion was deliberately misreading it), but I thought Kiefer's proposed rewording was fine. To be perfectly honest, though, I think there are more important things we could be discussing; does anybody seriously think the wording of one sentence in the intro of WP:DYK (a page which, face it, almost no one reads anyway) is going to change anything about the nitty gritty of how we actually keep DYK running? Once again my attempt to get feedback on substantive issues (see e.g. #Mandatory?) has been drowned out by dramafests. rʨanaɢ (talk) 05:02, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm only pointing out what might turn out to be a liability for DYK. Best kept an open secret for the moment. Tony (talk) 05:04, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
Rjanag you were very clear that improvement is unimportant and that DYK is only for newly created content. Maybe the conversation became a dramafest as you call it because some editors were either surprised to hear that or disagreed. And to blame it on Malleus's deliberate misreading is just plain wrong. What if a new editor were to "improve" a page and reads it wrong. Would they be subject to the same treatment? At any rate the page that no one reads should reflect DKY's mission. I've changed it back. Truthkeeper (talk) 13:27, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Rjanag's position is clearly absurd, and to continue with his taunting "too stupid for your own good" "deliberately misreading" theme is inherently dishonest. Either DYK is concerned with article improvement or it isn't. It is hardly inconsequential to try and establish exactly what DYK is for, but it very obviously has nothing to do with article improvement, therefore the phrase should be removed. As I already said, there are many examples of articles being improved by being reduced in size, not expanded. Malleus Fatuorum 13:37, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

This whole discussion is absurd. Speaking for myself, I rarely create, mostly expand (stubs, non-stubs, doesn't matter for me), and do believe my expansion improves the article, and wikipedia, and do believe many others think the same, and would strongly disagree with anyone who believes not. Materialscientist (talk) 13:43, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

When did Rjanag's opinion become DYK gospel? If Rjanag had said DYK was concerned with rescuing maidens from towers would we now be edit warring over a different fairytale for the opening of WP:DYK? Yomangani ^talk 13:58, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I truly think there's an argument to be made that more, different, better content could be brought to DYK if there were more openness to new ideas. Having a sliding scale for article expansion isn't necessary revolutionary and wouldn't break DYK but would allow longer, poorly written and badly sourced pages to become eligible. Not only are those ideas not welcome, editors who ask about are either called stupid or accused of wanting trinkets and main page exposure - it's not an atmosphere that allows any kind of substantive discussion, so yeah, I guess that makes Rjanag's opinion fairly important. The message from the long thread (which btw should not be referred to as a dramafest b/c that in itself creates drama) was very clear: DYK welcomes new content only. If that's the case, the main DYK should reflect that. Truthkeeper (talk) 14:22, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Rjanag probably would. But do you or anyone else dispute my assertion that many articles, especially the more mature ones, can equally well be improved by reducing their length rather than increasing it? In the rational world there is no correlation between length and quality. And which of the DYK criteria addresses the quality of the fivefold expansion anyway? None? Malleus Fatuorum 14:05, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Loads of people disputed it when you first introduced it. Over-long articles are not what DYK is about, but this hardly means DYK is not concerned with improving content. We have been over all this before. The rephrasing is clearly premature. Johnbod (talk) 14:11, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

No, loads of people closed their minds and followed Rjanag's lead of dismissing me as a troll. Malleus Fatuorum 14:28, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't recall anyone disputing that some articles can be improved by reducing their length. But the point, which has been explained to you over and over again, is that DYK is not a venue for any article that has been improved in some way; it's a venue for new content. rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:06, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Clearly if it's for new content only then the wording should reflect that and Nikkimaria's correction should stand. Truthkeeper (talk) 15:12, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

The wording does reflect that, unambiguously: "The DYK section gives publicity to newly created or expanded Wikipedia articles". The extra sentence that you guys have been harping over for days is obviously not a description of what DYK's "purpose" is, it's just a listing of nice possible side effects of "giving publicity to newly created or expanded articles". rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:32, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't think anybody would dispute that many articles can be improved by reducing their length, but equally many articles could also be improved by the addition of an illustration of some facet of the article. DYK isn't concerned with those articles (though I'd hope if such an article was presented it might get the attention it needed while passing through the progress). It is not logical to conclude that because many articles could be improved by cutting then DYK is not concerned with improvement because it doesn't include articles that have been cut. That conclusion would only be valid if cutting articles was the only way to improve them. Yomangani ^talk 14:29, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

It's just as valid as DYK's blind spot over fivefold expansions, which really nobody can rationally defend. The truth quite plainly is that DYK is about new content only, irrespective of quality. Malleus Fatuorum 14:32, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I can't agree more with Malleus on this. I work mainly in literature where I see many many pages with bloated plots, trivia sections, and absolutely nothing else. Currently there's no incentive in place to work on those pages, but a very strong reward culture exists to create new and often non-notable content. DYK should be honest about this. Truthkeeper (talk) 14:42, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

There are incentives for improving such articles, they are called GAN and FAC. DYK is just for new content, not for every conceivable kind of article improvement. Gatoclass (talk) 14:58, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Exactly - that has been made clear. Even is only two good sentences remain after clearing out the crap - if you want to expand/ improve write a Good article or a Featured article. If that's the case, DYK should be very clear about it's wording. I support Nikkimaria's change. Truthkeeper (talk) 15:10, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

There's no sense here, just entrenched positions based in a cult philosophy. I gave an example earlier today of an article that was taken to FAR at 34kB (5918 words) and ended up kept at 19kB (3335 words), a lesson that very few here seem prepared to learn. Malleus Fatuorum 23:36, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

In the cycle BRD (Bold, Revert, Discuss), Nikkimaria made a bold change to the rules of DYK based on interpretation of a discussion among a few participants. I reverted the change and asked for discussion and consensus before making such a change to long-standing text about DYK. Now it is time to for discussion, not time to edit war the disputed change back into the rules again. The change is disputed. $Sharktopus$ ^talk 14:10, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
- Then let's see your discussion. I'm particularly interested to see how DYK assesses the quality of fivefold expansions. Malleus Fatuorum 14:30, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
I've fully protected the page for a day; all of you, sit down and hash out consensus. Ironholds (talk) 15:08, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
- Nothing will change in 24 hours Ironholds. Malleus Fatuorum 19:31, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Redundancies

The redundancies serve no purpose and are an embarrassment. Reading "improve the articles and the encyclopedia" pains me. Cannot we whittle down the current paragraph to acceptable junior-high prose, before trying to remove falsehoods? Kiefer.Wolfowitz 14:47, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

This section concerns a specific change that has been proposed, disputed, and is under discussion. WP:DYK was rewritten a few months ago by Tony1, whose language skills I don't think many would dismiss as unacceptable junior-high prose. The phrase "improve the articles and the encyclopedia" does not appear in it anywhere.

Sharktopus

^talk 15:24, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that Kiefer was belittling Tony's language skills. I think he was requesting that it be simplified so that it is easier to understand. My interpretation of his statement "Cannot we whittle down the current paragraph to acceptable junior-high prose, before trying to remove falsehoods?" - "Please cut back on excess prose in the paragraph so that it is understandable to junior-high students before we try to remove false information" Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:34, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually, to be specific: Tony1 only edited the wording of the DYK rules, not that intro paragraph (and I re-wrote much of the page more recently anyway, so I don't think it's fair to hold Tony1 responsible for whatever's on that page now). Sharktopus, if you didn't see "improve articles and the encyclopedia" last time you checked, it's because a bunch of people were edit-warring over that sentence (believe it or now); the phrase was indeed there before this giant waste of time started. In any case, I think Kiefer's point is legitimate. rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:40, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

My intention was not to blame or criticize Tony1; I thought he did an excellent job improving the rule set. I did not realize that the first paragraph wasn't also edited by Tony1, but I assumed that if he had disliked it he could/would have suggested changes during that rewrite.

Sharktopus

^talk 20:31, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

It is the nature of committees to think badly and to write barbarically, unless a benevolent dictator be present:

There is a sentence stating that DYK improves "the articles and the encyclopedia". We can just remove "and the encyclopedia".
"new and expanded content" should be "expanded content", because new content is expanded. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 15:50, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I like those ideas for changes. Well maybe I would slightly prefer to say DYK improves the encyclopedia, rather than it improves the articles, but I support the idea of removing one of those two operands.

Sharktopus

^talk 15:57, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Regarding new/expanded content: I tend to feel the opposite. The more fundamental idea here is "new content", and 5x expanded articles are just a special case of new content (they're articles where, in theory, 80% or more of the content is new). rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:58, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I have always expanded "new and expanded content" as "new articles and expanded content", because those categories are mentioned in the DYK rules (along with BLP doubling). In this context, imho the relevant context, the "new articles and" is redundant. (Thank you for diagnosing the ambiguity of my previous formulation.) Kiefer.Wolfowitz 16:02, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Here's another suggestion, which may be more politically viable ( Kiefer.Wolfowitz 21:07, 5 September 2011 (UTC)):

~~The DYK section publicizes new or expanded articles. This publicity and DYK's informal peer-review encourage editors collaboratively to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.~~

Sorry, I think that leaves out too much.

Sharktopus

^talk 22:38, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. I (just now) am removing it from discussion with strike marks. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 15:57, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

The proposed change that we are discussing here

Here is what is currently in use; the word "worthwhile" was an addition proposed by Nikkimaria and approved (so far) by everyone:

The DYK section gives publicity to newly created or expanded Wikipedia articles. This serves as a way to thank editors who create worthwhile new content, encourages editors to contribute to and improve articles and the encyclopedia, and brings new and expanded articles to the attention of readers who view the Main Page.

The proposed change is to remove the phrase "and improve articles and." If this change is made, the text will read:

The DYK section gives publicity to newly created or expanded Wikipedia articles. This serves as a way to thank editors who create worthwhile new content, encourages editors to contribute to the encyclopedia, and brings new and expanded articles to the attention of readers who view the Main Page.

Neither the old wording nor the new wording states:

That improving articles is (or is not) the main goal of the DYK section.
That creating worthwhile new content is the only way, or the most important way, to improve articles.

I prefer the old wording with its implication that adding good new content is meant to improve Wikipedia. Perhaps as a compromise solution we should shorten the phrase differently: "contribute to and improve the encylopedia." $Sharktopus$ ^talk 15:14, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

contribute to and improve articles - this phrase has to be removed. Obviously it's not true. Write a declarative and active sentence that DYK is to reward the creation of new articles. Period. Truthkeeper (talk) 15:21, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
Oh, come on: even if that was the purpose of DYK, then it shouldn't be. Yomangani ^talk 15:26, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
Whether it should or shouldn't be DYK's purpose it clearly is, and its only one. Certainly it's got nothing to do with what reader's may be interested in anyway. Malleus Fatuorum 15:29, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
If that were true then the solution would not be to enshrine it in the opening blurb but to change it. Yomangani ^talk 15:38, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
The discussion above makes it very clear that such a change to reflect the reality of DYK would be met with just as much resistance as this one has been. Malleus Fatuorum 15:43, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
I don't understand what you mean by "such a change to reflect the reality of DYK". Do you mean in the blurb, or are you talking about reform of DYK? Yomangani ^talk 15:46, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

(ec) I really doubt the purpose of this discussion is to enact serious change in how DYK works; news flash, switching a few words in a project's "mission statement" blurb isn't how change happens. The people who are actually making changes happen on DYK are the ones who are dealing with and vetting new submissions every day, slowly making people's requests for change become reality, and most of the time getting their heads bitten off by non-DYKers for volunteering their time to do this. rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:49, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
These phrases like non-DYKer are really problematic. Is Yomangani a DYKer? Have you ever been welcoming to me? I offered to vet pages for copyvio and that was shot down. What does someone have to do to join the DYK club? I thought this was a community and everyone was welcome everywhere, but my naivete continues to startle even myself. Truthkeeper (talk) 15:52, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
(Somebody told me that I was a something-ker, but I think the beginning was "Wan" not "DY") Yomangani ^talk 16:10, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I was just using that as shorthand for "DYK regulars": people who participate regularly in the project (through reviewing, handling administrative tasks, or participating in the substantive, constructive discussions on this page--not just the dramafests and juicy RfCs). I never said you weren't welcome to participate here; I responded brusquely to a couple of your comments to me in the previous discussion because, to be frank, I found them insulting (implying that I ignore all requests here, when actually I have been bending over backwards and submitting myself to a lot of threats and crap in order to help you guys implement changes that I personally don't even want), but I never said you're not welcome to review articles or whatever. rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:56, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

People seem to be having a fundamental misunderstanding between the DYK criteria and possible ancillary benefits of DYK. Improving articles is not one of the DYK requirements and hence it is not the "focus" of what DYK is (DYK is not a forum "for showcasing improved articles", it's one "for showcasing new content"); article improvement is, however, a potential side effect of adding new content. I think people above who are insisting DYK is about article improvement are referring to the second issue. But the point is, DYK does not exist in order to encourage article improvement per se; article improvement is just a nice thing that might also happen as a result of DYK's main goal.

What the underlying purpose of DYK is (sure, the criteria is "new or recently expanded" articles, but at the very core of it is the point of that to foster article improvement, attract new editors, do something for readers, reward certain content contributors, etc.?) is more open to debate; but I also think it's not a particularly useful question. Like I already said above, the wording of DYK's "mission statement" is less important than the particular rules and criterias, and in the short-term is not going to have any effect on any of the work we're doing here. These "big picture" ideas might be fun to argue about (apparently) but arguing about them isn't really doing anything constructive, and is in fact distracting from actual issues. rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:28, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

That there is not even agreement on DYK's purpose amongst its staunchest supporters ought to tell you everything you need to know. Malleus Fatuorum 15:31, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

So what's FA's purpose? I think you'll find DYK is not the only project on Wikipedia that serves more than one purpose, and not the only project the purpose of which different editors disagree. rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:34, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

FA's purpose is to encourage article improvement, something you are clearly unfamiliar with having spent too much time here. Malleus Fatuorum 15:41, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

You caught me; since I have edits to DYK I have never improved an article. (These skeletons were sure to come out of my closet now that I'm in the spotlight, with half of this discussion being "Rjanag this Rjanag that". I'm glad I've made such a big impression on you.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:42, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

You have made no impression on me at all, as I don't know you. I am simply reflecting the comments you have been making here, most of of which veer sooner or later towards shooting the messenger. Malleus Fatuorum 15:45, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

This long page shows plenty of incivility from both sides. But we may assume that Rjanag is familiar with the concept of article improvement, even though DYK has traditionally avoided evaluating quality beyond minimum standards – so there's time to look at all the submissions, not because we like bad articles. Art LaPella (talk) 19:32, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

You may of course assume whatever you like, but it is quite clear to me that Rjanag has no experience of article improvement as opposed to article expansion. And considers that article improvement is no part of DYK's remit. Malleus Fatuorum 20:07, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Of course Rjanag has experience with article improvement. Now back to the real issues ... Art LaPella (talk) 20:44, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

... or in your case back to ignoring them. Malleus Fatuorum 20:49, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Returning to the discussion of wording

And now back to discussion of this section's topic? $Sharktopus$ ^talk 21:10, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm beginning to think that actually having a concrete and consensus-based mission statement would help, but I'll leave that undertaking to others. For now, then: is one of the purposes of DYK to improve articles and the encyclopedia? If so, keep that in there; if not, remove it. In answering that question, though, keep in mind that it isn't asking whether DYK currently improves articles, or whether article improvement is the only purpose, or any number of other things. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:28, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

My answer is yes.

I'm quite impressed that all this discussion has taken place without even considering for a moment the reasons why the answer might be yes, which were quite clearly explained in the past. (I thought those reasons were in some of the DYK pages, but from the level of discussion on this page, I guess it must only have been explained with singular clarity on a discussion page.) And, for what it's worth, it was a recent enough past that even I can remember it. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:36, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Your answer is yes to what? That DYK's mission is to improve articles and the encyclopedia? I think you might find that a hard sell. Malleus Fatuorum 00:51, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes to the only question in that paragraph. Wow, is this so difficult to understand? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 02:59, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

ec Well, I certainly imagine that I am improving Wikipedia when I work on articles, whether I am creating new ones, expanding them for DYK, copyediting elsewhere, or dot dot dot. And if you look at the many hours of unpaid work that people like Crisco or Rjanag put into keeping DYK running smoothly, what could be their goal if not benefiting the wider community and building a great free encyclopedia for the world? The canard that everyone at DYK cares only about totting up DYK mini-trophies is just something people say to attack DYK. I am sure there are trophy-collectors here at DYK but you won't find those people caring about what's is or is not in the mission statement! Now I'm starting to ramble, forgive me! I think Rjanag's claim that DYK is not "about" improving articles was a response to claims that DYK should start rewarding/reviewing/assessing every kind of improvement that anyone values. DYK is limited to content creation/expansion but not because that is the only improvement possible, and not because nobody here cares about improving articles, but just because we have a finite number of reviewers and a large influx of articles already. The very same people who bash DYK for not including GA or for not rewarding really good shrinking of articles tend to be the exact same people who in the next breath say that DYK needs to do more intensive reviews of the articles it gets. I can't speak for Rjanag of course, but I think most people attracted to DYK are creating content they think improves Wikipedia.

Sharktopus

^talk 00:57, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

From what I can gather, the original wording is as follows:

The DYK section gives publicity to newly created or expanded Wikipedia articles. This serves as a way to thank editors who create new content, encourages editors to contribute to and improve articles and the encyclopedia, and brings new and expanded articles to the attention of readers who view the Main Page.

There are a few problems with these sentences. Firstly, 'encourages editors to contribute to and improve articles and the encyclopedia' is poorly chained and awkward to read. This sentence should be recast at minimum.

The second problem is purpose. There is one thing the DYK section does explicitly: it rewards editors who contribute new or significantly expanded content in articles, by increasing the exposure of the articles they've worked on. The other benefits mentioned are endemic to the project as a whole, not to the DYK process.

The DYK section does not explicitly encourage editors to contribute to and improve 'the encyclopedia'. Editors who involve themselves in auxilliary tasks like consensus-building, policy and guideline contributions, process improvement, bot creation, categorisation, wikilinking and other contributions that improve the encyclopedia are not in any way recognised by DYK. Rather, all processes on Wikipedia are intended to encourage editors to contribute to and improve the encyclopedia, whether it be dispute resolution, wikignome drives or anything. This doesn't need to be mentioned explicitly at every opportunity.

The DYK section does not explicitly encourage editors to 'improve articles'. Again, editors who wikilink, spell-check, reformat, categorise and so on are not in any way recognised by DYK. Improving articles is simply not the criteria for recognition in DYK.

That 'expanding articles' is also a form of 'improving articles' or 'improving the encyclopedia' is twice-removed. We could similarly write that DYK encourages people to reduce worldwide conflict, because writing new content improves the encyclopedia, and improving the encyclopedia makes it a more valuable free educational resource to readers, and a more valuable free educational resource for readers might encourage them to learn about their past, and learning about their past might encourage them to try not to repeat their past mistakes. Regardless of the fact that this might be a desirable side-effect benefit of DYK, it is not the purpose of DYK.

DYK's differentiating purpose - the way in which it differs from other Wikipedia processes - is that it recognises new and expanded articles. This is DYK's purpose within the Wikipedia ecosystem, and this is what its description should state. I suggest then the following wording:

The DYK section gives publicity to newly created or significantly expanded Wikipedia articles. This serves as a way to recognise and encourage editors who contribute new content, and brings new and expanded articles to the attention of readers who view the Main Page.

This fundamentally distils DYK down to its unique purpose within the context of Wikipedia, and avoids the redundancy of restating the 'mission statement' of the project as a whole. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 00:58, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Quite. No too hard to understand one might have hoped. Malleus Fatuorum 01:06, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Techno's version looks acceptable to me. Gatoclass (talk) 01:45, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Not to me. There is no benefit to DYK in truncating our goals to remove goals that are in fact goals of DYK, just because those goals are also goals of the encyclopedia. Any such change will just be fodder for more claims that DYK cares nothing for the encyclopedia and is working only to benefit trophy-seekers and plagiarists, as for example was claimed just this morning.

Sharktopus

^talk 02:00, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Could you be more specific Sharktopus? I'm not sure what your objection is exactly. Gatoclass (talk) 02:04, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

My objection is that shrinking our list of goals down, no matter what the motivation might be, will be used as "evidence" that we don't care about things important to the encyclopedia that we accepted having removed from our list of goals. There is no benefit to DYK in distilling our goal list down to "its unique purpose" and no harm done by "the redundancy of restating" that we care about improving the encylopedia. We have lots of pixels. The mission statement has been stable for a long time. I don't mind improving or clarifying it but I really do not want to see it diminished.

Sharktopus

^talk 02:13, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

To what extent? Should DYK's list of goals make mention of encouraging editors to engage in consensus-building? Does not mentioning consensus-building mean that the DYK process doesn't care about it? If so, do you intend to restate all of Wikipedia's objectives within DYK's purpose for the sake of convincing people that DYK's objectives are in sync with the project's objectives? Or would it make more logical sense that this fact could be assumed on the basis that DYK is a part of the Wikipedia project and inherits its parent's goals without needing to explicitly state as much? If an editor decides to argue that DYK ignores Wikipedia's objectives, wouldn't it be easier to simply reply 'DYK is part of Wikipedia and shares all of the project's goals' than to explicitly list each one? TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 02:26, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I was not suggesting that we expand our goal list. I was merely requesting that it not be shrunk to omit, as a novelty, goals that used to be there.

Sharktopus

^talk 02:34, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

So is your reasoning that the project goal should be mentioned because if absent, it 'will just be fodder for more claims that DYK cares nothing for the encyclopedia' and that its absence 'will be used as "evidence" that we don't care about things important to the encyclopedia', or is it because it 'used to be there'? If your reasoning is the former, why are these particular project goals (improving the encyclopedia, improving articles) mentioned but others aren't? If your concern is that the absence of project goals in DYK's objectives will lead to claims that DYK doesn't care about the project's goals, then it makes no sense to selectively include two improvement-related goals that aren't directly related to the process itself (which rewards content creation, not improvement) to the exclusion of the rest.

You refer to the change as a novelty. This seems like stating the obvious, most changes are novel. The current wording is poorly composed and misleading. As Malleus has mentioned, 'improvement' is not equal to 'expansion', nor is one a subset of the other. Expansion can be an improvement or not, and an improvement can be expansion or not. DYK focuses on expansion, not on improvement, evidenced by the fact that DYK's criteria for inclusion is its volume of expansion, not its degree of improvement. This is perfectly fine, we already have processes to reward improvement - our article rating, good article and featured article processes handle this perfectly well. DYK's goal isn't driven by improvement and it doesn't reward improvement, it rewards the provision of new content. Making this clear in DYK's description strikes me as beneficial. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 03:27, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't want to remove goals that used to be in the mission statement. You disagree. You think it will be fine to remove goals that used to be in the mission statement. I disagree.

Sharktopus

^talk 03:49, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Techno's version looks fine to me. Like I have said before.... Techno's message above is a lucid and well-worded summary of things that we all already know, and that no one ever disputed until someone chose to be overly literal and nitpicky just to pick a fight; I still don't think any rewording is necessary, but if we must reword the "mission statement" to avoid these kinds of games in the future I think this rewording would be fine. I really couldn't care less about comments from people like Tony saying "OMG, they removed the word "improvement" from their lede, that means they don't want to improve the encyclopedia"; anyone with a shred of common sense can understand that there are many ways to improve the encyclopedia and no single WikiProject is responsible for rewarding or encouraging every single one of them. rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:05, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps we could add the word "valid" or "worthwhile" to the phrase "new content". DYK doesn't reward any new content, it rewards new content that conforms to Wikipedia's core policies. Gatoclass (talk) 02:11, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

No, it doesn't, so why tell porky pies? Any old shit is passed at DYK, and reviewers clearly don't even take the trouble to read the whole article. Malleus Fatuorum 02:18, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I support this in a sense. I didn't include the word 'worthwhile' in my suggestion because I don't think it's quite the right word to use. Alternatives 'valuable', 'useful', 'suitable', 'appropriate'? TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 02:19, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

But on the basis of less being more I'd suggest that "This serves as a way to" panders to the prolix proclivities encouraged by the defenders of DYK. There have have been many better suggestions made on this page, of which Kiefer's stands out as one of the few written by someone with a full complement of brain cells. Malleus Fatuorum 02:01, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Malleus, people here have been very rude to you, but that is no reason to sink to that level. Tony (talk) 02:17, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I very much doubt that I'd be able to sink to their level. Malleus Fatuorum 02:20, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm certainly open to rewording suggestions. My intent was to outline that a simple statement of DYK's purpose within the Wikipedia ecosystem, that being specifics and not circumstantial effects, is better than the status quo wording. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 02:19, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree with that, and maybe Tony's chiding (of me) was in order. But I remain convinced that a clear and unambiguous statement of the purpose of DYK has to be a priority. Malleus Fatuorum 02:26, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

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