Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 27

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Bot section

Does anyone else think the bot section ought to be removed to a separate page? The "Suggestions" page takes ages to load every time, and I am getting really sick of the delay. I think we need to cut the page down to as small and manageable a length as possible, removing the Bot section would be the most obvious way to do it. Gatoclass (talk) 07:31, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Can I have some feedback on this proposal please? Gatoclass (talk) 07:05, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I am fine with moving it to a separate page - it seems we are not wanting for DYK nominations lately. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 12:54, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I also agree. The list is useful but the folks who make regular use of it should not be very inconvenienced by clicking on a link to another page. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 02:15, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I actually think it would probably make their job easier - because they can then open both pages in separate tabs and just copy from one to the other. Gatoclass (talk) 06:07, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I've had problems loading the page lately too, so this sounds like a good suggestion. Lampman (talk) 03:02, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Now that I think of it, I see no reason why we need the list of admins on this page either, they could go to their own page too. It's links that seem to make pages load slowly, and that section is nothing but links. Gatoclass (talk) 06:56, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

UPDATE: I just copied the current suggestions page into my sandbox and deleted the bot and admin sections, and it appears to load a LOT quicker - just like a normal page in fact! So it looks like this will be worth doing.

Also seems it will be very easy to accomplish too, because both the bot and admin sections are added or removed in their entirety by dedicated templates. So we only have to move the template to a different page and the job is done. Gatoclass (talk) 07:09, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

UPDATE: Since there have been no objections, I have removed the admins section. This was easy to do because a separate admins page already existed. Since I don't know how to create a page in Wikipedia: space, the bot move will have to wait until I can be bothered figuring out how to do it - that is unless someone else does it in the meantime :) Gatoclass (talk) 13:02, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

A month later, and I think this is still a very good idea. I can't figure out how to move the bot page, or I'd have helped with that. I'll contact the bot owner this week, unless there's another idea floating. --Rosiestep (talk) 17:29, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Articles from PD sources

I just happened to notice that on December 29 last year EncycloPetey changed the submission criteria from this:

Try to pick articles that are original to Wikipedia (not 1911 or other data sources) and interesting to a wide audience.

to this:

The content must be original to Wikipedia, not simply taken from the 1911 Britannica or other free data sources.

AFAIK EncycloPetey had no consensus for this change, as his edit summary Being BOLD indicates.

Now the problem I have with this is that most of my ship articles are (largely) cut-and-pastes from the US Navy's PD library known as the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. If EncycloPetey's BOLD change stands, then I will no longer be able to submit ship articles taken from DANFS - which currently incorporates about 90% of my Wiki-activity. Naturally, I'm not too keen on this idea, so I thought I would bring the issue up for discussion.

In my defence, I will say that there is far more work that goes into these articles than one might imagine - in fact, I can knock out a 1500 char article in my own words that would technically qualifty for DYK in the space of a few minutes (and, in fact, have done so numerous times in the last few weeks without submitting any of them to DYK because I don't think they are comprehensive enough). But formatting these ship articles, adding and photoshopping the pic, copyediting and wikilinking the text and so on can take hours. So from my POV, I feel I am doing more than enough work on these articles to justify their submission. But since EncycloPetey has effectively raised the question, I guess we need to discuss it. Gatoclass (talk) 13:49, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, that is an interesting question. I am more partial to EncycloPetey's view of encouraging original content. However, I don't think it can have cut and dry application to every case because what you are describing about your work creating the ship articles seems to include a lot of original contributions even if the prose is not 100% original. To that extent, I would think DYK would be more lenient to scenarios like your ship articles in contrast to someone who just slaps together a 1911 reproduction of only text. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 08:02, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree that, all other things being equal, an original content article should take precedence over an article from PD sources when there is a backlog. On the other hand - let's face it - quite a few original content articles we feature are not that good. So I'm inclined to the view that, as ever, quality should be the main criterion.

Anyhow, I think EncycloPete's wording is too harsh, and he really shouldn't have made a change like that without consultation. So if I don't get any objections in the next few days, I will change it back to what it was. Gatoclass (talk) 14:59, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Done. Gatoclass (talk) 16:15, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Ralph Howell

My (self-)nomination of Ralph Howell (yet another boring dead British MP) seems to have slipped between the cracks. It was selected here by Victuallers (thanks) and put in the "holding bay" here, but vapourised 6 minutes later by Maxim.

I do appreciate that a lot of work goes into updating and maintaining the DYK pages, and it is a bit late to do anything about this now, but please could people be a tiny bit more careful. (Oh, and select my other nomination - he is not an MP, at least, although he is also British and dead :)

Thanks. -- One pound (talk) 22:22, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Need help...

Is there a way to search the entire DYK archives for articles about Ohio that were mentioned, other than going through each of the pages by hand? Thanks for the help! §tepshep • ¡Talk to me! 01:20, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

This Google search locates 23 of them, but only if the word "Ohio" is mentioned in the hook. Art LaPella (talk) 02:58, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!!!!§tepshep • ¡Talk to me! 21:00, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Other editor messing up a one day old DYK submission

Does an editor like me have any recourse when I have written an article for DKY and when it is still a day or two old, and another editor completely rearranges it, puts in questionable references, and messes up the format. This person is unwilling to leave the article alone for the few days of the DYK listing, despite my explanation. My hook is completely irrelevant in the changed article. Is there any recourse for this, when the other editor will not wait for just a few days? Thanks! Mattisse(Talk) 23:52, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Which is this? Blnguyen (vote in the photo straw poll) 02:36, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

It is Thurman Ruth (producer). I tried to fix it up again. The editor agreed to stop but really does not understand the DKY process and thinks I am "owning" the article and that I am a bad person. Oh, well. I easily get thrown off course! Mattisse (Talk) 03:32, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I hope anyone reading this will read the full saga of events on the various talk pages and come to their own view. If there is a rule that states that articles submitted for DYK cannot be edited by anyone other than the originating editor, please let me know as I wasn't aware of it. When I made the original edit (totally in good faith) I wasn't even aware that the article was up for DYK, although I'm not sure it would have really made a difference as, in my view, the article was flawed (it's since been improved somewhat). Ghmyrtle (talk) 23:39, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm with Ghmyrtle here. Once you submit the article, it's fair game for anyone to edit. AGF yada yada that the other editor is trying to improve the article. Vandalism is, of course, another story. howcheng {chat} 06:28, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

To be perfectly honest, when I took a look at the article itself I couldn't understand what Matisse was getting upset about. Looked to me as though Ghmyrtle was just adding some extra info about the person, and given that's it's a bio page that's surely what one would expect. But maybe I missed something. Gatoclass (talk) 09:54, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

5-day expansion rule change suggestion

I've recently noticed an article declined with "this is not a new article, and there is no '5-fold expansion' in the past 5 days. May I suggest a 'personal sandbox' (see Wikipedia:User page#How do I create a user subpage?) for next time? Move it out whenever you think the new article is ready." Based on my experience, this is very bad suggestion, and merits a change in our rules. Why? Three reasons.

First, I have seen many articles started and forgotten in userspace; if they had been started in mainspace they would be stubs if not more, and would be copyedited and expanded by others - but left in userspaces they are just wasted time. Hence I have always discouraged use of userspace for article writing.

Second, I believe that imposing the 5-day period should not be measured 'from when the article was started or crossed the 5x expanded from stub threshold' but from when the editor(s) finally stopped working on it. If an editor takes more than five days to create an article he thinks is worth of DYKing, what's wrong with that? We would all benefit from DYKing a larger article than a rushed job in progress. Not to mention that the current 'work as long as you want in the userspace, clock starts ticking in mainspace' is already bending the time rule (why should the clock tick only in mainspace??).

Third, often the users who take long to create their articles are newcomers. Those should be encouraged and rewarded, so their experience on Wiki is positive and they are motivated to stick around and contribute more. Several times I have advised them to nominate their works to DYK (or nominated it myself) only to have it discarded because 'it was created/expanded over five days ago' (although in all such cases the last edit, signifying 'end of work' by the creator/expander, was shortly before the article was nominated). Needlessly, this has led to user's disappointment, if not with Wikipedia than at the very least with the DYK process.

Bottom line is that while I and many others can write a DYK or two in a day from scratch, many others cannot. They should not be penalized; if they create a DYKable article over a week or two that's still an article worth featuring on our main page.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:18, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

So what, you start an article, then come back to it a year or later with a couple of minor changes and decide it is ready for a DYK? Sorry, but what you are proposing is completely impractical, and it would make a mockery of the slogan "from Wikipedia's newest articles". Gatoclass (talk) 17:57, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Although Piotrus' and Gatoclass' positions sound opposite, they would both be satisfied by defining an article as "new" for so long as its author makes at least one constructive edit per day (or per other time period). Art LaPella (talk) 21:45, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Of course. I'd say its ok if an editor takes up to a month working on an article in the mainspace, if he does at least several edits in a week. Perhaps we should apply this only to new editors? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 03:22, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I simply don't believe this is practical. The criteria for what is and is not eligible will become so rubbery that practically anything could qualify. And who is going to have the time to go back through goodness knows how many edits trying to determine whether an article meets the criteria or not, and who was most responsible for the content? I think it will just turn DYK into a farce. Gatoclass (talk) 14:35, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I think new users should be given some leeway. If some of the respected DYKers decided to break the 5 day rule for a naiive but gifted NEWcomer then I'd say that this was a good use of "Break the rules" and "not biting" ... As Gatoclass notes this could get to be a farce so I understand why others may not have the courage Victuallers (talk) 15:36, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Gatoclass - please do not change the existing criteria. It is difficult enough to check the hooks and the time frame for each of six or seven articles as it is, especially if it is one of those "no one has added any hooks to next update and it is already three hours overdue" pressure cooker situations. There have certainly already been cases where an article with a slightly less than 5x expansion has been chosen, or where expired noms are used, so I can see Victuallers' point, but do not think it warrants any sort of a rule change (WP:IAR already provides cover for the occasional bending of the rules). Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 16:25, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure "one edit by the original author per day" (or something like that) is the solution, but it isn't rubbery or difficult. You have to check the article's history page anyway, so it takes about 2 seconds to verify that the edit dates are sequential (assuming one page of history) and another 2 seconds to note that all the edits are by the same author (which is usually true or almost true - the point of that exception is to keep people from submitting an article like George W. Bush which is edited daily). If it replaces the 5-day rule, you save the 4 seconds right there. It's mechanical and potentially automatable. If we make exceptions for new editors or count so many edits per week, then it gets harder. Art LaPella (talk) 21:27, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I just don't see the point Art. This is what sandbox pages are for. And how many people are actually being disadvantaged by the current rules? Maybe there is an occasional first-time submitter who makes a mistake. But then, missing out on a DYK the first time seems to me like a good way to draw people's attention to the rules. If you make the rules too woolly, then not only is it going to get harder to determine what is eligible, but people are going to start thinking the rules don't really matter. It's going to encourage an "anything goes" attitude and people are going to get annoyed when suddenly their submission is rejected. Gatoclass (talk) 10:08, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I see this as a well-intentioned way of ultimately disappointing more nominators whose suggestions do not make it to the Main Page. Consider supply and demand - we have a fairly fixed demand (6 or 7 articles to DYK about 4 times a day, say 25 total a day or less) but it seems to me this suggestion would just increase supply. As it is now, if an article is long enough, new enough, and has a cited hook, it almost always makes it into DYK. If the rule on "new enough" were relaxed as suggested, then I see the number of nominated articles increasing without a chance of more slots on the Main Page. My guess is that if you have to choose between articles for DYK in a situation like this, the more experienced editors' articles will tend to get picked more as they will be more likely to be polished etc. than those by newcomers. Bottom line, I think we need to be very careful loosening the rules to provide a larger supply of suggestions as then more noms will not make it and those who do updates will have to choose more carefully among noms that meet the rules.

Finally, I think Piotrus' first and third arguments above contradict each other - the first argues that articles would not be worked on in user space because they will be forgotten by their editors and left unfinished and useless, while the third argument is that these same editors will diligently make a few edits a day for a month or so to finish their articles in article space. Maybe I am missing the point, but it seems to me that an editor who would be willing to work on article on a daily basis over weeks would do so in either space. Just my thoughts, and thanks for an interesting suggestion Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 12:34, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

(od) It would certainly be an improvement to widen the eligibility criteria for DYK to include any article in mainspace. The slogan should be changed from "from Wikipedia's newest articles" to "from Wikipedia's best articles". In revised form, DYK would still continue to be used to reward editors who create new articles or expand existing ones, but it could also be used to reward a wider range of editors whose significant expansions or creations fell through the DYK cracks and were never noticed at the time. - Neparis (talk) 02:40, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but I think that would completely defeat the purpose of DYK, which is encouraging folks to write new articles. If we changed it to best articles, 90% of our DYK's would fail to qualify, because most submissions here are little better than stubs. And who is going to have time to research 25-30 such articles every day? We can't even keep up to speed with the narrow criteria we currently have. Gatoclass (talk) 06:22, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

We already have a section on the Main Page for "our very best work": see Today's Featured Article ;-) Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 16:45, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I feel it would significantly improve DYK overall, whose main purpose should be to introduce interesting facts whether they come from new or existing articles. A more inclusive DYK would continue to encourage the creation of new articles, while also encouraging the editing of existing articles. I think it would be good to do it all under one roof — DYK — instead of splitting things between DYK and other places, i.e. without excluding some articles based on DYK's completely arbitrary age and expansion thresholds. It would also be easy to expand the number of completed reviews to 25-30 per day by doing a bit less research and not worrying hugely about whether submissions qualify for DYK. I have a lot of good faith in the DYK nominators generally being able to find interesting facts without the need for others independently researching the merits in detail. - Neparis (talk) 00:29, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

If you broaden the criteria to "Wikipedia's latest contributions" then you are potentially opening the floodgates, and we have more than enough submissions as it is. People who work on improving existing articles already have other rewards to work for, like GA. Gatoclass (talk) 06:07, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I think you can imagine "potentially opening floodgates" but it is just exaggerated language of fear; there might be more to review, but with broadened and simplified criteria, reviewers would be able to work through the queue of submissions faster than now. I still think DYK should be open to all "interesting facts whether they come from new or existing articles. GA rewards editors both of existing articles, and of new articles or articles significantly expanded in the last five days. GA rewards both, so why can't DYK? - Neparis (talk) 23:45, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think DYK would improve through broadening criteria, relaxing research, or expanding mainspace time. As Ruhrfisch said, WP:IAR can handle case-by-case articles that miss the mark but appear deserving nonetheless. While marketing DYK would increase visibility, probably leading to an increase in qualifying submissions, there's no guarantee that DYK quality would improve. However, we have a captive audience with newcomers through WP:WC and if we could add DYK to most WP:WT, time would test newcomer participation within the project. Here's a suggested sentence: "By the way, check out the requirements for how to get your newly created articles to appear on the Wikipedia Main Page's Did You Know? section, or ask me on my Talk page." Rosiestep (talk) 19:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Not chosen DYKs but thank you user talk page template?

In order to increase knowledge of DYKs and its rules, what about some kind of a template - notifications for discarded DYK: along the rules of 'your article X was not chosen for DYK because of the following problems: lack of citations, nominated too late, etc. However we are very appreciative of your work and look forward to your future contributions, which we hope will be up to DYK standards (link).' While this should be optional to experienced editors, new ones may find it useful - it would teach them our rules and policies and show we do appreciate their content enough to review it for DYK.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 03:56, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

This is a good idea. Thanking an editor for his work is just a nice thing to do. Marketing DYK to someone who's already written an almost qualified article, including the qualifier list (why his article might not have qualified), and a link to DYK standards, should be useful fodder when he thinks about writing or self-nominating his next new article. --Rosiestep (talk) 15:23, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

User's talkpage template after newly arrived hook?

Let's consider placing a template on an editor's talk page asap after the hook arrives. The template would include a "thank you", re-iteration of a couple of qualifiers (Please doublecheck that the required in-line citation for the hook is the correct citation), a link to DYK standards (Here's the complete list of standards.), and a prominent check-back reminder (Don't forget to watch for possible hook comments as responding to reasonable objections...) --Rosiestep (talk) 15:47, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good. I wonder if this could be bot-automated? Ex. whenever an editor edits the T:TDYK page with "*..." and a signature he should get this message (although we should allow opt-out for regulars).--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:49, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

If this could be automated such that regulars and people commenting on hooks didn't keep getting the message, I think it would be great. The process here is pretty Byzantine, and I suspect off-putting to newbies. Espresso Addict (talk) 20:58, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh Yes to bot process where bot generates a variety of templates to article creators' talkpages:

• Each template has opt-out option
• Template/SelfNom
• Template/AnArticleYouCreatedWasNominatedByAnotherEditor
• Template/AlexNewArtBotThinksYourNewArticleMightQualify
• Template/NotSelectedArticleButPleaseTryAgain
• Template/YouReceivedABotGeneratedMessageFromDyk90DaysAgoAndYouDidNotOptOutSoWonderingIfYouMightBeWorkingOnAnotherArticleForDyk --Rosiestep (talk) 22:27, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

So, do we have anything that's ready for a test drive? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:24, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

A stub as DYK ?

What is Davina Ingrams, 18th Baroness Darcy de Knayth doing in the DYK ? It's a stub and it's unsourced, it can't be there. Gothbag (talk) 19:21, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I promoted that, it's not a stub, it wasn't unsourced, and it meets all the DYK criteria. Gatoclass (talk) 06:11, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

April Fools DYK?

Are there any plans to do some April Fools DYK entries as in years past? I have an article I want to write with a decent and deceptive hook (involving a trail along the Grand Canyon being in Pennsylvania). Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 18:10, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Please see Wikipedia:April Fool's Main Page/Did You Know. howcheng {chat} 18:43, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks - I had seen that some weeks ago and thought it was just last year's as most of the entries are from 2007. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 19:03, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

St. Patrick's Day DYK

I've thought about blarneying up the DYK section for St. Pats. Would History of Irish in Louisville and History of Irish in Indianapolis be good titles, or could I do with Louisville Irish and Indianapolis Irish?--Bedford 06:28, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I think I'd personally go for the "History of..." title, because I'm not sure the latter is descriptive enough. Gatoclass (talk) 16:52, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd add a noun after Irish, though. Be it "people", "language", or something else. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 17:18, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

How about "History of the Irish in ______"?--Bedford 17:53, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm about half way through expanding Lóegaire mac Néill - "a great king, fierce and pagan, an emperor of the barbarians" (said Muirchú moccu Mactheni) - and will turn in a DYK for that mentioning St Pat tomorrow or Friday. I can probably also manage a DYK hook for Lugaid mac Lóegairi (a stretch) and Vita tripartita Sancti Patricii as expanding those wouldn't take long. Angus McLellan (Talk) 00:04, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I did a trifecta: History of the Irish in Louisville, Kentucky Irish American, and History of the Irish in Indianapolis. Someone in the futre could easily create other city articles, especially for Boston.--Bedford 00:10, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Nice work! Slàinte ! Cirt (talk) 00:18, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I've created Irish in Saint Paul, Minnesota for DYK. Eóin (talk) 04:42, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow, all these articles are terrific! Thanks for the great work! :) Agne^Cheese/^Wine 18:48, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I like ... the 'green' touch. We should use this more often for other occasions, and to remember them, create a page where the color/symbols are stashed.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:09, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Right now all three of my Irish articles are slated for he next updated. Two are Louisville related, and the other is only 110 miles away. Would that be too I-65-centric?--Bedford 21:25, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree that it would be better to space them out. Also someone has commented that the colour looks strange, and I have to agree that green text on a green background is not ideal -- especially for people with visual difficulties. Could we just use a shamrock for the bullet point? (I have no idea how to implement this unfortunately.) Espresso Addict (talk) 00:19, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

The green is horrendous. Leaving aside the whole being-a-bit-twee thing, it looks confusing (why are just two of the three Irish-related topics green?), and it's distinctly hard to read on the faint greenish-blue background. Themed selection of topics is well and good - I like it, we should do it more often - but messing around with the consistency of the reader interface is a very bad idea.

("It is also almost never a good idea to use other style changes, such as font family or color..." - MOS)

It being an accessibility issue is made a lot worse by it being on the front page - which gets more visitors than anywhere else! I'm going to remove it - it's decorative only and it is really not a good thing for the accessibility of the front page. Shimgray | talk | 16:56, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I strongly agree. The green text was a bit difficult for me to read, and I have good eyesight. I was about to remove it (as Bobo192 did earlier), and you beat me to it.

I also object to the use of special identifiers of any kind for such entries (regardless of the relevant occasion), as it demonstrates undue favoritism. It's fine to include Irish-themed items on Saint Patrick's Day, but to draw extra attention to them is inappropriate. —David Levy 17:06, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Kraft Foods

Is featured on DYK when it shouldn't be - the article has been around for years and it has only been expanded from 13kB to 19kB over the course of the past few days. Shouldn't it be removed? Qwghlm (talk) 01:07, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, agreed. Cirt (talk) 01:16, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

As above. - hahnchen 01:19, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

It's already been up for over 7 hours, so I'm not sure what the point of removing it now would be. Best just to accelerate renewal of the page. Espresso Addict (talk) 01:21, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Removed by BorgQueen (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 01:23, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Edit needed in current DYK

The current DYK includes "...that the Edinburgh Phrenological Society started their own journal to promote phrenology in 1824..." Since the society is a singular noun (not a plural noun), that should be revised to "...that the Edinburgh Phrenological Society started its own journal to promote phrenology in 1824..." --Orlady (talk) 02:41, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks, I just fixed it. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:44, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

• For the record (though it's moot now), this isn't actually wrong - in American English a group is invariably treated as a singular noun, but in British English it can be treated as singular or plural depending on context - in ambiguous cases, like this one, either will usually work. Shimgray | talk | 17:02, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Hooks past the date at Next update

I agree with BorgQueen (talk · contribs), the rules are just a guide, and in the case of finding acceptable WP:DYK hooks from a bit late that haven't gotten a chance, WP:IAR and allow someone's work to get some credit. Cirt (talk) 12:52, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Having one form the sixth is something I can at least put my support towards inexceptional circumstances. Having one form teh tenth when we have such massive backlogs is ridiculous, though, I think. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 12:56, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Ridiculous? Why? Is the hook acceptable, and is the article adequately sourced? If so, it seems awfully unfair to whoever the editor was that worked so hard on whichever article(s), to have their hook fall through the cracks just because of a backlog. WP:IAR seems built for this type of thing. Caveat: I have no hooks at WP:DYK at the present time. Cirt (talk) 12:57, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Ridiculous because it can be picked tomorrow, or teh next day. It shouldn't push in front of others who are exp[iring. It's bad practice, and downright ignores long-flowing queues. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 12:59, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that those are just guidelines, and not rules set in stone. Or are the WP:DYK rules considered official WP:Policy and never to be bent? Cirt (talk) 13:01, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

They are guidelines in that they sometimes allow expired nominations to join teh next update. They *never* allow for nominations ahead of time. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 13:04, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Nominations ahead of time? I don't follow. I also think that this is getting a bit into a back-and-forth, and we should both take a step back and allow for input from other editors in the community on this issue. Cirt (talk) 13:06, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, wait - there is one from the 10th, ahead of time? I apologize, I did not realize that. I agree with you that older noms should be given preference. Cirt (talk) 13:07, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you - finally I seem to have gotten through! :) I also see you have declared the eight expired; a lot of the time, having a header "expiring" is used, so as to show that these noms need to be picked for the very next update. It really would be advisable to put it back; there are some good noms there - CAVERAT: One of my noms is there. Ignore it if you like, leave it expired if you like, I really don't care, but please put the eighth back. There is still good juice there. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 13:11, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Hehe, well, this is my point, technically those should be in the "expired" subsection, but that does not mean that they should not be selected, if the other criteria are met. Cirt (talk) 13:14, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Exactly, that's very true - but, most updating admins overlook and discard noms purely because they have been flatly marked as expired. That's why the special header is so needed + useful. A restoration of this header really wouldn't be such a bad idea, so those last couple are given special attention, and all the juice from the eighth is squeezed out. It may indeed be done for the ninth/tenth or eleventh, as there is such a huge backlog. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 13:18, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

First - I'm pretty sure anyone can add to "Next update", not just admins? And people shouldn't have to have a subject header shout at them to realize things are expiring, they should just be able to tell from the date. I know when I look for next updates (if no one else is doing the next update at the time:) ) I look through the older noms, first. Cirt (talk) 13:20, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, its late, I'm tired. It's just that what you are saying is going against a convention that was informally instigated late last year wherein this kind of heading was regularly used. Many people just do not check the old ones. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 13:31, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I have done something revolutionary, and I have changed Expired Noms to Expiring. Expired noms should just be removed, and things can now go under expiring, so they ca still be picked. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 13:34, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I like "Expiring" (so long as it is only the one heading, w/out a billion other types of special headings) but that seems like a good fix. Cirt (talk) 13:37, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Ahead of time promotions

In my view it's perfectly valid to take hooks from a day or two ahead if there is not enough variety in the hooks that are on the verge of expiry. But hooks closer to expiry should always be given preference where possible.

BTW, I don't know why Anonymous D. is talking about "a huge backlog", I don't see one, looks to me like we are pretty much up to date ATM. Gatoclass (talk) 18:55, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Expired --> Expiring

No more expired header, I have changed it to expiring to reflect the fact that noms from this section are frequently chosen, and the fact that we often have to resort to an "Expiring header". This circus has gone on long enough. I was also thinking that all the noms that have now hard and fast expired can be simply removed from the page altogether. Thoughts? -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 13:42, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Support the change from "Expired" to "Expiring" as the name of the header, but I think that hooks that still have a chance, have been vetted and fit all the other criteria, should be given a chance and not removed simply because they might be over the date by a little bit. Cirt (talk) 13:46, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Agree, "Expiring" is a good heading. I always check this section to see if anything's been missed, but it wouldn't hurt to make the extra time window official. Espresso Addict (talk) 17:48, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Selecting one's own hooks

I've noticed this a few times recently, with more than one regular here. It seems to me polite to wait until someone else selects them. Espresso Addict (talk) 18:12, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree, although I can understand their desperation when their hooks are expiring and the clock is ticking. --BorgQueen (talk) 06:36, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I will select my own hooks (provided they haven't been judged invalid of course) once they go below the "Expired" line. I don't regard this as favouritism - I do all the valid expired hooks first when I put together an update, to make sure they are not overlooked. Gatoclass (talk) 19:34, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I really feel that it's important to wait for someone else to select your hooks, even when they've moved into the expireding section. It's important to have that extra set of eyes, and the next person doing the update will still grab it. --JayHenry (talk) 19:44, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, but I also agree with Gatoclass point. Unless there is some obvious bias or quality issue, which I doubt, I don't think it's a serious issue.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:07, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

The rules don't specifically forbid self-promotions Jay, in fact they go out of their way to say that one should simply "use common sense" when doing so. All the same, I can't pretend it's any fun promoting my own hooks (not that I've done it very often). You just don't get the same buzz.

In line with your concerns though, perhaps next time I see a hook of mine drop below the expiry line, I'll politely ask someone to review it for me first so I can promote it with a clear conscience. Because I have seen perfectly valid hooks (not my own) drop several days below the expiry line, apparently overlooked. In fact I promoted another such hook myself only the other day. Gatoclass (talk) 10:34, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I see that the page gives mixed guidance, it says "A suggestion rather than a rule: try to avoid picking your own suggestions" in "The hook". The page, however, is less ambiguous in the more detailed "Guidance for 'next update' editors", where it says "Avoid selecting your own suggestions." But my point isn't about rules. Just giving my opinion on best practice: it's important to get an extra set of eyes on hooks. It's also important to remember that it doesn't actually matter, at all, even a little bit, if a hook waits 6 days instead of 5. --JayHenry (talk) 15:44, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

It's also not discouraged to post a kind note here on this page, if you have a hook of yours that is about to expire that you would like considered quickly. Cirt (talk) 10:43, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I share a similar view as Jay Henry that it is very important to avoid selecting your own hooks. While I have no doubt that the few times that Gato selected his own hooks, he did so with the utmost of intentions and with no bias--it is still not the best example we want to give to other editors who may not have the same level of discernment that Gato has. A new editor or one with more bias judgment may see an admin or DYK regular select their own hooks and think it is fine for them to do the same. Is that really a cycle we want to get into? Agne^Cheese/^Wine 17:18, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with both Agne & JayHenry's reasoning here. When the rules were compiled, the number of people updating the section was much more limited than it is now, leading to pragmatism on the question of self-selection. Now that there are many people updating, it seems best left to someone else as it's very hard to evaluate one's own contributions fairly and critically.

As I've said before, it seems to me that the major reason why hooks with no overt objections get passed over is that the hooks/articles are just that bit on the dull side by the side of others suggested at the same time. When there's an oversupply, as there often is these days, this seems to me a valid reason to let them slip through. Espresso Addict (talk) 19:53, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I don't know, this seems to me not a terribly practical suggestion to outlaw self-selection of hooks altogether. This means for example that every time you put an update together, you are effectively reducing the chances that your own hook will be selected, especially when there's a backlog. So it actually becomes a disincentive for users to prepare updates when they have an eligible hook in the submissions queue. I mean, look how many updates Borgqueen has done over the past few weeks. If he/she was forbidden from selecting his own hooks, then there would have been practically no chance for his own hooks to be selected. So while in theory it might sound like a good idea to forbid promotion of one's own hooks, in practice I'm not convinced.

Also, there is nothing to stop another user throwing out a self-promoted hook from the next update page if they think it's inappropriate. I have thrown back self-promoted hooks myself, and hooks are removed from the "next update" page quite regularly. Self-promoted hooks if anything attract extra scrutiny, so I don't really see any danger that people are going to get away with promoting inappropriate hooks. Gatoclass (talk) 08:08, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

For clarification, are we talking about moving hooks to the next update? In my last round of doing DYKs, I did move some of my own to the Main Page, but they were already moved to next update by someone else. howcheng {chat} 19:46, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I think it is in regard to moving your own hook to the next update. Again, while I have every faith in Gato's judgement, I am still apprehensive about the type of example it sets for other users. I know we can easily remove someone's "self promoted" hook but that incurs hard feelings especially when they can point to an admin or DYK regular who has promoted their own hooks and not had them removed. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 20:11, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I did indeed mean selecting hooks for the Next Update page. I don't think there's any problem with admins updating to the main page a selection that includes their own hooks, as long as someone else selected them. Espresso Addict (talk) 20:24, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

For a current example of someone selecting their own hook, Sami Hadawi has just been moved to the Next Update by the article's author. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 20:25, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I think this was just a genuine mistake by a user new to the process. I have replaced it in the queue. Espresso Addict (talk) 20:37, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Changing DYK process

I'm going to suggest a change in the way content for the DYK section is created. Bottom line, we should be selecting DYK items from articles that have recently been improved to GA or FA class. We have a lot of content now (to say the least) but still have an enormous amount of work to do improving that content. DYK would be a perfect stimulus to get editors working to improve existing articles. There are 10,000 articles in each of these categories:

• Category:Articles lacking sources
• Category:Articles with unsourced statements
• Category:Cleanup by month
• Category:All articles to be expanded
• Category:Articles that need to be wikified
• Category:Articles to be merged
• Category:Articles with topics of unclear notability
• Category:Articles with trivia sections

We need to drive people into those categories with the same carrot that we currently use to get people to create articles. But we could do wonders filling in DYK from articles that have been recently vastly improved (without insisting that they be increased in size). RxS (talk) 18:37, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Bottom line, we should be selecting DYK items from articles that have recently been improved to GA or FA class. Um, no. That defeats the purpose of DYK. However, there are articles in the needed to be expanded sections, among others, that could certainly still qualify. I'm not a fan of this proposed change, though I can see what you're getting at. Wizardman 18:59, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm suggesting we re-purpose DYK. We have a greater need for improving articles then we do at creating new ones at this point. RxS (talk) 19:02, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

This is a radical idea, yes, but before anyone dismisses it out of hand, please remember, we have 2.5M articles now. DYK does require an article be fairly decent (a certain length, well cited, etc) but when you hit random 100 times you find a lot of articles that wouldn't make the DYK grade as currently constituted even though they might be long enough... a lot of articles that need work, that need tender loving care. Perhaps focusing DYK on singificant improvement of existing articles might be harder to measure but in the end, might make a better encyclopedia then just fostering stub expansion and new article creation. Thanks, RxS for floating this. See also this thread on The Wikback. ++Lar: t/c 19:03, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, how many new GA's are generated each day? Anyone know? Gatoclass (talk) 19:20, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Not exactly sure but the Wikipedia:Good articles/Log page might shed some light. Seems like a fair few a day, but less than the current number of DYK noms. I would advocate stepping back from the specific "highlight recent GAs" idea to look at the larger thematic notion... that a shift in highlighting focus from newness to improvement might be worthy of consideration at our current state of project size. How exactly to measure improvement is a different question, focusing on it detracts from whether the notion itself is reasonable. ++Lar: t/c 19:45, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Good article statistics and Wikipedia:Featured article statistics give the numbers - looks like the recent average GA promotion rate is a bit under 2 a day and the FA rate is a bit over 2 a day. There are also substantial backlogs (FAs that have never been WP:TFA and older GAs). What if DYK were for really good new articles, GAs and FAs? A possible problem is that an article might be a new DYK, and then qualify as both a GA and FA - would we want tidbits from Plunketts Creek (Loyalsock Creek) to be on the Main Page three times (to pick on article I have been a major contributor to that was a DYK and GA and is now an FA)(and is a tiny, obscure creek). Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 20:01, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

We have schemes for recognising articles that have been improved to GA/FA standards - GA and FA. DYK is for new article. They are different schemes and should both exist. Perhaps new GAs and FAs should be listed on the front page, but not at the expense of new articles. --Tango (talk) 20:12, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

We actually floated this idea a few months ago as well. I'm strongly opposed to no longer having something for new content (anyone who thinks, 'well, we've got 2.2 million articles, that's enough,' probably needs to find a library -- the gaps are still miles wide), but making the definition of "expansion" more encompassing could probably be a step in the right direction. Currently x5 expansions are what we consider. Maybe we could make categories a mitigating factor in expansions -- for example, a x3 expansion qualifies, if you've removed the article from one of the maintenance categories. We could try something like that out, if it floods DYK, tighten it up, but if everything keeps buzzing along, maybe think of ways to expand it. We can adjust in increments. --JayHenry (talk) 20:46, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd be fine with not needing a strict GA/FA requirement for DYK, but agree with Lar that a thematic change is in order. How about adding articles that have improved enough to be taken out of one of those categories (assuming that a real improvement to the article was done), new GA/FA's along with new articles and article expansion. I don't think anyone is saying we don't need new content, but we should acknowledge that we have tens of thousands of articles that need improvement. DYK is a great way to recognize that article improvement is as important as article creation and a great way to recognize those editors that spend time improving those articles. RxS (talk) 21:02, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Something is coming from this argument/discussion.... yes Im surprised too. To refocus DYK onto GA/FA is more of a complete relaunch of DYK but to move so that we are supporting improvement as well as purely new articles seems a laudible objective. The "x5" rule moves in the right direction, but we do not have anywhere near enough expansions compared with new creations. Maybe we need to state an aim. Say, to have a third of the DTK noms to be expansions. We than need to adjust the x5 rule to encourage that objective/aim. After all DYK is a great process but it must be targetted at improve the wikipedia or we have no real creations. Hope this helps Victuallers (talk) 21:06, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Here was the previous discussion where the GA idea was floated: Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 25#Old articles have plenty of interesting facts too... We'd need a clearer criteria than getting an article removed from that list of categories. "Articles with unsourced statements", for example, includes every article that somebody has slapped with a {{fact}} template. --JayHenry (talk) 21:22, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

That's true, some judgment is already used to select DYK content, no doubt there would be some judgment needed for the additional criteria. We could just add to the criteria already in place, here's something we could work off of:

(1)New or substantially improved - A nominated article must be new, substantially improved or have been promoted to Good Article status.

For purposes of DYK, a "new" is no more than five days old and an article must have been substantially improved (or reached Good Article status) over the same five day time period.

Substantially improved articles are those that have been listed at WP:BACK and have been improved significantly enough for them to be removed from it's category. Articles that have been improved but have not been placed in a WP:BACK category are also eligible. Articles in a backlogged category that do not need significant improvement to be removed are not eligible.

Thoughts? RxS (talk) 21:58, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

We could simply reserve the lead hook for each update for a new GA - most will have images. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 22:33, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

That's a fairly easy idea to implement compared to coming up with a way to measure "how much improved" something is. That is not easy to measure at all! But if we all could come up with a repeatable process for doing so, that injected some vastly improved articles into the stream and (per JayHenry) didn't overlook the out and out new ones, that would be a wonderful thing, in my view. I'm loving how we're thinking out of the box here. ++Lar: t/c 01:59, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

That's a good idea, although I think it would make more sense to use new FAs in that top spot -- I expect that if you project out the increase in FA promotion, we have more than enough to place 2/day on the main page. This has been suggested as a way to loosen the backlog of FAs waiting to get on the main page. That said, I like the current system fine. There is significant room to get old articles on the page through expansion, unless the existing page is very long. Perhaps for articles over 10 KB initially, the required expansion multiple could be reduced to 2x. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:24, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that there's more ways to improve articles other than expanding them or bringing them to FA status though. Articles that lack sourcing can be improved a great deal without any expansion at all, same with several other backlogged categories. I'd like to open this process up to articles that need significant improvement that don't need additional content added...granted there are a couple categories that don't lend themselves to this very well (Articles that need to be wikified, Articles with trivia sections for example). But I do think we'd be well served if we diverted some of the effort currently involved in new article creation into article improvement. Not all, but we should reward editors that do dive into some of those backlogged categories.

As far as repeatable process or a way to measure improvement perhaps an editor could work on an article in one of the categories above and when they think it's ready they could list it here without taking it out of the category. If it's approved for DYK, it could then be taken out during the DYK process. People here can use the same sort of judgment as they do now for current DYK prospects.

I sort of want to underline the fact that this is very inclusive, that it's not leaving new articles out. It's not limiting it to new GA/FAs. It's just adding article improvement to the mix at DYK. If that concept seems reasonable, then we could work out how to define "significant improvement" or whatever we end up calling it. Possible we could start slow and add a few at first to establish a baseline of sorts. RxS (talk) 04:07, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Regarding your first point, that hasn't really been my experience. Most articles outside of GA and FA still need new material added as well. Plus, I'm hard pressed to think of an example where simple Wikifying is going to be even one-quarter the effort of writing a new article or doing a x5 expansion. So I'd prefer first to see us focus on clean-up and expansion. And ultimately I think the decision is really that of the people who do the work. I haven't been active with the project lately, so it's the regular updaters, next updaters, vetters, and writers that we'll want to have more input from. --JayHenry (talk) 04:35, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

You're right, some categories do not lend themselves to this very well. I mentioned a couple above (including articles that need to be wikified). Like I said, this doesn't leave any improvement method out, it just opens it up. I'm not saying that folks abandon expansion/creation, I'm just suggesting that we don't limit ourselves in the way we encourage editors here when there's so much work to be done. RxS (talk) 04:50, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not speaking clearly. I apologize. RxS, we're very, very often extremely backlogged. I'm proposing limiting this to expansion+clean-up at first as we test it out to avoid flooding the relatively small number of volunteers that actually do the work. --JayHenry (talk) 04:55, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

That might be a good way to start, what would you think about reducing the expansion requirement a little when done in conjunction with sourcing an article? RxS (talk) 15:05, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Seeing as that's exactly what I proposed above I'm likely to be in favor of the idea :) --JayHenry (talk) 17:35, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I have to say I am not terribly keen on this idea. On reflection, it seems to me that we already have incentives for improving existing articles in our criteria - which is the x5 expansion rule. I guess we could relax that a bit if there's consensus to do so, but I can't see that just tackling "articles that need cleanup" or "articles lacking sources" is activity worthy of a DYK. Gatoclass (talk) 05:51, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

That's one way to improve articles for sure, but as I've said there are others. Sourcing articles for example is a tremendous need. If you think that some of the cleanup categories wouldn't work here that's fine, I think there are some that wouldn't work very well. But we could start with the sourcing backlogs, maybe a couple others. I just think turning the power of DYK on some other important needs would do nothing but good here.

I'll see if there's anyone else with input on this. Seems like a really worthwhile thing to me but I don't want to be a bore about it ;) RxS (talk) 15:05, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Look, I think what you're proposing is a worthy project, I just don't see DYK as the ideal method of tackling a problem like this. Why not just create some sort of new award altogether? Or start a Wikiproject or something? There must be heaps of incentives one can offer other than DYK. Gatoclass (talk) 17:34, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with the idea that the encyclopedia is nearing completion in terms of number of articles. It might be true in some fields (computing/mathematics, US politicians, perhaps) but there are huge gaps in all the areas in which I am interested. Every time I create a new article, I find five new notable topics on which we are lacking articles.

DYK simply can't be the only mechanism of rewarding all articles that are substantially improved on the encyclopedia every day -- it features only around twenty or thirty articles daily, and I'd hope that the total number improved was greater than that by far!

I'd be strongly opposed to adding in new featured articles that did not otherwise meet our guidelines. The fact that Featured Article of the Day is failing to keep up with the new featured articles tends to suggest to me that the featured article slot should be updated more frequently, not that DYK should take FAs! The same goes for good articles; the fact that they are not recognised on the main page is an anachronism that should be fixed, but not by adding them to DYK. Both good and featured articles have their own reward systems independent of main-page appearances -- the status they give to the editor, the fact that they can appear on featured portals &c&c. Also, readers don't necessarily have the time to peruse a feature-length article. When people click on DYK hooks, I suspect they're expecting a nice short morsel, for easy consumption in, say, a coffee break.

I'd also be strongly opposed to allowing improved but non-expanded articles into the DYK slot. Adding references, copy editing, minor improvements &c are the bread and butter work of the encyclopedia, and should not need rewards. It's also very hard to evaluate such contributions comparatively.

I do think, however, that there is some merit in allowing expansions that don't quite meet fivefold. The guidelines used to include stubs or redirects which had been expanded fivefold, and this was changed a while back to any article thus expanded. Perhaps non-stubs (say >2000 characters of text as we count it) could be held to a lower expansion threshold? Espresso Addict (talk) 18:02, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

A couple responses and then I'll drop it. I don't think anyone is saying that we don't need new articles. What I am saying is that improving articles, especially on higher profile topics, is just as important. There could be other rewards yes, but the main page is a nice inducement for people to tackle chronic backlogs. I have to say that as I was thinking about this and going through the DYK archives, I noticed articles that were unsourced or had little sourcing...I think there could be higher standards there anyway. Bottom line, there are other ways to improve articles beyond expansion.

DYK is just another process, it's main page space is a resource that should be shared for substantive article improvement regardless of how it's done...but I can tell there's a lot of resistance to this so I'm going to drop this, thanks for listening anyway! RxS (talk) 18:21, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me that widening the DYK criteria just a little would not be harmful in any way in terms of the existing purposes of DYK, and would be beneficial by giving a powerful motivation for more editors to take part in DYK but across a cautiously slightly wider class of articles. How much wider is a good question. I see some interesting ideas emerging in the discussion. Let's see how this develops. It would be good to hear from a wider pool of editors too. - Neparis (talk) 20:26, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Some ideas about tweaking the expansion criteria

After following this conversation the last few days, I think there is a lot of merit to RxS and Lar's idea about encouraging more improvement and to an extent DYK does that with the expansion criteria. As a regular DYK reader, I have consistently found the DYKs from expanded articles to more interesting reads than some of the new articles. The topic normally has a broader appeal and the article is overall in a better and more developed shape than a "semi-stub" with 1500-2000 bytes of text and maybe one reference to cover the DYK hook. While we should never discourage new content creation, I think we should be more proactive in encouraging expansion (which by it nature normally leads to clean up and wikifying of the original article). After taking articles like Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon to "five fold expansion" DYKs, I can personally attest to how difficult it is when the original article has a large byte size. Even in the case of an article like Chardonnay when most of those bytes were "dead weight" of unsourced OR and POV, the writer is at a disadvantage because they have to "5x expand" upon content that they are going to be discarding anyways. To that I extent, I propose a gliding scale to the expansion criteria-- (bytes based on pure article text)

• If the article is between 1,500 bytes to 4,999 bytes - 5x expansion
• If the article is between 5,000 - 9,999 bytes - 4x expansion
• If the article is between 10,000 to 15,000 bytes - 3x expansion
• If the article is over 15,000 bytes - 2x expansion

Additionally, we should tighten up the requirements for all articles (both new creation and expansion) to be fully referenced. I think we also need to incorporate more discernment into selecting hooks because they are truly good articles with interesting hooks. The current culture of DYK has given the impression that it is almost an entitlement to have your article featured if you meet the base level requirements. While we certainly don't want to alienate content creators, I think we need to "raise the bar" and increase the level of "competition" between hooks with the knowledge that it is not a guarantee that your hook is going to be featured. While it may have the negative consequence of reducing the number of hooks we get, it may also have the more fruitful benefit of increasing the quality of the hooks we receive with the relaxed expansion criteria bringing in more broadly appealing subjects and core articles that need to be improved. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 20:33, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

As a side point, obviously my expansion proposal would require a fair amount of "discernment" and even WP:IAR use in practice. When a person has a 9,990 byte article, they could try to expand it to nearly 40,000 bytes or they could add a few words to get it up to 10,005 bytes and then work on expanding it to a little over 30,000 bytes--you are asking for a lot of gray areas. This is where it is so important to put the focus on the quality of the article and the interest in the hook rather than the "byte count". That requires a little bit of a culture shift but I do think the benefits to DYKs (and the Encyclopedia as a whole) would be worth it. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 20:46, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd agree with the idea of trying to increase the quality, interest and referencing of the articles featured; however, I'm not sure how popular this would be. When I have time, I often go through and highlight articles with only 1500–2000 bytes of text or which seem to me to have an uninteresting hook, only to find that others later select them, sometimes with edit summaries that imply my comments were unwelcome. The threshold was increased to 2000 characters a while back, and then decreased back to 1500 as others disagreed with the increase.

The sliding scale you propose, Agne, looks a little complex to me -- we have enough problems with people misunderstanding the current guidelines!

Without in any way taking away from the work involved in expansions, I'd just like to add that in my personal experience it is possible to create longer articles within the time frame of DYK (and without starting the article offline or in a sandbox); I've done it quite a few times when I had good references to hand, and so have several others. Espresso Addict (talk) 20:51, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Without getting too specific, I'm generally in favor of expanding DYK to include quality improvements to those articles most in need of repair. GA and FA achievement doesn't normally count as "most in need of repair" - these articles were usually above average even before the GA/FA drive. I suggest a practical rule for improvements - the hook should be about a part of the article that was improved. If the improvement is merely sourcing then it needs to be sourced. If the improvement is making notability clear, the hook will be the notability. If the only improvement is axing trivia, then this won't work - but maybe axing trivia wouldn't be the best "improvement" to feature given the perpetual divide over what is trivia. If there is no hook in the improvement to the article, then it doesn't belong in DYK. GRBerry 22:13, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

It's valid to say that a lot of articles need "improvement" (subjective) and this number surely grows exponentially each day. Maybe 5x/5day expansion shouldn't be the only qualifier for Non-New, but I'm opposed to any other option that isn't strictly objective-based. Here's one to consider for Non-New: 4x/4day/4 new citations, which rewards expansion with citation rather than expansion only, yet remains quantifiable. Rosiestep (talk) 23:03, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Objective would be good. I'm trying to think of something that's not too complex. How about if going forward, all DYKs need to be fully sourced. And that an article would be eligible for DYK if it's already above 20k (30k?) but has fewer than say, 2 (no, 1, 3?) references. It would be eligible for DYK if it was fully sourced within the last five days? The current expansion eligibility would be unchanged of course. Something like that? RxS (talk) 15:48, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean by "fully sourced". All DYK articles are fully sourced already - if they were inadequately sourced, I wouldn't be promoting them, and I'm sure that's the case with other updaters. Gatoclass (talk) 16:01, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I like Agne's idea, but agree the sliding scale would be complicated to check. Perhaps the expansion criteria could be stated differently: to qualify as an expansion, an article has to be expanded to at least 10,000 bytes, and, if it was originally larger than 3,333 bytes, it has to also be a at least a true 3x expansion. You would need to check original and final size (as is now done) and all articles would have to be expanded at least 3x (more for very small articles). I picked 3x as that way 2/3 of the text is new (a supermajority). This is just an idea - what do people think? Suggestion / tweaks welcome, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 16:01, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Gatoclass, I didn't mean to be critical, it was my impression during a quick scan that some were poorly sourced but I could easily have been mistaken! No offense meant, if that's already a requirement then there's no need to mention it. You guys do a great job here....

My goal here is to add sourcing an article as a way to include it in DYK, however it's acceptable. That's why I'm suggesting adding a criteria that allows larger unsourced articles to be eligible. So for example, an article that's expanded 3x (as in a couple examples above) sourcing would already be a requirement (as it currently is). But also, an unsourced article that's already quite large (depending on your definition of large, say 30k?) would be eligible if someone got it completely sourced without any significant expansion. We have a huge problem with unsourced articles, and DYK is a perfect way to encourage editors to tackle that backlog. RxS (talk) 17:25, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Operación masacre

This article, currently on the main page as the first DYK feature, contained both plagiarized text and an elementary maths error in the hook. It also had numerous format problems. I've fixed most of these these issues now, and overall am delighted that this important book now has an article on Wikipedia, but I am a little disappointed that it should have been accepted for the main page in the state it was in. Before. After. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 13:53, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmm... this is interesting. The Wikipedia article says it was published in 1966 (so I don't think 9 years was a math error, rather using the wrong input numbers). My copy of the book says it was copyrighted and published in 1965. You're saying it was published in 1964 though? At any rate, we have three different dates that need to be reconciled. Thank you for spotting and fixing the plagiarism issue. --JayHenry (talk) 18:26, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

The source in the article (which was being used for the hook) says 1964. This may be wrong, of course, and a the briefest of google searches suggest that it is unless the source's point is that Capote wrote the book in 1964. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 22:01, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I think I was the one who added it. I don't have access to either of the references, which is why I didn't pick up on it. Thanks for pointing it out. What was the plagiarism? Olaf Davis | Talk 09:16, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Typos in new hooks

I have previously asked everyone to be extra careful of simple errors when using new hooks, because they might not have all the usual reviews yet. But what happened today emphasized that a hook doesn't have to be at the top of the page to be new. Please glance at the time stamp, and notice if it was only contributed a few hours ago, before blindly copying a typo-laden hook on to the next update page. Art LaPella (talk) 04:09, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, what article are you talking about? Gatoclass (talk) 05:58, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I think he must be referring to State Prize of the Russian Federation. However, the typos were not in the hook as taken off the suggetions page[1] (except for the uneccessary capitalisation), so reviewing is not really at fault. It arrived on the next update page complete with typos[2] added offline. SpinningSpark 11:20, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I think as the reviewer in question I have to take some of the blame. While the version I saw didn't have actual misspellings like the uploaded one, it was quite grammatically awkward. I remember thinking I'd have to fix it after checking the article, but I must have been distracted while looking for an English reference. The typos appear to have been introduced by an editor attempting to correct that same awkwardness. My apologies. Olaf Davis | Talk 11:47, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh don't worry, you're doing a fine job Olaf, and your assistance is very much appreciated :) Gatoclass (talk) 11:00, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Backlog

DYK is backlogged. Several articles that were approved and are 6 days old are not in DYK. When will this ever stop? I'm an Editorofthewiki^{[citation needed]} 00:26, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

In a way, it's a good problem, but it's still a problem. It's not as bad as it could be, as we have been having admins who can keep the DYKs changed as close to 6 hour intervals as possible. You should have seen what it was like between Christmas and New Year Day...there were nine day gaps.--Bedford ^Pray 00:32, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

A backlog is when you are days behind and you have to overlook perfectly good submissions because there simply isn't room for them all on the front page. Virtually all the approved hooks are getting DYKed at the moment, so we don't really have a problem. Gatoclass (talk) 10:51, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Remove totally non-notable hook

Why is it remotely notable that someone has produced a copy of Sir Ralph Fitzherbert's armor in Second Life. Second Life is a user generated mess, where people can create as much shit as they want. The hook is about as relevant as saying ...that Ralph Fitzherbert has an article on Wikipedia. The citation, isn't a citation, it's just a link to where you can purchase the 3d model for "Linden Dollars". The fact that a copy of his armour was made by a nobody and placed on sale within an MMO is totally irrelevant to the life and death of Ralph Fitzherbert, and doesn't even belong in the article, let alone on Wikipedia's main page. 86.0.127.75 (talk) 19:32, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Next time you see what you think is a problem, you will probably be better off posting it to mainpage errors, as this page isn't regularly checked. Gatoclass (talk) 10:53, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

title of the new article must be in bold

Are we misleading our DYK readers if the DYK article name is different than the article it links to via pipette? By example, in today's DYK group, the article Muscatatuck County Park was pipetted as "Muscatatuck State Park". I understood the reason for that title change, as, in fact, the park used to be known by the later name, and a state park might appear more interesting of a read than a county park. While there can always be an exception to a rule, I think there's value in spotlighting the article's actual name, in bold, for all DYK entries. The issue isn't addressed at Wikipedia:Did you know#The hook section; maybe it should be. Your thoughts? --Rosiestep (talk) 03:29, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

We had a discussion about this awhile back: Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 23#piped links in DYK article name. It looks to me as if the project never came to any consensus about it. I do like, however, what User:Awadewit said. Piped links are okay in her opinion, "because the point of DYK is not to learn the names of wikipedia pages, but to: 1) encourage editors to contribute to pages; 2) teach readers about topics." I'm generally okay with piped links too, but welcome other perspectives. --JayHenry (talk) 03:35, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Piped links are fine, essential even, since we have to fit an interesting fact into a 200-character hook and it would often be impossible to do so without the help of pipes. Unfortunately, this also means that occasionally someone comes up with a pipe link that is a little misleading. Misjudgements will inevitably be made from time to time, but they are not frequent enough to represent a problem in my view. Gatoclass (talk) 10:59, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Gatoclass summed up my thoughts. Royalbroil 13:45, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

We also exploit the potential ambiguity of piped links each April Fools on DYK Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 14:07, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Pipe links are even absolutely necessary in many cases: when article titles contain phrases in parentheses for disambiguation and when article titles just don't fit the hook grammatically.--Carabinieri (talk) 15:31, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm... You’re right! There are good reasons for article name pipe links within DYK. Enjoy a wikicookie on me, team. --Rosiestep (talk) 17:23, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

could the DYK phrase be included in the DYK plaque awarded to editors?

I expect this has been discussed before, but would it be very difficult to adapt the DYK award template and paste in the actual DYK phrase into the template posted in editors' talk pages? It would sure be a service to the editors, and would make their talk pages far more interesting to other readers. It is kinda boring to see multiple DYK award templates in their talk pages, without getting to see what was so interesting. The DYK would keep on working to drive traffic to the subject articles, too, if they were out there still.

For example, instead of just the DYK mentioning Bolton Hall and the DYK date at User talk:Cbl62#Bolton Hall, it would be nice if the template also included: DYK "... that Bolton Hall, the community center for a Utopian community formed in 1913 in the foothills snorth of Los Angeles, was later used as a jail?"

I am sure it would take a little more time, but the value added is pretty high, in my view. doncram (talk) 04:11, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, GDallimore suggested this to me very recently. He's designed a template for it which can be seen in action here and here and looks quite nice. It is however rather larger, and I do like the current slim design. As doncram points out, adding the hook would take a bit more time for the crediting editor too (though that could be removed if we just have the hook and don't repeat the article name).

Has this been discussed before? I'd be surprised if not. If so were any other good arguments put forward for/against it, and was a consensus reached? Olaf Davis | Talk 16:31, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Just looks like more work to me :)

I think if people want to collect their own record of hooks, there is nothing to stop them doing so now. And in fact, quite a few people already do. Gatoclass (talk) 17:06, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I do that on a section of my user page. It has the advantage that I can colour-code articles I have actually created and self-nominated (because I both self-nom and trawl other editors' new articles for hooks), and add more details if I see fit. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 20:02, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Sorry for coming late to this party, but I've been away. I agree it's more work and, for the user talk pages, not particularly helpful to the project as a whole. I just a drafted template for my user talk page since that was easy and was useful for me.

I think, though, that it would be worth the effort to do something like this template for the article talk pages, if DYK is worth noting on talk pages at all. I didn't want to spend the time creating a template for this, though, unless the DYKers actually wanted to use it!

So - Question: Is it worth having the hook recorded on the article talk page? GDallimore (Talk) 12:22, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Probably not. It's still extra work, and to be perfectly frank, many of the hooks we end up using aren't exactly riveting anyhow :) Gatoclass (talk) 18:50, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Character counting

User:Dr pda/prosesize.js counts the characters in readable prose. It doesn't count section headers or lists. Anyone object to linking it in the instructions section? Gimmetrow 19:56, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

It works! And I speak as someone who didn't know what a "monobook.js" was until I followed the instructions. It would be nice to change the rules about what to exclude from the character count, to be qualified by "as counted by prosesize.js" to avoid disagreements. But only if it can be made a little more predictable  – when I tried it on Timeline of World War II (1942) it highlighted and apparently counted parts of infoboxes, including parts of infoboxes that you can't see unless you click "show". It also counts templates like the one at the bottom of Massachusetts. But sure, put it in the instructions. Art LaPella (talk) 00:06, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

That tool doesn't really work with lists, and it sometimes includes image captions. But it does highlight everything it counts, so you know what it's done and can adjust for that. Gimmetrow 06:15, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

The tool works by counting the text within <p></p> tags in the HTML version of the page. This corresponds pretty closely to the readable prose, as non-prose text is typically contained within other HTML tags, such as lists, headings, tables etc. (That's the purpose of HTML tags after all, to indicate function.) However the Mediawiki software sometimes renders what should be other tags as <p></p> tags, e.g. if you have extra blank lines within a wikitable, which often happens in navboxes/infoboxes. I've updated the script so that it now doesn't count text which falls within things like an infobox. (E.g. if you look at Massachusetts you should see that the script no longer counts the template at the bottom of the page.) You'll need to refresh your monobook.js to pick up the changes. Dr pda (talk) 10:35, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! Art LaPella (talk) 02:48, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Elsie Mackay

Hi, I'm confused. The DYK for Elsie Mackay was shown as approved on the morning of June 1, but by the evening seems to have disappeared without trace, (a bit like Elsie herself), not in DYK, not in archive, no dyk bannner in the discussion page. Can somebody please explain? (The DYK hook is shown below.) Thanks Autodidactyl (talk) 20:02, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

• ... that Lady Elsie Mackay, socialite, Broadway/film actress, interior designer, died in 1928 with WW1 ace Walter G. R. Hinchcliffe, attempting to be the first woman to fly across the Atlantic? Autodidactyl (talk) 19:44, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• Confirmed. Vishnava talk 20:40, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again Autodidactyl (talk) 20:02, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Looks like it's been taken care of. Sometimes the credits get delayed slightly if the updating admin is short of time. Olaf Davis | Talk 08:08, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

New template thingy

{{Verified}} - yields - Verified. Cirt (talk) 08:06, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

If it's used, it'd probably be a good idea to substitute this template ( {{subst:Verified}} ). BuddingJournalist 08:29, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Cirt (talk) 08:38, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but we don't use templates on the suggestions page. We've tried it before, and they slow things down too much. Gatoclass (talk) 18:44, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Would using "subst", as in {{subst:Verified}}, {{subst:DYK?no}} etc.slow things down too much? I still don't have the computerese names memorized. Art LaPella (talk) 20:34, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

No, in general, substituting templates via subst means that the server will not be taxed by templates (since the server just replaces the wikicode on submit with the actual contents of the template, rather than having to look up and generate the template every time the page loads), and the page will not slow down. However, in the case of {{Verified}}, substituting this results in another unsubstituted template {{1}}. Why is Verified using {{1}}? BuddingJournalist 01:36, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I removed the {{1}} thingy. Cirt (talk) 02:20, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I have no comment on "Verified", but {{subst:DYKtick}} does the same thing, so would it be OK for us to use that? If so, would it also be OK to restore the instructions table at the end of Template talk:Did you know#Instructions to this April 30 version? Art LaPella (talk) 02:11, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Well I like this one better than {{DYKtick}}, but I suppose both could be used. Cirt (talk) 02:20, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Leurospondylus Ultimus hook error

In the current hook:

"... that Leurospondylus Ultimus was so named as it was originally thought to be the last occurrence of a plesiosaur? "

The capital U in Ultimus needs to be lowercased. All scientific names have the second, or specific, part in lower case letters. For that matter, it is lowercased in the actual article. Could someone please fix this quickly? Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 18:38, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Fixed. --BorgQueen (talk) 18:40, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 18:56, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

St. Mary's Church, Chepstow

Would this not look better if the whole of parish church of St. Mary was emboldened, rather than just St. Mary ? - after all, the article is about the church not the saint. (I know I did it originally, but I'm having second thoughts...) Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:07, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Done. --BorgQueen (talk) 12:15, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

phew...neat timing! Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:21, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Problem with archives

There seems to be a problem with the most recent archives of Wikipedia:Recent additions. Some of the entries in Wikipedia:Recent additions 215 seem to be included in the next three (216, 217 and 218). I'm not sure how this happened, or how it should be sorted out. -- Theramin (talk) 21:45, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

My DYK nominations

User:Keeper76 made a post here a while ago not to accept nominations from me, User:RyRy5. He has said here that he is let okay with it going through DYK nominations now in fact it is checked carefully and shown to be legitimate. Comments? -- RyRy5 (talk) 20:16, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

That second diff by Keeper involves my name, so putting my two cents in regarding the article I believe he is going to be submitting. I did give it a look for copyvio and didn't find anything, but I didn't delve too deeply and cannot be held responsible if a copyvio does exist in RyRy5's submissions. Useight (talk) 19:42, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Does this qualify?

I realise that when an article that had been around for a while can qualify to get into DYK if the article is expanded five fold. My concern is that there are many entries which are unsourced and probable single person's POV or CK. Most of the times there are details that are totally unencyclopedic. So the question is, if such entries are amended and cleaned up, do they still quality for DYK? In matter of fact the already existing details are removed and new infomations are added. Wiki San Roze ^†αLҝ 08:22, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

The trouble with that is it makes it much harder to judge whether a given article fits the criteria. While five-fold expansion is fairly unambiguous, 'five-fold expansion of encyclopedic content' requires the reviewing editor to carefully consider how much of the original content was worthy - and DYK is already time-consuming and backlog-prone as it is. Obviously in some cases, such as replacing blatant vandalism, we can do it anyway, but I think allowing it in general will create far more work than it's worth. Olaf Davis | Talk 11:13, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I understand what you mean, but unfortunate that this will mean that some interesting facts may never be made known as well as lack the encouragement with DYKs will mean that those entries will never be improved. :( Thanks anyways. Wiki San Roze ^†αLҝ 11:22, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Articles too technical for DYK

Hi, I know you are all really busy here so sorry for taking up your time. Most of the articles I have been writing for Wikipedia are fairly technical and I was looking for some guidance on what is considered suitable. The last article I submitted for DYK was Composite image filters which I thought was just borderline acceptable (and you did use it). The (unfinished) article I am currently working on, for instance, is User:Spinningspark/Prototype filter which I would say is not suitable for DYK although I am sure I could contrive a semi-interesting hook if required. Would someone care to comment on whether I am drawing the line in about the right place? SpinningSpark 19:05, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Why is it not suitable? I see no problems with nominating it, so I think your drawing line is off. You need to add some text in the first sentence in the lead to describe what type of filter thing you are talking about (to describe what part of the universe you are talking about). You are talking about electronics filters. We can use fairly technical articles. If readers don't understand the concept, then they don't have to click on it. Royalbroil 19:54, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, thanks! From now on I'll submit them. You can always knock them out again if you don't like them. SpinningSpark 21:08, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Provided that you can come up with an interesting hook, of course. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 22:26, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

All-American update

We may need to do one to get rid of all the accumulating US hooks. Better to get rid of them all in one shot than have a preponderance of US hooks in update after update IMO. Gatoclass (talk) 15:35, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree. --BorgQueen (talk) 15:36, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually, now that I've counted the hooks up to and including June 8, the number of hooks is about even. So as long as we keep doing 50% US hooks we'll be okay. It just gives the impression there are lots of US hooks because the days prior to June 8 are all US, but on the 8th there are lots of non-US :) Gatoclass (talk) 15:45, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

While this is here, are we planning on running full sets of U.S. hooks on the Fourth of July? I ask because other such days have gotten treatment (or at least an attempt at it), the Buddhist day being the most recent that I can recall. Unless there's a dicussion, I foresee many complaining of the "bias" if the section does anything like this. (For the record, I'm British, and don't much mind one way or the other. I just thought it apropos to bring the point up here)GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 19:27, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

June 14th is Flag Day in the United States, so June 14 would be a good day to use more US hooks than usual.--Bedford ^Pray 19:49, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

At least from what I gather from the media, it seems to me that Independence Day is more widely celebrated in the U.S. than Flag Day, though? We should really only go for one of the two for full-on U.S. hooks. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 20:34, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, as a patriotic U.S. holiday, Flag Day probably is #4 behind July 4th, Memorial Day, and Veterans Day. For example, all of the former three are Federal holidays; Flag Day is not. Jclemens (talk) 07:11, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Today is a patriotic day, but not nearly at the level of they other 3 federal holidays that Jclemens points out. Royalbroil 13:16, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

• Another example of US blinkers: Did you know "... that the presidential campaign of Chuck Baldwin began only two weeks before the 2008 Constitution Party Convention yet still edged the campaign of political veteran Alan Keyes in the delegate count?". Surely this should read "U.S. presidential campaign" - there are lots of presidents of lots of things outside the US. - Gobeirne (talk) 02:03, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

But do any of the non-US matter? *ducks*--Bedford ^Pray 02:10, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

:) - Gobeirne (talk) 02:12, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Scientology

I noticed there have been a lot of posts in the DYK section on Scientology. Recently 'Battlefield Earth' was a featured article. Is Wikipedia’s homepage being used to educate the public about scientology? I thought DYK articles were supposed to be thoughtful and engaging. The fact that L Ron Hubbard wrote a score for a movie is neither. The scientology facts are not interesting at all, and seem to be reoccurring. The other facts presented are usually very intriguing. When there are so many facinating things about the world I don't know, why would wikipedia waste valuable educational space for garbage? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.165.48.146 (talk) 17:52, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by "garbage", but the reason that there have been DYKs about any topic, Scientology or otherwise, is that someone bothered to write those articles up. If you want topics that appeal to you posted on DYK, please start typing. --199.71.174.100 (talk) 20:20, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

This happens a lot on different topics. There are almost always some topics that were under-represented at Wikipedia that a single editor will actively write a lot of articles about. This time is happens to be Scientology. I can name several other topics that were almost constantly on the main page in the past like University of Michigan football and Eurovision. Please get an account and start writing on topics that you think are needed. You can make the world a better place and educate all of us. Royalbroil 20:36, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Despite the name, the only real purpose of DYK it to highlight new articles or heavily updated stubs. There is no real requirement or expectation for DYK articles to be thoughful or engaging and it is quite common that a variety of people do not find a variety of topics engaging or thoughtful. I.E. whatever we say there are always going to be people who already knew the fact, or otherwise did not find it interesting. Therefore, the fact that you personally did not find something engaging or interesting is with all due respect, irrelevant and unimportant. Far more important is that the hook is supported by the article (with references!) and comprehensible. If you get involved with WP:DYK you are welcome to propose different hooks for a DYK article but I don't think there is much support to completely ignore DYK suggestions just because some users don't like the topic. Nil Einne (talk) 00:51, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Agree with 199.71.174.100 (talk · contribs), Royalbroil (talk · contribs) and Nil Einne (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 02:18, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I strongly disagree with that statement. DYK hooks shouldn't just be random facts from new articles. They're supposed to "hook" people. They do need to be humorous, extraordinary, surprising, or whatever. Otherwise we might as well put some boring statistics on the main page. Although I don't think that the Scientology-related entries specifically have been boring, I do think that we should be stricter about hooks actually being interesting. People shouldn't be thinking "Yeah, so what?" when they read these facts.--Carabinieri (talk) 02:23, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

While I do think the hooks should try to highlight the unusual in the article, I also think that different people find different hooks interesting. I once nominated an article with the hook that a creek has 42 named tributaries, one of which is "Little Dog Run". I thought the stream name was very odd and funny, but someone else who looked at the hook for me commented on the large number of named tributaries for a fairly small creek. What I had put in to provide context for the funny / odd name was someone else's "hook". By the way, I think the Scientology articles have been fine. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:35, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Carabinieri is right that a lot of hooks are of the "yeah, so what" variety. However, we really don't get enough submissions to pick and choose between hooks. When we have an overabundance of them, that's when we can drop the less interesting hooks.

But there are also other issues to consider. Some articles have had a lot of work put into them, but they are on intrinsically ho-hum subjects or simply don't have an interesting fact to highlight. Should these articles miss out in favour of badly written stubs that just happen to have a better hook? At the end of the day, the DYK section does not exist just for the amusement of readers, it's there basically to showcase a selection of the best new articles being written for the project, and that's something we also need to bear in mind. Gatoclass (talk) 07:01, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Either you're missing missing the point or I strongly disagree with what your saying. A hook is ideally supposed to be interesting and draw in the reader. The article however doesn't have to be interesting, thoughtful or engaging, just an article which meets the requirements. Bear in mind the distinction here between the hook and the article. The OP apparently thinks the articles themselves are pointless and not DYK worthy. While he/she's welcome to his/her opinion, my point was that DYK was never intended to highlight 'interesting' (a completely subjective criteria) articles, simply new non-stub articles and heavily updated stubs. We should of course try to come up with the best hook possible, but different people find different things interesting so it's impossible to decide conclusively which is the best hook. It would be incredible bad practice to ignore DYK articles just because no one can come up with a hook one random reader finds interesting (or worse, because one random reader finds the article 'boring'). In other words, unless you can come up with a better hook, it is pointless IMHO saying "I DON'T LIKE IT' since it serves no real purpose except to tell us the opinion of one random person. Nil Einne (talk) 07:16, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, after saying you "strongly disagree" with me, you seem to have basically reiterated the point I myself was making. So I think you are the one who has missed the point. But thanks anyhow. Gatoclass (talk) 09:35, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I interpreted the OP as saying the hooks were uninteresting, not the articles themselves. If the OP believes they're boring to all readers (and some hooks are) they're welcome to explain why, but at the moment it does just sound like "I don't like it" to me - and of course DYK cannot and should not be trying to please everyone with every hook. If I'm wrong and the OP did mean the articles then Nil Einne is correct - DYK does not require articles to be any more 'interesting' than Wikipedia does, except for containing a suitable hook: they should be something we want to showcase, which means a well-written article rather than an interesting subject. Olaf Davis | Talk 08:37, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I think what he's saying is that he doesn't like Scientology and it upsets him that Scientology is effectively getting "promoted" on the main page with a bunch of hooks on fairly trivial Scientology-related subjects. I must say I share his concerns to some degree. However, given that the L. Ron Hubbard article isn't exactly flattering, along with a number of other Scientology articles, I guess it isn't such a bad thing if people read these DYK articles and are then inspired to read some more about the movement. Probably better they do so here than at some promotional site. Gatoclass (talk) 09:42, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Due to the varied responses to this, I (the origional annonomous poster) have created an account by which to donate more useful information. I don't like Scientology, but that isn't why I began this thread. My dislike for Scientology caused me to notice whenever it (or entities associated with it) was brought up. Due to my observations I noticed a trend of Scientology information on the main page. DYK that a hummingbird weighs less than a penny? DYK that the first person cast as the tim man in the wizard of oz was not able to play the part due to poisoning he recieved from components of his costume? DYK that Beethoven continued to conduct music even after he was completely deaf? Those are off the top of my head. Far more interesting than 'L Ron Hubbard wrote music to go along with his movie'. If we have to write information that nearly everyone would consider to be uninteresting, let's make it about a neutral subject (ie DYK that most brooms come with handles?). Wikipedia is a great opportunity to nourish and excite the minds of the public on the raw information of the universe. Let's not waste that opportunity. Anyway, I now have a face! InfiniteCenturion (talk) 20:00, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, thankyou very much for acquiring a "face", and welcome to Wikipedia! However, I must point out that your comments re the Scientology articles are misinformed in regards to Wiki policies. Valid topics for Wikipedia articles are basically anything that is notable, which is to say, anything that reliable sources have seen as worth writing about. Thus, because reliable sources have written about topics such as L. Ron Hubbard's book To The Stars, we can create an article on the topic here. Of course, treatment of the topic itself must conform to a neutral point of view, but we can't exclude articles on certain subjects just because some people don't like the subject. That would be censorship, and wikipedia is not censored. Regards, Gatoclass (talk) 02:13, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Gato, I agree with you. The scientology articles themselves are no place for me to interject my opinion. I wouldn't do that, nor would I want to do that. If I did, it would only be fair for others to shed a negative opinion on things I found in high regard. My comment is not aimed at the articles themselves, which I think are written from a neutral point of view. My comments are merely pointing out the face time Scientology has gotten on Wikipeida's main page. If for instance, Jesus Christ were to get a 'hook' every week and get a featured article slot in the same time frame, there are some who would question if Wikipedia is gaining a religous slant. Or if Wikipedia's main page were to give interesting facts about John McCain and never mention Barak Obama, then it might be pointed out that there is a conservative biased. I wouldn't want people to get the impression that Wikipedia were so narrow or biased of an encyclopedia that it had to draw from the same series of articles twice a week. Wouldn't that be kind of like putting the same dress in a store window over and over? My opinion is that the dress is bland and boring. Regardless of my opinion, it's time to mothball it and try out something fresh. We're getting sick of the reruns.InfiniteCenturion (talk) 05:53, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

This seems to come up a lot. It's not uncommon for DYK hooks to show up in clusters like that. By design, DYK hooks always point to very recently created articles, so apparently what happens is that sometimes an editor gets really enthusiastic about something and creates a bunch of interesting articles on some certain topic. Then for a few weeks there is a noticeable cluster of DYK hooks for that particular topic, whatever it is. (Often the topic in question is a particular nationality.) I wouldn't worry about it, if I were you. Who knows, next month DYK may be noticeably heavy on kitten articles. APL (talk) 06:08, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Guide to DYK

Because I'm a little annoyed by all the ineligible nominations we get, I've written a guide to DYK. You can find it in my sandbox. I was wondering what you guys think and whether we should link it somewhere asking new users to read it before nominating articles. And BTW, feel free to edit it, of course.--Carabinieri (talk) 01:22, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Having a guide to DYK is a good idea, though I think this one could use some more work. One particular thing I noticed about it that is just plain wrong is the statement that "inline citations aren't required". Actually, they are, very much required, and I and other reviewers have been at pains to emphasize this in the rules so that people stop submitting entries that are difficult or impossible to fact check. I certainly don't want to go back to the bad old days of having to click my way through half a dozen different refs looking for the cited fact, so this is one part of your guide at least that would need to be changed. Gatoclass (talk) 02:00, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

First of all, we already have 2 sets of rules at Wikipedia:Did you know and Template talk:Did you know#Instructions, and changes to one set of rules don't always get noticed because someone is reading the other set. We need to avoid having the guide multiply that problem from 2 sets of rules to 3. Instruction creep can also be bad, but I don't see how that problem is helped by systematically enforcing secret or hard-to-find rules.

Here's what I meant above by "unwritten rules", that would remain unwritten using this guide in its present form. The question marks show where even I'm not sure if that's what the real unwritten rule is.

• No redlinks.
• No forks.
• No ads.
• No items that have already appeared on the Main Page or been rejected for In The News (?).
• The citation should preferably (?) be in English, and with no paid registration required to read it.
• Articles nominated for deletion won't be used unless/until they survive the deletion process.
• Don't falsely assume that everyone worldwide knows what country or sport you're talking about.
• Fivefold expansion is calculated from the previously existing article, no matter how bad it was, no matter whether you kept any of it and (?) no matter if it was up for deletion.

The following rules are written but often overlooked:

• Space after the ellipsis.
• In the Manual of Style paragraph, WP:DASH and MOS:NUM#Numbers as figures or words. Art LaPella (talk) 03:09, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

There was also the recent Signpost dispatch aimed at introducing DYK to new editors. BuddingJournalist 03:36, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Article fivefold expansion

I have a quick question about an article we recently expanded and the fivefold expansion rules. Maressa Orzack started out at about 600 characters long, but 6000 bytes. We've now expanded it to about 6,000 characters, but only 12,000 bytes. Does this count as expansion, as the visible character count has increased dramatically and the article is now ten times larger? Many thanks for any advice you can offer, Gazimoff ^Write_Read 22:08, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Among the unwritten rules we might list somewhere, is the rule that fivefold expansion is measured by the same prose-only rule that applies to the 1500 character minimum. So I count 620 bytes to 7034 bytes, which is elevenfold expansion. Art LaPella (talk) 22:27, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Wow, that much? I have nommed the article. The hook is interesting and very heavily sourced. Many thanks for your help!Gazimoff ^Write_Read 10:53, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Recent additions page

Folks, this is gettin' ridiculous. I have had to add three missing updates to the archive page today alone - half a dozen at least in the last couple of days. What is so hard about remembering to update the previous set of hooks to recent additions at the same time you post the new update to the front page?

Just for the record, here's how I go about posting a new update:

1. Post the new update to T:DYK and purge the mainpage;
2. Reset the clock;
3. Open the T:DYK page history, open the edit prior to the one I just made;
4. Right click on the picture to open it in a new window. If it still has an mprotected tag and is protected, I remove the tag and unprotect. If it's a copy of an image from Commons, I just delete it;
5. Close the window and go back to the previous page, click "edit" and copy the hooks;
6. Post them to the "Recent Additions" page along with a timestamp;
7. Job done! Now all that's left is the notifications.

It's really very easy, only takes a minute to do the whole thing, so I just can't understand why people aren't doing it. If you make it part of your routine, you can't go wrong. I might have to post the above instructions somewhere to inform updaters who are not so familiar with the process. Gatoclass (talk) 13:01, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I had been following that routine around the clock for a while, as you'd know, but I got tired recently and had to take a break - which is still ongoing, leading to my recent sloppiness in archiving. But I am curious too, because it seems that some admins never bother to archive any update, and some of them even seemingly refuse to do the credits, and I am not talking about newbies. I mean, if they are too busy we will have to understand but they apparently have time to write articles and submit them to DYK!! I don't mean to sound harsh to anyone, but perhaps this might be a good opportunity for them to explain their reasons (slow connection, etc) or ask questions if they still don't understand the process. --BorgQueen (talk) 14:12, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I can quite understand your tiredness, I have started to feel quite burnt out with doing the updates over the last day or two myself, and I feel I need to step away from it for a while because it's becoming less a fun thing to do and more of a chore. As it happens, you only missed one archiving, and I've never seen you do that before. Bedford however has missed several, as I pointed out to him on his talk page recently, and someone unfamiliar with the process also missed one, but I really think we need to rewrite the rules or something to explain a bit better what to do because if people are only going to archive the occasional set of hooks we might as well just forget the whole thing. Gatoclass (talk) 15:00, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Like I said on my talkpage, people can't decide when the hooks are archived, so I've let others decide on that.--Bedford ^Pray 18:44, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I thought we decided to always add the hooks after they are done being featured. Thanks for the steps for promoting: they make more sense than the order that I had been using. I'll try to watch more for promoting the next updates. You guys were so efficient it hardly seemed worth it to check. If I looked five minutes late, it was usually done or in progress. Royalbroil 18:56, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Goat sex

Currently at T:TDYK#June 19 we have the following nomination. I can't quite recall anything like this in my time watching the page, although I've not watched it nearly as closely as some.

• ... that in worship of the god Mendes Egyptian and Greek priests and priestesses would copulate with goats (pictured) of the opposite sex?

We should discuss this. The issue is not censorship, but rather sound editorial judgment and purview. First, is this befitting of a quality encyclopedia? Second, does the DYK project have the right to put this sort of material and image on the main page without seeking broader community input? There is precedent here as well: although Jenna Jameson is a featured article, it's been determined that this article would not be appropriate for the main page FA. Wikipedia is not censored, but this doesn't mean that it's therefore acceptable to put any topic whatsoever on the main page (as opposed to having the article on Wikipedia if someone seeks it out). I don't feel terribly strongly, but I think this is the sort of thing that should be discussed in calm and rational tones, so if there's a hysterical reaction we have something intelligent as a response. --JayHenry (talk) 00:33, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd never use that pic on the front page, but I would use the DYk. However, I would bury it by putting it third from the bottom.--Bedford ^Pray 00:39, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Looking purely at the article itself, it does not seem to be well-written or well-organized. Witness: The first subsection is a single sentence, and the third subsection consists of two bullet points. On those grounds alone, there's reason not to feature it on the Main Page. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:40, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the above. Images such as this probably should not be featured as part of DYK anwyay; this is our main page, despite our lack of censoring. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 09:28, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, My original nom hook did not contain that picture.[[3]] I am not sure who added it but I agree the picture should not be on the main page. (to EncycloPetey) The purpose of DYK is to get editors interested in the article so they expand it, is it not? So I urge you to include the hook as I originally posted it. - Icewedge (talk) 10:45, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

No, it isn't. The stated purpose of DYK is that it "gives publicity to newly created or expanded Wikipedia articles". The Rules explicitly do not allow stubs, so clearly it is not to get people involved in expanding articles. That is what various Collaboration projects do. DYK features new articles, thereby promoting the creation of other new articles. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:48, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

The DYK rules say nothing about quality however and the article is long enough (about 1.8K characters). Also, the rest of the sentence you quoted says "and to encourage other editors to contribute to and improve that article". -Icewedge (talk) 22:25, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

No problem with the hook, but I'm not sure that using the picture would accomplish much other than baiting. If the article ever reaches FA, and is featured in the TFA section (which I don't really see happening, since Jenna Jameson is considered over the line for the Main Page), by all means use the image. Since we have many alternative hooks to use as the lead, let's just go with one of those. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 12:41, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I've nixed the article, we don't need a badly referenced separate article on "goat sex" when we have a perfectly good article on bestiality already. Anything worthwhile in this particular article can be merged into that one. Gatoclass (talk) 15:06, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

• I expanded the article and added Human-goat sexual intercourse back into the DYK hopper.[4] Bebestbe (talk) 22:14, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

It's an improvement but I'd still be reluctant to feature this on the front page. I mean, what will the next article in the series be, sheep sex? Cow sex? Horse sex? Duck sex maybe? Gatoclass (talk) 03:03, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Please read WP:NOTCENSORED. I believe your rejection for this nomination is coming from the fact that this is a very fetish thought. But rules say it is good to go. --gppande «talk» 07:30, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

We already have a bestiality article. Why do we need separate articles on the different animals people choose to have sex with? That is my concern. I don't give a toss about a "goat sex" article one way or another but you have to realize that wikipedia already gets criticized for alleged lack of standards in some quarters, and I don't see why we should give the critics a free shot. Gatoclass (talk) 07:56, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi Gatoclass. I added the photo to the first DYK listing of the article, saw the trouble, felt bad about it, so I added more info to the article and reposted it to DYK. It does meet DYK requirements. DYK suggestions that meet DYK requirements usually are not removed (or lined out), even under controversial topics situations. I think what happens in such controversial topics situations is that the suggestion either is timely picked up by an admin for DYK and posted to the Main Page or it goes to expiring noms, where it still can be picked. Expired noms not picked up by an admin for DYK are removed in a group. WP:NOTCENSORED is met, the system is applied fairly to all posted suggestions, and everyone is happy (until they are not). Bebestbe (talk) 21:39, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

DYK archive page

We've talked about datestamping the updates in the archive for a while now, but nobody's done anything so I've left some simple instructions at the top of the archive page for doing so. Also left a suggestion that the archive page should itself be archived every Friday (which makes a total of about 28 updates or 200 hooks per archive). Because there are no instructions, no-one ever seems to archive the page and I think the last archive I did had about 2,000 hooks in it! Gatoclass (talk) 07:20, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Betacommand is working on date stamping article creation requests. See this thread. Perhaps he/she can create a bot to datestamping the DYK updates (or just post a request at Wikipedia:Bot requests and someone else may do it). Bebestbe (talk) 22:30, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Oldest co-operative

{{editprotected}} Please change the hook for Lothian, Borders & Angus Co-operative Society in Template:Did you know to:

• ... that Scotland's Lothian, Borders & Angus Co-operative Society was founded in 1839, five years before the Rochdale Pioneers?

Reason is that although older than Scotmid and Clydebank, I am not 100% convinced that the 1863 The Co-operative Group it didn't absorb any very old Scottish societies in the 20th century. (See also Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Cooperatives#Main page.) --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 11:10, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

 Done PeterSymonds (talk) 12:01, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, and sorry for the garbled English in my request. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 15:08, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia article traffic statistics

From a post above, I just found Wikipedia article traffic statistics. Is it possible to add such stats to the DYK notice? Instead of

On 24 June, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article subpersonalities, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

the notice would look something like:

On 24 June, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article subpersonalities, which you created or substantially expanded and was viewed 10,191 times. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

I was surprised to learn that such an article received so many hits and now am more motivated to list articles at DYK. I think adding the stats to the DYK posts would help out. The DYK notice on the article talk page can contain similar stats. Bebestbe (talk) 22:20, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

It's a nice idea, but as the credits are usually posted whilst the article is still on the main page, the stats wouldn't be complete. If we were to wait until the article was off the main page to give out the credits, then some editors would miss seeing their creations on the front page: I've had a complaint about this when I accidentally left someone out of a batch of credits. It also adds yet another step for the admin posting the update, and the process is time-consuming already. Having said that, the template could say "to see how many times your article has been viewed, click here" or something similar. I went back over a couple of my DYKs and was pleasantly surprised at the results! Bencherlite^Talk 05:54, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Multiple DYKs

Can an article be used for a DYK more than once, if it qualifies under both the new article and five-fold rules? JKBrooks85 (talk) 04:33, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

That would be mathematically interesting. 1.5k - 7.5k - 37.5k and 187.5 (omg, that would take a lot of work). That would be some super article. However, I don't know if it would be feasible (although I did expand Christopher Smart to 50k for a DYK). Ottava Rima (talk) 02:22, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

1.5 to 7.5 is quite feasible, as is, say, 4kb to 20 kb for a dedicated researcher. 7.5 to 37.5 would be difficult to do in five days, unless the material was pre-prepared, e.g. a university essay. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 13:42, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I was under the impression that an article can only be featured once as a DYK. Also expansion refers to actual text, not total length (so infobox code does not count, for example). Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 14:11, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Question

When are articles selected for DYK appearances on the main page? I don't understand this page, [5]. Is there a list of the next articles to appear? --Blechnic (talk) 04:47, 26 June 2008 (UTC) I see a lot that I could spend time looking at, but which ones should I bother with? I've studied famine economics, a requirement for Third World agricultural researchers, and mostly the Indian ones are the best researched from an economics perspective, and I've worked in an herbarium, I've probably read enough about middle Medieval popes to look at that one, I know a comparative lot about Sino-Nigerian relations because of the impact of the oil-wealth on Niger basin vegetation (maybe outside of my area, but better studied than further west), I know the North American coastal Indians somewhat, and I know who Curtis is, I've studied coffee production, I do know about Middle Eastern nature preserves and species, I read medical literature for a living and can check these articles. I don't understand how the selection process works, and what is going on on this page. I only want to spend time checking articles that will be on the front page--why not give people a chance to correct the plagiarisms and learn along the way, then reward them with their article being properly on the main page? Establish for the long run, plagiarized articles don't belong on the front page, and teach editors to do it correctly? But I have to understand what is going on. I would rather continue with African agriculture, but I am willing to check some of these. Which ones?!?! --Blechnic (talk) 05:03, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Check whichever ones you know anything about. Which ones are selected? Basically, if the article has been ticked as meeting the criteria (appropriate length, new creation or 5-fold expansion, interesting hook backed up by a reference with an inline citation in the article etc) it's highly likely to make it to the front page. As for when they're selected, the hooks are generally selected from the "expiring noms" section or the 5 days old section, and are selected to give a balance of articles on the main page (i.e. no complete sets of articles on minor Welsh dead clergymen (my speciality!)). The "next update" section is T:DYK/N. If you see an error on the main page, go to WP:ERRORS which is on lots of watchlists. Bencherlite^Talk 06:03, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I see a lot that I could spend time looking at, but which ones should I bother with?

If you're only going to "bother with" checking articles where you know something about the subject, go find something else to do (Update: Apparently you have). I used to be a newspaper copyeditor. When fresh copy is shoved in front of you, you can't say "This isn't my area". You get what you get. You figure out how to verify it, or they give the job to someone else who says they can.

In a typical tour through DYK, I will look at the articles most urgently in need of verification, that are either expiring or close to it. I will review them until I either reach the top of a particular date's new articles, or (more commonly) I get about half a dozen good hooks, enough to fill an entire new update if needed. As I've said elsewhere, I don't mark them as verified if the source is an offline book or something I cannot otherwise personally review. Those are usually taken on good faith when they're about to expire. Perhaps this creates plagiarism problems; as I've said I would really prefer that people submit a quote from the source. Not that that can't be faked, but it makes more work for a plagiarist and would certainly reduce the number of such submissions. If I do see that it's copied at some length from the source, I say so in the comment. If I find the hook is more or less writing a check the source can't cash, I say so, or modify the hook appropriately. If it's too short, the article lacks inline references or an unreliable source is used, it gets that little yellow circle with the X. Ditto if the hook fact isn't stated explicitly in the article. If it uses a non-English shource from a language I haven't really studied, I either try to figure the language out if it's related to one I'm familiar with, try on online translator or just ask for someone who is familiar with, say, Norwegian or Mandarin to read it. But I check anything that comes my way. We ask for cited references; anyone should be able to check them regardless of familiarity with the subject. Daniel Case (talk) 13:17, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you know how impossibly laid out that page is. I don't know what is going on with the articles. I don't want to work on ones that have been rejected. I have no idea what "possible vote" means. As far as I can tell, there are no possible DYKs in the current two "expiring noms." So, then, it's not updated? --Blechnic (talk) 06:19, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Hopefully I can complement Bencherlite's response with some brief answers. I sympathise, since the list of suggestions on T:TDYK does not work like any other Wikipedia page I know of.

Did you know?
Introduction and rules
Introduction	WP:DYK
General discussion	WT:DYK
Guidelines	WP:DYKCRIT
Reviewer instructions	WP:DYKRI
Nominations
Nominate an article	WP:DYKCNN
Awaiting approval	WP:DYKN
Approved	WP:DYKNA
April 1 hooks	WP:DYKAPRIL
Holding area	WP:SOHA
Preparation
Preps and queues	T:DYK/Q
Prepper instructions	WP:DYKPBI
Admin instructions	WP:DYKAI
Main Page errors	WP:ERRORS
History
Statistics	WP:DYKSTATS
Archived sets	WP:DYKA
Just for fun
Monthly wraps	WP:DYKW
Awards	WP:DYKAWARDS
Userboxes	WP:DYKUBX
Hall of Fame	WP:DYK/HoF
List of users ...
... by nominations	WP:DYKNC
... by promotions	WP:DYKPC
Administrative
Scripts and bots	WP:DYKSB
On the Main Page	T:DYK
Main Page errors	WP:ERRORS
To ping the DYK admins	{{DYK admins}}

1. When are articles selected for DYK appearances on the main page?

   After about five days

2. Is there a list of the next articles to appear?

   On T:DYK/N (the next update page)

3. I don't want to work on ones that have been rejected.

   The X symbol means it is rejected.

4. Plagiarized articles don't belong on the front page

   Agreed

5. I only want to spend time checking articles that will be on the front page

   If it is 5 days old or expiring, and it doesn't have , then there is a very good chance it will be on the front page in the next 24 hours or less.

Hope that helps you and fellow newcomers. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 09:49, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, that helps a bit, but one reason it was no help before is that every time I clicked on T:DYK/N, there was just a blank template waiting to be filled in. There are actually a couple of articles on it now. --Blechnic (talk) 04:17, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, the article on Frank Leslie Walcott, the second sentence, although referenced, is copied and pasted exactly from the book it is taken from. "He was the principal organizer of the labour movement of Barbados and a major figure in stimulating participation in the nation's political process." Except for the spelling of "labour," which is "labor" in the original. Now, I suggest that the rest of the article will be a similar problem, so where do I report this now, since it's not on the main page yet? --Blechnic (talk) 04:23, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Posting here is good. If the article is still listed on the noms page, you can comment under the proposed hook. If it's on the Next Update page (as in this case), you can pull the nom back to the nominations page and procedd with a comment under it. As to the article itself, there are recommended procedures at Wikipedia:Plagiarism#When you find directly copied material. Nice catch! --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:27, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

In addition, I can't find anything about him playing cricket. There is a very famous Barbadian cricketer named "Leslie Walcott," but there are no returns other than this Wikipedia article about Frank Leslie Walcott and cricket umpire. I don't have access to the listed journal, but I'm concerned the hook is wrong. I'll try what you suggest, Petey. --04:36, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Again, because this copy paste has been referenced, Wikipedians seem to think they don't have to rewrite or synthesize the information obtained from other sources, so, apparently copyvio or any solutions on direct copy, don't apply. It needs quotation marks--it was not written by Wikipedia editors, and I'm blue in the face trying to convince Wikipedia editors that they shouldn't try to take credit for other people's words. --Blechnic (talk) 04:42, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I agree with you strongly about honoring the source by quoting and referencing, and never taking silent credit for the work of someone else. However, as someone who has been teaching for years, I can't say I'm at all surprised by the severity of the problem here, since I've seen it firsthand. An alarming percentage of America's youth just don't get it. --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:59, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

The other article on the next in line template, on Marion Jorgensen, has these lines copied and pasted directly from this source.[6]

They had two sons, Donald Bren, chairman of The Irvine Company in Newport Beach, CA and Peter Bren, a senior partner with KBS Investors of New York City...

Bundles For Britain evolved into the United States Naval Aide Auxiliary.

The Jorgensens were among the social elite of Los Angeles.

After serving with distinction on the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, Mrs. Jorgensen was honored … with election to Life Director.

--Blechnic (talk) 05:01, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

This points to the problem I mentioned elsewhere with citing books where the source material is not available online. I have asked people for quotes. I normally do not mark such an article as verified because to do so would be untruthful as I have not actually reviewed the source material. But based on AGF we often let it on to the Main Page. If we required people to use the quote= parameter in the citation template, we could stop a little more plagiarism. Daniel Case (talk) 13:17, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Regarding Frank Leslie Walcott, the sentence was absolutely not taken word-for-word from the source. The source reads "...the principal organizer of the labour movement of Barbados and a major figure in stimulating mass participation in politics." while the article reads "...the principal organizer of the labor movement of Barbados and a major figure in stimulating participation in the nation's political process." Could this be reworded a bit more? Sure, and I'll do that when I'm finished here, but I greatly resent being accused of plagiarism and not even being notified by my accuser so that I might defend myself. Furthermore, the journal from which the cricket info is taken from is available on Google Scholar, though unless I'm mistaken a source's online availability is completely irrelevant. faithless (^speak) 05:17, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I have re-written the sentence to read, "He played a key role in organizing the Barbados labour movement and was a major figure in stimulating participation in the nation's political process." faithless (^speak) 05:24, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

So, it absolutely was taken word for word, except for the spelling of labour, as I stated? And, guess what, it doesn't matter if it's on-line, what matters is if it says what you claim, so I will settle for the sentence from the journal, pasted here, the sentence that describes him as a cricket umpire, and the full name used in the article. Thanks. --Blechnic (talk) 05:29, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh, you did both articles? Sorry, the words above are copies and pastes from the source you took them from, the OC Register article. I see you cleverly moved a word or two around in the first, but if you spent the amount of time you spent denying it, simply rewriting the article in your own words, I bet the latter would take less time. Don't claim others' unique phrases as your own for Wikipedia, please. Absolutely were. I totally resent having to take time to notify plagiarizers. --Blechnic (talk) 05:36, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, look, I have held my tongue for a day or two, but I'm afraid it's time to say this. Blechnic, constructive comments and assistance are welcome on this project, but after you accused administrators the other day of blocking you just for bringing up the issue of plagiarism, I found that rather hard to believe so I went back and checked out the relevant diffs. Having done that, I spent some time going back through the rest of your edit history. What I discovered is a user who is chronically abrasive, who engages in constant put-downs of other editors, who bombards other users with scorn and sarcasm, and whose only apparent episodes of civility are when others lay down and agree with everything you say.

So I really think it's time to put you on notice. You need to lose the attitude, or you are going to face further sanctions. Not for blowing the whistle on plagiarism, but for chronic incivility and harassment of other users on this project. And believe me, next time you make an appearance at AN/I, the result is not likely to be as agreeable for you as it was on the previous occasion. Regards, Gatoclass (talk) 06:04, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Wow. So to you "mass participation in politics" and "participation in the nation's political process" are the exact same words, are they? Perhaps you should take the time to finish reading a sentence before you make such outrageous claims. Furthermore, falsely accusing someone (repeatedly) of plagiarism is such a gross violation of WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL that it shouldn't have to be brought up, but perhaps you're unfamiliar with guidelines and policies, so no harm done. Oh, you'll settle for it? How kind of you, oh Benevolent One! Frank Walcott, head of the Barbados Workers' Union, and a former first-class cricket umpire, condemned the decision of Sobers on the grounds that he... I have no idea what your second paragraph is about at all. And just for what it's worth, mocking the typographical choices of others doesn't become you. Thanks, faithless (^speak) 06:05, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Good job ignoring all of the following ones. My bad on that one, my right on the other 3. That's three strikes. --Blechnic (talk) 06:11, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

So using three of the same words (participation, in, nation) is tantamount to plagiarism? Thank you for clarifying - that is so laughably preposterous that I see this isn't worth my time (especially since you apparently have a history of such ridiculous behavior). faithless (^speak) 06:16, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Silly me, I should know better than to take your word for something. "Nation" and "nation's" are, indeed, different words. But because I used the words "participation" and "in" (seriously, in!?), I'm guilty of plagiarizing? faithless (^speak) 06:23, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Wow! Don't worry, the threat got rid of me, no more need to keep trying this! Wow!!!!!!! Stunning!!!!--Blechnic (talk) 06:19, 27 June 2008 (UTC) Off watch list, bye bye, copy and paste all you want, safely! --Blechnic (talk) 06:19, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, of course you must put me on notice, I may find more plagiarized articles on DYK. It's far too easy to do so, and no one wants to know. I'm used to being attacked for it by now, and I have fully adopted the proper Wikipedia editor mode that I have learned from other editors: attack if you disagree, just like you are doing to me now. Instead of looking for problems in DYK. It's no wonder the editors don't have time to find the problems, they're too busy trying to get rid of the messengers. And all this time, Gatoclass, I've been reading the DYK articles, because I thought you really cared about its quality. Yawn. Love the AN/I threat, too, by the way. It's going to be worse than the last set of attacks and threats? Again, thanks for the threat. --Blechnic (talk) 06:11, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Wickipedia should have a whistleblower civility law, because that's really what this is about, no whistleblower can ever survive on Wikipedia, because they will be relentlessly hounded by everyone in every way. I love this, how I'm reading for copyvios and Gatoclass is carefully scrutinizing my record to find a personal attack angle on me. Why not read the articles, Gatoclass, as carefully as you claim to have read my edit record? --Blechnic (talk) 06:13, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

You have raised legitimate questions, and we probably do need to have a broader discussion of plagiarism on DYK, but what we don't need is a constant barrage of sarcasm from editors who apparently get their jollies from humiliating others. Thanks, Gatoclass (talk) 06:38, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

It appears that user Blechnic has retired from the project after I threatened to take him to AN/I for breaches of wp:civ. So I guess it's business as usual at DYK for the time being. However, I do think the issue of plagiarism on DYK (and let's face it, on the project as a whole) is legitimate, and I'd really like to get hold of some free plagiarism software if anyone knows of any. Gatoclass (talk) 08:05, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Just one last point to be clear: you threatened me for finding plagiarisms, and that was the threat: you would and will accuse me of anything in order to stop my pointing out the dreadful state of this project. You don't want to hear it, or know it. You would rather spend your time and efforts finding something against me than working to find the plagiarisms. I'm not leaving because I'm worried about an incivility accusations, what could be more incivil then be found guilty of claiming another's work as your own and then passing out rewards for it? I'm leaving because Wikipedia honors copying from others and claiming it as Wikipedia's own.

I just found out about the Triple Crown award. I told you there was a reward for DYK. It's very obvious to an outsider that this is the result of a frantic contest, a quest for prizes, not quality. Do you want to guess how many plagiarisms I found in Triple Crown Award winners so far? And, interesting enough, not just in DYKs. a couple in GAs. So, at least you're in good company on Wikipedia.

You don't need software to find plagiarisms, you need English language reading skills and familiarity with encyclopedias. I write lay articles on technical subjects for a living. I read encyclopedia articles and similar articles in journals and books that are on technical subjects for a general audience as part of my job. After the first dozen or more DYK plagiarisms that I spotted, I just started picking them out, left and right. The first ones I found I knew instantly they were plagiarized. I only found two articles that I didn't think had plagiarisms in them, and these in the last 24-48 hours, and they both held up to a quick scrutiny. Every other article I reviewed may have taken some time, but it wasn't really that hard. Just time to find where the lines were copied and pasted from. It's so obvious anyone who spent any time learning the skill of writing can find them. And, you have some more waiting in the queue.

It's not a threat of my incivility, it's a threat to me that if I keep bringing up the problems I will be banned--effectively that is a ban, because I can write, and I find it disgusting that someone would take the work of another, claim it as their own, then show it off for a cyberspace award to their assumed name.

--Blechnic (talk) 08:26, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

No, I didn't threaten you for "finding plagiarisms", I threatened to take you to AN/I for your attitude, where the community at large could make a judgement. The issue of plagiarism is quite separate from that. People would respond a lot more positively to your concerns if you actually showed a willingness to work constructively with others to get things fixed instead of using the mistakes you find to fashion a stick to beat other contributors over the head with. I'd like to think your attitude genuinely stems from a concern over standards, but a review of your edit history indicates to me a user who is motivated at least in part by malicious glee in finding fault with others. I suppose it's possible that in the circles where you normally move the tone of discussion might be a great deal more robust, so that you see nothing wrong with your sarcasm, but wikipedia is different and a premium is put on civility here. If you can't engage civilly with others, you simply don't belong here, it's as simple as that. So ultimately the ball is in your court, if you want to engage in a positive and helpful way, of course your contribution is welcome, but if you just want to spend half your time playing one-upmanship games, I'm afraid you've chosen the wrong venue. Perhaps you could benefit from reading the essay Don't be a dick. Regards, Gatoclass (talk) 09:23, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I've left a note on Gatoclass's talk page giving some of the background here. Blechnic has the interests of the project at heart here. Please look at the problems Blechnic has found and don't get distracted by personality conflicts. Carcharoth (talk) 09:53, 27 June 2008 (UTC)