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Confused by the new queue system

I made a minor edit to one of the queue items and was surprised to find that the edit was not reflected in the version shown on the suggestions page, even after several refreshes. Also, on the suggestions page version the "Next update queue" is empty, while the "Next next update queue" has an item. When I tried to move the item to the "Next update queue", I found it was already there. Am I doing something wrong? I've never experienced such problems with other transcluded pages. Espresso Addict (talk) 03:56, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

I might not be understanding your problem right since I'm not an admin and can't edit queues, but in my experience any time I edit a transcluded page I also need to edit the page it's transcluded into (I usually just click edit and then click save without doing anything, and it doesn't show up in the history, but it updates the transclusion). Did you try that out?
As for the Next next update problem, I'm not sure what could be causing that... —Politizer talk/contribs 04:02, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
It's showing correctly now, for some mysterious reason. Do you have to purge every time you edit any of the subpages? (I'm guessing that the edit-the-page thing works because it forces a cache purge.) Are there any step-by-step instructions for the new system? Espresso Addict (talk) 04:18, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Hm... that's something I don't think I can answer. Gatoclass and BorgQueen, are you guys around? —Politizer talk/contribs 04:19, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
AFAIK, this is a problem which is not merely confined to DYK pages. I have experienced similar long lags in the correct display of new edits elsewhere on the encyclopedia - sometimes as long as five or ten minutes! It doesn't happen often, but it's happened to me several times over the course of my participation at this website. Gatoclass (talk) 04:47, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Minor change in rule wording

Above, Nsk92 pointed out that the current rules posted at the main rules page aren't clear about where expansion is calculated from; Art's rules and later parts of the official rules say a bit more, but it might be helpful for newbies if we made the DYK rule about expansions specifically say that expansions are calculated from prose (and usually the kind of prose counted by prosesize); we made a suggestion above, and I'm putting it in this section so it'll be easier for the rest of you to see it. Anyway, the suggestion is to change

Former redirects, stubs, or other short articles that have been expanded fivefold or more within the last five days are also acceptable as "new" articles.

to

Former redirects, stubs, or other short articles in which the prose portion has been expanded fivefold or more within the last five days are also acceptable as "new" articles.

I know some of you guys are already working on merging the rules, and maybe your version has already addressed this problem, but just in case it hasn't, I'm putting this on the table (and even if it has, it might be nice to make this change in the rules that are up now, until the merged rules go live). Does anyone see any potential problems with this new wording? —Politizer talk/contribs 04:30, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

That seems fine to me, I would just suggest changing "prose" to "prose portion" to make the meaning more clear. Gatoclass (talk) 04:39, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Changed. —Politizer talk/contribs 04:41, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Portion is even less clear, because the body of the text is prose, but the whole thing except for tiny bits are not the body of the text. The rule of thumb should be a 5x size expansion. Otherwise, the wording would leave far more problems than what there is now, especially with the way people are already misinterpreting guidelines. Ottava Rima (talk) 04:43, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
I wonder why there was never a problem of understanding what "size" or "prose" or "narrative" meant before? Has something changed? —Mattisse (Talk) 04:58, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Yes, Art's unwritten rules was a new introduction this year and started people adding their own interpretations left and right. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:45, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
In particular, they started then. Then they expanded to cause various problems. This is why standard proposal processes should be respected. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:19, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Reliable sources

Although this hasn't always been the case, at certain times I get a reviewer (who decides whether the DYK hook is properly cited so that it can go on the main page) who always requires an online source, over my offline sources (published books). This happened when I suggested a hook for the article Rheinmetall 120 mm gun; although, ultimately, an online source was added. However, this online source (and the sentence which it was attributed to) was deleted because it wasn't a reliable source, during the article's ongoing featured article candidacy. As an editor who has brought ten articles to featured article status, and currently has a candidate, and will soon have his twelfth candidate (AMX-30; which is currently a nomination for DYK under 8 December), I want to ask why require an online source over a source which is deemed reliable according to Wikipedia's standards? JonCatalán(Talk) 19:05, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

There is no grounds within DYK for that, and the AGF check is there just for offline sources. I think what happened was during the transition from just having admin move them over to having people check them first (literally placing checks) that some got the notion that they could go ahead and make such standards. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:08, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict)It's been a while since Rheinmetall 120 mm gun was up, so I don't remember the details behind what happened—I remember that there was some disagreement for a while, but that's all. In general, though, it's not standard here for us to require online sources—which is why we have the symbol and often leave notes saying "offline ref accepted in good faith." As far as I know, the only reason not to accept an offline ref would be if the veracity of something had been called into question and we needed a way for everyone to check it...but again, since I don't remember the details of the Rheinmetall nomination, I don't remember if that happened or not. In general, though, there is usually no reason not to accept offline sources, and I know at least half of my DYKs have come entirely from offline sources (journal articles, books, etc.). —Politizer talk/contribs 19:10, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
For anyone reading, an old revision of T:TDYK where this Rheinmetall nom may be viewed is here. From what I can tell (and, again, I might be misunderstanding the discussion, since it's been about a month since it took place and there are probably details I'm forgetting), the reviewers brought up concerns not about your offline source, but about one of the online sources already there. In an old revision of the article, however, the hook fact appears to be cited to an offline source (rather than the the online source that the reviewer originally commented on). It's possible that I'm looking at the wrong revision of the article, or something; I don't know. In any case, I'm not sure what happened with that nom in the past, but the bottom line is, AFAIK offline refs are acceptable unless someone has a specific concern about one (and those are handled on a case-by-case basis). —Politizer talk/contribs 19:24, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Let's be clear, in general printed sources are preferable to online ones, even if it means they can't be sighted by reviewers. Most of my sources are books, & I can't recall this happening. If it does, it should be raised with the reviewer and then here. Johnbod (talk) 00:31, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. Plus, in certain topics (such as many science articles), reliable sources are not freely available online. —Politizer talk/contribs 00:51, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Note: Little of value has come out of this, the discussion is becoming fragmented, with numerous issues that makes it hard to follow. I'm closing it because it is going no-where fast. If anyone has any further proposals or issues, please continue them as separate issues below so that they can be evaluated independently. \ / (⁂ | ※) 13:19, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

A link will be posted on Village Pump Proposals to notify and involve the community as a whole.

Proposed: For DYK to base its 5x expansion off of approximate page byte size. Also, allowing administrator discretion under IAR to allow pages falling short (based on images, referencing, tables, and other wikimark ups in the pre-expanded version) to be accepted as long as they are over approximately 4.5x the original size.

Wording: 5x expansion is defined as an approximate page byte increase of 5x. Pages expanded approximately 4.5x or more but fall short because of wikiformatting (images, referencing, tables, markups, see also, list, and other formatting items) are acceptable under reviewer discretion and IAR as long as there is a significant expansion to the page.

Reason: This would return to the original spirit of the DYK and allow for more inclusion within topics. It would also remove arguments resulting from various challenges to page size and promote the creation and expansion of articles instead of chasing away valuable contributors. DYK is to encourage the beginning of work on Wikipedia and to attract people to such pages to help out. The above wording, although prescriptive, would ensure that this continues. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:43, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Expansions that approach 5x but fall a tiny bit short already sometimes are accepted under IAR, when they have lots of supporting materials such as tables and lists. If you don't believe me, I can provide diffs of when this has happened. —Politizer talk/contribs 19:48, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Politizer, this is a wording addition to make it clear. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:00, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I support a formal note about 4.5x and above, I don't see any harm in this. PeterSymonds (talk) 20:05, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

My problem isn't with the allowance of 4.5x and the like, that's fine. But when we say 5x, we don't mean a page byte increase of 5x, far from it. we mean the text size. Wizardman 20:07, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Wizardman, the characters are measured by bytes. The page size has always been the way to measure such things, especially with rough estimations. This is also to remove doublestandards of what counts as "prose" or not. If you look at this, you will see that it discusses it in terms of bytes and size. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:18, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
  • (ec) I agree with Wizardman. He is describing the original spirit of DYK. "Size" definitely was not based on page byte size. To me it was always clear that original prose (words) were what counted, not infoboxes, pics, quotes, copy/pastes, See also's and the like. —Mattisse (Talk) 20:22, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Once you introduce "text" size, people want to define it any which way, thus setting in large differences in standards. One page was clearly a 5x byte expansion. By one standard, it was 6x prose expansion, by another, it was only 4x. Such massive differences are completely improper and too subjective. The original standard was page size, and it should be returned to such in order to stop any abuse of the system. We are supposed to be inclusive, not exclusive. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:30, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
I agree the expansion (whether 4.5x or 5x) should be of prose/text. Just adding lengthy lists, infoboxes, see also references, etc. isn't the type of expansion we're looking for to warrant DYK inclusion. It should be expansion of text. If there's ambiguity in what counts as prose/text, maybe that could be clarified. Cbl62 (talk) 21:13, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Wholeheartedly opposed, it has always been clear that what was being talked about was prose, actual written content, not images, tables or other such things. This just seems like more instruction creep for what is already an instruction and regulation heavy process.--IvoShandor (talk) 21:20, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
I guess you didn't know that 1. this is already an instruction and 2. "unwritten rules" is trying to add in more instruction and this is to make that impossible. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:23, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Articles include pictures and the rest. We are promoting good encyclopedic articles. No one will be expanding something based on just pictures or the rest, nor would it be an article if it was just that. Furthermore, what is defined as prose is already very well defined according to WP:SIZE, so prose does not need to be redefined. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:23, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
(EC)I just don't see a problem, so what are we fixing? There's no point in additional rules in a process that is already laden with them, those who contribute here understand what is meant, what is being looked for, I always have, I don't see much yelling about it, and a lot of close articles just slide through anyway, so I don't see the issue you are trying to address. --IvoShandor (talk) 21:28, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
IvoShandor, you are correct; there's not really any problem that needs fixed. In the rare occasions that an article is just barely under 5x expansion (4.8x or something like that), then reviewers generally respond by either a) verifying the article anyway, if the expansion is close enough and there are other supporting materials; or b) notifying the nominator and giving them a chance to expand the article a bit more. Nominations are almost never rejected outright for not meeting the expansion criteria, so there is no "abuse" that needs to be corrected. —Politizer talk/contribs 21:34, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) If DYK reviewers and admins already are using judgment and IAR in evaluating expansion (as I believe they are), making this rule explicit is unnecessary. To the best of my knowledge, most of the current reviewers and admins already are willing to pass articles that are a tiny bit less than 5x expanded, if they meet certain standards (for, if the article length and breadth of coverage are acceptable after the expansion, if there are enough tables or lists or other supporting materials that reflect an informative compilation of information, rather than just a quotation). Making a rule that says "admins can use discretion under IAR if the expansion is between 4.5x and 5x" is just adding another arbitrary number; 4.5 would be just as arbitrary as 5 was. And, if people currently want admins and reviewers to IAR when reviewing hooks at, say, 4.8x, then once a rule about 4.5x is created then people at 4.4x will say "but come on, you can IAR, my article has way more supporting materials than other ones that are at 4.5"—in other words, setting up another arbitrary cutoff line will just encourage wikilawyering. I believe the system works fine already and is not being abused by any reviewers or admins; if there are any problems, they should be addressed as Cbl62 suggested, by making what counts as prose be expressed more clearly (although personally I think it already is pretty clear, and there has already been a suggestion here to make them clearer. —Politizer talk/contribs 21:27, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

@ottava: I am slow today, I see what you mean about there already being a rule, sorry. But again, I reiterate what I said above. When has this been such a huge problem? Are people really gnashing teeth over this somewhere that I have missed? If they are I am sure it isn't anything that couldn't be resolved with a bit of reasoned discussion. Most editor around here aren't narcissists or maniacs and are pretty approachable and willing to ignore the rules. If they aren't seek second opinion, I mean DYK has always been like this, that's always been the requirement. I still oppose the change. --IvoShandor (talk) 21:37, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
As I stated before. Those like Politizer try to use a vague term of "prose" to discount various aspects of articles. One such article, mine, was a 5x size expansion. As a "prose" expansion, according to the standard WP:SIZE guidelines and the standard tool, it was a 6x expansion. He claimed that he could remove anything he wanted, including block quotes and other quotes, which count as Prose under WP:SIZE, to argue that it was only a 4x expansion. Allowing people the right to do such a thing goes against what DYK is about and sets a double standard. Other problems have happened because of those like Politizer doing the same thing. A lot of people want this to stop. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:53, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Ottava has repeatedly claimed that "a lot" of people have problems with how DYK is working and want it to stop...but, interestingly, none of them have been coming here and complaining. All these mysterious individuals seem to do nothing but e-mail Ottava Rima in secret all the time. All in all, that leads me to believe that this proposal is being put forth not because of a widespread concern about how DYK works, but because of one editor's personal bitterness over a single one of his 20+ Milton hooks not getting accepted for DYK. —Politizer talk/contribs 23:11, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
This is a weekend. This was recently posted. There are many people not around. You know, you are only verifying why this needs to be put forth with each post that you keep making. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:29, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Yes, this is a weekend, but you've been making a fuss about these standards all week long, since the batch of Milton birthday hooks on the 9th; I haven't heard other people complaining since then, either. And, if Art's rules have really ruined everything like you say, then I would imagine people would have been complaining for months. —Politizer talk/contribs 23:33, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Agree with IvoShandor. I also see this as instruction creep, seeking a solution for something that isn't a problem. "Prose" is not nearly so vague as "bytes". What is the relevance of invoking WP:SIZE which is mostly concerned with articles that are too large and not about DYK? Kilobytes and bytes are relevant for practical purposes such as article loading times. The goal of DYK is to encourage editors to create new articles and upgrade stubs by adding their own encyclopedic writing. If this goal is disregarded, a narcissistic editor could easily wrack up an enormous number of DYKs by using other than original prose to create or beef up articles, which would not benefit Wikipedia. —Mattisse (Talk) 22:37, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
1. Size is Wikipedia's determination of what counts as the encyclopedic aspects of a page and what does not. Originally, Prose fit that definition, but people are attempting to manipulate what prose means to limit pages from being accepted. 2. This is less instructive than the "unwritten rules" which is attempting to redefine. 3. Everyone can see how much the k size of a page is. It is impossible to challenge it. "Prose", however, was defined above as anything not covered on anywhere else, which is not how prose is defined. Prose is supposed to be the body of the text including all of the text. However, people will always refuse to accept some aspect of prose, thus, the wording cannot be used. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:42, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Where do you get this: "Size is Wikipedia's determination of what counts as the encyclopedic aspects of a page and what does not."? —Mattisse (Talk) 22:47, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
What do you think Size means, then? It says clearly on the page: Wikipedia:SIZE#What is and is not included as "readable prose". Its hard to confuse that with anything else. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:29, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
IAR is not needed because material is put on the Main Page based on an admin decision under Wikipedia:Administrators, not DYK rules. DYK is nothing more than a WikiProject to assist an admin in making a decision to place something on the protected Main Page. Bytes are not used in the DYK count for a variety of reasons, one being that one large photo will push any article over the 5X byte limit. Number of DYK characters are used in this WikiProject because the measurement can be made consistent from one article to the next. On close issues of DYK character count, each editor can post under the hook what they believe to be the DYK character count and their basis for making that determination. An admin than can review the discussion and make a judgment decision as to whether to put the hook on the Main Page. As for Politizer use of the term "prose", a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet. Politizer is consistent in how he counts number of DYK characters from one nom to the next, which gives credibility to his opinions. -- Suntag ☼ 23:15, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Byes were always used for the DYK count until recently. This is a phenomena that has occurred after the establishment of the unapproved unwritten rules this summer, and is part of an alteration of standard procedures that happened without community approval. As I stated before, Suntag, you have not been around long enough to know this, since you started after Art tried to alter standard procedure. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:29, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
And repeating the same action does not mean the action is legitimate. There are many people who spread their same errors left and right, just as there are people that continue to put forth the same spelling mistakes. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:30, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure if I understand what you're saying here. Have you edited on Wikipedia with a different username previous to your current one? I show your user account as being created in September 2007, and your first substantial edits starting in January this year. By contrast, the statement that character counts on revision history pages is not an appropriate method of measuring article length for DYK purposes has been on Template talk:Did you know since May 2007. It remains there to this day. Can you give us some examples of situations in your time on Wikipedia where total article byte count has been used? - Mark 02:16, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
My background doesn't matter, but yes. "It remains there to this day." Yet 5x page expansion does. DYK existed before 2007 also. And I can provide a list of my DYK that if you looked through them (50+), there are many whose "prose" do not match Politizer's definition and would fall short if you discounted the quotes and blockquotes. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:52, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
My definition? This might be news to you, but everyone working at DYK uses that definition and has been since before I started contributing. —Politizer talk/contribs 03:14, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
I have over 50 DYK that can say otherwise. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:25, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
I have over 75 DYK that say otherwise, OR! —Mattisse (Talk) 05:09, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Mattisse, logically, you can produce a million DYK that agree with Politizer's version and it still wouldn't negate that mine were approved and didn't follow his line of reasoning. Thus, not everyone agrees. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:29, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
      • Ottava Rima, logically you can produce a million DYK also. But you are not "everyone". Who else, besides you, has this horrible trouble with Politizer? Name some names! Is this like the secret emails and back channels you said you got your info from on Malleus Fatuorum's page that keeps you uptodate on wikipedia politics?[1] —Mattisse (Talk) 06:48, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Firstly, at Ottava. I went to the article that Politizer counted the size of. Indeed, I was using Dr.pda's prose size counter, and I got around ten thousand as well. I know you two have some history, but I don't believe Politizer was acting in bad faith by making that note. He was just following what has become standard procedure here.
I believe that is where most of your complaints are heading towards. I haven't been at DYK long enough to know the pre-Unwritten Rules, but I haven't seen many actual uses of the rule when people verify hooks. Many of the instances there, such as the offsite links or redlinks in the hook I have seen maybe once or twice? Even if they weren't written, those two are still going to get fixed anyway. I think that was Art's idea when he wrote down these rules. They aren't meant to be set in stone policy, they are meant to be guidelines. No-one can stop your hook if it has a bare URL in it, but no-one would be willing to verify it. Most, if not all of the 'Unwritten rules' (which needs a name change by the way) are more than common sense. The only one that there may be a valid concern with is your point - regarding the Prose size.
You were unlucky, your article didn't make it because of the block quotes. There have been many hooks that have been able to pass the 5x expansion, however, due to the quotes being discounted from the count. While I believe that block quotes shouldn't be included, that is, as far as I see, is the only rule possibly worth sending to the Village Pump. Maybe [[WP:SIZE] was drafted before Dr. Pda's tool, but I do believe that that guideline is referring to the byte size of the page, so that it is actually able to load on a slow internet connection. DYK has different goals, so may I propose the following:
Move Unwritten Rules to General Guidelines and make it clear these are used at reviewers discretion.
Either have a straw poll at the Village Pump to define prose for DYK. (I'm happy to draft that)
OR Change WP:SIZE (not such a good idea I think, considering the options above).
Food for thought, \ / (⁂ | ※) 00:01, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
"and I got around ten thousand as well" Only through going against how WP:SIZE says to measure prose size - go to printable view, copy the body of the text, check. This is what the Readability size checker does, and that tool shows that the above article was well over 5 times. Furthermore, you can act destructively and against whats right for the project completely in good faith. It doesn't mean that your actions are correct. Reinterpret the rules to accept Art's version is completely against the basis of DYK and very problematic. There mere claim that quotes and block quotes do not count as prose goes against the very definition of prose on and off Wikipedia. Prose does not need to be defined, because we should return to the original use which was page size.
For Samson: Current Prose at 16.3k. The previous version was, including images and formatting, at 2.77k. That is well over 5x. That means that the math, and the justification for the math above, is completely inaccurate and destructive to the DYK process, especially with people promoting it as some how correct. Ottava Rima (talk) 00:20, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
@Ottava Rima, the readability tool is not used to determine article size at FAC, even though much discussion goes on at FAC about minimum acceptable article size. We should not use it here. Where on Wikipedia is the readability tool used to measure article size? At FAC, the readability tool counts for very little if anything in making FAC decisions. —Mattisse (Talk) 00:46, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
@OR I was merely showing you that he did not 'remove anything he wanted', he was using a tool that did that for him. I never supported his actions, I only said what he did. Can we ask Art to move the page? \ / (⁂ | ※) 00:45, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Dr. Pda is the only tool FAC accepts, so I support its use here, Backslash_Forwardslash. And it was perfected recently (within the last year I would say) and at the request of FAC. Article size was mean to address downloading issues, but Dr.Pda is better because it separates out what is due to html formatting, formatting of references etc. from the Prose size and Prose size (text only), so it is far more accurate. —Mattisse (Talk) 01:03, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
That is 100% patently wrong. Dr Pda's tool is not "accepted" at FAC. It is not a tool at all to measure anything. The readability tool takes the script and does it automatically so it cannot be altered in any way. That is the only accurate measure. And WP:SIZE was ment to discuss all size issues. You cannot selectively change that. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:52, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Oh dear! This will become like FAC where endless, ongoing discussion and straw polls accomplish nothing. See Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates and look at the archives full of discussions and straw polls over just the issue of should short articles be forbidden as FACs (and the related question of what is a short article), and other "straw polls" and discussions going no where. This is instruction creep! Most editors on Wikipedia don't know about or care about DYK, just like most don't know about or care about FAC. Baring a massive onslaught of opinion from the current post requesting DYK opinion at the Village Pump, I favor either
Do nothing as there is no evidence of a problem, or
Move Unwritten Rules to General Guidelines and make it clear these are used at reviewers discretion.

—Mattisse (Talk) 00:37, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I cannot believe that you on one hand attack "instruction creep" while simultaneously trying to move the unwritten rules as guidelines which would add even more instruction creep. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:52, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  • I see no justification for this proposed change. While there may be valid quibbles over the relevance of block quotes, image captions, verbose lists, etc., in determining article length, I think it would be ridiculous to base this determination solely on byte count. In several articles I've looked at recently, the addition of bulky templates (for infoboxes and templated references, for example) has vastly increased an article's byte count without actually adding any readable content. Moreover, the word "prose" is a well-defined English word; it's not Wikipedia jargon that needs to be explained to people. --Orlady (talk) 01:02, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Agreed. Byte count would include things ranging from giant infoboxes cut-and-pasted in with only two or three fields containing information, to refs that have long titles or lots of coauthors. —Politizer talk/contribs 01:18, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Giant infoboxes cannot add enough K to warrant anything you suggest. You are already discounting thousands of K of actual text, of course some one would be trying to discourage people actually expanding articles to become encyclopedic according to Wikipedia standards by agree with what you just said. This is for encyclopedic pages, they include everything that is part of Wikipedia. Your alterations to DYK discourages that and causes a major problem. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:52, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Politizer has not made any "alterations to DYK". I have been contributing to DYK for more than a year and as long as I've been here the rule has been that only the prose portion of the article counts. You are not being victimized by Politizer or anyone else, the rules are the same for everybody. Gatoclass (talk) 03:09, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Gatoclass, lets not play games here. You know exactly that by Politizer's claims, there was 4.5k descrepency in the amount of characters between a standard reader and his reading. You know exactly why. I have had many hooks approved by you after you were made a sysop that included large amounts of quotes and block quotes, and this was never a problem. Why? Because it was never a problem until people like Politizer decided to claim a greater understanding of the rules. The rules are not the same as they were, and there is a clear double standard. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:20, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Ottava, you are entirely correct. If, that is, by "Politizer's claims" and "Politizer's reading" you mean "everyone at DYK's claims" and "prosesize.js and everyone else's reading." —Politizer talk/contribs 03:26, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
I have many DYK during the time that you've been here that prove that not everyone agrees with your interpretation, so yes, its your interpretation. And prosesize.js isn't anything at all. Run an actual tool sometime. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:32, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
And you have no grounds to talk about standards or standard practices. You denied a page simply because there was a page that didn't include duplicated information but was similar in size. I've received many emails complaining about how you have been interpreting things as of late. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:22, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Secret e-mails don't describe or prescribe consensus. If people have a problem with me or with Gatoclass, they are welcome to come and post it here. You can even invite them. But if these complaints only exist in secret e-mails, they don't hold any weight here. —Politizer talk/contribs 03:24, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
I love how you can conflate yourself with Gatoclass. You do realize that you are two separate people, correct? Or does Politizer now speak for you, Gatoclass? Ottava Rima (talk) 03:33, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
I offered to review that article for you a second time and you rejected it. So you have only yourself to blame for the fact that article didn't get a second look.
And previous DYK's you have received were presumably awarded because the prose portion was already long enough to make them eligible. I reiterate that the rules have not changed in the time I have been here. You are simply wrong to think there has been some sort of recent change. Gatoclass (talk) 03:37, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
If you remove quotes, blockquotes, and "not new" information, only 2 or 3 of my DYK expansions would actually count. And they all came with a note saying that their size was verified. And Gato, that is absurd and you know it. The Unwritten rules were created in June and expanded in July. Everyone knows that this became a big thing because of the promotion of the "unwritten rules" as more than one user's opinion. And Gato, offering me a second glance does not override the wrong doing the first time you looked at it. It was clearly new information. It was clearly not duplicated. It was clearly notable. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:57, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
It doesn't matter when the unwritten rules were written. Art LaPella is a very longstanding contributor to DYK, he has witnessed thousands of discussions at Template talk:Did you know, he condensed what was basically the collective wisdom of everyone at DYK into his rules, and no-one has seen fit to challenge those rules for at least six months - until you came along and decided to try to buck the system because one of your articles got rejected. Those rules have overwhelming support and this discussion is just wasting everybody's time. Gatoclass (talk) 05:19, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
You are right. It doesn't matter when they were written, because they aren't official nor proper. They are one person's opinion and, as others have expressed, they shouldn't be adopted as the standard rules. "Collective wisdom" does not exist. There is consensus or not consensus, and consensus does not support the rules. Have you bothered to read the comments? At least five people have declared in this section that Art's guidelines shouldn't be adopted. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:29, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  • While I can see your point ottava, and agree that there are valid issues that are raised from time to time I see no evidence that this is somehow a systemic problem. And, "Byes were always used for the DYK count until recently.", what you said above, is just wrong. I have been contributing to DYK since late 2006 and it has always been characters for that time period.--IvoShandor (talk) 03:56, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  • (EC)So what's the problem? We can't let editors use discretion? We have to have a rule prescribing every little thing? Frankly, the level of discussion above has degraded greatly into pettiness and a series of logical fallacies. I don't think this discussion is doing anyone any good and to be honest, after reading over everything, it seems you have some kind of disagreement with one or two particular editors. I would suggest that you work out your issues together, and calmly I might add, and then let it go. This is a solution without a problem, and while I can definitely understand frustration, sometimes its just best to not blow up nothing into something. I don't say this because I agree with every single thing that happens at DYK, I have had my spats here, and with editors here (just ask Matisse), but it just doesn't do any good to drag this stuff onto project talk pages. These are just my thoughts, take it FWIW. --IvoShandor (talk) 04:07, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Ivo, I pop in every other week with a complex DYK. I put it up. The normally pass. Only after Art's unwritten rules became popular have I ever had a problem, and then its only rarely. Now its increasing. Why? Because of the way the rules are being interpreted based on Art's opinion. I am not the only one who also experiences problems after Art's rules became popular. This proposal is to make sure that Art's version doesn't take over DYK. Ottava Rima (talk) 04:40, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  • OR, Art's unwritten rules have always been popular. The only difference now is that we can put them in writing, if that is what you want. Maybe when we hear the views of those other people who are having problems the issue will become clearer. (And not through secret emails - they needs to express themselves openly.) —Mattisse (Talk) 05:09, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Apparently not as popular as people make it seem. There is a lot of dissent against them expressed by multiple people. I don't want the views put in writing. I have stated that the above view is there to ensure that Art's rules can never be accepted by any stretching of the current definitions. It is already certain by many people so far that Art's rules aren't going to be accepted, but we need to ensure that no one can slip them in through other means. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:29, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it would be a good thing to move the unwritten rules out of user space to here as "guidelines". It would be instruction creep. LaPella's "unwritten rules" exist to guide interested parties as to what to expect as typical reactions to their suggested hooks and articles. To enforce them as if they were actual hard-and-fast rules is wrong, and people who are doing so should really justify their rejections or comments on their own merits rather than by referring to that user-space page. - Mark 04:02, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Mark, I agree totally with this point of view and dislike instruction creep. Reifying the "unwritten rules" would be a last resort. And thank you, IvoShandor! I remember those days and I'm glad we have moved beyond. (I can't even remember what we "spat" about.) —Mattisse (Talk) 04:24, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I think the new proposal should be accepted and all rules used to accept/reject DYKs should be agreed to by community consensus and posted on wiki and posted on the project page after they are agreed to by community consensus. — Rlevse • Talk • 04:19, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid that ill-considered comment has just earned you a strong oppose at your arbcom election page. Gatoclass (talk) 04:56, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Gato, someone contradicted you completely and you do that? That should be grounds to desysop you. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:29, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Please. Everyone has the right to vote for or against anyone in the election, and no one can take administrative action against anyone for how they vote. This is not the first time you've harrassed someone over their vote. —Politizer talk/contribs 05:32, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
That is one of the most hypocritical claims ever. Gato threatened Rlevse for stating standard WP:CONSENSUS. The fact that Gato would try to bully another person for upholding that things should go through consensus is 100% opposite of what Wikipedia is about. This is incredibly low and an abuse of power. Gato knows better than to do this. And for your information, Politizer, the community agreed that there wasn't a problem there and that Roux was acting out of turn. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:42, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Over the course of the last few days, I have noted your tendency to up the ante in disputes rather than look for resolution. The above post is a typical example. You are not doing yourself any favours Ottava. If you continue with this confrontational attitude, you are only going to land yourself in more trouble. The community's patience is not limitless. Gatoclass (talk) 07:00, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Where is this WP:CONSENSUS, Ottava Rima, that consensus is on your side? Besides you, I mean. Rlevse has no history with DYK and did not claim that he had been discriminated against by Politizer. Are you saying Rlevse is one of your dissatisfied group of emailers? By the way, FAC uses word count, and not bytes to determine article length.[2] —Mattisse (Talk) 06:51, 14 December 2008 (UTC)


To me, the DYK rules we have seem to be working. Can anyone supporting the change provide a better explanation of what problem would be solved by the proposal? Even better, can we see examples of particular articles that would / would not make the cutoff under the new proposal? Alansohn (talk) 05:17, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Look, the issue here is really very simple. DYK rewards the creation of new content. Over the course of time and many discussions, the regulars at DYK have hammered out a consensus around what is counted as "new content" when it comes to measuring the amount of new content in an article. What the consensus basically boils down to is that only the prose portion of the article counts. In regards to this dispute in particular, the consensus has been that quotations from source do not qualify as new content. Thus, you cannot for example, create an article about a poem that just verbatim quotes the poem with a word or two of introduction. It ought to be obvious to anyone that such an article would hardly have any original content at all, and therefore ought not to qualify for a reward.
Unfortunately, Ottava Rima has decided to challenge the longstanding consensus on this point because one of his articles got rejected, and now it seems we have one or two other editors with little knowledge of how or why these rules were created who have popped up in support of his disruptive campaign. I am confident however that anyone who takes the time to understand why these rules were created, will support them, just as all the experienced editors here have always supported them. Gatoclass (talk) 05:41, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
I hadn't really given this much thought as many of mine are biological articles (not much to quote really), but I think Gatoclass sums it up well above. I missed the original nomination which led to this. I feel for Ottava as there are times when I have wanted to expand an article and just failed to find the information there to use to get it to a critical prose size. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:12, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
There seems to be just the one editor who objects, although he/she claims to be representing many unnamed editors unwilling to publicly comment. However, other than the allegations against one DYK editor who, apparently single-handedly, is corrupting the DYK process, there are no actual complaints about the DYK process as it works now. It seems unnecessary to me to have a community consensus that sounds equivalent to a FAC review (taking weeks of disagreement and "process") for each DYK hook, as Rlevse seems to be suggesting. I think this "discussion" needs to end until there is more than one dissatisfied editor willing to enter this discussion. —Mattisse (Talk) 07:19, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Seconded. It's clear that this is not going to go anywhere. —Politizer talk/contribs 07:28, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

An idea

It seems that we are brewing a tempest in a tea pot here and I doubt much fruitfulness will come out of the proposal above. I think it is best for everyone to just move on. For the most part DYK has been a smooth operation with very little drama. That has been, in part, because the regulars and experienced DYK editors are pretty good at self policing. (The "Unwritten rules" are simply a compendium of that self-policing) Let's just move on and if we have an issue in the future with a hook that has prose size issues, we'll deal with it as we have dealt with other problematic hooks--with discussion and, ultimately, admin discretion in whether or not to select the hook by invoking WP:IAR. Those little flare ups usually last only a day or two and then DYK gets back to humming along. This system has worked for most of DYK's existence and there is little reason to lose faith in it. AgneCheese/Wine 07:21, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with this suggestion. Thanks, Agne27. —Politizer talk/contribs 07:28, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
I would like to make it clear that I consider Art's "Unwritten rules" to be very much a part of our established rules here. They were hammered out as a result of countless discussions and overwhelming consensus, they are anything but idle notions pulled out of the air by Art. The only reason I have opposed merging them with the standard rules is because I think it's a good idea to keep DYK as accessible as possible, and because the "unwritten rules" represent the "fine print" that new users do not have to be intimately familiar with in order to participate. However, I have been thinking it's time they were moved into wiki space rather than just remaining on a user page, as that obviously gives some people the wrong impression. If we need a formal vote on that before doing so, I'm happy to agree to one. Gatoclass (talk) 07:45, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
I have immense respect for Art and his "Unwritten rules" which, as has been noticed many times above, have worked flawlessly over time with very little fuss. DYK's great asset is that it is accessible to all. In fact, I read nothing and only found out about DYK by receiving those little banners of notification about one of my articles. When I started nominating on my own, I did so by just looking at the DYK nomination page and reading the comments by reviewers. No accusations that my DYK hook failed criteria 2.c. or any such inscrutable dictations such that FAC levels routinely at nominators in WikiSpeak. I hate to see any of this changed at DYK. Even the editor stirring up this discussion is arguing against making the "Unwritten rules" written. Is it possible that we could just leave well enough alone? —Mattisse (Talk) 08:05, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
The very reason I think these rules need to be moved into mainspace is so that we don't have a repetition of the drama we have had over the last few days. Once they are in mainspace, there can be no debate about whether or not they are "official". There is nothing in Art's unwritten rules in my view that is at all controversial, this is stuff we have all agreed upon time and again. If there's something specific in there that you are concerned about, by all means let's discuss it, but otherwise I see no advantage in leaving their status ambiguous. In any case, they can always be tweaked later if need be, just as the basic rules get a tweak now and then. Gatoclass (talk) 08:44, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Alleged inconsistency

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Okay, I just did some research into what Politizer kept claiming about dr pda and look what I found:

From Dr pda's statement: "This method is not perfect however and may include text which isn't prose (eg in navboxes), or exclude text which is (eg in Cquote, or prose written in bullet-point form, eg Anarchism#Recent developments within Anarchism). The text counted as prose is highlighted in yellow, so it is easy to see whether the prose size is over or underestimated."

This clearly states that blockquotes do count as prose.

Furthermore:

"Wikipedia:Article size says

there [are] stylistic reasons why the main body of an article should not be unreasonably long, including readability issues ... For stylistic purposes, only the main body of prose (excluding links, see also, reference and footnote sections, and lists/tables) should be counted toward an article's total size, since the point is to limit the size of the main body of prose.

"

He even bases this off of WP:SIZE. Dr Pda's own page agrees with me 100% about what is prose and what is not prose. Blockquotes are prose. The definition is based on Size. How many people mocked me and claimed otherwise? Ottava Rima (talk) 16:16, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

The title of this section is a blatant personal attack, and if you do not change it on your own within an hour I will change it and will report you to ANI. —Politizer talk/contribs 16:27, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
...For using "deception"? -- lucasbfr talk 16:32, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
No, Lucasbfr, for claiming that one particular editor is engaged in bad-faith deception when clearly many editors are doing the same thing and no one other than Ottava considers it "deception." —Politizer talk/contribs 16:37, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, Politizer, but I never stated that you intentionally deceived anyone. However, you did deceive people by stating that dr pda supported your interpretation of prose. He clearly does not. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:39, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Right. Politizer claiming that it was a personal attack is the same as him claiming that prose did not include quotes. 100% wrong. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:33, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
I am not taking any side here, I don't know what you're talking about (and I'm not sure I wish to). I simply note that the ANI threat is really over the top. -- lucasbfr talk 16:36, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) All Dr pda is saying is that the program isn't foolproof. We already knew that. However, it gives a pretty reliable prose count most of the time, and as he explains, you can see by the highlighted text when it's counting the wrong text.

Apart from which, all this is irrelevant. It's been explained to you over and again what the rules are, and there is no need for further discussion. If you think your view has support, then you are free to test the consensus, either here or at a venue of your choosing. Otherwise, I think it's well past time to put this debate behind us. Gatoclass (talk) 16:34, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Gato, 1. He clearly states that quotes count as prose. 2. He clearly bases it off of WP:SIZE. Two things you tried contradicting me over. You owe me an apology for pursuing your campaign that has now been proven as 100% wrong. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:36, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
I have already explained to you that the definition of main body text in Article Size is not the same as the definition we use here at DYK. Article Size relates to optimum size of articles and it's completely irrelevant here. Here we are measuring new content, not article size as such. So please stop this futile campaign. Gatoclass (talk) 16:43, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, but that doesn't cut it. You had a basis of that in Dr Pda. Even he says that you are wrong. Gatoclass, you are 100% wrong and there is nothing on Wikipedia for you to suggest that prose does not count quotes. Stop it now. You are only allowed to follow what the community has declared, and the community has already defined prose in a way that completely contradicts you. Furthermore, your claim that we are measuring new content has been pointed out to be 100% nonsense. Why? Because the 5x expansion would allow the original content, making it only a 4x expansion. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:51, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Your argument has no substance. You are just wasting everybody's time with this. I've already informed you that if you don't like the rule, you can put it to the test with a vote. I'm not going to spend any more time going around in circles with someone who ignores the explanations that are provided to him. Gatoclass (talk) 17:04, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
"Your argument has no substance. " Really? So, pointing out logical inconsistencies, the fact that the community hasn't verified your claim, and standard definitions going against you is no substance? Are you serious? Gatoclass, I asked you to put yourself up for recall. I'm not the only one that believes that. Your words, your language, and the rest, is severely problematic. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:10, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Okay, I've given it my best shot. I have to log off now, but if I come back here tomorrow and find you still prevaricating with the other users here, I will be taking action to end your disruption. That's assuming someone else hasn't done so in the meantime. This has gone on far too long already. Gatoclass (talk) 17:50, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Not only are you CoI against doing such, your threat only verifies my allegations of your abuse. Put yourself up for Recall, or this will have to go to the next stage. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:55, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Response to Ottava Rima
  • Note One: Ottava Rima, you have emphatically discounted Dr. Pda above as having no relevance to article size, a worthless tool, so please do not use Dr. Pda in your own support now. To quote you, Ottava Rima, directly:

That is 100% patently wrong. Dr Pda's tool is not "accepted" at FAC. It is not a tool at all to measure anything. The readability tool takes the script and does it automatically so it cannot be altered in any way. That is the only accurate measure. And WP:SIZE was ment to discuss all size issues. You cannot selectively change that. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:52, 14 December 2008 (UTC)"[3]

Another one of Ottava's comments about Dr. Pda here. —Politizer talk/contribs 17:34, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

This backtracking about what tool merely confuses the overall discussion, as the issue is the proposal for formalizing the "unwritten rules". There is agreement that prose and not bytes are to be counted to estimate article size. Tool choice is only one issue. Since you are advocating no "unwritten rules", in writing or otherwise, why worry about tool choice in this context?

  • Note Two: The issue of whether to count quotes or not is individual to the project involved, not to the tool measuring word count, as a tool is merely a tool. In FAC, it is a given that the article is almost entirely original prose, barring copyvio concerns, so the only issue regarding quotes are the following: are there too many quotes and are they necessary and relevant to the article (a question of editorial judgement and copyright infringement)? There is rarely, if ever, the issue that quotations make up a significant portion of the FAC. Word count in FAC is used to estimate if the article is too short or too long for the purposes of various FAC discussions. In the "too short" discussions, quotes are not counted because the issue at hand is one of is there enough original prose to be worthy of qualifying for FAC. In the "too long" discussion, quotes are counted because "too long" is directed at download issues. DYK has a totally different focus than does FAC, that of encouraging new prose, either through new article creation or in a 5x (or 4.5x - whatever) expansion of stubs and small articles with original prose. Obviously for DYK, to count quotes as added original material is at cross purposes with the DYK project goals.
  • Note Three: Please retract your personal attack on Politizer entitled Politizer's deception. Whatever Politizer thinks, this discussion over DYK procedures is not about Politizer. He is but one person. You have insistently concentrated all your negativity on this one editor, turning the discussion under Proposal above, into a personal vendetta by blaming exclusively Politizer. Are you saying Politizer alone is DYK and responsible for any and all flaws that may exist? You have received no support from any of the other DYK editors, even the ones you personally contacted and requested their support. Attacking and dismantling Politizer will not accomplish your goals. You are turning a policy/issue discussion into a personal crusade against Politizer. Not only does this harm Politizer and violate no personal attacks, but it harms DYK. This project is grinding to a halt, much as FAC frequently does, by long, useless discussions that accomplish nothing, except perhaps, creating lasting ill will and draining the energy of editors away from the actual DYK work. I urge you to cease this behaviour, Ottava Rima, please! For the sake of the DYK project, please. —Mattisse (Talk) 17:27, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

17:27, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

"Ottava Rima, you have emphatically discounted Dr. Pda above as having no relevance to article size, a worthless tool," And Mattisse, according to the quote, Dr Pda even states that his counter is inaccurate. I think that verifies my discounting of the tool.
"Please retract your personal attack on" Saying someone was being deceptive is not a personal attack. It is a characterization of an action. It is not malice, nor does it have to be intention. But ignoring what Dr Pda says about his own tool and the origins of it is 100% deceptive especially when it would verify what I said before. So go and rail as much as you want Mattisse, but you are just proven wrong again. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:36, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
[4] [5] [6] [7]. You have repeatedly called my actions "questionable" and suggested that I was purposely miscounting your article size, and even after numerous editors proved that I was not purposely miscounting and simply following the DYK standard, you never apologized for misrepresenting my intentions (calling my actions "questionable" and "absurd") and instead set about to trying to dismantle a long-standing DYK standard to make yourself be in the right again. Three editors now have already told you that what you are doing is a personal attack. Please stop wasting everyone's time with your personal vendetta; I have already told you where to go if you want to get me banned. —Politizer talk/contribs 17:45, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Personal attacks are attacks on the person, such as "stupid". NPA clearly states to comment on your actions, which is all I have ever done. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:55, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

closing this thread

I was asked by a participant to come in and review a number of the threads here, as there has been some contentious discussion. They are very concerned and asked me, as a long time DYK participant who has not been engaged in recent threads, to take a look at some of these. I share that concern. As for this thread: I don't think that continuing the discussion in this thread is likely to produce anything useful, so I think closing it is the right thing to do. I'd ask for calm, please, and that we not go back into these sorts of "casting aspersions" kind of discussions. ++Lar: t/c 01:05, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Move to close this discussion

Until other editors with complaints weigh in with relevant comments/suggestions I move we close this discussion. I believe we are all quite familiar now with what Ottava Rima thinks so we need not hear more at this point. This whole discussion, straddling several sections, seems to lack focus, other than attempts to discredit Politizer. There is no more to be gained by continuing this until new editors weigh in with their views. —Mattisse (Talk) 17:42, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Seconded. \ / already properly closed the previous discussion, and I would not be averse to seeing someone else boldly close this one. —Politizer talk/contribs 17:45, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Since further responses to comments/accusations by Ottava Rima merely serve to continue this useless discussion and serve only to encourage more responses from Ottava Rima, I suggest other editors cease responding to Ottava Rima, until new editors enter their complaints. Otherwise, Ottava Rima is demonstrating that he/she will not cease, although further discussion is not constructive. —Mattisse (Talk) 17:51, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Talk page guidelines go against such a thing, Mattisse. You really should know better. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:55, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
This particular discussion didn't go anywhere useful, so I closed it. I would ask everyone to try to work to find a consensus here instead of casting aspersions. ++Lar: t/c 02:09, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Peyton Short on DYK now

  • ... that Peyton Short may have been responsible for the break-up of the first marriage of U.S. President Andrew Jackson's wife Rachel?

This is NOT a definite fact mentioned in the article (DYK Rules, Verification #4), but a speculation. The Peyton Short article needs a new hook. --74.13.129.214 (talk) 16:24, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

The article says that Rachel's first husband "accused Short of breaking up their marriage," and it cites a source. The phrasing "may have been responsible" describes this accurately, IMO. --Orlady (talk) 17:44, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
Then the hook should have said "Peyton Short was accused of breaking up...". There is no way to tell if the accusation made by Rachel's first husband was valid. Just using the words "may have been" means it's not a definite fact. The phrasing "may have been responsible" describes a speculation, assuming the accusation was valid, it doesn't describe any facts. --74.13.129.214 (talk) 18:37, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
The source says "In his younger days Peyton Short was very well acquainted with the "pure and virtuous" Rachel Donelson who later became the wife of Andrew Jackson. In fact, Rachel's first husband, the scurvy Lewis Robards, accused Peyton Short of causing the breakup of their marriage.[18]" "May have been responsible" could mean "may have been at least silghtly responsible" or "may or may not have been responsible". The source provides "was very well acquainted", but there still seems a small gap towards quantifying the level of responsibility. In the future, the best place to address this is Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors. -- Suntag ☼ 20:54, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
In future? My post at WP:ERRORS was ignored. Now, do we fix the hook in the DYK Archive (WP:DYKA)? --74.14.20.98 (talk) 06:01, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Sorry about that. You posted your request at 16:23, 15 December 2008[8] and it appears that the Peyton Short hook was removed from the Main Page three minutes later at 16:26, 15 December 2008 [9] The DYK Archive reflects what was on the Main Page, so I'm not sure whether that is something that is revised. -- Suntag ☼ 00:02, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

DYKsug

I'm seeing a lot of hooks that aren't substituting the DYKsuggestion template - a lot even leaving the comment explaining not to use it - <!--Please do not copy this code directly for nominating. Instead, use {{subst:DYKsug}} as described in the header.--> Is there a way we can make the need for substitution even more obvious? \ / (⁂ | ※) 00:06, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I believe they are substituting it. The naming of the templates is kind of confusing (my fault; I wasn't thinking ahead when I did them), but the template that people are supposed to use and substitute is {{DYKsug}}, which has parameters such as |article=, which you don't see in {{DYKsuggestion}}. Then what happens is, when you subst it, it turns itself into {{DYKsuggestion}}, which is sitting inside of {{DYKsug}}. The comment about not copying is one that I put into the template on purpose—the main problem is that if you use {{DYKsuggestion}} instead of {{subst:DYKsug}}, it doesn't add a timestamp or a section header ({{DYKsug}} basically doesn't do anything other than create a section header with the article names, stick on a timestamp, and then call {{DYKsuggestion}}). So basically, DYKsuggestion is not meant to be substituted; it's just supposed to sit there looking like a template (because that makes it easier, supposedly, to see the names of t he people who are supposed to be credited, and stuff like that).
Long story short, if you see {{DYKsuggestion}}, that probably means they did subst {{DYKsug}}. (Or they just figured out enough about the template and learned how to use DYKsuggestion on its own). If anyone ever uses {{DYKsug}}, they will get this horrible error message (not including the litter box). —Politizer talk/contribs 00:26, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Of course, the whole thing is still an experiment, and if people think that it's easier to use {{DYKsuggestion}} and just make their own section header and use their own signature, {{subst:DYKsug}} could just be gotten rid of forever. There are several ongoing discussions at Template talk:DYKsuggestion about trying to clean up the template, make it more user-friendly and more transparent, etc. —Politizer talk/contribs 00:23, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Just as a vote of confidence, I like it. At first I was like uh . . . WTF, but now it's like old underwear, part of me. --IvoShandor (talk) 16:34, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
I wanted to get involved in DYK again, as I used to do a lot of rewriting of hooks, verification of references etc., but this has all become overwhelming. I am not even sure I can manage to enter a DYK of my own correctly. I don't know what has changed here but up until last August or September, I simply did the hook rewriting, source verification, or entering my own DYK without thinking it was complicated. I started in the last few days to look for a way to help out again, but I believe it is all over my head. Sorry. It is not for amateurs like me anymore! —Mattisse (Talk) 00:31, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
There has been significant effort to reduce the number of people needed to run DYK. Here's the skinny. (i) Hooks are added to the suggestion page via a substituted template. Examples of the template strings are available on top of every edit of the suggestion page via a MediaWiki page. The substituted template gives a consistency to the suggestion page (ii) The hook approval is about the same as before, so you should be able to jump right in for rewriting and source verification. (iii) Approved hooks are manually moved to the update page. (iv) A filled update page then is manually moved to one of the five queue pages. The queues provide a time buffer so an admin doesn't have to be here every six hours to update the Main Page. (v) A bot moves the appropriate queue to the DYK Main Page template. (vi) Another bot posts the DYK credits to the talk pages.
The Main Page updates normally are on a six hour change over, but an admin can change that merely by changing the number at DYKadminBot/time. For a surplus of hooks in the pipeline, they speedy up the change over. For a deficiency of hooks in the pipeline, they slow down the change over. We're in the process of getting a WikiStatsBOT to provide a hook count on the suggestion page to give the admins advance warning of whether they need to modify DYKadminBot/time.
We're keeping track of hooks that get the most hits, we now have a welcoming template, a vetter's notification template, and a responder's reply template. Category:Wikipedia Did you know has been populated so that just about all DYK pages are listed there. -- Suntag ☼ 00:50, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Note: it might sound complicated to think that we have all these "templates," but if you've ever warned vandals with stuff like {{subst:uw-vandalism1}} or used any of those other user message templates, these will look extremely familiar to you. —Politizer talk/contribs 01:17, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
And, for any new people reading along... please don't be intimidated by this! There's a lot of complicated stuff, like the bots and the queues, which make the admins' lives easier (and those guys certainly deserved a break) but are confusing if you don't know a lot about them...but the good news is you don't need to know a thing about any of that to participate in DYK. Reviewing and discussing hooks doesn't require any more technical knowledge than posting a comment on any talk page requires, so if you've been on WP for even just a couple days then you should be fine—all you need is the enthusiasm to look for references and think critically about articles! —Politizer talk/contribs 01:15, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Open Christmas DYK topics

I have a few open Christmas DYK topics that are red as late September sunset. Here's Christmas tree stand, Feather Christmas tree, which would be a spin-off from Artificial Christmas tree but I think deserves its own page, and Christmas tree production in the United States.

The last one I have substantial content already started in my user space, basically you would need to add some more recent data, fill out the empty sections and write a lead. That page can be found here in my user space. There are some sources on the talk page too, not sure which ones I have already used, you'll have to compare them with the refs section in the article.

There is some other, not so filled out stuff and a few red links too, you can see them: Christmas tree production in Europe, Christmas tree production in Denmark, there are some sources compiled here. Feel free to take over any or all of that stuff, I can help you find sources too, if needed. :-) Merry Christmas everyone. (Or if you prefer Happy Holidays or whatnot, war on Christmas! Run! Ahhhh!) ;-) --IvoShandor (talk) 16:28, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Crap! I forgot the one that will bring the most joy, Attack of the Mutant Artificial Christmas Trees, I even have a few sources for you here, it should make a great DYK, if you don't do it, I will do it on Christmas Eve. :-) --IvoShandor (talk) 16:40, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Wow...that sounds almost as good as Killer Klowns from Outer Space! —Politizer talk/contribs 16:54, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Nice Suntag, that list is exquisitely long, lots of choices there. And @ Politizer: Killer Klowns! It's been ages since I even thought about that movie. It may be responsible for all cases of Coulrophobia. ;-) --IvoShandor (talk) 05:18, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Credit mistake

I just went through my recent DYK credits and found five December 2008 writing credits that should have been nomination credits. The five were (i) Careysburg, Liberia, (ii) David Ross (businessman), (iii) Taping River, (iv) California Avocado Commission, and (v) Eugene Goodman. I traced down Careysburg, Liberia (it took a while). This diff shows that I was listed as a nominator for Careysburg, Liberia. This diff shows the move of the information to the Next update template put me as a maker via {{DYKmake|Careysburg, Liberia|Suntag}}. It should have read {{DYKnom|Careysburg, Liberia|Suntag}}. This seems to be a significant problem as it is a mistake anybody can make in moving hooks from the suggestion page to the Next update page. It seems likely that other editors are receiving writing credits when it should only be nom credit. Can anyone think of a way to fix this problem? Perhaps a bot can read the credits in the history of the suggestion page and compare them to those listed at the queue pages. I'm not sure that is even possible. -- Suntag ☼ 22:13, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I try to make sure everyone gets the right credits - mistakes happen of course. The main problem is that DYKmake is the default, and it's not that hard to forget. Also, the amount of third party nominations are generally limited to DYK regulars like yourself.
I'll try to remain vigilant about it - I do try my best to make sure the credits are right but no-one is perfect. \ / (⁂ | ※) 23:22, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
There are several people who update the next update page. Perhaps there are some modifications that we can make to the templates. We can modify Template:DYKsuggestion to move the position of |nominator= as it appears on the suggestion page. Also, would it help to modify Template:Did you know/Next update/Clear to include some default {{DYKnom|Example|Editor}}? -- Suntag ☼ 23:46, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
I think that this has always been a problem. Some editors correct the templates they receive themselves. Personally I let the errors remain because sometimes I gain undeserved credit and other times my contribution is not fully creditted.(aaah) But we're all volunteers and the job we are doing is worthwhile even if it is sometimes imperfect. Oh and Merry Xmas to one and all Victuallers (talk) 23:48, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Don't change the Suggestion template. The nominator field is sufficiently far away from the creator/expander field that you notice it by itself nine time out of ten. I'll try working with the Clear template to add a few of the {{DYKnom|Example|Editor}} templates. \ / (⁂ | ※) 23:55, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
 Done You can see the change at this page here. \ / (⁂ | ※) 23:59, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Great! I'm gonna press my luck and see if the bot guys can do something for us. See Wikipedia:Bot_requests#DYKCheckbot. (I really miss having our own in-house bot guy.) -- Suntag ☼ 00:10, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
(outdent) I agree with \ / that the |nominator= field in the template shows up nicely far away from the other stuff. But if anyone thinks it would be useful, I could also change the template so that it underlines or bolds (on the actual page; it wouldn't change the way anything looks in the edit window) the words Created by, Nominated by, etc. —Politizer talk/contribs 00:13, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
A bot I don't think would work. It would need to know the hook has been moved, look in the edit history and retrieve a field. Either that or the update becomes entirely automated, which would not account for any editorial concerns. \ / (⁂ | ※) 00:28, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Actually, a bit of code probably could fix this I think. If the DYKsug template formated the "nominator" field as {{DYKnom|Article|Editor}}, then updaters could just grab the string and move it straight to the next update page. Likewise with the article creator. Gatoclass (talk) 04:44, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Oh gosh, that actually is an awesome idea, it would save a huge amount of clicking and copy-pasting. I'm gonna throw together an example and then see what you guys think of the output. —Politizer talk/contribs 14:39, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
I'll second that. What a great idea. The entire string could be copied over when there is no approved ALT hook. And if there is an approved ALT hook, the remainder of the string should be set up to be copied and pasted into the Next Update. This would eliminate a need for Wikipedia:Bot_requests#DYKCheckbot. -- Suntag ☼ 18:23, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
I've thrown something together; it's not done yet, but just so I can gauge whether or not I'm even heading in the right direction, you can see the output in my sandbox here. (You can see the code here, but I wouldn't recommend it, because it's terrifying.) This does something a little different than what you originally proposed; it doesn't mess with the |nominator= and other fields, but it just creates a bunch of fields called |credits=, which don't do anything other than sit there (ie, the template itself doesn't interact with those fields, they just sit there nice and pretty so you can grab them from the edit window). (Note to interested people: this is because the |nominator= and other fields are what the template {{DYKsuggestion}} uses to actually generate the hook and nomination and stuff that you see when you read T:TDYK, so messing with those for credits purposes would make things very hairy, as far as I can tell.) If you go to the sandbox link I gave above, you can see that a) the display looks the same as it does now; and b) once you click "edit," there are nice {{DYKmake|Example|User}} and {{DYKnom|Example|User}} templates auto-generated in there for every creator/collaborator/expander/nominator, and for every article. There are only two big problems I can see that still need to be worked out:
    1. Right now, if you nominate a single article with only one creator/expander/etc. (which is, of course, the usual case), it creates a long page of empty |credits= fields, which we don't want. I've been working for a long time on getting the template to only display fields that are actually filled in, and it's been difficult, but if we want to go ahead with this plan it'll have to be fugured out; more information here (a thread that's currently archived because we abandoned that plan, but if we want to do this it'll have to be opened back up).
    2. If people make an unusual nomination (for example, more than 3 expanders, more than 5 articles, etc.), that isn't handled by any of this, so people doing the promotion always need to look out to make sure there aren't extra people need credited, or extra comments the nominator left, etc. This shouldn't be much different than the status quo, since we have plenty of people who don't use the template and in those cases the promoter will be doing stuff by hand anyway.
Anyway...sorry if any of that is confusing! I'm just trying to keep you posted on what I'm doing, before I go too far ahead and then find out that I'm doing the wrong thing or something. —Politizer talk/contribs 15:20, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
A couple of suggestions. Any chance you could dump the "credits=" strings altogether and just have the series of {{DYKmake|Editor|Example}} fields instead? This is because I would have to trim off all the "creator=" strings instead of just being able to copy and paste all the strings I want with one shot.
Also, if you can't figure out a way to stop generating all the blank fields, I think just three creator fields and one nom field would do, we very rarely get hooks that have more than that number of contributors. Also I can't see much point generating separate credit fields for each and every hook, again one would be enough for most situations. Gatoclass (talk) 16:10, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Ok, thanks for the suggestions! Here's a new version, with the credit templates formatted in a bulleted list so they can be pasted directly into T:DYK/N as is (again, you can go to the edit window to see how it looks). As for whether or not to generate separate fields for each article...I haven't updated Next in a long time so I'm a little rusty on how it's done, but is it standard to credit the creator/expander for each article bolded in the hook? (That's what Ottava Rima has been getting credit for, for example.) I thought that was the standard, but if you don't think it's necessary to have that many credit templates, it's just a simple matter of deleting them from the DYKsug template, so either way it shouldn't be to difficult. —Politizer talk/contribs 16:40, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
You can also experiment yourself to try different combinations of things and see if the template generates the credit templates that you want. Just paste the following into the sandbox, and add/delete/fill-in fields however you like.
{{subst:User:Politizer/DYKsugdev
 | article=
 | hook=
 | creator=
 | nominator=
}}

You can add up to 5 articles, up to 3 collaborators, and up to 3 expanders. —Politizer talk/contribs 16:44, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

That looks great! However, I think you need to expand the maximum number of articles to eight. Eight is the maximum number we've had in a hook, and we've had plenty of hooks with at least half a dozen. Gatoclass (talk) 02:20, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
I've expanded the max to 8 (only in dev right now; the {{DYKsug}} being used is still the old version). Also, as for your comment about how we don't need separate credit fields for each author, I've had a change of heart and I agree with you...specifically, because of this complicated nom. With multiple articles, there's a chance that different individuals had a different role in each article, and the template currently doesn't allow people to specify that, so I realized there's no way we have the power right now to auto-generate correct credit templates for noms that complicated. Given that multi-article noms are relatively rare anyway, I just made it so that if there is an |article2= specified, it automatically generates no noms—the idea being that if there are multiple articles, it's going to require a human to figure out the credits anyway, so there's no point fooling people with inaccurate credit templates. The newest version can be seen here (scroll down to the last one, in the edit window, to see how it doesn't generate credit templates for multi-article noms).
The last minor thing I need to do is make it not generate credit for the |creator= field if the |expander= field is already filled in. This is an issue that came up a few days ago when someone noted that some nominators are just trying to fill in as many fields as they can, so when they nominated a newly expanded article they would also list whoever created the article years and years ago...which is obviously not someone we want to credit. The current version of the template in use works to that, if someone specifies an expander and a creator when they call the template, only an expander winds up on T:TDYK (the "creator" just disappears into cyberspace); I should probably try to get the same thing to happen with the credits.
Once that is worked out, I don't see anything preventing me from moving these changes over to the real template, assuming no one has any objections. Once I do, I'll notify all the DYK regulars at their talk pages, so that if anyone hasn't been paying attention to this page they won't be surprised next time they go to populate Next. —Politizer talk/contribs 17:14, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
I've done the stuff I mentioned above. I believe everything is ready. I'll let it sit for a little whilte just in case anyone has objections, then I'll update the real template and notify everyone. —Politizer talk/contribs 18:46, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
I didn't have time to check the sandbox yet, but it sounds to me as though you have all bases covered. Looking forward to seeing it in action! Gatoclass (talk) 06:07, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Awards encourage mass-production of low-interest DYKs

I don't know if this has been a topic previously, but it strikes me that the process of awarding editors for producing a profuse number of DYKs also tends to compromise the entire section on the front page by an overabundance of very bland hooks. It does not seem as there is any shortage of nominations, so perhaps a policy change to jack up the standards would be in place? __meco (talk) 12:17, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

We usually do try to pass hooks that are interesting. If the suggested hook is not, then we try to find some interesting fact from the article. If there isn't anything, then most likely it won't go on the main page. That has happened before. I'm talking about really boring and plain stuff here like "X was a something...", you know what I mean? The "interestingness" of the hook depends on the reader and the subject too. I mean, someone interested in animals won't think that it's an interesting fact that bullets of several calibers can fit into the same gun, and someone interested in military matters won't see the importance of in which oceans the dolphin lives. So we can only judge the absolutely terrible ones, ad it depends on the reviewer just like deciding an article's suitability. Chamal talk 12:29, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
I agree with meco. The "created or 5x expanded within 5 days" rule encourages the submission of stub-size articles that have just enough citations to pass DYK inspection but far from adequate coverage. Improving an article beyond that level requires a lot of research, and often at least 1 re-structure, which can seldom be done well within 5 days. So the "within 5 days" rule encourages superficial work. I'd suggest replacing "created or 5x expanded within 5 days" with "promoted to B-class or better in the last 5 days", and allow submission of additional facts from existing articles that get promoted from B-class to GA, A-class and / or FA. --Philcha (talk) 12:36, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Ideas like that have been floated before and, for better or for worse, fortunately or unfortunately, I imagine that's never going to happen. DYK needs a rapid turnover of a large number of nominations, and the kind of qualitative evaluation that this plan would require would never allow us to get through the number of nominations we have to get through on a daily basis. —Politizer talk/contribs 14:42, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
The advantage of the the 5x rule is that it is objective and easy to confirm. The article rating system has neither of these properties, ratings are subjective and based more upon the last reviewers opinion that measurable properties. The likely result of this change is increased wikidrama as edit wars erupt trying to determine the rating of nominated articles or otherwise qualified articles are (improperly?/justifiably?) demoted shortly before their nominations expire and are removed from consideration. --Allen3 talk 12:57, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
(e/c) This again, will deviate us from the original objective of DYK (that of providing newly developed articles a chance to get noticed by other editors and give them a chance to be improvemed), just like including GAs in DYK. If this is implemented, then I guess the number of articles being submitted will go down, which means we probably will have to change the entire way DYK functions. But I think this is a better idea than including only GAs. The problems such as an increase in the number of unsuitable articles (ones not meeting necessary criteria) being submitted for reassessment will be there, just like in the GA suggestion. And the problems like everyone not being able to do it, some wikiprojects not having particular classes etc will also be there. We'll have to wait and see what the others think. Anyhow, I'm against the idea of including newly promoted FAs, since they have their own chance to appear on the main page and we don't need to put up the same thing twice. That room can be given to another article instead. Chamal talk 13:01, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
I'd just like to point out that what you are bringing up is an issue different from mine (although they both have to do with the quality of the DYK items). __meco (talk) 13:03, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
OK then, let's get back to the subject :) What do you think about what I said first? Can we create a guideline to measure how interesting a hook is? I think it depends on the reviewer (which is what has been happening all this time). Any suitable alternative will be welcome. But I think most people who are regular submitters of hooks (and people who are most likely to get those awards, and also the one who have received them) here create and nominate pretty decent articles, since they are pretty much experienced and know their way around here by now. I'm not sure if the awards have much to do with it. Chamal talk 13:11, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure if calling for an immediate action is warranted. Also, as I have been noticing hooks from one particular editor, I don't want to give examples as this would tend to denigrate this individual's contributions on the whole and probably only end up in a squabble. Perhaps suffice for now that this subject has been raised, and those who are regulars in DYK work have this in the back of their minds in the near future. Then maybe some will have pondered the issue after having made their own related observations and some suggestions might be presented also? __meco (talk) 13:26, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Your concern is appreciated, but if there is a problem with boring hooks I don't think it's a problem that DYK is creating, it's just a problem that happens to fit well into DYK. (And for the record, I don't think it's a problem...but anyway.) The editors here who submit a lot of articles, it's not as if they have women and money piled up at their feet—a DYK award isn't a huge deal, it's just something kind of nice. I'm no mind reader, but I don't think most of the editors here are doing it for the award; they're creating these new articles because it's what they like to do, and DYK happens to be a good place for them to put a lot of those articles, but they would still be doing it even if DYK didn't exist. That's my impression, at least. —Politizer talk/contribs 14:37, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Relevant to the general subject of hook interest, I note that no article statistics have been collected for December 15 and 16. Is something broken? --Orlady (talk) 16:11, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
That happened for 2 days in the middle of October, too...it seems to be a problem with the tool, not with any of our articles in particular. —Politizer talk/contribs 16:13, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
You might want to read the disclaimer at the bottom of the traffic site: "This is very much a beta service and may disappear or change at any time." Guess what happened to the stats in last July? --BorgQueen (talk) 16:30, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
I'm aware that it's a beta product, but that generally means it's helpful to communicate about things that don't work as expected. In this case, http://dammit.lt/wikistats/ has the stats for December 15 and 16, so it's "only" a matter of processing the data. --Orlady (talk) 17:10, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Communicating with us won't help that much. You might want to contact User:Henrik, who maintains the site. --BorgQueen (talk) 17:15, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Just remove the awards. Awards are silly nonsense anyway. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:15, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Is this the same user who just spent two weeks complaining over the loss of a single DYK award out of about forty submissions? Gatoclass (talk) 02:28, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Gato, don't even start. That is 100% wrong and you know it. I don't want an award. I wanted Milton to have hooks for his birthday. How can you not understand that? The hooks were up anyway. That wasn't the problem. The problem was a fight that made it so that 12 hours of the 30 hour period did not contain hooks on Milton. I won't begin to start with how your attempted characterization right there makes me feel. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:22, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Your complaints began when I debolded an article in a hook that had half a dozen other eligible articles, it was going on the front page anyway. Same with the other disqualification. So I find this sudden expression of disinterest a tad hard to credit. Gatoclass (talk) 03:52, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Could we just not get into going after each other, guys? I am not sure that "Just remove the awards" was a completely helpful thing to say at this point but don't compound it, Gato... and don't bite back Ottava. Please. Do remember that this page will be viewed by some of our newest editors and let's all be excellent to each other. ++Lar: t/c 03:28, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

(deindent) I spent a great deal of time updating DYK 2.5 years ago, and this has always been a bit of an issue. On the one hand, we want to encourage new articles; on the other hand we want the main page to be interesting, and to attract new editors to start-up articles. Finding that happy medium is challenging. My personal bias was to encourage new article writers by trying to make sure as many articles made it on the main page as possible (i.e. having one bland article in 5 noms wasn't so bad), and we had some wizards at making even the blandest articles have an interesting hook -- Samir 03:42, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

That sounds pretty much like what most of us do now. From what I can tell, we rarely reject a nomination outright just because it's not interesting...rather, we squeeze out whatever semi-special fact we can and then sneak it onto the main page, when possible, as long as the article itself meets all the standards. —Politizer talk/contribs 03:53, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Further, I'd say about a third of the time, one of the DYK reviewers either revises the article, the hook, or both to help get the article onto the Main Page. On some of them, we really struggle, but seem to come up with something before time runs out. -- Suntag ☼ 18:38, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Just about all noms posted on the suggestion page are used. If there is no shortage of nominations, and eliminating the DYK awards will not affect the amount of noms, I don't see how "awarding editors for producing a profuse number of DYKs" can be said to tend to compromise the entire section on the front page by an overabundance of very bland hooks. -- Suntag ☼ 18:32, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I think we're backlogged

35 hooks in Expiring right now. And the vast majority of hooks above there haven't been looked at. I thought about putting a 35 entries in backlog as of 04:41, 18 December 2008 (UTC) like Gatoclass did during the last major backlog, but I figured I should at least bring it up here first. —Politizer talk/contribs 04:41, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

35 is not too bad, are the updates still being posted regularly? If it gets to 50 we might have to think about shortening the time cycle again. Gatoclass (talk) 04:48, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
The updates seem to be ok now, but when I started populating Next a few minutes ago (I only added a few; I'm not going to do the whole thing, for reasons that will be apparent in a moment) there were hardly any verified noms left to take. The few verified noms left near the bottom are ones I just verified a minute ago, so someone other than me should promote those....and there are a few more verified noms among the more recent ones, but other than that it's just days and days of noms that haven't been checked, so within a couple updates there won't be anything left to put in the queue (unless we verify a bunch really fast...I might be able to do a bunch tomorrow morning but no guarantees. Shortening the time cycle would worsen that for now, since we'd run out of verified noms even faster....but if we both shorten up the time cycle and ramp up our verifying efforts (assuming we're not already busy in the real world...) we could probably put a good dent in the noms. —Politizer talk/contribs 04:55, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
There's nothing to stop you promoting hooks you verify! I do it all the time - couldn't prepare decent updates without it. The only rule we have is that users can't verify their own hooks, there is nothing to stop you promoting them once verified.
BTW I have counted the total number of hooks and it's around 160, which means there are slightly less hooks now than when we came off the six hour cycles a couple of weeks ago. So we seem to be keeping up okay. Gatoclass (talk) 05:01, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
There is certainly a shortage of verified hooks, particularly expiring nominations. But we have two batches done, and less than eight verifications in twelve hours is achievable. That being said, it would be great to get it back to having all five queues full and a next update in the works. \ / (⁂ | ※) 10:39, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
For most of my time on DYK, it has usually been a matter of throwing together an update at the last moment from whatever is available, which often wasn't much. In fact I have frequently prepared last-minute updates where I had to verify virtually every hook myself on the fly, because there were none on the Suggestions page! And now here we have people worrying because we've only got two updates in the slot and "a shortage of verified hooks". I have to keep pinching myself to believe this is really happening :) Gatoclass (talk) 16:27, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Haha, wow, it sounds like I've been quite spoiled since I started at DYK. —Politizer talk/contribs 16:52, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Queue 4

In the hook about the Laogai Museum in T:DYK/Q4, I believe the word laogai (the second time it appears) should be italicized. I don't see an edit summary in T:DYK/N saying why the italicization was removed (ie, I don't know if there's a particular MoS or DYK issue behind that), but as a foreign term my intuition was to put it in italics. —Politizer talk/contribs 16:52, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:ITALICS#Foreign_terms: "If looking for a good rule of thumb, do not italicize words that appear in Merriam-Webster Online". And the word appears here. However, it is just a good rule of thumb, and I'd like to hear others' opinions. --BorgQueen (talk) 16:57, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Ah, ok, I hadn't seen that. It is true that the term has been adopted into numerous dictionaries (the OED, as well as leading dictionaries of German, French, and Italian). I don't know how familiar it is to most people, though; its adoption into those dictionaries seems to have been more politically than linguistically motivated. But either way is fine with me. —Politizer talk/contribs 17:51, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Another rule of thumb is this Google Books search, which shows "laogai" italicized about 40% of the time. Art LaPella (talk) 17:54, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Page Count Stats

I noticed the discussion above about the page count tool not working. I checked Henrik's page, and he hasn't posted a contribution in a couple weeks. As BorgQueen mentioned, a similar issue resulted in the loss of all data for the last half of July. If anyone here knows of anyone who has the ability to make sure the data isn't lost before Henrik's return, that would be good. Cbl62 (talk) 23:02, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Has anyone e-mailed Henrik? —Politizer talk/contribs 00:13, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
I was coming to this discussion page to bring up the very same topic about the stats tool being down, too. I just emailed Henrik about it, so hopefully he's at least aware of it even though he's been inactive on Wikipedia recently. I could have missed a comment about this somewhere, but is there possibly another stats tool that we could use which works similarily? Jamie☆S93 04:07, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
Not that I'm aware of. Henrik's tool is really invaluable, and there ought to be a way to have someone "fill in" when he is away (or to automate the process) so that we don't end up with big gaps with missing data (like we had in July). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cbl62 (talk • contribs) 04:45, 19 December 2008 UTC
Raw data is still available, I believe. Does anyone know how to process it? --BorgQueen (talk) 05:29, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
The stats tool seems to be pretty highly regarded, as it's been incorporated into wikipedia's history pages now. So if it's down, maybe one of the techies would be interested in trying to fix it. Gatoclass (talk) 06:09, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

List of DYK participants at WP:DYK

I was noticing that the current List of DYK admin participants seems a little dated...it doesn't mention some of the admins I see doing a lot of work around here, for example. Also, I was thinking, would it also be useful to list non-admins who participate a lot at DYK (especially in vetting nominations)? I often find myself, when talking to people at their talk pages about DYK, saying something like "that's not something I'm 100% sure about, but other people you might want to ask are...." and then listing about 8 names...so maybe it would be useful to have a centralized list (preferably a subsection of what I linked above...the section name could be List of DYK participants and then it could be divided into active admin participants, non-active admin participants, and non-admin participants); that way we could just point people to that list. (Of course, people can also find out who's active just by glancing at T:TDYK...I know when I was just getting started, I exchanged a lot of messages with RyanCross because he's the one who had reviewed my first couple noms so he's who I was familiar with.) My impression is that the admin lists are useful for if an update is late or there's other urgent stuff that needs to be done and can only be done by an admin; having a non-admin list might also be useful, though, if anyone not familiar with DYK has questions about how it works, seeing as how most of the reviewing and vetting seems to be done by the non-admins (at least, that has been the trend recently). Does anyone think this would be useful? Does anyone want (or not want) their name to be included? —Politizer talk/contribs 18:39, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I think that having a list of non-admins could be very useful, and I would have no objections to having my name listed there I've been active moving hooks over to the next update queue sense early March, and I know that it could be useful to people who need to get the opinions of the "DYK regulars" before proposing any major changes or for anyone who wants to get a message out to those who are involved in DYK. --Mifter (talk) 00:54, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
I made a makeshift list at User:Politizer/DYK non-admin participants, where we can try to get stuff organized until it's time to put the list at WP:DYK (if we decide it's worthwhile to put it there). I also added a second list of people who contribute a lot of nominations to DYK. Anyway, I've put some people's names on without asking...so if you don't want your name on the list and you are \ /, Orlady, RyanCross, Suntag, Cbl62, Alansohn, or TonyTheTiger, then make sure to go there and take it off! (I will also notify people on the list before putting it up for real, since some of those guys don't check this page often). —Politizer talk/contribs 01:36, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
Didn't they just refreshed and updated the status of the list a few months back by contacting every admin? - Mailer Diablo 18:16, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Hm, they may have...that was probably before I was wiki-born. I was just noticing that some people I see a lot, like Gatoclass and BorgQueen, weren't on the list last time I looked...and there's no mention of non-admins who help out (many of whom do more work here than the admins listed—not that that's a good or bad thing, it's just how people choose to spend their time, and the non-admins who do a lot of vetting might know as much or more about the process than the admins who are just active on occasion). —Politizer talk/contribs 18:27, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
The list is rather voluntary (more like how Wikiproject memberships work). Of course if you need assistance/response/etc and you know the regulars... :) - Mailer Diablo 20:02, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

For the record the refresh Mailer Diablo is talking about was a little over two months ago - see my edit here. At that time Gato was taking a short break from DYK which is why he didn't end up on the list; I'm not sure about Borg. The admin list used to serve the purpose of giving people access to sysops to go running to when the update was late, but the bot has removed that necessity now. So yes, if we have a list it would seem to make more sense to have it be of regulars who understand the DYK system and precedents rather than limiting it to those with the bit. Olaf Davis | Talk 23:22, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Olaf's point will be particularly relevant when the list is made official (which I support; it's a logical thing to have in the {{DYKbox}} template). It will help new or infrequent nominators to see immediately who is likely to be "around" and able to offer advice, help etc. For my part, I'm on DYK and its associated pages every day (and at various times of day): even if I make no edits, I'm still observing and reading. I'm sure this applies to many other users. Such users would be ideal candidates to "feature" in the list (if they wish to, of course!). Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 23:44, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Template news

For anyone out there who uses {{DYKproblem}}.... I've added some new functionality to it. Adding the text |nominator=no when you call the template will cause it to generate a slightly different message, which instead of saying "Hi! Your nom has been reviewed" says "Hi! Someone nominated your article, and it has been reviewed." This is because I occasionally find myself notifying article creators who did not nominate their article and might not even know that it has been nominated (because if things need to be clarified about the article or nom, I usually figure the creator can answer those questions better than the nominator) and they've sometimes been like "what? I never nominated that." So anyway, there's that.

Also, after a suggestion from Suntag, I created {{DYKre}}, a really simple template that can be used to notify a DYK reviewer that you have addressed his concerns (so basically the opposite of {{DYKproblem}}, which is for reviewers to notify nominators/creators that there are concerns). You don't have to use it, and in fact I don't know if it's necessary (given that most of us reviewers watch the page pretty closely anyway) but it's there if you want. I'm sure there are problems with it, and they will emerge as it gets used more. —Politizer talk/contribs 19:00, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Update: I just used the nominator=no thing for real for the first time, and it seems to have worked nicely. —Politizer talk/contribs 16:35, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Nice! I'd been thinking that something equivalent to |nominator=no would be useful, so thanks. Olaf Davis | Talk 22:51, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Template getting updated

Just in case anyone hasn't been following, there has been a discussion above about improving the current template to auto-generate DYKmake and DYKnom credit templates, so the person promoting the nom to Next can just copy them in (with the idea that this will remove some of the human error that may have been going on occasionally). You can read the discussion above, or experiment with the new template design at User:Politizer/Sandbox (you can experiment by using {{User:Politizer/DYKsugdev}}, which is the dev version of {{DYKsug}}). I will be updating the real template with these changes, within 24 hours, unless someone has objections to the new version. I will also notify all the DYK regulars (especially those of you who do most of the grunt work moving hooks to Next) when I make the update. —Politizer talk/contribs 18:49, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, just took a look at the sandbox, and the examples with multiple entries don't seem to have outputted any code at all. Is that a bug you've yet to address?
Also, I am uneasy about the "collaborator" tag. IMO this will incline people to assume that anyone who made a couple of improvements is a "collaborator". We don't want to be handing out DYK awards willy-nilly. I would suggest just using "creator2", "creator3" etc., it's less liable to be misinterpreted. Gatoclass (talk) 06:17, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
I think the link I gave you was accidentally to the sandbox before I made those changes; in this version, the examples with multiple entries output Credits must be done manually by a DYK reviewer.
As for changing the parameter name, I agree with that idea, and can change that relatively easily; creator2, etc., will be more intuitive. The only thing I have left to do is make it not create a {{DYKnom}} when people do self noms...a lot of people list themself as both creator/expander and nominator. Once I have that done I think it should be ready. —Politizer talk/contribs 14:27, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
 Done Both of those tasks are done now. You can see the goods here. —Politizer talk/contribs 14:46, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
Just nominated Early left anterior negativity using the new template, and I noticed that I had made the credit templates bass-ackwards...it was {{DYKmake|Politizer|Early left anterior negativity}} instead of {{DYKmake|Early left anterior negativity|Politizer}}. That is fixed now. —Politizer talk/contribs 17:02, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
TonyTheTiger just nom'ed Barack Obama 2009 presidential inauguration and the credit template came out fine. I'll keep my eye open for more complicated noms to start rolling in, and try to make sure that they do the templates correctly as well. —Politizer talk/contribs 17:32, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Valery Kobelev

Valery Kobelev passed the criterias for DYK and was removed from the DYK list. Where is it now?? The Rolling Camel (talk) 17:20, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Here. --BorgQueen (talk) 17:22, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
Actually, that hook is inaccurate; I probably should have pointed that out the first time I commented on the nom. According to the article, he didn't "perform the worst ski crash ever," but performed what one person has called one of the worst ski crashes ever. I think we need to either change the hook to reflect that, or take it out of the queue and put it back on T:TDYK for discussion (if that hook is unsalvageably peacocky). —Politizer talk/contribs 17:31, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
Done. It is here now. --BorgQueen (talk) 17:36, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Poll

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposals. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of these proposals is that the first three proposals were defeated. The fourth proposal on the unwritten rules was resolved as "keep".

I would've thought that by closing the discussion we could actually start to make progress. But it seems that once again it has resolved to threats and aggression. This has gone too far, DYK has been late updating twice this week. Therefore, I'm hoping this poll will demonstrate the consensus here and allow for some headway. Ottava, if the consensus here is against you, then there will be little point continuing discussion here. Remember, this isn't a vote for policy, I'm just trying to get some level of salvageable debate from the stuff above. \ / (⁂ | ※) 21:19, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Ottava's Proposal

(copied from previous discussion) Proposed: For DYK to base its 5x expansion off of approximate page byte size. Also, allowing administrator discretion under IAR to allow pages falling short (based on images, referencing, tables, and other wikimark ups in the pre-expanded version) to be accepted as long as they are over approximately 4.5x the original size. Wording: 5x expansion is defined as an approximate page byte increase of 5x. Pages expanded approximately 4.5x or more but fall short because of wikiformatting (images, referencing, tables, markups, see also, list, and other formatting items) are acceptable under reviewer discretion and IAR as long as there is a significant expansion to the page. Reason: This would return to the original spirit of the DYK and allow for more inclusion within topics. It would also remove arguments resulting from various challenges to page size and promote the creation and expansion of articles instead of chasing away valuable contributors. DYK is to encourage the beginning of work on Wikipedia and to attract people to such pages to help out. The above wording, although prescriptive, would ensure that this continues.

Support

  1. Support as proposer. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:07, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  2. Support; although I admit that, given that I am not an administrator, my experience with "did you know" (in regards to updating it and whatnot), I believe that having a set of "written rules" is important to maintain some sense of consistency. There is a lot of inconsistency in DYK currently, despite the magnificent work put into it by many editors. I, personally, don't see any problems with specifying rules and whatnot, even if the above are already "unwritten rules". JonCatalán(Talk) 05:20, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Actually, we do have a well established and consistent rules base at this point, I think if you had a deeper engagement with DYK you would recognize that, but I know for the more casual contributor it can all seem a bit bewildering. The proof of that is that we have very few disputes, and those we do have are generally resolved quickly. It's probably true that some of our info pages could do with a rewrite, and as with any area of the wiki there are always some new grey areas being discovered and dealt with, but that is not the same as saying the current ruleset as it exists is inadequate.
    As for Ottava's proposals above however, it would actually severely penalize article expanders to base their x5 expansion on bytecount, because there are a great many articles with only a sentence or two of main body text that are thousands of bytes long because of infoboxes, refs, external links and so on, we would lose a huge number of submissions if we went on bytecount. Moving from x5 expansion to some sort of vaguely defined 4.5 expansion would also just confuse the issue. O.'s proposals above are anything but an improvement on the current system. Gatoclass (talk) 12:00, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Didn't read the last clause? That exception would allow for any problems to be overcome. No page will have over 2k worth of formatting. Furthermore, if it did, then it could have easily been removed by others as being improper before it would have ever came to being expanded. The 4.5x is a hard leeway because admin like you don't give an actual leeway. Its only on mood. This would give assurance that IAR is actually respected. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:09, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Oh yeah, because having an extra "exception" and a situation where people are saying "did you read the last clause" doesn't sound at all like the instruction creep that you claim to be fighting. —Politizer talk/contribs 15:12, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    "all like the instruction creep that you claim to be fighting" Really? So adding an additional sentence to negate a whole page of secondary rules is not fighting instruction creep? Simple mathematics say that adding one to remove dozens is a removal, not an addition. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:20, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    ...except that your claim that your scarcely comprehensible proposal would "negate a whole page of secondary rules" is a fantasy. Gatoclass (talk) 12:48, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
    Really? Because if it wouldn't, why are you opposing them so heavily? And why is the opposition relying on the unwritten rules to say most of the things which are to be contradicted in the passage of the above? Ottava Rima (talk) 16:34, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Oppose so as not to encourage wikilaywering. I believe making this rule explicit is unnecessary, for reasons I gave here. —Politizer talk/contribs 21:38, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  2. Oppose - This specification is unnecessary. Administrators are already free to use discretion -- and actually might use even more discretion than this proposal calls for. --Orlady (talk) 22:22, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  3. Oppose - although I'd support some general disclaimers: that reviewer discretion and IAR always apply, that experienced nominators should make a bit of extra effort to follow the guidelines and remember it's no big deal if not all your articles get picked. I have 50 odd DYKs now and I know the rules, so there's no reasons to make an exception for me if I write something that doesn't quite qualify. Save the exceptions for encouraging new editors, and not old hands like me. --JayHenry (talk) 22:32, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  4. Oppose - No need as process works as is. Encourages instruction creep. Gives more to argue about. See FAC talk and it's many archives of discussion over what is a "short" article among many other endless discussions there, as well as FA criteria talk. All with endless polls, no consensus, signifying nothing. I'm opposed to going down this road. —Mattisse (Talk) 22:59, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  5. Oppose No evidence of a problem with the current process or that this proposal solves it. I do support flexibility for new DYKers, but that is a separate issue from the 5x expansion. I just expanded an article for Robert Shapiro (film producer) that included 34 characters of prose, but hundreds of characters in a list of films he produced, which would have made a 5x expansion far more challenging. Article expansion should be about adding prose, not infoboxes, tables, block quotes or ancillary content. Alansohn (talk) 01:55, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  6. Oppose I see nothing wrong with the current system. ​​​​D.B.talk•contribs 02:43, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  7. Oppose AgneCheese/Wine 02:50, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  8. Oppose - current rules work well and are the result of long experience and established consensus. Gatoclass (talk) 03:19, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  9. Oppose --BorgQueen (talk) 03:22, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  10. Articles should be based on prose. Wizardman 03:36, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  11. Oppose. The way to "avoid arguments" is simple, clearly expressed rules, not to add a layer of complexity by having separate rules only for the 4.5x-5x range. Art LaPella (talk) 04:35, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  12. Oppose Overly complex "solution" to a non-existent problem. BuddingJournalist 06:20, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  13. Oppose Way too complex. As an aside, I would prefer that rather than this "5x" approach, we accept alter the definition of "new" to include any article which was a very minimal stub or redirect previously; e.g. if it was 100 characters or less, and grows to 1500 characters, and the hook comes from the new text rather than the original 100 characters, it should be acceptable. John Vandenberg (chat) 16:56, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  14. Oppose Most of the reasons above explain my train of thought on this. \ / (⁂ | ※) 04:12, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
  15. Oppose as expansion should be based on an increase in readable text, not formatting and infobox structure. Changing from prose to total byte count could require up to a 20x text expansion to get to 4.5x in bytes for stub articles with existing infoboxes. - Dravecky (talk) 21:09, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

SIZE

For DYK purposes, the prose size, when counted, includes block quotes. Note: Dr pda's tool does not count block quotes as prose, however Dr pda's opinion can be read in detail here

  • Note however, that Dr. pda is neither an expert in FAC criteria nor in DYK criteria. In any event, FAC criteria do not equal DYK criteria. He is merely describing his tool. —Mattisse (Talk) 00:09, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Support

  1. Support Both WP:SIZE and Dr Pda states that Prose includes quotes and blockquotes. Also, Readability checker already includes them. "New" does not mean unique. New means a created page or a page experiencing 5x expansion, no more, no less. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:07, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
    • See: Prometheus Unbound (Shelley) evaluated by Dr. Pda Note that the blockquotes are not counted by Dr. Pda. —Mattisse (Talk) 22:49, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
    • Note: 'WP:SIZE does not "state" blockquotes are included in Prose. It makes no statement specific to blockquotes. WP:SIZE addresses downloading problems and is not a "tool". From WP:SIZE: "Specifically, for stylistic purposes, readable prose excludes: External links, Further reading, References, Footnotes, See also, and similar sections; Table of contents, tables, list-like sections, and similar content; and markup, interwiki links, URLs and similar formatting. To quickly estimate readable prose size, click on the printable version of the page, select all, copy, paste into an edit window, delete remaining items not counted in readable prose, and hit preview to see the page size warning." —Mattisse (Talk) 23:15, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
    As pointed out above and below, Dr Pda says that they should be counted and that his device cannot. The Readability counter does count them. That is why the Readability counter is more accurate. The mere fact that Mattisse would try to say what is contrary to what is actually written on Dr Pda's page, saying that quotes are included as prose, is troubling: (This method is not perfect however and may include text which isn't prose (eg in navboxes), or exclude text which is (eg in Cquote, or prose written in bullet-point form,") cquotes are a clear form of blockquoting and are just one of many types of blockquoting. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:18, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
    As I recall consensus from past discussions was to not count block quotes, but I don't think it's a big deal. If the pda tool counts them and some editors use the tool, then whatever. We can revisit if people start padding articles out with blockquotes and it becomes ridiculous, but I don't see that happening. I think it's pretty trivial either way, and have no objection to whatever is decided. --JayHenry (talk) 22:32, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  2. Support - If both the guidelines and PDA tool include block quotes, I don't see why we should go changing it. Generally, people aren't primarily using block quotes to make their articles bigger, usually they would just be used to go into greater detail, instead of trying to summarise it into one sentence. Sunderland06 (talk) 22:41, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
    PDA tool doesn't include block quotes. —Politizer talk/contribs 22:50, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
    It does clearly state that it is intended to include it but cannot through formatting problems: ""This method is not perfect however and may include text which isn't prose (eg in navboxes), or exclude text which is (eg in Cquote, or prose written in bullet-point form,". So don't try to confuse people. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:13, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
    I'm not "trying to confuse people." Sunderland said s/he votes Support "if ... the PDA tool include[s] block quotes," and I was clarifying that he doesn't. Neither of us said anything about whether or not it's intended to include them. —Politizer talk/contribs 23:18, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
    And it clearly says to count them manually on the instruction sheet. How can you claim otherwise? Its written right there for everyone to see. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:20, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
    User talk:Dr pda/prosesize.js doesn't say that anywhere. Please remember that this is meant to be a poll, not a new argument. —Politizer talk/contribs 23:26, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
    • This is apples and oranges. There have been no complaints from FAC that blockquotes are excluded. Others have requested scripts that do specifically exclude blockquotes.[10] An article with too many quotes would not be eligible as FAC for stylistic reasons, but in any event, would not significantly alter the size of a normal FAC. (The FAC "short article" question is still under discussion, and the blockquote issue comes up there if the size of the article is inflated by including them.) In any event, an article consisting almost entirely of blockquotes would not fulfill the DYK criteria of original prose. The goals of DYK are much different than of FAC. —Mattisse (Talk) 23:51, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
    If this is meant to be a poll, why do you keep responding to everyone who doesn't support your view? Saying "exclude text which is " is clear that he means that the quoting is prose and saying "The text counted as prose is highlighted in yellow, so it is easy to see whether the prose size is over or underestimated." means that you should be looking to count in and count out the prose according to the previous sentence. You can't misconstrue his words in the way you want. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:51, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
    Dr Pda writes scripts; he is not an authority on DYK or FAC. Remember WP:CONSENSUS? Where's his? —Mattisse (Talk) 02:07, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Um, dude, this is the only vote I've responded to, and only to clear up a misunderstanding, as explained at \ /'s talk page. And if responding to people who don't support your view is so wrong, what do you have to say about this? Hm? Oops. —Politizer talk/contribs 23:57, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
    and Opps, [11] —Mattisse (Talk) 02:01, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  3. Support, but on the other hand don't get too silly. Allow one blockquote at the most per DYK_MIN kilobytes/words. Sceptre (talk) 23:46, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  4. I understand the opposition, but I can also understand the use of these. So long as one quote isn't half the article then they're fine. Wizardman 03:25, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  5. Support - As long as its not a overly long quote it will be fine so this has my support. Peachey88 (Talk Page | Contribs) 04:23, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  6. Support, the same metrics should be used for all evaluations of an article (per the KISS principle), otherwise DYK is giving preference to articles that are written with its rules in mind. I didnt submit Fâ’iz El-Ghusein because the rules around here are too complex, and I dont submit enough to have them wrote learnt, so I give up most of the time. I've created around 300 articles, of which 100 could probably have been DYKs if I could easily figure out the rules, and run them through an automated check to determine when I have met the criteria. A few days ago I tried to install the protosize javascript, and it didnt work for me in the modern skin. Please, can we use the readability tool; it just works - if it needs a better parser, I'll be happy to help with the coding. If a new article is overburdened with quotes, fix that problem via other means, such as commenting on the DYK submission to suggest that the quotes need to be trimmed. Dont reject new articles that have good quotes which a reader will be interested to read, as it is often more appropriate to give the reader quotations from notable sources. This is "Did you know", not "Look at my writing skills". John Vandenberg (chat) 16:49, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    I'm sorry prosesize.js doesn't work for you, but it's the ideal tool for determining new content at DYK and we can't change the rules just for the convenience of one user. The readability tool is opaque and gives no breakdown of what it has actually counted. But if you're really worried an article of yours might be a little short, you can always ask someone to do a check for you before nominating it. Gatoclass (talk) 01:45, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
    Actually (this is just a clarification) we do often help fix articles with too many quotes, rather than rejecting them. For example, Daniel Mangeas is an article that had too many quotes to pass DYK and I took a moment to clean it up and summarize and integrate the quoted content into the article. (I'm only using that example because it's one of the first DYK tasks I ever did so it's easy to remember; there are other good examples as well.) To be honest, though, DYK reviewers' time is limited, and how much effort they're willing to spend helping a contributor get their hook up to a passable level is directly correlated with how polite and civil that user has been with DYK people in the past; the reason I didn't help Ottava clean up his other article that didn't pass because of quotes (the one that started this whole argument) is because Ottava had already attacked 3 DYK editors by then and had shat all over anyone who criticized any of his articles. There's no reason to help someone who treats other editors like that. —Politizer talk/contribs 17:45, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    The mere fact that you would try and act like quotes or blockquotes are not an important part of an article shows that you are out of touch with article writing on Wikipedia. Try going through the FA process because your lack of understanding is detrimental. Quotes don't need to be "fixed". They are an essential scholarly aspect, and all you are doing is dumbing down this encyclopedia and positing rubbish instead of quality. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:02, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Never said all quotes need to be "fixed;" just said some articles have too many. Before you try telling me that my editing is rubbish, maybe you should take a look at what I'm actually talking about. This is an example of too many unnecessary block quotes. I never said that blockquotes aren't important; I just said that when there are too many they need to be cleaned up. But thanks for telling me my editing is rubbish; that's really what this poll was supposed to be about. —Politizer talk/contribs 18:08, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Really? Because its hard to mistake what you mean when you say: "summarize and integrate the quoted content into the article". That means to get rid of them. Furthermore, the only thing "unnecessary" about those quotes is that they blockquote things that should be standard quote. They don't need to be "integrated". They don't need to be "fixed". And if you honestly think blockquotes are important then why don't you support them being included in the prose? You really know how to say two completely different things. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:19, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Looks like we have different writing styles. Ta-da! Let's go bake cookies. —Politizer talk/contribs 18:54, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    And only one of is us part of a campaign to make sure that the other's isn't allowed on DYK even though its been there for a very long time now. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:34, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Heeeeey.... that doesn't sound like cookie-baking to me! —Politizer talk/contribs 19:40, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Comments

I notice that most users who have voted for this proposal have qualified it by saying "as long it's not an overly long quote". But who decides what an "overly long quote" is? We have a clear rule right now that is easy to follow, changing this rule is just going to make it harder for already overworked DYK contributors to do their job, as well as opening the door to more disputes.

Apart from which, this wikiproject has already been attacked many times over its low threshold for DYK awards (only 1,500 characters of new content) and now people are arguing for even less original content? That just makes no sense at all. I hope some of the people who have voted in support of this proposal will reconsider. Gatoclass (talk) 05:24, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

If admin are so stressed having to not count blockquotes, then they can easily just use the readability counter which counts them all so they wont have to go through piecemeal and determine what is in or out. Dr Pda already declares that certain things are added that don't belong. Readability only includes what does belong according to Size. Sure seems like the adoption of this would make every admin's life easier - they only have to do one simple click instead of working the math themselves. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:33, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
What "readability counter"? Are you referring to the page size field in the history page? That is only a bytecount, and as you can see, your bytecount proposal is going down in flames. Gatoclass (talk) 05:50, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
Readability tool. This device has been used in many, many places to determine page size. In particular, it was very helpful during FAC. And I don't care if it "goes down in flames". People deserve the option regardless if it is popular or not. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:11, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  • There are text that aren't part of the prose. The previous parsing use to have the three put side by side, but I guess that feature was recently dropped? Regardless, Jayvdb offered to put together a device that would measure pages automatically and compare them, so he could probably cater something that would allow for the various features that have changed over time to come back. If he knows how, that is. There are a lot of crafty people over at toolserver. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:14, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
LOL, your own recommended page size counter itself recommends the use of Dr pda's text counter to determine the amount of readable prose! Gatoclass (talk) 15:56, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
And Dr Pda's states that blockquotes are part of prose. Yet you don't seem to care about that. Selective reading? Run the device sometime and you will see how it breaks down the text. 15:59, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
Precisely. As I've tried to explain to Ottava numerous times, we are counting the amount of new content here, not the amount of prose per se. Prosesize.js just happens to be a very convenient tool for us because it excludes blockquotes, which are not original content. Unfortunately, he doesn't appear to pay much attention to explanations, because he keeps on making the same redundant arguments. Gatoclass (talk) 16:52, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
FTW! —Politizer talk/contribs 15:59, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

arbitrary section break

Lets look through some of my expansions and see how vital quotes and blockquotes are to having an encyclopedic page, which is new because it didn't exist there nor in that form before, not "new" because all text is new (which was the movement of new to a definition completely not there). Here are just five examples:

1. Prometheus Unbound (Shelley) - Every paragraph has a quote. The background section needs those quotes because they are entries in diaries and journals. You can't just say the information, nor would that be appropriate. Even WP:OR would be against interpreting it. Quoting Shelley on why he chose the myth is also extremely vital and cannot just be summarized if you want to understand the piece. Then quoting the lines with their critical interpretation is important so that people can understand what is happening in the poem. You cannot just summarize the events. Then Shelley has two blockquotes where he discusses what his character means. These cannot just be summarized. To do otherwise would be to be completely unscholarly.

2. Mont Blanc (poem) - from 3k to 18k, should be no problem. However, lots of quoting would reduce the body of the text considerably and make a guarenteed page have almost no "text" according to new definitions.

3. The Lucy poems - Same as Mont Blanc. This should have no problem, but without quotes and blockquotes, there is little text to say is prose and it would be close.

4. Samuel Richardson - 5x expansion almost exactly, but quotes his writing on himself to flush out various details, so falls short by a lot. Still 100% scholarly and encyclopedic, but those evil quotes and blockquotes guarantee that DYK doesn't care.

5. Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets - The quotes and the duplication of a line or two from the biography would ensure that this was not 5x.

These five articles wouldn't be allowed on DYK if quotes and blockquotes did not count. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:36, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I just checked all five of those articles with prosesize.js and here are the results:
  • Prometheus Unbound: 4562 chars -> 28kb = 6.1 expansion
  • Mont Blanc: 2558 chars -> 18kb = x7 expansion
  • Lucy poems: 15kb -> 35kb = only a 2.3 expansion using prosesize. But using a bytecount it still wouldn't be anywhere near eligible. Looks like someone made a mistake with this one. Gatoclass (talk) 16:37, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Samuel Richardson: 4786 -> 24kb = 5.01 expansion.
  • Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets: 276 chars -> 3583 chars = x13 expansion.
So you are completely wrong to think these articles would be ineligible using prosesize. Just as I suspected, you've been wasting everyone's time here for days on end with claims that all your articles would be ineligible using prosesize.js without even bothering to check your facts first. Gatoclass (talk) 16:37, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
Gato, my manual removal of anything without quotes comes up with different numbers than what you have listed. Remember, people said anything in quotes must be removed. That includes the poem section. Mont Blanc shows up as 8,000 characters once all of the quotes and poem passages are removed.
Also, Gato, you are basing it off the wrong item for Lucy. That was developed in the user space and then the history was merged. If you want, I can prove how your math above is wrong compared to the standard that you put up, but just Mont Blanc is enough to show that you are very wrong here. You weren't even capable of calculating the size based on your own standard. That shows that your standard is wrong. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:17, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
Just checked, Lives comes out at 2,700 characters according to the standards claimed by Gato before. That is quite different than what Gato claims as the character amount above. That is before you discount the section pulled from Johnson's biography, which reduces it by another 1,000 characters. 276 x 5 = 1,380. The page would only be about 1,500, so it would just barely make it. Clearly, there is a huge difference between the current page and the previous edition, so it verifies that this barely 5x is more than just what a 5x is. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:22, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
I can't see any block quotes in Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets at all. Disregarding the list of poets, this still counts at around 4000 characters, using both MSWord, Dr pda and this. \ / (⁂ | ※) 00:24, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Backslash - the conversation uses blockquotes as the biggest of the "non-new" prose. The quotes are also considered in this. As per claimed by others, neither quotes nor blockquotes would count as prose. If blockquotes are then accepted as prose, so too would be quotes. You have to remove all quoted information. Also, under "non-new", the information int he background section that was duplicated from the Samuel Johnson page at the time would also not count towards a 5x expansion. Ottava Rima (talk) 00:46, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Forgive me if I sound confused, but judging by all the previous comments, both in the support and oppose section, everyone is referring to just block quotes. \ / (⁂ | ※) 00:57, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Yes, it's generally only blockquotes which are not counted as new content, because in-text quotations tend to be short and not worth the trouble of excluding. We're not going to fuss over a few bytes here and there. In the case of an article that has a lot of in-text quotes however, the article is still likely to be rejected if it depends on those quotes to meet the length criteria. We are permitted to exercise a little common sense when the situation requires it. Gatoclass (talk) 02:19, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
A simple search on this page says otherwise. 1. Agne on 04:37, 13 December 2008 points out quoting, such as in poetry, is not "new". 2. The whole "new content" discussion has declared that quotes, blockquotes, and the rest are not "new". This is right above. Now Gato, if you want to declare that quotes and the rest, besides blockquotes, are "new" information and do count, please do. That would restore Samson Agonistes back to the 5x expansion and make the removal of it completely improper. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:39, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
The unwritten rule in question refers to blockquotes, nothing more. But that does not mean we cannot exercise discretion when quotes are used excessively albeit in a different format. Gatoclass (talk) 04:17, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Forgive me, but I must but in. Your hook which had Samson Agonistes wasn't removed entirely. It was a double hook that just got featured on the Main Page without Samson bolded. While I can appreciate the need to have proper recognition for your work, did having it just as normal text make that much of a difference? \ / (⁂ | ※) 23:28, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
It wasn't about it being my work. It was about it being a display piece for Milton's 400th birthday. The objection to Samson had it delayed so it did not get displayed on Milton's birthday. Only half of his birthday had DYK running on him, although it was originally determined that there would be Milton on the mainpage during the whole time. Thats what the original IAR was about. An important 400th birthday comes only once in a while. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:50, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
You have only yourself to blame for that. If you had tried to work with DYK reviewers instead of getting up in everyone's face, maybe people would have taken more effort to get your hooks up. —Politizer talk/contribs 04:16, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Seeing as how you constantly use things like "boo hoo" as edit summaries only undermines your claims that you are not responsible for what happened. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:13, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
I am "responsible for" a) pointing out that the expansion did not meet the requirements in the guidelines that were being used at the time; and b) that one of the other articles relied entirely upon a single source. These are things that are done for any articles; the fact that you had a prior "agreement" to have these articles on DYK doesn't exempt you from meeting the guidelines that everyone has to meet. And you are the only person "responsible" for having written an article that used only one source and had no wikilinks. —Politizer talk/contribs 19:12, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
According to Art's page, single source falls under ""Rules" sometimes invoked but lacking a consensus". So, your pursuit of it seems to be rather inappropriate. Your continued review of my DYK after already involved in a conflict was also off. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:39, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
How is this back and forth helpful? Both of you know better. Please move back to trying to find consensus going forward instead of sparring over the past. ++Lar: t/c 19:42, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Oppose for reasons stated by other editors above, about generation of new content. —Politizer talk/contribs 21:38, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  2. Weak oppose - As a general rule, the use of block quotes to expand articles should be discouraged. Some contributors have a propensity for quoting sources instead of distilling the information into new text, and DYK should not encourage that practice. Furthermore, when used as intended, block quotes often are essentially illustrations (or even decoration) for an article, which generally should not count. However, because block-quoted text sometimes adds meaningful content to an article, I don't feel strongly about this -- this is an area for some common-sense discretion. --Orlady (talk) 22:22, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  3. Oppose - Dr. Pda does not count block quotes. See: Prometheus Unbound (Shelley) evaluated by Dr. Pda Note that the blockquotes are not counted by Dr. Pda. —Mattisse (Talk) 22:46, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
    This is 100% wrong according to Dr Pda's instructions saying: "This method is not perfect however and may include text which isn't prose (eg in navboxes), or exclude text which is (eg in cquote, or prose written in bullet-point form," (emphasis added) Ottava Rima (talk) 23:25, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
    • But, Ottava Rima! You have done an about face. Dr Pda's tool is the one you dissed hours ago as a nothing tool not used by FAC. (See the second of your three posts here! That is 100% patently wrong. Dr Pda's tool is not "accepted" at FAC. It is not a tool at all to measure anything. The readability tool takes the script and does it automatically so it cannot be altered in any way. That is the only accurate measure. And WP:SIZE was ment to discuss all size issues. You cannot selectively change that. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:52, 14 December 2008 (UTC) Please, stick to one version of your "facts" as this is getting quite confusing! 'You seem to be selectively changing your "facts". —Mattisse (Talk) 00:09, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    • "Dr Pda's tool is the one you dissed hours ago as a nothing tool not used by FAC." and I still don't believe its better than Readability, which is the correct one. As I pointed out, even Dr Pda states that it isn't complete and has problems. Readability does not. You supported Dr Pda, and I proved why Dr Pda doesn't support you. There is no "two versions". There is you being wrong on both counts. There is a major difference. Ottava Rima (talk) 00:34, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    • I am tired of you always calling me "wrong". I am merely pointing things out. I support Dr Pda as a useful tool at FAC, which I frequent. The readability tool is ignored at FAC, even though it is put on the FAC page, I cannot remember the last time any one used it, other than to question what grade level an FAC should be aiming to write for. I though you complained about that it was "wrong" to call people "wrong". Yet you are always calling me "wrong". I am merely pointing out the major inconsistencies in your statements. Dr Pda writes scripts. He doesn't "support" anyone. You are quoting him as some kind of authority! Well, I am giving up trying to make sense of anything you are saying. Hope you get your way here so all this can end. —Mattisse (Talk) 01:46, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  4. Oppose per Orlady etc. Johnbod (talk) 01:39, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  5. Oppose we should be encouraging editors to write articles, not to be cutting-and-pasting content. I have no objection to these blockquotes being in articles, but it's very easy to see how we can end up with blockquote-heavy articles lacking in meaningful prose on the subject at hand. Alansohn (talk) 01:58, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  6. Oppose per Alansohn ​​​​D.B.talk•contribs 02:44, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  7. Oppose DYK is about new content. AgneCheese/Wine 02:50, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  8. Oppose BorgQueen (talk) 03:24, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  9. Strong oppose - per Alansohn. This would open the door to gaming of the system, and potentially force us to start disqualifying articles based on lack of meaningful content, which would only lead to more disputes. The current system works very well. Gatoclass (talk) 03:36, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Tons of blockquotes were introduced before. This didn't become a problem until recently, and that was when people suddenly decided that blockquotes no longer counted. You already went about disqualifying articles with meaningful content, so you don't have to claim that there are any actual fears like that. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:39, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Nonsense, I have been vetting submissions on this project for more than twelve months and can't recall a time when blockquotes were ever counted. Articles which have previously been promoted with "tons of blockquotes" were presumably promoted because they still had the requisite 1,500 charactes of original content. Either that or they were incorrectly promoted, which does happen occasionally when an inexperienced user contributes to maintenance of the project. Gatoclass (talk) 04:59, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Don't play games. I can link many of my pages that had blockquotes approved by you that, when removed, would not have made the 5x expansion. I always contain blockquotes in my works, and I always include quotations. The facts don't match your claims. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:02, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    I very much doubt that is the case, however we have not always had the advantage of the prosesize tool, so maybe you did get a few undersized articles through, you should consider that a bonus. Gatoclass (talk) 06:00, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    If you haven't had the advantage of tools, then that means that the removal of the blockquotes probably only started because of the tool and that was from coincidence. And no, its not a "bonus". They got through because blockquotes and normal quotes are essential to the article. Every single one of my articles heavily quotes authors, critics, etc, because those are the standards of literary scholarship. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:13, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    It means no such thing. Before I installed prosesize, I would just cut text directly from the article and then paste it in my sandbox, removing all the non-original content by hand. So I'm afraid your assumption is wrong. Gatoclass (talk) 17:05, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Really? All "unoriginal content"? So I guess before this date, you removed anything that was in the page first and only counted the new stuff added, right? Doing such would mean that the 5x expansion was radically rewritten to be a 6x expansion. Or did you misspeak like you did many times so far? Ottava Rima (talk) 17:27, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Not at all. If there was a question regarding the length of expansion, I would do a copy and paste of the main body text of the unexpanded article, and then do a copy and paste of the main body text of the expanded article and compare the two. Pretty simple really. Gatoclass (talk) 04:37, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
    Great! The DKY process has improved and is now focusing on real achievement versus copy/paste blockquotes etc. of editors unwilling to summarize content in an encyclopedic style. Abuses are being curtailed. —Mattisse (Talk) 03:57, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  10. Oppose Even a majority of the supporters don't want an article to be mostly block quotes. So if we're going to argue about how many block quotes are too many, then let's just use prosesize.js and don't count them at all, as we do now. Art LaPella (talk) 04:41, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Baby bathwater? And Dr Pda states that his should include blockquotes because Wikipedia defines it as prose. There is a difference between having a reasonable amount and having none. I have yet to see anyone create a whole article on blockquotes or use them in an unencyclopedic matter, and if that happens they can be dealt with. Ottava Rima (talk) 04:43, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  11. Oppose - DYK is here to reward creative writing efforts, not creative copying efforts. There is no need to micromanage reasoned opinions posted on the suggestion page or admin judgment. If you think the count should include quotes, then post your own character count and let the admin make the decision. -- Suntag ☼ 09:44, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  12. Oppose - So as to not exclude editors who expanded an article that contained a block quote, making their expansion ineligible for the 5x. \ / (⁂ | ※) 04:15, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Bytes/Chars

The prose size is measured in terms of bytes, not characters.

Support

  1. A stronger argument - most pages start with wiki markups before being expanded. If there is 1k worth of markups, then the page would have to expand over 5k worth of markups to be more than 5x expansion from markups. An addition of 4k worth of markups is very hard to accomplish, especially without any supporting text. Any fears of an over use of markups would not happen. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:23, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Oppose markup (esp. infoboxes and references) should not be included in count. —Politizer talk/contribs 21:38, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  2. Oppose - Infoboxes, reference templates, table format, and similar markup can add greatly to the byte length of an article without adding anything to the article's value to a user.
    Note that the rule applies to both the pre- and post-expansion count, and that sometimes the pre-expansion article has a large byte count that is grossly inflated by the presence of invisible markup. For example, I've seen articles that had just one sentence of text but a byte count well in excess of 1K, due to the inclusion of huge infobox templates. --Orlady (talk) 22:22, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  3. One char =/= one byte, as Politzer and Orlady explain. As simple as that. --JayHenry (talk) 22:32, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  4. Oppose - can't really add anything to what Orlady and Politizer have said. Adding, say, 1,000 bytes to the length of an article does not necessarily mean 1,000 characters of prose have been added. Reyk YO! 22:35, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  5. Oppose - per all that has been said above. —Mattisse (Talk) 23:01, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  6. As above. Seraphim♥ 01:43, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  7. Oppose - definitely agree with the above. Infoboxes, {{cite}} formatting, tables, etc. can make a big difference and inflate the literal byte count of an expansion (or even pre-expansion, as Orlady noted), even if the prose itself has not been well-expanded. For this reason, I tend to strongly oppose the usage of byte estimations - since we're looking for a fivefold expansion of main prose, it's counterproductive to count the article's file size as a whole (markup and all). Jamie☆S93 01:52, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  8. Oppose Again, the focus should be on prose. There's nothing wrong with blockquotes. There are ample places where blockquotes are useful and necessary. But we should be writing articles about the subject (and thee quotes), not encouraging articles built around the blockquotes, infoboxes, sources, tables, lists, etc. Alansohn (talk) 02:39, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  9. Ick, no. Wizardman 02:44, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  10. Oppose technically 1 character does equal 1 byte as per an experiment I did but the problem is that the count is easily thrown off by adding code that doesn't show in the article (like a piped link). --​​​​D.B.talk•contribs 02:46, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Actually (just to clarify), 1 character equals 1 byte (usually) but 1 byte does not equal one character; in that test they only came out equal because there was no wiki markup. If the test were, for example, [[Example]] , the count would yield 7 characters but 11 bytes. And then there are things like — (1 character, 7 bytes) and ™ (1 character, 8 bytes)...not to mention rarer and crazier stuff like __TOC__ (7 bytes, no characters and no measurable content). But you are correct about piped links and stuff. —Politizer talk/contribs 03:48, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Yep and it works inversely with something like {{convert|20|m2}}, which returns 17 bytes but 28 characters. --​​​​D.B.talk•contribs 04:12, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  11. Oppose per all the above. AgneCheese/Wine 02:50, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  12. Strong oppose - Per Orlady. I find this proposal to be just plain ridiculous. Gatoclass (talk) 03:40, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  13. Oppose Per all of the above. Additionally, I don't see what problem this proposal is trying to solve. BuddingJournalist 06:26, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  14. Oppose - DYK is here to reward creative writing effort, not creative copying effort. -- Suntag ☼ 09:39, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  15. Oppose mostly for the reasons that Orlady describes. John Vandenberg (chat) 17:02, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  16. Oppose While I agree with Ottava that there probably won't be a time where counting byte will make a page ineligible, we may as well make sure that the one article it does will be eligible without too much drama. \ / (⁂ | ※) 04:17, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Status of the Unwritten Rules

Added at Ottava's request. \ / (⁂ | ※) 22:38, 14 December 2008 (UTC) That the Unwritten Rules should be...

Adopted as Policy

Kept as Suggested Guidelines

  1. Support That's what they are now, and they work; see Gatoclass's comments above. They're good for regulars who need to keep track of details, and not necessary for new contributors to make nominations. —Politizer talk/contribs 22:52, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  2. The rules are such that a number of unique situations can arise where they are difficult to interpret. It's useful to have consistent ways to interpret these recurring questions. Through years of helping at T:TDYK, Art collected what seemed to be the standard response to these situations. They should of course be kept (we'll have to deal with the underlying situations regardless), but more prominently made available for those interested. --JayHenry (talk) 22:53, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  3. For now - maybe one day adopted formally when we have stopped arguing about them. Johnbod (talk) 01:41, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  4. Support - no reason not to support, as they are all common sense rules, a compendium of Art's wisdom that has made DYK so pleasant and simple for so long. —Mattisse (Talk) 01:55, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  5. Keep - The unwritten rules are useful and have worked well for a long time. Nothing's broken, so nothing needs fixing. --Orlady (talk) 02:06, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  6. Keep The unwritten rules have provided a level of informality that has worked so far. Alansohn (talk) 02:41, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  7. Support The unwritten rules are actually a compendium of consensus and practice at DYK---fleshed out over the course of thousands of hooks and bytes of discussion on this page. The guidelines were already in practice and widely used. Art just took the step of collecting these "unwritten" rule into one coherent document. While consensus, can and does change, there is no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. AgneCheese/Wine 02:50, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Sorry, but per guidelines, consensus can only be determined through proper channels and claimed only with community involvement. Having a set of rules on a user page cannot be considered as such. Being widely used is also not consensus, as was stated above by multiple people. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:01, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    I'm afraid your wiki-lawyering is a little off bat here. Everyday on Wikipedia there are hundreds of discussions taking place across article's talk, projects and policy pages. The eventual outcome of those discussions will be the consensus for that discussion. Do we take every disagreement over category organization, BE vs AmE usage, or capitalization issue that arise to Village Pump? The next time that the Wine Project has a dispute over what should be included in Template:Wines should I petition an admin to include a "Watchlist notice" so that the community can be fully aware of the dispute before we can get a consensus decision? Of course not and, frankly, that legalistic interpretation of WP:CONSENSUS is downright absurd. There is a difference between changing one of the Five Pillars and a Wikiproject (which DYK is) establishing guidelines for themselves. While the former would certainly warrant widespread community involvement in order to truly generate a consensus decision; the scale needed for consensus of the latter is considerably smaller. AgneCheese/Wine 03:18, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Please post links to something even close to something like this that said that the newly created unwritten rules should be official. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:32, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Ottava, it is not about *the page* titled "Unwritten Rules" (that is merely a compilation of practices and guidelines already in place). Whether or not that page moves to main space is actually irrelevant. These rules weren't decided collectively all at once, but rather as part of a long, laborious process. Up at the top of this page is a link to 35 pages of archives, hundreds of thousands of bytes of discussion that hammered out a consensus among the people who care about DYK on all these finer points. As the growing number of "Support" votes on this poll is showing, the consensus is pretty consistent. AgneCheese/Wine 03:49, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Not everyone feels that way, especially with the unwritten rules suddenly appearing this summer. There are people even complaining about "rule creep" above but yet the unwritten rules are exactly that. DYK use to be dominated by loose definitions and IAR to be as inclusive as possible. Not including in blockquotes because people don't think famous authors should be quoted shows that we have clearly lost this way. I really wonder what Raul would think about the changes and I am tempted to ask him. Ottava Rima (talk) 04:02, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Then go do it. The suspense is killing us. Don't leave us hangin'. —Politizer talk/contribs 04:10, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Raul? Is he one of the dissatisfied editors? Please ask him to to register his opinion in the poll. —Mattisse (Talk) 04:16, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Read the project page if you need to find out who Raul is and his connection to DYK. Ottava Rima (talk) 04:33, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    O.K., Ottava. Read the project page. So he had the first DYK for Pencil sharpener. So? (Maybe you should add some inline citations to it, as it probably would not pass muster now.) —Mattisse (Talk) 05:09, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Ottava, these "Unwritten Rules" existed long before Art took the time to actually write down what was already in practice. This is certainly not a recent thing. While I don't have the time or energy to search all 35 pages of archives, I did remember this conversation from back in Dec 2007! And JayHenry was talking about what was observed as being already in practice by that point. The only thing recent is that one of your articles happened to be rejected and not WP:IAR in. I can tell you from experience that I've approved some of your articles in the past that were borderline with expansion but I thought that they were lovely articles that should be featured so I "ticked" off that the size was good even if was a tad short of a true expansion. As a reviewer, I would have probably approved the Samson article but I can not fault a fellow reviewer for fairly applying the guidelines. If anything, this demonstrates *my mistake* and those of other DYK reviewers in not fairly applying the guidelines to some of your earlier articles because now you are using those past articles as a sign that somehow the "Unwritten rules" didn't have long established consensus. They've always had, we've just been more liberal in the past in using IAR but now, I have to say, your actions are making people less incline to utilize IAR in the future if this is what we have to look forward to. AgneCheese/Wine 04:25, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Agne, I've been around for a long time and not once has blockquotes ever came up as an issue, or anything else. This didn't happen until this September. Thats when these "unwritten rules" became popular. Furthermore, community consensus does not go into effect based on hearsay, common ideas, etc. You can't use admin powers for such things. DYK is the use of an admin power because you are editing the main page. Consensus negates what happened in the creation of these rules. And if there was some sort of consensus about what was "prose", it obviously contradicts what established guidelines say. Furthermore, DYK use to only require 1,000 characters. Things have been progressively trying to make it harder, not easier, to get a page listed. Don't act as if the unwritten rules have been around forever when this system use to be very lax and very inclusive. Ottava Rima (talk) 04:33, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    • You mean, things were sloppy for a while. Even SandyGeorgia complained about sloppy DYKs on the main page some months ago. Since you have been around "forever", you know about all the previous discussions and undoubtedly participated in them, given your level of participation and interest in DYK. So, why are you not remembering all the past history? In any event, all standards on Wikipedia have risen over time. Only relatively recently did FAC require inline citations. Are you advocating a lowering of standards instead? —Mattisse (Talk) 05:17, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Complaints arose from people allowing biased hooks, copyright violations, or other problems that are covered under other guidelines and do not need to be duplicated on DYK. And this is the very beginning of a process, not at the end of a process. We should not raise the bar and scare off new people from contributing. We should be as inclusive as possible. Furthermore, not approving the blockquote/quote as prose destroys the ability to promote articles of quality, as quotes and blockquotes are a fundamental part of academic writing. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:30, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Wrong. Even as recently as a couple months ago, people were complaining about DYK articles with "only one inline citation in the whole article." They may have been complaints about that other stuff as well, but that doesn't mean people weren't saying the bar was too low, because they certainly were. —Politizer talk/contribs 05:32, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Complaining about a DYK article with only one citation is the same as complaining about a non-DYK with only one citation. There is no difference. There are many articles without any citations. DYK requires one for the hook. Their problem is with uncited articles, not with DYK. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:38, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  8. Support per Agne27. They were slowly added one by one. Each unwritten rule had consensus discussed on this very talk page, Ottava. Royalbroil 03:13, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    If that was true, why weren't they added as official? That doesn't add up nor is it proper consensus. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:32, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    We were concerned that the rules would get too long for the average contributor / instruction creep. Royalbroil 03:41, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    You seriously believe that having a second set of rules on a second page that are applied as if they are standard rules is not adding in more rules and not instruction creep? All secondary rules should be removed if you want to get rid of instruction creep. The guide should be kept vague on purpose to be as inclusive as possible. If there is a copyright issue, solve it. If there is duplicated information, fix it. If it needs to be merged, do so. Needs to be deleted, do so. There are other ways off DYK to fix problematic pages. This was unnecessary instruction added to the project and adds only confusion. Ottava Rima (talk) 04:38, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    What is meant by "official", Ottava? There are very few "official" documents on Wikipedia, if you mean policies. Have you read Product, process, policy and consensus? Policies are the last step, not the first. —Mattisse (Talk) 04:30, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  9. Support for now. BorgQueen (talk) 03:28, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  10. Weak support as temporary measure only - see my comment in the "Comments" section below. Gatoclass (talk) 04:27, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  11. Support something like this (the name "Unwritten Rules" is obsolete, and they shouldn't have just my name on them—I agree with Gatoclass). Simply deleting the Unwritten Rules would send us back to June, when only Did You Know regulars could understand the rules because they were truly unwritten. There weren't nearly as many nominations. We spent half our time re-arguing the same issues all the time, and with Ottava Rima around, I predict it would be a lot more than half. Art LaPella (talk) 04:55, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Art, you can't honestly claim that. You really can't. I participated on DYK for a very long time, on this account and my prior one. There were rarely any fights until your unwritten rules came about, and the mere attempt right there to claim that there were rules that weren't written yet applied is false. There were no other standards until you created the unwritten rules which clogged up the process and created all of the problems. The guidelines were simple, easy, and very inclusionary. We must return to that. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:05, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    With all due respect, the only thing clogging up DYK right now is you. Before you started disrupting everything a few days ago, we were cutting through nominations like a warm knife through butter. —Politizer talk/contribs 05:22, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    I was the one that started a fight on my own hook that was already operating under pre-approved IAR? Really? That is backwards logic of the worse kind. Politizer, DYK worked well until the unwritten rules were made. The unwritten rules weren't that big of a problem until people like you started trying to enforce them. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:40, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Yes, actually, you were. Here is a revision of T:TDYK where the hook you're referring to may be viewed, and here is the revision of that article at the time I was commenting on it (a revision that clearly no one at DYK would have accepted anyway, so you have no basis for saying I was unjustly enforcing some imaginary rule; the article had only a single source, no wikilinks, and no appreciable lead-in section). I'll let the other readers decide who "started a fight." —Politizer talk/contribs 05:57, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    You weren't "commenting" on it. You were acting disruptive and as soon as you were responded to you started a campaign against multiple DYK. Even Gato told you to stop because you were prejudicing things. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:15, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Wrongo. I was pointing out what needed to be fixed in the articles. That's what I do with everyone. —Politizer talk/contribs 15:17, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    I'm sure people adding "penis" to articles feel that they are doing the same. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:38, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Oh, yeah, because adding cleanup tags[12][13] is the same as vandalism. Seriously? How immature are you? —Politizer talk/contribs 15:48, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Templating a page demanding that wikilinks be added instead of actually doing it yourself while you know that there was a complex process going on is completely inappropriate. There is really no excuse for just randomly templating like that on normal circumstances. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:03, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Try "I look at a hundred DYK hooks a day and cleaning up your article is your job, not mine." Anyway, who cares—the template got you to add the links, now didn't it? And what about the {{single source}} template, you are conveniently ignoring that one. —Politizer talk/contribs 16:09, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    You are not an admin. You are not DYK's boss. You are not anything but one person. I think you need to keep that in mind, because the contrary is what caused these problems. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:12, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    My comment was aimed mainly at Bedford, who remembers the problems we had when the unwritten rules were truly unwritten. Art LaPella (talk) 15:56, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Did you not see that Bedford wants your unwritten rules removed? If you posit him as such an expert via experience, I think his vote shows that things have gotten worse, not better. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:01, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Yes I saw; hence my puzzled explanation to him. I've given up on debating you. Art LaPella (talk) 18:14, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    There is no puzzle. Your solution was only a hindrance. How you cannot see that, I don't know. But Bedford sees it quite clearly. You are too fixated on your own rules and creating them that you forgot what the problems were and only expanded them. This is a common problem. The only solution is to delete your rules and return to a time before they expanded the problems at hand. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:23, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    These are not Art's rules. WP:OWN does not apply. They are everyone's rules which apply to everyone. Art was nice enough to compile them to his userpage. He did not create or decide them. He merely compiled the list of secondary rules as time went on. I was here to witness their compilation. Were you? He should have compiled them in Wikipedia space so we wouldn't be wasting our space with this unneeded discussion. Royalbroil 13:04, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
    Wikipedia space would be better if that's the consensus, but no rules reorganization would have prevented this discussion, as the Wikipedia:IDIDNTHEARTHAT response below demonstrates for the umpteenth time. Art LaPella (talk) 18:17, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
    I think a lot of people will be worried with the declaration that a set of ideas written on a user page now "apply to everyone". Ottava Rima (talk) 16:42, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
  12. Support - There's nothing wrong with a WikiProject having guidelines for its operation and these have served WikiProject DYK well. They have long been part of a general agreement among the members of DYK, each of whom have had an opportunity to review and comment on the rules. As a natural and inherent product of wiki-editing at DYK, the consensus about Art's Unwritten Rules developed through collaboration at DYK and is reflective of how DYK editors now work with each other. We all owe Art a debt of thanks for taking the lead on recording the operating parameters of DYK in relation to DYK hooks appearing on the Main Page, but it is time to move the rules in-house. DYK has never let a label stand in the way of common sense, and whether these are moved in-house as rules, guidelines, or what have you, they will continue to be used as needed to provide reasoned analysis for the DYK admins to make their decisions. -- Suntag ☼ 09:36, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  13. Support Simply to avoid the 'that isn't written anywhere' comment that will inevitably arise should a nom be deemed inappropriate with one of these rules as reasoning. \ / (⁂ | ※) 04:26, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
  14. Just that would be fine. - Mailer Diablo 18:17, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Deleted

  1. This allows for more rules to creep in and causes conflicting views. Much of the current wording is left ambiguous on purpose to allow both sides to be happy. If a strict admin doesn't want to approve they don't have to. If a leniant admin does, they should be given the chance. We should be inclusive, not exclusive. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:45, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  2. I agree with Ottava for the same reasons.--Gen. Bedford his Forest 23:01, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  3. Also agreeing with Ottava Rima here. Peachey88 (Talk Page | Contribs) 04:20, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Note (this will almost certainly be interpreted as offensive, in a way I don't intend it to be, but oh well, I think it needs to be said) To whoever is tallying the votes in this poll, please be aware that the above user has never edited T:TDYK and is the same user who took Gatoclass to ANI over Gatoclass's voting choice. —Politizer talk/contribs 04:33, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Yes, I noticed Peachey88 sudden emergence in both places. Perhaps Ottava's mass of disgruntled emailers are beginning to emerge? —Mattisse (Talk) 04:44, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Considered that I read a-lot of pages and only post when i feel needed? Peachey88 (Talk Page | Contribs) 05:22, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    This is cross listed at Village Pump Proposals. Everyone is welcome to comment. Since this goes on the mainpage, everyone is welcome. Ottava Rima (talk) 04:35, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Moved into project space for wider participation

As Gatoclass suggests below, these unwritten rules have consensus support at the moment; they are the best we have. However pages in userspace generally discourage broad participation, so these unwritten rules may not accurately reflect long standing practises or the current desires of the wider community. As such they should be moved into the project namespace where others can more freely alter them, and discussion can occur on the talk page.

  1. John Vandenberg (chat) 17:21, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    Thankyou for the support John, but I really feel this is not the time to start a new poll on this topic. Let's get the other issues out of the way first, and then maybe when things have quietened down in a week or two, we can think about running a poll like this. The present climate is not the most conducive to rational discussion I think. Gatoclass (talk) 01:15, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Comments

I think this poll has proposed the wrong alternatives. The question should not be whether or not Art's "Unwritten Rules" should be policy or guidelines, because our existing rules are not defined as "policy" or "guidelines" either. The question should simply be whether the unwritten rules should be given official status by being moved into wikipedia space rather than being left in user space. I strongly support moving them into wikipedia space, but this is neither making them "policy" nor keeping them as "guidelines", it's simply making clear that these rules have consensus support and are not merely the result of one user's whims.

However, since this poll is already well under way, I feel I have little choice but to support the misnamed "keep as guidelines" proposal, but only as a temporary measure. Gatoclass (talk) 04:24, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

You can change the title to "moving to mainspace". I'm sure everyone who voted is watching, as most are responding. Ottava Rima (talk) 04:34, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you, Gatoclass. I think Art's "Unwritten Rules" should remain as they are. But it seemed, maybe I am wrong, the the alternative to "Support" was proposed deletion of them. —Mattisse (Talk) 04:34, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I think Gatoclass has hit this on the head, so I have added a new poll option above "Moved into project space for wider participation". Feel free to tweak my summary. John Vandenberg (chat) 17:21, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for adding the new poll option...but, given that the poll has been going on for a while now anyway (and that its original intention as a poll has, naturally, derailed), I don't know how much useful information we'll be able to get from it, since a lot of people have already voted on "keep as a guideline" since it was the only good option at the time. In other words, if we don't see a lot of votes for your new option, it probably doesn't mean that people don't support it, but just that people already voted before that option was available. —Politizer talk/contribs 17:54, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
Moving them forward would only be verifying them as legitimate. The only appropriate measure is to delete them completely and not allow anyone with such notions to feel as if they have a legitimate stance. These are a hindrance to the system as a whole and only cause problems. They are also created by a select few and are opposite to inclusive. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:06, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
Hey buddy.... POLL. —Politizer talk/contribs 18:09, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment - I was urged by someone offline to WP:SNOW close all this (using the same reasoning as I just used above, that this is divisive/non productive, and the reasoning that the answers are obvious (hence the snow part)) but I have to say, while most of these options have rather a wide margin one way, I'm not seeing that closing these would be a good idea. How long is this supposed to run for? Certainly more than a day or two... let this run. At the end, it will reveal a good sense of how the "regulars" feel. We need to be careful to listen carefully to all views, not just those of the regulars, though. ++Lar: t/c 03:00, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

You could possibly close the bytes/characters poll... but I don't think there is any real need. It has only been two days now (?), so probably leave it for a few more. \ / (⁂ | ※) 04:10, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
I was again urged to close this, as the new comments have slowed to a trickle or less. I'll do so tomorrow (giving a week, more or less) unless there is strong objection, so get any last minute views in, ok? ++Lar: t/c 15:06, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
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