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8-hour cycle

Just happened to notice there are only 109 hooks left on Suggestions! Time to go to an 8-hour cycle. Does someone remember how to do this? I haven't done it myself for ages. Gatoclass (talk) 10:44, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Done (hopefully). Materialscientist (talk) 10:51, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
Thanks :) Gatoclass (talk) 10:59, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
The 109 figure is not an accurate representation of the number of hooks left, as it only goes through November 24. But switching to 8 hours is probably a good idea now anyways. MANdARAX  XAЯAbИAM 11:07, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
Heck, you're right, I didn't notice the hook counter is not counting all the days, that's a bug that needs to be fixed. Meanwhile, I'll switch it back to 6 hours, because with the additional 4 days there's almost 100 extra hooks there unaccounted for. Gatoclass (talk) 11:14, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
Why not keep with the normal cycle but reduce the number of hooks? Simply south (talk) 15:00, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
Yes, please keep at six or seven hooks per update. The right side of MainPage (ITN & SA/OTD) can't keep up and maintain left-right balance, anyway. Thanks. --PFHLai (talk) 01:58, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Given that there are only very few articles approved at the moment (23 to be precise) and all six queues are empty (with one prep ready to be promoted), an 8 hour cycle would appear sensible. Schwede66 03:01, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Make that two preps. ;) Also, just saw this, so trimmed Prep1 down to seven hooks. - The Bushranger Return fireFlank speed 03:10, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that's what PFHLai is getting at. If DYK is significantly longer than OTD, there is a gap at the bottom of OTD which looks bad. Sometimes that gap can be filled, sometimes not. In either case, it's not really OTD's fault: DYK has the resources to check its output against both today's and tommorrow's OTD, whereas OTD has no effective means of knowing what DYK will choose to show (and, in any case, DYK's output is so fragmented that such information would be next to useless). What I think PFHLai is asking for is for people to look at the OTD when constructing their queues, so as to keep a constant page-length regardless of the number of hooks. Physchim62 (talk) 03:20, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Seven hooks usually leaves a gap at the bottom of DYK on my screen. Not so long ago we were routinely running 9 hooks and there were no complaints. I think we should stick to 8, and if we start running low on hooks, go to an 8-hour cycle. Gatoclass (talk) 04:32, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
Q4, which is the next one to go live, has six hooks (just in case you hadn't noticed). And with regards to the discussion above, we are of course talking about two separate issues. There's firstly the attempt to balance the two columns on the homepage. The second issue is what I was referring to, and that is that we are running low on approved hooks, and we should thus slow down the rate with which we publish them. Whilst the first issue affects the second, they are two issues and they should both be addressed. Schwede66 02:13, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Did the transition to a 8-hour cycle work? I ask because the T:DYK/Q still shows that the queues are being cycled every six hours. Since I could barely find enough usuable hooks for a six-hook update, the replace rate desperately needs to be slowed down. Grondemar 13:52, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

We didn't change it. The cycle doesn't need changing because there are 169 total hooks at T:TDYK. The problem you had is in regards to the number of verified hooks, not the total number, which is a different issue. Gatoclass (talk) 14:05, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Can we put this in a queue already? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 08:17, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

You don't think we should wait for the date that was decided for it before? Less than a month now. SilverserenC 08:23, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
It's been there since August, the original author has retired... does it really matter when it goes up? I'm just sick of seeing it on T:TDYK... Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 08:25, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm sick of seeing it there too, but no harm in waiting a few more weeks for the selected date. cmadler (talk) 12:25, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Queue 3 fix

The first hook of Queue 3 says that the foundations "was cleared". The "was" should be "were". MANdARAX  XAЯAbИAM 19:57, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Done. Thanks. BencherliteTalk 20:16, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Multi-article MMA hook in Queue 4

Hi... Thanks to those who reviewed / promoted the multi-article hook about the mixed martial arts World Championship bouts today. I have a request and a suggestion. My request is: would it be possible to move the hook from queue 4 to queue 5? This would be better for the timing of the actual event, and would make the "today" correct for most of the US. My suggestion is: the queue includes DYKmake credits for Paralympiakos and me for the article Artiom Damkovsky, but that article is not in the hook (and indeed has been to DYK before) - those credits need correcting before the queue goes live. Thanks. EdChem (talk) 01:23, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. Materialscientist (talk) 01:34, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Alt rejected?

Was my alt for Katy Munger rejected when it was moved to the Queue (where it is currently in Queue 1)? Allen3 didn't say. In fact, the nomination didn't even have a check mark put on it yet, unless Allen did that himself and then moved it? SilverserenC 21:03, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Your alt was not rejected. The other hook was simply found preferable due to its being at least as catchy as yours and it was noticeably shorter. As for your other concern, I do perform the appropriate checks before making a promotion. --Allen3 talk 22:39, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
Alright, I just wanted to check. I was worried that the recent DYK of Tart Noir would make it repetative, but if you don't think so, that's fine. :3 SilverserenC 22:57, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

This article will hit the main page in 35 minutes. I have some close paraphrasing concerns. Look at the article against this source. For example:

He has been as a little league manager and soccer coach and has served on the boards of many community and educational organizations.

is almost a direct word-for-word lift, that supports the hook.

Also:

During his time with the firm, he represented doctors and hospitals in medical malpractice cases, as well as both plaintiffs and defendants in cases involving insurance bad faith, insurance coverage, automobile liability, legal malpractice, accounting malpractice, product liability, construction, general liability, real estate, and fraud. He tried more than 100 civil jury trials.

versus:

A civil trial attorney with the law firm of McInnis, Fitzgerald, Rees, Sharkey & McIntyre for 30 years, Justice McIntyre represented doctors and hospitals in medical malpractice cases and both plaintiffs and defendants in cases involving insurance bad faith, insurance coverage, automobile liability, legal and accounting malpractice, product liability, construction, general liability, real estate and fraud. He tried in excess of 100 civil jury trials.

And:

Since his appointment to the Court of Appeal, McIntyre has served on the Court Profiles Advisory Committee to the Judicial Council of California (which makes recommendations on new judgeships) (1997–1999) and the Judicial Council Task Force on Jury Instructions (1999–2001). Since 2001, he has served on the appellate panel of justices selected to hear writ petitions on labor disputes between the Superior Courts and their employees.

versus:

Since his appointment to the Court of Appeal, Justice McIntyre has served on the Court Profiles Advisory Committee to the California Judicial Council (recommendations on new judgeships) (1997-99), the Judicial Council Task Force on Jury Instructions (1999-2001) and the appellate panel of justices selected to hear writ petitions in the trial courts on labor disputes between the Superior Courts and their employees (2001-present).

Cheers --Mkativerata (talk) 23:28, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Removed from the queue. My foot's out the door, so I would appreciate it if other admins/DYKers could look into this and place it back on T:TDYK or back in the queue as needed. Shubinator (talk) 23:35, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. Restored, replaced. Materialscientist (talk) 23:42, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
So, the source in question is cited as the source in all of the excerpted sections of James A. McIntyre listed above. It is unclear to me what the issue is since all the sections are properly cited. OCNative (talk) 10:44, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
The problem is copying text from the sources infringes the intellectual rights of those who wrote them, i.e. we have to rewrite the text. We can copy from public domain sources, but this is Canadian Government source, not US Government source, and thus I don't think it can be public domain for wikipedia (correct me if I'm wrong). Materialscientist (talk) 11:27, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
Also, there's a subtle but big difference between citing and plagiarism. If you take a sentence from a source, and it's a close paraphrase, and it's not in quotes, that counts as plagiarism (even if it's cited). See Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches for more; that dispatch explains it much better than I can. Shubinator (talk) 15:40, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
That is, as the linked document notes, disputed. A public domain document, if cited and sourced without claim of ownership, is not plagarism even if it "isn't written like this" i.e. with quotes. The quotes are necessary if directly citing a very brief quote from a non public-domain source (e.g. 'some sources describe X as "one ugly son-of-a-bird"'), as is usually allowed, even if cited - it's copyrighted and that indicates it's somebody else's rights-held words. a PD source, however, should only need to be attribuited. It's only plagarism if you take the words and claim them as your own. Now, that said, if parts of a document are PD sourced and others aren't, putting the PD information in quotes may be necessary to distinguish it from other information (see Lockheed D-21/M-21 for an example of this). However in my work here even when dealing with PD documents I take the "use your own words and cite the source" path. And all that said, all that is irrelevant here anyway, as the source doesn't seem to be PD anyway. - The Bushranger One ping only 19:05, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
I have reworded the sections in question at James A. McIntyre. I hope this allays any questions about the article. OCNative (talk) 04:55, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

wikicup scoring discussion

(evil laugh) I figured carrots were better than sticks and am posting a proposal for social experimentation in the wikicup to see if it gets more core and underrepresented content Featured - see discussion here. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:50, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Number of views of lead and non-lead hooks on the DYKSTATS page

I do not get why DYK lead hooks have a minimum of 5000 views to be notable but non-lead hooks have to be 11000. Simply south (talk) 20:56, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Different sections - that with 5,000 views is transient and is archived; the 11,000+ and 20,000+ ones stay permanently ("Hall of Fame") Materialscientist (talk) 22:44, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
Lead hooks require a minimum of 20,000 views (not 5,000) to be notable. The "over 5,000 views" table for each month applies to both lead and non-lead hooks. —Bruce1eetalk 05:22, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Bad hook in the queue

I just approved what is actually a poorly worded hook, which is now in the next queue. It currently reads:

  • ... that all 16 episodes from the third season of the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation will be filmed before only one will be aired?

when it should read:

  • ... that all 16 episodes from the third season of the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation will be filmed before the first one is aired?
Could someone fix this for me? Thanks, The Interior(Talk) 05:13, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
Corrected, thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 05:20, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Problem with DYKUpdateBot?

DYKUpdateBot's last update of Template:Did you know‎ was done from Queue 2, but now, 1½ hours later, it still hasn't cleared Queue 2 and changed the next queue to use to Queue 3 here. —Bruce1eetalk 07:28, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Fixed, will notify Shubinator and watch the next update. Materialscientist (talk) 07:40, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
I noticed that the DYKnoms and DYKmakes that Materialscientist has just done are the old ones, without the hook in them. Maybe this is part of the glitch with the bot? EdChem (talk) 07:59, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

No. When bot issues them, he takes the hooks from the queue - this part is lost when issuing credits manually. I manually paste hooks into the article talks, but this is trickier for credits. Materialscientist (talk) 08:05, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Ok, thanks – it's not that important whether the hooks are included in the credits, I just noticed and thought it might be useful information for someone. Thanks for doing the work to do the update manually. EdChem (talk) 09:37, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Prep queue question

The prep queues used to rotate up... if prep 1 was at the top, it got cleared and moved to the bottom when it was copied to a regular queue. I noticed it hasn't seemed to consistently do this lately; is this a bot thing? 28bytes (talk) 23:56, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

(i) We haven't had many filled preps, lately, thus order or no order is all the same. (ii) Speaking for myself, I sometimes promote preps by appropriate time zone rather than order on the page. Materialscientist (talk) 00:03, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Ah, OK. That makes sense. 28bytes (talk) 00:07, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Also, if you want to preview the hook set and see how they appear on MainPage on the following day, you have to build your set in either P1 or P2. P3 and P4 don't have the same preview "tool". --PFHLai (talk) 03:42, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

QPQ

Just a thought: if we still want to do this, it would probably be wise to have it in place in time for the the next WikiCup, which is scheduled to begin January 1. 28bytes (talk) 02:58, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Was a decision made not to put QPQ into effect? Cbl62 (talk) 16:53, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Most recent activity on that front (AFAIK) was me placing a notice on TT:DYK, Gatoclass removing it as he felt it didn't provide enough notice, and a discussion about how much notice would be best that sort of tapered off. PFHLai suggested Jan. 1, which is fine with me, although if we do decide on Jan. 1 we should probably put up a notice ASAP to give folks a heads-up. 28bytes (talk) 16:57, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
If the next Wikicup is starting January 1, then yes, I'd say that now is a good time to put it back up. That will give about two weeks' notice. Gatoclass (talk) 18:34, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks Gatoclass. Any objections/concerns from anyone? This is the notice under discussion. 28bytes (talk) 18:53, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Done. 28bytes (talk) 21:26, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Done? January 1 here, December 1 there, seems not consistent yet. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:09, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Is December 1 showing up someplace? It should be January 1. 28bytes (talk) 22:11, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
In this bright yellow box on top of the suggestions: "For self-nominations submitted on December 1 or later, ..." --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:19, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Ah, I see it now. Fixed. Thanks for catching that. 28bytes (talk) 22:29, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Here after seeing the bright yellow box, to register distress. I am extremely unwilling to judge others' work. Yngvadottir (talk) 22:25, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm wondering why there wasn't a big yellow box at the top of all DYK pages informing people that such a discussion was taking place. This is a huge change, and it was a very bad idea to make such a decision without advertising that it was even being considered. GaryColemanFan (talk) 22:54, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
There was an intensive and lengthy discussion here, see Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_62#Implementing quid pro quo. I can't say that I much enjoy reviewing hooks myself, but I've always felt that it was a reasonable thing to do when submitting my own. Mikenorton (talk) 00:01, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm sure that a discussion took place. I'm also sure, though, that there was not a sufficient effort made to inform many regular DYK contributors that it was taking place, though. For example, I've been contributing to DYK for 2 1/2 years and have 84 DYKs. I heard about this policy for the first time today. If a big yellow box can be used to alert people to the change, it could have been used to alert people to the discussion. GaryColemanFan (talk) 00:36, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

In earlier discussions, it was agreed that QPQ would only apply for editors with 5 DYK credits, so it won't catch totally inexperienced editors. If editors feel unprepared to review, they are welcome to ask for a check of their first few reviews, or to approach an experienced reviewer for mentoring / assistance. Editors could also request someone else to make the nomination on the understanding that the nominator will handle the QPQ review. If editors have wiki-friends who are willing to do reviews on their behalf for QPQ requirements, I'd find that fine too - perhaps that friend would appreciate you doing them a favour in return, or would do several reviews for a barnstar. The purpose of QPQ is to help keep DYK running, and that needs nominations and reviews and queue preparation, etc. If you want to suggest an alternative way to satisfy a QPQ requirement, I think we can flexibly accommodate reasonable options... but asking that you contribute to the work needed to keep the DYK project operating is not unreasonable. EdChem (talk) 01:57, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with EdChem, many of us will be happy to help "review a review" for anyone uncertain. The goal here is not to dump all the reviewing work onto the nominators, just to try to get some help with the reviewing load. Even a brief confirmation that a nomination meets the basic eligibility requirements (length, date submitted) will be appreciated. Since February the top of the page had a simple request: "If you nominate an article, please consider reviewing another nomination. This will help cut down on the number of unreviewed nominations." So asking nominators to help with the review load is not really something new. A lot of folks have stepped up and helped out, but many haven't, and we simply need more help if we're to give each nomination the examination it deserves before it shows up on the main page. 28bytes (talk) 02:48, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
Asking people to review isn't new, but demanding that they do is definitely new. The problem isn't that I'm concerned about reviewing nominations--I've reviewed quite a few. The problem is that the discussion wasn't publicized. GaryColemanFan (talk) 05:29, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
Speaking only for myself, of course: given the number of editors involved in the discussion Mikenorton linked to, it honestly didn't occur to me that people interested in DYK wouldn't have this discussion page watchlisted. But I do see your point, and in retrospect, I agree: a note like you suggest would probably have been helpful. 28bytes (talk) 06:05, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for understanding--that's all I was asking for. With that said, I'm not pushing for a change, and I'm happy to help review. I'd just like to not be surprised next time. GaryColemanFan (talk) 07:03, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

As an active DYK nominator with over 25 successful self-noms (and currently flying at the moment, not bothering to log in my iPhone), I think this sudden, massive shift in policy will seriously slow the number of nominees. It takes time to create a quality DYK, that's my spare time. Time do do some half assed reviews, I guess. --20:31, 17 December 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.205.11.15 (talk)

That's the thing, people deserve better than half-assed reviews. I really hate the thought of trying to pick apart someone's newly created article; I could therefore just pass something through without really vetting it, but Wikipedia and the article deserve better than that, too. And I don't at all like the suggestion that I should arrange a quid pro quo of my own and get a friend to do it for me, maybe bribing them with a barnstar - barnstars are like Marvel NoPrizes, the only point to them is they're utterly frivolous. And that would be meatpuppeting, to my way of thinking. Hey, why don't I just farm out the writing of my articles . . . I had seen that this was under discussion but hoped wiser heads would prevail. But it's been assumed that DYK is in terrible trouble and that it's because people are submitting too many articles, or something. So it was a fait accompli. And at teh same time, they are about to make the WikiCup scoring so complicated I can't even understand it. All I can see is that for some reason folks have again assumed that the problem is it used to reward people for creating content. Phooey. I do not share these assumptions. I believe we are supposed to be writing and expanding articles. At any rate, I like doing that. And fixing up articles. I do not like being an examiner, especially not on topics I am not an expert on. Scratch that - you don't want me applying my expert standards to articles in my areas of special expertise either, that's not fair. These are new articles and newly expanded articles. This is supposed to be a fun way of encouraging people to write - as was the WikiCup. I thought. I do my share of participation at AfD, I help out where I can . . . I shouldn't have to put on a quality control inspector's hat to be able to share stuff with people. Yngvadottir (talk) 20:51, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
It never even crossed my mind that editors who regularly contribute to and are interested in a project might not be watching the project's primary talk page. There are discussions going on here all the time about possible changes. Where else might such changes conceivably be discussed? Should every one of them be announced on every project page by an individual banner? At one point this fall, we had more than a dozen simultaneous proposals under discussion, should each one of them have had a banner on other project pages? Every DYK project page has Template:DYKbox on it, which provides a link to this page as the discussion page for the project. cmadler (talk) 21:30, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
I think you're responding to someone else's concern - I was aware that this was under discussion. It was just pretty clear that it would get passed, or something else would. I've just spent my entire editing time this morning doing non-mainspace stuff and avoiding Wikipedia. I was planning on writing an article . . . and that and the fact everyone seems to have shared assumptions I don't about what needs fixing, are the two reasons I didn't pipe up. And haven't in the massive debate about WikiCup scoring. As I said, I had hoped wiser heads would prevail. I don't believe either thing was broken. But someone else has said it wasn't advertised widely enough. Separate issue. It's also not that I resent spending time vetting other people's submissions. (It's likely to be more fun than checking Pumpie articles.) It's that I don't want to assume bad faith of DYK submitters, to put it plainly.Yngvadottir (talk) 21:44, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
Yngvadottir, I for one regret your choice not to participate in the earlier discussions as all perspectives are valuable in coming to a considered position. I wonder if you could expand on the comment "It's that I don't want to assume bad faith of DYK submitters, to put it plainly". When I do a review I don't feel like I am making any assumption of bad faith. If I find a problem, I would generally assume it is an oversight, or a good-faith mistake, or inexperience with DYK, or even a simple difference of opinion. In cases I have reviewed, there have been only a couple of cases where my concerns were not satisfactorily addressed (which includes the possibility that I was in error and withdrew any objections). It is true that there are occasional nominations which are simply inappropriate as main page content, but those can be collaboratively improved or ultimately declined, and even if declined I wouldn't necessarily assume the nomination was made in bad faith; I see my role there not as 'judge' of other editors or their contributions, but as protecting the integrity of the main page and the DYK project. An inappropriate nomination can also arise from inexperience or differing perspectives. Truthfully, my past experience leads me to only one situation where I would find assuming good faith problematic, and that is with a specific editor who I believe gamed the system and whether intentionally or not manipulated me and damaged my reputation. EdChem (talk) 22:26, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
It's one thing to suggest (which I understand that nobody has advocated, but someone offered this idea as a reductio ad absurdum) that we post notices of every rule change that's proposed here; it's quite another to suggest that we post notice of such a significant rules change. Some of us simply don't have time or inclination to watch for typical changes but would be quite willing to participate in discussions about imposing a significant new burden on nominators. I'm happy to review articles when I get the chance, but sometimes I simply don't have time — it's possible to write a new DYK over a period of days or weeks in Notepad offline, but it's not possible to review someone else's article unless I have a significant block of time all at once. Given this new requirement, I don't suppose I'll ever spend any more time reviewing unless I want to make a nomination. Nyttend (talk) 06:18, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Reading this discussion, especially the recent comments, and it sounds like two different groups made (IMO classic) good faith assumptions that ended up in the current situation: one side thought people keep up with talk pages for Projects and would have known about the discussion, the other group are people who, like me, consider DYK a distinction like GA or FA and not one where (other than instructions) they need to follow the discussion as closely as the topical wikiprojects. I am the latter, with a bias towards avoiding discussion pages unless there is a problem or a need for discussion or conflict resolution. As a result, one group as surprised by the sudden notice warning us about a new change. I wish there had been a notice like the ones at the top of commons for the current sexual content discussion --then I would've participated. These are just my observations. I assume good will and good faith :-) --166.205.11.15 (talk) 05:36, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

New rules

I am not clear whether the new rules apply only to self nominations or to all DYK credits. I am presently trying to cope for the third time with a self nomination after failing to apply the rules correctly on two previous occasions. Even now I see I have been in trouble by writing a hook that was too long (btw what is the maximum length and why not provide a box which limits the length automatically?). I probably have at least five DYKs (how can I tell how many?) but I simply don't think I have sufficient experience to review other people's nominations. At the very least, I would need to have a simple list of the criteria needing to be checked. Otherwise, as in the past, I will have to rely on others to submit any new articles they find interesting to DYK. Personally, I was hoping the procedure could be simplified but this seems to be making it even more difficult to apply. And I don't think I am alone in experiencing these problems. - Ipigott (talk) 08:39, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

The rules are at WP:DYK#DYK rules; the hook length rule is clearly written there. A list of things to check is available at Wikipedia:Did you know/Proofreading. All of these things are clearly linked from WP:DYK. Looking up the rules before nominating would save both you and reviewers a lot of trouble. rʨanaɢ (talk) 10:05, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
As for "why not provide a box that limits the length automatically", there are cases (albeit rare) where is appropriate or even necessary to exceed 200 characters; as you can see if you read the rules, the limit is flexible and not applied in a robot-like fashion. Not everything can be programmed and automated; some things are just up to humans to handle by themselves. rʨanaɢ (talk) 10:10, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
WP:DYKCHECK also helps with reviewing. Reviewing isn't that complicated to be honest and the rest of us will be happy to help if you have any problems when making a review. SmartSE (talk) 12:03, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you both for your speedy reactions. I would, however, disagree that the instructions are clear. First of all, I don't think the term "hook" is very meaningful for most users. Why not use something everyone can understand like the "DYK question" or "Question to introduce the article". Of course, the happy few who have been working with this for years get to know the jargon but to me it is not at all obvious. Second, you do not get to these explanations until you have read through about a dozen screenfuls of text. Why not have a section on essentials that anyone can understand? The definition of "hook" as "what you see, several times, in the Main Page's Did You Know section" is hardly a definition. (See Wikipedia:Did you know/Hook). As for WP:DYKCHECK, I am baffled by the instruction: "Using DYKcheck without installing it. With or without a username, you can use the DYKcheck tool without installing it; just put this "javascript:importScript('User:Shubinator/DYKcheck.js'); dykCheck()" into your URL and hit Enter when you're viewing a mainspace page." What is my URL and how do I go about this procedure. It certainly makes me even less confident about helping with nominations! - Ipigott (talk) 15:18, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

I felt the same about DYKcheck as Ipigott, and very reluctantly installed it just now, and it works! At least for new articles. I will have to understand the other features. But the explanation on how to use it without installation was not clear to me. - I would start the New rules on a voluntary basis, though. If it's mandatory, you (who?) have to deal with all those new reviewers (like me) and their mistakes from one day to the next. Also I feel that people, for whom English is a second language (like me), might be scared away from nominating by the enormous amount of required reading (rules and articles), which would lead to less cultural diversity on the Main page. - I was not too afraid, though, started reviewing and confess that it felt nice to approve a hook one day and see it on the Main page the next. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:45, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
To make a long story short, using DYKcheck without installing takes a bit of technical know-how. If you're unclear how to go about it, it's best to use the script by installing it. Shubinator (talk) 17:57, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
I did, s.a., smile, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:05, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
Ipigott, any other name for a "hook" is going to be just as unclear to someone. ("DYK question" sounds to me like something readers have to answer, which it's not.) If you took five minutes to read through the rules it would have been abundantly clear what a "hook" is. The reason there are so many rules and rule pages is because over the years people have complained about why their nomination was rejected or something like that, and to avoid going through the same arguments and polls over and over again DYK regulars have recorded those rules to make precedents; every rule exists for a reason. (You could say the same about the entire Wikipedia project, which also has a lot of policy and guideline pages.) So we could get rid of the complicated rules, have a very simple page, and deal with big arguments every day about things like how much an article was expanded or how long a hook is; or we could just ask people to spend 5-10 minutes reading the rules before they nominate (a fair price to ask, I think, in exchange for getting one's article on the main page and getting a bauble for it). The problem is everyone just wants things to happen and doesn't want to have to do any extra work for it.
That being said, if you want to try creating a simple checklist of rules, you are welcome to do it, and see if you can do better than what has been made before. For example, we already have User:Rjanag/Quick DYK, also clearly linked from T:TDYK, and while that guide doesn't explicitly list all the rules (e.g., it doesn't say "keep the hook under about 200 characters) it clearly links to the places that do. rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:28, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Next updates

I've scrambled the next update in Q2, but some hooks/articles might be not up to standards. In particular, please copyedit Sergei Olegovich Kuznetsov if you can. I will not be able to complete the set for the update after that. Please do. The situation with reviewing is not healthy right now - help is needed. Materialscientist (talk) 13:53, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

I've taken a stab at over a dozen nominations, approving a few, but the need for reviewers is quite acute. - Dravecky (talk) 08:41, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
It sure is. I thought I would do an update for a change - I really should just stick to reviews, because currently there are only six approved hooks and it's very hard to create decent updates with a pool as small as that. Gatoclass (talk) 12:17, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Composing is easy if reviews are well done. These days, many hooks were reviewed+promoted directly by the composer that increases the chances of missing an error, and misses the chance to improve the article/hook through communication with the author and other editors. Also, what often happens is that potential leads are sent to non-lead positions only because they are verified, and some marginal noms are promoted instead of requesting improvement. Unhealthy situation. Materialscientist (talk) 12:21, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Penlee lifeboat disaster (Dec 19)

Just a reminder that this hook has been approved and really should be appearing on DYK today. Mjroots (talk) 08:16, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

In prep3. Materialscientist (talk) 08:30, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
That's a UK story and it's in Queue 1, slated to go up at 00:00 UTC on December 20th. Any chance it could be swapped with one of the hooks in Queue 6 so it goes up on the 19th, UK time? Yngvadottir (talk) 16:16, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Crissal Thrasher

I expanded Crissal Thrasher and nominated it for DYK. It wasn't up to par because users said that it was too close to the sources. When I decided to edit again on here today, I was pleasantly surprised that three DYK helpers took it upon themselves to fix the article. Like always, all major DYK contributors do a great job. Joe Chill (talk) 20:11, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Please clarify rules

I have now run into this several times. The DYK rules say:

  • The hook should include a definite fact that must be mentioned in the article.

Does this mean that the exact word-for-word sentence must appear in the article or not? I thought that we would be allowed some leeway in summarizing or paraphrasing. For example, constrasting two things from the article to illustrate an odd juxaposition. So in the article it might be spread out over a couple sentences, similar to the rules of paraphrasing sources, for example. However, reviewers seem to think exact wording of the hook must appear in the article, even if it makes the article or hook read more awkwardly. The question is if the "definite fact" is the exact words in the hook? Was the rule meant to be ambiguous, or was it intended to be exact wording or paraphrase allowed? W Nowicki (talk) 21:38, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

No, there's no requirement that the hook appear word-for-word in the article (and I think this has come up at this page before, if anyone's up for searching the archives). If reviewers have been telling you that, they're incorrect, unless there's been a major change in consensus since the last time I reviewed. If you have a fact that's complicated to check since it's spread out across several parts of the article, do the reviewers a favor and leave a comment (|comment= in the {{NewDYKnom}} template) pointing out where the fact can be found in the article, what reference verifies it, etc. rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:26, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Prep 3

Somebody started prep 3 and I've completed it. As this was my first attempt at this, some old timer might want to cast an eye over my efforts. The image still needs protecting, I think. I wasn't sure what to do there. Schwede66 03:32, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. An unspoken rule is that if you don't see {{inuse}} tag, you can (perhaps should) complete an unfinished prep set. You are more than welcome to review the suitability of the image for main page, but only admins can protect them. Materialscientist (talk) 05:16, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Gaming problem in the DYK of civilian casualty ratio

As some of you may be aware from the ArbCom Enforcement discussion Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Jalapenos do exist, there was a serious gaming of the DYK process by user Jalapenos do exist in relation to the DYK of civilian casualty ratio. The short version is that the nomination was discussed over about 18 days at T:TDYK with Gatoclass making extensive improvements to the article following criticism of (particularly) the neutrality of the article at an AfD and in other places. I approved the nomination after these improvements, and within minutes of the article appearing on the main page, Jalapenos do exist made extensive reversions, restoring most of the controversial content relating to Israel. This section of the AE report contains a concise timeline of the events. My statement at AE outlines my concerns. I contacted Tznkai (who has been handling the AE case) here to ensure that my posting here was not treading on AE's jurisdiction.

My concerns are two-fold. First, I am more than a little angered by the way I feel manipulated about Jalapenos do exist's actions. I would never have approved the hook and article in the form that it was reverted to within minutes of its appearing on the main page. I also feel this sullied my reputation because I approved the article as main page ready and worthy, yet what the readers saw for most of the period on the main page was manifestly inadequate, biased, and unworthy of both the 'pedia and the DYK project. Second, I would like to make as certain as we can that such a series of events never occur again. Despite my anger and personal desire for Jalapenos do exist to be sanctioned, the most important issue facing us is to avoid any similar gaming in the future. The reputation of the DYK project and the integrity of main page content, I believe, demands that we act to prevent anyone from trying a similar stunt in the future.

One possible approach would be rule changes, along the following lines:

  1. The article creators, expanders and nominators (ie. everyone with a DYK credit) may not make any substantive edits to an article that has been approved and is in the DYK queue or on the main page without notification here
  2. That any such edits which do occur while the article is queued or on the main page may be reverted to the consensus / approved version if they are controversial
  3. That any DYK-credited editor who does substantially edit or revert an article post-approval while it is queued or on the main page may be banned from the DYK project by broad consensus at WT:DYK for gaming this rule

I recognise that issues of instruction / rule creep is a problem, and I am open to any and all other ideas / suggestions as to how to respond to this incident to prevent a repeat. I have notified Jalapenos do exist and Tznkai of this post. EdChem (talk) 11:42, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

There is unfortunately a serious problem with this discussion opening. It is implied as an established fact that Gatoclass's accusation of DYK system gaming is true. At the time of EdChem's statement, however, the accusation of system gaming was discussed by seven uninvolved administrators and not accepted or endorsed by any of them. I myself utterly reject the accusation and believe it to have been made with unclean hands, a belief has been supported to a degree by four other participants in the discussion. My detailed explanation of my position is here [1], and the more people who read it, the happier I would be. Jalapenos do exist (talk) 21:32, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
EdChem, I've read your comments here, on AE, and on Tznkai's talk page. From my point of view at least, the only thing that happened that relates to you was an innocent misunderstanding that you're blowing out of proportion. It would have been nice if you had tried to talk to me before opening this discussion - surely there's at least a possibility that I'm not as evil and manipulative as you've been led to believe - but better late than never. Can we talk on your talk page? Jalapenos do exist (talk) 21:49, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
Sorry for spontaneous reply (I should read something about the matter first, I know nothing of this case). Any DYK nom can be altered after promotion. DYK facts are often removed from the article by a vandal or an editor who suddenly felt like to update/revise the article (while on main page). Vandal fighters and article watchers do try not to let this happen, but it happens, and you should not blame yourself for this. In general, it is difficult to prevent (or quickly react to) what you've described, but the post-factum punishment (if any wrongdoing) should be a strong deterrent, IMO. Materialscientist (talk) 11:55, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
Although I think a discussion of this matter here is probably going to be necessary, I'm inclined to think this may be a tad premature. IMO, it would be better to wait until the AE case is closed before we continue this discussion. We don't know what solutions or sanctions AE may decide upon yet, I wouldn't like to pre-empt their findings and I think we should have a better idea of how to proceed once the AE case is concluded. Gatoclass (talk) 12:13, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
Materialscientist, to clarify: Jalapenos do exist was the editor who nom'd the article at DYK. He was aware of Gatoclass' edits, and indicated that the article was ready. 14 minutes after the article appeared on the main page, he began a series of reverts that restored essentially all of the contentious material objected to at the AfD and edited over the previous 10 or so days. I might be annoyed about vandalism but I think this was much worse, deliberate gaming and manipulation of DYK. Most of Gatoclass' work was removed in a mere 17 minutes of editing. I extended good faith in assessing the article, but AGF is not a suicide pact and I have yet to hear any vaguely plausible excuse for Jalapenos do exist's actions, and I will not be manipulated by him like this again. EdChem (talk) 12:22, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
I understood this part, and we had similar cases before, but I can only reiterate - it is not possible to stop a knowledgeable editor who wants to (temporarily) game the system, but it is possible to revert their changes and to make sure this does not happen from the same account. Materialscientist (talk) 12:33, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
I don't think this is a good idea. The purpose of DYK is to encourage editing; putting an editing freeze on articles for several days while they wait to go through the queues just to avoid sullying the main page is not in that spirit. (This is part of the reason that DYKs and TFAs don't get protected just because they're on the main page.) There are other ways to deal with the rare issue that you're describing above, such as pulling articles from the queues or the main page if a major content dispute arises after approval. rʨanaɢ (talk) 14:18, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
I would certainly support an additional rule in WP:DYKAR to the effect of "if serious content problems are found with a nominated article (e.g. NPOV, OR) and those issues are corrected in an effort to gain DYK approval, reverting the improvements or reintroducing the problematic material after the article has been approved is strongly discouraged and considered gaming the system." And whenever there are such improvement efforts, we can point the nominator to this rule as a reminder, so they can't plead ignorance when and if their actions wind up at ArbCom. 28bytes (talk) 21:28, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
There is no conflict with AE, and no reason to wait for us.--Tznkai (talk)

@Jalapenos do exist:

  1. If you want to have a conversation on my talk page, that's fine – but you should recognise that I have looked at what happened, not just taken Gatoclass' word.
  2. I take the responsibility involved in approving content for the main page very seriously. I would not have approved the version your reverts created, nor the one that was nominated. To get onto the main page, you needed an independent editor to approve a neutral and stable version, an editor whose word is accepted here at DYK as having properly checked the content. You used my reputation to get the article to the main page, then biased the content once it was there. You are welcome to try to explain how your actions are not manipulation and gaming, but I assure you I genuinely feel manipulated and am not happy about it.
  3. Take note of the comments of AGK and others at the AE discussion, you are lucky not to have been blocked for disruption.

@Everyone else, 28bytes' approach seems sensible to me. EdChem (talk) 12:25, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about this. For one thing, it's instruction creep. For another, this has been an isolated event - the only one of its kind I've experienced in three years of editing here - so it seems to me like overkill to add a new clause to cover something that may never even occur again. Also, it may not be altogether wise to do so per WP:BEANS.
We may need to tighten up our policies a little here and there, but there's no great hurry. Besides, to be perfectly frank, after several days of wikidrama at AE, I could use a break from discussions of this type. Gatoclass (talk) 17:20, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
The decision has been made on this: "User:Jalapenos do exist is placed under a new 1RR restriction on all I/P topics for three months with details as provided within." Good and appropriate, I reckon. I shall certainly keep an eye out for that username appearing on DYK again. Schwede66 05:34, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Queue 4 error

The first hook in Queue 4 is missing a leading "that". Thanks. —Bruce1eetalk 05:16, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Added. Thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 05:24, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

What is this doing on the main page with cleanup and advertisement templates on it? DYK is the best new work on Wikipedia; can we remove the article from the template? wackywace 19:55, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

No comment on the article itself but I will point out that the tags were added after it was posted on the main page and after DYK review. It wouldn't have passed DYK review if tags were there. I will also note that the user who plastered the tags on the article didn't bother to leave an explanation on the article's talk page about where exactly it needs clean up or sounds like an advert. AgneCheese/Wine 20:13, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
The whole damn thing reads like an advert. It shouldn't have gotten through in this state whether tagged or not. Honestly, in addition to checking how many characters and how many sources are used, it would be nice if reviewers actually read the article. Even worse would be if they did in fact read it but failed to recognize the blatantly promotional tone that mentions Mr. Spragg again and again and praises his invention rather than simply reporting on it. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:39, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
More general: I just started reviewing. I saw that one and didn't want to look closer, perhaps a mistake. The articles I reviewed I read. But I see a problem in making reviewing mandatory and getting reviewers who do it only because they have to, and may indeed not read. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:31, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
While the promotional tone could be improved, I don't think it's so problematic that it should have been rejected. To me, the biggest point is the question on the talk page (posted after DYK approval) asking how it relates to the Dracone Barge; possibly the articles should be merged. But I don't see how an editor unfamiliar with the subject would have even known about the Dracone Barge. The biggest problem that I would normally expect a reviewer to notice is that some of the sourcing is problematic (e.g., current citation #12 "Gulf oil spill: Should the U.S. Army Corps start dredging?" actually uses a comment posted on the LA Times article, apparently by Mr. Spragg; the article itself makes no mention of him or the invention), but again, it's not so bad that it must have been rejected. I guess I wouldn't argue with a reviewer asking for improvements, but I also don't see the approval of this article as an unmitigated disaster. cmadler (talk) 13:20, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for treating me like crap

I worked hard to fix an AfD noted problem at Wikipedia. I came here in hopes of a little recognition. Instead, I'm slammed with unwritten rules, my timing comments are ignored, and then the discussion is won by deleting the entire December 10th category,[2] leaving a gaping hole in the Older nominations listings so that it goes from December 8, December 9, December 11, December 12, December 13, etc. Great. Just great. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 13:43, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Aside from any timing issues relating to the nomination, the article is not new (it was created February 25, 2010), it is not a newly sourced BLP that's been expanded 2x, and it hasn't been expanded 5x, or anything close to that (it hasn't even been doubled since the beginning of December). Those are not unwritten rules, those are fundamental to DYK, and they appear in bold, as the second sentance of DYK Rules, as well as a number of other places. I'm sorry if you feel poorly treated, but the article was simply not eligible for DYK. cmadler (talk) 14:57, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
I also don't understand why you appear to take this personally. And when a nomination gets deleted following it having been declined, and it's the last nomination under a particular date, then that date gets deleted, too. Absolutely normal process - why should we have a heading if there isn't any content that goes with it? Schwede66 22:06, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Credit

Hi, could someone make sure that Strobilomyces gets an expansion credit for the article Collybia (currently on the FP). I had mentioned it in the DYK template, but I guess it got lost in the shuffle. Thanks. Sasata (talk) 06:34, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Issued. Materialscientist (talk) 06:36, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

When We Die As Martyrs currently in Queue 5

I suggested that we think carefully about this article before putting it on the main page when it was in the queue, and got some response. Nevertheless, it has made it to the queues, to appear on Christmas Eve (my time). For those who have not read the article, it is a song sung by a children's choir with a video showing Palestinian children being gunned down by Yamulke-wearing "Israeli" children, who they subsequently kill in return. The lyrics include "Children, we must keep our religious commandments. There is no god but Allah, and Allah loves shaheeds" (which means matyrs). Surely we can all agree that this is provocative content.

Looking at the article itself, I am concerned about:

  • It is unclear whether this song is typical of the group or not.
  • The lede talks of the success in educating children of the TV station that was founded by the man who founded the choir - how is this about the song? Certainly, this song has nothing to do with teaching multiplication tables, the example used in the quote.
    • This is about the song because this song is typical for the group.
  • The "Reception and analysis" section begins with a quote that has an end quotation mark, but no start; it is also not inline cite referenced
  • The quote is attributed (unwikilinked) to "Al-Jazirah" which presumably means Al-Jazeera Magazine
    • A Saudi news paper not a magazine
  • The TV station is described as pursuing "a policy of resisting Israeli occupation via producing innocent songs for children, and some of these songs which can be found on YouTube have been viewed by as many as four million people"... surely this song is not an innocent song for children, yet this incongruity goes unaddressed.
    • It is an opinion of Dr. Hamad Al-Majid who is a journalist and former member of the official Saudi National Organization for Human Rights. Al-Majid is a graduate of Imam Muhammad Bin Saud Islamic University in Riyadh and holds an M.A. from California and a Doctorate from the University of Hull in the United Kingdom expressed here Would you like me to write: No you are wrong, the song is not innocent? This is OR.
  • Where is the recption from Israel? from major human rights groups? the vast majority of moderates worldwide (Muslim countries included) to jihadist indoctrination of young children. Yes, there is criticism from a child psychologist quoted by the US Investigative Project on Terrorism organisation, but what about the reception in the local community?
    • What local community are you talking about? Local community for this group is Gaza and the resection was overwhelming. The kids live in Jordan. How Israel is connected to their "reception" ?
  • The "Gaza City concerts" section does not indicate whether this song was performed, or any songs like it - it is about the choir and it's founder, not this song. Further, putting a quote that a concert will "affirm to the entire world the right of the children of Palestine to live in freedom and dignity" in a song article without any indication whether the song was even performed strikes me as dangerous in a WP:SYNTH-sense, especially given the content of this song.
    • The song was performed in Gaza. Once again please refer to Qatar Tribune here. Even the name of the article "Children’s group to glorify ‘martyrdom’ in Gaza outdoor concert" is telling.


I guess what is bothering me is that the article feels unbalanced, given that the song's content is both controversial and reprehensible, and that putting it on the main page at Christmas is at best unwise. What do others think? EdChem (talk) 13:21, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I suggest you reading the sources before posting the points as you did above.--Mbz1 (talk) 16:13, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Quick responses to a couple of your points. In the "Reception and analysis" section, I have added the starting quotation mark, based on what I see in the source, and added an in-line citation directly after the quote (it was supported by the following citation, a sentance later). In the source (a Haaretz article) it says that "Journalist Fawzia Nasir al-Naeem wrote in the Saudi Arabian newspaper Al-Jazirah that..." so I don't think this is Al-Jazeera Magazine; I can't find a Wikipedia article for such a newspaper. cmadler (talk) 13:41, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Returned to T:TDYK - timing is indeed not ideal for this hook, let us work further on this nom. Thanks to EdChem for this note. Materialscientist (talk) 14:01, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
I am sorry, WP:NOTCENSORED. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 14:26, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Censored, censored (main page is). Children + We Die As Martyrs + Christmas is not the best combination. No rush. It can go a few days later if valid. Materialscientist (talk) 14:30, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Well, that ends my contributions to DYK then. Anyway, I think it would be great if people might think a bit more about what is actually going on in the world, where indeed, children kill other children because of religion.-- Kim van der Linde at venus 14:56, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Kim, firstly, of course the main page is in some ways censored, because the selections of main page content are made by people. Suppose an article like anal sex became an FA, do you seriously suggest there would be no controversy if we put it on the main page with a clear illustration? Secondly, I am not suggesting that the article never appear in DYK, it is a question of whether (a) this is appropriate timing, and (b) is the article in an acceptable state in a content / policy compliance sense. My suggestion is that (a) this timing is needlessly inflammatory and the nomination should be delayed and (b) that the article needs further attention and further work to be main page-worthy. I believe in WP:NOTCENSORED both as an ideal and a principle, but it does not demand that we put an arguely unworthy article on the main page, and it certainly does not require that we highlight children murdering each in other in the name of religion at Christmas. EdChem (talk) 15:15, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Well, I think if anal sex would come up for FA, it should be there. I think this was an excellent timing, because of christmas. Sorry, I did not know christians had special rights to have their sensitivities protected while they at the same time enscribe bible verses on telescopes so the user can better kill muslims. Oh wait, this is the US.wikipedia.org, not en.wikipedia.org. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 16:05, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
I really cannot believe it! Christmas is not a good time, then move it to other day, but not remove it altogether. I actually was going to write an article for Christmas using this source "Christianity's Modern-Day Martyrs: Victims of Radical Islam". I was goggling for Christian martyrs, and found that sing by an accident. The article has been never tagged by any problems,except user:EdChem running from board to a board with this and administrator did as he wanted them to do! BTW the article has been listed on Israel Palestine collaboration. Nobody complained about this.--Mbz1 (talk) 15:28, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Also user:EdChem this thread is not the right place to discuss the content of the article. A talk page of the article should be used for that purpose. Your conduct around this DYK is rather disgusting. --Mbz1 (talk) 15:42, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Mbz1, if you believe my posts / actions are worthy of reprimand or sanction, you are welcome to take me to somewhere like ANI. I will, of course, give due recognition to the views of independent and uninvolved editors. EdChem (talk) 15:49, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
I am not going to AN/I with this for now, but your conduct at this nomination as well as the one on AE concerning Jalapenos do exist makes you involved and partisan.--Mbz1 (talk) 15:56, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
If you think WP:INVOLVED applies to me then I suggest you read it more closely... it applies to taking administrative actions, and I have not taken any administrative actions. I know this because I am not an administrator and so am unable to take the administrative actions covered by WP:INVOLVED. As for partisan, I suggest that is more reflective of your biases than of my comments. EdChem (talk) 16:08, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I made changes to address Ed's points #1 (I added IPT's assessment that the song is typical of the group), #2 (I moved that paragraph out of the lead), and #6 (I added a summary of a response by a Saudi journalist, already in the article, to the lead). Points #5 and #7 are mistaken: the songs are both child-friendly and violence-encouraging (as stated by Al-Naeem), and it is the child-friendliness that Al-Majid presumably refers to with the descriptive "innocent" (though Al-Majid and Al-Naeem obviously have very different POVs, which is not an incongruity); the song was performed in Gaza, as per the Daily Star source, and this was already in the article. Points #3 and #4 are minor, and have been addressed by user:cmadler and by me. I wholeheartedly support user:KimvdLinde's skepticism regarding the idea that we should avoid any hook because of Christmas. Jalapenos do exist (talk) 15:17, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

  • I think that with the improvements are reorganization that's been done today, this article is DYK-ready. Certainly it could do with more detail in some regards, but I think it's reasonably balanced and neutrally written. While I don't see a great harm in holding it until after Christmas, I'm also not convinced there's a need for that; the lead hook in our next update, which will be on Christmas Eve for much of the world, states that the Blood Qur'an was written in over 20 liters of Saddam Hussein's blood, and I don't see this as any more objectionable than that. cmadler (talk) 16:27, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

"The Legend" in Queue 5

Could an admin change this hook to read: ... that after Rosa Ponselle created the role of Carmelita in Joseph Breil's "Lyric Tragedy in One Act" The Legend (libretto pictured) at the MET, she burned her copy of the score? This makes it much more interesting, and was just pointed out. Thanks, cmadler (talk) 13:29, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Changed. Materialscientist (talk) 13:39, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Xmas help?

Hi, I.m hoping to update the queue in the next few minutes. Is it possible that someone could look at my hook that has been languishing for ten days awaiting a review. Its meant to demo the work that wikisource have done for xmas. Cheers and Merry Christmas to Every One (ref Timy Tim in Christmas Carol) Victuallers (talk) 13:43, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Tried, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:51, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
I double-checked it and moved it to prep area 3, which should run on Christmas Day in Europe and the Americas. cmadler (talk) 16:24, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Credit questions

Some user creates a new article which clearly does not meet DYK in its state. Still within the 5-day window of creation:

  1. I come around and expand at least 5x and cleanup the article to where it meets DYK (and the hook is good). Would it be a "creation credit" for the creator and "nom credit" for me, or would I also get "5x expansion credit" along with credit for the nom? Moreover, I'm assuming such an expansion must result in at least 1500 characters readable prose to be eligible for DYK, right?
  2. I come around and expand the article to the required 1500 characters readable prose and cleanup, but not necessarily a 5x expansion. Would it be a "creation credit" for the creator and "nom credit" for me, or would I get credit for something else?

I'm assuming that the creator always gets credit for the creation as that is the right thing to do. –MuZemike 10:51, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

In short, your probably want co-author credit. In more depth: if you are the nominator, the gracious thing to do would be to make the nomination template something along the lines of {{subst:NewDYKnom|article=|hook=... that elephants like '''[[peanut]]s'''?|status=new|author=TheOtherGuy|author2=Me|image=|rollover=|alttext=|comment=Created by TheOtherGuy, expanded and nominated by Me.}} Of course, you have the option to take nominator credit instead, by putting |nominator=Me, but that's rarely done. If you're TheOtherGuy and weren't listed in the nomination, you can always add yourself as a co-author with a comment or (a little less likely to be overlooked) look for the DYKmake template and add one of your own like {{DYKmake|Peanuts|me}}. If the article history bears out your claim of co-authorship, it is unlikely to cause a problem. Cheers. HausTalk 11:52, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
I've encountered that situation myself a lot and I look on it as being a collaboration. Like you said, as long as it's within the 5 days from creation time limit. I've always done a coauthorship credit except if their work is real shoddy (I turned vandalism into DYK at least once and didn't give them credit). It's a positive reward especially to new person. Royalbroil 16:28, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Queue 6 - A Christmas Record

Someone has added "in 1981" to the hook - that is the correct date for the original album release, but not for the version (in 1982) which contained the track from which the "skronk" part of the hook derives. That's why I didn't include a date in the original hook, and it would be better (not technically incorrect) if the date was not included in the hook. (Maybe a minor point? - worse have got through before, I know.) Ghmyrtle (talk) 16:46, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Review requirement

In the yellow box on the suggestions page, it says "if you have more than 5 DYK credits". Does this mean 5 creation/expansion credits? Nomination credits for articles by others aren't counted, are they? And are all creation/expansion credits counted, or only self-nominations? My understanding is that it's only self-nominations of created/expanded articles. Agolib 00:42, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

  • I don't recall that issue ever being discussed. I'd suggest that the "5 DYK credits" statement should generally apply to nominations (but not necessarily just self-nominations), since this is intended to gauge participation in and familiarity with DYK; I'd suggest that an editor with DYK credits who has not nominated an article or participated in the DYK review should not be required to pair a self-nomination with a review. That is my interpretation of this rule based on common sense. I do think it's unlikely (though I may be wrong) that many editors will get to 5 DYK credits without ever doing a self-nom; if you do fall into that category and don't feel comfortable doing a review, you should indicate that at the time of your nomination, even if there's no consensus, it could be passed under WP:IAR. cmadler (talk) 13:07, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Well put, Cmadler, it shouldn't be forced on someone who isn't familiar with the system because that would be a step in the wrong direction. Royalbroil 13:19, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Question Was the requirement of putting in your nomination which nom you reviewed also discussed? That seems extra burdensome of a requirement and can be a further hindrance to new editors wishing to participate in DYK. AgneCheese/Wine 20:09, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Yes, that was definitely discussed. A spot will be added to the nomination template to indicate this. I believe the template changes have already been made and tested in a sandbox, and are ready to be added on 1/1/11. cmadler (talk) 13:17, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
So is the encouragement now to review before you nominate so that the template parameters work? Some of these templates are not very forgiving for going back and adding new information after you initially completed the nomination. AgneCheese/Wine 21:29, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I had an issue here, which it seems only fair to bring to people's notice: diff. Happy Holidays everyone! Johnbod (talk) 13:01, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

goof.

What happens when you just realize a goof on your hook that was already on the Main page and is in the stats. Is there any thing that can be done about that? − Jhenderson 777 15:12, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

You mean, like, go back in time? Sasata (talk) 15:38, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Sorry I wasn't that specific. Maybe I will explain what happened. I created a hook of the Untitled Spider-Man reboot but I noticed now that I just goofed when it said that it should be released in 2011 when it should have said the release date was 2012.(And I did know that, I don't know how I got it wrong) I have mainly the wrong date on it and I am wondering what we can do about it. Can we maybe start the hook over correctly on the main page and if not maybe can it be changed the right way on the stats or on the article. Because it's kind of bugging me now that I notice it. :} − Jhenderson 777 20:06, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
No, articles cannot be featured on DYK more than once. I guess we'll just have to live with it. - PM800 (talk) 20:09, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
I figured as much. Thank you anyways. − Jhenderson 777 21:38, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Forgot page from earlier

I had earlier forgotten to nominate something here as i tried at ITN, but the page Lebanon – Iran relations is certainly ready for posting should it qualify at this stage, particularly with a hook on the current (2 months old only) event.(Lihaas (talk) 21:08, 27 December 2010 (UTC)).

Sorry, but that article was created way back on October 13, 2010, and has not been expanded 5x since then. Indeed, the last edit of any sort was on November 22, 2010. Articles must be nominated within 5 days of their creation or expansion to be eligible for DYK. - Dravecky (talk) 22:13, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Lead hook in Queue 6

The picture in Queue 6 lacks both rollover and alt text - suggest 'Northern Schneeferner' for the rollover and 'mountainous scene partly covered in cloud, looking along a ridge of grey rock with a small glacier, other mountains in the background' for the alt. Mikenorton (talk) 18:35, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

How about mentioning "glacier" instead of "snow patches"? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:18, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Embarrassingly I hadn't realised that not only was I looking at the glacier, but that I was describing the wrong picture - I've updated my suggested alt. Mikenorton (talk) 19:35, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Update size

Owing to a shortage of both nominations and reviewed nominations, both likely due to the holidays, I've put together several 6-hook updates rather than the 7-hook updates we've been doing. Based on past discussions, I recall that the Main Page may have spacing problems if we go any shorter than that, so an admin may want to stand ready to drop the update frequency from 6 to 8 hours. Reviewers may want to keep in mind rule D9 and consider nominations that might otherwise be a little "late". I suspect that nominations will pick up within a week or two. cmadler (talk) 19:13, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Another way to have the DYK section longer is permitting fewer, but a little longer hooks. I remember a limit of 200 chars but don't find the rule (any more?), also see many suggested hooks which are much longer. Should / might rewievers let them pass (for a while)? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:42, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
The character limit rule is at WP:Did you know#The hook. Also see Wikipedia:Did you know/Additional rules#J8, which generally addresses your suggestion. MANdARAX  XAЯAbИAM 20:06, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, you can always ignore all rules if needed, but in most cases, a 200+ character hook is improved by shortening it. At the very least, I'd look for a second opinion before approving a really long hook. cmadler (talk) 20:12, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Thank you, both. So far I simply avoided reviewing extra long hooks (such as Steigerwald Nature Park, now in prep1), or suggested to shorten them, successfully so (s. The Merry Zingara, in the q). I just wanted to know if that may not be wanted at the moment, owing to the shortage. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:26, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Anon promotion to preps

I have reverted promotion of a hook to prep and hope others will understand why - correct me if you disagree, but I believe we must be able to see who has promoted a nom to preps, to avoid self promotion. (in this case, the article also had bare url refs) Materialscientist (talk) 23:54, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I think that is fair. I have no problem extending good faith to anon doing reviews (after all, you can still clearly see who did a review and double check yourself if you wish) but promotions need much more transparency than an edit on the history page. AgneCheese/Wine 23:59, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

It wasn't a self-promotion. I just grabbed the first ticked nom without a picture. Anyways, please add at least one more hook to Prep 2. Otherwise, it will make the left side of the main page too short. Thanks. --64.231.53.117 (talk) 03:00, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

An Objection

I strongly object to the new rule requiring DYK to review other proposals. I will only review articles for which I have some knowledge of the topic. The effect of this rule is that I will not submit any more articles for DYK. Petergans (talk) 09:01, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

We are getting more and more chemistry related nominations where your expertise is very welcome. Materialscientist (talk) 09:20, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
First I thought the same way as Petergans. Then I tried reviewing and recommend to do the same. It is fun to read articles on various topics! Even without expertise in a certain subject, you can always do as much as find out that an article doesn't meet formal requirements. If in doubt, you can ask a second opinion. I made my mistakes and have learned, please do the same and keep contributing, it's good for the project, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:59, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Just a quickie on Queue 4 for an admin to tweak ... the parameter right needs to be removed from the Countess of Warwick's pic to make it align correctly with the text. Cheers, Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 16:00, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Done. --Allen3 talk 17:28, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Inclusion of free data sources

There are currently a lot of hooks for articles which are copies of public domain materials, for example Template talk:Did you know#Horace M. Wade. The "DYK Rules" page says: "Try to pick articles that are original to Wikipedia (not inclusions of free data sources)". That's a pretty wishy-washy "rule". Should such hooks be rejected, and should the "rule" be firmed up, getting rid of the "Try to"? I would say "yes" to both. MANdARAX  XAЯAbИAM 20:24, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

  • Well, I will start this discussion by pointing out what appear to me to be clear facts. In this particular case, the source does appear to be PD, so copyright is not an issue. It is appropriately attributed also, so plagiarism is not an issue (this is where such cases usually seem to run into trouble). DYK does accept articles that are imported (translated) from other Wikipedias, including Simple English Wikipedia (though I think usually the flow goes the other way). Although I've argued against this in the past, the more I think about it, the more I think we should accept such submissions, provided, of course, that the are actually PD, they are appropriately attributed, they are wikified and reworded as needed (e.g., I've changed references to "Horace" and to "General Wade" to "Wade", per the MOS), and they meet all other requirements. In this particular case, even though we know that the entire thing is cited to the official biography, in-line citations are needed. In this case, we also have an added concern, that his official military biography is a primary source, and one that is not really independant. If in-line citations can be added, as well as (an) additional source(s), then I think this would be OK. cmadler (talk) 12:53, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
I just finished citing all the articles over the past day or so so there shouldn't be an issue with inline citations at the moment. Thanks Cmadler for working on the articles. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 22:55, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Related discussion: Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_57#Tarebia_granifera and [3]. There are numerous reviewers (for example another actual example [4]) who thinks, that inclusion of any free text is bad for a DYK hook article. How many amount of free text is bad then? 10%, 50%, 75% or 100%? Inclusion of free text can not be used as the only reason for refuse of the DYK hook. It only means, that other DYK hook have precedence over less original articles. Consider that DYK hooks should contain well balanced informations from all human knowledge. This rule 1 means that try to pick more original article about military over less original article about military. Try to pick more original article about biology over less original article about biology. And so on. - Inclusions of DYK hooks will always be subjective and the main criterion for DYK hook remains to be INTERESTING, but for some reviewers there would be useful some little rewording and clarifying of the DYK rule. --Snek01 (talk) 22:12, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

That's a very good point, particularly the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_57#Tarebia_granifera where Nomader and Gatoclass agreed that articles incoporating PD material from elsewhere should be passed over when we have a large backlog, but be accepted when (as now) there is little or no backlog. Based on that, I'd be inclined to accept them. cmadler (talk) 18:00, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
The mass of USAF biographies in question are largely or entirely dependent on a single primary source, one which is not independent of the subject. Without multiple references from reliable third-party sources, they can't cross the verifiability or notability thresholds required for a biography. That much of the text of these is a close paraphrase or direct copy of public domain text is problematic but secondary to that the fact that they're not sufficiently sourced. - Dravecky (talk) 07:21, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
It's damn near impossible to find other sites that aren't mirror sites (although I find them everytime I create a new article and one of the bots jumps on a site that I didn't no existed). I'm trying to get information but unless I write to the Air Force Historical Agency, it's going to be a royal pain to find stuff. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 03:28, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
The difficulty of obtaining third-party references from reliable sources is a problem, not a free pass. - Dravecky (talk) 10:00, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
I agree that that may be a problem, but I'd argue that, if it is done and the article otherwise meets DYK requirements, it shouldn't be rejected purely on the basis of being an incorporation of PD material. cmadler (talk) 12:20, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
My concern isn't the simple incorporation of public domain sources but the wholesale copying or close paraphrasing of these sources and then expecting credit for creating the article. This sort of thing might (might!) be barely acceptable for inclusion in Wikipedia but there's no reason we have to feature these copies on the main page and hand out trophies for the 'effort'. - Dravecky (talk) 05:47, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
Strong vote for allowing PD sources. Otherwise we could prevent some vsubjects being covered just because there is so much good quality material available. We do not allow "copy and pasting" ... maybe we should say that if you are using pD sources then you should be especially careful to avoid paraphrasing and you need to recreate the meaning from (ideally) more then one source. Victuallers (talk) 11:48, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
The question isn't one of whether it's ok to use PD resources as sources like we use other sources (which is what you're trying to say), it's of whether it's ok to copy text word-for-word from PD resources. Obviously it's ok to use PD sources as references.
I've voiced my opinion on this matter here and at WP:FAR enough that everyone will get bored if I go into it at length again. I'll just say here that I think copy-pasting from PD sources is not illegal but is lazy writing and there's no reason to reward it. rʨanaɢ (talk) 12:33, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Xmas as excuse?

I know it's Xmas but it's troubling that the following is included in the text from the lead hook on 28 Dec (here is the article pre correction). "The trek or the mountain climb starting from Arinsal, which is considered an easy route, from the picnic area at the base of the Ribal Warefall at 1,580 metres (5,180 ft), takes about 4.3 hours to reach the peak point of Ic De Coma Pedrosa. The first approximately 24 minutes of the climb is along a wide, 800 metres (2,600 ft) long foot track through a sign post to Aigues Juntes, which is the confluence of the Coma Pedrosa River and Pla de l'Estany River rising from the mountains and arriving at Grau. Further climb, for about 1.8 hours, is along a steep hill slope of the picturesque Coma Pedrosa River valley to arrive at the Coma Pedrosa refuge or camping site at an elevation 2,272 metres (7,454 ft), which is located near the l'Estany de les Truites (Trout Lake). A further trek of 1.1 hours leads to the Estany Negre (Black Lake) so named due its colour and the chilled water condition". The peak is wrongly named, the times given are ridiculous, the English is shocking. How does this type of thing get passed, let alone become the lead hook? Ericoides (talk) 10:15, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

What can I say. Nothing is perfect, and I saw much worse. There are times when good leads are lacking, time is short, and the first available is grabbed for the queues. Thank you for brushing it up. There is no secret that Nvvchar's article always need some copyediting, but I guess this is inevitable at his fast pace. Materialscientist (talk) 10:27, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, shouldn't've complained. Seemed unusually rough to me, that's all. Most DYK lead articles are much more polished. Ericoides (talk) 16:36, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
As far as I know, articles are not approved or disapproved with knowledge that they'll be the lead article; that's not known at the time, they're just approved or disapproved in general. When an editor puts together the queue, he/she often (as far as I know) grabs hooks from T:TDYK without looking at the articles attached, just making sure they have been verified, and chooses a lead one based on which is interesting and has a picture. So, under current practice at least, it's not feasible to set up a distinction in "polished-ness" standards for lead articles and other articles. rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:38, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Please check Prep1

Hi, I tried my luck at Template:Did_you_know/Preparation_area_1 for the first time and would be grateful if someone could check. Also, the preview would actually look better with one hook less—can the preparer change the amount of hooks unilaterally, or does this require discussion? --Pgallert (talk) 14:55, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Removed one hook, the standard size currently seems to be 7, anyway. But the question remains, if a set is too short or too long, do you adapt the hook choice (take longer or shorter hooks), or do you decide yourself to take one more or one less? --Pgallert (talk) 15:21, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes. :-) In the case of P1, since it's due to go up tomorrow, it could probably go shorter still; On This Day for tomorrow looks pretty short. cmadler (talk) 16:16, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
Aha :) How do I know what will be in the news tomorrow? If an additional entry occurs there, all preps/queues have to be changed again?! --Pgallert (talk) 18:12, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Question

Are DYK suggestions reviewed by administrators or just regular editors (like the GA process)? Cheers! -- Lord Roem (talk) 09:22, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Administrators are also editors who submit and review DYK nominations :-) Administrative privileges are required only for certain operations related to promotion to the main page, and I believe most reviews are done by non-admins. Materialscientist (talk) 09:34, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
Alright, thanks for the quick reply! Lord Roem (talk) 09:37, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Did you know#How a DYK suggestion makes its way to the Main Page. rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:03, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

False bio

I came across the 3rd of March edition of Signpost 2010 and i was wondering what the Fake BLP it was referring to and what the results were? Simply south (talk) and their tree 12:09, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

1 January

The first hook timed for 1 January went to prep and - if I read the table right - will be up in Europe in the early morning hours, in the Americas it will not even be 1 January. Who will see it then, and when? I suggest, for that day especially, but also in general, that the Special occasion hooks get a slot in the middle of the day when it is that day for most of the world. (Yes, I said this before.) Happy new year! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:02, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

As soon as I wrote this, the second hook for the day went into the same slot. Not only is this very early, they also have a similar topic, the cantata being written for the Feast of the Circumcision and Naming of Jesus. I would put the two in two different preps, and both later. (Yes, I wrote the second, and think the picture would translate the German title nicely, smile.) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:14, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
One of the three wishes fulfilled, thank you, happy new year with the pic of BWV 190, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:13, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Today

Qpq heading on the suggestions page, "Beginning today, if you have more than 5 DYK credits, you will be required" - you are required, or not yet? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:56, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Should be "are required". Fixed now. 28bytes (talk) 15:20, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Heading level in TOC

Would it be possible to adjust the heading level of Template talk:Did you know to actually show the nominations, not just the dates? It would make it so much easier to get an overview of what there is on the page and to find the way back to a previously noted nomination. I realize that this may look a bit clunky, but it could be a show/hide kind of thing. --Hegvald (talk) 21:21, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

As far as I know there is currently no way to selectively hide individual sections of the TOC. Also having a big TOC might increase page load times (don't know if this is true) and make it a pain to scroll down to nominations if you open the page directly. All this for a problem that is easy to solve: you can use "Find" in your browser (Control + F on most browsers, I think) to find any nomination. rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:54, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
Yes, remove "{{TOClimit|limit=4}}". If you try it though, the TOC will take up a huge portion of the page and is just plain clunky. I don't think people would like having such a massive TOC though so I wouldn't recommend doing so. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 00:06, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Kevin: Yes, that makes the whole TOC appear, but it doesn't allow you to show and hide the individual nominations while preserving the list of dates, which is what I presume the OP was asking for. rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:18, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
I'd suggest transcluding the page with a custom TOC setting, like this: User:28bytes/DYKTOC. That way you can set the TOC level to whatever you want without impacting other users, who may prefer the more abridged TOC. 28bytes (talk) 00:08, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Actually, that might be a handy thing to have in TT space, so I made a copy here: Template talk:Did you know/Full TOC. If anyone thinks that's an inappropriate place to put it, feel free to move or delete it. 28bytes (talk) 00:16, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, that solves the issue. I've made a copy in my own user space. --Hegvald (talk) 05:22, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Ktr101

First and foremost, please don't take it as any sign of displeasure - my heart fills with joy when I see a new well written/expanded article :-). But. We might have logistical problems with the sheer number of nominations by Kevin Rutherford (Ktr101). This thread is related to "Inclusion of free data sources" above, as they are mostly "PD-based" articles, but I think it deserves to be separated. Please comment. Materialscientist (talk) 01:20, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

I understand why you think this should have a separate thread but perhaps there is a stronger correlation with the thread above. Creating copy and paste en masse PD articles obviously gives one user an opportunity to create more articles and DYK noms in a short period of time than editors who are writing or expanding articles "from scratch". If we're going to be very liberal about allowing PD sourced articles then this is a potential consequence that DYK will have to deal with or adapt. To some extent, you have to wonder how different this is from bot-created articles? AgneCheese/Wine 02:36, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
These articles all show the signs of the haste with which they were assembled, too. I've corrected many improper links, broken templates, obvious typos, and other errors in the process of reviewing these articles. The sheer volume that can be created by cutting and pasting instead of writing is simply another heavy black mark against allowing these to pass to the main page via DYK. - Dravecky (talk) 05:42, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
First of all, I would love to be alerted when anyone starts a thread about me, even if it is good thing so that I can defend my actions. Dravecky, the idea actually was to go back and fix things after I had created them, as I always do since it gives me time to think about ways to improve them (with over twenty five articles it's a bit more challenging, but it still works but I do this to all my new articles that aren't permastubs). Sorry for any trouble it might have caused and I thank you for saving my butt there, metaphorically of course. I could have written a lot of the articles from scratch, either from writing from the source or just copying and incorporating key aspects (basically the last three BLPs I made since there was no prose). The thing that I have noticed over time is that it is not only easier to copy and paste (no excuse though), but when you are summarizing a career to to the fullest extent and are basically working with one source, it is better for the reader to gain a concept of the entire story and not just a snippet of their career at different points because it gives the impression that there are holes in the article. One thing that I hate about writing about people is how easily parts of their life that are quite imporant can be glossed over. We have lazy readers and lazy editors at this project, but if you can overcome the latter to appease the former, you have done your job. In response to the massive credit that I may or may not get from this, I really could care less. Sure it would be nice to get many DYKS, but they are just a number that one can say they have. I created these articles since they were all red links on a list of four star generals in the Air Force. The DYK aspect was just a byproduct of this and a chance to showcase their storied career. I don't really see DYK as a process where you can showcase your work but as a place where you can bring attention to articles that people should read. Besides, I didn't really start making DYKs until a tad over a year ago. If I had started when I began here, there would be a lot of articles that I would have added. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 08:42, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
I appreciate that. If you'd care to withdraw the nominations for these articles, it would help clean up the nominations page with a minimum of drama. - Dravecky (talk) 05:07, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
It appears as though someone is doing that already. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 17:56, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

I've created a template, {{DYKrule}}, to ease linking to all our many rules. See the template page for documentation. Ucucha 13:18, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

DYK clock

Shubinator increased it on purpose to gradually sync DYK update with UTC 0:00, which is good for several reasons. (we've got a 2hr delay during these holidays because of empty queues). Materialscientist (talk) 06:02, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Minuscules

Now in prep 4, I read about three "Minuscules". I know by now that those are Biblical manuscripts in this context, but will the potential reader of the Main page? I also question the capitalisation in the middle of a sentence, I saw "minuscule" in a hook before. My suggestion: minuscules, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:10, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

I've linked minuscules as suggested. —Bruce1eetalk 08:18, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Alt text in the current Queues

For the lead hook in Queue 1, the rollover and alt text are switched. In Queue 5 the alt text is not descriptive and in Queue 6 alt text is missing completely. Perhaps it needs to be made clearer to both nominators and reviewers that a descriptive alt text should be included for all images. Mikenorton (talk) 11:28, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Quickfixed. Materialscientist (talk) 11:44, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Jameela Jamil

I've placed Jameela Jamil in prep 2. It was one of the many articles pulled from the Main Page at the end of October (see here). The nominator has since improved the article to address the concerns, so I'm giving it another chance. Shubinator (talk) 22:00, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

What does "review" actually mean now?

OK, we are now required to review a nomination in order to submit one. What does this mean?

Does it mean adding an OK tick mark? Or does it mean reading and giving (hopefully constructive) criticism, whether that leads to the nomination being ultimately promoted or not?

The first is clearly the path of least resistance. Read something, possibly something where you can't even read the sources but have to "AGF" them because they are in a language you don't understand, check the size and OK the article. Once it has been OK'd, chances are nobody else will look at it and there will be no need for following up on issues. But this is clearly a recipe for sloppy reviewing, just to get "review credits" to use for one's own nominations.

And what about several people reviewing the same article? Will every reviewer get "credit" for this, or just the first one? If somebody else has already reviewed an article, AGFing sources in a language I can understand, should I bother actually checking the sources and OK it a second time? Will both reviews count, just the first or just the second, the one that actually checked the sources. (In my view, both reviews should count, as each reviewer may have something to contribute.) --Hegvald (talk) 10:00, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

"Review" means the latter: "reading and giving (hopefully constructive) criticism, whether that leads to the nomination being ultimately promoted or not." If you find a hook that looks interesting and discover it's not eligible for any reason (e.g. length, date, previous DYK appearance), then saying so and declining the hook counts as a review. Others may disagree, but IMO any substantial contribution to the review process — such as reading the non-English sources and confirming they support the referenced facts — would count as a "review" for our purposes. In the case of nominations that have fixable problems (e.g. sourcing, copyediting), we'd like the reviewer to "stick with" the nomination so that if the nominator fix the issues brought up, the nomination can be reassessed and approved if appropriate (or additional issues brought up if there are any). Hope this helps. 28bytes (talk) 17:19, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
I agree that a review is the latter, rather than just adding a tick (obviously!). If you don't understand a language, you should try google translating it as this generally allows the gist of the source to be extracted. Personally I don't think we need to make too big a deal of whether something counts as a review or not; since people like me are reviewing hooks without adding new ones, there is a potential that at some point there will not be any articles for nominators to review. We should remember that the reason this change was suggested was to improve the quality of reviews, so that reviewers can pay more attention to closeparaphrasing/poor sourcing issues than previously. SmartSE (talk) 18:07, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
I suggest to place a link to this clarifying discussion right to the the word "review" in the New Rules, as well as to mention the starting date 1 January there, s. below. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:54, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
Cmadler had started a nifty reviewing tips guide in his userspace that I was hoping to link to once it was complete and moved... Some version of this discussion could probably be polished up and copied to that document. Cmadler, are you still interested in working on that doc? 28bytes (talk) 19:50, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
I'll see what I can do about finishing that up; others are welcome to help (currently at User:Cmadler/sandbox/DYKreviewguide). Gatoclass had something different in mind and was going to try to put something together also, and I don't know where that stands. cmadler (talk) 17:53, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

so others don't have to look like dipsticks, too...

I was unaware of the new reviewing requirement until I added a nomination today. As there is no date included in the template that informed me of its implementation, I assumed that it had been in place for at least several days. This led me to stupidly mention on a 30 December nomination I reviewed that the nominator had not yet fulfilled the reviewing requirements. I only found out I was wrong to have said this when SmartSE mentioned it off hand in a message on my talk page. I briefly checked recent and archived discussion and other places and still found no mention of the new rule's official launch date. Could those who were involved in making the new rule please consider adding a date somewhere, especially to the template, so us irregulars know when to expect nominators to comply? Has it not been done yet due to some objection? Thanks, :) Maedin\talk 00:37, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Was this an unreasonable request or something? Or just terminally boring? Maedin\talk 11:35, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Which template did you want the date added to? 28bytes (talk) 16:45, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
This will become irrelevant very soon. Now that January 1, 2011, is in the past, the requirement applies to all new nominations. --Orlady (talk) 16:49, 4 January 2011 (UTC) Regardless, I restored information about the date of the change to the template at the top of the suggestions page. --Orlady (talk) 16:57, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
That's perfect, thank you very much. There are still lots of nominations from before 1 January, so this helps those who wouldn't otherwise know when the rule came into effect. Maedin\talk 17:20, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Rules of thumb

The typical problem with any rule of thumb in Wikipedia advice is that inexperienced people interpret it as a hard-and-fast rule. The expansion to D2 from May 2010 ("A rule of thumb is one inline citation per paragraph, excluding the intro, plot summaries, and paragraphs which summarize other cited content") seems to be encountering that problem. Would anyone object to slightly changing the phrasing to say One recommended rule of thumb rather than A rule of thumb (which seems to make some people think it is the only possible standard)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:03, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

In general I'd prefer tightening our sourcing/referencing requirements rather than loosening them. I assume this was prompted by the Hydroxide nomination? That article does have far fewer inline citations than I'm accustomed to seeing in nominations, especially for a scientific article. By way of contrast, look at ascaridole, which I just moved to prep. I didn't see any contentious uncited statements in Hydroxide, but the trend on both DYK and the project as a whole has been towards more inline citations, and I'd be reluctant to buck that trend without a good reason. Materialscientist, what are your thoughts? 28bytes (talk) 21:08, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
I abhor the "bean counting" mentality that the 1 cite per paragraph "rule of thumb" has encouraged. It is far more important to look at what is referenced and what isn't then in counting off that each paragraph has a little blue bracket number somewhere. That said, in the case of Hydroxide, I think there is valid enough objections that things being brushed aside as "common knowledge", do indeed, need some citation for our global readership which includes a fair number of non-scientists and folks who didn't take college-level chemistry. But, to add one more caveat, I do think it is important for DYK to feature important, core-level articles like Hydroxide, and the 5x expansion on such a key article is fantastic. I would hope that editors more familiar with the subject can help get this article up to standards. It's not often that DYK has the chance to feature a core-level article and it would be shame if this doesn't eventually go through. AgneCheese/Wine 21:29, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
I'm also not a fan of just ticking off "1 cite per paragraph", but in my mind that's exactly why this is (and should continue to be) a rule of thumb, and not a hard and fast rule. That said, in this particular case, as a non-scientist, there seem to be a lot of uncited statements that are not at all obvious. Skipping over some of the chemistry details, the "Applications" section, for example, could probably benefit from some additional citations. cmadler (talk) 21:38, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
Hydroxide is only the latest example, and IMO not a big deal (I'd have added more citations—probably using some chemistry textbook aimed at teenagers). I'd be happy to see more inline citations in that article.
The mindless nature of 'one in every paragraph' irritates me. I agree with Agne: what is cited matters much more than how much is cited.
I am a little concerned about DYK requiring substantially more than our core policies do. In fact, 'one per paragraph' is more inline citations than GA requires (see this on GA). While I don't think DYK wants to turn into 'mini-GA', we might do better to identify types of statements that should have inline citations, rather than presenting the ratio of citations to paragraphs as the (only) standard. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:02, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Well, I take your point (and Agne27's) and I certainly agree with you that mindless nitpicking is a bad thing. In cases where you think a reviewer is doing that (FWIW, I don't think that's the case with the Hydroxide article), I think the best thing is to come to this page and request some third parties to take a look at the nomination. If the reviewer is being unreasonable, then others more familiar with the process can help straighten out the problem. I don't see it as a systemic problem at this point, though. 28bytes (talk) 18:52, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Query re rules change notice

I understood that the rules change applied to self-nominations, but the notice reads that the change in rules applies if you nominate another editors article you still have to review an article. Is this the case, or should "nominate" be altered to read "self-nominate"? Mjroots (talk) 08:35, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure this was discussed before, but I can't remember the outcome and it isn't easy to find stuff in the archives. Can anyone remember? SmartSE (talk) 11:16, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Yes, the new rule only applies to self-nominations. I'll update the notice text. 28bytes (talk) 16:43, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Hatnotes in hooks

I seem to remember reading somewhere before about a rule regarding the use of hatnotes in hooks, but now I can't find anything in either the rules or additional rules about them. This has come up whilst working on this nomination at the moment and so I was wondering whether anyone has any idea about where I might have read this or if I'm mistaken and I never did read it, whether we should think about a making rule? Personally, if a hatnote can be used to make a hook more "hooky" and interesting, then I think they should be used, but maybe other people think differently. SmartSE (talk) 11:30, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Are you sure you mean a hatnote, as opposed to piping the article title? Ucucha 11:41, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
If you're referring to piping an article title (which I assume is what you're referring to), there's no rule against that and people do it all the time. rʨanaɢ (talk) 13:02, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, the rule on piping is B3. cmadler (talk) 13:10, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
The only time it would be a problem is if the piping is misleading. (And even that is sometimes allowed, on April Fool's Day :P ) rʨanaɢ (talk) 13:16, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Ah, yes that would explain why I couldn't find it, confusing my pipes with hats. Thanks SmartSE (talk) 16:48, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

For those of you who are nominating articles and needing to point out which article you reviewed, rather than liking to the article itself, why not just link to the T:TDYK section, which is what is more relevant anyway (for reviewers wanting to verify that you reviewed something). The template {{T:TDYK|some article name}} was made for precisely this sort of thing.

Notices like the following create links that are not super-helpful to reviewers:

:*Reviewed: Joseph Tabarlet
I have reviewed the article Oeneis nevadensis submitted for 29th December.

On the other hand, notices with direct links are just as easy to make and are more useful (hover over the links to see where they point):

:*Reviewed: Joseph Tabarlet
I have reviewed the article Oeneis nevadensis submitted for 29th December.

Of course, this template won't work if the article is no longer on the page (e.g., if it has already been promoted or rejected). But it's still better than a link to the article itself. rʨanaɢ (talk) 13:09, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

The best thing is almost certainly a link to a diff. cmadler (talk) 13:13, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, agree, that's what I've done in mine, but I haven't come across anyone other noms that have done so (not saying they haven't, just that I haven't seen them). But linking to the diff is a good idea too. I don't follow DYK closely so not sure how this rule came into being, but the implementation has been pretty messy. Where to link, the format of the statement, the 'penalty' for not reviewing, etc, should have been thought out and formalised before it was implemented. At the moment it's all all over the place. --jjron (talk) 15:31, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
I edited the template to ask for a link to the diff for the review. That's the most straightforward way to provide the documentation. --Orlady (talk) 16:56, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Well, there's no "penalty" for not reviewing, any more than there's a penalty for nominating an article with no sources: it just doesn't get approved until/unless the nomination requirements are met. 28bytes (talk) 16:59, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict)A diff would certainly be best, a T:TDYK link doesn't help tremendously as the link could go dead before the article that the reviewer nominated is reviewed or moved to prep. I've been checking by using ctrl+F as this is a pretty quick way to check. As for the implementation, I agree it would have been good to formalise it, but I'm not sure what exactly is the problem at the moment. As to a 'penalty' there isn't one, but hooks shouldn't be promoted unless the nominator has reviewed an article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Smartse (talkcontribs) 17:01, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Is this really something that we have to be concern with? Seriously, I wonder if it is just better to extend a little good faith that if a DYK nominator said they reviewed such and such article, they did. I don't think scamming DYK by "making up" reviews so your own nom gets reviewed is high on the list of nefarious ways to mess with DYK. I thought one of the motivators behind this idea was to get more editors chipping in with reviewing and, by extension, lessening the workload of the regular reviewers. Why cancel out that benefit by adding more to the reviewer's plate? Again, I think its better to just extend good faith that a nominator did a review and focus on more important aspects of reviewing the nom, like BLP issues, referencing, etc. AgneCheese/Wine 01:31, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
    • Comments on both entries above: The template is good. But I learned about it just here. If is to be used, it should be introduced more visibly. - I think it doesn't hurt to look at the reviewed article. - I think it's easy enough to search for the article name on the Suggestions page or in its history. - Having said all this, I also support a bit of Good faith, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:49, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Reviewing multi-nom hooks

I am not sure if this has already been asked, but reviewing multiple nominations require more effort as the criteria need to be confirmed for each article. If such a nomination is verified, would the reviewer get a corresponding number of review credits (2 for a double nom) to apply towards future self-nominations? Thank you. KimChee (talk) 08:52, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I suggest....Prefer if we didnt micro manage this new rule. Some articles are longer, some are more tricky, some have large quotes, some have two articles. More importantly - give your time if you have it. Why not review 2 or 3 just for the sheer generosity of spirit? If you are very busy then choose an easy one ... if your not then be generous. Victuallers (talk) 12:14, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
There were some lengthy discussions about whether the reviewing would be hook-for-hook or article-for-article. There was no consensus either way, but on the principle that either is better than neither, we agreed to go with hook-for-hook reviewing. So, nominate 1 hook and review 1 hook, regardless of whether one or the other (or both) is a multi-article hook. (See Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 62#Hook-for-hook or article-for-article? and Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 62#Hook-for-hook or article-for-article, continued.) cmadler (talk) 13:31, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
This is fine. I wanted to check first. Perhaps this should be codified into the DYK rules as others may end up asking the same thing again. KimChee (talk) 13:40, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Queue 5 fix required

Queue 5, hook 3 needs to have the "(pictured)" removed. Thanks. —Bruce1eetalk 04:55, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Removed. Thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 04:56, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

6 January

To my understanding of the time tables, Special occasions 6 January should go to prep now. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:51, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

 Done cmadler (talk) 14:10, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
Thank you! Looked good to me, thanks also to the one who adjusted the long picture! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:34, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Noob question about albums

Albums: do we count the tracklist? One assumes we do not.  狐 FOX  20:27, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Manual update on 27 December 2010

In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:

  1. Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
  2. Once completed edit queue #2 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
  3. Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page
  4. When the next queue is good to go remove this entire message from the board

Then, when the time is right I will be able to update the template. Thanks and have a good day, DYKUpdateBot (talk) 16:06, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

There's still nothing in the queue? - PM800 (talk) 18:15, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
There are four sets composed and sitting in the prep areas, but moving them into queue for Main Page updates can only be done by an admin. cmadler (talk) 18:54, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
I moved the prep area contents to the queue, but it looks like I'm going to have to update the main page DYK manually -- and it may be necessary to change the timing for the upcoming updates. --Orlady (talk) 19:44, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
After you get this update fixed, could you go ahead and move the rest of the prep sets into queues also? That way we'll be covered for the next 24 hours. Thanks, cmadler (talk) 19:46, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
I did the manual update, but I really shouldn't be here at all right now, so I'm not in a position to move more prep sets into the queues. --Orlady (talk) 20:09, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
When I did the credits, they did not include the text of the DYK hooks. I believe the template has changed since the last time I did a manual update. --Orlady (talk) 20:27, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
The text of the hooks comes from the bot, not the template. So if you're doing a manual update by default the text doesn't show up (and this has always been the case). Shubinator (talk) 15:27, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for explaining, Shubinator. I hadn't done a manual update in a very long time, and I was feeling inadequate. --Orlady (talk) 15:31, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Reviewed article in NewDYKnom

I've coded an addition to {{NewDYKnomination}} that adds a quick option to list the article reviewed by the user. For example, {{subst:NewDYKnomination/sandbox|status=BLP expanded|article=Test|author=Ucucha|hook=... that this is a '''[[test]]'''?|reviewed=Nothing}} will result in:


Test

  • ... that this is a test?

2x expanded (BLP) by Ucucha (talk). Self nom at 13:14, 4 January 2011 (UTC)


I've also added a parameter |revieweddiff= to add a diff for the review. Should this be added to the main {{NewDYKnom}} template? Ucucha 11:08, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Would it be possible for you to code in a new status for the 2x expanded newly-sourced BLPs? EdChem (talk) 12:10, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
This is all easy to do; it's a simple matter of adding another level of embedding to

{{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>#ifeq:{{{status}}}|New|Created|{{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>#ifeq:{{{status}}}|Expanded|5x expanded|{{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>#ifeq:{{{status}}}|Expansion|5x expanded|{{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>#ifeq:{{{status}}}|new|Created|{{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>#ifeq:{{{status}}}|expanded|5x expanded|{{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>#ifeq:{{{status}}}|expansion|5x expanded|Created/expanded}}}}}}}}}}}}

(actually, that should probably be converted into a {{#switch}} anyway, to save space and make it human-readable). But I don't know if it's all necessary. A lot of this can be simply handled by adding a "|comment=Newly-sourced BLP" or something like that. rʨanaɢ (talk) 12:58, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I changed that monster into a switch. I've added some things so that |status=BLP expanded works (along with some synonyms). See the revised example above. I think it's better to make it a separate status, since a 2x expansion is different from either a new article or a 5x expansion, and therefore should have a different status. Ucucha 13:14, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I'll now implement both changes in the main template and provide documentation. Ucucha 09:16, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Note on Queue 6 as of January 8

Patience and Sarah, which appears to be in the queue, has a picture now. Probably too late, but thought I might as well mention it. Roscelese (talkcontribs) 02:56, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

A fix in Prep1

Mea culpa: in the Mantra-Rock Dance hook the wikilink "...[[Hare Krishna]] temple" should be piped to ISKCON (...[[ISKCON|Hare Krishna]] temple) as the actual article about this religion. The article "Hare Krishna" is about the mantra, but not the religion itself. I apologize for the oversight. Can this be fixed in the hook in Prep1? Regards, Cinosaur (talk) 11:19, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Relinked. Materialscientist (talk) 11:26, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
Many thanks. Cinosaur (talk) 12:06, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Queue 5 fix

Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense which is in queue 5 at the moment should be changed to Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense. SmartSE (talk) 14:54, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Fixed it. - Dravecky (talk) 16:50, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Protected edit request for T:DYK

{{editprotected}} The talk page for T:DYK has been hijacked by the nomination process. I just had a minor request for that template: could someone please add {{clear}} on its own line after the <code>__NOTOC__</code> magic word? The heading "Next update" is in the wrong place for me, and no doubt for others. (Or indeed the heading "Next update" could be deleted, but that is up to an admin.) — This, that, and the other (talk) 10:16, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the problem. T:DYK is transcluded to the main page of wikipedia and its appearance (as T:DYK alone) has not much meaning. Materialscientist (talk) 10:21, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
Done. The heading was on the non-transcluded part of the template, so it won't influence the layout of the main page. Ucucha 10:26, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Current Event Article?

I recently made an article on the Murder of Carlos Castro. However, the event happened on the 7th, so information is still changing, though there have been charges made. In light of the fact that, realistically, the only further changes needed will be to add in information on the trial or sentencing whenever that happens, is it alright to use this for a DYK nom? SilverserenC 20:00, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't see why not. 28bytes (talk) 20:24, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
Just keep in mind that it must be carefully evaluated with regard to WP:BLP concerns relating to Renato Seabra. cmadler (talk) 20:30, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Queue 6

I approved and promoted a prep area to the queue (specifically queue 6) for the first time. If another admin could check what I did and let me know if I did everything right, I would greatly appreciate it. Grondemar 13:40, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Just three things:
  • The final hook does not seem to be to be supported by a reliable source (by that I mean the source is plainly partisan, as are other sources that the article uses).
  • I don't see where "equally effective" in the penultimate hook is supported by the article. I don't think "should be capable of operating in a secondary air-to-air mode" means "equally effective".
  • Tom Oran: minor quibble but I think the hook should say "to play..." rather than "in..." for accuracy.
--Mkativerata (talk) 21:07, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
It seems this is up on the main page in two hours, so because Grondemar may be offline, could another admin please look at these issues? --Mkativerata (talk) 21:09, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Plainly partisan sources are still WP:Reliable sources: It's only the Wikipedia editor who is required to be neutral, not our sources. (This is a comment on the general case, not the specific hook at hand.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:35, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
I suggest the Zénon Bernard hook be pulled from the queue for further discussion about the sourcing. Mkativerata, I agree with the Oran and Missile hook suggestions, feel free to change those too (dropping "equally" in the latter case.) Thanks for taking a look at these. 28bytes (talk) 22:33, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Thanks - I was just thinking I'd have to pull the AMASAMLAMSL hook as well but you're right, dropping "equally" should do the job. --Mkativerata (talk) 22:37, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
I've added a scholarly source for the Bernard first communist deputy assertion. --Slp1 (talk) 22:39, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Thanks - here's what I've done: the two hook wording errors have been corrected. Bernard has been replaced with Chuck McCoy (Canadian radio). Before returning Bernard to the queue we need to discuss (a) the acceptability of the source used for the hook; and (b) the acceptability of the article's sourcing generally. If we can find better sources like Slp1 has done that discussion would be academic. --Mkativerata (talk) 22:51, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
The updated queue looks good to me... thanks for your help, Mkativerata. 28bytes (talk) 22:59, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
No worries. Guess what: the McCoy hook is wrong too (and not fixable). I'll have to find another replacement. --Mkativerata (talk) 23:03, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Ugh. Third time's a charm, let's hope. :/ 28bytes (talk) 23:22, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Slp1 (talk · contribs) has revamped the sourcing on Zenon Bernard (most of the sourcing is now ok, including the hook) so unless there are any objections I'll put it back in the queue. --Mkativerata (talk) 17:55, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Done. --Mkativerata (talk) 19:11, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Really hating the upside down list

I've gave it one for the gipper, but it just didn't work out. I think the upside-down sorting makes adding DYKs *very difficult*. The goal of this project is to generate new articles, and I think making that flow through should be a priority. Maury Markowitz (talk) 19:40, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

To my understanding, now as before you have to know the date of creation/expansion and nominate on top of that day, no big change. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:05, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
How does the format make adding new noms "very difficult"? All you have to do is click on the [edit] button. As long as a hook in entered under the correct day, it doesn't matter where it is within that day's noms. Mjroots (talk) 09:29, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
Which is only an issue if you don't nom on the day you wrote it. I do 95% of the time, so this is adding considerable overhead to what used to be simple. In the other 5% the proper place was close to the top, a few clicks down.
But now the proper place is neither at the top or the bottom of the list. The top is no longer "newest", but critically, neither is the bottom, that's the bottom of the entry I'm looking for. Maury Markowitz (talk) 16:55, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
Works fine for me. I like the new style and rules. Manxruler (talk) 13:34, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Prep review

I've just filled prep one (the one with the cute picture) for the first time, could someone have a quick check to make sure I haven't ballsed anything up? Thanks SmartSE (talk) 12:52, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Length of time

With the new regulations, what's the average length of time between an article is suggested and the time it goes on the Main Page? I ask this to set the approximate time I start a new/expand an old article, instead of asking an admin to put it on a special occasions holding area. Before, the article will stay at the suggestions and the queue pages for 7-10 days. –HTD (ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens.) 14:43, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, the average time will not help you, some take very long, some go express. I recently nominated an article which appeared the next day, before I could even comment that I wanted it to appear on the subjects birthday. My suggestion: nominate normally and make a comment for which date. It doesn't take an admin to move it to the Special occasions, I can do it, you can do it, once it is approved. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:02, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
Yes I noticed that too. My new suggestions (except for one) did get in pretty quickly. The reason I ask is before, I usually don't ask admins to move it to a specific date, just that I'd time the creation/expansion 7-10 days before the event associated with the article happens; it usually appears on the Main Page on the exact date I wanted it to be featured. Usually the reason for it to be placed at a specific day are mundane enough I dunno if an admin would do it (I tried once but it was ignored). –HTD (ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens.) 15:21, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
Mundane or not, if you have a reason for a date, ask for it and nominate no later than five days before. A reviewer will hopefully approve it, some reviewers move it to the Special occasions then, or you can do that yourself, it doesn't require an admin. Someone will have to move it from there to the prep area, that is a different story and sometimes needs a reminder, and you can't promote your own, but again: no admin is required. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:36, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
The reason I timed my creations/expansions is because the admin didn't approve it on the first time so I was discouraged. So I'll try next time. Thanks. –HTD (ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens.) 15:42, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

New review process policy

The new policy for self-nominations to review other nominations seems to work too well: There is hardly anything left to review. This will create problems on its own, such as having unqualified or disinterested reviewers, lax/sloppy reviews just to get own nomination passed, or forced reviews on topics the reviewer is not familiar with. So the policy must be relaxed somehow... -- P 1 9 9 • TALK 15:08, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

One of the goals of the new requirement, IMO, is to get more eyes on each nomination. I'd recommend finding a review by an editor you're not familiar with, and double-checking it, especially in regards to sourcing. If the review says "date and length OK", add a note that you've checked that the sources aren't copied or closely paraphrased and they're OK too. I often do mini-reviews when I move approved hooks to prep, and sometimes find things that the reviewer missed. For example, one was approved where the 5x expansion was AGF'ed; I ran DYK check and discovered it was only about 4x, and left a note. With all the new reviewers, there are probably more on the suggestions page that have similarly missed issues, which is why two (or more) sets of eyes on a review is helpful. 28bytes (talk) 16:08, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
I have run into this situation myself. I have found myself rechecking articles in which new reviewers have been unfamiliar in excluding table and lists from expansion ratio counts. KimChee (talk) 18:20, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Just had the same thought looking over the list today. Will we permit people who re-review DYKs to list those as reviews, or do we need to all sit around like predators ready to pounce on the latest nominations? "To the quickest reviewers get the spoils!" LOL, it's a bit amusing but also a somewhat serious question as people get back from their holidays. --Bobak (talk) 20:55, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I'd count "second opinion" reviews. Those often find something the first reviewer might have missed, and even if they don't, two people separately confirming that there aren't any problems with the nomination is helpful, IMO. 28bytes (talk) 21:09, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I recently wrote new articles on John Fryatt and Paul Pyant. I would have nominated them for DYK before, but the new DYK rules have discouraged me from doing so. It seems like this will create another small club in Wikipedia, where a group of people will review each other's new articles, and that will be it. -- Ssilvers (talk) 18:31, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Ssilvers, please expand on your concerns... it appears you have written 5 feature articles and have more than 100 DYK credits, surely you are qualified to do a fair and unbiased review of a DYK submission of your choice? EdChem (talk) 18:46, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
But I choose, instead, to keep writing articles. I have no interest in reviewing DYK submissions and jumping through all the technical hoops involved to post them correctly. So, I won't be able to nominate my new articles any more. -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:43, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
Yes, if you chose not to participate in DYK reviews, then your nominations will not be accepted. cmadler (talk) 18:46, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
Ssilvers, firstly there is no requirement to be "jumping through all the technical hoops involved to post them correctly", just offer a review... or maybe even just a comment. Or, you could ask others to nominate your work and handle the review. If a "club" atmosphere and you can scratch my back, I scratch yours starts to develop, I for one will be opposing it. Of course, you are free to write and not nominate, as always the choices are yours to make. EdChem (talk) 19:23, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
I have to agree - reviewing isn't that hard. Does an article (a) properly cite the hook fact (b) doesn't plagarise (c) meet the DYK criteria? Yes/no. Easy-peasy. I do have a question, though - before Jan. 1, the yellow box said that self noms required a QPQ review, the way it is now it indicated that all noms require it. I assume that's actually the case? - The Bushranger One ping only 02:53, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
I'd been messing around with the text to get it more user-friendly, and may have unintentionally introduced some vagueness in there. AFAIK, the requirement is only for self-nominations. 28bytes (talk) 04:50, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
I believe we only had a consensus to implement this for self-nominations. cmadler (talk) 13:19, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
I thought so, just wanted to be sure. Thanks! - The Bushranger One ping only 15:41, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I suspect there is a solid minority of us who find judging others' work distasteful for one reason or another. And I did find it hard to find one I could review. May I make a suggestion? When I submit to DYK I wind up checking the page multiple times to see whether there's an issue, and I generally cast an eye over other submissions. Frequently I wind up clicking on them and copyediting; sometimes I try to lend a hand at the discussion on the DYK nomination page. A week or two ago, for example, I suggested a better hook for an article when the reviewer and nominator both agreed the existing one was boring and that was the holdup. I'd like to help with the current impasse at The Stars Shine (Film) but haven't seen a way to do so that doesn't require a whole new review, and I've been too involved with the article to weigh in with an opinion on the issue the reviewer has raised. I often see proposed hooks with grammar problems and so on . . . maybe assistance with the nomination of an article - or 2 or 3 - could be posted as an alternative to the "Check a nominated article thoroughly for defects/rule violations" we're currently being asked to do? Yngvadottir (talk) 20:00, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I can't speak for everyone else here, but I think the new requirement needs to be interpreted liberally to mean "helping out on the DYK suggestions page." As I had predicted, it does appear that some people may be interpreting this to mean "review a suggestion and either approve it or conclusively reject it," which means they might be inclined to go after those hooks that are easiest to review. In my experience here, "reviewing" DYK suggestions means not only checking for them for length and sourcing, but also a diverse variety of activities that include checking images for eligibility, revising hooks, suggesting alternative hooks, looking for new sources for articles, and so on. IMO, if people who self-nominate provide evidence of contributions to the review process, that should suffice. --Orlady (talk) 20:14, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
I agree 100% with that. 28bytes (talk) 20:20, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Yes I agree with Orlady as well. The new rule must be interpreted liberally to mean "helping out on the DYK suggestions page," like I stated above that "the policy must be relaxed somehow." Because I also agree with Ssilvers that if someone is not willing or able to review a DYK, that should be respected. We're all volunteers here. -- P 1 9 9 • TALK 04:18, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
I just, for the first time, reviewed a hook, because of the new policy, having been a resonably busy DYK contributor before. Its not that hard to review a hook, providing its a simple enough case, but I had real trouble finding one that wasn't reviewed yet! I think, the regular DYK reviewers might almost go out of buisness. Those familiar with Goethe might be reminded of the words of The Sorcerer's Apprentice: Die Geister, die ich rief! Calistemon (talk) 13:51, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Super Bowl XLV

May I suggest a Super Bowl XLV kick-off DYK? There is a number of American football articles currently in the suggestion area, among them one of my own, and this might not be a bad opportunity to have a special. Calistemon (talk) 13:16, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

DYK and the 10th anniversary of Wikipedia

The 10th anniversary of wikipedia is in a couple of days. The FA section of the page will be changed for the day, and I'm wondering if DYK will be doing anything special. Thoughts? EdChem (talk) 09:38, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

NewDYKnomination

I have noticed that the {{NewDYKnomination}} template now has a "reviewed" field, and that nominators should review other nominations (meaning, that field should be filled in most cases). It would be a good idea to add the field to the example usages listed at the begining of the "How to list a new nomination" section of the nominations page, so people can copy and paste and fill with their specific nomination. This would apply as well to the menu above the editing box when someone is editing that page (which I have no idea how is it edited) --MBelgrano (talk) 12:40, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I did add it to the documentation in a few places. However, the review requirement only applies to people with >5 DYK credits, and the people who do not need to do a review are also the likeliest to need the documentation. Therefore (and because I was hesitant to further bloat the already long documentation), I didn't add it to some of the examples. Ucucha 15:30, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Prep2

  • ... that although in 1697 Zhuluo County covered more than half the landmass of Taiwan, a visiting Qing official wrote that the county contained "no residents, only savages"?
Is it necessary to accentuate the China-Taiwan problems with this hook? To me it sounds like an opinion of one (high-ranking) official who doesn't even have a WP article. Thoughts? Materialscientist (talk) 08:15, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
Seeing as the "savages" in question were the indiginious Taiwanese, who aren't related to the current ruling class (for want of a better term) of Taiwan, I don't see the problem - especially since for all we know this particular Qing chap's descendants are Kuomintang now! I'd refer to it as WP:NOTCENSORED (and maybe WP:ITWAS300YEARSAGO, too, but that might just be 3:30am punchiness setting in); the opinion of a Qing version of Sir Humphrey Appleby about the native peoples of part of his empire's holdings (it was, at the time, part of the Qing Dynasty) shouldn't be any more contriversial than, say, a U.S. goverment official's opinions about the "Indians", which I'm pretty sure have run on DYK without (reasonable) objection before. TL;DR, I don't see how a Qing offical's comments made 314 years ago about a people who make up <2% of Taiwan's current population will accuentate the China-Taiwan problem, and boy do I get wordy when I should be snug in bed. (But, for the record, I don't mind if the hook gets pulled due to consensus.)- The Bushranger One ping only 08:38, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

15 January

is WP 10th anniversary. The main page design will have an unusually long top-left part (sort of "TFA"). Suggestion to however composes the next preps is to use max 6 hooks, good and positive ones :-). Materialscientist (talk) 10:29, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Queue 2 fix

In the fourth hook of Queue 2, for Alphitonia petriei, "gives of a strong smell" should be "gives off a strong smell". MANdARAX  XAЯAbИAM 18:53, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Done. --Allen3 talk 20:42, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

New process comment

Trying not to sound whiny here (probably failing). I posted a DYK self-nom for Natural dye on January 8, and one reviewer asked for a better hook the same day. I have posted two alt hooks, let the reviewer know I did that on his talk page, asked if there are futher issues two days ago, and still no reply. I suspect everyone is waiting graciously for the initial commenter to "complete" the review.

I saw upstream there was a concern that there would not be enough content to review, but this seems to be the opposite case - because the original reviewer has not been back, no one else has approved the nom or asked for further tweaks. The article has been assessed as B-class and nominated for GA, but not approved for DYK. I've been checking everyday to see if I need to work on another hook, and it's all becoming a bit frustrating.

Do I just need to be patient and let the process work itself out? - PKM (talk) 01:23, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, sometimes the reviewer isn't on everyday and they get overlooked. I left comments about the hook on the entry.--NortyNort (Holla) 02:23, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
There should be more encouragement for "2nd reviewers" and a willingness to take on a hook review if the original reviewer hasn't responded in 1-2 days. With the new policy and the possibility for "easy reviews" to become scarce, we should embolden contributors to feel okay reviewing a hook that someone else has started the review but outside life or whatnot has caused them to disappear for a while. AgneCheese/Wine 20:57, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
Yes, reviewers should definitely feel free to jump in if they see a review started that has not been finished, though in all such cases, second and subsequent reviewers should bear in mind concerns raised by (a) prior reviewer(s). cmadler (talk) 21:18, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
Agreed. And people don't have to wait one or two days; they should feel free to work on them at any time. The original reviewer doesn't "claim" the hook and have exclusive rights to review it. Conversely, the original reviewer has no obligation to follow through and complete the review. This is a collaborative effort; that's the way Wikipedia works. MANdARAX  XAЯAbИAM 22:01, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
Good point. Should the yellow box on the suggestion page highlighting the new review policy include something along those lines encouraging people to be more bold with reviews? AgneCheese/Wine 03:18, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I for one sometimes comment on little aspects of a nomination (say wording of the hook) without ever having read the article, and having no intention of ever reviewing it. Schwede66 03:34, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Policy query

I'd like to invite some DYK old-timers to have a look at my review of Five articles. My argument is laid out clearly and I believe that I'm in line with the spirit of existing policy. The nominator doesn't agree with me. I don't want the nominator to go away with a bad feeling and would either like to have my view confirmed by those who have been around for a while, or you may of course also side with the opposing view. Either way, it's an interesting question that needs answering. Schwede66 03:34, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Orphan tags have been cited in the past and I think they can be removed in most cases. Normally, AWB editors are quick to slap them on and it doesn't necessarily indicate a problem with the article. Clean-up of articles linked within the hook but not receiving credit, such as Grup Servicii Petroliere is a bit pedantic. It wasn't really updated anyway, their earnings are still from 2008. As far as the five much similar articles, I have seen that with noms in the past. Example... when a chunk of near equal text from a biography was placed into an article on a institution they started. If that chunk of text put the article and keeps it above 1500 characters, then credit should go for just one. With that, I don't disagree with your judgement on the comment to count only one article. They aren't too unique from one another in text and some aren't much above 1500 characters. But I don't see a problem with highlighting both or all articles in the hook, just give credit for one.--NortyNort (Holla) 04:48, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
Oh, the suggested Grup Servicii Petroliere update was just that - a suggestion. Your idea of highlighting all five articles in the hook, but giving credit for just one of them, has merit. Thanks for that. Schwede66 04:59, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
My opinion is that, if a chunk of text from an old article is used to expand a new one, and that chunk puts it above the DYK criteria, that's a no-no. However, if there are as set of articles, all of which are new, that "share text", then IMHO they should all qualify. But YMMV! - The Bushranger One ping only 04:55, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for your inputs. Another editor has promoted this item already. It's now in Queue 6. Schwede66 20:32, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Queue 6: mdash

The seventh hook of Queue 6 uses template {{mdash}}, which should only be used for rare special circumstances. Per WP:MDASH, it should be replaced with either a spaced en dash (my personal preference), or an unspaced em dash. MANdARAX  XAЯAbИAM 19:30, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Simplified. Materialscientist (talk) 22:53, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Template:Did you know/Queue/doingcredits has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 03:23, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Queue 6 fix

The first hook of Queue 6 is missing a "(pictured)". Thanks. —Bruce1eetalk 05:40, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Added. Thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 05:45, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Everyone should install User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js

Hi all. Just dropping by to suggest that editors install the above script to their Monobook/Vector skin as appropriate. What is does is to highlight links to redirect pages, pages that are up for deletion and disambiguation pages by changing the colour of the displayed links from the standard blue. The last one is most useful, it identifies where a link does not go to the intended target and should be fixed before going up on the Main Page. DYK's purpose is primarily to get people clicking links to others articles, whether primary (bold links) or secondary topics. This is just one way to ensure we send them to the correct page without having to go through WP:ERRORS after the fact. I will be suggesting this to all editors involved in the FA and Main Page content processes. Regards. Zunaid 08:16, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing, once you get used to the colors that's a tremendously helpful script! I also recommend it to frequent DYKers. cmadler (talk) 21:31, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
Can I just add that I am finding it extremely useful. Earlier today I was able to identify two Stub-rated articles in the queues just by the colour of the bold link, investigate them and remove the unnecessary Stub tags. Thanks for bringing it to our attention! Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 12:38, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
Wow, how cool is that? Tremendously useful. Thanks for sharing. Schwede66 01:41, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Images selected for DYK

I apologize if this has been discussed already, but I couldn't find it. Is there a standard for what images are suitable for DYK? There seems to be some sort of consensus against gratuitous nudity, and of course there are the rules about licensing, but I'm thinking of the image that appeared the other day with the jumping spider. I'm arachnophobic, so I avoid pages where I know I'm likely to encounter images of spiders, but the Main Page isn't usually one of those pages. Could we have a discussion about the use of images likely to upset? Roscelese (talkcontribs) 23:43, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

There are not a lot of hard-and-fast rules about images. What we have specifically applicable to DYK is at WP:DYKJN, in particular, J1-J4. cmadler (talk) 14:29, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
While I do not wish to trivialize the potential effects an image can have upon a viewer, how do we determine which images are "likely to upset"? Wikipedia:Offensive material places limits on Main page images that are traditionally interpreted as barring images that are of a nature that would prevent their publication in a major newspaper (e.g. images of a pornographic, scatological, or unusually gruesome nature). This is done to protect both Wikipedia's reputation—we are neither a shock nor porno site—and our readership. Images likely to upset is a much larger set of potential candidates. In addition to a phobia triggered reactions, other categories of images likely to cause a portion of our readership to become upset include those containing imagery related to religion, politics, military action, and a variety of national and ethnic groups. How do we determine which images to exclude due to their potential to upset some portion of our readership while still maintaining a large enough selection of candidates to continue normal operations? --Allen3 talk 18:10, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
Not to mention it could produce a camel's nose effect; everything is probably offensive or disturbing to somebody out there. If we started a "don't use pictures of X" list it's quite likely it would mushroom in a hurry. I'm sorry the pic of the spider was upsetting, but Wikipedia is not censored. - The Bushranger One ping only 18:13, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
If you have a psychological situation that makes you need to avoid such pictures, then you would be better off turning off pictures on your browser (probably "Tools" or "Internet Options" or something like that). Wikipedia is certainly not the only website where you might encounter unexpected spider pictures, and as Bushranger points out, Wikipedia editors can't be expected to know what images are and are not safe for every user in the world. rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:38, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

New rule question.

I have a question about the new "must review one other article" rule. I am very active, and basically the only year round reviewer, at April Fools Did You Know. If i nominate an article in normal DYK, does reviewing an article there, or any other DYK subpage for that matter, count for this new rule?--Found5dollar (talk) 15:08, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

My vote would be "yes". 28bytes (talk) 16:09, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
I agree also. cmadler (talk) 17:17, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

"The hook should be neutral" rule

The DYK rule about hook neutrality, presumably based on WP:NPOV mentions only WP:BLP. I would like to see the wording changed slightly to mention that our concern for neutral wording and balanced presentation goes beyond BLP. We should also not be using DYK to showcase hooks for articles that would embarrass or promote one side or the other of the world's nationalistic disputes. If nobody objects, I am going to add a phrase or sentence to that part of the rule. betsythedevine (talk) 17:15, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

We need to be careful that neutrality in those cases doesn't extend to not featuring something at all, but I would generally agree, yes. - The Bushranger One ping only 18:04, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Queue 5

The picture for the lead hook in Queue 5 has neither rollover nor alt text. Mikenorton (talk) 00:01, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Quickfixed. Materialscientist (talk) 00:06, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Ministry of Home and Cultural Affairs

The rules include passages like "Articles for DYK should conform to the core policies of Verifiability, Living Person Biographies and Copyrights. This means that nominations should be rejected if a short inspection reveals that they are not based on reliable sources" and "The article in general should use inline, cited sources. A rule of thumb is one inline citation per paragraph, excluding the intro, plot summaries, and paragraphs which summarize other cited content." Can anyone explain how this got through, given that it is almost entirely unreferenced? At a time when DYK is being criticised for its format, it's probably best things like this not slip through the cracks. Someone feel free to be WP:BOLD and take it off the front page. Ironholds (talk) 10:49, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Removed. Materialscientist (talk) 11:03, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
I hadn't nominated it, nor do I care at all about DYK, but I got a note to look here. I found the "almost entirely unreferenced" truly funny. The last two sections are the only parts lacking. That's "perhaps half" but not "almost entirely." I'll place links to different spots on the government website where I got the information, but they will just be the same links as appear above. The four sources are the most reliable for scant information. Feel free to be bold and contribute, since you're spotting the issues. JFHJr () 18:11, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
Well, almost entirely unreferenced certainly isn't correct. But as Ironholds states, it is expected that DYK entries have at least one an inline cite for each paragraph. To repeat references already used is done through the reference parameter 'name='. That's good practice for any one article and not just DYK; if you don't know about it, I suggest you read up about it. If you can't find it, ask here and I'll point you in the right direction. Schwede66 20:42, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
Haha. You can suggest away. Far, far away. I wasn't referring to identical links. Just nearly identical links. Can't use name= for that. But the cites are all there now. Have a look and see what I mean, if you like. But I don't necessarily suggest it. JFHJr () 03:47, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Queue 1 issue

The SS Ussukuma hook has broken italics that carry on after the ship's name. - The Bushranger One ping only 03:09, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. Materialscientist (talk) 03:29, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
Next thing to fix in that Queue is in the third hook; sentence needs disambiguation (and this is how I know). Schwede66 03:32, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
I know how you know :-) but switch on that script for 10min/day as it slows down my PC. Fixed, will check others shortly. Materialscientist (talk) 03:38, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
Oh. I haven't noticed any performance issues at all. Schwede66 03:45, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Queue 2 issues

Two issues I've found in Queue 2: hook 1 has two redirects (Curtiss XSO3C and U.S. Navy); and hook 2 ends with ".?". Thanks. —Bruce1eetalk 06:16, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 06:31, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Queue 1 image

The image with the lead hook in Queue 1 lacks both rollover and alt text - there have been a lot of these recently. Mikenorton (talk) 12:09, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Added. Thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 12:15, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Etiquette question

I'm fairly new to DYKs (one in July, one at the start of this month) and the new review-an-article-when-you-submit-yours rule has got me puzzling over something. Since DYK articles have received an awful lot of love (creation to 1500 characters of prose or fivefold expansion) from (usually) a single user, there's often room for an extra pair of eyes to check them over and give the text an extra bit of polish.

My question is what do other editors think about someone else tweaking the articles they worked on while they're still in the DYK process? I've mostly just fixed links and typos so far, but do people mind if minor restructuring (such as adding a bit of text to clarify something, rearranging a paragraph slightly etc) gets done by other editors? It seems to me that since articles nominated for DYK are already of a high standard, giving them an extra polish before they've been moved into the queues just helps "fast-track" them further on the road to being a cracking article. Brammers (talk/c) 13:15, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

If people do mind (I doubt they do), they shouldn't; this is a wiki and no one owns any particular article. You're free to improve any article, whether it's in the DYK process or not. Ucucha 13:17, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
(e.c.) Since no one owns any article, you are free to edit a DYK-nominated article any way you like (consistent with policy, of course). The issue that needs consideration is whether to edit the article or review it. Because I think it is inappropriate to make substantive edits and review a nomination, I have several times stopped to ask myself which path to take - editor or reviewer. Fixing links and typos aren't substantive edits, in my view, but if I went beyond this I would be consciously choosing which role I would take. That's my advice, for what it's worth. EdChem (talk) 13:31, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
I agree with EdChem; several times I've found myself start to review an article, only to make edits to the point that I no longer felt comfortable reviewing it. But yes, minor edits (links, typos, minor formatting, etc.) can be done by a reviewer. Keep in mind also that the quid pro quo review requirement only applies to you once you have 5 DYK credits; if you only have 2 credits you don't need to review a nomination yet. cmadler (talk) 14:16, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

DYK bot forgot one :)

Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams, a self-nom, is currently on the front page but there has not been a message posted on its talk page (or mine) indicating its DYK-ness. :) Regards, Lord Roem (talk) 03:51, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. Materialscientist (talk) 03:58, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
Thank you - Lord Roem (talk) 04:10, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Queue 5 issue

Hook 7 of Queue 5 has a double "that". Thanks. —Bruce1eetalk 06:10, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Fixed, thanks. --Mkativerata (talk) 06:13, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Funny

Some nights, like a few nights ago, I'll look in on the queue and it'll be empty or very nearly empty (it was completely empty a couple of weeks ago and there was no "next update" until about 4 hours before it was due to go on the MP), but other nights, like tonight, all the queues will be populated and all the prep areas full. Anybody know (or care to speculate) why it fluctuates so much? Or, better still, how we can encourage more editors to help with moving hooks to the prep areas? Maybe a note at the top of T:TDYK when there are three or more empty preps? Just a thought... HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 06:12, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Some people have free time during the weekend .. Materialscientist (talk) 13:05, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
For my part, I find my lunch hours at work an ideal time to set up batches of hooks in the prep areas. I check the situation every lunchtime when I log on to WP; if there are lots of empty prep areas, I try to fill at least one. I suspect others do the same sort of thing when they have a spare half-hour or hour. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 13:39, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Preparation area 3 issue

The hook for the Booth v. Churner article in preparation area 3 says that the Supreme Court was "asked by more than 30 states to hear the case", however the article says "over 30 states filed amicus curiae briefs at the Court, urging affirmance of the decision", which is not the same thing and my reading of the reference quoted agrees with the article, not the hook. So unless I'm missing something I don't think the hook is accurate. Davewild (talk) 12:52, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

It's now back on TT:DYK. Please compose a better hook there. Thanks. --PFHLai (talk) 17:32, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
Thanks Davidwild for pointing that out. I have posted an alternate hook on the nom. - Lord Roem (talk) 22:05, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

looking for review of Myrrha

where are the reviews? just want to see what was said. TCO (talk) 18:54, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Hope this helps. --PFHLai (talk) 19:02, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
Nice! TCO (talk) 19:37, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Queue 4 alt

The picture for Queue 4 has no alt text (although I think the rollover text was intended as the alt). MANdARAX  XAЯAbИAM 18:58, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. Ucucha 19:41, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

American Arts Commemorative Series medallion

I just moved this article from "American Arts Commemorative Series medallions" to "American Arts Commemorative Series medallion" in order to make the de-pluralize the title. It's in the DYK queue now. Obviously it will still redirect there, but I thought you might like to know in case it needs to be changed so there's not a link to a redirect on the main page.-RHM22 (talk) 22:08, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Of more concern is that it's got an orphan tag. Only one incoming link. That needs to be addressed before it can go up. Schwede66 22:23, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
It is a good habit to get rid of the orphan tag, but in general, this tag is not a reason for pulling a hook from the queues. Materialscientist (talk) 22:26, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
I've linked it from a couple more appropriate pages, and removed the tag. - The Bushranger One ping only 22:55, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
Ah, thank you!-RHM22 (talk) 00:23, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

New rule grumbling

Just tripped over this "review one to nominate one" rule. For what it's worth, not impressed. Quality of reviews seems to have gone down, people seem less likely to follow up on their reviews (because they're doing it to nominate an article, not out of an interest in the process), and the backlog is substantially worse than the last time I was here (mid last year) so it doesn't instantly appear to have achieved anything. If we can't find enough people to review DYK, the solution is probably to either scrap DYK or make the nomination requirements tighter, not draft people in to doing half-assed reviews. - DustFormsWords (talk) 05:42, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the backlog is enormously better than it was a month to two months ago. So there has been a very significant improvement. It should be noted a variety of other proposals, including various forms of tightening requirments and, yes, scrapping, were floated, and the QPQ system was the only one to gain any consensus. - The Bushranger One ping only 06:01, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
I have to say, I'm actually personally really impressed with the quid pro quo system. I had my doubts, but it's encouraged me to get reviewing again, and also the only people required to do this system are the ones who have already had 5 DYK nominations, so they at least have a general idea of what to look for in an article. It's fantastic to see that there aren't as many problems with the backlog, and the fact that there hasn't been any grumbling about WP:WIKICUP problems so far just goes to show how well this system has worked. If there's a half-assed review, you're always able to bring it up on this page so people will take a second look at your nomination. I'm sorry to see that but I'm sold. Fantastic system. Nomader (Talk) 06:08, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
Can't have it all. Backlog is much better compared to last year... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 07:38, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
I was also sceptical, but I've seen a huge improvement, especially the backlog. Some reviews show warning signs of not having been done properly, so a bit of high level patrolling over things looking a bit suspect is something that keeps things in check. As with anything, those new at reviewing will get the hang of it, and I predict that the proportion of new reviewers will decrease fast from here on in. Schwede66 07:52, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
Indeed. With most new reviews being fine, this should ease the burden on the experienced reviewers, who can just focus on the problem cases. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 08:38, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
Backlog has changed from many articles waiting to be reviewed, to many articles approved but waiting to be moved to queues. This is probably a better "problem" to have, since it comes from having so many new articles. Generally good I would say. Both this problem and review quality would be improved (as discussed elewhere) by encouraging reviews to be double-checked. That is, review the reviews too. And at least I find reviewing other articles often a great way to broaden one's horizons, instead of being stuck in one narrow area. I just submitted an article on an Electrical Engineer, and reviewed one on a Byzantine art expert, for example. Time consuming but interesting. W Nowicki (talk) 17:51, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
When I review a nomination, I've been trying to check the review they claim, to make sure that 1) they actually did review it and 2) quickly double-checking for problems. cmadler (talk) 18:22, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
I'm a big fan of reviewing a review. More eyes on a nomination before it goes on the main page is always a good thing. Even the most diligent reviewer may miss something once in a while; a second pass at it can be quite helpful. 28bytes (talk) 18:25, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I've seen the proposal made that half of the DYK space be given to a GA. Highlights GAs, but at a smaller level than FA. Less hooks per day means less work (in the end) and means more selection of best hooks. (But I am fine with the quid pro quo arrangement, regardless.) TCO (talk) 18:43, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Whoa? Fewer DYK hooks per day would mean the backlog would grow much worse, until editors get frustrated with the delay and give up. is that really desired? My recent ones take about a month to go through the whole process already. IMO this would make the bi-modal quality problem of wikipedia articles much worse: there are zillions of tiny or bad ones and a few huge good ones. Now if you want to improve the quality overall, a better idea would be to raise the bar a bit on the new articles. For example, require at least four independent sources, or 2500 characters of prose, for the new article DYKs. Right now there is little recognition for adding citations, wikilinks, pictures, infoboxes, etc. to existing articles since it is often hard to get the 5x expansion in only prose, so maybe you should get points for those too? W Nowicki (talk) 20:51, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
No, the prose rule shouldn't be changed. The stuff in the infobox is usually repeated in the article. And why should one "get points" for adding citations and wikilinks?? Also, there was a discussion here a few months ago about raising the minimum requirement to 2000-2500 characters, but there was no consensus to do it. - PM800 (talk) 21:11, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
I've said it before and I'll say it again: a 1500-character article on an obscure topic can be much more informative than a 5000-character article on a not-quite-so-obscure one. I've struggled at times to reach 1500+ characters on some of the more obscure weapons used by the U.S., even when exhausting literally every available source. - The Bushranger One ping only 22:30, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Well I guess the backlog would mostly be the same, but would drop somewhat as people realized it was more competitive. What I'm thinking of is like going out for the NFL, only the best athletes make it. It's a normal process of selecting the best (and yeah it is selective but so what...front page space is a limited resource. Like for two I have been involved with I would prioritize Myrrha over Wilmer Tanner just from coolness factor. So pick some diversity of topics and grab the most interesting ones. Why will that make the backlog longer? If anything there will be some self selection not to submit as people send their best stuff. TCO (talk) 22:40, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Priortising hooks by "coolness" (or rather "avoiding boring hooks") has been mooted and shot down in flames because of the obvious problem - it's subjective. And a lot of the chemistry articles that MaterialScientist and others work on (with the notable exception of PEPPSI, I'll admit!) don't lend themselves to "cool hooks" in the least, which would disadvantage them even more than than they are now compared to the flood of pop-culture articles (which are, admittedly, more likely to have something "hooky", but still...) - The Bushranger One ping only 22:43, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I get that the community decided otherwise. It's fine. I'm happy that we have something and live under the current regime. If a topic is inherently boring, then...oh well. But that doesn't mean everything inside the topic would be boring. You would still find some topics that would still work. Like thermite. Or like digging into Greenwood's Chemistry of the Elements which has more on usage and derivation (and not just of elements but of compounds). But umm...if there are only so many hooks per year, then it just might be better not to spend too many on random ringed hydrocarbons whole main claim to fame is as an intermediate. Besides you could still have some implicit diversity quotient (editors do this all the time when assembling content in a periodical and the front page is a "newspaper"). Like even if you have some compound, could we pick the coolest of two? It's a very reader advocacy attitude to think this way. But, like I said, I know it's a done issue. Just a random shot from a partisan in the hills, but will try to keep it to less than once per year. TCO (talk) 00:14, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The "avoid boring hooks" idea hasn't really been shot down - about half support it and half don't. I'm generally for it. And of course there's the other side of the coin, where really interesting nominations like Sexy Cora cause people to completely overreact and then start cursing on the suggestions page. That was funny. - PM800 (talk) 00:31, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Inline referencing in DYKs

Being somewhat new to the reviews, I am not sure where exactly are the relevant rules, but as a long-time nominator, I know that our standards require inline references, and many times reviewers requested more and more of them. Those days I submit my DYKs just like I'd submit a GA or a FA - trying to reference every sentence, and certainly, all important (and hook-related) ones. But in my recent review the nominator claims that referencing paragraphs only is fine, and that hook sentence doesn't have to have a dedicated citation. Could somebody point me out to the relevant rule and offer a second opinion on the review? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 07:38, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

The reviewer's reference to D2 is correct in that the "rule of thumb" is (at least) one inline citation per paragraph, with certain exceptions. However, the hook fact itself must be explicitly cited: Wikipedia:Did you know#The hook says The "Did you know?" fact must be mentioned in the article and cited with an inline citation since inline citations are used to support specific statements in an article. That doesn't mean every sentence in the article needs to have an inline citation, but the sentence(s) that support the hook fact must. Hope this helps clarify. 28bytes (talk) 07:49, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
The last contribution just proves my point made in the thread above. Experienced nominator, now new to reviewing, getting their head around the rules better. That can only be good for the overall quality of DYK! Schwede66 07:54, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
As a rule of thumb, if the paragraph where the hook is located is cited that should've been enough. This is not an FAC or even GAC where there a hundred references in which every sentence has a different reference. Most DYKs have less than 10 references, repetitive superscripts both in the prose and in the reference section is unsightly. A reader would be distracted by repetitive superscripts that have the same numbers. Yeah we know citing is important, but this just makes it appear that the article has plenty of references when it hasn't.
If citing the hook is of absolute importance, the sentence containing the hook could've been moved to the last sentence of the paragraph, but sometimes that'll screw up the sentence flow. –HTD (ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens.) 11:15, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
It is not necessary to reference every sentence where each sentence is covered by the same reference. If three or four sentences (or a whole paragraph) are covered by the same source, then one reference suffices. If a sentence uses two or more refs, then these are required. After each piece of info if practical, or by two or more refs at the end of the sentence if not. Mjroots (talk) 11:17, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
And if a single reference covers a whole paragraph including the hook fact, I would expect to see the reference on the hook sentence and the end of the paragraph. That's two references in a paragraph, which is hardly unreasonable. If there is not a reference on the hook sentence I would expect a reviewer to request one and not give the tick until that reference is included and has been checked. That standard has prevailed (in my experience) since my first nomination and is not new. EdChem (talk) 11:35, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
This is all well and good, but it's practically worthless if the article is now off the main page: for example, the paragraph has entirely one reference, and aside from the end of the paragraph there's another citation for the same reference at the end of the hook. Someone will ask, why is the same reference cited twice in the paragraph? Not everyone knows that article was previously a DYK, hence they won't realize this. –HTD (ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens.) 14:17, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
At which point the extra ref may be removed. Mjroots (talk) 14:24, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
So the extra ref is only worth the time it's on the suggestions page+queue+main page? –HTD (ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens.) 14:27, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
No, the question you have to ask is "is the time on the front page worth following the rules?" since there's an overwhelming consensus that to be featured at DYK the article's hook fact(s) must be directly cited. Clarity in sourcing is always worth the effort. - Dravecky (talk) 14:55, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
Considering all you need to do is to add a "<ref name="name"> after the paragraph where the hook appears doesn't take much effort. The question is if this legalizes unnecessary redundancy in articles just to satisfy this rule.
Or you can ditch the redundant citation at the end of the paragraph where the hook appears. But that'll violate D2. Vicious circle. –HTD (ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens.) 15:28, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
Just to show how this rule is "not" that followed, a (really) quick check at SWAC Championship Game doesn't show where this is cited. It might be the table but this not the way DYK noms usually go. –HTD (ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens.) 15:34, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
Without researching it, I can't tell you precisely what happened there but the occasional violation of the rule is a reason for better enforcement, not scrapping the rule.
I dunno if it is that occasional, considering this is of the utmost importance (at least on my noms) for the DYK project, this should've been followed to the letter. Clearly this rule could be amended since it introduces redundant citations, at least at the stage of an article when references aren't that many. –HTD (ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens.) 16:10, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
It is not necessary, but frankly, it should be. It certainly is for FAs and can be required for GA. On wikis, you know, sentences can be moved, or added in between. If you have your para referenced with only one ref, consider what happens when somebody moves half of it starting a new para, or merging it with another para which has a different ref, or adds new, unreferenced content in the middle. Each unreferenced sentence should be seen, simply, as unreferenced. WP:V allows such content to be removed - some DYKs could be gutted that way (not that I agree with such a move, but it is, technically, recommended by the rules). Finally, note that we don't accept DYKs with "citation needed" template, and it is certainly recommended to tag all unreferenced sentences such... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:58, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
Agree 100%. Any articles I create have an inline citation for each sentence for exactly that reason. Who knows who will come along later and re-arrange things? An inline citation for each paragraph plus one for the hook sentence is not a particularly onerous burden, IMO. Who cares if a citation is "redundant" because it's used in two or more consecutive sentences? 28bytes (talk) 18:22, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
Indeed. I don't want to do WP:POINT edits to live articles, but I will happily take a poorly-referenced DYK to my sandbox, move a few things around, add a few sentences - some referenced, some not - all edits that could be done by another editor in good faith - and I guarantee you that anybody assuming that the end-of-para reference applies to all sentences in that para will be deeply, deeply mistaken :> --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:46, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

(undent)I'm more sympathetic to HTD's view. Redundancy for redundancy's sake is just WP:CREEP and WP:BUREAUCRACY which offers little, if any, benefit to the reader (which, last I checked, is who we are writing for). The very fact that people are suggesting that you put up a redundant cite anyways because you can remove it after the DYK proves the utter worthlessness of that redundancy as simple bureaucracy. It is not an unreasonable assumption that if an entire paragraph has one citation at the end, then the majority of that paragraph is sourced to that text. If a claim is questionable check out the source. If it was "moved around" or someone slipped in material that is not in the source, that can be slapped with a [citation needed] tag or removed. WP:V says that items that cannot be verified can be removed. That is not a carte blanche to assume that if every line doesn't have a footnote then it must be unsourced and hence, removable. That said, having an article featured on the main page is a privilege and not a right so it is the onus of the nominator to make sure that the hook can be easily verified and reviewed. If it doesn't have its citation nearby then the nominator should certainly utilize the {{ |comment= }} parameter of the template and clarify where the hook's references are. AgneCheese/Wine 02:11, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree. I've actually written a short essay about a closely related subject: WP:HIJACK. If you're inserting information into a cited part of an article, cite a new source for the added information. To do otherwise is double-plus ungood! - The Bushranger One ping only 03:09, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
The problem with that can easily be illustrated if you consider a simple paragraph of the form (s=sentence c=citation) s1 s2c1. If is an offline ref, there is no way for most users to know if it supports just s2 or the entire paragraph. Suppose then that another editor comes along and adds another sentence with its own reference. They have three options, each with problems. If they make it s1c1 s3c2 s2c1, they have assumed that c1 supports s1 as well as s2, but they don't know that. If they make it s1 s3c2 s2c1, then subsequent readers may be misled to think that c2 supports s1, when possibly it does not. If they make is s1(citation needed) s3c2 s2c1, then a future editor will have to do extra work to find a source, when c1 might have covered it. This can all be avoided by putting a citation on each sentence (or even each major clause within a comound sentence). Let me be clear that I'm in no way endorsing this sort of citation overkill. cmadler (talk) 14:07, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
Oh my goodness. Where did you find that one? 28bytes (talk) 06:35, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
But the question is, does s1 or any other subsequent sentence contain "any material challenged or likely to be challenged"? I think one assumption that the "citation every sentence" crowd takes too far is that every sentence contains material that is likely to be challenged--when that is simply not always the case. Even offline sources are verifiable and when there is not the pressing threat of the material being challenged, adding redundant cites to consecutive sentences (when a cite at the end of the paragraph suffices) only serves to liter the page with more "noise" rather than content. Yes, I know there is the potential of "sneaky vandals" inserting material between references (as Bushranger's WP:HIJACK essay notes) but that is why we have watchlists and pages histories for and, then, ultimately WP:V which after good faith attempts at verifying the material says it can be removed. Even if the material was ultimately sourced to the original offline ref, if it is challenged and good faith attempts fail to verify it, then it should be removed. This is true EVEN if there was a citation right next to the sentence. AgneCheese/Wine 06:19, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
I guess I'm part of the "citation every sentence" crowd in that when I create an article, I consider it best practice to cite every sentence, with some common-sense exceptions, like the lead. It's not so much out of fear that a vandal will inject something as it is that a good-faith editor may add an uncited "heard it someplace" sentence in the middle of something that another good faith editor might assume the citation at the end of paragraph supports. Now, obviously, I don't require other people to do cites that way, since there's no DYK requirement that they do so... but it certainly doesn't harm anything to do it that way. Readers will tune out the "noise" of the superscripts. I doubt they even notice them unless there's a whole mess of them like the article cmadler cited above. 28bytes (talk) 06:35, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
But is redundancy and visual noise really a "best practice"? And folks do notice them. I'll do some searching to see if I can find the news article from a couple months ago (I'm thinking it was CNET) that talked about people's top complaints about Wikipedia and one was the overuse of footnotes. The author made a keen point that while Wikipedia's commitment to improving the reliability of their articles with more diligent referencing is obviously for the better good, the next stage in Wikipedia's evolution will be finding the balancing between usability and reliability. The author also noted that excessive use of footnotes can be crutch and make people less likely to actually verify material because if they assume there is a footnote on every sentence then it simply must be true. That is a scary trap to fall into and I agree with the author that it will be important in finding the right balance. AgneCheese/Wine 07:20, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
If you find that I'd be interested to read it. 28bytes (talk) 07:35, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
Definitely. Google news didn't find it easily. I'll probably have better luck with ProQuest when I get to campus on Monday. It was an article that came out around September. The title was something like "Top 10 complaints about Wikipedia and why it will get better" AgneCheese/Wine 19:00, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
I created a simple script at User:Ucucha/hiderefs.js that lets you hide and show references at will—that may solve some of the problems Agne mentioned. Ucucha 16:49, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
That's an excellent script but you have to figure that the vast majority of our readership are casual users on accessing the site from an IP address. They won't necessarily be able to use that script. AgneCheese/Wine 19:00, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
We could include the script in MediaWiki:common.js, which would make it available for everyone to use. Whether there is going to be consensus for that is another question. Ucucha 19:06, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
This just hides the "problem" w/o actually "solving" it. –HTD (ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens.) 02:15, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
I think the one-citation-per-sentence folks have generally confused WP:LIKELY with "possible".
The one-per-paragraph standard—despite being a standard that I personally exceed as a matter of course—makes my skin itch because it goes so much further than the content policies. The actual minimum requirements for WP:Inline citations are:
  1. All direct quotations (most articles contain zero)
  2. Anything that's been challenged (most new DYK candidates haven't been around long enough to get anything challenged)
  3. Anything that's WP:LIKELY to be challenged (according to the editor's best judgment)
According to WP:V, anything else is eligible for WP:General references.
The GA criteria go beyond that in an effort to standardize by identifying what the community usually thinks is LIKELY, but even that doesn't require one citation per paragraph. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:18, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Pontificalis Domus

Our rules require an article to be somewhere-near decent before it's mainpaged. This has a single third-party citation, linked through a single footnote, and a load of non-standard cites to a primary document. May I suggest it be removed? Ironholds (talk) 01:09, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

That is truly bad. This diff shows the review. Does somebody want to talk to the reviewer about this? Schwede66 01:26, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Agree and removed. Speaking the language of movies, the article is mostly plot, which often might not require references, but we don't pass articles merely rephrasing the plot. Materialscientist (talk) 01:27, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

This is the second one I've had to bring here in the past few days - I'm going to make a habit of going through the queues and pulling any that appear particularly shite. Ironholds (talk) 01:45, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Both cases were blatant. If you pull a hook from queues/preps, restore the whole nomination thread at T:TDYK (find a diff and revert, or copy/paste manually if this doesn't work). Then add your comment. If pulled from queues, replace that hook and credits with valid ones, or ask someone here (if no time). For preps, no need to replace the hook, but remove the credits too. Materialscientist (talk) 02:01, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
If this is an ongoing problem, perhaps all nominations should be reviewed by an established reviewer? For instance, someone who's unfamiliar with the process can review the hook, but it has to be OKed by someone who's reviewed a lot of noms before it actually gets through. That might be too complicated, though.-RHM22 (talk) 01:54, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Such mistakes always happened from time to time. With the advent of QPQ rule, prep composers should check the reviews more thoroughly. Also, is someone notices a newcomer is composing sets, please crosscheck. Materialscientist (talk) 02:01, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
How about we allow for a reviewer field with each prep? Once a prep has been assembled, an experienced reviewer looks over the hook articles (and the hooks themselves) and when it's all good, confirms this high level review before an admin promotes the prep to one of the queues. If the prep review counts towards the requirement of having to review an article for each own nomination, then I can imagine that quite a few of the regulars here would be very happy to help. I appreciate that it would make things slightly more complex, but if the suggestion of it counting towards the review requirement is taken up, I'm sure that we'd get quite a few experienced volunteers. Schwede66 02:11, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
That is an excellent idea. AgneCheese/Wine 02:12, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Agreed. I'm not a veteran or anything, but that seems like a good idea to me if an extra step like that is indeed required. It would probably be best for the prep composers to check the reviews more thoroughly, but if that doesn't work, I like the above idea.-RHM22 (talk) 02:16, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Yes, the user who promotes hooks to prep should look over each article again. But keep in mind that nobody is perfect. I've been trying to double-check approved nominations recently, and about half of the mistakes have been by "experienced" reviewers. - PM800 (talk) 03:09, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Works for me. Where do we move this thread to form consensus? :P. Ironholds (talk) 03:07, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
    Disagree, as this will put undue weight on that "magic check of preps" (as we already do with those magic ticks on T:TDYK page). (i) Prep composers have access to the whole review before it is removed, thus composing is the most responsible part. (ii) Admins are not robots, they are supposed to check the sets before promotion and take responsibility for that. That said, an admin might have no time before the main page launch. Also, we all see blunders better than others, in a certain time, for a certain topic. Thus everyone is encouraged to cross check preps and queues as much as time permits. Materialscientist (talk) 03:34, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
    Well, we could do that, but that seems to be 1) assuming that DYK has a stock of admins with a ton of free time, which we know is not the case and 2) allowing any slack behaviour to continue. I appreciate we are all volunteers, nobody works here, et cetera, but taking the approach that cross-checks are a better idea than having the opportunity to correct the behaviour which necessitates them seems somewhat confusing. Ironholds (talk) 14:38, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Help please

Doing my first DYK at 10JAN11 (Wilmer Tanner) It has an image. I chose that template. And since it is a self nom, left the nom field blank per directions. But then the nom field reached out and ate my image!  :( TCO (talk) 04:53, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

You probably wrote "|nom=Image=" instead of the correct "|nom=|image=" (or leave out the "|nom=" entirely). I'll fix the nom. Ucucha 04:56, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Thank you so kind. I will try better next time. I had all the alt text and rollover in there as well. But it got eaten. I can rewrite if it does not pop back in. Sorry. TCO (talk) 04:57, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, that just disappears. I wrote some alt and rollover, but feel free to replace it. Ucucha 05:04, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
OK. One other thing, we lost a fifth person (Sonia). Can she be added. If not, these four are right ones, but I had entered her. TCO (talk) 05:06, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Oh...and sorry to be such a bug, but I'm not clear what rollover is. I know caption and alt text, but rollover? (I just wrote a caption in there first time.) TCO (talk) 05:16, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Added Sonia. NewDYKnom only accepts up to four authors. Rollover is the text that is visible when you hover your mouse over the image; it should name briefly what is in the image. I think what I wrote (the guy's name) should be fine. Ucucha 05:19, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Cool!TCO (talk) 05:26, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
The step-by-step instructions at the Template:NewDYKnom#Instructions for nominating documentation page explain what rollover text is. The table (at that same page) listing all the parameters also explains it. rʨanaɢ (talk) 07:25, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I tried following directions. Will do better next time.

Different thing: can someone add Goodvac? Several recent edits. I tried putting him in but it did not "take". TCO (talk) 18:37, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Done. - PM800 (talk) 20:40, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Nienover

The hook for Nienover with political relevance for Europe is in prep 3 now, which will appear in Europe in the middle of the night, to my understanding. Could that be moved to 1 or 2 later? There is no rush. - But Template talk:Did you know#Joanne Lunn would have been nice on 23 January and is still waiting for a review. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:43, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

The Nienover hook is now on Q4. --PFHLai (talk) 17:21, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for moving! - The cantata hook for Jan 23 is still waiting. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:16, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Reviewing

With the introduction of the new system, it is possible that two editors may be trying to review the same article at the same time. Would it be possible to introduce a new dyk template incorporating the symbol for editors to use to show that they are reviewing an article? {{DYKunderreview}} perchance? Mjroots (talk) 10:40, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Why? Its not that you'll have an edit conflict saving your edits. Several ticks are welcome and this is observed at times. If you mean "registering for QPQ", a review can be poor, or constructive, no matter whether it is first or second for a nomination. Materialscientist (talk) 10:46, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The new system

I'd like the name of the editor who first came up with the idea of "review-one-submit-one"? Can anyone say? Thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 14:35, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

This came about from the big discussions a few months ago that are scattered all over the place but mostly in archives #60 and 61 here. Materialscientist's comment here, dated 11:50, 9 November 2010 (UTC), might be the first one that made the suggestion explicitly, although I'm not sure. rʨanaɢ (talk) 14:47, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
Thank you. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:38, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Extra question mark in the ? Nycticebus linglom DYK hook (which as you can see is actually from the errant title). DYK hook reads as:

  • ... that the fossil primate ? Nycticebus linglom is known from a single tooth, which is said to be the smallest known prosimian molar?

Shearonink (talk) 18:33, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

    • Are you referring to the ? preceding "Nycticebus"? If so, that is actually part of the fossil's scientific name - the "?" indicates that the assignment of the fossil to the genus is uncertain. There's nothing wrong with the hook. - The Bushranger One ping only 18:41, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
Ah, thanks...that extra question mark is jarring to the unknowing eye. Perhaps a comment that the ? is correct should be placed within the coding, otherwise well-meaning editors like myself will make the same mistake. Shearonink (talk) 19:13, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
I've amended the article accordingly, using a hidden comment. Schwede66 03:53, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Error in Queue 1

In the last hook of Queue 1, André Duchesne should be André Duchesne (musician). Thanks. —Bruce1eetalk 05:00, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 05:02, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

"Reviewed"

Editors are showing that they have reviewed an article by adding the article name. Might I suggest adding to the big yellow box, something like the following:

"When nominating a new article, if you wish to show that you have reviewed an article, consider adding this:"

I am suggesting this because editors aren't following any guideline and it seems to visually congest the space. Plus, bumping it over to the right would help keep it out of the way, and would encourage further edits to be placed below it. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 15:59, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, the template has a |reviewed= paramater, which was added by Ucucha. If people come to an agreement on how this information should be formatted, the best thing to do would be to work that formatting into the template. (The reason for the "standard" formatting we have now for the rest of the noms, which keeps the space from being "visually congested", is that a couple years ago when I was designing the template I made a few arbitrary choices about the formatting and as the template was used more I guess everyone just got used to it.)
As for the issue of linking versus diff'ing, the consensus at the brief discussion here was that a diff is the most useful. rʨanaɢ (talk) 08:30, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
Per discussion here, I thought the review was to take place after the nomination. If that's the case, a parameter in the template does no good, because the template is (rightly) subst'ed. cmadler (talk) 12:56, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing... the review parameter is great if you've already done your review before you make your nomination, but some (many?) of us don't do it in that order. 28bytes (talk) 14:16, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I review yours, you review mine...

Is it advised to allow mutual reviewing by DYK nominators? I have nominated Tewkesbury Medieval Festival and reviewed Wabbicommicot. Arctic Night, nominiator of Wabbicommicot, later reviewed my Tewkesbury nomination. It should be of no issue if all was done objectively. This, however, might be easily gamed and involve a conflict of interest between the two. The DYK page only states "Any editor who was not involved in writing/expanding or nominating an article may review it ...", should there be a change? Jappalang (talk) 00:21, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to make it known that this was not intentional - we didn't organise a mutual reviewing of each other's DYK hooks, just to let you know! Arctic Night 00:36, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
I think it's probably natural that people whose interests are similar will end up reviewing each others' nominations a fair amount. As long as it's a good-faith review, I don't think there's any problem with it. 28bytes (talk) 01:50, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
I think reciprocal reviewing is probably undesirable, but less undesirable than having hooks sit for a long time unreviewed. We're already operating in a DYK world that's far from perfect, so aiming for perfect transparency and absolute impartiality can wait until such time as we have the workforce to achieve it. - DustFormsWords (talk) 03:11, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
One thing to keep in mind is that some of the folks who promote "passed" hooks to the prep areas do some double-checking to ensure there isn't a problem. I always at least skim the articles, double-check the images and run DYKcheck when I move hooks to prep, and if something looks a little off I give it a more thorough look. I don't know if everyone who builds prep sets does this, but I do and I know some others do. 28bytes (talk) 03:36, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Subpages?

There have been several proposals to divide T:TDYK into subpages (Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_53#Subpages (by me) was the most recent I could find). The last proposal died for lack of response, but I still think it would be a good idea; the fact that T:TDYK is such a huge page (currently 330 kb) makes edits difficult and clutters watchlists. Ucucha 23:46, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree that it's a good idea to revive this discussion. Edit conflicts are the most annoying aspect of the current system (and I would estimate that I usually edit outside of the hours of peak demand, so others might be much worse off than I am). My preference is for a page per day that gets transcluded, as that seems to make good sense and would appear to be much less complex than a page per nomination. One aspect that I'd be keen on is the ability to jump straight to a subpage (i.e. a particular day) rather than get to everything through the large front page where everything gets transcluded. I sometimes look at DYK using a PDA that has Internet Explorer as its browser, and the warning that the "page may load slowly if viewed through IE" is an understatement - usually it doesn't load the whole page at all! Individual pages would get around this issue for those of us who sometimes have to use IE to view DYK. Schwede66 01:10, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
I think this is good idea as well. Often, I find myself unwatchlisting the page when waiting for responses to reviews/noms, as it has far too many changes. It would help both reviewers and nominators keep track of what's progressing. Maybe there is some technical hurdle to this that I don't know about. A system like WP:AFD - could it work here? (Main page indexes the days, links to review pages) The Interior(Talk) 01:25, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

This is the proposal I put together last time:

I still think this proposal is sensible, and it addresses Schwede66's concern (Template talk:Did you know/Links does what he wants). Ucucha 01:25, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

If T:TDYK served as a transclusion point for all of the subpages, wouldn't we still have the same issue with load times? Arctic Night 04:01, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
Yup, but only for when you want to see the whole thing. If you just wanted to follow a nomination of interest, you'd watchlist that subpage. Theoretically you wouldn't have to ever pull up the whole page; you'd know what date your nomination would fall under and add it there, and you could probably find an unreviewed article on that same page, or if not, then the previous day's. 28bytes (talk) 04:12, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

An exception

Can someone make an exception for a future hook for Airbus A330? The article is quite complex for me to undertake by myself. I've managed to add 50% of info, which I think is the limit, onto the page over the last 5 days, short of the 200% requirement. Is someone willing to make an exception for this page only? --Sp33dyphil (Talk) (Contributions)(I love Wikipedia!) 04:56, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Current expansion is 22446/8322=2.7, which is somewhat too low by my standards. Some large articles are too difficult to expand 5x for DYK, and I personally would tolerate, say 4x expansion, especially when much information is added as non-prose material, but this is not the case here. Materialscientist (talk) 05:17, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
A better option would be to try for Good Article status. Mjroots (talk) 10:10, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Convert in Queue 4

In the fifth hook of Queue 4, "300 metre" should be replaced with: {{convert|300|m|adj=on}}. MANdARAX  XAЯAbИAM 19:34, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Done. Shubinator (talk) 05:35, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Bach cantatas again

As mentioned above (Nienover), Template talk:Did you know#Joanne Lunn is still waiting for the review to be completed, should have appeared ideally 23 January, and certainly before Template talk:Did you know#Anna Reynolds (singer) for 30 January, coming soon. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:00, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, done, the later one now first, but it doesn't matter too much, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:54, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Small point

and I really should be in bed . . . but in Queue 1, "... that although the Parks and Recreation third season premiere "Go Big or Go Home" was filmed immediately after the second season ended to accomodate actress Amy Poehler's pregnancy, the premiere was delayed until January?" - shouldn't that be accommodate? Yngvadottir (talk) 22:00, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Art LaPella fixed that. Materialscientist (talk) 23:28, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Queue 1 fix

The third hook in Queue 1 erroneously has a (pictured). MANdARAX  XAЯAbИAM 19:54, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

 Fixed. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:09, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Second reviewer requested . . .

... for Pacific Center for Human Growth. I reviewed it, assessed it as needing more work, then went ahead and fixed it as best I could. My work on it is too substantial for me to now give it ye olde tick. Yngvadottir (talk) 20:09, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

A rule or a suggestion?

I would like to use an interesting image of corn smut on the DYK of a biologist who studied smut, which is among other things a disease of plants. (Although a search through Commons for "smut" turns up other stuff too.)

Wikipedia:Did_you_know#Images says "The first item "hook" should be modified to include (pictured) (or perhaps (pictured, flag of Zdxyrastan) or whatever) in the appropriate place to make the connection to the image." Does that mean "should normally be modified" or "must in every case be modified"? Because it does kind of ruin the joke of saying he studied smut, to say that the picture of corn is a picture of smut... Sharktopustalk 16:07, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Is this a case where WP:IAR could be applied? Mjroots (talk) 20:12, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
I have proposed an alternative wording for the hook at the nomination thread that may address the problem. EdChem (talk) 03:32, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
I am very excited by the idea of April Fool's Day, but I expect to have lots of competition by then. And EdChem's suggestion is brilliant, so I hope to go with that. Thanks, EdChem and Bushranger and Mjroots, for your helpful ideas. Sharktopustalk 20:10, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

What to do with a DYK sourced entirely to primary sources?

I just reviewed the article Tourism in Åland, the review of which you can find here. It has four sources, which all seem to be primary sources, since they are from the government's touring website. Is there a rule on what to do with DYK nominations that are entirely primary sourced? Is it okay to pass through or not? I thought it wasn't, but the nominator believes otherwise and I am not 100% sure on what the rules are for this. SilverserenC 02:32, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

No, there are good reasons the {{primary sources}} tag exists. (I've added it to the article in question.) A hook fact may rely on a primary source in certain cases but the entire article can't be sourced to them with no reliable third-party coverage to for purposes of verifiability and notability. - Dravecky (talk) 14:55, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
Please take a good long read of WP:CSB. I'm sure we wouldn't be having this issue if the sources were from the US government. Just because the sources are all from the government of the Aland Islands doesn't make them any different. Arctic Night 17:32, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
That doesn't really seem appropriate. You're saying the standard should be lowered for an article that's on an underrepresented topic? systemic bias doesn't mean that articles haven't been written on this topic because there are no third-party sources available on it; it means that relatively fewer Wikipedia editors are interested in writing about it. If there are third-party sources available, you should try to find them and use them. rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:38, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
No, you misunderstood what I was trying to say. I was trying to say that a double standard exists - if we created an article on say, the demographics of the United States and used only United States Census Bureau sources as references, this would be seen as OK. I created Tourism in Åland and used mostly government-published sources (the Åland Islands statistics office, as an example). These are apparently 'unreliable'. K. Never mind, I have added some secondary sources to the article - all statements not previously supported by a secondary source are now supported. Arctic Night 17:59, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
See how easy that was? rʨanaɢ (talk) 18:55, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

(outdent) I know this issue seems resolved but Arctic Night brings up a really good point about DYK's view on primary sources from US government vs foreign government sources. We get a lot of DYK who are essentially completely sourced to applications and pages related to the National Register of Historic Places. If we apply the same standards then a lot of NRHP DYKs won't pass. AgneCheese/Wine 19:11, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Those standards should, most definitely, be applied. Such articles should not be entirely sourced to the NRHP. We should not pass them if they are. SilverserenC 20:03, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
Thank you, Rjanag, but it was not easy at all. I had to do a lot of extra research because a foreign government source is not considered reliable. I should say though that I do agree with Silver seren to some extent - there should be some consistency, either both U.S. and foreign government sources are reliable or they're not, no double standard. Arctic Night 01:03, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
It's not that they aren't reliable, primary sources are generally reliable, it's just that they have the tendency to be kinda biased. Which is why we prefer coverage from secondary sources. Believe me, I think we should give more credit to primary sources, read my essay on the subject. SilverserenC 01:13, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
I completely agree with the view you put forward in that essay! Maybe I was mistaken, but I saw the issue in this case to be what I saw as systemic bias against Government of the Åland Islands sources, not primary/secondary reliability - that is, again, that while an article on the demographics of the United States would be fine if sourced to United States Census Bureau sources, while an article on tourism in Åland is not OK when it's sourced entirely to Government of the Åland Islands sources. That's what I saw the issue as - maybe I'm wrong. Arctic Night 01:22, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I find it questionable whether a government-produced synthesis of data is to be regarded as a primary source in this case, as opposed to the underlying data. In any case, a discussion such as this is pointless unless you make some consideration of the actual credibility of the sources.

As far as I know, the government of Åland isn't known for manipulating data. They may not tell you everything in a website intended to sell the islands to potential foreign tourists, but what they tell you is not likely to be wildly incorrect.

As for the non-government sources: If there were academic secondary sources making an independent critical analysis of primary data, I would agree that these would be at least as credible as the government sources, possibly more so. But travel guides like Frommer's? These may technically fulfil a requirement for being independent, but they are not really any more credible than the government sources, which is probably where they got much of their data in any case. --Hegvald (talk) 01:20, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree completely. As for the government/non-government question, I would ask the naysayers whether United States Government Printing Office sources are considered reliable or not. If they say that they are reliable, that is blatant systemic bias, as one government's sources are being considered reliable while another's are not. Arctic Night 01:32, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
It's also an issue of what part of the government you are sourcing from. Archival- and scientific-related government bodies have oversight and standards. Sometimes tourism boards are a bit weaker in that regard. I try to avoid sourcing only to government tourism agencies and boards as they do have a mandate to promote the subject, though the hard data in these sources is usually reliable. My feeling is that usually they need to be complemented by a third-party. The Interior (Talk) 01:37, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
Secondary sources are there now. What I took issue with was the labelling of a Statistics and Research Åland (the Islands' equivalent to the United States Census Bureau) publication as unreliable. That is clear systemic bias. Arctic Night 01:39, 31 January 2011 (UTC)