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[Edit] link wrong?

Is it just me or has this happened to others. Yesterday I tried to review John Arthur (philosopher), but when I hit submit, I realized my comments were placed under Jaime Areizaga-Soto. I moved the comments to the correct hook and then for good measure, I also reviewed the Soto article as I assumed it was my mistake and I should have been more aware of what I clicked. Then today, I tried to edit Bullskin Creek Site, and I noticed when I clicked the "Edit" link, it actually took me to the section below it, "Special occasion holding area". I tried it a couple times with the same results. I found that clicking edit next to "Henryk Kuna" actually brought me to the Bullskin Creek Site hook. It appears as if the "Edit" link for any section actually brings you to the section below it. Has anyone else experienced this?--v/r - TP 19:24, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Nah, it's not just you. Common occurrence with a heavily-edited page. Sometimes you just need to hit refresh. 28bytes (talk) 19:26, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll just have to pay more attention to what actually comes up when I click it then.--v/r - TP 19:29, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I raised this only a few weeks ago. It's a continual nuisance. Is there no other way of organising the page so nominators and reviewers can click edit and get the right subsection, and better still, can watchlist a single entry? Tony (talk) 08:28, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

See the discussion above for more on possible solutions to these vexing issues. - Dravecky (talk) 08:33, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps it would help if the explanation given above would appear right on top of the page: "refresh before editing"? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:45, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

DYK with hypothetical COI

Everyone seems to agree that there is no problem with creating lots of DYK about Bach or bugs or other non-controversial items. We have often had questions raised about people (allegedly) using DYK to "promote" political POV or book sales, etc. If the articles and hooks are neutral, do we need policy to prevent "promotion"? And if so, what further policy? Would spacing hooks out in time make things better or worse? The policy issues that have been raised by recent discussions should be considered in a neutral, hypothetical way. Could we start such a neutral discussion here? Sharktopus^talk 15:43, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I think the clusters that have been objected to are a function of recentism (and perhaps other aspects of institutional bias). I don't think the encyclopedia needs an article on each book written by any contemporary writer, but it's pretty inevitable that such will get written. And that is where the clusters that look like promotion - of book sales or a political point of view - are coming from. (As has been pointed out, there have been few or no complaints about the frequency with which DYK features Bach cantatas, or English churches, or Olympic athletes, or footballers and teams of either kind.) I don't think there's a solution to that except the weak and passive one of continuing to encourage editors to consider institutional bias and work to fill in gaps elsewhere in the encyclopedia. To forbid or turn down nominations based on excess coverage of one topic or person would be unfair. So I think requiring them to be spaced out - no more than one a day on any contemporary person or their works, and if possible in different timeslots on the different days - would be the best solution at DYK. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:53, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

• (ec)Current practice: Assuming that the hooks and articles are suitably NPOV and meet all DYK requirements, they should all be used as promptly as possible. It is recommended to space topically-related hooks into different updates in order to have balanced updates. We have discussed -- and I thought, reached consensus -- on a special rule that a hook about a candidate in an upcoming election will not be run within the 30 days prior to that election (sorry, I can't find that anywhere in the rules, perhaps someone knows...), but beyond that, we try not to take political considerations into account. Where possible, related articles are combined into multi-article hooks, to reduce the total number of appearances of a single topic. cmadler (talk) 17:02, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
• Suggestion: Where related articles can't be combined into multi-article hooks, I suggest that the ideal spacing would be every n+1 updates, where n is the number of daily updates. For example, since we are currently on 6-hour updates, there are four updates per day, so the ideal spacing would be every fifth update. This way, the related articles don't appear consecutively (giving continuous Main Page exposure to the topic), and the related articles don't appear at the same time on consecutive days (where they are likely to be viewed by the same readers). The exception to all this, of course, is when there's some link between the topic and the date. cmadler (talk) 17:02, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
  • I'll add another thought to this. I think the ideal spacing is every n+1 updates, as I described above, but of course, reality gets in the way of the ideal all the time. Spacing slightly longer than ideal would be fine, and there's generally not a problem with shorter spacing. What we don't want -- I think there's just no need for it -- is to hold hooks for spacing a week apart (or longer), as someone suggested in the current case. I just don't see any benefit to intentionally spacing hooks more than about n+1 updates. cmadler (talk) 20:17, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
• Spacing out DYKs sounds eminently sensible. What would not be acceptable, I think, is the proposition (advanced in an earlier discussion by one editor) that a particular topic should be blacklisted because it is "controversial", even if there is nothing wrong or objectionable with the DYK article itself. I suggest that as well as adding a policy point about spacing out DYKs, we should also add a point about invalid arguments against particular DYKs, along the lines of Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions. It would be helpful if certain lines of argument could be ruled invalid at the start, to save everyone time later. Prioryman (talk) 19:47, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Definitely space them out. I'd assumed that was done by the admins who queue them and put them on the main page. Tony (talk) 08:30, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Articles on related topics are normally spaced out as updates are prepared, simply by virtue of the requirement for each update to contain a variety of content. Beyond the requirement for a varied update, editors composing updates usually try to pull the oldest verified hooks from the nominations page, occassionally deviating for hooks with a connection to a specific date or for the first and last hooks of the update (image and quirky/funny/upbeat, respectively). I think the question here is how far related articles should be spaced out; is it sufficient simply to make sure they're in different updates (which is currently the only thing we have systemized), or do they need to be separated by a specified number of updates? If the latter, then how far should they be spaced? cmadler (talk) 16:52, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I am loath to support a formal rule requiring spacing of "similar articles" because the primary function of such a rule would be generating a steady stream of debates about whether various pairs or groups of articles are sufficiently similar for the rule to apply. Do we really need to fill this talk page with discussions on the closeness of biographies of people living in the same country, participants in an athletic event (e.g. 2012 Summer Olympics), naval ships, or animal/plant species? --Allen3 ^talk 21:42, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Good point, but it only seems to be arousing concern in the case of living people and their works (books, but the issue of lots of DYK exposure in a short time being interpretable as promotion might arise with paintings or buildings I imagine). The n+1 rule of thumb seems eminently sensible - how about we apply it only to living people and their works? I do think trying to suppress nominations on such grounds would be unfair and against the principle that we all edit what we feel like editing. I would extend that even to encouraging bundling nominations into multiple-hook articles: the editor may not have all the articles ready at once, and even that strikes me as unfair pressure. But in an ideal world the best solution would be to have more DYK submissions on under-represented topics, to dilute the clumps further than they already are. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:17, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Apprentice as captain?

That's what I understand reading in Prep1: "... that an apprentice who served on board Empire Deben was the captain of Canberra during the Falklands War?" I am also surprised how different the new name of the ship is from the former, and wonder if the old name should be mentioned somehow, in brackets, or "formerly"? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:09, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

As I understand it, Empire Deben and Canberra are two different ships. Dennis Scott-Masson was an apprentice on Empire Deben in the 1940s and captain of Canberra in the 1980s. —Bruce1ee^talk 09:24, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't clear enough: Empire Deben and SS Thuringia (1922) are the same ship, or not? Also I am more concerned about the time, the same person served as an apprentice on the ED and (later?) as captain on the Canberra. I would not know how to word it, but as it stands the "apprentice ... was the captain", and I don't think that is right. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:30, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I've reworded the hook in Prep1 to read: "that an apprentice who served on board Empire Deben later became the captain of Canberra during the Falklands War?" Sorry, Empire Deben and SS Thuringia are the same ship, but I don't know if the hook needs to reflect this. —Bruce1ee^talk 09:40, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! (You can't help that this is a hook which doesn't say anything important about the article, not even mentioning it.) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:07, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the problem is about the piped link. This is done to ensure that the count in the DYK template is correct, otherwise we'd be scrabbling around to count how many hits a redirect got, not the article. The ship was built as Thuringia. The choice of which of the three names to house the article under was not easy, but I decided against Empire Deben as being only 3 years under this name. Thuringia just won out as she spent all her career under that name as an ocean liner, whereas General San Martin was a barracks ship for a good portion of her service under that name. I don't think we need to mention that Empire Deben had previous names in the hook, which relates entirely to when she was operating under that name. Mjroots (talk) 16:17, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I think the piped link is fine in that case. cmadler (talk) 16:38, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Please don't misunderstand me, I am not against a piped link, but I don't understand why a hook was chosen about the short time under the new name, and not even about the ship then, but a connection to a different ship. I would have preferred a hook on the ship (!) during the long time as Thuringia, as more characteristic. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:56, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, you're always free to suggest an ALT hook if you wish, although it's too late for this one. Mjroots (talk) 07:38, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Citations to organisation's own website?

Reviewing Building and Road Research Institute (BRRI), I gave it a ?no because it was unsourced except to BRRI's own website, and because many parts were entirely unsourced. In response to my concerns, the nominator has added two citations from other websites (first and second citations) and used the BRRI website to cite what was missing. Technically, I suppose that our requirements have been passed, but I'm concerned about promoting an article to the Main Page that lacks both substantial coverage in a print source and substantial coverage in an online source independent of the subject, especially since the hook itself comes from BRRI's website. What say you to the idea of promoting this article as-is versus requiring more work first? Aside from sourcing issues, the article doesn't seem to have much of any problems: it's long enough and new enough, and I suspect that it's notable because it's apparently both a major part of Ghana's academic world and a player on the international West African academic scene. Nyttend (talk) 22:40, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I was very tempted to AfD this, but having done some searches, yes I would agree with you that the organisation may well be notable. But if that's the case, then the nominator should be doing the work to include references, not just leave it as a piece mainly sourced to the organisation's website, with a token nod to two other online refs, both of which are dubious. This should be in there if we're taking the existing refs seriously. I see no justification for promoting this until more work is done. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:08, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Sometimes, topics are notable, but very poorly covered online. Some organizations, particularly in the developing world, fall into this category. I think we should accept such references, as long as they don't make any controversial claims. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:08, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

When Europe sleeps

Q4 has three hooks related to Europe - to appear when Europe sleeps. Yes, one is mine, Paulinerkirche, with dynamite, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:24, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, we might reshuffle the queues later. At the moment of upload to Q4 all sets were Europe-related. Materialscientist (talk) 23:28, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

You'll find hooks of interest to all parts of the world that run while that part of the world is asleep... but then other parts of the world get to learn about them, too. (At least, that's how I comfort myself when an article about a radio station in Iowa runs from 1-7am, Iowa time.) - Dravecky (talk) 04:19, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

You are right in general. But specifically for the Paulinerkirche I just received a comment which made me wish it would appear "before the eyes of the world again", which means with a picture at a different time of the day. That may mean a later day. The church of Luther, Bach, Mendelssohn, Reger ..., with a tradition of university services since 1409, was demolished in 1968 and not rebuilt, a few more days are no problem. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:58, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:44, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

19 June

Two hooks waiting in Special occasions, sorry to be boring, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:38, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, prompt! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:51, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

William the Conqueror

This hook is presently at T:DYK/P4: "... that William Hopkinson Cox, who was Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky from 1907 to 1911, was believed to be a descendent of William the Conqueror?" But we're all descended from Charlemagne, so by the same reasoning, we're almost as surely descended from William the Conqueror. We might change it to "... ancestry has been traced back to William the Conqueror", but including the weasel word "believed" would be difficult, and the claim still isn't unusual; my wife's ancestry has also been traced back to William the Conqueror. That much genealogy was less common in 1911 than it is with the Internet, but "... ancestry has been traced back to William the Conqueror, even though there wasn't any Internet yet" sounds too much like "Gee whiz, Batman!" Art LaPella (talk) 21:32, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Agree, that's an overly spectacular statement.BarkingMoon (talk) 22:32, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Separately made duplicate articles

Earlier tonight, I created an article on Ron Bruder. Not long after I finished the bulk of the work, I ran a more intensive Wikipedia search to see what other articles were referring to him so I could add wikilinks in them and found that there was an article already on him at Ronald B. Bruder (what it looked like prior to redirection). Somehow, it hadn't popped up when I ran a Wikipedia search before making my article in the first place. I started a discussion at the Help Desk here to ask what should be done, since the other article was mostly unreferenced and written like a resume and also seemed to have a COI problem based on who the creator was. I was directed to merge any relevant content. After looking it over and snagging any references that were different from what I had, I ended up just redirecting it, as the information was either already covered in the one I had made or it was unsourced and, thus, shouldn't be copied. Therefore, none of the content from that article was actually merged. Because of this, it's pretty much like i've written an entirely new article, since the content is practically entirely different from the other one and written entirely by me without having looked at (or known about) the other one. Therefore, is it out of line for me to ask whether this can be counted as a new article and thus qualify for DYK? Silverseren^C 07:41, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I'd say that the article is substantially new, and should therefore be eligible for DYK. It seems to be a similar situation to an article being recreated to replace a copyvio. Mjroots (talk) 07:47, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Listed. Thanks for your response and help. Silverseren^C 08:54, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

But we've long held that overhauling an existing article, no matter how poorly written, requires 5x expansion to qualify at DYK. This cae is certainly unusual but the replaced article was not a copyvio, was not unsourced (9 sources listed including CNN & NYT), and was about one-third longer than the "new" article that replaced it. Silver seren's work here is laudable but I can't see how it's eligible for DYK under even a loos interpretation of the rules. - Dravecky (talk) 09:29, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Dravecky. It's great work, it's a big improvement, but it's not eligible for DYK. cmadler (talk) 14:25, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Or rule the unreferenced, CoI attempt to be not an article? Tony (talk) 14:39, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Only it wasn't unreferenced. It had 9 fairly solid references from CNN, The New York Times, and such. - Dravecky (talk) 15:25, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

• This is a new article created by SilverSeren, it is not a rewrite of the previous article. The 5x expansion rule is for rewrites. Sharktopus^talk 15:45, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
• Given that SilverSeren didn't even know about the existence of the other article until after it was written, then the new one sounds very much like a new article to me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:50, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
  • Except that Wikipedia did already have an article on this topic. Ignoring intent and considering only actions, it's the same is if an editor did a complete rewrite on an existing article, then moved the article to a better name, leaving a redirect in place. If it had been done in that order, we wouldn't even be having this discussion. The end result is the same; Wikipedia had an article on a topic, now we have a better article on the same topic. Despite the manner in which it happenned, that's not a new article. cmadler (talk) 18:13, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
    • What we have here is a legitimate difference of opinion about whether or not a newly-created article is a new article if it is newly created but another article covering the same topic in a very different way already existed. I have the greatest respect for the people whose opinion differs from mine here, but I just don't see it their way. What is see is that "ignoring intent, and considering only actions," SS wrote a new article on a notable topic. This is different from doing a complete rewrite of an existing article because 1) it is much harder and 2) writing new articles is what DYK gives kudos for. Sharktopus^talk 18:50, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Unsourced

5x expansion, fine, but unsourced information, as almost the entirety of that other version was, shouldn't count towards prose. If you take away all of the unsourced information, you're left with,

"Ronald B. Bruder, a serial entrepreneur and social entrepreneur, was born in Brooklyn, New York. Bruder is the founder of Education for Employment (EFE), a network of locally-run non-profit organizations dedicated to creating economic opportunities for unemployed youth. The network currently operates in the Middle East and North Africa - the region with the world's highest youth unemployment rate. He is a member of the Board of Advisors of The Lighthouse International. Prior to founding EFE, Bruder was a serial entrepreneur mainly focused on real estate development. In 1977, Bruder founded Brookhill. In 1995, Bruder formed Dames & Moore/Brookhill."

That is 655 characters. The article I wrote, which is completely sourced from top to bottom, is more than 5x that. Silverseren^C 19:37, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Additional Rule A4: "Fivefold expansion is calculated from the previously existing article, no matter how bad it was (copyvios are an exception), no matter whether you kept any of it and no matter if it was up for deletion. This may be a bad surprise, but we don't have enough time and volunteers to reach consensus on the quality of each previous article."

And this means expansion from the actual article, not the fantasy version from which you wish you were expanding it. Sorry, it's good work but it's just not going to get through DYK. - Dravecky (talk) 20:07, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

So, essentially, that means that an IP address can come along to a small, sourced article, and throw in a bunch of unsourced information. Then if another editor comes in later and removes all of the unsourced information and then expands the actual sourced stuff 5x, it doesn't count as a full 5x because of what the IP address did? That's horrible, horrible policy. Silverseren^C 20:15, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, sadly, that's the way I've always read it. Or someone can add irrelevant stuff based on confusion, and unless it's in a clearly marked separate section, it's going to cause trouble for the counting. Also as I understand it, the 5-day limit discourages people from doing an emergency fix to a stub and coming back a month or a year later and expanding the article, because that first fix (such as when I went through Berlin U-Bahn station one-liners adding pictures) counts as the start of expansion. It is harder to get an expansion through the goalposts than a new article. Fair or not. And not always to the benefit of the project - I don't think one-line articles are much better than redlinks or redirects, I think we should discourage the creation of sub-stubs. But those do appear to be the rules. Is there any way to increase the length of this article by incorporating a section or two on the organizations and companies he's been associated with? Yngvadottir (talk) 20:32, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Maybe, but there's no way I can get it 5x times what all of the unsourced information was in the other one. It's at about 1.5x at the moment. I don't think there's enough information in the world about him to reach 5x length. Not for now, at least. Silverseren^C 20:39, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I remember a Bach cantata BWV 132, which was mostly a copy of the text, but not formatted as a quote. I deleted the text - as requested by the project Classical music - before I expanded. An exception was made then not to count the former text portion as a base for the 5* expansion. It made sense to me, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:37, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Queue 3

The thumb for that queue will be the same in the OTD section so that'll have to be changed (either the hook or the picture, the main article has some nice pics). –HTD (ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens.) 17:03, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

It is still too early to panic about this concern. The image for Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/June 19 was put in place by a user with two edits and the admin who takes care of SA/OTD often does his work between 22:00 and 24:00 (UTC) of the day before. Best course of action is to wait a couple of hours and see if the daily maintenance at SA/OTD resolves the problem for us. --Allen3 ^talk 17:25, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

OK. If the OTD and DYK has the same thumb at the same time something then should be done. –HTD (ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens.) 17:38, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Daily SA/OTD maintenance has resolved the issue. --Allen3 ^talk 21:15, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Change thumbnail for Prep 2?

The thumbnail for prep 2 was a nice side view of a decim periodical cicada but I am thinking this head-on headshot would be more dramatic. I have made the change but in case I should not have done so, I'm asking for feedback. Sharktopus^talk 21:48, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Italicize movie article titles

In the body of an article, to italicize something, you just surround it with ''italics''. But how do you italicize the actual title of the article? I mean the part that shows up above "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" at the very top? See The Legend of Lizzie Borden for reference. Tks.BarkingMoon (talk) 23:47, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Add one of those templates at the top of the article: {{Italic title}} or {{DISPLAYTITLE}}. The latter is more flexible, e.g. when you need to italicize only one word, but you'll need to add the coded article name into the template. Materialscientist (talk) 23:52, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks.BarkingMoon (talk) 00:00, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Removed some of my self noms

After a concern was raised at my user talk page, I voluntarily took the initiative to remove a few self-noms from consideration at the suggestions page T:TDYK — please see diff. Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 06:08, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Please see my note on your talk page, an attempt to talk you out of this course of action. - Dravecky (talk) 06:23, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

The Savage hook currently in queue 1 ought also to be removed. There were two DYKs about Dan Savage on June 5, another one in the queue, and another four suggested, all by Cirt, which is clearly inappropriate. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 06:27, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

I dispute the clarity of the inappropriateness. The hook, as approved, should stay. The others can be better spaced out by thoughtful editors assembling queues rather than simply disappeared. - Dravecky (talk) 06:34, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Request: I respectfully request that the DYK submission currently in Template:Did you know/Queue/1 which is credited to myself, please be removed from consideration. Thank you, -- Cirt (talk) 06:36, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

After reviewing the discussion at Talk:Santorum (neologism), it's clear that User:SlimVirgin is not a disinterested party but rather a politically motivated actor. As such, I have restored the approved hooks that they have deleted from the nominations page. A thorough discussion of these hooks and how to deal with them, not merely a browbeating of one editor and an essentially unilateral decision, should take place before any deletion of approved hooks takes place for political reasons. - Dravecky (talk) 06:47, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

No comment on that, but respecting the request by Cirt, I have removed (replaced) his hook from Q1. Materialscientist (talk) 06:51, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Dravecky, I have no political motivation in this case. My concerns are in the one case BLP, and here that DYK has crossed into active promotion. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 07:12, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

I've only just found out that Dravecky was himself involved in editing the santorum neologism pages prior to the DYKs being submitted, for example, see here. I'm noting this here for future reference, because he has presented himself as uninvolved, and me as politically motivated. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 04:15, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Request: I have removed my self-noms from T:TDYK a 2nd time, diff. I respectfully request that they not be considered. Thank you, -- Cirt (talk) 06:59, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Out of respect for Cirt, I will let the matter drop for now. I'm still deeply troubled that outside political forces are being brought to bear on a talented content creator and that the system has been gamed to both hide that editor's contributions and the browbeat that editor into backing away from content creation. - Dravecky (talk) 07:04, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm concerned that you think it's okay to have seven DYKs about one writer in the space of not much over a week, in addition to three templates created, one article, and yet another expanded five-fold. That's clearly inappropriate, and if DYK is allowing this kind of thing it needs to be overhauled. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 07:09, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Spacing of hooks on related subjects is a matter for thoughtful queue assembly, not deletion. DYK does it all the time with sports, bugs, polticians, and plenty of other topics that crop up in clusters. As DYK has nothing to do with template creation and is actually designed to encourage both article creation and expansion, the clarity you have achieved escapes me. - Dravecky (talk) 07:16, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

But thoughtful queue assembly wasn't working, given you had two DYKs about one freelance writer on the main page on the same day, with another one about the same person at the top of the queue, and another four suggested. So clearly something went wrong in this case. This is not the encouragement of article creation and expansion. This is the encouragement of promotion, with articles being created and expanded in the service of that. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 07:51, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

This is a very troubling display of censorship. --William S. Saturn (talk) 07:33, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Coming into this discussion only now, I would like to see at least some of approved hooks on the Main page, spaced in time. I hope we don't have to change rules, just encourage observation of the prep of more people to detect unwanted "repetition". - Having said that, I'm going to suggest two more Bach cantatas for Pentecost, simply because Bach performed three each year on three days. Afterwards we will get to the less festive half of the liturgical year. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:23, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Even more troubling is that Cirt (who has a goodly number of DYKs), is quitting DYK. To quote his edit summary: "Undid revision 432807806 by Dravecky (talk) = removed my hooks. will not be editing this page again in the future. respectfully request they not be considered." I think the Savage hooks were fine, they just needed to be spaced a bit. Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:29, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Preface: I will preface my remarks to note that just three days ago, I was accused of a conservative bias for expressing concerns about a DYK nomination about a liberal organization (weirdly, for a political article, the problems weren't POV; the thing was just way off-topic), so I'm assuming I would not be accused of being a defender of Dan Savage (though there is that expression that if you're getting attacked from both the left and the right, then you're probably doing the correct thing). OCNative (talk) 10:57, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Comment: This seems like a rather heavy-handed response to a problem that could be solved with a softer approach: for example, we could spread the articles out by using the special occasion holding area. Is there something else that's going on that people at DYK are unaware of? Was Cirt topic banned at some point? Did Cirt offer to avoid a topic at some point to avert disciplinary action? Is Cirt an employee/relative/friend/contractor/publisher/distributor of Dan Savage? Is Cirt Dan Savage? Could someone please fill us in on the whole story?
If there is nothing going on other than what's been described on this page, I'm concerned about the precedent it could set:

• Has Gerda Arendt been promoting Johann Sebastian Bach with her various hooks on that individual's songs?
• Has Basement12 been promoting the Paralympic Games with numerous hooks relating to that private organization, including 22 in the month of May alone (several days have featured multiple Paralympic hooks)?
• Was I promoting Stanford University when I did a streak of hooks on alumni of that private institution (11 in one week in April, including 3 in one day, and even 2 in one set)?
• Was I promoting the Parliament of Canada or the New Democratic Party when I nominated several hooks over the course of one week in May featuring 8 Canadian MPs, including 7 from the NDP?

Please tell me there is more to this story that has not been explained in this thread, otherwise this incident could set an unfortunate precedent. I really do hope there is more to this story that hasn't been explained in this thread. OCNative (talk) 10:57, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

As remarked already on Cirt's talk, I think promotion is a good thing (pro + motion), especially the promotion of knowledge which should be the aim of DYK, imo. I sure hope I have promoted Bach and his cantatas and the Liturgical Year in this sense, and that Cirt will return to promote knowledge. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:34, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

OCNative, and others, have a very good point. People tend to edit articles where they are knowledgeable, (or at least they should). Doing lots of work in one particular area may have nothing to do with advocacy or promotion, it may simply be a reflection of which area where someone is knowledge. This edit was particularly threatening, which is surprising because Cirt's response was to simply comply with requests and withdraw completely. I am not sure what more he could have to cooperate completely. But it seems he is all done here, so the issue is for better or worse closed. But it is handling of the issue is very disappointing all the same. Thenub314 (talk) 22:17, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

I want to add that I'm disappointed too in the aspersions cast on Cirt's noms here pending a much better explanation by SlimVirgin of why this content needs to be stifled. I've just finished writing a cluster of noms on the winners of the CPJ International Press Freedom Awards, but I hope this doesn't mean half my noms will get discounted or that I'll be seen as promoting a specific agenda. Rather, it's just what I'm working on right now, and it made sense to do them all together. I think Cirt is more burnt out from the ongoing nightmare at Santorum (neologism), which after surviving three(!) AfDs, is now facing an ugly merge debate that would likewise delete most of its content. Since this was also initiated by SlimVirgin, I imagine we're seeing this spill over here. Khazar (talk) 05:00, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

A quick look at Cirt's user page clears up at least part of it; SlimVirgin repeatedly threatened him with AN/I and ArbCom unless he came here to demand their removal. Since SlimVirgin had just initiated a massively controversial (and failing) merge-and-delete proposal of Cirt's material a few days before, you'd think a more neutral admin could be found to handle something like this, if it was necessary at all. Khazar (talk) 05:21, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Taking this to AN/I would not be a bad idea, but it's SlimVirgin's actions that need to be examined here, not Cirt's. Whatever happened to assuming good faith? Prioryman (talk) 08:17, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. But would Cirt need to bring it himself, or could we do it as concerned editors? Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:24, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

OCNative asked a few good questions that only SlimVirgin can answer. If such a reply is not forthcoming, or if the reply is unsatisfactory, then taking this further from us a group of concerned editors could well be considered. Schwede66 08:49, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. If no answers are forthcoming, I will join in such a group to bring it to AN/I. Crisco 1492 (talk) 10:45, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I left a note on SlimVirgin's page requesting further explanation of why the deletion of these hooks was necessary. Hopefully there's a simple explanation for this that just doesn't appear on Cirt's user page. Khazar (talk) 13:56, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Khazar asked me to comment here. First, let me make clear: I have zero interest in Dan Savage or Rick Santorum, and without meaning any disrespect to them, wouldn't know them or their views if I fell over them in the street. My only view in this matter is about how Wikipedia should approach contentious issues about living persons; and in the Savage/Santorum situation I think we're getting it wrong. I haven't been involved in editing the articles in question. My involvement is that I recently opened an RfC to help settle the issue.

As for the DYKs, the background was an AN/I report on May 26 in which several editors said Cirt appeared to be engaged in promotion. Dan Savage and other issues were mentioned. Note: I assume good faith of Cirt's intentions. But promotion or advocacy can occur inadvertently, regardless of intention. I think we are all at risk of that when we're intensely interested in something.

In response to the AN/I, I asked the people complaining about Cirt to give Cirt some space, and I asked Cirt in return to take on board their criticism that some of his edits could be interpreted as promotional. He agreed on May 27: "I will take your advice and try to make efforts to avoid editing in the manner you describe." [1]

I found out days later that he had continued to propose six or seven DYKs about Dan Savage. Two appeared on the main page on June 5; another was at the front of the queue; and I believe another four had been suggested. This seemed inappropriate by any standard, but especially so in light of Cirt's assurances. I therefore asked him to remove the ones that hadn't already been on the main page. That struck me as a reasonable request in the circumstances. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 14:16, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, SlimVirgin, for explaining. I guess I'd say in response that I don't see what DYK rules forbid multiple NPOV articles on a related topic (which you describe as "inapporpriate under any circumstance"); as several have noted above, it's actually quite common, as editors tend to create articles in bunches. I don't see how the "promotional" effect of promoting six hooks about Savage projects in a week is substantially different than promoting those same six hooks over three years' time; in either case, the information about Savage's book is on the front page for eight hours. The merits of either action aside, I'm also wary of the fact that you've taken on both the RfC described above and the enforcement of Cirt's AN/I comments simultaneously, considering how controversial both have proved to be and that both can be perceived as an effort to delete Dan Savage-related content from Wikipedia. It seems like the DYK issue (if there is one) could have been left to an admin who wasn't involved in a similar high-profile debate with Cirt at another article.

Would you accept as a compromise that editors here re-review the Dan Savage hooks to verify that they're NPOV and re-introduce them with whatever spacing you feel is appropriate? (As somebody's who's already commented in the Santorum debate, I'll recuse myself from the process.) So far as I can see, you don't appear to object to either the content or the hooks themselves, but simply the rate of Savage's appearance on the main page. It seems a shame to delete valid DYK nominations for this reason when it's so easily addressed. Khazar (talk) 15:13, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Just to clarify: I haven't been involved in any of this (the RfC or the DYK issue) as an admin. And also to stress again: I have no interest whatsoever in deleting Dan Savage-related content. I would have objected to seven DYK hooks appearing about anyone within such a short space of time.

If others involved in the DYK process feel the Savage hooks could be spread out appropriately, I wouldn't try to interfere with it, though I would disagree with it, because I do feel it's a lot of focus on one person.

I wonder whether there's any interest in reforming DYK, so that it doesn't involve articles having to be created or expanded fivefold. It's leading to this rush of hooks all suggested at once from the same area, and to articles arguably being inappropriately created or expanded simply to meet this requirement. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 15:49, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't know that I see the distinction between demanding the deletion of these hooks under threat of ArbCom as an editor or as an admin, but in either case, this plan for their restoration sounds good. Since there appears to be a broad consensus here that these hooks were legitimately introduced to DYK (no objectors save for SlimVirgin), I'd vote we add the hooks back in. I'll leave this to another editor with experience setting up the prep areas, etc., to decide how they should be distributed, ensuring that our viewers can read about two Dan Savage books on two separate days, instead of two books on one day and no books the next day. Would another editor be up for this?

As for Slim's proposal that there be a limit on how often certain subjects can occur on DYK in a week's time or that the DYK requirements be wholly rewritten, I suggest a separate thread be started for this if she wants to pursue the rule change further. My gut reaction is that DYK should encourage content creation whether it comes well-spaced or bunched (as in the above examples of Bach, Stanford, and Paralympics articles), but I'm up for seeing counter-proposals. Khazar (talk) 16:24, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Khazar, another clarification: I have not threatened anyone with ArbCom. Other editors indicated they would file an RfC about Cirt; it was in asking them not to do that at AN/I that I got involved in this. [2] I later told Cirt that he was risking an ArbCom case if he did not listen to the concerns. [3]

Again, why the rush to have Dan Savage's name appear again so soon? He was on the main page twice on June 5. When you suggested spreading out the remaining five DYKs, I assumed you meant over weeks or months. As I said, I won't try to interfere with it, but it does strike me as inappropriate. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 16:35, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough; sorry if I misinterpreted the context of your warnings to Cirt. I guess my understanding is that DYK reflects Wikipedia's newest content. If we have a surge of good creation of Bach articles, we run more Bach there. If we have a surge of International Press Freedom Award winners (mine), we run more of those there. If we have a surge of Dan Savage expansions, we run more of those there. If we had a surge of coverage on Phyllis Schafly's books, we'd run more of those there. Since it appears to be agreed that these articles are legitimate content, I see no difference between highlighting our expansions of Savage coverage now and covering it more gradually. Dan Savage's name will appear on the main page for the exact same number of hours this year whether we run all the hooks this week or run them one month at a time. Thanks for your patience in hearing me out, Khazar (talk) 16:57, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

There's a significant difference between repeating Bach's name and that of a freelance writer (or anyone else) who is selling a product or idea. Again, I mean no disrespect to Dan Savage, and have no opinion for or against him; I hadn't heard of him until this situation arose on Wikipedia.

Here's a made-up example from an area I work in, animal rights. Imagine if I were to create or expand seven articles about an animal rights activist, Activist Andrew, all well-sourced, within the space of a few days. I could then submit seven DYKs: ""Did you know that Activist Andrew once had urine thrown over him while rescuing an elephant; did you know that Activist Andrew's Drenched in Urine (2011) sold 2000 copies on its first day of release; did you know that the film Rescuing Elephants is based on Activist Andrew's book about raiding a circus?" and so on.

Would there not come a point where someone wondered why Activist Andrew was suddenly dominating Wikipedia's main page? :) SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 17:09, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I must say your collection sounds entertaining to me, why not? - Why not??? I didn't even read the article about the author in question (perhaps I should), but think the "inappropriate" above is a Point of View. This discussion seems to overestimate the "promotion" possible by DYK. It's just 6 hours on a page many people never see because they search for something directly, 6 hours during which a quarter of the globe sleeps. So some see one mentioning of an author, others another. - I hope we will not make rules against a topic appearing several times, why limit, as long as the topic comes in well referenced, well reviewed facts? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:27, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Actually, that strikes me as fine; assuming the articles were well-sourced and NPOV (which would suggest that Activist Andrew had become a dominant and famous figure in his field, as Savage has in his), I'd be glad we have seven new articles on notable topics. Obviously we have to be alert for COI promotion in cases where there might be financial benefit, but I don't think there's been any suggestion that Cirt is Dan Savage or a related employee or publisher. I also don't see how spreading the hooks over a wider period of time significantly alters any perceived financial benefits; each hook is eight hours of coverage either way, whether those hours come back-to-back-to-back or here and there over several weeks. Again, if you want to propose a change to DYK policy, I suggest you open a new thread for it. My first reaction is that it strikes me as counterproductive to limit a project encouraging content creation, but I'd do my best to approach a proposal to the contrary with an open mind. Khazar (talk) 17:27, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

One rule we should institute is that we do not accept DYK submissions of articles on candidates in an upcoming election. We have had flattering articles on such candidates appear weeks or even days before election day. Beyond that, I broadly agree with SlimVirgin's view as expressed in her activist example. --JN466 17:38, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I could be wrong, Jayen, but I believe the first rule you propose is already in place. As for the second, again I'd suggest initiating a thread to change DYK policy if you object to its current formulation, but again I'd suggest that as somebody with a long and ugly history with Cirt, you might leave this to a less involved editor. Khazar (talk) 18:40, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

You're correct, the rule was added last October, and good job too. The other part of your statement I find a bit surprising; as far as I'm aware, you don't know me from Adam, and I'd appreciate it if you would give me and my concerns the benefit of the doubt. I think it is detrimental to this project for an editor to place a flattering bio for a candidate on DYK days before an election. It is not detrimental to it to point out that it's happened; that's part of ensuring it won't happen again. --JN466 20:39, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

No worries, I agree with you on the campaign bio. As I said, it's the second part of your comment where we disagree, and I thought it would be helpful for other editors to be aware of the history here. This isn't to dismiss your concerns--as I've said, though I'm skeptical personally, I think it's a conversation worth having--but I do think it's useful for other editors to be aware that those proposing these rule changes have specific histories of taking on Cirt and Savage-related material this week, rather than these concerns arising organically from DYK. (ErrantX below being the exception, which is helping to alter my thinking a bit). I've already said far more than my piece on this thread, though, so I'll try to lie low from this point on. Khazar (talk) 20:50, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Okay, we'll have to agree to disagree. As I see it, the encouragement of content creation is not good unless the creation or expansion is editorially appropriate. And that's the problem with DYK. People don't create content, then think to propose it for DYK. They write it only for DYK, expanding 500 words to 2,500 words, whether 2,500 words are needed or not. And that is leading to problems with quality, which I've seen several experienced editors mention in different places, so I feel it needs to be addressed at some point. But this is probably not a good time or place to do that. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 17:37, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I disagree with the statement: "People write ... content ... only for DYK." - that's how it sounds to me. I was introduced to DYK by the one who helped me with my first article (which had been deleted), and I found DYK a good tool (!) to make content better known. (One of my articles stayed long enough on the suggestions page to have 900 hits before it appeared. Klaus Mertens, call it promotional, he is alive and singing.) If I would write "only for DYK" I would stop every article at 1501 chars. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:07, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm in exactly the same boat - it's why I got involved with DYK in the first place. I wrote above "Whatever happened to assuming good faith?" Frankly, it looks like another assumption of bad faith to assume that "People write ... content ... only for DYK." SlimVirgin appears to be assuming that Cirt is acting in bad faith to promote Dan Savage or to write articles solely for DYK. I see no good reason to assume either. If someone is interested in a subject, writing a series of articles in quick succession isn't out of the ordinary. I've done that myself. Prioryman (talk) 19:29, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, I have no horse in this fight race, but I was considering raising the sudden surge of Dan Savage related DYK's on the nominations page - not for any political or other reasons, but only because there were an awful lot of them one after another, and the subjecxt risked getting a bit stale. I don't know if Cirt is watching this page (a shame if he is not) but I was going to suggest he userspace draft a set of the articles, shift them across, and do it all in one hook. That would be a really great way to do it. Unfortunate that the matter was resolved like this, but I am happy to see less Savage (ahem) content on the DYK page for the moment. --Errant ^(chat!) 18:52, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I understand the concern about staleness, but reading some of the comments above from SlimVirgin, I have to wonder whether personal dislike for Savage is a factor here. I can't imagine we'd be having this discussion if someone had submitted a batch of new articles about Emily Brontë, for instance. As for the DYKs, Khazar's proposal to relist them is a good idea. I'll list them below for ease of reference. I've looked through them and they look very good - well-written and illustrated, lots of good sources. The original reviewers evidently didn't see any problem with them at the time, I don't see any problem with their content now, and I don't see any good reason not to re-list them. Does anyone have any objections? They should of course be spaced out when it comes to the queues, but that is no reason to exclude well-written and interesting articles from DYK. Prioryman (talk) 19:20, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

• ... that The Commitment by Dan Savage recounts how his son was initially opposed to same-sex marriage, during a discussion of the author's pending marriage to his male partner?
• ... that the book It Gets Better edited by Dan Savage and inspired by the It Gets Better Project includes contributions from humorist David Sedaris and U.S. President Barack Obama?
• ... that the bibliography of Dan Savage includes recognition with a PEN West Award for Excellence in Creative Nonfiction and a Lambda Literary Award?
• ... that the musical The Kid based on the book of the same name by Dan Savage won an Outer Critics Circle Award in the category Outstanding New Off-Broadway Musical?

Please note: I'm concerned that no matter how often I say I have no problem with Dan Savage, someone else posts that I do. I'd appreciate if people wouldn't continue to do that. I don't even know anything about Dan Savage, except for the latest kerfuffle. My concern here is only for Wikipedia. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 19:34, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Prioryman missed one:

• ... that the book The Kid by Dan Savage was optioned for television by Robin Williams and also adapted into an Off-Broadway musical?

Now is there consensus to restore these noms or not? OCNative (talk) 05:25, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I think there is. Nobody seems to be objecting, anyway, as far as I can see. Prioryman (talk) 11:58, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't think the opinion of the editors who posted in this thread and at #Dan_Savage above has changed. It's inappropriate. --JN466 13:26, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Clearly there are still large objections to these nominations. Not least from the crteator of them, who requested that they "please be removed from consideration. Thank you," -- Cirt - Off2riorob (talk) 13:38, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

The only actionable objection appears to be about timing, i.e. that there were too many nominations on the same (related) topic within a short period of time. That can easily be resolved by spacing out the nominations in the queues over a reasonable period of time - say one a week, perhaps. The noms have all been passed for inclusion and nobody has raised any issues with the articles themselves. Prioryman (talk) 13:51, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

There is a RF arbitration in regard to this subject called 'Political activism' - this person (Savage) has had his fair spare of time on the front page for the foreseeable. Off2riorob (talk) 22:14, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Compromise proposals

I also thought we had a rough consensus between SlimVirgin and other concerned editors, but it seems that's no longer standing. Jayen, Off2riorob, and myself are all involved in Savage/Cirt debates happening elsewhere, and the last thing I think anybody wants to see is a third (fourth? eighth?) front opening up here. I remain uncomfortable with editors involved with debating Cirt's material elsewhere to come here to block his nominations once they've been passed and approved by the normal process, and when no content issues are involved; I'm also uncomfortable with the fact that they seem to see this rule as applying only to Savage-related content, and not the examples cited above such as Bach, the International Press Freedom Awards, Stanford University, or the Paralympics. But I've become an involved party over there myself at this point, so I realize my own judgment is becoming clouded. Let me propose a few options and then try to leave:

• 1) We continue with the previous compromise that these hooks will appear, but spaced sufficiently to meet SlimVirgin's request. One a week seems like it would do it.
• 2) We ask uninvolved DYK editors to determine if multiple hooks on Dan Savage are a violation of existing policy/precedent, and if not, how they should be spaced. Editors elsewhere involved in Savage-deletion debates (including myself) will be asked to recuse themselves and abide by what these editors decide. This seems to me the fairest option, as it would cut out external baggage.
• 3) If we are going to see this as an extension of Wikipedia-wide Cirt/Savage issues requiring the comment of involved editors, we could post links at the Cirt ArbCom case and the Santorum (neologism) requesting comment more broadly. This seems to me the least desirable option, however, as these debates are already ugly and time-consuming.

Jayen, Rob, Slim, do any of these sound fair to you? Khazar (talk) 16:05, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I support both options 1 and 2. As I said above, the only actionable issue here is the timing of these articles, which was the original concern (cf. #Dan Savage) that was raised here. No concerns have been raised anywhere that I can see about the actual content of the articles. There are no discussions ongoing on their talk pages, and they all passed the DYK review stage. None of them even mention the contentious Santorum (neologism) article. As far as I can see, the DYKs have become the victims of a dispute that is, at best, only tangentially related. Spacing the five DYKs out over a period of five weeks (during which 975 other DYKs will run) will surely eliminate any possibility of DYK being swamped by Savage-related articles. In my view, it would be unacceptable to suppress these DYKs because of an apparently only tangentially related dispute over a completely separate article. Prioryman (talk) 19:10, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

As an uninvolved editor, my answer to the questions posed by #2 is: assuming they've met our normal DYK criteria, the DYK hooks should be run. Normal DYK practice is to space out related hooks at least into different updates, and in this case, if considered necessary, they could be spaced out by up to a week each. cmadler (talk) 20:03, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

This gentleman (Savage) has had his fair share of time spent on our front page for the time being already. I suggest considering the way the community has been divided with this that it is best put on the back burner for two or three months. Also rather than push for something that is clearly divisive and at multiple locations and at arbitration and has been requested by the user Cirt to remove them, its better this is closed down here completely. Off2riorob (talk) 21:23, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

That is not an actionable objection. We don't blacklist subjects because someone doesn't like them. There is, also, no division or dispute whatsoever about these individual articles - they are merely collateral damage from the Santorum (neologism) dispute, in which those articles play no part. Prioryman (talk) 21:39, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Is there some kind of shortage of DYK hooks? We do whatever we consider reasonable at the time. What fantastic benefit do you see from your insisting on adding these additional Savage DYK front page hooks at this time, none. Why is it important to you to have multiple Savage front page hooks at this time? Not withstanding your pushing for something that the nominator has requested multiple times to be removed. Off2riorob (talk) 22:05, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

What's at stake here is the integrity of DYK. The articles have all passed the nomination process. None of them - not one - is under dispute. Nobody has raised any objections about the content of any of the articles. You are demanding that these articles be vetoed because of a political dispute in which you're involved. You're trying to add an extra, arbitrary, non-policy-based criterion to DYK. As a DYK contributor, I find that unacceptable - DYK should be not subject to arbitrary political vetoes. Prioryman (talk) 22:29, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps its the nomination process that is at fault then. The integrity of DYK is demeaned by political activism which has been requested to be removed and you are insisting on replacing it and talking about preserving the DYK integrity, give it a rest - reduce the disruption don't insist on replacing it . Ask yourself b4 you go all integrity of the project proclamations - do you see multiple objections here, has the nominator requested removal? Is this issue disrupting the project at multiple locations, and then ask yourself if you really should be making a stand for these DYK hooks at this time when you have plenty of non controversial ones. Off2riorob (talk) 22:49, 13 June 2011 (UTC) Off2riorob (talk) 22:43, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for confirming that your opposition is, as suspected, political and therefore not worth taking into account, as it's arbitrary and has no policy basis. It would be helpful if we could hear now from editors without axes to grind. Prioryman (talk) 22:50, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I have confirmed nothing of the sort. I am from the united kingdom and I care less about such US partisan politics. Off2riorob (talk) 22:54, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Arbitration request

There is an arbitration request related to this thread, filed by User:Coren: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Political_activism. --JN466 00:24, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Now closed as it's been rejected by the arbitrators. Prioryman (talk) 00:30, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Queue 4 (before Prep 1), Empire Defender

The original hook appears, but the approval was given (only) for ALT2, something like ... that the cargo ship Empire Defender was seized by Britain twice, – in World War I under a German flag, and again in World War II under an Italian flag? (or was it the other way round?) - Please, Tony, strike out overlinked etc alternatives. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:43, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Looking now. Tony (talk) 12:25, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I can't find it. Tony (talk) 12:31, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Master of precise language, what is "it"? Prep 1 has as the last hook the one that you disapproved as overlinked etc., is that "it". The approved hook (if that is "it") is in the diff of the suggestion page when it was moved to prep, but I don't have the time to look it up now on Christian Sunday. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:56, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Head spinning. Is there a way of linking to what you want me to look at? Tomorrow? Tony (talk) 13:18, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Back from a nice walk: sorry about your head. I linked, above, it's called Prep 1, spelled out Template:Did_you_know/Queue#Prep_area_1_.5Bedit.5D. It's still there. The move was performed by Allen3 today 8:44, move to prep. Neither you nor I should change the prep, though, because we were involved. I meant to say that in the future you better strike out rejected hooks, like this, to prevent a prep assembler to see green light and take the hook, without reading the fine print. The approved hook was almost exactly what I remembered above, - that made my day! "twice" was italic, with an extra space which escaped me when I copied. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:50, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Prep 1 is now in Queue 4, Template:Did_you_know/Queue#Queue_4_.5Bedit.5D, I still hope the improved hook can be used, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:04, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Changed to a tweaked version of ALT2. Materialscientist (talk) 22:23, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:39, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Prep 3, Lincoln Park

The hook was changed from "Jersey City boasts ..." to "Lincoln Park boasts ...". Learning English: Can a park really boast? - Please consider Prep1, above. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:33, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

If you are learning English, perhaps you are unaware of definition 3 at Wiktionary:boast#Verb: "3. (ergative) To possess something special. The hotel boasts one of the best views of the sea." Art LaPella (talk) 19:27, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. The phrasing in the source is different, though. For a city and a hotel, I imagine the people behind it, less so for a park. But taken, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:33, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

More about it here: "Some have objected to the use of boast as a transitive verb meaning “to possess or own (a desirable feature),” as in This network boasts an audience with a greater concentration of professionals and managers than any other broadcast vehicle. This usage is by now well established, however, and is acceptable to 62 percent of the Usage Panel." Art LaPella (talk) 20:33, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:57, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Temporal balance/variety

I'm becoming concerned that subjects like quiz shows, fruit producers, fossil dentition, and Bach cantatas might be appearing too often. I remember a thread somewhere that discussed this; what was the outcome? Editors who start multiple articles on similar topics should not expect them all to be given main-page exposure. The main page is more important than the local efforts of individual editors. Tony (talk) 10:15, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I think the flow of nominations on similar topics is not that bad and that we can dilute and disperse it, which the the art of composing the sets (keeping in mind what topics are in the nearby sets). Some preps are filled up too quickly, with hooks on the same topics. Materialscientist (talk) 10:33, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, I'm relieved if you guys are managing it. I really feel the instructions should say something about thematic moderation by nominators, without being too hard and fast. Tony (talk) 10:41, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

This is precisely why I thought of lighthearted contests like this one, which got some folks writing on different things....Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:16, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Repeated: so far I could say something new about each Bach cantata, and I will stop if that is no longer true. Today I finished "my" first annual cycle. Bach wrote 5, but - relief - only 3 survived. Also repeated: for the next round I will no longer ask for them to appear on Sunday, anytime Saturday (before) to Friday (after) is fine. Exception: holidays like St John 24 June, Christmas etc.. Happy BWV 129 (and there is also Paulinerkirche, for variety), --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:36, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I love it all! And I love Gerda for the work she does in the classical music area. For one thing, wiki is too full of pop crap (of the things Tony mentions only quiz shows fall into that). Gerda you go girl! Keep it up! All that being said, I do agree with MS and Tony that we need to spread out similar hooks...slight topic shift...wiki is dominated by males under 30 who are computer and video game savvy, there are too many articles on video games, Pokemon characters, etc ;-) BarkingMoon (talk) 11:44, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

<--Bach cantatas? How could we possibly have too many articles about Bach cantatas? ... But srsly, if you want to thin out DYK, thin out bad articles, don't discourage good ones. Sharktopus^talk 11:52, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

My inner life revolves around Bach cantatas. But I don't want too many in too short a period on the main page. And any day, please; I'm very pleased for the cultural grid they represent to be loosened out of their celestial-dictatorship context, at least as far as the symbolism of the christian Sunday. I do like the variety—a quiz show or two every now and again is fine; just not a run of them. Popular and high-brow have to be mixed on WP, I think. As long as the hooks draw them in and the articles are pretty good new ones. Tony (talk) 12:23, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

When I say "bad articles" I don't mean pop culture. (After all, "Sharktopus" is not a Bach cantata.) DYK submissions span the range from well-written to barely-literate, from important ideas to ephemera that evades WP:NOTABLE by mining op-eds and funny "news." But articles I think are junk produce tons of hits for the same reason that more people relax with BoingBoing than read Britannica. Sharktopus^talk 13:40, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

And I've come back to say that Ghana is hitting the main page big-time. Can we get the prolific nominator to space them out a bit, and possibly to widen her/his scope to surrounding African countries in the meantime if DYK noms are so important? Tony (talk) 13:17, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

On the contrary, we should be doing everything in our power to encourage that prolific nominator to contribute to this under-represented area of Wikipedia. Only if someone were contributing so many that every prep included a couple of Ghanas--and that is not what is happening by a very very very longshot. I am very uncomfortable with this suggestion, and in general with the way really good encyclopedia-type content is getting put down in a focus on hooky hooks and variety. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and the purpose of DYK is to encourage people to create good encyclopedia articles. The people who are writing good encyclopedia articles should be encouraged, not embarrassed by public criticism of their themes or enthusiasm. Sharktopus^talk 14:03, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I have to strongly agree with Sharktopus. It's like lately there are efforts to stifle good productive editors. All we need here is to spread out hooks in the queues if they are very similar. BarkingMoon (talk) 14:24, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Ultimately this is a volunteer project, and one can only do so much to influence content. Having someone write about Ghana is just great, and I suspect that using sticks rather than carrots in interactions with the editing community will only lead to lowering of morale and loss of contributors. Casliber (talk · contribs) 15:29, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Cas, et al, Indeed. There is no doubt about that whatsoever. As long as people aren't disruptive and produce good content, things can be worked out. Of course, here the problem is getting people to agree on what is disruptive ;-) BarkingMoon (talk) 15:42, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

(outdent) I have to agree with many of the responses above. I suspect the perception of preponderance of certain topics is affected by one's level of interest - someone said not long ago that we had an awful lot of lead hooks about English churches, and I've noticed a certain fondness for US college sports, but fossil dentition over-represented?! But I think Tony is thinking of the "COI" thread above, and its predecessor, and in both of those the point has been made that many people write articles in clusters on a particular (group of) topic(s). Whatever. The solution is not discouragement, it's encouragement of more articles on a greater variety of topics, to dilute the concentrations and offer something for the widest possible variety of interests. And in fact DYK works extremely well in fostering and drawing attention to a variety of articles. It also demonstrates over and over again how diverse readers', as well as editors', interests are. To compare 2 articles from my own list of DYKs: both Jelling stone ship and Techno Viking are in the hall of fame, but the former is the one with over 13k hits. You just never know what people will be interested in :-) (I also wanted to set another powerful example beside Sharktopus '-).) Yngvadottir (talk) 19:11, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

No doubt I'll be mauled for saying this. DYK is being used by a lot of editors who have expertise in a certain field to gain publicity and attract editors at the initial stages. The problem arises when too many start-up articles on the same narrow set of topics are nominated here too fast, and when editors are allowed just to drag out a sentence from their post-stub that is patently not hooky. Both practices are mutually supportive: I can see this from having intensively reviewed over the past few weeks. I mean no offence to the Ghana expert, who I strongly encourage to keep churning out those articles and improving them—and to selectively nominate the odd one that contains hook interest; just not every one of them.

These are just not hooky, yet are currently nominated. I believe they should be rejected:

• ... that in 1963 the Building and Road Research Institute of Ghana relocated to the KNUST campus so that the institute's staff could lecture at the university due to university under-staffing?
• ... that both the Nigerian Building and Road Research Institute and the Building and Road Research Institute of Ghana were formed out of the West African Building Research Institute?
• ... that Motor Transport and Traffic Unit of the Ghana Police Service was established in 1952?
• ... that the Ghana Standards Board was established in 1973 and has a function of inspecting all goods that enter through the six entry points of Ghana?

This next one is getting there: I wouldn't oppose it, and I'd comb through the article to identify anything to make it the required "punchy". I fixed a few glaring issues in the article, which were for some reason missed by the nominator-reviewer. Why?

• ... that Presbyterian Church of Ghana, a founding member of the Christian Council of Ghana, was formed in 1828 by Basel missionaries from Germany?

This next one might have balls, but not yet: the hook is all too bureaucratic in its theme. There might be more interesting things in the article, which desperately needs more than my quick-fix copy-edits. Such articles are not yet suitable for main-page exposure, and it is idle to suggest that nominators who tick off other nominations have done more than a 10-second flick through and word count:

• ... that Saltpond Oil Field in Ghana which was discovered in 1970 is managed by SOPCL, the country's oldest crude oil producer? Tony (talk) 05:16, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

You know, what is SPOPCL, and who cares? (To be brutallly honest.) I'm seeing things from the perspective of visitors to our showcase page. Tony (talk) 05:16, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

To be brutally honest, visitors to our showcase page could not give less of a crap how many articles about Ghana were in Queue or Prep last week. "Variety" on a scale of days or weeks is invisible to anyone but a DYK insider. And the appeal to "variety" has now degenerated into another distasteful slamfest against regular contributors, another demand that people set aside their own interests and expertise to pursue clickthrough as predicted by Tony1's interests.

DYK is not about hooky hooks, it is not about clickthrough, it is not about pointing fingers at others for wanting DYK credits, it is about articles. The person who writes articles about Ghana is doing exactly what DYK is meant to motivate people to do, and to the extent that you demotivate that person, you are doing exactly opposite what DYK is meant to do. If you want hookier hooks, go forth and write good ones. That way you will be benefiting DYK according to your own views of what it should do instead of annoying crusty curmudgeons with teeth and tentacles. Sharktopus ^talk 12:53, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Where are my own "interests" at issue? Did I mention what my interests are? Because you're using this presumption to discredit my points. My aim is to minimise boring, pointless hooks and to improve the vetting of articles. You seem to attack me for this. And are you endorsing these hooks and articles for main-page exposure, especially the first four I've cited above? That is what I'd like to know. Tony (talk) 13:16, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Your aim to minimize boring hooks is peripheral to the aim of DYK, and the means you are repeatedly using to seek that goal are disruptive to the aim of DYK. Many others besides me have already made the point that it is a bad idea to put contributors on public pillory as bad examples of what you don't like, but in vain. Although your service to DYK in the past is considerable, I understand short topic bans can be used to stop disruption when it is ongoing. Sharktopus ^talk 13:58, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

I put a lot of work into helping people, the hooks are better, and all you can do is ask that I be topic-banned. Why not topic-ban Sharktopus? Tony (talk) 14:42, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

If Sharktopus is disruptive here, repeatedly failing to hear what others are saying, a topic ban on Sharktopus should be considered. Sharktopus ^talk 15:06, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Tony, you just can't seem to get it that "closer to Tony's tastes" does not ipso facto mean better or even "hookier." You don't need to mention your interests - you are defining interesting hooks as hooks that interest you. That isn't how it works. "... that in 1963 the Building and Road Research Institute of Ghana relocated to the KNUST campus so that the institute's staff could lecture at the university due to university under-staffing?" looks great to me. Far more interesting than "... that Saltpond Oil Field in Ghana which was discovered in 1970 is managed by SOPCL, the country's oldest crude oil producer?" or for that matter the Basel missionaries - that one touches on an area of profound non-interest of mine. My taste is as valid as yours, and neither is predictive of the typical Main Page visitor, because there is no such beast! Moreover, you keep insulting other people who review articles. It's a lot more than "idle" to "suggest" that people "who tick off other nominations have done more than a 10-second flick through and word count". I simply do not see why you are so convinced that articles are receiving rubber-stamp reviews. Or why you single out nominators in particular. Nominators are not the only ones reviewing articles. This only makes it all the more irksome that you have stated taht you don't want to spend the time to actually review the articles. If that's changed, good. But you are hardly the only one who puts a lot of work into helping people, and you're pretty much alone here both in being repeatedly rude and accusatory and in maintaining that large numbers of hooks are boring. Or that some of the specific articles and topics you have cited as examples are inherently boring. And that's even without getting into once more what Sharktopus just re-stated - your being on a quest that is peripheral to what DYK is about and that suggests you haven't considered or are not fully aware of what DYK is for. And the deleterious effects of this quest in not only clogging up the process but potentially discouraging people - people who are doing just what we are supposed to value here, creating and greatly improving content. And people who in many cases are relatively new. This is not a case where tu quoque is appropriate. It's a case where what you want is at odds with what we do here. I appreciate the work you have been doing as I appreciate everybody who helps out. But effort does not equal usefulness. And "boring to Tony" does not equal "fundamentally boring and unworthy of Main Page exposure". To say it once more! Yngvadottir (talk) 15:12, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

"you keep insulting other people who review articles"—I think your "nominate and review in return system is not working well. It leads to quick, shallow reviews. The proof is that others have to come in to review properly. Have a look for yourself. As for "taste", you are very welcome to come in and disagree. I am only trying to assist, and a look through the prep rooms shows a considerably more interesting field of hooks than what I was complaining about in my "House of lame" thread a while ago. The nominators are attracted by reviews that offer suggestions and ideas; it is only people who occupy this page who seem to get their backs up. Yngvadottir, "repeatedly rude and accusatory"—well, that's your framing of critical input. Show me where I've been rude, please. "Maintaining that large numbers of hooks are boring"—large numbers? Compared with those that I've praised and encouraged? Please look again. Sure, a few times I've had to say "the hook is boring"—I stand by it. Someone's gotta say it. Can I draw your attention to the appropriate rule, which has until now not been at issue in this process. "And "boring to Tony" does not equal "fundamentally boring and unworthy of Main Page exposure"." Well, you're free to come along and disagree; the angst seems to be manufactured here rather than by nominators, and very often I make helpful suggestions for improving a hook. What is wrong with doing that. Occasionally, the article contains nothing that is hooky: I say so. Tony (talk) 15:22, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Actually I squealed loudly about the quid pro quo requirement, I still think it's asinine, it drove away at least one regular DYK contributor, and I'm snickering at your assumption that everyone here, particularly me, likes it. I believe that once again, you are oversimplifying the positions of those who disagree with you. For rude - and aggressive, below - I suggest you re-read my response to your statement that all of us are giving articles only a 10-second evaluation and word-count. There are also any number of examples of you labeling hooks/articles "simply not good enough", in varying dismissive vocabulary. Several of us have pointed this out factually. Your shameful treatment of Islanding is one of those you have already stated you stand by, but it remains shameful, because you justified it simply by your ignorance of the topic. You should have read the article and educated yourself - or kept quiet. You do it again above - "Someone's gotta say [the hook is boring]". Nope. Only you feel you have to say it - because you personally feel the hook is boring. Stating this as an obligation is dismissive, it's hostile, and it's rude to the person who wrote or expanded the article. Also, to get back to policy, why are you again and again assuming bad faith about nominators? You wrote earlier of DYK "being used by a lot of editors who have expertise in a certain field to gain publicity and attract editors at the initial stages". You seem to think the person writing about Ghana is somehow gaming the system. I cannot see this as justified or in line with the principle of assuming good faith. Maybe that's why you consider justified, comments that come over as hostile. Again - if you're helping, good. But I don't agree with you on a good 90% of what you're saying, and I see it as damaging, in the main. That I gotta say. We can revisit quid pro quo in another thread, if you wish. It's been in place for 6 months now and maybe it's time. But I think teh whole "You're nominators and I'm not" thing is a red herring at best and an assumption of bad faith and battleground attitude at worst, so it should be separated from your main thing, that you don't like a lot of hooks and a lot of nominated articles. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:52, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Sharktopus' statements. I feel that lately the whole mood of DYK has changed, and instead of encouraging new content, like the Ghana-themed articles (which fills an important gap), contributors are told to focus entirely on what, in Tony's view, will produce more "clicks". That seems to mean avoiding anything that Tony personally finds "boring" or "lame", as well as only having a single link in each hook. I feel hesitant to nominate articles to DYK in such an aggressive atmosphere. Manxruler (talk) 15:16, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

• Diffs to "aggressive", please? Or do you mean "critical"? Tony (talk) 15:25, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, my feeling is also that temporal balance/variety is only going to be noticed by very regular DYK readers. I think it's most useful to show as much new content on the main page as we can (given that it fulfills our requirements), in order to promote and encourage further editing/integration of as many articles as possible. If much of Wikipedia's newest content for a week happens to be about Ghana, I'm fine with DYK reflecting that; ditto Bach, paralympics, etc. I've found that when my own DYK articles go to the main page, they always come back improved--additional sources I wouldn't have thought of, minor proofreading that I missed, foreign language help, etc. For example, when my DYK on journalist Muhammad al-Saqr went to the main page, another editor helped find a second article on the same person at Mohammad al-Sager, which I hadn't found as the latter happened to focus on his banking career. I had searched high and low through my sources, and even brought in an Arabic-speaking editor, without finding this alternative transliteration, but once properly merged, it made for a much better article. In click terms, my nomination was a dismal failure (less than 400, I think), but in terms of improving Wikipedia, that front page appearance was a big win. (Al-Saqr/Al-Sager has won international awards for his reporting and also served as chairman of the Arab Parliament for three years, so he's not exactly a minor figure, either). So while I can see where Tony's coming from, I think this potential good--giving as many qualified new articles a showcase as possible, and encouraging the creation of as many new quality articles as possible--clearly outweighs the potential harm--a four-times-a-day DYK reader being frustrated by the number of Ghana articles. Khazar (talk) 17:36, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

For some time, in a bouquet of flowers the colours had to be evenly distributed, then it became a fashion to arrange them by colour (for example: a bunch of blue right, yellow left, white in the middle). I like both, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:08, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

comma

Now in prep2, the Culture Centre (pictured) has a comma after New Caledonia which separates the subject from the rest of the sentence, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:25, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Removed. Materialscientist (talk) 11:34, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I added one to Celestial City, Imeko, now in prep2, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:03, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Find Me (Christina Grimmie album)

I need a second pair of eyes to look over this nomination please. Technically ALT2 seems ok, but I'm not sure whether the citations are suitable. —Bruce1ee^talk 11:02, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Links in hooks

This is a side topic of the discussion about variety, and is a copy of my comment on the suggestions page where it will disappear soon, so please forgive my personal examples: In general, a link serves(!) many purposes: it is an offer of explanation of a term which may not be known (example canticle), it "defines" a term which doesn't need quotation marks then (example Feast of St. John the Baptist), it provides the long version of something shortened (example Bach). Of course I don't have to link Bach and his cantata to someone who followed the cantatas for a year, - but to a first-time reader I want to provide this little service. - As for Lincoln Park, I agree that it is not good to link New Jersey, but I voted for linking Jersey City as being part of the article name. Now we have Jersey City, New Jersey in the queue, well, why not? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:48, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and Bach is linked to at the DYK article, right at the top of Bach cantata and in every article on specific cantatas. Tony (talk) 14:45, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

No doubt about that. You and I know what Bach means, but how about others around the globe? Also which Bach? To spell out Johann Sebastian takes too many chars, you can abbreviate, and the mouse over it gives you the complete info, without even clicking. Sometimes I would prefer to link Bach cantata right away, but look at that article's talk to find out why I don't, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:12, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

As you know, "Bach" means JS by default, unless CPE or WF et al. are specified, or the context for such is already established. The link to the composer's name, if the seven-year-old doesn't know what it means, is in the DYK article, right at the top. Tony (talk) 05:52, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

I consider the English Wikipedia as global information, addressing people who are not familiar with a European-American cultural background, like Ghana for example. Also - repeated - the link serves simply to get rid of extra characters in the hook, supplying additional information if you go over it with the mouse. With that in mind, I said about Wolfgang Schäfer that he taught in Frankfurt. Guess what happened, the full name appeared on the Main page (as I noticed only afterwards). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:42, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Copyedits

I find that I'm having to do a lot of copyedits to DYK-nominated articles. Whether they do it on purpose or not, I wish nominators would not rely so much on DYK contributors to do the copyediting for them. *Sigh*. Drmies (talk) 16:46, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

• When an article only needs minor copyediting, or if I've got some time, I do it myself, but reviewers should always feel free to simply point out that copyediting is needed, and leave it to the nominator to find a copyeditor. Offer them a link to Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Requests, though you'd probably want to point out that because of the backlog at that page, it may not be done quickly enough for DYK. Ultimately, the burden is on the nominator to present a usable article, and while reviewers should point out helpful resources, and can make minor fixes, there's certainly neither a requirement nor an expectation for reviewers to spend substantial time fixing sub-par nominations. cmadler (talk) 17:50, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

• True enough. And so is the fact that a lot of nominated articles need it. I started off here as a Wikignome and still take genuine pleasure in fixing missing words, typos, and the like, but a disadvantage of the nature of Wikipedia is that it reflects the generally low standard of grammar and spelling out there. And this is all the worse in new articles and articles by non-native writers. I frequently click on an interesting article in the queues and wind up copyediting it. I also see articles on my watchlist, for instance Berlin U-Bahn stations I expanded, getting reverted to ungrammatical English by non-native speakers, so what we see at DYK is the tip of an iceberg. As a copyeditor, I welcome people flagging on the suggestions page that an article needs fixing up in that way. But I'd still like to see a bit more "I fixed some of it to show you but didn't have time to do it all." I think that would be considerably less frustrating for the article writer, who in most cases doesn't know what the specific English problems are, and look less like a blanket condemnation. I do realize that not everyone is good at this stuff or has time to do it, but in the long run just a little more of that would go a long way to reducing confusion and disappointment as well as saving time. And . . . I do agree that article writers should try harder to make articles ready before submitting them, and that that includes such niceties as spelling, verb agreement, standard English use of articles, and covering bare URLs in the refs. Too many native speakers think these things are unimportant and don't think of Wikipedia articles as publication. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:53, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

• Thank you for most helpful copy-editing of non-native writing! Would one of you experts please have a look at the hook (now in prep3) "that the Athenaeum (pictured) museum of fine arts"? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:59, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

  Writing is tiring, and some authors (me included :) tend to get rid of the article ASAP, even if they can copyedit. You can (and probably should) request copyedit any time it is required. Even if the authors have limited time/ability for that, someone looking through T:TDYK might help. Materialscientist (talk) 22:22, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

• I just got a new style manual in, and the first chapter is called "How to know what you don't know." There's the rub--people who write articles that need copyediting don't always know they need a copyeditor (I choose "copyedit" as one word, unhyphenated--sometimes). Anyway, I pointed that out for one nomination, made some edits in the first paragraph, a few edits were made, and when I returned to it there was still a ton left (incl. violations of the MoS). Gerda, I am also non-native, and I need plenty of help, but I like to think that I know I do. There was a discussion at ANI recently of GA/FA/FS nominations, which suggested that some editors use that peer-review process as a way to get someone to clean up their contributions, much of which they should have done in the first place. The new (and I think improved) DYK process sometimes resembles that a bit, and this applies to native and non-native article writers. Also, I was venting a bit when I wrote my first remark here. ;) Drmies (talk) 22:32, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the gist of Drmies's statement. Some DYK articles are professionally written; some are full of typos, poor English, and poorly integrated facts—little more than post-stubs. The reviewing process needs to be more considered, IMO. And if there's "clogging", as someone pointed out above, pointing the finger at me for introducing a more demanding style reviewing, the admins who queue and display the DYKs have ample latitude to adjust demand to supply: they can have fewer or more hooks in a shift (fewer is good, IMO); and they can alter the number of shifts per day, from four to three, and even to two, as necessary. The quality of the main page is what counts, and this factory production line is sometimes breathtakingly long and fast. Tony (talk) 04:24, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

To prep composers

If there is a shortage of pictured hooks, one way around is to go through ample articles and suggest a picture (authors often forget that), sometimes from a linked, but non-bolded article. Sometimes just by reading a hook it is clear that some article in it should have nice pictures. This is to avoid putting stubs as leads only because they happened to have a picture at T:TDYK. Materialscientist (talk) 02:44, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Technically, stubs shouldn't be passed anyway, right? (Although it seems to me that what constitutes a "stub" is less and less clear these days.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:34, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

It's my understanding that an article that passes they DYK prose size check is not a stub and should have its status changed to start or C. Or is this incorrect? BarkingMoon (talk) 10:39, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I used "stub" as a figurative term for a short article (with a dull hook and or/picture, I should add). Articles eligible for DYK are defined as non-stubs. Materialscientist (talk) 10:56, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

My general rule of thumb for a stub is <3000 bytes w/o sections is a stub.--NortyNort (Holla) 12:59, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

A typical (non-DYK) definition is that stubs have less than 10 sentences. I haven't ever checked, but I'd guess that a DYK that barely clears the 1,500-character limit (and has reasonably typical prose) is a time and a half that size. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:38, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

On occasion, I've reviewed articles that reach the 1500 byte threshold, but do still do not seem to cover the subject enough not to be considered what constitutes a start class article. In these instances I have either informed the editor of my concern or tried to expand, rather than just changing from stub to start class. Really case by case, then hard 1500+ = start class IMO Calmer Waters 02:11, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

There's no mechanical stub definition; see the Croughton-London rule. Reviewers should evaluate whether a nominated article is a stub, and either (temporarily?) reject the nomination if it is, or ensure that the article is correctly marked as a non-stub. cmadler (talk) 15:19, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

WP:Perfect stub article disagrees with Grutness: It is possible to write a very brief, but reasonably complete stub. In terms of "mechanical" definitions, however, I basically agree with Grutness: The size of the page does not determine whether the page is a stub. It's judged primarily according to the amount of prose. As a result, identifying stubs can't be easily automated. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:35, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorry to be boring, but pictured hooks are in Special occasions for both 13 and 14 June. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:45, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

There are lots of pictured hooks right now. What there's a dearth of is good quirky ones. BarkingMoon (talk) 20:51, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Can't make Bach quirky every time. But 13 June is soon. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:26, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Brood XIX is quirky and it has a picture of a giant insect with gleaming red monster eyes. Helpfully, Sharktopus. Sharktopus^talk 02:08, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Intending this in as light-hearted a way as is possible. One thing that might help on both the pictured and quirky front would be if prep loaders tried to avoid unilaterally pissing off literally a dozen editors who have worked together in an attempt to do both. Especially when it comes to articles with dozens of plausible hooks and matching images. —WFC— 01:54, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

There simply aren't enough slots to use every hook nom'd with a photo.BarkingMoon (talk) 01:57, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

A robotic response that has both missed and demonstrated my point. Sometimes there will be a dearth of pictured hooks, sometimes a dearth of quirky ones, and sometimes surpluses of either or both. If we are trying to cut down on the droughts, we should think long and hard about how we treat those that might or will be rejected during bumper harvests. —WFC— 02:05, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

A robotic response that missed my point.BarkingMoon (talk) 02:38, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

"Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!" (now that's a robotic response that misses the point) - Dravecky (talk) 03:09, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

The problem I sometimes have is where the image is of a good quality, but the hook is a bit dull. What is the best thing to do in those circumstances? Should it go as the lead with the good image, or be hidden in the middle of a set without it? Miyagawa (talk) 22:21, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Fun jolly idea about reviewing for DYK

Hello, my name is Sharktopus and I'm a Novato. I am an enthusiastic reviewer at DYK, a native speaker of English, and etc. But I don't know every line of WP:MOS, I never heard of WP:MEDRS until somebody got blasted today for not applying it, and there are lots of other things that might be wrong in an article I'm reviewing. So I have a suggestion.

How about if the people who are really familiar with all the ins and outs of Wikipedia policy (things all articles including DYK articles are supposed to meet) get excused from general T:DYK and just review articles already in prep, articles that have already been reviewed and improved and passed by less-skilled reviewers. That way our front page is protected from shame, and if we do have careless ok-stampers among us they can be privately cautioned on their talk pages about what they are doing wrong. Maybe there could even be a funny cautionary quiz page somewhere with examples of things like multiplication signs or links in quotes that learners like me could review to help us get better. Sharktopus ^talk 22:10, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

• You think this is all about fun, huh? Ha! It's not a bad idea, though I have the idea that some reviewers/nominators would think that this should be policed. I've had people say 'hey, what did you review?' and I'd like to think I put in a decent effort. Anyway, what you're proposing is somewhat reminiscent of the old days, I think. I don't disapprove, I think it's a real good suggestion, and I'm curious to see if it gets any traction. Drmies (talk) 22:36, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
  • Well, if somebody asks what you reviewed, you could say "Prep 2". That would shut them up, and if it didn't I would come bite them for you. Sharktopus ^talk 22:43, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
    • Not only a fun jolly idea, but a jolly fun one! cmadler (talk) 01:41, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
      • Thanks, Cmadler. And so say all of us? Sharktopus ^talk 15:11, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Let's discuss the two-tier idea in this section, OK? And if anyone wants to propose an unrelated idea about improving DYK, let's put that into a different section. I don't think any formal change would be required to try out post-reviews-by-DYK-ninjas. For a start, we could just go with people's self-noms if they want to review at prep or at T:DYK. Would others besides me agree that somebody who is checking all the articles in a prep is doing work that counts at least as much as reviewing one article at T:DYK? Sharktopus ^talk 11:21, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

• I'm on the fence about this one. It seems potentially a good idea to solve the problems that have been raised by several people: the "not enough people are reviewing articles" one that led to implementation of quid pro quo and the "not enough reviewers are good at reviewing, now that it's a requirement" one that has predictably emerged. It does seem like a good idea to have a second or third level of screening before a hook gets to the Main Page. And noises have been made several times about "helping out in general around DYK" counting as an alternate to the review requirement; this would formalize that. But those who tend to jump down one's throat now as if one should have reviewed first, before nominating, which is what "What have you reviewed?" means would still be equally suspicious. One side-effect of quid pro quo is that one's nomination can sometimes get reviewed very fast indeed; I've had it happen before I've found a nomination to review, let alone given the article the necessary careful examination (and copy-edit, in most cases). The jumping down one's throat is a result of its being a requirement; it isn't going to go away. That's one of the things reviewers check for, now, when they remember. And this alternate way of satisfying the requirement will be harder to check for and so, I suspect, will raise suspicions. However, on balance, good idea with respect to those problems, which are what most people have been most concerned with. And the likelihood of rushed and more inexpert reviews was one of my reasons for opposing quid pro quo. But my main objection has always been that I don't like judging others' work. To me it's contrary to the spirit of Wikipedia. (No, I don't have anything to do with Good Article or Featured Article. Or even the subject-matter projects. To each his own.) This doesn't address that - it could be seen as a way for me to claim credit for what I already do, more or less quietly fix it, but it could also be seen as another level of prejudging editors as not doing good enough work. The latter I am strongly opposed to. It's the nature of Wikipedia to have articles written by people with all sorts of flaws (which includes not only spelling and grammar weaknesses, inability to master the standard layout, and difficulties with adequate referencing, but my loathing of the citation templates :-)), articles that need improvement. All the more so when the article is new - and this and AfD are the two places on Wikipedia where there is a deadline. WP:DIG and WP:SOFIXIT apply, and an extremely large percentage of articles I view on Wikipedia have things I feel the need to fix, or am aware that someone with appropriate knowledge should fix. DYK is for encouraging new work, and letting readers see interesting new stuff. I am pretty sure the vast majority of readers know that Wikipedia articles often have spelling and grammar errors, and are even less surprised to see them in new articles - or are blind to them anyway. I believe the emphasis on making DYK articles perfect is really dangerous to DYK, a true case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. So - I'm still on the fence. Personally I would rather repeal the quid pro quo requirement and instead have a guild of DYK checkers with defined duties - i.e. no giving an article a red X for fixable problems like bad grammar. The guidelines for reviewers already state clearly that one should feel free to fix small problems, such as copyediting, and that the X is only for unfixable problems, but if we were to remove the compulsion from the reviewing, those who do review would have to be held to a code of conduct appropriate to judging what volunteers voluntarily submit for their consideration. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:28, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

24 June

Special occasions, one more time, please.

Thank you, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:37, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

A different idea about improving DYK reviewing

• A more realistic way of addressing the quick-and-dirty reviewing we have from this nominate-then-review-one requirement is to expect the review to be a little less shallow than now. Not just a check of character count and expansion (oh, and a character count of the hook, too, please, if it looks at all close to 200 ch.), but of WP:RS and referencing (all nominators should be aware of these), plus either a prose check (preferred), a file copyright-status check, or a check of the categorisation. DYK has valuable potential as a training ground for new and existing editors, and as we all know, if you want to learn something, teach it. We would all benefit from a stronger collaborative framework, and so would the main-page product that results from this process. Tony (talk) 04:34, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi Tony, I opened a new section to discuss this idea of yours, which I also think is a good one. You are suggesting, I think, being more specific about what we expect at DYK review -- maybe creating a checklist of items that DYK reviewers should look at every time. This would be very helpful. Were you thinking of something like the guide to filing DYK that's at User:Rjanag/Quick DYK, only meant to help reviewers rather than nominators? Or something more formal like Template:NewDYKnomination/guide? Sharktopus ^talk 11:21, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps something like User:Cmadler/sandbox/DYKreviewguide ? I've issued general invitations to help with this, as well as a specific invitation to Tony. Or, perhaps it's suitable for moving out of the sandbox and into projectspace? cmadler (talk) 15:21, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Looks like a good start! From a readers point of view: I would like to see basics first, and only then be confronted with 2*BLP etc. Perhaps even some advice that a new reviewer should not go for complicated cases. It's a good recommendation to look for old unreviewed hooks, but how do you find them? If I don't have too much time I look at the last date above "Older noms" and then go down from there. It's tough to find the few unreviewed ones - perhaps we might get a pointer? - Looking at the copy-edit questions: perhaps it's a good idea that a native English speaker looks for the non-natives hooks and the other way round? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:18, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Cmadler, that looks like an amazingly helpful resource, thanks for creating it! I also like Gerda's suggestion about moving from basics to fancy stuff, if what we are talking about is a punchlist of items to check before somebody passes a DYK item. Said punchlist needs to be longer than the two-item check Tony complains about (count and expansion) but it should not be 100 items long either. We are talking about a workable start-kit for novice reviewers, not a master's degree in MOS. Sharktopus ^talk 16:33, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and moved it to Wikipedia:Did you know/Reviewing guide, which is currently linked only from Wikipedia:Did you know#Selection criteria #5. Feel free to add, modify, etc. as well as to add links to it from other appropriate pages. cmadler (talk) 19:42, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Untitled (?) album

On top of what was said above about the quality of the Main page. I am concerned about the quality of articles. I asked a question on the talk of an article which passed by on the Suggestions, creating a lot of attention for its wording, juicy language quoted from the subject's father, the article changing name to the dramatic. It's now under a modest name, the question open. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:56, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Found it. It looks to me as if the review process worked much as expected in this case. Questions were raised about the sourcing and the main problem with the article was WP:CRYSTAL. The fact Manson is famously Satanist shouldn't matter one iota, in my view, and the real objection to the title Christianity Manufactures Yesterday's Killers was its crystal ball issue. As to the "juicy language," I'm firmly on the side of WP:NOTCENSORED, but in any event I see people questioning its accuracy. This is an example of how DYK works, in other words. People reviewed the article and that led to questions being raised - and the nomination was withdrawn. Where's the problem? Anyone who thinks the article itself is premature or in any other way unworthy of existence can take it to AfD - but Manson's religion, or attitude to other religions, is no reason for deletion. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:57, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

This looks like a misunderstanding. I don't talk about DYK, nor about deletion. I only asked on the article's talk (linked above, "question") if a general comment of the subject's father, that I see unrelated to the content of the article, really should appear in a sidebar. Question open. - Back to DYK: I don't know how much the DYK process helped the "promotion" of an article that was way too short in terms of expansion. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:30, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I see. I'd assumed it was about DYK, since you placed the issue here and referred to its passing by on the Suggestions. (I didn't look carefully at the article and don't know anything about the appropriateness of the use of the quotation there. Article Talk pages seem in general to be under-used, with points made often receiving no response.) But the nomination was withdrawn - that's the diff I gave above. In response to the raising of the crystal ball concerns. So no "promotion" happened. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:00, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

The nom was withdrawn, after it created discussion and a lot of attention, look at the page view history. The nomination was good promotion, if you ask me. I don't want to promote censorship, but talk about quality: should a general comment of the subject's father (independent sources?), unrelated to the content of the article, really be highlighted in an article that claims to be encyclopedic? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:57, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't see why there has to be a redirect under the presumed name until it gets released. The search function finds it if you look for "Christianity" and just add "m". - Btw, thank you for two good DYK articles, featured now on Portal:Germany! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:43, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

FWIW

regarding the Noel F. Parrish article. user:BarkingMoon is the editor who created the article. He asked me to do some copy-edit work on it (which I've been doing). I see that it's now in the queue. The editor retired (hopefully not for long). He mentioned that I should follow up on the matter. Ummmm ... I'm just not sure what to do though. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Cheers. — Ched :  ?  02:08, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

You don't have to do anything. It is currently in Prep 1 and will be promoted to one of the Queues later today or tomorrow, after which it will hit the Main page. But you can watch its progress through the queues here. You can also get an idea when it will reach the Main page here. —Bruce1ee^talk 05:32, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Bruce (is that a tribute to the Bruce Lee of Enter the Dragon fame?) Looks like I have until about noon on Friday to resolve some copyedit issues then. I know it's not FA or GA or anything ... but still some plag. things I'd like to clean up before it hits the main page. Tanks for the re: — Ched :  ?  07:12, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

There is no connection between my username and Bruce Lee. The similarity is purely coincidental. —Bruce1ee^talk 07:18, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

statistical analysis of DYKs

Hey...I'm trying to do a little of the work that was suggested, not just opining. Have reached out to the bot request desk about getting a bot made that would look at DYK statistics. Has this ever been done before?

I think I want to get a scrape of a month (or even a year) of DYKs (article, hook, submitter, co-authors, time and date run). Also some features of the submitters.

Then do some analysis. For instance, what percentage of DYKs are "first DYK", Pareto diagram. Also, maybe look at user tenure (time, edit count, admin status) versus DYKs. I'm also a little curious how decisions are made on which hooks get run at the less desirable times (no biggie, just want to look at the data).

Having all the stuff in one excel file would also allow doing some randomized sampling to then look at article quality, hook wording, etc. So even the non-quantitative data can be helpful.

Anyhoo...I am pretty stupid at this stuff, which is why I'm reaching out to the bot desk.

But just curious...has something approaching this exercise ever been done before? Like to look at it.

TCO (talk) 19:05, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Sounds interesting. Let me just quote you the mission statement as I understand it from WP:DYK: "The DYK section [1] gives publicity to newly created or expanded Wikipedia articles. This [2] serves as a way to thank editors who create new content, [3] encourages editors to contribute to and improve articles and the encyclopedia, and [4] brings new and expanded articles to the attention of readers who view the Main Page." (Numerals added by me.) So guess I hope you'll be looking for is evidence that DYK does or does not achieve points 2 and 3 as well as it could? I mean, getting a lot of regular-contributors suggests we are doing well on #2 while getting a lot of new nominators suggests we are doing well on #3, unless the glass is half-empty instead of half-full, in which case we must be doing a terrible job at either #2 or #3, and possibly both. Sharktopus ^talk 21:05, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Good comments. I have some more disorganized issue analysis at the bottom of my talkie talk page. But your framework, referring to the mission is a nice organizing principle.TCO (talk) 21:21, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

One thing I wondered is, is there a database by name of all the DYK award/ees? Sorta like we have all the FA awardees listed and even a sort of a ladderboard page.TCO (talk) 21:22, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Not all, but some are here. 28bytes (talk) 21:25, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

As far as I know that board is manual, you add yourself to it when you create your 25th (or someone else does it for you). I wonder how complete it is. Worm^TT · (talk) 21:31, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Interesting. Didn't realize there were so many 100+ DYKers.TCO (talk) 21:35, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

(ec)I don't know of any such DB, though we do have Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedians_by_number_of_DYKs and a Wikipedia:Did_you_know/Hall_of_Fame and a Wikipedia:DYKSTATS -- all of them pages about statistical outliers that probably don't tell us much. The question of whether people will knock themselves out to get rare and unusual prizes is not in doubt. The question is whether DYK is working to motivate people to "contribute to and improve articles." Sharktopus ^talk 21:37, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

It's quite clear to me, and it ought to equally clear to anyone else with eyes to see, that DYK as currently construed fails points 2 and 3 in spades. Malleus Fatuorum 21:40, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

How does it fail 2? 3, I can sort of see, but 2? And how exactly can you tell?Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:56, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

It fails 2 because "new content" isn't just an arbitrary five-times expansion, which is a very difficult thing to do. Much easier to create a mini-stub that just creeps under the bar and leave the expansion to others. Malleus Fatuorum 22:12, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, it is. I think. Your statement is a bit confusing. It seems you're saying that "an arbitrary five-times expansion" is a "very difficult thing to do". I'm guessing that that's not what you mean. I'm guessing that you mean that "new content creation" is a "very difficult thing to do". Ok. That's a question of quality vs. quantity and I definitely sympathize. But the gist of 2) is the "thank editors" part, which is what I thought you were objecting to, which the system does do.Volunteer Marek (talk) 01:27, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Not at all, for instance, vast numbers of bird, fungus and plant articles are 1 to 5 line stubs, easily expanded fivefold to make a start- or C-class article on the subject. We've only scratched the surface. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:47, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Why not create a proper article in the first place? Is number of DYKs a competition? Anyone concerned about creating articles would just do it, without bothering about collecting DYK tickets. Malleus Fatuorum 22:15, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Because some editors don't. The 'microstubs' that they produce provide a starting point for others to expand - I have a long list of earthquake articles that I have happened across that I aim (eventually) to expand to at least start level and if they contain an interesting fact (and not all do), I will bring them to DYK. Mikenorton (talk) 23:05, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

How many of these microstubs are actually expanded? None? Malleus Fatuorum 23:11, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

If you're interested, out of a list of about 80, I've expanded 8, given up on 1 (no sources) and taken half of those expanded to DYK. I don't need the DYK mainpage appearance as a reward, I expand them to produce reasonable length articles on important events, but if they seem sufficiently interesting I nominate them. Mikenorton (talk) 23:30, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Malleus, I've often made redlinks blue, and then expanded them months later. Sometimes time is just limited and there are other things which take my fancy. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:34, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I've been thinking about doing some analysis of DYKs as well though perhaps coming at it from a different angle. I'd like to know article length, article views after being featured, number of images, and a couple other things. TCO, let me know what kind of data you collect please.Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:54, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Good points. See discussion at bottom of my talk page. Was thinking of some similar things (not exact same list though).TCO (talk) 22:02, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

WRT the daily proposal above, looking at Wikipedia:Did you know/Statistics, could we have predicted the 1 in 4 of these that would garner the most hits? Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:56, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I've written on this elsewhere (WR). Basically "War" (or "Morbidity"), "Cute Animals Doing Cute Things" and to a lesser extent "Food" get lots of hits, at least based on this (unrepresentative - I dunno, maybe it evens out in the middle) sample.Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:58, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Believe it or not: I don't nominate for "Did you hit?" but for "Did you know?" --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:05, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Ok.Volunteer Marek (talk) 01:27, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Drive this question by https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l (and if you are not on the list, you may want to join, same for everybody else who is interested in Wikipedia research!). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 22:31, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

While you're gathering statistics, it might be interesting to include: hook length, how long the hook was on DYK (if that varied during the sampling period), and page views, not only for the DYK article(s), but for the image (when applicable) and all other articles linked in the hook. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 01:51, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Dang! those pesky 8 hour periods get a 33% longer bite at the pageview apple... :P Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:32, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Awesome feedback. Really appreciate the insights. Should be fascinating. Will definitely try to get as much data and do as many analyses as possible. It's not just about answering one question. I'm trying to get a botmaker involved now, and also figure out what Piotr's mail list has to support.TCO (talk) 02:41, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Whether you like it or hate it, logic says that an eight- or 12-hour turnaround would bring a lot of benefits, and would disadvantage only the trophy-room motivation. Please, can we shift the emphasis from quantity to quality? Tony (talk) 04:26, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I do not think DYK should change its emphasis one iota. Please see Wikipedia talk:Did you know#Back to the basics for a detailed explanation.4meter4 (talk) 15:26, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Back to the basics

The recent proposals made by TCO have made me do quite a bit of thinking about DYK, it's history, and its continued relevance to wikipedia. A recurring theme from TCO's comments seems to be a dislike for the DYK's reward system; specifically the awarding of DYKs to those editors who have either been long time contributors to DYK or to those who practice churning out articles as quickly as possible to get more DYKs. In general, his attitude towards these editors is that they should by now have moved beyond DYK to doing more beneficial work within the encyclopedia, such as writing GA/FA articles. But is this really a fair assessment of DYK and the work produced by its main contributors? In reflecting, I do not think so.

Let's consider TCO's suggestions to stop editors from participating at DYK after they reach the 50 article mark. What is the benefit of stopping such rewards? Why stop incentives which encourage expansion? What does it matter if the article was written by someone who has been on wikipedia for 5 years or 5 days? New content is new content and the whole point of this project is to encourage new content growth, from both old and new users. Encouraging new users is important to this project, but so is encouraging those who have been editing since day 1.

Another concern TCO has is about those who churn out a large number of articles to get more DYKs. But is this really a problem? What is so wrong with those who pump out articles en masse? Are there really major quality issues here? I would say no. DYK policy is to not promote tagged articles, including those tagged as stubs, or for NPOV, orphan, copyediting, referencing, etc. Therefore, if it meets wikipedia's notability guidelines and passes the DYK criteria than those articles are going to be a positive addition to the encyclopedia, even if they are not of GA/FA quality. They will still provide more coverage than what was there before. Additionally, articles with room for improvement are often the best recruiters for new editors to the encyclopedia. How many of us made our first edits expanding or improving pre-existing articles? It is funny to me that TCO is complaining about editors who churn out articles en masse to get DYKs, since this is the exact effect DYK is hoping to achieve. In my opinion, we want DYK to produce editors that want to get DYKs over and over. We want editors to continue to churn out new articles. This was the whole point in creating DYK; to create editors who like to churn out new articles.

Ultimately, the conflict here seems to boil down to the issue of quality versus quantity. It is a fact that DYK has always emphasized quantity over quality and I do not feel we should apologize for this. It is not a coincidence that pretty much every editor that complains about DYK are those who participate in either GA/FA or both. These editors have become obsessed with improving wikipedia's quality, which is the point of the reward system at GA and FA. This is a good thing. We want editors to want to create quality articles. Yet, wikipedia also aims to create the widest coverage possible since our goal is to have a free encyclopedia which contains the sum of all human knowledge. Therefore, expansion (i.e. quantity) is also a goal of the encyclopedia. While GA/FA were created to stimulate quality, DYK was created to stimulate quantity.

The truth is that wikipedia needs both quality and quantity to achieve its purpose and maintain its relevance. With the total knowledge of humanity more than doubling every year according to some sources, there will always be a need to continue creating/expanding articles. The need for more article creation is never going to go away. Likewise the best quality article possible is the most desirable article to the reader, and therefore the need for quality will never go away. Therefore incentives for both quantity and qaulity are needed. DYK is the only award incentive on wikipedia for expansion other than wiki cup (which has only a relatively small number of participants). I despise wiki-cup since I think contests have no business being a part of wikipedia. On the flip side, we have two rewards for quality on wikipedia: GA and FA.

In conclusion, there should be room for programs that inspire article creation in addition to programs that inspire article quality. In an ideal situation, a program can do both. However, as a pragmatist I don't think it's possible to do both at the same time well. We could easily go to FA/GA and complain that their standards are too high and therefore not enough editors are interested in working on improving articles to FA/GA status. Yet, if FA/GA lowers it standards it would be bad for the encyclopedia. Likewise, raising the standards for inclusion too high at DYK would prevent it from doing what it is supposed to do: generate new articles.

I think a fair analysis of DYK is that it is an effective tool for encouraging expansion of wikipedia's coverage; a goal which is central to achieving wikipedia's primary purpose. As DYK is the only award given for new content, it is both a unique and vital program within the encyclopedia's community. While it does often produce articles of lesser quality, the vast majority of DYK articles are not bad articles, merely sufficient ones. One has to only look at any given DYK queue to see they are not articles in a horrible state, but are in general mostly mediocre articles with a few good articles mixed in. There are other award incentives on wikipedia, i.e. GA/FA, which do stimulate the raising of article quality to higher levels. Wikipedia, therefore does not need DYK to become another quality control program. It does, however, need DYK to continue doing what it does: encourage the creation of new content.4meter4 (talk) 06:42, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Very well said, 4meter4. *applauds* Let me add to that by saying that I am not the type of person that can really write a GA/FA. I have one GA to my name and it is for a book, which is a type of article that doesn't need to be significantly long to achieve that status. If I tried to make a GA out of a biography article? I don't think I could do it. I don't have the head for doing the small, fiddly details necessary in terms of exact grammar and specific following of the MOS in order to achieve an article of that quality. What I am good at is writing a solid article on a new subject that can stand up on its own, but also has much room for improvement. To put it in Wiki-community terms, I am a Wikidragon, not a Wikignome. Most GA/FA writers fall more toward the Wikignome side of things (though they're generally an amalgam of both) and doing Wikifey work is just something I am not good at. It's not my style of editing. Silverseren^C 07:12, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly second 4meter4 statement. Well said, indeed. Manxruler (talk) 10:50, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

My thoughts exactly, except expressed much better than I could have. Since this debate seems to be a recurring theme on this page lately, I suggest 4meter4 essay-ify or userfy a version of these thoughts so that they may be linked to future discussions. Khazar (talk) 17:02, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

As a tool to stifle further discussion? Malleus Fatuorum 17:07, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Where did that come from? No, just as an eloquent expression of the views of a certain subset of editors that we might wish to refer to again. Others are welcome to disagree--that's what wiki is all about. -- Khazar (talk) 17:25, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

It came from the experience of four years of seeing editors argue against changing anything because it's already been discussed and ten people didn't like it the last time. Malleus Fatuorum 17:30, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Is it just me?

Is it just me who thinks that one of the current main page hooks doesn't make sense?

"... that the 8th-century penitential Excarpsus cummeani extends its scope to define penances for clerics also, possibly influenced by Saint Boniface?"

George Ponderevo (talk) 17:54, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

No, it's not just you. Khazar (talk) 19:42, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Does this qualify?

I recently did major work on Lead contamination in Washington, D.C. drinking water. The prose word count before I did anything [4] was 237 words; after I merged in a section from another article as a content fork [5] it was 1,792 words. However, most of that text was replaced in my successive edits, until the article's current state [6] of 6,034 words. So, I'm not sure if this meets the "fivefold expansion" requirement. Does it? // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 19:58, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Based on what you've said and that it passes DYKcheck as a 5x expansion, I'd say yes. BarkingMoon (talk) 20:02, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't think so. Expansion should be calculated as starting at 1,792, meaning you need to expand to 8,960 characters. The fact that you replaced most of the text doesn't matter, since the calculation of article expansion doesn't care about the quality of the previous version. rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:13, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

DYKcheck says it's a 5x expansion. BarkingMoon (talk) 20:16, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

DYKcheck is probably starting from the wrong version. The content merged in doesn't count as new content, so the starting version is the 1,792-word version. That version is 11,250 characters, and the current version is only 36,782 characters; only about 3.5x expansion.

By the way, Macwhiz, DYK size is based on characters, not words. rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:20, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

More to the point, characters of readable prose, not merely a raw byte count of the file. - Dravecky (talk) 21:54, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Alt text for images

The current image on the main page has an inadequate alt text, those in Q6 and Q3 are inadequate and that in Q4 is missing completely. I have added alt text or made the existing text descriptive (which is after all the whole purpose) to all three prep area images. Could someone please add descriptive alt text to the images in those three queues and could I ask that people reviewing nominations with images to check this and for those composing sets to check it again - alt text is the only thing that you can't see without viewing the source and therefore gets easily missed. Thanks, Mikenorton (talk) 18:28, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Reviewers are supposed to check for it anyway, but I think many reviewers don't know what it is or don't know the guidelines at WP:ALT, and just check to see if alt-text is there at all. A lot of nominators don't know either, so just write the same thing for both alt-text and tooltip text (and often all they do is copy-paste the filename). rʨanaɢ (talk) 18:37, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for mentioning this and I totally agree with you and Rjanag. I would also add that it seems to me that a lot of people just don't care because they perceive it as a feature that not many people use or need. I'm not saying that is the right attitude, just the reality of it. BarkingMoon (talk) 18:42, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

In my first ever review I got mildly admonished by an experienced reviewer for not checking the status of the image and that both adequate rollover and alt text were present, so I've been checking the prep areas ever since when I have the time/energy - I should probably do some mild admonishment of my own. Mikenorton (talk) 18:53, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I catch a lot of these myself, but I don't catch all of them. What's important to some is nothing to others. For example, look at all those who are anal fanatics about MOSNUM, but most of us could care less.BarkingMoon (talk) 19:02, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer, Mike. While not responsible for any of your specific examples, I'm definitely a guilty party in this generally, and will start checking for this in the future. Khazar (talk) 19:41, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

This was more of an attempt to raise awareness of the alt text requirement rather than identifying any guilty parties and if I've succeeded in that to even a small extent, then that's good. Mikenorton (talk) 22:22, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Mike, thanks. Fixed those alts. Materialscientist (talk) 00:27, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Mikenorton (talk) 05:51, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Problem with prep 4 hook

The current hook for Civil Harassment Restraining Order in the next prep (prep 4) is not entirely correct according to the source. California Penal Code (646.9) states that the 2 - 4 year imprisonment pertains to those who are first guilty of stalking the victim who has taken out the CHRO. Any suggestions to correct this, as I am having trouble getting it condensed to a manageable length, non-clumsy hook? Calmer Waters 04:27, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Never mind. Was able to keep under 200 characters. Calmer Waters 04:41, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Minor - with Queue 6, last item (Tony Tetro)

I just re-read my hook there and decided the comma is not really necessary, but I can no longer remove it. It would be very nice if someone could do that for me. Thanks in advance. Marrante (talk) 06:21, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

done. Kindly Calmer Waters 19:47, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Centiloquium (currently at queue 4)

Not sure about the re-write by Tony while it was at Prep 3 (diff).

The problem is that the new text makes it sound as if Ptolemy, al-Battani and Hermes Trismegistus were the true authors. But they were not. The point the hook is (was) trying to make is that although the texts have names that associate them with these authors, those associations are generally held to be false.

So suggest a re-think on this change. Jheald (talk) 17:19, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

You're quite right; sorry. Well spotted. Suggest this:

• ... that it's dubious whether any of the ascribed authorship of the three works on astrology called the Centiloquium—to Ptolemy, al-Battani, and Hermes Trismegistus—is correct?

Could someone check the Thailand one in prep area 4? Seems to be wanting a citation in the article. Tony (talk) 17:31, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

• This article is problematic, and perhaps should not be used in its current form. This article deals with three different works, which happen to have the same or similar titles, which reflects a dictionary structure (by what something is called) rather than an encylopedia structure (by what something is); see WP:NOTDIC. This should be separated into three articles, which, from a quick reading, might be called Ptolemy's Centiloquium, Centiloquium of Hermes Trismegistus, and Bethem's Centiloquium (or De consuetudinibus), leaving Centiloquium as a disambiguation page. cmadler (talk) 18:57, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Response: The primary topic of the article is Ptolemy's Centiloquium, which generally gets the title of the Centiloquium, and was the one that was particularly highly regarded in the Middle Ages, in part due to its presumed authorship. The other two were much less significant historically, but are worth distinguishing in the article. They may also be worth considering together because they date from pretty much the same period, treat of essentially pretty similar subject matter -- 100 astrological "sayings", and were often placed together in medieval manuscripts, and were also printed together in the first Latin printed editions. So I don't think it's entirely inappropriate to treat them all together. Jheald (talk) 19:33, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I'll copy this discussion to T:TDYK; further follow-ups to there. Jheald (talk) 19:37, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Minor error - Queue 4

Please italicize the scientific name for Cephenemyia ulrichii currently at Template:Did you know/Queue#Queue 4.-- Obsidi♠n^Soul 18:43, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Page restructuring

One thing that frustrates me in working on the T:DYK page is its massive structure, which makes it difficult to navigate and track changes. Has it ever been proposed to break the nominations into subpages per AfD, GAN, etc.? While this would slow the ability of editors to skim through multiple nominations, it would make it significantly easier to track individual threads, some of which have been pretty lengthy the past two weeks. It would also remove the burdensome step of notifying nominators/creators/reviewers every time their response is requested, as they could simply track the page for their nom. I find it very tiresome, too, to have to check my nominations on the page every day to make sure no one's added a comment without notifying me, since it's hard to search reliably enough through the history.

I don't know how feasible this plan would be, but I wanted to throw the idea out there and see if more experienced DYKers had any thoughts. Khazar (talk) 17:34, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

It also takes forever to load and save an edit at T:TDYK.BarkingMoon (talk) 17:39, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Oh, good. I almost said that, too, but I was worried it was just my crummy laptop. Khazar (talk) 17:53, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

It's been proposed a number of times, and even acheived consensus in favor last November ([7]) but has never been implemented. (At that time, implementing the quid pro quo requirement that nominators also review hooks was given priority in implementation.) My personal preference is for each nomination to have a sub-page, which could then be transcluded in any number of ways: chronologically (similar to the current page), topically, etc. It will make following individual threads easier, will fix the problem that some (many?) of us are experiencing with load times, will largely do away with edit conflicts, and will create a more-accessible record of previous DYK nomination discussions. Let's talk about how to make this happen. cmadler (talk) 18:05, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I do remember the idea of switching to an AfD-like transclusion being tossed around. IIRC, the main concerns were that it would make adding a nom a little more difficult (creating the subpage, then transcluding it), and that IPs wouldn't be able to nom without assistance (since it would involve creating a page.) Those might not be big deals, though. 28bytes (talk) 18:18, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Can anyone recall an IP user ever nominating a hook? I can recall perhaps one or two occasions when an editor came across an article that had been expanded by and IP and nominated it, but I don't recall ever seeing an actual nomination by an IP editor. cmadler (talk) 19:10, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

They do occasionally (I know I've moved a couple into prep where an IP was credited), but that won't be an issue if we go the bot route below. 28bytes (talk) 19:12, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

The page length is an issue. However, if we used substitution, would we start archiving nominations? Crisco 1492 (talk) 18:10, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I'd be pro-archive. Khazar (talk) 18:31, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Thinking about it some more, it might be possible to implement this, AfD-style, with a bot. Let nominations happen the way they do now, and a bot will periodically grab the new nomination, create a page to put it in, and transclude it. It could add an "Add this nomination to your watchlist" link at the top of each one. This could essentially happen behind the scenes and not require nominators to do anything differently, while providing them with the ability to watch individual nominations. 28bytes (talk) 18:28, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

So if others are at least interested in this, what's the next step, then? Should I attempt to formulate a formal proposal for a support/oppose vote here? Or should we investigate the programming end of this first, and then come back to make a formal proposal for an up/down vote? Khazar (talk) 18:33, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I think the programming end would be pretty straightforward. Shubinator is obviously the expert on DYK bots, so I'll defer to him, but if he's not got the time for it I can pitch in with bot help. The only real thing that would change from an "end-user" point of view would be the addition of the ability to watch individual threads. When building a prep set, you'd just remove the {{Template talk:Did you know/date/(article title)}} from T:TDYK instead of the nomination itself. Let's see if anyone can think of any "catches" or downsides to this before we put up a formal proposal. 28bytes (talk) 18:57, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I think something similar to AfD, GA reviews, etc. would work well. Nominator subst's a template on to the top of T:TDYK/Today, using only the article title (first article title in the case of a multi-hook) as a parameter. Template creates some kind of box with a link. Nominator clicks the link to go to a page-creation pre-loaded with the DYKnom template. Nominator fills in the relevant template parameters and saves, creating the sub-page. Bot puts a notification on the article talk page(s), as described above. Something like that, anyway... cmadler (talk) 19:20, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Whichever approach people prefer, I'll be happy to help with. 28bytes (talk) 01:34, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I'd be very happy for this proposal to proceed. Schwede66 03:32, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Before voting, I would ask tech-minded editors to comment on feasibility. We usually have 200+ noms, every nom has a few ticks (dyknom templates are commented out), meaning ~600 transcluded templates on one page. I think this will crash due to WP:Template limits. We can ban ship templates and tick templates though. Materialscientist (talk) 04:06, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Good point. The tick templates should be OK, though, since they're already subst'ed. 28bytes (talk) 04:25, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Whoops, I forgot that ticks are substituted. Then {{*mp}} is to be banned, preferably by software, or crashes will be hard to debug. I'm not sure what happens if we just transclude 300 nomination templates (with zero templates in them). Maybe this would be enough for a crash (?). Materialscientist (talk) 04:40, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Replacing {{*mp}} with a simple * would make sense, since it's already present in the cleared prep queues anyway. I can poke around and see how close to the transclusion limits the page is already. Template talk:Did you know/Full TOC transcludes the whole page already, so we can play around with a copy of that and drop some more transclusions in it to see what leeway we have. 28bytes (talk) 04:55, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Previous discussions of the issue (this list gets longer every time...)

• Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_32#Individual_day_pages
• Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_44#T:TDYK and Loading Times
• Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_49#T:DYKT Page too big
• Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_50#Archive_of_suggestion_page.3F
• Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_53#Suggestion
• Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_53#Subpages
• Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_61#Discussion
• Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents/Plagiarism_and_copyright_concerns_on_the_main_page#Setting_up_date_subpages_and_archiving (my own proposal)

rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:29, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for posting those links. Looking over those conversations, the two main concerns I see as downsides for doing this are (1) Art LaPella's point that it wouldn't be easy to do a diff of T:TDYK to see what's changed, since the changes would be to the subpages, and (2) Orlady's similar concern that watchlisting T:TDYK alone would no longer be sufficient to see all the changes that are made to the nominations. I think everything else can be addressed by a well-designed bot, but those two points will require some more thought. 28bytes (talk) 04:50, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

• I think Rjanag's proposal to have transcluded pages by date (like Wikipedia:Files for deletion) would avert the template limit problem that would arise from having transcluded pages per nomination. This doesn't solve the problems that Art LaPella and Orlady described, but it would solve the template limit problem and still allow IPs to self-nominate (there's an IP self-nom for List of nutrition guides, History of USDA nutrition guides right now actually). OCNative (talk) 05:07, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

My thought is, if we're going to do this, we might as well go all the way and use the AfD method, so that individual nominations can be watchlisted. As someone who partipicates in both AfD and RfD discussions, I don't really like the fact that I have to "watch" the whole day's worth of RfD discussions when there's only one RfD discussion I care about. I think the transclusion limit issue can be managed, so I'd be hesitant to let that drive the design decision. 28bytes (talk) 05:14, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree that we should use the AfD method so that individual nominations can be watchlisted. My hope is this would allow more thorough and efficient discussion on each. While I appreciate Orlady's point that the page could not then be watchlisted as a whole, I think on the balance this approach would allow more people to be following their nominations and reviews rather than less, since people with only a few reviews/noms on the page (the majority) could more efficiently track them. Khazar (talk) 13:30, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Here is a quick test of 300 transclusions from User:Materialscientist/Sandbox2. Seems Ok, but maybe I'm missing something. Feel free to experiment. Materialscientist (talk) 05:23, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Preprocessor node count: 3003/1000000
Post-expand include size: 933300/2048000 bytes
Template argument size: 0/2048000 bytes
Expensive parser function count: 0/500

I'm a bit too sleepy for deeper analysis at the moment, but my first impression is that a bot isn't necessary and may not even help much. IPs can create talk pages, and any subpage of Template talk:Did you know counts. I'm also curious about the transclusion limits and will play around with MatSci's sandbox sometime this weekend. Also, shifting to transclusion might affect DYKcheck, but as long as T:TDYK looks the same, the script shouldn't need major changes. Shubinator (talk) 06:37, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

My thinking on the bot was that it could be helpful to minimize the disruption involved in a changeover to AfD-style watchable nominations. People would create nomination sections as they do now by subst'ing the NewDYKnom template, and the bot would handle converting that into a transcluded subpage. That would eliminate the need to have to re-write the nominating instructions before phasing in the change. 28bytes (talk) 07:08, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I think it might end up causing more disruption though. The bot isn't going to be bug-free, and when it crashes things will get fairly chaotic much faster. If we're planning on changing to manual transclusion at some point, might as well do it at the same time as switching to the transclusion system in general; that way we make all our changes in one go, so there's only one change to get used to. Shubinator (talk) 15:19, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'll defer to your judgment on that. But bot or no bot, I do wish we could implement transclusions without making it a two-step process. I find AfD nominations to be a bit of pain unless I'm using Twinkle, I'd hate to make the DYK nomination process unnecessarily harder for people if it can be avoided. 28bytes (talk) 15:53, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

If we go with the page per nomination scheme, without a bot it has to be a two-step process. Shubinator (talk) 06:57, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

It would be nice to have these transclusions; it would make returning hooks from the queue a lot easier, especially if we archived on a day by day basis like at AFD. Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:18, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

However, loading Material Scientist's test page (with 300 nominations) took a while. Editing should be easier, but loading it still takes a good 2 minutes here. Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:46, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't think I'd be opposed to setting up AfD-style transclusions (by nomination, rather than by date), although I'll have to re-check the past discussions to refresh my memory about the various issues. 28bytes, I don't entirely agree with your summary of what the most major arguments were (although maybe that's just because of my personal preferences); Orlady's point seemed like a non-issue to me, given that watching T:TDYK doesn't seem extremely useful even now. The points that I remember driving several of the previous discussions were 1) it would be hard to proofread a bunch of noms in a single edit (I remember Art used to do that a lot, although now it seems like he's editing the queues rather than T:TDYK directly), and that it might make it difficult to grab multiple hooks for the prep (I don't remember the details of that argument off the top of my head, though, and it seems like something that can be worked around).

If we go forward with it, someone will need to design new templates (or at least instructions) for the process. I think {{NewDYKnom}} will still be usable on subpages, though. rʨanaɢ (talk) 14:18, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I fiddled around with MatSci's sandbox and came up with these numbers after adding more complexity:

Preprocessor node count: 3588/1000000
Post-expand include size: 1195554/2048000 bytes
Template argument size: 535/2048000 bytes
Expensive parser function count: 0/500

Looks good to me; we can also probably use {{*mp}} without worrying about the transclusion limits. Shubinator (talk) 06:54, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

• What would be the next step(s) toward making this happen? cmadler (talk) 17:05, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

A completely different approach to reduce loading time was (thanks to Voceditenore) to replace the pictures by links to them, as in the Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera/DYK Archive, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:58, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

• Sorry, I haven't waded through the entire thread. To me, it is essential that reviewers and nominators be able to watchlist single noms. What is the disadvantage of whatever they do at other processes to achieve this? And I don't like the idea of the pic being separated. Tony (talk) 04:45, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
  • I agree with Tony on this; linking rather than displaying images is not a good solution. Even if it has an appreciable impact on the load time, it does nothing to address the other concerns (watchlist, edit conflicts, section edit problems, etc.). I'm convinced that a sub-page per nomination is the best solution, I'm just not sure how to implement it. cmadler (talk) 13:37, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
  • Asking again: what is the next step toward implementing this? cmadler (talk) 16:32, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
    • I have a few thoughts, but I would like to discuss their feasibility with Shubinator first before posting them here. But if anyone else wants to post a proposal of their own while I'm working on mine, that's fine with me. 28bytes (talk) 16:39, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
      • It won't be difficult for me to update {{NewDYKnom}} (and the various instructions associated with it) for subpages once you guys have decided what the format of the submissions page is going to be. (In fact, as far as I can tell so far, it should be basically possible to use it exactly as is, just on a subpage rather than on T:TDYK itself.) Just let me know. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:43, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
        • I'm not sure what you mean about the "format of the submissions page"? I'd think that each subpage would be basically the same as the current sub-sections (per hook). The main page would be basically the same as the current T:TDYK (at least to start with), which adjusted instructions regarding the sub-page creation and with transclusion rather than the current mass of content. cmadler (talk) 13:17, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Cmadler--let's make the subpages the same format as the current subsections of the page. The key is just separating these out so that they can be watchlisted. Khazar (talk) 17:43, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Just wanted to give this a bump to be sure it didn't end up archived before action was taken. (Also to remove my absurdly unhelpful original title). It looks like there's a consensus that some change of this kind would be helpful. What's the next step in making this happen? I apologize for not being code-savvy enough to be bold and pursue it myself. Thanks to all those looking at it. -- Khazar (talk) 19:09, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

A section just for people to talk about their own experience with DYK

I would invite people to post their own experiences with their own articles as a counterexample to generalizations about people making junk for DYK with no care for quality, demanding a ribbon for every little thing. The "ribbons" motivate me, but they don't motivate me to put garbagy stuff on the front page of Wikipedia. The regulars I know are proud of the work we do here.

I was just doing random occasional edits until I started DYK. I met kind, collegial people here, right from my first DYKs. I have had 11 articles get DYK (that's only 8 hooks, because some were multis) and I have 3 more articles waiting at T:DYK (2 hooks because one is a double) and I am working on another new article now. I specialize in things I made photos of and science news I think Wikipedia should explain. I have created in all 27 new articles, mostly unsuitable for DYK and not nominated for it. I've also expanded a lot of articles I came across. So Wikipedia got a lot of good work out of me in exchange for the DYK "ribbons" I enjoyed so much.

My biggest DYK hit was a 3-article hook this month with a red-eyed cicada head – among the 3 articles, that hook got 20,000 hits. The article Wikipedia needed most got a pitiful number of hits, a bio for Alan B. Slifka. Here are all my DYKs so far. I have contributed way less than most regulars here. Sharktopus ^talk 03:16, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't see any need to pat ourselves on the back; as far as I know, no one was ever claiming that all DYK contributors are churning out cookie-cutter junk to earn trinkets. Likewise, no one ever claimed that none are. Some people do use DYK for that and some don't, that's something we can all agree on, without any testimonials. rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:21, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Heh, well, I am sure that some are doing annoying things anywhere you look. My goal wasn't so much to pat ourselves on the back as to collect some individual stories to go next to the statistical information people are also trying to gather. I would also be curious to hear more about DYK through the eyes of others. Sharktopus ^talk 03:28, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

My experience, as stated before was very positive. Thought people were kind and surprisingly did give the articles a little bit of help and some strictness. In general, running it through a DYK, would tend, for me, to make it a little better than some regular start article I did. Both from the short (but something) review as well as just knowing it will get seen. Plus I requested the newbie rule, since despite tenure, I actually had been banned for 2 years for trolling Wiki talk pages...and they did allow me the Swahili exemption. 'preciated.

I do wonder a bit if people with 50 or whatever, really "need" DYK, the way a newbie would. And I worry a bit that incenting new articles when, for instance, the period table is NOT all featured articles, is inefficent. I would wonder if we limited it to newbies, and cut out the churner, if that would be better. Maybe you get 5 or 10. And call it from our newer editors or something. Perhaps drop the quirky DYK, which we don't live up to. And a little more truth in advertising, that people will be moving to lower level content than the FA/FL. I mean, heck can't the 50+ers write the articles anyway and just get the equals sign sticker? Or move up to GAs? Or do projects to fill out a certain area of knowledge? Maybe have the Wiki cup incent articles, but not require DYK. I just worry that DYK is really more for the 200 articlers and the cup than for the little newbies like I was. And then, even if you kept a non-competitive atmosphere, it would allow giving the articles more time. 6 hours is really short.TCO (talk) 03:43, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I also think lowering the 5x requirement would be good. It's too biased to new articles now. Make it 2x or 3x.TCO (talk) 03:49, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Of course it's biased towards new articles. DYK is for "Wikipedia's newest articles". rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:48, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

And relax the 5 day rule. It is too biased to new articles created in sandbox.TCO (talk) 04:15, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Of course it's biased towards new articles. DYK is for "Wikipedia's newest articles". rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:48, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

• I have 26 DYK credits (with 3 more currently ticked for admission) and practically none of them are a bunch of similar articles. In fact, they're all pretty disparate and cover a large range of subjects. If you have issues with the people that nominate a blockload of cookie-cutter articles, then the issue is with the editors that do that and not the DYK process. I really don't think people having a lot of DYK credits really matters, because they're still contributing new content to the encyclopedia and this acknowledges that. In fact, it's far more likely that these long-time editors are nominating better articles that are very unlikely to be copyvios or have any of the issues that the articles nominated by new editors do. So, in fact, the longer you've been with DYK, the better the content that you're contributing. Silverseren^C 04:43, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Harumph. I'm almost getting convinced we should just leave it the way it is. I mean if it makes the people involved happy. And they are willing to run it. I actually don't even begrudge them the spot on the page. When FL came in, they just moved down the page.TCO (talk) 05:06, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

• I sent breast cancer awareness to DYK a few months ago, but when I write new articles (the toolserver count seems to think I've created 45; it's not something I focus on), I don't usually bother submitting them. It doesn't usually occur to me: I'm usually creating articles to fill a need at some other page. Deliberately creating an article under DYK rules feels artificial. I'd usually rather just write the article, expand it when and if it occurs to me, and not bother with the submission.
  Also, saying that DYK's goal is to "thank editors who create new content" isn't exactly right. I create new content on a regular basis—just not on new pages, partly because I'm fundamentally a merge-ist. DYK thanks editors who create new content as separate pages, not just new content. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:28, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Good points. I am the same way. Gaming the system to try to keep stuff in sandboxes and the like can be a drag. And then if working on some inter-related topic like the Manhattan Project, a very broad FA, generating several daughters, seems very inconvenient to keep the stuff hidden given the links and all. For "Solid fluorine" in my sandbox, I generated the content, but then knew I needed some of it in an FA. So I put a para in there. But now, it will look like a spinout. Maybe it's better for you and I to just do what makes sense to us and pick up a DYK if it makes sense, but not worry too much about it, if not.

• I've got 50 DYKs - created or expanded over a period of four years and 25,000+ edits. I did write articles in the two years I edited before becoming involved in DYK, but there's been a definite improvement in the quality over the four years I've made nominations to DYK. Before a more experienced user encouraged me to nominate two of my articles four years ago, I created more articles, but not as thoroughly. Quantity was perhaps the name of the game pre-July 2007. DYK was part of what changed that, now I feel that a time schedule of when I get around to writing an article isn't all that important, the quality of said article is. DYK has also in various ways put me in contact with many positive people on Wikipedia, several of whom I at times go to for advice on Wikipedia editing issues. As has been my goal ever since joining Wikipedia, I've ventured to act in a positive way. In my experience most people respond best to polite guidance, I certainly do myself. Some of my articles (three, I believe) have been judged good enough, and to have a nice enough picture, to be the lead article of a DYK rotation. I take pride in my articles, and I believe pretty much all the other DYK regulars do too. I've liked DYK a lot, to me it's been perhaps the best part of Wikipedia, because of all the diverse articles that I've gotten to read in connection with the process. That's in my view the main value of DYK, the diversity and the global nature of the articles. Manxruler (talk) 09:50, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

• That's also in my view the main value of DYK, the diversity and the global nature of the articles, said before in other words, but can't be repeated enough, on my way to nominate Tatiana von Metternich-Winneburg who is not a Bach cantata. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:33, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

• I've got over 200 DYKs. For me, writing articles comes before getting a DYK. Often, it's only after having written the article that is is possible to decide whether or not there is a possible hook. Mjroots (talk) 05:31, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

• Are you saying that not every article contains a good hook? If so, I agree. Tony (talk) 05:39, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

No, I'm saying that I don't write an article just to get another DYK. I'm writing the article because I want to. Having written it, I then evaluate whether or not there is a possible DYK hook. Even then, I don't always nominate the article at DYK. As to whether all my hooks are good, they were all good enough to get passed at the time, after many editors had the opportunity to object. It is entirely possible that they could have been better but that is now history. Mjroots (talk) 10:51, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Polytrichum juniperinum

Who approved this hook: Talk:Polytrichum juniperinum? Please read WP:MEDRS, and this business of having nominators review hooks is not working. There is copyvio throughout DYK still, and an ongoing lack of accountability here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:19, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Sandy, join T:TDYK (or just look through the queues) and help tracking such things before they are promoted. Errors are all around WP and fixing them is more rewarding than walking around and burning them with a flamethrower. Materialscientist (talk) 22:28, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Sandy. And yes, the quick-and-dirty "tick, tick, tick, good-to-go" method is not working: it's dangerous because it makes us think that all is ok and discourages proper reviewing. Yet these articles need careful auditing because the application is for nothing less than main-page exposure. Tony (talk) 04:18, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Main-page exposure -- that would be the main page of this whole anyone-can-edit encyclopedia? An encyclopedia whose problems with uneven quality and lack of accountability are the stuff of legends?

Yes, the DYK part of our front page sometimes reflects uneven quality. Fortunately, Mario's princess is in another castle! The section headed "Today's featured article" shows work that has been polished up to near perfection.

Constructive ideas for ways to improve DYK editing, ways to clarify what we expect and how to get there, work better than venting. I would welcome input on the two-stage experts-correcting-amateurs review process I suggested below. I notice that Tony seems to be suggesting there a different idea, also good, that he draw up a long list of items everybody should check in every DYK. This also would be helpful to many reviewers. Sharktopus ^talk 10:42, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

There is still no accountability here, and worse, now we have ill-prepared nominators reviewing ill-prepared articles. The question was, who approved the hook that breached WP:MEDRS. DYK is set up in such a way that only insiders can answer that question-- please do, and educate the reviewer. I continue to hope that the number of DYK articles run on the main page will be dramatically reduced so that only experienced editors will be reviewing them. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:23, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I think you have sufficiently flagged your issue, which is that all DYK editors should know WP:MEDRS. I don't think "accountability" requires turning this page into a hall of shame where people who make a GF error get held up to public scorn. I am hoping people who think we need more accountability will propose some policy change and get consensus for how, where, why we hold reviewers accountable if some problem turns up in a DYK they approved. I am hoping that people whose goal is to make a case for shrinking DYK down to the baby sibling of WP:GA will find an appropriate venue to make their case instead of spamming that issue into multiple threads on this page, which exists to discuss improvements to DYK. It is just not the best place to discuss a massive upheaval that would give rise to a very different program, a program that gives up on DYK's current goal of motivating the creation of new content, in order to concentrate on motivating competition for DYK approval. Sharktopus ^talk 15:13, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Ridiculous defensive posturing. Since there are no archives, and the DYK system works in mysterious confusing ways :), the only way to know if the people unaware of MEDRS are now aware is by someone in the know to figure out how to locate the person who passed the hook and inform them. Don't be silly; it's not about scorn, it's about why DYK doesn't do something to address the recurring issues here, starting with some sort of archiving and accountability. I have made a proposal, and repeatedly-- you need accountability via archives, and you need to stop forcing ill-qualified nominators to review, and you need to reduce the number of DYKs run on the mainpage so that experienced editors can keep up with the reviews. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:18, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

What's achieved so far is that valuable contributors leave the project, example pictured, that's not the way to improve the quality. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:22, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with that person, but if "valuable contributors" are leaving the project over the ongoing DYK issues, DYK should fix itself. But we've been asking for that for years. SO, I did it myself; I gather that User:Kevmin approved the hook and User:OCNative moved it to prep. (What a messy system.) I see no indication at User talk:Kevmin alerting him that he helped Wikipedia run faulty medical information on the mainpage. I 'spose I'll have to alert him myself, as well? [8] And that doesn't even deal with the extensive close paraphrasing in the article-- something DYK has yet to address in almost a year. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:33, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

You might also take a moment to brush up on WP:CIVIL, a much more important policy than WP:MEDRS. Or perhaps there is somewhere you could go to get WP:CIVIL "improved" so that it doesn't exclude dismissing the opinions of others as "ridiculous defensive posturing".

You might also consider the resemblance of "we've been asking that for years" to WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. When people ask for changes and consensus agrees, it doesn't take years before those changes happen. When people ask for changes and the consensus is "no," that's when you end up with "we've been asking for years."

If you want to improve DYK, why not propose a specific change in policy that would be a step in the right direction? Then people can talk about it and say yes or no. That's how policy changes. What's your proposal? Start with one thing to improve and you can add more later, if you get consensus. Sharktopus ^talk 15:44, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Your knowledge of CIVIL is lacking, and I've made the proposals repeatedly. Speaking of IDIDNTHEARTHAT. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:47, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Let's not shoot the messenger. Obviously WP:MEDRS is important. If we need to add some language to the reviewing guides to draw some attention to it, let's do it. 28bytes (talk) 15:53, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

You can't draw the attention of inexperienced editors, who are forced to review nominations, to everything they need to learn on Wikipedia sufficiently to assure some minimum integrity on the mainpage. And the faulty medical info is not the only problem-- the plagiarism problem continues as big as it was before the October 2010 scandal. Once again, forcing nominators to review is a mistake, and DYK is running more hooks than experienced nominators can review, and the lack of archives and diminished accountability means the problems won't be solved (glad you're trying to solve that piece, 28 :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:55, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I have to say that I agree with every word Sandy has said in this thread. Copyvio freaks me out a bit, actually. If we can get the watchlistability thing happening, I think that will be the foundation of attracting more reviewers in. It's just so hard to navigate, both spatially and in terms of timing, at the moment. Tony (talk) 16:17, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Have the DYK turn over every day (one quarter the number of hooks)

Right now, this place seems very much oriented to the desires of DYK submitters and not enough to our readers. Feels like we want to make sure every single child gets a ribbon at the relay races.

As it is, readers coming to the main page already have 8 or so hooks in DYK. Plus an FP, an FA, an FL (Mondays). Plus OTD and ITN (each with a slew of hooks in them).

I don't see any good reader reason why they should have new DYK hooks every 6 hours, over and over and over.

If we went to less hooks, this would raise quality (how ever the decision is made...I don't care about perfection...if you HAVE to pick 25%, the selection will be "better"...it doesn't matter if one hook loses that should have won...what matters is the broad quality increase.) It would also allow a bit more review. (And I don't want to slam you all too hard...DYK does have SOME review (think Sandy expects too much for DYKs) and they are clearly better than the average stub or AFD or the like.)

I mean with 10 per day instead of 40 per day, you are still talking about 3650 hooks per year for a reader.

As it is now, I respectfully get the impression that we are favoring editors too much over readers and just having a churn factory.

P.s. And I say this being VERY touched on how kind people here were to help me with my first DYKs and allowing them Swahili rule and all. And please don't take it out on me when I come back with more hooks in the future.TCO (talk) 22:23, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

The general spirit of this proposal has been put forth in one form or another several times over the past few years; I don't have links handy but I would recommend looking at the polls here about a year ago, where there were some similar proposals and where there are probably also links to the earlier ones.

The idea of this sort of proposal is good, I think, but figuring out how to make it work is very difficult. The main problem I have always seen with this is there is no easy way to decide which hooks get picked and which hooks get excluded. The idea of "interestingness criteria" (promoting hooks that are interesting and rejecting those that are boring) is very difficult to implement in a fair way, since it's so subjective; back when I was reviewing pretty regularly I considered myself a stricter-than-average reviewer and even I only rejected the most unbelievably boring of the boring. An alternative might just be to raise the bar in other ways (e.g., increasing the length requirements), although I speculate that won't reduce the amount of nominations very much--people will just write more, unless the increase in the length requirement is substantial (increasing it to something like 5000 characters).

For what it's worth, I also feel that editors shouldn't view DYK as an "entitlement" that they're guaranteed to get for pretty much anything that they work on; it would be nice if it were more selective. As I mentioned above, though, I don't see any way to make that happen, apart from selecting pretty much arbitrarily which articles get promoted and which don't. rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:40, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

(ec)I get ya. I'd say yearly election of directors and then let them pick. Have community input (making the case) on review pages, But not a strict vote. Think this would be the easiest, least cumbersome way to run it. I don't care (or expect) that the directors selected will have exactly my point of view. Will think any elected small group like that will do fine and then just the pressure of winnowing the numbers will drive higher quality (interestingness, diversity of topic, article "state", etc.) Could also consider raising the length limit to 5000 at the same time. I don't expect MatSci (I had that before the ec), HJ, Ucachaca and Dank to agree with me exactly...but they would do fine. I would let them work out how they want to decide (shifts, voting, whatever) within their group. But basic principle is they read the reviews and make a subjective assessment. Realistically, this is how FA works (are more articles than spots, so Raul picks), how FP works, how FL works. This is really not that "hard". Heck...I would rock voting for Tony if it means you get the work out of him! TCO (talk) 00:04, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I should place this somewhere above, sorry. We have spent obscene amounts of time on proposing new systems which "would magically solve all DYK problems". None can substitute the actual reviewing. This is where all efforts should go, IMHO, and I am very glad seeing editors like Tony and Kevin joining the process. We have had lousy reviews all the time, with any system in place, thus my suggestions are: (i) Reviewers: do not hesitate adding comments to reviews with definite "accept" or "reject" (or any other) tags - those were proven wrong so often. (ii) Promoters: do not rely on the green tick. Read the hook, the review, and the article. Place your own comment when in doubt and go down the list - hook selection is a responsible task which is often carried out too quickly. Materialscientist (talk) 00:00, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, the work is what matters, but cutting the number to 25% would allow more attention to each. And would change the culture of expectation of reward for every new article. (I've never had a DYK rejected.) I think you would get more a feel that exists in FP, where not everything makes it. I really don't care if we get the EXACT "best 25%", but that we do a lot better than now. And it's not just that we would be picking the best out of the pre-existing pool, but competition would actually make the top 25% better as people strive to win. And the sort of literalism and wanting to reduce everything to a formula is unfortunately a characteristic attitude that is Wiki being immature. I think we would LEARN how to pick the best articles...as a process. Every campus has to pick students, every ball club has to decide who makes the team and who is cut, every newspaper makes daily decisions on what goes on the front page. This is not a new problem to humanity...but is a useful activity...for readers, for submitters and for deciders.TCO (talk) 00:12, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

While it may seem paradoxical, this proposal would almost certainly reduce the quality and quantity of reviews. This is because the people who see their hard work cut to satisfy the DYK limit will have no reason to volunteer to help the project but plenty of reason to be angry. As these people are also the volunteers needed to keep the system running, this quickly becomes a self defeating process. --Allen3 ^talk 00:31, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Oppose this and similar ideas which amount to grabbing the DYK spot on the front page for a very different program run by and for a tiny elite group of editors who plan to call their own project DYK. The service DYK provides to readers is motivating people to create content. Lots of people from lots of backgrounds creating lots of different kinds of content--that is what DYK promotes now, what it was created to do, and what it does it remarkably well. Chopping down the number of people who can benefit to 1/4 the number we can benefit now is taking an ax to the root of DYK. Sharktopus ^talk 00:19, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

(ec)I don't want to hector you, but there are three important incentives people have already for new articles:

• our Google prominence and the likelihood people will see their work.
• The enjoyment and training associated with writing.
• that new article equals sign thingie

Would also say that people DO respond to incentives. If you tell them they need 1500 words, they DO 1500 words. They will respond to the incentive of this new system...and the readers of both the main page and of the encyclopedea will benefit. And it will drive an ethic of improvement. We have 3.5 million articles, but probably less than half of them have the level of coherence, you would expect from a senior in high school essay report on Huck Finn. As it is now, DYK is not being protected because of all the ZOMFG awesome Ghana minutea we are generating for READERS. It's being defended, because we want to give EDITORS stickers for every thing under the sun. I say, raise the standard. It will really help the whole project (honest, it will). When someone told Napolean that medals were just scraps of cloth and tin...he said "men will die for those scraps". thank about it. They do and have. So, heck...this doesn't even cost any money...let's just up the standard by the easiest way possible. I'm telling y'all...this will rock in the end!TCO (talk) 00:37, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Implementing daily update abruptly is simply not realistic - it will create huge bottleneck and put pressure on the promoters (who don't seem to be ready yet for rejecting boring hooks/articles). Let us start with raising the plank for reviews - rejecting by prose (yes, basic copyedit was/is often urgently needed before promotion) and attractiveness of the hook/article and see what happens - we can smoothly and easily change the update time from current 6h to 8h and 12h when we see the number of accepted(able) hooks shrinking. PS (as usual, I get edit conflicts at WT:DYK - I would be so much happier to have them at T:TDYK :-)Materialscientist (talk) 00:26, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Not an abrupt change. Just try to get people to like the idea, run an RFC, get them to vote, win the vote, then elect the dierctors, code the page to go every 24 hours. and then roll. you can use the exact existing system you have not for reviews. As far as how you directors make your choices...really I trust you. Take turns or whatever.TCO (talk) 00:37, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

• A modest proposal How about if TCO and anybody else who likes this idea create his own userpage showing the top 10 articles from yesterday's 40 DYK. Then we can all discuss if the high quality of the 10 they like would benefit the dainty eyes of readers so very much that it was worth demotivating the authors of the 30 they had to reject. Sharktopus ^talk 01:02, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
  • What's demotivating about not being on the front page? I consider it to be a blessing. But does anyone really question that the quality of DYKs is simply not up to scratch? How many reviewers actually bother to read the article for instance, beyond what's required to validate the hook? Any? Malleus Fatuorum 01:11, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

• • It's a great proposal and I will work on it. Was sorta thinking of that, indpendantly. It will of course underestimate the quality increase (as a tigher filter would incent those capable of doing more, but not doing so now, to improve). [It would even maybe be a good outlet for TTT...since he would not be gaming or flooding the process, but just having to get on the stage, flex, and satisfy the judges (analogy)].TCO (talk) 01:21, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. I see no problems with the overall current philosophy at DYK which is to encourage the promotion of new content which is presented in a relatively decent and effective manner (although I am for increasing review standards slightly). Like FA/GA anyone can achieve DYK. By turning DYK into some sort of contest where only a select number of editors are rewarded a DYK this in my opinion completely goes against the grain of what DYK and wikipedia are fundamentally about (ie. "the encyclopedia anyone can edit" should only have awards that anyone can earn if they put in the effort).

I am also concerned that the above proposal will in effect stop DYK from being a tool to recognize new editors to the encyclopedia and encourage them to stay. Most of these users are recognized after being nominated by an experienced wikipedian. That aspect isn't likely to stay in a contest format when only the best will win a DYK. Most nominations of articles of new users require experienced hands to help with DYK hoops anyway. Will people bother to do this when they aren't guaranteed a DYK? I don't think so.

I also dislike the implacations this has on the review process at DYK. I like that the current DYK system is for the most part run by those who contribute here. Your suggestions would in effect shut out a lot of editors like me who contribute at DYK but are not interested in being part of some sort of DYK board for a variety of reasons. Of all the awards at wikipedia this is the one that seems to best include the motto of a "free encyclopedia" which "anyone can edit" into its review process. Let's not turn this into another award with a small subset of reviewing editors with lots of hoops to jump through. FA and GA already have that covered in practice if not in policy. That said, I would be all for having more strict referencing requirements and slightly increasing the character length. Best.4meter4 (talk) 03:44, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

OK guys. If you're enjoying it, have fun with it. Peace. TCO (talk) 04:11, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose Good points by 4meter4 and Sharktopus, and once more: interestingness is subjective. Tony1's posts here have demonstrated that, since he's given examples of what he considers boring hooks and they don't map to everybody else's tastes. That's the most salient argument against a board of selectors, IMO, although I also think it would choke off participation to a trickle of ambitious editors. I also oppose raising of the prose minimum: some topics just aren't worth many words, regardless of interest, or there isn't that much that can be said about them based on reliable sources. I also think having 3 or 4 sets of Did You Knows per day increases the interest of the Main Page for readers, as well as better reflecting the size of en.wikipedia. And I remain unconvinced that there is any pervasive attitude that submitters expect all their articles to be featured on the Main Page. I only submit my new articles when they are long enough and when I can find a good hook. I'm seeing submissions withdrawn after reviewers found serious problems, no harm, no foul. I think this proposal would make DYK the province of the ambitious who want the exposure; I disagree that that's the dominant motivation currently, and I disagree that people will be motivated by the challenge. People differ: it is not so that everyone is competitive and ambitious, and DYK is not only getting submissions from those who are. This proposal would largely limit it to those with such motivations, which IMO is going in the opposite direction from that desired. Yngvadottir (talk) 04:32, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I say uncle, already. REally if someone has something that is working for them, I don't want to shit on it. Life is hard enough...then you die. But just for the sake of logic and learning:

• That two people do not exactly agree does not mean that everything is perfectly subjective or irrelevant. I think we can broadly agree that the stories in the back of the NYT are less important than the ones in the front (even if some editors might make slightly different decisions from day to day over emphasis). Similarly, we could mathematically express that there is a correlation of subjective opinions. If we did a survey and tested...you would not be all over the map. Just as people can "tell" what should go in the back of the paper versus the front. So, please...let's not be juveniley literal (not said as an insult...this place gets so touchy...said as a concept).
• While DYK IS easier than FA/GA and sorta gives some "hope" for the newer, weaker editor (which is fine...like that), it also has a LOT of repeat customers and churn. Not always helping out the real new to wiki writers. I certainly learned about FA and GA before I knew what DYK was. TCO (talk) 04:47, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Yngvadottir's post seems to be dominated by old-think assumptions unsupported by logic or even attempts at rhetorical persuasion. I'm struggling to find accord with any of it. Tony (talk) 06:32, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm gratified to have been singled out for the offence of defending the original purposes of this program, which I presume is meant by "oldthink." And not to have been accused of lack of forthrightness this time—my writing must be improving. I'm afraid I see no lack of logical exposition in my statement, but I wouldn't expect to find much accord with Tony; that's rare when people have differing assumptions, and it's been made clear we do. I can take this kind of pummeling; I'm not sure how many DYK submitters can, is what I am worried about. --Yngvadottir (talk) 12:48, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose per Sharktopus, 4meter4 and Yngvadottir. I got started at DYK close to four years ago, having been recommended by a more experienced user to nominate two articles I had written. Back then, DYK made me more concious of the need for proper referencing, as well as teaching me many things about article writing by following the nomination discussions and increased contact with other editors. When I nominate an article for DYK, its after I've done my very best to make that article the best it can be. The whole process of nomination, and the posting on Did you know... almost always leads to some improvement of the article, which is good. Let's not break what's not broken by creating some board that will select 25% of the nominations. Any way I can see it will inevitably lead to a comparatively small number of nominators being regularly selected, leading to a more narrow scope of articles. Manxruler (talk) 06:31, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

• Strong support for a half-way compromise. TCO says, "Right now, this place seems very much oriented to the desires of DYK submitters and not enough to our readers. Feels like we want to make sure every single child gets a ribbon at the relay races." I couldn't have put it better myself. The ludicrously short DYK cycle of six hours (40 articles a day, heck?) is at the root of the problems: enmeshed with it are the minimal standards of review and a tick/cross system that discourages the review–improve–repeat review–further improve processes that are commonplace on en.WP. The six-hour cycle doesn't allow enough people to look at the article, assuming multiple time-zones: even if you're on the computer six hours a day, you only get to see two cycles max. I'm not for a moment suggesting that FAC or GA standards should be applied to DYK articles; but I see opportunities for picking off low-hanging fruit in articles (i.e., easy improvements) passed over every day without comment because of the speedy production-line frame we've got ourselves into.

  Thus, I agree in principle with TCO's proposal for a 24-hour cycle, but I think it's too radical. A 12-hour cycle would be more reasonable. "Clogging" will result only if articles and hooks haven't been well-enough prepped. This longer cycle would bring four advantages:

  (1) a less speed-obsessed process, with less stressful deadline pressure, particularly for the admins at the sharp end of the process who have to fill and verify so many slots;

  (2) a better basis for making the hooks more generally "punchy" and "interesting" for our readers, as required by DYK rules—at the moment, some hooks are excellent in this respect, while others are a let-down (except you're not allowed to say this ... they'll bring out the old "that's your taste" argument);

  (3) a greater emphasis on reviewing noms, and on nominator–reviewer and nominator–nominator collaboration to improve articles and hooks ("clogging" should be managed by rejecting more noms, in a more competitive process);

  (4) greater prestige in having a DYK on the main page, and a higher reputation for DYK process in the community. Tony (talk) 06:32, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

  • I'm not opposing or supporting at this point, but I wanted to ask Tony: you say in point 2 "as required by DYK rules". Where do the DYK rules generally require a hook to be punchy and interesting? I looked for the specific rule but I couldn't find it listed. Nomader (talk) 10:42, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
    • Our DYK rules have 31 bullet points about hooks in between WP:DYK and WP:DYKAR. Most of these bullet points are rules but some are suggestions, norms, etc. Exactly one of these 31 mentions hook interest. Here is what that one says. "When you write the hook, please make it "hooky", that is, short, punchy, catchy, and likely to draw the readers in to wanting to read the article. An interesting hook is more likely to draw in a variety of readers. Shorter hooks are preferred to longer ones, as long as they don't misstate the article content. Perhaps someone would like to change that to remove the word "please" and append a warning that any one person who does not find your hook interesting is entitled to reject your DYK submission with a big X. Sharktopus ^talk 11:44, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
• Strong oppose to turning DYK over to an "elected" board of directors as it transforms the project from one about content creation into yet another political logroll overtaken by the few interested in the bureaucracy side of Wikipedia. Is DYK perfect now? No, but this is yet another proposal for a radical overhaul from an editor who hasn't been putting the time in helping the project to learn more about DYK. All have been soundly rejected. Wikipedia is struggling to find new editors, to keep the editors it has, and to encourage new content in under-served areas. If that means we get an occasional bubble of articles about Ghana or fish or Texas lawmakers then so be it. The poor quality ones will be rejected and the good ones will get a few hours in the sun. And how does it serve readers to have one set of these articles up for 24 hours instead of rotating them off after 6 or 8? Is a hook about Ghana more interesting when you stare at it all day? Is it less informative to see an article about one plant on Monday morning and another article about a different plant on Tuesday night? With the average now of about at least a week between nomination and promotion, there is plenty of time for interested editors to comment on hooks, review articles, and improve DYK. We don't have enough people doing that. Reducing the ranks of involved editors (or, heaven forfend, turning all of those duties to a tiny cabal) will hurt the experience for readers and content creators alike. - Dravecky (talk) 07:17, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose, for the rich cultural diversity reflected better as it is, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:47, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
• Support Improvement is possible. The exact nature of the improvement is subject to debate. The review process is currently overloaded. A significant proportion of articles go forward with basic defects that would be easy to fix. I've spotted many but I've given up looking because the pace is too fast. Lightmouse (talk) 08:17, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
• Support This is for the main page, where we are supposed to highlight our best quality content. Not every article needs to appear; if yours doesn't get picked, try harder next time. The quality of DYKs is extremely variable, from near-FA quality to, at best, start class. This does not give a good picture to readers as to what kind of quality new articles should be - which is, broadly similar. Some of the hooks I see are so boring but they have to be boring because the article is about a topic that is difficult to write something quirky about. We should only be showing best of the best on the main page, not any old thing that someone threw together in 5 minutes. Also agree we need a stricter process when it comes to checking articles. Some consider DYK to be copyvio and plagiarism heaven, simply because it's so easy to do as the articles aren't checked properly. AD 12:11, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
  • I think this comment shows a profound failure to understand the purpose of DYK, which is certainly not to "highlight our best quality content"; if that were the case, the Main Page space could simply be given over to a second Featured Article. DYK highlights new content, in the form of new articles and articles that have recently undergone significant expansion, and in so doing, reminds Main Page visitors that this is "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit". DYK reminds readers of the "work in progress" nature of Wikipedia, and showing unfinished (compared to FA or even GA) articles invites readers to make that first edit. cmadler (talk) 13:44, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
    • Then why not highlight those articles most in need of help instead of the newest? The truth is that DYK actually makes no sense at all as it's currently operated. Malleus Fatuorum 14:01, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
      • DYK attempts to strike a balance between articles that can still be further improved/a standard attainable by many novice editors, and concerns about linking problematic content (copyvio, BLP problems, factual errors, etc.) from the main page. There are also a lot of different ways that articles can be in need of help, ranging from unreferenced BLPs to stubs to copyediting to general cleanup. But if you have an idea as to how such a project could be constructed, I'd certainly be open to considering it. cmadler (talk) 14:22, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
        • I have given up suggesting anything here, as nothing ever changes. I was merely making an observation. Malleus Fatuorum 14:25, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

• Malleus, Cmadler and Aitken, are all taking different lines. But all three of you have the ingredients of the direction I believe DYK should take.

  Malleus, DYK is constructed quite differently from the featured content sections on the main page, which emphasise quality over all else (within the rules), not newness in creation or expansion. DYK has been conceived as having a distinct function piggybacked on top of hooks that are "short, punchy, catchy, and likely to draw the readers in to wanting to read the article". These hooks are a great idea for the main page, and so is the emphasis on newness and/or recent expansion. (There certainly is a continuous tsunami of these articles—too many to accommodate realistically in the review process, and too many to avoid eye-blinkingly quick turn-arounds.)

  But just because an article is new or recently expanded doesn't mean quality and other standards can go out the window. To me, it's a matter of getting the balance right, so where Malleus might throw the baby out with the bathwater, I say improve the review process by slowing down the production line, raising expectations of quality in these showcased new/expanded articles, and be more selective. No one is suggesting GA or FA standards, but let's send a message to our keen editors (and visitors who can be recruited) that we'll work with them in a more orderly, organised way to shape their babies so their minimum quality is higher. I am, perish the thought, suggesting a move towards a more competitive environment for these babies.

  We need to adjust the framework so engagement between reviewers and nominators (and nominators with each other) is more collegial. It is the essence of a wiki, and DYK should be taking the opportunity to be a competitive powerhouse for promising, interesting articles at the start of their lives. Tony (talk) 14:33, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

And so we see again the fundamentally different set of assumptions. You think DYK will be more collegial with more competition. You have been throwing out negative pronouncements and impugning the motives and the effort of everyone concerned - because you want more collegiality. I beg you to dig in and participate in the collegiality. What you see as reform I consider destruction. I welcome more of the collegiality we already have here. DYK is one of the best parts of Wikipedia precisely because it's a good way for editors to read each others' work and work together. Making it into a walled garden won't help that, and nor will assuming bad faith of those who work here. (Including the invidious assumption that those who submit articles can't be trusted to review others' articles, but somehow that those who don't choose to do so are thereby better reviewers. That's a bad effect of the quid pro quo requirement that even I hadn't foreseen, because I do assume good faith. If you really do want more collaboration and collegiality, making this into yet another competition is a really strange way to work towards that. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:22, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Amen. I'm sick of the repeated implication that all our article creators are churning out crap and whining for DYK ribbons, that all our reviewers are slackers doing the minimum, that Wikipedia is in terrible danger unless we turn DYK into a hall of worship for people so ultramontane that they can't tolerate what DYK was built to be. DYK was built to be a place where new articles are encouraged and their creators are rewarded -- rewarded, not bullied, not shamed, not set against each other to fight like dogs for a hard-to-get favor from some lucky elite.

This is a page to discuss improvements to DYK. If you want to replace DYK with a totally different way to pick articles, maybe there should be a big RfC somewhere, because tearing down and replacing a popular and important part of the project's main page would be a very big deal. I would like to see this page return to realtime DYK requests plus concrete proposals to improve articles or reviews, like a checklist that specifies what each reviewer should cover, or a two-stage reviewing process, where experts help correct the newbies. Sharktopus ^talk 16:38, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

In the face of hyperbole like "totally different" and "tearing down and replacing", which is not the view of most people here, the best response here is to ask both of you to assume good faith and to invite you to join in engaging with nominators, advising them, helping them. We are fortunate to have quite a few reviewers who are doing just that, rather than recoiling from discussion about how to improve the process and the product. And I see yet another call for us to come to grips with DYK's speedy-production-line situation. Now, I have to go: there's too much work to be done on the ground, assisting other editors. Thank you. Tony (talk) 16:44, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't agree that the solution to our problems is for a self-selected few to go strutting around lording it over large numbers of nominators. I prefer to "engage" by doing reviews and work at RFF, as I currently do. I believe the solution to any problems at DYK can be found in specific improvements to our review process, such as a checklist helping newbies see what they should cover and/or a two-tier system where experts do their reviewing at Prep. Sharktopus ^talk 17:31, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

We currently have a system that seeks to accomodate all suitable nominations. You (Tony, as well as others) have suggested that we should impose some artificial limit on the number of accepted nominations. That is a fundamental shift, and calling it "totally different" is hardly hyperbole. cmadler (talk) 17:19, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

(ec)AGF isn't the rule around here that I'm in any danger of violating, and I believe I've shown amply why you have been doing so. It's the civility requirement you might have me on. I am sorry, I am neither a tactician nor a saint and find it very hard to respond politely to someone who sees specifics as hyperbole (and repeatedly uses hyperbole) and politeness as vagueness. I'm not persuaded the majority agrees that DYK badly needs reform; nor are decisions of this kind made by majority vote, and so I see "not the view of most people here" as a bit more bullying. And at odds with the position you've taken as the outsider who's come in to shake up somewhere where the "regulars" are doing bad things. I do still believe you mean well. But I don't think you are assisting so much as cowing . . . actually. And which am I, in your view - a nominator, as I was when you made repeated suggestions to change my proposed hook? or someone who just hangs out on this page, talking about policy? I'm rather proud of the standard of my articles, and I see Ehrenbürg just got 5K hits at DYK. But I've also referred to the fact I genuinely like to help out by fixing up nominated and even accepted articles. Maybe I don't have sufficient time to devote to those tasks, or do them in too quiet a manner for them to register with you, but my edit record is right there, please feel free to check it. I'm beginning to wonder whether my writing style makes it hard for you to read my comments - or whether you just skip reading them, as you admitted further up the page you had not read a discussion before weighing in on it. If that's the case I do apologize, because I believe you might find that not just I, but others who disagree with you in whole or part are also doing just the things you believe are not being done. DYK actually works rather well, whatever its reputation in some quarters, not least because it isn't run by a clique, and does involve all kinds of collaboration. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:28, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. I actually do believe there are article creators who "are churning out crap and whining for DYK ribbons". I believe this because some of them have chastised me for being a hard-ass and not relaxing the rules to pass their hooks -- and I believe there's one article creator who has nurtured a grudge against me for nearly 3 years for refusing to accept his DYK because his article was full of POV and copyvio content. However, for reasons many others have stated at length, I don't think that setting quotas on DYK hooks would have positive effects; indeed, I think the overall impact would be negative. --Orlady (talk) 16:54, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

An honest question or two ignoring any of this oppose/support crap and without expressing my tastes - To those of you who don't know me I'll introduce myself as an editor who has contributed a decent amount (50+) of self-written articles to DYK and an editor who has tried to apply an above average level of diligence to their reviews of other DYK suggestions (others may disagree...).

I have, as things stand, lost any and all interest in contributing to DYK on the back of these half-arsed, semi-informed squabbles.

People claim to know what DYK is supposed to represent and proceed to divulge their views accordingly. People claim to know what readers of the main page want and proceed to divulge their views accordingly. It seems to me DYK has reached a cross-roads. We can carry straight on as the process stands. We can turn in one direction and apply a group of overlords who can on a whim decide what is worthy. We can turn in the other and expel the editors who come along saying nay to most of what is presented to them (that may be the same as continuing straight on to some). Or we can do what any sensible person would do when confronted with such a selection of courses and stop to thoroughly evaluate the options. A discussion here, whilst valuable in assessing the opinions of regular contributors, fails to address the key question - What, at this stage of Wikipedia's development, is the point of DYK? Is it to highlight the newest brilliant/mediocre/suggested work of established Wikipedia editors? Is it an incentive to bring new editors in to the project by offering them an opportunity at main page exposure? Is it an incentive to stop the creation of endless stubs by encouraging creation of longer (1500+ character) articles? Is it a chance to expose lesser known subjects/topics to a wider audience to educate or inspire further contributions to the Wiki? Is it merely a chance to accumulate credit for a run at adminship? Without this fundamental question being answered by the wider community I don't see how we can establish any policy going forward. Let's hope at least some of that made sense. - Basement12 (T.C) 00:52, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. I'd argue that DYK provides two unique and invaluable functions:

1) encouraging the creation of new articles and the expansion of stubs 2) providing an early, low-level filter for those articles and expansions The more we seek to quota-fy or reduce the number of hooks going to the main page for fear the public will catch us in some bad prose or a dull hook, the more it interferes with the above goals by raising the bar for recognition of new content, discouraging editors from pursuing this process, and reducing the exposure (and thus chances for editing) of new content. We've all seen the process fail and the occasional truly bad hook get to the main page--an article with unreliable sources, copyvio, etc. But even this can be seen, in a way, as for the best: the momentary platform of the main page appearance allows these problems to be caught, rather than persisting for years in a low-exposure article. More importantly, though, I'd say for every "fail", 50-100 articles are minorly or majorly improved either pre-main-page appearance or because of their main page appearance, often by new or IP-address editors. The result is a significant net gain for our content. Personally, I say we shouldn't be afraid to let the public see the sausage being made--at least not at the expense of forwarding content growth. Khazar (talk) 04:33, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

• • "for fear the public will catch us in some bad prose or a dull hook": the public already sees unsatisfactory hooks and early-stage articles, although a good proportion of DYKs are good-to-excellent hooks and early-stage articles. People here can brand this as "your opinion, your taste", but that's an old trick that has been used in many places to deflect proposals for change.

    The unevenness of both hooks and articles is why editors have come here to discuss improvements. DYK is widely regarded as problematic, and it's a pity that regular editors who have justifiably taken on a sense of ownership through their tenure (we all do that, inevitably) have dismissed what others see as obvious measures to improve the system. This is the case even when such editors admit there are serious problems, such as Orlady has done. Still, they dismiss with a wave of the hand the input of others who have at heart only the quality of the main page and the effectiveness of the DYK process in achieving its stated aims. I've not yet seen a well-framed argument against change; bullying and personalising has been typically, which is a pity because it shoos away editors who would be critical in collaborative improvement.

    I say again, six hours is a breathtakingly short period to allow a good hook and DYK article exposure on the main page. DYK's aims are better served by raising the standards, increasing the exposure time of the good ones, and reducing the break-neck churning speed.

    In view of what Basement has said, and the views of others who want change, I'm surprised Khazar is putting him/herself down as an opposer. Tony (talk) 04:49, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

    Tony, we always had many more nominations than a daily set. Who and how is going to reject them en masse? By what general rules? We always give a chance to improve, and with your help, this process is getting better, and many noms get fixed during the review. Further, there were times when most (say a large fraction) of the noms were excellent. Only a system with flexible number of shifts/day could handle that (we can't change the number of hooks per set at will per main page balance). Materialscientist (talk) 05:04, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose The purpose of DYK is to stimulate the creation of new articles, which is just as important as improving articles, no matter what the above GA and FAC people think. In fact, i'm rather offended that anyone would say that DYK is not important to the community. Silverseren^C 09:39, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
  • • Reply to Materialscientist: you. Well, let me expand: I do find it a problem that there isn't a stronger sense of judgement by those who manage the queue. I'd be very happy for a directorate to be elected or appointed, just as several other processes have one. Featured lists never looked back after directors were elected: it made that process hum. This will be a very unpopular suggestion among those who don't want standards to rise, and who want a free-for-all, where satisfying a few clunky minimal rules gets a magic carpet to the main page. But in-house resistance has never stopped me pushing reform and improvement. Thanks for your comment about my reviewing: but I have to say that it's a massive job and needs about three times as many non-nominator reviewers patrolling several times a day at the current hectic rate of this production line. Tony (talk) 10:03, 24 June 2011 (UTC) PS a flexible number of shifts per day (preferably two, sometimes three or four) would be fine. I'd hope few days would have four shifts: good hooks and articles should get more than a flicker of time on the main page. Tony (talk) 10:06, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• Support in principle Any period longer than 6 hours has got to be better. I hate whistle-stops. If something deserved to get to the main page, it surely deserves to stay there for longer than my nightly repose. I would want to see it when I wake up; I would want more people to see it. So I would go for at least 8-hour cycle, ideally 12. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 10:18, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Whoever wants to know what was new overnight can look at the archive. I prefer 3 shifts a day over 4, though, but would not like to refuse nominations just for lack of space, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:12, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Gerda, I'm glad to hear you say three rather than four. Perhaps we'll bid you down to two, with the option of an additional one if there's a serious backlog. I note that Materialscientist says above, "Tony, we always had many more nominations than a daily set." I take it we already ration. There's nothing wrong in principle with rationing, is there? Tony (talk) 12:49, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Tony, in saying "I take it we already ration" you've once again made it clear that you don't really understand how DYK operates. No, we don't already ration. We've never rationed at DYK. That's why people who do understand DYK are using terms like "totally different" and "tearing down and replacing" -- because that's what this is. The status quo, indeed, the way it's always been at DYK is that every suitable nomination is accepted. Obviously we get some nominations that are not suitable, and either can't be made suitable or no one is willing to do that work, and such nominations are rejected. But every suitable nomination is accepted. You, and others are proposing to change that basic principle, which is why you're getting such stout opposition. And the fact that you don't even realize that this is a change suggests, as I mentioned, that you don't have a good understanding of the current operation of DYK. cmadler (talk) 20:11, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Only I wasn't referring to rationing, but to having 3 sets up to June 6 because of fewer noms. To my observation, the switch from 3 to 4 to adjust to the flow is relatively easy and has been performed back and forth, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:55, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Saying "they can look in the archive" feels like another one of these illogical objects (like because we no two people agre exactly on quality, that everything is arbitrary (note, with market research and statistics, correlations in evaluations can be measured and they are definitely not zero). On the archive, we could also just have a list and never run it on the front page too. bottom line is main page is exposure and a day would at least mean all time zones get a gander at it.TCO (talk) 18:05, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

A gentler attempt at persuasion. Look, I totally HEART that this place can be good for the newbie article writer. I was very proud of my first DYK and felt that you all were genuinely KIND to me in applying the Swahili rule. Also, I remember Motennen being a young writer very proud of his DYK. That said...when we talk about people with 50 (see upthread), I don't buy so much the argument of be nice to newbies. If we really felt that this should be newbie friendly we would limit total number of DYKs a person could get (maybe 5 or so). Also, honestly, even as a new submitter, it was the personal touch of people notifying me of the reviews that meant more to me, than that I got the DYK. I would have been happy with having to "compete my baby" in order to gain a day of exposure instead of 6 hours. And don't be revengeful when this thing comes into the DYK queue: [9].

I don't think of trying to fix DYK cause it is some awful copyvio mess. I just want to up the quality of articles overall on wiki. that is our problem now. I certainly don't expect GA standards. But let's just compete the things and see what we get. We are still talking about 4000 DYKs per year (at 11 hooks per day). I just honestly see a way that DYK can help Wiki. And am concerned now that it is not so much for helping Wiki, for helping READERS, than a sort of self-justifying production line run amok.

And I love that Metallurgist cares about this thing he administers. And I love that all of you have found something to love. And I don't want to be a drag. But still...I don't have ANY sympathy of complaints about the pace here, given people just to operate it about 4 times faster than what makes sense. And I can go back for years and see these comments about "let's just work harder at review". It doesn't make sense. It's like that horse in Animal Farm, that said, I'll just work harder. No. We need a systemic change that allows more care. And I really don't even care that much for the copyvio issue. It's more that I care that our readers get something valuable. And that we have a gentle, but little bit stronger emphasis on quality, and much less emphasis on quantity.TCO (talk) 18:21, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

TCO: I appreciate your trying to be gentler, and I understand why you think wrongly that those of us disagreeing with Tony's stance are dichotomizing. But I've contributed my point of view to the discussion - of your proposal and the others that have been made - and it's now become abundantly clear that any discussion (such as the one I think we should have about quid pro quo, whether it's working, whether to modify it, whether to put in a second screening ...) is going to be derailed by hyperbolic claims about submitters asserting ownership and people dismissing arguments with a wave of the hand, and repeated assertions that radical change is progress and that everyone agrees there are serious problems with the quality of DYK articles. This has become a battleground and all efforts to ask that it not be so are met with more of the same. Now I see Basement12 also expressing disinclination to participate in DYK in the future, for reasons that I admit I don't understand, it's clear that DYK serves a multitude of purposes, but I respect his/her adding another voice and am distressed to see yet another person discouraged by this fight. That's what it is, and that's not the way we are supposed to interact with each other. It's looking as if the ceaseless repetition of claims and the battleground attitude is going to override any attempts at forging compromises - "Perhaps we'll bid you down to two." And you felt it necessary to joke about us giving you a hard time with your next nomination, and not only does Tony make yet another dig above at people who propose hooks (I've said why I think this shows assumption of bad faith, and to me the latest occurrence looks totally gratuitous, but no one else is objecting), now you make a reference to 50 DYKs as if it's bad to have worked on 50 articles and to have wanted to share them with people. I don't feel comfortable supporting a programme that is turning into another exercise of competitive ambition, and it looks as if those here who are ambitious and assume everyone is are going to win, when it shouldn't even be a matter of winning. So I will concentrate on articles that are not suited to DYK, and try not to look at this page - which I only started looking at anyway because I was admonished for not speaking up when quid pro quo was originally discussed. I'm considering asking for my name to be withdrawn from the article where I recently collaborated with Sharktopus; that was fun, and I was touched that he thought I deserved credit, but now I feel a bit dirty about accepting it. So I think I should bow out rather than give the appearance of endorsing this revolution. Sorry. Yngvadottir (talk) 19:22, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I think that three sets a day would be better than four. And, yes, I think it is not unreasonable to have a small proportion of otherwise eligible new articles rejected over "space" concerns, although I wouldn't want to see that happen to very many submissions. It does seem sometimes like the DYKs are all basically the same things, and this would tend to reduce the "ten articles about ____ in ten days" feel. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:37, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Support a drastic reduction in the number of DYKs run daily on the mainpage to hopefully allow for better review and a reduction in the extensive copyvio, plagiarism, and faulty sourcing issues routinely found at DYK. Experienced reviewers are needed at DYK, since the content (often faulty or plagiarized) goes on the mainpage. Having a DYK appear on the mainpage is assumed as a right, when it should be a priviledge that serves our readers. Since DYK has amply demonstrated over a long number of years that they are overworked, reducing the number of hooks run should allow experienced reviewers to choose those that warrant mainpage exposure over those that are quickly thrown together by adherents of the reward culture with plagiarism, copyvio, misrepresentation of sources, and non-reliable sources. And please, some of the hooks that are run are just downright embarrassing-- try to clean it up. What was the one the other day about some restaurant not charging more to serve minorities? Sheesh, please clean it up here. Reduce the number of DYKs daily, get experienced editors to review them, and remove the rule that nominators must review-- content that goes on the mainpage should be vetted by experienced editors, not whomever happens to show up seeking a reward. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:23, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Sandy makes a lot of sense. The speed of the production line makes proper reviewing and the editor induction that goes with it impossible. In addition, I find that six hours' exposure for good hooks and articles is measly, frankly. Even though she and I are no longer on speaking terms, I've got to admit that Sandy is just about the most experienced, most professional editorial manager that Wikipedia has. Her advice should be taken very seriously. 124.169.129.38 (talk) 16:39, 29 June 2011 (UTC) [Tony1, not logged in for unknown reasons]