This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:Did you know. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
As you can imagine, though, I found other interesting tidbits about these players, and I want your advice on whether or not I should do the above or do them all separately:
I'd suggest doing them all together, because, by the "if he hadn't been, someone else would have been" rule of thumb, the Wallace and (probably) Mottola hooks are entirely unremarkable and not hooky at all, and the Nevin hook is about the same. The Hammonds hook probably fails that rule of thumb test as well, although I can't tell for sure because it needs some tweaks in wording to make clear what it means. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 05:41, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
Olympic record and being the first from his university to be selected in the first round is uninteresting? My... Agree about Hammonds though. Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:04, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
In what way is it interesting? It may be a great personal achievement, but otherwise it is just yet another stat; he is the first, someone else will be the second, and so on and so forth for every university that's involved in whatever sport. It doesn't make the reader think "wow, how on earth did that happen?" or "gosh, that's really really odd". --Demiurge1000 (talk) 06:12, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
Interesting need not be unique. That a politician was burned in effigy in another country may not be unique, but it is interesting enough in my opinion. Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:19, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
Indeed, but it has to be interesting. Being the fastest, strongest, or oldest person in the world achieves that level of interesting, but if it's not quite so outstanding then it needs something more. (The professional bass fisher hook is fine.) "X got burned in effigy in country Y" wouldn't do, but "X got burned in effigy in country Y for ridiculous or extremely surprising reason Z" could manage it. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 06:27, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
I'm certainly open to any variations on the less interesting hooks, like Nevin and Hammonds. I'm going to look for ALTs for them. I would take improvements for Wallace and Mottola too, but I feel those are strong hooks. I just started these yesterday, so I have a few more days to work on them. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:31, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
Unfortunately, the direct promotion of this hook to Queue 4 meant that the typo "bloging" slipped through. Can it please be fixed to read "blogging"? Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 13:24, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Proposal to prepare hook batches on unique subpages
I am new to DYK, and I still don't fully understand the process, so excuse me if I mistake some of the details. I am proposing that each batch of hooks be prepared on a unique subpage, and that subpage is moved through the same process we have now, but instead of cut-and-pasting, we would simply transclude it in a different location.
As I understand it hooks a pulled from a successful nomination and placed in a "prep area" section called "hooks" (like Template:Did you know/Preparation area 1#Hooks). Once this catch of hooks have been sitting for a while, preened over and rearranged, that batch is cut-and-pasted to the queue. The batch moves up the queue and is cut-and-pasted to the main template. Then it is cut-and-pasted to the archives. This creates a very, very long history for each page, and the history isn't accurate (as is typical with cut-and-paste moves). This also makes it difficult to watch a particular hook as it moves through the process.
Once a batch of hooks is created, those hooks stay together (with maybe some changes) through the whole process. I think that creating these batches as subpages would benefit everyone involved. Specifically, I mean creating each batch as something like Template:Did you know/Hooks/05-01-2012 (or something similar). The history for each batch would be exact, as would the talk page, as it would be new for each batch. Interested parties could watchlist individual batches as they are adjusted through the process (especially good for nominators). The process would still function the same, but with transclusion instead of cutting-and-pasting. The subpage can be moved from the prep area to the queue to the main page to the archive, without cutting or pasting.
Obviously there are a lot of technical details that would be worked out. I simply want to see if this is something that DYK regulars would be interested in, before any specifics are hammered out. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja18:41, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
The problem I see with this is that a given group of hooks is quite fluid. It's common for hooks to be switched between preps or even queues to make a better balance of topics or hook lengths, and they can also be removed at any point when it turns out there is a problem with the article that requires removing the hook for more work before it's returned to the prep area, or when there's a good reason to get a different hook on the main page sooner (for example a special occasion; sometimes the person assembling a prep didn't do the arithmetic and notice that that prep would be on the main page on a specific date, or sometimes they forgot to check the Special Occasions Holding Area at the bottom of the nominations page. I believe this is why they are called preps and why there are so many steps, to give a chance to fix and adjust things. I agree, it is a big challenge to watch one's nomination once it gets promoted into a prep area; I think if a hook gets removed and the nomination template reopened, the nominator and the article creator(s), if different, really should be notified as a courtesy, because there is no easy way to watchlist the nomination after promotion. But I think the need to modify and fix things before the queue goes to the main page outweighs the advantages of making the prep set hard to modify. Yngvadottir (talk) 19:17, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
If this is done right, it would be no harder in that regard. Editing would be like what happens at WP:AFD. Editors go to AFD and hit [edit], and most never realize that they are actually editing a subpage of AFD. You wouldn't need to go directly to the subpage to find it, as a bot could automatically make the empty prep areas once the old ones have been moved. It would still appear to be a part of the Prep/Queue/Template/Archive page. If hooks are moved back and forth between a few prep areas, that history will still be a lot clearer than the gazillion edits in the current histories. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja19:54, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
Indonesiana (Queue 5)
I'm normally happy with a lot of Indonesia-related hooks reaching the main page, but Queue 5 has two biographies explicitly stated to be Indonesian. Could one be switched into a prep, to keep it more balanced? Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:54, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
First, and probably most important, the queue only has seven hooks, and they're all short ones. I can understand Queue 1 having been shortened to seven hooks because they're long ones and we don't want to unbalance the main page (though compare Queue 5 which is similarly long and has the full eight hooks), but this queue had eight hooks in the prep area, and it should get an eighth one.
A fix: I believe the final hook should hyphenate "coin-collecting shop".
Back to Queue 1: while the Amsterdam case was there, I could sort of see the logic of having a non-quirky final hook. But now the final three hooks are, in order, a beating, three deadly airplane crashes, and a concentration camp death. Can these at least be separated within the set (if not one swapped out), and a short, quirky hook added at the end? Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:25, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I was going to say above, I don't think the Amsterdam case should have been moved out of the all-serious set it was in. It's now in final, "quirky" position, or was last time I looked. Someone presumably moved it for a good reason, but I think it was wiser to put it in the all-serious set. (Yes, as this implies, I think that hook should run.) I believe Queue 1 was shortened simply because a hook got pulled out, but in view of the next section, I won't put another hook into it. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:30, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
Time to reduce from 8 hooks to 7 hooks?
At the moment, we have 23 hooks that have been approved, and 15 slots available in the prep areas. That doesn't give very much flexibility for balancing prep areas or finding replacement hooks when problems are found with promoted ones. We also have a couple of queues that are already down to 7 hooks and ought to get an eighth (see previous section).
Going ahead with this in the prep areas. Although no one seems to be posting about it here, Yngvadottir mentions it in the topic above, and Crisco 1492's talk page has Crisco's buy-in. Actually, at this point, it'll be as if we started with Queue 6, and backtracked just once with Queue 2. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:59, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
Then we'd go from 24 hooks every day to 16 hooks every day, which isn't enough to keep pace. This way, we reduce from 24 to 21 a day. It also makes the front page a little more balanced, sizewise, because we don't take up as much space with 7 hooks as we do with 8. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:35, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
This is definately not ready...i just edited 1 section and the writing is pretty poor. Please recheck this.(Lihaas (talk) 01:11, 3 May 2012 (UTC)).
Note: the hook is in Queue 1, which has seven hooks. If it becomes necessary to remove it, then I recommend moving a hook from Queue 2, which has eight hooks, so both end up with seven. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:30, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
I just saw the changes to the Prashant Bhushan article, undid most because I disagreed with them on stylistic principles, then noticed this link. I think my writing is generally clear, precise and neutral, without spelling or grammar errors. Is this a disagreement over style? Aymatth2 (talk) 02:11, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
I went to the article before Aymatth2 replied, and was surprised to find the prose to be quite serviceable; in no way would I describe it as poor. I've definitely seen less polished writing in DYKs I've signed off on or promoted to a prep area. I also reversed some of the edits Aymatth2 hadn't, based on stylistic preferences, and in one case on MOS rules. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:27, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
I reviewed the article, and I certainly don't think it's "poor". For a brand-new article it is very thorough and well-sourced, and I don't see any problems with readability. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja03:15, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
I don't see any of those as reason for the article to be recalled. As a side note, two word sentences are acceptable. Crisco 1492 (talk) 11:47, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
Also as a side note, WP:MOS shows having a comma before a quote, e.g., He said, "It's okay to use a comma this way". The MOS does say the colon is also allowed in this construction down in the section on colons, but in no way is a comma wrong. And you use capital letters to start a quoted sentence of speech (see MOS:QUOTEMARKS for examples of this). BlueMoonset (talk) 14:48, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
This nom is in prep area 2. However, its main source is this website. I don't speak Russian, but it doesn't look like a reliable source to me. Can someone check on this?--Carabinieri (talk) 14:30, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
I don't think it's as unreliable as it looks - it appears to be a digest of local historians' work. However more seriously, there is no reference given for the hook fact. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:11, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
I added a footnote to the place in the article where the hook fact appears. In Google translation, the relevant passage in the source reads: "In the summer of 1931 due to acute shortage of paper the periodicity of the newspaper reduced to 18 times a month, circulation is reduced to 25 thousand copies. Format - 41x50 cm, volume - 2 pages. The annual subscription price - £ 6. In December 1931 the newspaper became a daily again. Format - 40x50 cm, volume - 4 pages." --Orlady (talk) 17:16, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
Oh good, thanks! I was thinking it might be in the ref that appeared at the end of the paragraph, but I wanted to alert the article creator first and give them a chance to fix it. They have apparently logged off a few hours ago, though. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:29, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
There are several articles on German publications with 'Nachrichten' in the title. See here. It may be an idea to disambiguate them all somehow, and/or have this article at a title that disambiguates it. Carcharoth (talk) 02:19, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
Yes, "Nachrichten" is a German word that is likely to appear in multiple article titles. However, at the present time, English Wikipedia has only one article with that name, so it is premature to disambiguate. --Orlady (talk) 03:37, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
I ran across a DYK review today that only had a check mark and a sig. No hint of what might have been reviewed at all. Is this really acceptable? I've also seen "Passed" with the check mark. This is equally unhelpful, in my opinion.
What I think should be standard, at a minimum, is the symbol with a statement of what was done to approve (or question) the nomination: 1500 for new or 5x for expanded, article not a stub, sourced throughout, hook fact interesting and specifically sourced and not too long, paraphrase/copyright check, etc. This takes less than a minute to type up, and aids in the process of assembling prep areas. If it means updating the instructions to mandate both a symbol and a written explanation for the review (and only one symbol, please), then perhaps it's time we did that. Thoughts? BlueMoonset (talk) 17:16, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
I agree, it seems to have become time to remind people to review and document a bit more carefully. See above section, where I stumbled on a promoted article with no ref on the hook fact. I'm glad you decided to be the heavy, so to speak - I didn't want to (especially since I hate the quid pro quo requirement - I must sound like a broken record on that - and genuinely sympathize with those who feel ill equipped to do a review or are otherwise reluctant). But hasty reviews, or reviews that don't actually say what was checked, are only going to lead to more hooks having to be yanked out of preps or queues, when the problems could otherwise have been fixed expeditiously. (And having a hook yanked is no fun for anybody.) Yngvadottir (talk) 17:36, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
Oddly enough, I have the impression that we used to pull a lot more hooks out of preps in the old days, before the creation of the nom templates and before the advent of the WP:DYK/Removed list. Those newer features have made removals more visible... However, I do think that the people who assemble hook sets have some responsibility to evaluate the quality of the reviews done on the hooks they "promote". --Orlady (talk) 19:23, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
Agree with Blue Moonset. The reviewer has an obligation to do more than say "Passed" or "Looks good." Cbl62 (talk) 19:28, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
I disagree. Everyone knows, or should know, what you have to check when you're reviewing something. Because of that, making a list everything you've checked won't help anyone. I don't get why you assume that reviews will be more thorough if you force people to make a list of everything they've checked. I'd prefer they'd put the time they spend writing everything up into making the review more thorough.--Carabinieri (talk) 20:54, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
According to the review instructions, they should already be writing up a review summary that's more than just a check mark. (It's the mark that's optional if "strongly encouraged", though I think it should be mandatory for clarity.) BlueMoonset (talk) 21:54, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
I'd better go change that - the bot uses the last symbol to determine how many articles under a given date have been passed and generate the display on the Queue page. Yngvadottir (talk) 21:58, 3 May 2012 (UTC) . . . and done, both in the brief guide and in the full instructions. Yngvadottir (talk) 22:09, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
Good. Thank you. Of course, that bot is currently taking a very long break, since it hasn't updated the list for almost six hours... BlueMoonset (talk) 02:40, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
When one of the DYK bots stops working, it's helpful to report the problem to the owner at User talk:Shubinator, as these bots seldom get fixed on their own. I have reported the current problem with DYKHousekeepingBot. --Orlady (talk) 03:55, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
Is there a list somewhere of the various DYK bots, or should I just go to Shubinator's page next time and explain what isn't working and let him decide which bot has gone offline? BlueMoonset (talk) 04:22, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
Yes, but how do I know what the name of the bot is to begin with? It's pretty obvious that some automated process takes care of that list, and another moves the next queue to the main page, but where are these listed so I know the various bot names? Sure, once I have the bot name I can find the talk page, but it's knowing the names or finding them quickly that's the issue here. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:47, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
With QPQ, I don't think it's safe to make the assumption that everyone knows how to carry out a proper DYK review. Choess (talk) 03:20, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Choess -- it's not safe to assume that reviewers remembered to check everything. It's not just QPQ reviewers who do incomplete reviewers; veterans also sometimes forget things. --Orlady (talk) 03:41, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
Further to Orlady's comment, writing a short summary of my review is my way of making sure I don't miss anything, and I'm sure it helps other reviewers in the same way. Moswentotalky08:30, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
Anyone interested in getting this guy on MainPage in 2 days (Q3 or Q4) on the anniversary of his birthday? His nom could use a quick review. Thanks. --PFHLai (talk) 13:03, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
I think this backlog is getting a bit ridiculous, the 27th of April is almost virtually untouched. I think there should be some form of addition to the QPQ requirement that ideally they should review the older nominations first before looking at the newer ones. I don't think it has to be in place for too long, maybe 2 or 3 weeks, just to get the current backlog down. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 17:22, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
I've been saying older noms should get more attention for a long time but little actual action gets done. It just gets worse and worse as the participation level keeps getting lower. PumpkinSkytalk01:03, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
I will say that I get frustrated seeing the same nominations sit day-after-day at the top of the queue, with no progress being made. QPQ people are going to the bottom where there are no issues. Even sticking above the "Current nominations" line, there are plenty of hassle-free articles. People avoid the lengthy ones, or ones with issues, those move up to where they get avoided even more. People try to help move them along eventually, by that time the nominator has moved on to something new. Perhaps there should be a cut-off at one month. If a DYK article has been up for a month, regulars make a concerted effort to pass it or toss it. If that DYK is important to the nominator, they shouldn't be forced to wait around for two months to be told that they didn't do a good enough job in the first place. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja03:10, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
What about a second tier of QPQ? If you have 5 DYKs, QPQ. If you have X DYKs (10 or 20 or something), you are required to choose a review from within the oldest 10 nominations. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja03:18, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
I doubt that will be well received, especially when we ask for that from someone with only 10 or 20 nominations (for hardcore content creators, that's less than a month... I reached 20 in five weeks, and in a year had 272). I don't think someone with only a few DYKs and reviews will be ready for the really difficult reviews, especially with editors who are known for close paraphrasing. Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:49, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
I just mean a hypothetical number, I don't know how many is a lot for DYK. The regulars are the ones who have the experience to do the harder reviews, and they would have the motivation to do them if that was a requirement. It could be from the oldest 15, 20 articles, whatever. Would it not make sense to save the easiest reviews for the editors with the least experience? What other sort of system could be enacted that would encourage this? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja08:00, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
Unfortunately, I think all it would do in practice is put some of the "regulars" off submitting at all. Personally, I try to select older hooks, but if I'm doing a QPQ, I'm often in a hurry, so will select an easier one. I'm not proud of that, but it's just human nature! If I had to do a difficult one that might take me upwards of half an hour to go through, then frankly, I think that time would be better spent on actually writing an article. I agree there is a problem, and one that needs a solution, but I don't think this is probably the right solution. Harriastalk09:49, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
Well at least there are plenty of submissions! But with a backlog of 225, it might be time to increase the cycle or promote more hooks to the queue, to help get rid of a few. Gatoclass (talk) 09:30, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
Not sure how you can actually force people to review the older ones. Maybe have something in the rules strongly suggesting it or maybe over 25 DYKs should require reviews over the current noms line. Or maybe additionally have a drive promoting reviews and not as part of QPQ. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 10:29, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
A backlog drive similar to those at Good article and Copyeditors guild might be productive, but there would be the obvious concern with half-baked noms, so it might end up generating more work than it solves. On the other hand, it's probably worth trying anything once! Harriastalk10:43, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
Reviewed five of the oldest unreviewed ones today. If there are unreviewed ones that need reviews, let me know. I am happy to do a few more. (I just sock away my QPQs for later use at this point.) The large number of classroom nomination sets where we had about 10 to 20 that were nominated with no return QPQs contributed a bit to that. I'd almost admit I'm not as thorough in checking if people actually need to do QPQ when I review. I think only once recently have I said not yet because it was missing. --LauraHale (talk) 11:21, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
The queue cannot grow if QPQ is rigorously. It is large numbers of noms without QPQ that cause blow outs. Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:44, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
What do people think about the idea of creating square crops of images to be featured in the picture hook? Sometimes we have great images that can't be seen at 100x100, especially on mobile devices. I've created this one at right as an example. I even coded it so that the cropped thumbnail leads to the full file's description page. The uncropped image is currently used in Template:Did you know/Preparation area 4, but I think this crop would work better. Obviously we can't or shouldn't crop all images, but what about the ones that really need it? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja04:34, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
I agree. The crop is good and such cropping should be done more often if the resolution of the original image is high enough. Carcharoth (talk) 05:45, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
The image on the right isn't even scaled, the original was so small that 100x100 was exactly his face. Would it be appropriate to put this in the prep? Would it need to be protected before use? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja06:04, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
I find the original much more interesting and aesthetic - nice pose, car, buildings behind, even a perfect conical volcano; gives a bit of cultural context etc; guess defer to the nominating User, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 11:00, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
They'll see the full pic when they click on the article - the main page is a different visual environment, and I agree cropping should be done more often. I suspect the reason it isn't done as often as might be wished is that I'm not alone in being clueless about how to do it :-) (Or maybe that's unfair and others just wonder how to upload a special version. I can just about handle typing and making bold text, myself '-) ) --Yngvadottir (talk) 12:11, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
I agree that the original is more interesting, but at that resolution it isn't eye-catching. People have built-in responses to smiling faces, they will instantly recognize it. The uncropped thumbnail would take even a person with perfect vision a moment to process, if they even bother. The 100x100 limit is really unfavorable to these type of busy rectangular black and white photos. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja18:41, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
No problem, they only give us 100px, so we better make the most of it. I see that even ITN is using the link= trick now. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja21:47, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps the idea is that many songs are written by teams of songwriters these days? Still, I agree that it's unnecessary; "written by" means that whoever is listed, even if just one person, wrote it. I've removed "solely" from the hook in the prep area. BlueMoonset (talk) 14:31, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
The queue lost two hooks today and has only gained one replacement hook, so it has but six entries. Can an admin please raid one of the prep areas for a suitable (lucky?) seventh? Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:08, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
Would I be able to get another set on eyes on this nomination? I don't think it is eligible in its current form, for reasons discussed at the nomination, namely that it has lots of empty sections and tables, but I would appreciate a second opinion. Harriastalk16:42, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
I've tried my best to fix some of the templates and I've filled some of the blanks with the information avaliable and I've removed sections that were blank but can be easily re-added when the season starts. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 18:11, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
Assistance needed with re-review
I've been asked to re-review a nomination I turned down a few days ago but I'm travelling at the moment, so I'm not going to be able to get it sorted in the immediate future. Could someone possibly take it on for me? The review is at Template:Did you know nominations/Bat'leth. Prioryman (talk) 08:59, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
I re-reviewed it and by my reckoning it is still not sufficiently expanded from the original text. I appear to differ from the original reviewer on the basis figure. Someone else may want to take a look and weigh in on that; but in the meantime calling all Star Trek fans to find more to add. :-) Yngvadottir (talk) 02:27, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
On the inline citation: if it is the case that each line points to a notable article about said pastry, there's no need to include a citation on the table unless the fact is contentious or we're using a direct quote. If it were a fully exhaustive list with some lines lacking articles to direct towards, that would be different. That said, I think for a DYK nom, that table needs to be normalized better - I can understand not having images for all the entries, but, for example, the croissant entry is far too long relative to the rest. It should be a short, brief description for each (country(s) of origin, general ingredients, and any immediate cultural aspects - one, two sentences for each at most). --MASEM (t) 18:22, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
DYK QPQ Bot
I don't want to distract form the above conversation, but I had an idea. The problem isn't a lack of nominations, it's a lack of reviews. That shouldn't happen with QPQ, because most of the nominators have had over 5 DYKs in the past. What about a bot that creates a list of every user that has had a DYK and how many they've had? This bot could then comment on nomination pages, saying "User:Example has had 15 DYKs; requires QPQ". That would help make sure QPQ is followed properly. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja19:08, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
Sounds a bit like branding users to me however, It does seem like a good idea and it could also help users give out the medals/barnstars for others passing DYK milestones. I'd support something like that. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 19:24, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
Prisons in Bahrain was held-up because the nominator had only two DYKs when it was nominated, but had five by the time it was passed. A bot commenting on each nom when they are made would help clear up any contention or confusion. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja19:40, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
Rather than try to build a bot to find out how many DYKs an editor has had (an almost impossible task, I would have thought, given the way DYK has developed over the years - it's not as easy as the task for the bot updating WP:WBFAN for example), isn't it probably easier to assume that everyone has had 5 previous DYK nominations or more unless they say otherwise? BencherliteTalk14:52, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
A bit of a Catch-22, that one. New editors wouldn't know enough to say they are new, and regular ones should not need to write that they were exempt from QPQ. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:56, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
Need admin to move prep areas to queues
It's been a rare occurrence lately, but there's only one queue filled. In addition, all four prep areas are loaded, meaning we're stymied in terms of further building. Is there an admin around who can move a few prep areas into the waiting queues? Many thanks! BlueMoonset (talk) 04:41, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
Meaning specifically, are people supposed to look-out for Mother's Day hooks? Because there is no holding area. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja20:11, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
If you find any appropriate hooks, suggest it at the nominations pages and/or review them and then create such an area and move them into it. It sounds like a good idea, but I haven't seen anything suitable (and I had to look it up, it's May 13, so we have about 10 days; that may allow time for someone to write/expand something specifically for that day). Yngvadottir (talk) 21:10, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
OK then, I've created the subheading. I agree, raising the point may lead people to identify or make some appropriate nominations. Yngvadottir (talk) 22:31, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
The instructions for the DYK nominations page are clear that the nominations are supposed to be placed under the day of creation/expansion in the normal way, with an indication that they should be reserved for the requested day (I suggest in the Comment section for prominence). Not everyone obeys this, but it has its own penalty, in that a lot of folks don't go looking for hooks needing review down there, because hooks aren't supposed to be down in the Special Occasion Holding Area until they've passed. Once a hook has passed, I doubt there would be much objection to someone moving their own nom down if the reviewer didn't do it for them. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:02, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
Entirely depends on who finishes the current prep 1 (which would post Saturday evening), and starts on the prep 2 (4am to noon ET, 1am to 9am PT) and then the prep 3 (noon to 8pm ET, 9am to 5pm PT). Sometimes people race through prep areas at an alarming rate; sometimes, very little happens. I imagine that the preference would be to have the bulk of the MDay hooks in preps 2 and 3, especially prep 3, though prep 4 (8pm ET/5pm PT) could get a straggler. It's also very possible to shift hooks around to fit in a worthy late one, though that gets harder once they're in queues and only admins can move them. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:19, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
Oh, I thought it would be a single batch that would be used for 8-16 hrs. I've never seen a holiday on DYK. So they will be spread-out through normal hooks? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja06:51, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
That's how we've done the last several holidays and other special days. If there's another way, I've never seen it done. If there are enough hooks, they could take over one or more batches, I suppose. I've only handled one- or two-hook special days myself so far. BlueMoonset (talk) 07:04, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
I think we could have a full batch. In addition to the ones mentioned above, I am hurrying to get Music for Our Mother Ocean ready, and I've commissioned another author to start The Mother (Matka). If we had a full group, could we keep it for two shifts? Or do we need to keep the schedule? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja07:40, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
I was also hoping to start Mother's Day (1989 film), but I can only find one solid source, so that's no good. It would make a good hook though, because it's the Christian Broadcasting Network's first telefilm, and it's about a drug-related homicide. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja07:42, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
Time to go down to 6 hooks per prep area?
We have 5 empty spots in a prep area, and another 28 available in the queues. That's 33 total ... and only 13 of the 210 submitted hooks have been approved. I think we need to slow down a bit until we can build up more approved hooks to work with. Going down to 6 per batch would use up 18 hooks a day rather than 21.
A reminder that we'll need to start using up the Mother's Day hooks after the current prep area (1) is filled and some prep areas promoted to the queues to make room. Fortunately, those aren't counted in the 13, since the special holding area doesn't count toward generally available hooks.
If we wanted to go down to two sets of hooks a day from three (21 hooks to 14), we'd need to do a lot of rearranging in the queues and preps in order to get the Mother's Day hooks out on time. Admins would need to commit to doing this, since the rest of us can't edit the queues. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:20, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
It'd actually help quite a bit, but if you don't like that one, try this: recruit more reviewers and then help keep them from the users and forces that drive people away from wiki; which is the real root of this problem.PumpkinSkytalk00:40, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
It's not dismissive, it's reality and serious. If you can't see that, that's too bad for you and wiki. I'm off to do a review, why don't you? PumpkinSkytalk01:08, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
But you're incompetent, a serial creator and approver of plagiarized garbage. Surely the answer to the problem doesn't rest in letting you do, well, more, does it?Bali ultimate (talk) 01:58, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
From his previous account User:Rlevse. The belligerence and opposition to improvement remains the same, the man behind the account is the same, with the same writing and research skills and attitude towards knowledge. Just stumbled across this and find it knee-slapping hysterical that Randy would presume to advise anyone on best practice when it comes to reviewing encyclopedia articles.Bali ultimate (talk) 16:03, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
Oh dear; I had read this twice and thought it was dark humour/irony. Please tell me I wasn't assuming too much good faith. We can and frequently do check each other's reviews. That's the best way to do it whoever the reviewer is. Yngvadottir (talk) 20:08, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
Well, honestly, as a one-time frequent reviewer, it was more the reviewing process itself with its constant changing, becoming ever more GA level and pedantic, that drove me away. Even with QpQ, it just wasn't worth dealing with the headache that reviewing a hook had become. I used to review 20+ hooks a day but I haven't reviewed a hook in over a year and, frankly, I don't feel like reading half a dozen pages of guidelines just to get up to date on the latest rules and procedures now on reviewing. AgneCheese/Wine03:21, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
There's no crisis, folks. With the queues currently filled, we are prepared for the next 44 hours -- and the next prep area after that is the first one for Mother's Day. That gives ample time to complete additional reviews. Anyway, it's the rate of hook production that should control the pace of main page additions, not the rate of reviews. Based on the hook production rate and backlog, if we are considering a change, it should be an increase to 8 hooks in a set, not a cutback to 6 per set. I think, however, that 7 is the right number for now. --Orlady (talk) 03:29, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
Seven's good if you think that's where we should be for now. Average production currently seems to be closer to 21 than 18 or 24—it's more than I thought, certainly—so it's the rate of reviews where we're stymied. Good thing that we do have that Mother's Day cache to help tide us over. I did my best to add to it, but couldn't quite pass that hook as it stood. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:25, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
I think I reviewed about 15 last night and Hawkeye7 reviewed another 6 this morning. Graeme did another older one. (Can't review my own old unreviewed noms. ;) ) The last time I checked, there were about 15 hooks unreviewed from April. (If some one could get those done?) I think at least 6 of the ones I reviewed have subsequently been good to go, two are basically going to be no for DYK. Two to four have moved to the prep area. So yeah, things look fine. Any assistance with getting the older ones reviewed would be good. Might be a challenge with spacing some as the sport ones are getting reviewed and lots of them that have sat around unreviewed. --LauraHale (talk) 23:06, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
One of the seven hooks got carted away a few hours ago, and we need a new one in the next five hours and change before Queue 2 is promoted to the front page.
Since the prep areas include Mother's Day hooks, those particular shouldn't be moved into the queue. Hooks to avoid as of now:
Prep 2: 1 (breastfeeding), 2 (The Universe Supports) and 5 (childbirth scene)
Prep 3: 3 (Anderson) and 7 (Espinosa)
Prep 4: 2 (Mothers and Other Liars)
The other hooks in Prep 2 aside from the New Zealand one (which was the replacement for another removed hook and may not have been rechecked yet) should be relatively safe replacements. After them, the ones in Prep 4. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:23, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
Erm... I replaced that removed hook with the New Zealand one before I read this message... I guess I had best go examine the NZ article. --Orlady (talk) 03:55, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
For all I know New Zealand is just fine—and it is, alas, three articles—but I'm pretty sure Nikkimaria wouldn't have examined them yet. Oh well. Funny note: I was just thinking about filling the newly emptied spot with the Anguilla team when I saw you'd already done just that. :-)
Just noticed that the New Zealand hook has a typo. It should be "an 1889 by-election": "an", not "a". How do my eyes miss these things the first several times? BlueMoonset (talk) 04:57, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
In terms of Tommi Parzinger, the prior version was pretty much a complete cut and paste job from this source, with only a few word differences. I rewrote the article from scratch into what it is now and it is currently at 1703 characters. What is the eligibility status of this? Is it being treated as a new article because it was written from scratch from a prior complete copyvio or does it still fall under 5x expansion from the length of the prior copyvio text? SilverserenC20:36, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
I think it would be inappropriate to promote your own hook. The rules say not to. If someone else wants it in a lead spot, they can do it, or put it in a different slot. BlueMoonset (talk) 14:07, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
Hence why I posted here and suggested an alternate, which should be promoted should the Hermaphrodite hook be considered too... racy... for a lede spot. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:10, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
As a side note, the rules don't say "not to". They say "Promoting your own articles is generally discouraged", meaning that it can be done. I've already skipped the article 3 days in a row. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:15, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
I figured that was why you posted here, which I thought was a great thing to do. Important point about "not to" versus "generally discouraged"—I'd translated it that way for myself after looking at "generally discouraged", figuring out the reasons why (in this case, not having a second check on the original submitter and reviewer as well as the submitter being able to give their article more prominence than an uninvolved person would), and deciding not to do it. I also avoid promoting articles I've reviewed and approved, for that second check. BlueMoonset (talk) 14:30, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
Sorry for missing this thread. I am pretty liberal (yet practical) admin, but take my word here - for WP sake, we should not put this image on MP (or even try putting it there), for a dozen of well-known reasons; one is simply this - be 100% sure some admin will spontaneously remove it from MP, no consensus asked, and no-one will start wheelwarring over this. Materialscientist (talk) 22:46, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
WHOA. So? If wiki isn't censored, which is the argument used for any sex-related hook and hence put on the MP, why is NOTCENSORED applicable here? Towit: Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_80, to which there was substantial opposition, and that was still put on the MP, but there was none here, so please explain this discrepancy in rule application. PumpkinSkytalk
First, wikipedia is uncensored, but its main page is censored - we do not put any material from WP there. Second, making a point in putting something outrageous on the MP does damage the project - we get negative press, more schools include WP in their firewall filters, etc. Materialscientist (talk) 23:20, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
Are you serious? Talk about double-speak. "we're censored but we're not, we don't want negative stuff on the MP but we let the TFA be repeatedly heavily vandalized, etc etc". Hermaphroite was not outrageous, it was a medical study with medical photos, not porn. I don't accept your explanation at all. PumpkinSkytalk23:27, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
Censorship or not, there's no good purpose to putting an explicit photo of genitalia on the main page. --Orlady (talk) 00:38, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
PumpkinSky, this has been discussed to death on various talks (MP, Jimbo's, etc). There is no use making a point of "I want to do that because I can" - think about the project, such feats did and do damage it. Even if "I can" had grounds, this would violate WP:Consensus, because there has always been a significant part (or majority) of WP editors opposing such feats. Materialscientist (talk) 00:50, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
That's not my point, my point is the double standard, cherry-picking rules to suit what you want. You don't get my point at all, ie, here you DONT put something on the MP (this photo) but you/the community DO put other things on the MP (Amsterdam sex crimes) and in this case there was support for this photo and not the sex crimes one. I'm honestly dumbfounded you don't see the hypocrisy and double standard in all this. No consistency at all.PumpkinSkytalk03:41, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Try not to make a point but think about overall benefits to the project. We did put many things on the MP that we should not (judging from the aftermath), they should be discussed separately. We specifically try to minimize controversial graphical content. Materialscientist (talk) 04:10, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Graphical? Then why do you not object to the current DYK pic of a baby feeding from a goat? I don't mind but eh. Please don't dismiss my point. "overall benefits to the project" -- in whose terms? Wiki users never 100% agree, so who gets to decide this: you? Jimbo? any admin? Joe User? Arbcom? One thing I quickly learned is that there are so many rules on wiki you can always find one to support one's view and if you can't find it just IAR. Most wiki decisions are up to whomever drives by and happens to rule on an issue. The rest are decided by mob mentality of the users that like to argue--hardly a smooth and efficient method for operating a website, or anything for that matter. There's reason the number of active editors is nose diving and I think the way we "govern" the site is one of them and mob rule is for sure one of them. I respect you and your view on this point in this thread but I not agree with it in any way.PumpkinSkytalk10:36, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Previously reviewed hooks need quick vetting
Occasionally, you end up writing an ALT hook to fix a basic problem keeping a nomination from passing—the reviewer has ratified everything else—but can't review your own ALT. Usually, an outside reviewer can wrap things up in a few minutes of checking.
Since our numbers of available noms for promotion to prep are low, here are a couple of reviews that need that independent final check:
Some also need more complete re-reviews. You can list them below here, though obviously they will take longer to complete (moving one that had been placed in the previous list, where it doesn't belong): BlueMoonset (talk) 06:42, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
I (author) am fine with Monday or Tuesday also, no need for extra work, like to reach the weekday readers also from time to time ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:37, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
Sigh, back to nominations (without a warning), answered, hopefully back soon. That question could have answered while in prep. (remembering how the Amsterdam case was kept in prep while we discussed.) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:18, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Would someone be able to look at an old nomination: Template:Did you know nominations/Toti Soler? I was the original reviewer, possibly went slightly over-the-top (because I have strong views on BLPs and what state those sort of articles should be in before they hit the main page - I may say more on that in a new section), and I rejected the nomination. The nominator and another editor disagreed, but when I came back to Wikipedia after an absence of a week or so, I found nothing further had been done, so I went in and edited the article. This means others are now needed to do a new review and/or complete the current review (I left a diff at the bottom of the nomination so the changes can be viewed). This is one of three March nominations still left, so it would be good if we could get this one sorted and then into the April backlog. Carcharoth (talk) 01:24, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I know you think that. We could argue endlessly about that. Maybe a bit of the background would help? Over the weekend of the Titanic anniversary (14-15 April) I worked on creating two new articles (on the two inquiries that were held), and nominated them for DYK on 16 April. Part of that required that I do a QPQ review for each one. Rather than pick and chose from the more recent nominations to get 'easy' reviews, I deliberately chose from the older, unreviewed nominations (it should be possible to link to the template in the state it was in at the time I started those two QPQ reviews, showing that they were among the older ones). The first review, for some season of some cricket competition (the Logan Cup), wasn't that interesting but was fairly routine. I was slightly apprehensive when I realised that the second QPQ review, the Toti Soler nomination, was both based on Spanish-language sources (I know some basic Spanish, Catalan even from many holidays in that region, but it is a bit rusty), and a BLP (biography of a living person). I knew there might also be problems with my views on standards for BLP articles, so I should probably have handed the review over to someone else at that point, or asked for help with it.
My views are that things like birth dates absolutely need to be rigorously referenced for BLPs, and care does need to be taken with using sources provided by the subject of the article, and articles should not be fragmentary in nature when it concerns a BLP, and eventualism (someone will eventually come along and improve the article) is not an acceptable stance to take for BLPs. So I'm not going to apologise for the changes made.
I know which of the changes made I think were needed before a DYK BLP nomination should pass. Are you saying you really think none of the changes were needed? Concerns were raised (both at the nomination and here), those concerns were expressed at the nomination, and you (after a few change) did absolutely nothing further to address them. It was me, coming back a week later, that eventually attempted to address the concerns, because getting BLPs right and rigorously sourced takes priority over any disagreements over the DYK process. Carcharoth (talk) 15:32, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
It's down to six, and needs a new hook from somewhere, probably a prep area. Since this set already has an Indonesian and an Albanian hook, the admin who moves in the seventh hook will want to avoid bringing in a second for either of those countries. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:17, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Recently we've had a number of articles go through here written by college students as part of their homework. A lot of them have been about psychology and cognitive science. In my view, this could have been opportunity to win over some very knowledgeable long-term editors for Wikipedia who are able to contribute to important topics rather than American celebrities, British horses, or Australian athletes. I think DYK has done an incredibly poor job of dealing with this situation. A lot of them didn't quite have the appropriate tone for a Wikipedia article down and weren't used to the policy that every claim needs a reference. As a result of this, many of the nominations stemming from such projects were turned down. I'm sure many of those students would've been willing to work with us to adapt the articles to Wikipedia's standards. The articles did contain a vast amount of good content; they just needed to be tweaked a little to comply with the usual formalities. Instead, what the nominators got were reviews that are incredibly hard to understand (even to a veteran like myself) because they were riddled with Wikipedia jargon and unintelligible references to obscure Wikipedia policies. If I'd gotten those kinds of responses when I first stumbled upon Wikipedia, I'm not sure I'd be around now.--Carabinieri (talk) 19:47, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
I beg to differ. In too many instances, it appears that the students and their professors are using Wikipedia solely for their own purposes and never had any interest in learning how to contribute. Case in point: Template:Did you know nominations/Dodo bird verdict. I put a lot of effort into the first review of the nomionation. Several other DYK regulars also got involved. Several of us made edits to the article. Laura Hale did a GA review. As near as I can determine, the student creator of the article and the classmates and professor who edited the article paid no attention to our inputs. --Orlady (talk) 20:06, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
I have encountered scores of student edited articles, and not one yet has met Carabinieri's description-- they seem universally uninterested in learning how Wikipedia works so they can become long-term contributors, and I've encountered negligible meaningful content additions (but have had to do lots of work myself to clean up after students). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:14, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) To be frank, there's often more issues than upsides with these noms. If it seems that it's coming from a university class (not just by students in general, I'm one and I'm as on board as can be), it might be worth just venturing a small concern first to see if anyone's actually going to respond at all. If there's no response to something minor then there's no point trying to hammer out anything major with the nom. Psychology articles seem to be the main source of these so it'd be worth keeping an eye out on nominations in that field, quickly spotting anything minor and leaving that as a litmus test to gauge the nominator's willingness to respond. GRAPPLEX20:19, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Student articles which clearly do not meet the guidelines are pretty much a waste of time. The student purpose clearly is NOT to improve Wikipedia but to meet course requirements. I'm very tempted to start an RfC just for DYK to outright ban DYKs that are nominated by students for a course to be blocked from DYK as quickfails, no QPQ available for quickfailing them. If some one affiliated with the course wants to nominate them as non-course requirement (assumption when you've got three or more that clearly don't meet requirements getting nommed), then they may do so but they need to do a QPQ on every one they nominate for the course. The poor quality, non-existent pass rate of these articles all without QPQ is driving some of the unreviewed backlog. --LauraHale (talk) 20:29, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Silence means consent
The number of stalled DYK nominations has reached an unreasonable level.
"Silence means consent" is an ancient technique for moving debates along.
When a point is made by one side in a debate the opponents are given a reasonable amount of time to respond.
If they do not respond they are taken to have explicitly accepted the point.
The respondent can of course stall with trivial responses, but eventually consensus will cut off this technique.
The grace period for submitting an answer in a Wikipedia debate is seven days to allow for editors who can only access the Internet one day per week. The DYK rule should be:
If an editor has objected to a DYK nomination for some reason and there has been no response to that objection in seven days, the nomination is automatically rejected
If there has been a response defending a submission after an objection, and there has been no response to the defense in seven days, the nomination is is automatically accepted
I don't feel it was appropriate to call your own proposal "a truly excellent suggestion" in the first comment, as it seems to be giving independent approval to it. Likewise that you included said comment as part of the original post proposing the measure. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:32, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Just noticed this comment - my apology for the slow response. This was my way of saying, "Let's vote". To JohnnyMrNinja's comment below, I think "Silence means consent" is a fairly common phrase. The WP article on the subject seems to imply the technique is used mainly in international debates. I have seen it used in all levels of government and in several large companies. Aymatth2 (talk) 03:26, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
Agree1/2 agree, great way to move forward without stepping on toes, though we may want different phrasing. When I saw the section edit "Silence means consent", I came here expecting a DYK hook about rape. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja23:01, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
Apparently it is a good idea to read more than one sentence before agreeing to something. I like automatic timed rejection for stale noms, not the default acceptance. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja05:45, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
In that case, you might want to cross out your bold "Agree" and replace it with something that more accurately reflects your views. Otherwise, you may be counted as approving the default acceptance. "Silence means consent" continues to be repeated below, which I think is highly unfortunate. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:52, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Agree, with qualifier The first one was already an implied rule anyways. The second would be good to have though. But maybe you should make a qualifier that someone else has to have already accepted the nomination. And if after that someone else came along saying something was wrong, they were responded to by the nominator and then never responded back, then we're good, so long as it was initially OKed. We don't want to be passing unreviewed nominations, after all. SilverserenC23:04, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
I agree with the first point, disagree with the second, since it would lead to unfit nominations being passed. If a reviewer doesn't respond within a reasonable amount of time, then another reviewer is certainly welcome to have a look. Just passing the nomination without giving the merits of the objection any kind of consideration would be absolutely counterproductive. Are we just going to put hooks on the main page on the technicality that someone objected to them, but didn't follow up?--Carabinieri (talk) 23:07, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
No, preposterous. We don't put something on the main page by default-- it's an earned spot. And most of what was written in the opening post applies ... nowhere else either. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:16, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
Oppose: I think it is a good idea in theory and would support the ones where there are objections that have NOT been worked on being removed. I oppose the second half. Silence as consent for including in the prep area is a no. If some one wants to put it into the prep area despite discussions that suggest problems, then it is there neck to hang out there. Responsibility needs to be held with some one for putting it on the main page. --LauraHale (talk) 00:06, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Support: I support the original proposal as I think it will avoid unnessecary delays from those who review only as a QPQ and ignore any responses to the intial response (I have done that myself, I admit.) It will also stop us having a situation where you have hooks from 2 months ago just being left after communications break down. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 12:27, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Break and reset
The first recommendation seems uncontroversial. To address the concerns given above about the second, how about:
ALT1
If an editor has objected to a DYK nomination for some reason and there has been no response to that objection in seven days, the nomination is automatically rejected
If there has been a response defending a submission after an objection, and there has been no response to the defense in seven days, the objection is assumed to be waived
So if it was previously approved and there are no other objections, it goes ahead. Otherwise, the "objector" comment is considered null since they did chose not to defend it, but the submission still needs approval. Any objections to this? If there are none within seven days, I will change the guidelines. Aymatth2 (talk) 00:22, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Oppose both the original proposal and ALT1, for several reasons. As others have noted, there is already a longstanding practice of rejecting nominations that have problems and appear to have been abandoned by their proponents. There is no particular value in formalizing that practice by creating a rigid 7-day rule. Not only does creating new rigid rules create new excuses for unproductive argumentation, but there are good reasons (such as holidays) for flexibility in how we determine that a nom has been abandoned. I strongly oppose the notion that an objection will be waived if the objector fails to follow up -- no DYK reviewer should be expected to make an ownership commitment to the nominations they review. If there's been an objection, before the hook goes to the main page, somebody (not necessarily the same person who raised the objection) needs to review the situation and determine whether the objection is still valid or whether it has been overcome. Nominations should never be passed automatically. --Orlady (talk) 00:37, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
I am not sure what is wrong with an ownership commitment, but note the wording: "there has been no response". The person objecting has not responded, and nobody else has responded. The nomination will not be passed until it is approved, but the objection is assumed waived if nobody responds to the defense. If I say "this article violates guidelines for articles on soccer players", and the nominator says "what do you mean?", somebody has to explain what is wrong or at least respond in some way within a reasonable time. If nobody answers, it must be assumed that nobody thinks the article violates the soccer player guidelines. Aymatth2 (talk) 00:59, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
The way it is right now it would be the duty of the person who ends up reviewing the article to check whether or not the article violates the soccer player guidelines. If they find it doesn't, they might consider notifying the person who originally claimed it did, or else just writing their review. Obviously, we're not going to wait forever for someone who appears to have withdrawn from the discussion. That's already the status quo. I don't see what we have to gain by making a formal rule that basically just states something that's common sense.--Carabinieri (talk) 01:12, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
The idea is to move thing along a bit quicker. Take Template:Did you know nominations/Thor 2. There was a close paraphrasing objection, two days later the author responded that they had fixed it, then a long silence. The proposed rule says we assume by the critic's silence and failure of anyone else to chip in for over a week that the problem has indeed been fixed as claimed. Since another reviewer has already approved it, good to go.
Perhaps a bit off topic, there is an efficiency issue. If a critic has raised an objection presumably they have some idea what would be needed to fix it. If they state their objection vaguely, other reviewers may be reluctant to get involved. The person that saw the problem can most easily see if it was fixed. Ownership of the objection (not of the article) is a good thing. Aymatth2 (talk) 01:42, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
@Aymatth2 , if the nominator wants to speed it along, they can always poke some one and ask them to look at it. It doesn't need to be the original reviewer to give it the tick to go when something like that goes stale. There are several regular who can be pinged and if asked would probably not mind giving a second opinion. --LauraHale (talk) 04:40, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Oppose. The general situation described in the above example makes it very clear to me. I would certainly not want to blindly accept a supposed fix by someone who has already demonstrated an inability to recognize and avoid close paraphrasing, just because nobody has responded. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM03:05, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Oppose. I agree with Orlady and Mandarax. Someone has to review to make sure a problem has truly been fixed, no matter how long it takes. We've had too many situations where the supposed fix was inadequate, and sometimes it takes multiple iterations before the nomination is finally accepted, or regretfully rejected. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:27, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Oppose. This sounds like a good fix to a situation where people are reviewing reluctantly because of QPQ and then vanishing, and where some nominations present problems that take a lot of fixing. However, Did You Know has drawing in new editors as one of its purposes, and seven-day time limits are going to put them off. And while I agree in principle that a third-party nominator should be responsible for the articles they nominate, we want to encourage people to nominate articles by new editors - that's how many of us found out about DYK. This is another discourager. Secondly, although well intentioned, like other forms of further pressure on reviewers, it would have a rebound effect of further discouraging people from commenting on nominations. Thirdly, another function of DYK is to instruct people on writing better articles (better referenced, without close paraphrasing, etc.) That tends to involve a bit of workshopping, and a time limit would get in the way. It would undercut what has become an important de facto part of Did You Know: that we work together on getting the articles and the hooks to meet the standard, until they do, and only reject those that have proved truly hopeless or intractable. It takes a lot longer than 7 days to demonstrate abandonment or justify giving up on a nomination, just as it takes a lot longer than 7 days for some nominations to get reviewed, for whatever reason. On balance, I think this would be cutting off our noses to spite our faces. Yngvadottir (talk) 04:26, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
I fully agree that we should take as long as it takes to determine that the submission is hopeless or that it is ready. There is no intent of imposing a 7-day limit on reviews, just a 7-day limit on each iteration of question and response after the first review. For example:
Day 1: Nominator, "Here is my submission"
Day 10: Reviewer, "There may be a paraphrasing problem"
Day 10: Nominator, "Where?"
Day 30: ... still no response from anyone ...
Scenarios like this will discourage submissions by new editors (experienced editors will poke the reviewer or someone else to move things along). The reviewer is being remiss and extremely discourteous by failing to respond. In business and in government it is standard to set a reasonable period for a response after which silence means consent. This is a time-tested and very widely used technique. Why would it not work here? Aymatth2 (talk) 12:57, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Yes, but what change are you proposing? If on day 25 someone comes along and determines that there is no paraphrasing problem, they are certainly free to write their and perhaps notify the original nominator.--Carabinieri (talk) 12:59, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
This isn't business or government, though. This is a volunteer project with participants of a very wide variety of strengths and weaknesses, as well as viewpoints. I agree that having raised an issue, someone should check back for a response (unfortunately being coerced to do a review, plus Real Life, sometimes causes people to be less than conscientious); they should also try to make sure the nominator and/or author is aware of the issue. It's also courteous to be specific. But someone may see something - or be able to fix something - that others couldn't. Any formalization - like the checklists Tony1 tried to get adopted, or a ticking clock after the initial 5-day one - constitutes more pressure and thus the net effect is likely to be bad. What is likely to help is continued efforts to help out in a collegial fashion - drawing attention here to older nominations or specifically problematic ones, or simply going and lending a hand with them - and trying to be friendly and clear when doing a review. IMO.--Yngvadottir (talk) 13:18, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
@Carabinieri, the proposal is
If an objection to a nomination is raised and there is no response in 7 days, the objection is accepted and the article dropped. The nominator and any others interested in the article had ample time to defend the nomination but chose not to do so.
If there is a response to an objection, typically either "I think it is fixed" or "what do you mean", and the response is ignored for seven days, we assume the objection has been dropped. The person making the objection and any others interested had ample time to respond but chose not to. Perhaps they realized their objection was not defensible but were too shy to admit it, or perhaps they made a drive-by QPQ review and are not watching the nomination.
In the second case, if the article had previously been approved presumably there is not much wrong with it. The objection has been implicitly dropped and the article may be promoted. Plenty of articles get promoted that have various problems: they are not expected to meet FA standards. The person promoting the article will presumably see the discussion and use their good judgement. If the article was not previously approved, we are just back to the situation before the objection was raised. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:29, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
@Yngvadottir, I am absolutely in favor of a collaborative, helpful approach. I would prefer that reviewers fix problems rather than criticize, for example, so the newbie can learn by seeing what the improvement rather than trying to guess at the problem. But throwing up an objection and then walking away is the opposite of being collaborative and helpful. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:29, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
The thing is, a QPQ review is an onerous requirement. Many of us try really hard to do it well; but it's not realistic to expect that it will always be done well. Also, Real Life . . . I have a review right now that's stalled because a key source appears to have server issues, or have implemented new URLs and not told the search system, or be blocking access from the US, I have no idea . . . I may have to re-reference the article myself to get around this, but if I do so, of course, I'll not be able to then pass it. In the meantime both I and the nominator have had off-wiki commitments and keep missing each other. It probably looks bad from the outside! And . . . different people spot different things. It may not be terribly efficient, but the system we have now with many hooks, whereby a series of people look at the article and/or the hook even before it goes to prep, is working well to get better hooks and spot problems with the articles. It's overwhelmingly those that simply got a check mark/tick that are getting bounced from prep as including copyvios or bare URLs, or where someone has to shorten the hook to get it under 200 characters, or edit the article heavily for English usage . . . when it's already in prep is undesirably late in the game for such problems to get noticed. There's a fine line that has to do with collegiality. A while back, we had people cruising the nominations page just commenting on one factor in multiple nominations, such as whether they considered the hook interesting. That wasn't very helpful. And it would obviously be better if everyone checked for copyvio, tidied up the grammar and spellings, and so on in every nomination they review. (I also think "You can't check off on a nomination when you yourself have suggested the hook" is a new rule that should be treated with a generous dose of IAR. I often see reviewers suggesting alternate hooks or modifications of the hook and then when agreement is reached with the nominator, passing the nomination. I've also been on both ends of such transactions myself. For some articles, writing a good hook is one of the hardest tasks.) And obviously a dismissive review is not going to help the article writer much, and nor is one where they don't understand how to fix it. But these reviews are required tasks. Too much pushing is just going to push still more responsibility onto the few editors who assemble preps, or even, gods forbid, the harried admin, who may not know anything about half the topics and may be under a time constraint measured in minutes rather than days. The nominations page is the best place to fix as much as possible, no matter how long it takes, and so what if several people have a hand in getting the article over the hurdles? So long as they're not essentially saying "this stinks". Yngvadottir (talk) 15:43, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
To the above Yngvadottir and Carabinieri comments, I should point out that the proposal is not a big change from current practice, and as with any DYK guidelines common sense should be used. Or at least I did not think it was a big change, but it has certainly stirred up some objections. The idea is to get an acceptable shorthand for moving things along when they get stalled, as in the hypothetical comment below:
Since User:Newbie does not see the problem, nor do I, and after ten days User:Nitpick has still not answered Newbie's request to clarify the concern, "Silence means consent" applies. Good to go. Aymatth2 (talk) 16:01, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
There's nothing stopping you from doing just that as things are. This proposal will only make the whole process a tick more bureaucratic, make the list of rules and guidelines a little longer, and the take the fun out of it even a little more. It's absolutely counterproductive.--Carabinieri (talk) 19:35, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Strong support I suggested this long ago, can't find the thread, but one of my hooks took about a month to hit the main page during which course it took the impact out of it being a new article. I agree, I think the threshold for appearing should be considerably less and any which still have problems should be eliminated within 7 days, providing the nominator has been informed and asked to address the problem. Toti Soler as below was nominated at least 6 weeks ago and still hasn't hit the main page, and it didn't even have problems which weren't fixed earlier..♦ Dr. Blofeld13:43, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Support to try it (ALT1), we can always discuss individual cases and be flexible, btw, I approved Soler mentioned above, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:12, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Oppose A better way to deal with stalled noms is to politely ask the original reviewer to recheck, and, if no response, to request re-review on this page. Sasata (talk) 17:36, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
To Sasata, that doesn't always work. For example the 2012-13 Arsenal F.C. season had a request for a re-review from the original reviewer and was listed in the previously reviewed hooks subsection on this page and both times, it has gone unanswered. I don't think we should keep people waiting if we don't need to, which is why I support the proposal. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 19:09, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
How is this an example of it not working? I see your request for re-review posted to his talk page on May 11, and your posting here on May 12; today is May 13. You were perhaps expecting an immediate response? Sasata (talk) 19:54, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
It's much more likely that someone coming to T:TDYK to review a hook will skim past ones with responses, I know I do. I'm highly unlikely to jump in on a nom that's already been commented on, and I would doubt that's a rare position. GRAPPLEX01:34, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
Sometimes noms that have not been reviewed might be being passed over because it looks like they have been reviewed. Take for instance Template:Did you know nominations/United States Senate inquiry into the sinking of the RMS Titanic. That is still waiting for a review, and I suspect people passed it by because it looks like a review discussion is in progress, when in fact it is just people failing to agree on a hook! Isn't there a bot-generated list somewhere of the oldest unreviewed nominations, or am I thinking of GAN, or the bot-list of nomination statistics at the DYK queue or preparation pages? BTW, where is this 'previously reviewed hooks subsection' mentioned above? Carcharoth (talk) 01:41, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
Strong oppose for the reasons I've stated above. Not waiting forever for someone to respond who has withdrawn from the discussion is common sense. There's no need for a formal rule mandating this and creating an unnecessary and arbitrary 7-day cutoff point. This will only lead to more people discussing rules rather than the merits of nominations. It would be incredibly counterproductive. No one has demonstrated how this rule could be even remotely useful. As others have pointed out in past discussions, the main reason there aren't enough volunteer reviewers which as led to the QPQ rule (which, by the way, is also an incredibly flawed and counterproductive policy) is the fact that the whole process is so incredibly burdensome and bureaucratic. A rule like this will only drive away even more reviewers and thereby cause nominations to take even longer. The reason why hooks sometimes take so long to get passed is the lack of reviewers and nothing else.--Carabinieri (talk) 19:35, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Comment The principle of "Silence means consent" applies to much more than DYK. In any Wikipedia debate an editor may choose to ignore a question about their position. If the question is reasonable, and if seven days have elapsed or if it is clear from their edit history that they have seen the question and chosen to ignore it, most people would say they have withdrawn from the debate. They are unwilling to explain or defend their position, for whatever reason. Silence means consent. Opposition to this simple principle means support for interminable debates that can drag out for weeks or months. Aymatth2 (talk) 02:39, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
I understand the 7 days part, but not the edit history showing that they ignored it. An example is that an admin was frustrated about bad AfD nominations so he accidentally took it out on me, but he didn't get back to the AfD until two days later and apologized to me. My point is how can a long edit history be a for sure sign that the reviewer is just ignoring the response? SL93 (talk) 16:33, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
"No answer within 7 days" is the simplest criterion. If they have been busily editing other things during that period, that reinforces that they have lost interest. But I agree, edit history is not a sure sign. I would personally be inclined to post a reminder on their talk page, go a bit over seven days and give extra leeway if they seem to have stopped editing altogether. But at some point we have to accept that the editor has chosen not to continue with the debate for some reason, and move on. The opinion of any one editor is not crucial to a debate anyway, not even that of Aymatth2 (talk) 17:40, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
Roy Lichtenstein Art Institute of Chicago retrospecitve
I have nominated 10 paintings by Roy Lichtenstein in 8 hooks at DYK. I anticipate at least 15 more of his works of art being nominated in the next week or so. We might want to space these out. We might also want to try to get one of them on the main page for the May 16th 22nd opening of the largest ever Lichtenstein exhibition. Since these are still under construction, some of the noms are not yet 1500 chars yet. They all still carry the {{underconstruction}} banner, but you could remove it from any nom that you want to put on the main page.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 15:10, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
I have pushed 5 of the nearly 20 that I am working on up over 1500 today. The list is changing. Now for the May 9 noms I think all but three of the five noms are 1500+, May 10 one of two and May 11 one of two.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 19:37, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Can I ask why nominations are being made before the articles qualify? Articles back to May 8 are still eligible to be nominated; there's no rush. Nominating an article should mean that it's ready for review—and to be passed—at that time. It's one thing if it's someone new to DYK who isn't clear on what qualifies as ready, but I think quite another when it's done knowingly. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:53, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
I agree. I suggest those reviewing these nominations take the timing into account and either move the nomination to the correct date, or fail the nomination if the requirements are not met. Carcharoth (talk) 01:49, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
Starting a more general section here, as I want to see if my views on DYK and BLPs are completely off kilter or not. I've been re-reading Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons, and I'd like to see the following standards applied to BLPs when they are nominated at DYK:
"We must get the article right. Be very firm about the use of high quality sources. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be explicitly attributed to a reliable, published source" - from WP:BLP
The point of disagreement seems to be over 'challenged or likely to be challenged'. I personally would challenge anything that can be sourced. An example would be the birth date. Leaving that unsourced is just silly. The birth date must have come from a source (it's not the sort of thing that is usually common knowledge), so why would the author of the article not provide the source? To put that another way, everything in a BLP can be sourced, so I fail to see why bits of BLPs are sometimes left unsourced, especially when nominated at DYK. Is there any support for the view that BLPs at DYK should be held to a higher standard than other DYK nominations? If so, is there a way to highlight the DYKs that involve BLPs? (I'm going to list the current BLP DYK nominations). Carcharoth (talk) 15:48, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
@PumpkinSky: That was my view too. And in a situation like that where a second opinion is possibly needed, you don't want to step into it lest you step on toes and aggravate problems. --LauraHale (talk) 20:57, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
If people disagree with me, I'd prefer they say so, and say why. Note that saying 'you're being excessive' is avoiding the issues, not addressing them. Say precisely what is excessive and what is not (is it my request for a source for the birth date, is it my request that the awards not be sourced to a document from the person's own website, is it the misquoting that I identified?). I gave plenty of examples at that nomination of how standards could be higher and should be higher for BLPs, that people choose to not engage with those issues is not my problem. Carcharoth (talk) 23:57, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
@Carcharoth, Excessive in this case is a list of things so long that make it look like you want to DYK to fail and that point out problems so systematic to the article that it should have multiple tags and be considered for deletion as a BLP violation, nuked and recreated from scratch. (Because DYK is not GA.) Whether or not that was your intention with a review like that, it gives the appearance of the article being so problematic and you specifically having many issues with it that it is better to remain silent. While you may want people to go "No mate, that's not on," I wouldn't want to do it. (I say this as some one who inadvertently creates her own reviewing problems a lot. Poor veneration and French.) You appeared on a DYK nomination of mine that had the tick mark to go to basically summarise the same thing and conclude the same thing as the previous reviewer, while simultaneously appearing to disagree with the previous reviewer. It is fine to uphold BLP, but if it is excessive, you're going to scare people off. --LauraHale (talk) 20:23, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
That's what puzzles me about all this. Over the course of a weekend, I made 12 edits to the article, which included: (1) adding a source for the birth date (something that was in none of the sources used in the article, the birth date was presumably copied from somewhere without attribution, as it is in the initial version of the article, though quite where that information came from, I'm not sure); (2) finding a better source for the 2006 award; (3) re-adding and sourcing text that I had previously removed because it was unsourced; and (4) fixing a misquote. All except the third problem had been pointed out, but were seemingly ignored by the nominator in the week I was away. None of this is difficult stuff to do, or at least it shouldn't be for an editor with the experience the nominator has (he has hundreds of DYK credits). It should be standard and routine for all BLPs to be brought up to scratch in this fashion as they pass through DYK. I pointed all this out at the nomination. None of it got done, so I went and did it because (and this is critical) getting BLPs right and rigorously sourced takes priority over any disagreements over the DYK process. I can't emphasise that enough. It is not acceptable to walk away from a BLP simply because editors can't agree over what is needed or not. BLPs need to be fixed within a reasonable amount of time when problems are pointed out, and DYK etiquette comes second to that. If I sound angry, it is because I am. I worked hard to improve that article, and got little or no thanks for it. There are sections I started on the talk page that could be a good starting point for taking the article forward, but for some reason it seems more acceptable to say 'the article's fine and was fine already' (effectively dismissing what I did) and move on, rather than working to improve the article. DYK nominations shouldn't be just about rubber-stamping nominations, but working with editors to improve articles. It is difficult to do that though when nominators ignore what is said, or wilfully dismiss it. I can understand (just about) that all the suggestions made were collectively excessive, but individually, each one can be justified. Please, look at the four changes I highlight above and see whether you can, hand on heart, say that those changes were not needed. And then consider that I took the time to make those changes, and then ask here for a second opinion, which set the nomination going again, and it is now on course to appear on DYK. I didn't have to do any of that, I could have walked away from it. But when an article is a BLP, we can't do that. And about scaring people off, if this had been someone with only a few DYK credits, I'd have been far gentler, but as I said, the nominator has hundreds of DYKs to his credit. Anyway, I've gone on at excessive length here (apologies for that), but I do hope some of what I'm saying is getting across. Carcharoth (talk) 21:19, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
I started this section to keep the discussion generalised to one about BLP and DYK. Could you please not turn a general discussion into a specific one. What standards do you think a BLP article should meet to be featured on DYK? Is it reasonable to ask for a citation for birth date? If so, there are a lot of current BLPs nominated at DYK that could have that information challenged. Why do people write BLPs and not bother to source something like the birth date? Carcharoth (talk) 19:04, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
I've only put two BLPs through as DYK hooks (Leonard Reiffel and Jerry Hardin), and in both cases I was unable to source things like birth dates; my first and only reaction was to omit them entirely as a result. I could narrow down Reiffel's date of birth to a month and year based on a little bit of OR-ish synthesis but why should I when it's not a major piece of information? If it shows up in a source I'll add it, but until then I'd rather not include OR or unsourced statements in a BLP. I don't really see why that shouldn't be the norm. GRAPPLEX19:09, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Ok, a reaction in general then. If you read the BLP-statement with the interpretation "anything that is sourceable is likely to be challenged by me, so it should be sourced, I think you move away from the spirit of the BLP statement. The "challenged or likely to be challenged" should be interpreted as "people will express their disagreement or are likely to do so", but the mere fact that it is sourceable seems not enough. For example, also sourceable facts related to gender are often not sourced, as they are in most cases not challenged... (And I guess that the new users we are trying to attract at DYK, would be asked quite a lot if we would make it more stringent than this) L.tak (talk) 19:55, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Things should be fully sourced. If it isn't sourced, it shouldn't be in. I think the exception I use when cleaning up unsourced information is I leave it in the infobox and in the persondata template but otherwise completely remove from the text. (I've found that if I take it out of the infobox, some one will put it back in later so I'd rather not fight that battle over a sportperson.) --LauraHale (talk) 20:57, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Grapple X, I wasn't referring to articles where the birth date is not known or uncertain (for those, as you correctly say, you leave the information out). I'm talking about articles that include the birth date, but don't provide any source for the birth date. Having said that, when I looked at a BLP whose nomination I commented on recently (Lauren Jackson), you get the opposite problem, which is overcitation. It may be old-fashioned, but I think if a BLP gets nominated, then everything in the article needs to be checked. That article has 83 references, with the first one being cited 48 times. To check everything in that article would take hours. So you have to assume good faith and hope that nothing that potentially breaches BLP will end up linked from the main page. Essentially, it is not possible to subject that article to the same level of scrutiny that other (shorter) articles get (don't get me wrong, I submit long articles with tens of references to DYK as well, but it does tend to overwhelm the reviewing resources). Or is it true that DYK reviewing is just a quick-and-dirty process of reading through the article and trying to spot major issues and not sweating the small stuff? And don't get me started on why it is a bad idea to have the birth location referenced 5 times, the birth date referenced 4 times, the 2000 Olympics silver medal referenced 8 times, and her height referenced 9 times (do you check all nine references or just pick one and hope?). As someone reviewing an article like that, I wouldn't know where to start. So I guess it's lucky I didn't pick that as one of my QPQ reviews. There seems to be a tension here (or variance in style) between full citation, over-citation, and under-citation. Anyway, I'm going to finish this list of current DYK BLPs I'm making, and hopefully that will provide some more examples of what I'm talking about. Carcharoth (talk) 23:57, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Current BLP DYK nominations
Listing here (as promised) those from the current list of DYK nominations that are BLPs or have BLP-related issues:
That is 38 BLPs from a total of 208 nominations at the time I looked at the nominations page. I had thought it would be more, and I'm reassured that it is not that big a proportion of the total (assuming this is a typical selection). Is there any way to maintain a list or category like this for BLP nominations? (I'm not asking if there is a need for such a category or list, only asking if it is technically possible). Carcharoth (talk) 01:46, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
Request for nomination.
Hi, can someone with the autoconfirmed bit nominate Gene Protection Initiative on my behalf, which was recently moved into main space by someone at WP:AfC. The proposed hook is:
It would be great if this was put into the holding area to be published at 7 June, the 14th anniversary of the vote. Thanks, 109.77.146.109 (talk) 12:16, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
At a guess, the DYKUpdateBot is down. I've dropped a note on Shubinator's talk page; in the interim, there might be an admin around who could do a manual update of the next queue to the main page, before the delay gets too long.
I've also mentioned that the DYKHousekeepingBot seems to be down—it updates the list of DYKs by date on the Queue page—since it's also Shubinator's creation. But I imagine the update bot will have priority. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:00, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
Follow-up: Shubinator has posted on his talk page that he'll be able to get to a computer in an hour or two, at which time he'll be able to restart the two bots. Until then, any main page update will have to be done manually; if no one can do a manual update, then the current hooks will have to stay until the bot resumes. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:39, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
I just manually updated the Main Page, but I am not sure I can figure out how to do the templating to give everyone credit, so I am not going to clear the queue. Also someone will have to rejigger the update times to allow for the delay, so I won't reset the clock either. Hopefully I didn't just break the Main Page - there are truly dire warnings that pop up. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:20, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
Looks like you did great! I kind of wonder what those warnings are. Do they threaten your first born if you willfully vandalize the main page? – Muboshgu (talk) 18:37, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
They say you will be vandalizing the Main Page if you don't do protection stuff to images ... I think I just broke the update clock. Back to slowly and carefully adding credit templates to article talk pages, then will start on the creators' and nominators' talkpages. (whimper) Yngvadottir (talk) 18:42, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
In the context of a recent BLP I considered for DYK, I've encountered a question to which I don't know the answer: What constitutes "unduly", in the prohibition against "unduly negative" content in BLP hooks? I approach both my BLP writing and my BLP hook writing with the same guidelines in mind: information must be sourced, given realistic but not undue weight, and must be phrased neutrally. So for example, while writing a BLP of someone who was notable for a crime, I could say "So-and-so was arrested for [crime] on [date][cite]" in the article without any particular worry about that violating our policies. The question then becomes, if I want to nominate that article for DYK, which of the following approaches are acceptable?
Fact completely unrelated to notability of article ("...that so-and-so was born a libra on a full moon?")
Fact related to notability of article, phrased neutrally ("...that so-and-so was arrested for [crime] because [blah]?")
Fact related to notability of article, phrased to aim for the "wtf" factor so popular in DYK hooks ("...that so-and-so's [crime] was [omgshockingthing!]")
DYK for this article is not possible, because any adequate hook would contain negative information about a BLP subject, and any negative information in a hook is undue?
DYK for this article is not possible, because a link to a BLP of someone notable for a negative thing appearing on the main page would inevitably draw attention to a "negative" BLP?
My approach up to now has been to aim for number 2, but in speaking to people more experienced in DYKs this week, I'm increasingly getting the impression that the actual rule as it's applied to approving hooks is something between 4 and 5. In what circumstances is it possible for a hook about someone notable for a negative thing to appear in DYK? What restrictions are present to distinguish "undue" negativism from BLP-compliant information? If it is the case that the guideline for BLP hooks has crept toward "no negative information" and away from "no unduly negative information" (or, perhaps more properly, the meaning of the word "undue" in DYK has crept from "too much" toward "any"), it may be advisable to revise the guidelines to save people like me the confusion. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 20:15, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
I think that, if properly sourced, a negative attribute can appear on the main page if the BLP focuses primarily on that. I don't see the issue if it's sourced well. Probably would go with #2 to be safe, or #1 to be boring. — foxj20:46, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
The word "arrested" might be part of the problem with these examples. In American law, an arrest is an official accusation, and is no guarantee that the arrested person will be found guilty. Given the tentative nature of an arrest, a hook that says "John Doe was arrested for murder" could raise BLP concerns that might not exist for a hook that said "John Doe is serving a life sentence for murder." --Orlady (talk) 03:13, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
Hrm, that sort of makes sense. Would "arrested" be problematic in all cases, even if the person was later convicted, because the hook lacks that context of "...and it was proven to be true"? Or would it only be problematic if there was an arrest but no conviction? A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 14:11, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
This is one of those areas where it's impossible to create hard and fast rules -- everything depends on the context. --Orlady (talk) 14:31, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
Loading MonmouthpediA hooks into prep: when and how many per
MonmouthpediA Day is May 19, and we have a dozen hooks, potentially, to add into the various prep areas. What is the idea behind it, how closely should they be clustered, and do we want to hit all three of the main-page loads or just two, and how should the Monmouth hooks be mixed in with the non-Monmouth ones?
Although the queues are a bit off cycle at the moment, they'll be back to the normal three loading times before the first May 19 queue is shifted to the main page, assuming nothing further goes wrong. Times given are London/Monmouth time, aka BST:
There are eight hooks in the special holding area for MonmouthpediA Day. Seven have been approved, but an eighth is not approved, seems to have significant issues, and hasn't been commented on in a week:
Two hooks were added to Prep 3, since that's mostly nighttime, and those were about the Monmouthpedia itself and a place out in the countryside that might not quite count. I added three to Prep 4, but balked at a fourth since all the ones available are by the same contributor. It seemed a bit much. By the same token, I thought to leave Prep 1 to someone else: I was inclined to go with the fossil picture from Middle Stone Age Monmouth, but giving the picture slot to the same contributor twice running seemed a bit excessive. But then again, maybe this is a special occasion, and such things go out the window.
If someone who has more experience with special days wishes to move Monmouthpedia hooks around to better fit our usual practices, please feel free. You may want to hurry, though: Prep 3 may get moved to the queues in fairly quick order. I also take advice and direction, though not being an admin, once something moves from prep to queue it's out of my hands. :-) BlueMoonset (talk) 21:52, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
Correction: it's out of my hands, preps 3 and 4 are in the queues, and someone has used a different Monmouthpedia picture altogether, though by the same contributor. Happy to give way. Carry on. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:04, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
How in the world is this notable enough to be considered a 'special event' for purposes of DYK? It's certainly not a holiday or anything like that. It's a project in one small town to put up little information plaques. The fact that it involves Wikipedia does not make it more important, even for this encyclopedia (see WP:SELF-REFERENCE). rʨanaɢ (talk) 12:41, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
I'm not aware of any notability criteria for "special events". I think the whole thing is a neat little project and there's no harm in giving it a little exposure.--Carabinieri (talk) 13:30, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
It may be "one small town", but as an initiative it's gaining worldwide attention - [1] - and is worthy of some special treatment. Ghmyrtle (talk) 16:28, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
New problem for the same queue: one of its hooks was removed, and it now needs a seventh hook. (Literally: it was the final hook, a Monmouthpedia hook, that was sent back for retooling.) Prep 1 may be the best place to pull a new one. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:42, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
I moved Middle Stone Age Monmouth out of Queue 5, what had been Prep 1 (so the gas mains now break up the princess' tomb and the ribald priests; but there are 3 hooks by the same editor. C'est la vie.) Queue 5 now has 3 gaps; maybe the regimental article can go in there when its problems are fixed? We have a day or so. --Yngvadottir (talk) 13:05, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure why this was moved from the prep area. The reason I left two spaces there is so that Monmouth hooks can be used once some of the noms listed above are confirmed.--Carabinieri (talk) 11:32, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
Now it needs three hooks. I'd think at least one could be filled in from a prep area.
Lately it seems that shoving prep areas into the queues is of primary importance—some prep areas have been moved less than an hour after construction, giving little time for review by non-admins. Now this. Can we aim for a happy medium that allows more time for checks and balances by non-admins and admins alike? BlueMoonset (talk) 15:37, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
What were the prep-builders' intentions here? Should this one get some non-Monmouth hooks added to it, or should Queue 6 be moved up into its place? --Orlady (talk) 22:40, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
Oops, sorry. Sometimes if I pop on for a few minutes I'll quickly check the queues - loading queues is restricted to admins, and we've occasionally run close to the wire. Apologise if it was me (goddamn cptr/connection is v. slow) Casliber (talk·contribs) 23:00, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
Please fill it in, Orlady. At this point, it's already Monmouthpedia Day in the UK (started three hours ago), and since Queue 5 does have one Monmouth hook in it, far better to run it with one than substitute a queue that doesn't have any. The remaining unpassed Monmouth nominations can be run in the days ahead, as they get fixed or have their initial reviews. The people initially spearheading this effort haven't been much present on this talk page, so I think we've done our due diligence and shouldn't stress the system any further. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:21, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
OK, I bumped two of the three Orlady had added down to the next prep with open slots and added those two hooks to Queue 5. It's now kind of unbalanced - 2 Whitecross Street hooks, 2 archaeology hooks, and the Monmouth archaeology hook repeats info that's on the Main Page now in another Monmouth DYK. But we're out of May 19th hooks to play with. However, there are a couple of hours for other admins to tweak things in. (Please keep an eye on the set - I will be only intermittently online before it's due to go to the Main Page.) --Yngvadottir (talk) 13:00, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
I think it looks very bad to have two hooks about Whitecross Street on the page at the same time, especially since—as noted—33 Whitecross Street repeats the information about the middle stone age that's on the page now. If that hook stays, the info will be linked two sets in a row. Let's run the hook some other day; I'd frankly wait at least a couple of days before presenting that particular fact again. However, if we do keep 33 Whitecross in Queue 5, can we make it more grammatical? Adding "evidence of" before between "discovered" and "Middle" would definitely help. (We can't just add "a" because, as the article notes, there might have been two.) BlueMoonset (talk) 14:17, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Switched that one into Prep 1, reinstating one of the two I had displaced to make room. I hope it's right now, we have 13 minutes till the set goes to the Main Page and I have to go to the dentist! (I also inserted "evidence of.") Yngvadottir (talk) 15:48, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Yea, I think some of the switching around for this particular queue has screwed up something. The DYK for Mississippian copper plates (which was switched out at the last minute), the talk page of the article and my talk page as nom now have messages saying they are currently on the main page, when they have been switched to another date. Anyone know how to fix this or want to volunteer to fix this? Heiro16:46, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Sorry about that. I think that was my fault; I forgot to remove the credit tag from the queue page as I moved the hook. You'll probably be getting another notification once the Mississippian copper plates actually do go on DYK. As far as I can tell, nothing else got mixed up.--Carabinieri (talk) 16:50, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Running out of reviewed hooks: more reviewers, or fewer hooks per queue?
We have four empty queues and one virtually empty prep area: 35 empty slots. We have 9 approved hooks eligible to fill these 35, and another 187 hooks unreviewed or in process. We're promoting 21 hooks each day to the main page, while the average daily accretion of nominations so far this month is 19.5 through May 13 (the last day for which all eligible nominations have to have already been added).
Obviously, we badly need more reviews completed, and soon; we may also need to temporarily reduce our rate of promotion to the front page since we've been burning through hooks faster than they're being submitted. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:04, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
The original hook (47 deaths) was supported by the second citation, the paper "A serologically confirmed, case-control study, of a large outbreak of hepatitis A in China, associated with consumption of clams". The abstract does not mention the number of deaths but the full text does. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:08, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
Ref 4. I wondered whether that might be the case. We have a disaggreement between sources, then; ref 5, "Infectious Diseases Associated with Molluscan Shellfish Consumption" (1994) says 9 deaths. --Yngvadottir (talk) 12:46, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
The more I see it, the more I'm troubled by the Pepsi promo at the end of the Katy Perry hook. Can we please delete the following phrase sometime in the next four hours, before it hits the main page? The words to delete are: "as part of her deal with Pepsi". Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:05, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
Rather than delete it, perhaps just removing the actual product would be better; something generic like "as part of a promotional campaign" still leaves the intention of the hook intact. GRAPPLEX20:13, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
Can you suggest a wording? The hook would still have the phrase "as a tie-in promotion", which already references a promotional campaign in generic fashion. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:31, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
I'm probably being shallow or cynical, but I don't see the problem. It says she's shilling for the product, which in no way makes me like the product any more. It's just . . . she's a performer, she shills for products, this particular one paid her off in this case. (Yeah, I'm probably being cynical. I don't see the phrase in question as adding anything to the hook.) Yngvadottir (talk) 20:54, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
I think it would be a slippery slope to remove that mentioning of Pepsi. For one, I don't think anyone who contributed to this hook getting on DYK is trying to promote Pepsi. Well, I'm assuming good faith that no one is. Secondly, the same queue also has hooks about a restaurant in Australia, an Indonesian movie, an episode of some TV show, and finally this hook about Katy Perry. One could also argue that those hooks are promoting their subjects and bar them from DYK on those grounds. Or, where do you draw the line?--Carabinieri (talk) 21:23, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
If I'm the only one troubled by Pepsi's inclusion, then let it go. As Yngvadottir notes, it doesn't add any real extra "hook" to the hook, but it won't be the first time an extra clause has failed to do that. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:49, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
I'm pretty neutral on whether or not this adds anything to the hook. I don't get this hook's "hookiness" either way. I'm just a little wary of removing things on the grounds that it could be construed as promotional.--Carabinieri (talk) 21:54, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
Lego and Tires hook
I don't come to DYK very often so I don't know your local rules - sorry if I'm posting this in the wrong place.
Anyway, there's a possible problem with hook for 2012-05-21 that links to The_Lego_Group - it reads "...that The Lego Group produced 381 million tires (example pictured) in 2011, making it the largest tire manufacturer in the world?"
While this does seem plausible, I couldn't find anything in the article that even mentioned tires, let alone affirmed Lego's status. Manning (talk) 23:25, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
I've finished building these two as much as I can, but we're two hooks short. There are two hooks that can be worked in, but I'll probably draw fire if I promote them... — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:53, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
Early this afternoon, I submitted my nomination for my article St James Square, Monmouth. Everything seemed to go smoothly at the time. A few minutes ago, I checked on it to determine whether there had been any activity, and it wasn't in the queue for noms awaiting review for May 21. Then, I did a search (at the top of the page) and was still unable to find it. Thinking that I must have unwittingly hallucinated the entire nomination process this afternoon, I started the process of submitting a new nomination. As soon as I put in the name of my article to create a new nomination, today's earlier nomination popped up! Can someone tell me what's going on and perhaps fix it? I still can't access it in any normal way and presumably no one else can see it in the queue either. Thank you. This is the nom: Anne (talk) 23:30, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
Anne, there is no entry in your edit history that shows you placed the template on the Nominations page. Perhaps something went wrong while you were doing it, and you thought it had been done? At any rate, I have added it there now, and it can be seen under May 21. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:43, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
I just figured it out and submitted the nom. I had never realized that it didn't go through. I think you're right. Now, I'll go back and make sure that there aren't two noms!!! Thank you very much. Anne (talk) 23:48, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
Running out of ready prep areas
There are no prep areas ready and there are still vacant queue positions. However there is still a day's worth in the queue. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:54, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
This article was suggested for DYK last month. A few weeks later The C of E. God Save The Queen! left a quick review questioning the sources but didn't specify what the "sourcing issue" was. I asked which sources he/she had a problem with and pointed out the the hooks were cited with both newspapers and references used on GA/FA articles (ex. Wrestling Observer, OWW.com, 1wrestling.com, etc.). While the editor did eventually reply, he/she didn't answer any of my questions (specifically about the problem sources). It was rejected by BlueMoonset a few days later. I don't see how I could have made any corrections if I wasn't told what the problem was in the first place. 72.74.208.41 (talk) 18:19, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
At my urging, Crisco 1492 reverted his closure of the nomination. But it still needs the referencing issues resolving. Since the IP is not static, I'm hoping the person sees this. Yngvadottir (talk) 04:05, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
Titanic investigation twin hooks
I saw the American investigation at the top of the first of the prep areas, which seemed wildly inappropriate given that the British investigation hook had been approved weeks ago, and had sat waiting for the American one to be approved so they could go together. So I've put the British one first in Prep 3, since it was first approved, and then moved the American one from the earlier prep so it's after its British counterpart in the same prep area.
If they are not supposed to be twinned quite that closely, some please let me know here, or readjust them yourselves. Regardless, do try to schedule the British one first. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:57, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
I wonder why don't just merge the two hooks. The result might exceed 200 characters, but that's ok for hooks for multiple articles.--Carabinieri (talk) 23:17, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
I've gone ahead and merged them. If anyone feels strongly that they shouldn't be merged, you can go ahead and revert my edit.--Carabinieri (talk) 01:45, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
I've notified both Carcharoth and Prioryman, creators of the two hooks, in the hopes that they'll be able to register their views. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:57, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
It turned out that I had strong feelings, so I've turned it back into two separate hooks, but rather than run both in the same set, each country's will run during its daytime, British first, then American. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:51, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
Separate is better. On same day in successive sets is also good, and what was mentioned somewhere (in the archives of this page, I think, some section that got no response at the time). There was an issue with the wrong picture with the wrong hook, but that seems to have been sorted. Many thanks to all who helped sort this out. Sorry for briefness of reply, only logging on briefly before heading off again. Carcharoth (talk) 08:12, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
Hey everyone, it's been sometime since I've done a proper QPQ review (because it's been sometime since I submitted a DYK), and I changed a parameter at the top to "passed=yes". But now there seems to be some minor formatting error that occurs (see my review in this section). Is this normal or did I do something wrong in changing it to passing? Nomader (talk) 04:27, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
I've reset "passed" back to "<!--When closing discussion, enter yes or no-->" here; "passed" is only changed when the nom is promoted or rejected. —Bruce1eetalk04:57, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
How firm are DYK ref standards? Specifically, are retrieval dates required for web refs? I found a double nom that no retrieval dates and is all web refs.PumpkinSkytalk00:01, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Retrieval dates should always be present for web refs, so definitely press the nom to fix those up. GRAPPLEX00:04, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
That's 50-50 so far. ;-) We should have consistency. We require them for DYK or we don't. Personally I think we should.PumpkinSkytalk00:15, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Personally I usually put them in if the source is undated or appears likely to change, but leave them out for archived newspapers. (That reminds me, I should have added them to the URLs I identified earlier today ....) I don't sweat the lack of them in reviewing a DYK nom, though; I do have a problem with omitting the periodical's own date, or the publication info for a book; "GoogleBooks" as publisher plus accession date worries me more, although I tend to just fix it when I check the refs as part of the review. But I think the most important thing at DYK is having refs, and the second most important thing a tie between their not being bare URLs and their being on what is actually derived from them. Yngvadottir (talk) 01:00, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
There should be no argument here. The average life of a web cite is about eight months or so, and the point of the accessdate is to allow the opportunity for the appropriate version of the lost page to be found in one of the archiving sites. Without it, anyone could invent whatever apparently once-cited nonsense they like. MalleusFatuorum01:06, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Nominations with much more serious issues (poor English, extremely boring hooks, unreliable sources) are run on a regular basis. Let's take care of those things first.--Carabinieri (talk) 01:08, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
That does not mean ignore or forget other things. This is legit issue. Inconistency in reviewing standards not help th project nor DYK.PumpkinSkytalk01:11, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Well, they're not forgotten. The standards on these things just appear to be rather lax. So, if we're going to tighten standards let's start with grammar, otherwise poor English, hook quality, and reliability of sources.--Carabinieri (talk) 01:16, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
The fact of the matter Carabinieri, whether you're prepared to acknowledge it or not, is that the overwhelming majority of DYKs are crap. but at least they ought to be verifiable crap. MalleusFatuorum01:21, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Well the fact they get checked for DYK should ensure they are, which I think is why PumpkinSky wanted clarification :-) However, I have to question the assertion that the overwhelming majority are crap; based on considerable personal observation, most are just a bit short or otherwise raw. Yngvadottir (talk) 02:33, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
The idea of DYKs is that they don't have to be up to standard, as it is not featured article. The standards approach good article nowdays. So although accessdate is to be encouraged, it should not be required. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:52, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Graeme-they don't have to be up to FA standard but they should be up to DYK standard. The question is "What is DYK standard on this issue". Still looks like a 50-50 split to me. PumpkinSkytalk22:02, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
I use access dates and I have also noticed that many of the articles that I consider high quality (whether it is even Start class) have accessdates. It might not be required, but it is useful if citations go dead in my opinion. SL93 (talk) 22:07, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Accessdates are not a DYK requirement. Supplementary rule D3 states: Sources should be properly labelled; that is, not under an "External links" header. References in the article must not be bare URLs such as http://example.com or [1] – according to Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 29#Reference section. Many bare-URL references can be automatically completed with Reflinks.
I have always interpreted that to mean that a reasonable effort has been made to describe all references cited in the article, but the individual reference citations need not be complete -- and they most definitely should not be required to conform with any particular formatting convention. Reviewers should satisfy themselves that the citations supporting the hook fact are documented properly for purposes of verifiability, but that requirement does not apply to the entire article.
One benefit of DYK is that it calls attention to new start-level articles that can benefit from wikignomish attention. When an item appears in DYK, wikignomes often show up to improve the reference citations. That's a big benefit for articles created by new users, non-English speakers, and others who might not have the skill set to do citations correctly. --Orlady (talk) 14:32, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Orlady's comment. It has long been DYK policy that bare url's are unaccepable, but accessdate is not and should not be a DYK requirement. Cbl62 (talk) 17:53, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
A better question than "should we require accessdates?" is "when does the inclusion of accessdates make sense?" As pointed out by Yngvadottir, there are some times when the information is important and other times when it serves little useful purpose. Consider the common case where a referenced webpage is nothing but an electronic copy of a dead tree source (e.g. Googlebooks or many old newspapers in the Google news archives). Full and proper citations for the dead tree sources is much more useful that the date an author first accessed the electronic copy. Conversely I would not wish to discourage authors to remove urls to online copies of dead tree sources just to avoid having to figure out how to add accessdates to a citation. --Allen3talk02:48, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
I do oppose requiring accessdates for several reasons, to mention a few: (i) Unnecessary instruction creep; (ii) accessdates don't tell much - some sites are stable for years, some can be gone tomorrow; some are archived by the wayback machine, some not; some keep internal redirects some don't, etc. (iii) Doi/pmid/pmc/jstor/etc. links do not expire and do not require accessdates, as agreed elsewhere, but not any DYK reviewer might distinguish permanent from non-permanent links. For example, this link is permanent, even though it is not a regular doi link. Materialscientist (talk) 03:03, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
I'm leaning towards putting the first two back on T:TDYK because I don't think the nominators could have prevented it (and possibly the third too, but that's not as clear-cut). Thoughts? Shubinator (talk) 19:06, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
I think we should definitely put the first two back: operator error on the DYK staffing side did them in, and we've brought back others for less. I think I'd also give the nod to the third as well, as it was a typo that did it in. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:06, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
I just restored the first two, both from February. The third I have not, because aside from the fact that the hook isn't even formatted properly (no link to article), the article itself doesn't pass DYKcheck. The article may have undergone a more than 5x expansion from when the author/nominator got to it, but the fact remains it was much longer in 2007, and wasn't cut back until 2009. If it had been transcluded properly, it would have been failed, with regrets, back in March. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:13, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
We have 173 hooks submitted, the lowest in quite some time, of which only 12 are reviewed. Our volume this month has been insufficient to support 21 hooks a day. Furthermore, we have all four prep areas open and two queues: that would take 42 hooks to fill.
Unless there are strong objections, I'm going to reduce the prep areas to six hooks each in the next couple of hours, for a total of 18 a day. Commentary is welcome, as are more reviews; I just don't want us to hit a brick wall. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:26, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
Personally I'm focussing on writing right now - my current one presents interesting research problems (and real life, as usual, is demanding). I hope to have a few more nominations soon :-) But may I suggest we start a list here of noms that need reviewer attention, especially those that seem to need an additional pair of eyes, and/or slap the red bendy arrow on a few? It may sometimes require editing the article a bit first, where the creator/nominator hasn't been able to fix all the problems for whatever reason, but we might be able to clear a few logjams by looking for them and poking them and/or drawing others' attention to them, until the number of new noms picks up again. It would be good to shorten the tail anyway. Yngvadottir (talk) 19:01, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
I don't really have a long term perspective, but it could be that the lengthy backlog (and delay in getting sign-off) is acting as a disincentive to people making new nominations, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 01:48, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
In the old days, when the inventory crept up close to 200, we got panicky and talked about measures such as running 4 sets of 9 hooks every day (36 per day) to clear the backlog... I wouldn't dream of suggesting that in the present circumstances, but I think we should be able to manage 21 per day for the time being. --Orlady (talk) 03:37, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for notifying Tedder about the bot, PFHLai! It's running again. I paid a quick visit to the page; without hardly trying, I found two articles to nominate. There are plenty more that I didn't look at... --Orlady (talk) 20:23, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
I've just had a thought. It doesn't appear that listing hooks here is working this time so what about placing a list of the 6 oldest/most urgent hooks that require review/rereview on the main nominations page and maybe have a requirement for editors to at the bare minimum, take a look at reviewing one of them before moving on to newer ones? The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 11:09, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
Hi, I'm not exactly an everyday patron when it comes to editing or talking on Wikipedia, but the last few days (on at least three occasions) on the 'Did you know' section I keep seeing these Roy Lichtenstein facts. Not that it's exactly a bad thing, but a little variation would be nice to alleviate from the monotony of these Roy Lichtenstein facts. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.5.73.57 (talk) 01:34, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
In case you haven't noticed, please take a look at our stocks at T:TDYK. We are currently running low on non-Roy Lichtenstein-related hooks here. If you really want to help, please write up some articles of any other topic and nominate them for DYK. This is the best way to space out those Roy Lichtenstein-related hooks with stuffs you like. --PFHLai (talk) 03:14, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
Five-times expansion
Apologies if I'm raising this in the wrong venue, but after having copyedited probably hundreds of DYKs that have hit the main page over the last year or so, with thankfully few complaints, I thought I'd try one myself. Trouble is though that in the area that interests me – children's television and literature – it would be very difficult to expand a typical article five times as they're all (at least all the ones I've looked at) a little more than the short stubs I imagine the five-times rule was intended to address, but still need substantial improvement nevertheless, particularly in the citations department. So my question is this: is there a "five-times improvement" project? As we all know, size isn't everything, and there seems to be a very big jump between DYK and GA. George Ponderevo (talk) 21:47, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
To the best of my knowledge there is no project helping to organize or perform 5-x expansions. This does not mean that expansions to moderately sized articles don't happen. DYK sees expansions to articles starting out with 5–10K characters on a semi-regular basis. The problem is it takes a lot of work to perform these expansions and the lack of available sources makes such an effort impractical for many subjects. --Allen3talk22:29, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
DYK is to all intents and purposes just for new articles then, so I'll invest my future efforts elsewhere. BTW, I wasn't asking about "five-times expansion", I was asking about "five-times improvement", but that's obviously a rather more subtle concept to define. George Ponderevo (talk) 23:20, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
I understand your problem - popular culture articles do tend to already have substantial content, so a five-fold expansion is a lot of work, and there is the other DYK rule that it has to happen in 5 days. But it might help to realise that tables, bulleted lists, the infobox, headers, and the footnote numbers don't count towards the length, so it's only the actual prose that has to be expanded. In some such articles that might make the task more manageable. Also inherent bias operates in this area, too - non-US, non-UK children's series and children's lit coverage and coverage of early children's programmes presumably has some gaps and weak points? But as regards improvement that doesn't involve five-fold expansion, I'm afraid the rules are explicitly against counting it because of the difficulty of quantifying. (Supplementary Rule A4) Yngvadottir (talk) 02:03, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
I've been very aware of your positive contributions to articles featured at DYK, George. (Is there a barnstar for that kind of thing?) Some long-existing popular culture articles do turn up at DYK occasionally, perhaps because they previously consisted mostly of the kinds of non-prose elements that Yngvadottir mentions, or perhaps because their previous versions were largely copyvios. Also, you may be surprised to find that some of the topics that may interest you still lack articles. For example, several author/artists of Caldecott Medal books and some of the medalist books lack articles and many notable children's books have articles that are (like The Hundred Dresses) still barely adequate. --Orlady (talk) 03:49, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
I know I've sent him at least one barnstar. Admittedly articles on pieces of popular culture from Western country are nigh impossible to expand; plot summaries essentially screw it all up. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:07, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
I think you've hit the nail on the head Crisco, and Yngvadottir's point above, that the five-times expansion has to happen within five days effectively means that only new children's lit/TV articles have a chance of being featured on the main page. Ah well, on to Plan B. George Ponderevo (talk) 16:52, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
I'm hesitant to say this because of WP:BEANS and that people could take this the wrong way with bad faith intent to "game" the system but outside of the 5-day window for the expansion itself, there really is not a time-frame for how an article clean up should be done. Article clean up usually involves two steps 1.) Removing the dubious, unsourced and POV-oriented content and 2.) Expanding with NPOV and reliably sourced content. If you do that all at it once then, yes, most likely you will not qualify for 5x expansion. But if you clean up the article first (not "gut" it, but legitimately clean it up and remove questionable content that shouldn't be there in the first place) and then several weeks later begin the expansion you may be able to qualify as the article is judged by how it was at the beginning of the 5-day window. Again, the key is to not "gut" the article just with the intent of getting a 5x expansion DYK but to do legitimate, discerning edits that removes bad content but still leaves a usable, workable article in place. As long as you're doing your edits in good faith, and not doing a disservice to the readers by leaving a "gutted" article sitting around for weeks just to get a DYK, things usually work out fine. But, alas, if people do start trying to "game" the system then the rules may need to be revisited. AgneCheese/Wine17:45, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I'd be reluctant to do that, to be honest. It's often the case, in my experience at least, that unsourced material is more or less accurate, but that the sources are sometimes difficult to track down. It wouldn't sit easily with me to remove material just so I could get a slot on the main page a few weeks later. I think I'll just have to plough my lonely furrow without the carrot of a DYK at the end of it. George Ponderevo (talk) 17:59, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
Well like I said, you want to be discerning and only remove material that shouldn't be there in the first place. This is true for any article and any editing, regardless of DYK intent. While I am not a "deletionist" in the slightest, I do think it is an undeniable fact that sometimes an article is improved by discerning edits that removes bad content. I don't work much with Children lit & TV show articles so I wouldn't know how much that applies to those articles but since you seemed like a good faith contributor, I just wanted to let you know how you could still do your good work within the framework of DYK's rules. AgneCheese/Wine03:40, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
And don't forget that you can take as long as you want (subject to WP:STALEDRAFT) in your sandbox to write a new version of the article to avoid the five-day problem; you then just copy it over when you're done. BencherliteTalk17:54, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
I understand that, but I'm uncomfortable about chucking away the efforts of those who've gone before rather than trying to integrate them, and I accept that means the articles I'm particularly interested in will likely never be DYKs. Just the way it is I suppose. George Ponderevo (talk) 18:03, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps a tweak to the rules that a 5x expansion excluding plot summaries (both as part of the existing article, and as part of the expansion) might be something worth looking into? - The BushrangerOne ping only23:44, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
Sounds like an idea, especially since plot summaries are unsourced. I do it already with my new articles (I insist on having at least 1500 characters of prose outside the plot before writing the plot summary) — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:50, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
I don't really like this idea. We already get plenty of pop culture-related content here. Lowering the standards for just for those kinds of articles doesn't seem right.--Carabinieri (talk) 14:02, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
Are we talking about standards? I was talking about improvement as opposed to expansion, which in and of itself is no measure of anything really. Expanding an article five-fold within five days is for all practical purposes impossible if it already contains an uncited plot summary, as most of those I was referring to do. George Ponderevo (talk) 23:11, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
Well, they're not unsourced, per se, rather sourced to the work itself. ;) However more to the point here: requiring sufficient critical analysis for a film/TV show/book article seems to me like it would be an increase in standards, as one would no longer be able to put together a 1450-character plot summary, find two half-a-column reviews for "references", and get a DYK for it. (Frankly I find WP:NBOOKS, as interpreted here, absolutely horrifying.) - The BushrangerOne ping only15:24, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
This is so vain and embarrassing to ask, but I'm really rather proud that a picture I found and edited made its way to DYK. I had nothing to do with the nom (wasn't even aware of this until Materialscientist protected the file over at Commons). Do I get any fun splash to throw on my user page, or should I just do a happy dance? – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies06:19, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
If you want credit for image contributions, my suggestion is to see about getting credit on the actual nomination in advance of the actual nomination happening. I've credited the photographer with DYK assistance when they specifically took a picture for the purpose of having the image appear in the DYK nomination. --LauraHale (talk) 17:16, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
Another option would be to have a userpage section "images of mine that have appeared on the main page of Wikipedia" or similar. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:03, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
If the only people who can edit a template are editors who are given the Template Editor User Right, then what does it do over on the Main Page, where it encourages anyone to nominate an article? Isn't the first step in the process creating a template for the nomination? I am neutral on the idea of the template user right. I'm just wondering how this would affect the DYK nominating process. Maile66 (talk) 13:30, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
You seem to be confusing the two. The second (template editor) is currently: "allows to edit protected pages (without cascading protection). (editprotected)". The right would be to edit previously protected pages. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:39, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
Done another. I was holding off on the previous set since I had an article in it. Thanks to Orlady for getting it :-) --Yngvadottir (talk) 12:56, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
... that Neltje Blanchan's 1897 book Bird Neighbors used photographs of stuffed birds, because contemporary cameras could not take good photographs of real ones?
In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:
Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #5 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page
So, should we be worried that this was posted, even though Queue 5 had been filled with an update at 12:51, 77 minutes before this section was posted by the bot? Or will it do the right thing when the time comes, 70 minutes from now? BlueMoonset (talk) 14:52, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
The issue was that the queue was tagged with "Template:DYKbotdo" instead of just "DYKbotdo". DYKUpdateBot does not utilize the MediaWiki preprocessor to expand templates so this change, while visually identical to a human looking at the queue via an HTML web browser, looks very different to the bot when it reads the raw wiki markup. Unneeded reference to the template namespace has been removed and the bot no longer sees a problem. --Allen3talk15:25, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
Prep area #1 currently contains the following: "... that Australian Opal and Logan Thunder center Cayla Francis chose to player basketball over netball because she preferred the contact aspect of basketball?" I assume player is a typo, and it should say play instead (i.e., "chose to play basketball"). — Richwales03:41, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
Is there any chance that when Prep area 1 is moved into the queue, could it be moved into Queue 2, and the contents of Queue 2 moved into 3, so the lead article (Church of Saint Oswald, King and Martyr, Oswaldkirk) appears on the main page in the evening for British local time, rather than from 1 0'clock in the morning, and so will be able to be seen by British readers? Thanks --GilderienChat|List of good deeds10:42, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
I have just switched lead hooks between Prep 1 and Queue 1 - I didn't want to bump the Anglo-Saxon princess to 1 am local time either. I hope this is ok and that it looks all right. I'm at work now, but will be able to check here and if necessary fix anything I messed up after I get home in an estimated . . . 2 hours. --Yngvadottir (talk) 12:51, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, I saw, I got back in and checked the queues 74 seconds after the update, it was still saying Queue 1 would update at 17:00, its changed now. Thank you very much.--GilderienChat|List of good deeds16:25, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
Transit of Venus special occasion
Aloha. We currently have two transit of Venus DYK's scheduled in prep areas 2 and 3 to commemorate the Transit of Venus, 2012. I'm hoping that these articles in the prep areas will appear on the main page for the transit from 22:09 UTC 5 June 2012 — 04:49 UTC 6 June. Maile66 (talk·contribs) recently nominated 1874 Transit of Venus Expedition to Campbell under the June 1 nomination section. I'm wondering if someone can review it and add it to a related prep area (provided it passes) for the timed transit. Viriditas (talk) 05:32, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
The hook in Prep 2 should be on the main page from 16:00 UTC 5 June 2012 through 00:00 UTC 6 June (the nominator requested noon eastern, which is what that translates to), and the hook in Prep 3 from 00:00 through 08:00 UTC 6 June. So there will be one hook or another mentioning transit of Venus on the main page for the entire time. With luck, someone can be found to review the other hook, though I don't think displacing a lead hook with it would be justified, since the transit already has one lead hook. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:05, 4 June 2012 (UTC) (fixed times at 06:11, 4 June 2012 (UTC))
Could another admin please double check Queue 3 to ensure I didn't make any mistakes in promoting the set? Thanks. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:54, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
I just came here to say that Queue 3 has two different hooks that mention two different transits of Venus. I thought recurring themes were normally limited to once per queue. Art LaPella (talk) 05:06, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
A note: you've omitted the promoter name in adding {{DYKbotdo}} instead of {{DYKbotdo|~~~~}} or {{DYKbotdo|text ~~~~}}. The bot takes the text after | for issuing credits. I don't know what he'll do if he doesn't find it (he won't use his name). Might be an interesting experiment :-D. Materialscientist (talk) 05:10, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
The bot takes whatever you put after | as the signature (and autoconverts the tildas if present). I guess someone just typed in the bot's name, but I don't know. Materialscientist (talk) 05:25, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
Congrats on your first prep to queue promotion! BTW, I thought it was important to include the two transit-related hooks in the set: the transit doesn't last very long (it has already started as I type this, though it's cloudy where I live), and the three hooks about the transit could only be published in two possible queues, meaning one queue would have to get two hooks. I suppose we could hold one until after, but that doesn't make sense to me. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:50, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
Prep set ready
I had this whole prep set ready and then edit conflicted Bluemoonset in the last open set (4). Can someone move these to a set when one is open? Thanks.
Actually, that would be a bad idea, because I'd already used the second and last hooks in my set. So whoever does this—I'm happy to, if I'm still up when someone clears a prep area to the queues—be sure to replace Mate Matišić and Huites Dam before you post. Thanks. I did try to post an "Inuse" template, but I guess PumpkinSky had already started assembling when I did so. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:52, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
Should we temporarily reverse the promotions? I was hoping an admin would come along fairly quickly and promote prep1, allowing us to go ahead with a quick load from the above. For simplicity's sake, I've left the five as they are, but perhaps limbo is not the way it should be left. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:54, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
Hi guys, one entry currently reads: ... that according to critics, the Sugababes' song "It Ain't Easy" contains compositional elements to "Personal Jesus" by Depeche Mode? -- don't we mean compositional elements from "Personal Jesus" (or indeed samples from)? Certainly the "to" doesn't seem to make sense... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 05:22, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
I agree, "from" is clearer; I debated simply changing it to the verb "samples" as in the article's lead paragraph, but I'm not sure of the nuances of that term. You could have made that change yourself, you know; anyone can edit the preps, and I found another hook in the set needed a "the" adding. Yngvadottir (talk) 06:07, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
Tks guys -- re. changing myself, fair enough, I've only just started involving myself in DYK again after about a year and have been treading more carefully than I usually do around WP... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 06:36, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
May 28 section: two hooks submitted with eight-day delays
The problem is that the article's expansion started on May 28, and while it was more than big enough to nominate for DYK on May 30 and eligible to be nominated through June 2, it wasn't nominated until June 5, which is eight days after expansion, at which point 5x still required going back to May 28. Strictly speaking, it should be failed immediately. And it wasn't the only article under May 28 in a similar situation.
That other article has already been failed with that orange "X": it's Template:Did you know nominations/En vänlig grönskas rika dräkt. The article was created on May 19, expansion formally began on May 21, with a new AfD hanging over the article, and expanded over 5x by the end of May 22. The AfD resolved as Keep on May 28, and it was nominated for DYK the next day, May 29, and placed under May 28, the day it came off AfD, on the mistaken assumption that it hadn't been eligible during the AfD. Again, eight days. The article isn't nearly as impressive, but it appears to be otherwise eligible for DYK.
Thoughts? Or is this a straight-forward case of failing the 5x rule's five-day time constraint. (Would D9 even apply?) BlueMoonset (talk) 00:17, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
I think both should be allowed, under the rule that permits waivers on newness on a case by case basis if there are old articles still sitting on the nominations page, which there manifestly are. In the case of En vänlig grönskas rika dräkt, it was expanded from 174 characters to 2092 characters of prose, more than sufficient expansion, over 2 days; the nominator simply appears not to have realized it could and should be nominated while the AfD was running. Yngvadottir (talk) 21:49, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
Allow both. Historically, DYK has always been liberal in its interpretation of "five days". Particularly when dealing with ongoing expansions and ongoing AfDs, it's perfectly reasonable to treat eight days as "good enough". --Orlady (talk) 22:16, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
Based on the last two comments, I've temporarily superseded the "X" with a "?" to keep the nomination from being rejected while the discussion continues here. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:56, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
Checking DYK policy. Is creation date the first date on the article? We have an long-time editor who is listing multiple articles according to the date they finished editing, not the date they first created it. The difference in dates could mean ineligibility. For instance, check out the Fall Hill (Spotsylvania County, Virginia), which was immediately approved by another long-time editor. I thought the date is supposed to be the date of actual creation. If I'm wrong, no problem. If I'm correct, there are a number on the nominations page by this same editor. Maile66 (talk) 14:41, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
If it's a newly-created article then it should be measured by date of creation, though bear in mind that articles moved into main space from user space might initially seem older than they are as we only measure from the date it became a main space article, not when it was created as a user space draft. If the nomination is for expansion it's measured from the date that this expansion started. GRAPPLEX14:48, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
Shubinator's DYKcheck tool is a great help in determining article eligibility. See Wikipedia:Did you know/DYKcheck for details on installing it and using it. It's not foolproof (sometimes it returns false negatives), but it does a good job at sorting through an article's history to determine whether it's eligible for DYK. --Orlady (talk) 17:53, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. I've been using DYKcheck for a while. But, apparently, I had only been looking at the prose size, and not the next line down. Maile66 (talk) 17:57, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
Stub class nominations
I'm noticing multiple Stub class articles nominated. However they were assessed, they were Stub when they were nominated. Which DYK says cannot be considered. But IMO, length and references are more important. Unassessed articles are being nominated, and I see nothing in the guidelines about that. Maybe they were otherwise be stubs - or not - but without being assessed, they justifiably are considered on all the other DYK guidelines. But since the assessments are really only relevant (so I'm told) to the projects, aren't the other DYK guidelines more important than that Stub rating? On expansions, maybe the Stub should have been changed to something else, but no one noticed. Just a thought. Maile66 (talk) 22:00, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
When I see stub class, I often go along and just re-assess the thing normally to a start or a C on the talk page. I don't normally see stub tags but if I do, I remove them. Pretty easy to do and then that isn't a problem as far as DYK rules go and it seems within bounds for a reviewer to do. --LauraHale (talk) 22:03, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
I completely agree with you. For me personally, I couldn't care less if something is a stub or not. But as long as it's DYK rules, one way or another, it has to be noticed. I'm not as enamored of assessment ratings as many others. Someone commented to me about a year ago, that anything below GA or FA doesn't mean much. And what with people assessing their own articles because projects don't have the manpower, you just give it what you want it to be. Maile66 (talk) 22:10, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
I think you get to a certain point where you can fairly judge things. Stubs generally have no user box, no sections, few sources. Starts probably have an infobox and two to three paragraphs, possibly at least one section outside the lead. In any case, just something people need to fix when they review if not done. I'll update assessments for talk pages that exist but generally not for pages lacking talk pages. --LauraHale (talk) 23:26, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
Hopefully an infobox is not required. Some editors object to them, and they are not required, in fact are often absent, from Featured articles and Good articles. MathewTownsend (talk) 23:47, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Thanks! That is useful for anyone who wants to assess articles. There actually are criteria. I see no requirement for an infobox. I wonder what happened to User:Disinfoboxman and his crusade against the boxes if someone dared to put one on one of his articles? MathewTownsend (talk) 00:29, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
You've been in circles I haven't, Matthew Townsend. I wasn't aware of these people who dislike infoboxes. I must have missed some interesting conversations. Maile66 (talk) 00:35, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
I don't really care for them either, to be honest. I don't object when people add them to articles I'm involved with because the general consensus appears to be in favor of infoboxes, but I generally think Wikipedia would be better off without them. They usually contain no useful information; they add nothing to the article.
But this discussion really isn't about the merits of infoboxes. As far as the talk page ratings go, they have no relevance for DYK. I don't think the WikiProject banners really help Wikipedia much anyway.--Carabinieri (talk) 01:14, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
My knowledge tends to be that if it has an infobox, as a rule of thumb, it is generally a start even if infoboxes are not required. I lean towards having them as, for me, it makes the article feel more complete. Plus, some MOS require them on certain pages. --LauraHale (talk) 03:07, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
Laura, I've seen a number of articles that were clearly stub level despite having infoboxes. Sometimes, infoboxes are the first thing added to a page, and the couple of paragraphs appended to that just don't cut it. BlueMoonset (talk) 07:42, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
A large proportion of nominally stub-rated or tagged articles are not stubs; there's an enormous lag in the rating system, as it's more common than not for an article to be significantly improved without someone altering the tag, for various reasons. Stub tags and ratings are at best an unreliable guide to actual-stubbiness ;-)
As to "rules", if there's a valid stub rating it shouldn't be eligible anyway, and if there's an invalid one, the supplementary guidelines helpfully say "If there is a stub tag, it should normally be removed if the article is long enough for DYK". Andrew Gray (talk) 00:22, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
Given the necessity of some one sometimes stepping in and completing the DYK review, I don't have a problem with such a QPQ claim though not certain the exact rules. --LauraHale (talk) 03:09, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
IMO (and this is the same opinion I expressed when QPQ was still a proposal), QPQ requires the user to make meaningful effort to review a nomination. The QPQ review might be an initial review that leads to the finding "article is too short", thus leaving it for someone else to re-review the article after it gets expanded. That's OK -- the point is that the self-nominator has helped with the review process. QPQ does not require a reviewer to "adopt" a nomination through its entire tenure on the noms page. Note that, regardless of how it's defined, the review process cannot be sustained on QPQ reviews alone; DYK depends on people who do reviews without expectation of any "credit" other than the satisfaction of having helped (and of having read an interesting article along the way). --Orlady (talk) 03:18, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. You've answered my question. I just wanted to make sure I could sign off on the DYK nom. And I agree, can't do it on QPQs alone. That's why I decided for myself that I'm only claiming QPQ if I'm the first reviewer. Other reviews or edits I'm just doing to move the process along. Anne (talk) 04:12, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
I've dropped the reviewer a note on their talkpage requesting a symbol so the bot and those making up preps will know what its status is. That's what I've done when I've noticed this before. Not everyone realises the bot uses these symbols to generate the list of how many nominations are outstanding and passed for each day; or it may have been an oversight. Better for them to confirm which symbol best fits it, IMO (in this case, which tick/checkmark, the green one or the AGF one). --Yngvadottir (talk) 12:42, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
Hi, I've been reviewing Template:Did you know nominations/Mural with Blue Brushstroke & Mermaid and, although there's nothing that I can see wrong with the articles, both the double hook originally proposed by the nominator and the ALT1 that I proposed are a little lacklustre (and we neither of us particularly like the other's suggestion). We would be grateful if somebody else could take a look - thanks. Mikenorton (talk) 20:45, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
I just beefed it up from 1300 characters to 1800. It continues to be a work in progress. However, we need an Admin to adjust the queues over the next 10 hours. Are any admins looking at this discussion? Please comment.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 13:59, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
I have ticked it off again. It just need an admin's say so to push it up the order. Although it looks as if that admin's noticeboard is not looked at as much as ANI. I'd reccomend maybe asking an admin directly The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 16:06, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
There were issues with all three ALTs; for the second and third, the Hoggett addition requires a QPQ. The original hook is still okay, though. I've proposed a couple of new ALTs to replace ALT1. I'm not sure why, over a month after the Tony Award nominations were announced, it's so crucial to suddenly have to slot this in at the last minute. If one of the Tony Award-based hooks is used, someone should be prepared to change the hook on the main page if he should happen to win. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:00, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
Note: issues with the hooks have been resolved; ALTs 2 and 3 are Tony's preference, ALT1 is struck, and 4 and 5 have never been approved (which is just as well, as Tony prefers 2 and 3). BlueMoonset (talk) 22:02, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
Makes sense to displace that one, since we generally try to avoid one person being credited in two or more hooks in a single set. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:46, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
And moved to the prep area! I have plagiarism concerns with this article. Source text: "See cut in his afterburners and attempted a sharp right turn; but it was too late. The aircraft struck the roof of the building ." Article text: "See turned on the afterburners to increase power while pulling up and turning sharply to the right. It was too late; the plane struck the roof of McDonnell Building 101." This was after looking at only two sources. --LauraHale (talk) 12:28, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
With these concerns, just move it back to the noms page. Note that you need to restore the last version of the nom template from before the review. --Orlady (talk) 12:30, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
Think some one else did it. Only looked at it because it was such a bizarre review. As I was commenting on it and the other one, they were moved to the prep area. :( Hate the checklist at times, but at least it forced people to nominally say they reviewed against the criteria. --LauraHale (talk)
This is another one where it is unclear that the article was reviewed against criteria. Template:Did you know nominations/Watch Dogs has ALSO been moved to the prep area. The article cites Twitter as a source of information that I don't think can POSSIBLY all be found in a single tweet. Beyond that, the Tweet linked to shows up as broken for me. Can some one remove from the prep area and review this article again? --LauraHale (talk) 12:32, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for letting me know of my errors, I guess I was too trigger-happy there. I have removed both hooks from the prep-area and reopened both discussions (which you also are allowed to do). Mentoz86 (talk) 12:40, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
May 28 nominations
The first item on May 28 nominations is Arbor Hill Historic District–Ten Broeck Triangle. Apparently, the editor who nominated it moved the Template page, without leaving a redirect, shortly after creating it. Click on the link, and it goes to the old page, which tells you was deleted. It says what the new page is, which you can then click to bring up. But I tried to replace the old link with the new link in the template under that date, and it didn't work for me. Can anyone else correct this linking issue? Maile66 (talk) 20:25, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
In hooks, "interesting" does not mean "deliberately obfuscatory or misleading"
This discussion, copied from WP:ERRORS, makes some points that all DYK participants (nominators, reviewers, prep-area builders, and admins who approve queues) should be aware of and take to heart:
For this DYK:
"... that Fred Tenney (pictured) was described as "one of the best defensive first basemen of all time", while Fred Tenney only played six games at the position?"
I think the two Freds are different people, making for a highly misleading hook. Not sure why they've done that... — foxj13:00, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Oh, you're right -- which makes this DYK even worse! They can't possibly expect all or even most readers to click on both wikilinks to figure out these are different people. JoelWhy?talk13:36, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
I've complained about this before, but DYK really needs to stop with the joke hooks. It works fine on April 1, when it's mildly amusing and okay because of April Fools' Day. But doing it any other day is simply confusing and hardly informative. -- tariqabjotu13:56, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
I agree. It read exactly like an April Fools' Day hook. If articles about two baseball players with the same name happened to qualify for DYK at the same time, I understand why someone thought that it would be interesting to combine them into a single item. But there was no need to do so in cutesy, misleading manner. This DYK batch will expire soon, but I've tweaked the wording to refer to "a different Fred Tenney". —David Levy14:31, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I understood immediately that the hook referred to two different people (two bolded items, after all), and was entirely not offended, bothered or upset by something not being po-faced. Silent majority and all that. GRAPPLEX15:40, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
A reply that seeks to insult those who have a different opinion of the suitability of this blurb from you does nothing to convince anyone of the validity of your argument. There is nothing encyclopaedic or professional about a statement that is misleading, and it should be nowhere near the front page of an encyclopaedia (whatever the date) Kevin McE (talk) 17:22, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Being curt is not the same as seeking to insult; I'm simply stating that I (along with the hook's author, reviewer, and promoter) found it entirely suitable and that's a position that can't be ignored simply because the people who don't have complaints tend not to complain. GRAPPLEX22:39, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
If you assert that your acceptance of the blurb is on account of "not being po-faced", by implication you describe those who consider it inappropriate to be "po faced": where I come from, that is a rather insulting way of describing someone. Kevin McE (talk) 17:21, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
FWIW, "po-faced' is British slang that is unknown on this side of the big pond. I perceived Grapple X's comment as having a negative connotation, but I had to look up the words he used to find out what he might have meant. --Orlady (talk) 18:22, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
I probably would have understood the blurb too, but we're hardly a valid cross-section of Wikipedia readers. We recognize the significance of "two bolded items", but not everyone does. This topic arose at WP:ERRORS because someone didn't understand the hook, and I seriously doubt that he was alone.
How does such wording affect users of screen readers? I'm not sure, and I think that it might depend on the settings. Has this issue been considered?
Regardless, the hook wasn't up to our normal editorial standards. It contained ambiguity deliberately inserted for the sake of humor. We don't do that on days other than 1 April (and many believe that we shouldn't even do it then). —David Levy17:36, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
I don't see any problem with the hook. It's obviously clear that two people are being discussed; the use of the name twice clearly implies that there are two people being disucssed. It might be a problem for somebody not familiar with the rules of English grammar, but this is, in fact, the English Wikipedia. - The BushrangerOne ping only19:36, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
So you assert that JoelWhy is not familiar with the rules of English grammar.
I couldn't disagree more. The wording is unconventional, no matter how one interprets it. When discussing two different people with the same name, the normal approach is to plainly state this fact. The hook's author intentionally obfuscated a key detail as a gag. —David Levy22:01, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Unconventional grammar isn't necessarily a direct attempt to deceive, inveigle and obfuscate. As long as it's not incorrect or strictly against MOS, then it works to promote interest (and, by turn, further editing) in the relevant articles, which is the point of DYK in the first place. I see nothing wrong with a "Who's on first" approach to hooks if it generates interest and attention in order to foster content generation. GRAPPLEX22:39, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Firstly, I mentioned the unconventional wording in response to the Bushranger's assertion that it "clearly [implied] that there are two people being discussed" and shouldn't confuse someone "familiar with the rules of English grammar".
I'm not suggesting that it's never appropriate to deviate from a conventional approach; I'm refuting the Bushranger's claim that the hook contained a standard, straightforward structure.
Secondly, I wouldn't say that this was an effort to "deceive", but it clearly was meant to obfuscate a key detail that ordinarily would be conveyed. We know that this led to confusion on the part of JoelWhy, an experienced editor. We don't know how many others — including those not intimately familiar with Wikipedia's main page formatting and those who couldn't see the "two bolded items" (on account of being blind) — were confused.
Given the fact that our mission is to disseminate information (not deliberately withhold it in a manner that misleads or perplexes readers, even if this has entertainment value), I see something very wrong with it. —David Levy00:07, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
I didn't see the hook on the main page. Reading it without formatting, the hook didn't make sense to me. --Orlady (talk) 18:25, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
Notability banner
In the course of working on an article this past week for DYK (still working on it), I came across a stub article, The Royal Oak, Monmouth, that had a notability banner. The article had only one source and was rather limited. As I thought the subject of the article was notable, I set about researching the topic and substantially increased the number of references and text to try to save the article. At some point, I realized that the article appeared to qualify for a DYK expansion (although I've never done one before - hopefully, I'm not wrong) and submitted it. I felt comfortable removing the stub banner. However, there is the notability banner that was assigned in May 2012. Do I need to petition someone in a different section of Wikipedia to review the article and remove the notability banner? Or will that be part of the DYK process? I don't want the banner to scare off a potential reviewer from looking at the nomination. Thank you. Anne (talk) 16:36, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
It's part of the reviewing process. The banner needs to go before the hook appears on the front page. For now I had a look and added a book ref. If you can find one or two solid references to it in independent sources, I'd add them and remove the banner. Google Books won't let me see enough of all the relevant histories of Monmouthshire. Right now, a lot of the references are to sites affiliated with the pub; I'm not saying any are bad, but it could do with a little more from outside sources. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:38, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
The rules state that anyone with five or more DYKs needs to do a Quid Pro Quo review when they self-nominate. I'm seeing a lot of self-noms that do not have a QPQ, but how do we know? Wikipedians by number of DYKs is anyone with 25 DYK or more. And even that seems to be updated only by any editor who wants to update their own record. What about those with less? I, for instance, only have 12 DYK, so I wouldn't show up on that list. Is there a way we can easily check? Maile66 (talk) 20:49, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Yes, in some cases I've done that. I've been finding that some with multiple DYKs on their talk page don't keep track. But absence of a user page DYK record does not mean they don't have any. There should be a centralized list somewhere, or perhaps something we could access on Toolserver that would automatically bring up a current list. Maile66 (talk) 21:31, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Toolserver has a couple of imperfect tools, which were mentioned here about five months ago: this tool, which shows all the times the DYKUpdateBot left a DYK congrats notice on the user's talk page (and archives) for the user in question (in this case, preloaded with mine, but you can adjust it), but it has no way of distinguishing who nominated. If the creator/expander wasn't also the nominator, it doesn't count, but will be listed anyway. There's also this page creation check tool; enter the username and select "Template" as the Namespace. The ones starting "Did you know nominations/" are the ones to look at: they might count as they're DYK nominations started by the user, though only if they were also created/expanded by said user (check by clicking on the link). This only goes back a couple of years since template automation began. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:30, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
Just remember that Shubinator's DYKUpdateBot only came to life in February 2010, so DYK credits issued before that won't be reflected. —Bruce1eetalk13:39, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
For what I wanted it for, it's fine. I'm only concerned about the 5-DYK QPQ rule. A 2-year time span is good enough for me. I'm not the CIA. I'm thinking that if there is a question in my mind about the QPQ on any nomination, I'll just move on to review something else. Maile66 (talk) 14:29, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, Crisco; I didn't do my first DYK until last fall, so for me there's always been transclusion. ;-) Moswento, I'm also missing one from my DYK count (shows 18 of 19); the truant is my eleventh from mid-February. Maile66, I've found people to be honest when I ask if they've previously submitted at least five of their own articles. (Assuming they can remember.) Or another reviewer will chime in. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:36, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
BlueMoonset - I'm actually surprised that you only have 19 DYKs! I see you so much on my watchlist promoting DYK nominations that I assumed you were some kind of supreme DYK veteran. Moswentotalky
That tool does seem to work accuratly on me so I think that for all intents and purposes for finding out how many DYK credits someone has, it would make a handy tool to be placed on the DYK noms page. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 16:25, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
This has its genesis in {{Did you know nominations/Film capacitor}}. We have an article here with 108 inline citations but it is a huge article – despite the number of citations, about 75% of its paragraphs are unsourced (the fact for the hook is sourced of course). The reviewer has rejected the DYK on this basis. If this rejection is warranted, so be it. However, the issue that drew me to post here is that the DYK rules do not provide for this. We should not have a standard in operation that takes people by surprise. If the DYK rules provided clarity, I would have then advised the new user who created this article of the issue before the article was moved to the mainspace, so that his decision to do so was made with eyes wide open. If this is now the standard, we need to say it. More about this on the linked nomination page. Your thoughts?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:26, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
The article fails to meet rule D2 on Wikipedia:Did you know/Supplementary guidelines. In essence, that rule calls for a reasonable effort to provide inline sources to support the article content. DYK does not require that every word in the article be vetted for sourcing, but the rule says that we don't highlight content that is in serious need of citations.
As for the Film capacitor article, it does have many inline citations, but those citations are clustered together in certain parts of the article, while other parts of the article are completely without citations. The reader is given no clue as to where vast parts of the article came from -- for example, what is the basis for the sections "Overview of construction and features" and "Internal structure to increase voltage ratings"? An article that does not provide any indication of the sources for a large fraction of its content is not ready to be featured on the main page in DYK. --Orlady (talk) 04:43, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
Orlady, it's not my article. Every sentence I add to articles has a source. The focus of my post is not that this shouldn't be rejected. It's that we need transparency; a "rule" must be in the rules where the rules are posted or it is no rule at all. You've pointed me to a cobweb filled hidden passage that even calls itself the "unwritten rules." This reminds of the plans for Earth's destruction in Hitchhiker's Guide:
"But the plans were on display..."
"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."
"That's the display department."
"With a flashlight."
"Ah, well, the lights had probably gone."
"So had the stairs."
"But, look, you found the notice, didn't you?"
"Yes, yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'.”
If we have enough DYK nominations, I'm all for it; indeed, it is obvious that a criterion for inclusion that favors better sourced content, if sustainable, should be in the rules. I am also pissed off that this was hidden in such a way that a new user was misled by me and has been prejudiced by the secreting of what should be a core rule to a disused corner.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:56, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
My understanding is that an article at WP:DYK needs to be fully sourced. If an article is not fully sourced, it cannot be a DYK. Beyond making the article factually accurate based on sources, it makes it at least easier to check for plagiarism. This policy appears to have been in place for a while and I fully support it. If it is a question of whether or not an article is properly sourced and some one wants to argue it, tossing on a fact tag that isn't resolved makes it inelgible until the problem is dealt with. --LauraHale (talk) 10:16, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
I don't understand your post, or that is to say, it doesn't seem responsive: So you agree with me that we should add this to the actual rules and not have it codified somewhere where the vast majority of people who might need to see it, won't?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:18, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) It may be time to combine the 2 lists of rules. "At least one reference per paragraph" has been a DYK rule forever; although the last effort to rewrite the rules (by Tony1) caused considerable discussion over the purpose of DYK (full disclosure: I'm one of those who finds nothing wrong or even surprising with its having multiple purposes, including both rewarding new articles and rewarding expansion of existing articles), having the rules be clearly set out all in one place is only tangentially related to that particular bone of contention. For what it's worth, Tony1 removed the following sentence from the main rules page: "Uncited and poorly cited articles will not be chosen." That corresponds to the following in the memo/checklist for reviewers that appears when you go to edit a nomination template: "cites sources with inline citations". Personally, when I review a DYK, no matter its length, I always say what needs to be done to meet the rules in my opinion - and in a case where more references are needed, I frequently just add them. The length of the article doesn't matter, but entire sections lacking inline cites means someone needs to fix it. That doesn't mean it's irrevocably failed - the DYK project almost always involves a collaboration to get the article eligible. And if the article writer is new to either Wikipedia or DYK, there are usually people willing to help (whether the nominator can or not). Also, there's no implication that the article wasn't ready to be moved to mainspace. DYK has to have tighter standards in several respects because of the Main Page exposure. All that said . . . should I draft a combined version of all the rules, or is there someone else willing to have a try? (Always recognizing that folks may wind up preferring to keep it at the "general overview ... and extra page with more specifics" approach we have now, possibly with a better title for the "more specifics".) --Yngvadottir (talk) 12:34, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
If implemented that would be great Yngvadottir, but sometimes when you expand a request you get opposition to the larger change. So just to be clear, I obviously would not oppose more generally folding those "unwritten rules" that merit inclusion into the central ruleset, but I am certainly asking that we add clarity specifically regarding this core sourcing issue to the central ruleset, regardless of whether others are folded in.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:51, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
I've seen acrimonious discussions here over lots of stuff, so yup . . . and there may be valid points agin it that I haven't thought of. (Or preferred candidates to do it '-) ) But I think this is just the latest sign that Tony1's rewrite (and the considerable further tweaking since) didn't do the trick. So I'm starting a separate section below to gather responses to the idea. --Yngvadottir (talk) 12:59, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
Please see Creating Editor's response. This is the talk page of the Editor who created the article. See the bottom part of the section, where they find out about the rejection. This editor wants to bring the article up to DYK eligibility on the citations. They need assistance with the English language. The nominator stated on the above-referenced DYK template that the article's subject matter is not his area of expertise. I think this has been confusing for Elcap, due to the language difference, and I'm hoping someone can help this Editor bring the article up to where it can be looked at again. If this Editor can be assisted to add the necessary citations, I think this article could be exemplary for the Main page.Maile66 (talk) 20:41, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
I do speak German, and I like to help, but I don't speak the technical language of the article, therefore wonder what I could actually do, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:05, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
Start a dialogue? Is it possible for you on this English Wikipedia to write in the German language? I think helping that editor understand the DYK process, in his own language, is what's really needed. If you read what he wrote, he seems to have had decades in his field. I think he needs a German language version of this process. And after that, depending on what the sources are, maybe we need someone who can read German to have a second look at the DYK sourcing Maile66 (talk) 21:11, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
Looking at this article further, I think someone needs to help this editor understand about Bare URLS. The references section has been tagged for that way back in March 2012 (three months before this was ever put up for nomination). There are over 30 bare urls as references. Many of those URLs go to a manufacturer site, some without specific info on the subject matter. The article itself is in English. And the spot checking I did on references seem to be in English. But I think there's a lot of work to be done on this article in the way of referencing. Maybe it wasn't totally ready for Prime Time, but it needs help. Maile66 (talk) 21:46, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
Done - Template:Did you know nominations/Ioan Mire Melik - now in prep 1. --Tomtomn00 (talk • contributions) 16:41, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
Since User:Newbie does not see the problem, nor do I, and after ten days User:Nitpick has still not answered Newbie's request to clarify the concern, "Silence means consent" applies. Good to go. Aymatth2 (talk) 16:01, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
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