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This is where the Did you know section on the main page, its policies, and its processes can be discussed.
Backlog mode
I have added a new heading so the backlog mode discussion can be found more easily when it has been archived. TSventon (talk) 06:47, 28 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's worth noting that this is not because we have few DYKNs coming in, but because DYKN is seriously backlogged. I heard a suggestion to give DYKNs WikiCup points (2.5 for submitting, 2.5 for reviewing, to avoid people who create DYKs getting "free" points for QPQ) and I think something like that would be good to try. Maybe even a DYKN backlog drive, in the style of GAN backlog drives? Trainsandotherthings (talk) 00:18, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Trainsandotherthings, if you are interested in the question of backlog drives there was a discussion about them earlier this month here. TSventon (talk) 01:07, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That discussion wasn't all that fruitful and now the backlog is even larger with 207 hooks needing to be approved and 63 approved hooks. SL93 (talk) 01:17, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think one issue is that most of the "delayed" nominations are noms that are quite difficult to review, either due to being mostly reliant on technical sources, or due to their subject matter (usually politics). A backlog drive would be nice but given the circumstances a backlog was probably inevitable. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 01:42, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
We have a mechanism all set up for dealing with large numbers of unapproved nominations per the RfC last summer and subsequent discussions: extra QPQs for experienced DYK nominators. The suggestion of a GAN-style DYK backlog drive was roundly panned at the time. Pinging EEng, who worked so hard to devise the process and shepherd the RfC to completion, to help get it rolling for real. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:50, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Me and my big mouth -- I've been dreading this day for the last 12 months. Yes, we came to a policy decision as BMs describes, but what hasn't been done (I think -- haven't been watching DYK) is to set up the automation that will identify editors subject to the new requirement. We may need to use the honor system temporarily. Give me a few days to review where we are and recruit technical firepower. EEng 06:37, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@EEng: I'm happy to help :) fools rush in, etc. I think the most straightforward way is to add a note to the {{NewDYKnomination}} template. Something like "effective 30 May 2022, DYK is in "unreviewed backlog mode". All nominations made by editors with 20 or more prior DYK nominations will require an extra QPQ." That way, it'll appear on all new nominations (but not currently open nominations) until we remove it, and timestamps itself. Beyond that, we already use the honour system anyway. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 06:48, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What I'm vaguely remembering is we needed some new machinery for counting "credits" or whatever we called them. EEng 14:28, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
EEng, you were quite insistent that "credits" were to be a thing of the past; the only thing that mattered was nominations, which were set as the determinant going forward. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:42, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That's why I said " new machinery for counting credits or whatever" -- I remembered there was to be some change in what was counted, just couldn't remember what the change was. (I'm not Superman, you know, despite appearances.) Now that you mention it, that's exactly right. I've been reviewing the two big archived threads and there's a lot to it. It seems they ended with intentions to install new apparatus (template behavior at when new noms are saved etc.) and from other discussion some thought or work has been put into that, but not clear what still needs to be done to make it seamless. It actually sounds like others are more up to speed on the current status than I am, though I'm happy to help once I've got my sea legs again. EEng 12:47, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a way to add a note on the DYK script that most editors use? It also doesn't support natively adding multiple "reviewed" pages without manually typing, say, {{subst:dykn|ArticleA}} and {{subst:dykn|ArticleB}} in the window. Some editors might miss this otherwise. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 08:00, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The DYK-helper tool is maintained by @SD0001, so that feature should probably be taken up with them. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 08:13, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There should be a page from which DYK-helper can get to know if backlog mode is currently active. For instance, we can adopt WP:Did you know/unreviewed backlog mode to read enabled or disabled as the case may be – which could then be used by templates/scripts. Let me know once this is created – I'll then update the script accordingly. – SD0001 (talk) 13:10, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If a switch like that is added, it should also be used to conditionally display a backlog notice at the top of Template talk:Did you know. —Kusma (talk) 13:17, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
User:SDZeroBot/DYK nomination counts.json is already in place that records nom counts and is updated in real-time, which can be read by {{subst:NewDYKnomination}} to determine if the current user needs a 2nd QPQ. (For 9 months now, server resources are being wasted on keeping that page up-to-date despite zero use – maybe that will change now :)) – SD0001 (talk) 13:17, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What would be needed to actually start the 2 QPQs per nomination rule? SL93 (talk) 03:00, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I have added a backlog tag to at least alert people. —Kusma (talk) 06:20, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If something like this is added to the WikiCup, I'd rather go for 4/1. A DYK review isn't like half a GA review. —Kusma (talk) 07:57, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If I may be honest, I have some skepticism as to whether the planned backlog mode (i.e. two QPQs for editors with 20+ nominations) is going to help out much in the long run. One reason is basically simple arithmetic: if the number of nominations being made exceeds the number of QPQs being done, it doesn't matter if nominators are providing one or two QPQs, a backlog will still build up over time. Secondly, not all nominators meet the 20 nominations requirement: many nominations are done by editors who have 6-19 nominations and so would be exempted from this requirement. If they too make nominations without more work being done on the backlog, the backlog would still get bigger and bigger. Finally, the way I see it, it's not that people don't want to review nominations, or not enough people are doing them. The backlog isn't necessarily anyone's fault. The issue is that many nominations are controversial from the get-go owing to their content. For example, I cannot blame anyone from being discouraged from reviewing any nomination that has to do with Israel-Palestine considering how much of a hot potato that topic is. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 08:19, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of nominations are made by people with over 20 nominations. Just Gerda, Corachow, Epicgenius, Sammi Brie, Z1720, you and me together have something like 25 nominations on the page right now. 25 extra QPQs done would significantly reduce the number of unreviewed noms, and I would expect the number of affected noms to be closer to 50. I take your point that some nominations are more attractive to review than others, but I don't see how we can change that.
The question is what else can we do? We could fail all nominations that haven't been reviewed after four weeks (like at FAC) or reject nominations where the QPQ is provided late, but (unlike the proposal) these would not change the fundamental issue that we need more reviews than people are required to provide as QPQs. —Kusma (talk) 08:41, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hopefully the planned backlog mode is a short term measure and won't need to be used too often. theleekycauldron posted a chart here, showing that the number of unapproved nominations went down to below fifty in August-September in both 2020 and 2021. DYK depends on some editors reviewing more nominations than they need to, offsetting nominations by new editors that do not require a QPQ, and hopefully backlog mode will encourage them to help. Backlog mode will probably also encourage prolific contributors to divert some time from nominations to doing reviews which can be used later as QPQs. If some of those reviews are of more difficult nominations, they will still be useful. TSventon (talk) 10:48, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I generally think we should encourage people to do QPQs before they nominate articles. Currently I count seven nominations by highly experienced nominators lacking a required QPQ, needlessly making the backlog worse. Personally I find it much less stressful to use one of my stack of QPQs than to have to scramble for one at nomination time. —Kusma (talk) 11:10, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Has a bot reminding editors about late QPQs ever been considered? For example, if a nomination doesn't have a QPQ and one hasn't been provided after seven days, a bot will leave the nominator a talk page message reminding them to do a QPQ. Of course, that's only if the nominator actually needs to be a QPQ. I imagine it could be a bit tricky to code, but it could help I guess. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 14:51, 28 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Kusma Good luck with that. I just brought up the QPQ issue at the nomination of a major DYK nominator and they asked why I have it in for the nomination. SL93 (talk) 20:08, 28 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@SL93: Ugh. I think a time limit is reasonable, and another week is plenty. (Personally I usually just do not review noms that lack a required QPQ). —Kusma (talk) 20:26, 28 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Technical stuff from the old discussions
I may be way behind the times, but I believe WT:Did_you_know/Archive_182#Start and End (and following section) is (or was) a key starting point for technical implementaion ideas. Who are our techies on this? Wugapodes, for startes? Wug, can you ping other techies involved? Possibly this is entirely obsolete but it's where my brain left off, anyway. EEng 03:50, 28 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Wugapodes did you see this? Who else needs to be involved? TSventon (talk) 01:51, 30 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@TSventon and EEng, sorry I missed these pings. What's needing done? Implementing a "some people need two QPQs" system? SD0001 had some ideas in that previous thread but to my knowledge no one's worked on anything yet. — Wug·a·po·des 03:19, 30 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's probably best if we both go back to the top of WT:Did_you_know/Archive_182#RfC_Discussion:_Details_of_implementing_EEng's_propsal_"Unreviewed_backlog_mode" and review forward from there (maybe skimming it all first to see what early stuff was obsoleted by later parts of the discussion). Then we can compare notes. I don't think there's anything too hard in there, but that's easy for me to say since I'm assuming you're volunteering to do all the work (bless your heart). Shall we start that way? Oh yes, first question: What happened to moving everything out of Template space (which, some may recall, I predicted would never happen)? EEng 03:38, 30 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It seems like the main things are (1) a way to keep track of "backlog" mode and (2) a way to note how many QPQs are needed for a nomination. The first we can do pretty easily by having WugBot update a page on-wiki with the number of untouched nominations. The second is slightly harder and not something I know much about. We'd need the on-wiki templates and lua modules to get the content of that page and parse it appropriately. I'm not sure how to do that. Substing the page into the template? As for moving out of Template space, I was looking today and WugBot has code to handle it, but I don't think anything's moved on that front. — Wug·a·po·des 05:02, 30 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I can handle (2) – all that's remaining is to edit Module:NewDYKnomination to read the nom counts and the "is backlog active?" page and show a message accordingly (the module is used in a substed template so no performance issue). As for moving to template space, there was agreement in the last discussion that it should be done, but some insisted that a formal RFC should be held – we're waiting for someone to start that. – SD0001 (talk) 05:30, 30 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
So you think this new "untouched" category of nominations is feasible? Right now we've got (courtesy of your hard work) a separate page for unapproved vs. approved. Would we move to three pages, or just have the two kinds of unapproved ("unapproved, untouched", "unapproved, touched") remain on a single page? Offhand I don't see clear plusses or minuses either way (other than inventing a third page is probably more work than leaving just two pages). EEng 16:21, 30 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I imagined keeping our current two-page system. The page WugBot would update would just be a counter, kinda like the next queue counter. So it wouldn't distinguish the modified from unmodified nominations on the page, but doing so is feasible for WugBot if that would be helpful. Adding a third page is extra complexity for no clear benefit, so I'd rather try page sections before moving to a 3-page system. — Wug·a·po·des 23:01, 2 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@TSventon Oh, I was waiting on feedback from others. Looks like SD0001 did some fixes on the template, and given EEng's silence I take it everything looks good. I'll get to work on WugBot and update you once everything's in order. — Wug·a·po·des 21:58, 14 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I've had almost no time for WP for about the last two weeks. I have total confidence in you, Wugapoo, but if you fee=l you need me to pass my hand over something, give me a day. EEng 23:23, 14 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No worries, I get being busy. No pressure to review anything, I just wanted to make sure I didn't rush something past you. — Wug·a·po·des 23:27, 14 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The template sandbox version looks good to me, sorry forgot to comment here before. I just added a minor check (to avoid an error just in case someone edits the page to contain a non-number). – SD0001 (talk) 04:08, 15 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Same question for the nominator's count of prior nominations -- is it updated in real time (so that if a user does nom A and then immediately nom B, the module processing nom B sees a count that includes nom A), or daily, etc?
Template talk:Did you know/Unmodified nomination count will be updated by WugBot. I intend for it to be run alongside the approval checks, so it will be done every other hour. The count of nominations is handled by SD0001, and it looks like it occurs every couple of hours. SD0001 would know the specifics. — Wug·a·po·des 22:31, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There are some race conditions here which may or may not matter (much), and when I get my thoughts together I'll say something about them. In the meantime (and apologies if this is answered above) where exactly are the counts-of-prior-noms-made-by-each-editor compiled? EEng 00:40, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The counts can be seen at User:SDZeroBot/DYK nomination counts.json. There certainly are a few race conditions, and I can see two at the moment: (1) the race between WugBot and SDZeroBot and (2) the race between nominators and both bots. For (1) that can be handled by SD0001 and I coordinating a staggered run schedule so WugBot doesn't run ahead of the by-nominator-count update. For (2) it's harder given the run schedules. We'd need some way to have the update triggered by an edit to the main nomination page or just have the bots run really frequently. I don't know how to do the first one, and either could actually make the race condition between bots worse since it would become an execution time issue not a scheduling issue. There's probably some sweet spot where the coordination is tight but not perfect, and the slack could be handled by a "hey, don't bulk nominate DYKs to try and end-run the backlog mode" message. — Wug·a·po·des 20:19, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Let' start with the most obvious problem (and correct me if there's a flaw in this narrative): (a) Editor has 4 nominations (no QPQ); (b) Editor makes a 5th nomination (also no QPQ); (c) before bot updates DYK nomination counts.json, editor makes a 6th nom. This last nom should require a QPQ, but because the counts.json still shows the editor has having only 4 prior noms, machinery mistakenly reports that no QPQ is required.Now, as I've said before we're talking about QPQs here, not someone's prison release date, so this isn't the biggest deal in the world, and at most it would happen maybe once a year. But when it does happen, consternation will follow and there will be a Talk:DYK thread opened, and a congressional investigation, and there will be gnashing of teeth and tearing out of hair and wrending of garments, all for nothing. So if we can avoid it easily then we ("we" means you, of course) should do it. Tell me if this makes sense: Can the nomination processing machinery, when it reads the nominator's value from counts.json (to see if it's < 5, between 5 and 19, or >=20 -- if I'm remember the boundaries correctly) then ++ it and write it back? That would "patch" the count without waiting for the bot to run again.There's a similar race for crossing the 20-nomination boundary which triggers the double-QPQ requirement, and this would solve this too. Also, unless I'm not thinking of something, with this in place it's really not necessary for the counts.json bot to run frequently -- once a day would be fine.Does what I've said make sense, and can you swing the writing back of the incremented count? EEng 21:07, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'd rather we not wrend garments, I just bought mine. Unfortunately what you describe is not possible. The DYK nomination template uses a Lua module, but while these modules can read arbitrary pages, they cannot write to arbitrary pages. The only way to do what you described would be using an automated system like a user script or bot. — Wug·a·po·des 21:38, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As I mentioned above and in earlier discussions, updating of counts.json takes place in real-time. It doesn't run on any schedule. To take the latest one, Template:Did you know nominations/Adele Nicoll was created at 2022-06-24T16:39:29Z and SDZeroBot updated the count at 2022-06-24T16:39:33Z. If the difference of 4 seconds also seems too much, I'm sure we can find a way to make it faster. – SD0001 (talk) 22:24, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry to have made you repeat yourself; last year I was told I needed a brain transplant, and the only brain available was from a goldfish. 4 seconds is plenty prompt; just out of curiosity, how exactly does the bot find out it needs to run? EEng 18:58, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It uses the Wikimedia EventStreams API. Basically it asks the wikimedia server: "notify me whenever a page with title beginning Template:Did_you_know_nominations/ is created". The bot runs 24x7 looking out for such notifications to arrive. When they come, it finds out who created the page, and increments that user's count. It's similar to the technology that enables your phone to notify you of new emails – immediately when the email arrives. – SD0001 (talk) 19:49, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Can it notify you whenever someone creates a nomination with a boring or erroneous hook? EEng 21:59, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I dislike being the guy who just pokes holes while others do all the work,[1] but this raises some new questions.
(a) So, to be clear, the bot operates only by ++ing a user's counts on file -- it never rebuilds the counts from scratch (by looking at ... I don't know, I guess by looking at every page, going back forever, of the form Template:Did you know nominations/)?
(b) But the bot hasn't been around forever, so where did the initial counts come from?
(c) You look at who created the nom template page, not the name of the nominator given in the template itself? (Wugapodes -- maybe those two things can't be different? The nominated by (or self-nominated) stuff in the nom template -- does your machinery enforce that the named nominator is the same as the editor creating the template?)
Okay, I was just oversimplifying. The EventStream API isn't perfect – it can miss a few notifications and deliver a few ones twice. To account for those glitches, we DO rebuild the counts from scratch -- every 24 hours. The process for that is simpler – it queries the database (quarry:query/59696). This is also where the initial counts came from. As to (c), yes we only look at who created the template page. So multi-user nominations are credited to solely to one person. If we wanted to overcome this limitation, it's easy enough in the real-time update component. But the build-from-scratch component of the bot might would become a BIG task involving reading in the contents of 58318 pages, as opposed to a simple 1.5 minute database query. Is it worth it? – SD0001 (talk) 03:20, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
W/r/t (c) they can be different. Thanks SD0001 for the clarification; I also missed the part where you explained the event stream API. It's the first I'm hearing about it so I look forward to reading up on it. @EEng: So with this information, it seems like the race conditions are minimized. There is still the issue of a bi-hourly WugBot run which would be what triggers "backlog mode". That is, we'll have up-to-the-minute counts of nominations but the backlog mode would only change once every two hours. I think that might actually be reasonable--we wouldn't want it yo-yo-ing around every few minutes as things get added and removed. What do you think? — Wug·a·po·des 02:36, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Wugapodes, SD0001, EEng, has backlog mode gone onto the back burner? There are currently 61 unapproved nominations and it is nearly August, so the situation does not seen critical at present. TSventon (talk) 14:30, 31 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Not yet. When the situation does become critical, then we'll get off our asses. Brilliant minds such as ours work best under pressure. (Just to repeat what I've taken pains to point out before, W and S are doing all the work; I just sit around trying to find flaws.) EEng 15:33, 31 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
One of the technical problems is see with DYK is that it's too hard to find hooks that need reviewing. There's one huge list of templates and you need to manually scan them to find the ones that aren't done yet. What I generally do when reviewing is just go to the newest days and pick one from there, because it's easier to find them at that end. I know that it's more useful to review older submissions, but human nature being what it is, I just go for what's easier. The Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 187#Older nominations needing DYK reviewers section below is great. Something like that should be a regular (automated) feature of the system. -- RoySmith(talk) 14:51, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Can we archive this? I'm not sure why it hasn't archived, I don't see recent additions or a pin. Valereee (talk) 18:18, 22 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
There is consensus to update the language in question to say that "The hook should include a definite fact mentioned in the article and likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing by a reader with no special knowledge or interest." There is no need to have an RFC about closing an RFC. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 23:10, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This discussion in connection with Wikipedia:DYK#gen3 is about whether the phrase "interesting to a broad audience" in the hook guidelines should be retained, changed, or removed. The discussion includes a !voting section at the end, which was designed to give some structure and hope of resolution to an otherwise long and rambling discussion. Storye book (talk) 16:21, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The following statement was made to introduce the discussion, before the Rfc was initiated:
On the subject of hook eligibility, Wikipedia:DYK#gen3 says: "The hook should include a definite fact that is ... interesting to a broad audience". For a while now, a number of DYK nomination templates have suffered difficulties in passing hooks which refer to the obscure subject-matter of their target article, because it is difficult or impossible to provide a hook for that subject which is "interesting to a broad audience". I believe that the above statement in the rules needs to be adapted to include the needs of that kind of DYK nomination. I list below (in no particular order) some of the issues which have caused long (and well-meant) discussions, and have sometimes brought the nomination to a temporary pause, or a halt. I shall use opera as an example of perceived obscure article/hook subject matter, since many of those difficult discussions have referred to that subject.
It is impossible for an individual reviewer to define "broad audience", without reflecting their own geo-political and social environment. Since many of our reviewers, nominators and promoters are based in the Americas, that situation poses a risk of reviewers from the Americas and in Rest-Of-The-World having differing perceptions of "broad audience".
The difficulty in defining, "broad audience", in turn can create issues wherein a reviewer from a particular large geo-political environment may believe that hooks concerning e.g. opera are "niche", whereas the nominator/creator may be aware that opera is of general interest to readers from another large geo-political area. This situation can lead to a reviewing impasse, in which the reviewer (with best intentions) may believe that an opera article which does not provide quirky hook subject matter, and a hook which uses big operatic names as clickbait, is a non-starter as a nomination. So in that way, the above rule "interesting to a broad audience" is not always viable, even when both the reviewer and nominator cooperatively want to interpret the rule with common sense.
The abovementioned "interesting to a broad audience" - a good thing on the face of it - does tend to imply the concept that the idea of "niche" must therefore be a bad thing for a WP hook. However, the definition of a "niche" subject differs around the world in the same way as "broad audience". I suppose an obvious example may be where many people do seem to concentrate their interests more in the sciences than in the arts, and vice versa. That's an awful lot of people who might think that an awful lot of WP article subjects are niche - such as opera, yes, but also baseball, computer games and current technologies. So the idea of quirky-hook-for-broad-audience (good) versus subject-matter-hook for opera cognoscenti (bad) is too subjective to be useful.
The above confusion and well-meant attempts to overcome the problem of a "niche" article by finding anything at all that is remotely quirky to hook in the "broad audience" has resulted in some inappropriate hooks, which do not respect the subject, and are calculated to hook in many readers who really don't want to be faced with an article on e.g. opera, and which would certainly put off opera buffs. One example from a while ago was a hook which said that a female opera singer was really good at looking around corners. Yet the main interesting thing about her was her achievement in acclaimed performances of the best operas in important venues under famous conductors. (I was part of that difficult discussion/decision and no-one is to blame - we were all just trying to accommodate that "broad audience" rule).
The above situation of inappropriate quirkiness forced on serious subjects raises the question of what we really want from the clicks. Just numbers of clicks, even when lots of our readers may object to being faced with a wall of text about opera and no more quirky bits to discover? Or do we really want to get the public to read something which really interests them, so that quality of clicks counts and number-of-clicks doesn't?
So far, I've seen many nom templates where the reviewer has encountered hooks about obscure subjects, which cannot be quirkyfied, and they have used common sense and respected the nominator's knowledge and decision, the hook has been promoted, and no trouble has occurred. But there are also reviewers who would rather keep it simple and follow the rules exactly as written, and the result of that has been problematic, as described above. That is nobody's fault. The fault, I believe, is in the wording of the rules, which was fine in intention, but now needs to be modified to resolve issues.
I should make clear that I support the intention of "interesting to a broad audience", and that most of the time the DYK section is fine, being full of enjoyable hooks which work well. And I certainly congratulate those who have created hooks like that. What we have on the main page is something to be proud of, most of the time. The rules just need to be more inclusive of whatever article subjects our reviewers may consider to be "niche" and incapable of quirkiness in hooks. There are so many ways in which we could resolve this. I would happily support any fair attempt to be inclusive of obscure (to some people) hooks, which would always be in the minority, anyway. Just to start off, I'll write an example of an improved rule below, but I am hoping that there will be more, and better, ideas forthcoming. Storye book (talk) 13:14, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT1: The hook should include a definite fact that is mentioned in the article, and interesting to a broad audience where possible, or interesting to a specific audience where article content demands it. Storye book (talk) 13:14, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT2: The hook should include a definite fact that is mentioned in the article, and interesting. Storye book (talk) 17:27, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
For what it's worth, I do not agree that we should be discouraging certain topics from being featured on DYK simply because they are (for lack of a better term) "niche". Doing so would perpetuate systemic bias on DYK and mean that many underrepresented topics and fields would not be given their chance to shine. On the other hand, I have to disagree with the above sentiment that, whenever possible, "niche" subjects can have hooks that only appeal to specific audiences. Indeed, it is perfectly possible for articles about "niche" topics, like for example opera, to have hooks that appeal even to non-specialists. An example, for example, could be a hook about an opera singer that mentions that they graduated with a degree unrelated to music, for example animation. Such an example is about a "niche" topic, but the hook itself is interesting not just to the specific audience that likes opera but also even those not into opera. I mean, wouldn't it be interesting that an opera singer has a background in animation? My point is simply: we should not be giving special treatment to certain topics just because they are "niche". It's perfectly possible for "niche" topics to have broadly-appealing hooks, and indeed there are many excellent examples of that including from opera. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 13:20, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
My knowledge of opera is minimal at best, so it's hard for me to judge opera hooks objectively. But, let's try another area; math. I recently promoted Roberts's triangle theorem. I remember the earlier discussions about some of the opera hooks, and was already thinking, "Math is about as niche as opera; it's going to be really hard to write a "broad audience" hook for a math topic". But, I think this hook fits the bill.
You don't need to know anything about math to appreciate that taking 90 years to make an advance in the understanding of this theorem is an impressive thing. Or at least so it seems to me. If you wrote, "... that (name of opera) brought the house down in 2022, 90 years after it was last performed?", I'd find that interesting.
I'd love to hear what other people think of the Robert's theorem hook. Does it really appeal to a broad audience, or am I just projecting my understanding of the topic area inappropriately? -- RoySmith(talk) 15:24, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@RoySmith:. Your maths hook is fine by the "broad audience" rule, because "90 years" counts as quirky, and therefore (as the rule currently tends to be interpreted) "interesting to a broad audience". The matter at issue here is what happens when a specialist article does not have a quirky bit like "90 years" in it, but depends on its notability facts for hook content. Then, what do we do? Already we have seen people here answering the question by suggesting that we exclude such articles. That's why I think that those articles which cannot supply an "interesting to a broad audience" factor need to be allowed to use facts in the hook which would be interesting to a specialist audience. I agree that "interesting to a broad audience" should be prioritised where possible, but we do need to be permitted to consider specialist articles for DYK as well, if their articles do not contain quirky bits like your "90 years". Storye book (talk) 19:19, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think or interesting to a specific audience where article content demands it dilutes that rule way, way too much. This change could be argued to say that any hook is interesting to someone and that if there's nothing else in the article that's remotely interesting, the article content demands we accept a hook no matter how boring. The rule already gets way too many byes because reviewers and promoters and movers (myself included) don't like to hurt anyone's feelings. Valereee (talk) 19:19, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Valereee:. Thank you for your contribution. Your answer, however, depends on the definition of "boring", because that is a personal subjective quality, which may also be subject to geo-political bias. I don't think we have the right to pronounce that any WP subject is "boring" to anyone other than ourselves and perhaps those in our own social milieu. To put it another way, WP articles have to jump through the notability hoop, which means that they are considered to have encyclopaedic value. What would happen if we reviewers were to try to exclude, or at least ignore, every nomination of an article whose subject we personally found "boring"? All outdoor team sports bore the heck out of me personally, and I would never watch a match, but I am genuinely happy to bend over backwards to do my best in reviewing their DYK noms. In fact, I have spent many hours in Commons finding ID photographs for historical sports biographical articles, knowing that someone out there would be grateful or pleased or whatever. Occasionally I get a "thanks" and that means a lot. Sometimes we have to be grown up about subjects which don't interest us personally, accept that subjects which are boring to us may have a very large audience (baseball, certainly!) and see our job as a service to others. Storye book (talk) 19:40, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Believe me, I get it. I work a lot on obscure subjects, I intentionally focus on subjects that are underrepresented because of systemic bias. And I don't nom all my creations. When I find something that is interesting enough for a hook, I nominate it. But there are many, many subjects -- including many of my own creations -- that simply don't make a good DYK. It doesn't mean they aren't notable enough for an article. It doesn't mean they shouldn't be featured on the main page. It means they don't make a good DYK, and the fact we don't have a better way to feature these articles than DYK as the default setting doesn't mean we should make DYK something it's not.
If DYK evolves into a bunch of ho-hum hooks, why would anyone bother reading DYK every day? We can't force readers in here. We have to attract them in, and the way we attract them is with most hooks being hooky. Valereee (talk) 19:55, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for elaborating. You say, "We have to attract them in, and the way we attract them is with most hooks being hooky". I agree with that, in that you have used the word, "most". That word, "most", allows the occasional exception of a specialist hook appealing to a specialist audience, which may (as in the case of opera, baseball etc.) be a very large audience, worldwide. What I am asking for, here, is permission to be allowed, when no other recourse is possible, to occupy the minority position implied by that "most" word, and give the green tick to specialist hooks which will appeal to specialist audiences, where no quirky hook is available. OK, a lot of reviewers are doing that quietly already, but some reviewers have been trying to force a quirky hook onto a subject where it may mislead the reader into expecting a fun article about something which they already understand and enjoy, only to find themselves faced with an article on something that they are not interested in. If you want to exclude some of your created articles from DYK, that is up to you. But many article creators feel that their subject matter deserves DYK exposure, for example if a biographical subject has achieved great things. I am asking that those nominators can be permitted hooks which say that so-and-so did great things, without needing to say that they did something weird instead, just for the sake of clickbait. Clicks on great achievements can be more valuable clicks than clicks on weird stuff, in my opinion. Storye book (talk) 20:16, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
We make a lot of exceptions, actually. Probably too many. If a biographical subject has achieved great things, there'll probably be a hook. I'm not sure what 'force a quirky hook' means...maybe you're saying that instead of mentioning a subject's most important accomplishment, we're mentioning a more interesting-to-a-general-audience piece of information? Yes, IMO that's exactly what we should be defaulting to: the interesting stuff. That's what attracts readers to DYK. Something surprises them, interests them, makes them think "really?" Makes them want to learn more.
DYK isn't "Here is the most important thing you need to know about X". It's "here's something surprising that you may not have realized and may actually make you want to read the article" instead of feeling like you're being required to memorize Whan that Aprille with his shoures sorte; The droghte of March hath perced to the roote; because by gosh everyone needs to know that. The point of DYK is not to quickly feed the reader the most important thing they need to know about X before they realize they're being educated. It's to bring them back day after day to see if there's anything interesting in this batch.
Just ask to IAR when you have that rare specialist hook. If you have a good reason, people will listen. We IAR around here constantly. I just don't think we need to codify this particular IAR. The rule's already too weakly enforced. Valereee (talk) 20:44, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for that, and I know that we as reviewers already quietly make exceptions, as I have said. Reviewers who are prepared to use common sense and make exceptions are not the problem. The problem is that we will always have some reviewers who (understandably) want to adhere to the letter of the rule, and to have only hooks which they personally feel to be "interesting to a broad audience", and to permit absolutely nothing else. That is whey we need to put in writing any permitted variations to the rule, because nominations are being held up due to the literal-interpretation problem. You say "the rule is already too weakly enforced", but sadly some of us have experienced the opposite problem to the extent that some nom templates have stalled. Storye book (talk) 21:11, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What is IAR, and please could we have a link to it on the nom templates? Storye book (talk) 21:13, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Narutolovehinata5. There seems to be a misunderstanding here. Of course a subject which the reviewer considers "niche" can have a quirky or "interesting to broad audience" hook. ALT1 suggests "where article content demands it". That means, where you can't have a quirky hook because there's nothing in the article which is quirky, or for some other reason, e.g. if the article is too jolly serious for a trivial hook, or whatever. In ALT1, "interesting to a broad audience" remains paramount. The idea of a rule adjustment is to allow reviewers and nominators more choice and freedom over hook content, when needed. Storye book (talk) 13:43, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
In which case, there's no shame in simply not nominating the article for DYK at all if there's no content that is usable for a hook. I myself have declined to nominate some of my own articles for DYK because there wasn't content that I felt would have worked as hooks, and I'm sure many other DYK regulars have had similar experiences. The effort that is done to nominating an article that is ultimately not meant to be for DYK could instead be directed to a more deserving article, one that may actually have something usable. DYK is not mandatory, it's a bonus. An article doesn't need to be on DYK to be appreciated and seen. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 13:50, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As for the above comment claiming that "broadly appealing" hooks are "inappropriate" or would "disrespect" the subject, I do not really see how that is the case. We simply strive to highlight interesting facts about a subject, even if the fact is not necessarily not what the subject is best known for. Take for example Winston Churchill. Obviously best known for being a British prime minister, but when he ran on DYK, his hook was about his little-known interest in bricklaying. I do not think that highlighting his bricklaying hobby is "disrespecting" him; in fact, I think that if Churchill were alive today and saw the hook, he might have even appreciated it since more people would learn something about him that wasn't about politics. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 13:24, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If you care to read my comment again, you will see that I did not say that ""broadly appealing" hooks are "inappropriate" or would "disrespect" the subject". That kind of generalisation would not make sense. Where did you get that from? A Churchill example doesn't help, because he is a famous person and household name the world over, not a "niche" subject in any sense. It is of course very appropriate to give him a quirky hook, because we can afford to do that, in view of the fact that most people know about him. Storye book (talk) 13:43, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hooks appealing to a broad audience is a good principle for material that is going to be shown to anyone who looks at the main page. As Narutolovehinata5 notes, if there is no suitable hook material, the content does not need to appear on DYK. CMD (talk) 13:59, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Narutolovehinata5:. Re your comment above: "In which case, there's no shame in simply not nominating the article for DYK at all if there's no content that is usable for a hook". That is one of the very issues that makes me think that the rules need to be changed. No article ought be excluded from DYK because the reviewer thinks that "there is no content usable for a hook". If the reviewer can only imagine that "broad audience" quirkiness can be a hook, then that is indeed a problem, but it should not result in article exclusion on those grounds. Articles exist on the basis of their notability, and we should be allowed to use that notability as a hook if we have no other options for hook subject matter. Article notability can be interesting. Storye book (talk) 14:01, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No article ought be excluded from DYK because the reviewer thinks that "there is no content usable for a hook" This. Or to be even move blunt, If an article is notable enough for Wikipedia, its notable enough for the main page. Ive been a contributor of DYK noms on "niche" subjects (fossils/insects/plants) for over a decade now and this rule has always been a undefinable thorn. There is STILL (after a decade of requesting it) no actual way that the criteria can be objectively defined. I agree with Storye book that this is a highly problematic criteria that acts a gatekeeping for the main page. If its an article it is main page appropriate.--Kevmin§ 16:52, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If its an article it is main page appropriate. Not necessarily. We wouldn't be putting articles on the main page if they have significant issues, such as NPOV/copyright issues and the like. Granted, that isn't the same as DYK, but the point is articles aren't automatically eligible to be on the main page just because they exist. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 23:33, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Except thats not what I said/meant. What I was saying was that if it passes notability muster to be on Wikipedia, then it qualifies to be on the main page (when of suitable quality). I didn't say every poor quality article should be on the main page.--Kevmin§ 00:10, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Given that its already a very widely ignored rule, why should it be kept? Before stating that "DYK will become flooded with boring hooks and loose its purpose", consider that there is absolutely no evidence that would happen in the first place. I've also noted that the statement was made by Valereeehere's something surprising that you may not have realized and may actually make you want to read the article...It's to bring them back day after day to see if there's anything interesting in this batch. This is actually not a statement made anywhere in the DYK Aims and objectives, and it think its important to point out that no where in the aims and scope or the What DYK is not sections is interesting to a broad audience ever mentioned as a a criteria.--Kevmin§ 22:21, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with this viewpoint. The issue of what is interesting to a broad audience can't be reliably stated. Plenty of nominators have had their hooks declined for "not interesting to a broad audience" despite the nominator, and occasionally others, thinking the opposite. I also think that GAs should have an automatic notability pass based on the quality of the articles. SL93 (talk) 22:41, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What could be interesting to the nominator may not necessarily be interesting to anyone else. That's what a "broad audience" means. A nominator isn't a broad audience. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 23:33, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Except that DYK volunteers aren't a broad audience either, they are less then what ?20 regular contributors, out of over 1 billion English speaking people globally. WE do not have the right or the directive, per the DYK aims, to gatekeep "interestingness of hte main page".--Kevmin§ 00:10, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Well, duh. A reviewer isn't a broad audience. Even a few dissenting editors aren't a broad audience. SL93 (talk) 00:02, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hooks are obviously supposed to be hooky and so attract an audience. But this is a goal not a pre-requisite. The only way you're going establish whether a hook works well or not is by running it. If it gets lots of views then it was probably a good hook. If it doesn't then it wasn't.
If there's a problem, it is exemplified by Gerda's work - a steady stream of articles about German church music. Iirc, Gerda doesn't care whether her articles get many readers or not; she just wants to run everything through DYK regardless. But it takes all sorts and when I spot-checked a couple of recent examples, one had over 1,000 hits and the other had over 2,000 and these numbers do not seem exceptionally low. As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, our readership will expect a certain amount of worthy-but-dull stuff and, so long as we have some more lively hooks too, the variety and contrast will provide a balanced effect overall.
It's like music. It shouldn't be all crescendos and climaxes – you want quiet passages too.
I like this idea and the way you worded it. It seems to me that "interesting to broad audience" discussions normally involve "I don't think that the hook is interesting, so it isn't interesting to a broad audience". SL93 (talk) 20:19, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
For what it's worth, while the concept of a "broad audience" is a highly contentious matter, there are some ways to measure "interestingness to a broad audience", albeit in imperfect ways. One way to measure would be to see how many views an article gets while they're on the main page. To be fair, many noms (myself included) do not necessarily care about clicks, but the statistics are still worth noting and analyzing. If a certain topic or hook format tends to consistently underperform views-wise (rather than it just happening as a one-off), then that suggests that perhaps the hook format itself isn't appealing to our readers. Thus, in these cases, perhaps the hooks are indeed not appealing to broad audiences.
As for the above concerns about hooks being rejected solely because they're from niche topics, that shouldn't happen. Fields and topics should not be excluded from DYK solely because they are niche. However, it's not like it's impossible to reach some kind of compromise on these things. Like, just because a topic is niche doesn't mean there isn't a tidbit there that can even interest those not into that niche. Indeed, in some cases, the subjects in question actually do have broadly appealing information that can be used as hooks, but those proposals face resistance. If it was the case where it was consistently the case where these topics have absolutely nothing usable, then perhaps I could be sympathetic to the ideas being espoused above. But in some cases, the articles in question already have perfectly usable "interesting to a broad audience" information. If they're already there, why not just use them? Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 23:33, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Since notability keeps being brought up here, a reminder that DYK does not assess notability. An article appearing on DYK does not make it notable. Even articles assessed as Good articles are not inherently notable. CMD (talk) 05:10, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think I was probably the first to mention notability here. The reason for that was to suggest that where a "niche" subject had no quirkiness to be used in the hook, then its notability could be used instead. Notability in many articles may be stated in the article as the first, the biggest, one of the oldest, etc., or it may be something like a contribution made to the world, an achievement, a discovery or whatever. Maybe not all specialist articles will have notability that is hook-worthy, but many will. As for your comments on the role of notability in DYK, I think you are off-topic here. because the contributors to this discussion already know that DYK does not assess or create notability. But we do also know that certain content may give an article notability, and we can often use that in a hook. And that means that a specialist article without any hook-worthy quirkiness may have something in its leader, originally put there to indicate notability, which can be used in a hook. Storye book (talk) 10:20, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting facts on an article do not generate notability, notability is generated by the existence of independent reliable sources. Specialist articles with content that is hook worthy can already be nominated at DYK, as many are. Those that you mention as not having content that is hook worthy do not need to be nominated at DYK. CMD (talk) 13:43, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Notability is given by the very fact its on WP already, I have brought it up to note that DYK does not have the purview to decide that the notability granted by reliable sources are simply not good enough for our tastes and the main page is better then just any old topic. As noted below I take the view that if its interesting enough for sources considered to meet notability criteria by WP thought something was interesting enough to document, DYK has no right (and absolutely no authority per its own Aims, Scope, and Nots) to deny the main page appearance if the DYK standards for an article are met. Also again I notice the refrain that the noms will all suddenly and precipitously decline into "the sky is blue" banality. There is no evidence that would happen at all, and I find it highly unlikely to be a rational possibility given that the aims and scopes already prohibit it, and we actively use the term hooky.--Kevmin§ 20:42, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Like others have already mentioned, not every article I write ends up at DYK. Sometimes, I just don't see why many others would be interested in New Zealand political history, say. But I would shy away from the notion that we should tell other editors that their area of interest is unsuitable for DYK. As long as there are enough hooks with a broad appeal, that's good enough for me. Schwede66 20:18, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Gerda's pov
I am late to this as I was away for days. Sorry I can't read all the above, and perhaps it could be structured a bit.
My take for a rule change would be to just say "has to be interesting. Period". Something unusual which deserves being known.
Where I come from: Germany, the country with the highest number of opera houses, where singers from all over world come to perform, because the jobs are there. Not a niche. In DYK history, opera had some hundreds of hooks which you can inspect. When I am impressed by a singer, I want to talk about what impressed me, and not what the performer also did. This not only for my personal pleasure but I believe is only fair to an often living person. Achievements, please, not quirky factoids. We have only one sentence to introduce a BLP, and better say what makes that person special, instead of something crowd-pleasing. I am ashamed about the hook for a singer who was the choice by of Camille Saint-Saëns (whom most will known by the Carnival of the Animals) for the premiere of his last opera, and instead all we said about this specific great singer was that she performed Camen 300 times, - pure quantity going only for sensation. Food for thought. We have Talia Or open, - you can contribute there. Saying that she is a woman who dominates (without saying when what where) is one proposal. I really have my doubts if the "broad audience" would even care about this information. - Personal: she sang in concert for us, as three other soloists. One had an article already. I wrote about the other three. Two hooks had no problems, one appeared, one is in prep. She has the most complex biography of the four, and the highest international successes. I'd like to let that shine, and believe it may even interest our broad audience. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:52, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The issue with building a hook from personal experience is that others reading the hook will not have the same experience providing context to the hook. To be impressed by a singer performing a certain piece you really need to see or hear that performance. That is not something we can achieve in a short sentence fragment, and it seems almost foolish to try. CMD (talk) 13:46, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You have not read the article and the hook, so I am not insulted by that "foolish". I didn't try to put in the hook what impressed me, not even the piece (which I did for her colleague). I tried - because she impressed me, to say something about a major unusual achievement. I was never in Jerusalem, but I know history enough to know that singing Christian music there as a Jew, with one of the conductors many readers will know, is worth mentioning. It was approved by several, and only then (when in prep already) came the verdict "not interesting to a broad audience", which I don't believe, nor do I believe that just saying she rules some scenery is interesting at all. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:30, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I have not read any article or hook, with no DYK nomination being linked above. What I wrote was a general response to the idea of writing about singers who performed as soloists for you. From what you wrote above it seems such performances are inspiring and affect how you see their achievements, what I noted was that we are unable to have that same understanding. CMD (talk) 02:09, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
But we talk about the hooks claimed to be not interesting to a broad audiance, such as what brought us here, #Queue 5: Talia Or. - I find the judgement often quite arbitrary and shaped by the personal view of the reviewer. As long as we have no precise definition what the myth of a broad audience means, we'll discuss and waste time. This hook was approved by two people before being declined here. I bet we spent already days of thinking and discussing for a sentence of less than 200 chars, and I feel it's not a good use of my time. I could have written 10 new articles instead of explaining. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:40, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Back to the discussion
I don't have the time for an extended discussion here, but my opinion has been that niche topics are fine, and even should be encouraged, but hooks should at least be interesting to someone not well-versed in said niche topic. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:34, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with what you said, until a broad audience is brought into the discussion. For example, an editor not well-versed in a niche topic could find the hook interesting, and then another editor could just as easily come along who isn't interested. A few people cannot determine what is interesting to a broad audience. SL93 (talk) 17:33, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@SL93: I have added a Rfc template above, but I have no previous experience in doing that, so please would you kindly check that it has been done correctly, and that it's in the right place? Thank you. Storye book (talk) 17:53, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It looks fine to me, but I only did one Rfc before and that was a while ago. SL93 (talk) 18:00, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Storye book: the RfC statement needs to be shorter and more neutral. I'd recommend something like, "Should DYK's "interesting" criterion be changed to one of the alt proposals below?" The bot that copies RfC listings to the central pages requires what comes after the RfC tag and before the first signature to be short. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 13:32, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Huh, I was wrong about that last part. Legobot was able to copy the big chunk over. I still think it should be shorter and more neutral per WP:RFCBRIEF. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 15:59, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Thank you, Firefangledfeathers, for heads up on that. This has been my first attempt at an Rfc (having been asked to do it), and I did not know the procedure in full. I hope you find the new Rfc statement to be satisfactory. Storye book (talk) 16:28, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Here are some thoughts. From experience, many topics that could be considered "niche" still managed to have hooks that appeal to non-specialists just fine. We've had multiple hooks in the past about topics ranging from fossils to technology, but just because those involve topics that can be quite specialist doesn't mean that non-specialist hooks about them were impossible. Indeed, we've had many good hooks in the past that have come from seemingly specialist topics, and some have surprisingly been well-received by our readership. In classical music's case, it's not like non-specialist hooks about classical music are impossible. Indeed there have been several good hooks about classical music (and opera specifically) that didn't limit their audience to specialists and they did just fine. So if the option is there to have a non-specialist hook about the topic, then why resist having the non-specialist hook in favor of the specialist hook? ALT1 proposed below may have made more sense if non-specialist hooks for the topic were impossible, but as experience and time has shown, non-specialist hooks about specialist topics can and do happen. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 19:43, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Narutolovehinata5 As someone who writes on the "niche" topics, I can say very much that "interesting" for the lay minority of gatekeeper reviewers here repeatedly gets boiled down to very mundane aspects for the nom when looked at from the standpoint of the topic. E.g. "x species was named from a single fossil" or "x genus has only a single fossil species". When looked at from the topic point of view there are often other points that are considered interesting for the subject, but get mooted as not interesting to a "broad" (never defined) audience. This is why I take the view that if its been interesting enough for sources Wikipedia considers to meet notability criteria thought it was interesting enough to document, DYK has no right (and absolutely no authority per its own aims, scope, and nots!) to deny the main page appearance if the DYK standards for an article are met. Also again I notice the refrain that the noms will all suddenly and precipitously decline into "the sky is blue" banality. There is no evidence that would happen at all, and I find it highly unlikely to be a rational possibility given that the aims and scopes already prohibit it, and we actively use the term hooky.--Kevmin§ 20:33, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
One of my main concerns is that having low standards for what counts as "interesting" could mean that you could pretty much use any information as a hook, even if it's not the best, when ideally, it's better to use the best option. All information is interesting to someone out there, and requiring hooks to merely be "interesting" is such a low bar, not to mention it wouldn't prevent discussion on if a hook is interesting in the first place. Take for example, we have an article about a person named John Smith. Smith's day job is as a boy band singer (and he's a very good one at that!), but he also works as an architect during his free time (and he's an award-winning architect at that). However, the hook that is proposed about him is instead something like "... that John Smith has a younger brother and a younger sister?" It might interest his fans, but it may not necessarily be interesting to others, especially when there are better options in the article. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 20:42, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
We keep on talking about high and low standards, but we currently don't have clear attainable standards. SL93 (talk) 20:46, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
But what is the percent likelihood of that actually happening on such a regular basis that DYK would crumble into banality? I will point you to both our Aims and Objectives where there is no use of interesting at all in the verbiage, and to our Nots, point to specifically, which starts with DYK is not A collection of general trivia,.... Additionally its very regular practice for reviewers to make additional hook suggestions already if they see something in the article they feel is a good hook option.--Kevmin§ 20:58, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've added an ALT3 to the below. For a hook to be considered that isn't of interest to a broad audience, I think it needs to be exceptionally interesting to a specific audience. Yep, still subjective. Valereee (talk) 02:48, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've added ALT6 to the the list below, in response to ALT5. It was a good idea to attempt to resolve the definisition-of-broad-audience problem in ALT5, but on its own, ALT5 might in future encourage or permit execrable clickbait and the demeaning of biography subjects. For example, ALT 5 could permit and encourage hooks like "German lieder and jazz singer FOO was born with only vestigial arms and legs", or "Former US president FOO allegedly has a FOO shaped like a mushroom". I doubt whether any contributor here would ever propose such a hook, but my point is that ALT5 would nevertheless permit and encourage such a thing. Storye book (talk) 10:31, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I do not think ALT6 is necessary. Hooks that could "demean" subjects are already routinely rejected at DYK; if the subject was living, such hooks would fall under BLP and thus cannot be used. For subjects who are dead, there's more-or-less an unwritten convention that "demeaning" hooks are to be avoided whenever possible. See for example previous attempts to make fun of Oscar Wilde's sexuality, make fun of Muhammad, and so on. There are already both written and unwritten DYK conventions that would handle such cases. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 11:01, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I also have concerns about the "lowest-common-denominator clickbait" addition. Specifically, what counts as "lowest-common-denominator clickbait"? For example, a hook that went "Did you know that opera singer John Smith was born with a deformed penis?" would definitely be rejected (under BLP if he's alive, but would still likely be rejected as distasteful even if he's dead). But what about the hook "Did you know that opera singer John Smith, who has performed at the Oper Frankfurt, is a licensed physician?" Would that also count as "lowest-common-denominator clickbait"? Or what about a hook like "Did you know that Fooville mayor Richard Doe created the video game Adventures in Foovile by himself while in office?" Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 11:05, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If you don't like a particular ALT, vote on another ALT, or contribute a new ALT. Of course there is nothing wrong with your suggested hooks on opera singer John Smith and Fooville mayor Richard Doe. And of course there are already rules and conventions in place regarding defamation, libel and the like. I suggested ALT6 because I felt that ALT5 potentially undermined those existing rules and conventions. Storye book (talk) 11:58, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Why is ALT5 any more likely than what we've got now to encourage such problems? Valereee (talk) 12:05, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I do not see how ALT5 could weaken existing rules and conventions about what can and cannot be a hook. I mean, even with our current "interesting to a broad audience" rule, that doesn't preclude potentially "interesting" hooks from being rejected if they violate these conventions. For example, saying that a person murdered someone might be interesting to many. That doesn't mean that the hook should be the hook, especially if the person is still living. As for ALT5, it merely says that a hook should be "likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing to readers with no special knowledge or interest". I do not see how that opens the door to potentially libelous or defaming hooks. Even if a hook is "unusual" or "intriguing to non-specialists", if the hook violates other rules, it can still be rejected. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 12:12, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Valereee: Since you ask, ALT5 is "more likely than what we've got now to encourage such problems" because it only permits "unusual or intriguing" hooks, and by omission excludes hooks which attract the reader in other ways. Storye book (talk) 12:21, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I've now read the discussion at Template:Did you know nominations/Talia Or, which is what brought us here, and it seems like you're thinking we're defining "interesting" as "quirky enough to get lots of clicks". I don't agree. Hooks don't need to be "quirky". We kind of hope 1 out of 8 will be, as those are fun for the #8 slot, but even that isn't required. Simply interesting is enough.
And it's not that there's a goal of getting "clicks" because clicks are good. It's that the only measure we have for whether a hook was indeed generally interesting is the relative number of people who found it interesting enough to go take a look at the article, which is the goal. We'd like to maximize the number of readers for each new/improved article. Valereee (talk) 14:02, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Valereee: I am answering your comment below, in this section, to avoid starting a long discussion in the !voting section. You said "... I'd see any argument by a nom that a hook is "exceptionally interesting to a specific audience" as something that 1. requires an explanation of how/why and 2. could be taken to talk for discussion. It should be relatively unusual. I do see your point about fancruft, though". (Your mention of fancruft was in response to a suggestion that "specific audience" could be taken to include fancruft).
I had not heard the word, "fancruft" but I am guessing that it refers to something like Star Trek fandom. However, this association of popular culture fans with "specific audience" does rather reveal the cross-cultural misunderstandings that we have had throughout this general discussion. I had understood "specific audience" in ALT1 to refer mostly to subjects which are not in popular culture for most of us, such as science and engineering, ancient Greek plays and myths, philosophy and so on. It could also include items which are considered popular culture in some countries, but not in others, such as opera, baseball and computer games. All non-popular-culture subjects have fans, but they don't all have the Trekkie type of fan. No doubt other contributors here, from other countries or cultures, might have already seen "specific audience" as meaning something different again. I don't actually see what is wrong with Trekkie-type fans though, or why they should be excluded from having hooks which include them in the target audience. Storye book (talk) 14:15, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Storye book, WP:Fancruft is a term used here on Wikipedia to refer to something that is only of interest to rabidpassionate fans of a subject. Usually it does refer to pop culture subjects.
Hog Farm's example is a pretty good one, though. It's a relatively obscure subject (Naval vessels) but one that has rabidpassionate fans, and it's not a pop culture subject. The hook they created is one that probably would interest those rabidpassionate fans, who may know that $21K was enough to buy two new boats to replace a damaged one (or whatever would make that fact interesting to rabidpassionate fans.) But to the rest of us, it's like...So what? If I were writing a hook for that article, I might suggest ... that USS Sidney C. Jones was blown up by her own crew? To which a rabidpassionate fan might retort, "But scuttling is an incredibly common outcome in war! They didn't want her captured for use by the enemy!" Or whatever a rabidpassionate fan might say to such a hook suggestion. But there's really not much else in that article that immediately looks like a hook to me, someone not interested in the subject and with only a passing familiarity.
And which brings us right back to Talia Or and the hooks being suggested by non-rabidpassionate fans, hooks which Gerda is incredibly frustrated by because she is a rabidpassionate fan. Her response to ... that Talia Or performed as the Voice of a Falcon? with 'but that's a small part that many have performed'. Valereee (talk) 14:43, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It should be noted that the main goal of DYK is to encourage people to read about the subjects of the hooks. That's why they're called "hooks": they're meant to highlight something interesting about a subject in such a way that people who see the hook would be encouraged to learn more about the subject. If the hook is too difficult to understand o is too specialist, the reader may actually be discouraged from reading the article rather than be encouraged. If the editor's goal is for people to learn more about a subject, they don't need to make hooks that are summaries of articles. They can just highlight one unusual or intriguing fact about the article, then the reader will be enticed to read the article where they can learn more about the subject's accomplishments and/or history. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 14:50, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As for the above comment regarding Trekkies: just because Trekkies are a "niche" doesn't mean a hook about Star Trek needs only to appeal to Trekkies. With regards to Star Trek, why propose a hook that appeals only to Trekkies when you can propose a hook that appeals to Trekkies and non-Trekkies alike? Same with other topics. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 14:54, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
In fact I'd argue that a hook being of interest to non-Trekkies is more important than one of interest to Trekkies. The Trekkie will click on even a hook that, yes, they did already know, because: Trekkie. So a hook that is of interest to both is ideal, but the primary target is the not-rabidpassionate-fan who might find the hook interesting enough to want to investigate. Valereee (talk) 15:14, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I am troubled by the expression "rabid fan" which appears to stereotype all fans of a specific subject. And where that stereotyping uses the word "rabid" in the definition, it is knowingly using a term related to a severe symptom of mental illness. I don't know how that word "rabid" is used in the US, but in the UK we associate the term with rabid dogs, who (at least in common perception) are supposed to attack with great ferocity due to extreme fear, while in the grip of the disease rabies.
Although I do not belong to any Trekkie-type group myself, I have met Trekkies and the like, and so far they have been gentle and quiet folk who simply love their chosen subject. Railway enthusiasts could be included in the same kind of obsessed mindset, but those whom I have met have not only been calm and interesting people; they have often gone to great lengths, expecting no reward, to assist with small elements of my research. We have a lot of rail enthusiasts on WP, and in my opinion we are very lucky to have them, and they have provided us with some very useful articles.
So who, precisely, are these rabid fans? On WP I have only come across one type of subject-fan, whom I would accuse of aggressive behaviour on WP; and that is the Jane Austen fan. My own experience of them in the real world is that they are middle-aged women who love the Jane Austen novels to the extent that they misinterpret the novels as sentimental romance, believe the films which misinterpret the novels as sentimental romance, and think they love their own concept of what Jane Austen herself was like. From a historian's point of view, Austen was a sharp-witted woman, honed in 18th-century spiteful irony, whose every comment was loaded with humorous criticism. She was the type which abhorred romantic sentimentality, but being on the cusp of change between the Age of Reason and Romanticism, her novels were written specifically to mock both genres superficially gently, but at depth cuttingly.
However those middle-aged Austen fans on here appear to have decided that they "own" Jane Austen. Therefore, when I have attempted to edit an article featuring Jane Austen on WP to match the sources, they have immediately changed my edit to fit their sentimentality in spite of the source, and reverted any attempt on my part to put it right. For years I have given up any attempt to get those articles to correctly represent sources. Now, it may be that since my experience with those Austen fans, perhaps that doesn't happen any more. But I'm just giving you that example to show you how I would define a rabid fan. I have not seen Trekkie-types, rail enthusiasts or opera fans behave aggressively on here. Ever. Storye book (talk) 19:57, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've replaced the word. Valereee (talk) 20:07, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. That was very considerate of you. Storye book (talk) 20:22, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Cbl62: I really promise that I'm not trying to change your !vote, – you do you, that's totally fine by me. I gotta admit, though, you surprised me – you're the only DYK editor I know who cares about the stats page nearly as much as I do. Why change it so that hooks can get by while being interesting to fewer people? I'd love to hear more about your thought process on that one. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 10:43, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, cauldron. I'm all in favor of being stricter on uninteresting hooks. I just worry that the "broad audience" element gets misused at times. In the past, I've had someone argue that an American football hook should be rejected because it appeals too narrowly to Americans which were not a sufficiently "broad audience". Cbl62 (talk) 00:32, 17 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No hook should ever be rejected for subject matter. It should only be rejected because is isn't a good hook. If someone is arguing that a hook should be rejected because the subject is of too limited interest, that's a reason to bring it here to talk. Any subject can potentially have a good hook. The problem is typically that either 1. there simply isn't a good hook in the article or 2. the nom rejects hooks other editors are arguing are more broadly interesting. Valereee (talk) 01:55, 17 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. Fields and subjects should never by themselves be rejected at DYK. It is only when proposed hooks are unclear to those who are not specialists in that topic would could such hooks be declined under existing rules. In the case of American football, hooks should not be rejected solely because the hook is about that sport. However, considering the sport is not popular outside of a handful of countries, hooks about it should be easily understandable even to those unfamiliar with the sport. Indeed, WP:DYKSG#C2 specifically deals with the topic under consideration here. To be fair, this concern does not only concern American football, but even other specialist topics where information may not necessarily be understandable to non-specialists. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 02:07, 17 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Procedural meta-discussion
@Storye book:I've reverted your addition of a retroactive "three lines max" rule to the voting section, as well as your addition of a number of boldfaced addenda to my and others' comments, which violated both WP:TPO and WP:SHOUTING. I fail to see how allowing normal-length comments in the Votes section, as is common in every RfC I've ever participated in, is either unfair to anyone, or somehow "has the effect of campaigning". All discussions on Wikipedia, even ones styled as "votes", are consensus-building exercises, and it is anathema to that goal to say that someone can't write a paragraph explaining why they are voting a particular way. Even if you disagree with that, appending boldfaced objections on the same lines as others' comments, for violating a rule that you created after the fact, is certainly not the solution. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe) 10:01, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I don't think you should ask people to move responses to one another that's already happened, it means it ends up somewhere it makes no sense. And it isn't campaigning to explain one's vote or ask someone about theirs. Most RfCs don't need to be limited. This one's unlikely to become contentious. Valereee (talk) 10:15, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
(Edit conflict) I don't mind your reversion. That is fine. It was an attempt to resolve a problem, but in retrospect I see that it was not going to work. I did that because this particular controversy always results in endless discussion which gets us nowhere. Yes, it lets people air their views, and we have all learned from it, but that amount of overwhelming and unstructured discussion has so far not resolved anything, from anyone's point of view. That is why I created the voting section, in the hope that we could count numbers and see if there was going to be a consensus. Although the long comments and discussion bits in the voting were not yet overwhelming, I could see from the above discussion (and all the previous ones on DYK templates) that in due course it was very likely to overflow and suffocate that actual voting. My method did not work, I agree, but I do hope that people will not let the discussion bits get out of hand, and will allow the voting to continue to be structured and clear to all. That's what I meant about fairness: structure and clarity for their voting, which, as I write, they still have. Storye book (talk) 10:17, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, this isn't a "vote". It's a !vote ("not vote"), a discussion about whether to change policy, and there will be someone assessing consensus to close it, and they'll take into account the arguments made by the !voters, not just count the numbers. That's part of the reason we allow people to provide a voting statement and ask others to clarify: so that the closer understands their !vote. Valereee (talk) 10:22, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Voting
If you have another ALT in mind, please add it to the list below. Whether or not you have suggested an ALT, please vote using one of the following: No change, ALTnumber, or Other, giving a brief reason if you wish. If you have a long or complex reason, please add that to the discussion above, so that the voting remains clear at a glance. Thank you. Note: Of course you can at any time edit and change your own vote, e.g. in response to a new ALT having been added.Storye book (talk) 17:27, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALTs
ALT0: The hook should include a definite fact that is mentioned in the article, and interesting to a broad audience (existing rule at Wikipedia:DYK#gen3)
ALT1: The hook should include a definite fact that is mentioned in the article, and interesting to a broad audience where possible, or interesting to a specific audience where article content demands it. Storye book (talk) 13:14, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT2: The hook should include a definite fact that is mentioned in the article, and interesting. (as suggested by Gerda Arendt above). Storye book (talk) 17:27, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT3: The hook should include a definite fact that is mentioned in the article, and is either interesting to a broad audience or exceptionally interesting to a specific audience. Valereee (talk) 02:32, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT4: The hook should include a definite fact that is mentioned in the article. (as suggested by Kevmin below). Storye book (talk) 11:28, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT5: The hook should include a definite fact mentioned in the article and likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing to readers with no special knowledge or interest. (Added by EEng 20:38, 10 November 2022 (UTC) -- see below.)[reply]
ALT6: The hook should include a definite fact mentioned in the article. It should be likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing to readers with no special knowledge or interest or exceptionally interesting to a specific audience. Lowest-common-denominator clickbait should be avoided. Storye book (talk) 10:31, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Votes
ALT2, because it opens the word "interesting" to wider interpretation. Storye book (talk) 17:37, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT2, but I think that this vote should a request for comment for a community-wide discussion. SL93 (talk) 17:39, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT5 > ALT0 > other options. I am a bit sympathetic to the reasoning behind ALT1 but we really do need to have some standards. ALT1 or even ALT2 are too broad and could open the possibility of hooks that are inappropriate or even not hooks at all. They could even open the possibility of hooks being just about anything about a subject, which would be impractical. Finally, on DYK, while I am sympathetic to the idea of DYK needing to have something for everyone, that doesn't mean that just because a topic is niche doesn't mean the hook should be niche too. And while I understand that the idea for ALT1 is to still prefer broad interest hooks whenever possible, if there is truly a good reason not to have a more specialist hook, IAR already exists. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 19:26, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I am also open to ALT3, but my concern with ALT3 is what would count as "exceptionally interesting". Do we take the nominator's word for something being exceptional, or would that require further discussion? Because anything can be exceptional to anyone. In fact, it's one of the main reasons why I oppose ALT2 as currently proposed, since simply saying a hook has to be "interesting" could actually cause further debates on whether or not something actually is interesting in the first place. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 03:11, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yep. It's basically an attempt to make sure that if we're going to go with a hook that is not broadly interesting, it's at minimum exceptionally interesting to a niche audience. Doesn't solve the subjectivity issue. But it gives us the chance to ask, "Why is this exceptionally interesting to those interested in X?" When to a broad audience it's not readily apparent where the interest is. Valereee (talk) 03:25, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
In terms of options my preferences would be ALT0 (the status quo) > ALT5 > ALT3 > ALT1 > ALT2 and ALT4. ALT4 is just too broad and could open up DYK to having mundane or routine hooks. ALT3 may work but it's basically just codifying IAR exemptions for ALT0 cases. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 23:48, 10 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Now that I think about this more, I think ALT5 would be the best option here, although ALT0 (the status quo) is also a possible option. What I like about ALT5 is that it basically clarifies the meaning of "interesting to a broad audience", a criterion that has been a source of contention here for years, primarily over what exactly counts as being interesting to a broad audience. Rewriting the criterion to something clearer would help end such discussions and give some much-needed clarity with regards on what should be used at hooks, while still maintaining the spirit of the original rule and the desire to make "hooky" hooks. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 03:29, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT2, (or removing "interesting" fully, as irrelevant to it is already ON wiki not needing to further prove itself to a select minute group of gate keepers.--Kevmin§ 20:18, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT2 works best in my view. Schwede66 20:20, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT0. I've only been doing preps for a couple of months, but I'm already getting into burnout mode. It's running in place to keep the queues and preps full because we're trying to promote 16 hooks a day. I think we'd do better to have higher standards, even if that means fewer articles make the cut. Yeah, I know, WP:DYK says "DYK showcases new and improved content", doesn't say anything about "the best content" and WP:DYKNOT explicitly disowns quality as a criteria. I recognize this will probably be an unpopular viewpoint. -- RoySmith(talk) 20:31, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT5>ALT3>ALT0, as I'm concerned anything could be considered interesting to someone.Valereee (talk) 22:00, 6 November 2022 (UTC) ETA: All of these preferable to Alts 1 & 2. Alt4 is a definite no for me, that changes completely what DYK is about IMO. Literally any fact? So "Did you know ... that snow is cold?" That's a damn important fact about snow. Valereee (talk) 02:35, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It wont though, again I will note our Nots, and point 2 specifically, which starts with DYK is not A collection of general trivia,.... your worry is a non-starter--Kevmin§ 17:10, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The fact snow is cold is not trivia. It might be the most important fact about snow. Valereee (talk) 19:56, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Valereee: honestly, I want to run that hook out of curiosity. Just to see if we have the solid reputation for quirkiness we've been trying to cultivate. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 21:21, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately Snow is already GA. Dammit. Valereee (talk) 21:54, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT5 or ALT0, as the others are too lax. I would supporting "interesting to an audience outside the general field of relevance" or some such, but we can't have a situation where a nom can say "well I find this interesting" and we can't change it at all. Also: I think we need to get use to the idea that some routine articles, particularly very short ones on natural history or biography, may not be a good fit for DYK. Vanamonde (Talk) 22:49, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The options are spiraling out of control a little, and we should be wary of adding so many that the result is not discernible. I suggest pinging those who participated before new ALTs were added. That said; I support 5, which not only addresses the "broadly interesting" concern, it improves on our current definition and disallows things that are too niche as well. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:05, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Pinging those who haven't !voted/updated their !votes/continued commenting since we started sprouting ALTs: @SL93, @Schwede66, @RoySmith, @Chipmunkdavis, @Maile66, @Tamzin, @Dumelow, @Khajidha, @Kusma to see if we can gain consensus here on one of the added ALTs. Sorry if I missed anyone! Valereee (talk) 15:04, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm still going with ALT0. -- RoySmith(talk) 15:12, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Also sticking with ALT0, no need to complicate things with "likely" and additional clauses - Dumelow (talk) 16:34, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT0, per existing practice and above discussion. There will always be a grey area, and shifting the grey area towards encouraging content less interesting to most readers does not seem beneficial. CMD (talk) 01:44, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The alts are growing. I don't remember which ones were there at the time of my vote, so to go through them. ALT0 remains a good principle. ALTs1-3 are dilutions of this principle for no clear gain. ALT4 is the complete abandonment of the principle so that's not great. ALT5 is a synonym of ALT0 so, if we want to make the rules longer, sure. ALT.6 is the ALT1-3 of ALT5. So, ALT0>ALT5. CMD (talk) 15:14, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT2: Is probably the most workable wording. We only need to require it to be interesting. The others - "interesting to a broad audience" - is very subjective and requires the reviewer or promoter to decide what that broad audience is. How broad is broad, and what are the qualifying demographics therein? — Maile (talk) 01:58, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
But how interesting is interesting? I'm with you on the subjectivity of broad, but I'm not sure requiring it to be interesting rather than broadly interesting fixes the subjectiveness. Doesn't it sort of just require us to take the nominator's word for it? Valereee (talk) 02:14, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I agree with you. But of the three options above, ALT2 seems the best. I'm pretty confident that among our ranks are some who will challenge what that term means. — Maile (talk) 02:25, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT3/ALT5 tie [see below], second third choice ALT0. There are some articles where there's an opportunity for a hook that will very much appeal to people with interest in a particular topic, but sound meaningless to outsiders. For instance, to make up a hook, "... that Noah Syndergaard pitched a complete game shutout in which he homered for his team's only run of the game" probably sounds indistinguishable from any other baseball fact to a non-fan, but is in fact an incredibly rare achievement that we don't even have an article on, and is very alluring to anyone with more-than-casual interest in baseball. There should be a place for those hooks, so I really like Valereee's ALT3. But I also think that's de facto the case with ALT0 already (and you could argue that if something is going to be "exceptionally interesting" to a narrow audience, it will at least be nontrivially interesting to a broad one, who might at least recognize "Hmm that sounds impressive maybe idk"), so ALT0 is my second choice. Oppose ALT1 or ALT2; it's not that hard to make a hook at least nontrivially interesting to a broad audience, and if it is, it's usually a sign that the article needs some more work. Oppose ALT6's third sentence, and overall don't think combining 3 and 5 is necessary [again see below].-- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe) 05:52, 7 November 2022 (UTC) ed. 15:20, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the ping, Valereee. I've updated my !vote to place ALT5 equal to ALT3. While the two sound quite different, I think they functionally have the same effect: Anything that meets the second prong of ALT3 will likely sound unusual or intriguing to the average person (or, at least, some wording exists that can make it sound unusual). Especially because if something makes a reader wonder, "Hmm, is that unusual?", that in itself is intriguing. (We just have to make sure there's a payoff answer of "yes".) Like if I saw a hook that were, "... that such-and-such house was built with a mix of material X and material Y," I might click through to find out what makes that combination special. If unclear, this can always be emhasized with language like "unusually", "a rare feat", etc. E.g. at Template:Did you know nominations/Atkinson Hyperlegible I realized that the average reader wouldn't know that it's unusual for a typeface to be non-uniform, without which knowledge the hook would seem routine, and so chose to say that explicitly. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe) 15:20, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I just get a giggle out of the fact that Atkinson Hyperlegible "began as part of a visual rebranding at the Braille Institute". Kind of like the one I got when I heard a school make an announcement over the intercom about its sign language club. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:29, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT0, the Main Page is there primarily to serve the reader. If the hook is not interesting to the general reader then what is the point of posting it? I am sure I am guilty of nominating some boring hooks in the past (or interesting only to a niche audience), but if the upshot of this is that we become more rigorous in vetting and rejecting sub-optimum hooks then I would support that, even if it reduces the amount that can run - Dumelow (talk) 11:54, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT0 - a hook should be interesting enough that someone who knows little and even cares little about the general topic would be intrigued (without being misleading and not phrased so that the reader is so confused that they have to click through to have any clue what is being said). --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:55, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
PS - definitely agree with the idea that not every article needs to be submitted to DYK. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:57, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
'ALT 5 is a better phrasing of the principle. All the others are too open to allowing bad hooks. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:10, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT4. Which hook writer doesn't want to say something interesting? Even with a broad readership in mind? - Only: users will never agree on what exactly will intrigue which kind of general audience, and what exactly "interesting" means. - When I review hooks I bring my view into play, but in case of no agreement let the author decide who usually knows best what's most interesting about a given subject, and may be good for a broad audience to learn about even if not yet interested in a topic. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:45, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
We now have ALT5 but that's too complicated for my taste. Rather ALT2, plain "interesting", which tries to say the same shorter: something unusual, good to know for everybody even if not previously interested in a subject. - I see many hook mentioning names, for example, which I haven't heard before, but then I can find out by a click, and learn. My interest in the topic isn't required, only my interest in knowing something new, which is what DYK should be about. The hook that brought us here mentions Zubin Mehta, - please tell me, you who support ALT0 and possible reject the Talia Or hook - if his life is not interesting to a broad readership. User:Narutolovehinata5, User:RoySmith, User:Vanamonde93, User:Chipmunkdavis, User:Dumelow , User:Khajidha, User:Epicgenius, User:David Eppstein. Please bring concerns to that open nomination. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:10, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT3/ALT0 per Tamzin. While most sports hooks are just [1] to me, I'm sure that many of them are exciting to some people. Things should be interesting in their context, not necessarily to everyone. —Kusma (talk) 17:43, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
And ALT5 is a better way to write the same idea. —Kusma (talk) 16:14, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALTs 5>0>3, oppose 1, 2, and 4 – I do like what Valereee is putting down here. The key is that hooks, no matter which stripes they appeal to, avoid being simply routine. I elaborated on this somewhat here – any hook is gonna have some core interested audience who will click on the bolded article no matter what's around it. That's not something I'm particularly interested in cultivating. But some hooks are uniquely and exceptionally interesting to their niche in a way that isn't easily replicable in another field, even when they don't have broad-audience appeal, and those are worth running. I would rather stick with the status quo, if only because the subjectivity of interestingness is such that the rare few hooks that fall under ALT3 can generally be IARed through – all of the hooks I criticized in that previous discussion were approved as interesting without controversy. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 21:21, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've spent far more effort than I care to admit, for literally more than a decade, trying to reform the "interestingness" requirement, and I should know better than to try again. Nonetheless, for what it's worth I've added ALT5, which drops the variations on "interesting" in favor of likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing to readers with no special knowledge or interest. A bit wordy, and still very much requiring the application of judgment to each case, but I hope capturing more of the spirit of what we want, which is (ideally) "man bites dog".EEng 20:38, 10 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. ALT5 also inverts the question of who the audience is. Instead of saying the hook should appeal to a "broad audience", it instead says the hook's appeal should not be limited to specialists, which I think is a bit easier to think about. EEng 02:05, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT0/ALT5. I think all hooks should be interesting enough that many readers will click on them. The hooks do not need to be interesting to all readers, or even most of them, because there are some topics that certain readers would never click, but they need to at least be appealing to a decently large crowd. If we were to tailor hooks to specific audiences, then we would be writing for very small audiences indeed - the probability that someone who actually has special knowledge/interest of the topic will decline for more obscure topics. On the other hand, if a hook is likely to be interesting to readers without special knowledge or interest, then it's very likely to be interesting to a broad audience. The vast majority of readers do not have special knowledge of, or special interest in, any given article that appears on DYK. – Epicgenius (talk) 23:49, 10 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT0, second choice ALT5 I do not think it's appropriate to remove the interesting to a broad audience requirement. Otherwise, what's to stop someone, for instance, from making hooks like "Did you know that the Wood River Branch Railroad opened on July 1, 1874?" It's a definite fact, mentioned in the article, and verifiable, right? But how is that at all interesting (unless you're really, really interested in Rhode Island railroads, like I am, and even then I wouldn't find that an interesting hook)? Compare to the hook which actually ran, which is "Did you know that the Wood River Branch Railroad was once sold for $301?" I realize this is always going to be somewhat subjective, but I don't think many would disagree the hook that ran is far more interesting than the example I gave which would satisfy the requirements of ALT4. ALT2 is even more subjective than the current rule, I don't see how it would be helpful. What counts as interesting? At least the existing rules give some guardrails, if you will. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 00:44, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Even if I do say so myself, I don't think you're giving ALT5 the credit it deserves. It very neatly disqualifies Did you know that the Wood River Branch Railroad opened on July 1, 1874?, because zillions of railroads were opening in the 19th century so there's nothing surprising or intriguing there. On the other had, if it said, The ancient Egyptians used a railroad to build the pyramids, then that would be surprising/intriguing to a nonspecialist, as is Railroad sold for $301. See how well it works? EEng 01:49, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Alt2 for the same rationale set forth by Maile. At least this narrows the subjective element to "interesting" and doesn't require a second subjective determination of what might appeal to a "broad" audience. The key IMO is that hooks need to be sufficiently interesting (or "hooky") to persuade the viewer to want to "click" and learn more. Cbl62 (talk) 00:59, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT0 or ALT5. "Interesting" without qualification is too open to insistance that "it's interesting to me, therefore it's interesting". FYI, if you look at which topics are interesting-enough to me to create articles about them, you would see an unending stream of daily "did you know that X is a professor of mathematics who did Y" hooks, occasionally mixed with other topics in mathematics. I only nominate them when I can find some sort of non-mathematical hook to give them general interest, which is more like a couple of times per month instead of daily. These are indeed all interesting to me, and in fact I am strongly convinced that they are equally interesting to the daily "did you know that X is a baroque musician who performed Y" hooks, so I would expect them all (or at least the ones that meet the minimum character count) to qualify for DYK under ALT2. I don't think that would be a good idea, I think opening the doors to similarly-monomaniacal editors would be a serious mistake, and I think we should get more serious about shutting down the ones who think those doors are already open. ALT1 doesn't help; it's just a longwinded way of writing ALT2 but logically boils down to the same thing. ALT4 is opening the doors even wider, even more of a mistake. And ALT3 is too wishy-washy to make a good rule. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:25, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT5 or ALT0 - "interesting" itself is too subjective (for instance, I consider an archaeological treatise describing all of the metallic objects found at the Custer's Last Stand site with a metal detector in the mid-1980s to be one of the most fascinating things I've ever read), and I find it a bit concerning at exceptionally interesting to a specific audience is essentially the definition of fancruft. ("Did you know that USS Sidney C. Jones required $21,352.82 in repair costs during her career in the Union Navy?") Hog FarmTalk 14:25, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, I'd see any argument by a nom that a hook is "exceptionally interesting to a specific audience" as something that 1. requires an explanation of how/why and 2. could be taken to talk for discussion. It should be relatively unusual. I do see your point about fancruft, though. Valereee (talk) 14:46, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT5, then ALT0. Wikipedia has an international audience with readers that have many interests. In my opinion, the goal of DYK is to get people to read the bolded article, which someone has worked hard on expanding and getting more information. A hook that is appealing to a broad audience of non-experts is more likely to accomplish this, which is why I like ALT5 best. Z1720 (talk) 15:28, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT5>ALT0>ALT6 on the basis of Hog Farm's reasoning above (what is exceptionally interesting to a specific audience might often actively discourage general interest). ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:01, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT0. The current situation appears to be working; DYK hooks should be interesting to a broad audience, but that doesn't mean that a DYK hook has to be interesting to someone who knows next-to-nothing about your topic. There are some topics that are widely known culturally, like Star Wars, and Queen Elizabeth II; it would not make sense to prohibit hooks unless they were to appeal to the people living under a rock who are unaware of them. — Red-tailed hawk(nest) 05:01, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Which is not what ALT5 is saying. So I'm not sure what your point is. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:58, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Runoff?
So, we've got essentially 4 choices here. (If anyone discovers I've miscounted the !votes, just strike and correct the numbers).
No change (ALT0) 14 !votes, almost all of whom ranked multiple options, almost all 5 or 3
Loosen (ALTS 1, 2, 4) 7 !votes
Define (ALT 5) 12 !votes, almost all of whom ranked multiple options, almost all 0 or 3
Define and slightly loosen (ALTs 3 & 6) 3 !votes, all of whom also liked either 5 or 0 or both
This seems like clearly there is interest in making a change, and that change would involve defining as likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing to readers with no special knowledge or interest, with a very few people also supporting adding a slight loosening: or exceptionally interesting to a specific audience. But there were also a significant number who definitely preferred loosening at least somewhat. I'm thinking rather than asking someone to close, which could end with no consensus for anything, maybe a runoff with no more ALTs added? Something like:
ALT0 (No change to the existing rule at Wikipedia:DYK#gen3): The hook should include a definite fact that is mentioned in the article, and interesting to a broad audience
ALT5: The hook should include a definite fact mentioned in the article and likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing to readers with no special knowledge or interest.
ALT6: The hook should include a definite fact mentioned in the article and likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing to readers with no special knowledge or interest or exceptionally interesting to a specific audience.
While in the original discussion ALT6 got no actual votes, it was suggested by someone who does want some loosening of requirements and using it here would allow us to capture the feelings of those who want that. Thoughts? Valereee (talk) 16:56, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep it simple. Notions of interestingness as being discussed here are dangerously close to majoritarianism. e.g. what is to think that the group evaluating the hooks (all of us) are representative of the general or specific (i.e. topic aware) audience out there? The analytics time and again proves that there are popular topics, but, that does not mean we should not have topics that don't fall into the popular topic set. With all that said - any subjective read of "interestingness" however broadly defined or specifically defined is plain wrong. Keep it simple. Recommend no changes. Ktin (talk) 19:13, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Ktin, just to be clear, no change means we keep "interesting to a broad audience". Valereee (talk) 19:17, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've added the current language to prevent any confusion. Valereee (talk) 19:17, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Speaking for myself here, I am finding all the ALTs terribly confusing. Let's keep it simple and go with the nominator's read for interestingness. I have often found myself questioning lines of thinking that over-indexes for page clicks. Ktin (talk) 18:53, 13 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Ktin:. Forgive me; I hope I'm not making things worse here, by asking you to explain what you mean. You say above that you want to make no change, i.e. keep ALT0. Now, if you keep ALT0, you get the reviewer's concept of a broad audience's concept of interestingness (= Reviewer wins on interestingness). But in your last comment you said, "keep it simple and go with the nominator's read for interestingness" (= DYK nominator wins on interestingness). Have you changed your mind? Or are you talking about some other nominator somewhere else? I'm not trying to argue one side or the other here - I just want to understand what you mean. Storye book (talk) 19:47, 13 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
My read was that Ktin was in effect supporting ALT2 in the original discussion? Valereee (talk) 20:03, 13 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Storye book I continue to remain confused by the ALTs. Here's my observation. Speaking for myself -- When I review a hook, I do not pretend to know more about the topic than the nominator themselves. So, if I do not understand the "interestingness" of a hook, I almost always defer to the nominator. Similarly when I propose a hook, I have had well meaning reviewers rework the hook for "interestingness" and completely miss the point in their quest on a topic that they do not know much on. The good thing is that most of the reviewers on this project are collaborative, but that should not be taken for granted. Now, bringing it back to this voting exercise -- I would recommend that any notions of "interestingness" be left to the nominator. The current wording on the guidelines is sufficiently broad enough to have the reviewer trust the nominator's read of the topic. Hence my recommendation of do nothing. Alternately, you could just do away with "interestingness" and look for factuality. It seems like that's what @Valereee is suggesting in the above comment. PS: I personally am not a big fan of clickbaity hooks in the quest for making it interesting. But, I understand that it appeals to a broad range of project contributors. I do not wish to challenge that, but I try to avoid that in my hooks. My best wishes. Ktin (talk) 01:08, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, but your approach is absolutely backwards to what it should be. If you, who do not pretend to know more about the topic than the nominator also do not understand the "interestingness" of a hook then that's a warning sign that the hook may not appeal to our readers. Turning it around, if reviewers completely miss the point of your hook because it's on a topic that they do not know much on, then your hook is at fault, not the reviewer: a reviewer should not need special knowledge in order to appreciate the hook. EEng 04:11, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm definitely not suggesting we do away with requiring that hooks be interesting to a broad audience, myself. I'm in favor of clarifying what consensus is. What I intended to say with My read was that Ktin was in effect supporting ALT2 in the original discussion? was that you were saying we should do away with it. Valereee (talk) 12:16, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Ktin and Valereee. I understand now, and it so happens that I agree with you, Ktin. It so happens that I agree with you, also, EEng#s, yet on the face of it you are utterly opposed to each other regarding policy. I believe that the reason is simply that you are each seeing "our audience" in a completely different way. Of course, I may not make assumptions as to how you are each perceiving our readers, but I would suggest that it is possible that a large contingent of contributors who have made themselves primary to this discussion see them as similar to the majority in their own culture, that is, intelligent, but who would happily acknowledge limited knowledge and limited everyday interest; who are most likely to know a lot about their national popular culture, but are likely to be ignorant of, and maybe even resentful of, specialist subjects and the culture of other nations. I think it is possible that we have a second, smaller, but vocal contingent of contributors here whose education or life experience has allowed them to understand and be actively curious about a great deal more. And each contingent is modelling their concept of "our audience" on themselves. I believe that that issue is what has stymied discussion on templates such as Talia Or, and that is why you two, Ktin and Eeng, cannot comprehend each others' views.
Before reading your exchange today, I had been thinking about this, and realised that no genuine consensus can be reached in the !voting, due to opposing concepts of "our readers". If we are left with ALT0, then future DYK reviews will tighten up on that point, nominations like Talia Or will be closed down for sure, and specialist-article-with-no-quirky-bits-type nominators will have nowhere to go on WP, publicity-wise. Should we end up with one of the inclusive ALTs, allowing reviewers to pass two sorts of hooks (for "broad audience" and "specialist audience"), than I fear that quite a few of our no-change voters here would not take that quietly. To summarise, I think that this discussion is a hiding to nowhere, because whatever the outcome, decision or consensus, we will all get hurt somehow.
Trying to win the argument or giving in won't help us, in my opinion, because the end result is going to hurt one set of us. I don't believe that either "side" can win, in that we cannot work together on DYK constructively, even though we are all doing our best for WP, and most of us have honestly tried so hard to work together. I believe that we have to split. I have not really thought it through, yet, but an initial thought might be to introduce a second, maybe smaller, section on the Main Page for plain, factual hooks about specialist articles (while the current DYK section remains the same size as at present). Nominators could elect to be in that section, even though, if it is smaller, it might imply an even longer wait for Main Page exposure. The new section could be called Our newest specialist articles or whatever. Nominators aiming for that section would of course have to abide by all the existing DYK rules, except the one about "interesting to a broad audience". That way, our no-change people in this discussion would get what they want, the Talia Or template would not be closed down, and we would all be at peace.
If I get no replies revealing legal/technical blocks to the above suggestion of a new little Main Page section, then I'll consider starting a new, separate discussion about it. Storye book (talk) 12:23, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Storye book, I think you're arguing we need two DYK sections, one that requires hooks be interesting and the other not? And if you get no replies it may be because that's a lot of text for people to wade through. Valereee (talk) 12:47, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
After trying to wade through it, it seems you are accusing those of us who want hooks to be interesting of having little curiosity and education and being resentful of those who do. That is a hideous accusation, and I am having a hard time finding any good faith in it at all. Valereee (talk) 12:57, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It's like when Harold Carswell's nomination to the US Supreme Court was criticized because his legal scholarship was mediocre, 40% of his decisions having being overturned on appeal. One senator said: Even if he were mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they, and a little chance? We can't have all Brandeises, Frankfurters and Cardozos. DYK should be the same way: mediocre hooks need representation as well. EEng 13:06, 14 November 2022 (UTC) That was meant ironically, BTW.[reply]
And, hey, we love the poorly educated! Valereee (talk) 13:07, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Everyone should click on the link there at the end of Khajidha's post to appreciate his beautiful, perfect example. EEng 16:06, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely no objections to you going off to work on starting your "Important facts that may not interest you but the article creator thinks you should know" section on the MP. That would solve a lot of problems around here. Probably want to do it at Talk:Main Page, though, not here at DYK. Valereee (talk) 13:35, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Should we end up with one of the inclusive ALTs, allowing reviewers to pass two sorts of hooks (for "broad audience" and "specialist audience"), than I fear that quite a few of our no-change voters here would not take that quietly.Storye book, I'm afraid I'm not understanding what you mean? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 10:04, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I still think ALT5 is the best compromise we have. ALT0's wording has been problematic for years and is arguably too vague. ALT5 is basically ALT0 but with greater clarity. ALT6 is too wishy-washy: as some editors that mentioned above, a hook that is exceptionally interesting to a specific audience will very likely also intrigue non-specialist audiences too, which makes that clause rather pointless. I'm also concerned about how to define "exceptional" here. It seems even more subjective than "interesting to a broad audience" ever was; to a very passionate fan, perhaps anything can be exceptional. I imagine trying to discuss how exactly a hook is "exceptionally interesting" would just deviate much needed resources from actual primary reviews. ALT5 is still quite simple and if there is truly a desire to make a more specialist hook, such requests could be covered more by IAR than a clause. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 22:50, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've read Storye book's new comments above regarding a proposed split to DYK, and there are some things that came to my mind:
First, and I am going to be frank here, I think we have to be more willing to accept the idea that not every article is meant to be for DYK. Not every article, no matter how much we expand or improve them, is destined to be featured on DYK. There are some topics that are just simply not a good fit, or perhaps there are article issues that are simply insurmountable given current policies and guidelines. This is not necessarily our fault or the fault of the subject. It could be the article just doesn't have any material that would work as a hook, specialist or non-specialist alike. We all aspire to have our content featured on DYK, and the feeling of failure (or the fear of it) can be painful. We've all been there, and I'll be the first to admit that I've felt that way multiple times in my years here. But we need to accept that, sometimes, it's just not meant to be. We don't have to nominate everything we create or improve for DYK. And that's okay: think of DYK as just being a bonus. We're all improving the encyclopedia in our own little way, and even if our work doesn't make it to DYK, someone, somewhere out there will still benefit from our work regardless. If an article just can't meet DYK requirements, we don't need to waste our time and energy to force to happen. We can instead divert our time and effort to other articles that may actually work out for DYK instead.
Secondly, I simply do not understand the resistance to the idea that "specialist" topics can have broad interest hooks. Just because a topic is specialist does not mean the subject cannot be treated in such a way that non-specialists can appreciate it too. Whether the topic involved is classical music, New York buildings, ballet, radio, anime musicians, and so on, non-specialist hooks are possible. I'll give an example from my own primary DYK article interest considering I'll be the first to admit it's niche. A while back, an article I brought to GA status, Eir Aoi, was featured on the main page. Considering I'm a big anime and anison (anime music) fan, I could have proposed a hook that targeted primarily anime fans (to the exclusion of everyone else), but I did not. Instead, I proposed a hook that I felt that would make even a person who'd never heard of Aoi or anime music be interested in her. And indeed, that hook went on to be pretty well-received by readers. My point is: just because a topic is specialist or niche does not mean a hook has to be too. It's perfectly possible to write a broad interest hook about a specialist topic, and it happens all the time. I do not see why there's resistance to writing a broad interest hook based on a specialist article, especially when a broad appeal fact already exists.
Thirdly, I don't understand the opposition to "clickbait". I mean, isn't that technically what DYK is already? Trying to invite readers to read an article by highlighting an interesting fact about the subject? That's pretty much already clickbait, and if there is opposition to the idea of clickbait on DYK, it would be more feasible to simply abolish DYK altogether, since eliminating "clickbait" would involve fundamentally changing DYK's purpose.
Finally, I think the proposal to make two sets of DYKs (one for broad interest hooks and one for specialist hooks) is a non-starter. It would just add needless complexity to an already very bureaucratic aspect of Wikipedia. It also connects to my point above: it just begs the question of why not just propose a broad interest hook about a subject and get it done and over with, rather than insisting on a specialist hook.
Emphatic agreement: The idea of a new, separate section is a nonstarter. Forget it.
Now a bit more from he who proposed ALT5 (likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing to readers with no special knowledge or interest): I originally considered including the phrase intellectually curious: likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing to an intellectually curious reader with no special knowledge or interest. You'll notice this is a slight lowering of the bar: it imagines a reader who actively enjoys learning new things, and might click on something an incurious person would pass up. If we added intellectually curious, would that address your concern, Storye book?I also want to underline that I chose the word intriguing (to supplement surprising, which requires no explanation) for a definite reason. You need to understand something in order to be surprised by it, but intriguing allows for the possibility that there's "just something about" the hook that makes the reader want to click, even though he may not fully understand it. Perhaps classic examples:
... that the Vicar of Brighton got shot in the twitten? – Many readers will have no idea what a twitten is, and therefore won't really understand the hook, and yet I think you can see that many will click just for the intrigue of it.
... that J. J. Stiffler's "unparalleled ... landmark" Theory of Synchronous Communications (1971) sprang from NASA's need for power-efficient synchronization of data transmission for its space probes? – Most readers won't have more than a vague idea what in the world power-efficient synchronization could be, but they know what a space probe is, and may be intrigued by why NASA would need this power-efficient thingamajig for them.
In both of the above, in other words, the hook need not be understood (in full, anyway) -- it merely needs to intrigue. In fact (it occurs to me as I write), perhaps the key is that they combine something that is understood (a man of the cloth got shot; what a space probe is) with something that's not (a twitten -- possibly part of this divine's anatomy?; synchronous communication). The intellectually curious reader will think: Hmmm... I wonder how that strange thing ties in with that familiar thing?
I'm on board with adding 'intellectually curious'. And twitten, new word. Valereee (talk) 16:51, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Eh, I'm not really a fan of adding that phrase. ALT5 was already intended to be a concise clarification of ALT0; just adding more clauses makes it unnecessarily complex. Adding that clause, rather than it being implicit, also seems to imply that not all of our readers are "intellectually curious", which could actually be interpreted as being mildly insulting. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 17:07, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
lol...to steal unashamedly from George Carlin: think about how intellectually incurious the average person is. Then realize that half of people are even less intellectually curious than that. :D Valereee (talk) 17:10, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It's not insulting, but merely realistic, to suppose that there's a species of reader who's unlikely click on something unless it involves a topic in which he already has an existing interest. By adding curious -- I suppose we can do without intellectual -- we invoke a reader who is inclined to want to learn things, just for the pleasure of learning, given a slight nudge. But it's not important either way. EEng 19:43, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm just making a note here that some of the argument above, about my speculative understanding of two opposing concepts of "broad audience", was misinterpreted above, as if I had been using it to personally insult two individuals. That misunderstanding found its way to my talkpage, where I explained what I was doing and what I meant. I repeat here that I have never had any reason to insult either EEng or Valereee, nor did I intend to do so in my comment above. The misunderstanding seems to have stemmed at least partly from my formal use of the word, "ignorant" (which in Standard English means innocently not knowing about stuff; they - I think - may have taken it to mean something nasty in slang usage). The word "resentment" was also taken to cause personal offence, but I understood resentment on DYK templates to be comparatively rare, and to be exemplified in the use of the word "monomaniac" by someone else earlier in this discussion, and that's why I used the phrase, "maybe even". I hope that is now clear. I am not about being nasty to people. What on earth would be the point?
Meanwhile, since no-one has told me that requesting an extra section on the Main Page is not allowed, I am still considering starting a new discussion about it. Contrary to speculation above, the idea is not an attempt to promote sub-standard articles (whyever should it be?) It is a positive attempt to find a solution which will allow supporters of ALT0 (and similar) to retain the existing DYK Main Page section exactly as it is, while keeping the rules for that section exactly as they are now. What's not to like - about that bit at least. The only potentially controversial bit is my suggestion of a new section for those nominators (mainly of satisfactory specialist articles) who elect not to have quirky hooks, but who want factual hooks instead. And that section would have to be run under rules identical to the existing DYK system, except for one thing only; that the hook did not have to be "interesting to a broad audience". Storye book (talk) 17:18, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Quite frankly, having a separate section for separate specialist hooks or information seems completely unnecessary and would just add more complexity to the Main Page. It just begs the question: why just not simply propose quirky hooks? What is wrong with quirky hooks? Why the insistence on making a specialist hook rather than simply writing a hook that is intriguing even to non-specialists? Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 17:24, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Narutolovehinata5, I'm actually wondering if a one-line "Fact of the Day" might take some pressure off of DYK and allow those who really want that One Most Important Fact to appear. Valereee (talk) 17:58, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
We'll, we may as well agree to call it Today in German classical music right now. EEng 18:08, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't even have to be quirky. Just not banal. No "singer sang song", "building was built", "station began broadcasting", etc. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 21:38, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea, Valereee. I think we'd need the full up-to-200 characters, though. Storye book (talk) 18:13, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I was using 200 characters as "one-line" as that's what DYK limits it to. But knock yourself out. It's a discussion I'd likely have no opinion on. Valereee (talk) 18:17, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Nope, didn't think you were using it the way ignorant people here in SW OH use it: stupid. Interpreted it as the actual meaning. Because I assumed you weren't ignorant. Or stupid. Also that discussion would probably appropriately be at Talk:Main Page. Valereee (talk) 17:24, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, thank you, Valereee. So if I do open that discussion, I'll do it on Talk:Main Page. I have only recently started taking any initiative in this sort of meta discussion; it is still all new to me, and I'm learning as I go along.
@Narutolovehinata5: Thank you for your amazing new suggestion: "Why the insistence on making a specialist hook rather than simply writing a hook that is intriguing even to non-specialists?" Why have I never heard that before? You know that I already agree that "writing a hook that is intriguing even to non-specialists" is absolutely fine, I admire what we currently have on the DYK section of the Main Page, and some of those clever hooks were no doubt helped on their way by your good self, and you know that I admire that. That said, some of us want something else as well. Now, how about some respect going both ways? Storye book (talk) 17:56, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW (as you've indicated you're new to this type of discussion): shorter is much, much, much better. It takes longer to write short, but more people will actually read your argument and potentially be persuaded. Anything over a couple hundred words just gets skipped over or at best skimmed. Valereee (talk) 18:21, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I just don't see the point of having a separate section for this kind of thing, instead of editors just following the existing rules. It seems much easier and less effort to simply follow the existing rules and propose broadly interesting hooks than to insist on a specialist hook and propose a new section of the Main Page to accommodate them. In addition, having a "Fact of the Day" section already seems redundant to DYK, so it seems very pointless. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 23:12, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Taking these numbers at face value, and assuming all the !votes for no change or define (0 and 5) overlap completely, and assuming there is no overlap between the two loosen options (including those who liked 0 and 5!), that's still a majority for no change/define. Not vote and all, but that's the best case numbers for change, and even in that best case there is not "clearly" an interest in making a change. If this is going to be debated further, the two questions (whether to reword broadly interesting as intriguing, and whether to add an exception case for hooks that are not broadly interesting) should be considered entirely independently. Running off between them feels liable to do little but muddy the discussion. CMD (talk) 05:23, 15 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Right now I'm not really seeing a consensus for relaxing the rules when it comes to interestingness requirements happening any time soon. I imagine though that if either the status quo remains or "interesting to a broad audience" is changed to "intriguing to non-specialists", if there is truly a desire to have a non-intriguing hook, either the hook must be rejected, or an IAR exemption can be granted if circumstances permit. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 15:06, 15 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
We do regularly have discussions about the "interestingness" criterion on this page, and there is some hope that defining it better could help resolve some of these discussions. —Kusma (talk) 15:46, 15 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, CMD, but I don't follow your reasoning. I agree it's clear there's no appetite for any loosening (ALTs 1, 2, 3, 4, 6) but that there's substantial interest in ALT5 as a clarifying way of seeing the original intent of ALT0 (and which, on the whole, makes things a bit tighter) -- and that interest came despite the fact that I introduced ALT5 very late in this discussion. So it seems to me that it would very much clarify things (not "muddy" them, as you say) would be to ping everyone back for a final opinion on ALT0 vs ALT5 (omitting the "intellectually curious" addendum). EEng 20:13, 15 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The "muddying" would be to discuss both the ALT5 rewording and the new exception at the same time, it was not a reference to the merits of either individual proposal. Your proposal for a specific discussion on just ALT0 and ALT5 matches mine exactly. I also didn't comment specifically on appetite for a change to ALT5, I was only commenting on appetite for loosening. CMD (talk) 01:18, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the clarification, Chipmunkdavis. I misunderstood. EEng 18:19, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@EEng: I'd say you start a straight, up-or-down discussion after this one is over. Things are a bit too hectic right now for anything to gain clear consensus in a new section. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 10:22, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I think this discussion pretty much is over, as no one's offering much in the way of new substantive thoughts on the question per se, but rather we're going around in circle wondering what to do next. See below. EEng 18:19, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Chipmunkdavis, actually I'd disagree. Twice as many people prefer either no change or define as are interested in loosening. And many of those listed no change as a second or even third choice behind define. I think before anyone can assume there's no consensus for a change, we probably should drill down on that.
Personally I think that's worth doing. Interestingness and what it means has been a point of contention for as long as I've participated at DYK. Valereee (talk) 13:52, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Can somebody please tell me who will be making the ultimate decision on this discussion? I am not experienced in these things, but I was told that the !voting was just an opportunity for people to clarify their opinions for us, and to bring a little clarity to this rambling discussion; not to force a decision via voting numbers. Then, I was informed, apparently "others" would make the final decision and alter the guidelines, or not alter the guidelines, and (I guess) close the discussion down. But what we have at the moment is this section called "Runoff" in which some of the !voters are telling us who deserves to win. So who exactly is going to come along as arbitrator(s) and decide what to do? Everyone has had their chance to have a say, now, and the talk on here now seems to be mostly about analysis. So what happens next? Storye book (talk) 17:42, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There's no formal roadmap. If we're lucky, opinion will eventually coalesce around some outcome -- consensus. If not then, well, we live to fight another day. EEng 18:19, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
In general, unless there is a clear consensus (which in this case there really isn't, probably because we have too many choices) someone will ask for an experienced closer to come in and close the original !vote section. Anyone can ask for that, generally once !voting slows, which it has, so you can go in there if you want and make that request. Personally I think we'd be better off discussing here until we have something most people are agreeing is consensus.
No one is actually running off yet. I made a suggestion that we do that, pointing at the three choices that seemed to have the highest level of support, suggesting we continue with those three, and asked for discussion, which is what we're doing now. If you object to these three choices as representative of where previous discussion was going, speak up! Valereee (talk) 18:43, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify, I have spoken up. I have not applied to closure requests. Storye book (talk) 19:16, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Cutting the Gordian knot
OK, guys and gals, I'm going to try to cut the Gordian knot. Does anyone object to my pinging back everyone who's participated in this thread for a choice between ALT0 and ALT5 (leaving the question of whether to include "intellectually curious" in ALT5 to a followon discussion, should ALT5 gain consensus)? Conflict-of-interest reminder: I proposed ALT5. EEng 18:19, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for helping, EEng. We are all doing our best here, for the best reasons. But before you tell us that we are left with a choice of only ALT0 and ALT5, please would you make clear what would then happen to DYK noms like, for example, a Gerda Arendt nom if one of those alternatives were chosen? I.e. would those noms then automatically be rejected unless they changed to conform rigidly with "interesting to a broad audience" (or the ALT5 version)? I just think that we need to know where we will all stand, before the majority is deemed to be more worthy than the minority. If you think that your decision is going to push noms like Gerda's out into the cold on the occasions when the nominator cannot agree to change a hook to fit ALT0 or ALT5, I think that the decent thing would be to ask a neutral closer or closers to arbitrate and make the decision for us. Storye book (talk) 19:13, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
SB, if you're thinking it's possible a neutral closer would come in and think, "Hey, ALT1 seems the best to me! I'm closing it that way", no experienced closer would do that, that's a supervote and would immediately be challenged and almost certainly overturned. The two ALTs EEng is proposing to run RfC on are the only two that at this point could possibly get a consensus assessment from an experienced closer. TBH running it the way he's suggesting is probably the best chance to get requirements relaxed in the followup. Valereee (talk) 19:37, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What Valereee said. I'm not making any decision; I'm asking the community whether it's willing to focus on ALT0 and ALT5. How particular ALTs might affect various kinds of hooks is part of what participants are no doubt judging for themselves. EEng 19:43, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@ Valereee. Now I'm puzzled. I was told to put a "!" in front of the word, "vote" to confirm that it was not a real vote, but a clarification of opinion, and that the voting could not be about consensus because someone else would be coming in as closer. So what does the ! mean, then, and why was I asked to use it? Storye book (talk) 19:45, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Storye book, when a closer comes in, it's not to arbitrate or judge -- that is, not to make what they feel is the best decision. It's to assess consensus. The closer has no opinion -- or at least, doesn't use their opinion in closing -- but instead assesses the opinions and arguments of the participants in the discussion. They don't count 1votes, but they do note whether a particular choice had well-argued !votes have support in policy. That doesn't mean the number of people !voting for a particular outcome is unimportant, just that policy arguments are more important. So arguments like, "It's not fair", which don't have support in policy, may be discounted.
It's not that you must use the term !vote. It's that we want to make clear: it's not a straight vote. (And as a side issue, majority, unless it's very strong, isn't enough. 51% !voting "change" doesn't win over 49% !voting "don't change." Consensus for changing current policy needs to be larger than that.)
There's a lot to unpack when it comes to achieving and assessing consensus, which you can read more about at WP:consensus. Valereee (talk) 19:59, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I was away for a week and have no time to read all this, but thought about it. I think trying to word something aimed at rejecting hooks is not the most friendly way to begin with. How about saying something of advice like "Try to make your hook appealing to a broad audience." In my humble opinion, it would be sufficient if that appeal comes from only part of a hook, and once it is established something specific - which may not have been what some general reader always craved to now - could also be mentioned. No? In the end, don't we want to broaden what readers know, even about topics that are not mainstream? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:18, 17 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Gerda Arendt, that's twice now in this discussion you've to come in, said you don't have time to read what others have said, then created a section head for your own post, in effect increasing the probability your opinion will be seen. Valereee (talk) 13:32, 17 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What can I do. It's a new idea that doesn't fit with the two headers above. Feel free to remove it completely, or just ignore it. I thought that I, feeling guilty of having caused all this trouble, shouldn't just remain silent. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:39, 17 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What you do is outdent and bullet to indicate a new thought. I've done that for you. Valereee (talk) 13:41, 17 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It was outdented and bulleted until I noticed that it has nothing to do with "Runoff", nor the choice of ALT0 and ALT5 it seems to be about, but can come to terms with that. - What you do when you have a bullet: you repeat that bullet, per the essay on top of User:Drmies. I did it for you. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:44, 17 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Broadening what readers know is a fine goal, but it isn't actually what most people seem to believe is the main goal here at DYK. It isn't even the main goal of Wikipedia; WP's goal is to create access to information, not to force people to access information we think they should want to access. I know you find it very frustrating, but I think you're going to have to come to terms with the fact that your goals and DYK's goals don't coincide. You can try to work within the system to also address your own goals, but you can't really expect the rest of the project to change its goals to your goals just because you like your goals better. Valereee (talk) 13:57, 17 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Forgive me please for failing to understand the fine language difference between "broaden what readers know" and "create access to information". I came to Wikipedia because there was a red link to fill, which someone who helped me nominated for DYK, - I had no idea what that was, and I wonder if his hook would have passed the "interesting to a broad audience barrier. I argued against it because I didn't want my BLP connected to "extraterrestrial". This was in 2009, with four sets of six hooks every day, and it was fun, and no big deal. I had planned no more than filling that one red link, but there was a red link in my first article, and I filled that and nominated myself, and it hasn't stopped until now ;) - I think I'll keep doing that, but try to ignore this page of rules. Life is too short. I prefer RD now: less arguing, and high interest in the name alone. Found Azio Corghi today which is not to remain the sad stub that it was. He may not go to the Main page for remaining still to short, but at least will be a better article for those reading that he died. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:44, 17 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That's how I got here, too. I came here ~2005 looking for Valerie Taylor (novelist) and, not finding her, decided to create it. Within literally minutes it was marked for speedy, and another editor came in and deleted the speedy template, saying "Let's give this noob a chance". That editor is no longer editing but I've often wished I'd thanked them while they were.
For me in English, "broaden what readers know" is active: we're teaching them something. "Create access to information" is passive: we're enabling them to learn. Valereee (talk) 20:25, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The hook should include a definite fact mentioned in the article and interesting to a broad audience versus
ALT5 (intended to be pretty much equivalent to ALT0, but with added clarity on the "interestingness" concept, and on who the audience is):
The hook should include a definite fact mentioned in the article and likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing by a reader with no special knowledge or interest.
!Votes
ALT5 because it does two things. First, instead of trying to say who the audience is ("broad" -- whatever that means) it says who the audience is not (i.e. not topic specialists), which I think is easier to think about. Second, it replaces the word "interesting" with the somewhat less abstract "likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing". Unusual is fairly straightforward. Intriguing (if you ask me) ideally means that the hook links something familiar (a person, place, thing, or concept) with something unfamiliar, so that the reader thinks, Hmmm, I wonder how that unfamiliar thing ties in with that familiar thing? and clicks. EEng 20:23, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT5 as this seems like a useful clarification. Valereee (talk) 20:27, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT5 seems less ambiguous to me, and that's a good thing. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:46, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT0 because it basically says the same thing in half as many words. -- RoySmith(talk) 20:47, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT5 changed my vote. -- RoySmith(talk) 19:08, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT0 Roy beat me to it but they are essentially the same and so the change would achieve nothing except make it more verbose. Andrew🐉(talk) 20:49, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Per my comments above, ALT5 takes a lot of the subjectivity out of the question – for those of us worried that ALT0 allows reviewers and promoters to think of themselves as the "broad audience" in determining interestingness, this rewording gives a framework to interestingness discussions that is clearer, as well as easier to agree upon and resolve. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 20:50, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Neither, for the exact reason that RoySmith states, BOTH are the same thing, so you have fully left out everyone that has voted to actually change the scope of the interestingness problem. This is NOT an unbiased option.--Kevmin§ 21:19, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I object to your choice actively. You are giving a heads I win, tails you loose vote to everyone that actually expressed a need to change our current wording.--Kevmin§ 21:18, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
In addition you only gave 1 DAY of any discussion time on you suggestion, leaving out everyone that may have not been on in a 24 period before forcing you personal preference on the project.--Kevmin§ 21:21, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
We actually discussed this for six days, I don't know how to point you at the subsection but search on "Runoff?" Valereee (talk) 21:25, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion's at #Runoff?. It was clear from the original round of !votes that (by 7 to 1) there's no appetite at all for loosening the existing criteria (ALT0) in any way that allows for hooks expressly meant to appeal to only a subgroup; but there was significant support for re-expressing the current criteria in a somewhat more concrete way (ALT5). The idea of a runoff was floated a week ago, and you made no comment at all. EEng 22:44, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't say that there was no appetite at all for loosening the existing criteria. The various ALTs that were proposed that suggested loosening did have some albeit minority support. So rather than saying that there was no appetite at all, it may be more accurate to say that there wasn't enough appetite for consensus to loosen the criterion. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 01:14, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I probably overstated it, but I meant the community as a whole had no appetite. EEng 19:37, 20 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Neither. The problem that we've been having is that under guideline ALT0 some reviewers were rejecting certain hooks on the grounds that they did not find them interesting, therefore a broad audience would not find them interesting. But with ALT5, I think we'd get the same problem in different guise: such reviewers would now be free to say something like, "I don't think that hook is unusual because I've seen it before, and it's not intriguing to me personally, and therefore it would not be intriguing to a reader with no etc". I applaud EEng for clarifying ALT0 like this, and they have done it well. I'm certainly not criticising ALT5 as a clarification of ALT0. I just don't think that it would resolve the problem that brought us here. Storye book (talk) 21:26, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think we can assume that "reviewers were rejecting certain hooks on the grounds that they did not find them interesting, therefore a broad audience would not find them interesting". I believe experienced reviewers are sophisticated enough to make a distinction between what I find interesting and what a broad audience would. Valereee (talk) 22:34, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think we're going to have to agree to differ on that one. And I said "some" reviewers. Storye book (talk) 22:40, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Look, SB, editors make decisions every day about how to apply guidelines to content, and it's necessarily a subjective process. Reviewers are explicitly supposed to imagine how readers will see the hook, not how they themselves see it, and if they're not doing that then they're not doing the job right. If you think that's what mostly goes on, then it doesn't matter what the guideline is. Everything we do is human and therefore imperfect, yet we somehow muddle on.
Furthermore, SB, you seem to be having trouble getting into the spirit of the consensus process. This thread started with 7 different ALTs, and only two got more than a handful (all together!) of votes. That rules them out, and we focus on those that had significant support. So voting neither is no vote at all. EEng 22:51, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT5 - This seems to be a reasonable clarification of ALT0. I understand there may be concerns that a reviewer may reject a hook because it's not interesting to them. However, for the vast majority of topics, the number of people who have expertise in that topic is very small compared to the overall population. After all, the Main Page is targeted toward the general public, not to topic specialists. ALT5 spells this out specifically, whereas ALT0 describes it more vaguely. Epicgenius (talk) 22:33, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT5 (hurt by the "broad audience" enough to want to try something else) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:05, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT5 is a reasonable attempt at clarification, and we have argued about ALT0 for years so let's try the updated wording. —Kusma (talk) 23:35, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT5 Should take out much of the ambiguity that has plagued "interesting to a broad audience" for years. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 00:02, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT5 - needed clarification of existing rule. Now we just need people to follow it.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 00:32, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT5 - certainly won't end all the problems with determining if a hook is acceptable, but I do find this slightly better than ALT0. MB 01:00, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT5I disagree with those saying it's a more verbose version of ALT0 for no good reason; I feel that "interesting to a broad audience" is about as vague and all-encompassing as possible. Would ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:59, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT5, which provides a clearer answer to "interesting to what audience?". I also don't quite understand the "neither" !votes here; ALT0 is the status quo; this runoff is functionally no different from "is there consensus for ALT5", and if there isn't, it doesn't preclude other options being proposed in the future. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:42, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT0. Shifting from "interesting" to "unusual or intriguing" is going to cause a huge amount of extra discussion and conflict to figure out what the new words mean. This is a case where over-engineering the language leads to more wasted time. The "broad audience" language has historically never had any practical effect, though it seems some people have noticed it recently and are trying to enforce it in reviews. I would have preferred ALT2 as being reflective of actual long-standing practice, but I'm late to this discussion and I still find ALT0 preferable to ALT5. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 05:42, 20 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't a recent issue. This issue has caused complaints and contention for as long as I can remember. We've had dozens of discussions of this criterion here at talk, and that doesn't begin to include the discussions that have taken place on noms which almost certainly number in the 100s. Valereee (talk) 16:17, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT5 I think this language is more specific and clearer to the DYK editors than ALT0, but still general enough that it can be interpreted in many positive ways. Z1720 (talk) 02:16, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion
There are claims that ALT5 is clearer or less subjective than ALT0 but I'm not seeing this at all. For example, consider the current lead hook, "... that most national flags belong to a flag family with similar designs?". To me, this sounds about as interesting, unusual or intriguing as Sheldon's Fun with Flags. But how on earth is one supposed to determine this without just running the hook? You're still going to get exactly the same subjective arguments which are essentially "I like it" vs "I don't like it". Are we going to have runoffs for each hook? Andrew🐉(talk) 21:15, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I... wouldn't have picked that hook out Template:Did you know nominations/Flag families. Flag families would likely be assessed the same way under either guideline – true vexillology geeks are such a vanishingly small part of the audience that the numerical calculus doesn't change much. But I think where it simplifies things for the reviewer is that thinking about the "broad audience" requires placing yourself somewhere in that audience, or trying to empathize with the audience, or otherwise trying to get the overall vibe of a crowd with widely varying interests. Thinking about ALT5, though, just requires the reviewer to say "I'm not overly interested in this subject, but I still think it's pretty hooky for people like me who wouldn't take a otherwise take a second look".
I would also definitely support using pageviews data in retrospect, and even A/B testing while on the Main Page, if that's what you're driving at. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 22:16, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The main target of this agitation is Gerda Arendt, right? But I'm not seeing any evidence that her work fails to find a significant readership. To provide some statistical context for this matter, here's some overall readership stats. For comparison, the stats for myself and EEng are also included. We both like quirky topics and so should make a good contrast.
Pageviews for articles created by specific users (2015 to 2022)
Account
Articles created
Pageviews
Average per article
Gerda Arendt
1,785
16,539,640
9,265
Andrew Davidson
668
26,224,523
39,258
EEng
64
1,172,155
18,314
The numbers differ because of our different approaches. While Gerda mostly focusses on classical music, I have created a variety of topics including popular ones such as fear of missing out. But Gerda's totals still seem quite respectable and substantial.
Now we're an encyclopedia and the word means that it should cover the full circle of knowledge. This means that we should not just highlight quirky topics like Dr. Young's Ideal Rectal Dilators but we should cover more sedate topics too. It's like yin and yang. If DYK was exclusively quirky then this might seem monotonous or off-putting to some readers. "Variety is the spice of life".
@Andrew Davidson: The data is surprising to me, because that's certainly not my impression from having maintained the stats pages for about a year now. Could you tell me about how this data was collected? Does it adjust for whether or not a hook is the lead slot, does it count views from only the bolded article or all articles linked in the hook? Does it adjust for background views? Does it adjust for how long an article spends on the Main Page (12- or 24-hour sets)? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 10:46, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Those stats were compiled using the userviews option of the pageviews tool. This doesn't focus on the DYK days, which is what you're talking about. If you have some averages for DYK, that would be interesting too. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:54, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Aha. I'm going to spend some time culling some more recent data to see how this squares up (adjusting for all of the things I mentioned above), but I will note that at a glance for this year, Gerda's articles have been the least-viewed hooks of the month in either the imaged or total categories for several months now: Shchors (opera) (November, imaged at 126.6vph), Die Deutsche Liturgie (October, imaged at 77.4vph), Iulia Maria Dan (September, total at 34.6vph), Salmo 150 (August, total at 29.2vph), R. B. Schlather (July, total at 43.5vph), Messe brève no. 7 (Gounod) (July, imaged at 76.3vph), Kyiv Symphony Orchestra (May, imaged at 116.6vph), Panorama (German TV program) (March, imaged at 97.1vph). theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 11:00, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you Andrew, for the stats. However, I think we need to distinguish overall interest in an article, which relates to the topic, to from interest on DYK day, which may relate to the hook. German liturgy, for example, is German and liturgical, sacred 19th-century music, so not mainstream interests threefold. The questions are: 1) would a different hook, more appealing to the "broad audience", garner more clicks, and 2) do we even want that: lure readers to a topic they may not be interested in, while it might be better to address those (likely fewer people) who care about the article content? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:15, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I was really happy to see many people read Luise Duttenhofer because ezlev wrote a great hook for it, although a 19th century German amateur papercutting artist isn't usually at the forefront of people's interest. I don't see evidence that the people "lured in" were disappointed. —Kusma (talk) 11:50, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Gerda Arendt, ideally a hook should attract both, but for me the most important person the hook needs to attract to the article is the person who wouldn't ordinarily seek that article out. Someone interested in German liturgical music might find that a reviewer noted "a captivating purity in the tone of devotional Reformation romanticism" interesting, but "in the tone of devotional Reformation romanticism" just lost me. It just sounds like I'm going to need to figure out multiple unfamiliar concepts to even understand what the article is about.
However, the piece was created at the request of the Emperor? Heck, yeah. That's probably what I'd have suggested building the hook around. The source is a pdf in German so I couldn't check whether we could actually say 'at the command of', which would be even better. :D Valereee (talk) 14:06, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think anyone here is suggesting Gerda's work isn't extremely valuable. Valereee (talk) 13:00, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Andrew, nobody here is targeting anyone, and the accusation is particularly odd given how this "agitation" started. CMD (talk) 15:49, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Andrew Davidson, Gerda Arendt, and Kusma: Allll righty, some hard DYK date numbers. I analyzed a total of 129 hooks for which Gerda Arendt received some kind of credit, ranging from January 2022's Rudolf Pohl to September 2022's Kai Bumann. Of these, 22 (17.1%) ran in the image slot, while 107 (82.9%) did not. The lazier answer would be to simply point to the medians. As a rough ballpark (these are likely a little low), the median non-image hook gets about 220 views per hour on its DYK date, while the median image hook gets about 550 views per hour. In my analysis of Gerda's hooks, I found that her median non-image hook got 110 views per hour, while her median image hook got 279.1 views per hour. But... there's quite a bit of variation in pageview counts, and they can be any number from, like, 20 to 1,500 or higher. So just putting those two sets of numbers side-by-side doesn't really give all that much information; instead, it would be nice to have a standardized number, say, a percentage. So, instead of calculating percentile rank (because I'm lazy), we're going to count up what percentage of Gerda's hooks beat the median average. The average editor should get, well, about 50%, of course. Actually, the medians are a little low, so the average editor might get a bit higher than that, but whatever. Out of Gerda's 107 non-image hooks in this time frame, 14 beat the median average for non-image hooks of ~220. That means that where your average editor should have about 50% of their hooks clearing this bar, Gerda's non-imaged hooks have only done so 13.1% of the time. That's most definitely on the low end of the spectrum. Out of Gerda's 22 image hooks, well... I couldn't find a single one that cleared the median average of 550 views per hour. The closest I could get was Berggarten, which pulled in 444.6 views per hour. I'm not gonna post my own stats or anyone else's here for comparison – it's not that difficult to get these numbers for yourself, especially if you haven't run 100+ hooks this year. Clearly, though, these hooks find themselves at a significant disadvantage. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 12:01, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That's some good analysis, Leeky. I would imagine there's a large systemic factor that goes into this, as in it's not all the choice of hook that lowers page views but the fact that classical music and opera singers and suchlike aren't of interest to the majority of readers around the world. Yet that's Gerda's area of interest. Like an investment fund attribution it might be more useful to compare the hooks with others on the same subject rather than the overall benchmark... — Amakuru (talk) 20:23, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I also think there's a burnout factor. Because Gerda is such a frequent contributor, it means there are frequent classical music hooks. It's possible that frequency is a contributor to lower levels of readership of the target articles. Valereee (talk) 20:30, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - sorry, I've not been at all active in this conversation so far, so forgive me if this is a late curve ball. But I think the most fundamental question we need to ask ourselves, up front, is whether all articles get to have hooks on the main page, or are there some articles that we simply reject on the grounds of not having any suitably interesting hooks available. If the answer to this is that we run something for any article submitted, because the goal is to encourage editors to write articles, then it's really a moot point how exactly we word the 3a requirement - we will be forced to run with whatever the most interesting thing is in the article, even that doesn't actually meet whatever bar we set in criterion 3a. On the other hand, if we decide that articles can be outright rejected for lack of a suitable hook (something I don't think ever really happens in the modern operation of DYK) then we can continue on and debate exactly what the wording should be. Cheers — Amakuru (talk) 11:06, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Our overall goal is to build an encyclopedia and DYK seems very successful in encouraging creation of new articles as it runs 8–16 every day. I would contrast this with ITN which has quite a different culture in which rejection of nominations is common. ITN's productivity is far lower than DYK as it only runs a new blurb every two days. So, for every new blurb at ITN, DYK will run 16 to 32. And a big price of this culture of rejection is that it encourages conflict between the regulars. ITN has recently had several editors banned for this reason and there is now a huge drama about one of the admins. DYK should count its blessings and continue to embrace its culture of openness and tolerance. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:54, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I am guilty of nominating most of my recent creations and expansions at DYK, but I wouldn't mind being told to be more selective. Resolution (Wilson novel) should perhaps not have run without a better hook (and I couldn't think of one). On the other hand, I still don't know what caused Observations Made During a Voyage Round the World to perform so poorly. —Kusma (talk) 11:59, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Kusma, FWIW, the book's title might have been offputting to modern readers. "Observations made during" sounds to me like, "I'm here navel-gazing, how about you listen in?" Or possibly, "Just got back from vacation, wanna see my slides?" But the description of the book as the beginning of modern geography does interest me, and I might have suggested something like
I definitely agree with the idea that we need to be more open to the idea of nominations being rejected if no suitable hooks can be found, even if the feeling can be a bitter pill to swallow. We all want our articles to be on DYK even if hook material can be a stretch, and I'm sure we've all been guilty at least once of nominating an article we knew wasn't a perfect fit for DYK but did it anyway (in hindsight, the hook I wrote for Saori Ōnishi was awful and I wouldn't have proposed it had I expanded it today). But yeah, we really need to have more accepting of of the idea that not everything is meant to be for DYK. If we realize this, we can avoid wasting time on nominating ineligible articles and instead spend more effort on articles that can work out. This does not mean we cannot improve articles anymore just because they can't be on DYK, since we can always improve articles even if they'll never be on DYK. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 12:31, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I am strongly of the opinion that not every article ought to be seen as appropriate for DYK (and similarly for GAN or FAC). Some articles do not have enough content of interest. I have written several natural history articles that I never bothered nominating here, because nothing besides basic species biology was known. I believe the same holds true for many short biographies. This isn't unique to Gerda's creations by any means; I would argue that endless "athlete X held job Y after retiring" hooks demonstrate that short athlete biographies aren't ideal, and while we haven't recently had a glut of barely notable politicians, it's been an issue in the past. That said: I'm not sure that the community is in agreement with me (at FAC, my views are certainly in a minority) and even if they were, we can't address this via guidelines alone; reviewers need to be able and willing to say "this article lacks items of interest, we shouldn't feature it" and that should be okay, not a stain on someone's reputation. Vanamonde (Talk) 20:53, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've seen a ticker suggested for new articles, so that every new article goes past. Because, yes, not every article has a hook. If an editor is currently working in an area where hooks are few and far between, maybe that's okay? Not every (insert category) really has a hook, and that's okay. Valereee (talk) 23:56, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that no article should be rejected at DYK because an "interesting" hook cannot be generated, as interesting is subjective. Instead, I want to encourage editors to create the best hook they can from the sources, find new sources if they can't create an interesting hook yet, and encourage reviewers and other passerbys to suggest hooks that might be more interesting to the readers. If we reject hooks for interestingness, we might be turning away the new editors who doesn't quite understand DYK processes and perhaps discourage them from editing Wikipedia, which is opposite of what I hope the DYK project can achieve. Z1720 (talk) 02:14, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I have generally found newer DYK editors to be very receptive to hook suggestions, rather than feeling discouraged. While specific hooks are often rejected, it is much rarer that entire articles are rejected. CMD (talk) 05:31, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This is well meaning, but I have to disagree. Some things (especially short articles) just fundamentally will not have anything good enough for DYK. Do you think that there's anything hooky about East Brookfield and Spencer Railroad, for instance? I sure don't. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:45, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
... that the East Brookfield and Spencer Railroad mainly carries automobiles? It's not eligible because not new, but I think it's quirky enough that it could run. The article itself doesn't have to be very interesting, only the hook. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:57, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I was kind of thinking along the same lines. It's almost always possible to wring some kind of quirky hook out of the most mundane subject. But that doesn't mean it's a good hook, or a useful one. The goal of DYK is to showcase new content, not to prove that we can write clickbait. And I know I'm sticking my neck out here, but I don't see anything in that article's listed sources that makes me think it meets WP:GNG. -- RoySmith(talk) 22:09, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
OMG @Theleekycauldron, I generally dislike competition, am probably 2nd %ile for competitiveness, but I would love to be able to know how hooks I've created tend to perform relative to average. (Does that make me competitive by proxy?) Valereee (talk) 16:24, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, tlc! Valereee (talk) 13:20, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The initial burden should be on each editor to honestly assess each article before submitting to determine whether it is sufficiently interesting to be DYK-worthy. As Naruto noted above regarding their own submission, I also back in the old days (2008-2010 or so) used to submit most of my new articles to DYK ... and looking back many of those hooks were not really DYK worthy. I have tried to be far more selective in recent years and urge everyone to do the same. If editors can't do that, Naruto is correct that such editors should expect that others will have to do the screening for them ... and some of their submissions will and should be rejected. (In the same vein, I do not agree with Z1720 that "no article should be rejected" at DYK for lack of an interesting hook.) Cbl62 (talk) 22:15, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Time to close?
This discussion has been open for almost 20 days and has largely died down. My reading of the discussion is that there's no consensus to loosen the broad interest requirement or to allow "exceptionally interesting to a specialist audience" hooks. However, there appears to be consensus to reword the broad interest criterion to wording above that's listed as ALT5. Given that it appears the discussion has reached a natural end, is it time to close it? Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 13:40, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that to me it looks like consensus to go to The hook should include a definite fact mentioned in the article and likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing by a reader with no special knowledge or interest. The basic level of consensus is similar to that in the original 7-choice RfC: about 2/3rds of participants support that. The other third were divided between no change and "neither", which if I were closing I'd also interpret as "no change".
The question of or exceptionally interesting to a specific audience was intentionally removed here to allow for consensus to be achieved on the clarifying change, but it can be handled in another RfC, if those who would like to also loosen the requirements want to see if that can gain consensus too.
Do people feel we need to ask for a formal close by someone uninvolved? Valereee (talk) 14:11, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest we open an RfC on whether to get a formal close. EEng 21:46, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
For what it's worth, I don't think a new RfC on the "exceptionally interesting to a specific audience" thing would be necessary. When given a choice in the original discussion, it seemed that more people preferred not including it than including it. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 14:13, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't object to it, though. In the original discussion there were multiple 'loosening' suggestions that split that opinion. And there were also 7 options, which means there's generally little chance to find consensus for anything at all; it's kind of miraculous that we could get to the point we did find consensus for anything.
There obviously are people here who do want some sort of loosening. If they want to continue to try to find some consensus for that, I think they should feel free to. I definitely don't think it would be disruptive or anything like that. To me it would look like simply an attempt to at minimum make sure there isn't consensus to be found for 'or exceptionally interesting to a specific audience' or something similar. Valereee (talk) 14:24, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The consensus in the final runoff here looks clear to me: more people !voted for ALT5 than anything else. The above discussion, broadly speaking, is people thinking aloud, and comparing notes; the discussion by itself is too complex to represent any consensus. But how they !voted is how they voted, and the !vote count is the !vote count. We have to respect how people !voted. I think we should end this as a consensus for ALT5, because most people ultimately !voted for ALT5. (And this is not about my point of view about the guidelines; I'm being objective and neutral in this post).
I also don't think that it would help to make vague statements about a possible new Rfc on this subject, unless people actively demand one, or start one themselves. Storye book (talk) 18:15, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, everybody, for the great effort that has been made to improve WP in this discussion. And thank you especially to Valereee for your constant work to get order and clarity into it. For your information, I have requested formal closure here. Storye book (talk) 10:34, 24 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
SB, your commitment to fair play is admirable, but a formal close is completely unnecessary. I suggest you withdraw the request so as to speed things up and release someone to close something that actually requires closing. EEng 12:57, 24 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
+1. I don't object to a formal close if that's what you want, SB, but generally it's only needed when we think someone might object to what looks to everyone here like a clear decision. (I'd just appended a note to folks there saying it wasn't as daunting a prospect as it seemed, but feel free to remove that also if you decide you don't think we need a formal close.) Valereee (talk) 14:03, 24 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it is a clear decision for us. Everybody here has an opinion strong enough to look like an agenda (even if it isn't), including me. I don't think anyone here is neutral enough to close this discussion with a summary or conclusion which would have the acceptance of all - and that is important, because such a summary could affect the future shape of the guideline, and in turn the future shape of our experience as reviewers/promoters/nominators. What is more, this discussion has been skewed by a few people deciding which ALTs should be included in the runoff - and that there should be a runoff at all, and that the closer should have been directed to look primarily at the runoff. I'm not saying that the runoff, or the shape of it, is a bad thing. I am saying that it has complicated matters and that is one of the reasons why we need a neutral closer. Storye book (talk) 09:39, 25 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Look, let's speed this up. Does anyone disagree that ALT5 is the consensus? EEng 01:03, 25 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think it would be better if an uninvolved editor closes this discussion. I understand you're very enthusiastic about ALT5 given you proposed it and all, but you're too involved to really sway how this should be closed. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 01:47, 25 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I agree as well; no reason to cut this corner. If consensus is truly crystal-clear, there's no harm in waiting. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 10:06, 25 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
<rolls eyes> This particular discussion, for whatever reason, has been severely freighted by superfluous process formalities, and this is yet one more. It's got nothing to do with enthusiasm or swaying anything. Like Valereee said, a formal close is only needed when we think someone might object to what looks to everyone here like a clear decision.So the question remains: Does anyone disagree that ALT5 is the consensus? Do you? Absent anyone saying so, there's nothing to do and we can get on with other business. EEng 03:56, 25 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, yeah, we can wait, and it's not a big deal, but I'll just point out again that no one's expressed doubt that ALT5 is the consensus result. (Good work, Valereee. Your sensible comments and logical reasoning inspired me to try getting this wrapped up, and now everyone's tsk-tsking at me.) EEng 13:24, 25 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
hahaha @EEng, bright side, though! A decade plus we've been trying to get to this clarified. Valereee (talk) 14:01, 25 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and I'm not tsk-tsking. It's ridiculous to ask for a formal close here, and we'll be lucky if whoever shows up from RfC doesn't scold us about that (we'll be lucky if anyone shows up at all, actually, the number and length of some posts here has been just silly), but unfortunately we've got a sort of perfect storm here: An incredibly long discussion and at least one editor who is both very new to this type of discussion and very passionate about the outcome. But I'm willing to give it a couple of months for someone to show up, then close it myself if necessary. If it ends up at DRV I don't actually think it would be difficult to defend that. Valereee (talk) 14:23, 25 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You misunderstood if you thought I was saying you were tsk-tsking. You just emboldened me to suggest skipping the formal close, which got everyone else tsk-tsking. EEng 00:35, 26 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, as one of the few people who voted for ALT0, I agree that the only way the runoff could possibly be closed is as clear consensus for ALT5. The only real value I see to a formal close would be reading through all the stuff that came before the runoff to make sure none of the other choices had any significant support. But there's also the somewhat more ephemeral value of having an independent/uninvolved person make that declaration so we can all stop talking about it and get on with the real work of getting 8 hooks out the door every day. I don't honestly see that a formal close is necessary, but if somebody is insisting, then let's just do it and move on. -- RoySmith(talk) 15:02, 25 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Every day, readers all over the world are exposed to dull, lifeless hooks that sap their will to live. Please ... won't you help by closing this discussion?
OK, I'm now thiiiis close to starting an RfC on whether we need a formal close. EEng 00:35, 26 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The consensus is so clear at this point that it's unnecessary to have an involved editor take a look. Just let someone uninvolved take a look even if it takes some time. It's not like we're in a hurry to change anything. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 01:33, 26 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Narutolovehinata5, except SB is insisting the entire discussion needs to be read by the closer. What do we think the chances are that any closer is going to be willing to read 40,000 words for a close that everyone in the room agrees isn't even tricky? That's hours of work for no good reason. Valereee (talk) 18:57, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I didn't think you thought I was tsk-tsking. I was just saying not everyone was. :D Valereee (talk) 14:39, 26 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
FOOLS RUSH IN ANGELS BALK LET'S ALL HUSH OR TAKE A WALK Burma-shave
Nothing like a Burma-shave to lighten the workaday cares of DYK. EEng 04:31, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Just so the brave person who volunteers to close doesn't waste more time than necessary: What needs closing is #Runoff!. EEng 04:45, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Time to close!
I'll note that @Storye book has just left updated instructions at closure requests that what's needed is someone prepared to read the entire 40,000 words. So that's basically asking someone to spend hours on this. I completely disagree that's what's necessary. Updating to affirm I don't think the closer even needs to be prepared to read 45K words.Valereee (talk) 18:42, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Nope. I said it needed a closer prepared to read it all. That doesn't mean they have to, and I didn't use the word, need. It means they are capable of making a neutral choice as to whether or not to read it all. I object to an involved-person closure on the principle that I don't believe there is anyone here (including me) who is neutral enough to close such a complex discussion as this. Storye book (talk) 20:01, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a complex discussion. No one here is saying anything other than "looks like consensus is with ALT5". Even you have said that, SB. I feel like maybe you think the closer is going to tickle something more out of this than "Clear consensus for ALT5". What exactly are you hoping for? Valereee (talk) 20:22, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I am hoping for neutrality. Storye book (talk) 20:35, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Read the room, SB. Nobody but you has the slightest concern about this. You're wasting everyone's time. EEng 21:45, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Actually it's over 45K now. Valereee (talk) 19:00, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This has passed the point of absurdity. In the interest of not dragging this out for no good purpose, I have struck my vote for ALT0 and changed to ALT5. @Andrew Davidson and Antony-22: I believe you two are the only other people who voted for ALT0. Would you consider switching to ALT5 so we can get past this? -- RoySmith(talk) 19:09, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If Andrew Davidson doesn't object to an INVLOVED close that's likely in favour of ALT5, I won't either. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 19:14, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm now proposing that we have an RfC on whether to have a formal close, followed by an RfC on how much of this discussion the closer should be prepared to look at. EEng 21:45, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The new hook criterion will bring prosperity at home and prestige abroad. Also, William McKinley will jump out of a giant cake.
When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the list. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.
For articles previously featured as bolded links on the Main Page (i.e. TFAs, non-Recent Deaths ITN appearances, or OTD blurbs), how long should it be after their appearance before they can be eligible for DYK? and which bolded links can and cannot be eligible for DYK? Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 23:09, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Background
Per a previous RfC that has just been closed, there is consensus to relax the currently existing guidelines regarding DYK appearances by articles previously featured as bold links on the Main Page. Prior to the discussion, an article would be ineligible for DYK if: 1. it had been featured on DYK before, 2. it was a bold link in ITN (note that Recent deaths articles do not count and thus are already DYK eligible), and 3. it was a bold link in OTD (bolded names mentioning those who were born or died on that date didn't count, and so again are DYK eligible). However, while there was consensus to relax the rules, there was no consensus as to what exact timeframes would be involved, nor which bolded link appearances would their relevant restrictions relaxed. Per Valereee's suggestion, I am starting a follow-up RfC to clarify these matters. I will be splitting the discussion into two !votes, one for timeframes, and one for which bolded links in particular. The discussion above mainly focused on ITN and OTD, as there appeared to be less appetite for allowing former DYKs to appear again on DYK, so for the purposes of this discussion I will primarily be focusing on TFA/ITN/OTD with regards to the timeframe option, although I am including DYK as an option in the "Bolded links" section. Note that discussion will assume that the current pathways to DYK (i.e. a new creation, an article split, a converted redirect, five-fold expansion, and promotion to GA status) remain the same, so the only way a former TFA would be allowed on DYK in the first place is if they lose their featured status but are later promoted to GA status. In addition, because consensus has already determined that the rules will be relaxed, the option of opposing the relaxation of rules will not be discussed in this RfC. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 23:09, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Option 2 feels about right. --Jayron32 11:58, 17 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
1-2 years anything shorter than that is just encouraging people to game the system easily, by waiting 6 months before nominating something for GA/FA, just so it can be on DYK again. Joseph2302 (talk) 13:22, 17 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
1 year for OTD/ITN, 5 years for DYK, none for former TFAs.1 year for all except former TFAs, none for former TFAs. Epicgenius (talk) 15:15, 17 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
6 months or one year, not too concerned with the precise timeframe, but noting that theoretically an OTD can appear every year and that shouldn't lock it out of this improvement process. This ties into my below !vote for ITN/OTD/TFA, the ideas above for different timeframes for different past appearances are interesting but so far undiscussed. CMD (talk) 01:46, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Option 2 is my preference. Longer would be ok, too. Schwede66 03:44, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
One year or two years. We don't want readers to become bored by seeing the same subject repeatedly, but also we don't want editors to have to grow old, with their grandchildren on their knee, before they get to see another listing. — Amakuru (talk) 10:20, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No time limit. I didn't participate above, as in my view the guideline didn't need relaxing at all. Having chosen to relax it, however, I believe we shouldn't add to rule creep further by creating a rule that needs checking. The odds of a TFA being eligible to run soon at DYK are very low. Repeating an item at OTD after it's been run here is already allowed, and FLs are allowed. So are RDs. Really the only category where a time limit would make a substantive difference to eligibility is with an ITN item; and I don't find that necessary. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:47, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Two years at least. I'd favor five years for a previous DYK. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:58, 20 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
6 months. I highly doubt any casual reader of Wikipedia would remember something appearing on the Main Page half a year ago. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 04:04, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Bolded links
Please state below which former bolded links should be eligible for a DYK appearance after some time has passed. Note that you can specify multiple options.
DYK
ITN (note: this refers to articles that are bolded links in ITN blurbs, take for example Artemis 1. Articles that were on Recent deaths are already DYK eligible).
OTD (note: this refers to articles that are bolded links in OTD blubs, such as Vlad the Impaler. Births and deaths, for example Chinua Achebe and Omayra Sánchez, are already DYK eligible).
TFA (this refers to TFAs that have been delisted but then become eligible under normal DYK rules, more likely via GA and less likely via 5x expansion)
!Votes
ITN, OTD, TFA. Oppose former DYKs re-running except via IAR per a WT:DYK discussion. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 23:11, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
OTD and TFA – ITN only if the article existed at least six months prior to its Main Page appearance. I don't want to run created-because-it's-ITN articles, but I think World population need not be excluded. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 23:15, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
All four. If an article qualifies for DYK by the criteria, and it's been at least a year, let it go. --Jayron32 12:00, 17 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ITN, OTD only. DYKs shouldn't run twice ever, and TFA is a better place for newly promoted featured articles, so we should encourage them to be posted at their proper location, rather than at DYK first. Joseph2302 (talk) 13:21, 17 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
All four - 5 years for former DYKs, 1 year for ITN/OTD, no limit for TFA. I don't see the harm in rerunning former DYKs iff they are eligible after their initial appearance on the main page, but if a DYK has already run relatively recently, it should not appear there again for at least five years (which is similar to TFA's "no repeats within 5 years" rule). For ITN and OTD, I'd shorten this to one year to prevent relatively recent OTDs/ITNs from reappearing in such close succession. Former TFAs should be eligible at any time - they cannot appear on TFA again unless they have been promoted to FA status, but barring that, former TFAs should be able to appear on DYK if they meet the GA criteria. – Epicgenius (talk) 14:44, 17 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ITN/OTD/TFA, ITN and OTD are unrelated to quality/improvement (aside from base competence), there doesn't seem a strong reason to prevent them from being on DYK and this is just another thing for a reviewer to check as it stands. Former TFAs, why not, it's good to encourage some article rescue. No firm opinion on prior DYK at the moment. CMD (talk) 16:36, 17 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
All four The way I understand it, a former DYK can make a second appearance via 5-time expansion. If that is the intention, I can't see anything wrong with it as that would be a significant amount of new content. Schwede66 03:52, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
All four - @Schwede66: the two routes I can imagine are the one you mention, i.e. a creation with 2000 bytes of prose, and then later expanded to 10,000 prose for a 5x expansion. The other route would be an initial creation and then elevated to GA. In theory an article could be listed four times - initial creation at 2,000 bytes, expansion at 10,000 bytes, another expansion at 50,000 bytes and then GA. In general I'm supportive of this, if the goal is to encourage work on articles. My only caveat would be some sort of mechanism to avoid "gaming the system" by putting a GA-class article up for the original DYK and then simply nominating it again unchanged once it has the GA tick. There should be substantial work done between the two iterations, and probably a longer time interval too. — Amakuru (talk) 10:18, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
All four per Schwede and Amakuru, and also because it's the simplest option. I will assume that we won't look kindly on gaming. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:49, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ITN/OTD, providing there's a wait time of at least a year. Let TFAs shoot for FA status again if they've lost it, and DYKs generally shouldn't run again and certainly not within months or a year or two of original appearance. BlueMoonset (talk) 07:06, 20 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
All four for simplicity and to encourage the development of high-importance articles. I see no valid reason to exclude any specific module in which an article previously appeared — allowing it at DYK will still encourage expansion, and will still be novel to 99% of readers. However, if an article has previously run, I think we should have a higher standard for interestingness — if the hook isn't compelling and/or the topic is overrepresented, we shouldn't be afraid to reject it. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 04:09, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion
With any delay, the page for DYK is no longer new. Perhaps it could have been in a holding area for a special event. But if a delay time is approved, I do not think that DYK nominations should sit around until the specified time has expired. So with delays, really only the GA passes could get in. Former TFAs seem very unlikely for a fresh good article pass, as they very likely passed GA earlier in their lifetime. There is also the issue of a DYK being approved, but then making an ITN appearance on the mainpage before the entry in the queue progresses to mainpage. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:30, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This proposal does not affect the delay time for DYK nominations following new work, so any work should still be new. As for the ITN appearance, that is a potential issue under current rules too, but I haven't seen it happen. If we need to clarify an article should not be nominated here if it is nominated at ITN, we could do that separately. CMD (talk) 01:05, 17 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The current practice is that if an article is nominated for both DYK and ITN and it appears on ITN, the article loses DYK eligibility. This would remain the case even under the proposed changes since the clarification would still be "an article that has appeared on ITN/OTD cannot be nominated for DYK within X amount of time from their ITN or OTD appearance". Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 01:22, 17 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Just to clarify, when TFAs are being mentioned in this discussion, it's referring to former TFAs that have since been delisted. It's not referring to newly-promoted FAs, only TFAs that have been delisted but have since been promoted to GA status (or perhaps less likely, received a 5x expansion). Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 13:35, 17 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The proposal won't change the eligibility period of DYK nominations. Articles will still be eligible for DYK for up to 7 days after their creation, expansion, or promotion to GA. This proposal only involves changing the rules to allow DYKs that have appeared as bold links in other parts of the Main Page.Regarding your comment Former TFAs seem very unlikely for a fresh good article pass, as they very likely passed GA earlier in their lifetime, it is possible that an article could have passed FAC, appeared on TFA, and subsequently been delisted as an FA without ever having gone through DYK. Many former featured articles would be, at best, C-class and thus eligible for expansion to GA status. This is especially true of older articles, which in some cases have never met modern FA standards. In addition, featured article candidates are not required to have gone through the GAN process - in fact, many FAs were promoted directly from B, C, or even start classes. – Epicgenius (talk) 14:35, 17 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
In addition, there's nothing in the rules that suggest that an article can only become a GA or be 5x expanded once. I remember a few years ago of a case where an article was nominated as a newly-promoted GA, except that said article was a former GA that had regained its GA status, and as far as I can recall it was allowed to run. If there are concerns about gaming (i.e. demoting an article just to re-promote it), that could be dealt with on an individual basis rather than a firm rule. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 23:42, 17 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Narutolovehinata5, in fact, I'd go further and say that GA status doesn't automatically mean that it's a good article now, just that it met the good article criteria at one point. I've actually nominated two former GAs for DYK: a few years ago with Gowanus Canal (former GA that was delisted and improved back to GA) and last month with Algonquin Hotel (former GA that was delisted and 5x expanded). I never really considered that people might have issues with a delisted GA running on DYK even after it's been improved, as no one objected to either nomination. – Epicgenius (talk) 17:16, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Schwede66: Just to clarify here: as of right now, once an article has appeared on DYK, it is no longer eligible for another DYK appearance, even if it technically has become eligible again through one of the pathways. For example, if Article A was nominated on DYK as a 5x expansion, then appears on DYK, then some time later is promoted to GA status, it would remain ineligible despite the new GA promotion owing to its previous DYK appearance. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 10:26, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If I could interject, Narutolovehinata5 – I read Schwede66's comment only to mean that an article that is featured at DYK as new, expanded fivefold a year, and then nominated again clearly had a lot of material left unwritten. Enough so that it could and should qualify as a newly expanded article – but I think he's aware that that's not how the rules work right now. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 10:30, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yep. At the moment, it’s just one appearance. It might have four appearances (over time) with changed rules as per Amakuru's scenario above. Schwede66 15:41, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If there is consensus for articles that have previously run on DYK to be allowed to run again, may I suggest a requirement? In such a case, I'd suggest a special criterion or guideline: If an article has previously run for DYK and is re-nominated, it cannot run with the same hook that ran previously or a hook similar to the original. Meaning it would need to run with a totally new hook. This should at least raise some standards when it comes to DYK repeats and may also help address problems with the idea of re-running a fact that's already run. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 05:08, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If anyone wants a real life example to consider for multiple DYKs, I x5ed Talk:Dili and it ran on August 2021. I have grievously procrastinated on getting around to the further work needed to bring it to a point where I would be happy to GAN it, although I have done further work and it is much closer. It has been over a year, and the original nomination had multiple hooks that passed which were different to the one eventually chosen. If it became a GA now, should it run again on DYK? (That doesn't even take into account it possibly languishing on GAN for half a year, adding yet more time.) CMD (talk) 07:49, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
In theory, it should (I commented above that there should be a 5-year gap between DYKs, but thinking about it now, that may be too harsh). I think an article should be able to re-run on DYK as long as it's a substantially different hook. In fact, I remember a case in which a DYK ran twice with substantially different hooks. – Epicgenius (talk) 17:20, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There are some historical cases (eg. Talk:The Malay Archipelago), but I believe practice has been not to do so for a long time now. I'm sure they can get through by mistake though. CMD (talk) 03:38, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Bernard Pitt
@Theleekycauldron I'm curious why you moved Bernard Pitt to a non-image slot. I thought that photo was one of the better ones we've got and deserved to get top billing. -- RoySmith(talk) 13:26, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@RoySmith: You're free to yoink that hook out of that prep and give it an image slot in a later prep, if you'd like :) I wasn't overly inclined, but I get that not everyone'd agree. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 00:29, 20 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've moved it from Prep 4 to Prep 6. Could you take a look to make sure I didn't break anything? Thanks. -- RoySmith(talk) 00:40, 20 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, it looks like we have three biographical images in a row, RoySmith – shouldn't be more than one. Not much we can do about that right now, but I'll try and get it down to two. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 00:48, 20 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Ah. More secret rules :-) -- RoySmith(talk) 01:20, 20 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
lol...yeah, the "rules" for building a prep are passed down via oral tradition. The much-missed Yoninah probably created most of them. It's primarily about variety and proportional representation. So image hooks usually alternates between bio/non-bio from one set to the next because we get a ton of bio hooks. We try be aware many images are relatively easy to get -- exteriors of buildings, for instance -- and not let the fact we get a lot of building images mean we end up with a building image every other set. We try to be aware that 1880s images of white men are very common, so when we get an 1880s image of a woman of color, by gosh we want to use it if at all possible. Valereee (talk) 17:06, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
So, let me ask a bonus follow-up question. I'm looking at Template:Did you know nominations/Calais Conference (December 1915), which should run on December 4th, UK time, which means Prep 5. I've recently learned that you're supposed to keep the lead slot of the last prep set in reserve, so I'm not doing that yet. That isn't a biography, but it's got an photo of a person as its image. So, I'm thinking I should not put a biography in the lead slot of Prep 4, to avoid two in a row. But, Is it biographies, or pictures of people? I feel like I'm just learning how to play chess and have discovered that if you think 2 moves ahead, you win more games :-) -- RoySmith(talk) 20:58, 25 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Three moves is even better. :D What Schwede was actually indicating is that it's helpful to have at least one image slot, one quirky slot, and one other slot open somewhere, so in the cast of special occasion hooks you don't necessarily need to stop promoting, although it's not a bad idea to mention here at talk "hey, promoted a spec occ to P5, that leaves no image slots open, someone might want to shuffle just in case", if you see what I mean. It's clearer to other prep builders if it's all in the bottom set, but it's not a big deal. Just a best-practices.
Don't worry overmuch about a spec occ causing 2 bio images in a row. You can shuffle to fix, it's totally a good idea to do that (edit summary: shuffling for balance) or someone else will if they think it's a problem. Valereee (talk) 21:33, 25 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, the puzzle-fitting of prep is actually for me a feature rather than a bug. It's fun to see how to put it together. :D I understand if you're thinking my idea of fun sounds very...um...can anyone come up with something other than "nerdy"? Valereee (talk) 21:35, 25 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not saying it's not fun. I do crossword puzzles; it's kind of the same thing.
Many years ago, I worked with a guy who was a much better chess player than me. We would often play at lunchtime. If I took a long time to think about a move, that was fine. But if I also took a long time to think about the next move, that would annoy him. "If you didn't know what you were going to do on this move, why did you make your last move?" -- RoySmith(talk) 21:58, 25 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"Because I didn't know how you'd respond to my last move. DUH!" EEng 22:06, 25 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Move protection
Consensus to move protect target articles while on the main page. Details to be worked out (designing or adding to a bot) before this is implemented, to prevent requiring an admin to manually temporarily protect 8 or more articles every 12 or 24 hours while this is worked out. Valereee (talk) 18:56, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Copied to here from Errors; I thought it should rather be discussed here; at Errors, discussions don't even get archived:
The boldlink of the seventh hook is currently a redirect; the pipe should be taken away in favour of Qaem 100. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 03:57, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for getting this so quickly. I've made the change, but want to note that the rediect was created by fairly new editor @Mucube: just 2 hours ago with no discussion whatsoever. As such, don't be surprised if another editor reverts those actions. — Maile (talk) 04:13, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
@Maile66: Well, it seems like the fairly new editor was correct per WP:CONCISE, so I'd leave it alone. I do wish that DYK articles were move-protected, though, it screws up all the pageviews... theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 04:16, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
@Theleekycauldron: I think you just hit on a really good idea there - I wonder if there is a way to streamline page protecting the hook articles until they are off the main page. — Maile (talk) 04:19, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
Well, move protection while items are on the main page is a reasonable idea. In fact, I suggested something like that for an article that was going through a requested move discussion (where, if they had closed early, they might have moved that while it was a live hook). Move protection should be easy enough to do via a bot (start, say, for the next two queues to go live; remove once the item comes off the main page). Any thoughts? Schwede66 04:42, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
How many pages are moved while on the Main Page and how many of them should really not have been moved? I am generally opposed to pre-emptive protection unless we have very good reasons. Neither the possibility of having redirects on the Main Page nor having view statistics more difficult to do counts as an extremely strong argument for move protection in my view. —Kusma (talk) 09:11, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
We had one recently that was moved, and that one, and any in the future, should not be moved. I doubt, however, that we need move protection for 16 hooks per day, when simple common sense would suffice to just not move while on the Main page. The one was by Hawkeye, would have made the stats if not moved, but the stats counting bot can't manage, and doing it manually will be overwritten by the bot. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:49, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
We do protect images proactively while on the MP. I think move protection for at least the target article while on the MP isn't a bad idea. Valereee (talk) 16:41, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Sensible idea to do it proactively, and I think we should semi-protect articles as well when on front page. The fact that we protect images proactively means that we can do it, and front page articles are an easy target for vandalism. As for page moves, they should only be done on main page articles with a consensus, not unilaterally, as it disrupts the main page (particular DYK, which has a no redirect links policy). Joseph2302 (talk) 16:45, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
We should definitely not semiprotect DYK items on the Main Page. This is "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit", and inviting new editors is far more important than preventing vandalism. Could you explain how page moves disrupt the Main Page? I don't see how they do. —Kusma (talk) 17:24, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
To quote the proverbial example, freedom of speech doesn't mean you can shout "fire!" in a movie theater. And though Wikipedia is "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit", we have for a very long time had exceptions and restrictions on that. Things on the front page can become vandalism magnets, and without any actual evidence that TFAs and DYKs actually invite new editors, I'm inclined to be more concerned about the potential for vandalism. At minimum, I think upcoming DYKs merit temporary move protection. In the rare cases there's a valid move to be made, it can wait 12 hours or 1 day. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:40, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
TFAs should be of sufficient quality to not invite new editors (so semiprotection there is unlikely to be a net negative), but DYKs often are unfinished and would benefit from a random knowledgeable newbie. Vandalism levels are quite low these days, and Main Page items have lots of watchers, so the little vandalism that happens is quickly reverted. The greatest current danger to Wikipedia is running out of volunteer editors.
As to move protection, the recent cases of unilateral moves I have seen were some pages violating naming conventions. Why would we want to protect against fixing errors? —Kusma (talk) 10:04, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Schwede66 recently educated me that, per WP:MPNOREDIRECT (last bullet), redirects are discouraged on the main page. The precise reason for that (i.e. redirects may not have many watchers, and therefore can be a sneaky conduit for main-page vandalism) doesn't apply to redirects created by moves (because after you move X to Y, anyone who had X on their watchlist now has both X -- now a redirect -- and Y on their watchlist). But to allow moves will require keeping track of this special case, which I predict will be a big headache. Schwede? EEng 01:44, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what you mean by to allow moves will require keeping track of this special case, EEng. Could you elaborate? Currently, we do allow moves and it creates risk (although as you point out, there should be many eyes watching redirects resulting from moves) and it buggers up the page view stats. If we decide that we temporarily move protect, those issues will be gone. I'm not sure where the big headache comes in. Schwede66 02:04, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I gather from something you said months ago that any redirect appearing on MP is likely to end up at ERRORS as a vandalism risk. So if we allow moves, then either the MP link has to be specially updated to point to the new title (instead of the redirect left behind by the move), or someone has to remember to keep track of which redirects are OK ones because they were created by moves. That's the headache. EEng 02:43, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I see. Yes, they always end up at Errors. Schwede66 04:57, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Since it's very hard to think of a move so urgent that it can't wait 24 hours, I'd say this consideration alone makes moves-while-on-MP a bad idea, and routine move protection a good idea. EEng 05:03, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
How is a redirect on the Main Page more of a vandalism risk than any other link? We are already pretty good at preventing vandalism through edit filters, and it has been years since Main Page related vandalism lasted longer than minutes. Preventing vandalism often has the side effect of preventing good faith edits, so we should not overdo it. —Kusma (talk) 10:07, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The gargantuan visibility of MP makes it an especially prized target for vandals, and we already take other special steps to protect it e.g. WP:CASCADE. That's part of why, as you say, it's been years since MP-related vandalism lasted longer than minutes. Article text of MP items remains unprotected, to preserve our "anyone can edit" ethos; and that works out because articles making an MP appearance will typically have at least several watchful watchers. But CENSORED per WP:BEANS. EEng 16:38, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This looks like the discussion might be drawn out, with a lot of explanations. To clarify, I'm creating the subsections below.
Move protect survey
Note that Feature Articles are move protected for the time they are on the main page.
@DYK admins: This directly affects the admins while a set is on the main page. Once rotated off the main page, it's not on our shoulders whether or not it is moved. The article that was moved, was done so by a new editor with no discussion whatsoever about whether or not it was correct. In this case, no harm was done. But generally it's just good sense to discuss moving an article that's on the main page.
Template:Did you know is already protected so only admins can edit it. This is necessary because, among other things, the hooks have already been approved and can only be changed at WP:ERRORS. It then makes sense that, for the duration of any set's appearance on the main page, the articles themselves be temporarily move protected. After they're off the main page, any potential moves are not affecting our process.
Temporarily move protect all entries in a set for only the duration of their run on the main page.
Support this just makes sense. We had no dialog about the current one being moved. No real harm done, but there was also nothing to stop any long-time editor moving an article just because they believe they're right and everyone else is wrong. — Maile (talk) 01:15, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Anything that reduces the traffic at Errors is a good idea. Schwede66 08:10, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support: if only because non-admins really shouldn't be able to mess with stuff on the Main Page while it's live. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 08:25, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Unlike with semi-protection, I don't see move protection having much of an editing discouragement effect. If the move is not urgent, it can wait 12/24 hrs, if it is urgent an admin is likely watching ERRORS. CMD (talk) 08:55, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, I am not convinced there is an actual problem here to be solved. —Kusma (talk) 10:09, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support not all page moves are beneficial, and for high profile items like front page items, they should only be moved with consensus to do so. Every page move of something on DYK will trigger an ERRORS complaint to fix the redirect link- and this is an unnecessary overhead. Joseph2302 (talk) 11:15, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support A sensible idea. Bruxton (talk) 21:28, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Meh - I don't really have any strong feelings for this either way but I'm leaning more towards an oppose. Unlike with Featured Articles that are very visible and prone to vandalism, DYK articles rarely get as much visibility and thus aren't prone to vandalism and the like. Plus, cases like page moves while on the main page (like the case mentioned) above are extremely rare. I can see the benefit but I don't really see the scenario happening enough to warrant this becoming a policy, rather than cases being handled on an individual bases. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 00:55, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but that doesn't make much sense. That moves-while-on-MP are rare is yet one more argument for blanket protection, since it tells us that protection isn't getting in the way of anything. And by the time we're "handling it on an individual basis", any vandalism has already happened. EEng 03:11, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
And please no one say we need a formal close. EEng 16:38, 26 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The example given was valid and has not been reverted. We should not obstruct such good faith activity. Andrew🐉(talk) 19:28, 26 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support This has clear benefits in preventing move vandalism. In the event a move is needed, in 99 cases out of 100 it's not urgent enough that it can't wait until the article in question is no longer on the main page. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:32, 27 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
... and in the 1/100 cases, an admin can still do it with appropriate knowledge and skill to handle the special complications. EEng 21:41, 27 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Question: is this something that can be set up to be done automatically, or is it 8 more individual temporary protects that need to be done as a queue gets moved to the MP? Valereee (talk) 15:57, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
We most certainly don’t want to require admins do that manually. Those things can easily be done by a bot. Schwede66 17:42, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank! I figured it must be so, but wanted to make sure enough people who were both administrators and bot-savvy (which is not me) were chiming in here. Valereee (talk) 18:07, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be happy to draw up that code, but adminbots need to be run by admins – it'd come down to Shub or Wug, probably. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 23:22, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Probably best to re-use the bot that posts the update, as that bot knows what pages to protect (although protecting earlier would be safer to do to prevent some abuse). This would need some care, though: Pages already protected against moves should not be re-protected with a shorter duration. Such details would need to be worked out if we go ahead with this. —Kusma (talk) 23:38, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
"...that given a choice between Life and World, the answer was Yes?"
What does this even mean? 675930s (talk) 19:03, 26 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The idea is to click on the link to the link for Yes, which would take you to an article on the musical band by that name. Therein, you would also find out that Life and World are also musical bands. — Maile (talk) 19:12, 26 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
... and for some reason, the question if any of this is interesting to a broad audience is not raised --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:26, 26 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, but it's likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing by a reader with no special knowledge or interest. See #Runoff!. EEng 20:58, 26 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I have been told that interesting and unusual are not the same, and I at least am not interested in the silly choice, - while I might have been interested in something about their music. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:35, 26 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
They're not the same. Related, but not the same. EEng 00:24, 27 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Gerda Arendt as the author of that hook, I have to admit I indulged my penchant for pushing the limits of quirky into cryptic territory. You are correct, a hook which said something about their music would have been better, and there was certainly plenty of material to pick from in the article. -- RoySmith(talk) 21:41, 26 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing wrong with the hook, only why I get all the trouble, for hinting at a Bach piece and a famous conductor would not be interesting (really?), while two or three unexplained bands would pass - it seems a bit unfair ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:20, 26 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure what Gerda's comment means, but Yes has had numerous albums that went Gold (500,000 individual sales) or Platinum (1,000,000 individual sales). — Maile (talk) 21:05, 26 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I thought it was a pretty good hook for the quirky slot. It got 14K readers to the article, so I think it did its job: encouraging readers to check out a newly-improved article. Valereee (talk) 15:50, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think that's about right, definitely an above average performance. Also, I think no one in this thread touched on the pun that "yes" implies an inclusive AND operator (e.g. that given the choice between Life and World, the band picked both). At least, that was what I liked about it :) theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 23:21, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I closed this nomination, details can be seen on the nomination page. I'm leaving this message here because I understand this closure may be controversial and I'd like second opinions on whether or not my closing was proper. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 00:14, 27 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Good close IMO. Cbl62 (talk) 03:32, 27 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Fully support that call. Schwede66 17:50, 27 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
One filled queue 27/11
@DYK admins: we are down to one filled queue. Your help to move preps to queues is appreciated. TSventon (talk) 00:43, 27 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@DYK admins: We are about to have Queue 6 rotate to the main page. After that, nothing is in queue. I don't know if the lack of response here has anything to with the Prep 7 lead hook image. Until we get that figured out, we can't move the set to Queue. But can anyone verify that it's OK to use the image? Maybe a new set of eyes on that emblem would be a good idea. Please refer to he approved nom Coat of arms of Curaçao. Thanks. — Maile (talk) 23:36, 27 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No issues were raised about the image at the nomination page. The image was uploaded to Commons in 2014 and it is used on seven Wikipedia sites. SL93 (talk) 23:42, 27 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Well, then, I'll work on promoting Prep 7 to Queue 7. Thanks. — Maile (talk) 23:43, 27 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure why it has been taking so long to review preps and move them to queues. Maybe some admins have just lost interest in doing it. SL93 (talk) 23:48, 27 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Speaking for myself, I simply haven't had the time in the last 10 days; I hope to have more after Wednesday, however. Vanamonde (Talk) 23:49, 27 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe they're all busy doing holiday stuff ... — Maile (talk) 00:00, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Speaking for myself, I'm in a bit of a crisis. I've got 4 more seasons of Merlin to binge and it's leaving Netflix in 2 weeks. That's really going to eat into my wiki time. -- RoySmith(talk) 00:34, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@RoySmith: Wikipedians are pre-wired for binges. I've spent the last 4 days binging on the HLN West Wing marathon - morning, noon and night. — Maile (talk) 01:16, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This happened in 2016, and current images indicate the gorilla is no longer there. I'm changing the hook to say "in 2016 an inflatable gorilla was erected ... "
Prep 7 now promoted to Queue 7. IMO, the Carter Moore Braxton hook has a slight redundancy. Fighting in the civil war would in itself be "in the heat of battle". But not a big deal, and I'll leave that up to someone else to think about. — Maile (talk) 00:51, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Maile. I've simplified the Carter Moore Braxton hook. Ficaia, please have a look to make sure that you are happy with that. Schwede66 00:59, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm fine with the change to the hook, although I think "in the heat of battle" should stay in the text of the article. It's not completely redundant, as two soldiers who both served "throughout the war" could see different amounts of actual fighting. 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 05:16, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No issue with the article wording. We were just tightening up the DYK hook. — Maile (talk) 15:57, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Since we've been discussing (elsewhere on this page) what makes a good hook, let me opine. All that thick-of-battle stuff is awful, because soldier fought in battles isn't unusual or intriguing, any more than Singer sang song is. Without question the best hook is ALT4a, Great-grandson of Founding Father fought for Confederacy, because that's surprising or intriguing. A runner up would be Seven horses shot out from under him, but he was never wounded (surprising), but that's not as good because it's just the guy's good luck, not an apparent conflict of doctrines. EEng 18:47, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Unless I'm missing something, the article must have changed since ALT4 was suggested, because I see no mention of the grandfather in this article, much less a source for that. It takes tracing backwards to the grandfather's Carter Braxton article to put that together. I get your point, but as we know from our era's "rich and famous" families, lineage doesn't mean much except to open doors. — Maile (talk) 23:51, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I can't completely agree with you on your last point: Bach family, Darwin family, Huxley family. BTW, for those who might not have picked it up, there's a subtlety to Great-grandpa being a "Founding Father": he signed the Declaration of Independence, which fundamentally is about breaking political bonds; he didn't (for example) participate in framing the Constitution, which created the Union which the Confederacy set out to destroy. EEng 03:04, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Now we have two filled queues
I've promoted Prep 1 to Queue 1, so this should get us past the weekend. This one looked pretty good. My only comment is on the hook, " ... that on ESPN, listeners to sports podcasts are 13 years younger than their radio listeners?"
The article quotes the source as saying "the ESPN podcast listener is on average 33, and 60% of our podcast listeners are 18 to 34. That's 13 years younger than our radio listeners." The hook is correct, but the source used an averaging to arrive at that. So now we have two Queues ready to go. — Maile (talk) 03:08, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Older nominations needing DYK reviewers
The previous list was archived a few hours ago. I've created a new list of all 24 nominations that need reviewing in the Older nominations section of the Nominations page, covering everything through November 20. We have a total of 198 nominations, of which 80 have been approved, a gap of 118 nominations that has decreased by 6 from last time. Thanks to everyone who reviews these!
Please remember to cross off entries as you finish reviewing them (unless you're asking for further review), even if the review was not an approval. Please do not remove them entirely. Many thanks! BlueMoonset (talk) 06:44, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Created and nominated this yesterday, would it be possible for this to run on the 105th anniversary of the capture on 24 January 2023? This would be 8 weeks after nomination, outside the usual 6 week period. Though I note there is a slight loophole in the rules in that the period is measured from time of nomination, had I waited the maximum 7 days before nomination it would have granted me another week! Cheers - Dumelow (talk) 15:01, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It’ll be the 106th anniversary but it’s an anniversary nonetheless. It seems relevant enough to grant an extension to the usual 6 weeks. Schwede66 16:10, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Bruxton we've got Template:Did you know nominations/Caroline Harrison in prep 6 right now. I think the photo that goes with it would make an excellent lead image. Could I convince somebody to approve the "(pictured)" hook I added and shuffle it around to a set where it can be in the lead slot? -- RoySmith(talk) 18:17, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@RoySmith: I was not fond of any of the images but I am ok with another editor making an editorial decision. Bruxton (talk) 18:36, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Vote for me for lead hook and I'll mail you a ceramic milk set.
@DYK admins: @RoySmith: See ALT2 below. I am all for the image, and made a couple of tweaks to the hook. "that" should correctly be "who". And unless you identify her as First Lady and wife of the president, she could be any family member, or even an average citizen who never even met the president. Be specific. — Maile (talk) 21:01, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Is "President" redundant? "First Lady of the United States" + "husband" should make that clear beyond any doubt. Schwede66 21:24, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Agree, and have removed the word President. — Maile (talk) 21:27, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I mean, who's gonna name their kid "President Benjamin Harrison"? EEng 22:20, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Because if one of us goes down, we all go down together. Strangely his daughters don't seem to be included in that philosophy. Valereee (talk) 03:35, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Baby feeder I was more concerned about the ceramic milk sets. We've piped to Baby bottle#History but there isn't a description there. I'm sure it's a two-piece set including a baby feeder and a cup, but per the discussion at the nom we're not finding sources. Valereee (talk) 03:44, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No defined description, but here's verification that Mrs. Harrison was an artist and collector, among other things; Background section: "...she taught ceramic painting at her church. Along with her German teacher, Paul Putzki, she taught china painting classes. The classes were made up of Washington wives and daughters. She painted a “White House Orchid” with water colors and dedicated it to “mothers, wives, and daughters of America.” She decorated White House candlesticks, milk sets, platters and other pieces..." US Mint What a fascinating woman. — Maile (talk) 11:38, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Huh...I wonder if these were sets she was creating herself? That maybe would explain why there don't seem to be any sources for that term. Valereee (talk) 13:01, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I was thinking the same thing, and also saw in my searching that the term often refers to what we think of as a little sugar bowl and a cream holder for coffee or tea. — Maile (talk) 13:36, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Same. So annoying when searching for something brings up something else. It's silly how hard it is to search on writers. All their own pieces and contributor bios come up. :D Valereee (talk) 19:02, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Here is an example of her work, I think it could be put on commons. Bruxton (talk) 14:34, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
One filled queue 30/11
@DYK admins: we are down to one filled queue. Your help to move preps to queues is appreciated. TSventon (talk) 00:37, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Two queues are now filled. Preps 4 and 5 are filled. — Maile (talk) 01:00, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Cut it out with these Commie date formats like 30/11. See MOS:DATE. EEng 05:47, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
We all know what was meant, and there's no need for people's choice of section headings on talk pages to comply fully with the MOS. That's just making work for no reason. — Amakuru (talk) 12:49, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmmm. I guess "Commie" failed to tip you off that I was kidding. EEng 20:43, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting, because F2 on that page isn't repeated anywhere else. We might want to consider folding it into WP:DYKSG. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 05:35, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
But if you fold it in then won't it be sixfold? EEng 05:46, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
no, because it starts from the edit before <random bureaucratic mumbo jumbo that doesn't make sense to anyone>, so it's 7.4 fold. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 06:22, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Seems like a decent chunk of the "Learning DYK system" is now defunct – anything that's not redundant seems like it can be merged theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 20:41, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@EEng and Theleekycauldron: I just noticed today's tweaking, which is OK as it went. And I don't want to mess around with your nowiki code stuff. But right at that junction, the instructions are incomplete. Yes, you need the coding right after the last hook. However, that does not go far enough. Scroll all the way down to the bottom of any prep or queue set. that whole thing beginning where it says #switch, all the way down to the bottom right where it ends with templates - has to be at the end of the queue, or it won't update. — Maile (talk) 16:13, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No idea what you're talking about, but whatever it is it's leeky's vault. EEng 18:26, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Leeky's vault
Fault. Leeky's fault. EEng 18:27, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Maile66: Unless I misunderstand you, the instructions appear to be okay: The previous point says to Copy and paste the entire contents of the prep into the queue. (Hint: Right-click in the Prep edit window, Select All, right-click again, Copy. Then go to the Queue edit window and paste.) That would include everything below the hooks, too. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 20:20, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Theleekycauldron: under Move to Queue, it is incomplete. #4 is incomplete information. Open any prep or queue. Scroll down to the very bottom. Where it says #switch, etc. That part, all the way to the bottom, is missing from your instructions. under #4. If that part is not also included in the copy and paste, it triggers an error, and the bot won't do its work. And I bring this up, because the bot has refused to update because one or more little letters or whatnot from that wording or other was not completely caught on a copy and paste. — Maile (talk) 21:07, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Maile66: But #4 doesn't tell you which parts to copy and paste – #3 does, when it tells you to copy and paste the entire prep. #4 is just telling you to make sure that <!--Hooks--> and <!--HooksEnd--> are in the right spots – the former between {{DYKbox}} and the image, the latter just after the final hook. It's not omitting instructions to copy stuff below the hooks, because #3 is telling you to copy everything – including the stuff below the hooks. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 22:11, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Dr Salvus is insistent that his source is good enough. I disagree. Can somebody else take a look, please? -- RoySmith(talk) 19:44, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
... that Arthur O. Austin built the most powerful outdoor high-voltage laboratory in the world?
Are we sure that we want to tell our readers in wikivoice what is basically a quote from Popular Mechanics magazine? What concerns me is that Austin was conducting a series of tests "in cooperation with Popular Mechanics Magazine". Are we certain that the magazine is neutrally reporting on this, or is there a risk that they are talking things up to impress their readers, given their own involvement? Pings to RoySmith (nominator), Dumelow (reviewer), and Theleekycauldron (promoter). Schwede66 18:21, 2 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT2: ... that Arthur O. Austin's lab has been described as "a juxtaposition of Victorian elegance and high-tech equipment"?
ALT3: ... that Arthur O. Austin was able to produce 30-foot-long (9.1 m) lightning bolts in the outdoor lab on the grounds of his estate?
ALT4: ... that Arthur O. Austin's estate featured both French Renaissance Revival-style farm buildings and electrical lab equipment capable of generating 750 kilovolts?
The last one isn't in the article now; I could add it if necessary, sourced to the Rebecca Larson-Troyer reference. But I kind of like ALT3 the best. -- RoySmith(talk) 19:27, 2 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've tweaked ALT3 as it's an adjective and thus needs hyphens. And a unit conversion is a good idea, too. Schwede66 19:41, 2 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hyperspace: space of more than three dimensions. (in science fiction) a notional space-time continuum in which it is possible to travel faster than light.Bruxton (talk) 17:11, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
