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Template:Did you know nominations/Zoltán Peskó

The nominator and reviewer cannot seem to agree on the suitability of the hook, particularly on the question of if it appeals to a broad audience. Kindly requesting a second opinion from an uninvolved user to give their input. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 14:17, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

We have the same different understanding if "interesting to a broad audience" really means the same as "appeals to a broad audience". For me, the two are not the same, but I may have a language problem. We talk here about me continue to contribute to DYK or not. I am not interested in writing about a great person, and then be told his major achievements don't "appeal". To be clear: I would still write about the person for ITN, just not bother the extra work of thinking about a hook and supplying a qpq. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:00, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
  • The subject matter and individuals aside, "interesting to a broad audience" is very subjective, and I've always thought it should be struck from the rules. What is a "broad audience"? Unless we have an electronic polling app on DYK, nobody knows the answer to that. We also don't know the backgrounds of our readers, much less the viewpoint of our DYK editors on any given subject. "interesting to a broad audience" is an abstract that cannot be proven either direction. — Maile (talk) 15:38, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
  • It would be a great loss if Gerda were to stop participating at DYK. A much better rule would be that a hook should be "as interesting as possible to a broad audience". Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:15, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
First of all, I do sincerely wish to apologize to Gerda for the tone of the comments I've said about her hooks. We may have differing interpretations of how DYK is to be run, but I respect her opinions and I believe it would be a great loss if she leaves the project. My intention had always been to help, and I'm sorry if the way I expressed those feelings came out the wrong way. Having said that, I do believe that the "interesting to a broad audience" criterion is a necessary one to make sure that DYK does have some standards, but it's clear that it's a flawed and subjective one. Some discussion may even be needed on how to interpret it or even if it should be done away altogether, as it has been the source of conflicts among reviewers and nominators through the years. Perhaps Maile's suggestion could be a good starting point for discussion? Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 08:33, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
(ec) Apology taken, but I admit that the notion that I violated the spirit of DYK hit me hard. My idea of the spirit of DYK is a broad variety of facts and topics. - Back to Peskó: I thought that was a particularly good suggestion, giving something to the simple (someone with a blue beard having a castle) AND something for those with some knowledge in the particular field. La Scala was already mentioned in 21 DYKs, and has a link, - let readers explore, no? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:59, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
I agree with Gerda's view. DYK is an anomaly on WP in that it seeks to be promotional, we have created a quest to get clicks and views, whereas nowhere else on WP is this the case. We let the articles and facts speak for themselves. Looking at today's DYK I see only one hook that actually seems interesting to me. Yet presumably all the others might be interesting to someone and I respect that. Sometimes a reviewer will pass a hook as interesting, only for a promoter to send it back as uninteresting. Who is to say who is correct in that instance? Concur with Maile that the sooner this arbitrary standard is struck the better. I've marked one of my own nominations for withdrawal for these reasons. Spokoyni (talk) 08:52, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
I dislike the standard, too, but I think we need something that tries to address hook quality -- however we define that -- or we end up with
  • ... that the iPhone 11 is Apple's newest model?
  • ... that Ulysses S. Grant is buried in Grant's Tomb?
  • ... that voice actress Jojo learned to play piano as a child?
  • ... that the Borsky grok is subfuddled by the corminsk diatribe during corbindging?
I am completely open to the fact that just because a hook doesn't interest me doesn't mean it's not interesting enough, but there really are some articles that are perfectly fine to provide information but nothing about the subject is appropriate for a DYK hook. --valereee (talk) 13:34, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes, but not this one. We got a hook approved for the Estonian National Opera, where some won't even know what Estonia is, but this one got problems with La Scala which for some that's the No. opera house in the world, and for the others, there's a link. - I believe that the "broad interest" is rather achieved by a good mix withon a DYK set, than be limiting each individual hook to being interesting to the reviewer. First remedy: if you see a hook you find not interesting, review a different one. If nobody finds it interesting in a month, THEN there may be a problem. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:00, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
As currently written, this hook just seems like "opera guy does opera". Ho hum. Gerda, you have explained in your defense of this hook that La Scala is highly traditional, so that doing modern opera there is interesting. I agree that that would be interesting. But that's not what the hook says. Why not say "... that the conductor Zoltán Peskó (pictured) promoted contemporary opera at the La Scala in Milan, an opera house known for hosting traditional Italian operas?" That is why it is interesting to you as an opera fan, that is why it would be interesting to someone who is not an opera fan. --Khajidha (talk) 14:26, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
Because I like to say the general in the specific, - the character of the house has no place in the conductor's article (nor should it), we'd loose the (I think) catchy opera title with the blue beard, and also the (implied) fact that of course that meant opera also from his home country, and all this, and the whole debate, for what? 200 extra clicks? + boring all the readers who already know that La Scala is hosting mainly traditional Italian operas. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:33, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
1) The character of the house is the reason this point is interesting, so leaving it out of the hook seems wrong. 2) The mention of the specific opera seems rather tacked on to me, not really relevant to the point 3) I'm not sure what you saying about his home country 4) You would rather bore everybody else? --Khajidha (talk) 14:43, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Admin(s) needed: queues are empty and preps are full

It's only four hours until the bot will try to promote a queue to the main page, and all the queues are empty. Pinging our trusty DYK admins: Gatoclass, Amakuru, Wugapodes, Vanadmonde, Maile, valereee, and Cas Liber, in the hopes that a queue can be promoted now, and a couple more soon thereafter to get us ahead on this holiday weekend, which would also free up some preps so we can build some over the weekend as well. Many thanks to you all. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:59, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

You see the thread right above this about KXJZ in Prep 5? That's the next prep to be promoted. I don't have any objections to any other admin who would like to promote the prep as is. But because I raised the issue, and it never went anywhere, I think I should step aside on that particular prep promotion. — Maile (talk) 20:07, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
I have pulled the hook mentioned above, to give it time for further discussion, and replaced it with another. I've promoted prep set 5 and Maile has also done queue 6, so we're good to go now.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:14, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
Thank you. — Maile (talk) 21:20, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
BlueMoonset, you could probably add Lee Vilenski and Kees08 to the list of admins to ping! --valereee (talk) 14:12, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
Could make a template like for FAC Coordinators or ITN Admins to make the pinging and list easier. Kees08 (Talk) 17:35, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
@Kees08: how would that work, exactly? Something like Template:@FAC, which only has three people on it? — Maile (talk) 20:39, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
Exactly. Kees08 (Talk) 21:27, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
Kees08, maybe start with these 2 lists of DYK willing admins, (though they prob need updating first) Wikipedia:Did you know#DYK participants? JennyOz (talk) 03:46, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Q1 April 13

Template:Did you know nominations/It's Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers

Guerillero The C of E Yoninah

I'm not sure 'perennial essay' is right...it's an essay perennially-run since 2009 and has perennially gone viral, but 'perennial essay' had me going, "What's a perennial essay?" But fixing to 'the perennially-run essay' maybe seems too wordy? --valereee (talk) 13:31, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

It bothers me too. I think you could strike "perennial" altogether. Yoninah (talk) 13:33, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
Don't know why I am tagged in this, I didn't approve that hook. If you want my opinion, then yes it could probably do without "perennial". I am disappointed for the creator as well as personally that this didn't run on April Fools Day with the hook I had specifically approved for it. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 14:13, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
The amount of executive meddling and general censorship with running this article is incredible. I honestly don't give a fuck as as long as something runs. I still think ALT1 is the best hook. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 18:42, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
I did warn you that would happen. I probably should have said be prepared for a fight because there is always going to be a load of hand-wringing over a swear word on DYK. No rule against it but it is always made difficult by people focussing on irrelevant issues. I agree, I think ALT1 was best and was within policy. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 19:42, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
@The C of E: we have never had any problem running the word "fuck". The problem in this case was having two hooks with the word "fuck" in the April Fools set. As you can see, this hook is proudly running in a quirky slot. Let's stop quibbling over the bad grammar and just run it already. Yoninah (talk) 19:46, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
There is nothing wrong with that. I think it is a little unfair on @Guerillero: that his hook got shifted just because someone thought we can't have 2 "fuck" hooks in the same set. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 19:49, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
More than one person. Yoninah (talk) 19:58, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Old approved nominations awaiting promotion

With 191 nominations currently awaiting promotion and 388 total, it's easy for prep set builders to overlook the ones that have been waiting the longest since they were approved, since they aren't listed in any order. Our backlog is nearly 24 days and climbing.

The following are the 11 nominations that were approved at least four weeks ago. Since we're promoting 56 per week, these 11 have been sitting longer than average. Date given is date of approval. Prep set builders are encouraged to use these whenever possible so the hooks don't have to wait much longer than they already have.

I have not checked these to be sure they're fine, so you'll need to do the usual double checks before promoting any of these to prep.

Please remember to cross off an entry as you promote it, or discover that it isn't eligible for promotion at the present time. Thank you very much! BlueMoonset (talk) 14:28, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Preps are full, queues aren't

Pinging @Casliber: @Maile66: @Amakuru: @Valereee: @Lee Vilenski: @Kees08: @Vanamonde93:. Thank you, Yoninah (talk) 10:30, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Just yesterday finished the one that's on the main page now. I'm happy to do one per week, willing to do two per week, but after that I start feeling quite grumpy. :) --valereee (talk) 11:59, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm a bit slower than everyone else, I'm still making sure with every edit. Did prep/queue 3, quite happy to promote, let me know if I miss anything. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 13:29, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you to the Prep builders, the somewhat unsung DYK gnomes in the process. We currently have 387 hooks, 191 of which are verified. We admins just check their work and promote full sets to queue. But the prep-building gnomes review the nomination and carefully try to place each one in the appropriate slot in the appropriate Prep. We admins stand on their shoulders. — Maile (talk) 14:01, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

100% agree. Building sets is an art, and it takes longer to build a set than to promote one to queue. --valereee (talk) 15:29, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Tamara Levitt

I've just sent Tamara Levitt to AfD. You might want to take it out of the approved list for now. SpinningSpark 00:50, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

It's not in the approved list. I think we can leave it in the nominations pending the outcome of he AFD. — Maile (talk) 00:57, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
That's what we do at DYK—put the nomination on hold until the AfD concludes. I've taken care of it. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:32, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

A problem with D2

This follows on from a disagreement at Template:Did you know nominations/Hale Nauā Society.

In the DYK supplemental guidelines, D2 says

“The article in general should use inline, cited sources. A rule of thumb is one inline citation per paragraph, excluding the lead, plot summaries, and paragraphs which summarize other cited content.”

This is claimed to mean that unreferenced material is acceptable in DYK articles, so long as at least part of each paragraph is cited. In the particular case, there are some large paragraphs like that.

D2 may or may not expect to see a citation to cover the whole of each paragraph, that it is not clear. But if not, a whole DYK article could be set out in one paragraph, with only the first sentence referenced, and that would comply with D2. Meanwhile, WP:Verifiability requires everything in mainspace to be verifiable, with certain exceptions, and tells editors to provide citations for what they add. It is weird if DYK’s standards for articles to get attention on the Main Page are lower than those for the whole encyclopaedia.

For the avoidance of doubt, do we need to mention verifiability in D2? BlueMoonset? Yoninah? Moonraker (talk) 23:48, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Nobody claimed this means "unreferenced material is acceptable in DYK articles". That's your personal interpretation. And, in fact, you were trying to interpret the BLP guidelines as applying to a non-BLP nomination. The guideline may, or may not, need to be updated. What happened on the Hale Nauā Society nomination, was that the paragraphs in question already contained multiple sourcing, according to guidelines, but that you were trying to insist on having more sourcing added. — Maile (talk) 11:12, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Moonraker, as best I can tell you're suspicious of some of the content in the article? If that's the problem, the answer would be to mark those as citation needed. It's not that DYK allows unreferenced material; it's that we AGF that what is included in each paragraph is referenced by the citation required at that paragraph. --valereee (talk) 12:07, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Maile66, not at all, the BLP guidelines clearly do not apply to a non-BLP nomination. I was referring to Wikipedia:Did you know/Citation, which BlueMoonset said was old and not maintained. What I said is on the record. I agree the long paragraphs in question “already contained multiple sourcing”, for parts of them, and that I was trying to insist on having more sourcing added, that is, sources for the parts which were completely unreferenced, contrary to WP:Verifiability. You were insisting, and it seems still are, that this complies with the DYK rule, and that underlines the problem. I say that if it does comply, then the rule should be changed. Valereee, as it happens, I was suspicious, but that isn’t the point. Here I am asking whether people feel the DYK rule D2 could be improved, see above. If there is a better place to ask the question, please point us there. Moonraker (talk) 22:29, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Moonraker, I think this is probably as good a place as any to discuss whether DYK rules need to be tweaked. Personally I think this rule is sufficient for DYK; we don't expect DYKs to be GA-quality. Our rules are intended to attract articles that still need attention. Most DYK articles are new creations; one of the reasons I bring a new creation to DYK is to attract attention from other editors who might be able to make improvements. --valereee (talk) 16:12, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Templates

Anyone else having problems with {{DYK?}} or the other templates? --evrik (talk) 16:40, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

I haven't seen any problems, evrik. What have you been seeing? Do you have a link? Was it with "subst:" before it or not? BlueMoonset (talk) 01:44, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
The template wouldn't "take." I manually placed this notification. I used subst and did things as I always do them. --evrik (talk) 01:53, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
I haven't had any problems lately with {{DYKproblem}}, which appears to be the notification you were trying to place, and the template itself hasn't been edited since 2016. Not sure what's going on, but I'll keep my eyes open. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:55, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Q5 April 17

Template:Did you know nominations/Bessie Van Vorst

  • ... that American journalist Bessie Van Vorst (pictured) worked undercover at a pickle factory and other worksites to expose labor conditions for women and children in the early 1900s?

Less Unless Coffeeandcrumbs

I'm not sure about the caption Bessie Van Vorst dressed as a pickle factory worker, but I'm not sure how to fix it. It seems like this is not a picture of her dressed as a pickle factory worker but is instead an image of her rendered by an artist, using what appears to be a photo of her face then drawing in the pickle worker hat etc, to suggest her as being dressed as a pickle factor worker? Artist's rendering of Bessie Van Vorst as a pickle factory worker? Bessie Van Vorst rendered as a pickle factory worker? --valereee (talk) 16:19, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

I understand your concerns. The picture was found with the caption and was cropped 9see here). It's hard to say whether it was a photograph which has lost its quality over time or an artistic interpretation. Therefore I believe both options are possible - it's just a matter of consensus. I have nothing against the new caption - you have much more experience and I will gladly take your advice. --Less Unless (talk) 17:22, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Whatever you do, would you mind not using "rendered as" because the word also means Rendering (animal products). — Maile (talk) 17:51, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
I think the caption is fine, and in the hook it could say (depicted). Yoninah (talk) 18:31, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Yoninah, actually, I'd be happy with depicted in both hook and caption! Maile66 lol on rendered. :D --valereee (talk) 19:51, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Do you mean for the caption: Bessie Van Vorst depicted as a pickle factory worker? Yoninah (talk) 20:22, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Oh, I see that's what you did! Thanks, Yoninah (talk) 20:23, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Template:Did you know nominations/Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts (Purcell)

Do I understand from the nom template discussion that the source says antiquated? I'd like to change from older to antiquated if that's true, I think it would be clearer what is meant. --valereee (talk) 17:14, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

I think "older" is simpler, and has not so many syllables, so better for our "broad" readership. Perhaps my English isn't good enough even to grasp "antiquated". It sounds a bit negative to me, while "older" seems more neutral. - Today, when people speak of Purcell's "Though knowest", they mean that old-simple-style-one, possibly not even knowing there were many versions of another in new-elaborate style. He is identified with something he wrote in the style of people before him. All interesting, but too much to word in a hook. - Btw, a ping works only when signed. I'm came here for a different question. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:15, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Gerda Arendt, whoops, lol...two strikes on pinging! Yes, antiquated can have a negative connotation. For me the issue is that I don't know what 'older' even means. Earlier style, maybe? --valereee (talk) 16:16, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Don't ask me. Ask people who speak English. The German would be old style vs. new style, - early vs. late would rather be used for within one composer's style. Stile antico means something specific, not too useful here. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:12, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Gerda Arendt, can you suggest anyone who speaks both English and music? --valereee (talk) 20:08, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
I trust BlueMoonset who worded that hook. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:16, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
valereee, according to the source, that last setting would have been written to fill out the funeral sentences composed by Morley, who died in 1602, so in 1695 Purcell would have been writing in a sentences style that had been current about a century earlier: a late English Renaissance style, rather than the very different English Baroque of which Purcell was the true master. Since there is nothing in the article that nails down Morley's dates, much less the dates of composition for his funeral sentences, we have to deal in comparisons rather than even an approximation of years (i.e., "century"): with Purcell emulating Morley, "older", "earlier", or even "antiquated" are all accurate, and can all be interpreted in various ways. I do see that "antiquated" can seem like a pejorative; if you prefer "earlier" to "older", then I have no objections to its use. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:28, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
BlueMoonset, thank you! For me, earlier clarifies it! —valereee (talk) 12:16, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Approved special holding - not transcluding

Did you know/Approved Beginning with May (Asian Pacific American Heritage Month). The first two nominations transclude as they should. Everything below that just shows as a link to the templates. — Maile (talk) 11:13, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

I noted that above; before last night's set was built, the non-transcluding nominations extended back into April 13. This is going to continue to happen until we get the number of approved hooks down. Since there's an upper limit on the size a page may be when transclusions are involved, promoting the larger nomination templates does help more than the short ones, oddly enough. (See WP:PEIS for more information about this problem.) BlueMoonset (talk) 14:13, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Prep 2 - Charlie Watts

Charlie Watts with British Union of Fascists flag
Charlie Watts with British Union of Fascists flag

I recently promoted Charlie Watts (fascist) (Template:Did you know nominations/Charlie Watts (fascist)) to prep 2, without an image. The nomination had been approved on March 14 so it had waited an entire month to be promoted to a prep area. There was a note from Yoninah on the nomination stating she had returned the hook from a prep area in March so it could later be promoted with an image. I ended up not using the image because it is of very poor quality and thought the fact it had waited so long without being promoted might be a sign that other prep builders were not keen on the image. The article creator, Philafrenzy, came to my talk page today to ask that I move the hook to an image slot. Personally, I think it would be a shame to use an image slot on such a poor image when we have a huge backlog of unpromoted hooks accompanied by high-quality images. But here I am to pass the question off to a wider audience. 97198 (talk) 12:02, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

The image isn't of poor quality, it is just of low resolution. It is a graphically strong image with high contrast which juxtaposes the subject and the fascist flag. Yes, it could never be a featured image, but that is not its function here. IMHO it works well with the hook. Philafrenzy (talk) 12:38, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
I don't think the image is of good enough resolution to be used here, to be honest. Maybe if there was a different picture of Watts that could be used instead, maybe that would be an option. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 12:57, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
The image is on Commons and has public domain licensing in the UK, but there is no US notice, and shouldn't be run on the main page without it, assuming it is in the public domain in the US. (The DYK review doesn't seem to have covered the image.) BlueMoonset (talk) 13:58, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Question on this: the date of the image is listed as "1940 or earlier". How do we know this? Joseph2302 (talk) 14:09, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
The BUF was proscribed by the British government in 1940 along with its uniforms and emblems. It was not reformed post-war. From the context of the article in Comrade it is a pre-war (or not later than 1940) image, although it doesn't date it in the article. Philafrenzy (talk) 19:17, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Oldest nominations needing DYK reviewers

The previous list was archived earlier today, with only four nominations remaining, so here is an updated list with the 37 oldest nominations that need reviewing, which covers those through March 28. We currently have a total of 403 nominations, of which 234 have been approved. Thanks to everyone who reviews these, especially the one still unreviewed from February.

Over two months old:

Over one month old:

Other old nominations:

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. Many thanks! BlueMoonset (talk) 15:44, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

CfD nomination of Category:DYK userboxes

Category:DYK userboxes has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. You are encouraged to join the discussion on the Categories for discussion page. —⁠andrybak (talk) 21:31, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Note that the idea here seems to be the merging of Category:DYK user templates with Category:DYK userboxes, with the ultimate category name being the former rather than the latter. Part of the discussion seems to be the actual direction or method of the merge, though so far the final name seems to be the templates one rather than the userboxes one. None of the templates in either category should be categoryless when this is over, if I'm reading this correctly. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:44, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Prep 2: Trimdon Labour Club

@PinkPanda272, Epicgenius, and Yoninah: This hook doesn't read very smoothly to me – it might be the unnaturally phrased quotation and the question mark after "someone called Clinton" when the context in the article makes it clear that the barmaid uttered it as a statement. I propose the following:

To keep it within the 200-character limit, I removed the "Is Tony Blair in?" part of the quote, as I don't think it's quite as quirky as the other part of not recognising Bill Clinton. This also avoids placing the quoted statement right before the question mark and resolves some JOBTITLES slips. Does this alternative work? — RAVENPVFF · talk · 08:22, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

I wasn't crazy about the hook but promoted it because the reviewer preferred it. I like your suggestion, Ravenpuff, but would delete when asked who it was from the end to make it even snappier. Yoninah (talk) 10:31, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

@Ravenpuff and Yoninah: thanks for your comments, I like the alternative, but I feel it doesn't read as well as the current one, possibly because it is not as chronologically straightforward. However I do agree with the issue with the structure of the quotation, and this could be a good way of solving it. Maybe something combining the two, such as:

  • ALT2: ... that when former US president Bill Clinton phoned Trimdon Labour Club to talk to UK prime minister Tony Blair, the barmaid said that "someone called Clinton" was on the phone (when asked who it was)?

I agree with Yoninah on the ending, but I don't mind either way if others have a strong opinion for it. Thanks again, PinkPanda272 (talk/contribs) 10:51, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Well, we don't use parentheses in hooks, so let's go with:
ALT3: ... that when former US president Bill Clinton phoned Trimdon Labour Club to talk to UK prime minister Tony Blair, the barmaid said "someone called Clinton" was on the phone? Yoninah (talk) 10:56, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Sorry Yoninah, I had intended the brackets to indicate that the last section was optional, I should of made that clearer. I agree that Alt-3 should be used. PinkPanda272 (talk/contribs) 11:06, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 Done Substituted in prep. Yoninah (talk) 13:00, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
ALT3 works for me as well, but I've further tweaked it slightly to include the words "who answered the call" to clarify which barmaid we're talking about; I hope this isn't problematic. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 13:06, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, Ravenpuff. Yoninah (talk) 17:36, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Prep 4:Dogs

  • ... that Sato Project founder Christina Beckles, who coordinates travel of stray dogs from Puerto Rico to the mainland United States for adoption, has a dog allergy requiring weekly injections?
@The Eloquent Peasant:@MartinPoulter:
I think the hook would be punchier if you shorten it and leave something for the reader to find out by clicking on the article:
ALT1: ... that Sato Project founder Christina Beckles, who coordinates travel of stray dogs from Puerto Rico to the mainland United States for adoption, is allergic to dogs? Yoninah (talk) 10:55, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
  •  Done Thanks. I'll edit it in prep. Yoninah (talk) 11:30, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Kateryna Skarzhynska in queue 1

The comment indicates that the Kateryna Skarzhynska hook should appear on April 19, but it's currently in queue 1, which is slated to appear on April 20. I believe that this should be rectified and the hook moved to queue 6 (tomorrow). — RAVENPVFF · talk · 04:18, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Queue 1 is scheduled for April 19, not April 20. Flibirigit (talk) 07:27, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
... because tomorrow is planned to have 2 sets --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:15, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
Since Queue 6 was promoted to the main page at 00:00, 18 April 2020 (UTC), I'm not sure why the Queue table would have shown Queue 1 as scheduled for being posted to the main page at any other time than 00:00, 19 April 2020 (UTC), except for a couple of minutes around midnight, when the old queue is being promoted and the new queue is being moved up. There's a brief disconnect where the dates have been incremented but the queues have not, but it shouldn't still have been showing four hours later when Ravenpuff posted. At any rate, Queue 1 will move at midnight UTC on the 19th (in about five hours), and Queue 2 at noon on the 19th, 12 hours later. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:51, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
I think I've found out the source of the error: Queue 6 was only cleared more than six hours after the promotion due to a bot error, so I think that's why the dates on the queues page were erroneous when I originally posted. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 05:11, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
That would do it! Thanks for the update, Ravenpuff. (Only a couple of minutes before the hook comes off the main page...) BlueMoonset (talk) 11:58, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Prep 3: 2010 Twenty20 Cup Final

@Harrias, The C of E, and Cwmhiraeth: I'm not seeing any sources (in the article or elsewhere) to say that Somerset would have won the game if they had known the laws; in any case, it seems to be an over-assertive claim for us to be making. The Daily Telegraph article uses the word could instead, which is probably a more appropriate choice of wording. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 08:50, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Good point, it should be "could", not "would". Harrias talk 09:00, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
"Could" is fine with me. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 10:37, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Why are new articles posted to the top of the day's section rather than the bottom?

When you add a new DYK, the instructions say "After you have created your nomination page, please add it ... to the TOP of this section (after this comment)." I'm just curious: why should it be added to the the top of the section rather than the bottom? Given that the page is otherwise is in ascending time order of the creation/expansion of the article, it seems an odd choice, but there must be a historical reason for it? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 19:09, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Consistency, maybe? Featured article candidates, Featured list candidates and Featured topic candidates say the same thing. — Maile (talk) 22:21, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
@Maile66: Perhaps, but those processes don't use date subsections that go the other way... Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 07:51, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
I think it doesn't even matter. Reviewers seem to go by interest, not by order of posting within a day. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:32, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Tweaking a hook

For a hook currently in Queue 3, "that Silke Bühler-Paschen was the first female to become a full professor of physics at TU Wien in 2005?", I think it would be more accurate here to say first "woman", given that "female" is typically used as an adjective and "woman" as a noun. Thanks, Elysia (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:35, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

It's been addressed, thakns. Elysia (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:05, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Did you know?

... that we have almost no biographical hooks on the Approved page? More reviews would be appreciated. Yoninah (talk) 17:55, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Proposal of interest

Watchers of this talk page may be interested in this proposal about creating a new usergroup for main page edits. This is the same proposal on which opinions were solicited here some months ago. Vanamonde (Talk) 20:28, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

DYK 2peat?!

Just decided to revive my little Potato production in x project and was randomly looking thru an article I'd written on Potato production in Cambodia -- apparently it appeared twice on DYK?! [1] Seems legit too, looking at the archives and past view counts. Not that it's very consequential, but just curious to know if this has ever happened before, and how? Kingoflettuce (talk) 16:50, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

For a little while, what we were doing was that if any hook got pulled then it would be replaced by one in the set that ran exactly the year prior. I have no idea why or how that notion came up. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 16:53, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
This is my default way to rebalance a set if a hook has to be removed, and a new one is needed to balance the main page. I'm not the first person to do it though, so I don't know who invented the one year rule. I did once simply put in a hook from a recently run set, but that drew several WTF posts at ERRORS, from people who thought something had gone wrong, so reusing an older one ends up less controversial! We could promote a hook from the queues instead, but that only works if it's still early in the hook set's run. Otherwise that hook would not get its full main page time slot. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 06:43, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Queue 4: World's oldest postcard

Just curious about this one - it was not obvious to me from the lead whether this postcard really is the oldest in the world, and if so whether that's verified. The lead describes it as a "practical joke on the postal service", so I assume it's not actually the world's oldest. I see from Template:Did you know nominations/World's oldest postcard that Yoninah already queried this, so I think it needs some more explanation. It was also raised that it should be in British English, per WP:TIES, but this wasn't changed before the nom went live. @Doug Coldwell: as nominator. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 14:08, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

@Amakuru: I have copy edited accordingly to explain that it has been verified as the world's oldest. --Doug Coldwell (talk) 14:33, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
I have cleaned up the lead to record the chain of events. I still think this needs to be in British English. Maybe Philafrenzy could help here. Yoninah (talk) 14:36, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
I agree, it was created in Fulham so it is a British postcard so British English would be appropriate. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 08:32, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
I have made a start. There's lots to do but it isn't mostly about the variety of English. My immediate thought is that it should be moved to Penny Penates postcard as it is impossible to prove it was the first or is indeed the oldest surviving. Philafrenzy (talk) 08:38, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
Agree on moving the page to something more encyclopaedic; it's clearly not the oldest anything. The oldest possible, perhaps. The oldest known, perhaps. But not the oldest, period. ——SN54129 09:32, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
For all we know this was the second or third card that he sent. Philafrenzy (talk) 09:56, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
The "world's first card lost in the post" would be a thing  :) ——SN54129 10:48, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
Agree with others that "World's oldest postcard" isn't the most encyclopedic name. Surely, there has to be a better one e.g. the article boldens the title Penny Penates, so maybe should be moved there? Joseph2302 (talk) 15:53, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Oldest nominations needing DYK reviewers

The previous list was archived about 25 minutes ago, so here is an updated list with the 36 oldest nominations that need reviewing, which covers those through April 8. We currently have a total of 430 nominations, of which 253 have been approved. Thanks to everyone who reviews these, especially the ones from early March.

Over two months old:

Over one month old:

Other old nominations:

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. Many thanks! BlueMoonset (talk) 02:13, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Queue 4: George Insole

  • ... that George Insole was largely responsible for the introduction and early success of South Wales steam coal in the London and international markets?

This article seems to have some WP:WEASEL phrases in it, including the hook fact... it is not clear what "largely responsible" means in this context. The last paragraph of the lead also has two unattributed facts - "Insole is claimed..." and "Insole was said to have been..." I think these probably need fixing before the hook goes live. Pinging @SusunW: and @Jon698: as nom and reviewer. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 14:29, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Sorry Amakuru, I've never seen this article, nor done any review on it. SusunW (talk) 14:38, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
Pinging nominator RLO1729 and reviewer KAVEBEAR. Yoninah (talk) 14:42, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks. And apologies to SusunW and Jon698 for the mix-up.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:23, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks Amakuru. The wording of the lead has been revised and the information presented relies on the cited sources. I suggest revising the hook to
... that George Insole pioneered the introduction and early success of South Wales steam coal in the London and international markets?
  ~ RLO1729💬 01:24, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
Pinging Amakuru to look at the proposed hook rewording. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:58, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
Please also note that WP:WEASEL allows some weasel words in the lead section.  ~ RLO1729💬 02:10, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
@RLO1729: @BlueMoonset: yes, this looks fine now, thanks for the updates. I've updated the hook as suggested.  — Amakuru (talk) 11:55, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Alphabetland

Would some please review Template:Did you know nominations/Alphabetland. I'd like to get it on the main page on April 26 to coincide with the bands 40th anniversary of the release of their first album. Thanks! --evrik (talk) 20:42, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

I've left some comments there. Yoninah (talk) 21:18, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
 Done The nomination is approved and needs to be slotted into Queue 4 for a special occasion appearance on April 26. Pinging @Casliber:@Vanamonde93:@Maile66:@Valereee:@Amakuru:@Lee Vilenski:@Kees08:. Yoninah (talk) 12:29, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
@Yoninah: would this be as a 9th hook, or should we move some other hook back to prep? A 9th hook would be the most simple move. Might not be a bad idea considering our backlog. Please make a suggestion. — Maile (talk) 17:17, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
Have slotted in as 9th hook Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:24, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, Cas Liber. Maile, one thing you can always do is check to see how a set balances the planned page, and with that 9th hook on April 26, it balances quite nicely. (There are links on any queue or prep page that lets you check any of the queues or preps with the current day's planned page or the day after that.) May as well go with it, rather than to try to strip Queue 4 back to eight hooks. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:43, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
I had forgotten about the preview feature in the queues, but I think I'm cautious enough anyway to run the idea around here first. Anyway, it all worked out smoothly. — Maile (talk) 01:49, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
Well, not quite smoothly; I just had to close the nomination template, which had been edited but not also substituted at the time. My thought was before coming here to see how well it might fit; I'd want to run the idea here, too, but knowing it helps with better main page balance adds another argument for doing the simple thing in this case. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:56, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Thanks for pitching in here, Casliber, but this really doesn't belong in the quirky slot. We already have a quirky, so could you move it up some more? (The quirky is also a music-related hook, so it shouldn't be next to it.) Also, the page name for World's oldest postcard, discussed in a preceding post really should be changed before this hook runs. Pinging Doug Coldwell. Yoninah (talk) 20:44, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Thanks, Doug Coldwell. An administrator is needed to change the credit line in Queue 4 to:
 Done* {{DYKmake|Penny Penates|Doug Coldwell|subpage=World's oldest postcard}}
  • Should the hook also be changed? Something like:
  • ... that a Penny Penates (pictured) mailed in 1840 and certified as the world's oldest postcard was designed as a practical joke to mock postal clerks? Yoninah (talk) 21:16, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Looks good as far as I am concerned. Can you change accordingly? Thanks. --Doug Coldwell (talk) 21:19, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Thank you, everyone! --evrik (talk) 21:29, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Administrators needed to load 2 empty queues

Pinging @Casliber:@Vanamonde93:@Maile66:@Valereee:@Amakuru:@Lee Vilenski:@Kees08:. Thank you, Yoninah (talk) 18:02, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

On it. Someone beat me to it :) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:52, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Queue 2 still has the {{User:DYKUpdateBot/REMOVE THIS LINE}} line that's meant for empty queues at the bottom of the page. Can an admin please remove it? Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:47, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
Removed. That was my fault. I thought I took it out when I loaded the hooks, but apparently I just pushed it to the bottom. Sorry. — Maile (talk) 01:18, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
We now have 3 empty queues and 6 full prep sets. Pinging @Casliber:@Vanamonde93:@Maile66:@Valereee:@Amakuru:@Lee Vilenski:@Kees08:. Thank you, Yoninah (talk) 00:32, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
Done Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:48, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
If there are still empty queues in a couple of hours I will try to do some promotions. Vanamonde (Talk) 00:51, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

9 August 2020

Did you know that Bonaparte Crossing the Alps appeared (or is due to appear) on the main page in DYK on 9 August 2020? This surprising fact is mentioned on the article's talk page. It actually appeared on 9 August 2007, or at least that is what is stated on the edit version of the talk page, which I inspected in an attempt to remove the anomaly. So the displayed version is not the same as the edit page version. Does anybody know what has happened here? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:52, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. It looks OK now. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:28, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
I have also reported the problem here: Template talk:Article history#Dates with a comma. --Moscow Connection (talk) 14:39, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Credit fixes: Queues 5 and 6

In Queue 6, the ninth credit should be: 

* {{DYKmake|Notarial Archives|Xwejnusgozo|subpage=Notarial Archives (Malta)}}

The fifth credit of Queue 5 should be: 

* {{DYKmake|Up from the Ashes (song)|Nice4What|subpage=Up from the Ashes (song)}}

MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 17:34, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

 Done — Maile (talk) 10:24, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

ALT2 hook needing review on Patsy Mink

Is there anyone available to review ALT2 on DYK Patsy Mink? The original reviewer does not seem to be online, and I've tried pinging others. I've provided info on the template where to find the hook in the article, and linked its source. Thanks to anyone who can do this. — Maile (talk) 23:28, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

@Yoninah: this one has been taken care of, now. — Maile (talk) 10:25, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Back to Rule C6

We have this hook in prep:

And this hook on the noms page:
  • ... that in The Beetle (1919), Leal Douglas played an Egyptian princess who can transform herself into a man or a beetle?
It's obviously very easy to write a hook around an interesting plot point, but does it meet C6? Yoninah (talk) 11:09, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Yoninah, agree, neither of those passes. It's an interesting question, though. We pass 'tenor sang role' hooks. But I think it's different. —valereee (talk) 11:23, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Why wouldn't they pass? Neither Laia Manzanares or Leal Douglas are fictional works or characters. The wording of C6 is "If the subject is a work of fiction or a fictional character, the hook must involve the real world in some way." In this case the real world is that this is something a real person has portrayed in a real prodution. C6 is to weed out the sort of hooks that would fall foul of Template:In-universe - i.e. "describes a work or element of fiction in a primarily in-universe style" - for example to prevent hooks like "DYK ... that Yuji has the possibility to live like an average human as long as he makes sure that his power of existence does not run out before midnight?" Valereee makes a good point, if we do pass "singer performs role in opera, etc", we need to have a good reason not to pass the equivalent for other media. Spokoyni (talk) 12:19, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
I think the concern is that they mainly deal with plot points, and from what I can tell, hooks that are primarily about plot points have previously been frowned upon. The "Opera performer performs Role X" hooks pass because they tend to focus more on the actual performance than the plot of the operas involved. As for the hooks being discussed here, I think the Manzanares hook could still pass the rule since it's referring to a music video, which isn't really considered a "work of fiction" as far as I'm aware. The Douglas hook though is probably more borderline. Slightly off-topic, but I love the Shakugan no Shana reference given above. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 12:29, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
The "actress Laia Manzanares" is real world and "The Beetle (1919) and Leal Douglas" are real world, so what's the problem? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:33, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Concur with Cwmhiraeth. If "... that in The Beetle (1919), Leal Douglas played an Egyptian princess" would pass, but the longer version which described an aspect of the plot wouldn't, then I think we're being overly pedantic. We're missing the chance to put in details that describe the range of what an actor/performer, etc is providing. Recently fwiw we had "... that Gregory Peck's screen roles included Captain Ahab (pictured), Abraham Lincoln, and Josef Mengele?" Which did not cause any trouble either before, during or (I hope) after. Spokoyni (talk) 12:40, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
    • I think both do meet C6, the prep hook says its in a music video and noms hook says its a film. I'm not really seeing an issue here? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 13:10, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Unfortunately, the image showing Manzanares in the music video is non-free, and therefore (a) I've nominated it for speedy deletion as it's on Commons, and (b) would fail NFCC here anyway. Black Kite (talk) 13:23, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree with David Eppstein and Yoninah at Template:Did you know nominations/Leal Douglas that it violates the spirit of the rule. Yes, the article subjects are real people, but the whole point of this rule is to not rely on a fictional hook that doesn't connect to the real world. Connecting it via the simple 'actor played (plot point)' or 'author wrote (plot point)' isn't enough. —valereee (talk) 18:42, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm with Valereee here. The point of C6 is that hookiness ought not to hinge on fictional elements. These hooks fail that criterion. Vanamonde (Talk) 21:22, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
  • As I explained further at Template:Did you know nominations/Leal Douglas, I think that a hook that uses a really interesting plot point is a lazy option. This kind of hook could conceivably be used for every single film, play, book, poem, and every other creative work. The spirit of DYK is to find surprising or unusual facts or twists on the text in the article, not to rely on the work of creative writers and directors. Yoninah (talk) 00:34, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Yoninah, this all needs to be analysed.
  1. “a hook that uses a really interesting plot point is a lazy option.” A sweeping statement which is nothing to do with the rules. Even if it were true, there is no DYK rule against “lazy options”, that claim could be made about any hook someone didn’t like.
  2. ”This kind of hook could conceivably be used for every single film, play, book, poem, and every other creative work.” We are not talking here about “creative works”, but performers. Performers perform, mostly in works of fiction. Are you really saying that hooks about performers must not be about their work? Where is the sense in that?
  3. ”The spirit of DYK...” is obscure and a matter of opinion, we are talking here about the precise meaning of a rule and how to apply it.
  4. ”...is to find surprising or unusual facts or twists on the text in the article...” Facts, yes. I do not know where “twists on the text” comes from.
  5. ”...not to rely on the work of creative writers and directors.” But where are you getting that from? It isn’t in any DYK rule. If you want it to be in a rule, you need to ask for the creation of a new rule, although I can’t see any good purpose in it. Moonraker (talk) 03:14, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Vanamonde, you say “The point of C6 is that hookiness ought not to hinge on fictional elements.” But that is just not so. C6 only applies “If the subject is a work of fiction or a fictional character...” Its point is then spelt out very clearly in the rest of the rule: “... the hook must involve the real world in some way.” That is its only point, it does not try to keep works of fiction out of hooks. C6 is defining how hooks can be based on them. If you want C6 to exclude “the work of creative writers and directors”, propose an alteration to it, but I would not support it. Moonraker (talk) 03:20, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Moonraker, I don't think anyone is suggesting that we exclude the work of creative writers and directors, just that a hook shouldn't be "... that writer X wrote a story about an Egyptian princess who could transform herself into a man or a beetle?" or "... that director X produced a movie about an Egyptian princess who could transform herself into a man or a beetle?" That doesn't exclude a hook like "... that writer X based character Y on real person Z, who could transform herself into a man or a beetle?" Sure! Great hook. —valereee (talk) 16:50, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
@Moonraker: with respect, you've completely misunderstood my comment, which is saying the same thing you are. I have gotten a number of works of fiction featured at DYK; I'm not in any way arguing to exclude them. The hooks we use for them cannot hinge on their fictional characteristics. That's all. Vanamonde (Talk) 18:07, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Vanamonde, also with respect, I am in complete disagreement with you. You have said:
  1. “The point of C6 is that hookiness ought not to hinge on fictional elements. These hooks fail that criterion.” But that is nowhere in any rule, so it is not a criterion. As I explained above, what C6 says is utterly different from your interpretation of it. It says nothing about “hookiness” and instead spells out that when the subject is fictional, hooks need to involve the real world. Nothing is said about “fictional elements” being excluded. Don’t you get that?
  2. ”I have gotten a number of works of fiction featured at DYK” – Then those will be subjects which C6 does apply to.
  3. ”The hooks we use for them cannot hinge on their fictional characteristics. That's all.“ Your word “them” is referring to works of fiction, and in fact they can do that if they also involve the real world. But the idea of applying that rule to real subjects, ignoring what it says, is only your personal invention, you have no rule to base it on. Moonraker (talk) 04:30, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I am describing what many users understand the spirit of the rule to be; I do not claim to be reproducing policy word for word, because if the rule were laid out in such detail, there would be no disagreement over its interpretation. You continue to misunderstand my comment, because I have not spoken of excluding fictional elements at all. I don't especially want to pursue this argument any further, because it's already gotten more time than a disagreement this minor deserves. Vanamonde (Talk) 04:43, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
    Whether such hooks fail C6 ( I agree with Vanamonde93) that they do. They certainly fail to be hooky. Both of these are simply saying "actor played role" Such simple "somebody did his damn job" hooks are never interesting and should never be used. --Khajidha (talk) 15:05, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Queue 1: Lou Vairo

  • ... that American ice hockey coach Lou Vairo introduced European coaching concepts to the United States?

Neither the article nor the linked source makes the claim in quite as strong language; this either needs a better source, or needs to be rephrased. Queue 1 is currently furthest from the main page, but if this hasn't been resolved in 48 hours, I will pull it to allow further working. Pinging @Flibirigit and Sainsf: as nominator and reviewer respectively. Vanamonde (Talk) 03:56, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I think the source ( introducing European concepts of training and playing rarely seen in this country) implies it in that sense but a rephrase would be better. Sainsf (knock knock · am I there?) 04:02, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
I am too busy with real life, and will be unable to address concerns for a few days. Please return to the nomination stage. Have a great day.Flibirigit (talk) 12:50, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
Okay, pulled and replaced. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:08, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Prep 1:Speed skating records

@SportsOlympic:@MrClog:
So why isn't she mentioned in the linked article, List of world records in speed skating? Is a word like "first" missing here? Yoninah (talk) 15:55, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
@Yoninah: I interpreted the hook as meaning that she previously set the world record. I believe she has since been defeated. However, she did in fact set the first world records in all individual distances. --MrClog (talk) 15:59, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
OK, I'll add "first" to the hook. Thank you, Yoninah (talk) 16:10, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
@Yoninah:, indeed, take a look at the sub-pages of List of world records in speed skating --> 500m, 1000m, 1500m, 3000m, 5000m. SportsOlympic (talk) 16:59, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
@SportsOlympic: Oh, so we shouldn't add "first"? Yoninah (talk) 17:01, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
@Yoninah:, “first” is not necassary because she “set” the records and not “broke” the records. SportsOlympic (talk) 17:04, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
OK, thanks. Yoninah (talk) 17:37, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Automatic transcluding

Is there some reason that there should not be a "created/expanded date" field in the review page creation template? The field could then be used by bots to automatically transclude the review to the correct place. It's a confusing extra step for new editors to get through. If this is a viable suggestion, who do I need to ask to get it done? Note that Legobot already does a similar task on the GA project. SpinningSpark 15:14, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Spinningspark, I don't know of any particular reason not to have that date; it could be added as part of the nomination template building module, but preferably in a way that causes a standard form of the date to be generated. The question is, would we want a bot to do that: the nominations that don't get transcluded are frequently ones where nothing is filled in. (I agree that this isn't an easy step: many people transclude under the date they added the nomination, not the UTC date they started the expansion.) We'd need someone to create a new bot to add the templates, presumably by looking out there for all the pending templates, see which ones are not already on the Nominations or Approved pages, and add it to the former. The bot would need to run a few times an hour, so the templates didn't take too long to appear automatically. Unless we can have a bot created, there isn't much point to adding the date. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:57, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Legobot at GA transcludes within minutes, just take a look at the Wikipedia:Good article nominations history, it gets updated almost in real time. I don't see that a small delay is problematic, it often takes weeks before a reviewer comes along. If we go ahead with this idea, Legobot seems to already have all the features we need, so writing a new bot from scratch wouldn't be necessary. This should help stop transclusions into the wrong section; users will have to overwrite a hidden comment saying in all caps that the creation/expansion date is required, not current date. It will at least not make the situation any worse. I suggest that if nothing is filled in at all then the bot just discards the nom. If the date isn't filled in, the bot sends a warning to the user page that a date is required. SpinningSpark 23:55, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
I know how Legobot works (and doesn't)—I was around when it went from running every ten minutes to every twenty, and used to coordinate with GABot owner ChrisG when we added new subtopics before he left and Legoktm took over the code and started running it under Legobot—and it is useless for this purpose: the GA code that it runs is barely supported by Legoktm, who would love for someone else to take it on, has many known bugs, and a new, replacement bot has been wanted for years (and, unfortunately, every attempt to write a new one has sputtered). Believe me in this: I've been involved in trying to dig around in the code and recruiting potential new bot owners, and it's legacy code that everyone who has looked at has wanted to stay far away from, preferring to write something new than attempt to update the old. In addition, DYK needs to do very different things. It may be that Wugapodes, whose WugBot handles the moving of hooks from the Nominations and Approved page, would be willing to take on another DYK-related bot task. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:21, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
WugBot is actually already approved for this. I paused that task a few months ago because it was running into conflicts with a semi-automated tool some editors were using. I can't remember the specifics and am about to have dinner, but I'll look into this and see about starting that task again in the next few days. — Wug·a·po·des​ 01:58, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Wugapodes, I'd forgotten about the semi-automated tool, since I've never used it. Spinningspark, it appears that DYK-helper, created last summer, already takes care of the transclusion if you use it to create nominations. Not many seem to, but this is an example of DYK-helper in action, transcluding the newly created nomination to the date specified by the nominator. BlueMoonset (talk) 13:45, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
I use DYK-Helper. It's a fantastic tool. Is there no way to edit the bot to not translude if already transcluded? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 13:50, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
There is, I just haven't had time to figure out exactly how. If anyone has examples of articles they've used it on, I would really appreciate it! The edit summary search tool is down so I'm having trouble finding test cases. — Wug·a·po·des​ 02:26, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Wugapodes, I've used it on all mine, recently, you can get to any of them from my talk —valereee (talk) 11:42, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Well I've never noticed that sidebox in the instructions before. Which may explain why not many use it. I doubt that new users struggling to follow the instructions would want the extra headache of installing some javascript. That sort of thing is really for regular users. SpinningSpark 13:56, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
I also forgot about the existence of DYK-helper. But I've now added it to my js script. Is there anything we can to do let nominators know it's out there? Just thinking out loud here, but I wonder if @Gerda Arendt: uses DYK-helper. Of all editors, she could almost be a poster girl for a time-saving DYK tool. — Maile (talk) 19:29, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
No, I didn't know that helper, will check out. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:42, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
  • WugBot has started transcluding nominations on talk pages. This first run is taking a long time since it needs to get through all the nominations, but it should go faster in the future. Let me know if you come across any problems! — Wug·a·po·des​ 00:09, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
    Seen and not liked, sorry. The transclusions take a lot of space on the talk pages, and for whom? Reviewers will go by the nom page, and, once appeared, a link to the nomination discussion comes with the credit. Can I mark articles to not get the transclusion? ... saving me the effort of removing it. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:36, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
    The last discussion on this was in June 2019, about 8 months ago. Consensus can change, and in fact, I'd welcome a review of this after a few weeks to see whether it's helping or hurting. In the meantime, the bot is exclusion compliant, so Gerda Arendt, you can add {{bots|deny=WugBot}} anywhere on the talk page and WugBot should ignore the page. — Wug·a·po·des​ 20:18, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
    Thank you for the "ignore" tip, but actually removing seems easier. I'll remove after it appeared then. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:43, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

I think there is some confusion about what was being requested here. The original request was that the nomination be automatically transcluded on the DYK nominations page WP:DYKN, not on the article talk page. Of course, that can't be done unless the article creation date/move to mainspace date/start of expansion date/GA passage date is known. I've never been a big fan of DYK transclusions on the article talk page because they're only potentially useful until the article has appeared on the main page, after which there's a link to the review up top anyway. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:27, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Gerda about this cluttering up the article talk page. Is there any way the bot can remove the DYK template discussion after the article is promoted? Then there would be just a small box saying it appeared on DYK. Yoninah (talk) 16:45, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm not understand why this is seen as cluttering the talk page. It's a useful way to make sure anyone interested in an article sees that it's been nominated for DYK. I also find it a useful shortcut to DYK noms. —valereee (talk) 13:19, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
    Trying once more: It's transcluding the nomination, - for whom, at what time? Nominations are on the nom page, where anybody interested in DYK will see it. The transclusion stays on the talk even through the discussion of the nomination which can get loooong, and is good for whom on the talk? The transclusion stays on the talk even after the hook appeared, when the credit will have a simple link for those still interested. For me, it's all clutter, but certainly after something appeared. If the bot will manage to let it disappear after the hook appeared, fine with me. Until then, I'll remove it after appearing. - To say something positive: at least the present version, creating a header, is MUCH better than the transclusion so far without a header, which made the actual DYK credit get below it, so often not even visible when you open the talk page. I haven't counted how many times I almost thought there was no credit, for that reason. I collect hooks for portals Germany and Opera, not only "my own", so face the problem often. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:46, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
    Valereee I personally think it's a good idea to transclude it on the talkpage, so others can see it. However, once the DYK has been on mainpage, there's no value to having an old DYK nomination still transcluded on the talkpage. Joseph2302 (talk) 14:35, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
    Joseph2302, but why is that any more clutter than any other talk page entry? I'm sort of bemused that there's this much objection to it. Talk pages don't need to be pretty. —valereee (talk) 15:20, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
    Gerda Arendt, for anyone interested in the article but not a regular at DYK review. I've seen at least one disgruntled editor who had done significant work on an article come to errors while it was on the main page saying it would have been nice to at least get a notification. And I use the talk transclusion (if there is one) when I'm doing a review because it's easy to toggle back and forth. When there isn't a talk transclusion I'm a bit put out because it's an extra step. —valereee (talk) 15:26, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
    Please let me understand how the transclusion on the talk helps you better than a search on the noms page, or looking up "What links here". For "my" articles: the link to the nom is on my user page - until it appears and is no longer needed. - When I nominate for someone else, I normally ping editors in the nomination, hoping to leave no "disgruntled" one behind. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:41, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
    The transclusion on the talk page means I don't have to go to the noms page and search to find the nom I'm reviewing. I just go to the article -- which I'm at anyway, since I'm reviewing it -- and then toggle to the talk. I find this easier than having to search the noms page. To each her own; I'm not asking you to agree with me. All I'm saying is that I find the transclusion to the talk to be useful in two ways and that I think the idea the transclusion represents undesirable clutter is purely personal preference. —valereee (talk) 18:24, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
    I asked "for whom", and you replied, thank you. I didn't use the word "clutter" in this discussion, but - yes - in edit summaries when I still find it on a talk AFTER the hook appeared. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:22, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Tom Moore

Moore has now raised over £30 million; please update the figure (from [2]) before posting to the main page. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 08:22, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

He is also now a colonel after being promoted by The Queen. This also need to be updated on the hook. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 10:36, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
Pinging @Casliber:@Vanamonde93:@Maile66:@Valereee:@Amakuru:@Gatoclass:@Lee Vilenski:@Kees08: for immediate action here. Yoninah (talk) 10:38, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
 Done — Maile (talk) 10:48, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
Should this be 'turned 100 today' instead of 'turns 100 today'? He's turned 100, hasn't he? Or is that a BrEng thing? —valereee (talk) 11:57, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
Nick of time! Thanks, Maile. @Pigsonthewing:, maybe you'd like to update and add a cite to the lead about him being promoted to colonel by the Queen. Thanks, Yoninah (talk) 11:57, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
Thank you. It's already mentioned in the lede, and cited in the body, as it should be. And it should be "turns", both as British English and because he might have been born at 11:59pm for all we know. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:55, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
This is also being discussed at ERRORS, which is the more appropriate venue.-- P-K3 (talk) 14:16, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Q4 May 2b

Template:Did you know nominations/San Filippo Neri in Via Giulia

Alessandro57

The location section has no citation, can you add that? Also, the Trophimus of Arles article doesn't mention that he's the patron saint of people with gout, I'm wondering if maybe that + ref can be added to that article, as we've had reports at ERRORS for this kind of thing. —valereee (talk) 16:12, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Valereee, both done, thanks for your attention! Alex2006 (talk) 16:39, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
Alessandro57, well that was quick, thank you! :) —valereee (talk) 16:44, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
Valereee, first come first serve :-), Cheers! Alex2006 (talk) 16:48, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Template:Did you know nominations/Mount Brandon

Britishfinance

The article sentence that supports voyaging to the island doesn't have a citation, could you add that? And I'm not sure the article supports 'to discover', am I missing something? —valereee (talk) 17:45, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi Valereee. Here is one (from the article), on page 25 of Nancy Scheper-Hughes book that has "discover" and "sail" (instead of voyage): [3]. Does that work? thanks. Britishfinance (talk) 18:48, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
Britishfinance, works for me, thanks so much! —valereee (talk) 18:55, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Template:Did you know nominations/Tetraponera penzigi

Cwmhiraeth

Totally not an error and this is likely isolation-induced AnRet obsessive nitpicking, but rhinoceros is also pluralized rhinoceros, and in my head rhinoceroses sounds funny. If you have any objection I'm fine with leaving it. —valereee (talk) 11:38, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

@Valereee: The Rhinoceros article states "The plural in English is rhinoceros or rhinoceroses"; the latter sounds right to me, but we could solve the problem by saying "rhinos". Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:49, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
Cwmhiraeth, nah, I'm being ridiculous. :) —valereee (talk) 13:01, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Oldest nominations needing DYK reviewers

The previous list was archived a few minutes ago, so here is an updated list with the 38 oldest nominations that need reviewing, which covers those through April 13. We currently have a total of 417 nominations, of which 233 have been approved. Thanks to everyone who reviews these, especially the ones unreviewed from February and March.

Over two months old:

Over one month old:

Other old nominations:

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. Many thanks! BlueMoonset (talk) 02:03, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Bot sometimes not moving approved nominations to the Approved page

I've noticed that for a while, sometimes there's a delay in the bot moving an approved nomination to the Approved page, to the point that sometimes nominations have remained on the regular nominations page for days or even weeks despite being given an approval tick (an example would be Template:Did you know nominations/Qibla, which I just manually moved despite it being given a tick back on April 19). Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 07:04, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Narutolovehinata5, this is typically caused by reviewers not substituting the tick template as instructed—the "subst:" preceding {{DYKtick}} in the icon code examples on the edit page are there for a reason. In this case, Onceinawhile simply placed the DYKtick template rather than substituting it, so the bot didn't see the actual icon file name it checks for (Symbol confirmed.svg) and didn't know to move it. (The same applies for all icon templates.) The bot also sometimes has trouble with the {{DYK checklist}} template when it encounters one that isn't filled out as expected. The best thing to do is to do the template substitution yourself, and the bot will move the nomination as it is designed to do at the next run, which occurs every other hour on the odd hour. BlueMoonset (talk) 14:27, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing out the issue. I've added it to my list of maintenance checks. I subst-ed two more. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 21:26, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
The bot removed it after Narutolovehinata5's manual action. Suggestions how to proceed? HaEr48 (talk) 15:56, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
HaEr48, thanks for pointing out the problem. This was effectively a collision between Narutolovehinata5's edit on the Approved page and WugBot's edit: every two hours, WugBot gets the list of approved noms, and if there are any changes, adds new moved noms and/or removes closed ones, and then writes the new, updated list of approved noms. Since the Narutolovehinata5's edit occurred between getting the list (without Qibla) and writing the full list back out (again without Qibla), the edit was overwritten. To avoid this happening in future, make sure no edits are made to the Approved page in and around the odd-numbered hours.
What I've done is to restore Qibla to the Nominations page and substituted the DYKtick template. The bot should pick it up at 23:00 UTC and move it to the Approved page, at which point everything should finally be set. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:16, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Mother's Day and Father's Day special occasion sets?

I realize it's a bit late for something like this, but would it be a good idea for us to create special occasion sets for Mother's Day and Father's Day, in which we only have articles on parents? The US-derived version of both holidays (May 10 for Mother's Day, so we need to create sets soon) has been adopted by the most countries, so we should go with that; if necessary we can limit the sets to people from countries where the date is observed. I see this has previously been done in 2012.

One decision we need to make is: should we include any notable person who had been a parent, or limit the sets to people who are notable for being a parent? The former is likely the only workable solution. feminist #WearAMask😷 11:33, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

According to the article, your date only applies to around half the world's countries so it hasn't been adopted by "most". Bazza (talk) 11:54, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
I said "the most" (i.e. "the highest number of"), not "most" (i.e. "the majority of"). feminist|wear a mask, go outdoors, avoid crowds 12:07, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
It is a bit late for this Sunday (indeed, preps for that day are already assembled), but might be better for Father's Day (which has the advantage that a bigger percentage of the world celebrate it on that day). Black Kite (talk) 12:13, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
Yes, it is a bit late. But what are the criteria for inclusion? So many people are parents. Yoninah (talk) 12:37, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
Mother's Day date doesn't apply to some countries (UK), and looks like Father's Day doesn't in Spain, Italy, Germany. If we could work up a proper scope (which countries it applies to, what's the "parent" inclusion), then sounds a decent idea, maybe for next year. Joseph2302 (talk) 12:40, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
As I suggested, we can exclude people from countries where the date is not observed. For example, we can exclude UK mothers from a May 10 set. feminist|wear a mask, go outdoors, avoid crowds 12:52, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
If we limit the scope to articles which mention the subject's children, that would be workable. Obviously, many people are parents, but for Wikipedia to mention a person's children in their article, sources must cover that fact. When considering that DYK mostly involves newly created articles, and often contain relatively few sources compared to more developed articles, having "parent" as a scope should be adequate in practice. feminist|wear a mask, go outdoors, avoid crowds 12:51, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

What is the point of this? Almost every adult is a parent, and who is likely to notice that we are featuring "parents"? This just doesn't make any sense to me. Gatoclass (talk) 13:42, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

I find this proposal very confusing, despite its good intentions. Flibirigit (talk) 13:55, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
Gender equality, basically. With Mother's Day, to dispel the preconception that strong women don't make for good parents; with Father's Day, to promote fatherhood and equal parenting. Ideally we would want people who have publicly discussed or emphasized their role as a parent. On second thoughts, you guys have a point, and perhaps I am overthinking this. feminist|wear a mask, go outdoors, avoid crowds 14:16, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I don't see the point in this to start, and it gets conceptually worse if you think that editors will be trying to make seven hooks reducing people to a relationship with their children. Then there's the fact that the UK and Australia probably deliver the next most readers after the US, and don't share dates, which will make this confusing at least and insultingly regional at worst. Kingsif (talk) 14:15, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

On another point, @Feminist: can you change your signature? There's still plenty countries with lockdowns and quarantines in force, so it's also regional to be saying 'go outdoors' in it. Kingsif (talk) 14:15, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Fair, and thanks for the input. There are probably good reasons why such an idea has rarely been entertained in the past, and in the future if anyone asks, we can point to this discussion. Of course this shouldn't preclude editors from nominating special occasion hooks, but a full set is probably excessive. feminist|wear a mask 14:19, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Prep 2: Andagua volcanic field

Can somebody please explain to me what "landscape value" means? Gatoclass (talk) 17:02, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Looks like a monetary evaluation of land dependent upon the value it holds to the public.US Dept of Agriculture — Maile (talk) 17:29, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
It's a somewhat clumsy way to summarize Most of the volcanic sites are located in the Valley of the Volcanoes, which complement the scattered sites connected with stratovolcanoes located on both sides of the Colca Canyon(Fig.1). The volcanic sites are distinguished in terms of quantitative, scientific and didactic qualities. Asignificant amount of them -31 is concentrated in the Valley of the Volcanoes. The remaining ones -19 are located along the Colca Canyon and the Colca Valley. A large number of objects means increased opportunity to observe intermediate forms, partly transformed by geological processes. It creates excellent conditions for preparation of educational pathways related to volcanology which enable tourists to access the sites and scientists to carry out research studies. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 18:27, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
Okay, thanks for the clarification, based on that quote I should be able to give it a tweak to make the meaning clearer, thank you Jo-Jo. Gatoclass (talk) 18:59, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

what just happened?

The picture was on Ramnami Samaj was deleted, while it was in the prep area, despite the fact that I tried to make sure it was okay to use to prevent exactly this from happening. It was removed by admin and not the delinker bot so there may be a discussion somewhere but I can't find it. What do I do now? TryKid (talk) 03:54, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Q6 May9b

Template:Did you know nominations/Loot (2012 film)

  • ... that Nepali director Nischal Basnet wrote Loot's lead character while mirroring his own personality?

CAPTAIN MEDUSA KAVEBEAR

I don't know what this hook means. Are we saying he based the lead character on himself? —valereee (talk) 18:33, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Valereee, Yes. ~~ CAPTAIN MEDUSAtalk 18:35, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
CAPTAIN MEDUSA, thanks! —valereee (talk) 18:42, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
Really? I read it as Basnet mirroring the personality of the character in order to write it. valereee, since that isn't the case, I think "while mirroring" should be changed to "to mirror", or a different wording or hook be found. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:33, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
NM, changed the hook and article sentence. —valereee (talk) 19:46, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Template:Did you know nominations/Holden Block

John M Wolfson

Hey, John M Wolfson, not an error but I'm wondering if a tweak to 'the best-preserved example of Italianate architecture' might be more interesting? The source and article both support it, and it's supported by the same sourced sentence so wouldn't need work at the article. —valereee (talk) 20:00, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! —valereee (talk) 20:37, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

4 empty queues

@Casliber:@Vanamonde93:@Maile66:@Valereee:@Amakuru:@Gatoclass:@Lee Vilenski:@Kees08:@Coffeeandcrumbs:: we are ready for you. Thanks, Yoninah (talk) 12:19, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

On it Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:24, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
I'll see what I can do a bit later. Vanamonde (Talk) 15:33, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
I've promoted one also. We don't seem to be making any progress on digging out from the backlog. Anyone up for continuing the discussions above for finding some solution other than going to 3-a-days? —valereee (talk) 16:51, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
No we don't, and it's a worry. I for one don't want to return to a regime where we are permanently back to two or perhaps even three sets a day.
If you want a simple solution, probably the easiest method would be just to have a bot that runs whenever the total number of nominations reaches 400, which measures the length of each nominated article and then just deletes the 100 shortest nominations. Problem solved. Gatoclass (talk) 17:54, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
Good luck with that one. :) —valereee (talk) 18:55, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
Why don't we just block new nominations for a week or two so we can catch up? Yoninah (talk) 21:39, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
Yoninah I wonder if part of the current phenomenon has to do with a lot of people around the world quarantined due to the pandemic, trying to find something useful to do. This pandemic doesn't seem to be winding down in the near future. — Maile (talk) 21:52, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
It's also our regulars who keep churning out one nomination after another. I think they'd understand a moratorium. Yoninah (talk) 22:12, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
The numbers are coming down, albeit slowly. We only have 12 approved nominations failing to transclude at the moment, which is the lowest number in a while. If we filled two more preps, all but a few special occasion hooks would be visible. (We had 430 total on April 25, 417 on May 3, and 410 as I type this.) The rate of addition seems to have slowed since mid-to-late April, fortunately. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:20, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
I have deliberately not nominated anything since April 1. I agree that we are making progress with the numbers decreasing. It will take a long time, but we can all help a bit here and there. Flibirigit (talk) 05:06, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
BlueMoonset, improvement by 20 over that period represents an improvement of 1.5 per day. Last couple of times we did 2-a-days we didn't stop until we had under 40 approved noms. We have 198 now. That means we could be at this for 105 days. And then the minute we stop, we start building up by 6.5 a day, so we get back in this pickle in less than a month. So that's 4.5 months on, 3.5 weeks off. We have to fix this. —valereee (talk) 12:57, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
valereee, and today we are at 393 nominations, with nine queues and preps filled, the number we had filled when we started at two a day (we've been running in the seven to eight filled range lately), so it isn't as dire as your calculations make it. I do think we're in a period of higher than normal nominations, between people having more time on their hands, the GAN backlog drive, and the WikiCup starting a new two-month phase, but there's a decent chance that the rate will ease somewhat once June comes. BlueMoonset (talk) 14:50, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
Yoninah, I'd support that, but would it just push them into the next week? People just work in their sandboxes and wait for nominations to open back up, and then we end up with a day where we get 50 noms? —valereee (talk) 12:53, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
You know, the more I think about it, the more I like this idea. It would call attention to the issue, which I think many nominators are not aware of. It might open a discussion with prolific nominators on the subject of maybe considering whether you have to nominate every article or whether you might voluntarily limit yourself to nominating only those that really have a great natural hook. —valereee (talk) 14:03, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
One of the problems I see with it is that it will end up being a fastest-to-the-draw competition rather than a best-quality one. So that those who are most alert to the time nominations are reopened will be those who are able to nominate a bunch of their own before others have a chance to do so and nominations are stopped again. In fact, you could end up with most of the nominations just being made by the most active people, which would decrease variety. So I still think it would be better to just give the 100 shortest nominations the flick, because the longer articles are generally speaking the better ones. Personally, I've grown rather tired of having to promote crummily written articles of barely more than 1500 characters, you can write an article that long in about fifteen minutes, why should we be rewarding people for so little work? Gatoclass (talk) 15:45, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
@Gatoclass: rather than get your shorty article approved one day and have it disappear from DYK the next, perhaps we should up the minimum character count to 2000 characters. That will get people to put some more effort into their contributions.
BTW could someone promote another prep to queue? I need to slot in a special occasion image hook. @Casliber:@Vanamonde93:@Maile66:@Valereee:@Amakuru:@Lee Vilenski:@Kees08:@Coffeeandcrumbs: Thanks, Yoninah (talk) 15:50, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
On it. Vanamonde (Talk) 15:56, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
@Yoninah: done 1; I'll try to do another later, but no promises....Vanamonde (Talk) 17:26, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
Because Yoninah, increasing the minimum character count won't solve the problem, as we will still be getting just as many nominations, they will just be slightly longer. Now we could do something drastic and say, increase the minimum size to 5k, and that might reduce the number of nominations a bit, but then you would lose those shorter articles that are of decent quality, and you might also find yourself short of nominations in quieter times (not to mention encouraging article bloat). But if you just dropped the 100 or so shortest articles from time to time, you would actually be reducing the total number of nominations substantially, with a mechanic that kept people guessing as to how long their articles might need to be (thus discouraging bloat), as well as retaining the eligibility of shorter articles in quieter times. I'm not saying it's an ideal solution, but there are no ideal solutions for this issue. Gatoclass (talk) 16:08, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
@Gatoclass: Also, the shorter articles are often more interesting and just as well written as some of the longer ones --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 16:32, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
As I said, there are no ideal solutions. Well, I guess you could start a directorate and give a few users the power to strike nominations that they think just don't cut it. Gatoclass (talk) 16:46, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
Gatoclass, there've been concerns about padding and about actually solid articles that are naturally short because of a lack of reliable coverage. I'd rather see us add a quality requirement. Moot point; I don't think an RfC would gain support for either. Too many oxen being gored. —valereee (talk) 16:16, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
Quality requirement won't work because, how does one set an objective standard for that? That's why we need a simple, push-button solution. As for RFC's, the award collectors won't be fond of any solution that threatens to reduce the number, regardless of what it might be. Gatoclass (talk) 16:29, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

DYK is almost overdue

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

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

Then, when the time is right I will be able to update the template. Thanks and have a good day, DYKUpdateBot (talk) 10:06, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Why is this bot going off? There are multiple sets in queue? —valereee (talk) 12:00, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
NM, my screwup! —valereee (talk) 12:03, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Requiring promotions of experienced editors

Separating this so the idea doesn't get lost in the depths of the thread above. What do people think of requiring experienced DYK contributors (for the sake of argument, those with over 50 nominations) to either promote hooks to a prep, or a prep to a queue, once every so often (for the sake of argument; once every 5 nominations). Obviously, admin nominators would have the option of doing either preps or queues; non-admins would have to do preps. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:47, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

In and of itself, the practice should have been happening anyway. But in real time, how do you track it, how do you enforce it? The QPQ is easier to enforce, because we have a tool that gives us that info, and it's on the toolbox of the nomination. — Maile (talk) 17:10, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
I suspect a bot could do this without difficulty (I say, having no knowledge of how to write bots; but it's the sort of individually easy but remarkably repetitive task that bots are good at). The simplest way to do it would be to have a page tracking 1) nominations, and 2) edits to queues/preps, by folks with more than X nominations. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:20, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
A bot could compile the stats, but it would probably require some human review. If the requirement is just promote a hook to prep, it shouldn't be hard, but if the requirement is create an entire prep set, that would be slightly more difficult since there's a lot of variability in what "building a prep" looks like. For promoting to queue, that should be pretty easy: just keep track of when and who signs the {{DYKbotdo}} template. — Wug·a·po·des​ 19:33, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
@Wugapodes: to answer that question. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:20, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
@Vanamonde93: while I agree with you that anyone with a large count of nominations should help haul the load at prep, they already are required to do a QPQ. So, that doubles what is required of them. List of Wikipedians by number of DYKs is only as accurate as the individual input. I quit updating my stats there years ago. I don't know who that top name is, and the second name retired a few years back. Just thinking. — Maile (talk) 18:46, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
Dr Blofeld has renamed himself. Johnbod (talk) 13:52, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
I would be against this being mandatory. Not all DYK regulars have the time or know-how to promote to preps. Speaking as someone who previously did so many times in the past, it can be a lot of work and in my case I wasn't always confident I was doing the right thing since I always fear that I may have done something wrong or promoted something that wasn't ready for promotion. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 17:30, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
Narutolovehinata5, people can only gain know-how by doing the work. The more you do, the better and faster you get, and DYK promoters are very generous with advice. (I probably had a message on my talk every time I built a prep for six weeks after I started doing it.) Promoting to prep and moving to queue are not difficult. And frankly if a person doesn't have time to do a promotion, how do they have time to do 50 noms? :D —valereee (talk) 19:40, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
My personal experience with promoting nominations into prep sets was met with hostility and persistent criticism by others. I found the community was not welcoming to my input or doing things a bit differently. So I stopped. Flibirigit (talk) 00:22, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
Flibirigit, I'm so sorry you found it hostile. When I first started promoting, I got a lot of...well, I didn't perceive it as criticism so much as instruction. Online, I could see how a correction could feel like a criticism; it's so hard to read tone when we don't have any of our normal clues. There's a lot to learn about building a prep set, and the people who are adept at it are the ones most likely to instruct. It probably took me ten of them before I didn't have at least one comment at my talk for every prep I put together. :) I kind of felt like once it stopped I'd graduated to 'basic competence.' :) I'd be more than happy to work with you on some, if you're still interested. —valereee (talk) 11:56, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
Me too. Last time I tried to help, I was threatened with a block. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 16:56, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
The C of E, I'd like to see that, if you can find the diff without too much trouble. —valereee (talk) 17:59, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
Here. In context it was because the AFD hook sets had not been built so I tried to be helpful. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 18:11, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
Well, since one of the rules is that you never, ever promote your own hooks (for a multitude of very good reasons), it was a major error of judgment. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:32, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
Technically the rule says "discouraged" but it is not explictly banned under DYK rules. If we want to add that to these, proposals then I'd be happy to support it. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 18:55, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
The C of E, you're going to get pushback if you promote your own hooks or ones you've reviewed, or do more than very minor tweaks in prep. I can't think of any prep setter or admin who is going to shrug off more than the most minor change. Once the hook is in prep, changes need to be brought up at DYK talk. —valereee (talk) 20:19, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
No, valereee, we do not allow any minor tweaks in prep by involved nominators or reviewers. If this is not clear enough in Rule H2 (which it isn't), then it needs to be added to the rules. There is too much "minor tweaking" going on in prep by many of our regulars, and it really should stop. Today The C of E made some pretty egregious "tweaks" by undoing my promotion of his hook and then undoing my image choice. Combined with his antics on the April Fools set, which he started building with his own hooks before we even got to it, I'm surprised he hasn't been blocked yet. Any involved nominator/reviewer should post complaints at WT:DYK while the hook is in prep, and at WP:ERRORS while the hook is in queue. Yoninah (talk) 21:41, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
Yoninah, totally, let's clarify. By "very minor tweaks" in prep I'd meant things like clearly incorrect grammar that had gotten accidentally introduced, but maybe we can't even allow that on the part of noms/reviewers. Sad, a bit. We ought to be able to trust editors to understand where the line is, but I guess not. —valereee (talk) 22:15, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
To make things eminently clear, The C of E, you crossed a line today. As you've been warned about this before (and more than once), your edits to prep today were disruptive. The next time you make any edit in prep to a nomination of yours, it will be pulled from prep, and, assuming consensus here agrees in the ensuing discussion, scrapped. If you believe an edit is needed, the place to request it is on this page, and someone else will decide whether it's appropriate. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:38, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

First time prep creator

Hi. I saw some of the discussions above, and thought I'd try my hand at creating a prep. I've made Prep 5 (Special:Permalink/955816026) - is anyone willing to review my work? I'd prefer to be sure that I did it right before trying another prep. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 23:47, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Hmm, 5 3/4 American hooks seems a lot. The Rough sex murder defense article badly needs clarifying where it is talking about at several points (normally the US, presumably) . Johnbod (talk) 23:58, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
Can I tag a question on - are there prep-building instructions, if I ever have the time and energy I might try it to help out. Kingsif (talk) 00:17, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
Kingsif, there's a basic set of instructions at Wikipedia:Did you know/Preparation areas, feel free to ping me or come to my talk. I'd love to help folks learn to set preps. —valereee (talk) 01:54, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
Kingsif, there's also WP:DYKSG#Rules of thumb for preparing updates, which is similar in content but perhaps better maintained, plus there's other useful DYK information on the rest of the page. I'm also happy to help with prep-building questions or advice. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:11, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
@Valereee and BlueMoonset: I've promoted 4 hooks to prep 6, checked each article, kept them varied but not wildly different in tone. I've looked at the suggestions and instructions, though, and there doesn't seem to be much guidance on images? Or I might be missing it. And I assume that after closing the nom discussion it will just disappear from the approved page? Kingsif (talk) 03:14, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
Kingsif, great! Yes, when you close the nom discussion, the nomination disappears from the Approved page. One thing I noticed with your set is that the only two bios are placed next to each other; bios should always be separated, and if the set is only going to have two bios (we're a bit short right now), then by more than one intervening hook. Noms from the same country also need to be separated, though I think of the pre-U.S. territory of Hawaii as not being U.S. (don't know how Cwmhiraeth or Yoninah treat this), so having it and the Gambino hook adjacent doesn't bother me as much, though others may prefer to separate them. For image hooks, I look for particularly interesting or striking ones, preferably with an also interesting hook and as solid an article as possible behind it, but the image will sometimes trump all. It does need to be clear and not too dark at the actual size, so some images just aren't appropriate for the main page. They do need to be unambiguously free images to be eligible for the main page, of course. If you have any doubts, pick a different image. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:31, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
Kingsif, congratulations on finishing your first set. I forgot to mention something about images: we like to rotate between different types: person, building, nature (plant, animal), other, and so on. (We don't always succeed; people tend to show up a bit more than their share sometimes.) There may end up being some shifting around of lead hooks once a prep opens up. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:48, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
BlueMoonset Thanks! It only took... just over an hour? Kingsif (talk) 03:51, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
Kingsif yes, it takes me more than an hour to build a prep set too. Yoninah (talk) 11:25, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
Kingsif, I'll note that the instructions are light on the fact that part of the job of building a set is to catch errors missed by the reviewer. As you build more, you'll get to know which reviewers are likely to have done thorough reviews (as well as which nominators are likely to need thorough reviews.) The most common reasons an article will get pulled into DYK talk or reported at ERRORS is
  1. the article sentence(s) supporting the hook assertion(s) don't have a citation at the sentence
  2. the article doesn't meet DYK rules (if you have DYK check installed, it helps find uncited paras, tags, etc.)
At minimum you want to check these. When you have a newish nom and a newish reviewer, you may need to give the article a full re-review. Oh, and try to pull one a hook Cwmhiraeth nommed or reviewed into most sets, she can't promote those. —valereee (talk) 11:21, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
Hey, DannyS712! Thanks so much for being interested in learning this. Part of the puzzle of building a prep is to balance it for bio/non-bio, geographical area, subject matter. We try to alternate bio/non-bio when possible (we have fewer bios right now, so we're doing some sets with fewer bios, but if there are enough bios we'd ideally use 4 bio hooks, 4 non-bio.) We try to not do all men or all women bios. We try to choose only 2-4 US hooks, and we try make sure to incorporate hooks from places other than North America, Europe, Australia. We try to avoid more than one music/military/art/history/whatever subject. So this prep doesn't have any bios, it'll ideally get 3 if not 4. There are 5+ US hooks (depending on how you count the rough sex murder defense.) It feels kind of history-heavy to me -- the Admiral's House, the Chicago thing, the telegraph one, the battle of newtonia -- but they're different subject, you could maybe argue for that. Also feels a little legal heavy with the murder defense and the US supreme court. —valereee (talk) 00:29, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
Yoninah left some feedback on my talk page, and said they were going to clean it up a bit DannyS712 (talk) 00:30, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
Yes, I did some shuffling and moved in some bios. We also had a special occasion hook (Germany) for May 15, so I slotted that in too. Keep it up, DannyS712, you'll get the hang of it! Yoninah (talk) 00:53, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
DannyS712, Yoninah's the mayor. Whatever instructions she gives you, just say aye-aye. :) When she stops leaving feedback on your talk, you've passed your O-levels. —valereee (talk) 01:48, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
@Valereee: Copy that / 10-4 / roger that / some joke here. DannyS712 (talk) 02:03, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
Yes, that's the last thing: we try to end the prep set with a light-hearted hook. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:19, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
It's good to have some new prep builders. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:35, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
Yes, it is. Thanks for building Prep 6, Kingsif. Note to new prep builders: we have a lot of U.S.-based hooks and it may be tempting to fill the sets to the 50% limit with them. But try to space them out. You can always use one of Cwmhiraeth's nature hooks for this purpose. Yoninah (talk) 11:15, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
Actually, we have a lot of nature hooks right now. Template:Did you know nominations/Apystomyiidae looks like a good image hook. Yoninah (talk) 11:58, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Prep 4 - picture change

On Prep 4 with Church of St Thomas à Becket, Box, I am not happy with that tomb picture. It's hideous and the church is the focus of the hook not the tomb. So I would prefer we use the much more aesthetically pleasing church image here. Furthermore as the nominator, I will put on record did not approve of the current hook but was prepared to tolerate the hijacking of the hook (though ALT3 from @Serial Number 54129: was marginally better) providing we use the church image as a trade-off at least. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 20:08, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Convenience links: Template:Did you know/Preparation area 4, Template:Did you know nominations/Church of St Thomas à Becket, Box —valereee (talk) 20:20, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

As an uninvolved editor, I think your original hook was in the spirit of an April Fools run, which seems to have been your original intent. The original image, however, is somewhat obscured by the trees. And there don't seem to be more clearer ones of the church itself. The current hook, which you went on record not preferring, is one bang-up attention getter. On the positive side, that hook is one of those things that might cause more clicks. — Maile (talk) 20:33, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
The church image is not dark, it's black. As Maile pointed out, it was also an April Fools hook that wasn't so April Foolsy. Why are you so opposed to the new hook? Our goal in promoting hooks is to get readers to click on the articles, not to post just anything to satisfy WP:OWN. Frankly, you can protest this all the way to WP:DYKSTATS. Yoninah (talk) 21:29, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
It is the hijacking of the hook based on non-policy based personal opinion I object to when the hook had already been approved according to policy. You know what, I wash my hands of this whole endevour. I will take the creators credit and I will take the WikiCup points but now I don't care what you do with it. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 06:31, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
Accusing other editors here of "hijacking" hooks is acting in bad faith, considering in most cases, editors modifying hooks are intended to help and not to "steal" credit. Remember that no one, not even nominators, "own" any hooks and that these are subject to modifications if necessary. And in the case of promoted hooks, even if a nominator objects to one that has been proposed, if consensus determines that it is the best option, then that's what's going to happen. The C of E, I would highly suggest in the future that you don't treat your hooks as something that you have complete control over, because Wikipedia is supposed to be a collaborative effort and no one has ownership over any content. Finally, you need to understand that even when an image is included in a nomination, it is not always the case that they may actually end up being used for certain reasons (whether it be due to image quality, content balance, and so on). Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 09:42, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
@The C of E: I object to my actions being accused of falling foul of according to policy. I spend my entire day making sure policy is being adhered to as I build prep sets. I check every paragraph of every article, every page history, and every QPQ to make sure it meets DYK policy. You seem to think that once someone approves your hook—even if it is a new reviewer who may not be familiar with all of DYK's policies—it must be promoted and left alone. In this case, four other experienced editors besides myself apprised you that your attitude is incorrect. Yoninah (talk) 16:23, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Prep 6:Tusk

Original hook:

Edited hook:

@Kingsif: your edit of this hook leaves it with too many clauses and is difficult to parse. Also pinging nominator KAVEBEAR. Yoninah (talk) 21:12, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
@Yoninah: What you have as the 'original' here wasn't the original hook. The difference is that it seems a pūloʻuloʻu is not normally made from narwhal, which is the hook-y part. I originally added a version of the hook from the nom but with fewer clauses, which then got edited to be what you have as the 'original' here. This is inaccurate (says they are always made from narwhal) and dull (a king getting a traditional symbol of authority at his coronation is par for the course), so I made an edit that would hopefully clarify. If there's too much information, I would suggest removing "a traditional symbol of authority for the aliʻi of Hawaii". Let readers click to find out. Kingsif (talk) 21:25, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
I think that's a much better idea, thanks. Yoninah (talk) 21:27, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
Great. I'll update if you don't, perhaps wait for an opinion from KAVEBEAR – I think the original had Kalakaua leading the hook. Kingsif (talk) 21:29, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Prep 5: Rough sex defense

@Buidhe:@The C of E:@DannyS712:
The article seems like a list of examples without any definition. It seems it should be tagged as WP:SYNTH. Yoninah (talk) 01:29, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
There's a few issues as well. The sentence " At least sixty defendants in the UK have used the defence as of 2020, and forty-five percent were able to avoid conviction for murder." is said in Wikipedia's voice, but the source says the figures come from the advocacy group mentioned later. It also says "In 45% of those killings, the claim that a woman's injuries were sustained during a sex game gone wrong resulted in a lesser charge, a lighter sentence, an acquittal, or the death not being investigated, the group said." If the death wasn't investigated, how could it be "used by a defendant" as there obviously wasn't a trial? Also, there isn't any exploration of why the defence is being used more recently - the Independent source already in the article is good here, mentioning increased availability of violent porn images, and the BBC source, mentioning an increase in (consensual) rough sex. R v Brown mentioned in the last sentence could do with expanding as well. There's no reason this can't be a DYK, but I think it needs a bit of work. Black Kite (talk) 01:52, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
As I said above "The Rough sex murder defense article badly needs clarifying where it is talking about at several points (normally the US, presumably) ." Johnbod (talk) 02:06, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
@Black Kite:@Johnbod: the nominator has attempted to improve the article, although he says on the template: I would like to give an international perspective but all sources are dealing with US, UK, and New Zealand. It may be that the defense is not used in other countries. Do you think the article is ready for the main page? Thank you, Yoninah (talk) 12:35, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
I think it's better now. I've rewritten the sentence I highlighted above to remove the confusion - it's clear from looking at other sources that the facts are straightforward but it was the reporting that used poor wording. Black Kite (talk) 12:43, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
(ec) Not at present, there have been no recent edits improving this. The great bulk of the article presumately relates to the US, but never says so. Only the little bits relating to other countries are located. It wouldn't take long. Johnbod (talk) 12:45, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
Pinging Buidhe. Yoninah (talk) 12:46, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
@Johnbod: I cannot do that. It would require original research when the sources do not make connection to US. Besides, I doubt that it is really as US centric as you think because many of the sources relate to UK/NZ. buidhe 12:47, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
Well looking at the sources more do seem UK/NZ than one would ever guess from reading the article (especially as it is in US English). You need to do a lot more locating, to wherever. How a source on courtroom defences can be usable if no jurisdiction is specified rather puzzles me. Johnbod (talk) 12:54, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
One thing I would do is put it in chronological order. It starts in 1988, then goes back to a first case in 1972, then to 2020, then back to 2011. Black Kite (talk) 12:58, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

400 nominations!

Go to two sets a day?

Extended content

April has seen a sudden glut of nominations, with less than 200 approved. Should we go over to a two-sets-a-day schedule yet? Yoninah (talk) 10:04, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes - two sets a day for while. I was wondering about that, myself. — Maile (talk) 12:38, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
I was waiting for the Approved page to get long enough to stop transcluding the bottom entries to suggest two a day, but the gap between nominations and approved nominations keeps growing, so we're still not quite there. Before we start, we should load up the queues and preps; at the moment, only three queues and four preps are filled, and it should be more like six queues and at least four preps. We may need to move hooks around if this starts before Sunday, since Queue 5 and Prep 1 have special occasion hooks. The glut actually started around mid-March, but it's been getting more pronounced: we're now getting new nominations at a rate that could fill two sets a day. We're going to need a lot of admin help going forward. BlueMoonset (talk) 13:03, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
No. We need to find another solution. --valereee (talk) 20:03, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Two sets per day never works- yes it reduces the backlog, but it leads to preps being late all the time, and people being rushed and missing obvious errors. Joseph2302 (talk) 20:20, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Maybe we need another page, like a waiting room or something for stuff that's going to screw up the system. Or we have to change our rules so that we don't keep getting overwhelmed every few months. Seriously, this is not working. I don't want to go back to 2 sets a day and the guilt and resentment that engenders. It's not healthy. It makes me not want to work DYK. —valereee (talk) 20:39, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
FYI - the Approved page was created a little over 3 years ago, for precisely this problem. The approved and waiting for approval used to be all on one page and not fully transcluding. — Maile (talk) 20:49, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
valereee, the new nominations are coming in at a rate that requires two sets a day: 16 nominations in a day will fill two sets. Otherwise, we'll get further and further behind. When I started at DYK, we regularly ran three sets of 6 hooks; as the main page has grown over the year, we now need 8 hooks to fill our portion of the page. If promoting two sets a week are too many, just do one. We're grateful for whatever you feel comfortable doing. But sticking with one set a day is not an option, unless we start restricting nominations. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:54, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
valereee the backlog tends to ebb and flow. Although, since you've been admin, we seem to have had more flow than ebb. Possibly one issue lately prompting more nominations, is people around the world sheltering in place because of the corona virus. We can't travel, we can't go to public gatherings, so we go wherever our computers take us. We should put something temporary in place for our backlog, and after the pandemic crisis passes, then maybe we can see if we need the temporary to be permanent. — Maile (talk) 23:37, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
And, back to the original topic, the Approved page is now so full that not all the approved nominations are transcluding. If some of the longer approved nominations are promoted, that will help. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:03, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
I think we can expect this to be a temporary blip. As Maile mentioned, people may have more time on their hands at home at the moment, but also, there is an enthusiastic GA review drive underway covering April and May which is having a dramatic effect on the number of GAs waiting to be reviewed. Anyway, I am willing to increase my work rate in building preps! Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:10, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I just don't want to go back to two sets a day. It's hideous. It robs me of all enjoyment of what's supposed to be a hobby. I feel guilty if I'm creating content instead of moving preps, I feel annoyed when I see a nom from any admin who never promotes, I feel resentful of reviewers who let through crap I have to fix...lol. It just plain makes me feel like a bitch, tbh. I think we need to limit nominations somehow. The solution to gaining weight is not to buy bigger pants. I know limiting nominations isn't popular, but maybe THAT should be our temporary solution rather than two-a-days. —valereee (talk) 11:42, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Then step back from promoting. You've been a valuable contributor, but others will pick up the slack if you step back. — Maile (talk) 11:58, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Maile66, I hate to do that, but I think it's probably the decision I'm going to make. Ugh. Almost no better; not sure I'll feel any less guilt lol —valereee (talk) 20:10, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
I can hopefully step up to check and promote queues a bit more often again, if we go to two sets a day. I don't Oppose that measure if people think it's necessary, although I do take Joseph's point that quality can suffer a bit with every part of the process is that little bit more rushed.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:31, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm sympathetic to the problem, as someone who is adding to it at the moment, but my thoughts and questions are:
a) does a longer delay/backlog really matter that much? When we get to the summer things will slacken off, yes?
b) If the size of the nom page becomes an issue, a more ruthless approach to the oldest & longest noms could be taken.
c) A 2nd "approved" page, or even nom page could be set up - divided by age.
d) Is going to 2 sets for just some days (weekends, say) a useful compromise?
e) Could the house raptors who hang around main page errors be pursuaded to look at the approved page instead? They do succeed in knocking out some hooks, but only after all the work by promoters & set-builders has already been done.

Johnbod (talk) 14:31, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Johnbod, the backlog breaks things when it gets too long. I'd support your b, c, d. —valereee (talk) 16:08, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Can't a version of c stop that? Johnbod (talk) 16:34, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Johnbod, I think so, it's apparently the reason the noms/approved noms were separated in the first place. So we'd have maybe noms, noms being reviewed, approved noms pages? That actually might be useful for other reasons -- it would be good to be able to see noms that hadn't had review started yet. —valereee (talk) 18:01, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Add a seventh queue and seventh prep?

FWIW, if we make 7 queues and 7 prep areas, then that matches a (7-day) week exactly.... Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:50, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Cas Liber, we went from four to six preps a while ago, so expanding the number of queues and preps could certainly be done if we wanted—it would give more room and allow us to get further ahead whenever feasible. I'm not sure what little traps there might be in various templates and/or bots that expect only six queues, for example, that would need to be recoded to allow for seven, but I'm sure we could manage it with a little help. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:54, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Okay, I propose we make 7 preps and queues as long as someone canny with the coding is okay with it, and we go to two sets/day for a week. Off wiki I've seen other services go up and down. It won't necessariily stay up. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:01, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
I support this. In practical terms, we are only talking about adding Prep 7 and Queue 7, since we normally have 6. — Maile (talk) 00:42, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
I've posted a note to Shubinator's talk page, since if we do this the DYKUpdateBot has to, among other things, figure out what the next queue number is supposed to be, and if that coding is based on 6 queues, it would need to be updated to use 7 queues. An initial survey finds four templates including the /Queue page (and three below it) that anyone can edit (plus Clear and the existing six queue and six prep pages for their "see how today's and tomorrow's Main Pages look" sections), and then an admin will need to update {{DYKqueuenav}} since it's a protected page. This is the first scan; I may have missed some. One thing, though: it looks to be too messy to go back and forth between one number of queues and another, so if we go up to 7, we should probably plan to stay there. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:43, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Follow-up: I've checked with Shubinator, and DYKUpdateBot will need to be updated to handle a Queue 7, though it is a straightforward change. So there will need to be coordination if we decide to do this. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:50, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Happy to support anything that helps, but does this actually solve the problem, or does it just delay the point at which we need to deal with it? (Which I'm also fine with, just trying to gain clarity) —valereee (talk) 19:30, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
I was trained on the admin side of the DYK process, and I thought the whole thing was convoluted and harder to use than it needed to be. I started to think of ways to streamline the process, but it was a bit overwhelming so I got sidetracked and worked on streamlining other (non-DYK) things instead. My dream DYK process, relating to this particular step, would allow for preps and queues to be related to dates and not numbers, like how TFA, TFP, and OTD function. I couldn't decide if a format like the other pages was appropriate, or if a template could be devised where a parameter was 'date=2020-04-15'. Just a thought. A couple of times I went to fill the queues and they were already full, and I frankly thought it was pretty silly I could not help us get ahead on the task. We have ourselves setup for failure now by limiting how far in advance we can prepare. Maybe there is some historical reason for our setup or other background information that would help; maybe we just need to rethink how we do things. Is there background on why the numbered preps/queues exist in lieu of associating preps/queues with a date? I would be happy to help streamline the DYK process, and apologies I have not been more active in this area. Kees08 (Talk) 15:16, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Kees08, I wasn't around when the system was automated—Gatoclass can probably tell you for sure why it became numbered Preps and Queues—but I imagine the reason that DYK wasn't date based was because the expectation was that there would be multiple sets per day, but not always the same number, changing at points during the year when nominations waxed and waned. Taking a look at 2010 (before my time), the year started with four sets of between eight and ten hooks per day, and went down to three sets of eight in late April. So if a date-based system is desired and designed, it has to be able to handle multiple sets on a single date. Systems like DYK tend to accrete usability problems over time, as more and more things get bolted on and limits are discovered; maybe a stem to stern redesign is in order (there's a section at the bottom of the page about transclusion that's a design/automation issue), or at least create a list of things that would make the process from nomination to publication smoother for all concerned, and perhaps proceed from there. I do agree that the current process has choke points: I can't count the number of times the Preps have been filled but admins weren't available to clear one to the queue; having all the queues filled is, at least in the past year, a far more infrequent choke point. Adding one extra queue and one extra prep will help a bit, but probably not as much as we need. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:56, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
BlueMoonset, it wasn't even a consideration to have dated preps and queues, because as you say, we used to run multiple sets every day all the time, and the number of sets per day would also change frequently. Also, the preps and queues were not, as I recall, added all at once, but were gradually increased over time until we ended up with six.
And quite frankly, I can't see much point in adding an additional set, because the bottleneck is not a shortage of preps, but a shortage of admins willing to regularly promote them to queues, and adding an additional prep won't do a thing to change that. Nor do I see any point in having day-of-the-week or datestamped preps and queues, given that we still go to two sets per day a couple of times a year to clear the backlog, and randomly for special days. I'm not saying there would be any harm in adding an extra prep and queue, I just don't see much benefit to it. Gatoclass (talk) 06:59, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Gatoclass, we've gone to two-a-days three times since August. We're doing two-a-days a lot more than a couple times a year. —valereee (talk) 00:11, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Valereee, if you want to add a seventh prep and queue, I would have no objection to that, my point is simply that I don't think it will make a lot of difference. Gatoclass (talk) 00:25, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Gatoclass, I don't think it will, either. I think the only thing that will make a difference is figuring out how to decrease noms. —valereee (talk) 00:28, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Valereee, if it helps, please feel free to ping me any time you go to two sets a day; though I've had some health issues recently which have caused me to reduce my DYK involvement at the moment, I am still generally willing to put in a helping hand when the cycle rate increases. Gatoclass (talk) 00:36, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Kees08, when did you go to fill the queues and they were already full? Do you mean you went to fill preps and they were already full? We often have a situation of six full preps and zero full queues, but we seldom have all six queues full. —valereee (talk) 12:51, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
When you walked me through how to do it, a long time ago in a far away place. I was planning to continue filling queues while timing myself on how long it takes to do each task to try to find where it needs optimized. Sometime during that I realized the entire process needs a major overhaul, and major overhauls do not have a high success rate on Wikipedia, so I shifted my efforts elsewhere. I would be more than happy to run through the process again and try to root out the confusing and needlessly time-consuming bits. Perhaps while we sort that out, we can temporarily have more nominations than usual and not move quickly into two-a-days, when we are probably stressed from the ongoing pandemic as it is (though if I remember right, too many DYKs breaks something?). Sorry this has been so much work for you and I hope it is not causing an excessive amount of real life stress. If it is, feel free to take a break. Wikipedia will continue to work, the project finds a way :). Kees08 (Talk) 16:15, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Kees08, totally happy to work with you on streamlining! The physical move-to-queue isn't that onerous, it's the required recheck that takes the time, not sure how we streamline that. Yes, unfortunately having too many nominations breaks the system so we can't just live with it. It's not the real-life stress for me; it's totally the WP stress. I feel a sense of duty to the project, and while I'm willing to pitch in in an emergency, it feels like we're in a constant emergency. We stopped doing two-a-days less than two months ago after having done them for two months. We're in emergency mode HALF the time. —valereee (talk) 20:04, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Querying set builders on 7 Preps and 7 Queues

Cwmhiraeth, Yoninah, since you are our primary prep set builders at the moment, I was wondering what you thought about having an extra prep and an extra queue. Will it make your life easier? Harder? Would the longer page be an issue? As I type this, the queues are full for the second day running, but this is not as frequent occurence as when the preps are filled and the queues empty or only a couple populated. I guess the question is whether an increase would be a net plus, a minus, or neither. Thanks for all your prep set building, and let us know what you think will work best. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:12, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Having seven rather than six sets of each is not a material difference from a prep-builders point of view. I prefer the idea of reducing the backlog by running two sets a day. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:03, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
I don't need more sets—I just need open sets. As long as the preps are moved up to the queue in a timely fashion, I can fill sets as needed. Yoninah (talk) 22:20, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
Well, if it happens that we have a problem with all the sets being filled, we can revisit this. Otherwise, it sounds like neither of you feel the need for a seventh prep (or seventh queue). Thanks for responding. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:48, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Temporarily limit nominations in some way?

I think we should at minimum consider limiting nominations in some way WHILE we're doing two-a-days. The last time we went to two-a-days it lasted FOREVER because we were still getting way too many nominations. It felt like we were just treading water. Maybe limiting nominations temporarily will bring in help from people who never read this page and don't realize we need more help and, frankly, fewer nominations in general from prolific writers who might go, "Oh! I didn't realize nominating EVERY article I write isn't actually helpful." I no longer nominate every article I write; not every article is actually a great DYK candidate. I only nom the ones I think have an actual interesting hook. —valereee (talk) 12:07, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Comment - While I believe I understand your thinking, it would require some restructuring. Special occasion dates come to mind. Some of those are individual birthdays/benchmarks. But when it comes to a project special occasion, such as the Apollo landing, or the current May Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, it might only be one or two or three editors making the commemoration happen. The restrictions could defeat such commemorations here. I seem to recall recently that @Gerda Arendt: said she quit the German project specifically because they put limitations on. There are times when I feel I can't check one prep, can't look at one more nomination therein, and I don't want to do it. So I don't do it. Which is really the solution. Let the market determine the nominations. And we admins are free to step away when it gets to be too tedious. — Maile (talk) 12:56, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Maile66, perhaps we limit DYK to those special occasion hooks while we're doing two-a-days? I'd be sorry to see Gerda quit the project over us trying desperately to prevent a situation in which at least one of our already-not-sufficient regular admins is only willing to continue working to avoid letting others down, but I guess everyone has to make their own decisions. If not being able to submit an article for DYK more than once every X days or not being able to submit for two weeks while we're on two-a-days or whatever is enough to make Gerda feel so angry and constrained that she'd rather not work here at all, well...again, hate to see anyone feel that way, but we can't make decisions only for her. We have to address everyone's concerns, not just Gerda's. —valereee (talk) 12:30, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Strongly oppose DYK serves a purpose- encourages new article creation and expansion with the reward of getting on the front page. We shouldn't arbitrarily make that more difficult because we're getting a bit of a backlog. I would prefer 2 sets/day over changing the fundamentals of DYK, though I'm against both ideas. Joseph2302 (talk) 14:07, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Joseph2302, unfortunately it's not 'a bit of a backlog'. It's a regular major problem that causes a major regular technical and capacity issue. —valereee (talk) 20:00, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
It's a problem where if we go to 2 sets a day, we always get loads of other issues (not enough queues/preps filled, DYK late). Joseph2302 (talk) 22:10, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Joseph2302, yes, exactly. We can barely keep up with one set a day. Two sets causes as many problems as it solves. We need a different solution. You're opposed to limiting nominations in any way whatsoever...so how else can we solve the problem of too many nominations for the available admin capacity? —valereee (talk) 12:33, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
In my opinion, this isn't the best solution to fix the problem. If the change is temporary, it'll discourage new article creation until just a time as it's lifted. Joseph2302 (talk) 15:07, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Comment If (and only if!) we do want to limit nominations, a good way is by increasing or modifying the standard for inclusion. Some ideas in no particular order:
  • Increase the expansion required
  • Disallow expansions in draft space
  • Disallow GAs
  • Complicated, but create a sort of pool where you group DYKs by some set number, and drop a set amount of the least interesting from that group (and remove it from the DYK process). If your DYKs are consistently getting dropped, it might help you focus on more interesting hooks. Problems with this are avoiding systemic bias and adding to the bureaucracy
There are obvious problems associated with each that could be mitigated the best we could. Either increasing the criteria for DYK eligibility or changing the way we do preps/queues (see above section) would mitigate the need for two-a-days. Two-a-days excasberate the prep/queue process which artificially limits how far in advance you can be prepared, and changing that method would likely be the path of least resistance. Kees08 (Talk) 15:24, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
@Kees08: for clarification purposes, GA were included by overwhelming majority vote on a 2013 Good Article RfC. Prior to that, GAs had no space on the main page. — Maile (talk) 18:36, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Maile66, I wonder if 'new GAs' should have their own section on the main page? I actually enjoy doing DYK reviews of GAs myself, as I know it's going to be a quick and likely easy review, but removing them from DYK would help with the constant backlog. —valereee (talk) 12:42, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Valereee That sounds like a good idea, and then the approved GAs could be put in a separate page (thus getting round the page size issue). Something like 6 DYKs and 2-4 GAs per day would work IMO (not sure how many of the noms are GAs, which is why I suggested a range). Joseph2302 (talk) 15:07, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Anecdotally, GA DYKs are probably the rarest kind of nominations since the vast majority are new articles, with 5x expansions being a distant second (right now there are only 11 GA noms at WP:DYKN compared to 34 5x expansions and 100+ recent creations/moved to mainspace). The problem I see with this proposal is that splitting off GAs from DYK proper would eliminate a pathway to DYK for articles that couldn't have been nominated otherwise, which was one of the reasons for new GAs being allowed for DYK in the first place (this is assuming this proposal calls for a new section just for GAs that has no DYK involvement at all, or that GAs can't be on DYK proper anymore). If new GAs would no longer be allowed at DYK, that means that once an article misses the creation deadline or the 5x expansion deadline (the latter of which can be very difficult to achieve depending on the article), it no longer has a chance of being featured at DYK. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 15:24, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Narutolovehinata5, yes, but the original reason for GAs to go to DYK was that there was no other main page opportunity for them. If they had their own, and didn't require a hook (and hook cited to the sentence) we might actually get more new GAs on the main page. And any little bit helps with the backlog —valereee (talk) 15:35, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
This wouldn't solve the issue of articles that missed their chance no longer having a shot at DYK if the new GA criterion is phased out, and with that problem airing I really don't think doing such a proposal is worth it. I'd rather just go with larger sets or more preps and queues than something this radical, and besides if it was to be done it would require a site-wide RfC anyway. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 15:41, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose I don't think that's the way to do it. I think you either need to go back to 3 sets like in the good old days or go with the freeze but you will have to allow all those that would have gone in the forbidden period to be nominated when the nominations are opened again which will open the floodgates. As for banning GAs, that I would approve as I had opposed their being on DYK from the very beginning on the original RFC. You can't do the "interesting" one, again for the same reason I objected last time someone suggested it, you can't put DYK in the hands of the personal tastes of the select few who do promotions. AS for the expansions ones, maybe, but how can you assess that and really do we have that many expansions that nesecitates it? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 21:13, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
    The C of E, we don't have enough admins to do one set a day reliably enough that someone doesn't have to ping and beg a couple times a week. Two sets a day is hideous; we end up late and with many more errors. In what universe do you see us producing three sets a day? —valereee (talk) 12:17, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
  • IMO, given that creation DYKs (including moved from draft and created from redirect) far exceed GAs and expansion DYKs, I think it makes sense for this creteria to be increased. Currently it's at 1,500 characters of prose, and I suspect the fact that this is too easy is why we have so many nominations. Suggest increasing to 2,500 or 3,000. I'd hate to increase the 5x or GA criteria because (1) they're not that easy to begin with and (2) they're usually higher quality article than a <2,500 bytes article that I'm proposing to exclude. I will support increasing the criteria for newly created articles. HaEr48 (talk) 19:06, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose removing expansion and GA DYKs. These have a lot more effort put into them compared to many new articles. Support increasing new articles' criteria in some ways, since 1,500 bytes isn't too much. epicgenius (talk) 19:14, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

List some articles just by article title

Where I come from: In the news, we have a section (Recent deaths) where we only list article titles, in that case the names of people who died. I could imagine to do the same for some - not all - DYK, for example a set of six hooks, one of them pictured, and six only mentioned by article name.

I'd be the first to volunteer for many of the articles I nominate to have just the title mentioned, without a hook (so without a debate if the hook is interesting to the "broad audience". Just same qualifications: interesting, new, well sources, neutral, free of copyvio. It would save time on two ends, time that could be used more efficiently. Examples: I Will Mention the Loving-kindnesses could have worked without a hook, also (nominated): Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts (Purcell) (discussion right here, after already in the nom), and Michael Boddenberg. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:50, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Wouldn't that just end up with even more articles being nominated, if we remove the requirement to come up with a hook? I could see us doing this for new good articles, though, as you say -- a ticker of the six most recent GAs, no hook. Maybe even recent expansions. But new creations...there are an awful lot of new articles every day. —valereee (talk) 14:15, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Listing just article titles instead of hooks pretty much defeats the purpose of DYK: to promote interesting information about article subjects. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 14:36, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
valereee, I don't want fewer nominations, because who is supposed to judge which NOT to show. (I'd probably through out nominting for others, and then those written with others, and both with a bad conscience.) I don't want the newest, but those found long enough etc, - same criteria, just avoiding the waste of time of discussing hooks. It would just say by title alone that is IS something interesting. - Naruto, I hope that answers your question. My purpose is to make someone read the article. RD shows every time that a name alone attracts readership. Willigis Jäger, for example, got more "hits" when mentioned - just his name - on RD than when with a hook on DYK. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:41, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Gerda Arendt, then we need to figure out how to deal with too many nominations for our admin capacity (or not enough admin capacity for the number of noms, however you want to look at it). I am open to any solution other than "Current admins do more than they want to do." :) I am not trying to be difficult here. I am open to any other solution. But right now we have a problem, IMO. If I'm the only admin who feels overwhelmed by two-a-days, so be it. If the solution is I take DYK off my watchlist when we go to two-a-days, okay. I kind of hate that; I enjoy working at DYK and find it very collaborative, and I would feel guilty just walking away for however long we do two-a-days. But honestly it kills the joy dead for me. —valereee (talk) 19:28, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
What I see is too few admin shoulders. What you say about joy killed resonates with me, a lot. Should we look around for more admins willing to check prep sets to queues? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:36, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Gerda Arendt, if you have any ideas on how to increase our admin capacity, absolutely let's try them. :) What I've noticed is that even when we get someone willing to learn the process, the fact it's so visible and so criticized makes them rethink. In the last few months we've had multiple new admins try it and not stick around. —valereee (talk) 19:39, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
I asked one, for now. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:38, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Gerda Arendt, I suspect death is its own hook. If you've ever heard of the person, you probably click when you hear they've died. I'm not sure 'new article' or 'new good article' is as powerful an attractant. —valereee (talk) 19:58, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
I think you are right about death somehow "hooking", but I can't believe people click (only) on names they know already. I mentioned Jäger whom I believe only few people knew: look. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:39, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Gerda Arendt, I don't know if there are stats for clicks on deaths. I can say that my son, when he was young, if he heard his father and me discussing someone who had died, would yell, "Who died?!" It may be that RDs get a ton of clicks no matter how well-known they are. —valereee (talk) 00:20, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
(I just pinged you to my talk for more musings, related to today's example Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts (Purcell).) RD gets many clicks, exactly what I'm saying, but it varies with being known or not, look at Jessye Norman. ... which makes me rather spend time on expanding those articles, than on discussions about which little bit to mention in a DYK hook, while her name alone is the attraction, and the smile adds to that ;) - these discussions diminish my joy, seriously. For many of "my" articles, just mentioning a name, perhaps with a "short description", such as "Kerstin Meyer, Swedish mezzo-soprano" would do. (not a real example, her article was too long for a five-time expansion, and I don't care enough about her to go through the trouble of making it GA, as I did for Norman, - just the idea) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:25, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
  • The articles of people who have recently died are read regardless of ITN because the death is in the news and that's usually what causes people to go to the article. Some deaths are not run at ITN but their articles still get huge numbers of readers. Andrew🐉(talk) 18:10, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

24-hours set, 6 articles with a hook, 6 just by title and perhaps a short description

This is a summary of the above, for those not inclined to read so much. My proposal: make it look like In the news: some articles with a blurb (here:hook), some just by mentioning the article title (here perhaps also a short description), but make it stable for 24 hours as a set well-balanced by prep-builders. I think of 6 articles of each kind, which would show 12 instead of the present 8, and would reduce work in proposing and reviewing because articles without hook don't have to be checked for a ref behind the fact, for the wording of the hook as the article says, - all these things. I suggest we say in the nomination if a hook is wanted, or not, or may-be. I'd be the first to volunteer for no hook for many of the articles I nominate. Le Concert Spirituel, for example, it's in prep but with a hook that says nothing about the character of the ensemble, only something sensational, which I mentioned also for hookiness's sake, but hate to see alone. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:24, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, and listen to what the hook says ;) - and follow to the move discussion The Proms to Proms, perhaps. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:58, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Gerda Arendt, I think this is a good idea. We'd need to put a header on the article-name-only ones to separate it, like the RD does. What's New, maybe? But I think we would have to run it as a ticker, as with no requirement for developing and defending a hook, we could end up with a lot of nominations for that section. —valereee (talk) 12:51, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Even the ITN (In the news) ticker tries to keep an article for 24 hours, - why not do that from the start? It would make more predictable when something will appear. Monitoring ticker entries coming and going might create more admin load, exactly what we want to decrease. - Header could be "Other new articles". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:59, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Honestly this sounds like a bad idea. Listing just the article title and a brief description pretty much defeats one of the main purposes of DYK, which is to inform readers of interesting facts about topics they may not be familiar with. Just giving a name and a brief description of a subject rarely if ever "hooks" people to look at an article unless the subject was actually presently relevant for whatever reason. In addition, I can imagine getting rid of the "needs a hook" requirement would lead to even more nominations and only further worsen backlogs since it could mean that any article could be nominated and not just those that would be DYK-worthy (this is presuming that the other DYK article requirements would still apply). Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 14:36, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
I can't follow how more nominations would be expected if the criteria (newness, length, referencing) stay the same. I also disagree that the purpose of DYK is to supply a little cute fact. I see the purpose in "hooking" to an article, whatever way. The way by article title takes up less room on the Main page, and is easier to verify. Of course it should be reserved for nominators who agree to that, but - repeating - it would be SUCH A RELIEF for me not to have to struggle to find some crowd-pleasing hook. Example again: Kerstin Meyer, Swedish mezzo-soprano - all it takes. Just her name is on the Main page right now. I predict a 4-digit outcome for today (we'll see tomorrow), much more than DYK would ever be able to gain for her. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:08, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Gerda Arendt, there are people who won't nom because they hate the review process, and most often discussion revolves around the hook. If all the people who've thrown up their hands in frustration and stopped nominating decided to come back in, we could get a lot more nominations into the 'non-hook' section. —valereee (talk) 15:40, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Narutolovehinata5, it's just a gimmick, though. It's not really necessary. Yes, sometimes it's helpful, but often a hook is just shoehorned in to make the article eligible. Let's use a hook when we can think of a good one, and otherwise let's not force it. —valereee (talk) 15:38, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose ITN is awful compared to DYK – a talking shop with systemic bias and low productivity. We really don't want the sort of opinionated argument you get there about whether a topic is blurb-worthy. If DYK is currently spoilt for choice then this is a sign of success, not something that needs fixing. Andrew🐉(talk) 17:59, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
    You seem to misunderstand the intention. It's not about worthiness. The default is blurb - here called hook. I volunteer, however, to have no hook (my decision, not to be discussed). I will begin to suggest "article name only" in nominations, - perhaps that easy way to save space on the page and time may ripen some day. Whoever wants a hook should still get it. I nominated Michael Boddenberg, however, and no hook might be best in the interest of BLP protection. - I don't know what you find wrong with ITN: I have two articles there, mentioned just by name, and happy about that, and her stats are not bad, - he will come tomorrow, was just entered, the stats so far were not for our Main page but general interest (as for her the first 3 days). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:01, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Run DYK as a ticker like RD

What if we figured out how to run DYK like RD, as a ticker? Instead of a qpq, we have the same kind of review/voting as at RD. When a new hook gets sufficient support, an admin adds it to the bottom of the section and removes the oldest from the top. When a new image hook gets approved same way, it replaces the old one. —valereee (talk) 10:44, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't know but that sounds more bureaucratic and in practice probably sounds impractical given that there are far more approved DYK hooks than RD mentions. In addition, this could mean that hooks might only appear on the Main Page for a very short amount of time. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 11:18, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
WP:RD for those like me who had no idea what this was. Oh, Wikipedia:Reference desk! Copying that in any way seems a bad idea frankly. Johnbod (talk) 11:51, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
lol...Wikipedia:In the news/Recent deaths —valereee (talk) 12:45, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Oh, is that what you meant? All the more important to give a link. Johnbod (talk) 12:46, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Johnbod, yes, I agree. That's why I did. :) —valereee (talk) 12:56, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Narutolovehinata5, I actually think it might be less bureaucratic. RD works pretty well. Hooks used to appear for 8 hours when we had three sets per day, and during 2-a-days they only appear for 12. —valereee (talk) 12:47, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
"Ticker" is not my idea (which is above). We have no time pressure as "in the news", so could still assemble balanced sets which stay for 24 hours. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:08, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose That would diminish DYK to just lip service. We should absoultely not do that, especially when in busy times, hooks wouldn't get their fair 12 hours. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 20:13, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose. In this manner, some DYKs might be pulled after a few hours, or remain for a few days. Like The C of E said, it's unfair. epicgenius (talk) 19:13, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

10 hooks per set

What happened to the idea of running 10 hooks per set? OTD can adjust to rebalance the Main Page. Howcheng, can OTD run 6 events instead of 4 or 5. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 10:49, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

From an OTD perspective, there are about 2 or 3 days in the year where we barely have 5 or 6 eligible blurbs. I suppose we can always extend ITN by restoring a deleted item on those days. —howcheng {chat} 18:10, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
I'd prefer 10 hooks per set to two-a-day —valereee (talk) 12:56, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Is there no reason why we can't just try this 10 hooks per set proposal first and see if it solves the issues with the backlog? The way I see things, radical proposals such as potentially redefining the DYK section itself seem too premature if other more feasible solutions such as increasing the number of hooks or preps/queues hasn't been attempted first. Meanwhile, the current status quo is not exactly ideal but I have reservations if the backlog should really be a reason to change the whole process up instead of trying simpler methods first. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 15:28, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Maybe go to seven queues and preps plus ten hooks a day and see what happens? —valereee (talk) 15:41, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
I was actually wondering if 10 queues + 10 preps with 10 hooks per set would help things. Maybe we can try that as an experiment then see what happens from there. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 15:47, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Narutolovehinata5, I would support that. —valereee (talk) 16:10, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Strongly opposed to ten hooks per set, it makes it much harder to create balanced sets, it looks like a "wall of text", and set reviewing becomes too difficult. Gatoclass (talk) 16:14, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Since we're getting about 16 new nominations per day lately, promoting only a single set of 10 a day adds 42 nominations to our overlarge backlog every week. I don't understand the point of proposing that we continue to accrete nominations indefinitely when the system is overloaded today. I'm completely opposed to any proposal that doesn't work to reduce the backlog. There has been strong pushback to sets of 9 hooks, so 10 hooks has even greater challenges. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:37, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Immediate proposal: start two sets per day on Sunday

While the various suggestions are thick on the ground, the situation has worsened alarmingly: there are 47 approved nominations that aren't transcluding (excluding the 12 in special occasions), and we have averaged 15.4 new nominations per day for the first 14 days of April. Promoting 8 per day won't cut it any more; indeed, going to 16 per day will barely keep us ahead of the rate of new noms. We have five queues and four preps filled, which is just enough to get us started promoting two sets daily; the Queue 1 set for Sunday has two special occasion hooks, so it's simpler to start with it, though it could be Monday if people prefer. And while we do so, we can consider, in a less rushed fashion, what to do going forward. I hope you'll agree that we urgently need to take action. (As of last check, we have 403 nominations, 251 of which are approved. These numbers include the 47 that don't transclude and thus aren't counted in the table on the Queues, Nominations, and Approved pages.) BlueMoonset (talk) 18:19, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Agree with this as a short term measure. HaEr48 (talk) 19:07, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Reluctantly agree as a short term measure. The maths says it needs to be done. Joseph2302 (talk) 19:26, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
There is probably a nomination rush right now as people are trying to stay in a pretty hotly contested Wikicup round. Since the round comes to an end on April 28, we will probably see a sharp decrease in nominations at that point, as half the contestants are eliminated and the other half take a breather. Having said that, with 400 nominations it's pretty clear we need to go back to two sets a day for a while. I will try to pitch in and assist with the set reviewing so that will hopefully take some of the pressure off the other admins. Gatoclass (talk) 20:18, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Gatoclass, a significant part of the increase is due to the current GAN backlog drive, which started April 1 and goes through May 31, and is passing unprecedented numbers of nominations each day (20 so far today, with another 80 minutes to go). For Current DYK nominations (combining Nominations and Approved page), April 10 through April 17, 27 of the nominations are new GAs, about a fourth of the total for that period. That rate might slack off a bit eventually, but in 16 days the number of unreviewed GA nominations has dropped from 605 to 284 (the total number is down from 693 to 470), so even if the rate drops, we're likely to see a higher rate of GAs than normal through the end of May. We're so backed up that the WikiCup DYK throughput is not timely any more, since no credit is given until a hook runs on the main page. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:03, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
I agree with this. — Maile (talk) 20:28, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
We need to solve this permanently. We have no choice but to do something to make the current OMG WTF who would have ever thought THIS could happen again go away, but let's keep figuring out a solution. Two-a-days are a complete crap solution for literally everyone involved. —valereee (talk) 10:59, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
ETA: BlueMoonset Yoninah as you two are the most likely to send out a ping begging for admin help because the queues are empty with four hours to go, please add more admins to the pings. I think we need 14 admins working during two-a-days to make the grind less of a burden on our regular admins. I think we should be pinging any admin who has made a nom recently. —valereee (talk) 11:12, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
valereee, I am personally unwilling to include admins who have never done a prep to queue promotion on a ping for a last-minute promotion; the chance of problems are too high, in my view. If the seven or eight admins I ping can't do it, then the set on the main page can sit for a few extra hours while we wait for someone who already knows how. If new admins are recruited and do a promotion or two under less time-constrained circumstances, I'm happy to add them in as people who know the process. I'm also puzzled as to why you keep referring to the need to go to two sets a day as "OMG WTF", "emergency mode", and other dire terms as if this was never going to happen again: I've been at DYK for eight years, and switching the number of sets up and down is an expected occurrence. New nominations have never averaged so low that one set a day could be sustained without building up a large backlog over time. The ultimate problem seems to be that we have fewer admins here and across Wikipedia in general, and fewer editors working behind the scenes to build sets. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:56, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
BlueMoonset, yes, that's exactly the problem. We don't have enough admins willing to do this work. I guess in the past we had more, but for me personally this is OMG WTF NOT AGAIN ALREADY. In the time since I started doing this we've had as much or more two a days as one a days. With only six or so admins, it's not sustainable IMO. We're currently averaging 16 new noms a day so even at 2 a day we're just treading water. Without significantly more admins I don't know how we keep it up. A prep to queue move is not anything that an admin who has ever done a review can't manage. It's 8 reviews, then a pretty simple move. And perhaps a few pings will let other admins know that, hey, we really need help here. —valereee (talk) 19:32, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
For instance in queue now we have noms from 4 admins who are experienced DYK reviewers, every one of them experienced enough at DYK to be capable of moving a prep to queue, and it's quite possible they may not realize we need help, especially during two-a-days. —valereee (talk) 19:45, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
I have been and will be more busy in real life recently, so I will help where I can on the proposals and promoting sets, but my time will probably be limited. Question though: if the bottom of the approved page is the newer DYKs, does it matter if they are not transcluding? There is the special date request issue, but maybe those should be on another page anyways. Otherwise, with the templates at the bottom of the page not transcluding, it seems like it just forces prep-builders to choose from the older DYKs, which should be happening anyways. If valereee and other queue-promoting admin regulars are too busy or overwhelmed at this time to double their work, we could work on changes to the process to reduce the workload. My thought is that if we double the work required (by doing 2x/day), that leaves little time to actually improve the process. Do we need to hope that more admins are able to make time to get through these 2x/days and then work on the process after, or can we ignore the problem while we work on a solution now? I imagine valereee and others would be more okay with this 2x/day event if we are working towards reducing the frequency in the future. Kees08 (Talk) 18:55, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
Kees08, yes, I'm willing to do more temporarily if I know we're going to fix this problem. But so far nothing that has been suggested seems like it's going to work and clearly some people don't even see it as a problem. There are too many people who are absolutely opposed to literally every suggestion being made. No one likes 2-a-days but it's an accepted evil so that's what we just keep doing. —valereee (talk) 19:31, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Okay, the April 19 set is now on the main page. Pinging any admin to change User:DYKUpdateBot/Time Between Updates from 86400 to 43200 so that the changeover from one set every 24 hours (86400 seconds) to one every 12 hours (43200 seconds) is made. Thank you very much, whoever gets there first: Gatoclass, Amakuru, Cas Liber, Maile, valereee, Wugapodes, Vanamonde, Kees08, and Lee Vilenski. And thanks to those who have been keeping the queues filled for the past few days; we're getting a good start to doing two sets a day. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:07, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

 Done — Maile (talk) 01:13, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Extended content

Longer-term solutions

Okay, now that we've dealt with the pressing issue, here are the various things that have been suggested.

Suggestions that wouldn't change the basic way DYK is currently run

  1. Separate out a third page for nominations that have not yet started review. This would actually have other benefits than preventing the transclusion problem; it would focus reviewers on reviews that haven't yet received a review.
  2. Add a seventh queue and seventh prep. This would have the benefit of matching up with days of the week, so that no one would be having to count to figure out which prep gets which special occasion hook.
  3. Increase the number of preps
  4. Do a week of two-a-days whenever there are more than X approved noms
  5. Permanently go to two-a-days on weekends
  6. Increase number of hooks per set
  7. Let DYK-regular admins know when we need help

Discussion

  • I personally like all of these. Not wild about increasing the number of hooks per set simply because of clutter on the page and balance with OTD, but I don't hate it. Not sure whether two-a-days every weekend would be more hassle than it's worth unless we can set up something to automate that. Increasing number of hooks per set seems perennially unpopular, so may be a nonstarter. —valereee (talk) 17:48, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I would most prefer a seventh queue and prep, or increasing number of preps. But that's only a short term solution. A longer term solution is to do 2 sets per day at certain intervals, as well as increasing the number of hooks per set to maybe 9 or 10. epicgenius (talk) 16:23, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
  • So I'm not seeing any major objections to any of these suggestions, which surprises me as at minimum increasing #hooks has generated opposition in the past. Can we get some more input on any of these? —valereee (talk) 19:15, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
  • About the seven specific suggestions above:
  1. I think it would be confusing to separate the unreviewed and reviewed nominations into two separate pages, in large part because a bot couldn't reliably do it. Too many reviewers only comment on hooks, which adds lots of text but doesn't actually get the nomination reviewed on the basics, such as size and newness. And I say this as the person who compiles the "oldest nominations needing review" section every eight or nine days. Most people review a nomination that's adjacent to their own new nomination, and wouldn't leave the "current nominations" section of the page to go anywhere else, while a number of ongoing reviews need new reviewers and wouldn't be on the "focus" page. (This doesn't do anything regarding the issue of the overflowing Approved page, but it probably isn't meant to.)
  2. We had a discussion on the seventh prep and queue when it was brought up, and the people who do the prepping didn't seem too excited by it, so I let it drop, though I was (and still am) prepared to do the necessary work to implement it. I'm fine either way, and it might reduce the frequency of requests to promote to queue when preps are full if there's an extra prep out there, since prep fillers don't seem to work on quite the same schedule as prep movers.
  3. It would be far more confusing than it's worth to have more preps than queues. The current system with identical numbers of preps and queues, with each prep going to its identically numbered queue, is so much easier than what we had back when there were fewer preps than queues. Having too many of each makes the Queues page very long, with a lot of wasted space in times of drought. We want to find a happy medium.
  4. Doing a week of two sets daily to bring us down when we hit a certain number of approved noms might work, but it's typically easier to pull off if there are several queues filled at the start. Having to switch over because we've hit the number even when only one queue is filled is problematic; it becomes a week of stress and catch-up. (We could build in an automatic delay if needed to boost the filled queues.) We'd put through an extra 56 nominations in that one week; we could be switching over once a month or more frequently in a very busy period like we're in now. The level would need to be set so that we don't risk having the Approved page get too long, or keep approved nominations waiting too many weeks for promotion.
  5. Permanently going to two-a-day on Saturday and Sunday is an interesting notion. It does make planning ahead more difficult when doing preps, since the schedule table for queues isn't flexible in that way, but we could certainly give it a try if people like it, and the admins are available to make the change every Saturday just after midnight and change back on Monday just after midnight. We might also be able to have the bot automate it if it turns out to work well for us.
  6. Increasing the number of hooks per set has gotten pushback every time it's been proposed. Building balanced sets does get harder the longer they are, so going up from 8 to 9 (or 10) takes longer not only because of the extra hooks but putting together the set. If we risk losing our current set builders by increasing the size, it isn't worth it.
  7. I've always figured that admins who submit articles at DYK but don't do admin chores for DYK are busy elsewhere, since they tend not to respond when we put out calls for admin assistance on the talk page for everyone to see. I'm happy for someone to try to recruit more DYK admins from that pool. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:23, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
Re: a seventh prep and queue...Yoninah and Cwmhiraeth, do you have an actual objection to this idea, or just don't really care? The reason I like it is that beyond allowing for 8-16 more hooks being moved off the approved page (and therefore helping to smooth out periods of exceptionally high number of noms temporarily) it also lets us more easily calculate dates/days of week of future preps. But if going to 7 preps/sets makes your job harder, I wouldn't want to see us do it. —valereee (talk) 16:09, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
Re: a week of two-sets daily easier to do when several queues are filled at the start...BlueMoonset, given how quickly we managed to get this set up for the current two-a-days, I think this is not an obstacle perhaps? —valereee (talk) 16:09, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
Re: letting additional admins know we need help. I think there may be admins who regularly nom who never read the talk page unless called there, and then only read that section. They may not even be aware when we're pinging and begging. Or at least that's what I'd rather believe. :) I think it can't hurt to ping people who've nom'd recently. The actual move is very easy. It's just that it takes time to do the rechecks, and of course most people would prefer to avoid being called incompetent at ERRORS. But if we had in addition to our regulars a dozen thicker-skinned admins willing to do even one move a month, it would be incredibly helpful. —valereee (talk) 16:09, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
@Valereee: Honestly, I'm finding it hard following the reams of text being devoted to this subject. IMO the bottom line is that reviews are not being done properly. A big reason for that is our QPQ rule, which we instituted a few years ago to get more people to help out while they're adding their own nominations. As long as we have slapdash reviews, we will have a problem. Adding more prep sets is not going to solve it. Yoninah (talk) 18:19, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
Yoninah, totally agree. If we could come up with a way to stop doing qpq, I'm all for it. The problem is that we have a beast to feed. In order to fix it we'd need to be able to decide that, nope, we don't have 8 competently-reviewed hooks today; today we're only publishing 2. Which requires a change to MP layout. But what I'm hearing is that you don't have an objection to 7 preps/queues, you just don't think it's going to solve DYK's biggest problem? —valereee (talk) 19:30, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
@Valereee: I guess not. But how will it help? I do a prep set every day or so, Cwmhiraeth does one every day or so, and maybe 97198 helps out. It could take up to a week and a half for 7 sets to be filled. We're just managing with 6. Yoninah (talk) 19:36, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
I have no objection to there being 7 queues and 7 preps, but I don't really see any advantage to increasing the number. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:56, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
Cwmhiraeth, the advantage is temporarily smoothing out the overload during high-nom periods, plus ease of figuring which prep is which day, since preps and weeks would both be 7 days long. It's not a huge advantage. :) —valereee (talk) 22:00, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
(Responding to a ping from Yoninah) I'm fairly busy in real life right now but can try to help out with building preps every few days. From my point of view, adding a 7th queue/prep can't hurt and would be useful on the (rare) occasion that all six preps are full. 97198 (talk) 07:05, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
We do bump up against the limits, and lately it's been happening a few times a week. Yoninah has recently pinged for admins to promote preps because all six were full; as I write this, all six queues are full which precludes any promotions for the next nine hours, even though there are preps ready for promotion. (This has happened a few times since we went to two sets daily; indeed, Casliber got there a bit late once after a call for admins and found all six queues full, and would have filled a seventh if it had been available.) What the seventh prep and queue will give us is the opportunity to occasionally fill seven queues or seven preps when people are available and in the mood, which in turn gives us more stored up for leaner times when people are busy for a day or two, without making the Queue page unwieldy to use.
About the other issue mentioned above, DYK without QPQ would collapse in days. (It's been around for more than a "few" years; it was already a fact over eight years ago in late 2011 when I did my first DYK nominations and, reluctantly, my first QPQ after taking advantage of all five freebies.) Most people who can review don't unless you make them, and QPQ is the way to do that. Perhaps what we need to do is give QPQ a sting, if so many reviews are problematic: if the review is found to have significant issues that could reasonably be expected to be discovered during a proper review, the credit is revoked and they have to do a new (and presumably better) one to replace it. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:31, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
BlueMoonset, I'm not sure I agree. GA doesn't collapse without qpq. It just slows down and gets a big backlog. We have too many hooks, not too few. I'd rather see us test the concept of no qpq, with reviewers encouraged to review the noms of people who do reviews, and figure out how to make the backlog not break things. I know that at GA, when I see a nom from someone who has a multiple noms but has done 0 reviews, I'll only pick up that review if the subject is extremely high interest lol. :D When I see someone with hundreds of completed reviews, I'll pick up their review if the subject is only slightly interesting to me. —valereee (talk) 16:59, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
valereee, then we'll have to agree to disagree, and if the proposal is made to drop QPQ, I plan to oppose it. We should try to fix it first if it's so badly broken. GA never had QPQ (which would require a significantly higher level of reviewing competence than DYK does) and it's been struggling for years with fewer submissions; the current backlog drive is finally getting the backlog down to levels not seen since the middle of this decade, and the oldest unreviewed nominations are below six months for the first time in a long time. It's no model to emulate here. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:46, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
BlueMoonset, I don't think you have anything to worry about. :) The likelihood a proposal to end qpq (or any other long-in-place policy anywhere on WP) gains support is negligible. We're pretty much stuck with the system we've got right now. Even minor tweaks like "go to seven preps and seven queues" take weeks of discussion. People don't like change. —valereee (talk) 17:54, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Suggestions that would change DYK in some way

  1. Be more ruthless with the oldest noms and longest discussions. (Moving this to suggestions that would change, as I think what this likely means is nominations failing for age.)
  2. Create a section for a GA ticker (ETA: optional per nom)
  3. Go to six hooks and six non-hook slots per day
  4. Require more than 1500 characters for creations
  5. Require nominators to respond to review within 7 days (added per discussion)

—valereee (talk) 11:19, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

  • Oppose Just because its old, doesn't mean it has no value. More likely its just people scared away by walls of text from a previous reviewer who has given up and left the nominator in the lurch. They should not be punished for that. Also the 1,500 characters is standard and WP:IFITAINTBROKE, don't fix it. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 12:09, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
    The C of E, I'm not sure how best to fix it, but IMO a process that requires regular begging in order to prevent late updates is broke. I'm totally open to adding your suggestions for how to fix this to the lists above. —valereee (talk) 17:59, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I don't think many noms are very close to 1,500 characters, so unless the new figure was a good deal larger - at least double say - I'm not sure there would be much benefit. Increasing the expansion requirement to say 7 would probably be tougher, but there aren't so many of these, & I think these are often the most worthwhile things on DYK, since we have so many crappy stubs. Johnbod (talk) 16:16, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes, there doesn't seem to be too many 1500-odd nominations anymore.
One thing I would support is the elimination of any nominations where the nominator hasn't responded to issues raised within seven days. I've suggested this a number of times in the past but have never formally proposed it. If you can't be bothered to respond in a timely manner, I don't see why the project should be bothered keeping your nomination open. Gatoclass (talk) 16:52, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Gatoclass, I'd support that. —valereee (talk) 18:00, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
I would also support such a proposal. It can be a pain when nominators don't respond to article concerns despite pings and notifications, and in many cases these bouts of unresponsiveness have been the cause of nominations going unreviewed or not being approved for so long. Depending on the situation though, such a requirement could be waived depending on the circumstances (such as if a nominator is new to DYK or has indicated that they will be unable to respond promptly due to unavailability). Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 01:35, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
As Narutolovehinata5 points out, sometimes it takes a month or longer to review, and the nominator may not be around that week. As long as we're sensible about allowing the nominator extra time to return, we could certainly tighten up our time for a response. About the shorter nominations, I thought it was useful to have hard numbers, so checked the first week of April (1 through 7), and of 96 nominations, 8 were 1500–1999 prose characters, 7 were 2000–2499, and 5 were 2500–2999; the other 76 were longer. Note that if we were to increase the minimum, that would (or should) affect all nominations, 5x expansions and GAs. The 1500 minimum currently affects them all. BlueMoonset (talk) 13:45, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
A modest proposal that would cut the bloat on the nominations page is to give nominators a limited amount of time to respond to the reviewer's review. Currently nominations hang around for weeks without any response, until maybe after a month we give them a 2-week notice, and even then one of our editors will put in a last-ditch request for leniency. We also have student editors submitting their articles and then disappearing after the course ends, leaving us with the responsibility of cleaning up the nomination to meet DYK rules. All this has got to stop if we want a smooth-running project. I suggest nominators must respond to each of the reviewer's posts within a week. If they don't, we close the nomination. If people are serious about seeing their DYK on the main page, they must keep time with us. Yoninah (talk) 16:05, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
Yoninah, we could certainly do that. To make it clear what we expect, the message in the {{DYKproblem}} template could be modified to actually mention seven days, much like the "hold" message at GAN. Perhaps something like changing the Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. sentence so that "as soon as possible" becomes "within seven days". However, since pings don't always work, I'd want a post to have been made to the nominator's talk page before being this strict. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:11, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
For me this one's a no-brainer. —valereee (talk) 17:53, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
  • I believe the main thing that have changed over time and led into the current situation is the increasing number of nominations. It's expected given the number of editors grow and more articles/GAs get created. Without addressing this I think we're just going to add pressure on other parts of the pipeline. Increasing number of hooks per set or number of set per day, will just increase the pressure on prep building for example. Therefore I support increasing the minimum length. And I agree that it should be dramatic so that it can make an actual difference. I'd support doubling it to 3,000 if that's what it takes. Another advantage of this option is that the "sacrifice" will be borne by the shorter creations, as opposed to sacrificing the air time of GAs (if we choose to disqualify GAs), or sacrificing the average air time of higher quality DYK (if we choose to increase #set per day) , or sacrificing the attention going to each hook (if we choose to increase hooks per set). HaEr48 (talk) 18:28, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
    • I'd be fine with sacrificing GAs. But not to increase the character count because there are lots of potential articles out there that sometimes just scrape in because of a lack of avaliable sources. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 19:47, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
      • In my opinion, GAs are the last that we should sacrifice, because it comes with a tighter quality control than a regular DYK review. HaEr48 (talk) 22:31, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
While the proposal of increasing the amount of characters needed has some merit, the issue here is that it would possibly exclude several topics that otherwise could have made for great DYK entries but couldn't be done because available sourcing simply isn't strong enough to be able to write longer articles. In addition, I fear that such a high standard could potentially lead to an increase in systemic bias, given that more obscure topics with less coverage would be less likely to qualify than topics that are widely reported on, which in practice tends to be Anglophone-centric topics. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 01:35, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
If we increase the length requirement a lot, we will get lots more prose padding & off-topic diversions than we already get. Johnbod (talk) 12:31, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
Exactly. It's either a topic where the sources only allow for an article to just scrape over the 1,500 line (Championship rugby players and young professional football debutants) for example which have every right to appear or as Johnbod said, an overbloated article full of meaningless filler (like stub hamlets and villages for example). Increasing the 1,500 character count is a bad idea because it will exclude articles and encourage bad writing. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 15:26, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
I think it would be sensible to look into increasing the limit, probably to 2,000 since most nominations seem to be more than that. However, as Johnbod points out, this would lead to prose padding for less well-known topics. I'd oppose sacrificing GAs - in fact, that is the last thing we should consider, since it was approved by a clear majority of 160 editors, and GAs are typically even more high-quality than new or expanded DYK nominees. epicgenius (talk) 16:22, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

What if we made DYK hooks exclusive to recently promoted GAs, and new or expanded articles are posted as a ticker or some other kind of list, with no hook? The new or newly expanded articles would still be reviewed, just the hook portion would be dropped?--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 15:31, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

  • That's a complete non-starter in my view. Just as it would be inappropriate to downgrade GAs, it would be inappropriate to downgrade all other articles, either new or newly expanded. Indeed, you'd lose the newness out of DYK altogether, since GAs are typically long-established articles that have just been reviewed and listed. This is the antithesis of what DYK has been all these years. I'm also against this "no hook" suggestion that's been showing up here. The section is called "Did you know", and a list of links doesn't fit at all. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:41, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Higher obligations for participation?

I've only a minimal amount of DYK activity, so please feel free to tell me I'm nuts, but what about going to a higher requirement for nominators to do more reviews when the backlog gets longer (e.g. 2 reviews per nom)? Nosebagbear (talk) 16:35, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Nosebagbear, as a way of slowing noms? The problem is that QPQ isn't really a great thing. It encourages review by people who 1. don't know what they're really doing and 2. don't really care to learn because 3. they just want to check the boxes to move their own hook through the process. I'm not sure having to do a second nom would slow anyone's roll. When I'm checking a set, the thing that makes me sigh in despair is when I see an entry that was both nom'd and reviewed by usernames I don't recognize lol. So requiring a second review probably doesn't fix anything. What we really need is more sysops willing to do even 1 move-to-queue every week or ten days. —valereee (talk) 17:46, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
Valereee, I'm 100% positive it's been done before, but perhaps either general or targeted requests. I'd always assumed the best this could do was short spurts when what you really want is a small increase from 10 that persists, but ACC just removed a 10 week backlog over the course of a year, which pleased me so much that it was possible. One thing that discourages me from getting involved is I feel that I'd need to learn to do a number of intermediate steps to a good length of experience before I'd feel comfortable even dipping my tow into the later stages of the process - I've no idea if that's an issue others consider. Still, I'm sure I can do some QPQs when I get a spare moment (I'll add it as a nice new worksheet to go with my AfC one in my reviewing excel workbook). As a final point - would it be right in saying that the bottleneck is the admin-necessary side, but the backlog is in QPQs? Nosebagbear (talk) 19:05, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
Nosebagbear, no, the backlog isn't in the qpqs. The backlog is almost always in the admin moves from prep to queue. If you can do a competent review, you can do a move from prep to queue, which basically entails 8 re-reviews plus a fairly simple move. The issue for most people is the learning curve for which reviews need careful scrutiny and which are quick. It takes a few dozen such moves before you start to recognize names. I know, for instance, that a nom from Cwmhiraeth or Yoninah or a dozen other regulars probably needs no further checks from me other than a quick scan of the hook itself to make sure I don't stumble over anything. But a nom from a new contributor that has been reviewed by a new contributor? That one, I'll be doing a full re-review on, including reading sources in full to make sure they say what they're supposed to be saying. When I first started moving preps to queues, I spent a couple of hours on a typical set. Now it varies, but it's typically much less than that. —valereee (talk) 20:43, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
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suggestion struck as not tenable —valereee (talk) 11:18, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

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.

Opposition to anything that relegates GA to less than full partner

@Valereee: I've tried to more or less stay out of all the suggestions, etc. Any idea that relegates GA to less than a full partner at DYK can so easily, and justifiably, be seen as an act of bad faith on DYK's part. The RFC that made them a partner was approved by 126 editors, and opposed by 32. Most of the names you see on that RFC were not DYK regulars, but GA supporters who saw it as a reasonable compromise. We cannot now treat GA as anything less than an equal, and the small handful of regulars on this talk page should not be trying to ditch the consensus of that RFC. I realize that's not your intention, but your suggestions indicate that GA be swept into the background somewhere.

This is from memory, and any DYK regular who has been around as long as I have (ca. 2011) should feel free to correct anything here. There was, at the time of the RFC, multiple attempts to take main page space away from DYK. Some of those voices came from GAC fans who believed, correctly at the time, that GA articles were better quality than the first-time-editor submissions that were some of DYK product. They had a valid point, in that GA in some ways has a more thorough review process. You can't (or shouldn't) sign off on a GAC with just a casual sentence or two. Who was DYK to have space on the main page, when it was denied to GA?

GA is either a full partner here, or it's not. And if we have the audacity to say the opinions of 126 editors are no longer valid, then we are not solving anything. — Maile (talk) 16:43, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Maile66, no suggestion is requiring GAs to not be considered as a hook nom. It's allowing them to, which some of them might prefer, and which could take up less room on the page which would allow more to be featured on a given day, which would help with the backlog. Gerda has said she'd prefer to be able to nom even creations as non-hook. —valereee (talk) 17:40, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Such a proposal wouldn't even be DYK anymore, it would sound more like "recently promoted GAs" or "today's featured GAs" which to my recollection have been rejected multiple times by the community. And to be honest, I don't really see the point of just having a link to an article on DYK if there's no hook. It wouldn't really count as "Did you know" because there's no hook. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 01:29, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
"Create a section for a GA ticker" doesn't seem to me to be suggesting it be run as a regular hook. Did I perceive that incorrectly? — Maile (talk)
Maile66 No, I just communicated it unclearly, apologies. I didn't conceive a ticker for GA that would require all GAs to be included in the ticker or to be excluded in DYK. I conceived a GA ticker that would include GAs that were nom'd but whose noms didn't want to create a hook. Without a hook, nearly any GA would qualify for DYK, as the thing that typically keeps a GA from qualifying is whether the hook facts are cited to the sentence. Some GA writers don't care about DYK and wouldn't nom, some might enjoy coming up with a hook, some are actively irritated by having to cite to the sentence, others like Gerda might just want the article listed by name. —valereee (talk) 19:47, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
I've added something to hopefully make more clear —valereee (talk) 19:49, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Hmmmm. I think I understand what you are saying. But if editors don't want to create a hook, then they should not be at DYK. I mean ... after all ... it is "Did you know ... ?" I think I understand what you are getting at, but I'm pretty sure I don't like the idea of reducing any submissions to a ticker. It just creates another bureaucratic level to check through, yet another section to provide for tickers and instructions on how to handle them. No, I don't believe I like the idea of tickers at DYK. That's not why we exist. You can't have any fun of quirky hooks, or virtual nose tweaking via the output. — Maile (talk) 02:25, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
Also, why would anybody spend time reviewing something that amounts to nothing more than a main page link to the article title? Are we just going to allow GA ticker links without any review standards? No, I can't see that as a working option. — Maile (talk) 02:35, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
Maile66, fair point. The main thing I'm looking at when reviewing a GA is whether the hook fact is clearly supported in the article and sourced to the sentence. If GAs don't require hooks, GAs might as well just be automatically listed. (Personally that would be fine by me but apparently that's something that had broad opposition in the past.) I'll strike that one as non tenable, since I was the one who suggested it. —valereee (talk) 11:13, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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    • Much better now, thanks! Cinadon36 19:20, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Move entire discussion to its own subpage - it dwarfs any other threads

@Valereee, BlueMoonset, Yoninah, and Gatoclass: and everybody else. Not meaning to leave anybody out. But this discussion needs to be moved to its own subpage, with a link from this talk page to it. It's getting way too big, and dwarfing any other posts on other topics. — Maile (talk) 20:53, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Maile66, or possibly turn this last set of subsections into a section so the other will soon archive? No objection, either way. —valereee (talk) 10:52, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
That wasn't exactly what I meant, but I just realized that you are not the one who started this thread. It was @Yoninah:. For documentation purposes, it all needs to be kept together. Actually, I guess it's all one continuation of asking if we go to two sets a day. Never mind on my suggestion. — Maile (talk) 11:19, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Maile66, we could collapse everything above the current discussion, maybe? —valereee (talk) 16:40, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
I think we should come to a local consensus for a proposal, and then spin it out to its own subpage. This is definitely a productive discussion, but I worry forking it too soon without a clear goal for that new page would make coming to a solution more difficult. Collapsing is probably a good idea in the interim. — Wug·a·po·des​ 20:40, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Oldest nominations needing DYK reviewers

The previous list was archived yesterday, so here is an updated list with the 37 oldest nominations that need reviewing, which covers those through April 18. We currently have a total of 381 nominations, of which 179 have been approved, a gap of over 200. Thanks to everyone who reviews these, especially the ones unreviewed from March and early April.

Over two months old:

Over one month old:

Other old nominations:

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. Many thanks! BlueMoonset (talk) 03:21, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Prep 2: Aristotle

@Cinadon36 and Alessandro57: I feel this hook, which I promoted, is badly expressed. I would like to propose it is changed to something like

  • I think that's better. "Studied" is a bit excessive for something that was only a small discussion in that work. Black Kite (talk) 12:46, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
Thank you. I have made the substitution. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:08, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

I'd like someone experienced to check prep 5

Hi all. I just filled prep 5. It was my first time filling a prep since 2016, so I'd appreciate it if someone with more experience could give it a look over. The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 07:20, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! I commented on your talk page. Yoninah (talk) 09:53, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
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