Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 53

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Archive 50

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Archive 52

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DYK-related changes to ArticleHistory template

I've made some suggestions for DYK-related changes to the {{ArticleHistory}} template. Please do comment on them at "Template talk:ArticleHistory#Option for adding DYK hook (redux)". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 19:23, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Derrell Robertson

Could someone please add that to Queue 2, so it will run during the Grey Cup game tomorrow (it is at the bottom of the page, in the special events holding area). Thanks.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:53, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I added it to prep area 1 earlier, to go into Queue 6. That will run on 29th in all time zones, albeit rather early in the morning US/Canada time; on reflection I should have checked that more closely. Sorry. Perhaps an admin can shuffle it to Q1 or Q2 accordingly? Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 21:26, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Somebody seems to have done it already, so this one can be marked as resolved. Gatoclass (talk) 11:28, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Is an WP:AFD listing now reason for removing a nominated article?

With regards to this edit, is an article being listed at WP:AFD now considered a valid reason to remove that article's DYK nomination? In the no so distant past the usual process was to let the nomination sit on the nominations page until AFD could complete its process. As any article can be listed at AFD at any time by any any registered user or anon with enough savvy to make a polite request (e. g. Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion#Finish a nom for me?) and with or without a valid reason for deletion, this new reason for removal would appear to empower anyone with a WP:IDONTLIKEIT opinion of an article to unilaterally veto an otherwise valid submission. --Allen3 ^talk 13:58, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I think you are right in general, for the reasons you outlined. On the other hand, admins should be able to remove nominations for articles that are very unlikely to survive the AFD, since they would only clutter up the page otherwise. In this case, I'd say it should have stayed on the nomination page since consensus at AFD seems to be split and no clear outcome can be predicted at the moment. Regards So Why 14:09, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Inclined to agree with SoWhy. Yes it will be a nuisance that this nom will hang around for several days yet (which I imagine is why matsci decided to remove it) but we do have a policy on AFD's and this one looks to have an even chance of survival judging by the AFD's current state. Gatoclass (talk) 14:15, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I just wanted to clean up a bit. AFD per se was not the reason, it was the combination of an AFD which did not have a chance of speedy keep (rather relisting) + old age of the nom. Sorry, I should have waited a bit longer. Materialscientist (talk) 22:38, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Concur. Removing an article due to an ongoing AfD is not good practice because the AfD should be allowed to run its course, keep or delete. If deleted then it's removed no harm, no foul. But if kept then it can properly run through the course of DYK.--Giants 27(Contribs|WP:CFL) 23:37, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Creds for Queue #1

I posted the update manually, but I haven't time to do the credits, so I'll have to ask someone else to do that. Thanks, Gatoclass (talk) 17:43, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Done. Though giving credit to myself isn't the most productive thing to do. :) Ucucha 18:22, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I doubt anyone will scold you for it - this time.

Thanks for doing it. Regards So Why 18:34, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Bot problems

The last 2 updates had to be done manually (queues 5 and 6). Can't tell what was wrong. Last update was belated and the first credit didn't have a *, but previous one seemed fine. On both updates, I tried to reset both timers, several times, to shift the update time. When the update time was coming again, bot ignored .. If no solution, there is a high chance for a crash on the next update (queue1), and I will be offline then. From Queue 2 on I'm back online. Materialscientist (talk) 11:19, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

The bot may not be running currently, since no edits were made by it since yesterday. Unfortunately, nixeagle is currently on a wikibreak and cannot be contacted to see what's wrong. I wonder, since the code of the bot can be seen by anyone (here), whether someone could run a replacement bot manually using that code...

On a side note, since the bot often has such problems, maybe we could request a User:DYKadminBot II to be created that is located on the toolserver or is run by someone willing to do it and that can be manually activated by an admin when the main bot is not working? Regards So Why 16:46, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

The code at the link is the bot's code months (possibly over a year) ago. A user helped Nixeagle jumpstart the bot earlier this year; I'll try and dig up the name and see if he still has access. (And thank you to Materialscientist and all the admins helping out with manual updates.) Shubinator (talk) 01:37, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

DYKSTATS Archive

At the beginning of 2009, we archived the 2008 monthly stats because the DYKSTATS page size resulted in slow load time. As of today, we were up to 220,051 bytes which creates similar load time problems. Accordingly, I have archived Jan. - July 2009 stats. They are still linked to the main DYKSTATS page, but are hosted on the Archives page. This is something we should do as routine maintenance to prevent the page size from reaching an unwieldy size. Cbl62 (talk) 07:11, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Gee, you were reading my mind which was telling me just an hour ago that it must be archived soon! Thanks. I went bold and changed your nice sectioning - feel free to re-edit, mine is only draft. My idea was that archives will grow and keeping one section/month is impractical. Materialscientist (talk) 07:29, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I think your sectioning concept is a good one. We may want to tweak the archives sectioning on the main DYKSTATS page to make it more inviting/accessible. Rather than letting it grow to 200,000 bytes again, it probably makes sense to limit the main DYKSTATS page to the most recent four months and routinely archive the fifth oldest month. Cbl62 (talk) 07:33, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Newartbot link

What's happened to the Newartbot link at the bottom of the T:TDYK page? Mjroots (talk) 11:27, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't know exactly what happened to it, but I restored it. It reappeared after I deleted the extra entry for Émilien Amaury. --Orlady (talk) 17:09, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Pete Heine

Our fact-checking has broken down again. Art LaPella (talk) 01:47, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I take the responsiblity of that SNAFU. It was indeed not concise how it was worded. Thank you for addressing that and making the needed changes. Calmer Waters 02:00, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, I may also deserve some of the blame for promoting it without checking the hook thoroughly. Thanks for addressing it, Art. Ucucha 02:31, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Holiday queues?

Is there any existing shortage of "relevant"articles for use in the DYK sections on the upcoming holidays? If there is, the sooner we know that, the more and maybe more interesting articles we can get together for them. I don't think we have an article on the heavy use of "love hotels" on Christmas in Japan for instance. John Carter (talk) 16:36, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

It's not necessary for every holiday DYK queue to be filled with holiday-relevant hooks. However, it would be nice if there were more Christmas hooks than there are right now, not to mention hooks that recognize other holidays occurring at this time of the year. Currently there are just 3 Christmas hooks in the queue (including two with pictures) and just one Hanukkah hook. --Orlady (talk) 17:07, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

What Orlady said, it'd be very nice to have four queues full for Hanukkah and Christmas but considering how close we are to the holidays, two queues filled is probably the best we can hope for.--Giants 27(Contribs|WP:CFL) 02:14, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

We could always canvas for more contributions at, say, Wiki Signpost, if there's concern we are not going to get enough hooks. Gatoclass (talk) 08:17, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

The holloween project that was used this year seemed to help with self promoting the idea. I know that seeing the Holloween icon next to a nom brought it to my attention and may do the same for editors that frequent the DYK suggestion page to either place a nom or check on the status of it. We could design a project page using this as a starting point and reinstitutionalize it each year Calmer Waters 08:47, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Started a page at Wikipedia:Did you know/Christmas 2009 Calmer Waters 09:04, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Great News!!!

Some DYK editors may remember the original Bacon Challenge event. Well, unable to resist bacon's temptations, rouge/pink editors have kicked off the Bacon Challenge 2010 before the New Year even starts! This is a fun and collegial event and all are welcome. There are many non-pork articles for editors who enjoy some sizzle, but object to or don't like messing with pig products. This year's event also includes a Bacon WikiCup 2010 for those who may want to keep score and enjoy engaging in friendly competition. Given the critical importance of this subject matter, I know you will want to participate, so remember to sign up today and get started A.S.A.P. ALL ARE WELCOME!!! The more the merrier. ChildofMidnight (talk) 02:24, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Hmm...interesting. I look forward to seeing some more bacon related articles on the main page. Now out of my own personal interest, what are some good bacon sources?--Giants 27(Contribs|WP:CFL) 02:30, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Sources? Seduced by Bacon! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Drmies (talk • contribs)

Heather Lauer's book is about various suppliers. And several are listed as needing articles on the Bacon Challenge contest page. What better way to get up to speed than to start those articles G27??? ChildofMidnight (talk) 06:04, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Nueske’s Applewood Smoked Meats is a very notable and reknowned bacon supplier in Wisconsin Giants 27, and I very much look forward to seeing what you work up on them in a much needed article on the subject. One of the stories on them is headlines: "Hog heaven bacon lovers agree: Nueske's from Wisconsin is the best." Let me know if you need any help. :) ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:27, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do, considering I've never done anything related to food. In the mean time, let me go sign up for this...--Giants 27(Contribs|WP:CFL) 19:08, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Double promotion

Penzance A.F.C. is currently setting in both Queues 5 and 1. It appears that after it was removed and placed into the prep area at 17:07, the following edit made at 17:07 placed the information back onto the suggestion page. I have seen this happen before (rarely) when edits happen to be right on top of each other and don't conflict due to what I believe is a "liquid template" to cut down on edit conflicts on this highly edited page. I would suggest editors take a quick once over to make sure all promoted noms are removed after preparing a prep area incase of these rare instances, as I will do the same :) Calmer Waters 08:34, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! fixed. Materialscientist (talk) 08:37, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Second the above observation - I have just had to delete the same nom twice at T:TDYK within a few minutes. Please check that the nom is deleted after promoting it to prep! Materialscientist (talk) 09:06, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Next update

Bot is not working. Next update, 16:42 UTC I'm off-line. Would an admin wait 15 or more minutes after the nominal update time and then, if nothing happen, update manually. I've asked PeterSymonds to restart the bot, and those 15 (or more) minuntes are needed to jump-start the bot if it misbehaves. The update after that I'm back on-line. Materialscientist (talk) 11:08, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

William B. Slaughter

I started an article about William B. Slaughter. He was a 19th century American politician from Virginia. During his life he lived in Indiana where he was elected to the Indiana House of Representatives where he got a resolution through supporting President Andrew Jackson and the Nullification Crisis of 1832. Consequently, he works for the land Office got sent to Wisconsin Territory where he becomes the territory secretary and manages to get a county named after him a name the citizens did not like and is was change to the present day Washington County, Iowa. Royalbroil would like me to put this article up for DYK-we are members of WikiProject Wisconsin-however, I am having problems trying to figure out the templates, rules, etc. If the article does not get through then fine. Thank you-RFD (talk) 15:27, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for writing the article, I added the nomination. For the hook, I went with the county renaming; you're of course free to suggest another possibility at T:TDYK#William B. Slaughter.

The article currently contains several "bare URL" references, which should be converted to full references (i.e., including things like the title, publisher, access date) before the article can be promoted. You may want to use {{cite web}} for that.

In the future, you can use the {{NewDYKnom}} template, as shown in this edit. Ucucha 15:45, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

The bare urls are fixed. —mattisse (Talk) 17:18, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Rule summary Art LaPella (talk) 18:00, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

DYKadminBot

Shubinator kindly reminded me that I still had access to jumpstart the bot. Bear in mind that the link I used was given to me at the beginning of the year, so I'm not sure it'll still work. Nonetheless, things look good; the jumpstart link showed the bot had successfully logged in, and showed the correct queue number to update.

Would it be possible to hold on the next scheduled manual archive for about 15-20 minutes? This should be enough time to see if the bot has really started working again (or not). If not, there's nothing else I can do, sadly, but this is worth a try. :-) Thanks, PeterSymonds (talk) 02:23, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. I'll monitor the next two updates. Please post messages (here or on my talk, if they are for temporal use) Materialscientist (talk) 02:34, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

The bot's back in business! Thanks PeterSymonds! Shubinator (talk) 02:49, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, Yes! You saved us from manual update. Now, let me be stupid and skeptical .. myself :-( Could someone explain me why the "time for next update" has to be 6 hrs behind the actual time, and why resetting this time at 02:48 UTC (kind of forth and back) immediately triggered the bot? I had such thing before and thought it was just my impatience and I should give a bot some time to start, but this "coincidence" at 48 min is weird. Materialscientist (talk) 03:06, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Not being at all knowledgeable about the code, I cannot answer your first question. I can, however, explain why it occurred at 48 minutes past. I had jumpstarted the bot at about 02:10, but I wasn't sure whether it was programmed to ignore my command until a next update was due. After 7 or 8 minutes after the scheduled update, nothing was happening, so I jumpstarted the bot again. The bot recognised that a next update was overdue, and started updating immediately, hence why the full update happened eight minutes after the scheduled update. Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 03:15, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

(ec) The timer should be set to the time of the last update. So if we're doing updates every 6 hours, an update should be done when the timer is set to 6 hours ago. I'm not sure about the back and forth thing; might just be coincidence. The bot isn't continually active; it "wakes up" and checks if it should do an update every few minutes. Shubinator (talk) 03:18, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. The bot was often shifting the update by some 15 min in the past, could it be related to the manual re-starting the bot (by someone) or it was just wake-up inconsistency? Regarding these two days, could it be that the bot was logged off by some WP process and simply re-logging him was enough to keep things running? Materialscientist (talk) 03:29, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

In the two days between Dec 1 and Dec 3, the bot was logged out, and needed a manual restart. The bot logged in at around 02:10, but due to the way it's programmed, it won't do anything until the update is overdue (according to DYK/Time). If I recall correctly, the bot isn't quite exact; it can run up to 15 minutes late after an update is due, which is why there's an evident inconsistency. I shouldn't have to run it manually again after this point, and it should run automatically until it next goes down (just poke me if you notice this occurring again). Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 03:48, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing it Peter. :-) Regards So Why 08:46, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

The bot didn't update again. This time I didn't fiddle with the timer ;). Queues are Ok, but could someone please monitor the next update (I'm offline). If Peter could please restart the bot around time of the next update that would be great. Materialscientist (talk) 10:19, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Damn. Okay, I'll reset it next time. PeterSymonds (talk) 11:56, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Bot appears to be running fully automatically again (I didn't trigger the 06:56 update, and although I triggered the 00:56 update, it was already done before I triggered it). PeterSymonds (talk) 10:02, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Venting

I try not to complain, but the hook selection process can be frustrating for those who spend hours preparing articles, traveling to locations to take photographs, and trying to come up with good hooks. Two examples from the past 24 hours have driven up my frustration level. Hopefully, there are some lessons here:

First, I had prepared a handful of articles and hooks last week about notable churches in Los Angeles. Two of them, St. Timothy and St. Thomas the Apostle, were placed together in the same update for last night's midnight to 6 a.m. slot in LA. There are two issues with that. DYK updaters need to be more conscious of diversity in updates (2 hooks about LA churches in the same update is not good). Also, some thought should be given to placing region-specific hooks in time slots where the hooks will reach their regional audience. When I have prepared updates (I admit, not so much in recent months), I tried to consider time zone appropriateness. If there's a hook that's of special interest to people in Lithuania, try not to put it in an update that's set to go to the main page in that region's midnight to 6 a.m. slot. Same for LA churches going in LA's midnight to 6 a.m. slot. I know it requires a bit more thought, but it's frustrating when a region-specific hook goes live during a time slot when the people in the region of interest are sound asleep.

Second, one of my hooks was swapped this morning for a poor (and factually inaccurate) alt hook (currently in queue 1). My proposed hook was: "... that St. Martin of Tours Church (pictured) was the site of Dan Akroyd's eulogy to John Candy and a media frenzy when O.J. Simpson appeared at his slain wife's funeral?" The church is known for its celebrity connections and the hook is intended to draw on that key fact. Based on two-plus years at DYK, that's a solid hook that will draw a minimum of 2,500 views to the article (if it goes live when people in LA are awake). The reviewing editor, Ucucha (an Oryzomyini rodent expert from Europe), noted on my talk page that he "doesn't really care about the 'celebrities'" and had never heard even heard of them. I fully understand that some folks don't know or care about celebrities, but others do. The great thing about DYK is there's room for exotic rodent articles and celebrity articles -- something for everyone. The celebrity connection is important for this article and makes for a good hook as it draws people to the article. The reviewing editor proposed the following alt hook which has been placed in queue 1: "... that the day after a "crazy 25-year-old UCLA art student" set the St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church afire, the pastor of the church prayed for forgiveness for the arsonist?" Based on my experience in setting up and monitoring DYKSTATS, the alt hook will be unlikely to draw more than 250-500 views. Moreover, it isn't even supported by the article. Neither the article, nor the sources, say the person was "crazy." I do note that Ucucha is a hard-working DYK regular who made some good constructive suggestions about the article. However, my basic point is this -- If reviewers don't know anything about a subject, as the reviewer here conceded, I'd simply suggest that they give more deference to the hook proposed by an experienced editor.

OK. I'm done venting. Cbl62 (talk) 16:58, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

On your first point, I very much understand the frustration and I admittedly never really consider the timing of the queue. But, I recognize the need to put five seconds of consideration into "will the people reading about this actually know/care about it?" Putting an LA hook or an American sports hook on at the time for people in Europe to read it doesn't make sense, since they don't care at all about it. The alt hook is poor, and the original is the one to go with. I've never declined a hook about ballet because I couldn't care less and have no idea who they are and in my opinion is extremely poor practice to fail it. In fact, I remember a situation where I reviewed a hook the mentioned the writing of the Jurassic Park books, admittedly I hadn't read it so I could care less and I asked the nominator the importance behind his mention. They pointed out how he had written those books and how his mention would bring fans from the book to click on the article. Obviously what DYK is supposed to do.--Giants 27(Contribs|WP:CFL) 17:13, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

(ec) When you quote me, it would be nice also to quote "That's just a suggestion, and I don't want to force my view of what the page should be on you." The person preparing the update chose to use the alternative I proposed instead of the original, which can happen - apparently I wasn't the only one who found it more interesting. It's true that I slightly misquoted the article; sorry for that. Ucucha 17:16, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} In queue 1, please change "crazy" to "crazed" - I accidentally misquoted the article. Ucucha 17:16, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Ucucha, I didn't mean for my comment to be an attack on you. I know it's easy to make typographical errors. You made some good suggestions, which I appreciated and used in revising the article. Cbl62 (talk) 17:23, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I agree that it would have been better if the two previous churches had not gone in the same set and at a more LA-friendly time (though it's not always easy to know when the hooks will go to the MP when you're assembling a prep area). It's been difficult for the past few days, though, because there are so few approved hooks.

I see your second point, but I think the issue is more of promoting than of reviewing. I proposed an alternative after reviewing the article, you noted that you didn't like it, and the user who does the promotion makes the decision. When I do promotions in the future, I'll remember to give some leeway to the hook the original author prefers. As for this specific issue, the hook has a few more hours before it is going to the Main Page, and I'd have no problem with it if an admin would replace the hook I proposed with the original (which is here). Ucucha 17:58, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi there Cbl. Just a couple of quick comments - I agree with you about the St Martin's Church hook, there is nothing remotely unusual about a Christian pastor praying for a sinner, so I think it was a poor choice of hook and your original was much better (although arguably it might have been trimmed a tad). In regards to two hooks of the same type - I strongly agree, but the problem is that we have a shortage of manpower doing the updates and it inevitably leads to carelessness (you are quite welcome to help out some more if you like!)

As for the hook timing - in my opinion it simply isn't practical to take this into account along with all the other variables presented in trying to create a balanced update. You can of course, leave a note on this page asking for a hook to be moved if you feel strongly about its timeslot, but there can't be any guarantee that such suggestions will be acted on. And certainly where US hooks are concerned, we can't possibly reschedule them without a very good reason as we already get so many of them. Gatoclass (talk) 15:59, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Gato - You are absolutely right about the manpower point, and I felt a bit churlish criticizing when I have not been helping out with the hook review/promotion lately. I will try to do more and encourage all regular contributors to do more as well. Of course, if we want to improve the quality of DYK, we can't rely on a handful of people to do all or most of the hard administrative work.

The only point you make on which I differ in the slightest is the timing issue. By looking at the global time indicators on the Queues page, we can try to avoid slotting narrowly region-specific hooks for time slots when the interested readership is asleep. Most hooks are of broad interest, so it's only a minority of hooks where such consideration would even be needed. Because US hooks are most common, I agree that would be more difficult to accommodate, but it's not as difficult with the rarer hooks from Australia, Lithuania, etc. I'm not suggesting it as a rule or anything, just suggesting it as something we try to be alert to in promoting the queues. Cbl62 (talk) 17:05, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I can understand why it might be difficult to shuffle too much with the high percentage of US hooks and lack of those overall, as well as being a high workload for relatively few DYK volunteers, but with two prep areas it should perhaps be possible to populate both at once, knowing which slot the top one is going to go into and thus which hooks would fall into "dead time" if strongly geographically themed? For example, at present in holding area 1 - presumably going into queue 4 (Tuesday, midnight to 6am Chicago time) - there are three hooks which are strongly US themed. Pushing one or more of those into holding area 2 wouldn't in its own right reduce the number of pending DYKs and would highlight the need to pull in a few more for the other "time slot". Just a thought, anyhow. :) Regards (& thanks), David. Harami2000 (talk) 02:28, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure many countries would like to learn about (some aspects of) US history and current events, thus many parameters should be considered, and the judgment on "local" or "global" nature of the hook/article is always somewhat subjective. Materialscientist (talk) 02:41, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Expansion and character limitations

DYK:Rules accepts expansion under the premise that articles with a "prose portion (that) has been expanded fivefold or more within the last five days are also acceptable as "new" articles. The content with which the article has been expanded must be new content, not text copied from other articles." Now the question I pose is, is this same rule enforced to the text of the pre-expanded original article? For example, most of My Dinosaur Life's prose was copied from Motion City Soundtrack - if i were to expand this, would this copied prose have to be included in the calculations for the fivefold expansion? It seems only fair that it is not, if that is the rule for expansion. It just seems a bit unfair on my part, considering I wrote that for the MCS page, someone else created this page and now I can't get a DYK out of it because they were lazy and simply copied my work across. kiac. (talk-contrib) 07:26, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Please clarify: Which text was copied and what article do you want to DYK - the artist or the album one? Regards So Why 20:55, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

The prose that was in the article before you started counts, no matter what state it was in. (To the best of my knowledge, the only time an exception is made for this is when the previous article was blatant copyvio, which Wikipedia copy-pasting isn't.) So if the article started with 1000 characters copied from another article, you still need to expand it up to 5000. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:57, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I wished to DYK the album - currently the album article's prose is directly copied from the artist page.

Alright, that's a tad dissapointing, thanks anyway. kiac. (talk-contrib)

SS Empire Bowman

An alternate double hook has been proposed for this approved DYK. An article has been created on Gordon Bastian. I'd say that it meets DYK criteria, but as I'm involved with the article I may be seen as being biased, so would like a neutral editor to check this one over and approve it if it meets DYK criteria. Mjroots (talk) 07:39, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

The alt hook appears to have been promoted already so this issue appears to be resolved. Gatoclass (talk) 08:10, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Ross Casino

Please let me put the hook about the Ross Casino on the lead. I want to promote it. Thanks. --MisterWiki talk contribs 21:45, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

There are a lot of editors who would like to have the lead picture spot and promote their articles. Is there any other particular reason (like a momentous anniversary coming up, etc?) that should warrant this article special consideration over the hard work and efforts of other editors on their articles? Not trying to be snide but you are asking to receive special preferential treatment from DYK and it seems like there should be a more valid reason that just promoting your article. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 21:52, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

The picture is not very interesting or unique. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 22:12, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and we get a lot of building lead hooks. I tend to use lead hooks that either have interesting pictures or very good articles (such as Parliament of Singapore, which went up recently). Ucucha 22:14, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I was considering this as a lead hook, and it was possible, but. To be square and fair - the article was poorly written and Ucucha and myself rewrote it based on the original text rather than sources. Not that the article is incorrect, but I was hesitant to put it up as a lead. Materialscientist (talk) 22:33, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm bad writing some things (consider I'm not a native speaker of English). Thanks for improving the article at that point. I just wanted to promote the Casino itself, at least for today, but if it is not possible, anyway, thanks. --MisterWiki talk contribs 02:48, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Down to 104 hooks

I'm thinking we should go back to six hooks per update for a while. Gatoclass (talk) 19:29, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Might be a good idea, yes; there's not a lot of hooks at the moment. Is there a reason we can't have seven hooks? Ucucha 20:12, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Seven doesn't really make a big enough difference - it's only four less hooks a day. Six is 8 less a day, which eventually has an impact on the stock of available hooks. Gatoclass (talk) 20:34, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Why not rather leave it at 8 hooks per update but change the update cycle from 6 to 8 hours? It would allow each hook a longer exposure on the Main Page while still having 8 hooks less each day. Regards So Why 20:52, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Sure, that's an alternative, but last time I proposed it the consensus was that four six-hook updates a day would be better. Gatoclass (talk) 22:01, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, it seems my recollection is wrong and we did decide to go with 8-hour updates last time. I'm happy to do it that way again if that's the preferred option. Gatoclass (talk) 22:09, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm with SoWhy here; it's good to give hooks a little more time on the MP. Ucucha 22:12, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Okay, it's back to eight hours per update. Thanks everyone for your comments. Gatoclass (talk) 22:25, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I've slept through all this discussion :-D My belated support for 8-hr update in favor of 6 hooks. Materialscientist (talk) 22:30, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, especially with the holidays coming, it is likely that article creation, expansion, and nominations may continue to stay below the usual 28-32+ a day we usually recieve. Plus, it would not be difficult to readdress going back to 6 hours once the suggestion page gets back to a given level, say maybe 150. Calmer Waters 10:02, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Please fix ASAP

Hi,

Somebody made a last minute hack to my DYK hook which is on the front page right now (I say "last minute" because I checked the queue last night and it was still intact at that time). The butchered hook now says

... that, during the territorial era of Minnesota in the U.S., Native Americans were frequently denied the right to vote based on whether or not they wore trousers to the polling station?

This statement is not strictly supported by sources and, regardless, is not really the point made in the article. The original statement said they were "allowed to vote" based on wearing trousers. Can somebody please correct it quickly?

Thanks.

--Mcorazao (talk) 17:31, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

P.S. Comment: I would suggest that last minute changes to the hooks like this should not be allowed just to avoid cases like this. --Mcorazao (talk) 17:45, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree, and brought it to WP:ERRORS. There's a reason we vet the hooks carefully before we move them to the Main Page. Ucucha 17:48, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

"Last minute changes" to hooks are a practical necessity in my view, and the number of errors that are made in doing so, as this one is alleged to be, is negligible. Gatoclass (talk) 12:21, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

A case can be made for an arrangement to insure last minute changes get reviewed more carefully. But outlawing last minute changes altogether – say "No changes within n minutes" – would simply make the last minute occur n minutes earlier, because we couldn't correct a catastrophic mistake without breaking our own rule, and if we can break our own rule then how is that different from "Use common sense"? If it says 2+2=5, it should be fixed in the last n minutes, the last minute, or after it's on the Main Page. Just be sure you aren't making it worse. Art LaPella (talk) 19:28, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Local update times

Is anyone currently aware of how to update the Local update times table on the queues page to show the new intervals to assist with knowing the expected timezones while preparing preps. It is not a huge concern; however, it does help when using local area hooks or attempting to balance a queue related to western/eastern "dead times". Thanks Calmer Waters 09:37, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

It's easy to add a column to the table (Shubinator originally created it, but I think any of us could do it). But generally it's not necessary....any time zone should be within 3 time zones of one that's already on the table, so the math is simple. (For example, if I want to know when a hook will appear in New York, I just add an hour to the Chicago column).

In the past I think we have occasionally made a temporary addition for a major event. (For example, adding Beijing on for October 1 hooks, or something like that, I don't really remember.) But unless there's a compelling reason, I don't see a need to make the table bigger than it already is. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 19:46, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I think CW is referring to the fact that the times are different because we are now on eight- instead of six-hour updates. Ucucha 19:49, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I see. You might want to ask Shubinator about that. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:58, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Think I have it corrected. Might want to take a look. Calmer Waters 21:45, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Article incubator

What is the rule re articles in the article incubator? Is it treated as a sandbox article until it goes into mainspace? Mjroots (talk) 05:04, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd say it depends. If it was previously in the mainspace, the length of time it was there before incubation should count towards the "5 days" rule and the "5x expansion" one (incubation as a break which does not count). If it was directly incubated, it should count as if sandboxed directly. For example:

If new article X was 4 days in the main space, then incubated, brought to DYK level and moved back, it is eligible if nominated within a day. If nominated after 2+ days, it would fail the 5 day rule.
If old article X was incubated, brought to DYK level and moved back, then the expansion needs to be 5x from the previous, old version as if the expansion had been made in a sandbox and added with a single copy+paste edit or history merge.
If the article was created in the incubator or in userspace, it counts from the day it hits mainspace.

Mind you, that's my personal interpretation of the rules. I cannot guarantee that others agree with me but I think it's the logical way to apply the rules. Regards So Why 12:49, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

That seems like a pretty good summary. I guess the short answer is yes, for the time it is in the incubator it would be treated as if in somebody's sandbox, so that time wouldn't count, but time spent outside the incubator would probably be treated as normal mainspace time. Gatoclass (talk) 13:36, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

That's good, I have an article in mind, but it was actually created in the article incubator and is under development there. Mjroots (talk) 07:36, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Q6 fix required

In Queue 6, the last hook, I don't think the band name Poison should be italicized. Thanks. --Bruce1ee^talk 08:41, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Done. Thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 08:53, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Christmas-themed articles for DYK

Based on this message by Gatoclass, I thought I'd make a few suggestions for Christmas-themed articles that would be good candidates for DYK. Christmas cookies is likely the best candidate, as it's just one paragraph and much can be written about it. Other food articles that may be candidates include fruitcake, sugar plum, Rosette (pastry), Bûche de Noël, peppermint bark, Szaloncukor and perhaps other entries in Category:Christmas food.

Non-food articles include Père Noël, Old Man Winter, Grýla, Christmas elf, Santa's workshop, Christmas plants and Christmas flowers, Tree topper, Boston Christmas Tree, one or more countries' traditions (see Category:Christmas traditions by country), various films, Suzy Snowflake, the city of Santa Claus, Georgia (other towns named Santa Claus or North Pole already have long(ish) articles), Korvatunturi, and Santa letters (which needs lots of work, and renaming).

These are just existing articles that could be easily expanded fivefold. (I haven't searched all of Category:Christmas for ideas, though.) There will surely be many topics for which there is no current WP article. Mind matrix 17:53, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Others: Santa Claus rally, Santa Claws, North Pole depot, North Pole Stream, Reindeer Island, Santa Claus (horse), and Santa Claus melon. Mind matrix 18:27, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

There is currently a request for a Holiday barnstar, along with maybe a few other ones, for awarding for such material. And, in this case, maybe Wikipe-tan could be persuaded to drop by the pages of those who work on such articles and say thanks or drop off something or other. John Carter (talk) 18:30, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Why??

Why is it that every week there appears to be a "Parks & Recreation" DYK article. Yet no other TV series has it flagged up constantly. Is this a ploy by NBC to advertise or is there just an admin with a fixation that feels more people should watch it?? I'm from the UK & it's not shown over here but from what I've read (on Wiki) I don't want to watch either... Any chance we could have less blatant advertising??

Aurelius83 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.63.26.124 (talk) 12:14, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

There is someone who thinks it necessary to write articles about it and submit them to DYK. Same reason we have lots of buildings in New York, churches in Los Angeles, politicians from Louisiana (though that has shifted to Texas lately), monasteries in the Himalaya, and rodents from South America. Ucucha 12:42, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

This topic has been going on for years. For a while, there was almost constantly an article on the EuroVision Song contest, a wine, Michigan college's (American) football team, or a fish. These were at least daily. It all depends on what authors feel like writing about. If it bothers you, please realize that after a while it will pass. American television shows generally have at most 26 new episodes in a year. Royal broil 13:04, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

But we do appreciate the fact that you're paying attention :) Gatoclass (talk) 14:15, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for answering. I love the wiki DYK section & appreciate all your efforts... some of the hooks are pure genius!! Thanks again

Aurelius83 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.63.26.124 (talk) 15:42, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I read my last comment and don't like the unintended tone. I meant it to be statement of a fact and some examples. Sorry! Royal broil 22:34, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I didn't detect any "tone" in your post RB, and my comment was certainly not intended to be some sort of commentary on yours! I just genuinely appreciate the fact that we have people who care about our product :) Gatoclass (talk) 08:08, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

National Pig Day

I have added a section in the special occasion holding area for National Pig Day. This is on behalf of the Bacon Cabal who are preparing a large number of articles in userspace for this date. This will allow the completed articles to be posted now and still be able to go on DYK on that day. I hope this is acceptable. SpinningSpark 11:20, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

According to that article, it's in March. It's a little too early to be preparing DYK for that, no? I suggest adding it about a month before the date. That's the usual period; as you can see, we just started the Christmas DYK section. Not that it'd be a big problem, but we don't want the hooks to be sitting at the suggestions page for three months, do we? ≈ Chamal ^talk ¤ 11:29, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, good point. We certainly don't want to be cluttering up the suggestions page with a bunch of hooks for three months or more! Gatoclass (talk) 11:45, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

As far as I understand it, those articles are to be prepared in userspace, aren't they? So how about we create a holding section when the first of them hit mainspace? Regards So Why 11:54, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't see that we should be promoting articles "which have hit mainspace" literally months before they are featured. I think they should probably be kept in user space until maybe a couple of weeks before they are due. Gatoclass (talk) 12:57, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

As I understood the challenge, that is indeed what the editors in question plan to do. We could simply ask them of course. Regards So Why 13:04, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that is indeed the plan. I can understand you don't want the section hanging around for too long. Equally, contributors don't want to wait to post their articles. I was prompted to do this because a number of articles have been moved to mainspace (and some to DYK also) prematurely, list here. Some of these were "accidental" because the participants did not understand the plan properly, the Bacon Cabal in not the most rule-bound of projects. Anyway, to sum up, DYK are ok with a Bacon special occasion but we need to wait to the end of January, is that a fair summary? SpinningSpark 15:23, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Without looking closely into it, I guess if there is some kind of "pig celebration day", it might be appropriate to have a number of articles on bacon dishes on the same day - although I seem to recall this proposal was rejected last year. My main concerns right now however, are (a) that we are not promoting a bunch of articles that have already been in mainspace for months, and (b) that we don't have a bunch of articles at the bottom of the Suggestions page slowing down its loading for weeks on end. Gatoclass (talk) 17:25, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

As an aside (speaking for myself at least), there are others participating in the bacon drive that are fine with some of their DYKs going through regularly, prior to the whole specified date thing. Think of it as a way to whet the appetite for more bacon-related stuff in the future. :P Cirt (talk) 17:31, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

@Spinningstark: I think the Bacon Cabalists can survive keeping their articles in userspace for a few months and remembering to list them at T:TDYK later. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:34, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Rjanag (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 17:35, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh poo. Someone's posted an article under the heading already. I'll move it to a regular day and delete the heading. SpinningSpark 19:51, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Andalusia

I just want to point out how utterly ridiculous that this article is being rejected for DYK because some paragraphs (completely irrelevant to the hook, BTW) are unsourced. What further adds to the ridiculousness of this situation is that, in looking at the unsourced paragraphs, nothing seems to be outrageous or likely to be challenged. As our WP:V policy states Editors should provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged. What is unsourced that is likely to be challenged? This article has over 60 footnotes to reliable sources regarding an important topic in an area that is sorely underrepresented on DYK. Topics like Andalusia are undoubtedly encyclopedic and something that an encyclopedia should be featuring. How can anyone look at this article and the work that Jmabel (a well established editor, aware of Wikipedia's policies and citation) has done and not say this is a quality article that any encyclopedia would be proud to have? This obsession with having "every paragraph" cited, regardless of whether WP:V calls for it to be cited or not, is unhealthy and more damaging than beneficial. It take WP:DYK away from ensuring that quality articles are being featured on the main page to instead reducing the act of reviewing to simple bean counting. Deliberately missing opportunities to feature encyclopedic articles like Andalusia because of a few uncited paragraphs is a classic example of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Truly sad. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 06:20, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

This is a borderline case. I would not die if this were to go to the main page, but I do see that at least half of the article looks to be unsourced—it's not just "some paragraphs". For example, the entire history section appears to be unsourced, as is the Symbols section (although I'm more lenient with that because it has a Main link, so maybe it's spun out from an article that does have sources--although I didn't check). There's no doubt that Jmabel has put a lot of work into the article, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the large unreferenced sections meet Wikipedia's quality standards.

And, for what it's worth, when you're asking for a reconsideration of a hook why not say so? That would be a lot more constructive and polite than shouting and calling things "utterly ridiculous" and "truly sad". rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 06:30, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

It is not just this hook, it is a systematic issue of IGNORING WP:V and requiring every paragraph to be cited even if the material is not likely to be challenged. This has been an ongoing issue with WP:DYK for the last couple months since a small group of regulars decided that DYK should go above and beyond WP:V (as well as the original purpose and intent of DYK). Several months agos, DYK would be giddy to feature something as encyclopedic and quality oriented as Andalusia. We would have been proud to feature a well crafted article on an encyclopedic important topic that rarely sees the light of the Main Page (instead of the steady dose of pop culture and obscure bios) But instead we are turning our backs on quality articles like this because of simple bean counting. It is not about what is uncited (as if there was something dangerous about to be featured on the main page), the objections arise purely because anything is uncited. That is not what WP:V is about. Rather than bean counting about refs on paragraphs, people should take a step back and ask "Is there really anything outrageous or challengable that is uncited? Is there anything that people are going to go screaming on WP:ERRORS, WP:AN/I or the article's talk page about because it is featured on DYK?" If the answer is yes, then the article shouldn't be featured on the main page. If the answer is "Well no....BUT this article wouldn't pass WP:FA/WP:GA..." then DYK has drifted far away from its original purpose. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 06:41, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

(ec) I don't know about the 'purpose of DYK' stuff or have any comment on that, but was for WP:V, I think it's necessary to consider the possibility that preceptions of WP:V are changing as the encyclopedia itself is evolving. A couple years ago, I understand, hardcore inline citing was not so much of an issue as expanding the encyclopedia; nowadays, I think many people take it more seriously, and are more concerned with building a reliable product (rather than just an informative/useful one). I think this trend in opinions is evidenced in, among other things, the constant stream of old FAs that are getting demoted because they no longer meet the increased standards of citing. Anyway, all I'm trying to say is, it's quite possible that what stood for acceptable referencing a couple years ago might not now, and it shouldn't be surprising if changes like that are happening. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 06:55, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I am, personally, a "hardcore inline cite advocate". I always have been and I wholeheartedly support the demotion of FA's that don't meet the standards of what should be Wikipedia's best work and are poorly referenced. But I am also a realist and know that DYK is not FA. We serve a completely different purpose on the main page than FA. While I agree that we should not be featuring "utter crap" on the Main Page, there is a lot of ground between "utter crap" and mandating FA quality standards for DYK to work with. We don't have to swing so far to one side of the pendulum in order to avoid the alternative. Does WP:OTD or WP:ITN require articles be referenced above and beyond WP:V with every paragraph cited? DYK is an awesome project that has served Wikipedia very well over the years. We showcase a type of dynamism with Wikipedia that makes this encyclopedia something truly special. As I noted above, we should be PROUD to feature articles like Andalusia on the main page because it is the type of quality article that one expects from a serious, quality encyclopedia. Is it WP:FA worthy or an example of Wikipedia's best work? No, not yet but that fact alone doesn't make the article "utter crap" which needs to be kept off the main page. Do we really want to corrupt DYK so much that we deny featuring articles because they're not yet FA worthy? Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 07:13, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok, beat this - imagine I find a fact, cite it, write the rest from my heart and submit it for DYK. Do you think it should be put on the front page? I don't. I did review such cases (that is only hook is cited in the article), and although I wish to trust every single editor, we have had hoax articles submitted to DYK. Materialscientist (talk) 06:49, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

All you need is commonsense. As I noted before, people should step back and ask "Is there really anything outrageous or challengable that is uncited? Is there anything that people are going to go screaming on WP:ERRORS, WP:AN/I or the article's talk page about because it is featured on DYK?" If you have an article full of WP:OR, containing outrageous claims and suspect material that is likely to be challenged, that can be spotted and rightfully called out. But if you can look an article and not seeing anything that would pop up on WP:ERRORS or WP:AN/I, then why are we denying good articles the opportunity to be featured on DYK? You point to the fear of a hoax--well a determined hoaxer can still pull the wool over your eyes with bogus cites. We can't let that fear cause us to, again, throw the baby out with the bathwater. Do you think Andalusia is a hoax or that it contains objectionable material that would appear on WP:ERRORS or WP:AN/I? Do you see a litany of uncited items that someone would raise a stink on over at the article's talk page? Do you see anyway that the encyclopedia or DYK would be hurt by featuring this article? Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 07:04, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Gee, we do get WP:ERRORS on DYK every day. Off course, we never know where there will be coming from and can't cover up everything, but when we can suspect thin ice, we naturally avoid it. Another answer, if you wish - you're not a newcomer. Is it so difficult to reference and article, so that we all can sleep in peace? WP would only benefit from that, in all respects :-) Materialscientist (talk) 07:22, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Standards have changed at DYK, it's as simple as that. My early DYK's often had only one cite per section, and nobody complained. But there's been a growing consensus over time that if an article is going to appear on the main page, it needs to be well sourced. We can overlook the occasional unsourced paragraph if the article is well sourced overall, but this particular article has quite a bit of unsourced content. And in any case, since you will need to source it better before submitting it to GA, A-class or FAC, you may as well get it done now and be done with it :) Gatoclass (talk) 09:02, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I started adding sources to the article, so that we may be able to get it at DYK in time. Ucucha 13:07, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't have a strong opinion on how much citation we should require. But remember we just lengthened the time between updates from 6 hours to 8 hours. As Chief Beancounter, I remind everyone that the time we need to wait for the next update, is directly proportional to how much time we need to devote to verifying each nomination. Art LaPella (talk) 19:40, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

The purpose of DYK - As I understand it, the purpose of DYK is to feature newer articles on the main page. These articles should meet a certain quality threshold and not have any fundamental problems; but they don't have to be perfect. In fact, by featuring them on the Main Page, it can spur other editors to improve them where they can. That said, it is the writer's responsibility to reference any material they add to an article per WP:CITE. It's not too much to ask for 1 ref per para, is it? Mjroots (talk) 08:49, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Agnes, articles don't need to be a good article quality to be used. The purpose for DYK is to featured new content (major expansions plus new articles). A DYK should be attainable by anyone in the general public if they want to spend the time. It should be the first "accomplishment" that a new editor should be able to attain. Rejecting an article of this level of quality, even if there are a few deficiencies to place it at B-class (or even Start class), excludes everyone besides a veteran Wikipedian. DYK needs to have light requirements. Requirements like these are why it's hard to get newcomers - too many hoops for a newcomer to jump through as they're learning. I'm not arguing against WP:V, I strongly use it in everything that I do, just saying we shouldn't be using a heavy hammer to enforce it. Royal broil 13:24, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Your argument certainly has some merit, and I myself have consistently argued against making "one cite per paragraph" a hard and fast rule. Still, over time I have found myself becoming increasingly uncomfortable with putting unsourced material on the front page, and many other promoters seem to share this unease. If someone can learn to properly cite their hook, I wouldn't have thought it that much of a challenge to add a few more cites here and there. And it does seem our higher standards have helped encourage a higher standard of contribution generally. I rarely see anymore the kind of crummy submissions we used to get so many of at one time. Gatoclass (talk) 08:17, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Gato, even if the one cite per paragraph went away, we still would not have uncited info from DYK on the main page, as the hook would still be required to be cited inline, and thus sourced. If you mean links to potentially unsourced material, well again, the rule doesn't prevent that, as I doubt anyone is checking the sourcing on the non-bolded links in the hooks, and those other linked articles just might contain some unsourced information/original research, etc. And that is a problem for the vast majority of links on the main page, as only the bolded ones have much oversight before going on the main page. Aboutmovies (talk) 08:43, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I do think cites tend to keep users more honest, as it discourages them from OR'ish flights of fancy and also encourages them to pay more attention to what their references actually say. I know that is true in my own case, and I have no reason to believe it would not be the case for others.

Also, more cites enables a reviewer to get a better notion of how well referenced the article is as a whole. And while it's true that users could just make stuff up and source it to something, it would be a very serious breach of policy if they did that, for which they could expect sanction, so I very much doubt there is much of that going on. Gatoclass (talk) 11:53, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Huh? Nobody is saying more referencing is bad, or not a good thing, or whatever. We all know that, and I think most people here already do that. But not everyone who is new to Wikipedia is doing it, and those arguing against the one cite per paragraph are saying, "hey, wait a minute, my first articles were crap before I learned of the rules so let's maybe give newer folks a chance and encourage writing new articles as that is sort of the original goal of DYK, whereas FA and GA exist for making stuff better." As to your whole second paragraph, again huh? I never said anything about making stuff up or violating WP:V. In fact my entire point has to do with your erroneous contention about how this rule somehow could prevent "unsourced material on the front page". It simply does not, as the cited hook rule already prevents that problem; or if your contention is that it keeps links to unsourced articles/material off the main page, again the rule has no such effect. It may limit it slightly, but we have a lot of unbolded links on the front page where there is little (if any) checking of those links before they go to the main page. Aboutmovies (talk) 07:25, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

When I said "unsourced material on the front page", obviously I wasn't just talking about the hook itself, I was talking about doing as much as we can to ensure that the DYK articles themselves are properly referenced and do not contain incorrect material. I take your point that unbolded links on the front page can still lead to crappy articles, but they are not part of the featured content.

As to your other comments, obviously I disagree about what constitutes an adequate level of referencing for DYKs; I've given you my reasons, you are entitled to a different opinion, and there doesn't seem much else to say. Gatoclass (talk) 10:02, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Andalusia (2)

The above article had been in the DYK queue for a while, with discussion about whether it was in good enough shape to be promoted to DYK on the main page: see this historical version of the DYK talk page. I made a judgement to promote the article to the prep queue, a judgement that was then queried by Ucucha, who commented (in part) "I don't think there was consensus for promoting it. In addition, the article currently has a maintenance tag and should have another for neutrality, as I noted."

I had spent some time looking through the article and copyediting. I think it was correct that there was not a "consensus for promoting it". However, I also did not think there was a consensus to the contrary. This was true both in the hook discussion and the talk page discussion A number of areas had been improved during the course of the DYK discussion, and the article met the rules for a DYK entry. After shifting it to the queue, I continued to work on the article, adding refs in the history area, and removing the material that required the maintenance tag, which is why that tag has now been removed.

True, the article did not (and still does not) meet the "unwritten rule" of at least one in-line cite per para. My view is that, if we stick to that rule religiously at DYK, major expansions of high-level articles will almost never appear in DYK, because one simply cannot meet that standard in the time frame. There should therefore be an overall assessment of the article quality, and the merit of including the occasional high-level article in DYK amidst the plethora of pieces about minor state politicians, episodes of Parks and Recreation, and defunct airlines (a dig at myself there, just to be clear :-)). This was a case where a tremendous amount of work on an interesting piece with over a hundred references I thought would warrant WP:IAR - however, in fact, no rules were ignored. I hope the article can proceed to DYK. It remains in prep 1 at present. hamiltonstone (talk) 04:11, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd also like to comment, first procedurally: I think "no consensus" about a DYK hook should mean "don't promote". But in this case, the previous consensus no longer applies as the article has been substantially improved.

I'm not opposed to promoting articles with a few unsourced paragraphs when they are otherwise good (I think I've confirmed such articles a few times myself), but the original version of this article had way too many of them (close to half, I think). That has been improved considerably now, not to a point where I would myself promote, but enough that I can live with it. I'll leave it to others to decide on it. Ucucha 04:22, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Obviously it won't be surprise, given my sentiments expressed above, but I wholeheartedly support promotion of this article. To have an article on a very important subject that is often neglected by systematic bias be brought up from 6892 bytes of prose and 6 refs to now 69 kilobytes of prose and 117 refs is OUTSTANDING and something that DYK should proudly feature. Kudos to Jmabel and Hamiliton (as well as Ucucha for his efforts too) for their efforts. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 04:28, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

My stand in borderline cases is to push the authors to improve the article until its hits the bottom of the T:TDYK page and then decide (promote usually, but not always). The problem is not only in numbers (of references, or bytes) - I recall an example that we have had a lead on Islamic art which fell under fire during its time at the main page, that is to say NPOV and other issues might well become critical too, no matter how well-developed the article looks. No slight to Andalusia, but again, it is not the size of the article but quality of information that matters. Materialscientist (talk) 04:33, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

(ec) @Agne: The version that was in place when this dispute started was substantially different than the current version (it had only half as many references, for instance, and much more uncited content). I don't have any opinion on the matter, but it's not really fair of you to try to paint your opponents in a poor light by misrepresenting the article that they were actually opposing at the time. The article you're looking at now is not the same one people opposed 4 days ago. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 04:34, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

And I didn't reference any of the prior opposition either....now did I? My comments in the previous section can stand alone in response to that opposition. It is not really fair of you to try and paint my words as calling out or misrepresenting someone when I've said nothing of the kind. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 05:01, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

For the record, I was one of the original opposers and I don't feel at all "misrepresented" by Agne's remarks. I think she was just intending to give the article contributors a pat on the back for bringing the article up to speed, and from the other comments in this thread, it seems they deserve one. Gatoclass (talk) 06:22, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Wow. This is very impressive work. Kudos to Jmabel and hamiltonstone. I don't know the history of prior versions that were the subject of prior debates, but, IMO, the current article clearly deserves to be featured in DYK. Cbl62 (talk) 05:16, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Bot mess-up

The bot just re-added queue 4 to T:DYK instead of entering queue 5. Anyone know why? I'm afraid I don't have time to do it myself right now. Ucucha 03:39, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

The bot crashed during the last update while giving credits to User talk:Jezhotwells. When such things happen, the bot may fail to increment the queue count resulting in double update. I've incremented the queue count, reset the timer and removed the twice-issued credits due the double update. Materialscientist (talk) 03:52, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick fix. Ucucha 03:54, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I usually check the queue counter after every update, but I've lost count as I was asleep during the last one :-0. Such bot glitches are most common (semi-crashing while giving the credits. In such case, he also doesn't empty the queue) Materialscientist (talk) 03:57, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Porn and wine

My attempt to "sex it up" a bit and get a humble little wine grape some love and attention by mentioning its connection to a porn star had some interesting results. With the lead slot (thanks Gato!) the grape got around 5,600 views which isn't shabby for a very obscure Italian wine grape. It will probably not get that many total views over the next several decades. The porn star, however, who was featured in hook with a picture got over 44,000 views today. Apparently sex does sell but only with a 13% return. :P Just an FYI to my fellow DYKers the next time a porn star happens to buy a historical building in the US, a monastery in the Himalaya, takes a over a defunct airline, discovers a new rodent species in South America or appears on an episode of Parks and Recreation. ;) Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 07:46, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, I didn't pick it as the lead hook for nothing, ya know ;)

BTW, Borgqueen is responsible for the very nice crop of the original image. Gatoclass (talk) 12:30, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

There was an anon. comment somewhere (at DYK errors or talk:Main page) that we're promoting that porn star. Apparently we were .. Hard to tell whether 13% of is good enough. Thoughts ? Materialscientist (talk) 08:09, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

A pretty face in the lead now and then doesn't do our little corner of the project any harm at all in my opinion :) Gatoclass (talk) 12:35, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

It's not promotion if we use notable people in conjunction with DYK hooks - it's just telling people about an interesting detail of a new article. After all, it's not our fault that she is a porn actress, is it? By that anon's logic, every hook that features a notable person or company is promoting said entity - for example the lead hook of the last hook would then be promoting Kathryn Tucker Windham, wouldn't it? Regards So Why 08:28, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

LOL. Sturdivant_Hall got about 3,500 hits from the DYK, while Kathryn Tucker Windham only got about 500... --Orlady (talk) 02:34, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer Agne27. The best I have done so far in promoting rodents is by having saber-toothed cats and ground sloths do the hard work, but I'm sure porn stars will work better. Ucucha 12:07, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Q1 fix required

Queue 1, hook 2, the quote character at the end of the hook needs to be removed. Thanks. --Bruce1ee^talk 12:00, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for the note. Ucucha 12:04, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Interpreting the baseline for measuring a "5x expansion"

This is a topic that came up in discussion on the suggestions page of the hook for Shepherds Flat Wind Farm.

The issue: Is a 5x expansion (a) measured from the version that existed immediately prior to the beginning of the expansion, or is it (b) measured from the largest legitimate version of the article that existed before the expansion began?

I support the second interpretation ("(b)"). This is consistent with the idea that DYK is for content that is truly new to Wikipedia, which would not include content that was here for a long time, then removed and restored. This is the interpretation that I have seen used in my involvement at DYK, and it is the interpretation implemented by the DYKcheck tool. However, two other DYK regulars are telling me that only the version existing immediately prior to the expansion "counts."

Specific case that this relates to: The article was created in July 2008 and had pretty much the same prose content until November 2009, when a user took out some of the content (not copyvio material). Expansion of the article began one week later. The current article is a ~4x expansion of the article that existed for 16 months, but it is a ~7x expansion of the version that existed for the one week immediately before the expansion began. I said that the article failed the 5x expansion test, and the article's expander says I am interpreting a "rule which doesn't exist" and Gatoclass is supporting the expander, saying the expansion is measured "from the previously existing article."

The expander (Aboutmovies) argues (this is an excerpt from the comment on the discussion page; I removed content that is not generically applicable):

A4 is "Fivefold expansion is calculated from the previously existing article, no matter how bad it was (copyvios are an exception), no matter whether you kept any of it and no matter if it was up for deletion." and it doesn't (and never has) said anything about if someone else removed content and then later someone else expands the article... And what's more, how long of a time can pass. Here it was a week. Next time should I wait a month, or a year? And what is more, is that goes against G2 on how to calculate expansions, which does not say anything about what you are trying to say.

I contend that "the previously existing article" is broadly defined as the article that existed at some time prior to the expansion, not the article that existed at the moment the expansion began.

If only the immediately pre-existing article counts, then I suppose that I could claim an 5x expansion any time a vandal blanks most of a page and I restore it. That would be ridiculous, of course. However, why should that situation be different from the situation where a good-faith contributor significantly trims an existing article and another user comes along and expands it? (This is what happened in the Shepherds Flat article.) --Orlady (talk) 18:35, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Split the difference - measured from the previous legitimate change to the article. If sections were blanked for copyright vio, that would be the spot. If they were blanked for no legitimate reason, then that would not be. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:47, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

In this instance, the person who had originally created the article removed an entire paragraph, giving no reason for the removal other than "Trim." There was no indication that the trimmed content had been a copyvio, and some of the information that had been removed was restored by the expander. Would you consider the removal of the paragraph to be a "legitimate change to the article" or a case of "blanked for no legitimate reason"? --Orlady (talk) 19:16, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Looking at the info that was "trim" compared with the current article, I disagree with the claim that it was "restored" by the expanded. The current article makes no use of the content about the Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center, T. Boone Pickens or the Pampa Wind Project that was mentioned in the removed section-nor was the removed reference used for anything. I am not an expert on the subject matter so I don't know exactly why the information was removed, but it definitely wasn't restored or reused in the current article. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 19:26, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the details about other large wind farms (existing and proposed) are not in the current version of the article, but the deleted paragraph also contained the "largest in the world" fact that is the basis for the proposed DYK hook. The sources cited in the article for that "largest" fact do mention Horse Hollow, Pampa Wind Project, and T. Boone Pickens. My guess is that the article no longer mentions the Pampa Wind Project because Pickens has scaled back his plans for that project (since the date of the news sources cited in the Shepherds Flat article), but I think that information could be incorporated into the Shepherds Flat article, instead of deleting all mentions of that project. Also, I don't see any good reason for the Shepherds Flat article not to identify Horse Hollow as the largest existing wind farm in the U.S. --Orlady (talk) 19:43, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Again, not knowing the subject matter, I just have to leave the discernment of those editorial judgments to those who know the article better. While the sentiments of one line (being the largest in the world) remains-the presentation and content of the article is still new. It wouldn't be accurate to describe this case as a "delete and restore" which I would agree is an example of gaming the system. I don't think that is the case here. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 20:01, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I am inclined to agree with Gatoclass c.s. here. We have (for once) a simple rule; it's better to stick to it. Ucucha 18:51, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, in any case, this is a settled issue, it's been discussed a number of times before, and the consensus has always been to count from the version prior to the start of the expansion - assuming the expander himself did not cut legitimate content before he started. Gatoclass (talk) 18:54, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

While I understand Orlady's contention, I do have to note one issue with their point that the second interpretation ("(b)") "... is consistent with the idea that DYK is for content that is truly new to Wikipedia, which would not include content that was here for a long time, then removed and restored." While I agree that DYK is for truly new content, most of the time when content is removed it is rarely restored. This is part of the reason why even our current expansion rule somewhat unfairly penalize editors with its "no matter how bad it previous was clause". The content in expansions is truly new content that is almost always far and away above a 5x expansion of the original content that was retained. But we still hold the removed, non-existent "crap content" total against the expansion count. We don't truly evaluate the article based on "new content" even with our current expansion rule. However, I concede that there are certain logistics and practicality issues involved in evaluating what exactly was removed and retain in expansions. That is why our current expansion rule is an acceptable compromise position based on objective simplicity. You check the previous version before the expansion starts and go from there. Simple and easy for both the reviewer and the editor. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 19:12, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, many of us use DYKcheck to evaluate a 5x expansion. In the case that led me to start this discussion, DYKcheck says "Article has not been expanded 5x since it was created." Are you suggesting that DYKcheck uses an incorrect algorithm and should measure only from the version immediately prior to the date when the expansion is stated to have started?
When DYKcheck says an article is ineligible, it is (of course) important to check the history to determine whether DYKcheck is measuring from an appropriate baseline (and not, for example, a version created in user space and only recently moved "live," an article that contained copyvio content, or a version full of vandal-added nonsense or other inappropriate content). --Orlady (talk) 19:29, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

DYKcheck's binary search algorithm isn't the best because it assumes that an article has always been increasing in size (which in this, it hasn't). It rarely gives false positives (saying an article has been 5x expanded when it hasn't), but there's a significant false negative rate.

On this particular issue, I agree with Gato; 5x is determined from the version before the user started expanding. There are a few exceptions (copyvio, vandalism), but this isn't one of them. Shubinator (talk) 19:37, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't fully understand the algorithm of DYKcheck but it does have issues in evaluating an expansion that involves significant revisions and rewriting of the article. (Maybe for reasons that Shubinator touches on above because content is being removed). Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 20:01, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

What about this example - Spanish art? Three days ago I moved the sections on architecture & literature to Culture of Spain, as this is where they belong per our usual scheme of keeping "art" (as opposed to "arts") just for visual arts. At some time I will do an expansion on the article, which I hope will be 5x both versions, but if not, could I just count from the version as it is now? Johnbod (talk) 19:54, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah this could be a gray issue but I think if other editors have done editing to the article, and time has elapsed between your involvement, then I would go off based on what the article was at before you started your expansion. How much time should elapsed? Hard to say but I do think it is relevant if other people have edited the article after your removed content for clean up reasons or whatever. I would be more hesitant or "suspicious" if someone removed a bunch of stuff and then waited a week to edit the article. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 20:05, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately no one seems to edit it much, which is why it is such a crap stub. Johnbod (talk) 20:11, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

This is trickier because you're the one removing content as well as adding, but in this case I'd still say go with the version before expansion. Shubinator (talk) 20:18, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm reflecting back to the discussion a little while back when a hook of mine was initially declared ineligible because it had been split from another article and was now less than 5x the size of the content that had been in the previous parent article -- although a large chunk of that pre-existing content had to be removed for lack of a source. I guess what people are saying here is that if I had removed the unsourced content from the parent article a couple of hours before I started working on the expansion (instead of removing it in the middle of the expansion process), then there would have been no eligibility issues. Sorry, but that doesn't make a lot of sense -- and it pretty much invites people to "game" DYK. --Orlady (talk) 20:48, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

All of these are individual situations that should be looked at on a case-by-case basis. (aka if you're reading this, don't assume we will approve all articles that are similarly questionable 5x expansions; please ask here on WT:DYK)

But yes, removing the unsourced content from the beginning would have smoothed the process (and I do agree with the approval on that nom). Shubinator (talk) 20:59, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes it is possible for someone to maliciously "game" the system but I think the risk of that is low and I would prefer to put more assumption of good faith rather than worry about each and every way that someone could "game" the system if they wanted. If the encyclopedia has more new and better content, then DYK is still doing a pretty good job with everyone winning in the end. If someone cleans up a bunch of unsourced, POV, trivia and other crap several days/weeks prior and then later decides to expand the article then GREAT! I would much rather be "gamed" by people improving the content of Wikipedia then by all the other ways that DYK could be gamed with hoax articles and false citations. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 21:10, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree. I wouldn't like the idea of making the rules more complicated because of an instance of "gaming" that is so far purely theoretical, and even when it would occur, it would still involve people actually improving Wikipedia content, instead of submitting crappy articles (plagiarism, hoaxes, misinterpretations of the sources - we've seen it all). Ucucha 21:17, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

As it happens, Shubinator's response saying "removing the unsourced content from the beginning would have smoothed the process" indicates that I committed a serious faux pas by making improvement of Wikipedia content my first priority -- and only later thinking "Gee, this could become a DYK" -- instead of strategizing in advance to ensure that my contributions would be eligible for DYK. (Instead of removing the unsourced content, I had sent a note to the contributor asking him if he had a source for it.) Sorry, but I don't like to encourage contributors to engage in self-serving behavior. --Orlady (talk) 22:03, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps I am naive (or extend too much good faith) but I don't think the primary motivation for most people submitting DYK is "self-serving". DYK exist for the benefit of the readers and the encyclopedia, not for the editors. Working to get an article featured on DYK does quite a bit to bring attention to what may be an under-represented and under-edited subject area. One of my great joys in having a DYK featured is watching the edits on my watchlist from anon IPs and other editors making small edits that improve not only the DYK I submitted but also other wine articles that were connected to the hook or DYK article. Watching how 1 DYK brings improvements to 7-10 articles is much more exciting that simply seeing that yellow message bar appear on my screen saying that I got the DYK talk page notice. While I'm sure that brings people a thrill, I think people's motivation to contribute to DYK is a lot more complex then pure "self-serving behavior". I don't see a reason to be overly suspicious of people's motivation to the point that we need to be so critical of any possible way that someone may "game" us. I have to wonder if our endless stream of written and unwritten rules stems from this dour view of "self serving behavior" being all around and the need to stamp it out. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 00:21, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

My comment was about the reality of DYK. Reviewers prefer the basics (like time of creation or expansion) cut and dry. If it isn't, there's a chance a reviewer will reject it. In theory, you shouldn't be punished for doing the right thing, but it happens occasionally. Shubinator (talk) 04:35, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Re the "gaming the system" comments, I might add that the submission in this case did look a bit suspicious, as some editor had, for no apparent reason, removed a paragraph of sourced content a few days before the expansion took place. If one saw a contributor repeatedly submitting DYKs with such a pattern, there would I think be cause to question them.

I guess we could go a step further and reserve the right to reject noms at any time where content that is apparently perfectly valid is removed shortly before the nom for no good reason, but it's an approach that might understandably cause a degree of ill-will. After all, the rules are not just there for the benefit of reviewers, they are also there for the benefit of contributors, who have a right to expect that the rules regarding x5 expansion are clear and consistent. Gatoclass (talk) 06:11, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Holiday articles for which holidays?

I know that it is nice to have at least one DYK relevant to a given holiday on that holiday. Unfortunately, as I remember, just about every day is a holiday somewhere or other. If anyone here would want to drop a note at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Holidays which particular holidays you would all most like to see DYKs prepared for, that might do some good. Thanks. John Carter (talk) 21:08, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

We'll feature just about any holiday if someone creates/expands the articles :) Shubinator (talk) 21:16, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

That I more or less guessed. But some holidays, like Christmas, and maybe Easter, New Year's Day or Independence Day (any of either, I suppose), Halloween, and others have the potential of multiple related articles, and those were primarily the ones I was thinking about. John Carter (talk) 23:02, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

We frequently have one or two article suggestions for other holidays and special occasions. Just create a new section in the holiday section, and be sure to include the date the hook should run. --Orlady (talk) 00:01, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Direct pageview links

I figured it would be nice if we could directly access pageview statistics from {{UpdatedDYK}}, so I made a version with such links at User:Ucucha/sandbox. Some test cases are at User talk:Ucucha/sandbox; it works with multiple articles and diacritics. Ucucha 22:24, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Great idea, which will save me a dozen of useless clicks/day (for updating DYKstats). Suggest modifying this way {{dyktalk}} and other relevant templates. Other votes? Materialscientist (talk) 00:10, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I remember we tried to do this in October and ran into some problems (I don't remember exactly what, but you can see the edits I made in the history). The relevant discussion is on Template talk:UpdatedDYK#Actually link...; if you haven't checked that yet, you may want to take a look to see what the problems were last time. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:18, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Looks like the problem was that you didn't use the correct magic word. {{FULLPAGENAMEE}} does the trick. I think my version should not have the problems you encountered, but it'd be good if we'd do some more testing, of course.

MS: I've started an attempt for {{dyktalk}} at User:Ucucha/sandbox2, but I'm afraid it'll require a new parameter, because I can't think of a way to parse the input of the template into the numeric month I need. Ucucha 00:29, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Surely, a proper month would be great, but even a default "timeless" string like http://stats.grok.se/en/200912/Brown_stingray would help, as (for several reasons) it would usually lead to the right month. Even if incorrect, it is so easy to amend it when already at http://stats.grok.se/ - most trouble comes from a correct article name there - some names are just impossible to type (like those Vietnamese articles). Materialscientist (talk) 00:42, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I can have it default to the pageviews for the current month and use |month= to give the correct month. That would mean that all old dyktalks get a pageviews for the current month, though; perhaps I should establish some fix so that it only gives the link when either the year > 2009 or |months= is filled in. (But at the moment I'm determining exactly how I messed up the updatedDYK one.) Ucucha 00:48, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, User:Ucucha/sandbox ({{UpdatedDYK}}) and User:Ucucha/sandbox2 ({{dyktalk}}) now work. Some points:

I changed the pageview check text from subscript to small because it looked terrible otherwise.
Of course, it doesn't quite work when the hook was up at the end of a month and the beginning of the following one, but that's quite rare.
I didn't make a new version of {{UpdatedDYKNom}} because it doesn't include anything about pageviews at the moment. Are there any other templates which would benefit from this?
For the dyktalk template, it would be possible to have it give the pageviews for the current month by default, but I don't see much of a point in that, because the template remains on talk pages forever and for a 2008 DYK, the December 2009 pageviews wouldn't really be relevant. I think we can use the |month= parameter I introduced and tweak the preload template to automatically include it when a talk page is tagged.

Ucucha 01:06, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I now added User:Ucucha/sandbox3, such that {{subst:User:Ucucha/sandbox3|<date>|<year>|<hook>}} will automatically produce {{dyktalk}} with the relevant parameters filled in. I believe we could also easily make the bot use this; the only thing that should change (I assume) is that instead of {{dyktalk| it needs to add {{subst:User:Ucucha/sandbox3|. In this way, all articles where the template is added in the future will automatically have the pageview link. Ucucha 16:22, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Suggest direct editing of the templates (e.g. {{dyktalk}}) rather than changing the bot. Any objections against a test trial (by Ucucha ;-))? Materialscientist (talk) 00:00, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

That would not be as easy, because {{subst:User:Ucucha/sandbox3}} calls dyktalk and automatically fills in relevant parameters. The change to the bot code would be trivial; unless the bot code has changed in this regard from here (which I doubt), the only thing needed would be to change the {{dyktalk text. Ameliorate! has been active a little lately, so I'll ping him to ask about it. Ucucha 00:08, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I suggest editing {{dyktalk}}, since all of the DYK talk page templates should be the same template (requires less maintenance work). Also, from a practical point of view, Nixeagle is now the bot operator, and he hasn't responded to code tweaks in a while. (Also, the code on that page is similar to, but not the exact same, as the bot's current code. That page hasn't been edited in a year, but the bot's code has been refined.) Shubinator (talk) 05:50, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify, my proposal will still add {{dyktalk}}, but use a substituted meta-template to automatically fill in some parameters. See here for examples of what it would look like (above the code that would be added to a page; below the results; note "User:Ucucha/sandbox2" = dyktalk). If we instead only change dyktalk, it would also add the pageview links to old DYK pages (unless we add something preventing it from introducing the links). The former is definitely the cleaner option if we can get the bot to change to use it.

That will be difficult, though. Sorry I wasn't aware of the change in operator - should have looked at the correct pages. Has anyone tried e-mailing Nixeagle? Ucucha 12:56, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I just changed {{UpdatedDYK}} to include the links. We'll see how it goes at the next update. I'll also e-mail Nixeagle about this. Ucucha 16:11, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

That went well. Looks like we'll be able to keep this without problems (though we can of course change the layout).

As for DYKtalk, I'd like some more comments. There are several options:

Changing the templates so that it gives a link to the pageviews for the current month in all articles that have ever been at DYK.
Same, but including some kind of trigger, for example only including the link for articles that have been featured at DYK in 2010 or later.
Waiting for the bot operator to make a small change in the code so that we can actually have a link for the correct month.

I prefer the last option, but don't know how feasible it is. I dropped Nixeagle a note via e-mail about it. Ucucha 02:50, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I just looked at your template code, and it look like you've solved the problem we were up against before (encoding the title in the URL). From there I can implement option #2. I'll work on it today or tomorrow. Shubinator (talk) 20:16, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Done. The result is at User:Shubinator/Sandbox/Test template 2. It's an updated version of dyktalk. The bot won't need to be changed to implement this. Test out the template and let me know if you find bugs. Shubinator (talk) 21:27, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

That looks good, you did solve my problem (which was extracting the numeric month from "11 December"-type text). I put up a few tests at User talk:Shubinator/Sandbox/Test template 2, and it looks all right. Ucucha 22:10, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I just implemented it. Had to make a small fix to prevent extraneous whitespace, though. But we have pageview links in all {{dyktalk}} templates for the period in which stats.grok.se has worked now. :) Ucucha 23:26, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Excellent. Shubinator (talk) 23:32, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion

I've sometimes thought it might be handy to have a bot which could scan the Suggestions page looking for verified entries which it could move to a separate section. The bot could run, say, every 15 minutes or so. The idea would be to save promoters the time it takes to scan the entire page looking for suitable verified hooks, and for them to be able to compare and select an appropriate balance of hooks more easily. Anyone have any comments on this idea? Gatoclass (talk) 10:34, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm skeptical about this: (i) the page is frequently edited, thus the bot will increase the chances of edit conflicts; I have frequent WP connection problems these days (at WP side) that suggests the bot can mess up the page structure. (ii) Discussion often continues after approval, i.e. the tick doesn't guarantee the nom is ready. Materialscientist (talk) 10:42, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it would increase edit conflicts, although perhaps not to an unacceptable degree. One possible alternative to an autosort however, would be to simply have a link for the promoter to hit whenever he wanted to make the sort himself.

Re (ii), discussion can continue on the page regardless of which section a hook is in.

As for your other comment about "WP connection problems", I don't really understand what you mean so can't comment. Gatoclass (talk) 11:26, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

A bot might be a good idea, but it doesn't need to run that often. 3-hourly would be sufficient. Mjroots (talk) 13:23, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I share Materialscientist's misgivings about a bot. It is very common for hooks to be marked "approved" prematurely, when they still have significant problems needing to be sorted out on the Suggestions page, and a bot that moved such hooks to an "approved" area would only complicate the process of resolving those issues. I also believe that it would cause increased edit conflicts. Like Materialscientist, I sometimes am unable to load the suggestions page -- even when working over a blazing-fast internet connection, so adding to the complexity of working with that page doesn't sound like a good idea. It's not all that hard for a human to skim the suggestions page looking for check marks. --Orlady (talk) 15:45, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

a bot that moved such hooks to an "approved" area would only complicate the process of resolving those issues

Not if the entire hook section with the existing thread was moved. And as I said, if the bot was operated by hitting a link, rather than being auto-operated, it would only be a very occasional edit so edit conflicts wouldn't be an issue. Gatoclass (talk) 17:46, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Another thing we might want to look at is using separate pages for each day, which could be transcluded on the main suggestions page (as PFHLai recently suggested User talk:PFHLai). Ucucha 15:48, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

That has been suggested a few times before and never happened, so it may be useful to check the previous discussions. As I recall, it was a pretty good compromise between the current system and the proposal of transluding each nom (which certainly would not be feasible), but I don't remember the specific arguments against it. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 15:58, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 32#Individual day pages Art LaPella (talk) 23:31, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, there's never been a consensus for separate pages, which is why I've suggested having a separate section on the Suggestions page itself. Gatoclass (talk) 17:44, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

What if, instead of moving hooks to a subsection of this page, the bot just copied them to some other page or subpage that people can look at if they want to? That way, there would be a page with nothing but approved hooks, but it wouldn't affect the main suggestions page at all (and the bot would never make edits to that page) so maybe we'd get the best of both worlds. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:48, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I've considered that, but I'm not really comfortable with the idea, because I suspect there would be a lot less eyes on such a page and so less vetting overall. Gatoclass (talk) 17:55, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

A more comprehensive proposal

It occurred to me there may be a way to do this that addresses at least some of the concerns raised above.

Let's say there's an "update verified" button at the bottom of the main Queue page. When you click on this link, a bot gathers all the currently verified hooks, along with any commentary in their section, and posts them all to the bottom of the Queue page itself, but without removing them from the Suggestions page. Promoters can then just transfer the hooks they want into one or another of the prep pages.

When a prep is done, the admin clicks on a second button on the prep page, which copies the completed update to the next queue page automatically, and then clears the prep page. Only at this point does the bot remove the used hooks from the main queue page and from the Suggestions page. In effect, this means that promoters will always have the latest available comments from the Suggestions page in front of them, so there is no longer a concern about hooks not getting sufficient exposure at Suggestions.

Also by posting the verified hooks to the Queue page, it saves having to create an extra page and having to navigate between them. And promoters always have all the verified hooks at their fingertips, so they can easily see at all times what hooks are available. And you won't be getting any edit conflicts on the Suggestions page either - less of them, in fact, since all promoted hooks will be removed in a single edit.

And now that I think of it, it would also save considerable time in loading and reloading pages, since you won't need to reload the Suggestions page every time you remove a hook. And in fact, you won't even need to cut the hooks from the Queue page list - you can just copy them, and when you're finished, the bot just does all the cuts in one smooth edit. In effect, the only edit you have to do is copying your hooks to the prep page - that's it!

Of course, this would require a fairly sophisticated bot, but I think it could probably be done. Unless there's some hitch that hasn't occurred to me yet. Gatoclass (talk) 19:26, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

This looks good to me and should work in theory, but good luck getting a bot to actually do all that. Ucucha 19:32, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Compare in the form of script usage, EasyPeerReview, at Wikinews. Cirt (talk) 20:01, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

[~~note, wikipedians can't really see EzPR in action on wikinews, as it only works for people in editor group. I should probably document it with screen shots at some point...~~ n:template:Peer review sort of has docs now]. I just quickly read through the proposal above and it definitely sounds do-able. Bawolff (talk) 23:23, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

May I remind everyone that we have had another bot request recently which I consider a higher priority and an easier task. Although the DYKadminBot was doing well recently, we do know that any problem with the toolserver will crash it, thus a manually run replacement is long overdue. Materialscientist (talk) 01:15, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Sure, it's a priority, but that doesn't mean we can't discuss other enhancements to the system. In any case, our bot requests scarcely ever get attended to, so we have plenty of time to discuss additional possibilities. I'm not sure the bots I've proposed would be all that difficult to write anyway. They would be manually run, and would only have to edit a couple of pages, as opposed to the dozens of functions that DYKadminbot has. Gatoclass (talk) 04:03, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Getting back to discussion of the above proposal - rather than tack the verified hooks to the end of the Queue page, we could have a dedicated page for these hooks, per Rjanag's suggestion above, except that the hooks in question would be copied there rather than moved there. Either way, once we have all the verified hooks in one place, it would be relatively simple to have some kind of sorting mechanism added to the collecting bot, based on an additional "genre" field added to Rjanag's NewDYKnom tool. Genres might include, for example, structures (ie buildings and such), biography, species, locality etc. When copying hooks to the new page then, the bot could sort them under separate section headers related to the genre. This should make it much easier for updaters to find a particular hook type when they are looking to create a balanced update. It would also remind updaters of the importance of creating balanced updates, so it ought to help improve the quality of our product. Gatoclass (talk) 04:28, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I would support looking futher into this proposal and possible development. If there are feasible opportunities to help streamline the maintainence areas of DYK, allowing more time to be spent elsewhere (ie. approving hooks, hook articles, other projects, or article contributions and creations) I am for it. Creating another page of dyk such as Approved hooks TT:DYK/Tick to store approved hooks, would still allow further discussion if needed. This would also allow focus on hooks left on the suggestion page that still need assessed or issues corrected. I believe a manual script or "button" that would perform the move would be an improvement over a bot as it would only need to be used before a prep area is about to be prepared rather than a perticular period of time (also avoiding crashes and edit conflicts). I for one would be pleased to not have to spend so long awaiting the suggestions page caching when putting a queue together. Another possible plus, admins can comb through the "tick" page to double verify hooks, making queue promotion quickier and address issues after approval promptly. Calmer Waters 08:58, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I made a little script that I think does the first part of what you're suggesting (User:Bawolff/DYKVerified.js). Basically someone presses a button (if you have the script installed, this button: ). This looks at the suggestion page, pulls all the suggestions in current candidates that have been verified and their comments, and puts them in another page (Currently User:Bawolff/DYKVerified, but that would be changed to a more appropriate page if the script meets everyone's approval). The idea being that this page would be transcluded on the main queue page, where people could read the summarized version that has only verified entries, and that if people want to comment on an entry, they go back to the suggestion page. Cheers, let me know what you think. Bawolff (talk) 12:01, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

That was quick! I think the page will be handy for quickly checking what hooks are available for promotion, but one won't really be able to promote from it because the original hooks are still on the Suggestions page. Gatoclass (talk) 12:25, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, so what we perhaps need is that when someone deletes a hook from the DYKVerified page to promote it, the script goes back and deletes it from the main suggestions page.

Thanks for the quick work, Bawolff! Ucucha 12:27, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think that would probably be the next step. Gatoclass (talk) 12:46, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, Ideally the DYKVerified would be read only, since if its only updated by the button, theres the potential for it to get outdated, in which case its hard to detect which entry the user deleted. I think a better way of doing this would be what was mentioned in the original post about having a second button to move a prep page to a queue, and then delete the stuff from the suggestions page at that point (and then since the suggestion is deleted, this will eventually result in that suggestion being removed from the DYKverified page). (however thats also a little bit harder to code, as its much easier to detect if something is verified then to detect if a specific entry on the prep page corresponds to a specific entry on the suggestion page. Bawolff (talk) 13:38, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Curious. If a script rather than a bot can be made to move to another page, can it also be made to move the hook and all the feed back to a new section on the same page? Maybe like a cut and paste, ruling out the need to go back and remove it from where it was orginally. That way we would just delete as usual when promoting to the prep. Calmer Waters 14:14, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that is also possible (have to be a little more careful about edit conflicts, but thats not to difficult as script would just restart the process if an edit conflict happened, and there unlikey to have a conflict since the time between starting editing and saving is much lower) Basically anything a you can do (well anything in terms of a repetitive task, it can't write FA's :P), a script can do. Really you can think of the script as a bot programmed in javascript that can be activated by your browser. Bawolff (talk) 22:51, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

p.s. in case i wasn't clear before, anyone who wants to try out the script, just add:

importScript('User:Bawolff/DYKVerified.js');

To special:mypage/monobook.js (or special:mypage/vector.js if you use vector, etc for other skins). Cheers. Bawolff (talk) 07:32, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Looks good :) What if we introducted the practice of removing the tick mark of a previously verified nomination that has a concern brought up so that it would not be uploaded or a recovery script to place the nomination back onto the suggestion page if one is found that can't be quickly remedied. This might be over complicating the situation, but thought I would bring it up since this is in the suggestion/development phase. Calmer Waters 08:30, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Better to leave the tickmarks IMO. I think most "concerns" are relatively minor quibbles that are easily resolved, it's only the occasional verified hook that is subject to a major challenge. Gatoclass (talk) 08:44, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

It would be possible to make it recognize all the different icons that are used, and only copy the hook if the last icon used is a checkmark icon. (So if someone says verified, then someone else says some problem, the thing wouldn't be copied, but if someone says verified, someone says problem, then someone says verified again, it would be copied). Bawolff (talk) 10:06, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we need to do that. Besides, I think it would be too hit and miss. And updaters might also like to keep an eye on the ones that are "almost" ready to promote. Gatoclass (talk) 13:29, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, seems the script isn't working properly, because the verified summary on the Queue page shows there are currently 50 verified hooks, but the DYKVerified page, after updating, is still only showing a total of 34. Gatoclass (talk) 06:30, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

It appears to be missing the older noms (14th and down). Most likely because it is in a different section. Adding this to the script should correct this. Calmer Waters 06:43, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I suspect that's the problem. Of course, we don't want it to count the hooks in the "Special occasion" section, but it should be counting the hooks listed under "Older nominations". Gatoclass (talk) 09:30, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Done - previously it was disregarding stuff in older nom section, and copying the holiday noms. Should now do the opposite (might have to do a hard refresh to make the script update). Which sections it copies from and which it doesn't is easily configurable. Cheers. Bawolff (talk) 04:46, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll have to check it out again :) Gatoclass (talk) 23:21, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Update frequency

As per Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 53#Down to 104 hooks, the update frequency was changed from once every 6 hours to once every 8 on December 9. Since then the backlog of submissions at Template talk:Did you know‎ has been steadily rising and currently sits, depending on timing of promotions to the queue, between 170 and 180. As the backlog of submissions has been steadily growing the current refresh rate does not appear to be high enough to handle the current load. Likewise, many of the arguments given during the previous discussion would appear to still apply and there does not appear to be enough traffic at this time to justify a return to 6 hour refreshes. As a result I would propose splitting the difference and setting the refresh rate at once every 7 hours (~27.5 hooks per day instead of the current 24 per day). --Allen3 ^talk 12:40, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I would just comment that many hooks at the bottom of current T:TDYK page have low chance of survival, IMO. On the other hand, we've got quite a number of extra, X-mas noms. Yet another thought, maybe submission rate will drop around New Year and we would need to keep low update frequency for that? (How about past experience?) Materialscientist (talk) 12:46, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Seven hours is problematic because of the non-integer number of updates per day, which among other things would break the table at T:DYK/Q. We can also tweak the number of hooks per update, though. In the following table I give the number of hooks per day for each number of hooks per update (columns) and hours per update (rows).

	6	7	8	9
6h	24	28	32	36
7h	20.6	24	27.4	30.9
8h	18	21	24	27

It looks like we're currently at an average of about 25 hooks per day, not all of which get verified. In theory at least that would mean that the current setting, which produces 24 hooks per day, is a good one, and I actually do think the number of hooks has remained fairly stable at 160-170 over the past few days, looking at the history of Wikipedia:Did you know/DYK hook count. Ucucha 12:55, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd rather we changed the frequency instead of doing more than 8 hooks per update. It's a simple change to the LocalUpdateTimes table for 7 hour shifts. Shubinator (talk) 17:48, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Remember that if 11 approvable nominations are made for every 10 approvals, then no number of hooks per update or hours per update will control the backlog. If the total time devoted to each nomination, including approval and moving to an update, exceeds a critical value, then one would expect the backlog to approach infinity. Art LaPella (talk) 21:01, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Shubinator (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 21:06, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

There's no point in 7-hour updates, it's neither here nor there. Wait another few days and switch it back to 6-hour updates. Gatoclass (talk) 05:57, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

That sounds good. Cirt (talk) 05:59, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Q5 fix required

The first hook of Queue 5 is missing a "(pictured)". Thanks. --Bruce1ee^talk 12:07, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Added. Materialscientist (talk) 12:12, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Expansion question

Recently the Château-Gaillard article has tripled in size. That's well short of the five-fold expansion of an article stipulated in the DYK criteria, but considering that the article was relatively large to begin with (3,670b) an expansion on that scale in this case is unrealistic, partly because the sources have been squeezed almost dry (there's no way another ~6kb of prose can be gleaned from them). So I'm here asking if the rules can be bent to let it through? Right now, it's a good fully-referenced article (essentially completely new content), whereas the original was wordy, mostly unsourced, and contained errors. It's an interesting article, and there's a good hook waiting to be used (...that Richard the Lionheart boasted he could defend Château-Gaillard (pictured) even if the walls were made of butter?) I'd understand if the rules can't be bent in this case, but I think it would be a shame to waste it. Nev1 (talk) 12:43, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Great work on that article; you may even be able to nominate it for GA or FA status.

We do sometimes bend the rules a little for such articles; for example, we passed Veracruz, Veracruz (diff), a 4.1x expansion. But a major reason for that was that it was also about a fairly important subject (one of the major cities of Mexico), which is not as true for this castle. Also, the expansion was larger than for the castle and the resulting article was much larger (30 kb). Thus, I'd be less inclined to promote this article than I was to promote Veracruz. DYK gives "Wikipedia's newest articles", and we defined "new" as "80% new"; although we may bend the rule in a few cases, that should stay to a few cases. Ucucha 12:55, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Ucucha. The point of DYK is to showcase new content and we allow expansions to be nominated if they are predominantly new content and almost no old content. The above example of 4.1x expansion demonstrates it quite well imho. Our normal criteria require at least 80% new content but sometimes we allow less if needed, as with the 75.6% of a 4.1x expansion. But that is still over 3/4 new content. Your expansion only is 2/3 new content or 66.6%, i.e. much lower than the 80% we have as the threshold. I agree that nominating the article for GA is probably a much wiser choice. Regards So Why 13:45, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

By my own estimate, I trimmed about 600b of the article's original content in the process of sourcing it, so in essence about three-quarters is new material; unfortunately Dr pda's page size tool is a blunt instrument in this case as it does not recognise how much of the original article is present. GA and DYK are not mutually exclusive, but I was planning on going straight to FAC as I can't find any more on the subject, so watch this space ;-) Anyway, I realised it was a long shot, but thought it was worth a try. Thanks, Nev1 (talk) 14:27, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Good luck there! Ucucha 14:43, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Queue 2 hook

In Q5 Q2, we currently have a hook "... that the January 1985 Arctic outbreak delayed the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan by an entire day, eventually pushing the ceremony indoors and canceling the inaugural parade altogether?" That doesn't read right to me - the outbreak didn't cancel the parade - but I can't think of a suitable replacement now. Ucucha 13:17, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

How about "...that the January 1985 Arctic outbreak delayed the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan by an entire day and lead to the ceremony being held indoors and the inaugural parade being canceled? Regards So Why 13:39, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Great, I changed it (absent the spelling error ;). Thanks for the quick response. Ucucha 13:45, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

What spelling error?

So Why 13:48, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

"Lead" instead of "led". It's a past tense. Ucucha 13:49, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Ah, yes. Somehow that is my favorite mistake it seems, I make it far too often. xD So Why 14:00, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

<edit conflict> ::Or " ... that the effects of January 1985 Arctic outbreak delayed the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan by an entire day, forced the ceremony indoors and led to the cancellation of inaugural parade altogether?" Regards, —mattisse (Talk) 13:51, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, that's too long (210 b) (but thanks for the suggestion). Ucucha 14:45, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Nice Work

6 full queues! Nice work to everyone pitching together to get this done. Calmer Waters 17:15, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Great work indeed. But now we have only three (!) confirmed hooks left, so let's use the two days we have before we'll have to compile the next update for addressing that. Unfortunately, I won't have much time to help. Ucucha 17:22, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Error in Queue 6

The photo caption for the Douro Wine Company hook is inaccurate. The photo is only of the Miguelites, not of the actual act of blowing up the brandy stores. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 18:00, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

How's that now? [1] Ucucha 18:04, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

That's fine. Thanks for your prompt response. :) Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 18:16, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Something wierd has happened to the picture

The pic for Nativity at Night (Geertgen tot Sint Jans) still looks the same at Commons [2], but the one now on the article (above), and in the queue, looks horrible, all washed out & distorted, & has been cut at the top & squashed to give a different aspect ratio. It has visible breakdown of the image all over, but also manages to be twice the file-size! Can we use the proper picture please? And what happened? Johnbod (talk) 00:45, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I cropped the image to square it and brightened to show the background characters (the cow is great, IMO). What you see is result of partial update, in the cache somewehere (your PC, your server, WP server, etc). On my PC it looks fine. I would just wait a bit and refresh the view. Let me know if after the garble is gone you still feel the original was better. Materialscientist (talk) 00:49, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

No, No, No! I just saw this version for the first time ten minutes ago. It does NOT need brightening or cropping, and frankly I'm amazed that anyone would try fucking about with an old master this way. Pictures have integrity just as text does. This is the equivalent of sourcing a whole article from the National Enquirer! Please just use the proper image. Trust me, it looks ABSOLUTELY APPALLING!!! Johnbod (talk) 00:57, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree the original is better. I don't think it's a cache-related issue either unless you uploaded the file and then deleted it and then uploaded it again. -- Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 00:58, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Sigh .. restored. In fact, it was uploaded twice, by me and Allen3 (almost simultaneously) that probably caused the aspect error which Johnbod was screaming about, 10 minutes doesn't help it at times. I see such things (WP cache doesn't handle the aspect when it is changed) every now and then. I understand the point of preserving the original, but the 100x100 thumb of this drawing hides all important details. Materialscientist (talk) 02:09, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. Like most paintings, it's not an image you can get from the thumb anyway, in either version. Johnbod (talk) 04:15, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Christmas updates

Many thanks to Allen3 and everyone else who helped to get the updates ready so early this year! Gatoclass (talk) 05:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Late entry for Christmas Eve

I just nominated Luminaria (vigil fire), which relates to Christmas Eve. Sorry about the last minute rush; I only today read Luminaria and saw a new article was needed. Any chance of getting this one into a queues for Christmas Eve, which is tomorrow? --Una Smith (talk) 04:37, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I've verified it. Shubinator (talk) 05:23, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Well done, and thank you all. --Una Smith (talk) 17:32, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Australia Day?

Is it worth trying to stockpile a stack of aussie hooks for Australia Day? Casliber (talk · contribs) 07:00, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd be willing to chip in at least a good 5-7 Australian wine related hooks if you like. :) Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 07:27, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

That'd be great! I have also noted here several other aussie ones which are stubs too. Shall we set up a storage area? Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Done. Shubinator (talk) 15:04, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Great, now to fill it...Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:26, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

What is a fivefold expansion?

Is a fivefold expansion five times the characters, five times the words, or five times the KB? Liqudluck✽talk 06:00, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Characters. More precisely, prose. Even more precisely, F1. Art LaPella (talk) 06:17, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I got the prose part, wasn't certain on the type of prose. Liqudluck✽talk 06:31, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I added the missing word "characters" to the description of "prose". Art LaPella (talk) 21:45, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Copy edit needed in hook 7 of Queue 4

Current hook: ... that the Famous Smoke Shop, one of the largest mail order and internet cigar businesses in the United States, was initially a retail shop in Broadway founded in 1939?

Should be ... "was initially a retail shop on Broadway" since Broadway is an avenue and not a town. —mattisse (Talk) 14:35, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, changed. Thanks :) ≈ Chamal ^talk ¤ 15:59, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Lots of unchecked suggestions

Hi, just dropping a note here that the backlog for suggestions is getting somewhat out of control. I knocked four days of the back last night, but there are a lot of hook suggestions that haven't been checked, more than I can do myself. Any help I can get verifying them would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, The Wordsmith^Communicate 19:43, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Queue 2 fix required

The first hook of Queue 2 is missing a "(pictured)". Thanks. --Bruce1ee^talk 07:01, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 07:09, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

2010 WikiCup participation

Hi, this is just a note that if you want to sign up for the 2010 WikiCup, then you have until 23:59 UTC on December 31 to do so. This can be done here. The WikiCup is a fun competition aiming at improving Wikipedia's content, with points awarded for featured articles, good articles, featured lists, featured pictures, featured sounds, featured portals, featured topics, good topics, did you know?, in the news and valued pictures. Over 170 people are already involved, but there's still time to sign up. If you have any questions, you are welcome to contact myself or one of the other judges on our talk pages or on IRC, or ask on one of the WikiCup talk pages. Hope to see some of you there. Thanks! J Milburn (talk) 18:01, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Change my hook?

Can I change my hook (Jon Dorenbos) to: "... that current Philadelphia Eagles long snapper Jon Dorenbos, who had to endure the murder of his mother by his father at a young age, is a professional magician who has performed in Las Vegas and Hollywood?" ? Eagles 24/7 (C) 23:25, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Technically we can, but IMO, the alternative hook is too dark, enjoy the holidays! :-) Materialscientist (talk) 00:56, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

6 hour updates?

The number of hooks in T:TDYK keeps growing over the last weeks (from about 100 to about 200). Should we switch to 6-hr updates (ASAP)? Materialscientist (talk) 11:57, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I think so. People will be returning from vacations now, and with the wikicup starting we are likely to have an increase in activity. ≈ Chamal ^talk ¤ 11:59, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, probably should have been done a few days ago, but I didn't get around to it. Gatoclass (talk) 12:06, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

As there appears to be agreement to return to 6 hour updates, I have updated User:DYKadminBot/time. --Allen3 ^talk 15:34, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Scheduling a DYK date

In about two weeks an image donation from the Mary Rose Trust that has been negotiated for several months will go through. It all started with an update of Mary Rose (see upcoming draft here), and then just kinda escalated. I've been handling most of the communication with the Mary Rose Trust, but I've also received help from Mike Peel of the UK Wikimedia chapter and Lennart Guldbrandsson of Wikimedia Sverige. This would be the first image donation from a UK organization, which is a great counterweight to the whole debacle with the National Portrait Gallery.

The update is over x5 and it could even be bolstered by a tandem update of Anthony Roll (draft here) if needed. We've set a date for a press release in the UK and Sweden about the donation for January 3. It would be great if we could time a DYK appearance on English Wikipedia with the press release, either on January 3 or the day after it. Would it possible to reserve a DYK slot for either of these dates?

Peter ^Isotalo 22:49, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Just submit it within the 5 days of expansion and leave a note stating to have it held till January 3rd. It can then be moved to the holding area at the bottom of the page for that date. Calmer Waters 22:55, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I think it would be possible to have a section on T:TDYK for that date (if they meet the criteria that is) in order to schedule such a appearance although you might want to try and create/expand some more articles to appear on that day. If people oppose a special section on the suggestions page, you can also submit them normally (approximately 7-8 days prior) with a note that they should be used on 3 January 2010. Regards So Why 22:56, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Wow, what a great accomplishment. Kudos to Peter, Mike and the UK Wikipedians for pulling this off. It would be awesome if we could make a special event out of this day. I'm sure if we expanded the scope to other English navy and maybe Tudor period articles, we could probably get a few more articles. What do you think about contacting Wikipedia:WikiProject England, Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history and Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships? Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 23:07, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Great job indeed. I don't think there can be any objections to running these on/around January 3; we should be able to schedule that. Also agree with Agne27 that more hooks on the subject would be nice. Ucucha 23:09, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

If you want to pile on DYKs to the Mary Rose hook Tudor navy could be a target for expansion. It never occurred to me to make a theme out of it, but it could be pretty neat if we can pool sources over the holidays. I'll drop a line by the suggested projects.

Peter ^Isotalo 23:16, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't know how other DYK regulars feel, but as a Yank, I have no problems with DYK taking on an anglophile shade for one day to celebrate such a great donation of free historical images. I think if we expand the theme to other topics of the Tudor period (in addition to the main Navy theme of course), we maybe able to get enough articles to really go for it. Would we have time to seek something into the Signpost to get more contributors? Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 23:21, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

This is cutting it really close, but the Signpost newsroom has been notified.

Peter ^Isotalo 23:44, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I might be able to come up with a DYK or two for some RN ships of the WWI era in time to make that date if y'all want to broaden the scope a bit to the RN's entire history as well as the Tudor period.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:04, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

One potential article for the DYK selection, if it can be started/written: Cowdray engraving. Mike Peel (talk) 20:31, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

DYK request has been made here.

Peter ^Isotalo 23:17, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

The press release is tomorrow and it would be great to have the DYKs up on Monday. People have provided a lot of help with improving the articles themselves, but both DYKs are still lacking an approval of a reviewer. Is there anyone who hasn't been involved in the improvement process that could step in and have a look at the articles? In case you can't find anything through the link above, note that the proposals have been split (here and here).

Peter ^Isotalo 11:55, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Hooks

... that the Anthony Roll is a set of vellum manuscripts from the mid-16th century that contains the only known contemporary depiction of Mary Rose, a carrack belonging to the English Tudor navy of Henry VIII?

How many times do we need to repeat that hooks should be worded interestingly? "X is a Y" is almost never interesting. You could just as easily replace this with "... that the 16th-century Anthony Roll manuscripts contain the only known contemporary depiction of Mary Rose, a carrack belonging to the English Tudor navy of Henry VIII?" This contains all t he same information without the boring wording. (Although, FWIW, the content seems pretty boring itself to me....contains the only known contemporary depiction of an unknown boat that few readers have ever heard of anyway? Joy...) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 12:09, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the heads up. However, you should have a look at the active DYK suggestions here and here? The hooks suggested over there might be more appealing. Peter ^Isotalo 14:15, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Plain hooks

I would like to raise a question of promoting any plain hook if the nomination is technically in order. We have more than enough nominations recently, why not reject, or aim to reject borderline hooks? Just a few live examples (without any slight to anyone, I don't really have hard feeling about this topic, and we've had worse):

prep1, "... that Matilda of Brandenburg might have had an affair with Henry IV Probus before their marriage?"

prep2 ".. that there are different theories about the parentage of Piast princess Constance, who ruled over Wodzisław Śląski until her death in 1351?"

q4: ".. that although the original text of the Đại Việt sử ký was lost during the fourth Chinese domination of Vietnam, its contents were still preserved in other books such as the Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư?" It might be hard to deal with the 3rd, but for the first 2, I'm almost sure we could push for better hooks. Materialscientist (talk) 13:00, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

The problem with this type of proposal has always been producing a non-subjective definition for a "boring" hook. A survey of other DYK regulars about their interest levels to these hooks, or any other randomly selected list, would almost certainly produce a wide variety of responses. I personally consider two of your three examples to be rather interesting. Without some objective means to determine what is interesting and what is not, this proposal quickly devolves into WP:ILIKEIT vs. WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT debates over the merits of individual nominations. --Allen3 ^talk 14:11, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Allan3 makes a very good point - although I do think there are some manifestly bad hooks that simply shouldn't be run. Re the above examples, the first isn't very good and an alt should probably be requested, while the second I think is passable because the parentage of rulers is usually well established, so I think that works. The third again is a bit weak, but then there probably isn't a much of a choice for an esoteric topic like that. Gatoclass (talk) 14:25, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Update: I see the hooks are already in the queue, so no point requesting an alt at this point. Gatoclass (talk) 14:48, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Allen and Gato, likes and dislikes are rather subjective. What is boring to one person could be very interesting to another. There is simply no objective standard you can hold hooks to. I can see merit in all 3 examples--especially for history and culture buffs. In the 1st, a pre-marital affair during the very religious Middle Ages is rather intriguing with it being so contrary to that period's norm. In the 2nd, questionable parentage among hereditary rulers always has a scandalous tinge to them since the whole system is based on rule being passed down within a certain "divinely chosen" family. In the 3rd, I'm not very familiar with Vietnamese culture but that is due partly to the natural WP:BIAS of never being exposed to it in daily life as well as my education growing up. But to that extent, it seems more than worthwhile to still feature the hook in order to expose more people to these often neglected subjects. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 19:52, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

<indent>Off course, any fact has merits, but, within this spirit I could write an article on nierite with a hook ".. that mineral nierite is grey in color? or even better ".. that mineral nierite might have been found by Friedrich Mohs? and have it passed. I have a strong feeling that some regulars do know we pass any hook. Comments? Materialscientist (talk) 00:12, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I guess my question is....what is the detrimental harm of boring hooks? If one hook out of the 6-8 that we feature is dreadfully boring-the only potential damage is that it probably won't receive many page views. Does anything else suffer? I doubt the presence of a boring hook being featured would dampen people's interest in clicking on any of the other articles or reading DYK at all. And again, who knows, even the most boring hook can still enlighten people or make someone's day. There may be a some giddy school girl with a Friedrich Mohs poster on her wall who would squeal with glee at learning a new fact about nierite. You never know. :) Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 01:38, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

(i) It quenches the spirit of improvement (dumping any new text on the main page - some new articles should not be featured there, IMHO) (ii) Many regulars read DYK hooks at the main page and treat them as high-quality, interesting, often quirky, facts. WP and DYK (still) have good reputation - it would be pity to lose that. Materialscientist (talk) 02:24, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I can see where MS is coming from. Many are striving to make DYK better. With all the help lately it gives a little more time to focus on articles and help fix a few things while reviewing the nomination. There is a real difference between maintaining 6 and 8 hour updates. I also believe with Allen3 that there would need to be some criteria for dull or boring, which can't be quantified, as many people have different opinions. I think the alternative is to suggest a different hook or help come up with one. I would hope more could be saved than not. Yes, this puts more work on the reviewer; however, I think as we attempt to better DYK by suggesting more options for hooks, it may catch on. An example is the inline citing issue. We are recieving more articles with most paragraphs cited (through not a rule) than we once did. Maybe we can help with this too. Calmer Waters 02:40, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

We can not possibly define everything by rules and policies - some issues are left to the discretion of the referee (editor, administrator, etc). Correct me if I'm wrong, but the one-ref-per-para is not in the rules, but is nevertheless treated as such. Materialscientist (talk) 02:58, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Citing is an issue that is brought up when evaluating a hook and addressed with the nominating editor. I propose the same here. You are right, it is up to the reviewer to pass a nomination. If it gets to the bottom without being verified, then maybe it would be justified to not promote. Again this would be something that current consensus will help move along, like asking for a certain degree of inline citations. I believe that is what your inquiring, whether to tick a dull hook or not, not whether to fail it. Calmer Waters 03:17, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

The third is the best of those three- it is an actual fact. The first two are speculation and theorizing, which I wonder if we ought to have stronger standards about in hooks? IThe first one is an egregious example of theorizing acting like a DYK hook "fact". I know, I know, separate issue. Bradjamesbrown (talk) 02:11, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I vote for actual facts versus theorizing and speculation, unless the theorizing is very well sourced and an accepted "fact" regarding the subject. —mattisse (Talk) 02:21, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

AFD's and a request for clarification if the clock continues to tick...

"Other, obvious rules" #R1 on DYK/Onepage, states " Articles nominated for deletion won't be used unless/until they survive the deletion process."

Does being nominated for deletion immediately after creation stop the 5-day clock until the matter is resolved?
Does #R1 it mean that an article sent to AFD 10 minutes after creation can never be eligible as "new" if the AFD runs more than 5 days?
Or does #R1 it mean a new article sent immediately to AFD after creation must be nominated even while the AFD is still open... under a hope or prayer that it might survive the deletion process?

Should a caveat be placed on DYK/Onepage to address this possibility? Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 22:37, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

- In practice, there is a (supposedly) 5-day clock from creation or expansion until nomination, and a 5-day clock for responding to objections. It doesn't matter how long an author may have to wait for a perhaps unwarranted AFD.
- Articles are often at AFD by the time we review them. We wait until the AFD is resolved, and no nomination expires for that reason.
- Would it also be OK to wait until the AFD is resolved and then submit a nomination? I don't know; I don't remember anyone trying that. My guess is that it wouldn't be rejected for that reason.
- Should R1 have by-laws of by-laws to address all the possibilities? Not if you're in the habit of using DYK/Onepage; by-laws of by-laws for everything would make it unreadable. It would work if you read it directly here, since by-laws of by-laws are hidden on lower submenus.
- However, I can't imagine getting a consensus for a wording that regulates all the possibilities, considering we can't even get a consensus for describing our one-reference-per-paragraph non-rule, which is one of our most frequently enforced rules or non-rules. Art LaPella (talk) 07:55, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Prep areas

Is it worth adding a third prep area? Mjroots (talk) 09:05, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

No, it isn't needed. It's only on a rare occasion we have all six queue pages plus both updates full. Gatoclass (talk) 12:11, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Like now :-P Yes, it used to be uncommon before, but is a norm this week. Still, 2 preps should be enough. Materialscientist (talk) 12:29, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

If you're really keen matsci, you can always put together a couple more updates in your sandbox :) Gatoclass (talk) 12:42, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Er. What if someone else does that too :) Actually, I wasn't the one who kept preps full these days - DYK is running like a clock - bot never stalls, 200+ submissions, more than 1/3 reviewed, paradise :-), I was doing other things I usually couldn't, (even wrote a DYK today :). Materialscientist (talk) 12:50, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Sometimes the thing shows a backlog, sometimes all eight are full. A third prep area would be useful in really one instance- when some of the queues are empty, but the prep areas are still full because no admin has come along to shuffle things around. But making sets in user sandboxes? That could turn into a right mess with keeping track of where hooks went and when. Bradjamesbrown (talk) 13:09, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Before we had two prep areas and multiple queue pages, sandboxes were the only alternative :) Gatoclass (talk) 13:29, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

With just about 40% of the hooks verified and nowhere to move new hooks to, I think another prep area would be good to use. As long as they are all listed on T:DYK/Q; I don't see how it could hurt anything. NW (Talk) 23:02, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

IMO, it is better to keep hooks as long as possible at T:TDYK because comments do come even after approval, and rephrasing of the hooks at T:TDYK is tracked by the authors (very few follow prep areas). Indeed, there has been no delay in moving sets from preps to the queues, thus I would second Bradjamesbrown that there is no need for extra prep areas. Materialscientist (talk) 23:09, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Seeing NW here reminds me of an old thought: protecting images at Commons seems much more rational than uploading them to en.wiki for the main-page appearance. It is (would be) good to have a regular Commons admin who could do that. Materialscientist (talk) 23:12, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I do it when I remember to, but I feel that a Main Page protection bot (or cross project cascading protection, but that's unlikely) would be best of all. Didn't we have one running in the summer? NW (Talk) 05:42, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Per the reasons above, I actually think another prep area would be a bad idea. It's rare to have everything full, and it would cause a shortage of verified hooks in the talk section, since i think I'm the only one that'll verify and promote without tagging so that there's enough for further updates that day. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 05:59, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I really don't see the problem with it. If it doesn't get used, then no harm. If we've got everything full, then those of us that move them to the prep areas (I've only done so once, but I have a lot of respect for the people that do it) can take a bit of a rest once they're all full, as it'll be another 18 hours before they're needed again (as opposed to 12). Things are running pretty efficiently since Christmas, so I think it would be a good idea. The worst that could happen is we have a rarely-used prep area hanging around.

"Pretty efficiently" is a relative term. The most recent update (18:00, January 4, 2010 UTC) had to be completed manually. As for a third prep area, the limiting factor for how quickly we can move noms from the suggestions page to the queue is the template refresh rate (currently once every 6 hours). With the current surge of noms and availability of workers the third prep area would most likely be full almost all the time just like the current two prep areas. Then in a week or three when things return to a more normal run rate (i.e. half the queues waiting for someone to fill them) the third queue would sit unused. Better to leave the nominations on the suggestions page where Wikipedia:Did you know/DYK hook count can count them and we have some idea what the current backlog looks like. --Allen3 ^talk 23:53, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Well exactly. I would add that with the 8 queue and prep pages we currently have, that leaves updaters a full 48 hours to prepare the next update. If that is not enough time, what is? We have to stop somewhere. I can't see the point of adding more pages that are going to make the system more cumbersome and potentially lead to more errors just to take advantage of a temporary surplus of labour. Perhaps it's worth noting in that regard that it's only a couple of weeks since the queue and prep pages were entirely empty and updates were being prepared within minutes of being required - and that's far more typical of the usual situation.

So as I've said, if users really, really want to put together some more updates while the queue is full, just do it in a sandbox page and leave a message here that you've done so. It's better than ending up with a bunch of extra pages we don't need for eleven months of the year. Gatoclass (talk) 00:21, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Queue 3 hook 2 needs editing

"... that U.S. President Barack Obama has been the subject of multiple assassination threats and alleged plots, many of which due to his race?" Needs an "are". That is, "many of which [are] due to his race? Regards, —mattisse (Talk) 01:43, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Done, I think. I reworded the hook to flow better; after the fact I realize that it changes the meaning slightly, in a technical way, but it doesn't seem like a big deal to me. (If it is a big deal, someone can always change it.) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 02:05, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Last-minute hook suggestion for Mary Rose

Is it possible to get a last-minute change for the Mary Rose hook due at 18:00 tonight? We just got clearance today to use images donated by the Mary Rose Trust. The images can be found at Commons. There are two pics of the 1982 salvage that would be really neat to get attention for on the mainpage since there's been a Wikimedia UK press release about this donation. Here are some of the other hooks that were suggested for the DYK nomination that are relevant to a salvage photo:

ALT1 ... that the warship Mary Rose, lost in 1545 during the Battle of the Solent and raised again in 1982, (pictured) has proved to be a time capsule?

ALT2 ... that the Mary Rose was a Tudor period warship that sank during the Battle of the Solent in 1545 and was salvaged (pictured) by maritime archaeologists 377 years later?

Please note that there are several versions of the two salvage photos, including digital restorations by User:Durova, and some cropped versions that were thought to be appropriate for a 100px resolution.

Peter ^Isotalo 16:21, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Added suggestions for pics to clarify.

Peter ^Isotalo 17:34, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

IMHO, ALT2 is better. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 19:27, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Wait, why was this article even up here if it's not new? -LtNOWIS (talk) 19:57, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, it does not seem to meet the DYK requirements ... maybe "in the news", but not DYK. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 21:09, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

It's a bit of a special occasion, and a 5x expansion over the old article. See Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know#Scheduling_a_DYK_date above. henrik•talk 22:27, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

The nomination[3] was made on December 26 and specifically requested for January 4 to support the press release. I know I've experienced nine-day delays from nomination to featuring before.

Peter ^Isotalo 22:51, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

My bad then Peter, I had looked at the last few days of editing, and did not see the5-fold increase in prose over that short time. I still liked the second alt hook better :-) (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 18:31, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Is having only one source for an article OK for dyk?

I usually avoid a dyk with only {{one source}} for the article. What are the rules regarding this? Regards, —mattisse (Talk) 00:21, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

My way of thinking was always this:

Articles with only one source should get a {{one source}} cleanup tag.
Articles with cleanup tags can be rejected from DYK.
Therefore, articles with only one source can be rejected from DYK.

Now, I can guarantee some people won't agree with that ("one source is not as big an issue as pov", "dyk articles don't need to be great yet", stuff like that). But instead of seeing DYK opposition as a chance to start a fight, people could just see it as a chance to improve their articles. I mean, if someone opposes your DYK, there are two ways to get it passed: a) to make enough of a fuss to get the opposer to back off and promote your article anyway, or b) to actually address the concerns and come out with a better article in the end. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:23, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree and share, but would leave this to the referee. An example could be historical buildings which often list a Register record as a single source. Such source is reliable and verifiable, and is often rather difficult to complement with anything even remotely useful. There are other similar topics with single but bullet-proof source; IMO, we shouldn't repel them from DYK area. Materialscientist (talk) 00:33, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

True; in cases like that, they should probably not get the cleanup tag anyway (per IAR), so this is still covered by the more general rule about tags. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:35, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I often see a New York Times obituary, for example, as a single source. —mattisse (Talk) 00:40, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

When the Times obituary is a reasonably-detailed account of the person's life (eg. Walter Cronkite's obit, which was several pages long), and the information in the article is all in that source, then I think that would be acceptable. Some obits run by the Times are less detailed, though, so I don't think they would be sufficient. I don't think there should be a general rule about this, it should be left to the reviewer's discretion and evaluation of the source. The Wordsmith^Communicate 00:56, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Wordsmith in that we should consider the source and circumstance. By default {{one source}} is not de facto bad and I would disagree with its characterization as a clean up tag that merits DYK rejection. As the templates page itself notes "A single source is not automatically a problem. Good judgment and common sense should be used." If you have one very good, very thorough and very reliable source then it seems silly to force an editor to put redundant, duplicate citations just for the benefit of having extra blue little numbers in the article. If the source covers the material, and covers it well, then that should be fine. Now if the source is weak or the article is filled with very strong or very unusual claims then it would be fair to ask for more cites (for those claims) but I would urge reviewers to evaluate issues like this based on their merits rather than simple footnote counting. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 02:17, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I think article quality should determine priority, so in that case, if there is a backlog or supply > space, then single source should handicap the said article YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:44, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

If the source is definitive and high-quality, then I don't see a problem. I'm thinking of a full-length biography, or a monograph on a work of art rather than an obituary. Johnbod (talk) 04:28, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I think one authoritative source (like a monograph on a subject) is certainly a lot better than 3 or 4 articles in small-circulation newspapers. "Poor sourcing" might be a problem, but that's quite different from counting sources. Guettarda (talk) 22:01, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Wrong picture

Why is the image for queue 6 (Red Tail Project hook) using an example of a plane rather than the actual plane, which has a perfectly fine picture. Also, since there are model A, B, C and D P-51s, I am not even sure if the chosen picture is the correct model. Can we swap back to the picture of the actual plane and one that has a Red Tail.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 04:31, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Because the image with the red tail is up for deletion on Commons since permission is missing. I brought the deletion issue up with Materialscientist, who had loaded the queue. Otherwise, I'm fine if you want to change to my image of the IXL Historical Museum (sarcastic wink). Royal broil 04:53, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, if copyright status is resolved for the original picture then I would be more than happy to restore it. Other pictures in the article are less appealing, and have the same copyright problem (just not tagged yet). This needs to be fixed. Materialscientist (talk) 05:02, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I sent consent to [email protected] for all three images on December 31.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 05:55, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

OTRS received and tagged NW (Talk) 23:40, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Bush-Brown

Guys, I have a stale hook that looks otherwise good to go- can anyone check it out? Henry Kirke Bush-Brown, Dec 29. Thanks. Kaisershatner (talk) 15:59, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Hook candidates reaching 5 days old

My proposal for a hook for Arrival of the Hungarians was posted on January 1, and it was first reviewed today. It was asked to give more references. I cited more, but now the 5 day deadline is coming, so what if it doesn't get reviewed again? How does it work for hooks that don't get reviewed in time? Qorilla (talk) 23:50, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

It will still be fine. Hooks don't really ever get removed without being reviewed, and hooks are quite often promoted after 5 days. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:16, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually, you haven't provided references as asked (at least one per paragraph), though Esemono suggested that those refs can be found. Maybe it would be worth working more on the article before posting this thread? Materialscientist (talk) 00:21, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, I'll cite them in, but in fact most of the data can be found in any of the sources, so one doesn't have to puzzle it from multiple sources, so most inline citations - even if we have many - will point to the same page. Qorilla (talk) 01:58, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:DYK/Prospects

It occurred to me that it might be good to have a prominent, dedicated page where people who are not willing or able to make nominations themselves can drive by and make suggestions for good article prospects from places like newpages, WP:FEED, the various help desks and other places where new articles are stumbled upon that are ripe for a DYK nomination (creators unable to make a nomination themselves could post there as well of course). It would just be a list of article names by date with a few instructions up front. It would be simple to set up and simple to deal with. Does this exist already and I missed it? If not, shall I create it?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:01, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

There is User:AlexNewArtBot/GoodSearchResult, which is updated most days by AlexNewArtBot. Is this what you're thinking of? --Bruce1ee^talk 13:09, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah yes, something like that; thanks for the link. That renders this somewhat redundant. The problem with that page is that its existing all on its own, with only regulars in the know. I would think a redirect from Wikipedia:DYK/Prospects would be appropriate, and then it would be a linked through {{DYKbox}} and would get some instructions on it for humans to contribute their links in a separate section of the page. Of course, if someone tells me this is a problem in search of a solution, i.e., you get more decent nominations that you know what to do with, year round, this would be a rather pointless exercise.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:02, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

There is also the page Wikipedia:Did you know/New article announcements that is located at Category:Wikipedia Did you know that exist. The beginning of the Wikicup has definitely had an impact on the number of articles submitted recently. IMO when and if hooks start to drop back to subnormal levels (empty queues and under 200 hooks) we could more actively promote these pages mentioned in this tread on this discussion page, as it is most likely on many editor's watch lists. Calmer Waters 08:29, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

No review?

Apologies if this is in the wrong section or area, but I'm wondering how I can get a review of an item I nominated on Jan. 7 (St. Michael's Cathedral)? The items before and after it have been reviewed. What does it mean if nobody reviews your item? That nobody likes it for DYK? I read the documentation but didn't see anything regarding this situation. Thanks, ɳoɍɑfʈ^Talk! 08:02, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

It means absolutely nothing. Basically, no one has gotten around to your article yet. Don't worry, it won't expire or anything even if it goes over seven days :) —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 08:10, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

It means DYK is a perpetual backlog. I don't mean to sound flippant, but hooks get reviewed when they get reviewed. 7 January is still near the top of the page, so have patience. Hooks never are removed because they haven't been reviewed. (Now, in a completely contradictory message, because I know how anxious waiting can be, I'll go review your hook ;) ) Bradjamesbrown (talk) 08:11, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

It means you had trouble finding A2. Art LaPella (talk) 21:47, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Problem with hook in queue 6

The lead hook in queue 6 (for an article I worked on :-) reads "that the Orange Bowl stadium was the first to host the college football bowl game of the same name in 1938?" The problem with this is that there was only one Orange Bowl that year, so the hook is misleading. I intended the hook to revolve around the fact that this was the first Orange Bowl played in that stadium (I recall writing "first hosted"). When the hook got moved over to the queue, some copy-editing must have taken place that caused this issue. If someone here has a minute, please take a look at it. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 16:31, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

If you write exactly what it should say I'll be happy to update it. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:36, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Done. Ucucha 16:37, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Perfect. Thanks. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 17:47, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Re: Jairam Ramesh

Can someone here please give a third opinion on this removal of article from DYK nomination list?

I think it should be advanced to queue as it was improperly removed from nomination list without any discussion beforehand. Thank you. Marcus334 (talk) 22:02, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Marcus334 said:

I see that my Dec. 31 DYK nomination was removed by you: :23:45, January 7, 2010 Wizardman (talk | contribs) (281,762 bytes) (→Jairam Ramesh: rm; not long enough).

Please double check this rm as the article is: :03:46, January 8, 2010 Marcus334 (talk | contribs) (37,678 bytes)

Someone had inadvertently noted that it was expanded only 2 1/2x when it was actually expanded over ~~12x~~ 5x. ThanxMarcus334 (talk) 14:23, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

How did you calculate this article was expanded only 2.5x?

It was 5,653 bytes when I started working on it Dec.27 and it grew to 32,285 bytes when I nominated it on Dec 31. (32,285 ÷ 5,653 = 5.71) It is now 37,678 bytes. Please explain or restore to DYK nomination queue. Marcus334 (talk) 16:12, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Using prose definition, article minus infoboxes, references and categories, with this tool, (I did not use this script as it excludes quotes, which are important part of the article) I calculate 20,374 prose bytes on Dec. 31 divided by 3,229 prose bytes on Dec. 27 before I started working on article (same as Dec. 19 number) = 6.3x, Correct? Marcus334 (talk) 17:43, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Wizardman said:

I double checked and the removal was correct, it was only expanded 2.5x. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 15:10, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

DYK calculates solely prose, not the entire article. So, before expansion started, there were 3079 characters of prose. Now the article is 11kb of prose, nearly a 4x expansion (so not a 2.5x as it was written earlier). It's closer to the requirement, but it's not quite there still, and seeing that the 28th has long been cleared, it's not going to be placed back up. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 16:19, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I see now, you counted the large number of quotes. You can ask for a third opinion on the DYK talk page, but at this point I can't guarantee it getting promoted even if it is accepted. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 20:17, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Third opinions:

Agree with Wizardman- the rules are quite clear, blockquotes do not count as prose. However, if you could expand it quickly, this might be a case for ignoring all rules and letting it run. Bradjamesbrown (talk) 04:03, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't realize block quotes do not count. Thanks for keeping the article under consideration. I have expanded it so it is now 9,348 bytes more than on Dec. 31 nomination date. That should make it 5x. You please count. Marcus334 (talk) 18:24, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

- I figured out how to use this script, and now get 5.13x expansion. That should do it. Marcus334 (talk) 21:57, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, quotes are not counted. It's a a few thousand characters short. ≈ Chamal ^talk ¤ 04:20, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

The article contains an unusually large proportion of block quotes. I converted one short block quote into prose. The article would be easier to read, IMO -- and might possibly meet the DYK threshold -- if more of the material that is now in boxed-off quotes were rewritten as "prose." --Orlady (talk) 23:41, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

- I followed your suggestion and converted many quotes to prose. Kept those stating most important policy positions. Expansion is now 6.56x. Marcus334 (talk) 02:44, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Comparing the current article to the version that existed on 18 December 2009 (before expansion began), this is more than a 5x expansion now. --Orlady (talk) 03:24, 11 January 2010 (UTC) Current count is 20366 characters of prose; the version on 18 December was 3079 characters of prose. --Orlady (talk) 03:28, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

This got bogged down- we have a fivefold expansion; for everyone's sake, can we make a final decision quickly? I'm in favour of ignoring the rules in this case and letting it run. Bradjamesbrown (talk) 05:30, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Queue 2

Looking at queue 2, I don't believe the DYKBotdo template is currently on the second queue. Assuming it's an oversight, could an admin fix it? Thanks. Bradjamesbrown (talk) 00:07, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Queue was prepared by Materialscientist (talk · contribs), who seems to have forgotten to add the template. The queue looks all right, so I have added it now. Thanks :) ≈ Chamal ^talk ¤ 01:22, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Multi nomination credits holding pen

As we have seen in the past, long credit templates on occasion crash the bot. Two questions. 1) Does anyone know what the arbitrary max number is and 2) would anyone be against a "holding pin" for instances such as this, with the credits done manually after the hook as appeared? I understand that we try to breakup queues by not having too many DYKnoms in the same prep, but what about the multi-nominations (ie. 3 more nominations within the hook or multi contributors and nominators). Don't see this as a constant case; however, knowing what the "crash limit" of the credit template would be helpful. Calmer Waters 05:29, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Second this observation, but have no numbers on when the bot will crash - it either does or it doesn't. I often put multiple credits at the end, so that if bot crashes, there is less to complete manually. Materialscientist (talk) 09:05, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Hook in Prep Area 1 needs a tweak

The hook states "... that Slovakia recently sent a bomb to Ireland on Danube Wings Flight V5 8230?"

This is not accurate, as to be a bomb a detonator is required. There was no detonator. A more accurate hook woul be "... that Slovakia recently sent explosives to Ireland on Danube Wings Flight V5 8230?"

Is there consensus to change this hook? Mjroots (talk) 06:43, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Whoops. Trout me- I'm the one that signed off on that hook and didn't think about that. Yeah, I'd say do it. Bradjamesbrown (talk) 08:30, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Changed. Materialscientist (talk) 09:36, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

No need for a trout, anyone can make a mistake in good faith. Mjroots (talk) 09:52, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm the only one, but I don't like this hook as currently formulated--it sounds like Robert Fico didn't like the Irish and resolved to bomb them. What about passivizing it to "... that explosives were recently sent from Slovakia to Ireland ..."? Ucucha 07:24, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Colitis-X

Please look at this and tell me do you agree? --Una Smith (talk) 03:04, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I have no intention in engaging with that, as i don't know the history that Lar appears to be aware of. I've cleared the nom for use at DYK, have recommended one of hte ALT hooks to avoid a hook with two sentences, and have corrected some misapprehensions on the part of both parties regarding policy at the MOS and at DYK on the article talk page. I'm guessing that these two editors might best steer clear of reviewing each others contribs, just for their own sakes, but that is up to them. hamiltonstone (talk) 03:15, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I personally don't think it is relevant to drag this talk page/user drama to DYK. The hook and article can be evaluated on their own merits without this extra-curricular drama. At best the most that can be gleamed from this section is Hamiliton's advice that it is generally a good thing for editors with previous history to avoid dealing with each other's noms on DYK (even if they only have good faith intentions). It is better to let an univolved editor review the hook. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 03:22, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

For the record: I did not review the nomination, I improved the article. --Una Smith (talk) 03:58, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Well offering Alts is a form of reviewing even if you are not doing the "final" tick. It is still looking at the nomination and deeming it in need of improvement. But regardless of that finer point, if there is previous conflict between editors it is always best to keep your distance even if you only have good faith intentions to improve the project. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 04:04, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I've briefly looked at this and stand with Hamiltonstone: the nomination is appropriate for DYK, and ALT1 is a good choice for the hook. IMO, Montanabw is exaggerating the dispute, and for some reason, Lar is overly negative about this - he might know what I don't though. I do not see anything serious to quarrel about. Materialscientist (talk) 03:39, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

New nom in the special occasion area

Hi all. i've just put forward a new 26-part nom in the special occasion holding area. With so many components, I realise questions may arise - please don't forget to leave a {{subst:DYKproblem|Article|header=yes|sig=yes}} tag on my talk page if there is a query. I will work hard to ensure any points are addressed. Thanks. hamiltonstone (talk) 00:28, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

This has been addressed. Kudos and thanks to Materialscientist. hamiltonstone (talk) 04:08, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Proposal to switch position of DYK and In the news

There is a proposal to switch position on the main page of DYK and In the news at Wikipedia:A proposal to swap the Main Page positions of WP:ITN and WP:DYK. I did not start it, just requesting input from here. --Apoc2400 (talk) 10:08, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Rules to drop

It is certainly true that we have a lot of rules here, as someone at the swap proposal (one topic above this) noted. I decided to have a look whether there are any we can drop:

Additional rules:
- "B2: Don't capitalize your article as it appears in the hook, just because that's how it appears in the article. Capitalize it only if the word would normally be capitalized, even if you weren't linking it." - just recapitulating basic grammar, don't think this occurs often, or that having this as a rule prevents it from occurring often.
- "C4: No space before the question mark." - again, just basic grammar.
- "C5: No external links in the hook." - certainly a bad idea, but does this ever happen?
- "D2: Wikipedia, including Wikipedia in other languages, is not considered a Wikipedia:Reliable source." - duplicates rule D3 on WP:DYKDN. Also rule D11, which duplicates WP:DYKDN: rule D4, and a few others.
- "D10: If there is a stub tag, it should ordinarily be removed if the article is long enough for DYK." - I often do this, but don't really see the point for having it as a rule. Should we care whether there is a stub template on a DYK article?
- "F8: "a 'new' article is no more than five days old. This does not include articles split from older articles", although an article sufficiently expanded from a section of an older article can be a fivefold expansion. The word "fork" is sometimes used to mean Wikipedia:Splitting." - duplicates rule A5 (yes, it's in a section on rules "often overlooked", but the section is mostly just about basic MOS stuff, and this particular rule is actually listed on the same page).
- "H2: You are not allowed to approve your own hook or article." - common sense. And I haven't seen anyone ever try.
WP:DYKCN
- "C3: In practice, articles longer than 1,500 characters may still be rejected as too short, at the discretion of the selecting reviewers and administrators." - I don't really see this happening.

Ucucha 16:14, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with all of the above except the stub tag. It's a very small point that is easy to fix, and because people fix it quickly enough, has not yet prevented a hook from being approved. Binksternet (talk) 17:13, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

We could make a section for "rules" that will not stop a DYK, but will be fixed by someone before it goes on the main page. --Apoc2400 (talk) 20:21, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the Additional Rules ALL duplicate the WP:Did you know/Learning DYK system. I intended the latter to replace the former along with WP:DYK, but the consensus went against me and this is the compromise.

I hope we can keep those rules at "Learning DYK" even if we don't keep them at Additional Rules, because Learning DYK is organized hierarchically, so you don't have to read all the details if you read at a higher level. If my only edit is to remove a space before a question mark, for example, I would link to C4 (actually, to its Learning DYK counterpart I8.); thus I8 (if not C4) is useful even if nobody read WP:DYKIN as a list. At Learning DYK, it says "The hook should be formatted like the hooks you see on the Main Page. Checklist here.", and only if you click the checklist do the basic grammar rules come up.

"Does this really happen?" B2: maybe once a day, C5: once every few months, H2: once every few months but has the potential for major drama, C3: maybe once a week. C4: about 3 times a day.

Given the consensus to have both Additional Rules and Learning DYK, condensing the Additional Rules may indeed be better than what we have now. Art LaPella (talk) 20:37, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and as for having a lot of rules: At DYK, you can learn most of the rules by reading them. At In The News, you can only guess at what the real rules are; maybe you can get a consensus, and maybe you can't, and you would have to study the archives to improve your chance of guessing. You're expected to go to all the trouble of writing a news article, and only then can you find out if they will like it. The solution to too many rules is to get conformity to a simplified system, not to delete the written rules but continue to enforce them by surprise. See WP:Did you know/Lore#Instruction creep. Art LaPella (talk) 20:56, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Your last point is true, but it is why I focused on overly obvious and/or very rarely needed rules. For some of the obvious ones, I think an important question to ask (as I did already above) is: will having the rule prevent the problem coming up? For example, for H2, there is indeed a potential for drama, but will that drama be averted more easily when we have a rule explicitly saying that you can't do that? Ucucha 21:03, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I do think that the harmony at DYK is due to the reviewer being able to point to a rule in response to a complaint. Pointing to a rule seems to satisfy nominators who feel due process has not been followed. I think most rules have resulted from complaints. (There used to be long arguments on this page regarding what was, and what was not, a rule.) So, I recommend treading lightly in making any changes. Regards, —mattisse (Talk) 21:15, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

At least C5, H2, C3 should stay unless we want to hold lengthy discussions here trying to explain what's wrong to an overenthusiastic editor. These have potential for creating drama, and we need to be able to point out that it is simply not done, and for that we need a solid rule. Just because the "likeliness" is low doesn't mean they never happen. For example, I can remember an editor who tried to approve his own noms a few months ago. His argument was that they meet the requirements and therefore it didn't matter who approved them (it later developed into a bit of socking as well, ultimately ending in his indef block but that is beside the point). If we didn't have this rule, what can we say against that argument? That it's not a "nice thing to do"? Not likely ;) Dropping a few rules is not going to make the overall thing less confusing IMHO. ≈ Chamal ^talk ¤ 01:38, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm probably one of DYK's biggest proponent for streamlining the rules and making them more simple for new users but I have to agree with Chamal's last point here. Dropping a few rules is not going have much of an impact. It like throwing a bottle of Aquafina on a house fire. While I applaud the initiative to trim some of the fat, the rules "problem" needs to be tackle on a much larger scale. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 14:38, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

H2 and C3 should certainly stay, they were included precisely because we have had issues with these occurrences before. D10 should also stay in my opinion. Not sure about F8, it depends whether or not the rules regarding x5 expansion have already been clarified elsewhere. Gatoclass (talk) 08:41, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I believe that H2 should stay in place in case it ever does become an issue again (ie. informing new user of moving own hook into prep areas before review completed). Also, believe these additional rules should be included (in short concise descriptions) on the main rules page, as it has been brought forward on occasion that editors were not even aware these existed. Even more important, is that new reviewers may also be unaware these additional rules exist. Calmer Waters 09:26, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Once again, I know a system that combines the rules with the additional rules ... Art LaPella (talk) 21:35, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for not coming back here earlier - I had to think about the points being raised. While they are all reasonable, I do think we recognize that simplifying the rules is a good thing. That may be through incremental changes (such as those I originally suggested), but also through full revisions such as Art's. There are different ways to approach this, and it's a pity that we now have two parallel systems. Ucucha 09:18, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes it is a pity. I'll just reemphasize the distinction between simplifying the written rules and simplifying the enforced rules. Turning written rules into unwritten rules makes the system harder to understand, not easier – although in the non-hierarchical system, each written rule makes it harder to find the other written rules. Art LaPella (talk) 22:53, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Cross-wiki shortcut

I recently came upon the page tt:DYK, which is a soft redirect to the DYK submission page located at Tatar Wikipedia. I came upon it my making exactly the typo the creator had in mind, so in that sense it was useful, but it just seemed sort of. . . odd. I just started a thread about it at meta, but I thought I should post here since it concerns DYK. I have no idea whether this sort of thing exists elsewhere. If everybody else is fine with it, that's OK with me, but I wanted to get some other opinions. Tt.wiki is small but active, if you were wondering, with 9 admins and 37 active users. Chick Bowen 05:33, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

It's somewhat useful for us (I've also come there once), but really you should be asking tt.wiki whether they have a problem with it. It's their wiki, after all. Ucucha 08:05, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

That's why I asked at meta; I don't know how to reach someone at tt. Chick Bowen 15:35, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Citations

I've seen people saying that citations need to be right after the hook, but I have seen many users have theirs accepted, like User:MPJ-DK, without it. What's up with that? Joe Chill (talk) 14:19, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

It's best if the citation is right after the hook, but it's not something reviwers, myself included, will always insist upon. This is partly because it's a rule that is frequently breached, so that it would add considerably to the overall workload to strictly enforce it. Often though, it will be pretty clear from the context that a nearby cite refers to the hook statement - when a run of sentences are all addressing the same issue, for example. I personally will generally enforce this rule when I have doubts that the nearest cite refers to the hook statement, and I assume that other reviewers have adopted a similar approach. Gatoclass (talk) 15:47, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

"Right after" means at the end of the sentence, or maybe at the next comma, not in mid-sentence after the actual words. Johnbod (talk) 15:53, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

We do have a rule saying that, but I don't personally think it's always necessary. I always look in the first ref following the fact in the hook to confirm it. That gets more difficult when the references are offline, of course. Ucucha 16:24, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I suppose I'm stricter about this when reviewing than most. If I can fix it off an on-line source, I'll do so, but if the sources are offline, I'll mark it as a problem. I also agree with Johnbod that this does not require mid-sentence refs though they are sometimes helpful (In the case of a comma separated list, for instance.) Bradjamesbrown (talk) 16:30, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Regarding citation of the hook, see DYK selection criteria: "The hook fact must have an inline citation right after it since the fact is an extraordinary claim; citing the hook fact at the end of the paragraph is not acceptable." Regards, —mattisse (Talk) 16:43, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

In the most ideal circumstance, you want to craft fully sourced paragraphs from one very good, very reliable source in order to minimize interruptions for the reader as they read the article. Obviously that is not always possible but it is ideal. On the other hand, requiring a source at the end of the sentence when all the other proceeding sentences are sourced to the same reference only promotes sloppy editing.^[1] It is needlessly redundant to make the reader see the same footnote repeated for successive lines just to satisfy some bureaucratic DYK rule.^[1] I understand the needs of the DYK reviewer which is why I think it is fair and logical to have the expectation that the DYK nominator note in the comment section where the hook is located and what footnotes supports it. That situation satisfies the needs of the reviewer without promoting sloppy editing and redundant referencing which can negatively impact our readers.^[1] Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 19:42, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

To bring context to the discussion, I believe Joe is talking about the recent DYK nomination of Metro (wrestler). The comments left before promotion to the queues can be seen here. I was stating that yes DYK hooks need to be cited directly after the hook; however, if it is presented in both the lead and the body of the article it would only need to be inline cite after the fact in the body. To do so in both would conflict with Wikipedia:Lead section#Citations. Now if the hook fact was only presented in the lead then, yes it would need to be cited there, as this is the only instance per Wikipedia:Did you know#Selection criteria. User:MPJ-DK in this instance was correct, as I hope this bring some clarity. Kindly Calmer Waters 02:09, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Speaking for myself, I am fine with citation at the end of the paragraph (default for FA/GA) or elsewhere, as long as I can locate it within a minute :) (I mean the hook is often in the lead and in the body and not cited in the lead). As to others. Please, can we not terrify the newcomers with "

The hook must be cited directly as it appears" when the actual reference is easy to locate? Materialscientist (talk) 02:18, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. It usually does not require too much effort to move / add the inline citation while verifing the submission if needed. Calmer Waters 02:41, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Queue 4 fix required

In hook 7 of Queue 4, The West Wing needs to be italicized. Thanks. --Bruce1ee^talk 05:48, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Done. Thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 05:51, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Backlog

Great gosh-a-mighty. I have never seen such a huge backlog! If the number of submissions doesn't slow down soon, we are going to have to do something. We can't let hooks continue to pile up at this rate. Gatoclass (talk) 07:32, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps further increase the update frequency? Ucucha 07:54, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

We may be able to pull off a 4 hour update with continued admin support. I would support moving the queue to an even 4 hour update until such time as the nomination page returns to the regular average 32-36 nominations with approx 200 nominations. DYK is nominations are fluid with demand. I suppose so should the update times. The 20+ day 8hour update was very helpful as this too might be. Calmer Waters 08:15, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Well a 4-hour update doesn't give people much chance to see the articles. But the Suggestions page is so slow for me right now I can barely even use it. Does anyone else support a 4 hour cycle? Gatoclass (talk) 09:57, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

A 4-hour cycle would cause us more work, but so would the alternative (selecting hooks for interestingness). If T:TDYK is too slow, we should perhaps think again of creating subpages - I know it's not ideal for Art, but it may relieve some of the problems with load time because you no longer have to load the entire page if you don't need to. Ucucha 10:02, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I guess we could try subpages. I wouldn't know how to do it though, and since the dates change all the time, I don't know what process could be used to change them. Gatoclass (talk) 10:06, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Maybe start with new nominations / older nominations subpages and modify the earier script from last month to move the remaining date onto the older nom subpage when an editor does the normal maint of moving up the older noms. The Queues verified hooks counter would somehow need modified. Does that make sense how I explained it? Calmer Waters 10:16, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, I don't know, it seems to me if we are going to try subpages we might as well try a complete breakdown. It does sound as if it will need programming skills to figure out how to do it though. Gatoclass (talk) 10:22, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) We would need a bot for that, I think. Something similar happens at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Old. Below, I have started some specifications to detail how it might work. Perhaps we can also recruit User:Mathbot here. Ucucha 10:28, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I would support a four-hour update cycle for now, to help burn off the flood of nominations we're sitting on right now- 305 sitting on the suggestions page. This would let us get caught back up in a spurt, rather than establishing the precedent of checkers making judgment calls on borderline-interesting hooks, which could be problematic after the WikiCup slows down and we go back to normal. Bradjamesbrown (talk) 14:23, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Is it possible to squeeze an extra hook in per update, perhaps by picking the shorter hooks rather than the longer hooks? Mjroots (talk) 16:03, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

That's problematic, because then we'd be left with bunches of longish hooks, and tons of those can't run together because they unbalance the main page. Bradjamesbrown (talk) 16:30, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) I think moving it to six hours for a while would be a better solution. It gives the hooks enough time on the main page, and finds a happy medium between work for admins and cutting down the backlog. The Wordsmith^Communicate 16:50, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

We are using six hours now. Ucucha 16:56, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm I thought we were at 8 for some reason. Yes, we need to either increase the update frequency or the number of hooks in the queues, so going down to 4 wouldn't be unreasonable The Wordsmith^Communicate 17:38, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Returned to 6 hour updates on 1 January of this year. Bradjamesbrown (talk) 18:17, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Alternate view:

I have a hunch that the number of submissions will drop off soon, as universities start their new term and students have less time on their hands. If we speed things up now (or increase the number of hooks in each queue), we are likely to find ourselves with a shortage of hooks in just a few weeks' time. On the other hand, if we hold things steady, we'll work off the backlog a few weeks from now after the pace of submissions drops. --Orlady (talk) 21:38, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I have added a temporary "PrepExtra" page to the Queue page so we can at least get as many verified hooks off the suggestions page as possible. See the new header below. Gatoclass (talk) 02:38, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I will try to rescue more of the old ones. Actually, I'd like to get to them before they get so old; the longer they stay, the more time we all waste (or at least I do) looking at them and thinking they are just too boring to deal with. --Una Smith (talk) 07:52, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Subpages

Subpages for every day: Template talk:Did you know/2010 January 11 etc.; and Template talk:Did you know/Special for the special occasions.
Template talk:Did you know transcludes all day pages and the special page with open nominations. A bot adds a new page every day and deletes every page from this page that no longer has any open nominations. (Of course old day pages remain, they're just no longer transcluded.)
Template talk:Did you know/Links only links to days with open nominations, but does not transclude them. Also updated by bot.
Template talk:Did you know/New transcludes the first six days of open nominations (like T:TDYK#Current suggestions).
Template talk:Did you know/Old transcludes other open nominations (like T:TDYK#Older nominations). Updated by bot.
Template:Editnotice/Group/Template talk:Did you know is used to give the same editnotice for every subpage.

Ucucha 10:28, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I would support a four

This would be something completely different then how the TT:DYK is currently setup; but, what if we used Transcluded subpages for each hook? In theory, the page would look the same; however, each hook would be located on a different small page. The TT:DYK nominations page would be maybe 10000 bytes instead of loading the 100000+ we currently get. As noms are promoted the pages would empty. A bot could be developed that would maintenance delete the blank pages or a cat can be setup. Very different, but sense we are throwing around ideas. It works well with here. Calmer Waters 16:34, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

That won't really help matters. We do that at FAC (one page for each nomination), but it loads just as slowly as if all the information were on one page. You also run the risk of reaching the template limit - there are only a certain number of templates that the page will evaluate when it loads (and then it just stops), and each subpage would count as one template. With those plus all the hook verification templates, it is possible that the limit would occasionally be reached. Karanacs (talk) 16:40, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

CW: that's something I also thought about, but template limits may indeed be detrimental to that. Do you know what the template limit exactly is? Here, we'd be loading potentially 600+ templates. (The confirmed templates should not be a problem, as they are subst'ed, but {{*mp}}, used in every single hook, is, as is the occasional {{-}} and perhaps {{DYKmake}}, which is however always commented out.) Ucucha 16:44, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

While the day-by-day page would be something I'd support- I'd oppose this present form of the proposal. The old pages should not be deleted as a matter of course. They're always going to be in the database, so for the rare times someone would need to go over the nomination, it should be left in public view- even if empty, anyone who needed to see it could do it in the history. Bradjamesbrown (talk) 00:28, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, that was an error on my part. The old day pages are to be just "deleted" from T:TDYK, so that they are no longer transcluded there; I don't mean to delete the actual pages like Template talk:Did you know/2010 January 11. Ucucha 08:15, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

The more I think about this, the more I like the idea. With the suggestions page so long, it seems like I get edit conflicted every second or third edit I make to that page, and edit conflicts on such a large page are a real pain. This proposal would at least reduce such occurrences. Bradjamesbrown (talk) 17:33, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Rule M5

Rule M5 reads:

M5: Articles that have appeared on the main page's In the News section are not eligible, nor are items that have been rejected for In The News (?) or that have already been on DYK once before (pre-expansion, for example).

I fully support rejecting ITN items- but why are items that were rejected for ITN also rejected here? ITN will reject items for no fault of the article- because they don't believe the subject is important enough news. If it's written, rejected over there, and submitted over here within five days, and otherwise meets all the DYK rules, where's the problem? Am I missing something? Bradjamesbrown (talk) 17:34, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The reasoning maybe to discourage "forum"-shopping--DYK shouldn't get the stuff ITN doesn't like. But really, I don't see that much of a problem there, and I think it'd actually be good if DYK has hooks related to current events. I would be in favor of striking the part about articles rejected for ITN. Ucucha 18:06, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I'll second that. As long as an article meets all other DYK rules, its rejection by ITN should not disqualify it from DYK. If it gets picked for ITN then it is disqualified from DYK but that is no hardship. ITNs are very hard to get. Mjroots (talk) 18:13, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

If memory serves me right, it wasn't necessarily "forum-shopping" but rather problems with the 5-Day rule for rejected ITN items since it normally took more than 5 days for an item to go through the ITN system. I don't remember all the details (probably about 2 years ago) but I think it was something along those lines. That said, I personally have no problem with striking that particular rule about rejected ITN but we should probably discuss whether the 5-Day rule will still be applied. If an item gets "quickly" rejected by ITN, it shouldn't be rejected for DYK outright simply because of that but we may have some WP:IAR cases with most rejected ITN items. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 21:50, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Just scrolling down a couple of sections, I can see one hook which comes from a rejected ITN nomination! Danube Wings Flight V5 8230, which appeared on Wednesday (fairly reasonable hits as well, at 3.5k). That one was rejected at ITN because ITN/C felt the incident was not that big a deal – it was more incompetence than anything else, and this isn't the first time its happened – but it's obviously a story that will still interest people.

For the small number of articles involved (only a minority of ITN nominations are based on or require new articles), I can't see the harm in allowing double nominations. If it goes on ITN, there's no point in it going on DYK as well, but its usually clear pretty quickly if the story has support to be posted on ITN. A story that has support at ITN/C with an article in a state to pass DYK would be posted to ITN very quickly! Physchim62 (talk) 01:21, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

We don't really enforce that five day rule that strictly, though do we? I think the rules already give us latitude to accept hooks that were added to the suggestions page while that day still existed. Bradjamesbrown (talk) 00:09, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm confused as to why rule M5 overlaps with rule D1, but I was asked by Ucucha to post my comments (copied from Wikipedia talk:A proposal to swap the Main Page positions of WP:ITN and WP:DYK) here:

The D1 "rule" contains a question mark because it was written when Art LaPella "wasn't sure what the consensus was." According to Art, the rationale is that "'Did You Know is not a consolation prize' for items that didn't make it into 'In The News'," but he acknowledges that he is unsure of "whether that notion has a consensus." And yet, there it is on the page (with the aforementioned question mark intact).

In my opinion, the idea is utterly outrageous. There are instances in which someone creates or expands an article to reflect new developments, but the subject matter is deemed unsuitable for ITN. Why on Earth should the item not be eligible for DYK simply because a well-meaning, hard-working editor misunderstood ITN's scope? I've seen comments along the lines of "nice job, but this would be a better fit at DYK" on many occasions, and now these hooks are being turned away on an arbitrary technicality designed to withhold content from readers as a means of punishing editors for failing to come straight to DYK? —David Levy 23:34, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I can explain why M5 overlaps D1. M5 is part of a system intended to replace WP:DYK and the Additional Rules. The compromise was to keep both the old and new systems, and the new system is called WP:Did you know/Learning DYK, as it is especially intended to explain DYK to newcomers. Art LaPella (talk) 00:16, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

After five days, there are no objections to dropping the part about articles rejected for ITN. In two days, this will have been here for a week; if there have been no objections by then, I will delete the part that says "nor are items that have been rejected for In The News (?)" from rules M5 and D1. This will reflect a consensus that we do want such articles to be eligible. Ucucha 09:21, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

It's gone. Ucucha 17:52, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Temporary "PrepExtra" page

I have added a temporary "PrepExtra" page to the Queue page. The new page contains ten DYK Prep templates. The idea behind it is to allow updaters to promote articles ahead of time so that we can remove as many hooks as possible from the Suggestions page, which is very heavily backlogged right now. We can dispense with the page when the backlog is fixed. Gatoclass (talk) 02:35, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Nice work Gatoclass. Calmer Waters 05:20, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I added a note to the top of the page on how to handle moving updates to the queue, so they don't get out of sequence. Gatoclass (talk) 11:53, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Would it be a good idea to add a link to that page in the DYK page navbox? I didn't even know the page existed before about 30 mins ago... JulieSpaulding (talk) 09:12, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Articles copy/pasted from PD sources

such as James Raine (died 1858), do we treat them as valid DYK candidates? Materialscientist (talk) 06:43, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

See rule M4. It's not explicitly forbidden, but remember that we also discount quotes because (at least partially) they are not original and not something the editor worked on. ≈ Chamal ^talk ¤ 06:58, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I think the general idea is that we need 1500 characters of original prose, hence our usual exclusion of quotes and material taken from other en.wiki articles. I think it should take more than just copy/pasting to qualify for DYK. If they also write a substantial amount of their own prose, then its fine if they encorporate PD text. The Wordsmith^Communicate 07:00, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

I remember looking at this nomination and seeing that the editor stated that it was "pasted" and hense did not require inline citations. I would take this as containing no prose and therefor in this particular instance being not eligible per our basic rule that the article must contain at least 1,500 characters of prose, as it is essentially all quoted text. Calmer Waters 07:18, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Just to inform you on the evolution of events: it was a double nomination (second part is fine); I disregarded the discussed article, moving the resulting single nom to prep2 (will appear there shortly). This can be changed back, but there seem to be a consensus that ample amount (1500 bytes) of personal writing is needed for a DYK nomination. Materialscientist (talk) 07:29, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree with disregarding articles that do not contain original text, as per the slightly ambiguously worded rule M4 and the reasoning given above. The second part of rule M4 doesn't seem entirely in keeping with current practice, though. Ucucha 08:07, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Guys, DYKs for such sources have been used for years (e.g.). Rather than change the rules suddenly for one nom, I think it would be fairer to seek review of the existing rules, and then by all means change/clarify them if there's agreement. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 08:35, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

As an editor that was not active in 2007 and the consensus back then, I'm open to any discussion that leads to clarification of existing rules and removal of ambiguous onesas they stand today with the evolution of the project. Calmer Waters 08:54, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Deacon, we do have a (slightly ambiguous) rule against this. Although it may not always have been enforced, it is a reasonable one. For clarity, it would be better to phrase it as: "Articles that consist only of inclusions of free data sources are not eligible for DYK. To be eligible, every article should have at least 1500 b of new text." Ucucha 09:05, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Ucucha, thanks for this, but I can read the rules as well as you, and they DO NOT say articles pasted from copyright expired reliable sources are invalid or not new as far as wiki is concerned. And indeed, practice is that that they are. If you think they shouldn't, that's fair enough, but that's a different question. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 18:14, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

It would have been better for me to say I was "strenghtening" as opposed to "clarifying" the rule. Ucucha 18:26, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

The article in question is going on the front page, and as it stands the only thing is that it won't be in bold nor recorded as a "DYK" on its talk page. It thus makes no difference in practice. The new rule you are proposing is a new rule. And it's possibly a good rule, what with the increasing nom to hook space ratio. However, the DNB is a high-quality source (esp. in regards to 19th and 18th century articles), and maybe not everyone would be enthusiastic about discouraging their importation to Wikipedia (in fact, there's a project to encourage it). It's not no work after all. The article has to be formatted, wiki-linked, paragraphed, modernised, categorised, double-checked, and so on ... this may be more work that a 1500 character pop-star article with two references. It's really something that should be discussed I would have thought. However,. I hope we agree that if a new rule is devised for this article, it should actually be a new rule, not one of many contradictory precedents unknown to any regular dyk worker two months from now. Cheers, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 18:52, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches on the subject of plagiarism: 'Plagiarism, as Wikipedia's article on the topic explains, "is the use or close imitation of the language and ideas of another author and representation of them as one's own original work." ' and "Material can be plagiarized from both copyrighted and public domain sources." It concludes that material must be reworded by editor to avoid plagiarism. At one point there was a "scandal" regarding plagiarized material in DYK articles appearing on the main page. {See past arguments on this talk page.) Regards, —mattisse (Talk) 18:55, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand ... there's a big template at the bottom of the article saying "this article incorporates text", so it's acknowledged and not presented as one's own work. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 19:02, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Read the Dispatch. It says specifically that quotes must be used. Also, in the dispatch there are templates suggested for use to address the problem, "such as {{Copypaste}} or {{Close paraphrase}} that are added to the top of a suspect section or article and may draw attention to the problem" if it is suspected a page is a copy/paste. —mattisse (Talk) 19:08, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

You understand now that the source is acknowledged by the template? We've been incorporating such sources for years on wiki for years, and six users editing a dispatch don't change policy. You get that too, right? So, Mattise, why is this relevant? Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 19:20, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

This has been discussed many times on this page, e.g. Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_41#How_to_remove_a_hook_from_the_queue.3F. It has been agreed on this page that even public domain copy/paste needs quotes to avoid plagiarism. Regards, —mattisse (Talk) 19:32, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

No, you're not getting it. Thanks for contributing your say anyway, Mattisse! All the best, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 19:43, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Deacon, I think at DYK we are highlighting the new things Wikipedia editors wrote, not what editors copy-pasted. DYK is "from Wikipedia's newest articles"; we're showcasing that Wikipedia is a dynamic encyclopedia where people continuously write new content. Your points about the article being from a high-quality source and the work needed to include it in Wikipedia are undoubtedly both true, but that should not necessarily imply such an article should be on Wikipedia; there are plenty of good things editor do at Wikipedia which cannot result in a DYK article. Ucucha 19:17, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that's an argument for changing the rules, but both precedent and the current rules allow it. Is there a program btw that would enable one to list all the DNB DYKs? I think that might be helpful. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 19:20, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Current rules do discourage it, though, even if they are not always followed. I understand this will overturn some precedents, and would like to know some other editors' opinions on it. Ucucha 19:26, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

However many times you say it, Deacon, nobody else seems to agree that cut n'paste has been acceptable, except perhaps in the distant past (pre-2006 perhaps). Johnbod (talk) 22:07, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
John, if you'd just clicked on one simple link above, you'd know that what you're saying is nonsense. I can only post the links, I can't make anyone read 'em. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 00:01, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

You mean Paterson? From 2007. I was doing DYKs then, & reviewing was a lot less stringent, but I'm pretty sure articles recognised as pure cut n'paste weren't accepted. As Agnes says below, there were discussions on how different US naval ship articles had to be. Johnbod (talk) 11:48, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

You're really missing the point, as "pure" cutting-and-pasting hasn't been under discussion here. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 21:30, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Just to add my two cents... I think cutting-and-pasting from PD sources is plagiarism and is embarrassing to the project (maybe it wasn't six or seven years ago, but it is now). I know this isn't the view of most of the community (WP:SHIPS does quite a bit of copy-pasting) but you know. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 23:41, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Amen! On another page there is a discussion of getting a bot to go take the newest round of PD content from older encyclopedias...seriously, is Wikipedia really still trying to get by with ripping off others work over doing its own? As for DYK, I firmly agree that no article should be a DYK article if its just copy/pasted text - it isn't new nor newly expanded, its just a copy of some existing stuff. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 06:13, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Do the readers care? Physchim62 (talk) 23:44, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, as far as I remember, that recent story with plagiarized article at the main page was picked up by DYK outsiders. Although that article was not a DYK article, but merely wikilinked to the hook, the request was to blank it immediately .. Materialscientist (talk) 23:48, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

@Rjanag, come on! If the best article in the whole Library of Babel is a DNB one, we use it word for word. We are a public domain encyclopedia. We don't give a crap if our content is original, only that it's free and of high quality. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 00:01, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

The issue then come when one wishes to expanded the "incorporated text" article with additional sources. It then becomes a "what's incorporated text and whats just not cited or sourced". If policy and copy right laws allow the practice, that's fine. However; I would ask that they be cited as such for DYK. One of the great things about DYK is bringing a new article to editor's attentions. This allows for copy editing and addition of information and sources. I am not suggesting changing the policy on how public domain sources are used, but the clarification that DYK submissions utilizing public domain sources follow the same rules as any other article submitted must abide by. Calmer Waters 01:36, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Apart from the fact that Wikipedia features our new (and original) content, there's another side to the story as well. You're right; Wikipedia doesn't give a crap about copying an article from a PD source. However, DYK does. It is partly (and unofficially) a way of rewarding editors for their effort in creating articles of acceptable quality. A lot of new editors are first encouraged by DYK, before they move on to bigger things like GA/FA with more experience. Copying from an external source, no matter how beneficial for the encyclopedia, requires very little effort, and would be unfair on those editors who spend a lot of time researching and writing one. If you think this is not a big deal, remember that to an experienced editor, writing a DYK is a piece of cake, but to a newbie it's quite a challenge. ≈ Chamal ^talk ¤ 03:39, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I've written several U.S. military officer articles using PD text taken from U.S. federal sources, but I always cast a wide net for further information so as to get a broader view of the man. For instance, this USAF biography of Gordon P. Saville has nearly 3800 characters, and I copied and pasted it to form the foundation of the article Gordon P. Saville. Before long I had added about more 4000 characters of readable prose, and brought in eight or nine more sources. In this manner, I think PD materials can be very useful. By themselves, PD paste jobs seem to me inadequate for DYK. Binksternet (talk) 04:11, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Chamal, the one thing that really should be clear from this discussion is that yes, some people believe what you're saying or want it to be the case, but that it isn't actually the case. And incidentally, if it's all about rewarding editors, then how come 12000 character high quality new articles get only one, the same as the usual 1500-2500 mediocrity? The culture of "rewarding editors" is fairly recent and derives from the fact that people go around boasting about how many dyks they "have", generating social competition. Maybe I'm ole fashioned, but DYK, like everything else in Wikipedia, really ought to be for the reader. ;) Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 21:25, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I didn't say it's all about rewarding editors. I don't give a damn about "crediting" either, but that's how it happens now whether we like it or not, and that's not likely to change anytime soon. I'm not sure what you intend to convey by the character comparison, because that is also not unique to DYK; a 10,000 character article can become a FA as much as a 40,000 one. Yes, it should be for the reader. But the reader doesn't care even if we just picked up some random fact from an year old article and put it up on the main page; it'll be the same old main page for them. That's why we have our standards, and those standards we should follow. Chamal ^talk _{stealth mode} 01:40, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Face it, DYK serves multiple purposes and people don't agree on what DYK is "for". It's for showcasing new material, it's for encouraging new contributors, it's for generating content, whatever. Half of the discussions at this page end up full of people talking at cross purposes because they are all assuming different "purposes" for the project. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:43, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I think the recent article Materialscientist referred to was the Charles Fryatt article - a copyvio, which I rewrote from scratch and later earned a DYK of its own. Mjroots (talk) 12:12, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Some history

Gato would probably be the best to chime in on this discussion since his articles did much to shape the DYK rules on using PD topics. But "back in the day" before we had a rule for everything, PD-content was acceptable but within reason. We featured many DYKs that relied heavily on the PD content from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships but these were never straight "cut and paste" jobs. Rather editors, like Gato, would invest a lot of time and effort to conform the PD text into wiki format, expanding it with modern and layman's language, adding pictures and info-box etc. So while all 1500 bytes of prose (or 5x expansion) wasn't 100% new editor content, it was decided that enough of the material was 100% new to Wikipedia content and so we accepted them for feature on DYK. Obviously the culture of DYK has changed quite a bit over the last couple years so consensus may now be against using PD content. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 23:25, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree that incorporating additional sources, wikilinking (especially fixing disambiguation links), adding pictures, adding an infobox, adding categories, and so on, is all good and sometimes difficult and skilled work, and shouldn't be characterised as "copy-paste". But the question for me has always been whether a template stating that the initial version of the article was a copy-paste from a PD source helps the reader or editor work out what state the article is in at the moment, or how different the current article they are reading is from the original PD text (has it got worse or better?). In my view, such a template doesn't help, and readers have to dig into the page history to really find out how much the article has changed. So I share the misgivings over such matters. My view is that doing a public reworking of PD texts while they are an active article can get messy. Incorporating and rewriting the text in stages can be better in the long run, even if more laborious. There are essentially two models:

(1) start from a large chunk of PD text and re-work and build on it to Wikipedia standards.
(2) start from a blank slate and build up bit by bit towards Wikipedia standards, using PD texts as references, rather than ways for someone to do the writing for you.

On the other hand (playing devil's advocate here) there are cases where PD texts are very telegraphic and short in what they say, and communicate specific information (e.g. biographical details or animal feeding habits) that can be difficult to rephrase (in some cases, rephrasing just makes things wrong). So using the same wording as found in the PD text can unavoidable sometimes, even though that leaves people open to (incorrect, IMO) accusations of plagiarism. I find most problems disappear if you dig hard enough for new sources and add new stuff, thus "adding value" to what was there orignally. There has been lots of discussion on this in the past at the Wikipedia talk:Plagiarism talk page. Carcharoth (talk) 14:21, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion, putting adequately written PD text into your own words is a total waste of effort that could be spent much more productively doing other things. I spent about three months copy-pasting a couple of hundred PD articles from DANFS a couple of years ago, if I had had to stop and put all that in my own words, it would have taken far longer and probably only introduced inadvertent errors.

Your comment about trying to figure out in a PD article which text is from the PD source and which from other sources is a problem that besets all wikipedia content, not just PD-based articles. When you have a free encyclopedia anyone can edit, there are constantly people adding information with no sourcing at all, let alone with confused sourcing, so I don't see that PD-based articles are especially problematic in that regard.

As to the eligibility question regarding DYK, firstly it isn't really an argument to say as some people have above that PD articles should not be eligible because people haven't put enough work into them, when some DYK reviewers hand out DYK awards to people who have contributed no more than a single sentence to an article. That aside, the current state of play regarding PD article eligibility here is that a PD article will generally qualify if it is fully wikified, well written and well presented, although additional sources are preferred. Gatoclass (talk) 15:28, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

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