Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 86

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All Queues are empty...

...following the last update. Admin needed to update them from preps. Thanks! Yazan (talk) 16:07, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

  • I will if I have time, thanks for the alert. Maybe a faster admin is also around :-) Yngvadottir (talk) 16:31, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
I've loaded up one set. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:36, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Can Template:Did you know nominations/Skyfall (song) be promoted into Prep 3 or Prep 4?

The Skyfall nomination has been in the Special Occasion Holding area for October 23 for some time, but some issues were found with the nomination. These were fixed by the nominator on October 16, but no one checked them out until I did just now, and I've restored approval.

However, this means I can't also promote the hook, because someone should check my work as part of the promotion process. Prep 3 would run the hook at 09:00 London time on October 23; Prep 4 at 17:00 London time. Both are appropriate under the circumstances. Waiting for the as yet unfilled Prep 1 would miss the date entirely. If it is promoted to either prep, try not to displace a European hook into Prep 1, as that is Europe's overnight, and will be missed by local Wikipedians who are most likely to be interested. Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:24, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

  •  Done. I had to pull a European hook to avoid having two songs in one set. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:33, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Thank you. I'll see about moving that European hook (and the other one that was incomprehensibly loaded into to that prep area) into the next available prep area, once a prep or two is moved into the next available queue(s). BlueMoonset (talk) 16:49, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Am I the only one who is disappointed in that completely boring hook? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 04:20, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
  • It's non-View to a Kill Bond; boring seems fitting. :P GRAPPLE X 04:23, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
  • You're going to argue Roger Moore over (say) Sean Connery, and/or Duran Duran over (say) Paul McCartney or Shirley Bassey? Get out of my sight. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:09, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
  • I absolutely stand by the fact that the Shirley Bassey heard on those Bond themes is not the actual and talented Shirley Bassey of "The Rhythm Divine". Otherwise, rabble rabble rabble rabble. GRAPPLE X 06:17, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

More reviews needed

Reviewing has slowed down, and older nominations still need attention. Here's the latest list of older hooks needing review; I've probably missed a couple, but here's what is unreviewed or ready for a new review, submitted through October 9.

Please remember to strike out reviewed hooks. Many thanks to everyone who takes time to reduce our considerable backlog. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:51, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Our lead hook on the main page leads to Investigation of potential copyright issue

Muhlenbergia pungens. Can we please take it down? promote another one instead? AND QUICKLY? Yazan (talk) 01:42, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

  • (ec) The editor who tagged the article is a new(?) editor, and comes with a rather combative attitude as can be seen here on Main Page errors. Nevertheless, I've looked into the article and there's a fair amount of close paraphrasing that it should be taken down, but this is complicated by the fact that it's a lead hook.Yazan (talk) 01:53, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict)Agreed, but copyvio issues are hardly within my area of expertise, so I didn't have the confidence to remove the template. Yazan (talk) 02:00, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) Elegant solution to let the previous lead hook stay. Only one of the remaining hooks was a picture hook (Namus), but that would have left five on the main page, which is awfully short. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:56, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oops. Never mind. I see that Queue 2 was the source of the new lead hook. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:58, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
  • I reopened the M. pungens nom too, as I think this can still be dealt with. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:00, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
  • This is the second time the editor has done this type of hit and run copyvio claim, the first article is still being reverted by that user to the copyvio template, but they are not willing to participate in improvement of the article or clarification of what is plagiarized or too closely paraphrased. The user indicated elsewhere they have been editing since before 2006 but is not willing to indicate under what usernames. --Kevmin § 04:14, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
  • The user's problematic behavior aside (which I completely agree about), the article has substantive close paraphrasing and copyvio from almost all the sources cited. Yazan (talk) 04:19, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Kevmin, if you actually read the template, you will see a link to the rewrite. I already told you my name, and you didn't read that either, it's "IP Editor." If you want a sock puppet investigation, go for it, because, after all, that removes all the copyvios instantly, and you can continue to post them without interference, and people can freely plagiarize and post bad science without interference. That is always such a brilliant ploy to an editor causing problems, like removing copyright violations and plagiariasms and bad science from the main page: obsess with their having edited before, and find their prior name above all else, because bad science is second to finding out my name, and if only you knew it then you could safely edit without interference. Quick, shut down Wikipedia until you find my name, because, if I had edited before, that means this isn't close paraphrasing. Shall I carry on about the name thing, since it appears that is so important on this article talk page? -Fjozk (talk) 17:29, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
  • I would suggest, as I've seen many do on your talk page, that you drop this unpleasant attitude and overall dickishness if you want anybody to engage you or take you seriously. We're all volunteers here, and we're trying to work together. There's a million other ways to go about this, and you choose the most disruptive way. You have less than 200 edits, and 70% of these are on talk pages attacking other editors. Calm down, will you? Yazan (talk) 18:04, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Actually, no, I don't have around 140 talk page attack edits. Do I get a free one for every WikiBully episode of AutomaticStrikeout's? That reduces the count quite a bit more. Try not to be a dick about asking folks not to be a dick by producing false evidence of dickishness, please. Thanks. -Fjozk (talk) 23:33, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
  • This is bizarre to me. The version in question is a mundane, factual description of the plant. There is no place for creative writing in an entry like this. It follows standard terminology and sequence in giving standard information on the structure and habitat of the plant. For example:
  • Article: The panicle is open, with a red or purple tinge.
  • Nebraska. State Board of Agriculture (1890): Panicle open, reddish or purplish.
  • Institute of Renewable Natural Resources (2012): Panicles more or less open.
  • Utah State U (undated): Open panicle 3-6" long and 1-3" wide, with branches and hairlike pedicels spreading widely and much longer than the spikelets.
Several editors contributed to the article before it was promoted. Presumably was checked by others. Can anyone point out any instance of close paraphrasing of creative expression, as opposed to mere facts? Aymatth2 (talk) 17:47, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
This does seem a bit strange to me as well. Scientific descriptions are necessarily limited in terms of creative expression simply of the degree of standardisation in terminology and sequencing. Aymatth2's quotes above make the point very well. The four sources say very similar things. Are they "closely paraphrasing" or simply reflecting a standardised approach and wording? Prioryman (talk) 18:19, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
How bizarre, I can write scientific descriptions without having to copy every phrase from a source, and I can synthesize the information, write it coherently without stringing unrelated sentences and phrases together in random order, and get an article without plagiarizing. It is not true that all scientific descriptions are identical, must be copied one from the other, and that it is okay to plagiarize them since they are scientific writing.
It is the argument most commonly offered by Wikipedia editors, that one cannot synthesize scientific descriptions because there is only one known way in the universe to write a description of an organism. False. -Fjozk (talk) 23:38, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

How do we stop the Gibraltar DYKs?

First of all, from an editorial point of view, you've done Gibraltar to death. Gibraltar, while an interesting place, constitutes just 6.8 km2 of the Earth's surface. It's time to give the other 510,071,993.2 km2 it's fair share.

Second, the whole Gibraltarpedia thing is a disgrace. I can't believe we're still running Gibraltar DYKs.
--A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 13:30, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

"Second, the whole Gibraltarpedia thing is a disgrace. I can't believe we're still running Gibraltar DYKs."

Why exactly? Because you resent the fact that several people are obviously being paid for their involvement with it, or because wikipedia's information content has dramatically improved for such a small place which you can't handle? Love it or loathe it nobody can really deny that the coverage of Gibraltar is improving with many new interesting articles.♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:35, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

  • If you have another 6.8 square kilometres (2.6 sq mi) you'd like to write about? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:35, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
As long as all the articles are within policy and do not try to push any point of view, I don't really see the problem. If you really want more variety, try generating more hooks of other topics. Cambalachero (talk) 13:44, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Why should we do anything? As long as Gibraltar-related articles pass our standard criteria they should be promoted to DYK. The ultimate goal of their creation may not have always been encyclopedic, but our treatment of the issue should not deviate from its encyclopedic focus. Statistically, the frequency of Gibraltar-related DYKs isn't that much different from other subjects, however, the issue has been overhyped and news articles don't reflect the facts and their context. That being said, Gibraltar-related queue management and distribution has been sensible enough after the publicization of the issue.--— ZjarriRrethues — talk 13:47, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't disagree that there are a lot of Gibraltar DYKs. But, do you know what's even more tiresome than the Gibraltar DYKs? All the complaints and the hand-wringing about them. IronGargoyle (talk) 14:18, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Totally agree about the tiresomeness of the complaints. There's a lot of really good work going on to improve our coverage of this city, which has resulted in a lot of good content being produced. A.B. should show more respect for others' contributions. Prioryman (talk) 20:38, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
Prioryman, self-serving statements are not actually more tiresome than anything else. There have been far too many Gibraltargate DYKs put through—a ridiculous number. And Australian olympic and paralympic articles. It's time to call a halt to this product placement and topic skew on the main page. The fact that you have a CoI with respect to Gibraltargate didn't occur to you? Tony (talk) 00:49, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm not going to revisit this argument because I know you're not persuadable (as your puerile "Gibraltargate" term shows), but for the record, no, I don't have a COI. Prioryman (talk) 00:53, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Keep it tidy boys, I've been blocked for much less than "puerile". Tony is quite right though, why on Earth do all these articles have to go through DYK? Malleus Fatuorum 00:57, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
... unless it's promotional, which of course it is. Malleus Fatuorum 01:01, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Why shouldn't they? They're all fine articles, well written and with good photos, and people have gone to a lot of trouble to produce them. As long as they meet the DYK criteria, there's no reason why their quality and their contributors' efforts shouldn't be rewarded. There's no urgency about running them (with one exception I'll come back to) so spacing them out won't be a problem. Did anyone ask "why do all these Olympic/Indonesia/mushroom/racehorses articles have to go through DYK?" No, they didn't, and there were far more of those. In any case, I anticipate that the number of articles being produced is likely to tail off within a few weeks, as many of the low-hanging fruit have been picked already. As for "promotional", that argument has already been dealt with and left in the trash can where it belongs. Prioryman (talk) 01:04, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Malleus: Because the sales pitch to paying clients was that they would get content featured on the main page of Wikipedia, and clients were told that there was value in being so featured. Duh.Dan Murphy (talk) 01:06, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
"You may well be right, I couldn't possibly comment." Malleus Fatuorum 01:36, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The whole DYK process got screwed up when we started allowing self-nominations. Staszek Lem (talk) 21:16, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure how that's relevant when the vast majority of these nominations aren't self-made. Besides, I don't think I've ever seen anyone else complaining that self-nominations are bad. Prioryman (talk) 21:27, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Well, I am complaining. It is self-gratification. 96% of DYK's make me say "huh? so what?", rather than "whoa!" I stopped reading them half year after I joined wikipedia. I made several nominations (non-self), and none of them passed (not even rejected; simply ignored). I guess everybody was busy pushing Gibraltar. "Did you know ... that Earl of Gray died of podagra?" Really, now. "..."A Change Is Gonna Come" was the first episode of Grey's Anatomy in which Isaiah Washington did not appear?" Wow! I didnt know and now I know. For the nearest 3 minutes. Staszek Lem (talk) 21:45, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
When was there a time when self-nominations were not allowed? The second nomination DYK received was a self-nomination.[1] --Allen3 talk 21:34, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Too bad. BTW, did you read the thext you linked? just follow the rules, try not to be boring or provicinal and, oh yeah, follow the rules. :); ... (don't want to add it myself since I wrote it) It was good and now well ignoed advice abour "boring". Staszek Lem (talk) 21:45, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
I think that we of course should make efforts to have as exciting/interesting hooks as possible. However, it has been stated multiple times that "boring" isn't really an objective term. What's boring for one person might be exciting or captivating for another. I, for example, find computer-related articles extremely boring, and the hook you mentioned with nobility dying of podagra made me go look in the archives (couldn't find it - perhaps a joke reference?). And I don't it is fair to blame the Gibraltar hooks for to fact that Write-only memory (engineering) is stil needing a rereview (it's not been ignored, see further up this page). Manxruler (talk) 17:10, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
"I think it is clear that there should be a strong moratorium on any Gibraltar-related DYKs on the front page of Wikipedia. I would recommend a total ban on them for 5 years, but that might be too extreme. I support that we get wider community attention on the issue" - Jimbo Wales.

Two things which are starting to bug me. a] The belief that all Gibraltar DYKs are somehow degrading wikipedia and all contain adverts saying "Come to Gibraltar". b] All of the canvassing that is going on, especially by you Prioryman. I'm happy to do the odd review but please don't keep asking me to review and comment on things. Unless you start paying me of course hehe...♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:35, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

  • Personally these Gibraltar articles have got me thinking it must be a nice place to visit. Oh wait... Cloudbound (talk) 00:02, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

New reviewer needs mentoring/feedback

And I am to busy for that, even if it is my own DYK: [2]. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 19:49, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Don't have time to do that right now either, but I have called for a new reviewer and pointed out where the criteria are. Since said new reviewer appears to be a first-time DYK submitter, the review isn't required to cover the separately submitted DYK nomination. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:26, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Baby and bathwater

A useful comment and proposal - lets keep the baby. As you may not know I am probably one of the longest serving editors on the DYK project and although I don't update my score very frequently anymore I am one of the few who still update the nomination count. I differ in the views expressed above and elsewhere. I know that we do occasionally have GA articles as DYKs - it is possible, its not a bad thing. I have heard some say that DYK has no value and others who say its so valuable that cities will pay to be there - I haven't met any of the latter yet. Our project is led by the Director of Heritage and head of museums for Gibraltar. Today we are talking to all the ICT teachers that the government employs to show them how to use Wikipedia in their lessons.

Just to clear the air, we could easily amend the rules of the current Gibraltarpedia competition such that editors need only create an article that passes the en:DYK rules to gain the extra 2 points you get for having a DYK. Actually I hope that you will still allow good faith editors to edit on the subject of their choice.

Laura Hale has shown that displaying articles on the DYK front page does not result in any substantial benefit. The approachs to creating wiki towns around the world is not based on the DYK exposure. It is based on the success of the Monmouthpedia project. We have created a project that quite a few towns and cities want to have run in their town. We think we know why it was successful and we are trying to demonstrate that in Spain, Gibraltar and Morocco. (I think it would be quite a good idea to discuss how we do clone wiki towns and what the benefits are to Wikipedia - but not here.).

One of the contributing factors is the DYK project (In Danish, Hindi and English). Its not the exposure as a global advert, its the peer review and the enthusiasm amongst the contributors. DYK makes skilled and supported new editors. Not as much as it should (and did), but it does. A newbie can click on a DYK article and aspire to write one themselves. Many editors are not into writing GAs and FAs. DYK creates enthusiasm in editors. It could create more. Wikipedia feeds on enthusiasm. Its not the articles .... but the new and improving editors that is DYK's best product.

Wikipedia's mission can be achieved one city at a time. Monmouthpedia was the "coolest" in my opinion because we went to a town with no active Wikipedians. In Gibraltar's case we had one active Wikipedia (the guy who invited us). The Monmouth competitions fueled the work that was required - so we ran one. The prize is not important to anyone (bar one) I have spoken to (excluding critics and spectators), its the winning. The competition we ran in Monmouth wasn't won by a DYK regular - he/she didnt edit the English Wikipedia! The person currently in the lead is editting in four languages and hasn't had one DYK. (We do have some anglocentric views being expressed.)

So please don't lose the DYK project. Remember what it was created for. If you concentrate on increasing the quality then we will only have FAs on the main page and although they are incredibly well written they are not what (alone) brings back 400 plus million users every month. In Gibraltar we have about ~10 locals signed up as "new wikipedians" on the project page but many more involved via the local historians, ornithologists, divers, cavers, etc. One of the important differences between a wikiproject and a wiki town is that we have a lot of things happening in the real world. We are trying to make Wikipedia more successful. So I'd like to encourage those who have not already made conclusions that they need to consider what Wiki-towns and the DYK project delivers. Victuallers (talk) 10:20, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Roger, as you know, I'm a great admirer of the WP towns initiatives and of your innovations, which have made them possible. But I wonder why fewer Gib-related articles couldn't have been taken to GA standard and put on the main page via a shift from DYK stubbism to GA? In my view, DYK could be easily transformed at the stroke of a key. Three reforms are urgently required:
  • Base it on GAs, not recently created stubs (this would be a magnificent shot in the arm for the GA process, and all DYK regulars who work in good faith would migrate there—I have to say that those who walked out would expose themselves to suspicions of bad faith;
  • Get rid of this ruinous x5 rule, which is open to gaming;
  • Get rid of the appalling QPQ reviewing, which delivers poor-quality reviewing and is open to back-scratching abuse. Tony (talk) 09:19, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
On the contrary, only if DYK is assumed - with bad faith - to be about "stubbism" and antithetical to quality would it be possible to regard those not wanting to throw out DYK in favor of something else (or even to accommodate the cuckoo's egg of a GA insertion) as acting in bad faith. In other words, it depends whether you dichotomise in your assumptions or not. Pretty much no one on this page has argued against accommodating GAs on the Main Page; why do they have to replace DYK, in whole or in part? From where I sit, calling QPQ backscratching is projection - the GA process is far more open to that accusation. And the repeated calls for reduction of the 5-fold expansion rule demonstrate that if open to gaming, it's not perceived as such '-) A process has been proposed for properly examining the issue of GA's on the Main Page. Let's quit with the preemptive tarring of this project - which has different aims and, as someone has reminded us, several overlapping participants - with the brush of bad faith and obstructionism on the basis of assumptions that are not necessarily shared. --Yngvadottir (talk) 12:48, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm not assuming: the evidence is there for all to see. Why isn't the reviewing more rigorous, to start with? You raise a valuable point about GA reviewing: it could well be possible to insist on more than one reviewer for a GA to pass. This would be achievable by combining the reviewing resources at DYK (hopelessly inadequate for the gushing waterfall of hooks on the main page) with those of GA. Both forums and the main page would benefit enormously from recasting the whole thing. Tony (talk) 13:26, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Isn't a paucity of reviewers going to be a problem no matter how we configure? Last time I checked, the unreviewed GA backlog was considerable. How would you bring more reviewers on board, and how would you do quality control? The Interior (Talk) 13:44, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
The mere assertion that DYK is bad doesn't make it so. As with whether hooks are interesting, there's an element of taste. But at the risk of sounding like a broken record: DYK has different aims from GA, which is simply and solely about labeling an article, well, good. And I disagree about the reviewing being bad, although it's a lumpy system because an article is evaluated by multiple people. I believe that one of the few things on which I agree with Tony1 is a dislike of QPQ; but I suspect for opposite reasons :-) I'm afraid it does go back to assumptions. I don't see DYK as doing a bad job or being about collecting trophies or assume that it needs to be more like GA, let alone replaced with GA; I see it as better for Wikipedia for both to exist. (I think it would also be better for GA for it to have its own slot on the Main Page, but that's really for those who participate in the GA project, of whom I am not one.) Yngvadottir (talk) 15:38, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Victuallers, You say Monmouthpedia is "achieving Wikipedia's mission", it seems to me that it's achieving Monmouth's marketing goals. Why else would it win the "Excellence in Marketing" award at the Monmouthshire Business Awards, with the rationale being "advertising value for Monmouth alone has been estimated at £2.12million". That doesn't sound much like Wikipedia's mission. Gigs (talk) 17:03, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Review requirement

If a nomination has more than 1 article in the hook, shouldn't the QPQ be the same number of articles? There are nominations which follow this, but it not clearly stated in the rules. Thoughts... --Redtigerxyz Talk 07:18, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

It's recommended that they do so, but the rules say that a QPQ review can be done on an article for article or hook for hook basis. So a single-article QPQ can legally be used to balance a seven-article multi-hook nomination. However, the one thing that is against the rules is to use one credit from a multi-hook review to offset an entire multi-hook nomination. (Yes, someone tried.) BlueMoonset (talk) 08:29, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Time to close it down?

This whole episode (the Gibraltarpedia product placement debacle and its continuing unresolved aftermath) has left me somewhat puzzled about why exactly we need to continue with the whole DYK phenomenon. Wikipedia has changed over the years and we are (or should be) more about quality than quantity now. So why continue with DYK? Without voting, I would be interested in people's reasons for or against persisting with having this feature on the main page. --John (talk) 14:36, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

  • I personally consider any comment that could be seen as implying that Wikipedia is complete is a comment that is inherently biased, as there are still fairly important articles about non-Anglosphere topics which have not even been started. The simple fact that we want more variety on the main page (especially more non-Anglosphere topics) is a good reason to keep DYK: where else is the average reader going to learn about an African village? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:45, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
    You mean where else is an average reader going to learn about Gibraltaran cistern?Staszek Lem (talk) 15:18, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
    DYK =/= Gibraltarpedia, please remember that. Take a look at the queue for DYK, then take a look at the queue for TFA or TFL: which one has more topical diversity? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:24, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
    Hi Crisco. I agree with you that we've barely started on non-Anglospere topics. Do you know of any analysis of the geographic spread of DYK,TFA,etc. It would be interesting to see what happens if DYK was themed, only promoting articles about a single broad topic for a month, or a week might be better to tie in with various International Week of XYZ. Even one week on 'Sudan' would make a significant difference to that topical area. John Vandenberg (chat) 23:58, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree about "without voting". FA &GA are scrutinized for quality. DYK is seems scrutinized for size and other formal stuff. DYK long lost its "wow" apeal and became yet another self-gratification tool. Look that these self-noms who boast 50+ DYKs at their talk pages. I admit I have a bit of personal grudge here: not once I spotted a "wow"-type article (I agree it was my opinion) and nominated, only to see it safely buried in expered list, in the flood of mediorcicity, such as "that Lord Richard Cavendish's loan saved the Canterbury Association from financial collapse", which is not only non-"wow" but overhyped claim: the source says it was not a loan: he was only a guarantor which is hardly a feat, not clear if he wasted a penny, and what is more the mentioned sum was guaranteed by several people, not he alone. Staszek Lem (talk) 15:18, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

  • As the first wikipedian to be awarded a DYK medal (it happened 7 years ago), I think you have hit the nail on the head here. --Ghirla-трёп- 16:34, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
    • Agree too. It looks like self-gratification has become its raison d'être. AndreasKolbe JN466 20:42, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

DYK should remain where it is as it is a useful way of helping to promote new articles to the masses. It also encourages people to make edits and improve them which in turn improves Wikipedia. Yes it could be abused but that is why we put those safeguards in for the Gibraltar articles to ensure that it is not and also articles are checked at least 3 times before they are promoted. If the issue is (as above claims) that the hooks lack a wow factor then, simply all that is needed is reform of the rules to clarify it (as granted "hooky" is a vague term). I do wonder why this isn't being put to a !vote, perhaps because the result would come up as no consensus. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 16:22, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

  • As the instigator, I preferred to ask for people's reasons because asking for a vote is not supposed to be how a consensus is formed. How does it "promote new articles to the masses"? Do you have any evidence for that? --John (talk) 16:42, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
    • I think the fact that features on the main page promotes them as most people probably won't be aware of them until they featured on the main page. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 17:05, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

For what one person's opinion is worth - I like DYK, I think it's one of the best things about Wikipedia. It has multiple objectives/things it's useful for; I suspect that's part of the peoblem for some, but I like that. Namely: It's one of the few ways that content producers get strokes. It encourages both new articles and improvement of articles. The rules for acceptance of nominations may seem complex, but they are actually not at all arcane (considerably easier to understand and shoot for than a GA or an FA). It serves as a way to help people improve - the articles get critiqued and/or the editor is helped to improve them so that they get to pass, in a kind of editing workshop that is one of the best ways to help not just new editors but any editor. It draws in new contributors; many of us first learned about DYK when someone nominated one of our first articles. It encourages collaboration; there's a tradition of helpful critiquing, and as a spin-off from that, many editors submit DYKs as a pair or a group; I see much more of that at DYK than in other projects, and I see it leading to collaboration on GAs and FAs. For our readers, it provides an area of interest on the Main Page - some "hooks" may be boring to any one reader, but there will surely always be one or two of interest - and offsets the direness that tends to be present in In the News and On This Day. And it reflects the huge range of article topics. I hope it also draws readers in to the idea of editing, if only by reminding them that we have new content all the time, and therefore that people are constantly writing stuff ... I kind of hope they don't too often click a link and find an article in dire need of copyediting, but if they fix it and get bitten by the bug, I guess that's the silver lining in that cloud :-) ... A lot of Wikipedia, from the editing side, is competitive, cliquish, and bureaucratic. I like Did You Know because it isn't. I think it's fun for the readers, on balance. (Yup, Britannica doesn't have Did You Know. It also doesn't have In the News or On This Day, as far as I know, and it doesn't have infoboxes either. DYK's closest analogue is the quirky news section on sites like Yahoo!, and I think we're far more encyclopaedic than those. A good half-way between an internet news portal and a print encyclopedia, in other words.) And I think it's one of the most positive and useful editing environments for those who are here to make content - at least until they decide to run the GA gauntlet. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:51, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

  • Wikipedia achieved its current popularity because of the breadth of its coverage. When I tell people I edit WP, a common response is, "They have everything on there!". A free online encyclopedia with high quality, exhaustive entries on a limited scope of topics would be popular, but not the 5th most popular site on the planet. Like it or not, we are a middling quality encyclopedia of impressive breadth, which follows our mandate: "the sum of all human knowledge". DYK supports this mandate by incentivizing the coverage of new or under-covered subject areas. We should always seek a balance between breadth and depth, but never prioritize one above the other. The Interior (Talk) 16:53, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
I really like the idea of DYK. I think it's a great learning tool, and a nice additional way to get people clicking on links to get them inside the encylopedia looking around.
I really don't like the bureaucratic process, the gamesmanship, and (by far don't like) the award/reward culture that has grown up due to the process. I think the process should be scrapped.
I think a very healthy first step would be to remove DYK from being tied at all to any of the GAC/FAC processes whatsoever. Let DYK be a featured content process of its own. but instead of focusing on a requirement of a "stand alone article", a DYK could be based on any factoid of information found anywhere in the encyclopedia. And make sure the DYK in question is an exemplar of writing and sourcing.
I also think there should be 2 DYKs on the main page. A new one daily, and past one: every time someone clicks the page, a different random DYK of the past. - jc37 17:29, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
I would also like more focus on the fact and less on the article, but I would like to keep some article criteria such as minimum length. Regarding one fact per day, we could revitalise wp:fact of the day and bring it to the front page if it is working successfully. A long time ago I drafted a proposal to bring dyk-ness to fotd. See user:John Vandenberg/Worm of Facts. John Vandenberg (chat) 23:25, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
  • There are two things that I like about DYK. One, the size requirements encourage articles that are less stubby, whether they are new or expanded, which is all around a good thing. Two, the reward of seeing your articles receive some form of recognition keeps up the desire to contribute, which has to help with editor retention. Sure, some of the articles are of dubious notability or the hooks are boring, but I don't think of that as a fundamental problem with DYK. As an aside to jc37, "... remove DYK from being tied at all to any of the GAC/FAC processes whatsoever", what is the current link? Chris857 (talk) 17:40, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
    Sorry, was looking at several of the discussions/polls on this page. To be clearer, I think it should be entirely separated from the idea of a "stand alone article", and so by extension should be removed from any idea of "new article", as well as the idea of tying it to GAC or anything else which has to do with article presentation of information.
    DYK is the presentation of information in factoid form, and so should stay entirely out of the various article-related criteria. - jc37 18:00, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
I like the way it encourages folks to inline cite with a carrot rather than a stick. As far as completeness of coverage, there are still loads and loads of stubs to cover. Maybe it's time to have another sweep of stub cats to give contributors some idea of what is still stubby. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:43, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
Stubby, or even non-existent (for example List of bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in Michigan) Chris857 (talk) 02:38, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
English Wikipedia has become awfully provincial. The predominantly American constributors are not aware of the wider world around them. Let's take the capital of the Holy Roman Empire, its coverage in English Wikipedia is laughable: there are no articles about even major landmarks such as it:Municipio della Città Vecchia di Praga, it:Chiesa di San Nicola (Città Vecchia di Praga), it:Chiesa di San Nicola (Piccolo Quartiere di Praga). The world's oldest carpet? Spits of Azov Sea? --Ghirla-трёп- 06:31, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
  • The motion is based upon a false premise and presents a false dichotomy. The DYK process addresses quality in several ways and the articles which go through to the front page are better than the average Wikipedia article - just click random article to find something like Long Island Electric Railway, which would not pass the DYK quality tests. DYK is therefore raising the average level of quality and helps more generally by inculcating the requirements of quality into the general editing community. The English wikipedia adds about 1000 articles a day and so we're going to get quantity whether DYK exists or not. DYK is a sensible way of helping to actively manage this growth in a constructive and encouraging way. The alternative just seems to be anarchy and apathy. Warden (talk) 11:45, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Keep DYK. But simplify the rules in order to encourage more submissions from all those editors (like me) who have difficulty in following the procedures and cannot find simple instructions about how to review DYK submissions from others. I have been lucky to have had quite a number of my own articles on DYK over the years, but that's because others have nominated them for me. I tried to go through the procedure myself once but, although I finally succeeded in having my new article posted on the main pages, I found the procedure unnecessarily difficult to follow and decided it was too time-consuming for me to bother with again -- especially when the rules were adapted to require assessment of another DYK in parallel with a submission. Every day, I see lots of great new articles in the general area of culture (art, music, architecture, literature, language, etc.) but I am reluctant to nominate them for DYK as that would involve me in the "process". I believe that is the reason we have an inordinately high number of (very good) submissions about Bach cantatas, mushrooms and certain aspects of architecture, not to mention several hundred successes from those who are more comfortable with the rules and procedures. Some sort of assessment is of course necessary but why not make it a one paragraph response which even an idiot like me could fill out. The format would be: in submitting a new article (your own or someone else's) to DYK, confirm that it is really new and objective, ensure that it is at least 200 words long, give it a one line introduction (the so-called hook), make sure there are a couple of reliable references and see that it doesn't infringe copyright. The reviewer's task would then simply be to give it the green light or tell the editor who submitted it how to improve it (in everyday running prose rather than I checklist full of Wikipedia jargon). I think even I could cope with a procedure like that and it would certainly encourage far more submissions from the thousands of competent editors who have never dared to venture down the DYK path. I would even feel comfortable about telling newbies how to submit their work to DYK. While I am a strong supporter of Gibraltarpedia, the project has revealed how DYK can be "hijacked" for a cause, however worthy the cause may be. Let's try to generalize DYK's applicability by simplifying the process and widening the coverage. And in order not to upset all those who have been handling the existing process, we might first start by opening up an alternative approach in the form of a Wikipedia project page or even some kind of sandbox. Anyone interested? Or is this the wrong forum? --Ipigott (talk) 16:19, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

I love DYK. It exposes me to new articles on things, places, and people I never knew about. I'm a sponge for perusing these articles and can't be the only one who feels that way. I am also a contributor and do so because I love creating articles on things, places, and people that are new to me. So, no, I don't want to say goodbye to DYK. Ipigott has hit the nail on the head regarding what I believe is a common view regarding contributing to DYK, instruction creep to the point where even experienced editors are scratching their heads, trying to figure out the "how to". And yes, Gibraltarpedia, Olympics, and other focus areas will continue to find their way to DYK. But let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. --Rosiestep (talk) 16:43, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

All in favour of keeping the baby, but could we get rid of the bathwater all the same? ;) AndreasKolbe JN466 17:25, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Nuke it from orbit - it's the only way to be sure. DYK encapsulates in microcosm everything that has gone wrong with Wikipedia. Use the Main Page space for something else, especially something that actively tries to promote (i) CSB topics (ii) core topics (iii) major improvements to articles rated as high or medium importance by at least one WikiProject. It could even be something DYK-ish focussed on those 3 things, in which case, anything that doesn't fit those criteria can have a hiatus from being DYK-eligible for, say, 5 years. After 5 years, take stock and see where WP is and how DYK is serving it. Any articles not created or improved because the creators are put off by lack of DYK-eligibility under the new approach - well I won't weep for them. Bonus from this approach: the Gibraltarpedia problem, otherwise hard to solve, goes pretty well away, since by nature the suggested criteria mostly or entirely exclude topics of promotional interest. Rd232 talk 20:13, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I'd be on board with that. AndreasKolbe JN466 11:28, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm on-board too. DYK as currently framed directly contradicts its original aims. A class of repeat offenders is undermining it through overuse and topic-skew (which could so easily morph into product placement). Paid editing is allowed, and I do not believe DYK should be open to abuse for easy exposure, jumping the queue over more worthy featured and good content. In particular, the confusion of short and recently begun with slap-dash who cares low standards is telling. Bin it now and replace with either nothing (the main page is far too crowded already), or something much much better that includes a proportion of GAs. Tony (talk) 12:06, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Place links to the most notable/glaring stubs we can find...

Ok folks, let's try to link/list some interesting broad stubs (say, less than 100 words or 200 if bigger expansion feasible). Go for it to see what else we can expand for DYK Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:26, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Why bother? See below. Tony1 has decided that he has won and DYK is to be taken over by the GA crowd. I'll continue to expand articles and to write new articles, but I don't see the point of trying to fit in with our new overlord(s) and divine what kind of expansion is "worthy". Yngvadottir (talk) 15:55, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Please stay, Yngvadottir. Tony1's declaration of victory is very much premature. We don't have any overlords (new or old) yet. Manxruler (talk) 23:21, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Excuse me Yngvadottir, who said anything about being taken over by "the GA crowd"? It's a matter of improving a major section on the main page by widening its scope. If you're not willing to do that, yes, it's time to close it down. Tony (talk) 01:31, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
Also, I think there's a decent amount of overlap between the "DYK Crowd" and the "GA Crowd", at least in terms of the top performers. Mark Arsten (talk) 21:25, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Eliminate DYK completely (replacing it with new GA promotions seems like an ok idea), on several grounds:
    1. I have long felt that DYK is a spam and crap vector, ever since watching Child of Midnight and others fill it with stupid internet memes, which were in turn nowhere near as controversial as this Gibraltar stuff (about which I don't even have words at the moment). Even with good-faith, unconflicted article expansions about well-selected topics, low-quality or incorrect stuff often gets into DYK just because it was added too recently and hasn't been checked enough. It makes us look like idiots when that happens. I think there should not be such a short pipeline to the ultra-high-visibility main page. Anything on the main page should have had solid review.
    2. I don't think creating new articles should be much of a priority for Wikipedia in general any more. We have tons of stubby articles and not enough solid ones, so we should be concentrating on quality rather than quantity. Therefore, if people are motivated by mainpage exposure to work on articles, it's better to channel the motivation into promoting articles to GA, instead of creating more stubs.
    3. Again if mainpage exposure matters, FA is a way to get a lot of it for an article, but GA is sort of a meaningless merit badge. Replacing DYK with new GA's would give GA's a lot more impact and encourage people to work on them.
    4. (added) I also like RD232's post above, criticizing DYK and suggesting recognizing CSB and core topic contributions, etc. 67.119.3.105 (talk) 06:47, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
  • GA reviewers appear to consistently fail to check that sources match text, that sources support text, etc. There is material that passes WP:GNG that would not pass WP:DYK because of WP:V. GA is not meaningless at all. GA is very meaningful on its own. If GA is not as meaningful as DYK, then that indicates systematic problems for WP:GA. (And I'd argue the reason WP:GA is less meaningful is not because it doesn't appear on the main page, but the clear lack of criteria like DYK, the inability to get timely reviews, etc. all factor in making WP:GA less meaningful. While this discussion has been ongoing, no systematic efforts have been made to address these issues. Putting GAs into DYK does not kill DYK: It kills GA.)--LauraHale (talk) 21:02, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Any advice on Robert Wade (screenwriter) and Neal Purvis

I got involved in the Robert Wade article due to a BLP notice and have increased it to the 5x and am thinking about a nomination. It seems that the Neal Purvis would be an expected dual nomination, and while I havent yet done any investigation for Purvis, it would seem that both of the articles would be pretty much cut and paste copies of each other and that wouldnt really count as building the Purvis up, would it?

Any advice? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 15:17, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

There would be substantial overlap, but if you can find out anything distinct about Purvis - birth year, family, where he's from ... I'd say go for it. Since his article is still a one-line stub and so was Wade's when you started expanding, and you've got Wade up to quite adequate length. ... Actually, I'd say definitely go for it; I looked at the source and it substantiated my hunch that "going to school at Kent" refers to the university, and also has Purvis talking a bit about his father. You've got a couple of days; do it, nominate it by the deadline as a 2-article hook, and then see what the reviewer says. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:33, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) actually, Maybe you must merge two articles into Robert Wade and Neal Purvis. Or, should I say, rename "Robert Wade" into that suggested title. Then redirect "Neal Purvis" to that suggestion. I've renamed Glen Charles into Glen and Les Charles and redirected Les Charles into that current name. --George Ho (talk) 15:36, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the options, I moved to/merged to Neal Purvis and Robert Wade to keep it alpha order. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 02:19, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Reduce the expected length expansion of CORE articles to x2 like BLPs

My/our Marrakech article has been rejected from DYK based on the petty five day five times expansion "rule" even though it was cut to 8kb and ended up over 100kb. This article had more work put into it that many DYKs put together. 5 times is exceptionally difficult for top importance articles which are already most likely long and need an injection of quality. The five times does nothing to measure quality. I believe articles designated "top importance" articles which are high priority to develop, we need to be encouraging editors to expand them and nominate for DYK, not do the opposite and encourage them to reject core articles because they won't be long enough for DYK.I propose that we reduce the expected expansion for CORE articles to x 2 with sound sourcing and encourage editors to improve the more important articles without punishing them over petty rules.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 10:14, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. I would be in favour of that but in my opinion, just allowing it for top importance (according to their wikiprojects) leads to a fairly limited scope. Most top importance articles are already a good size and would be very hard to even 2x expand. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 12:18, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Regretfully - because I can imagine how much work went into that article improvement - I don't think there's a compelling enough need for this. The determination of what's a core-importance article is very subjective and the concept doesn't take into account the clustering of articles that is one aspect of this being an on-line encyclopaedia rather than a hard copy in which one has to thumb one's way to a related article, and which gives topics even fuzzier boundaries than in a traditional encyclopaedia. Also, if it's already so long and thorough that it's hard to expand it considerably, then isn't improving such an article what GA and FA recognition are for? There are still so many genuine stubs - and missing articles - and the BLP exemption is an anachronism going back to the BLP referencing push; with the current requirement that new BLP articles be referenced or deleted within a week, I think they can reasonably be submitted as new articles and would rather see that exemption removed than a new one added. --Yngvadottir (talk) 13:04, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes, that's true, but why not showcase them as DYKs? Its almost as if you're saying "articles can be too good for DYKs". Core/top importance articles yes it might be fuzzy in places but I think generally there are articles most would consider top importance. Some stream in Bavaria is obviously not as important as the article on Bavaria or Frankfurt or something.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 13:10, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Top importance ratings are very subjective and also depend upon the scope of the project. For example, Gateway of India is Wikipedia: WikiProject Mumbai, high for Wikipedia:WikiProject Maharashtra, mid for Wikipedia:WikiProject India. Will Gateway of India be eligible for 2X? --Redtigerxyz Talk 13:22, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
I would consider it a high importance article, not top importance, core would be Mumbai of course. Yet we do have article importance ratings so obviously some people consider them worthy.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 13:25, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I support having Vital articles sharing the same level of importance as BLPs, and dropping the requirement to 2x expansion to encourage people to work on them. But I agree that "top" importance articles for various Wikiprojects is a bit subjective. Marrakech is listed as a level 4 vital article, so it would qualify. Of course, the other way to work around this would be to promote the article to GA, and then have it be eligible for DYK if the current vote is allowed to pass.... In any case, impressive work on the Marrakech expansion, Dr. Blofeld. Kudos! --Tea with toast (話) 03:04, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

The Broadmoor Hospital, or the Broadmoor Lunatic Asylum (05 May 2004)

The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Wikipedia:Recent_additions/2004/May#5_May_2004

I am pretty sure that the Broadmoor Hospital, or the Broadmoor Lunatic Asylum, is NOT "the most famous" mental institution (usually now called specifically "mental hospitals", and never "institutions", which is now a synonym for the word "asylum") or lunatic asylum here in England, for there are in fact (at least) two that I know of. There is one rival nearby, usually called Bethlem (but pronounced "Bedlam") Royal Hospital, with one of its various, many official names being "the Royal Hospital of Saint Mary of Bethlehem". The name "Bedlam" even managed to enter the vocabulary of the English language as an adjective, and retained at least in the British branch thereof. -- KC9TV 11:18, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

So? I'm not sure what exactly do you want? the DYK is 8 years old (and we don't alter old DYKs). If it is the article info you're after, then go ahead and change it (if you have the proper sourcing, ofcourse). Yazan (talk) 11:29, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
I see. I thank you. -- KC9TV 11:52, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Wow, now that's Wikipedia archeology. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:53, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Apropos of Whatever

Completely off-topic thread unrelated to DYK in any way

Thought I'd change the subject from "...let's see if we can trounce DYK into non-existance..." (paraphrasing what's on Jimbo's page at the moment).

Subject: Over-eager sysops. I was working in a couple of my sandboxes on something not related to DYK. A sysop jumped in - within MINUTES of my doing a Save - and removed non-free images telling me I was in violation of whatever it was. It was my sandboxes. I'm not in favor of publishing non-free images. I don't think those things should exist at Commons, or anywhere on Wikipedia. But to have this happen at my sandboxes, without warning...well, it just positively makes me feel like Interpol is spying up inside my underwear. How very intrusive. Ewwwwwwwwwwww! — Maile (talk) 01:33, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

BTW, the sysop in question is not anyone I've seen posting over here, or anyone I've been aware of anywhere. But it's still positively creepy. — Maile (talk) 01:40, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Creepy, but the new link to an article/sandbox without a fair use rationale may have triggered some automated response to the sysop which could account for the quick action. Otherwise you can always hum to yourself ;) Froggerlaura ribbit 01:49, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Well, I think the sysop is a lurker of the creepy kind. I had been discussing this with a co-editor on their talk page. And I had posted on that user's talk page which sandbox I'd dropped the work into. And then - blam, blam, blam - that sysop not only reversed out images on two of my sandboxes, but went over on the main article I was trying to improve and reversed stuff out over there. It's too obvious. Like your hum suggestion. There's a lot of non-free images floating around on user pages, flaunted in fact on their main user page. — Maile (talk) 01:59, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
You can restore the images while in your sandbox if you place a colon before the file: prefix, like [[:File:Example.jpg]]. That way you don't lose the fact that an image exists, and it won't cause any problems over Non-Free Contet issues, since you'll just link to the image. Chris857 (talk) 02:47, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for the advice. I've abandoned that particular project forever. It would be a major re-working, which was fine at the time. But if a lurking sandbox creeper is going to second-guess me, it's not worth the effort. I don't think non-free images should be on Wikipedia ever, and sometimes it's not always easy at first-sight to determine that. But sandbox creeping by a sysop is not among "best practices" for encouraging participation. — Maile (talk) 11:35, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
"Sandbox creeper" is a bit paranoid. If you look at that admin's contributions for the period in question, it's clear that this was a routine cleanup of copyright violations and not targetting you specifically. (Why would you think you have the right to host non-free images in your userspace?) Mogism (talk) 12:31, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Let's extend the 5 day viability period to 10 days

I can be brief: there clearly is no consensus to extend the viability period to 10 days. There is no point in rehashing arguments pro and con--you can read them for yourself, and there's valid arguments on both sides. Sorry Dr. Blofeld. Drmies (talk) 04:05, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

DYK in recent times has become much more efficient in terms of waiting list, which has made DYK a much better place I think for its contributors. However, from my own perspective and I dare say several others, the 5 days deadline to nominate an article is too short a period to produce real quality. I often feel rushed and articles such as Hassan II Mosque suffer as a result because not enough time was given to be able to fully copy edit and then nom. The article has since improved but the nomination for it was rushed and attracted criticism. It is of course possible to produce a high quality article if started from a sandbox and if you work hard solely on one article for days but many editors myself included dislike working in a sandbox. From my angle, often working on several projects at the time, the time needed to conduct research, collaborate in writing an article while waiting for each other's inputs, and then fully copyedit/proof read it among other wiki and RL distractions before nomming needs to be longer than 5 days, especially as some of us on here have only a limited time to edit daily. I believe that if the deadline was relaxed to say 10 days, it would give editors more of a chance to produce something of higher quality or at least spot some of the more glaring errors/plagiarism before it hits the main page. I'm sure some will disagree, but as the most prolific contributor to DYK, I know that this for me at least would encourage more copyediting and quality improvements before my article collaborations hit the main page.♦ Dr. Blofeld 06:58, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

support Yes I like your idea of 10 days. Getting an article up to scratch in 5 days can be difficult and I am sure to have missed several opportunities because the time limit was passed. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:56, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Support -I agree with this, though we might start with 7 days & see if the sky falls in. But especially for those who eg only edit at weekends, 10 days would allow two weekends of work. It might also reduce the load on reviewers as I'm sure I'm not the only one who has sometimes nominated articles to meet the deadline, aware they were not fully finished and did not yet fully meet the criteria, but would do so after a few more days. Usually I do this before a reviewer gets to it, but not always. Johnbod (talk) 09:00, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Support I agree with this. In practise, it happens already, because it frequently takes another five days after nomination for a reviewer to look. But why not install it, 7 and 10 days would be fine with me, better for quality, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:47, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Support the 5-day rule has always struck me as arbitrary, having the grace period extended to 10 days would have minimal effect on the process but would give a boost to the quality. And at 10 days, I think we can safely make it a rigid deadline, whereby no article could be accepted beyond it (unlike how it is now, where many articles are slightly beyond the deadline, including some of mine). Yazan (talk) 13:11, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Support. Prefer the 10 days suggestion as that would give two full weekends to work on an article. But even 7 days would be better than 5. Surely article quality would improve. Dare I say vastly improve? --Rosiestep (talk) 14:26, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Support. Seems sensible. JN466 14:41, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Support.  —  Maile66 (talk) 15:11, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support as some people do not create their articles in user space and thus fall afoul of the five day rule while polishing the article. Better quality, please. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:17, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support Will improve quality and help contributors. Ryan Vesey 15:20, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose, unless there is a clear increase in the standards expected of new articles. Srsly. I think DYK is great because it encourages new article writers to aspire to a higher standard than merely writing a couple of sentences and surviving NPP, but DYK is not high on the quality ladder - far below GA or FA - so it really shouldn't take that long. The last time I focussed on DYK, I wrote 25 articles on ottoman taxation in 5 days - and still had time to do other work elsewhere on enwiki, too. If somebody said they needed more time to get hold of better images, or get input from a peer or whatever, I could believe that - but those aren't DYK prerequisites. There's no way that DYK-quality should need more than five days; but if the community wanted a 10 day deadline in conjunction with slightly higher quality requirements, I could support that. On a second issue, it looks like we have a long-term trend towards surpluses of DYK hooks - lowering the threshold would just make that problem worse. Unless, of course, we revisit the idea of faster rotation of hooks on the main page. Supply and demand... bobrayner (talk) 15:37, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. (ec) Five days is perfectly sufficient. No evidence has been offered that this, implemented, will improve anything. People won't start their improvements any sooner than they do now, 2 days from the deadline. If they do start sooner, the extra time will expose incomplete, underdeveloped content online for longer, and encourage slow, on-wiki work, which eventually will result in demands and complaints for even more time. A longer deadline also doubles the window of opportunity to lose the DYK to another, quicker, editor. No, people can, and do, now easily develop and expand articles and sections off mainspace (in a subpage, sandbox, or offline), to present as fait accompli. Smart creators and expanders craft their DYKs while working. We should be encouraging that, not discouraging it. --Lexein (talk) 15:51, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
See the history and diffs of Hassan II Mosque. There's proof. It was nommed several days too early before we'd had the chance to fully copyedit it based on "must meet deadline" only. When you're rushing to meet a deadline because you don't want to miss the DYK then there's something not right.♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:20, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
I don't think it's appropriate to set a longer deadline for all DYKs, to protect against the tiny minority of cases where a DYK gets nominated "too early" (which would apply to expansions and not new articles anyway). I'm sure we could have a more practical solution - along the lines of "If person A nominates an article whilst Person B is still expanding it and they don't feel ready, B can withdraw the nomination". Which is already technically possible, of course. Hassan II Mosque is a fine article, but it's hardly a typical DYK, and it seems that your argument hinges on one of the ways in which it differs most from the typical DYK. bobrayner (talk) 16:37, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
You seem to be getting confused here. Who said anything about "I don't think it's appropriate to set a longer deadline for all DYKs". Editors are free to nominate the article 1 minute after creation or 9 and half days after creation. What does it matter? Editors have the opportunity of anything up to 10 days to nominate their article. And yes it happens a lot that editors haven't got it up to the level they'd like to have within 5 days and wouldn't mind a couple more days to make final improvements before nomming. Editors can still nominate an article immediately after creation and get in on the main page in a couple of days or they can take a little longer and nominate when they're ready. I don't see why you've spoken out strongly against this. It is just intended to relax editors and not have to worry about getting it "done" in just a few days. By no means would allowing editors to have a bit longer period to nominate affect article output or productivity. If anything it should encourage quality.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:45, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Ahh, I was confused because your original proposal appeared to extend the deadline to 10 days without any caveats, but now it seems you're arguing the extension would only apply to a subset of DYK candidates..? OK, what are the conditions? (Bearing in mind that "5 days to write a DYK unless you want 10 days" is functionally equivalent to "10 days to write any DYK"). Alternatively, if you wanted higher quality, I would be right behind you; but the proposal people are !voting on is about making a threshold easier rather than harder.
I hope you don't mind me fixing your indentation again. (It seemed like you were replying to me, so I indented accordingly). bobrayner (talk) 18:09, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. For many of the reasons stated above. I think this proposal will also serve to increase the quality of articles submitted for DYK, as editors don't feel the need to rush an article in order to submit it to DYK by the fifth day. Cbl62 (talk) 17:21, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. This certainly sounds like a good idea to me. I personally don't run into problems with the timeframe requirement, because I tend to work on new or improved articles in my user space before moving them over to article space, but I recognise that not everyone works that way. Extending the timeframe will help to make contributing to DYK more approachable for more editors, which can only be a good thing. Prioryman (talk) 18:13, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. While it can be a tight thing unless one goes the userspace draft route, we already have a tradition of bending this rule a bit on a case by case basis: what used to be known as the "Swahili rule" (I believe the phrasing used to be, "Five days sometimes means six days or more in Swahili", with a link to WP:AGF or something), plus the culture of DYK being "Let's get this article to pass if at all possible" making it traditional for a reviewer to say not "This fails, it was not long enough when nominated" but rather to simply look at what it looks like on the day of the review (almost always days and sometimes more than a week after the nomination) or to say "This needs another 250 characters of prose, fix that." In other words it's not really much of a problem as it is, providing we maintain the focus on trying to get it to pass that the project has historically had. If on the other hand we increase the nominal length of time, the expected standards will inevitably rise, which will mitigate against one of our purposes, to encourage new editors. It's fairer and more useful for the reviewers to work with the article creators and/or nominators on improving the article than to ratchet up the expected standard from the get-go, even by implication. (There's GA for higher standards.) And it directly conflicts with another of our purposes, to showcase new articles. There's already a regrettably long delay before the average nomination gets to the Main Page; while I agree, something should be ready, and I recognize that people would still be free to nominate an article immediately after its creation, let's not further increase that average time without good reason. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:54, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The waiting list for the front-page exposure is already weeks long almost to a point of being ridiculous sometimes. There's enough time to keep working on improving new articles once they have been nominated within the first five days of creation. The actual size of the DYK nom page (as it stands now) is completely out of control due to transclusions. I remember how it used to look six years ago. Now, I'm almost scared to go there. To be perfectly honest I would rather see the deadline reduced to three (3) days in order to take the load of the shoulders of people who keep the DYK environment going. I feel that their devotion is being already abused enough by the existing rules. Do you guys sleep at all? Poeticbent talk 19:45, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Addendum. Sandboxes are not the only solution. I myself write in the Preview panel and than copy-paste the preformatted content into my text editor and save it there (not in Wiki) for the next day. I paste it back into Preview when I'm ready to continue. This way, the submitted entry has no prior history. However, I'm concerned mostly with the Template talk:Did you know ridiculous size right now, not the comfort of the happy-go-lucky nominators who flood it with half-baked articles. Poeticbent talk 20:23, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. If someone doesn't like working in a sandbox, that's their personal choice. But that's no reason to change a long-existing rule which has worked well for everyone else. The argument about quality improving is generally bogus -- any time there's a deadline, people will simply put things off until the last minute, then we'll have the same rushed situation as now. Agolib 20:40, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose People regularly work in sandboxes, and it can take days for an article to be reviewed.Secretlondon (talk) 20:58, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose While I have no doubt that some nominations would be improved by this change, my experience leads me to believe that the overall effect of this change is that it would only increase the number of poorly written, last minute nominations coming into the DYK process. Well written nominations require planning and effort. This proposal primarily rewards procrastination. --Allen3 talk 21:24, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Sorry I don't follow. How exactly? If the time window to nom an article is extended to 10 days if anything there should be less "last minute nominations" coming into the DYK process. If editors are given a 10 day period to write something instead of a 5 day period naturally you'd expect the articles to have the potential to be copyedited more and improved in 10 days than 5.♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:17, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Your premise is based upon the assumption that if a person is allowed 10 days to perform improvements instead of just 5 that they will use all 10 days to make improvements. Most people are lazy and will stop making improvements once they think a nomination meets a minimum acceptable standard. An extra 5 days provides no benefit if they are never used. Instead of being used to improve marginal nominations past the minimum level needed to prevent rejection, my experience on DYK suggests the extra 5 days will be used mostly to scrape together additional nominations. --Allen3 talk 13:58, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment I might be willing to support this is if it is explicitly bundled with some kind of increase in quality requirement. We should be trying to increase article quality but also decrease the number of nominations. Volunteer Marek  22:44, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose as already noted, if one is concerned about the time that writing/expanding an article will take, the use of sandboxes will eliminate the time limit problem. I very rarely will write my DYK's outside of my sandboxes now, which gives me much more freedom to get the article where I want it before I transfer it to a live article.--Kevmin § 23:52, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. It very easy to work offline (or in a sandbox), and thus avoid any stress with regards to the 5-day limit. I work offline, and only launch the article once it is ready. The 5-day window is not a problem at all. Manxruler (talk) 09:10, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support—and while we're at it, can this dreadful times-five rule, open to abuse, be binned immediately? DYKs should be judged on more sophisticated expansionary/length criteria by reviewers ... and if we can stop hurling so many for so short a time at the main page, perhaps we'll be able to spend our reviewing resources more carefully. Tony (talk) 09:13, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
I'd fully support that yes but as with this there will be opposers.♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:14, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Wrong place for the 5x discussion, why isn't it above instead? I think those who support that would be OK just flat out replacing 5x with GA. - hahnchen 14:14, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I would be willing to stretch to 7, but the backlog is struggling to be cleared even with 5, 10 will pen the floodgates and drown the process. Wizardman 14:53, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. As noted by others, sandboxes are available to prepare articles in a collaborative environment if they're likely to take more than five days to create or expand. If something unexpected comes up once in mainspace, as Yngvadottir has pointed out there is flexibility built into the system as long as the nomination is made in timely fashion. I share Wizardman's concerns above. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:30, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
OK, take the Marrakech article. 4 days in. Still a tremendous amount of work to do on writing it. might tke at least another week to fully write. reference and copyedit it to the GA standard I'm planning on. By then I'll have gone 5 days past the deadline and it will be rejected from DYK for being well past the deadline. So essentially DYK would be rejecting a quality article. I have no motivation writing in sandboxes, so why should I be punished for taking reasonable time to produce a good article? Great articles are not written in five days. Its amusing to me some of the oppose comments here which says "what good will an extra 5 days be if its never used". I'm telling you it would be frequently used by me and my co contributors to produce better quality, better structured articles in a relaxed time frame. What damage would it do to wikipedia to allow editors an extra couple of days if it is needed for longer articles? In answer to some of the "We have flexibility" arguments below, if this is the case I wasn't aware of it. I've had hooks rejected in the past for being nominated just hours after the deadline.♦ Dr. Blofeld 09:53, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
Given that you were shooting for DYK, and that you know the rules, it was your personal choice to perform your expansions in mainspace. Given your experience, you know well how long things take to do. Given all that, you probably should have done your expansions in userspace or sandbox. That you did not is no rationale for proposing a DYK rule change. It's a simple enough underestimation, so just relax, improve the article and call it that the win, especially if it goes to GA, which it conceivably might. Let's look at it another way: if anybody else had proposed a 10-day period a month ago, it would have been highly contentious then, as well. My point is, it wouldn't have been a good idea a month ago, and it's not a good idea now. --Lexein (talk) 11:04, 12 October 2012 (UTC) (heavily edited for tone --Lexein (talk) 14:50, 12 October 2012 (UTC))
  • Oppose. we already have, D9, and you don't have to start an article in mainspace, start it in user space and move it only when ready, same for an expansion, do that in user space too.PumpkinSky talk 00:41, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose: There is a lot of time to draft things in sandboxes. This can be done for articles already in the main space. Collaboration can still be done on these articles in the user space before going to the main space. --LauraHale (talk) 08:37, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support, Drafting things in sandboxes is helpful to get it started, but in principle contrary to cooperative editing. People that do not use sandboxes and decide to "go mainspace" asap will in this proposal havet the possibility to gradually improve to get the article up to standard. We're not in a hurry when writing wikipedia; and 5 days extra doesn't make it not-new anymore... L.tak (talk) 09:53, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose, if someone doesn't have the time to prepare a nomination within the deadline, the sandbox can be used. That being said, the proposed deadline would also increase DYK's backlog. To be honest, I think that the deadline should be decreased in order to reduce the backlog.--— ZjarriRrethues — talk 12:12, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support but only for new DYK nominators (those with <5 articles) who may not find out about DYKs or react quickly enough for our usual deadline. I think it is possible to produce a quality DYK in few hours; start-class is good enough for DYK. If one needs more time, it is not for DYK, but for B+ classes. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 16:06, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose because, in practice, we already have all of the flexibility that is being requested here -- Yngvadottir has expressed my thoughts rather well. No need to change the rule, but more participants need to understand the tradition of flexible interpretation of this rule. --Orlady (talk) 18:50, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support: Adding extra leeway time would make the DYK process slightly less rushed. DYK showcases new articles - does adding 5 days onto the existing 5 days make an article any less "new"? -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 13:00, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support -- Less rush may give people time to improve the quality of the article. --Tea with toast (話) 00:07, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
Also, I dislike encouraging editors to use a sandbox in order to make the 5 day deadline. Wikipedia is about collaboration and sandboxes limit that. I think it is better to add new content section by section to allow other editors time to make improvements to it. --Tea with toast (話) 06:46, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose Support I don't see the point - if an editor wants extra leeway then they can always develop the article in user space and then transfer it to article space afterwards. That's basically how I create all of my articles. You can work on the thing for several months (and in some cases I have) and there's no issue with DYK. Miyagawa (talk) 19:33, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Changed to support. The points made about collaboration and sandboxes are quite good. Taking that onboard, I agree with the ten day extension. Miyagawa (talk) 19:36, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Ideally, we'll all get free pie. Actually, we won't. Ideally, editors collaborate to help one editor get a DYK on the front page. Actually, it's excruciatingly rare, and not worth changing a DYK-wide rule, with all the actual negative impact it will have, for the anecdotal, unproven (meaning, nonexistent) "benefit." --Lexein (talk) 21:06, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
actual negative impact it will have - how is this statement not anecdotal? AIRcorn (talk) 02:19, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support But this could be introduced as a 7 day initially to see if the anticipated problems/benefits do arise, allowing them to be addressed before proceeding to the full 10 days. Arjayay (talk) 14:58, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Strong support for so many reasons.

    Five days made sense oh ... years ago, when a lot of what was submitted here couldn't really, and didn't have to, rise above the level of quick-and-dirty just-better-than-stubs. Hell, when I started, Wikipedia was still in its "Sources? We don' need no steenkin' sources" era. You could write an article that way in a day, nominate it for DYK (which itself was a chaotic mess that I strongly caution anyone who wasn't involved with DYK from before 2008 or so against looking up in the history. You may just go insane) and have a good chance of seeing it on the Main Page the next day. Take a look at it this way (literally): This was the way my first DYK seven years ago, back in days of old when knights were bold and BLP had not yet been invented, looked when it was linked from the Main Page. Nowadays, it takes more care to write an article you wouldn't want to be embarrassed by. I've had ten DYKs since my 500th in July, because it takes time to write and research an article.

    And let's face it, we can no longer guarantee new submitters that we will review their articles within five days, much less get them on the Main Page. While all the hooks currently on the Main Page did seem to make it there within a week, there are six nominated hooks that date to October 10, one day past the deadline, that are currently unreviewed. Three of those (one of which, granted, is a multi-article hook with a lot of them using the Linnaean names for plant species, so it's atypical) have been there since that day.

    But even a review is no guarantee that we'll put the hook on the Main Page ... look at that long section of nomination sections dating back to August, over two months ago, for problematic ones. While it seems at the moment like we're not too bad about ignoring our deadlines, neither can we say with a straight face that we strictly enforce them, either.

    And so I think we can survive giving editors 10 days. Hell, I think you could make a good case for 30 at this point. It would be more appropriate to my current pace, at the very least. Daniel Case (talk) 05:02, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

  • Wow - so wrong. Daniel, please read my oppose above. Your comment just makes me want the time from creation/expansion to nomination shortened to 4 days, with a hard cutoff. The objective of DYK is work/reward: create/expand an article, nominate for DYK, and move on. Implied in the deadline is learn to edit/write/source faster. Sounds like you want to create a social club for hanging out. We have IRC for that. I don't think you've provided substantive evidence that extending to 10 days (or OMFG 30) will help any part of the process, other than thoroughly devaluing DYK's purpose as a pass/fail improvement sprint. If you think the lag for review is too long, apply pressure there, rather than exposing live Wikipedia articles to, once again, leisurely, deadlines are for losers, low-quality improvements. There is such a thing as fatigue. One reason DYK, at 5 days, works so well, is that it has a built-in fatigue circuit-breaker - after 5 days, put down your pencil. --Lexein (talk) 22:48, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
I couldn't find your oppose, only a short followup to another comment that offered little, if any, insight that would help me understand your response to my carefully considered support reflecting seven years of unbroken DYK experience. OK, I found it. I actually don't disagree with it as much as you might be think because that's actually how I work. I don't use userspace sandboxes to develop articles, and sometimes I find an article benefits from unexpected collaboration prior to nomination which it wouldn't get in userspace. Poorly developed articles in userspace are already online and turn up in search results albeit lower down; most casual readers who click on them don't realize they're drafts and think, ugh, what crap.

Back to my original response: I find this aspect of your response most disturbing: The objective of DYK is work/reward: create/expand an article, nominate for DYK, and move on. Implied in the deadline is learn to edit/write/source faster." I think it's time that we added "Wikipedia is not a racecourse" to the already lengthy list on that page, then, if that's how you see this. Why the need for speed? If you want to encourage that, go over to Wikinews and become part of that community, where getting it out there quickly is an integral part of the site's function. I once was a journalist ... believe me I understand the importance of deadlines in the news context.

But Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a news site, regardless of how people do use it for that purpose when there is breaking news. And one that has gotten more serious about its requirements for articles since 2005. To put it metaphorically: back then we basically had a couple of microwaves, and fed what we cooked to people who cared only that they were fed. Now, we have a pretty good kitchen at our disposal, and feed people who've learned to discriminate in their tastes. It is thus insane to maintain the same deadlines for DYK that we had when we only had the microwaves.

There is a common saying among engineers that if you want it fast, good and cheap, you'll have to pick two out of three. Since we are all volunteers we've already picked "cheap" and we are left with "fast" or "good." I choose the latter. And, I should add, ten years (or even one) from now no one will care that the original article was written, sourced and researched in three days.

If DYK is to be about teaching new editors anything, it is about teaching them to be effective writers/researchers/editors. These are skills that are best developed with time and careful reflection, not at increasing speed. I think the review backlog reflects not a laggardliness on the community's part but an underlying awareness of this, hence giving people 30 days to develop articles would benefit everyone. And if you want to bang 'em out, you still could. No one would stop you as long as you got the job done. Daniel Case (talk) 18:52, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Come now, I wouldn't call it insane to keep the same deadlines if DYK hasn't changed. I think DYKA and its deadline set (what we have now), works fine for what it is and does. What you're asking for, I think, is really DYKB - a parallel, slower, non-sprint process. Same prize, different race entirely. I don't think it's fair to the sprinters to have to wait a month, just as it's unfair to the marathoners to have to sprint, when they, and the reviewers, are wrestling with larger articles. (And while we're on the subject, I want DYK on the front page to be dynamic (autoscrolling or autoupdating or resizable box) like a newsticker, so DYKs can go back to being visible for 24 hours. So there.) --Lexein (talk) 06:39, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
What the hell does fairness to editors of any speed have to do with it? As long as it gets on the Main Page eventually, why should anyone care? I sure don't. Daniel Case (talk) 17:59, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment. Extending the allowable time for DYK submissions could have the effect of extending the period during which incomplete and/or poor quality articles exist in article space, until their authors decide to polish them up for DYK.

    We should instead be strongly encouraging people to perform sufficient edits in sandboxes (or off-Wiki) so that articles don't appear in article space until they're actually ready.

    As for the argument about sandboxes inhibiting collaboration, almost all of the nominations with joint creation credits which we get are from people who know each other, and such collaborations can very easily continue in sandboxes. There's plenty of time for contributions from others after it's in article space. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 21:07, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

  • Oppose. I agree with Mandarax. We should be promoting a culture whereby article incubation is performed in the sandbox before publishing live. The reality of collaborations is that it usually occurs with like-minded editors who plan the collaboration beforehand. I think practical consequence of this proposal becoming successful is that the nom page will become longer and more unwieldy. Sasata (talk) 21:55, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment Neutral on the idea of an extension, however, we should not assume new editors know what a sandbox is or how to make use of it. I know this is going to make me sound a little slow, but I was editing three years and some months before anyone ever mentioned a sandbox to me. I was making some, shall we say, not top quality edits. Some that my conscience prodded me to go back and fix once I got better My very first try was instantly nominated for AFD. But someone finally said rather kindly, "Maybe you could write your articles in your sandbox." And then I had to do a bunch of research to find out what the heck they were talking about. My first edit was Dec 2006. My first sandbox was created April 2010. I don't care what anybody thinks is out there in the way of Wikipedia how-to stuff, and that everybody should use their sandbox. My account timeline speaks for itself. — Maile (talk) 22:03, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
  • You're not slow. Obvious sandbox wasn't obvious until this year, with the addition of the My sandbox link up top. I perhaps irrationally distrusted sandboxes as unprotected space, given that the main capital-S Sandbox is cleared within seconds. Your (and my) concerns about new users, I think, are met by the new link. --Lexein (talk) 22:48, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support because the current 5-day requirement is apparently intended to be flexible - see Wikipedia:Did you know/Not exactly - but most people don't realize it. This is confusing to non-regulars at this site, who don't realize the rigid-sounding requirement is actually not required. This can result in people not nominating articles that would have passed, and in valid nominations being rejected by inexperienced reviewers (thanks again, QPQ) who don't realize the 5 day rule isn't really a rule. Make the rule 10 days, and then enforce it. --MelanieN (talk) 14:20, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. I would like to see the period extended to at least 10 days. I'm not completely sure that I agree with any limit here because even an older article that has not been significantly updated lately may still have an interesting cited fact in it that would be a good DYK candidate (and could draw attention to articles that need it), but any improvement here is better than nothing, mainly because when an article does undergo a significant expansion (or is new) the first five days are often turbulent and giving the article a little more time to improve and settle down would be useful before directing thousands of people to it.Brianwc (talk) 17:24, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Weak Oppose. It's not as if we aren't already doing that. The 5-day rule is not really a rule. It's more of a guideline. Going over it for a few days is usually okay, and I've done so before. But extending it to 10 days would mean we would start considering DYKs submitted on the 11th or 15th day, and we all know that's already way too old and there'll be far more submissions than can be cleared in time. That said I'm one of those editors who don't write articles in sandboxes first. I write my articles directly, which can mean my articles can lose eligibility if I happen to get distracted in real life (it has happened). Perhaps 7 days?-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 12:47, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support yeepsi (Time for a chat?) 10:23, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support Extending the deadline to 10 days would give more editors and articles a chance to get involved. It would be up to the community as to which articles get selected. Cloudbound (talk) 00:00, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support per L.Tak. Also, the very short deadline makes DYK even more for insiders than it is otherwise. Why should we be forcing people to edit in what is (for many) an unnatural way, rather than just starting with a few lines and gradually expanding? If you're not a DYK insider, you wouldn't know that you are supposed to draft something hidden away in a sandbox, then move it to make it live. (BTW I used to participate in DYK, but then it got much to complicated for me to master, so now I don't anymore.) Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:40, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support - having just created a new article that took a week to get up to a reasonable std, five days is definitely too short. The only alternative is to "hord" then "unveal" the article rather than put it directly in mainspace where others can contribute to it - hardly great for collaboration. Oh, yeah, and some people have day jobs, which may leave the weekend as the only significant editing time (10 days would allow 2 weekends). Socrates2008 (Talk) 22:18, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support - makes it easier for people to contribute to DYK by taking some of the pressure off, and gives them more time to focus on quality rather than just getting to the required length before the deadline. Robofish (talk) 18:12, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Strong support for including GAs

The results above are not a simple binary, as usual in WP polls, and require more nuanced analysis.

There appear to be 72 explicit supports for the proposal to include GAs in DYK "within five days of being made GAs".

  • This includes Mabeenot and Resolute in the subsequent thread; and
  • It includes George Ho, who finally came out with "If this proposal passes, then limits on Good Articles should be set. The article MUST NOT be a former Good or Featured Article; this should disqualify an article from meeting a proposed criterion (NOT other criteria, like the classic fivefold)." To which John Vandenberg wrote: "Now that makes sense ;-) ." Ho then added an article must be a GA "for the FIRST TIME, not second or [more]".
  • It doesn't include Jimmy Wales, who in on record as saying "I remain in favor of uncoupling dyk from new articles.".
  • It doesn't include Malleus Fatuorum, who has repeatedly expressed misgivings with DYK.

There appear to be 49 opposes. In raw terms, 59.5% of participants favour the inclusion of GAs that have been passed up to five days previously. However, the figure of 49 opposes includes:

  • four who opposed because they disagree entirely with with DYK in its current form (e.g. "an embarrassment", Bmclaughlin9; "a cesspool", Sven Manguard, plus Gmatsuda; and an equivocal Dharma), rather than explicitly being against the idea of including GAs.
  • SilkTork and three others who are concerned about DYK reviewer workload, but apparently would consider a separate GA process for the main page; and 12 others who would be OK with a separate slot for GA on the main page (total of 16).

To summarise to the nearest percentage point: of 121 participants—

  • 72 (60%) favour the addition of GAs—a few with provisos;
  • 16 (13%) oppose the inclusion of GAs in the DYK section, but would consider a separate GA section on the main page;
  • 33 (27%) oppose any GAs on the main page.


I believe this represents consensus (73%, that is, 60 + 13) for the addition of GAs on the main page, and that a clear majority want all DYK hooks open to GAs.

As John Vandenberg has pointed out, "I dont think there is room on the front page to have an additional section for GAs." This leads us to the practical conclusion—a compromise—as proposed in the very first thread on this topic: that a maximum of one slot per shift be allocated to a GA. This would be a very conservative interpretation of the will of the participants.

I call on editors to collaborate in adding a fourth point to the eligibility criteria:

"... an article must have been in the past five days either:

  • created
  • expanded at least fivefold
  • newly sourced and expanded at least twofold (only if the article was an unsourced BLP)
  • been promoted to GA status (maximum of one per DYK shift)."

I also call on editors to iron out any potential issues in the new system. I've left a note on John Vandenberg's page alerting him to this thread. Tony (talk) 15:06, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

I have said it before but I must make the point again about ill-considered polls - polls should not be taken until clear alternatives have been presented, and arguments both for and against fully elucidated. It is clear from looking at the poll results that some !voters had no idea or very misconceived ideas about the proposal in question. This greatly detracts from the reliability of the poll results in my view. Having said that, I'm not sure I feel strongly enough about this issue to call for another poll, but I would like to hear how others feel about the situation. Gatoclass (talk) 16:02, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Splitting the oppose votes by interpreting their meaning and intentions of others is like putting words in other people's mouths. Please, take it easy. Clearly, there's no consensus to do anything. Besides, nobody monitors the actual validity of any of these votes anyways. Poeticbent talk 16:20, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Add another oppose; the way you're handling this proposal is a sham. Yazan (talk) 16:25, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Having just read Bluemoonset's oppose reasons above, where he points out the very high number of GA's passed in GA drives, I'm more inclined to think this poll is unreliable and that the issues need more discussion. Certainly, if up to 20 GA's a day are being passed, we are talking a different ball game since with that number of GA's being passed DYK will be completely swamped. Gatoclass (talk) 16:29, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Add another oppose. The proposals were not clearly laid out and consist of multiple suggestions by different editors. Also barely two weeks of "voting" is not long enough. What's the rush? Froggerlaura ribbit 16:33, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

I would suggest first starting with a general vote "GAs should be included in DYK in some form", then once there is a consensus for this basic issue move on to nominated in 5 days, number/ day, etc. Froggerlaura ribbit 16:40, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

I think Tony1's is a reasonable analysis, but I would strongly suggest closing this section and bringing in a respected, uninvolved person - one of the bureaucrats maybe - to assess the discussion. All we are going to end up with here is a lot of bickering in last-ditch attempts to influence the result. – Steel 16:44, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

I definately don't think this analysis has been done fairly. It appears that from the top he includes and disregards a couple off the bat based on some previous actions. He split the opposes into the "new GA sections" and "No GAs" without splitting the supports into the unconditionals and conditionals. I'll let him off the 2 new opposes but I don't think that this shows strong support as it has been weasled around to make it look like it is at first glance. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 16:55, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Tony1 is the last person who should be attempting an analysis of this sort; given his strident campaigning against DYK and the fact that this proposal essentially originated with him, he has no chance of being seen as unbiased. The poorly thought out nature of the initial proposal means that it's very unclear what people have actually voted for, and I agree entirely with what Froggerlaura suggests above. I'm also very surprised by the timing, given that discussion is still ongoing. Prioryman (talk) 17:19, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

If you look at the voting on the proposal on whether to add GAs to the main page at all, located at Talk:Main_Page#GA_Main_Page_slot_proposal, it's pretty much split down the middle. Which makes the people definitively in favor of adding GAs to the main page far less clearly in the majority. The whole thing looks like a mess, and Tony1's attempt to close this already flawed process prematurely and declare victory based on a selective reading of what occurred a dubious exercise. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:48, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Disregard the result and rerun as a properly organised RfC?

The initial question was very poorly thought out; no alternatives were presented; the issues were not fully set out before the poll was started, meaning that most voters haven't had enough information to make an informed decision; no thought was given by the proponents as to how the proposal would operate in practice; and there seems to have been no thought even of running a trial to see whether it was feasible. Given all of these problems, I suggest that the initial result, if it ends with there still being more support votes than opposing ones, should be disregarded. The outcome simply can't be reliable either way. If the proponents really want to push forward with the idea of running GAs in the DYK slot, I suggest that a new discussion:

  1. Should be listed as a proper RfC on a separate page;
  2. Should clearly set out options, with pros and cons for each;
  3. Should have a clearly defined timeframe (say two weeks to define a set of options, followed by two weeks to vote);
  4. Should be closed and summarised by an uninvolved party.

Doing it this way would ensure that contributors would have a clear idea of what they were voting for, what would need to be done to put the proposal(s) into effect, and what the consequences of a decision to go ahead would be. Prioryman (talk) 21:35, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, at the least. I mean, this is a pretty significant change that's being proposed here and we should be doing at least the minimum amount of organization and proper RfCing that we have done for other big proposals on the wiki in the past. SilverserenC 21:41, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Indeed, it should not be done in a slapdash method. I think disregarding this one is best as it is just a jumble. Personally, I think the question should be first, can't GA have it's own spot on the main page? If the answer to that RFC is no, then an RFC on placing GAs in with DYK should be done. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 21:48, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, the RfC for that was held on Talk:Main Page and it was very slap-dish. I mean, if you're going to use a watchlist notification for this RfC, then you definitely need to use one for that proposal as well. And the Main Page wasn't the right place to have the discussion anyways. SilverserenC 21:53, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
That's a very good point. There are two initial questions that I would like to see answered: first, should GAs appear on the Main Page in the first place? Second, should they appear in an existing content slot or given a new content slot? Only then (if the answer is to share an existing content slot) should we discuss how it would work in that slot. Let's take this step by step. Prioryman (talk) 21:55, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
I tend to agree. Tony is, in my view, misrepresenting the level of support, which is obfuscated by having major discussions occur in more than one venue. This was done improperly, and while I support the idea of allowing GAs to also become DYKs in general, I cannot support changes being made based on these discussions. ESPECIALLY when you have an editor with such a clear and obvious bias effectively closing his own proposal in a manner that suits his own viewpoint. Do it right, Tony. Resolute 01:48, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
2 weeks of voting and 120+ votes cast seems like enough to me warrant closing a discussion. Please don't start yet another proposal until the current ones have been resolved. I've contacted the Bureaucrats about this, so hopefully something can be worked out. I don't know what the correct protocol is for these things since I've never been involved in proposals like these, but that seemed to me like an appropriate thing to do. Calm down, everyone. Respect your fellow editors and don't attack other people.--Tea with toast (話) 02:49, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
That is the problem. There never was a definite proposal to approve or reject, methods for testing, integration, etc. Froggerlaura ribbit 04:56, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
It's not my proposal. I'd have never worded it that way. Tony (talk) 07:41, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
It was your idea, even if you didn't put forward the specific proposal. Going forward, would you support a properly organised RfC? Prioryman (talk) 08:47, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
Of course I support the framing of a properly constructed RfC. What did you have in mind? Tony (talk) 08:45, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
Complaints about the legitimacy of a well-frequented RfC should be made at its beginning, not at its end, when over 100 people have voted. ;) This looks like filibustering. AndreasKolbe JN466 16:20, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
And there was I, thinking I'd had an original idea for once :p Though this sounds like a good idea.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 10:46, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
  • I for one would love to see a properly formed RFC - there is support for doing something, but there is a real problem that any actual implementation is likely to be met with cries of "I didn't mean that!". We had two distinct discussion running at one point, with users unclear as to what was happening where. Take this as a general indication of support, but a structured RFC informed by previous debates and with multiple clear options is a really good idea before implementation - it's unlikely to overturn this discussion, I suspect, but it will make it a lot easier to move forward. Andrew Gray (talk) 10:35, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

I think a rerun with properly phrased options would be a good idea. In my comment I specifically did not address the issue of GAs appearing on the main page as that was not part of the question. How my response could either be included as support or opposition to a question that wasn't asked is a little beyond me. Also the conclusion that because one editor has said there is no more space on the main page means GAs have to go in the DYK slot is fundamentally flawed. A related question to raise through RfC would be, "should we increase the height of the main page to allow more content to be added?" The height of any Wikipedia page is only really limited by the consensus of the community (for the pedants, technological limitations do apply but they are for page sizes several orders of magnitude over what we have now). Road Wizard (talk) 15:50, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

There are other options too: for instance, if you look at the Main Page today, you'll see that the Today's Featured Picture has a huge amount of wasted space in it. One could imagine, for instance, splitting that slot and using the remaining space for a GA slot. Before anyone jumps on this, though, I'm just mentioning it to illustrate that there is a range of possible options here beyond shoehorning GAs into DYK. Prioryman (talk) 15:55, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
I don't think the motivation behind this has anything to do with GAs. It is a feeling that DYK needs reform, but no-one agrees how. Secretlondon (talk) 16:45, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
I disagree. Looking at several of the "support" votes in the proposal above, the VAST majority are purely about getting GA some recognition on the main page. While, yes, there were some votes based around improving DYK, it is clear that people were voting on two separate ideas. AgneCheese/Wine 16:39, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
I think that highlights the problem even further. The proposer meant to ask question X, many of the commentators answered question Y, and the attempted conclusion is that the majority of the participants supported position Z. If the RfC had started with questions X, Y and Z then you could make a conclusion based on them. However, as the original question was unclear and interpreted differently by the participants, any conclusion made will be flawed. Road Wizard (talk) 17:05, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

I think that a new RFC is inevitable and I also think that we should take some time to work out how best to phrase each question. I only ask that the "GA crowd" gets more input this time. I am strongly in that camp and dislike the feeling that we are getting shoehorned into putting GA articles onto the main page a particular way. It will bring a lot of benefits to the project, but will also display all our faults to the world and if we have some input we can try to control that. I do agree with Tony that the two RFC's taken together show some consensus for putting GAs on the main page in some form. That form is maybe not so clear. The new RFC probably needs to be structured with a general question first (should GA's be featured on the main page) and then go into details of the different ways they could be featured. AIRcorn (talk) 22:52, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I put a little draft together of some useful questions to ask before deciding whether to put GA content on the main page. Feel free to adapt it or expand on it if you want to flesh out ideas ready for a new RfC. Road Wizard (talk) 22:58, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
I put together the flowchart on the right to help flesh out what needs to be discussed here. The starting point has to be whether there is a consensus for including GAs on the Main Page in the first place. If there isn't, there's no point continuing. Assuming there is, we then need to determine whether GAs should appear in their own slot or share a slot with something else. If they have their own slot, space needs to be found; we need to determine whether to make room by increasing the height of the page or splitting an existing slot (in which case we need to determine which slot). If they share a slot with something else, we need to determine which existing slot is to be adapted. Once all that is done, we need to determine the practical mechanism by which GAs end up on the Main Page, how they are selected, how often they are turned over and so on. I think this can be done through a cascading series of RfCs; the first one to get a consensus for including GAs on the Main Page and then succeeding RfCs to work through the options. Doing it stepwise like this would have the great advantage of keeping things relatively simple, so that people know what they are voting for and have a simple range of options. Prioryman (talk) 23:11, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
This sounds eminently reasonable, but obviously the place for such an RfC is not here. Many of us sympathise with the idea of having a GA slot on the Main Page - even if we don't write GAs - but seeking from the start to inject them into another section jumps several steps ahead. (And is an attack on the DYK project, not an "improvement".) I take it the earlier RfC at Main Page talk was already closed? That seems to me the most appropriate venue. Yngvadottir (talk) 01:43, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
This makes no sense to me. I thought the whole point of the argument to allow GAs to be a part of DYK was to improve the quality of DYKs? This is a DYK talk page and the flow chart offers no option for improving DYKs. Where is the option on the flow chart for allowing GAs on the main page through DYK? --Tea with toast (話) 02:10, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
The "combined with an existing slot" covers this. AIRcorn (talk) 02:51, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
Another option for the chart would be to not split the existing mainpage slots and alternate DYK/other section with GA on certain days with both occupying the same spot on the page (similar to featured list). Froggerlaura ribbit 03:10, 24 October 2012 (UTC) (Also, is someone going to set up a proper Rfc at a single location? Prioryman's chart is a good basis. The proposal section above is growing into quite a mess and as Agne pointed out below the ultimate goals/proposals are vague.) Froggerlaura ribbit 04:37, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I have thought about this some more and think there could still be issues with editors not sure what they are voting for if a stepwise RFC is launched . For example last year there was Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Main Page features#Good articles, which asked the general question "include on the Main Page in some form" and there were oppose comments like "Not worth its own section; recently approved GAs being included with DYK would be enough". There were also conditional endorses like "As part of a higher-quality DYK, not as their own section". Both equate to the same rational, yet were in two different sections. At the end we would probably end up back in the same situation we have here. It might be better to have multiple questions in the one rfc; no GA's on the main page, GA's in there own section and GA's combined with DYK (plus any others that might have a chance of succeeding), or even better, just make one detailed proposal that takes into account the objections and supports from the last few rfcs that has the best chance of passing. AIRcorn (talk) 02:39, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Aircorn. If this whole rigmarole is going to be redone (although I still don't understand why the current voting that continues as we speak is invalid), then we should have 1 voting period where people vote for one of those 3 options. Again, this could be complicated by people throwing out their own ideas or voting for more than one option, but I think it is better than multiple voting sessions where it is unclear what people are voting for. --Tea with toast (話) 04:02, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Update. Hello, I don't know if the conversation about this matter has moved elsewhere in the days that I have been gone, but I'm interested to know what is up. From my count of the ongoing voting that has been taking place for more than 3 weeks, 150 votes have been cast with 91 Supports (61%) and 59 Oppose (39%). This is based strictly on those words in bold with no respect to any comments. I know since I already threw in my "Support" vote, my opinion is biased, but IMHO, that is a good majority. Can we simply agree on that or do we have to sit here and argue some more? I feel like if another poll were run, we would likely get the same result, but again, that's just my opinion. --Tea with toast (話) 03:40, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

First of all: Wikipedia is not a democracy and these are !votes, so a 50%+ actually means no-consensus for changing the status-quo, rather than a "majority". Secondly, this RfC's inherent flaws have been well explained; and a suggestion was tabled to re-run as a serious proposal with concise and clear options rather than start it with an argumentum ad Jimbonem. Feel free to do that! Yazan (talk) 04:01, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
As they are !votes then theoretically even less than 50% could also result in a change being enacted. In fact the more editors that comment the more confident the closer can be that the majority is a true reflection of what the community wants. A skilled editor will be able to draw some consensus out of the discussion, or at least come up with a way forward in their closing statement (I will be a little annoyed if it is just closed as no consensus with out an explanation). AIRcorn (talk) 00:25, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes indeed. Frankly we don't know what the hell the result of the RfC means (see Agne's comments below) since people were voting on different things. I'll do some work in the next few days on getting a serious and properly structured RfC together. Prioryman (talk) 08:01, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
We do know that there are a lot of editors that want to see a change of some sort. I wouldn't write it off yet, there has been a strong surge of support recently and it has a few more days to run (assuming it is closed after a month). AIRcorn (talk) 00:25, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

The Support/Oppose voters were voting on two different things

Looking at the comments in the proposal above, it is clear that no consensus can be derived from this jumbled mess because there were essentially two, very unclear, goals being put forth that each side was commenting on.
1.) Improving the DYK process
2.) Getting GAs a space on the Main Page
While nearly all of the "oppose" voters were debating the proposal based on how it accomplishes (or fails) goal #1, the "support" voters were all over the board in their reasoning, as if they were voting on separate proposals all together. Breaking down the stated reason given by the (as of this moment) 77 support votes we have:

  • (32%) 25 people stating their reason for supporting the proposal is mainly about improving the DYK process
  • (56%) 43 people stating their reason is to give more traffic/prominence/featuring of GA articles and to encourage editors to contribute more to the GA process, not necessary the DYK process. In fact, many of these comments don't even mention the phrase DYK once.
  • (12%) 9 people who gave general support with no reason or one that was unclear

Even if you give the "unclear" people to the side whose main purpose for supporting this proposal was improving the DYK process, it is clear that the majority of people commenting in favor of this proposal are doing it from the angle of getting some recognition or encouragement of GA--regardless of its impact on DYK. This is why this proposal fails to determine any consensus because the "oppose" voters who are pushing to figure out how this proposal could actual work, making suggestions that are purely about improving DYK and expressing concerns about DYK being flooded, and the process actually hurt, by GAs, can't have these "goal #1" concerns and issues be addressed by a proposal who the majority of supporters don't seem to really care about DYK at all and just want to put forth "goal #2" of getting GAs on the main page. If there is going to be another Rfc on this matter this dichotomy over what is the purpose of the proposal will need to be sorted out. AgneCheese/Wine 17:14, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I think you forgot to add Goal #3: Improve Wikipedia as a whole -- not for the ego of editors, but for the millions of readers in the world. That's what my vote went for. I think it is misleading to pigeon hole votes as to standing for one thing or another. People may actually have been voting for both goals 1&2 (&3), but just didn't take the time to write their full reasonings (after all, only the Support or Oppose is what would normally be counted, right?). I don't see how the current voting is hopelessly flawed, nor do I see how allowing a GA to go through the DYK process like any other article is unfeasible or would cause undue strain on the DYK process. --Tea with toast (話) 02:33, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
Ideally Goal #3 should be a de facto priority for everyone on Wikipedia and that should go without saying. Everyone wants to improve the project but How we further that goal is open to different opinions. That still doesn't negate the problem that arises when one half of the discussion is talking about apples while the other half is talking about oranges and trying to say there is consensus to make juice. AgneCheese/Wine 16:58, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Gibraltarpedia Rule change

After some discussion we have changed the rules of the Gibraltar competition so that there is no point advantage in getting articles on the front page. Basically we'll give editors the points for just having an article that passes DYK rules. Despite the many rumours, DYK is not what the Gibraltar project is about. DYK is a great project, but wiki education, community involvement, multi-lingual wikipedias, 3D modelling, mapping, cc by sa, augmented reality, etc are quite interesting too. This is what we are doing. Victuallers (talk) 12:38, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

That's really helpful. Thanks for that. SilverserenC 14:40, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
I agree, an excellent move. JohnCD (talk) 23:02, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for your hard work, your amendments, and your clarification. This should demonstrate to the community at large that what the Gibraltar group is really trying to do is meant to benefit the entire project. dci | TALK 05:13, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
That makes a big difference indeed.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 21:09, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
V, can you add a link to the competition rules in your post? Thanks. (I changed the subsection heading for searchability). --Lexein (talk) 22:04, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
Missed that Lexein - its now linked Victuallers (talk) 23:11, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Template:Did you know nominations/William Calvin Chase, Washington Bee

Can you fix this template as it should be Template:Did you know nominations/William Calvin Chase without article Washington Bee as "Bee" has already been a DYK. Thanks.--Doug Coldwell talk 13:21, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Note: the above message was left on my talk page. I think this requires an Administrator. It looks like the Washington Bee as a stand-alone template nominated by Allen3 (on Oct 23) was reviewed and made it to the Main Page yesterday. Template:Did you know nominations/William Calvin Chase, Washington Bee was nominated by Doug Caldwell on Oct 25, and perhaps did not know the Bee had already been nominated when naming the template. — Maile (talk) 13:38, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
If templates are moved, it breaks things, so I think just leave well enough alone and continue there with only William Calvin Chase bolded in hooks and to be reviewed, as has been happening. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:12, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
What gets broken? --Redrose64 (talk) 19:00, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
The most common breakage I know about is the "Review or comment" link from T:TDYK. Moving the template breaks it (because it points to the old subpage), but if you know what to fix, it's okay. Chris857 (talk) 19:15, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
That's the {{DYK nompage links}}. The {{DYKmake}} also usually ends up incorrect. I had already adjusted those in this case.

We've said this many times, but it doesn't hurt to say it again: please never move nomination subpages. The title of the subpage makes absolutely no difference; it could be the title of one article, or both, or really anything you want to call it. Template:Did you know nominations/Throatwobbler Mangrove would be fine. It doesn't matter. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 19:40, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I just noticed a hook in Prep 3 for the Nero, and I must say, it's all I can do to restrain myself from linking "luxury yacht" to "Throatwobbler Mangrove". MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 06:30, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Improving the quality of DYK hooks

Over on Jimbo's user talk page, Rich Farmbrough has posted some interesting comments about making DYK hooks more "hooky". There've certainly been some complaints about the quality of some DYK hooks, so it would perhaps be useful to do a bit of crowdsourcing of advice for creating more compelling hooks. I think it would be a good idea to have some kind of a writing guide for hooks to supplement the existing guidance at Wikipedia:Did you know#The hook. In that spirit, I'd like to kick off by offering some comments on my own experience of writing hooks.

Sometimes it's not easy to write interesting hooks - it takes some experience to do it right. I've written over 100 DYKs so far (see User:Prioryman/Did you know?). Some of them have been among the most-read DYKs of all time. My five top DYKs got over 150,000 page views between them, and there were two factors that helped with that. First, all but one appeared at the top of the DYK slot with a picture - any DYK that does that gets an automatic advantage. Second, I consciously tried to go for startling hooks that would make people want to find out more. For example, for those five top DYKs:

I think that it's rather like writing a newspaper headline - you only have a few seconds to catch people's interest and make them read whatever's below the headline, or in this case to click on the link. It's not always easy to get it right. One thing I've noticed is that DYKs where the main link is at the front of the hook do better in terms of page views than those where the hook is at the back, so I now consciously try to front-load the main link and have as few other links in the hook as possible, to reduce the likelihood that visitors will be distracted from the DYK article. For example, from my most recent DYK:

  • Ya`fur, according to an Islamic tradition now regarded as fictitious, was a talking donkey owned by the Prophet Muhammad that was descended from the one ridden by Jesus.

I've put the main link first and used secondary links sparingly - you could also wikilink Islam, donkey and probably other words, but this would be excessive and a distraction. There's no point stuffing a hook full of links if you want the readers to go to the DYK article rather than all those others. Prioryman (talk) 23:23, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Can you please provide a hook to the Farmbrough posting over on Jimbo Wales? Thanks. — Maile (talk) 00:02, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes, done - here it is. Prioryman (talk) 00:14, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
I've always stated on my nominations that anyone is free to suggest a better hook. Collaboration is helpful, after all.. SilverserenC 00:45, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
I have commented on this a few times before, and I will look for the first comment I made which I think included examples I found a little less than fascinating. As a reader I want to see something that makes me think "oh wow - really?" - and not be let down when I get to the target article. I am not going to be worried if the article is older than five days (or whatever the criteria is) - with the current size of Wikipedia I am unlikely to have read the article before. When DYK was created the encyclopedia was much much smaller. I would also rather see fewer DYKs than "weak" ones. Others may not agree of course. Rich Farmbrough, 01:50, 28 October 2012 (UTC).
I agree. It seems like the process now is part of a general trend towards rationalization where the existence of a procedure is preferred over case-by-case judgments. We could combat this trend by decreasing volume, decreasing the stringency of regulations, and attempting to increase quality. groupuscule (talk) 06:39, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Well, when people complain about "weak" DYKs I'm never quite sure what they mean. Articles sometimes have boring hooks, sure, but that doesn't make them bad articles - that's mistaking the quality of the advertising for the quality of the product. If the article is genuinely bad then that's a failure of the reviewing process. I'm not sure how "decreasing volume", which I've often seen people suggesting, would somehow cause quality to improve. If a bad article gets passed for DYK then the number of DYK slots per day isn't relevant, is it? It will still appear, just more slowly. It seems to me that quality improvements are more likely to be driven by more stringent reviewing, both of hooks and articles. Prioryman (talk) 07:47, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
I've seen some nominations where the nominators have said "yeah I know it's not a very interesting hook but it's the best I could do with the article." That's ridiculous. If an article doesn't have an interesting enough fact to make a good hook then that article should not be in DYK. Just because someone writes an article which meets the minimum DYK requirements, except the one that the hook should be interesting, does NOT mean that they have a God-given right to have their boring hook clutter up the front page, and cause more people to complain about the inferior quality of DYK. Agolib 20:35, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
In principle, yes. So how do we get everyone to agree what is a boring/interesting hook? Sasata (talk) 20:45, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Blue shift

Lady Godiva by John Collier
Lady Godiva by John Collier

The article historical figure was up at DYK recently. The main page hook was

Did you know ... that the historical figure of Lady Godiva (pictured) probably did not ride naked through the streets?

The nominal topic got about 5000 click-throughs which is low for a lead DYK. The reason, of course, is that the Lady Godiva link was more attractive and that got about 30,000 click-throughs. Now I was expecting her ladyship to be popular — that's why she was chosen for the hook. But the traffic was supposed to go to the DYK article and so, in the original hook proposal, Lady Godiva was not wikilinked — the only clickable link was the proper topic.

If the readers go off at a tangent like this then this makes a nonsense of the careful validation and checking of the nominal topic. We could require similar checking of all the blue links in the hook but that would be a burdensome chore. I suggest that we address this in one of the following ways:

  1. hooks should not be altered without consultation.
  2. hooks should only blue link the article which has been reviewed.
  3. if there are multiple blue links, they should all be piped to appropriate sections of the article which has been reviewed.

Warden (talk) 13:55, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I would have to strongly oppose any move to link only the new article(s) in a DYK hook. We are here to help educate the readership, not to direct them to links we think they should be reading. If the Lady Godiva got more page hits, that is presumably because more people were interested in the Lady Godiva link than the bolded link. That's fine by me, because presumably all those people know some things about Lady Godiva they didn't previously. Gatoclass (talk) 14:27, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Agreed. The goal of DYK is to get people reading things they would not have otherwise, and maybe making contributions. What link they click on does not matter much - any link that interests them. In this case the naked lady was more interesting than the academic dissertation. It does matter, I would say, that all articles linked in a hook are reasonable quality. We do not want readers to click through to a stub, which will make them less likely to come back. We must already have some guideline on this? Aymatth2 (talk) 14:33, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
  • I agree with Aymatth2 - it's important to make sure the other articles linked in a hook are reasonably in shape (and are correct links), but I'm a bit puzzled by the assumption that the aim is to get maximum hits on the boldfaced link, which is an undertone in the above section on making hooks interesting. The hook should be interesting, and I'm glad historical figure appears to have made the cut-off for hall of fame inclusion, but it isn't really about counting page views. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:53, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

The goal of DYK is to highlight new content. Let's face it – for most of the DYK articles, their few hours on the Main Page constitute their one and only brief chance to get widespread readership. This unique opportunity should not be diluted by diverting readers with links to articles which already are read thousands of times a day. If they're interested in that topic, they can easily go to the DYK article and click on the link there. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 19:12, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

  • I find hooks with vital links missing quite useless. If, in this instance, Lady Godiva wasn't linked, I'd ask myself: Don't we have an article on someone by that name? Many hooks are meaningless without the often explanatory secondary link. This hook would just be "Did you know ... that the historical figure of "someone" (pictured) probably did not ride naked through the streets?"Manxruler (talk) 20:21, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
  • I consider the Warden's idea too much rule creep and a bit of OWN. I definitely don't mind if Chrisye gets 5k hits over the album (the target) getting 300. They are reading, and maybe reading about something they wouldn't otherwise. Our goal is to spread knowledge. The number of views is secondary (although a nice bonus for the editors). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:16, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Reduce more queues?

Right now we have one queue and one prep area. Shall we go for two queues per day after Halloween is over in the United Kingdom at 00:00 UTC? --George Ho (talk) 08:08, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

You're looking at the wrong numbers George. What matters is that there are 34 approved hooks, we just need someone to put them into the prep areas within the next 24 hours. There's absolutely no need to reduce the number of queues. Yazan (talk) 13:48, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Oh... Right now I see one queue and four prep areas. Never mind then. --George Ho (talk) 21:41, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

DYK reviewers needed

We're up to 201 nominations, of which only 28 are approved. With four queues and three prep areas unfilled, that means we have only 28 approved hooks to fill 42 slots. That's not enough; we need more articles that are ready to go.

Here are 30 of our older nominations that need reviewing. Some only need a hook reviewed, some are regular reviews, some are multi-article hooks. Please pitch in and do what you can. Newer nominations also need attention. Many thanks.

Please remember to strike out entries once you've reviewed them. Thanks again. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:01, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

  • The presence of this thread suggests that far too few noms are being dismissed: quality and policy-compliance need to be taken more seriously. Tony (talk) 07:15, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
No, it indicates that DYK continues to work on carefully reviewing articles and working with the nominators/authors to get them into compliance with standards. DYK reviewing isn't about about "dismissing" articles any more than it's about rubberstamping them. And after all, this is the talk page for the DYK project. --Yngvadottir (talk) 12:35, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Tony, do you actually suggest that articles which haven't been given a full review (or even the starts of one) should be failed? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:54, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
  • He may not have meant to, but that's what his post actually does. BlueMoonset (talk) 09:14, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Adding another group of unreviewed hooks. Thanks for your great work on the ones already completed! BlueMoonset (talk) 01:12, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

All queues are empty

Admins, please move preps to queues. --Redtigerxyz Talk 18:26, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I think we were all waiting to see whether the last Halloween nomination, Door to Hell, would make it in time. I have to go offline and will not be back until well after the next DYK update, so I've gone ahead and moved the first Halloween set into Queue 6. However, I see that you have meanwhile moved Door to Hell to the first post-Halloween prep, Prep 3, as lead hook. I think it would be better to switch it with the current lead hook in Queue 6, particularly since November 1 is All Saints Day. But the lead hook in Queue 6 has already been moved back a few times to make way for hooks suited to a particular day or time, so not all will agree. An alternative is to switch Door to Hell with the baseball player hook in Queue 6 and have it not be a lead hook. (Since it is Asian-themed, Queue 6 is the most appropriate of the 3 Halloween sets for it to appear in.) There's 4 hours left; sorry, but I have to run now. Yngvadottir (talk) 19:53, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
I am able to perform the edits needed for a swap, but as my effort to place a Halloween themed lead into the set current at Queue 6 was reverted with the current "red star of death" I am loath to make the changes without clear consensus. Will check back before the set is promoted in case anyone comments in time to take action. As an aside, Template:Did you know nominations/Ghost Ship of Northumberland Strait has been approved and could use someone able to promote the hook to either Prep 1 or Prep 2. --Allen3 talk 21:17, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Allen3, go right ahead and make the changes. As the person who "reverted" the red star, it wasn't a straight reversion but moving the skeletons to the next prep area, when they would run at a time that the residents of Brittany, where the skeletons were found, would not be asleep. Checking, I saw that the red star had been the lead hook before the skeletons had been put there in their stead, and went with that, figuring that I was satisfying two promoters, since both their lead hooks were getting to be leads. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:44, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for responding. Unfortunately it became a moot issue once the bot loaded the set. --Allen3 talk 02:54, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

All queues are empty right now. And this is not a repeat of OP; one of preps must be a queue. --George Ho (talk) 08:43, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

I started preparing to move one before I had to go to work, and would have got right back to it either on break or on my return, but Allen3 was nice enough to move 2 sets into the queues and Casliber did another one, so we're set for today :-) Yngvadottir (talk) 15:01, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

New editors who need some guidance

I've noticed a couple of nominations by very new editors who have not quite caught the knack of DYK, and perhaps they could use some help from editors here who know the field of Psychology.

I count four editors involved, and they all seem to be students at Roosevelt University. Maybe there's a potential here to encourage new input at DYK and Wikipedia. Before their nominations are rejected entirely, perhaps some here might like to help these out with some hands-on guidance.— Maile (talk) 14:36, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Hey, I'm an OA for that course and I'll drop by and help out. Thanks for the heads-up. Keilana|Parlez ici 00:33, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
I've noticed on the talk pages of both articles, that these are the subject of classroom assignments. Reward System has this template:


Attentional Control has a more generic template about it being an educational assignment. — Maile (talk) 14:43, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Notification of DYK nominations

There does not appear to be any requirement on the person submitting a DYK nomination to notify the article creator/significant contributor about the nomination, even where there is active editing going on in the background. Hence awkward scenarios like this can come about. I'd like to propose that a notification template be created and that the DYK nomination procedure be updated to require notification of the article creator and significant contributor(s), if different from the nominator. This would address an issue of courtesy, promote better collaboration, as well as preventing any "gaming" of the DYK system. Socrates2008 (Talk) 07:42, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea. I always assumed that as a common courtesty people would ask the creator or majority contributor before nominating (similar to the system they have at FA, but it's more set in stone there) but a notification template does sound quite good. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 07:56, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Very good idea, let's do it. Prioryman (talk) 08:53, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Such a template already exists: Template:DYKNom, although I don't believe it is mandatory to use it at present. —Bruce1eetalk 09:04, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
There's another serious issue here besides common courtesy. The nominator has made no contributions at all, and is claiming authorship. The nominator's rationale can be found Here. Nominator claims authorship based on intent to contribute to the article at some unnamed future time. Under the circumstances, I believe this nomination should be credited as Socrates2008 being the only author. — Maile (talk) 11:47, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

I am sorry to see that something as innocuous as nomination of someone else's article has led to such a discussion, but it appears at this point that I am obliged to say something in my defence.

Firstly, with regard to my request to postpone review of the article until I have had a chance to expand it, I consider this to be a non-issue as I have delayed reviewing dozens of articles myself in response to similar requests at T:TDYK. If an article is still in the process of expansion, of course it only makes sense to delay review until the expansion is completed, firstly because the new content should also be reviewed, and secondly because an expanded article is usually a better one. I might also point out that articles are not supposed to be promoted until they are stable, and an article can hardly be described as stable when it is still in the process of expansion.

With regard to Socrates concerns about notification, I did in fact intend to notify him of the nomination, but only after either completing my expansion or abandoning it, as it seemed pointless to do so before greenlighting the article for review. I have been intending to explain this to him but just hadn't got around to it before this thread was initiated. Gatoclass (talk) 18:53, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

BTW, I will not be able to contribute to this discussion any further today as I am about to log off for the day. My apologies for any inconvenience. Gatoclass (talk) 19:02, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't wish to drag a dispute with another editor onto this page. Suffice to say that I don't agree with the rationale above, and that the outcome I'd like to see is a change to the DYK nomination procedure to prevent this from happening again - specifically, mandatory notification of the article creator/significant contributor when a third party nominates an article at DYK. Please indicate below if you support this proposal. Socrates2008 (Talk) 21:04, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree that notification is good form, and that good form wasn't followed here, but mandatory notification would be instruction creep and a violation of WP:BURO. IronGargoyle (talk) 13:37, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

At the moment, there's not even a suggestion to inform anyone. Socrates2008 (Talk) 09:44, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Robert Gill in Queue 4 right now

I believe the wording "(example pictured)" is in the wrong place in the sentence. Looks awkward. Shouldn't that follow the words "painted murals"? — Maile (talk) 23:13, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Just moving it would be ambiguous, making it incorrectly appear that an original mural rather than a copy may be what's pictured. Maybe it could be changed from "copying (example pictured) the painted murals" to "making copies (example pictured) of the painted murals". (Link to Q4.) MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 00:34, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
As a co-nom, no problem with that, though I can't see a big issue myself in the original. Johnbod (talk) 02:34, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

One GA per shift? Jimmy's on board for reforming DYK

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

As much as I disagree with Jimmy on some issues, he's at one with editors who believe DYK needs reform: "I remain in favor of uncoupling dyk from new articles."

I know that there's a solid proportion of editors who want good articles to be included—I saw a proposal for at least one per shift. This makes sense to me in terms of encouraging the logical progression from DYK to GA to FA vector. And boosting the profile of GA, which sorely neglected.

Could we at least start an RfC to do this? Tony (talk) 13:03, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

  • Well, that would disqualify all of my GAs except Gita Gutawa as they've all been featured on DYK before (generally before reaching GA, but...). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:46, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
 — Maile66 (talk) 13:51, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Essentially, yes, and few people cared for it. As DYKs cannot be on the mainpage more than once, that limits the scope a bit (as I implied above). Also, GAs are not of necessarily high quality; I've seen some GAs fail the DYK criteria. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:58, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
    That may be because the DYK criteria are absurd. Malleus Fatuorum 00:30, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Just my perspective and my own motivation for being here. DYK is a good place to hone acceptable Wikipedia writing. I'm not involved in GA, so I can't comment, except to say I can't imagine GA taking on articles of 1,500 characters. Wasn't DYK originally intended to encourage new writers? It still does that, just not exclusively. Yeah, we get a lot of repeaters, and I'm one of them. We get some editors who are exceptional. But there's a lot of newbies who are feeling their way through the dark on Wikipedia and it's bottomless pit of rules and regulations. Learning Wikipedia rules is not for the faint of heart. DYK is a better place for new people to start. GA on DYK just puts the brakes on DYK's original intent.  —  Maile66 (talk) 14:24, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
  • I object to that. Why should we dilute DYK with stuff from GA? If Wikipedia wants to raise the profile of GAs, then give them their own spot on the main page and leave DYK for the new, expanded and bewly sourced articles. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 14:04, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Integration of GA with DYK has been proposed a number of times before, it's something of a perennial proposal here but has always failed to gain consensus. I think Jimbo's reservations with regard to DYK have been known for a long time, Jimbo wants better quality control but who doesn't? We'd all like better quality control, and not just for DYK, but there are always going to be limits with a volunteer-run project that "anyone can edit" which also happens to be sorely lacking in effective dispute resolution procedures. Gatoclass (talk) 14:10, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

I think it would be fairly good idea, especially if it only took one slot. Why would it "dilute" DYK? I feel like it would improve it. In regards to Crisco's comment above, what would people think about a rule that allows GA's to appear again if they weren't a GA when they were on the main page and it's been at least a year? Ryan Vesey 14:28, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

I have no reason to suppose it would somehow "improve" DYK since quality control methods at GA are not necessarily better, and arguably less stringent, than at DYK. What it would do is make eligible articles and content that are not new, thus eliminating DYK's focus. This would open the submission floodgates even further, potentially leading to a decline in quality rather than an improvement. Gatoclass (talk) 14:40, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
I think an easy way to counteract this would be to create a separate page for GA noms. The process would be done separately and one GA per queue would mean there isn't a huge difficulty when promoting articles. I think the idea that GA quality controls aren't necessarily better is incorrect. While occasional poor articles slip through the GA process, it's requirements are much more stringent than DYK's. DYK doesn't require articles to comply with WP:LEAD GA does. If I could imagine a process, I'd put the GA at the bottom, no picture, no special reference. The only part I'd change is the "From Wikipedia's newest content: to reference good content as well. Ryan Vesey 14:48, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict)I like DYK because I like reading new interesting things. Most hooks are interesting and it catches the reader's attention. While the TFA is of high quality, the blurbs aren't usually as catchy. I think we should keep DYK for these reasons. Can we tighten up the quality? Sure. Can we include a GA? Yes and I agree with Ryan that if the GA was a DYK but not a GA at the time, it can be DYK again but with a different hook. We could have a separate section on the noms page for the GA candidates. Yes, we need more articles and reviewers at the this time.PumpkinSky talk 14:54, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
The GA process is supposedly more rigorous but it isn't necessarily the case. For example, GA relies on one reviewer while a DYK can have any number of reviewers. GA doesn't even have a minimum text requirement, DYK at least has a 1.5k minimum. Ultimately though, the quality of reviews in either system relies on the quality of reviewers, if GA merged with DYK, what is to stop rubber stamp reviews going through the same way they sometimes go through at DYK now? Finally, there is still the question of DYK's focus which is new content not recently promoted content. There are some good arguments for keeping the focus of DYK where it is currently IMO. Gatoclass (talk) 15:04, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
If we include GAs or merge with them, we should make the standard a combination of the most stringent parts of each.PumpkinSky talk 15:19, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
IMO DYK should continue to use the same nomination process, and allow GAs to be nominated just like new articles and expanded articles are allowed. John Vandenberg (chat) 16:12, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
None of my own articles have ever got to GA (or even managed to get reviewed..) so I'd have to withdraw from this area. I think playing DYK has led me to concentrate on making new articles at the expense of improving old ones. It certainly incentives the creation of new articles - but is this what we want? Secretlondon (talk) 16:49, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
By this do you mean incentivizing the creation of new articles or having a GA in the DYK slot? Ryan Vesey 17:21, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict)The current system incentivises the creation of new articles. Having one GA is neither here nor there, but it wouldn't address any of the problems with DYK. Secretlondon (talk) 17:45, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
The majority of my DYKs are 5x expansions, so I consider that argument a false dichtomy. Anyway, as far as this topic goes, I do support adding the odd GA to the mix, but I also have to say that name dropping Jimbo to try and encourage such a change is lame. He is not god, merely another editor with an opinion (and truth be told, I become more inclined to oppose any change framed in this fashion, on general prinicple). I also get a chuckle out of the "but GA doesn't even have 1500 character minimum!" argument, simply because no article that short could be comprehensive enough to pass a GA nomination. This really is WP:PEREN and likely to fail, but imo, the cleanest way to perform such an integration would be to allow only recently passed GAs to be nominated for DYK, and said article would have to follow the normal DYK nomination procedure. Resolute 17:37, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
"but GA doesn't even have 1500 character minimum!", well, it certainly does not. Chris857 (talk) 00:29, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
That is to my mind one of the big differences between Good articles and DYKs. DYK's seem to rely much more on objective criteria (word minimums, at least one reference per paragraph etc) whereas the criteria at Good articles are more subjective (prose, broadness, neutrality etc). It is up to a reviewer to decide if the article is broad enough, not an arbitrary number of words. AIRcorn (talk) 01:31, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Consensus in favour I find the arguments in favour of the proposal more compelling.
It is clear that GA is a serious standard for article quality and that there is a strong consensus over the whole project in favour of that position. I think the points in favour that we should cover GA quality articles, which are some of our best articles, on the front page to be compelling. I also think the argument that as we have so many articles we should move towards quality over quantity is a strong one.
With regards to the arguments against the proposal, the primary one seems to be that GA's should have a separate section on the front page. Given the quantity of new GA figures given by User:Tea with toast of ~5/day there isn't realistically the scope for a new section of content on the front page. During a GA drive where you get up to ~20 new GA's a day (per User:BlueMoonset) you probably could justify a whole section, but they don't occur that often. Additionally given that sort of level of GA passes I don't think the argument that DYK would be overwhelmed is particularly compelling either. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 12:54, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

From my reading of this debate and past ones, I have come to the conclusion of agreement with John Vandenberg, and propose that in the eligibility criteria, to the three options listed at the top an article must have been in the last 5 days either:

  • created
  • expanded at least fivefold
  • newly sourced and expanded at least twofold (only if the article was an unsourced BLP)

we should add a fourth:

  • been promoted to GA status

Then, this new GA would go through the DYK process in exactly the same way that any other article would, through the nomination, reviewing, and placing in a prep area. Comments, suggestions, and expressions of support or opposition are welcome.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 17:36, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

  • Oppose I really don't think we should be adding GAs into DYK, regardless of it we're going to be putting them through the DYK rules. The entire point of DYK is to showcase new content, to show that there are still subjects to be written about and new ones are being made every day. GA has nothing to do with this. And, on the other hand, I fully support GAs getting their own section on the main page. I don't get why this hasn't been done already anyways. But I definitely don't think they should be coupled with DYK. Even without considering the fact that most GAs would be prior DYKs, which would disqualify them from being nominated again. SilverserenC 17:59, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Regardless of intent, restricting GAs would hurt the process. Restricting articles that were part of "In the News" column is enough; we don't need irrelevant, pointless restrictions to please someone, like Jimmy. --George Ho (talk) 18:04, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
  • I don't understand your oppose, you are saying that restricting GAs would hurt the process, but opposing adding GAs. Ryan Vesey 18:10, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
  • We're adding, not restricting, right? Oh... well, still oppose anyway... because the GA status should be optional, not required. Well, promoting GA into Main Page is one thing, but making it as "new" wouldn't work... Some GAs would be demoted if quality goes bad quickly. GA one day; demoted next day. Simple? --George Ho (talk) 18:17, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
    Your oppose reason is not logical. :/ This proposal is to allow GAs to be put through the DYK process. The GA status is still optional.
    Regarding GA demotion, surely a GA going through the DYK process is more likely to be stable than a DYK of an article written or expanded in the last week. Irrespective of that, the quality of the article is only needed at the time the article hits the front page. If it deteriorates thereafter, the horde of front page viewers are not adversely affected. This doesnt differ from the existing classes of DYK articles. John Vandenberg (chat) 10:33, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Why was George Ho's comment crossed out her? Is he a sockpuppet? I'm pretty new to Wikipedia but have been trying to follow all the ArbCom, elections and other things like that I've found on Wikipedia that I never thought would be on here. ─ Matthew (Matt i) ─ (talk) 06:50, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose as written It needs limitations that have been described above. Ryan Vesey 18:10, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose We already have people saying DYK has too broad a set of aims; this would mix in something very different and genuinely dilute those aims. No prejudice against GAs getting their own Main Page slot; I understand the category came about a couple of years ago? Now that it's well established, those who work in that area of endeavour should see about getting it incorporated into the Main Page if they want. But not mixed in with the very different category of new or newly expanded articles. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:37, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose, essentially for the same reasons that everyone else has already raised. Prioryman (talk) 00:34, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. This proposal has been made (more than once I think) in the past. The main page already gives prominent focus to FAs reflecting contributions by those who have honed subjects extensively. The DYK section of the main pages serves a different purposes. It draws attention to newly created/expanded content. By doing so, it attracts additional eyes to new content, helping to improve the new content with contributions from others. It also serves as an excellent means to encourage creation of new content and to develop newer editors. For these reasons, and as I have also voted in the past, I still oppose the proposal. Cbl62 (talk) 00:47, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose: I think the number of GAs I have seen at DYK probably would total one a week. GA is fundamentally not ready to do this at this time. The impetus to do this needs to come from within the WP:GAN project, with work done to improve GAN to make this idea even a feasible one to discuss. --LauraHale (talk) 03:03, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. The DYK system is good at managing the process of putting enticing links to articles onto the front page, the writers and readers both like it, and I dont think there is room on the front page to have an additional section for GAs. While new articles are great, 5x expansions are better for the quality of the encyclopedia, and GAs are better again. We should be focusing on quality rather than quickly written articles. I have seen quite a few 5x expansions that are full of ridiculous bloat in order to cross the threshold and be eligible for DYK. Currently the DYK reviewers are not keen on rejecting a DYK for an article full of bloat. I would prefer that in these cases, where 5x isnt really feasible, the writers can go via the GA process in order to be eligible for DYK, and DYK reviewers have the option of saying to new articles that are nominated too late or 5x's that are stuffed with trivia 'no, but you can restart this DYK nomination after a successful GA'. That gives the writers a new obtainable objective, more suited to people who work a bit slower. John Vandenberg (chat) 06:50, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support per John Vandenberg. JN466 08:59, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support: per John Vandenberg, except that DYK needs to lift its game as far as providing "enticing" hooks: so often they're from the Hall of Lame, as I've previously pointed out. Could we have input from people who are not DYK regulars with a conflict of interest, please? Tony (talk) 09:17, 8 October 2012 (UTC) PS Should it be "Promoted to GA status in the past X days? Tony (talk) 09:18, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support I've always liked this idea, especially if it gets more eyes on a newly-minted GA...and maybe a push towards FAC. Casliber (talk · contribs) 09:46, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Wikipedia:Did you know/2011 reform proposals#Good articles and New articles? Apples and oranges. Poeticbent talk 09:57, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose I object to DYK being diluted with GAs. Doing that takes away space for new articles which is what DYK is supposed to promote. It would be much better if GAs had their own space on the main page rather than trying to stick them in DYK. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 10:22, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support as nom and also to say most GAs have not been DYK's already, and during the development often significant amounts of content are added/re-written, without necessarily achieving a 5x expansion, which is the spirit, if not strictly the letter, of DYK anyway.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 19:14, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support Any way we encourage and reward good content is good. Breaking fiefdoms, which this proposal seems to do while far less important, also tickles my fancy. Politicking is of course inevitable, but I am certain we will all endeavor to get past it.--Tznkai (talk) 03:23, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support; John Vandenberg makes a persuasive case. (I would also consider a separate GA section on the front page if we could squeeze it in somewhere). bobrayner (talk) 05:54, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support, at the very least as a trial - I've opposed this in the past (I think) but I'm beginning to favour the idea, and John puts forward a pretty good argument. I would strongly support keeping something like the current time-limited rule, though - nominate the article within a week or so of passing as GA - to avoid flooding, and call it something like "...new and recently improved articles". Not all GAs are significantly improved at the time of passing, of course, but it's a reasonable proxy. Andrew Gray (talk) 08:56, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. It's much more important to improve articles to B or GA status than to clear the DYK hurdle. DYKs are important for encouraging new editors, but the main page should showcase good articles, such as GAs. 14:01, 9 October 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk • contribs)
  • Support. Further to the above, featuring good articles in DYK better reflects the mature nature of the project, where improving existing content is as important as creating new content, if not more important. – Steel 20:54, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support – In addition to all the good arguments above, this will quite simply raise the quality of the average DYK article on the front page, which can only be a positive for the project. This proposal in no way changes any of the previous requirements, and seems like a great way to encourage more work at all the levels between a shiny new DYK and a majestic and agéd FA. —Torchiest talkedits 23:01, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
  • I'm curious - how exactly would it "raise the quality of the average DYK article"? GAs are not DYKs; the two go through quite different processes. Are you anticipating some kind of magical osmosis by which the halo of quality in (some) GAs somehow seeps into DYKs? Prioryman (talk) 23:43, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
    • Heh, not exactly. What I meant was that if some of the DYKs are GAs, then the average quality of an article that someone sees when they click a link in a front page hook will be higher. Obviously, GAs and DYKs are separate processes right now, but if an article had to first become a GA and then go through the normal DYK vetting, it's going to better (on average) than a brand new article made into a DYK, thus the average article placed in the DYK box will be higher. Kinda like if they added a new prize in a lottery. Even if most of the tickets were still losers, the average would go up. Hope that clarifies my meaning. —Torchiest talkedits 02:14, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment In the future can the WT:GAN board please be notified if there is a proposal affecting Good articles. I am opposed to adding GA's to DYK unless it is done in such a way that distinguishes a Good article from a new article. AIRcorn (talk) 00:06, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Opposed DYK has a distinct and unique purpose--highlight new content creation. GA has its own purpose of being FA-lite or Peer Review-part deux (however you want to look at it). It makes no sense to muddle up the DYK section with other "not-so-new-but-we-really-want-to-somehow-get-these-GAs-on-the-main-page" articles that distract from DYK's purpose. Plus, as other have noted that the standards of DYK in many cases surpass GA now with noms having to practically go through a gauntlet of reviewers to get through the DYK process instead of a single reviewer with GA's. AgneCheese/Wine 00:52, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
The only reason DYK's have multiple reviewers is because they are featured on the main page. If GA's were featured they would also have more eyes on them. AIRcorn (talk) 01:14, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Where is the evidence that the standards of DYKs now surpass GAs? Every single one I've looked at wouldn't make GA, and many are so far off even meeting the DYK criteria that it's shameful. Malleus Fatuorum 02:26, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support for a few reasons. GA content quite often is new content (DYK's mandate), the result of expansion or extensive revision. Secondly, I'm consistently disheartened by the sniping that goes on between the content reviewers and creators in the various WP review processes (e.g. DYK's are shitty, GA people are jerks, FA is an elitist club, etc., etc.) We should work more together, and hopefully avoid getting at each other's throats. Third, this provides additional incentive for GA rewrites/expansions. Finally, the Main Page is attractive. Let's share the love. The Interior (Talk) 01:33, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support I thought we already did this. I guess just a time warped. Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 02:30, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support - A GA is a significant thing, and there really isn't space (or an obvious format) to otherwise feature them, but they're worth being featured. WilyD 08:22, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose You thought the DYK backlogs were long now? DYK has the advantage of being time-limited (recent additions or expansions only). If we add in GAs to this we'll have to deal with a flood of old articles fighting for a main page spot. The whole point of DYK is new content. No way. IronGargoyle (talk) 11:40, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose this perennial proposal for the same two reasons as the last time this was suggested: DYK has enough problems without allowing articles that pass GA requirements but fail to meet current DYK standards (excepting DYK newness requirement) and this proposal exasperates current process bottleneck by opening a flood of new nominations without providing any compensating increase in reviewers. --Allen3 talk 12:05, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support Quality re-writing is at least as worthy as new writing. It would probably have to have a caveat that makes it not retroactive though (as Tony1 suggested). bridies (talk) 13:45, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose There's no need. It's about new articles, not just expanded ones. Give the others a a chance. Rcsprinter (state the obvious (or not)) @ 19:25, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support This proposal should address many of the concerns of the community. -- Ohconfucius ping / poke 06:49, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support - DYK is not always about new articles anyway, one of the criteria is for old, unsourced articles that have been expanded fivefold. In my view, an article promoted to GA status is just as worth of a DYK as an expanded article. Cabe6403 (Talk•Sign) 12:44, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose; the options and pages are clogged and breaking as it is, let alone if we add more stuff into the mix. Ironholds (talk) 05:16, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose GA is too high of a barrier to overcome. DYK encourages much more modest contributions. Blue Rasberry (talk) 12:44, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
    • (reply) If you read the proposal more clearly, it doesn't change how existing DYKs are promoted (e.g. newly-created articles and 5x expanded articles), it is merely adding another set of eligible articles for DYK. There is no "raising of the barrier". -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 12:49, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support: It would be great to have a way to appreciate GA-quality articles somehow, and this is a good way to showcase them on the main page. Currently the Chinese Wikipedia does something similar with a dedicated section for daily GA-quality articles, which works like a charm, and it would be good of the English Wikipedia started to showcase GAs as well, even if it is only a one liner within the DYK section (after all, enwiki is a much, much larger encyclopedia than zhwiki). At present, we give a lot of attention to FAs and newly-created articles, but tend to leave GAs out in the cold. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 12:47, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose Some of the comments above point out DYK's role to showcase new content and then try to link that to articles promoted to GA. Unfortunately a lot of GA articles get promoted from B class solely through article clean up and addition of references, without any new prose added. An automatic qualification for GA articles would include static articles that have been tidied in addition to new content. Road Wizard (talk) 12:53, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose I agree with the goal of putting Good Articles somewhere on the main page, but I don't think diluting an area as valuable as DYK is the way to do that. If a main page section has to be squeezed to make room for GAs, I think a better place to consider would be OTD. Khazar2 (talk) 13:13, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose The point behind DYK is for new content. Something that an average new user can accomplish rather earlier in their editing career. We need to promote editing to the consumer population and this is the dangling carrot for them. GA require so much work that they are only attainable by veteran contributors. Having a mixed section sends a mixed message and is too confusing. Put GA on the main page in a different fashion, like its own section in a redesign of the main page. If you want to lump it with something, it would make more sense to me to lump it with FA. Or change the weekly FL slot to a permanent daily spot and rotate FL & GA in that section. Royalbroil 13:24, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. In a mature project like en.wp, DYK has stopped serving its original intent to encourage the creation of new content, but has instead turned article creation into a competitive timed rush. Allowing GAs to enter that slot adds fresh air to the system. Deryck C. 13:40, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support essentially per John Vandenberg, we should be putting more effort into highlighting improved existing articles rather than newly created ones. We could do this by sticking a GA section on the main page but I don't think we have the space. Hut 8.5 14:02, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment I would oppose anything that appears to justify or prolong DYK's tedious twisting of facts into so-called "hooks", which more often than not are misleading or rely on misstating the sourced information in the article, or present the most banal information as though it would fit the type of revelation preceded in normal conversation by "Did you know..." Whether there is the material available in good articles to support this proposal as a way of redeeming this currently torturously poor and unprofessional element of the main page, whether this state of affairs is due to the restrictions DYK puts on the articles it sources, I am unsure: I suspect the key problem is the desire of those who are not skilled comedians to get main page attention for their "quips". Kevin McE (talk) 14:04, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose, per all the other comments that DYK is about new articles, or newly expanded ones. If we want a GA on the main page all the interests involved are best served by giving it its own box. Daniel Case (talk) 14:38, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Too restrictive. The GA nominations list already has a long backlog.-- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 14:49, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. When Wikipedia was young it made sense to incentivise the creation of new articles to help build the encyclopedia. Today, most important articles already exist, so our focus needs to shift towards improving existing articles. Putting GAs on the main page helps update our incentives to match Wikipedia's current needs. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 14:52, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support DYK is all about encouraging new content. New content is also added in improving an article to GA. However, the pre-GA article may be 7KB of unreferenced bad text, which expanded to 25KB of referenced, copyedited, sectionalized text. But sadly 5x DYK criterion is impossible to meet, unless the article is filled with WP:UNDUE (checking which is not a DYK criterion).--Redtigerxyz Talk 14:53, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose Already saw DYK speedy process abused with a POV entry in a controversial article. So can easily see that happening in a Good article misued for partisan purposes. Need time for the community to look at DYK or the process WILL be hijacked by partisans on a variety of issues. CarolMooreDC 14:56, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support broadening the criteria, and would also support extending the time past 5 days, to reduce the temptation of copyright infringement by editors in a rush. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 15:05, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support yeepsi (Time for a chat?) 15:18, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Leaning support, even if only for the reason that it would improve the quality (speak, verifiability as the least standard) of DYKs. Actually, Kevin McE pretty much hit the spot with a number of issues of what is currently wrong with DYKs. So whatever will help to improve this I'll support it. Nageh (talk) 15:53, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose I see nothing wrong with giving GAs prominence on the main page somehow, but DYK isn't really the best place for it. It's busy enough as it is, and has a clearly defined purpose (showcasing genuinely new content) that I don't think should be diluted. Anaxial (talk) 16:16, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose DYK is a positive process that requires creation and expansion. GA is basically a matter of clean up. It's kind of like equating childbirth and rearing to plastic surgery. μηδείς (talk) 16:46, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose DYK is an embarrassment. The possibility that this will improve DYK is very slight. DYK doesn't encourage new content. It encourages self-promotion and bad writing. It needs to be radically re-thought and this proposal does not contribute to that effort. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 16:50, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support DYK's current rules encourage quantity of articles, not quality. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:53, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support I think its a great idea.--EchetusXe 16:55, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support DYKs as new content only should be phased out; we should be spotlighting the best content, not incentivizing new content any more. This moves it in that direction. The encyclopedia already has four million articles. --Batard0 (talk) 17:02, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support GAs definitely need a higher profile. Featuring them as part of DYK is a good way of raising awareness of them. Also, an article that passes GA has had more time to evolve into something more comprehensive. Paul MacDermott (talk) 17:10, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support I have thought that this is a good idea for years. We currently have no way of promoting our GA articles to readers and this has a knock on effect in that editors are not so motivated to improve existing articles. If new GAs could be promoted on the main page then this would provide an incentive to improve core articles that are poor at the moment. To those saying that most GAs are already DYKs - fine, they should be excluded, but if an article hasn't been featured in DYK, why not do so once it is a GA? Opposes based on there being a lack of reviewers at DYK are not relevant IMO, since a good GA reviewer should review content more thoroughly than a DYK reviewer. If GA noms included a DYK hook that they would like to see used, then GA reviewers could pay particularly close attention to those facts meaning that the hook would be good to go if the article is promoted. This would actually decrease the workload for DYK reviewers. SmartSE (talk) 17:15, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support per John Vanderberg. AutomaticStrikeout 17:43, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support as a way to improve the content posted on the front page (I have a low opinion of much of the content often included in DYK), draw attention to some of our better articles, and bring diversity to the DYK clique. ElKevbo (talk) 17:52, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support My general impression of DYK is that it is the home of obscure factoids about things I've never heard of, that don't entice me to click on the links. Allowing GA's would increase the average noteworthiness of topics, at least, although I would rather see more radical suggestions for what to do with DYK's valuable real estate (like getting rid of DYK altogether, and moving the featured picture into that space.) Tdslk (talk) 18:25, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Ding ding - we have a winner! This is what this proposal is really about - it's a first step towards getting rid of DYK. I'm not averse to improving DYK, but this proposal is an ill-thought out perennial idea that the same few people have been pushing for a couple of years now. Prioryman (talk) 20:34, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • No, sorry, that is not the goal I had in mind when I proposed this. Being a relative newcomer, I merely summarised what I believed were the best suggestions so far, both for including GAs on the main page, and improving the quality of DYKs. I am a firm believer in the DYK process, and indeed many of my own DYKs have been expansions rather than creation myself.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 20:59, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
(My guess is that it would probably make DYK harder to remove, since more people (those who focus on creating GAs) would have buy in. Plus, it would be better.) Tdslk (talk) 00:58, 14 October 2012 (UTC))
  • Oppose Per Cbl62 and others. This proposal will dilute the DYK project. And 4 million articles is nowhere near what the goal should be, Wikipedia is still vastly under-represented in many fields. This is not the time to get complacent with regards to what the encyclopaedia covers. Manxruler (talk) 19:21, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
Tremendous point Manxruler. I do think there is a bit of a narrow scope being exhibit here by those who think that DYK needs to "move on" from new article creation. There are so many areas and subjects that Wikipedia has barely even touched (Africa, anyone?). Heck we even have an entire Wikiproject dedicated to the amazing amount of notable subjects that we still don't have articles for--including a hefty number of Science articles. If anything, we should be having proposals that shift DYK's focus more towards creating articles in these terribly under-represented area. AgneCheese/Wine 19:54, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
Absolutely - massive amounts of articles are still to be built. I also feel that once Wikipedia stops expanding, that's the beginning of the end. Once we say "this amount of articles is enough", and stop focussing on covering more ground, then that's it. Then we're just another web-based encyclopaedia - the fact that we are constantly expanding our range of subjects is what makes Wikipedia special. We have to keep moving forwards, we mustn't stagnate. Manxruler (talk) 21:49, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
Sorry Manxruler but I don't understand your logic. Just take a look at how many of our Vital Articles are still C-class or (shudder) Start-class. Wouldn't improving all those to GA or better be an excellent way for Wikipedia to move forwards and avoid stagnation? How is creating new articles different to improving existing articles in this regard? Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 02:10, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
I am surprised this proposal lasted a whole six days before someone started doomsdaying the end of Wikipedia. – Steel 14:38, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
Adrian: But will really steering away from creating new articles lead to to a vast improvement effort? And how would the GA project be able handle such a hypothetical situation? I think not, I think it will discourage and drive away many of the enthusiasts we have today, the folks who aren't always cut out for the type of work required for the production of GAs. As for the improvement of the Vital Articles, I think a much better idea would be to launch an effort like the one we've seen at Operation Majestic Titan, rather than tearing down DYK. Manxruler (talk) 21:34, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
Steel: Thanks for that. Manxruler (talk) 21:34, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support Anyone who wants to make a Wikipedia article should be driven enough to make it worthy of being a good article. I would never say that 4 million articles is too many on principle, but in all honesty, a lot of them are crap. If there is a choice between doubling the number of articles, and doubling the quality of existing articles, I'd choose the latter. Connor Behan (talk) 22:10, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose So much unwritten. As this is the first step to dismanlte DYK it is the next step to stop article creation. Agathoclea (talk) 22:09, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes, this is all part of a secret plot to stop new article creation... seriously? – Steel 14:38, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose As someone who has had little, if any, input on this topic, I feel that it would best serve DYK to keep GA's out of it. DYK is primarily about expanding or creating articles, and serves to drive that. GA is about improving on articles, and already has a drive to get that done. The two shouldn't interfere with each other. If people pushing for GA inclusino are looking for more recognition of GA ocntent, then there are other avenues to do so; adding them to DYK is not the way to go about it. Kaiser matias (talk) 22:10, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. Encouraging quality articles is a good step forward. Insomesia (talk) 22:59, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support -- When I review Good article candidates, I sometimes think "Wow, this is really interesting!", and I think it is a shame that just because the information is not recent enough, it can't be highlighted like DYKs are. I think Wikipedia would benefit from having DYK articles that are of better (GA) quality. --Tea with toast (話) 00:05, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support This would be a great encouragement for people who work on improving articles to GA status. I see no reason to limit main page highlights to FAs and brand new articles. Reywas92Talk 00:33, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment The Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide says, "A WikiProject's members have the exclusive right to define the scope of their project, which includes defining an article as being outside the scope of the project." What is happening here appears to be a bid by non-members of WP:DYK and WP:GAN to unilaterally redefine the scope of the two projects. As such, the original proposal lacks validity. WikiProjects can't be forcibly merged in the way that is being proposed here. Prioryman (talk) 01:10, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
We're not talking about merging 2 wikiprojects here. This is about simply allowing a new GA to be eligible for DYK.--Tea with toast (話) 07:02, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
Tea with toast is right. WP:WikiProject Good articles is not the same as WP:Good articles. The GA institution belongs to the whole community, just like FAC and ANI. WikiProject Good articles would be unaffected by this proposal. The section of the WikiProject Guide that you want to be looking at is WP:PROJGUIDE#OWN, which is the bit that says a WikiProject doesn't get to tell the whole community what the community chooses to put on the Main Page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:45, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support A nice way to be able to showcase GA's - not all of us write FA's and GA's often go under-appreciated by the public and the community in regards to "promotion," so I think it'd be a nice way to showcase the work of GA editors and content with a simple gesture as this. And it's not like we are overflowing with GA's being created... so I don't find it a threat to DYK at all. SarahStierch (talk) 01:29, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support It will lift the standard of the front page and give GA writers a look-in. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 01:38, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support: As per SarahStierch and Anthonyhcole. And I certainly don't think that we'll have to worry about NPOV issues if this rule is established; an article cannot meet GA criteria if its content has neutrality issues, in the first place. Like my singing? Ha-la-la-la-la-la-LA-LAAA!!! (talk) 01:58, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support Anything that removes at least some of the nonsense from DYK has to be an improvement. We should showcase what we've done best, not what we've just done... AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:45, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support GAs are more informative than DYKs --Anbu121 (talk me) 07:29, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose Front page should showcase Wikipedia's best work...featured articles. -- Gmatsuda (talk) 08:45, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support The exact proposal as stated and no more. There would be no automatic featuring of a new GA, it would need to have not been featured on DYK previously and would still need to be nominated by the creator/expander and still require a QPQ of another DYK nomination. Furthermore in order to prevent GA reviewers from promoting the article and then immediately issuing a DYK nomination thereby getting around the QPQ review requirement and potentially creating an unfair burden on DYK - any nomination, for a GA on DYK (which was nominated because of the GA criteria) should require a QPQ review whether nominated by the original creator/expander or anyone else. Otherwise, DYK could potentially get snowed under in a week. Also, has anyone thought of a QPQ review system for GA in a similar manner to DYK? Miyagawa (talk) 09:12, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Yes, QPQ has been thought of on GAN before but has been rejected as unworkable. Prioryman (talk) 11:26, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose We already showcase FAs as best work. GAs have nothing going for them, and, as the product of a single reviewer, easier to manipulate. The standards for DYK are already higher than for GA in most regards. Most importantly, there is no way that a GA will be promoted in five days. It normally takes over a month. One GAN has been unreviewed since May! Hawkeye7 (talk) 10:29, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • I think the proposal is that new GA's be nominated for DYK within five days of being made GA's, therefore it wouldn't matter how long they sit in the GAN queue. A little like it doesn't matter how long an article sits in the DYK queue once it has been nominated. Gatoclass (talk) 11:09, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Yes, that is correct...the only change is that newly promoted GA's are eligible to be nominated for DYK.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 18:46, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
    • Still makes no sense. Back in July I brought an article to GA that had been created in 2006. How would that qualify as one of Wikipedia's newest articles? Moreover, although it had never been a GA or DYK before, it had been on the front page as TFA. However, under your rules, it would have been eligible. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:53, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Well it would, but there would have been new content added to get it up to GA standard.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 21:31, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
    • None whatsoever. All I did repair the link rot. It should have gone to FAC instead of GA, but my FAC queue is over two years long. Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:47, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support Encouraging article improvement is good. The output of the GA process is so small compared with DYK that it is really not going to impact the workload or dilute the mission - all such arguments are invalid. SpinningSpark 11:40, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support, as a regular GA contributor we do have quite stringent processes for reviewing GA nominations and then obviously before being accepted for DYK the usual review process is fine. Many articles when transformed into GAs end up being transformed drastically both in size and quality. As others have said... the GA encourages article improvement and the premise of DYK for GA articles is another incentive for article improvement. — Lil_℧niquℇ №1 [talk] 12:36, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I do a lot of both DYK and GA, but I think DYK's interesting-fact, hook-based premise is incompatible with showcasing articles on well-known topics that become GA. Better would be to promote awareness of what the green GA symbol means when readers see it on an article. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:30, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • strong support - it is a lot harder to get an article to a reasonable standard, than start something new. And we need to encourage people to do completion work, rather than chasing more and more obscure stuff to begin.--Scott Mac 15:50, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Strong support- The DYK criteria need to be a lot stronger, and the oppose votes here seem to be based on a number of misconceptions. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 15:53, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Strongest Possible Oppose: DYK allows me to find something to do in my spare time. Without it, who knows what would happen... I can't support this, and never will. DYK is a valuable project, and I must strongly oppose getting rid of it's key principles. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 20:38, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose GAs meet basic standards of quality, DYK aspires to even agree on basic standards. I dislike the idea of mixing good work into a cesspool. Sven Manguard Wha? 20:50, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Would shift DYK's focus from its worthy goal of encouraging the creation of new articles. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 22:09, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
    • While encouraging the creation of article is a worthy goal, Wikipedia already has more than 4 million articles. IMHO, I think it is in Wikipedia's best interest to start expanding and adding new content to articles on vital topics rather than to encourage the creation of articles on frivolous content (TV episodes, pop songs) and irrelevant bits of random trivia. I feel that allowing some GAs into the mix would help make DYKs more relevant since they'd be on more vital and relevant topics. --Tea with toast (話) 23:13, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
While I agree with you that we could use less pop culture articles at DYK, who is to say we wouldn't get flooded with GA's on frivolous topics as well? I don't see anywhere in this proposal that the scope would be limited to GA's on Core or Vital topics. Plus the fact of the matter is that we are still woefully lacking articles on many notable, encyclopedic subjects. DYK serves an important role in promoting new article creation and a much more worthwhile proposal would be one that encourages editors to overcome systematic bias and create articles on under-represented subjects like Africa and the the sciences. AgneCheese/Wine 23:23, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, there's still a ton of article subjects missing from Wikipedia. A lot of major ones too from areas of biology, medicine, and general history. I mean, the history of pretty much anywhere that isn't the developed world is woefully not close to being completed. SilverserenC 23:42, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support, additionally newly promoted featured articles should be added as well. Upgrading an article up to GA or FA often requires a LARGE amount of work and addition of verified content to an article in order to elevate an article from start to GA, not to say the work needed to go up to FA. Just because the work takes longer than the time limit prescribed by DYA, or doesn't meet the 5 times rule, IMHO should preclude it from being featured in the main page via DYA.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:04, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. Part of the intent of featuring content on the main page is to encourage editors to work in that area. Well making GAs is important and useful, too. Another intent of featuring content on the main page is to service the reader (and as side effect make up more popular) by making the main page enticing and interesting to read. Well GAs can certainly be interesting to read, and can certainly contain interesting tidbits too. More so than new articles in general, maybe, since after all articles have already been created by now for a lot of the most interesting topics. Herostratus (talk) 00:22, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
My guess is that the 'hooks' for GAs would be considerably more interesting than recent DYK hooks. A little known fact about a well known topic is intriguing - a mundane fact about some impossibly obscure topic is not. – Steel 19:14, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • I Oppose. absolutely, the whole notion of rewarding each stage of article improvement with main page display. This encyclopedia is for the readers, not the editors' ego's. DYK is quirky and creative, FA is quality, GA is meh. Besides, there's always 5x expansion. Speciate (talk) 03:31, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. We already have a section for content that's been newly recognized as high quality — the FA section. This proposal blurs the purpose of the DYK section, which is to promote new content. There is no reason to expect a GA to have a significant amount of new content, it is more about polish than content creation. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:33, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Mixed opinion - I would support DYK eligibility for new GAs if this eligibility were limited to articles that were substantially expanded (but less than 5x) shortly before they were nominated for GA. This would allow DYK to accept nominations like Template:Did you know nominations/Poor Folk after the articles are accepted for GA, but it wouldn't give DYK eligibility to "old" articles that didn't receive any substantial content expansion to help them qualify for GA status. --Orlady (talk) 03:39, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Conditional Oppose: The basic function of a DYK is to give to readers something that they might most probably really not know. Hence "Did you know". Generally, GAs are the articles that have grown periodically, have been here for long, have been edited vastly and mainly gone through a GA review whose notification goes in many alert pages. Which means that many editors and non-editors too have been to the article and read it. The interesting-ness, hooky-ness of DYKs is lost here. Hence the oppose.
    But in case such thing has never happened, meaning people have not read the article before, i do not see any reason as to why it can not go in DYK. If the article traffic is low, it should be made eligible for DYK irrespective of how old it is. Now what is "low traffic" could be discussed. Actually in such cases, it's status of GA doesn't matter. But if we really want GAs to feature here, some correlation with traffic can be established and added as condition. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 08:37, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose - I would not like to mix GA and DYK without a hint to the reader. I would rather go for showing TGA occasionally, Today's Good Article, because the Featured articles are sadly unbalanced, leaning (no surprise) toward places in English speaking countries, hurricanes, battleships and mushrooms. But that is not the topic here ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:53, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose The main page has many sections and so it would be more sensible to have GAs listed in a separate section beneath the FA, forming a natural hierarchy - FA/GA/DYK. If space needs to be found then it would better come from the featured list section, which seems to have twice the space given to the other sections, as it spans the page, rather than being limited to one side. Warden (talk) 12:02, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose GAs do deserve a fair place in main page, but this idea seems a little odd. ♛♚★Vaibhav Jain★♚♛ Talk Email 13:05, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support - DYK has always asked to much out of new articles. --Nathan2055talk - contribs 15:25, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support With Wikipedia at over four million articles, the focus of DYK should shift to encourage article improvement as much as it does creation. Adding a GA qualifier would help stimulate growth in this area. Also, GAs as it stand right now are rather unappreciated site wide, in favor of pushing editors towards FA instead. While featured article status should of course remain a goal when possible, celebrating other milestones in article improvement is a great step towards keeping editors motivated and productive. elektrikSHOOS (talk) 17:18, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. It's a good way to call attention to the quality we can achieve, and to highlight articles general readers might find more useful than some of our more recherché DYKs. Readers don't care when and how the content was generated; they just want to discover good stuff that's new to them. I dislike the "five days from creation" deadline in the first place: it has excluded some very interesting articles by less-experienced editors or students working on class projects who aren't part of the in-group and who need more time to get up to speed, and it's caused me to postpone starting some new articles I thought had DYK potential, because I'd want more time before nomination. By including GAs, we give more slowly developed articles a second chance at attention, and encourage quality. I tried to take "oppose" voices into consideration, but frankly I don't see any "opposes" from the perspective of reader service. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:46, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. The main page should be designed for the benefit of our readers and if GAs can contribute facts that people might not know and might actually want to know, which I think would be much better criteria than simply being new articles, all the better. I can see the point in showcasing newly-added content, but I don't see why this has to come from new or hugely-expanded articles. --Michig (talk) 20:24, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Strong support. Having watched too many of my mediocre new articles get a touchup on wiki-code, only to be posted to DYK by an editor with no sense of "newsworthiness", I see little use in the DYK system anyhow. I cannot see how anyone can object to posting WP's better work, which has been extensively edited, in place of feeble Stubs and Starts newly created. Our better work stands more chance of drawing readers into the site than the present DYKs.Georgejdorner (talk) 21:08, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support DYK is too narrowly focused onto what has become a bad direction, so that now we got more and more articles about less and less notable topics, while important articles which readers would actually be interested in remain in poor state. It is time to shift incentives towards article improvement. This is a minimal proposal, which would be a small step in the right direction. --ELEKHHT 21:46, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose as GA creep is undesirable. CRGreathouse (t | c) 22:10, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. If we are going to highlight content on the Main Page, why not highlight some recent GAs, which show off content that we can be proud of? -- Ssilvers (talk) 02:33, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose. If people want GAs on the main page, make that an entirely separate process. The criteria for GAs have almost nothing in common with the criteria for DYKs, except to the extent that both of them ought to meet normal wiki requirements - notability, lack of copyvio, decent references, coherent English, lack of major inaccuracies etc., without any of the violations that are normally considered OK in older articles. (People accept poor references; incoherent, ungrammatical, misspelled writing, etc. etc. in articles not linked directly on the main page.) Kobnach (talk) 05:44, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. There are a huge number of GAs covering a wide variety of subjects - if DYK is meant to showcase new information, then displaying a variety of recent GAs can only add to that. Moreover, readers who follow the DYK links would then find articles of a much higher quality than the average new article. Michaelmas1957 (talk) 06:22, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. DYK is to showcase the newest of what Wikipedia has to offer. FA is to showcase the best of what Wikipedia has to offer. Do we need to also showcase the second best of what Wikipedia has to offer? We already award people (by showing their work on Main Page) for starting the process of writing great articles (DYK) and for completing it (assuming FA is about as good as it gets), but do we need to award them for all the milstones in between as well? — Kpalion(talk) 06:26, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. The purpose of DYK is to showcase new work. Getting an article to FA status is extremely valuable new work, and is very much something we should be promoting and encouraging people to do. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:05, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support Great idea. There are great bits in GAs and typically much of the rest of the article is also well written. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 10:42, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose The effort to create a GA is much higher than that required to create an Article for DYK. As result, we would have less articles on the main page in the DYK section. Maybe only one, as is the case on Wikipedia Italian, where this proposal is already implemented. The purpose of the DYK section is to show interesting new articles to the public: adopting the GAs, we have a duplicate of the featured article Window, and the goal of the DYK section is lost. Alex2006 (talk) 13:23, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. People seem to be ignoring the fact that GA status would be optional. So we're basically increasing the number of applications to DYK, but not necessarily increasing the output volume. Besides, GAs are pretty under-featured, and this would be a nice way to get them some traffic. EricLeb01 (Page | Talk) 14:48, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
  • If you're increasing the number of nominations, you're increasing the output volume. GA's are less likely to be rejected, so the number of articles reviewed and approved will go up. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:18, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support - I've never really understood why DYK was restricted to new or recently 5x expanded articles - GAs showcase quality work and placing them as part of DYK would get them the exposure they deserve. CT Cooper · talk 18:22, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support, with the caveat that a newly minted GA must not have already appeared on DYK. Many GA topics have no prayer of making FA because of problems with coverage in reliable sources, and for other reasons. This will give one final nod to the hard work that went into bringing the article successfully up to GA quality level. Binksternet (talk) 19:34, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
  • That would happen, as it is already a criteria for any DYK, for example a 1500 character article that is later 5x expanded would not be eligible.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 19:51, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Now I'm torn - Promoting an article as Good Article should not be counted as new, but everyone's supporting it. Now I stroke my vote for opposition because supporters have good points. However, I'm not supporting it just because it is a "good way" for the DYK. If this proposal passes, then limits on Good Articles should be set. The article MUST NOT be a former Good or Featured Article; this should disqualify an article from meeting a proposed criterion (NOT other criteria, like the classic fivefold). --George Ho (talk) 19:41, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
    Now that makes sense ;-) John Vandenberg (chat) 12:47, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
    Also, an article must BE the Good Article for the FIRST TIME, not second or so forth. --George Ho (talk) 13:24, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support As someone who has done both (3 GAs, 27 DYKs), it makes so much sense to add value to DYK by greatly improving the quality. Let's think about the readers, folks, not about the feelings of us editors. We are writing solely for them, and this proposal adds to Wikipedia's overall value for the reader. First Light (talk) 20:53, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. DYK is already overstuffed with nominations as it is. I've seen quite a few interesting new articles in the list of expired noms. Instead, I would suggest to create "FA Log" and "GA Log", and link them prominently from the main page. Staszek Lem (talk) 02:00, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support – people will be encouraged to work in GA area. — Bill william comptonTalk 13:51, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose DYKs are, in my opinion, to encourage editors to create/improve articles to a least start-class standard, which at least helps to remedy the stub pages problem (anybody have an idea of how many of the 4 million articles we have are stubs?). By adding GA-articles here, we would make it confusing for the readers- why is there so large a gap in quality between one entry and another entry in the same section?, for example. This would also greatly devalue GA articles as they would now be associated with Start-class articles. Let us have a separate section to honour GAs; I think that is the least we could do to acknowledge the hard work put into GA articles. At the same time, DYKs would continue to encourage editors to improve on interesting articles to give more quality information to our readers.--Lionratz (talk) 14:10, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support - Good articles are pretty good... good way to highlight the work. Shadowjams (talk) 20:11, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The proposal is to add newly listed GA articles to the qualifying criteria for DYK. The nomination doesn't need to involve the GA reviewer or the GA Wikiproject, and would (presumably) be a decision made by any editor who feels the article meets the criteria and would be interesting on the main page. The nomination could be made by a contributor to the article, the GA reviewer, or any interested reader. While some GA contributors may feel that having improved the article to GA standards is enough, there may be some who feel they would like the article (for whatever reason) to be briefly mentioned on the main page. The proposal does not appear to impact on the GA process at all, and would be a decision made separate to that. The impact of this proposal lies largely (entirely?) on the DYK process. As this proposal came out of a concern that the DYK process is under strain and letting through poor quality articles, then this proposal appears not to be helping relieve that strain, but to increase it. The proposal does not get the benefit of experienced GA reviewers, but simply increases the work load of DYK reviewers who would now have more nominations to work through, and the extra nominations would be of articles that often require 20-30 minutes simply to read through once at a 75% comprehension level. Even if the proposal is that DYK reviewers do not need to read or check the articles - they are simply waved through as already having been through a satisfactory audit - there is still work to be done on processing the article and in checking the hook. I don't see this as an advantage to DYK - simply extra work. The alternative proposal to have a separate process for listing Good Articles on the main page may be a more worthwhile consideration. SilkTork ✔Tea time 22:32, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Can't follow your line of thought. Featuring a new article or a 5x expanded article at DYK is also a "separate" process from that of creating new articles or expanding articles. A new article or a 5x expanded article also can be nominated by any editor. That doesn't mean that DYK does not constitute an incentive for creating new articles. Thus why would one get to the conclusion that the proposal would have no impact on GA and article improvement? The proposal is not only about DYK, it is about what content gets exposure on the main page, and what's the best way to provide incentives to build the encyclopaedia. It is about slightly scaling back incentives for new articles, which after the 4 millionth tend to be about ever less notable topics, and to concomitantly increase incentives for improving articles which have already been created, quite possibly because they address more notable topics. It is about defining improvement not simply in quantitative terms (more articles or fivefold expansion) but also qualitative terms (improving an article to GA class). --ELEKHHT 21:36, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Per SilkTork. ~ GabeMc (talk|contribs) 08:59, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support Having your content appear on the main page is a major incentive for editors. I'd like to see us use that incentive more effectively to encourage the expansion of existing articles. Right now we're using the main page as an incentive for expanding existing articles only if you can get the article up to FA, and that can be a huge, scary goal. Offering this recognition to new GAs seems like a good way to get more editors to think about what it would take to get an article through GAR. With 4 million+ articles we should be focusing our efforts on improving what we have and the best way we can do that is through incentives. GabrielF (talk) 02:47, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose - also, per SilkTork. I, Jethrobot drop me a line (note: not a bot!) 04:01, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support per First Light. Graham87 10:41, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support the DYK is really uninteresting now; the process constantly requires "new" information, and since anything interesting has been added long ago, it is driving more and more into information noise. The GA is a chance to temporarily revitalize DYK. --Kubanczyk (talk) 13:27, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose - per SilkTork, Cbl62 and others. The proposal puts a high extra work load on DYK reviewers, as SilkTork notes, but it's worse: GAs will completely inundate DYK during the periodic backlog elimination drives. The one last December passed 396 new GAs in 31 days, and the June/July 2012 was even worse, with 627 new GAs created in 31 days, an average of over 20 per day. Planning is beginning for a new drive starting sometime in the next couple of months; it will overwhelm DYK if GAs are eligible. The proposal for a separate section on the main page for GAs, that does not involve DYK, is feasible and even laudable; this one simply isn't. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:08, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
    • Comment. I think it is highly doubtful that every newly minted GA would go for a DYK nom. Most GA nominators are satisfied just to reach GA status. Also, GA drives only occur once or twice a year; the average rate of new GAs outside of that is about 5 per day. --Tea with toast (話) 17:33, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
      • "Five a day" is still a considerable number even taken alone, if Bluemoonset's figures are correct, we can expect literally hundreds of submissions in the space of a few weeks during these GA drives, which will not only completely overwhelm DYK when they occur, but also probably double the effective number of GA submissions on average. Who is going to review all the extra submissions? Can we find room for them all, and if not, what criteria will be used to reject the surplus submissions? How long are these GA submissions going to sit in the queue after a GA drive before they actually get reviewed by somebody? These are the kinds of issues that should have been thrashed out before this proposal was put. Gatoclass (talk) 17:48, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose per BlueMoonset Corn cheese (talk) 02:49, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Weak support A tough decision, good points on both sides, but I think this would help people work on getting articles to GA status. • Jesse V.(talk) 06:26, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose and an Idea: I would rather FA's there, but DYKs get people to new articles and get folks creating articles and editing (which is what we are here for in the first place, right?). Plus, with 20 GAs per day (Bluemoonset's numbers from above) that box would quickly get cluttered and fast. I suggest seperate links to lists of newly minted GA and FA articles for that day (if there isn't one of either, they could be created, shouldn't be hard). Put those at the bottom of the DYK section with a changing number of pages for each day (ie: 12 articles were promoted to Good Article status) and the "Good Article status" part would have the link to the newly minted GA articles page (same with the FA articles). Gives the GA and FA articles more eyeballs and doesn't clutter the front page. Best of both worlds. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 07:57, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support while I agree mostly with the oppose comments above, I view this as a small step in the right direction, so I must support. -Nathan Johnson (talk) 15:00, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
  • I have sat on the fence up to this point, but now feel obliged to reluctantly oppose per Bluemoonset since it appears the number of GAs being passed is considerably larger than I was aware and threatens to swamp DYK with submissions. I have had misgivings about this proposal from the outset since it was clearly not fully developed and not ready for "prime time" in my view, Bluemoonset's points have now confirmed that opinion. The proposal needs more work. Gatoclass (talk) 17:23, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
    • And not to mention there is still a shedload of GANs waiting to be reviewed and considering DYK is backed up as it is, shoving GA in with DYK will swamp the system. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 17:59, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose, It will limit the motivation of many editors. The existing format should be kept.--Egeymi (talk) 09:59, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The application of DYK criteria on newness and length as being both counterintuitive and unenforceable. Writing good articles can not and should not be judged according to word count (which exists to encourage expansion of existing stubs and discourage very short articles in DYK, neither is a problem in GA). Nor should you expect a Good Article to be written in a span of merely 5 days (the time it takes to secure a reviewer alone can take weeks), the simple fact that it's newly promoted should be enough. I do support the featuring of GAs in the main page, but as a separate slot.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 12:53, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. I mistakenly assumed that DYK criteria would be applied to GA submissions, but that's not the case as Gilderien explained. It's merely a matter of extending one of the qualifying criteria to newly promoted GAs in addition to newly expanded and newly created articles. I've changed my !vote to support. The other requirements can be applied without any problems (a hook, an interesting subject matter, and lack of obvious problems, which should have been dealt with by the reviewers in most cases). We have already been featuring GAs for a while, and in some cases, some DYKs eventually do go on to become GAs shortly afterwards(several of mine did), so this is a logical next step. This is also the least disruptive method of including GAs in the front page (as opposed to creating a GA box and having to change the Main Page's layout), and if it doesn't work or if DYK buckles under the strain of the additional work/volume of GAs, we can quite easily revert to the old method quickly. If nothing else, a trial period should be implemented.--- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 15:30, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
  • strong support i feel it's a good idea.
  • Strong Oppose GAs article are only for a few experienced editors. DYKs is also a was to reward new editors (well, the actual only way for a new editor to go on the first page).--A ntv (talk) 20:48, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support I like this idea. GA's are at least the quality of DYK's and take a good deal of work too. Why not reward that a little? ~Adjwilley (talk) 00:30, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
  • SUPPORT GAs don't get enough notice around here and this would be a step up. --ColonelHenry (talk) 03:50, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. Of the current DYK hooks (Vulpicida; Copyright law of Panama; Bo Ningen; Gastrotheca cornuta; The Deadliest Season; Chinese softshell turtle) only one editor has under a 1000 live edits (User:Sasata 49,613; User:Piotrus 139,266; User:Jayen466 41,588; User:Cwmhiraeth 13,567; User:LauraHale 31,040; User:Jegelewicz 344). Look at the contribs of random editors who have voted "oppose" here: they're almost all veteran editors with many DYK credits to their name. I think very few newbies are even aware of DYK, and I think that it's really veteran editors who actually author the lion's share of DYKs. It seems to me that in reality DYK is more about encouraging veteran editors. So I think it's OK to encourage vets (and newbies) to work on GAs too.--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 07:52, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. There are a lot of good arguments for this, but Brianann's immediately above is as good as any of them. An incentive to get more people more involved with the GA process is a good thing.--ragesoss (talk) 14:33, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. The GA process has a lot of problems, but in general WP's main page should have more places to showcase our best work and the proposal goes a good way towards doing so. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 00:25, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose Seems like comparing apples and oranges, to get neither fish, nor fowl. Would support a separate GA section. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:00, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose per above. TBrandley 20:18, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose, an all-around bad idea. I have no problem with GAs getting a separate slot at the main page, but not at the expense of diluting DYK. The two processes (DYK and GA) serve rather distinct goals. I know that there are a lot of DYK haters who have been egging to kill DYK for years, but I feel that DYK is a valuable feature, encouraging creation of new content and having much better quality controls than much of the other stuff that goes to the main page (e.g. the ITN, and On This Day have rather little in terms of quality control by comparison with DYK). Nsk92 (talk) 23:21, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose It would actually reduce the DYK backlog. However, only few make it to GA as compared to start articles. Maybe we should lower the qualification to B-class, if ever, since the DYK is supposed to be reviewed by single editors. Arius1998 (talk) 04:16, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose No need to propagato good, but otherwise mostly mediocre and boring articles on top without . Why don't you add two or more simple buttons instead: "Random Featured Article", "Random Good Article", Random WikiProject, etc. In this way the diversity of wikipedia will be much more prominent in the main web page. - Altenmann >t 04:34, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose - call me old fashioned, but the goal of DYK has always been new content. I'd rather see a single-line ticker between the bottoms of DYK and On this day that lists like last 5 new GAs, automatically and continuously updated by a bot. That way those of us who get articles through GA get some Main Page lovin' without taking away from somebody else. It would also prevent the trivialization of the GA, as speaking from experience I some times will include questionable material from an encyclopedic context into a new article so I can placate the "interesting" police at DYK. I think I even once removed some bits afterward the DYK had run its course. Aboutmovies (talk) 05:18, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Sitting on fence - as User:Tea_with_toast has stated below, there are good reasons for and against this proposal, and where you sit depends on whether you are interested in encouraging editors or encouraging readers. Of course, the simplistic answer is that we should do both. I sometimes spend a little time reviewing DYK's, but I've noticed that new articles are getting increasingly granular in their detail and decreasingly notable - we have articles about individual TV episodes, articles based on one or two academic papers, and in today's DYK we have a hotel. Is it really time to close it down, or should we find a way of keeping the baby without the bathwater? DYK must change if we're not to lose reader and new editor interest. Adding GA's seems like a good idea, but I'm not sure how it would work practically, and I believe that in the end, the GA's will get fast tracked and swamp out new material. So I'm not voting on this proposal, it's not been fully thought through; a group of interested editors needs to work that out as a team before coming back for a vote. Wikiwayman (talk) 09:00, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose DYKs and GAs should be kept separate. The goal should be with GAs that they are worked on to get to FA, then they get their spot on the main page. Cloudbound (talk) 23:57, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. Newly promoted, in a box smaller then FA, perhaps featuring 2+ a time. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:42, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support in substance per John Vandenberg, but I think we need to balance highlighting GAs against those that have achieved FA status. EeBee 03:47, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Comment - No GAs on the front page, they have not been properly vetted. ~ GabeMc (talk|contribs) 04:57, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
    • Your argument is ridiculous-- new articles are unvetted by definition. If that's the reason you give for opposing this then I Support it simply because GA is a proper review. Shii (tock) 06:06, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
      • I find that the DYK process is hugely better than the GA process. DYK gets a lot of input from many, GAN doesn't. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 22:00, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
      • The above oppose would be User:GabeMc's second vote so far. I hope no one else is voting more than once.--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 12:19, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
        • Sorry, I thought this seemed familiar ... deja vu perhaps? ~ GabeMc (talk|contribs) 06:15, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

  • Support - There are often times when good information as a result of getting an article to GA would be good for DYK, but it falls short of meeting one of the other DYK requirements. I actually ran into this problem myself when I got an article up to GA status, and I was disappointed to find out that I could not make a DYK out of it. Inks.LWC (talk) 06:37, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support Highlighting GAs on the front page is a good idea, better and more important than highlighting new articles. Wikipedia does not have too few articles. It has too few good articles. Thus, I will always support proposals to reward improving articles to GA status. --RJFF (talk) 12:28, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support This seems a sensible reform, though we still need to get more interesting and diverse hooks. As for the argument that only new articles should qualify for DYK, there is nothing in the words "Did You Know?" to imply that people already knew the whole pedia, so adding a few interesting GAs to the mix would be good for the GA process and for the mainpage. ϢereSpielChequers 17:07, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support I have never been a fan of DYK. Too much drama and not enough quality to merit much notice from me. GAs would improve the section while giving a deserved pat on the back to the editors putting in the work. This is, in at least function, not as drastic as a change as some are making it out to be. Plenty of work should be put into getting an article to GA and the additional vetting at DYK will ensure that it was properly done. Cptnono (talk) 05:31, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose; conflicting aims. DYK is to elicit interest; GA is to note articles of a presumably good quality. DYK might bring interest to an article which leads to it becoming a GA; GA is not necessary for the factoids presented in DYK. KillerChihuahua?!? 17:15, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support, per John Vandenberg, Dennis Brown, and Cptnono, above. Kierzek (talk) 18:48, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support DYK and GA are both incentivizing mechanisms. We need to do more to improve existing articles and bringing DYK and GA together is a sum greater than its parts. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 05:03, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support seems reasonable to include GA also. We have a lot of stuff that needs improving, this would be an added incentive. Semitransgenic talk. 16:15, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support per John Vandenberg. -- クラウド６６８ 06:06, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. I have seen plenty of passed DYKs that wouldn't stand a chance in GAN. Why does the short, sub-par articles get to be shown on main page when there are longer, more stable articles out there that're rejected for being "having expanded already"? OhanaUnitedTalk page 05:38, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support - not a perfect solution, but a small step in the right direction towards fixing DYK. Robofish (talk) 18:09, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Alternate GA proposal

This proposal has been moved to Talk:Main_Page#GA_Main_Page_slot_proposal

 —  Maile66 (talk) 20:13, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

People who read this and post at the Main Page talk - this proposal is NOT about merging GA with DYK. It's about preventing that very thing by giving GA its own section. Looks to me like some people did a copy and paste from the above DYK proposal over to the GA proposal. They aren't the same proposals.  —  Maile66 (talk) 01:13, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Finding a workable plan

I'm confused why this got a Watch List promo (as an RfC I think) here but not RfC tag. Plus now have to re-read and see if I got confused above. Oi. CarolMooreDC 15:11, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

I've started a conversation at WT:GAN to discuss how this could be implemented. If this might happen, WP:GAN needs to be on board with it and there is zero evidence as a project that they are working towards doing that at this time, nor that they have the ability to actually implement it. --LauraHale (talk) 20:45, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

It's very concerning that none of the proponents seems to have stopped to discuss this with WP:GAN. It seems to be a case of a group of people seeking to override the views of one WikiProject's members and force a de facto merger with another WikiProject, without even finding out whether it would be feasible to implement the proposal in the first place. The whole thing seems to be very poorly thought out. Prioryman (talk) 22:07, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
The basic premise of the current proposal seems to be this: Wikipedia Did You Know will take over governing of Wikipedia Good Article Nominations in order to integrate the Good Articles into DYK. If this understanding is inaccurate, who will be responsible for Good Articles appearing on the front page? If this proposal passes, who will be charged with implementing it? --LauraHale (talk) 22:17, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
If you seriously believe that the premise is that DYK will take over the governance of GAN then you really are living in cloud cuckoo land, and I'll have a pint of whatever you're drinking. Malleus Fatuorum 22:26, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
Where has this crazy idea of a merger come from? I've seen no such proposal. Malleus Fatuorum 22:27, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
See #Proposal above. It presupposes that DYK reviewers will somehow take responsibility for also reviewing GAs for displaying on the Main Page. Frankly we have enough difficulty getting through DYK reviews as it is, without adding an extra burden in the form of GA reviews. I'm baffled that this seems to have been proposed as a done deal without consulting anyone about it, evaluating whether it is feasible or even suggesting doing an initial trial to answer these questions. I have no idea how they suppose it's going to be done, and I rather doubt that the proponents will be willing to do any of the heavy lifting necessary to make it work. Prioryman (talk) 22:48, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
Worth noting: The system, as it stands would be this: QPQ would be required for DYK eligible articles. QPQ could absolutely not be done for GA reviews as WP:GAN has repeatedly proposed this for GAN but the community rejects this proposal or there is no consensus. Thus, a two tiered review system will be in play in terms of reviewing. This is just one of the issues involved that needs to be addressed. --LauraHale (talk) 23:21, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
LauraHale, I'm glad someone is thinking in terms of logistics here. A lot of people above have given a Support or Oppose to the idea of merging the two, but are only reacting to the basic thought.
  • Seems to me this can't happen unless the GA group agree to subordinate their authority to DYK. I mean, DYK can't just walk in and take it away from GA. What are the chances of that?
  • Also, I think DYK struggles with the newbie reviewer learning the process. Or the seasoned reviewer who for whatever reason decides to pass something without actually reading it. Tossing GA into the mix would only compound that.
  • And how about the selection of something already rated GA, but within days of being GA it gets numerous edits, not all of which improve the article but rather lower its quality.
You are the first person to inject into this conversation that a process would have to be worked out. Dare I say this - what this discussion needs is a numbered (or bullet point) list of how such a merge process would work. That could evolve into quite a dialogue itself. But it's not well-thought out until there's a list of details that need to be considered. Thank you for bringing this up. — Maile (talk) 00:50, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
Actually, if you look at where the proposal is coming from, this doesn't seem to be a matter of WP:DYK trying to take away WP:GAN's cheese; it appears to be something that is being imposed on both WikiProjects without the agreement of either one's members. I think this is a non-starter, because as the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide says, "A WikiProject's members have the exclusive right to define the scope of their project, which includes defining an article as being outside the scope of the project." In other words, it's not for non-members of the two projects to unilaterally redefine their scope, which is what seems to be happening here. WikiProjects can't be forcibly merged unless in certain rare instances, such as abandonment (which obviously doesn't apply here). Prioryman (talk) 01:03, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
A merge couldn't possibly work IMO, but it's an interesting and unanswered question as to how any main page GAs would be chosen; the current DYK criteria are clearly inappropriate. Malleus Fatuorum 01:08, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
Which is why I think this is a Trojan Horse for an eventual bid to sweep away DYK. Look at where this issue came from in the first place. It started with a moan by AndyTheGrump on Jimbo Wales' user talk page, followed up by Tony1, who has been campaigning against DYK for years. Jimbo (engaging in his now-usual hit-and-run posts) replied, "I remain in favor of uncoupling dyk from new articles". [3] The following day, Tony1 kicks this discussion off with the heading #One GA per shift? Jimmy's on board for reforming DYK – note, Jimbo did not say anything about adding GA to DYK, nor did anyone suggest it on his user talk page. That suggestion comes entirely from Tony1 and is merely a revival of his failed push last year for the same thing, taking advantage of Jimbo's throwaway comment. It's true that the specific proposal comes from someone else but it's not to hard to detect the agenda behind it. I predict that if this goes into effect, it will be an unworkable fiasco, and that the failure will be used to make a case for shutting down DYK altogether. Prioryman (talk) 01:20, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
Although I think that DYK is a misguided waste of space myself, I have some sympathy with that analysis. The bottom line though is that it's completely counter-intuitive to have a main page section entitled "Did you know" if its real purpose is not to inform or surprise readers but simply to reward new editors for achieving some kind of minimum standard. Malleus Fatuorum 01:37, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Malleus is spot-on. I don't seek to destroy DYK, but to improve the standards of reviewing (both hooks and stubs), and to share a little of the space with the best of GA. This hogging of a main-page slot by a single and somewhat misguided approach that now belies its original intent has gone on far too long. Tony (talk) 01:42, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • @ Tony1, Let's for the sake of arguement say we agree that Malleus is spot on. Please provide details on how you would implement this solution.
  • Does DYK subsume GA?
  • Does GA subsume DYK?
  • Which rules govern reviewing?
  • Or do separate reviewing practices stay in place with QPQ required for DYK but no for GAN?
  • Is there a timeliness rule for DYK but not for GA?
  • Who elevates GAs to the DYK area?
  • Does GA continue with only one reviewer?
  • Does GA inclusion run similar to TFA for being selected for being put into a DYK selection?
  • Does GA run one a day in the DYK area or does GA have its own schedule?
--LauraHale (talk) 01:57, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • LauraHale, I hope you don't mind that I bullet-pointed your questions. But those questions get to the heart of this.
  • If we AGF that the DYK process is broken, what is the solution and what are the detailed steps of implementation?
  • If we AGF that the inclusion of GA will improve DYK, what is the detailed plan of implementation?
  • What persons or bodies are actually authorized to sign off on the changes, and what steps need to be taken to achieve that?
Most people on this discussion seem to know what is wrong, or right, with DYK. But does anybody actually have a plan? — Maile (talk) 12:23, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
  • I think your question demonstrates the real problem here. Let me give you an example of an interesting hook that has nothing to do with either DYK or GA: "did you know ... that on 27 November 1809, 54 Berners Street became the most famous street in London?" As long as DYK remains a tacky reward for those producing minimally satisfactory stubs then it will continue to be a disservice to our readers. Malleus Fatuorum 02:58, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
    A stub cannot become a DYK. Hawkeye7 (talk) 10:32, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

If the top proposal was to go ahead I think that the Good article crowd (by crowd I just mean that the discussion should be held on a Wikipedia:Good Article page, anyone can of couse comment) should choose the Good article to be featured and the hook. That page will be run similar to this except to GA standards. It can then be moved to the appropriate prep area here. It won't hurt to have further eyes on it here if someone wishes to. The new articles can still be run to there own standards. There is no reason to merge and no one is subservient to anyone else. Also each group retains roughly the same functions and sets there own guidelines and standards. AIRcorn (talk) 12:28, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Support: No merger needed. Just keep the two groups as separate entities and devise a method for them to work together in providing content for the DYK section of the main page. It might be good to determine that each group get X number of spots on the main page's DYK section per day. It could be a single GA and several new articles or something closer to 50:50. Optionally, the current DYK group may want to rename itself to something like "Promoting new content" to avoid confusion and turf battles over the new DYK process. –Mabeenot (talk) 20:24, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. A merger is most certainly not necessary - or desired, imnsho. If there comes consensus to allow GAs to become DYKs, then the article should go through the DYK review process exactly as any other article, and regardless of the GAN process. Resolute 23:41, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
Even if they are to be reviewed here again I would still like to see them come initially from a GA selection process. Something like the featured list main page request. If Good articles are going to be featured on the main page I would like to think the GA editors have some editorial control over which ones get chosen. I don't see the point in just restricting it to recent Good articles either. If there is a Good article, which still meets the standards, has a decent hook and has not been on DYK before then it should be eligible. As to the number of slots, I think one is enough (ideally the top one) and the article should be kept up there all day. Just and an "And" to From Wikipedia's newest content: and move it below the GA DYK. Separates GA's from new content, doesn't take up any more space, won't necessarily put any extra workload on DYK (depends if they want to review the article as well) and as only one GA has to be chosen each day allows plenty of time for reviewing and fine tuning the article. If the regulars here wish, they could remove the 5x criteria (if you are going to expand an article 5x then you should be able to get it to GA standard) to compensate for the lost slot. AIRcorn (talk) 00:22, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • The image slot? That's... certainly not going to resonate well with other editors. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 22:44, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • It would be absolutely unacceptable to me at least, and I think others would agree. I don't want to see this harebrained proposal harming DYK, but it's looking more and more to me like that is actually the point of the proposal. Prioryman (talk) 23:11, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
Why does it have to be the image slot, surely the image could be for any slot. ITN and OTD seem to mix it up without any major issues. And how is looking to improve the quality of DYK supposed to harm it. AIRcorn (talk) 00:09, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
  • There's been a push to get it so the image goes next to the text it refers to, but that's not working very well. At the very least DYK can guarantee the top image refers to the hook next to it, which is something useful for readers. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:06, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
Seems like a minor issue in the scheme of things, I personally would have aimed to have the best hook or article in the top spot. Put the Good article on the bottom then, just as long as it can be differentiated from the other new articles someway and there is some oversight from the GA end I will be happy. AIRcorn (talk) 06:35, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Limit to GAs on WP:CORE and WP:VITAL topics

Feel free to move this to a better spot but I'm curious as to how this proposal would go with the "GAs at DYK" crowd. Many of us who oppose this idea oppose it because we believe that DYK serves an important role by encouraging new article creation and feel that this role would be diluted at a time when there is still a lot of work left to do. The strongest argument by proponents of "GAs at DYK" is that Wikipedia would be better served by content improvement instead of content creation. Many critics of DYK often point to some of the "fluff" articles that get posted at DYK about TV shows, pop songs, etc and it is fair criticism. However, even a quick look at WP:GA shows that they are not immune to "fluff" articles either. While "GAs at DYK" proponents claim that the "carrot" of Main Page exposure would encourage editors to work on improving some of our most important core and vital articles, there is no way to guarantee that would actual happen. There is no way to guarantee that we won't be seeing more GAs on Pokeman characters, TV episodes, etc just being funneled along to DYK. So why not re-orient this proposal to specifically encourage work on our WP:CORE and WP:VITAL articles? I can tell you as an original oppose vote on the proposal above, I for one would switch my sentiments if the proposal was rewritten to focus specifically on core and vital articles. AgneCheese/Wine 23:46, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

  • Oppose as numerous encyclopedic topics are not at Core or Vital; these pages are also very systemically biased, as what is important for one country may not be important for another. I also fully oppose the description of songs, albums, and films as "fluff" when these works can have long-lasting effects on the population and culture. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:00, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
I should clarify that this sub-proposal is not to limit all of DYK to just Core and Vital article as I agree that there are many notable, encyclopedic topics outside those categories. Rather, this is more of a compromise proposal that would allow some GAs to be included but not dilute as badly the important role of DYK in fulfilling an encyclopedic need. We don't have an encyclopedic need to feature GAs on the Main Page just for the sake of featuring GAs. We do have an encyclopedic need to not only encourage article creation for under-represented topics but also to improve on the content of our most important core and vital articles. AgneCheese/Wine 00:11, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
We have an encyclopaedic need to encourage editors to improve the content on all our topics as much, if not more so, than adding new content. If it is about encyclopaedic need GAs have as much right to the main page as new articles. AIRcorn (talk) 01:17, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
If your agenda is purely just to find a way to squeeze GAs onto the Main Page, that is fine but that agenda should be taken over to the Village Pump or Talk:Main Page to ask for GA space rather than find a "back door" way through DYK. The original proposal above, as far as I can tell, is about improving the content on DYK which is often criticized for its "lame hooks and articles". I was noting that many of the same type of articles that DYK gets criticized for featuring are often of the same type of subject matter that gets promoted to GAs so this idea, on its surface, is not going to solve anything at DYK but only further dilute an important encyclopedic purpose of encouraging new article creation. But if, as some of the proponents of the "GA at DYK" crowd suggest, that having the "carrot" of main page exposure could encourage people to work on improving some of our most important core and vital articles then this proposal takes on a whole other light. AgneCheese/Wine 02:08, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
I have neither supported or opposed the above proposal to include Good articles in with DYK. If anything my comment is opposed to the idea. If it does happen, which is quite possible given the quality of the opposes and the recent swing in !votes, then I want to make sure it is done with the GA projects interests taken into account. All I am doing above is disagreeing wth your interpretation that the more important "encyclopaedic purpose" is new articles rather than improving articles. AIRcorn (talk) 02:32, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
I am well aware that you were proposing only the GAs be limited to core and vital topics, but that in itself is already too much self-limitation. I can write encyclopedic articles on "serious" or "fluff" topics, both types I've gotten through FAC, so I don't worry about my writing. It's the principal. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:03, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
I like your way of thinking, Agne, and I agree with you on many points; however, I think it might be difficult to implement or cause confusion. I also agree with Crisco's point about non-vital articles also having value. --Tea with toast (話) 00:08, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment "Fluff" is very subjective, as is "Vital". Which one of our particular gods of DYK at Mount Olympus would be given the power to stand in judgement of the importance of any given subject? Pop culture is fluff to some, but it wasn't fluff to Andy Warhol. Some people think sports coverage of any nature is fluff. It would be very hard to set the parameters on something that really comes down to one person's taste vs. another's. And anyone who thinks TV shows or pop songs are fluff hasn't been counting the revenue on them. — Maile (talk) 00:24, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
From this proposal's stand point, it is very simple. If an article on the WP:CORE or WP:VITAL list is brought up to GA then it is featured in an DYK slot. No Olympian gods are needed. AgneCheese/Wine 02:08, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Why not just bring it to FA and get all the space? This idea just reeks of rulecreep, as it would be applied once a year... or less often. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:04, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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