Wikipedia talk:Did you know

Did you know?
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This is where the Did you know section on the main page, its policies and the featured items can be discussed.

Edmund Ser

This DYK has been sitting in the suggestion box for several days now and has not been reviewed, Template_talk:Did_you_know#Articles_created.2Fexpanded_on_June_1. Would anyone mind please taking care of it for me.--v/r - TP 00:27, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

There are quite a few nominations older than yours that haven't been reviewed yet. They'll all (including yours) be reviewed in time. Shubinator (talk) 04:27, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

My bad.--v/r - TP 12:37, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Got this one. Khazar (talk) 15:23, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Removed some of my self noms

After a concern was raised at my user talk page, I voluntarily took the initiative to remove a few self-noms from consideration at the suggestions page T:TDYK — please see diff. Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 06:08, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Please see my note on your talk page, an attempt to talk you out of this course of action. - Dravecky (talk) 06:23, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

The Savage hook currently in queue 1 ought also to be removed. There were two DYKs about Dan Savage on June 5, another one in the queue, and another four suggested, all by Cirt, which is clearly inappropriate. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 06:27, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

I dispute the clarity of the inappropriateness. The hook, as approved, should stay. The others can be better spaced out by thoughtful editors assembling queues rather than simply disappeared. - Dravecky (talk) 06:34, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Request: I respectfully request that the DYK submission currently in Template:Did you know/Queue/1 which is credited to myself, please be removed from consideration. Thank you, -- Cirt (talk) 06:36, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

After reviewing the discussion at Talk:Santorum (neologism), it's clear that User:SlimVirgin is not a disinterested party but rather a politically motivated actor. As such, I have restored the approved hooks that they have deleted from the nominations page. A thorough discussion of these hooks and how to deal with them, not merely a browbeating of one editor and an essentially unilateral decision, should take place before any deletion of approved hooks takes place for political reasons. - Dravecky (talk) 06:47, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

No comment on that, but respecting the request by Cirt, I have removed (replaced) his hook from Q1. Materialscientist (talk) 06:51, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Dravecky, I have no political motivation in this case. My concerns are in the one case BLP, and here that DYK has crossed into active promotion. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 07:12, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

I've only just found out that Dravecky was himself involved in editing the santorum neologism pages prior to the DYKs being submitted, for example, see here. I'm noting this here for future reference, because he has presented himself as uninvolved, and me as politically motivated. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 04:15, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Request: I have removed my self-noms from T:TDYK a 2nd time, diff. I respectfully request that they not be considered. Thank you, -- Cirt (talk) 06:59, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Out of respect for Cirt, I will let the matter drop for now. I'm still deeply troubled that outside political forces are being brought to bear on a talented content creator and that the system has been gamed to both hide that editor's contributions and the browbeat that editor into backing away from content creation. - Dravecky (talk) 07:04, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm concerned that you think it's okay to have seven DYKs about one writer in the space of not much over a week, in addition to three templates created, one article, and yet another expanded five-fold. That's clearly inappropriate, and if DYK is allowing this kind of thing it needs to be overhauled. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 07:09, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Spacing of hooks on related subjects is a matter for thoughtful queue assembly, not deletion. DYK does it all the time with sports, bugs, polticians, and plenty of other topics that crop up in clusters. As DYK has nothing to do with template creation and is actually designed to encourage both article creation and expansion, the clarity you have achieved escapes me. - Dravecky (talk) 07:16, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

But thoughtful queue assembly wasn't working, given you had two DYKs about one freelance writer on the main page on the same day, with another one about the same person at the top of the queue, and another four suggested. So clearly something went wrong in this case. This is not the encouragement of article creation and expansion. This is the encouragement of promotion, with articles being created and expanded in the service of that. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 07:51, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

This is a very troubling display of censorship. --William S. Saturn (talk) 07:33, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Coming into this discussion only now, I would like to see at least some of approved hooks on the Main page, spaced in time. I hope we don't have to change rules, just encourage observation of the prep of more people to detect unwanted "repetition". - Having said that, I'm going to suggest two more Bach cantatas for Pentecost, simply because Bach performed three each year on three days. Afterwards we will get to the less festive half of the liturgical year. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:23, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Even more troubling is that Cirt (who has a goodly number of DYKs), is quitting DYK. To quote his edit summary: "Undid revision 432807806 by Dravecky (talk) = removed my hooks. will not be editing this page again in the future. respectfully request they not be considered." I think the Savage hooks were fine, they just needed to be spaced a bit. Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:29, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Preface: I will preface my remarks to note that just three days ago, I was accused of a conservative bias for expressing concerns about a DYK nomination about a liberal organization (weirdly, for a political article, the problems weren't POV; the thing was just way off-topic), so I'm assuming I would not be accused of being a defender of Dan Savage (though there is that expression that if you're getting attacked from both the left and the right, then you're probably doing the correct thing). OCNative (talk) 10:57, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Comment: This seems like a rather heavy-handed response to a problem that could be solved with a softer approach: for example, we could spread the articles out by using the special occasion holding area. Is there something else that's going on that people at DYK are unaware of? Was Cirt topic banned at some point? Did Cirt offer to avoid a topic at some point to avert disciplinary action? Is Cirt an employee/relative/friend/contractor/publisher/distributor of Dan Savage? Is Cirt Dan Savage? Could someone please fill us in on the whole story?
If there is nothing going on other than what's been described on this page, I'm concerned about the precedent it could set:

• Has Gerda Arendt been promoting Johann Sebastian Bach with her various hooks on that individual's songs?
• Has Basement12 been promoting the Paralympic Games with numerous hooks relating to that private organization, including 22 in the month of May alone (several days have featured multiple Paralympic hooks)?
• Was I promoting Stanford University when I did a streak of hooks on alumni of that private institution (11 in one week in April, including 3 in one day, and even 2 in one set)?
• Was I promoting the Parliament of Canada or the New Democratic Party when I nominated several hooks over the course of one week in May featuring 8 Canadian MPs, including 7 from the NDP?

Please tell me there is more to this story that has not been explained in this thread, otherwise this incident could set an unfortunate precedent. I really do hope there is more to this story that hasn't been explained in this thread. OCNative (talk) 10:57, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

As remarked already on Cirt's talk, I think promotion is a good thing (pro + motion), especially the promotion of knowledge which should be the aim of DYK, imo. I sure hope I have promoted Bach and his cantatas and the Liturgical Year in this sense, and that Cirt will return to promote knowledge. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:34, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

OCNative, and others, have a very good point. People tend to edit articles where they are knowledgeable, (or at least they should). Doing lots of work in one particular area may have nothing to do with advocacy or promotion, it may simply be a reflection of which area where someone is knowledge. This edit was particularly threatening, which is surprising because Cirt's response was to simply comply with requests and withdraw completely. I am not sure what more he could have to cooperate completely. But it seems he is all done here, so the issue is for better or worse closed. But it is handling of the issue is very disappointing all the same. Thenub314 (talk) 22:17, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

I want to add that I'm disappointed too in the aspersions cast on Cirt's noms here pending a much better explanation by SlimVirgin of why this content needs to be stifled. I've just finished writing a cluster of noms on the winners of the CPJ International Press Freedom Awards, but I hope this doesn't mean half my noms will get discounted or that I'll be seen as promoting a specific agenda. Rather, it's just what I'm working on right now, and it made sense to do them all together. I think Cirt is more burnt out from the ongoing nightmare at Santorum (neologism), which after surviving three(!) AfDs, is now facing an ugly merge debate that would likewise delete most of its content. Since this was also initiated by SlimVirgin, I imagine we're seeing this spill over here. Khazar (talk) 05:00, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

A quick look at Cirt's user page clears up at least part of it; SlimVirgin repeatedly threatened him with AN/I and ArbCom unless he came here to demand their removal. Since SlimVirgin had just initiated a massively controversial (and failing) merge-and-delete proposal of Cirt's material a few days before, you'd think a more neutral admin could be found to handle something like this, if it was necessary at all. Khazar (talk) 05:21, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Taking this to AN/I would not be a bad idea, but it's SlimVirgin's actions that need to be examined here, not Cirt's. Whatever happened to assuming good faith? Prioryman (talk) 08:17, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. But would Cirt need to bring it himself, or could we do it as concerned editors? Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:24, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

OCNative asked a few good questions that only SlimVirgin can answer. If such a reply is not forthcoming, or if the reply is unsatisfactory, then taking this further from us a group of concerned editors could well be considered. Schwede66 08:49, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. If no answers are forthcoming, I will join in such a group to bring it to AN/I. Crisco 1492 (talk) 10:45, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I left a note on SlimVirgin's page requesting further explanation of why the deletion of these hooks was necessary. Hopefully there's a simple explanation for this that just doesn't appear on Cirt's user page. Khazar (talk) 13:56, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Khazar asked me to comment here. First, let me make clear: I have zero interest in Dan Savage or Rick Santorum, and without meaning any disrespect to them, wouldn't know them or their views if I fell over them in the street. My only view in this matter is about how Wikipedia should approach contentious issues about living persons; and in the Savage/Santorum situation I think we're getting it wrong. I haven't been involved in editing the articles in question. My involvement is that I recently opened an RfC to help settle the issue.

As for the DYKs, the background was an AN/I report on May 26 in which several editors said Cirt appeared to be engaged in promotion. Dan Savage and other issues were mentioned. Note: I assume good faith of Cirt's intentions. But promotion or advocacy can occur inadvertently, regardless of intention. I think we are all at risk of that when we're intensely interested in something.

In response to the AN/I, I asked the people complaining about Cirt to give Cirt some space, and I asked Cirt in return to take on board their criticism that some of his edits could be interpreted as promotional. He agreed on May 27: "I will take your advice and try to make efforts to avoid editing in the manner you describe." [1]

I found out days later that he had continued to propose six or seven DYKs about Dan Savage. Two appeared on the main page on June 5; another was at the front of the queue; and I believe another four had been suggested. This seemed inappropriate by any standard, but especially so in light of Cirt's assurances. I therefore asked him to remove the ones that hadn't already been on the main page. That struck me as a reasonable request in the circumstances. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 14:16, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, SlimVirgin, for explaining. I guess I'd say in response that I don't see what DYK rules forbid multiple NPOV articles on a related topic (which you describe as "inapporpriate under any circumstance"); as several have noted above, it's actually quite common, as editors tend to create articles in bunches. I don't see how the "promotional" effect of promoting six hooks about Savage projects in a week is substantially different than promoting those same six hooks over three years' time; in either case, the information about Savage's book is on the front page for eight hours. The merits of either action aside, I'm also wary of the fact that you've taken on both the RfC described above and the enforcement of Cirt's AN/I comments simultaneously, considering how controversial both have proved to be and that both can be perceived as an effort to delete Dan Savage-related content from Wikipedia. It seems like the DYK issue (if there is one) could have been left to an admin who wasn't involved in a similar high-profile debate with Cirt at another article.

Would you accept as a compromise that editors here re-review the Dan Savage hooks to verify that they're NPOV and re-introduce them with whatever spacing you feel is appropriate? (As somebody's who's already commented in the Santorum debate, I'll recuse myself from the process.) So far as I can see, you don't appear to object to either the content or the hooks themselves, but simply the rate of Savage's appearance on the main page. It seems a shame to delete valid DYK nominations for this reason when it's so easily addressed. Khazar (talk) 15:13, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Just to clarify: I haven't been involved in any of this (the RfC or the DYK issue) as an admin. And also to stress again: I have no interest whatsoever in deleting Dan Savage-related content. I would have objected to seven DYK hooks appearing about anyone within such a short space of time.

If others involved in the DYK process feel the Savage hooks could be spread out appropriately, I wouldn't try to interfere with it, though I would disagree with it, because I do feel it's a lot of focus on one person.

I wonder whether there's any interest in reforming DYK, so that it doesn't involve articles having to be created or expanded fivefold. It's leading to this rush of hooks all suggested at once from the same area, and to articles arguably being inappropriately created or expanded simply to meet this requirement. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 15:49, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't know that I see the distinction between demanding the deletion of these hooks under threat of ArbCom as an editor or as an admin, but in either case, this plan for their restoration sounds good. Since there appears to be a broad consensus here that these hooks were legitimately introduced to DYK (no objectors save for SlimVirgin), I'd vote we add the hooks back in. I'll leave this to another editor with experience setting up the prep areas, etc., to decide how they should be distributed, ensuring that our viewers can read about two Dan Savage books on two separate days, instead of two books on one day and no books the next day. Would another editor be up for this?

As for Slim's proposal that there be a limit on how often certain subjects can occur on DYK in a week's time or that the DYK requirements be wholly rewritten, I suggest a separate thread be started for this if she wants to pursue the rule change further. My gut reaction is that DYK should encourage content creation whether it comes well-spaced or bunched (as in the above examples of Bach, Stanford, and Paralympics articles), but I'm up for seeing counter-proposals. Khazar (talk) 16:24, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Khazar, another clarification: I have not threatened anyone with ArbCom. Other editors indicated they would file an RfC about Cirt; it was in asking them not to do that at AN/I that I got involved in this. [2] I later told Cirt that he was risking an ArbCom case if he did not listen to the concerns. [3]

Again, why the rush to have Dan Savage's name appear again so soon? He was on the main page twice on June 5. When you suggested spreading out the remaining five DYKs, I assumed you meant over weeks or months. As I said, I won't try to interfere with it, but it does strike me as inappropriate. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 16:35, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough; sorry if I misinterpreted the context of your warnings to Cirt. I guess my understanding is that DYK reflects Wikipedia's newest content. If we have a surge of good creation of Bach articles, we run more Bach there. If we have a surge of International Press Freedom Award winners (mine), we run more of those there. If we have a surge of Dan Savage expansions, we run more of those there. If we had a surge of coverage on Phyllis Schafly's books, we'd run more of those there. Since it appears to be agreed that these articles are legitimate content, I see no difference between highlighting our expansions of Savage coverage now and covering it more gradually. Dan Savage's name will appear on the main page for the exact same number of hours this year whether we run all the hooks this week or run them one month at a time. Thanks for your patience in hearing me out, Khazar (talk) 16:57, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

There's a significant difference between repeating Bach's name and that of a freelance writer (or anyone else) who is selling a product or idea. Again, I mean no disrespect to Dan Savage, and have no opinion for or against him; I hadn't heard of him until this situation arose on Wikipedia.

Here's a made-up example from an area I work in, animal rights. Imagine if I were to create or expand seven articles about an animal rights activist, Activist Andrew, all well-sourced, within the space of a few days. I could then submit seven DYKs: ""Did you know that Activist Andrew once had urine thrown over him while rescuing an elephant; did you know that Activist Andrew's Drenched in Urine (2011) sold 2000 copies on its first day of release; did you know that the film Rescuing Elephants is based on Activist Andrew's book about raiding a circus?" and so on.

Would there not come a point where someone wondered why Activist Andrew was suddenly dominating Wikipedia's main page? :) SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 17:09, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I must say your collection sounds entertaining to me, why not? - Why not??? I didn't even read the article about the author in question (perhaps I should), but think the "inappropriate" above is a Point of View. This discussion seems to overestimate the "promotion" possible by DYK. It's just 6 hours on a page many people never see because they search for something directly, 6 hours during which a quarter of the globe sleeps. So some see one mentioning of an author, others another. - I hope we will not make rules against a topic appearing several times, why limit, as long as the topic comes in well referenced, well reviewed facts? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:27, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Actually, that strikes me as fine; assuming the articles were well-sourced and NPOV (which would suggest that Activist Andrew had become a dominant and famous figure in his field, as Savage has in his), I'd be glad we have seven new articles on notable topics. Obviously we have to be alert for COI promotion in cases where there might be financial benefit, but I don't think there's been any suggestion that Cirt is Dan Savage or a related employee or publisher. I also don't see how spreading the hooks over a wider period of time significantly alters any perceived financial benefits; each hook is eight hours of coverage either way, whether those hours come back-to-back-to-back or here and there over several weeks. Again, if you want to propose a change to DYK policy, I suggest you open a new thread for it. My first reaction is that it strikes me as counterproductive to limit a project encouraging content creation, but I'd do my best to approach a proposal to the contrary with an open mind. Khazar (talk) 17:27, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

One rule we should institute is that we do not accept DYK submissions of articles on candidates in an upcoming election. We have had flattering articles on such candidates appear weeks or even days before election day. Beyond that, I broadly agree with SlimVirgin's view as expressed in her activist example. --JN466 17:38, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I could be wrong, Jayen, but I believe the first rule you propose is already in place. As for the second, again I'd suggest initiating a thread to change DYK policy if you object to its current formulation, but again I'd suggest that as somebody with a long and ugly history with Cirt, you might leave this to a less involved editor. Khazar (talk) 18:40, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

You're correct, the rule was added last October, and good job too. The other part of your statement I find a bit surprising; as far as I'm aware, you don't know me from Adam, and I'd appreciate it if you would give me and my concerns the benefit of the doubt. I think it is detrimental to this project for an editor to place a flattering bio for a candidate on DYK days before an election. It is not detrimental to it to point out that it's happened; that's part of ensuring it won't happen again. --JN466 20:39, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

No worries, I agree with you on the campaign bio. As I said, it's the second part of your comment where we disagree, and I thought it would be helpful for other editors to be aware of the history here. This isn't to dismiss your concerns--as I've said, though I'm skeptical personally, I think it's a conversation worth having--but I do think it's useful for other editors to be aware that those proposing these rule changes have specific histories of taking on Cirt and Savage-related material this week, rather than these concerns arising organically from DYK. (ErrantX below being the exception, which is helping to alter my thinking a bit). I've already said far more than my piece on this thread, though, so I'll try to lie low from this point on. Khazar (talk) 20:50, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Okay, we'll have to agree to disagree. As I see it, the encouragement of content creation is not good unless the creation or expansion is editorially appropriate. And that's the problem with DYK. People don't create content, then think to propose it for DYK. They write it only for DYK, expanding 500 words to 2,500 words, whether 2,500 words are needed or not. And that is leading to problems with quality, which I've seen several experienced editors mention in different places, so I feel it needs to be addressed at some point. But this is probably not a good time or place to do that. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 17:37, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I disagree with the statement: "People write ... content ... only for DYK." - that's how it sounds to me. I was introduced to DYK by the one who helped me with my first article (which had been deleted), and I found DYK a good tool (!) to make content better known. (One of my articles stayed long enough on the suggestions page to have 900 hits before it appeared. Klaus Mertens, call it promotional, he is alive and singing.) If I would write "only for DYK" I would stop every article at 1501 chars. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:07, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm in exactly the same boat - it's why I got involved with DYK in the first place. I wrote above "Whatever happened to assuming good faith?" Frankly, it looks like another assumption of bad faith to assume that "People write ... content ... only for DYK." SlimVirgin appears to be assuming that Cirt is acting in bad faith to promote Dan Savage or to write articles solely for DYK. I see no good reason to assume either. If someone is interested in a subject, writing a series of articles in quick succession isn't out of the ordinary. I've done that myself. Prioryman (talk) 19:29, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, I have no horse in this fight race, but I was considering raising the sudden surge of Dan Savage related DYK's on the nominations page - not for any political or other reasons, but only because there were an awful lot of them one after another, and the subjecxt risked getting a bit stale. I don't know if Cirt is watching this page (a shame if he is not) but I was going to suggest he userspace draft a set of the articles, shift them across, and do it all in one hook. That would be a really great way to do it. Unfortunate that the matter was resolved like this, but I am happy to see less Savage (ahem) content on the DYK page for the moment. --Errant ^(chat!) 18:52, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I understand the concern about staleness, but reading some of the comments above from SlimVirgin, I have to wonder whether personal dislike for Savage is a factor here. I can't imagine we'd be having this discussion if someone had submitted a batch of new articles about Emily Brontë, for instance. As for the DYKs, Khazar's proposal to relist them is a good idea. I'll list them below for ease of reference. I've looked through them and they look very good - well-written and illustrated, lots of good sources. The original reviewers evidently didn't see any problem with them at the time, I don't see any problem with their content now, and I don't see any good reason not to re-list them. Does anyone have any objections? They should of course be spaced out when it comes to the queues, but that is no reason to exclude well-written and interesting articles from DYK. Prioryman (talk) 19:20, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

• ... that The Commitment by Dan Savage recounts how his son was initially opposed to same-sex marriage, during a discussion of the author's pending marriage to his male partner?
• ... that the book It Gets Better edited by Dan Savage and inspired by the It Gets Better Project includes contributions from humorist David Sedaris and U.S. President Barack Obama?
• ... that the bibliography of Dan Savage includes recognition with a PEN West Award for Excellence in Creative Nonfiction and a Lambda Literary Award?
• ... that the musical The Kid based on the book of the same name by Dan Savage won an Outer Critics Circle Award in the category Outstanding New Off-Broadway Musical?

Please note: I'm concerned that no matter how often I say I have no problem with Dan Savage, someone else posts that I do. I'd appreciate if people wouldn't continue to do that. I don't even know anything about Dan Savage, except for the latest kerfuffle. My concern here is only for Wikipedia. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 19:34, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Prioryman missed one:

• ... that the book The Kid by Dan Savage was optioned for television by Robin Williams and also adapted into an Off-Broadway musical?

Now is there consensus to restore these noms or not? OCNative (talk) 05:25, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I think there is. Nobody seems to be objecting, anyway, as far as I can see. Prioryman (talk) 11:58, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't think the opinion of the editors who posted in this thread and at #Dan_Savage above has changed. It's inappropriate. --JN466 13:26, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Clearly there are still large objections to these nominations. Not least from the crteator of them, who requested that they "please be removed from consideration. Thank you," -- Cirt - Off2riorob (talk) 13:38, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

The only actionable objection appears to be about timing, i.e. that there were too many nominations on the same (related) topic within a short period of time. That can easily be resolved by spacing out the nominations in the queues over a reasonable period of time - say one a week, perhaps. The noms have all been passed for inclusion and nobody has raised any issues with the articles themselves. Prioryman (talk) 13:51, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

There is a RF arbitration in regard to this subject called 'Political activism' - this person (Savage) has had his fair spare of time on the front page for the foreseeable. Off2riorob (talk) 22:14, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Compromise proposals

I also thought we had a rough consensus between SlimVirgin and other concerned editors, but it seems that's no longer standing. Jayen, Off2riorob, and myself are all involved in Savage/Cirt debates happening elsewhere, and the last thing I think anybody wants to see is a third (fourth? eighth?) front opening up here. I remain uncomfortable with editors involved with debating Cirt's material elsewhere to come here to block his nominations once they've been passed and approved by the normal process, and when no content issues are involved; I'm also uncomfortable with the fact that they seem to see this rule as applying only to Savage-related content, and not the examples cited above such as Bach, the International Press Freedom Awards, Stanford University, or the Paralympics. But I've become an involved party over there myself at this point, so I realize my own judgment is becoming clouded. Let me propose a few options and then try to leave:

• 1) We continue with the previous compromise that these hooks will appear, but spaced sufficiently to meet SlimVirgin's request. One a week seems like it would do it.
• 2) We ask uninvolved DYK editors to determine if multiple hooks on Dan Savage are a violation of existing policy/precedent, and if not, how they should be spaced. Editors elsewhere involved in Savage-deletion debates (including myself) will be asked to recuse themselves and abide by what these editors decide. This seems to me the fairest option, as it would cut out external baggage.
• 3) If we are going to see this as an extension of Wikipedia-wide Cirt/Savage issues requiring the comment of involved editors, we could post links at the Cirt ArbCom case and the Santorum (neologism) requesting comment more broadly. This seems to me the least desirable option, however, as these debates are already ugly and time-consuming.

Jayen, Rob, Slim, do any of these sound fair to you? Khazar (talk) 16:05, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I support both options 1 and 2. As I said above, the only actionable issue here is the timing of these articles, which was the original concern (cf. #Dan Savage) that was raised here. No concerns have been raised anywhere that I can see about the actual content of the articles. There are no discussions ongoing on their talk pages, and they all passed the DYK review stage. None of them even mention the contentious Santorum (neologism) article. As far as I can see, the DYKs have become the victims of a dispute that is, at best, only tangentially related. Spacing the five DYKs out over a period of five weeks (during which 975 other DYKs will run) will surely eliminate any possibility of DYK being swamped by Savage-related articles. In my view, it would be unacceptable to suppress these DYKs because of an apparently only tangentially related dispute over a completely separate article. Prioryman (talk) 19:10, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

As an uninvolved editor, my answer to the questions posed by #2 is: assuming they've met our normal DYK criteria, the DYK hooks should be run. Normal DYK practice is to space out related hooks at least into different updates, and in this case, if considered necessary, they could be spaced out by up to a week each. cmadler (talk) 20:03, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

This gentleman (Savage) has had his fair share of time spent on our front page for the time being already. I suggest considering the way the community has been divided with this that it is best put on the back burner for two or three months. Also rather than push for something that is clearly divisive and at multiple locations and at arbitration and has been requested by the user Cirt to remove them, its better this is closed down here completely. Off2riorob (talk) 21:23, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

That is not an actionable objection. We don't blacklist subjects because someone doesn't like them. There is, also, no division or dispute whatsoever about these individual articles - they are merely collateral damage from the Santorum (neologism) dispute, in which those articles play no part. Prioryman (talk) 21:39, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Is there some kind of shortage of DYK hooks? We do whatever we consider reasonable at the time. What fantastic benefit do you see from your insisting on adding these additional Savage DYK front page hooks at this time, none. Why is it important to you to have multiple Savage front page hooks at this time? Not withstanding your pushing for something that the nominator has requested multiple times to be removed. Off2riorob (talk) 22:05, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

What's at stake here is the integrity of DYK. The articles have all passed the nomination process. None of them - not one - is under dispute. Nobody has raised any objections about the content of any of the articles. You are demanding that these articles be vetoed because of a political dispute in which you're involved. You're trying to add an extra, arbitrary, non-policy-based criterion to DYK. As a DYK contributor, I find that unacceptable - DYK should be not subject to arbitrary political vetoes. Prioryman (talk) 22:29, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps its the nomination process that is at fault then. The integrity of DYK is demeaned by political activism which has been requested to be removed and you are insisting on replacing it and talking about preserving the DYK integrity, give it a rest - reduce the disruption don't insist on replacing it . Ask yourself b4 you go all integrity of the project proclamations - do you see multiple objections here, has the nominator requested removal? Is this issue disrupting the project at multiple locations, and then ask yourself if you really should be making a stand for these DYK hooks at this time when you have plenty of non controversial ones. Off2riorob (talk) 22:49, 13 June 2011 (UTC) Off2riorob (talk) 22:43, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for confirming that your opposition is, as suspected, political and therefore not worth taking into account, as it's arbitrary and has no policy basis. It would be helpful if we could hear now from editors without axes to grind. Prioryman (talk) 22:50, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I have confirmed nothing of the sort. I am from the united kingdom and I care less about such US partisan politics. Off2riorob (talk) 22:54, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Arbitration request

There is an arbitration request related to this thread, filed by User:Coren: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Political_activism. --JN466 00:24, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Nominations good, where are they?

I nominated Death of Selena, The New Girl in Town, and Barrio Boyzz, and were all ready to go. However, Death of Selena, has now been moved to "older nominations" and still hasn't been placed on Did you know..., is there a problem that I didn't check? AJona1992 (talk) 00:14, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

There is no schedule for reviews. Although it might be frustrating to sit and wait for the review to complete, this is normal. Your nominations will be reviewed, and their moving to the "old" section on the T:TDYK page means nothing in terms of their quality or suitability. Materialscientist (talk) 00:29, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Being in Old Nominations does not mean anything is wrong. All of them have been reviewed, and The New Girl in Town and Barrio Boyzz have already been approved. Death of Selena is waiting on a couple editors. You just have to wait; everything is okay. Hooks go to the queue starting with the oldest, so your nominations will wait a few days. Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:31, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Oh alright, thanks for responding. AJona1992 (talk) 00:50, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome. Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:56, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

By the way, there's a way to speed up the review system: review other nominations. The less unreviewed nominations when somebody is about to review something, the more chances that it will be your turn. Just make sure to do it right and consider the details that must be checked, speed up does not mean rushed Cambalachero (talk) 02:43, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Over the past week, Tony's undoubtedly well meant efforts to raise the interest level of hooks (see "The House of Lame" section above) and extend his campaign against what he sees as overlinking to DYK hooks have exacerbated the effect that noms with lots of discussion go unreviewed. See my dual nom for Carlisle House, Soho and Teresa Cornelys for an example. No one has moved to actually review the articles. One other person has suggested an ALT4, but the differences between proposed hooks are not massive. The actual reviewing is just not happening. He also spoke up at Islanding, simply condemning the hook as without context. There was another problem there - the reviewer didn't understand the referencing style used, and I have tried to help out but don't have the knowledge to review the article myself. Tony has given at least one checkmark/tick that I saw, but actually reviewing the articles is avowedly not his main purpose in looking at DYK nominations; he left a comment to the effect, "the checkmark seems to matter here" and at one point commented that he wasn't sure what the specific rules for DYK were. Unfortunately, this effort tangential to actual reviewing is having a chilling effect - and exacerbating the existing problem that since reviewing was introduced as a quid pro quo requirement, nominators opften find themselves looking at articles on topics they don't know very much about or find very interesting. (Tony's personal scale of hook interestingness is a clear illustration of how tastes differ, as discussed in that section above, but of course everyone has their own different interests: I have a very broad range of interests by most standards, see the articles I have created let alone the DYKs I have proposed; but numerous hooks are on topics that make my eyes cross.) I think the suggestions page needs to be refocused on reviewing, maybe with a change to the statement of purpose at the top discouraging commentary not aimed at either accepting a submission or giving ways in which it needs to be improved to be acceptable. I have had a lot of DYKs; I will be sad and angry if this one gets thrown out as stale, but it won't be the end of my world or of my participation at DYK. I believe others are not so sanguine, and may however wrongly feel their contributions are being deemed unworthy when I know that isn't Tony's intention or that of anyone else who comments just about the hook or about stylistic choices. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:53, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I reviewed your nom. Sorry it hung around for a while. I think that we should make it a rule that anyone commenting first on a hook should also review the articles. That removes this specific problem :) --Errant ^(chat!) 19:01, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

That strikes me as a sensible rule too. Khazar (talk) 19:05, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks! And that seems like a good, easily stated fix for the problem. Yngvadottir (talk) 20:48, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the proposed rule (you comment, you review). Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:20, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I disagree with the proposed rule change. Editors may -- and I'm speaking from personal experience here -- quickly notice a glaring problem or a way in which a hook could be improved, but not have time to do a full review right then. Do you really think it will benefit the project to ask such editors to refrain from commenting? cmadler (talk) 15:48, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that we have several editors cruising the page only throwing off comments about hooks without being willing to do full reviews. These comments then discourage other editors from becoming involved in reviewing those articles because it looks as if another editor is already handling it, and the discussion may become quite lengthy without a review ever being done. I've just spent most of my morning trying to catch up on the resulting backlog from this hit-and-run approach, and there's plenty left to be done. (BarkingMoon wisely initiated this, see above).

My thinking is that if a hook has a glaring issue, it will be caught in review. If it's not, there's almost always still a full week after the hook's review before a hook hits the main page--plenty of time to point out additional issues then. Khazar (talk) 16:12, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

To the extent that editors are "cruising the page only throwing off comments about hooks without being willing to do full reviews", and to the extent that this is causing problems, I think that's a behavioral issue that needs to be addressesd with those editors, rather than by a rule change that will apply to everyone. cmadler (talk) 15:20, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Also, pointing out problems with the hook is rightly part of the review - if the hook is misleading, i.e., doesn't match what the article said, discovering that is part of evaluating whether the hook is referenced. And one is very rarely already an expert on the topic before one reviews an article suggestion; so it's much more likely one will find factual problems with teh hook only after looking at the article. Pace Tony, those are the important issues. Whether the hook is worldstoppingly interesting to absolutely everybody is secondary. So is whether it is written in the best possible style. After all, tastes vary - in both topics of interest and English style. Also, the constraints on hooks are significantly limiting (must be a new or heavily expanded article on which the work was done in the past 5 days, and the hook must be within 200 characters - those are both going to mitigate against jeweled perfection). The focus needs to be on reviewing. Other concerns are extra. I'm sorry to say that the recent focus on these extras has had a clearly chilling effect. At least 2 nominators have clearly just stopped checking the nominations page. DYK is supposed to encourage people, and some of the editors submitting to DYK are relatively new editors. Let's make the priorities clear. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:32, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

• That's fine for editors who nominate. I don't nominate. I'm taking no notice of an inept requirement that you can't review a hook without reviewing the associated article. IMV, the requirement for nominators to "review" another editor's article is being abused: I see pretty bad articles that have been passed without comment ... just a "all checks out". It's quick and dirty. If you want to improve the system, I'd toughen up the culture of nominator reviews.

  I stand by everything I said about the Islanding issue. It just doesn't make any sense as a stand-alone to the visitor. It doesn't hook anyone to click on the article link. Weird and inexplicable hooks can sometimes work, but not it they're impenetrable and don't seem to be interesting in the first place.

  Linking: it is indeed a problem that the instructions above the edit box still say "Do wikilink words in the hook and bold the main article." Why? Are nominators being encouraged to ignore WP's style guides in this respect, where here it matters much more than in a WP article that low-value links be avoided. It is rare that I see any need to link an item aside from the DYK article, which presumably contains all the links. The wording should be "Do bold and link the main article." The free-for-all, undisciplined linking of DYK hooks raises three problems:

1. It dissipates the effect of the link straight to the article that is the whole reason for the TFA display. Why do we want visitors to link to other articles first? Aren't those links all on the target article itself?
2. Does anyone check that the countless other articles that are linked to within the DYK blurb are up to standard? Why are they receiving unchecked, unaudited front-page exposure, when only the DYK has been through the proper review process?
3. It makes the main page look like a f....g mess. Tony (talk) 09:58, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

PS And "Whether the hook is worldstoppingly interesting to absolutely everybody is secondary." That's a cheap way to try to win an argument—by exaggerating. I came here to encourage more interesting hooks because, frankly, DYK hooks have tended to be plain boring. You know it. And when you say "So is whether it is written in the best possible style.", are you encouraging poor English style on the main page? If so, please come out and say it. Tony (talk) 10:08, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I want to add that it's not as though I poke around issuing criticisms without helping: I have made a significant effort to improve hooks, backing up criticism with examples. Sometimes people don't like them; sometimes they improve them; sometimes they accept them. And when I do visit an article, I'm inclined to make improvements to it. I don't see other reviewers doing this. As I said to Crisco on my talk page, why not build into the rules that where a nominator's comments apply to the hook or the article alone, this should be stated? I often do, anyway. Tony (talk) 10:26, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I found Tony's advice about my new nomination Brood XIX very helpful but of course I will be disappointed if that means my buzzing cicadas don't get bumped up to OK by somebody else. (Hint, Brood XIX is already dying out in parts of the US and they won't be back for 13 years!) Tony also caught a problem I missed in one of the two articles I reviewed. I think extra reviewing by somebody like Tony is a very good idea for oversight of a not-very-experienced reviewer and nominator like me. Sharktopus^talk 10:38, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I know you think you're helping, reforming, Tony. I have tried my level best to be polite while noting that your comments - which are avowedly tangential to the main issue on the suggestions page, which is moving towards accepting or rejecting the articles and their hooks under the DYK rules - are clogging up the works and (IMO) discouraging people. Like it or not, you are speaking for yourself only when you judge what's interesting; I judged it more polite to express that in terms of a general rule. I agree, more eyes on articles, more improvements to articles, and more attention to problems with hooks can only help. But your well meant critiques give the impression of imposing your tastes as an extra set of rules - and come off very harsh. And it isn't fair to not then go on to use one of the 5 symbols in an expeditious fashion, because then the person proposing the hook doesn't know where they stand, and others looking at the suggestion don't know what point the discussion is at (whether, for example, the article needs a bit of help to reach the standard, or whether it's hopeless unless someone who really knows the topic finds lots more to say or some heavy references, or whether it's pretty much ok and the hook is just being polished up). You owe it to the rest of the people working together on that page to make it clear - and to the writer to do a full review so they know where they stand. I'm also puzzled and disappointed you consider people are just rubberstamping articles and/or failing to fix them. It's already clearly stated that reviews should be thorough, and that it's not just ok but encouraged to fix problems with an article when one reviews them. I do that and so do many others. I'm glad you do too. But some people are terrible proofreaders. That's one of the reasons I don't like the quid pro quo requirement, though far from the biggest. But I think you're confusing or conflating several things when you connect that to the defects you see. I would imagine most of the problems with your perception of the DYK sub-project stem from what it is - a way to showcase new work. If you want to help, then help; whether you're a nominator and this obligated to do so by a quid pro quo requirement shouldn't matter. Many people help out here voluntarily; until recently that was the entire basis of the reviewing here. I'm afraid I can't see it as justified to use that as a rationale for throwing a spanner into the works; so I have to assume you are not seeing the effect of the spanner throw. If you would use it judiciously and not leave the engine still stripped down . . . ? - And one last point that I see as connected: DYK is to encourage, and in my opinion some classes of articles we really need to encourage, scientific ones among them. The DYK section of the main page is horribly unbalanced with respect to fields of study and human endeavour. Anyone who puts forward an article on a technical-scientific phenomenon should be praised to the skies, I think. That hook for Islanding was interesting just by virtue of being on such an under-represented topic, I think. I don't have the educational background to have been able to review it, but we should all be really leery of jumping from "I don't know anything about this" to "This is boring." And that, I am afraid, looks like what you're saying. Which is why it's good to have lots of different people reviewing :-) --Yngvadottir (talk) 12:48, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

(supporting Yngvadottir) There is a tension between what DYK is supposed to reward (creating new encyclopedia articles) and what we give incentives for (creating a lot of articles and DYKing articles that get a lot of hits). You can write articles faster and get more hits writing about Lady Gaga than about JS Bach, maybe even come up with punchier hooks as well, since Bach doesn't have a meat dress or a PR rep. Sharktopus^talk 13:16, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

(supporting Yngvadottir) Though I've also done my best to be polite in my interactions with you, Tony, but your comments have done a lot to rub me wrong from the moment you introduced your needlessly-hostile "lame index" to tell editors how "lame" their writing is. (Why not "Interest Index"? Well, because that wouldn't have been insulting enough to the editors involved, apparently.) I respect your diligence in trying to improve hooks for the main page, and I've done my best to increase my own rigor in checking grammar and encouraging editors to make their hooks more engaging per your request. At the same time, I feel like every DYK has four steps now: 1) create article; 2) nominate article; 3) receive review; 4) argue with Tony about what he thinks is interesting/proper phrasing. You're introducing issue upon issue (interest level per the Tony Test, wikilinking in hooks, checking of related articles to the hooks) as requirements without attempting to build a consensus on any of them; rather, you just appear to insult those who don't fall into line with your new rules.

Peraonally, I'd feel better about your efforts here if you'd start working more directly with nominators and editors to improve hooks, notifying them when you've posted concerns and suggesting alternatives rather than dropping a comment and leaving that involved process to other editors. I also wish that you'd agree to the request of multiple other editors to help out with formal reviews instead of this "hit-and-run" approach, as opposed to just calling that request "inept". (I'm getting particularly tired of reading reviews from you on the model of "I don't mean to be rude, but {insult)". Your comments imply at times that you see yourself as the gatekeeper for DYK quality--the one man standing between good hooks and the "f---ing mess" you think the rest of us are creating--but this would be a lot easier if you'd realize we're also well intentioned editors, working hard to try to build quality content within the 'pedia. I hope we can work together better in the future. Khazar (talk) 14:55, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Now that my undue frustration has had a minute to cool, let me add that I don't think any of Tony's concerns are necessarily invalid ones. It would be useful to add a bit of guidance about Wikilinking policies for hooks ( I don't know that I'd go quite as far as he would in their removal, but that can be discussed). His concern about lousy articles getting a free ride to to the front page also makes sense, as do his efforts to add context to hooks that may lack it. And of course he's right that where possible, it's good for us all to focus on creating the hookiest hooks in Hookville, even if we dispute what those hooks might consist of. And, as virtually everyone here has noted whether frustrated with or not, Tony's made a lot of hooks on here a lot better. I guess what I'd suggest is that we try to move some of these discussions to this page, separate them into individual issues, and try to build consensus on them on the level of policy, rather than repeating their battles across a full week's worth of individual hooks. Khazar (talk) 16:23, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

• Tony: Perhaps you'd be willing to help create a guide to help DYK reviewers know what they should be looking for? I've got one started at User:Cmadler/sandbox/DYKreviewguide, and while I've previously issued general invitations to any editor interested in DYK to assist with this, I'll take this opportunity of specifically inviting you to help with the guide. Thanks, cmadler (talk) 15:17, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I do not agree with Yngvadottir's proposed rule. Every constructive comment is a review, even if it doesn't have a {DYKtick} in front of it, and making a rule that people can't comment on a nom unless they want to pass or fail it would not at all be conducive to collaborative editing. As for the points raised that right now lots of editors are stuck reviewing topics they aren't knowledgeable about or interested in (a point that I don't think is even relevant to this discussion) and that a lot of people comment without reviewing, both of these were true long before the "quid pro quo" system was implemented and long before Tony became active here. rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:25, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

As for the point that "These comments then discourage other editors from becoming involved in reviewing those articles because it looks as if another editor is already handling it", the problem there is from other people misunderstanding the review process, not from the commenters. There is and has never been a rule that only one editor can "handle" a hook, there is and has never been a rule that other editors can't chime in or even do a full review when some other editor has commented before. This problem can be easily solved just by making newer reviewers aware of this fact, rather than by introducing some new rule barring people from making constructive comments. rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:29, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I see your point, but I wasn't trying to say above that editors should be barred from making additional comments entirely; only that they should refrain from doing so until an initial review has taken place, particularly if they're not interested in contacting the article's nominator and working with her/him to fix the issues of concern. Since most noms are reviewed in the first 24-48 hours, that'll still allow about a week for constructive comments and double-checking from other editors. (I regularly add such comments myself).Khazar (talk) 16:10, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I didn't propose the rule change. But I do apologise if my style in responding to points here has led anyone to think I am using this discussion as a coatrack for griping about the quid pro quo requirement. I think I may have given that impression in responding to the suggestion that there is a universal standard of interestingness in hooks. However, I don't believe anyone has suggested that people should not be allowed to comment on a nomination - the suggestion made was that the first comment should be on the merits of the nomination. I do maintain that the Suggestions page has been getting off track, which is not good for any talk page. Its purpose is for proposing articles and hooks and evaluating them/discussing how to improve them according to the DYK rules. Getting off-topic has a deleterious effect. A lot of nominations have been just sitting while tangential matters are discussed first. Elsewhere on this page people are talking about clearing the resulting backlog. This is not a good thing, and the solution to it is some form of refocusing of discussion on the Suggestions page on its purpose. Whether that takes the form of an added rule or not, I don't care. But nominations have been languishing, and I don't think the solution is to tell reviewers yet again to review things. Reviewers do have a choice of what they review. (And so they should - it would have been dishonest of me to review Islanding, I don't know the first thing about electricity installations. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:06, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

• I can recognise this "it's just a matter of your taste" argument from FAC five years ago. Another version is "it's subjective". Well, sorry, we'd get nowhere if we knocked over critical comments that way. When I point out that a hook lacks a focus of interest, it's usually obvious, or I'm explicit about it. There was outrage at FAC when the quality of prose, and of referencing, became a serious issue. It took a year or two, and some nominators were quite nasty about it. But we held out. People always complain at the start when others come along and make critical comments. Please don't object to critical assessments of hooks (or articles) by reviewers without saying why they are unreasonable.

  I must remind you that these hooks, and the exposure of the DYK article, is on the main page of the fifth most visited site in the world. It is a great privilege to have your DYK hook and article exposed in this way. Most WPians don't get this kind of instant exposure. Quality control needs to be better accepted in the process.

  "the person proposing the hook doesn't know where they stand"—I don't understand why not. I do notice that some nominators just slap up a hook and never return, or perhaps return once; that should be discouraged. "A lot of nominations have been just sitting while tangential matters are discussed first." Why? That's not the fault of reviewers: the nominators put the hooks there in the first place; why blame quality control? The rules should encourage both nominators and reviewers to return multiple times to address reviewers' comments, if necessary. The coloured ticks: I usually don't add one when I'm not happy with the hook or the article and have said so. I'm expecting the nominator to return and fix them, or to say, yeah, I like ALT2, etc. Then I might add a tick. There has been a practice of quick and dirty slap-up, check length of article, accept any old hook without regard to the fundamental aim of DYK, and tick. If the throughput is too high (6 hours is incredibly quick turn-around), then make it three shifts a day, not four.

  Some article are just not good DYK material, I've found. The islanding article is hard to understand; how to make a good hook out of it? The fossil article currently nominated is hard: I've thrown it back to the nominator, who knows the topic. If a nominator can't come up with an accessible, interesting, punchy hook, I say find another article.

  I had in mind producing a click-and-show tutorial page to train editors in producing interesting hooks, according to the rules. I could proceed; however, I'd need feedback, criticism, by regulars. It's not an easy thing to do, but it's important enough to invest some energy in—I think a fascinating skill-set is involved in hooking; otherwise, I wouldn't have delved into the process. Tony (talk) 16:54, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Points taken. Obviously I'm in favor of quality control, and would be glad to help toward that end. Already I regularly read through additional hooks and articles headed for the main page, even when they've already been reviewed, and make changes where I can. But I think part of what's causing friction here is that different editors have a different idea of what that quality control is going to entail. You seem to be raising a number of topics at once in your comments: how thoroughly the DYK articles are being checked; whether hooks on less popular/quirky topics should be included at all; how much context DYK noms should be required to give as to the rules of sports, definitions of technical terms, etc.; whether unreviewed articles should be allowed links in the hook; and even whether anything but the article title should be linked in the hook. And without attempting to build a consensus on these policies first, you've been asking reviewers to debate these with you nomination by nomination, often in aggressive and borderline-insulting language. I'd be interested to hear your proposals in all of these areas, but I think that this page might be a better place to hammer out that conversation than individual nomination threads. (I'd also suggest trying to break them into individual issues where possible for a clearer and more helpful discussion).Khazar (talk) 17:21, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Tony: A personal reply because your responses are still all about you and your tastes. I'm afraid I have to disagree both that your taste represents what we should all aim for, and that the Featured Article programme is a valid analogy. I do not think you appreciate what DYK is about. One big difference between it and other Wikipedia projects - possibly the most important - is that it has a deadline. Articles have to have been created or massively expanded 5 or at most 6 days before. I too appreciate your motivation, and of course in this collaborative effort, one must be prepared to work with others - and should welcome their input. But you keep demonstrating that you do not appreciate the purpose of the Suggestions page discussions, saying that you generally do not give a tick or other symbol. If you do not do that - or do not look at and review the article itself - you are getting in the way of the collaborative process by interposing your own concerns. I don't think that's the best way to get your objections to the current level of DYK hooks heard, and I am still saying you in essence saying that you are the arbiter of what DYK hooks should look like, or even of what articles should make it to DYK. That is not collaborative, and makes me personally less inclined to accept your judgment that we are doing a bad job of reviewing articles or writing hooks. Also, I have personal experience of working with you on the hook for my recent double nomination. I took your comments under advisement; I suggested compromises and gave my reasons; I accepted a revised hook from you - and you still neither reviewed the actual articles nor stepped back so someone else would. I do think you mean well, but I do not think you read and thought about the DYK rules when you edited them. I don't think you understand why the 5 symbols matter, or you wouldn't be saying you don't see why editors would not know where they stand when you don't use one of them. Please consider the nature and purpose of DYK. Because you are working determinedly at cross-purposes with it and in my opinion casting unwarranted aspersions. And this is an extremely active project with numerous editors looking at the hooks; I do not think a tutorial on how to please you, personally, with hooks would be any improvement over that collaborative process, which is far better suited to interesting a wide readership. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:40, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it's fair to just single out Tony because he is not the only user who is commenting without doing a full review. While Tony focuses on the interest level of hooks, KevinMcE focuses on the wording of hooks without doing a full review (often demanding greater context or sports definitions). Similarly, Lightmouse often checks for technical features (such as measurement units in the article) without doing a full review (though lately, Lightmouse has been adding a helpful Unit check preface at the front of the comment to make it clear it's a technical thing). They're each trying to help DYK hooks or articles but just not doing full-on reviews. OCNative (talk) 05:21, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Exactly. The featured-content processes would be ghost towns if we didn't have reviewers who specialise. You can't conduct this process, either, unless the environment is more encouraging for editors to come in and specialise. Frankly, the sheer volume of noms is troubling—it's a waterfall that has been allowed to evolve without proper quality control: the first step is to encourage reviewers reviewers who will spend time travelling through the noms picking off just one or two aspects in a whole lot, then return a day or two later to carry it through. Remember, it's a partnership between reviewers and nominators. The review-all-or-nothing idea that has been espoused here as a knee-jerk reaction is guaranteed to keep reviews superficial and totally inadequate—to further shift the quality-control process towards almost total reliance on a perfunctory, mundane task that nominators feel they have to go through for the sake of eligibility. We need a combination of both inputs, but I'm keen to end the fiction that if a nominator has skimmed through an article and hasn't scrutinised the hook for the interest factor (required by the rules), it's "ready to go".

I'm surprised at the level of hostility ("aggressive and borderline-insulting language").

"You seem to be raising a number of topics at once in your comments ...."—Yup.

"One big difference between it and other Wikipedia projects – possibly the most important - is that it has a deadline."—Oh, I know about deadlines. I've been roped into heavy commitments for rolling out the weekly editions of The Signpost, with a lot of humdrum fiddly cutting and pasting, fiddling; where there's a demanding and excellent managing editor (pokes at me over tiny details, journalistic misjudgements, mistakes in copy-editing—and a good thing, too), and where readers complain if the edition is 12 hours late ... not to mention criticising us for other "shortcomings". One reason The Signpost is pretty good, IMO, is because we react positively to critical comments. So please don't lecture me about deadlines.

"your responses are still all about you and your tastes"; "I have to disagree both that your taste represents what we should all aim for"—framing critical comments as "personal taste" was a defensive technique they used at FAC for at least two years, quite ignoring the fact that the basis of the criticisms was technical; almost all DYK critical comments have a technical basis. Of course there's some room to move, some subjectivity involved, but that should be worked out by interactions among reviewers and nominators. The other reaction at FAC was "Go fix it yourself and stop complaining". That was five years ago, and fortunately, the FAC process moved on from that years ago. I can see exactly the same pattern here. Nominators need to take more responsibility for working to improve their articles and hooks, and they need to exercise their skills by more in-depth scrutiny of other noms. I do believe an instruction to both nominators and reviewers is in order, suggesting that it is sometimes necessary to return to a DYK nomination a number of times to address comments. Tony (talk) 08:46, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi Tony, you seem to have addressed my main issue with "yup" here, so let me repeat my concern and then I'll step out regardless of response. The largest issue I see is that you've declared that several new rules need to be enforced at DYK without building a consensus for them, and you're working to enforce them on individual nominations without discussing them with other editors first. Some of these aren't Wikipedia policy as the consensus on this board currently interprets it. The wikilinking is a good example of this. You raise some interesting ideas about a requirement to check non-nominated articles we wikilink to, or reducing wikilinks in a hook far below the norms of WP:LINK, but rather than open that discussion here in a more formal way, you've made us respond to your proposed reforms on this hook-by-hook in reviews, which is frustrating for other reviewers and not particularly conducive to long-term policy change.

I understand that you feel a new set of rules needs to be developed, and as I said, I think it's a discussion worth having. If you want evidence my good faith, look no farther than the thread "A Thought" below, which I initiated as a spin-off of this conversation specifically to aid with these concerns. This proposal would make lengthier, more collaborative reviews of the type you're looking for more efficient (and therefore possible) by encouraging Watchlisting and longer threads for individual noms. All I'm saying is that I wish you would use this board as a starting point for your proposed changes and build a real consensus first, instead of trying to impose your new rules hook by hook. (Obviously, I'll be glad to abide by the views of the consensus in reviews of hooks; I just want us to get to that consensus first.) Cheers, Khazar (talk) 13:12, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Tony, I understand that you think there are serious problems with DYK. What you seem unable or unwilling to recognize is that DYK is different from FAC. You keep saying you pushed through your changes there. That is irrelevant. Featured articles are Wikipedia's best; DYK articles are some of Wikipedia's newest. There is no reason to apply comparable standards or make arguments from similarity about the two. I am sorry you find my pointing this out to be objectionable. But makes your argument shaky, and it becomes only shakier when you continue to aver that we all must agree with your taste. I do see other people commenting on only one facet of both articles and hooks - but I don't see them setting their critiques up as a pseudo review or a mandatory extra step or saying DYK is fundamentally broken (that it "makes the Main Page look like a f...ing mess"). Nor do I see them stating repeatedly that reviewers are not doing their jobs. Yup, I welcome extra eyes on my articles. As I said in thanks to the person who finally actually reviewed my last nomination, you never know what you've missed. If you see hostility in response to you, I apologise for whatever my share may be - this is a highly collaborative part of a collaborative project, and I don't want to be rude myself right back. But your personal belief that DYK is broken is misinformed and rests on invalid assumptions and has long since crossed over into bullying. I am sure this was inadvertent and therefore continue trying to clarify the situation. I do apologise for my lack of expertise in the forms of rhetoric you expect; styles do differ, after all :-) Yngvadottir (talk) 14:51, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Hardly worth replying if you're going to "step out" regardless.

"which is frustrating for other reviewers"—Where? Who? What is the basis of this supposed frustration?

"I understand that you feel a new set of rules needs to be developed"—I'm not sure about whether new rules are required. The overlinking thing is long-established on en.WP. We have style guides, and if they apply to the articles, why don't they apply to hooks? And last time I looked, there was no rule that you have to link everything in sight.

Watchlisting: it's problematic that you can't watchlist

"I wish you would use this board as a starting point for your proposed changes and build a real consensus first, instead of trying to impose your new rules hook by hook." In what respect am I imposing new rules? Which ones that don't already exist?

"you pushed through your changes there"—well, no, it was me and quite a few others; you're painting me as some kind of obsessive, which is not fair.

"There is no reason to apply comparable standards [to FAC] or make arguments from similarity about the two." I'm not applying similar standards ... I presume you mean to the articles? But these are getting main-page exposure, don't forget. If I see obvious things that need fixing, why am I not allowed to point them out? Or is the whole point of DYK to wave through bad articles and expose them on the main page? You're being very discouraging to me as a reviewer; it's no wonder this seems like a closed shop. Don't you want broader community input into the process?

"you continue to aver that we all must agree with your taste"—where?

Oh, now I'm accused of writing "pseudo" reviews, and imposing "a mandatory extra step" in the process. Ummm ... well, what is the purpose of the reviews?

"But your personal belief that DYK is broken"—I think it needs reforming; where did I say it's "broken". You're dramatising to suppress my contributions.

"has long since crossed over into bullying"—I rather think that you are bullying me, right here and now. Where do I bully, or is bullying just your drama-fest word for critical comments? Tony (talk) 11:08, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi Tony, to try to wrap this up, let me just answer the question that appears to me to be the nub here: "In what respect am I imposing new rules? Which ones that don't already exist?"

• You've argued for a much tougher standard on "boring" hooks than previous consensus, I think. Obviously there are hooks that can be improved in this respect, and you know from reading over the page that you and I both work hard to do this, even if we don't always agree. But you've also said several times something to the effect of "some topics are just not DYK material", to which you appeared to receive a lot of resistance and little agreement when you first posted the statement. This is a conversation worth having, yet you seem to have continued to apply this standard to articles as recently as yesterday without bothering to build consensus for it first. For example, two days on a hook about a prehistoric mammal family, you voted to delete, rather than reform, the nomination with the comment: "Hook seems pointless. Blades to molars? Wake me up when it's over." (OC appears to have later switched the icon, but given the unconstructive tone of the statement, it's hard for me to see why (s)he did.)
• Hook wikilinks have previously followed the rules at WP:LINK, I think. You've done a good job catching some overlinking, but your standards appear to be radically more stringent than those at WP:LINK. In recent days I've seen you remove links from hooks that included the name of a director of a cited movie, the city where a monument stood, or the name of a team in a Major League Baseball hook, as well as Major League Baseball itself. Other editors have then had to come by and replace these. To give an excellent "concrete" example, two days ago you took the hook

... that the world's largest concrete monument is a fountain located in Lincoln Park in Jersey City, New Jersey?

And quite rightly and usefully delinked concrete and monument, but also delinked Jersey City, which is (to me) a no-brainer link to include for a Jersey City park; another editor had to then go by and add this back in. This is no big deal in one case, but it's been happening in many cases, and it's against the policy of WP:LINK as I understand it. I wish you'd open a discussion on this issue on this page and take the pulse of consensus rather than revising all the hooks based on your singular interpretation.

• You've pushed for removing links at times by saying that unreviewed articles shouldn't go to the main page; this is a rule I've never seen listed at DYK. It's an interesting subject to raise, but not standing policy as I know it. Again, it's a discussion that's probably better to have in one centralized place and build a consensus on, rather than repeating the debate hook by hook.

You say you're surprised that your edits haven't been received with more open arms, but if I went over to Featured Articles and told them that they were a "f***ing mess", that much of their content was regularly "lame", that they were an embarrassment to the main page, that I knew their rules better than the established editors there and had some important new ones for them too, and that I was going to start applying my new rules article by article, what kind of reception would I get? It's just not how civility works.

So that you don't feel that I'm trying to drive you away, let me reiterate one more time that I value both your opinion and your work, and I do hope you stick around. I've tried to extend you plenty of olive branches in the above comments, noting that I admired your diligence, that I thought you'd significantly improved a number of hooks, that I'd be glad to join a discussion of your proposed reforms, and that I had even initiated a discussion of major page overhaul that would make the kind of extended nomination review you're looking for more practical. I don't feel I'm seeing much good will in return, but rather repeated suggestions that I and anyone who disagrees with your approach must just not care about quality. (Take a look over the number of hooks I've requested changes to on this page over the past two months, the number of nominations I've rewritten myself for their prose and citations, or the number of quality articles I've sent through myself, and then let me know if you still think that's the case). So I guess if I had to write a wishlist, it would be that you'd A) chill out a little bit and realize there's other well-intentioned editors here you could work with, instead of an army of evil Wikigoblins sabotaging the main page; B) acknowledge that in an area devoted to encouragement of new content, it's particularly important to be constructive with nominators while still maintaining rigor; and C) slow down for a day or two to check consensus on your interpretations of policy, such as the link issue or the "boring topic" ban. I realize we may be past the point where any of these ABCs can happen, but here's hoping. In any case, I'm long overdue for that wikibreak I promised myself (five days ago!), so I'll be out of your hair either way. Cheers, Khazar (talk) 14:53, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

PS To emphasize one more time how much I do admire some of your reviewing, Tony, edits like this [4] strike me as exactly what we should all be aspiring to here, and the sort of feedback I wish I was more often giving myself. Cheers, Khazar (talk) 15:03, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

That's a good example by Khazar, but I also think you go overboard sometimes Tony, such as I just read where you said link only the DYK article and on the copyediting comments you often seem to want to make these new articles mini-FAs. BarkingMoon (talk) 15:11, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I checked page views: Islanding, where Tony1 condemned the topic and the hook as hopeless, received 1.8k views (good by any standard). My double nom received 1,000 views for one article and over 1,000 for the other (split over 2 days), more than I expected for 18th-century London articles. I continue to not see Tony1's point that we should avoid links other than to the article itself: context is important for the reader especially in such a short snippet, and I do not agree that the purpose of DYK is simply to get the reader to click on the particular article. I believe it is (a) to encourage and reward new work, (b) to get clicks on anything within the hooks, (c) to make the Main Page more interesting and more representative of the encyclopedia by balancing out the news items on the other side. Moreover, when I look at the Featured Article segment of the Main Page, it's always liberally sprinkled with links. We've had a series of alerts of various sorts in recent months about the project being offputting to new editors and to people who want more collegiality, and DYK is the main locus for rewarding and being encouraging to content producers and not incidental to new editors. (I was completely unaware of it until someone nominated one of my first articles for DYK - and it was shepherded through teh process, with substitution of a less shocking hook for the one I myself would have chosen that was first proposed, all without my knowing. As a result I decided to nominate one myself when it included something I thought was interesting enough. I believe that experience is fairly typical. Now that people with 5 or more DYKs have to review a nomination, we see the newbies self-identifying and their presence is highlighted.) And I see Tony1's response above not getting the point about the purpose of DYK and that Featured Article is fundamentally not comparable. And continuing to aver that his taste is normative and that he will succeed here just because he is right, which is bullying - plain word in response to his earlier demand that I speak plainly. (Condemning people's articles and hooks just because he personally finds them boring and/or hopeless is also bullying, in my book, but I think his conduct in relation to the other DYK reviewers is a less disputable example based on his assumptions.) And conflating me and Khazar, which argues a failure to read carefully. :-) In any event, based on the arguments he's made, I think those statistics on hits for the 3 articles should be taken on board as evidence that tastes do indeed differ and DYK should not throw out its collaborative practice in reviewing and working on hooks and articles in response to repeated assertions that they're not working. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:40, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

• My analogy with FAC concerns the tactics that nominators used for a couple of years to try to discredit reveiwers. They are exactly the tactics you are directing towards me, and they won't work. "And continuing to aver that his taste is normative and that he will succeed here just because he is right, which is bullying - plain word in response to his earlier demand that I speak plainly. (Condemning people's articles and hooks just because he personally finds them boring and/or hopeless is also bullying,"—It's that kind of aggressive language that will make people disregard what you say. Equating critical commentary with "bullying" is the oldest defence of mediocrity, and you can do better than that. And equating technical issues with "taste" is your other method; I don't buy it, and neither does anyone else who wants to raise standards here. Here, most nominators engage with criticism, especially when ALTs are suggested. On the contrary, it is you who seem to be conducting a vendetta against thorough reviewing. Tony (talk) 16:49, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Notification of Tfd

Adding notification that Template:In use is up for discussion. Calmer Waters 05:29, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Here is a more direct link to the discussion underway. - Dravecky (talk) 23:54, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Clear the old noms effort

I'm going to begin a personal effort to clear the old noms as much as possible. By old I mean ones in the red zone. There are currently SEVEN DAYS of noms in the red zone. May 29 is in the worst shape as it has 14 noms and only 2 approvals. The whole set is full of stalled discussions, pending alt proposals vastly different from the original, etc. Any help would be appreciated. As a side note, when I build prep sets I try to concentrate on the older noms. Thanks to all in advance. BarkingMoon (talk) 21:15, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

One (May 25) was approved right away, but while it was sitting there a new article was created and the hook tweaked, no more. I told the first reviewer and the queue discussion, nothing happened. Now it's taken care of. A little late for a May festival, smile. Thanks for volunteering! Should I address you in such a case? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:15, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Sure, post on my talk page is probably best. By the way, you do great music article work Gerda. BarkingMoon (talk) 22:44, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

You read my mind about Harte, thank you! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:42, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm trying to clear a few that seem to lost in the queue also. Thanks for pointing this out, Barking. Cheers, Khazar (talk) 13:57, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Ok, just took care of or moved along 8-10. Amazing how many are still left. Khazar (talk) 16:25, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to all who posted here and those who are helping on the noms page too. I plan to make this a regular review of mine as my wiki time permits.BarkingMoon (talk) 16:35, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

No problem. If you get a chance in the next few days, Barking, I'd love your eyes on Crisco's and my June 2 hook for Ahmed Taufik and Tomy Wimata. As a doublehook dealing with sensitive BLP issues (it's literally about a libel case), it could use a good reviewer. Cheers, Khazar (talk) 16:43, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Commented there. Easy fixes. BarkingMoon (talk) 21:51, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Barking! Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:14, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I've taken care of another 5. Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:21, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks again to all. I feel we're making real progress. BarkingMoon (talk) 13:27, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Got about five more today, now I'm off to dinner with the wife. Cheers, Khazar (talk) 21:25, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Reverting on Yellow-crowned Bishop photo

Snowmanradio and Chienlit keep trying to insert an unprotected image from commons into this lead DYK article being used with its picture. BarkingMoon (talk) 21:43, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

he just did it again. He doesn't understand. He's been around for ages and should know better. So an unprotected image is on the main page again. I'm bowing out otherwise someone would accuse me of edit warring.BarkingMoon (talk) 22:04, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, I backed you up there. Hope I did not do wrong but you sound as if you know what you are doing. betsythedevine (talk) 22:12, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you.BarkingMoon (talk) 22:13, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

We protect images which are featured on the main page, protection of images (or their cropped/wider versions) in the linked articles does not matter. Materialscientist (talk) 22:15, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

THe commons version they keep inserting is not protected on commons. And what's linked articles got to do with this particular issue? This article is the lead dyk right now.BarkingMoon (talk) 22:22, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Am I missing something? They are trying to insert and uncropped version into the article, isn't it? The only requirement for protection is for images which you see on the main page directly, what happens in the article is a matter of routine vandalism control. In other words, click the image on the main page, try to alter it and save (add some invisible symbol) and if you succeed, go get an admin asap, otherwise, its Ok :-) Materialscientist (talk) 22:26, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

See edit history of image. This administrator is not on line at the moment to ask. It seems that he accidentally gave the small image that is going to be shown on the main page for the DYK the same name as the file in the infobox. This has the effect of showing the small image in the infobox (somehow the en wiki version takes preference over the commons version) and this looks silly. I and another user put a large image in the infobox from commons (with a different name) to look better. It really needs an administrator to fix, because the files are protected - the small image should be given a new name and this name of the small file used in the main page. When the old small image on en wiki is deleted then the proper sized image from commons will be shown in the infobox. Snowman (talk) 22:33, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

• File:Euplectes afer -Lake Baringo, Kenya -male-8 CROP.jpg - small image on en wiki
• Commons:File:Euplectes afer -Lake Baringo, Kenya -male-8 CROP.jpg - large image on commons

Me and another user are trying to but a full size image in the infobox. Alternately, the file on commons can be renamed, and shown in the infbox. Snowman (talk) 22:32, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm staying out of this now, no comments/edits at all. I wish I'd never gotten involved in WP:BIRD.BarkingMoon (talk) 22:39, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Gentlemen/ladies, please try to understand the mechanism of image protection - this could happen with any topic, not just birds. Only administrators can upload images from commons to en.wiki, "covering" up the commons image, and we do that to implement protection. Usually we copy, and sometimes we crop/enhance the image in the process, but this is not what has happened here - the image was already cropped. You are fighting about two different versions of one image. One (cropped) is featured on the main page; it is protected and you can do nothing about it until its gone off the main page (then the protected copy is deleted by the bot and you get access to the original version). It does not matter (for main page matters) which version is in the article (well, we have a requirement that the featured image should be present in the article in some form). Materialscientist (talk) 22:46, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

It does make a difference that the minute image is in the infobox, because it looks too small, and hundreds or thousands of viewers will see it when its DYK comes up. Actually, the version to be shown on the main page (the one currently in the infobox) is not a cropped version, is it a miniaturised image and it is masking the full size image (a cropped version of an image) in the infobox. This miniature image arises form a cropped image on commons, which in turn arises from an uncropped version, which is also on commons. Me and another user were trying to put the uncropped version in the infobox. This fits the requirements, because the version on the main page for the DYK originally came from this image. The article will look better for its big DYK moment with this uncropped version in the infobox. This still needs fixing, so can an administrator fix the file name of the miniature version or put the uncropped version back in the infobox as two editors were trying to do? Snowman (talk) 23:02, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

"Miniaturization" was a human error during upload from Commons. Corrected. Materialscientist (talk) 23:23, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

(ec)Having apparently been part of the problem here by making a requested edit without understanding the issue, I hesitate to jump in again and revert myself since I still do not understand what is happening. If somebody who actually knows what is up would put the right image into this article, let me flag this edit of mine as a possible problem, and one that is still the article's current version. Abashedly yours, Betsy betsythedevine (talk) 23:27, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

I see. Miniaturization was the mistake. It is understandable that this problem has caused confusion. Only an admin could do something with the protected page, and I am glad it has been fixed. I think that showing the uncropped image in the article infoxbox was practically the only thing an non-admin could do to temporarily improve the appearance of the article in preference to showing the miniature image that was here by mistake. Snowman (talk) 23:55, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

I hope everyone likes the photo of this bird, and I am glad it is being shown properly now. It is one I uploaded from Flickr and one taken by a photographer that kindly gives his images Wiki-friendly licences. Snowman (talk) 00:01, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

DYK rules: queries

I've gone through the rules, copy-editing here and there. I hope I've made no substantive changes to the meanings. Below, I've listed queries I didn't deal with in the text. The only one that concerns practice, beyond mere textual expression, is the reviewing-other-noms requirement.

IMO, the expression of the rules could be reduced a bit to convey the same meanings (i.e., they are unnecessarily long). Why not remove almost all of the bold aside from titles and subtitles? It really makes it look messy, and bleaches the function of highlighting. I do not believe readers end up taking any notice when so much is bolded.

I hope the surface copy-edits and these queries are helpful. Feedback from editors who know the process better would be most welcome.

• "If an article is linked to at ITN but not the featured ITN article, it is still eligible for DYK."—This is unclear. Does it mean "If an article has been linked from ITN but not as a featured ITN article, ..."? As currently worded, it could mean an article linked from any article that is linked in an ITN article. Surely that's not the meaning. And it does mean "ever before", not "right now", yes?
• "Articles must have a minimum of 1,500 characters of prose"—Shouldn't all character measurements specify "including spaces"? Such explicit specification is common: let's be clear about it.
• "Cited hook – The nominated hook must contain a fact cited in the article. (See more information under The hook, below.) The fact should have an inline citation, and the article in general should use inline, cited sources." This subsection lead seems to be repeated in the subsequent points. Why not remove all but the title so that editors need read the information twice within 10 seconds?
• I removed the "in particular" from the NPOV point, since all of the points are very important, aren't they? Why are the others demoted by not having "in particular"?
• "please review another editor's nomination"—is the intention that both article and hook be reviewed to satisfy this requirement? If so, could it be explicit? I'm finding that most such reviews are far from thorough ... in fact, this seems to be treated as a perfunctory job by many nominators. Just writing "Reviewed blah nom" is all too easy, without even a critical comment.
• I removed "Uncited and poorly cited articles will not be chosen." at the end. This is already dealt with, and counts as bloated text IMO. Editors are expected to read the rules, which should not have to state things twice (or three times).

Tony (talk) 06:56, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

• "and the first sentence should end with a question mark."—I've never seen a hook of more than one sentence. Why is this indicated here? (My italics)
• "The hook itself should be concise: fewer than about 200 characters, including spaces. While 200 is an outside limit,"—First it says "about"; then this is described as "an outside limit", which looks hard-and-fast. Which is it? A firm limit (I would prefer this), or a little fuzzy? Also, concision is different from length: a 140-character hook can be flabby (this could be clarified by saying "... concise and be fewer than ...".
• This is repeated under "Hook", after it has been dealt with under "Selection criteria". Why the repetition? Editors should expect the rules to be as concise and well-organised as DYK hooks and articles. "The "Did you know?" fact must be mentioned in the article and cited with an inline citation. Also, can we get rid of the speckled bolding in the text? Links are not supposed to bolded, to start with, in normal text such as these rules.
• "Shorter hooks are preferred to longer ones, as long as they don't misstate the article content."—The logic is weird. Why not bin after the comma?
• "try to avoid selecting your own suggestions"—what are "suggestions"? The word is used in two successive points: seriously, I don't know what it refers to.
• I removed "please": suddenly we're being polite after all of those musts and do nots? Better not to swerve the tone, don't you think?
• Should the rules on images warn nominators that an accompanying image will not necessarily be used, since only one image per set is allowed?
• "If there are no suggestions with appropriate images, you can usually use a flag for a topic with a national connection."—Really? A bit desperate.
• "Sounds ... should have similar qualities to pictures"—unclear. There's no corresponding requirement for vids. The section title "Images" belies these points; why not "Accompanying files", or something like that? Tony (talk) 07:45, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I'll have a go at answering a few of those Tony...

• My interpretation of the ITN rule is, as you say, that any article which has ever been a featured ITN article (i.e. has appeared in bold in the main page section) is not eligible. I suspect however that this would be relaxed if an article under went a large expansion after a number of years, much like 2nd DYKs for the same article are allowed
• I think the minimum of 1,500 characters of prose rule doesn't mention spaces as it allows some wriggle room for the "In practice, articles longer than 1,500 characters may still be rejected as too short, at the discretion of the selecting reviewers" rule. An article that's bang on 1500 when all spaces are included may well be rejected as too short. I'd say combining the two rules and adding "including spaces" is the solution.
• A note that not all images will get used is sensible. The use of a flag is only appropriate when we are "A bit desperate" a lot desperate.
• "your own suggestions" are any hooks you've nominated, the clue is in the navigation template which refers to Template talk:Did you know as suggestions, but this could be clearer.
• Reviews... it should be stated that the article needs looking at beyond its compliance with DYK rules but we can't expect everyone to be an ace copyeditor so it will never be perfect
• I'm all for any removal of repetition, the rules are far too long winded as they stand and could be quite intimidating to a new user when they are actually quite simple - Basement12 (T.C) 08:48, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

If we're looking at re-wording the rules, this would be a good time to add to the review requirement the point suggested above: that if you make the first comment on someone's hook, you should also review the article and hook for whether they meet the DYK criteria? Also, I'm starting to see people requiring nominators to review two articles if it's a double nomination. This is not how the quid pro quo requirement has been interpreted in the past; if it's changed, that should be put into the rule. And if not, it should be made clear that the requirement is one review per nomination. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yngvadottir (talk • contribs) 13:08, 9 June 2011 UTC (UTC)

Great job improving these rules! I was also looking at Wikipedia:Featured_article_criteria, and suggest we add this to ours: "stable: it is not subject to ongoing edit wars." betsythedevine (talk) 13:34, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

• The meaning of the ITN rule is that articles featured at ITN, now or at any time in the past, are not eligible for DYK, but articles that were merely linked from ITN may be eligible (assuming they meet normal DYK requirements).
• Regarding the readable prose length, I don't think its necessary to state that spaces are included -- they are characters, after all -- but since it doesn't change the meaning, I don't object.
• No problem to remove the redundancy after "Cited hook".
• I agree that reviews and the reviewing requirement need to be more clearly stated. The requirement is a complete review, which includes reviewing both the hook itself and the relevant article. At one time I was working on a DYK reviewing guide (draft at User:Cmadler/sandbox/DYKreviewguide) and others are welcome to pick this up and run with it.
• Although exceedingly rare, multiple sentence hooks have been used.
• I agree that the item on hook length should state that the hook should be no more than 200 characters (with an exception for multi-article hooks) and that the hook should be concise.
• "Try to avoid selecting your own suggestions" refers to nominations, but should be stronger: "Do not select..."
• I agree with your suggestion to add a warning that accompanying images will not necessarily be used.
• The item about using a flag if there's no appropriate image can probably just be removed.
• The proposal requiring the first commentor to do a full review is still just a proposal; more discussion is needed before it's added to the rules.
• We have had lengthy debates about whether the review requirement would be article-for-article or hook-for-hook. Established consensus is hook-for-hook, regardless of how many articles are in either hook.
• I agree that articles should not be subject to ongoing edit wars, but I'm afraid that a further requirement for stability might directly contradict DYK's purpose in highlighting new content; if the content is new, I don't know how it can be said to be stable. cmadler (talk) 16:22, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

• Good responses. Thanks. Tony (talk) 10:11, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Antwerp Diamond Heist

The Template talk:Did you know#Antwerp Diamond Heist nom is being held up. I don't understand. Apparently the refs are still unacceptable. I've done lots of DYKs with refs done with Reflinks. This is the first time I've heard it's not allowed. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 09:33, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

You used a wrong reflinks mode which adds titles only - better add sources and dates. You could fix that in the "interactive" mode, "and Plain links" (3). There was one duplicate and dead link, which you could fix with wayback machine, and one googlebooks link which is better to format with this tool. Fixed all that. Materialscientist (talk) 09:42, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Where have you been all my life! Why didn't anybody tell me about this tool??? Wayback is kept way back from the great firewall. Too bad. Thanks for the tip on interactive mode in reflinks. I had just posted on your talk, but you beat me to it here. If you go any faster, you'll travel backward in time. You are awesome x10 Thank you! :) :) :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 09:50, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Will this meet the criteria?

I decided to create the article Imagine No Malaria only to find that it had already been created. It has been mostly untouched since moving to the mainspace and currently had 277 characters when I first viewed it. I do not know if I will be able to improve the article to the quality of a DYK article within the five day timeframe. If I edit the article in User:Ryan Vesey/Imagine No Malaria, then copy the new text over, will I meet the guidelines? Ryan Vesey (talk) 21:57, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Not at present as per DYKcheck it's only a 2x expansion. Also, don't wholesale copy a sandbox to an existing article, better to move it in sections. I'm sure someone else can explain the intricacies better than I can. BarkingMoon (talk) 22:08, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I didn't mean at present. I meant, if it takes me ten days to edit in my sandbox, and I move it over, meeting all other requirements. Will it still be considered a fivefold expansion within the time allotted? Otherwise, I would prefer to make the changes on the page. Ryan Vesey (talk) 22:12, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it would count, because 5x expansion is not calculated from the date you started working on your sandbox, it's counted from the date the material reaches mainspace. Hypothetically, if the article were 277 characters now and you spent a year working on it in mainspace, then moved the material to the article after a year, expansion would still be counted from that single edit. So, given the article's current state, all you need to do is get a sandbox version up to about 2500 characters (I'm counting 525 characters in the current version) as quickly or slowly as you like, then move it over in one edit.

As for BarkingMoon's advice regarding moving the sandbox to the article, to the best of my knowledge it has long been common practice to copy an entire sandbox over in a single edit, and I have never before heard any rule or guideline suggesting that the sandbox copy must be moved over in a piecemeal fashion. rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:23, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

One problem in longterm sandbox edits is if you copy in a single move, you wipe out everything changed since you started in your sandbox. Most of the edits made in mainspace would be legit and you'd have to account for that before moving it over. Also, the biggest problem in sandbox editing is if you let other users edit the sandbox and then move stuff over, the GFDL rights are lost and a history merge would need to be done, so best not to let anyone edit your sandbox. BarkingMoon (talk) 22:31, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but attribution only matters if multiple editors have edited the sandbox article, which is not usually the case and which for the time being does not appear to be the case with this article; in any case, pasting over the article one section at a time as you suggested would not solve the problem in that situation anyway. In that situation, a better solution is to perform a history merge. In the more common situation where a single editor is the only one who has written the sandbox content and doesn't care about the individual diffs from that process, it's best just to paste over the whole sandbox in a single edit, essentially lumping all those diffs into a single diff in the article history which serves as the attribution to that editor. There is no requirement that every individual diff from that editor's revision be accounted for.

Anyway, the short answer for Ryan Vesey is yes, the sandbox editing will satisfy the DYK requirements and yes, it is acceptable to paste the sandbox over directly when it is ready. rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:38, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

In response to worries about edits to the mainspace while I am working in the Sandbox: First, this page has very few edits, so the chance is unlikely. Second, if I were to find a change that wasn't accounted for in my new edit I would A) Include the change in my edit and B) Contact any editor involved. Thanks for the advice :) Ryan Vesey (talk) 23:05, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

5 queues are empty

Five of the six queues are empty. Maybe we could get more admins helping at DYK.BarkingMoon (talk) 01:05, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Serious question: is this caused by my comments—somehow slowing down the process? Or is it a fairly frequent problem? Tony (talk) 10:44, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

This was neither caused by your comment, nor is a problem - the preparation areas are regularly filled these days thanks to a few hard-working editors, and uploading them to queues takes a minute. Materialscientist (talk) 10:54, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Please, once the preps are up, consider to fill them with the 3 Special occasion noms for 12 June, two of them pictured, yes one of them mine, thank you. - Looking closer: the debate between summer and winter could certainly take place any day, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:32, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Prep 4 Summer where?

Summer where? That is my question looking at the pic of the lead hook, which talks about Sumer. The pic looks like summer in North America or Europe. I would say "inappropriate", if that term had not been used too much in a recent discussion here. - Also: Hans Vogt, nominated in May with the Maifestspiele (May (!) Festival), finally made it to a queue, q1, to appear when it is night in Europe. That's appropriate, if May should be hidden in June, smile, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:26, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, that (summer pictured) made me smile :-). Yes, I won't use it as a lead. Materialscientist (talk) 09:38, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Athenaeum, Virginia, 10 June entry

I tried to enter Athenaeum, Virginia, but for some reason, it's not appearing like it should. Can someone help with that please? Thanks! Divide et Impera (talk) 14:29, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Queue 6

Lulz Security in Queue 6 has been redirected to LulzSec. Could an admin fix the hook in Queue 2 6? Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:48, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Fixed redirect. What needs fixing in Q2? Materialscientist (talk) 01:00, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Oops. I thought I got all those (I had written the wrong number). Thanks for getting it. Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:10, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

A thought

One thing that frustrates me in working on the T:DYK page is its massive structure, which makes it difficult to navigate and track changes. Has it ever been proposed to break the nominations into subpages per AfD, GAN, etc.? While this would slow the ability of editors to skim through multiple nominations, it would make it significantly easier to track individual threads, some of which have been pretty lengthy the past two weeks. It would also remove the burdensome step of notifying nominators/creators/reviewers every time their response is requested, as they could simply track the page for their nom. I find it very tiresome, too, to have to check my nominations on the page every day to make sure no one's added a comment without notifying me, since it's hard to search reliably enough through the history.

I don't know how feasible this plan would be, but I wanted to throw the idea out there and see if more experienced DYKers had any thoughts. Khazar (talk) 17:34, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

It also takes forever to load and save an edit at T:TDYK.BarkingMoon (talk) 17:39, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Oh, good. I almost said that, too, but I was worried it was just my crummy laptop. Khazar (talk) 17:53, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

It's been proposed a number of times, and even acheived consensus in favor last November ([5]) but has never been implemented. (At that time, implementing the quid pro quo requirement that nominators also review hooks was given priority in implementation.) My personal preference is for each nomination to have a sub-page, which could then be transcluded in any number of ways: chronologically (similar to the current page), topically, etc. It will make following individual threads easier, will fix the problem that some (many?) of us are experiencing with load times, will largely do away with edit conflicts, and will create a more-accessible record of previous DYK nomination discussions. Let's talk about how to make this happen. cmadler (talk) 18:05, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I do remember the idea of switching to an AfD-like transclusion being tossed around. IIRC, the main concerns were that it would make adding a nom a little more difficult (creating the subpage, then transcluding it), and that IPs wouldn't be able to nom without assistance (since it would involve creating a page.) Those might not be big deals, though. 28bytes (talk) 18:18, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Can anyone recall an IP user ever nominating a hook? I can recall perhaps one or two occasions when an editor came across an article that had been expanded by and IP and nominated it, but I don't recall ever seeing an actual nomination by an IP editor. cmadler (talk) 19:10, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

They do occasionally (I know I've moved a couple into prep where an IP was credited), but that won't be an issue if we go the bot route below. 28bytes (talk) 19:12, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

The page length is an issue. However, if we used substitution, would we start archiving nominations? Crisco 1492 (talk) 18:10, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I'd be pro-archive. Khazar (talk) 18:31, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Thinking about it some more, it might be possible to implement this, AfD-style, with a bot. Let nominations happen the way they do now, and a bot will periodically grab the new nomination, create a page to put it in, and transclude it. It could add an "Add this nomination to your watchlist" link at the top of each one. This could essentially happen behind the scenes and not require nominators to do anything differently, while providing them with the ability to watch individual nominations. 28bytes (talk) 18:28, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

So if others are at least interested in this, what's the next step, then? Should I attempt to formulate a formal proposal for a support/oppose vote here? Or should we investigate the programming end of this first, and then come back to make a formal proposal for an up/down vote? Khazar (talk) 18:33, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I think the programming end would be pretty straightforward. Shubinator is obviously the expert on DYK bots, so I'll defer to him, but if he's not got the time for it I can pitch in with bot help. The only real thing that would change from an "end-user" point of view would be the addition of the ability to watch individual threads. When building a prep set, you'd just remove the {{Template talk:Did you know/date/(article title)}} from T:TDYK instead of the nomination itself. Let's see if anyone can think of any "catches" or downsides to this before we put up a formal proposal. 28bytes (talk) 18:57, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I think something similar to AfD, GA reviews, etc. would work well. Nominator subst's a template on to the top of T:TDYK/Today, using only the article title (first article title in the case of a multi-hook) as a parameter. Template creates some kind of box with a link. Nominator clicks the link to go to a page-creation pre-loaded with the DYKnom template. Nominator fills in the relevant template parameters and saves, creating the sub-page. Bot puts a notification on the article talk page(s), as described above. Something like that, anyway... cmadler (talk) 19:20, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Whichever approach people prefer, I'll be happy to help with. 28bytes (talk) 01:34, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I'd be very happy for this proposal to proceed. Schwede66 03:32, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Before voting, I would ask tech-minded editors to comment on feasibility. We usually have 200+ noms, every nom has a few ticks (dyknom templates are commented out), meaning ~600 transcluded templates on one page. I think this will crash due to WP:Template limits. We can ban ship templates and tick templates though. Materialscientist (talk) 04:06, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Good point. The tick templates should be OK, though, since they're already subst'ed. 28bytes (talk) 04:25, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Whoops, I forgot that ticks are substituted. Then {{*mp}} is to be banned, preferably by software, or crashes will be hard to debug. I'm not sure what happens if we just transclude 300 nomination templates (with zero templates in them). Maybe this would be enough for a crash (?). Materialscientist (talk) 04:40, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Replacing {{*mp}} with a simple * would make sense, since it's already present in the cleared prep queues anyway. I can poke around and see how close to the transclusion limits the page is already. Template talk:Did you know/Full TOC transcludes the whole page already, so we can play around with a copy of that and drop some more transclusions in it to see what leeway we have. 28bytes (talk) 04:55, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Previous discussions of the issue (this list gets longer every time...)

• Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_32#Individual_day_pages
• Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_44#T:TDYK and Loading Times
• Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_49#T:DYKT Page too big
• Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_50#Archive_of_suggestion_page.3F
• Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_53#Suggestion
• Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_53#Subpages
• Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_61#Discussion
• Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents/Plagiarism_and_copyright_concerns_on_the_main_page#Setting_up_date_subpages_and_archiving (my own proposal)

rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:29, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for posting those links. Looking over those conversations, the two main concerns I see as downsides for doing this are (1) Art LaPella's point that it wouldn't be easy to do a diff of T:TDYK to see what's changed, since the changes would be to the subpages, and (2) Orlady's similar concern that watchlisting T:TDYK alone would no longer be sufficient to see all the changes that are made to the nominations. I think everything else can be addressed by a well-designed bot, but those two points will require some more thought. 28bytes (talk) 04:50, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

• I think Rjanag's proposal to have transcluded pages by date (like Wikipedia:Files for deletion) would avert the template limit problem that would arise from having transcluded pages per nomination. This doesn't solve the problems that Art LaPella and Orlady described, but it would solve the template limit problem and still allow IPs to self-nominate (there's an IP self-nom for List of nutrition guides, History of USDA nutrition guides right now actually). OCNative (talk) 05:07, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

My thought is, if we're going to do this, we might as well go all the way and use the AfD method, so that individual nominations can be watchlisted. As someone who partipicates in both AfD and RfD discussions, I don't really like the fact that I have to "watch" the whole day's worth of RfD discussions when there's only one RfD discussion I care about. I think the transclusion limit issue can be managed, so I'd be hesitant to let that drive the design decision. 28bytes (talk) 05:14, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree that we should use the AfD method so that individual nominations can be watchlisted. My hope is this would allow more thorough and efficient discussion on each. While I appreciate Orlady's point that the page could not then be watchlisted as a whole, I think on the balance this approach would allow more people to be following their nominations and reviews rather than less, since people with only a few reviews/noms on the page (the majority) could more efficiently track them. Khazar (talk) 13:30, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Here is a quick test of 300 transclusions from User:Materialscientist/Sandbox2. Seems Ok, but maybe I'm missing something. Feel free to experiment. Materialscientist (talk) 05:23, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Preprocessor node count: 3003/1000000
Post-expand include size: 933300/2048000 bytes
Template argument size: 0/2048000 bytes
Expensive parser function count: 0/500

I'm a bit too sleepy for deeper analysis at the moment, but my first impression is that a bot isn't necessary and may not even help much. IPs can create talk pages, and any subpage of Template talk:Did you know counts. I'm also curious about the transclusion limits and will play around with MatSci's sandbox sometime this weekend. Also, shifting to transclusion might affect DYKcheck, but as long as T:TDYK looks the same, the script shouldn't need major changes. Shubinator (talk) 06:37, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

My thinking on the bot was that it could be helpful to minimize the disruption involved in a changeover to AfD-style watchable nominations. People would create nomination sections as they do now by subst'ing the NewDYKnom template, and the bot would handle converting that into a transcluded subpage. That would eliminate the need to have to re-write the nominating instructions before phasing in the change. 28bytes (talk) 07:08, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I think it might end up causing more disruption though. The bot isn't going to be bug-free, and when it crashes things will get fairly chaotic much faster. If we're planning on changing to manual transclusion at some point, might as well do it at the same time as switching to the transclusion system in general; that way we make all our changes in one go, so there's only one change to get used to. Shubinator (talk) 15:19, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'll defer to your judgment on that. But bot or no bot, I do wish we could implement transclusions without making it a two-step process. I find AfD nominations to be a bit of pain unless I'm using Twinkle, I'd hate to make the DYK nomination process unnecessarily harder for people if it can be avoided. 28bytes (talk) 15:53, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

If we go with the page per nomination scheme, without a bot it has to be a two-step process. Shubinator (talk) 06:57, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

It would be nice to have these transclusions; it would make returning hooks from the queue a lot easier, especially if we archived on a day by day basis like at AFD. Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:18, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

However, loading Material Scientist's test page (with 300 nominations) took a while. Editing should be easier, but loading it still takes a good 2 minutes here. Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:46, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't think I'd be opposed to setting up AfD-style transclusions (by nomination, rather than by date), although I'll have to re-check the past discussions to refresh my memory about the various issues. 28bytes, I don't entirely agree with your summary of what the most major arguments were (although maybe that's just because of my personal preferences); Orlady's point seemed like a non-issue to me, given that watching T:TDYK doesn't seem extremely useful even now. The points that I remember driving several of the previous discussions were 1) it would be hard to proofread a bunch of noms in a single edit (I remember Art used to do that a lot, although now it seems like he's editing the queues rather than T:TDYK directly), and that it might make it difficult to grab multiple hooks for the prep (I don't remember the details of that argument off the top of my head, though, and it seems like something that can be worked around).

If we go forward with it, someone will need to design new templates (or at least instructions) for the process. I think {{NewDYKnom}} will still be usable on subpages, though. rʨanaɢ (talk) 14:18, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I fiddled around with MatSci's sandbox and came up with these numbers after adding more complexity:

Preprocessor node count: 3588/1000000
Post-expand include size: 1195554/2048000 bytes
Template argument size: 535/2048000 bytes
Expensive parser function count: 0/500

Looks good to me; we can also probably use {{*mp}} without worrying about the transclusion limits. Shubinator (talk) 06:54, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

• What would be the next step(s) toward making this happen? cmadler (talk) 17:05, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

A completely different approach to reduce loading time was (thanks to Voceditenore) to replace the pictures by links to them, as in the Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera/DYK Archive, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:58, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

To prep composers

If there is a shortage of pictured hooks, one way around is to go through ample articles and suggest a picture (authors often forget that), sometimes from a linked, but non-bolded article. Sometimes just by reading a hook it is clear that some article in it should have nice pictures. This is to avoid putting stubs as leads only because they happened to have a picture at T:TDYK. Materialscientist (talk) 02:44, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Technically, stubs shouldn't be passed anyway, right? (Although it seems to me that what constitutes a "stub" is less and less clear these days.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:34, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

It's my understanding that an article that passes they DYK prose size check is not a stub and should have its status changed to start or C. Or is this incorrect? BarkingMoon (talk) 10:39, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I used "stub" as a figurative term for a short article (with a dull hook and or/picture, I should add). Articles eligible for DYK are defined as non-stubs. Materialscientist (talk) 10:56, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

My general rule of thumb for a stub is <3000 bytes w/o sections is a stub.--NortyNort (Holla) 12:59, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

A typical (non-DYK) definition is that stubs have less than 10 sentences. I haven't ever checked, but I'd guess that a DYK that barely clears the 1,500-character limit (and has reasonably typical prose) is a time and a half that size. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:38, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

On occasion, I've reviewed articles that reach the 1500 byte threshold, but do still do not seem to cover the subject enough not to be considered what constitutes a start class article. In these instances I have either informed the editor of my concern or tried to expand, rather than just changing from stub to start class. Really case by case, then hard 1500+ = start class IMO Calmer Waters 02:11, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

There's no mechanical stub definition; see the Croughton-London rule. Reviewers should evaluate whether a nominated article is a stub, and either (temporarily?) reject the nomination if it is, or ensure that the article is correctly marked as a non-stub. cmadler (talk) 15:19, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorry to be boring, but pictured hooks are in Special occasions for both 13 and 14 June. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:45, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

There are lots of pictured hooks right now. What there's a dearth of is good quirky ones. BarkingMoon (talk) 20:51, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Can't make Bach quirky every time. But 13 June is soon. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:26, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Brood XIX is quirky and it has a picture of a giant insect with gleaming red monster eyes. Helpfully, Sharktopus. Sharktopus^talk 02:08, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Intending this in as light-hearted a way as is possible. One thing that might help on both the pictured and quirky front would be if prep loaders tried to avoid unilaterally pissing off literally a dozen editors who have worked together in an attempt to do both. Especially when it comes to articles with dozens of plausible hooks and matching images. —WFC— 01:54, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

There simply aren't enough slots to use every hook nom'd with a photo.BarkingMoon (talk) 01:57, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

A robotic response that has both missed and demonstrated my point. Sometimes there will be a dearth of pictured hooks, sometimes a dearth of quirky ones, and sometimes surpluses of either or both. If we are trying to cut down on the droughts, we should think long and hard about how we treat those that might or will be rejected during bumper harvests. —WFC— 02:05, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

A robotic response that missed my point.BarkingMoon (talk) 02:38, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

"Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!" (now that's a robotic response that misses the point) - Dravecky (talk) 03:09, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Link synchronization

I noticed that Wikipedia:Main Page/Tomorrow still contained the wording "From Wikipedia's newest articles" (which we've replaced on the main page with "From Wikipedia's newest content"), so I updated all of the preparation areas and queues. I then observed the word "articles" returning as they were reset, which I attributed to the fact that I'd neglected to update Template:Did you know/Clear. So I did that and restored the update where it was lost. But I see that this also failed to resolve the issue, as the old wording has again returned.
If I've overlooked a template, can someone familiar with the process please point it out and/or update it?
If I haven't overlooked a template, I assume that the text is being copied from various editors' personal documents (in which case I'll set out to notify them). Thanks! —David Levy 12:54, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

We clear preps by reverting to an old edit (the easiest way), which is why your changes were erased. I (and hopefully other promoting admins) shall keep your note in mind when clearing preps, that should fix the problem. Materialscientist (talk) 13:12, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Ah [slaps forehead], I should have realized that. Thanks for your help! —David Levy 13:31, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Q5 cap badge image license issue

Is this image really PD and if so with the proper type license? It's a cap badge of the Royal Army Medical Corps. The person who uploaded it did so with a "I the copyright holder release it to PD..." license. I highly doubt a private person held the right to a British military emblem. I know US gov images are PD and such a US equivalent of this would be released with "US Army PD" tag, but I don't know about British military images. Even if this is PD, it's using the wrong type of PD license tag; in such a case it should use a "British Army PD" tag. Please advise. BarkingMoon (talk) 13:14, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I checked it is PD, but didn't update the template (updated). Materialscientist (talk) 13:20, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

No problem. I see you fixed the temp and Commons versions. BarkingMoon (talk) 13:25, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Carra Castle DYK, now in Queue 6

At Template:Did you know/Queue/6, there should be no apostrophe in "the McDonnells" in the hook now reading "... that Carra Castle was once occupied by Shane O'Neill who held Sorley Boy McDonnell as a prisoner there in 1565, and the McDonnell's later got their revenge by beheading O'Neill there?" Moonraker (talk) 22:53, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Done. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:06, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Adding an article after a DYK was approved?

The periodical cicadas of Brood XIX have been buzzing up a storm in the southeastern US the past month, and my DYK just got approved with the hook ".. that a new species of periodical cicada (pictured) was discovered by studying the songs of Brood XIX, now re-emerging in 2011 after 13 years underground?" But in the meantime, I created an article about said new species (Magicicada neotredecim), so would it be ok to bold the words "new species" in the existing hook and link to that article from it, to have that be a hook for both articles? Sharktopus^talk 02:00, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Bolden, add credits for the second article, and leave a note in the review section that a new article is added and needs to be checked. Materialscientist (talk) 02:06, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Dohhh, I forgot about the part that this would get held up again for the new article to be checked. OK. Thanks for such a quick answer. Sharktopus^talk 02:15, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Checked, and it's good to go. Cheers, Khazar (talk) 02:45, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Appearing on ITN

When I last worked at DYK, an article having appeared as the bolded link at ITN would preclude it being posted later to DYK as a bolded link. This remains in the WP:DYK#Rules currently, the argument being that DYK's supposed to show these articles off but if they've appeared on ITN already then it's had its chance. 61st FIFA Congress, which appeared on ITN about 10 days ago when the "election" took place, was for some reason approved despite this rule still being in place, and is currently on the main page as a bolded article for the second time. So maybe it's time for DYK to revisit this rule, or to make sure reviewers check more closely for previous ITN appearances. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 02:30, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Pulled off. Thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 02:49, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Looks like this appeared on ITN several days after its review, so the fault appears to be the reviewers not tracking the article post-review, rather than missing it on the first pass. Khazar (talk) 03:04, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

13 and 14 June

As mentioned above, Special occasions has hooks which were not yet taken, sorry to be boring, one mentions Monday, one Tuesday, smile, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:35, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

One in Queue 4, one in prep1. Materialscientist (talk) 07:52, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:32, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

feast or famine?

How are we going WRT hook depth? I can never tell by looking at the pages whether we have alot, or not enough. Is it worth going to 6 hourly again for a few days? Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:03, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

We've been on a 6-hour cycle for the past 4 to 5 days now. See #Backlog above. —Bruce1ee^talk 08:34, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

D'oh! Shoulda checked...Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:54, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Courtesy note: DYK mentioned at ANI

This is a courtesy note to inform DYK regulars that DYK has been mentioned in a couple of threads at ANI related to one user's behaviour here some time last year (when I was still active at DYK). The incident is regarding User:TonyTheTiger, who was involved in spamming DYK last year during the WikiCup (see also WT:DYK/WC and talk archive 58). This has been brought up at WP:ANI#Featured_Sounds_Process and WP:ANI#1:_Topic_ban_of_TonyTheTiger_from_Featured_Sounds. Please review and leave comments if necessary. Thanks, Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 10:15, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Oddly enough this is the second time we've met up today, Passerby. I've left a short comment there – thanks for the notification. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 10:35, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Query

Since I'm being pilloried above for my suggestions in hook reviews, I'm posting a question/suggestion here, hoping for your advice. Since hooks are by their nature a bit less formal than, say, the FA text that lies above them on the main page, I think it would be acceptable to use contractions, but judiciously. This current nom stood out as possibility:

... that in one of Uruguay's hill slopes near Fuerte San Miguel, there is an outpost which includes a wall and small window, but otherwise appears natural, like a cave or animal shelter?

"there's an outpost"? Tony (talk) 15:07, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Again, sorry you feel pilloried; never my intent. Anyway, your "judicious use" exception here seems sensible. Cheers, Khazar (talk) 15:12, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

No problem with the contraction, but perhaps the whole hook could be reworded? I don't read Spanish, so this may not match the meaning of the source, but maybe something like: ... one outpost of Uruguay's Fuerte San Miguel has a small window constructed to look like a cave or an animal burrow? Thanks, cmadler (talk) 15:52, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Cmadler, my Spanish is not perfect, so I think we'd need someone else to translate besides me, but I think your alt hook suggestion strays from the source. Cheers, though, for offering an ALT! --Rosiestep (talk) 01:41, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Queue update overdue

According to the time table at T:DYK/Q, the queue update is 32 minutes overdue. That time table says it should have happened at 14:00 NY time and it's already 14:35. Or is the table wrong? BarkingMoon (talk) 18:32, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

As the time stamp sig above is 18:32 and the table also says it's due at 19:00UTC, methinks the table is wrong.BarkingMoon (talk) 18:34, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

If I'm not mistaken, the table said the next update was at 19:00 London time. London isn't at UTC right now (daylight savings). Shubinator (talk) 07:15, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Manually updating. Thanks for noticing. Will look into what happened when finished, if not addressed Calmer Waters 18:44, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

It was missing a <!--Hooks-->. Admins should watchlist User:DYKUpdateBot/Errors. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 19:22, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Death of Selena

Was there a problem that I haven't seen? I thought it was ready to go and now its archived? AJona1992 (talk) 19:33, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

It's in Queue 3 waiting to go to the main page - Basement12 (T.C) 19:41, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, AJona1992 (talk) 19:52, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Tom Kahn in Queue 2

In Queue 2 , Tom Kahn helped Soldarity in 1980–1981 (but not in 1979–1981).  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:00, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Changed. Thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 23:45, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

DYK with hypothetical COI

Everyone seems to agree that there is no problem with creating lots of DYK about Bach or bugs or other non-controversial items. We have often had questions raised about people (allegedly) using DYK to "promote" political POV or book sales, etc. If the articles and hooks are neutral, do we need policy to prevent "promotion"? And if so, what further policy? Would spacing hooks out in time make things better or worse? The policy issues that have been raised by recent discussions should be considered in a neutral, hypothetical way. Could we start such a neutral discussion here? Sharktopus^talk 15:43, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I think the clusters that have been objected to are a function of recentism (and perhaps other aspects of institutional bias). I don't think the encyclopedia needs an article on each book written by any contemporary writer, but it's pretty inevitable that such will get written. And that is where the clusters that look like promotion - of book sales or a political point of view - are coming from. (As has been pointed out, there have been few or no complaints about the frequency with which DYK features Bach cantatas, or English churches, or Olympic athletes, or footballers and teams of either kind.) I don't think there's a solution to that except the weak and passive one of continuing to encourage editors to consider institutional bias and work to fill in gaps elsewhere in the encyclopedia. To forbid or turn down nominations based on excess coverage of one topic or person would be unfair. So I think requiring them to be spaced out - no more than one a day on any contemporary person or their works, and if possible in different timeslots on the different days - would be the best solution at DYK. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:53, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

• (ec)Current practice: Assuming that the hooks and articles are suitably NPOV and meet all DYK requirements, they should all be used as promptly as possible. It is recommended to space topically-related hooks into different updates in order to have balanced updates. We have discussed -- and I thought, reached consensus -- on a special rule that a hook about a candidate in an upcoming election will not be run within the 30 days prior to that election (sorry, I can't find that anywhere in the rules, perhaps someone knows...), but beyond that, we try not to take political considerations into account. Where possible, related articles are combined into multi-article hooks, to reduce the total number of appearances of a single topic. cmadler (talk) 17:02, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
• Suggestion: Where related articles can't be combined into multi-article hooks, I suggest that the ideal spacing would be every n+1 updates, where n is the number of daily updates. For example, since we are currently on 6-hour updates, there are four updates per day, so the ideal spacing would be every fifth update. This way, the related articles don't appear consecutively (giving continuous Main Page exposure to the topic), and the related articles don't appear at the same time on consecutive days (where they are likely to be viewed by the same readers). The exception to all this, of course, is when there's some link between the topic and the date. cmadler (talk) 17:02, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
  • I'll add another thought to this. I think the ideal spacing is every n+1 updates, as I described above, but of course, reality gets in the way of the ideal all the time. Spacing slightly longer than ideal would be fine, and there's generally not a problem with shorter spacing. What we don't want -- I think there's just no need for it -- is to hold hooks for spacing a week apart (or longer), as someone suggested in the current case. I just don't see any benefit to intentionally spacing hooks more than about n+1 updates. cmadler (talk) 20:17, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
• Spacing out DYKs sounds eminently sensible. What would not be acceptable, I think, is the proposition (advanced in an earlier discussion by one editor) that a particular topic should be blacklisted because it is "controversial", even if there is nothing wrong or objectionable with the DYK article itself. I suggest that as well as adding a policy point about spacing out DYKs, we should also add a point about invalid arguments against particular DYKs, along the lines of Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions. It would be helpful if certain lines of argument could be ruled invalid at the start, to save everyone time later. Prioryman (talk) 19:47, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Definitely space them out. I'd assumed that was done by the admins who queue them and put them on the main page. Tony (talk) 08:30, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

[Edit] link wrong?

Is it just me or has this happened to others. Yesterday I tried to review John Arthur (philosopher), but when I hit submit, I realized my comments were placed under Jaime Areizaga-Soto. I moved the comments to the correct hook and then for good measure, I also reviewed the Soto article as I assumed it was my mistake and I should have been more aware of what I clicked. Then today, I tried to edit Bullskin Creek Site, and I noticed when I clicked the "Edit" link, it actually took me to the section below it, "Special occasion holding area". I tried it a couple times with the same results. I found that clicking edit next to "Henryk Kuna" actually brought me to the Bullskin Creek Site hook. It appears as if the "Edit" link for any section actually brings you to the section below it. Has anyone else experienced this?--v/r - TP 19:24, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Nah, it's not just you. Common occurrence with a heavily-edited page. Sometimes you just need to hit refresh. 28bytes (talk) 19:26, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll just have to pay more attention to what actually comes up when I click it then.--v/r - TP 19:29, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I raised this only a few weeks ago. It's a continual nuisance. Is there no other way of organising the page so nominators and reviewers can click edit and get the right subsection, and better still, can watchlist a single entry? Tony (talk) 08:28, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

See the discussion above for more on possible solutions to these vexing issues. - Dravecky (talk) 08:33, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps it would help if the explanation given above would appear right on top of the page: "refresh before editing"? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:45, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Apprentice as captain?

That's what I understand reading in Prep1: "... that an apprentice who served on board Empire Deben was the captain of Canberra during the Falklands War?" I am also surprised how different the new name of the ship is from the former, and wonder if the old name should be mentioned somehow, in brackets, or "formerly"? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:09, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

As I understand it, Empire Deben and Canberra are two different ships. Dennis Scott-Masson was an apprentice on Empire Deben in the 1940s and captain of Canberra in the 1980s. —Bruce1ee^talk 09:24, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't clear enough: Empire Deben and SS Thuringia (1922) are the same ship, or not? Also I am more concerned about the time, the same person served as an apprentice on the ED and (later?) as captain on the Canberra. I would not know how to word it, but as it stands the "apprentice ... was the captain", and I don't think that is right. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:30, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I've reworded the hook in Prep1 to read: "that an apprentice who served on board Empire Deben later became the captain of Canberra during the Falklands War?" Sorry, Empire Deben and SS Thuringia are the same ship, but I don't know if the hook needs to reflect this. —Bruce1ee^talk 09:40, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! (You can't help that this is a hook which doesn't say anything important about the article, not even mentioning it.) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:07, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Citations to organisation's own website?

Reviewing Building and Road Research Institute (BRRI), I gave it a ?no because it was unsourced except to BRRI's own website, and because many parts were entirely unsourced. In response to my concerns, the nominator has added two citations from other websites (first and second citations) and used the BRRI website to cite what was missing. Technically, I suppose that our requirements have been passed, but I'm concerned about promoting an article to the Main Page that lacks both substantial coverage in a print source and substantial coverage in an online source independent of the subject, especially since the hook itself comes from BRRI's website. What say you to the idea of promoting this article as-is versus requiring more work first? Aside from sourcing issues, the article doesn't seem to have much of any problems: it's long enough and new enough, and I suspect that it's notable because it's apparently both a major part of Ghana's academic world and a player on the international West African academic scene. Nyttend (talk) 22:40, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I was very tempted to AfD this, but having done some searches, yes I would agree with you that the organisation may well be notable. But if that's the case, then the nominator should be doing the work to include references, not just leave it as a piece mainly sourced to the organisation's website, with a token nod to two other online refs, both of which are dubious. This should be in there if we're taking the existing refs seriously. I see no justification for promoting this until more work is done. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:08, 15 June 2011 (UTC)