Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 18

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Fauna of Scotland Hook

In a somewhat related matter:

...that the Fauna of Scotland includes almost half of the EU’s breeding seabirds, but only one endemic vertebrate species, and that although a population of Wild Cats (pictured) remains many of the larger mammals were hunted to extinction in historic times?

Who can read my mind? House of Scandal 18:15, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

There's a comma missing bteween remains and many??? :) What do I win? ++Lar: t/c 19:31, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I would say the missing comma and the overly verbose DYK hook. By the way, for such things, please post at WP:ERRORS. You'll get fast feedback there. Nishkid 64 15:49, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Speaking of which, I created the header-box for this page mostly on impulse without much forethought. If anyone fancies having a go at re-wording it or deleting it outright, please feel free. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 00:20, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

eh.... :) House was making a point. And I didn't want to play along so I gave him a different answer than he expected. Sorry if explaining the joke wrecks it. :) ++Lar: t/c 15:33, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

My god, you have too much time on your hands, HoS. Good read, though. :-P Nishkid 64 02:35, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Hurricane Bob etc.

Although it is now out on the front page, I think it was probably ineligible. We are getting a lot of nominations coming through nowadays, so we don't even need to consider borderline cases. If they run out of time before any problems are resolved that is hard luck, but not an entitlement to have them on the front page when the problems are fixed. At the moment, even some perfectly sound nominations are missing out. Unfortunately there aren't enough people checking the noms to pick up problems before they go to the front page and we are running behind, so there is no leeway to wait a day for somebody to fix an article up. Yomangani ^talk 11:34, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Fair points. I personally believe it was ineligible. Another user posted a link to it from a place where people could see it, so for about 5 hours, the article was accessable from the main space before being moved again to his user space. I had forgotten about this until another person mentioned the previous title of it before being moved to user space (when it was LNBS Main Article: Hurricane Bob (1979)). Hurricanehink (talk) 14:31, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

There is a fair bit of discussion on this that may be worth reviewing, to be found here: User_talk:Nishkid64#Hurricane_Bob_DYK and in threads near it. I think what happened in this case is regrettable and we should not make it a general principle. If something is too large to be a DYK and it is in articlespace or reachable from article space, it is forever more ineligible except in very unusual circumstances (which I can't think of right now but I am sure there are some)... But I'd let this case slide anyway, just because... this is a volunteer project and we need to be fair but we also need to do what is collegial and kind. In the larger scheme of things this is small beer. ++Lar: t/c 16:03, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Based on the fact presented and the quality of the article, this was not a borderline case. Just lack of communication and an administrator who trusted an annonymous tip and deleted a nomination - instead of returning the nomination for further review, and communicating accordingly. I find it rather provocative that the same administrator deleted the article for a second time because it had then reached the 5 day time limit anyway. With that kind of reasoning, all nominations could be disqualified by dishonest disputes and questioning. With better communication, this incident never needed to have happened in the first place. We should all learn a lesson from that in the future. Bondkaka 17:24, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I think we should let this go, as I just think that using terms like "provocative" is not likely to result in us all working together harmoniously. I do agree that better communication would certainly be helpful. ++Lar: t/c 19:09, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Bondkaka, I saw Dmc5's comment, and looked at the article before making my decision. It had already been expired for nearly 3 days, and the article was "borderline", hence all the discussion about it on my talk page. I also don't appreciate slandering my contributions, as there was no "dishonest" dispute, and all I did was follow DYK guidelines. I still believe it did not qualify for DYK because the article had already existed in the mainspace as a decent-sized article (not a stub) before the expansion/rewrite. Also, as Yomangani said, even if we want back to discussion, it would not have led to the article being put up on DYK after a resolution had been made. The article was expired, and there were many other choices that were available to replace it. Nishkid 64 20:50, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Hurricane Bob DYK

From Nishkid64's talk page:

Why on earth did you change Hurricane Bob with Fyodor Pavlovich Reshetnikov?!! Camptown 19:19, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

You'd better answer the question! Camptown 19:25, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Why on earth did you add Hurricane Bob when it wasn't even qualified for DYK?

Nah, I'm just kidding around. I removed Hurricane Bob after a user informed me that the article was already significant (it was around 7KB, definitely not a stub) nearly a month ago, and the significant expansion this week would not qualify it for DYK. In the future, please look at the article history to make sure a user did not mistakenly nominate an ineligible item for DYK. Nishkid 64 19:29, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

If you read even more carefully, you would notice that the article was in the so called sandbox till Jan 22. It's therefore perfectly eligible. Fore some reason the artilce has been held up because of this misunderstanding. Camptown 19:36, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

"

...that 1979's Hurricane Bob was the first male name ever used for a hurricane in the Atlantic basin?Mitchazenia(9400+edits) 20:46, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
- - Not a new article as defined at #Suggestions. 5050 characters long as of December 27. Art LaPella 05:27, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
    - It was actually in sandbox until yesterday. Generally it is accepted the time starts when the article is moved to mainspace. Hurricanehink (talk) 16:08, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
      - Oops, sorry. Art LaPella 00:06, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

"

- Was it in the sandbox in April 2006? Because according to its history, it was long then too . . . -Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 20:04, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
  - I looked at the history, I see that before it was moved to the sandbox (that's an awfully long time in the sandbox, by the way), it was already long enough to preclude it from DYK...-Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 20:07, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Nishkid64, sorry for the rough tone, but this drives me nuts! The article was indeed in the sandbox till just some days ago. And therefore eligible for DYK (as the main issue is when an article hits the main space). Camptown 20:11, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

The article was created on April 7, 2006 as LNBS Main Article: Hurricane Bob (1979), moved to User:HurricaneCraze32/Hurricane Bob (1979) on April 19, 2006, and finally moved to the main space on Jan 23, 2007. The time before Jan 23 does not disqualify the article according to the 5 day rule. Camptown 20:26, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
- Do you view the time as LNBS Main Article: Hurricane Bob (1979) also as sandbox time? If so I agree, but if not, if that was mainspace (the name confuses me) then perhaps not. Let's just do the fair thing for this article (it is nommed again I see), and see if there is policy to be derived from this going forward. I again suggest taking this to the talk page so others can comment. ++Lar: t/c 21:35, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

- - That's certainly the crux of the matter. I relied to the information provided by Hurricanehink that LNBS Main Article: Hurricane Bob (1979) was not an item within the main space. If he is wrong, that's the end of the case. Camptown 09:08, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Camptown, don't worry my friend, Nishkid wasn't giving anyone a hard time on purpose I don't think. There is something screwy about this article's history, it looks like it WAS in mainspace, but then got moved into a sandbox, then back out again. That just seems odd. Without putting too fine a point on it, articles should be new (to mainspace), or truly unstubbed, to be eligible. Certainly articles created in a sandbox, invisible to all, are new to mainspace when they get moved. But an article that was previously live, and was big when it was live, and then went away, and came back? Maybe not. I looked and looked at the history and I can't tell. To be generous, maybe we should have let it slid. But if Nishkid had, would that mean that the next article shouldn't have? I honestly don't know. How about we have some better recounting of this article's history from the author and then have a discussion about it on the talk page (WPT:DYK) and see if there is a principle to derive here. Neither of you should assume the other person means badly, we all want to keep our readers amused and amazed and interested... Hope that helps. ++Lar: t/c 20:23, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

It probably was in mainspace, because at that time Hurricanecraze32 (now Mitchazenia) had no idea what he was doing, as a relatively new user. I think that that does mean that Bob should be excluded from DYK and declared ineligible. – Chacor 10:20, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's back up on the front page now as there had been no update for 15 hours and it was the only article already in "Next Update". Let's let it go and discuss the future eligibility of such articles on the talk page. Adding it back into next update while it was still under discussion here was not a productive move though. Yomangani ^talk 10:49, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Yomangani. Further, I would like to see some of these threads moved over to the talk page (or recapped there) as there are points worth preserving... I support the one time inclusion of htis article, to give it and the author a break, it was rather confusing provenance, without it necessarily setting a precedent. ++Lar: t/c 12:20, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I guess since my opinion's been quiet, i had made LNBS Main Article: Hurricane Bob (1979) because at the time i was still a new user. There was all the criticism about it at the time, which at the time, was not acceptable and also a stub. April 23rd's almost a year ago and i remade my Bob article, better than it used to be.Mitch azenia(9400+edits) 13:11, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

The article was created in mainspace, however given the absurd title (which corresponds to the User's main sandbox at the time), I feel it was the users intent to create it as a sandbox; it was moved to his userspace by another user following discovery of the article. See the last thread here, this seems to corroborate my viewpoint. As the user's intent was not to put the article in mainspace, but had made a naive error (but still in good faith); I don't think this should count for DYK purposes. As an aside I don't think Nishkid's talkpage is the best place for this discussion - would it be better to move it to WT:DYK?--Nilf anion (talk) 17:10, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

You know that a contested article may be eligible even after 5 day. I therefore returned the article to next update, since you didn't provide any material objection to the article, such as qulity concerns etc. Camptown 09:02, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I strongly object to this. Quality concerns usually doesn't exclude articles from DYK, but ineligibility does. – Chacor 10:23, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

In general I agree, but when we have a situation where a little flexibility and kindness will result in a more harmonious outcome I'd rather not see us stand on the letter of our guidelines. In this case, despite everything, I think I would have cut this article a break, as Nishkid did. (and not let it be a precedent) I think we ought to be discussing this on the DYK talk, and would even advocate moving these threads over there. Camptown, please consider trying to choose a more descriptive heading than DYK, there are several of those already on the page.... it helps make conversations easier to find later. ++Lar: t/c 12:12, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

End of discussion at my talk page Nishkid 64 21:14, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

St. George's Cathedral, Lviv

This article was nominated less than a day before it was moved by its nominator (and creator) to Next update - and now appears on the Main page. I think the nominiation process will turn into a big joke if happens on a regular basis. Camptown 22:13, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I noticed that the user added his own nomination after I had already updated the Main Page. I did not want to send it back to DYKT and start some war like what happened with Bob, so I am leaving it there for now. After I saw the user's error, I left a message on their talk page, and hopefully they will see that what they did is out-of-process. Nishkid 64 22:17, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Not a big deal, but he fooled/notified you before the Main page was updated... --Camptown 22:37, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I did not mean to circumvent the selection process. I apologize.--Riurik ^(discuss) 22:44, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I knew I smelled something fishy in the state of Ukraine! I must say Riurik, it's nice of you to apologize. The only thing rarer on Wikipedia than people admitting they are wrong is people actually apologizing. Shaundakulbara 00:20, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Banjee

The images in Banjee (and the one now appearing on the main page) are potentially libelous to the persons in the images since the images appear to be of living people and the persons in the image are associated with being thuggish men who have sex with men. The article does not include Wikipedia reliable sources to support such an association. DYK rules state that the item mentioned in the tagline should be sourced in the article. In view of all this, perhaps the Banjeeness of this person should not have been asserted as being true on the Wikipedia main page. -- Jreferee 20:02, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The persons in the photos, who I was told by House of Scandal gave their permission to be shown, can not be identified from photos as their faces are obscured. They are categorized as men who dress thuggish and have sex with men...no criminality is implied. Would this be an issue if these photos accompanied an article about men who dress a certain way and have sex with women? Shaundakulbara 20:06, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
- I was a bit uneasy about putting this up at DYK. The licensing said the picture was self-taken, but I was not sure if the person in the picture had been acknowledged of the picture. Nishkid 64 15:50, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
That's water under the bridge now. It was on DYK yesterday where the article was vandalized a gazillion times. Now the debate is whether or not the photos should be deleted. Shaundakulbara 20:11, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Aveline's Hole

Aveline's Hole is currently on the "next update" page. It is very close to stub length. If we have plentiful candidates perhaps we should replace it with something more substantial? Thanks. Shaundakulbara 12:02, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

It appears that it has already been placed on the Main Page. I'll be back later, and I'll see if I can expand it a bit. Nishkid 64 14:59, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

File:Order of Smile.png

Certainly no big deal, especialy now that it's already posted. Thanks! Shaundakulbara 15:32, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Expired nominations

Unfortunately, recently DYK has not been updated frequently — and as a result a number of articles' nominations have expired - past the 5 day date. As of today, January 29 is expired. The rules are clear. Unless there is community consensus to change/bend the rules, they should be adhered to. — ERcheck (talk) 21:52, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

File:Order of Smile.png

While urging the guidelines and deadlines be better observed may indeed be wise, I gently suggest trying not to revert another editor's editions to next update unless a specific article definately shouldn't hit the front page for some major reason. Thanks for considering my comments. -Shaundakulbara 22:06, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I do agree, if the the additions are within guidelines. In the situation that brought this to my attention, I had moved an unexpired nomination (on its last eligible day) to the DYK next update and it was reverted by another editor, replaced with an expired nomination. — ERcheck (talk) 01:33, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the nomination process gives us a great opportuninty to choosing great articles. But the nomination process is fragile: People are sensitive and we can't treat hard working editors unfairly by rejecting their nominations because of a suddenly tough application of the 5 day rule. At least not when the articles chosen in their place are barely longer than necessary for qualification. If we want to deal with the backlog, that's done by an efficient selection of articles - and frequent updates. Camptown 22:45, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I tend to bend it a little when the updaters have been away and a backlog blows up, because I don't feel that good work should be neglected due to tardy admins. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 01:08, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

File:Order of Smile.png

For the record, I left the above comment (deliberately) having no idea who reverted first. I was just hoping to help maintain the high level of goodwill that generally exists among DYK editors. Shaundakulbara 05:34, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Upping the length

Any opinions on making the minimum length for a DYK longer? 1000 character articles look short now as we have a reliable supply of longer articles. Yomangani ^talk 23:57, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I suggest upping the minimum length to somewhere between 2,000 - 2,5000 characters. I've seen that many people are denying articles that are 2.2 or 2.4KB long. Nishkid 64 01:28, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

25000 characters? Wow, you are strict. Yomangani ^talk 09:55, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I concur. Personally, I never nominate articles of less thn 3kb (my searching method excludes choices lower than this limit anyway), but 1000 characters is just ridiculously low given the increased expectations of Wikipedia articles recently. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 01:53, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree...although I normally look at the main body part in determining this and have sometimes rejected 4kb stuff when it is dominated by the infobox and sometimes let by a 2.8kb article if it is basically all text (and not taken up by inline refs). Blnguyen (bananabucket) 06:47, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

And I might point out that when the supply has gone down, GeeJo and me too (once) went NP shopping for stuff. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 06:47, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Shall we try for 2000 characters and see how it pans out? We can always raise it further if we still see a lot of articles just scraping the limit (or send GeeJo shopping). Yomangani ^talk 09:55, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

...and perhaps specify that the 2000 characters must be the body of the article rather than including infoboxes, references, titles and images. Yomangani ^talk 09:58, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

A little change. 2,000 characters excluding infobox and images, only. I'd like all text to be counted here. Nishkid 64 15:34, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Even refs? That looks like a way to pad out the character count to me. Yomangani ^talk 15:42, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, exclude the refs please. Look at something like Harbhajan Singh and the statsguru refs. Those take up at least 0.5kb per ref because of the filters that you input into the stats retrieval. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 23:29, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree that refs should be excluded from the 2,000 count as should text in tables. Spaces between the letters in the body of the article should count towards the 2,000 characters, however. -- Jreferee 15:57, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

25,000 chars is way over the top! But that had to be a typo. Grin. Personally I think 2000 is too much even... a lot of interesting articles barely clear 1000 and yet are DYK worthy. Especially if we disallow refs, captions, infoboxes or other disallowances. I would prefer to stay at 1000, or if we are talking about tigthening, go to 1500 for a while and see. ++Lar: t/c 16:27, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I have not been here for ages, and I see I have only just come back in time! Is the intention to exclude pretty little articles like Link-boy or Tomlin order, then. :( -- ALoan (Talk) 19:12, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Those ones might scrape it because they are pure text.....and if the hook is interesting... Having said that 1.5k might be a good point to start, if only to stop arguments with people with 1.3k stubs. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 23:29, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I was really looking for a way of weeding out the lots-of-titles-infoboxes-quotes-references-lists-but-only-really-one-sentence-of-content type articles. Maybe we just need to make clear what the 1,000 characters include and suggest that longer articles are likely to be chosen first (all other things being equal). Yomangani ^talk 23:38, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

To raise a different viewpoint, surely interest of article should also play a role? I'd rather read a few paragraphs about something genuinely interesting than several screenfuls of something dull. I'd agree that references, infoboxes &c should not count, but a relevant, good-quality image would seem to be a bonus. Espresso Addict 10:15, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Interest in an article is purely subjection. These DYK guidelines are here to set the standards for all articles that pass onto the Main Page. Nishkid 64 15:45, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Proposed article must have been previously marked as stub

Previously, article under 1000 characters that were expanded were elegible for DYK. Now, the article must both be under 1,000 characters and marked a Wikipedia:Stub. See Suggestions. Isn't being under 1,000 characters enought? There are many stubby articles that never get marked as a stub. What is the reasoning behing this new DYK qualification rule? -- Jreferee 16:09, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Ack! let's not get hung up on whether it was or wasn't marked. What matters is that it was tiny, and now it isn't. Certainly I am not going to mark brand new articles as stubs just to satisfy pro forma... I'd like to see that rule/suggestion change reverted. ++Lar: t/c 16:33, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

It's been like that for a long time as far as I know, but I think it was just poorly worded: it meant under 1000 characters or marked as a stub (a stub could be over 1000 chars). I've reworded it. Yomangani ^talk 16:46, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Shrug. Marking an article as a stub is neither here or there, really - the question is whether it actually is a stub or not. -- ALoan (Talk) 19:14, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

This is a point I have wondered about too. I agree it's qualification as a stub rather than being marked as a stub that matters. Being overly prescriptive with DYK candidates creates a small pool from which to chose. Better to let the pool be of a healthy size; if some candidates are passed over because their quality isn't great, that serves the project and should induce no remorse among updaters. House of Scandal 19:34, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

As long as the article is 75-80%+ new material, then it effectively is a new material and should count. See Irfan Pathan nominated late Decmber, I expanded it from 5kb to 30kb in two days. I think that's why the 5x rule counts: A smallish article can be expanded into a big article and get on DYK. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 23:31, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't want to be too wonky but I don't think a 5k article is a stub and I don't care if it was expanded 10x or 21x, that article wasn't eligible unless I miss something crucial. DYK is for new, interesting facts, from articles that could benefit from further attention and expansion. A 30K article is a GA candidate, IMHO. That said, I think having a larger pool and talking about what we do in times of glut to decide which is more helpful than refining the criteria to rule more stuff out mechanically. In the final analysis this is a judgement driven process. How good the result is, depends on the judgement of those making the selections (to the next update, and then vetting the next update to transfer to the actual template) ... ++Lar: t/c 17:48, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. Irfan Pathan was made into GA the day before it was on DYK! Having said that, the article was for all intents and purposes new, it wasn't just cleaned up and refurbished. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 23:53, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Lists on DYK

So how do we feel about lists, like Blair babe (although the lead section just about counts on its own). -- ALoan (Talk) 15:56, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

This is a tough issue. Perhaps working backwards might help. Assume that each of the articles on Wikipedia:Featured_lists were less than five days old. Which, if any, would be acceptable to place on DYK? If we can figure out which articles on WP:FL have the content needed to make DYK, perhaps we can then fashion guidelines to govern placing lists on DYK. -- Jreferee 02:40, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

This question has arisen before, IIRC, and my view of our thinking at the time was that the article needed ot have significant textual content other than the list. (subtract the list itself and there still ought to be 1000 chars there, so to speak, or close to it...) I think Nightstallion put up some very good EU related list articles that were selected although their names escape me at the moment. To the example... Blair Babe would qualify (barely) on the lead, references, and content, without the list. With the list, it's an easy qualifier. The key point here is that the article is more than just a list. The addition of the dates of ascension, the date the office was lost, the constiuency and so forth makes the list more than just a list of names, too. Both of those things add value and make the article more selectable. It doesn't hurt that the article isn't titled "list of..." as well. c.f List of Michigan covered bridges which has more than just a list of names (the list is 3 cols and has other info) but doesn't yet qualify as it has no significant other content (adding more content would make it qualify based on content although I think it would disqualify based on creation and expansion dates), or List_of_Faux_Pas which is really just a fancy redirect and in no way would qualify. ++Lar: t/c 14:12, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

ALoan. I am glad your question was "how do we feel about lists" rather than "what's the policy?" or any question requiring a justification of one's viewpoint. I feel DYK shouldn't feature lists. --House of Scandal 13:33, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

To recap what I said before, I feel it should, if they are good enough. Many bare lists are not. ++Lar: t/c 12:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, sorry - I did not notice these responses. For what it is worth, I think we ought to ignore the listy part and see if it would qualify on the basis of the prose (which this just about does, I think). Anyway, I have added it to the suggestions page - hopefully someone will pick it (plus my two Australian cricketers) in the next update in about 5 hours (hint).

I suppose I ought to canvass opinion about the cricketers while I am here. These two people were opening batting partners in cricket, so they naturally fit togther, and I recently expanded the articles on both of them. Can we have them both in the same DYK item? We usually insist on only one bolded item, although (IIRC) there have been a few special cases with more than one. -- ALoan (Talk) 13:46, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I've them in "Next Update" as the double header - it seems silly to split them over two articles in consecutive updates (and I'm for lists being included if they are something more than just a list). Yomangani ^talk 17:53, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Montelupich prison

...Montelupich prison located in Cracow, which was used by the Gestapo throughout World War II. Prisoners in Montelupich included political prisoners, members of the SS and Security Service (SD) who had been convicted and given prison terms, British and Soviet spies and parachutists, victims of Gestapo street raids, soldiers who had deserted the Waffen-SS, and regular criminals. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Umedard (talk • contribs) 03:58, 11 February 2007 (UTC).

Uhh...what? Nishkid 64 18:59, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

My best guess is that this was an attempted nomination, albeit in the wrong place and not bolded. It's a stub, though, with the text of the nomination being the same as the text of the article. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 20:19, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay, that seems logical. Nishkid 64 00:04, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Revised project page

In trying to figure out how DYK operates, I found that much of the operating information was scattered over several pages and other information missing. I revised the project page to help new comers better understand DYK. My revision is a working draft, so there are errors in it. Please fix rather than rv or delete. : )
I revised the project page first by adding background information that will help new comers get a better feel for the scope of the department. I placed this background information above the The DYK Rules, which I did not change. I then copied the Updating the DYK template next update template from the suggestion page and copied the Updating the DYK template from the guide page and added them below the rules. I did not change the text of either of these.
I think including "Updating the template" information on the suggestion page may be confusing to those adding DYK suggestions and seems to belong on the project page. I think it should be deleted from the suggestion page. The guide page information seems to fit better on the project page and should be deleted as an individual page. -- Jreferee 18:19, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Wow. A very nice start. it seems there is now a lot to read but... eh. My only comment would be to templatise any text you copied so that it can be edited once only, rather than haveing to keep it in sync. I find that just setting up subpages works well for that. Very helpful work in my view. Thanks. ++Lar: t/c 23:40, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm still not exactly sure how a DYK nomination makes its way to the Main page. Is it transcluded? When exactly are new entries placed on the main page and how long do they stay there? If you (or someone else) can bring more accurate information to this section, I would be most grateful. -- Jreferee 02:07, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

We just copy the hook verbatim from Next Update and send it to T:DYK. Also, we are ideally supposed to do a new DYK update every six hours, but it only happens like 2-3 times a day. So, you might want to remove that bit about 0:00 - 23:59 UTC. We work differently than the other parts of the Main Page. Nishkid 64 02:48, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Good idea, and about time. I have hacked it about a bit. There is clearly lots of overlap between the various guides in different places. Perhaps we need to create a subpage - "DYK rules" or "what is a DYK?" or "DYK criteria" perhaps. We could rationalise the header and footer of the suggestions page at the same time. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:37, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying how a DYK nomination makes its way to the Main page. Some more questions. Who actually decides when the DYK transclusion from T:DYK to the main page is performed? Is it someone from DYK or is it some automatic action? Is the transclusion coordinated with the other sections on the Main Page or is each of the five sections on the Main Page independent as to when they change? Why every 6 hours? Is it to handle the DYK nomination volume? -- Jreferee 04:11, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

No problem. Transclusion is automatic: anything saved into the template automatically appears on the Main Page straight away - or would do, if it were not cached - which is why it is protected and can only be edited by admins.

Changes to DYK are not co-ordinated - they happen whenever someone edits the "live" template. Updates are meant to be done after no less than six hours, although people are occasionally not around to do it immediately. Six hours was chosen pragmatically - it keeps rough pace with the number of suggestions, and gives all of the chosen ones a fair degree of exposure on the Main Page. ITN is also changed in a similarly ad hoc fashion; the other main rotating sections (TFA, POTD; SA) change daily. -- ALoan (Talk) 13:55, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. OK, what is the next update template, listing the "earliest time for next refreshment" and who might be interested in this information.-- Jreferee 22:09, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

It's just a timer which should be reset by the updating admin every time an update is done. Admins can then see whether they need to do an update or if it is too early. Click "edit" and you'll see it gives you instructions on how to update it. Yomangani ^talk 23:02, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I added the sentence " The timing of this 6 hour change over is coordinated through manual modifications to ParserFunctions arguments in a {{DYK-Refresh}} template" to the Rules and Regulation page. -- Jreferee 17:09, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the timer should be move from the suggestion page to T:DYK/N, the rules and regulations page, or some other page. I remember finding the timer very confusing when I posted my first DKY request, thinking the timer had something to do with my suggestion since the timer was on the suggestion page.-- Jreferee 17:09, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I would like to delete the {{Did you know}} template from the suggestion page as it really does not relate to the suggestions, clutters up the page, and is already on the Main Page. If there is agreement, I will delete it. -- Jreferee 16:48, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I think there is merit in keeping it visible on the page. It shows what we are looking for in that it shows what was just suggested. Perhaps it needs to be closer to the actual suggestions (maybe all the intervening stuff should be kept in a show/hide??) The timer could be moved though I guess. ++Lar: t/c 17:49, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd like them both kept on the suggestions page - they are handy for a quick check of whether the DYK page has been updated recently. If I'm looking at the noms and I see that the same DYKs are there as when I looked a few hours earlier, I'll have a look at the clock to see if an update is due. Personally I'm less likely to notice/check if they aren't on the suggestions page, as I don't look at the other pages as often. Yomangani ^talk 18:06, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I just created WP:DYK/A so that the list of DYK admins could be transcluded (per someone's request a while ago (I think it was Lar.)) -- Jreferee 14:59, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Are new articles split off from existing articles eligible?

Would something like Controversy with Harry Potter, taken from a section of Harry Potter to shorten the length of the latter, eligible for DYK, if I made it today? --Fbv65e del / ☑t / ☛c || 00:13, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

No, unless the vast majority is new content, eg, the 80% rule of thumb. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 02:09, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Okey dokes, that would not be this one. Thanks. --Fbv65e del / ☑t / ☛c || 02:30, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Todays picture of the bridge

I can't see any relevance of having that picture and I didn't find any link to the "Did you know?"-facts. Is it perhaps a misstake? Poktirity 09:27, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

The article to which the picture related was removed from the template because there was a report at WP:ERRORS that the "hook" taken from the article was incorrect. It should have been replaced by another article with another image, but we are only human. Sorry for any confusion. -- ALoan (Talk) 23:29, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

American bias

4 out of 5 of today's "Do you know...?"s regards the USA. I add this just to note that this should be an international encyclopedia. Bye. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Attilios (talk • contribs) 20:16, 17 February 2007 (UTC).

That's a mere coincidence. We don't purposely do this. People write articles, and we put them up on DYK. It is advised that we don't promote any bias, but sometimes people will unknowingly add too many country-centric items on the Main Page. Besides, there have been multiple occurrences where we had European bias or other bias, but no one seems to complain then. Anyway, if people write about other countries and such, then they will go up on DYK and add some varying flavor to the section. Nishkid 64 22:36, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Unprotecting images

Lately, I have seen that many admins have mistakenly forgotten to unprotect images once they are off DYK. Some of these images are {{cuploaded}}, so they can be deleted, but there are others which have been directly uploaded here, and were not at Commons. I was looking through my image contributions, and saw that nearly half a dozen images had not been unprotected days after they appeared on the Main Page. Please remember to do this! It would not be particularly helpful if we kept images protected for no reason. Thanks, Nishkid 64 22:38, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

2.5 KB

Expansion? When was it decided that "proposed articles should be over 2.5 KB"? Personally, I think WP:DYK should emphasize more on quality than quantity. Long articles are unfortunately not always the greatest articles... -- Camptown 20:46, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

There is some inconclusive discussion above, at #Upping the length. The general consensus seems to me to be to increase the requirement to 1,500 or 2,000 characters, but only counting the article text, not including cats, infoboxes, references, etc. I was a bit surprised to see 2,500 added to the criteria - I have been working on somewhere towards the upper end of 1,000 and 1,500 as a minimum. Having said that, the flow of suggestions seems reasonably strong right now, so perhaps we should go to 1,500 or 2,000 characters now and see what happens. 2,500 seems to much to me. -- ALoan (Talk) 01:21, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, well 1500 is the bare minimum, but at one time GeeJo inundated the page by going shopping, and we were only picking stuff with about 3.5k+ (although it also included refs). Having said that, there wasn't an agreement for 2.5k on the main text as the bare minimum. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 02:13, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, shall we try 1.5 for now? -- ALoan (Talk) 13:02, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

No more than 1.5 please. ++Lar: t/c 17:50, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Well of course, 1.5 is the minimum, although if there is surplus supply....Where does it say 2.5k by the way, so that it can be changed. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 23:29, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

ALoan already fixed it. Yomangani ^talk 23:34, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Template?

There's a template to congratulations creators of articles that make DYK, but is there one people who simply nominate other people's articles? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 01:04, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes - {{UpdatedDYKNom}}. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 02:13, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Also see Template:Did_you_know/Next_update#Credits -- Jreferee 17:05, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

New article announcement pages

I've compiled a list of new article announcement pages. These are generally associated with some kind of project, portal, or notice board. I hope they can be useful for finding articles for DYK.--Carabinieri 10:28, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Good idea, Carabinieri. I did not know this actually existed. Thanks, Nishkid 64 18:49, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, good idea. I added a sources for DYK nominations thread on the rules page. The list of new article announcement pages is on Carabinieri's user page. Should this good idea be made part of the DKY project and moved within the project? -- Jreferee 19:51, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Seems a good idea to me. Carabinieri willing? If so, move it somewhere, perhaps Wikipedia:Did_you_know/New Article Announcements ?? ++Lar: t/c 16:46, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and moved it.--Carabinieri 17:24, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

BigHaz

One of our most prolific contributors and another potential updater. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 05:50, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Steady on. There's still about a week to go before the RfA finishes. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 05:52, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Lol. Good luck, BigHaz. =) Nishkid 64 18:25, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Here's the RfA. -- Jreferee 17:01, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations. A unanimous verdict. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 00:47, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Now that I'm here, let's hope I didn't destroy anything too fundamental with my go at updating DYK earlier today. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 07:05, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

English-language references/Citation for hook proposal

Today's DYK "...that Professor Józef Łukaszewicz took part in a failed attempt to assassinate Tsar Alexander III of Russia?" lists only Polish-language references. Given the high profile of DYK articles, it would seem prudent to have some assurance that they have been reviewed by editors with fluency in both English and the other language. Novickas 15:29, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Although the "Did you know?" fact must be mentioned in the article, the DYK rules do not seem to require verification within the article regarding that specific fact used for DYK. In view of the DYK for the Józef Łukaszewicz article, should the DYK rules be changed to include something like "Select articles that specifically cite the source(s) for the hook. Articles having uncited hooks are unlikely to be chosen."-- Jreferee 17:19, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that is necessary. The time spent policing it would mean a lot more articles would be unlikely to make it to DYK, and we could end up with articles with a single footnote supporting just the hook, which would look a little strange. WP:ATT applies to the whole encyclopedia, but I'd be wary of expanding the QA aspect of DYK further. Yomangani ^talk 23:16, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I realize that more QA might conflict with the other stated goals of DYK, including diversity. Sometimes worthy goals conflict with one another, but WP's overarching goal seems to be truth (Veritas). There doesn't seem to be a shortage of DYK candidates lately - rather the reverse, so more QA would not adversely affect its output. Although it would lead to more administrative overhead, maybe articles without EL sources could be granted a 10-day limit rather than a 5-day one, which would allow for more review. Novickas 23:49, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

That seems like further complication for little gain. Give them 5 more days for nobody to confirm the references? From my experience, DYK doesn't see enough traffic to make that system workable. I can't imagine how we'd organise the suggestions page with such a two-tier system either. More QA wouldn't affect the output of DYK, but it would be likely to lead to more articles missing the cut-off, which isn't encouraging for the editors and nominators.

We don't check every fact from every cited reference in English and I can't see any reason to make that a requirement for non-English sources. I always look on putting an article out on DYK as an opportunity for it to get a wider audience to help improve it. That improvement might be the addition of information, or it might be removal of information, or it might even be the deletion of the article, but it is essentially QAing an article to a level that couldn't be achieved on the suggestions page. Yomangani ^talk 00:33, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Avoid any contervisal topci at mainpage

moved by ffm ^yes? 00:13, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
pl don't use link on main page which might lead to material which is not safe for children as wikipeida is now a days the main source of ref. for use in home work.so pl avoid terms such as does used on today's DyK's section.User talk:Yousaf465 07:11, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Please note that Wikipedia is not censored. And besides, if you're referring to the thing about homosexuality, I fail to see how that can possibly be as disturbing as the ITN piece about 68 people killed by a train bomb in India.--Phil500 (Talk / Contribs) 07:45, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

What is safe for children and what is not will vary for each person you ask. So censoring any topics that are "unsafe for children" is just not possible because each editor will have a different definition for this. Whether it is sexuality, violence, or whatever that is taboo just really varies.--Carabinieri 16:14, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I find it highly disappointing that anyone would consider an article on homosexuality "dangerous to children". —Cuiviénen 17:43, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

And besides, what about "Random Article"? APL 17:14, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

just ignore it. kids should know what they should/shouldn't click on.--24.109.218.172 17:33, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Yousaf. Whoever is choosing the topics for DYK seems to be fascinated with homosexuals. In recent weeks we have learned about the Atlantic House, a famous gay bar. We have learned about banjee boys. We find that some people thought Jesus Christ was a homosexual. Now we get to read about someone putting gays in a Nativity scene. Is any of this remotely worth while? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Harold14370 (talk • contribs) 23:20, 26 February 2007 (UTC).

This sounds an awful lot like the whole disturbing images debate (i.e. should graphic or potentially disturbing images be used on Wikipedia). I Love Cookies 23:03, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Is there a gay cabal yet? If not, someone needs to work on exposing it. ;-) ShadowHalo 23:43, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Harold, FYI, Banjee was on DYK nearly a month and a half ago. Some people would find your attitude offensive. If people make articles on homosexuality, then so be it. They will appear on DYK. Nishkid 64 15:40, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Which articles are in question here? Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:37, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

A minor grammar point

DID YOU KNOW ...that according to legend, Joseph Stalin remained in Moscow during World War II partly due to a prophecy from Matryona Nikonova, who he covertly visited while she was hiding from his government?

How about "whom he covertly visited"? -Alekjds ^talk 06:23, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Been off the Main Page for nearly 24 hours, but in the future, please post such errors at talk:Main Page where they will be handled relatively quickly by admins passing by. Nishkid 64 02:22, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

New rule proposed

Should the DYK rules be changed to include something like "Select articles that specifically cite the source(s) for the hook. Articles having uncited hooks are unlikely to be chosen." The DYK for the Józef Łukaszewicz article brought up this issue. -- Jreferee 00:44, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

The issue for that article was not the uncited hook, but that the citations were in Polish. This violates the spirit of Wikipedia:Verifiability, which states that "Because this is the English Wikipedia, for the convenience of our readers, English-language sources should be used in preference to foreign-language sources, assuming equal quality, so that readers can easily verify that the source material has been used correctly." DYK's short time frame makes it especially difficult to verify non-English sources. Novickas 22:50, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

WP:V says English sources are preferred, if they don't exist, Polish sources are entirely acceptable. - Mgm|^(talk) 00:08, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

It's already implicit I feel. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 00:48, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Still a good thing to note for those newbie admins :-P. I would think most admins check to see if the DYK hook is referenced, but it usually is fairly obvious (from the article) if it is. Nishkid 64 02:44, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I think there should be more precise and clear rule about DYK selection to the Next Update. It seems now that DYK is the easiest way to publish new articles into the main page. I see some people are racing to get as many as DYK templates into their talk page. Because of no rules on how to select new suggestions into the Next Update, one user attempted to pass their own suggestions. I don't know yet in details what the better rules are, but somehow similar with WP:ITN/C is better which only admin can pass suggestions to the Next Update. — Indon (reply) — 10:08, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

The live DYK template is protected, so changes to the DYK template can only be undertaken by an administrator. -- Jreferee 17:23, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Indon, we do have DYK rules. Jreferee was just proposing a new rule to add to the current list of rules. See T:DYKT for DYK rules. Also, admins check to see if the articles moved to Next Update qualify DYK in the first place. If not, they will remove and send it back to T:DYKT. Nishkid 64 20:41, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to chime in late but I think we should have this as a suggestion/guideline/strong piece of advice not a rule. It's a good thing to ask of contributors but as a rule it may be too hard to discern. In fact there was quite a bit of a row about this a while ago IIRC. ++Lar: t/c 20:22, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Unless I've Finally lost it...

Um, this is going to sound strange, but I just received a message saying that I created or expanded an article called Leo J. Ryan Federal Building, when I have never even heard of this article. So unless I have finally lost my mind, someone else should be credited with this DYK. (I wonder how this happened, this also raises other concerns by the way - it means that if someone was trying to fraudulently credit me with the article, and succeed, then it can happen in the reverse, if you see where I'm going. Perhapes some sort of system should be implemented?) Anonymous Dissident 23:43, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your post. The Auk class minesweeper DYK article for which you should have been credited was listed just above the Leo J. Ryan Federal Building article in this project's to-be-credited thread. It seems that a mistake was made when the items were credited. Someone should be along shortly to correct it. -- Jreferee 07:46, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah that's exactly what happened. Sorry about the confusion, that was my fault.--Carabinieri 11:45, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I know this has been stated before, but...

For the love of god, can we lay off the damn Eurovision DYKs? Are there so few new articles created (and posted to TT:DYK) that we have to see something about an incredibly stupid (personal opinion) song contest (fact) almost every other day (also a fact)? -- Kicking222 02:35, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Well , T:DYK and WP:TFA main page displays reward good work - those who will get off their metaphorical posteriors and put the effort into creating quality articles with references, etc. That's a good merit-incentive system. Please help by giving us better supply by writing better stuff or digging for it. Merely complaining will not help. It's not as frequent as anybody thinks either. I can prove it. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 07:46, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, I should point out that they'll be coming even less frequently now for three reasons. Firstly, now that I've been adminned, there are other things which will be occupying my time as well as the creation of new articles. Secondly, I've got a big year at uni ahead of me, so my normal speed of creating 5 articles/day (note I said creating, not getting them to DYK standard) will have to drop if I'm to get good results. Thirdly, I'm now in the process of writing Portuguese entries - and without meaning any disrespect to the Portuguese entrants over the years, they're the country which I find it the hardest to get motivated about. There are 40-odd Portuguese entries, of which 5 or so have been written up to date, so that's going to be a long time between drinks. Eurovision entries are far from the only area of human knowledge which have turned up on DYK a lot, but they seem to be the only area which generates this kind of complaint every now and then. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 08:04, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

About 6 articles appear on DYK every 6 hours (e.g., 24 articles every 24 hours). The DYK process is not topic centric. The six articles are chosen by selecting those that show the most effort among those that first meet the minimum DYK requirements. Some credit might be given to some less represented areas on Wikipedia (e.g., articles related to Africa), but otherwise the DYK process rewards effort among those articles meeting the minimum DYK requirements. If someone is cranking out one well developed Eurovision article after the next for a given time period, it raises the DYK bar for that time period for the other DYK articles. -- Jreferee 18:33, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Comments on process for updating

I've had a few occasion, while I am in the middle of making the update to the Main Page and completing credits, where the Next update page is being changed as I work. In order to prevent an edit conflict/losing information in the process, I've protected the next update page while I am working on it. (I'm not as fast as some of the DYK admins.)

— ERcheck (talk) 03:04, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Did you know?

Did you know...

that I created Frank Brickowski back in May 2006. Why is this article a did-you-know in March 2007? I thought the rules were it has to be less than 5 days old.. --Downwards 07:02, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

It shouldn't have. We allow old stuff if the article has been expanded so that it is 75% new. I'm not sure that's the case here, as it was 3kb at end of Feb and 6.5k now.Blnguyen (bananabucket) 07:04, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

"Eligible articles may only be up to 5 days old, or significantly expanded in the last 5 days."

It was expanded from a 3 sentence stub at the beginning of 28 February to its current decent length by about 17:30 on 5 March, and should have gone on the Main Page later that day:

It was created on 25 May 2006 as a three-sentence stub.
After some expansion on 28 February 2007, it was still a single paragraph of five sentences.
It had some further exansion on 5 March, making it a decent length.
I added it to Next Update template shortly afterwards at 17:47 (UTC) on 5 March, well within 5 days of the initial expansion.
The Main Page template due for an update until about 23:30 (UTC) that evening, but it was not updated until 02:38 this morning. So sue us. -- ALoan (Talk) 19:05, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Not sure if it did qualify. Does the 5 days start on Feb 28 or March 5? No insult offended of course, it's a grey pick. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 23:37, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

It looks like the article exceeded 1,500 characters at 16:49, 5 March 2007. -- Jreferee 02:01, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, but that 5x rule seems to dictate that if it is predominantly new, it can be picked anyway. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:47, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

# of DYKs each update

the rules state 6-8 articles per update depending on how it fits on the main page. currently there are on 5 artilces on the main page. --Parker007 19:46, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

On the rules page, I revised the sentence from "An update to the DYK template typically adds five to eight new suggestions" to read "An update to the DYK template typically adds about five to eight new suggestions." -- Jreferee 01:53, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

5 - sometimes; 6 - usually; 7 - once in a while; 8 - if we're really lucky :P. Nishkid 64 02:11, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, got into double figures once when the TFA was short, ITN was long, and when I had a lot of trimming to do because of backlog! Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:52, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

An earlier version of the "rules" may have said 6 to 8, but I think they now say 5 to 8, which is in practice the usual range. I can't remember an occasion when we have had only 4 (except perhaps if one of 5 were removed and not replaced); 5 always used to be the usual number, although 6 is more common these days. 7 and 8 are less common, unless ITN and SA are unusually long, or TFA or the DYK hooks are unusually short.

In this particular case, I had intended to have 6, but inadvertently deleted one when formulating the Next Update (I deleted if from Suggestions, and even did all the credits, but it did not make the Main Page). Fortunately my error was spotted and it went into the update after that.

It may be worth making the point that the "rules" are not hard-and-fast injunctions, but rather descriptive of how DYK usually operates. There are occasions when editors or admins may exercise some discretion, and operate outside the usual bounds. There is occasionally a bit of flexibility with the 5 day limit or the 1,500 character limit. I pleased to see lots of comment on the suggestions page recently, but a bit disturbed at comments like "only 1,400 characters, excluding spaces" [only?! excluding spaces?!] or "only [only?!] expanded from 1000 characters to 3,500 character". Shrug. Perhaps I am a just soft touch. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:10, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Nope! You dun good. I think it would be very disheartening to a budding contributor to be told his or her first nomination missed because it was only 1450 characters long or whatever... Keep doing what you're doing, in my view, as long there's no appearance of bias by skirting the rules for seasoned contributors or yourself... which you're not doing near as I can tell. ++Lar: t/c 02:55, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I was one of the guys who pulled that 1400 thing....I don't usually think of myself being too legalistic, but generally I go for relatively long base standards, unless the article is an ALoanesque miniature gem of high culture, and normally I make comments like "...somewhat borderline. An expansion would compel an admin to choose this article" to extract a bit more from the user. Of course, I should probably use the softer and proper explanation first of choosing the best of the plate and nudging the writer to improve the standard, even though the new rule was introduced to cut short filibustering by guys who want their 1.1k stub to pass. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:52, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, thanks for the affirmation - always nice on a Friday morning! I figure that I am problably not doing anything too wrong if people don't complain. I am more likely to extend a but of latitude to new contributors rather than the old ones - the old ones know what to expect and usually hit the mark. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:35, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Expansion rule

On March 7, the expansion rule page was changed (bold emphasis mine) - see diff below line 61 [1] - from what it had been on March 1 and before:

From:

".... short articles that have been greatly expanded (by five-fold or more) are also encouraged.

To:

"....short articles that have been greatly expanded are also encouraged (as a guideline, an expansion of five-fold or more is acceptable;"

The earlier statement gives a clear goal for expansion. However, both are inconsistent with what is on the Suggestion page. The Suggestion page used to say "significantly expanded", but now it says

"...it was under 1,500 characters or marked as a stub, and has been expanded by at least an additional 1,500 characters"

This is not completely clear and inconsistent with the 5x rule. Is the implication that stubby articles (<1,500 characters) need to be expanded by at least 1,500 characters. This is almost a 2x rule. What if it was a 3,000 character article? It could be interpreted that an additional 50% would be enough.

The spirit of the rule is that DYK is for new articles. So, substantial expansion should correlate to the article is in essence new.

I bring this up as there has been some recent confusion/discussion on article size and expansion with the nominations. — ERcheck (talk) 05:05, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Oops, I didn't see this here before I went ahead and changed the suggestions. I figured that since the rules didn't say anything about a 1,500 expansion, it would be best to replace it with the five-fold rule. BuddingJournalist 06:07, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Makes sense and makes it consistent. — ERcheck (talk) 06:20, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree - it makes sense to make the text consistent

For small articles, the gap between them was not that large, I think. The expanded article would have to meet the 1,500 character minimum anyway, so there would only be a conflict between the rules for articles that started at less than 375 characters and that expand by less than 1,500 characters (anything starting at over 375 characters which expands by a factor of 5 has to expand by 1,500 characters). I expect that a 375 character article that expanded by "only" 1,125 characters (to 1,500) would stand a decent chance of being be selected anyway.

The main difference is that the "5x" guideline prevents the selection of an article that expands from, say, 1,000 characters to 2,500 characters, or from 1,500 characters to 3,000 characters. I think we would say that the articles was too large to begin with in either of those cases. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:23, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

These are all guidelines, hopefully. We have enough noms that we ought not to be going hard and fast on exactly how many chars were added, changed, deleted, ROT13ed, etc., I don't think... the above reads (through no fault of anyone in particular) as quite mathematical and rigid. ++Lar: t/c 18:38, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I was justn trying to explain that the different formulations come out at roughly the same place. It is good to use the same language, though.

I have been trying not to be too rigid! -- ALoan (Talk) 19:09, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm happy to select anything that is predominantly new, eg 70-75%+ but don't feel obliged to follow. I had Irfan Pathan selected by Nishkid after I blew it up from 6kb to 30kb in about 3 days, although some feel it is inappropriate. Likewise I promoted Sakhalin Koreans IIRC at 30kb when it was originally maybe 6-8kb when it was forked from some other article. But I guess it doesn't matter too much. If only 50% of the admins like this, then an article of this type will only have half the chance that other articles have, so this keeps the undue weight factor of the DYK community in order. :) Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:56, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

New articles

User:Alex Bakharev runs a bot that looks through new articles and filters out the ones that are related to a certain topic. He then lists these at the new article announcement pages for that topic. I asked him if he could modify the bot so it would filter out articles that seem to meet DYK criteria in terms of length, presence of an externanal links or references section, which indicates that the article is sources, and the absence of cleanup tags. He's now added this automatically generated list to the suggestions' page. I am not sure if that's the best place for it. What do you think?-- Carabinieri 09:36, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

It sounds like as good an idea as any at the moment, and a quick and thoroughly unscientific sample of (3 of) the articles the bot has deposited there seems to show that it's working properly. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 10:52, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

So how exactly are we going to manage this? Should we remove hooks from the list and then place them under a certain day with a DYK-appropriate hook? This seems like the best plan of action to me. Nishkid 64 20:08, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that sounds sensible. Are we going to look through these as a matter of course or simply top the nominations up if we're running short? --Cherry blossom tree 23:40, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Should these perhaps be put on a subpage? I imagine this section might become kind of long after five days. BuddingJournalist 01:37, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

5th day nominations

A common practice is to nominate articles on the 5th day after its creation, sometimes possibly to avoid some inconvenient scrutiny. I'd therefore propose that candidates for DYK should have been "officially" nominated at least 24 hours before emerging on the front page. --Camptown 12:56, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I think this should be on a case-by-case basis. If someone discovers a new, good article and nominates it within the timeframe, it should not be excluded. Those who move the articles to next update have the responsibility of reviewing the article for eligibility/issues. — ERcheck (talk) 13:35, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

WP:AGF, I don't expect the later nominations to be made to avoid scrutiny. In some cases, the article is still being built up after initial creation. — ERcheck (talk) 14:18, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I think user:Camptown has a good point. Many articles seem to be nominated (usually self-nominated) at last minute, and it's pretty pointless having a nominations proceedure if last minute nominations sidestep proper examination and scrutiny. And this might be a serious problem where articles include controversial facts that might not be so easily found by just one person. --Bondkaka 15:33, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Whoever is doing sending the items to DYK Next Update has the responsibility of checking over the DYK hooks, if they have or have not already been commented upon. That way, we can prevent such irregularities from occurring. Nishkid 64 20:07, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

True, but its not as simple as a guy using non RS or putting weasel words or rampant commentary in the article or unsourced stuff. The guy could simply have done an article which gives selective coverage of certain aspects, and this would tilt NPOV by undue weight. If the admin does not know the content, he could promote an article with only the theories and viewpoints of one spectrum put in there. But I don't think the contentious DYKs are the ones who are sneaking in via a late application. Mostly the controversial ones are Eastern European history, and they are all experienced hands over there, keeping a close watch on each other. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:00, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I proposed a 5th day nomination, Jim Fields, on March 8, 2007 since I came across it on the 5th DYK day while doing Biography assessments, it was a "B" article, and the creator never had a DYK before (to my knowledge). Instead of posting it at the top of the suggestion page where its DYK potential may have expired, I posted it at the bottom with an explanation. I'm not sure if 5th day nominations are a common practice. However, if someone continually is trying to game the DYK system, this may be handled with a note on their talk page. -- Jreferee 15:15, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I am not convinced that there is a problem here - please can we have some examples if there is concern that some may be "gaming" the system. The person moving suggested DYKs to the Next Update or to the Main Page should be checking that the articles are ok anyway, in terms of freshness, length, and references, and that there are no obvious problems with the format, etc, but most subtle problems, such as POV or lack of comprehensiveness, are pretty difficult to detect from a quick review.

I have nominated some articles at the last minute for a variety of reasons - I usually give my new/expanded articles a day or two to "mature" before nominating them anyway, and sometimes I forget to nominate them until the last minute; sometimes I stumble a good new article on the 4th or 5th day (in the new bot list, for example). Is this a problem? -- ALoan (Talk) 10:46, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Mar 11, 2007 User:ERcheck insertion

Today's first DYK item added by User:ERcheck is focused on Jāzeps Vītols and Saint Petersburg Conservatory, none of which are properly referenced. I believe this breaks one of the rules. 74.113.107.4 20:08, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

The bolded term is the article that should be properly reference. To verify the content of the article, you could go to the references section and click the links showing the sources of the information provided in the article. Nishkid 64 20:41, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

The information in the hook was in the article and verifiable from the references (see Naxos profile). — ERcheck (talk) 23:44, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Encouragement

I know some people don't see the point of writing articles, and they think bringing existing articles to FA is much better. However, I just wanted to let you know that you could put the same effort into writing a new article, and just as easily bring it to FA. A few weeks ago, The Four Stages of Cruelty, an article for DYK passed FAC and was featured on the Main Page. Just today, Act of Independence of Lithuania, an article that appeared on DYK nearly 4 weeks ago and passed FAC, appeared on the Main Page as Today's Featured Article. I just want to say that if some people can bring their new articles to FA, then others can to. Working on new articles can be treated equally as working on existing articles, since you're putting a lot of work into both, and both can easily reach coveted status given the quality of the article. I just wanted to point that out for some of people who feel writing articles should not be a concentration of many Wikipedians. Nishkid 64 23:12, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Act of Independence of Lithuania is a good example of how a small team of editors are aiming for FA-class - right from the very beginning. --Camptown 01:24, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. :) Nishkid 64 01:37, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Harbhajan Singh too. :), and hopefully Chappell Ganguly controversy soon also. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:01, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I love starting new articles and expanding the gaps in Wikipedia's collection of information. I try to go into every new article with the thought that I will one day take it GA or FA, despite time constraints and resources obviously not making that possible. It means little things at first, inline citations etc. That way if I leave an article, stub, start whatever, it has the skeleton of what could become a GA or FA. IvoShandor 12:24, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Definition of 'new' re: workpages

Do articles that have been on a userpage for a while, being worked on by several people over a few weeks, count as 'new' when they are finally moved to the article page? i.e. can they be put up for DYK? I can't seem to find any information on this - maybe I'm being blind!!! 82.32.238.139 18:11, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes - I am not sure if there is a note about this somewhere, but in the past we have only counted from the date when they are moved into the main article space. -- ALoan (Talk) 18:20, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks 82.32.238.139 18:29, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

There was a whole debate about this when an article on Hurricane Bob was added to DYK, and then subsequently removed by me because of the whole userspace-->mainspace moving date (although, this debate was a bit more complex) We seemed to have agreed that the date the article is moved should be counted as the day of creation. Nishkid 64 00:28, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

To Wikipedia:Did_you_know#The_DYK_Rules, I added

For those workpages first developed in user space, the date the workpage is posted to article namespace may be counted as the first day towards the DYK 5 day rule. You may wish to consider adding {{workpage}} to the top of the workpage.

-- Jreferee 15:02, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Why all the excessive attribution?

What exactly is the purpose of identifying entries with codicils like 'article by SnorkelWeasel (talk • contribs), nom by MonkeyMangler (talk • contribs)', or 'self-nom'? I don't see the point at all. These attributions do not actually go into DYK itself, and don't stick around here long enough for Wikipedia in general to even see them, anyone can figure this stuff out from the DYK'd article's edit history, and most importantly it seems to imply that there is a stigma of some sort attached to "self"-nominations (a silly term - you're not nominating you, you're nominating an article you wrote or heavily edited, after all). It seems to me these things ought to be examined on their own merit, not judged by who nominated or wrote what (I hope that they are). This probably sounds like more of complaint than intended; it's not really a complaint, just a "I don't get it. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 01:34, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

This would probably be better off at Wikipedia talk:Did you know, which is AFAIK the talk page for discussion about the DYK project. This being the "template talk" page is for discussion about what actually turns up on the template every 6 hours.

The purpose of the attribitions is to enable admins to notify the users who created or nominated the article that it's got onto the front page. Writing or improving an article to that extent is part and parcel of the encyclopedic side of the entire Wikipedia project, so letting people know that "they done good" in that regard is a good way to let them know to keep on doing what they're doing. The nomination of the article (when it's by someone else) can't be figured out by the article's edit history necessarily, so that at least is an important thing to have.

There isn't - or shouldn't, in my opinion - be a stigma attached to self-noms anyway. All it says is "I wrote this article. How's about putting it in the front page?" (as against "Joe Bloggs wrote this article..."). In my experience updating the template, a good 70%+ of what gets on there is self-nominated, so you're right in saying that the articles are judged on their merits. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 01:43, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I moved this to Wikipedia talk:Did you know, which is the appropriate place for discussion about DYK. As to your question, BigHaz basically covered it. The attribution is there to make it easier for admins to notify users about their articles being on DYK, and to also notify users if problems have arisen from the DYK article, or hook. Nishkid 64 23:14, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

The nomination and creation attributions are used here by DYK to then give credit to the nominator to encourage posting more nominations and to give credit to the article creator to encourage more article creations (and other things). Self-noms help DYK know whether or not a nominator also needs to be credited. For people new to DYK, the attribution scheme might give the impression of a stigma. I'm not sure how this might be avoided. I revised the Wikipedia:Did_you_know#Recognition section to reflect this discussion. -- Jreferee 15:27, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Image protection no longer necessary

Thanks to cascading protection, actually protecting locally uploaded images is no longer necessary. Commons images still have to be c-uploaded, unless you're a Commons admin too. Do we need to still keep the "PROTECT THE IMAGE!!!!!" instruction in the template? howcheng {chat} 03:46, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I fixed up the notice. The other bits are useful, so I'm leaving them there, but I removed "Protect image" stuff, since cascading protection has solved that issue. Nishkid 64 17:23, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Can we nominate the entries created by ourself

Hi, I would wish to know that can we nominate the DYK entry which has been added by us or only admins. can only nominate. Sushant gupta 05:46, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Anyone can nominate any article - in fact there are usually more self-nominations than ones by other users in my experience. As long as the article meets the criteria, you can nominate it. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 05:50, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Now I have nominated the DYK entry made by me. Does it mean that now it will appear on the main page. Sushant gupta 06:04, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Not immediately. Over the next few days, people will have a look at it and see if the article or the "hook" needs any improvement. If it does, they'll either do it themselves or suggest that you do it, so keep the suggestions page on your watchlist. After a few days, as long as it's all in order, it'll find its way onto the main page. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 07:30, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

This issue came up before. To Suggestions, I added "Any user may nominate a DYK suggestion. Also, self-nominations are permitted and encouraged." (I took the language from the Decision process section of About RfA.) -- Jreferee 20:40, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Less than two weeks to go

before "that day" :)... are people working on "special" articles? If you are, great. If you aren't... here's a reminder! ++Lar: t/c 12:20, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

By "that day", do you perhaps mean Palm Sunday? -- ALoan (Talk) 12:26, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

This year I do. But not every year. Some years it is just a day. Maybe it's silly of me not to actually say the day I mean... (the Googlebots will find it anyway...) if anyone's confused (ALoan's reference is a good clue), drop me an email. I'm actually going to be on holiday on the day so... See also [2] ++Lar: t/c 13:27, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll try to work on some article. Unfortunately, I won't be around during April Fool's Day, so I'll be missing it. =( Nishkid 64 14:46, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Re:DYK entries

How does the DYK entry find its way to the main page. I mean the admins. select the entries or anyone can do this work. Sushant gupta 03:56, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

The instructions are written out somewhere, but I can't find precisely the right link to give you at the moment. The way that it works is that anyone can move a valid article to the Next Update template and mark who needs to be thanked for it and so on. The actual updating to get the entries on that template onto the next page needs to be done by an admin, who also checks to make sure that all the entries on that template are the right length, age and so on. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 05:05, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

The link How a DYK suggestion makes its way to the Main Page may give some additional information. -- Jreferee 17:10, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

"Try to pick articles that are [...] interesting" (WP:DYK); why not make the hooks interesting as well?

Recently the minimum length an article has to have to be featured on DYK has been increased. I'm assuming that's mainly the result of the fact that there were just too many suggestions and that we needed some kind of criterium to exclude some of them. I think it would be better to focus more on the suggested hooks themselves, because I've noticed a lot of hooks being used that I don't find "interesting" (as the DYK rules call for) at all. They don't state anything extraordinary, astonishing, or even humourous. Often they just contain the content of the first sentence of an article. Here are some examples of what I mean, which I found just by looking through the entries from the last three days or so:

...that Operation Queen was a joint British-American operation during World War II at the western front between Aachen and the Rur river in November 1944?

...that United States Marine Sergeant Aubrey McDade (pictured) was awarded the Navy Cross for his actions in Iraq in 2004?

...that Chester Wilmot, the Australian War correspondent and military historian of the Second World War, was killed in an air crash in 1954?

...that the Percival Petrel, a twin-engine, low-wing monoplane with a tailwheel undercarriage, was used as British communications aircraft in World War II?

...that Hurricane Katrina in 1981 caused two deaths?

...that the Thunderbirds, the U.S. Air Force's Demonstration Squadron, selected Brigadier General Ricardo Aponte (pictured) as their Spanish language narrator for the Latin America Tour of 1992?

You tell me: is it just my personal taste or do are these really not particularly interesting. Take the Operation Queen hook for example: One could write an entry like ...that Operation X was NATION(S) operation at LOCATION in YEAR? What's special about this fact? Or what's special about the fact that a twin-engine, low-wing monoplane with a tailwheel undercarriage, was used as British communications aircraft? Or that a hurricane caused 2 deaths?

I think we should all be more picky about this and possibly even define what kind of entries we are looking for in the rules.-- Carabinieri 20:03, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Ugh, I know -- I saw the Operation Queen one and meant to rewrite it but got busy and couldn't get to it. Given the large amounts of entries we have now, if we don't have four updates a day, a fair number of them get left behind, so I've been focusing more on getting them on than really scrutinizing them. Assuming all other things are equal, what should be more important -- quantity or quality? Obviously the ideal is both, but doing either takes time, and if we have to sacrifice one or the other, which should it be? howcheng {chat} 02:19, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Isn't the quality/quantity argument something else? I believe Carabinieri is talking just about how fascinating the hook is. It has to be something special, not just a fact from the article. Perhaps that just has something to do with the way it's nominated, and some could be improved, but there are probably a lot that just don't have that "punch". Leebo ^T/C 03:07, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

What I meant is that sometimes nominations get ignored for whatever reason until its their turn to get included in the next update. I find this seems to happen a lot to me that T:DYK/N is still empty after 6+ hours and I only have a little time to work on it (especially late Friday/Saturday night when I'm tired and am trying to hurry up so I can go to bed). I can either work on updating the Main Page or rewriting the hooks to find something more interesting, but not both. If I don't do the update now, it's unlikely someone else will come by anytime soon (late Friday night in the western US, meaning it's later on the east coast and Saturday morning in the UK -- I did a Friday night update last weekend and when I got up and checked DYK 12 hours later, it hadn't been touched and neither had Next Update). So in this case, what would we prefer -- that DYK gets updated, or that I find better hooks? I can either put up a bunch of less interesting hooks or make them more interesting but risk having more expire as well -- that's what I mean by quality vs quantity. If one has to be sacrificed, which one is it? Of course, the answer is preferably neither, so I've been trying to "punch up" the hooks farther ahead of time, but I'm in a little bit of a lull at work recently so I've been available to do that; it certainly won't last and I kind of hate to see my name on T:TDYK so much.

So really, what we need is more people willing to vet the hooks and articles ahead of time which will make the jobs of getting Next Update ready and putting them on the Main Page both easier -- and this is especially true when one person has to do both. howcheng {chat} 07:10, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I understand what your saying, but the point I'm trying to make is that we currently have so many entries that we can simply ignore "bad suggestions".--Carabinieri 20:00, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Well I strongly believe that as well as checking for the articles being sourced and NPOV and of decent size, we should police the hooks. In the past, say about 12 months ago, when Petaholmes (PDH) and Gurubrahma were the admins doing this, they were (relatively) strict about the hooks having to be non-tautological, and regularly rejected "boring" suggestions. eg, when I first tried putting my articles into DYK 12 months ago, my first eight DYKs were (User:Blnguyen/DYK):

...that despite its name, the Australian Mathematics Competition (pictured) receives entries from 38 countries and that the students are ranked with respect to other students in their states, not all of Australia?
... that Frank Beaurepaire (pictured), a Lord Mayor of Melbourne, member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly and multi-millionaire tyre businessman was a six-time Olympic medallist in swimming who set 15 world records in his swimming career?
... that Michelle Ford was the first Australian woman to win individual swimming medals at the Olympics in two distinct specialized strokes?
...that John Devitt was awarded a gold medal in the 100m freestyle at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome despite all three timekeepers awarding a faster time to the silver medallist?
...that disqualification protests were lodged against Clare Dennis (pictured), the winner of the 200m breaststroke at the 1932 Summer Olympics, on the grounds of her "inappropriate" costume which exposed her shoulder blades?
...that Kevin O'Halloran, a swimming gold medallist at the 1956 Summer Olympics, died after accidentally tripping and shooting himself?
...that Kevin Berry, former Pictorial Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, won the 200m butterfly at the 1964 Summer Olympics?
...that John Davies (pictured), the US District Court judge who presided over the trial of a group of LAPD officers in the Rodney King incident, won gold for Australia in the 200m breaststroke at the 1952 Olympics?

In all the cases, I only nominated articles where the subject achieved something that was rare or unique, had a "double personality" or something counterintuitive to the name, or unusual deaths etc. Personally, I could go and put really bland hooks in there, and many people nominate all their articles for DYK, even if there isn't really anything unusual about it. -> There have been many random facts along the lines of "that SUBJECT did SOME RANDOM THING" or "that SUBJECT involves SOME NUMBER" without explaining how the random thing is unusual or the number is a remarkable figure like "that Mr X was the delegate of some country at some conference" or "that some phenomena has caused some number of deaths etc" or "that there are INSERT NUMBER schools/theatres/hospitals in INSERT JURISDICTION". I agree it is subjective and in the past it has lead to an edit war when an administrator self selected his article [3] despite prior complaints. I do support policing the hooks more but I do wonder whether there simply will be self-selection by admins or retaliatory vetoing of other people's noms etc. But in principle, I agree that hooks which don't express anything unusual or remarkable should be ignored or rewritten. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 08:17, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree that nominations with more interesting hooks should be chosen over nominations with less interesting hooks, when we have more than enough nominations to make a choice.

Regarding this issue, I wish to discuss an incident that cropped up during my first successful DYK nomination. The article was on a Singaporean movie entitled Money No Enough, which was released during the 1997 East Asian financial crisis. The hook was that it became (and still is) Singapore's all-time highest-grossing movie, which is pretty ironic given the title of the movie.

After I submitted my nomination, several users suggested ways to improve the wording of the hook. Unfortunately, because my Internet access was disrupted by the 2006 Hengchun earthquake, I was not able to respond. Consequently, the article was placed on DYK with a lousy hook. When I finally managed to load the Main Page (it took me 10 refreshes), I was delighted that the article had been featured on DYK, but was dismayed to see the hook.

I contacted Mailer diablo, an admin and my Wikifriend, and asked him to help me edit the hook, which he did. However, his edit was reverted by User:Awyong Jeffrey Mordecai Salleh.

Was Awyong Jeffrey Mordecai Salleh's revert a bad move, or could I have handled the situation better? I'd like to know because I'm planning to write my second DYK, on The Best Bet, a Singaporean movie about the perils of gambling. The hook is that Jack Neo, who wrote and directed the movie (as well as Money No Enough), was once a compulsive gambler, and in several newspaper interviews, he mentioned that he wrote the movie to warn people about the perils of gambling (at that time, there was some debate about whether to build a casino in Singapore). I hope to handle the second nomination better, so that not only will it be succesful, it will have a good hook (of course, the actual wording of the hook will be very different from that used in the previous sentence). --J.L.W.S. The Special One 14:47, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Got notice of DYK for today but article has disappeared & is not there!

Received the following DYK notice on my talk page that Indian copper plate inscriptions would appear today:

On 22 March, 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Indian copper plate inscriptions, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

--howcheng {chat} 06:23, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

However, the article is not there and has disappeared from the lists. I rewrote the hook yesterday, not knowing that it had already been placed on the template for today's DYK. Did I screw up something unwittingly? Thanks! Sincerely, Mattisse 13:29, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

The article was indeed featured on the Main page on March 22 01.58 - 08.15 (Wikipedia Time). --Camptown 13:40, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry! I don't want to seem dumb but I don't see it in the diff you provided. It is not there. It was on the template last night when I went to bed for March 22 and I received the above notice today. Thanks! Sincerely, Mattisse 13:47, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Trust me, it appeared on the Front page for 6 hours and 17 minutes - It's the last entry on the 01.58 revision, so when you were notified, the article had already been on the front page for more than 4 hours. --Camptown 15:47, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

It was in this update at 01:58, 22 March 2007 and then removed in the next update at 08:15, 22 March 2007. The above diff shows the changes between these two versions. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:13, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about that ... sometimes I squeeze in updating the Main Page and I don't have time to do the notifications until a few hours later. howcheng {chat} 16:56, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Archiving

On top of all else, would it be possible for people to archive WP:DYKA more often? I just created 8 archive pages -- that's roughly 400 DYKs! howcheng {chat} 00:24, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Was it really that large? I thought it was only 200. :-P Anyway, I'll try to give a hand with the archiving periodically when I poke around DYK. I remember in January, I had to archive 10-15 pages (maybe I'm exaggerating; I know it was a lot though) of DYKs. Nishkid 64 00:38, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I did the last archiving about 3 weeks ago - I created five new archives then, but mine seem to be about twice as large as yours! -- ALoan (Talk) 10:52, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, the heading says each one contains about 50, so that's about how much I throw in. Do we want to change the number? Fifty does seem kind of low, because that would be at the most 10 updates, or 2.5 days' worth. howcheng {chat} 16:17, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Isn't it poossible to make archiving automatic? Bondkaka 11:05, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and I think MiszaBot II is our solution. Anyone have any objections? howcheng {chat} 18:14, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Speedy Support. This is would useful. =) Nishkid 64 20:51, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, the template for MiszaBot II to archive for us is now in place. No archiving has been done yet, from what I can tell, though. howcheng {chat} 16:57, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Priority articles

User:Parker007 added the thing about "priority articles" in this edit. Are we all OK with this? Kind of makes sense to me, but it seems like it would be a PITA to find out which articles are "priority". howcheng {chat} 18:16, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

It's a PITA to find which articles are being created as a part of the Missing Articles WikiProject. I made almost all of my DYKs from the Missing Biographies list, and I just removed the article from the list once I had completed the article. It seems like a waste of time, and I'd rather stick with the traditional method of just choosing DYKs by date. Nishkid 64 20:47, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it seems there are so many lists on the Missing Encyclopedia Articles project that it would take a long time and I don't see it as all that important, since there are clearly articles on notable topics that are omitted from these lists (perhaps because they are relatively recent or they suffer from systemic bias), as well as some that are considered non-notable (e.g. suggestions for non-inclusion). Perhaps the suggestion could be listed (in the #Suggestions part) that priority would be given when there is a large volume of suggestions, but I think that's pretty much what's already done. I also don't see the point of having the MEA template there. Rigadoun (talk) 21:02, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any point to this. If were were discarding good entries then perhaps, but just about everything worthwhile ends up on the main page anyway. Skipping ahead some entries isn't much of a carrot and it will just create unnecessary confusion in the administration. --Cherry blossom tree 21:53, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

It seems like an additional and unnecessary step to me as well. The intentions are good (since there are topics we don't have articles on and yadda yadda yadda), but actually determining what goes where is an addition of a step I don't think we need. As it stands, if I see an article which qualifies and and is down the bottom and think "You mean we didn't have an article on this?", I'll stick it into the Next Update or onto the template without hesitation. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 21:56, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately my connection is too slow to be doing any updates at the moment, but if I was I'd be ignoring any "priority" for articles. Just because somebody made a list of redlinks doesn't make them any more of a priority than a redlink somebody just thought of and filled this morning. I'll remove this addition (if I can wait ten minutes for the page to load) since it doesn't seem to have much support. Yomangani ^talk 23:11, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

No need to do this. It was already removed from T:DYKT. Nishkid 64 23:30, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Wow, that's dedicated, but shouldn't you turn off your laptop in theatre? Yomangani ^talk 23:47, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Lol, I put up the notice a day before my actual surgery. I'm going in tomorrow morning. Wish me luck. :-P Also, it was someone else who removed it lol. Nishkid 64 00:43, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Priority articles take 2

It occurred to me last night when I was doing the Main Page update that although we try and balance the countries/topics that are represented on DYK so that it's pretty random, it seems to me that the potential audience for certain articles would be greatest during that country's waking hours. For example, Seaport Centre was in this update, which was done at 10:45 PM on the West Coast of the US last night. This article is about a building in Redwood City, California. This sat on the Main Page until I did another update this morning at 8:59 AM. This 10-hour time span (which is long, but that's beside the point) was when most people in the US were asleep. Assuming that it had gone off the Main Page after six hours at 4:45 AM (West Coast, or 7:45 AM East Coast), then it would have gone completely unseen by most people who would could be expected to be interested in reading the article. Meanwhile, this time span was between 5:45 AM to 4 PM UTC or 11:15 AM to 9:30 PM in India. After all, the goal of putting the articles on the Main Page is to get them read, isn't it? I create a number of articles about people/locations in the US for example, and I can't imagine someone in India is really going to be interested in Eilley Bowers (one my noms), who got on the Main Page at 2:33 AM in California and would have gone off earlier if it hadn't been a Saturday.

So I'm proposing a rule of thumb that when we assign nominations to the next update, we try to do it so that they are likely to be read by the audience that would most appreciate them. I don't mean load up the ENTIRE update with articles appropriate to the time zone, but maybe give more of an emphasis to them (maybe like half of them). Naturally, this would only happen when we don't have noms that are about to expire and when we have enough of a variety that we can do it.

So I created a new template {{DYKRefresh}}. This is what we would actually edit to update the timestamp. This one in turn calls either {{DYK-Refresh}} or {{DYK-RefreshNext}}, which looks like (I got this nested-template idea from how the POTD is currently done):

{{DYKRefresh|Next}}

This could then serve as a guide to people doing the next update so that they would pick articles appropriate to the locations where most people could be expected to be awake and using Wikipedia. In this example, emphasis might be given to Australian and US/Canadian articles.

Thoughts? Flames? howcheng {chat} 17:10, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Add England, of course, and maybe South Africa and New Zealand. I'm not sure I agree with the whole idea, though, because I like to see a variety of articles listed from all over the world, to remind us that (as opposed to most other encyclopedias) this really is a more global project. It may not be a bad idea to have this template there, for thinking of timing for particularly special articles like the example you give, but I disagree with making half of them (say) U.S.-oriented. Plus anyone up late or early in the other time zones may get a negative view of WP's apparent parochialism. Rigadoun (talk) 20:08, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it's another step towards being too technical about things. Yes, it would be nice for editors to be able to see things in their own timezones, but it just seems to me that we're in the business of letting people know about interesting things wherever they might be in the world - I for one couldn't care less when an Australian DYK turns up unless it's something I'm really interested in. If something turns up about (say) Swaziland, though, I'm more interested. Maybe I'm perverse like that. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 23:35, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with BigHaz, people aren't necessarily more interested in things happening in their timezone. --Carabinieri 16:35, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I didn't mean to imply that people are more interested in things within their time zones; just things within their own countries. And of course there are individuals who are interested in all sorts of things, but I'm talking about more in general -- or maybe it's just Americans because we're so self-centered (: ... When it's the middle of the night in any given location, the potential audience for an article in that country is a lot smaller. Honestly -- English heraldic articles? I couldn't care less. Obscure persons from the histories of US states? I can't imagine Brits or Aussies or Indians being interested either. So for example, when it's daytime in Europe and there's room for 6 entries, I'm thinking at least 3 focused on Europe with the remaining spots for the rest of the world (assuming there are actually 3 soon-to-expire European hooks to use). Over the course of the day, articles from all around the world will end up on DYK; we'd just be tailoring them for the greatest potential audience. BTW, I didn't have England in the box above because England is at +0 UTC, so it seemed kind of obvious. (: howcheng {chat} 05:41, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Oops, I did know that, really. :) I guess I just figured since it's halfway between India and America, it would appear there. Rigadoun (talk) 17:46, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Personally I like to see DYKs on things I don't know about (so am normally less interested in things about whatever country I'm in or have been in, although many DYKs are so obscure that it makes no difference). I'm against anything that makes the next update any more daunting for an editor to update, which this does. Yomangani ^talk 18:01, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the current guideline - trying to ensure that each update has some variety, so we have some European items, some Asian items, some US items, some historical items, some biographical items, some geographical items, some high-brow items, some low-brow items, in each update - is the best policy. FWIW, I am just a likely to read something about India or Zimbabwe as the UK or the US - indeed, perhaps more so. My DYK are almost inevitably featured and then archived while I am asleep. -- ALoan (Talk) 18:04, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Help please

Your urgent DYK help would be most appreciated here. -- Jreferee 21:11, 28 March 2007 (UTC)