Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 21

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DYK on Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro

Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro was recently deleted and rewritten to eliminate pervasive plagiarism, including copyright violation. It made it onto DYK, and the original DYK note read "that the Augustinian monk Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro arranged for the crowning of the first poet laureate since antiquity?" I don't think this is infringing content (would have to check to be sure), but it doesn't reflect what the article says right now. I've changed the text, but I would urge whoever's putting these things together to check the page histories of the articles a little more closely before putting this stuff onto the main page. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:35, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I take full responsibility for that, and I apologize. I had noticed that the hook was contested on the suggestion page based on the AfD. But when I went to the article, I noticed there was not AfD header and I checked the talk page. The AfD discussion was to keep the article. I therefore assumed the hook was ok to go live. I was lazy and didn't fact check. I had noticed the timer was red and there was nothing on the next page, so I moved roughly 8 hooks from the suggestion page. Being new to this, I waited a bit, hoping someone else would update the page and review the suggestions I had pulled. I guess I didn't wait long enough (I ended up updating). Maybe I won't be too eager to update, even if the timer is red. Anyway, I a learning a lot about the updating process, and sorry for the blunder.-Andrew c [talk] 01:03, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
No biggie--the text wasn't infringing, I checked against the plagiarized source, and the DYK text was more of an exaggeration than a complete inaccuracy. Just something to keep in mind for the future; in any case I don't imagine that too many DYK articles have copyvio problems--at least, I hope not. --Akhilleus (talk) 01:26, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Although it should be checked for; many quite plausible new articles are cut-and-paste jobs, less sophisticated than this one.Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:10, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

List of Wikipedians by DYK article creation/nominations

Rick Block presently is working on a tool to generate a list of Wikipedians by DYK article creation/nominations. He has a few question at this thread. Thanks! -- Jreferee (Talk) 22:53, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I can watch this thread, too, if anyone would rather respond here. -- Rick Block (talk) 22:57, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
User:Anonymous_Dissident/List_of_Wikipedians_by_number_of_DYKs#The_list is being used, but I am not sure how often it is updated by other editors.Bakaman 22:59, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

(Copied from Rick's talk page) I now have a tool that can generate pages like this (note the article names are as presented on the DYK page - it would be trivial to put the actual article name in the table instead if that'd be preferable). Where are the main page dates and nominators recorded? -- Rick Block (talk) 23:47, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

(Copied from Rick's talk page) I don't think that DYK maintains a main page dates and nominators list. The actual credits are made from credits and the actual appearance on the Main Page is from Template:Did_you_know. You might want to take a look at How a DYK suggestion makes its way to the Main Page. It's not as simple as it seems. More info. DYK made its first Main Page appearance on February 22, 2004. On March 13, 2004, DYK started archiving the DYK posts.[1] Credit recognition for article creators started on November 24, 2004[2], DYK began placing DYK notifications on article talk pages on January 13, 2006[3], and nominators started receiving credit on May 13, 2006[4]. -- Jreferee (Talk) 22:50, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I can probably write a little tool that would read all the old versions of Template:Did you know to figure out the main page appearance dates (this might take some time to run, but I don't think the programming should be too difficult). Once there's a base of data to start with, I could add this to the regular daily activities done by user:Rick Bot (it does something like this already for FA main page appearances). I guess the nominators can theoretically be parsed out of old versions of Wikipedia:Did you know as well - again, probably not too difficult to program but likely to take some time to run. I'll put together an example of what the whole thing might look like. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:46, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

If this tool can be written it would greatly enhance the accuracy and reliability of the list. We would most appreciate this tool. Thanks Rick. -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 02:06, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
For nominators, I think you'd need to look at T:DYK/N, the next update page where the credits are stored until the template is updated and the page is cleared. If you look each time the template is updated, the credits should be on the next update page (for a few minutes, until it is cleared). How did you get the article credits? For new articles, it's the credit is the first author; but were you able to credit expansions correctly? It may also be useful to distinguish between new articles and expansions on the list. And which have pictures, too (which is obvious enough from the archive). I figure we may as well gather all the information that may be useful in the future now, in case we want some particular statistic in the future. (If that's all not too much trouble, of course. Thanks for your interest.) Rigadoun (talk) 15:28, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
For nominators I actually meant Template talk:Did you know (assuming that anything that did show up on the main page would have to have been nominated there first), although perhaps T:DYK/N would work as well (although it only covers back through Dec 2006). I have the raw output of a scan of all the histories of T:DYK (which yields the main page appearance dates). What I have so far can automatically find the creator of an article (from the article history) but not expansions. Off hand, I can't think of a good way to automatically figure out expansion vs. creation - if anyone has any suggestions for an algorithmic way to do this I'd be willing to give it a shot (it wouldn't be impossible to flag articles that were created more than, say, two weeks before the main page appearance, but automatically figuring out which delta is the one that should be credited seems like kind of a stretch). Parsing "pictured" from the archives would be doable, but does anyone actually care about this? -- Rick Block (talk) 18:48, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
A creation occurs in the first five days since the first post and an expansion would occure more than five days after the first post, so the bot can determine if the DYK is an expansion or creation. The DYK expansion criteria has changed over time so it might be too hard for the bot to get the right answer on each entry as to who is credited with the expansion. Also, there are other uses for this list (e.g., whether the creator received a DKY credit post, did the article talk page receive a DYK notice, ect.) In the end, any bot list generated will have to be verified by hand. -- Jreferee (Talk) 17:26, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Village pump thread

DYK has been mentioned in a village pump thread: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#DYK_standard. Just mentioning it here due to the decentralized nature of Wikipedia... easy to miss threads here and there. --W.marsh 03:58, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I was just about to post a thread here about DYK going seven days without a complaint and whether that would last. I think a post at the Village pump counts, so DYK went seven days, three hours, and seventeen minutes without a complaint. (00:35, 13 July 2007 to 03:52, 20 July 2007). Not bad. -- Jreferee (Talk) 05:42, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
*Knocks the "Complaint counter" back to zero*. Let's see how high it gets this time :) GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 15:17, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
Darn, that was me who put the article in the next update. Sorry to let you down, guys. (But the comment about it bringing lots of attention to the article was right!) Rigadoun (talk) 16:25, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
I don't think you let anyone down. If we never allowed an article into DYK that was not fully balanced then we would never have a 5-day-old article on an important topic. It was definitely the right move to include smoking. --JayHenry 16:57, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
Among the only substantial complaints about this issue on the talkpage was that I was partial enough to claim that smoking is "enjoyed" rather than "practiced" by smokers. The accusations about "hiding" and "downplaying" the health hazards trumpeted by an anonymous editor are very difficult to take seriously considering that the article was clear from the start that smoking is bad for one's health and says not one word to the contrary. That's more than can be said for tobacco smoking.
Peter Isotalo 06:01, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't worry. The Main Page masses tend to make mountains out of molehills. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 12:39, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
I think the DYK Main Page post was appropriate. DYK is to reward hard work and to help bring people to the article to improve it. DYK can be held accountable for the hook appearing on the main page. DYK shouldn't put an article on the Main Page that is likely to get deleted. That's pretty much it. The POV issue in this DYK article was in fact handled by people brought to the article by DYK, so the system worked. -- Jreferee (Talk) 18:04, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Next update

Just a note to anybody watching: there aren't many admins who work on updating DYK, but Next Update can be updated by anyone, and I'm sure all the admins would appreciate it if when they came to do the update they found a nice selection already waiting for them. At the moment it seems that almost every morning I log in to find that DYK is overdue and Next Update is empty. I have a crap connection here, so having the Next Update ready to go would help enormously. There seem to be plenty of people eager to get their nominations through, but precious few interested in helping with running the system. Oh, and if any passing admins want to pitch in, don't be afraid: the worst that can happen is you mess up the main page! Yomanganitalk 17:27, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

It appears that quite a few people didn't know that they could do this without being an admin. Please see WP:DYK#Updating the DYK next update page for some clues if you'd like to help but don't know how. Yomanganitalk 00:48, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I'm lazy....gr... Blnguyen (bananabucket) 00:54, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Ha! Thats interesting! I didnt know I could do this! I thought it was something strangely attached to administration. This explains what was going on when Smee used to update DYK... -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 00:27, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

revert

I had made a nom (which was 5 days old, so no I'm not being selfish) that was unceremoniously removed. I am placing it again on here.Bakaman 22:50, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Inline cites

I noticed that Jreferee said at Template_talk:Did_you_know#Articles_created_on_July_19 that inline cites are mandatory. As far as I was aware, this is not the case, although I do insist on inline cites for any BLP controversies and such. However I do tend to take it into account if the article is weak in other areas such as length, interestingness etc, or there is an oversupply. What do people think of this? Blnguyen (bananabucket) 08:10, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I would never say something in Wikipedia is mandatory. As stated at Wikipedia:Citing_sources, Inline citation are needed for statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged. It would seem to me that statements DYK posts on the Main Page are more likely to be challenged than if they merely reside in the article and the DYK hook preferably should be cited with an inline citation in the article. There are cases where a hook that is not footnoted in the article will be fine. The Judy Petty Wolf hook is uninteresting. I may have jumped the gun in rejecting any other hooks from the Judy Petty Wolf article, but I did not see any other potential hook from the Judy Petty Wolf article that could be place on the Main Page without a corresponding inline citation. Regarding Don McLeroy, I think that Don McLeroy being skeptic of the theory of evolution as presented in biology textbooks needs an inline citation before we place it on the Main Page. -- Jreferee (Talk) 08:50, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I agree that inline cites should not be mandatory. There are quite a few relatively short, uncontroversial articles that use information that is widely available, or that use information exclusively from a well-known reputable source, especially if online. Requiring citations in that sort of article is generally unnecessary, as anybody questioning the hook could easily find the information from the sources. A citation for the hook would be preferred if the article is a synthesis of a wide variety of different sources (especially if representing different POVs) and mandatory if there's anything controversial about it. Rigadoun (talk) 15:57, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I think it's reasonable to ask for a citation for the claim(s) in the hook, if they're questionable, before running on the main page. Right? --W.marsh 17:06, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

If they're questionable, yes. Usually it's good to write what should be cited directly onto the contributor's talk page, so they can know there is an issue asap and resolve it before the time deadline. What I meant, though, was that otherwise fine hooks and articles shouldn't be passed over only because they are lacking in-line citations. Rigadoun (talk) 15:56, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Timely news articles on DYK

At Template_talk:Did_you_know#Articles_created_on_July_19 is a request by Dhaluza that the July 18, 2007 New York City steam explosion article be posted on the Main Page under DYK. As Dhaluza points out, DYK rules only require that an article meet the five day rule. I think we need to update the rules to address this situation. July 18, 2007 New York City steam explosion is an "encyclopedic articles of timely interest" per Wikipedia:In the news section on the Main Page, but is that a reason to exclude it from DYK? Do DYK articles need to have long-term historical notability as mentioned at WP:NOT#NEWS? Perhaps modifying the DYK rules with some language such as

DYK is not for articles whose main topic could be a story listed at Portal:Current events or whose main topic warrants updating with current event information.

may help in future situations. Basically, I used the ITN criteria for adding entries to prepare the above statement as it seems to help distinguish ITN from DYK. -- Jreferee (Talk) 09:03, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Here are all the prior discussions:
-- Jreferee (Talk) 04:43, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
  • DYK articles just need to be good new articles (that meet certain minimal standards in terms of prose length, interesting hook, basically accurate). We shouldn't apply an ultra-liberal interpretation of "not news" here, if it isn't being AFD'd then we're overreaching. This also strikes me as something only Wikipedia veterans would see as a problem... I don't really anticipate the actual readers of DYK objecting, it'll probably get much more interest than the average DYK entry. --W.marsh 13:28, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I think the main thing is to avoid stepping on anyone's toes at ITN. IvoShandor 14:06, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I thought it was to show interesting new articles to a wider audience. --W.marsh 14:20, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
To put it another way, ITN has very specific standards and maybe runs 2 or 3 new articles a month (most already existed). Unless they have some desire to keep anything ITN ever rejected off the main page entirely, this seems like a solution in search of a problem. --W.marsh 14:46, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Note we've kind of had this discussion before, at Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_19#Another_proposal_.28re:_DYK_vs._ITN.29. My opinion is mainly that if these suggestions are to be rejected, it should explain that they are in ineligible in the guidelines. I tend to think, though, that unless something has actually appeared in ITN, it should be eligible. We may want to suggest, when possible, that the hooks not emphasize that they are current (i.e., something along the lines of "...at the 25th annual championship..." instead of "...at the championship on July 24, 2007..."). Rigadoun (talk) 15:49, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm with Rigadoun, though I think individual hooks will determine whether a date should be emphasized or not. Perhaps that sort of suggestion should be added if we actually start getting a large number of recent events that give needlessly specific dates. This is not to say that I think DYK should be a repository of failed ITN nominations, just that a nomination there shouldn't exclude it from being nominated here if it still meets the 5 days/1,500 characters/sourced requirements. -Bbik★ 19:34, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I have no stake in this. It has been my observation that current events are usually referred to ITN, which is probably a good way to avoid pissing each other off. Obviously I didn't mean the whole point of DYK was to not step on ITNs toes. Obviously. IvoShandor 22:26, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
The bigger issue might be stability. The facts surrounding any news event are, intrinsically, going to be fairly unstable. Current event related articles typically undergo dramatic change such that a hook proposed the day the article is written will often be meaninglessly out of context 4 days later. That said, I'm not bothered if an occasional DYK hook is related to a current event. But I wouldn't want it to become the sort of thing you see every update, or every day, or even every couple of days. --JayHenry 22:38, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
That is a possibility, but in this case, it is not an issue. The article has grown as new information was gained through each news cycle, but nothing has really changed. The casualty count varied in the first few days but quickly converged on an official number. Details on the second seriously injured victim did not come out for a few days as well, but were consistent when they were released. The cause is unknown, but that is not important from a DYK standpoint. As long as the hook relates to verifiable facts that are not likely to change, (e.g comparing it to past events) there should not be a problem with current events. Dhaluza 10:31, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
I still don't understand what all the fuss is about. ITN and DYK are two separate things, with different goals and standards. OK, so they both appear on the main page, but so what? ITN articles appear for days, and DYK appear for hours, so even if they did overlap, the net effect doesn't amount to anything. All this worrying about is about, what? I could understand if there were two equally interesting articles in the DYK queue, and there was only one slot left, it would be reasonable to pass on the one at ITN. But why would it ever make sense to pass over a more interesting article for one less interesting? Dhaluza 23:59, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I highly doubt that would be the situation considering the sheer volume of available DYK suggestions. IvoShandor 05:51, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Again, this makes no sense to me. A large pool of candidates makes it more likely that difficult choices must be made, not less, and ITN could then be used as a tiebreaker. But if you are suggesting that using ITN as a filter has no noticeable impact because there are so many other choices, I would disagree with that assumption. Dhaluza 10:22, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Guess I won't nominate Oscar (cat) for DYK seeing he could be better off as ITN.--293.xx.xxx.xx 08:56, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Not sure why, if something is actually in the news it seems it would imply that it would be better off over there, if they don't want it, which they probably, usually won't because of how slowly ITN is updated compared to DYK, it could come here. I can't see how you think this will have a large impact on DYK especially when you consider ITNs update frequency and how quickly things are no longer news. This would have a negligible impact at DYK, I am interested to know why you think it would be more of an impact because that assertion doesn't really make sense to me. Not to disparage your article as I really think this is a small non issue when it comes down to it because of its marginal impact on either aspect of the Main Page. IvoShandor 09:40, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
The issue is why should the two things be linked? Your suggestion that DYK editors should walk on eggs to avoid any possibility of offending the editors at ITN is baffling. DYK should select articles that are good for DYK, and ITN should do the same. If they overlap, so what? Dhaluza 09:46, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Policy on not including suggested image

What's the policy on using items supplied with photos as a subsidiary item when the photo spot has already been taken? From a quick scan of the unexpired entries to 23 July, there seems to be a paucity of items lacking associated images which have not got some other unsolved problem at the moment. Espresso Addict 00:50, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

It's fine to use the suggestions without their associated image — just choose the best available (or the most interesting hook) for the lead. Having said that, I generally pull items from the day ahead, if there are any, to fill the gaps before pushing an illustrated item in without its image. But if both trailing days have a paucity of unillustrated images, then fair enough. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 16:57, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Used items remaining in suggestions list

It looks like several items have been added in the last few updates without removing them from the list of suggestions. I don't have time to fix this now, but items being uploaded to the update page will need to be checked for having recently appeared. Espresso Addict 11:59, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I think I've purged them all now. Espresso Addict 16:39, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Good articles proposed by bot

In the form letter for inviting people who created bot-proposed articles to suggest a hook at DYK we include the following line:

If you do nominate the article for DYK, please cross out the article name on the "Good" articles proposed by bot list.

I'm curious what the point of crossing the article name out is. When we go through the bot-suggestions we already mark whether or not we have invited the creator to contribute. The reason I ask is this: I'm thinking of taking the line out of the letter when I invite the article creators to contribute at DYK. For one, I don't see what the benefit of this is. For two, it's creating extra work, and I think when people are faced with a three step process instead of a two step process it's a tremendous turn-out, especially for new users who are just learning the ropes. For three, because the bot-suggestions are a transcluded page, it's confusing for some new editors to even figure out how to cross articles out, even if they can figure out how to copy the <s></s> syntax, many new editors are only used to clicking the edit tab at the top of the page. Unless there's a really compelling reason otherwise, I'm going to remove this from my form letter. --JayHenry 04:05, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Inviting the creator to contribute to DYK is not the same as nominate the article for DYK. Also, sometimes admins tap into the Good articles proposed by bot list to generate nominations to round out DYK. Also, non creators tap into the Good articles proposed by bot list to nominate those the creator has not nominated. With three potential individuals nominating one entry at the Good articles proposed by bot, it is important that the entry be crossed out so that it is not nominated twice. It also lets others know what Good articles proposed by bot remain to be nominated. -- Jreferee (Talk) 06:24, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
What happens when the creator nominates an article before the bot picks it up, though? Unless the bot is smart enough to not include those articles in the list, are you really expecting people to go watching a bot-list to see when their article pops up so they can cross it off? And even if the nomination comes after the bot update, the main directions don't include any mention of the bot list, so expecting more of those who likely didn't even know DYK exists does seem like it'd end up being a disincentive. And yes, for those new editors who are still learning how everything works, dealing with transcluded pages is confusing.
While I understand the purpose, and I do think it's a good one, I'm not sure how practical it is to expect the creator to cross off their article, regardless of how they came to DYK. If someone goes through the list to nominate one, it's their responsibility to make sure it's not going to be a duplicate (Ctrl + F is a quick and easy way to do that). Now, if they do find one that's already been used, it could be worth it to cross it off then, just to stop yet another person from checking. -Bbik★ 07:12, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
Of the hundreds of Good articles proposed by bot talk page prompts I've posted, I have never receive a complaint from a creator about their crossing off their article from the Good articles proposed by bot list. Have you actually received any feedback to support your statements above? -- Jreferee (Talk) 05:42, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
The thought occured to me in response to this comment on my talk page. Now granted, I just started doing new bot stuff last week, and indeed I've only done it twice, but the comment resonated with me because I found the DYK process rather intimidating when I first started contributing. And I only ask out of a general desire to make the process less-intimidating to new contributors, most of whom aren't going to say, "well, I'm a bit overwhelmed by it all." That said, if you feel that it's an important part of the process, I won't omit it. --JayHenry 16:52, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

ALoan

A note that the leading DYK contributor of all time has retired. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:52, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

What can be done to stop this sort of thing from happening? --JayHenry 04:02, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
It seems that those who are fighting the good fight are feeling the weight of it. -- Jreferee (Talk) 05:48, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Well, where is this fight happening and how do I join the forces of good? --JayHenry 14:21, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

What does "expanded fivefold" mean?

Does it mean that the article must have been expanded by at least 500%, or that the post-expansion article must be at least 500% the length of the pre-expansion article? For those who find the above sentence confusing: if an article was 1 kB long prior to being expanded, must the post-expansion article be 5 kB long or 6 kB long to qualify for DYK? --J.L.W.S. The Special One 13:59, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

It's just a rule of thumb really. I can't recall anyone getting particularly anal about the borderline provided the article fulfils all other criteria. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 16:39, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm just dividing expanded/original when I check, ie 5 kb in your example; correct me if I'm doing it wrong. Espresso Addict 18:50, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, Xkb -> 5X kb. I sometimes pick stuff at 4X if it has other good qualities like weird hook, really comprehensive and well written and so forth. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 01:27, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Agreed... I'm more concerned with the other half of the condition... that the article started off as a stub/shorter article.Balloonman 07:31, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

DYK creep

DYK seems to grow by one item every few weeks. Today there are 10(!) items listed. IMHO, it's time to go back to 5-6, or we'll be up to 15 by October. Zocky | picture popups 13:27, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I managed then snappies in November last year. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 02:17, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, but I think DYK is off the hook on this one! The length of T:DYK is determined by WP:OTD, T:ITN and the featured article. We just select enough DYKs to fit in whatever box is left. If we want to include less DYKs, I guess we need to pressure ITN and OTD to write shorter entries. --JayHenry 14:06, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm pretty new to this, but given the backlogs of high-quality submitted articles, it seems to me better to go with as many as will fit in the slot on the main page, rather than just leaving blank space at the bottom. Today's space seems unusually expansive as the blurb on Baden Powell is shorter than average, and the 'On this day' items are longer than average. Also, in the week or so I've been watching, the average time to refresh the DYK has probably been closer to 12 hours than 6, so if the number is capped, then the frequency of update would need to be increased. Espresso Addict 14:13, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I try to do 6-7 per update. I agree with Espresso Addict, if it just gets updated every 6 hours as intended, there might not be such a need to cram in 10 items per update. --W.marsh 17:16, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

It also depends on the length of the hooks. Ten simple blurbs take up far less room than even six ones edging the character limit. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 17:21, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
To that end, T:DYK/N could really do with one or two more people trimming fat off of the entries. Virtually every time I go by, I find that I can make room for another item by cutting redundant information from or rewording the hooks. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 17:16, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Ignored nominations

Could someone please explain to me why the nomination of Battle of Lipitsa was ignored? What was wrong with it? Thanks, Ghirla-трёп- 07:22, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

It looks to me like an accident or that it possibly got confused with the hook below it. I personally feel that, in cases like this where an acceptable article which was properly nominated accidentally gets overlooked, it's okay to slip it in on the 6th day. --JayHenry 17:35, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
So where is the incentive now to write new articles if an article like mine (Ilustrado) had been ignored and skipped?! - Dragonbite 21:41, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
<sarcasm>I'm sorry if I didn't suspect such incident would make stop write new articles altogether.</sarcasm> Circeus 21:46, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
If the possibility of having a line of your article appear on the front page for six hours is the only thing motivating you to write the article in the first place then the possibility that one may occasionally be overlooked due to human error or a surfeit of quality nominations then you may indeed wish to consider whether it is all worthwhile. --Cherry blossom tree 22:47, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Or, you could write them to try for GA or FA, and get recognition for having added quality work that way, rather than recognition for a quality stub-start article. -Bbik★ 02:03, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Keeping the template updated takes a lot of work. I try to screen and add a few nom's to the "next update" page for every nomination I make... it just seems fair to help out with the work. --W.marsh 23:02, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

It depends, if there was concerns about the article, then it would be removed, but if not, it should be moved to the past due range, where depends who is the admin, adds the article, or removes it from the DYK talk. Jaranda wat's sup 00:14, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Apropos of nothing, Battle of Lipitsa was eventually used in the template. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 16:56, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Time skip

I skipped the late noms in building the new update. I know it's the fault of the admins if we can't update in the timeliest fashion, but there's no way we can keep up with these extra days' worth of noms with the load we get now without increasing the Main page update rate. Circeus 15:29, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the speed of the work is the same and is proportional to N (N= number of total articles). If you cut it into twice as many short slabs you still have the same rate of work. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:57, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Alternatively, we can just make the main page a bit longer - there are lot of anniversaries to chose from.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  15:36, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
I certainly wouldn't do that unilaterally. Personally, I think reducing the update time to four hours is more workable. I suspect the main deterrent to the update process (it is for me anyway) is the talk page updates, which a bot or AWB script should be able to handle... Circeus 15:42, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Devil's advocate, but there have been plenty of times I've seen updates several hours overdue as it is. If updates aren't done consistantly every six hours, how will they be done even more frequently? (And less devil's advocate, perhaps maybe a few quicker updates and a few slower ones will average out so more are put through, so I can see how there could be a point to it, though it seems a bit like a backwards way to accomplish it.) -Bbik★ 16:13, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Exactly. The lack of 'human time factor' is the biggest problem. With Wikipedia growing, number of DYKs WILL increase. There are three choices: 1) increasingly faster updates 2) increasingly longer DYK sections 3) increasingly not featuring DYKs. 1) requires more admins, and seems not be working now. 3) means wasting good effort by content writers, and making many of them angry "why was my DYK passed?". 2) only disadvantage is that people may need to scroll a little down if they want to enjoy all features of the main page. Put that way, I see no reason not to go with 2) - it's easiest and least destructive.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  16:30, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Just to add to the problems, I doubt I'll be able to to do any updates for the next two weeks or so (and I'm not sure I'll be coming back anywhere as near as regularly after that anyway). Yomanganitalk 16:52, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Bah, it's all that AlexNewArtBot's fault! Before he showed up the only real way to find these articles was by trolling Special:Newpages. Nowadays any old pleb can show up and knock out a dozen hooks. Then again, maybe I'm just grumpy because I'll never get a screenshot like this again :) GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 16:59, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Okay, so I'm pretty new here, but it seems to me that part of the problem is that DYK is a pretty laborious process. I think what DYK needs is some sort of DYK update bot. It could parse T:DYK/N, then automatically do the archiving and thanking, and reset the timer and T:DYK/N. On the other end, I can't edit a protected template, but I know that when I've updated T:DYK/N it takes me about 20 minutes, but if I had a bot that could automate parts of the process, I could spend more time reading the articles and less time copy-pasting. --JayHenry 18:19, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
That's not a bad idea. If the admin could flag a hook as 'approved', and the bot would recognize that, the only remaining problem is a lenght - the bot may tend to produce too short or too lengthy entries.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  18:35, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
I disagree. Human intervention is necessary to maintain balance in geographical and topical scope. Also the bot could not make sure imaged hooks are properly selected (the striking image made me skip the Hennepin tunnel hook). Right now, if a bot chose the last 5-6 "approved" hooks, we would have (skipping NY sister cities and Georgia Brown who have issues) half or over half of them would be American hooks, two of which are biographies. Circeus 21:44, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
One of the things I dread about DYK updating is the monotony of adding the thank you templates to the articles and user pages. If that could become automated, it would cut down on the time updating takes (and we may even be able to automate selecting items for "next", if we tighten down on copy editing on the suggestion page). Anyone know a good bot programmer?-Andrew c [talk] 19:22, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
<unindent> Clarification: I'm suggesting a semi-automated bot that copies T:DYK/N to T:DYK and then does the thank yous and so forth. All the hooks would still go through exactly the same editing process, and the mix of hooks would still be selected by humans. As for the update from T:TDYK to T:DYK/N I am suggesting that a human would pick the hooks, and the bot would just help transfer and format them properly. --JayHenry 22:07, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
A bot editing the main template would need to be an admin, which won't happen, but copying one page to another is hardly a major task. Having some kind of automated templating script has been discussed before. As I recall some regular updaters spoke against it because they liked to leave a personal message with the thank you messages. I don't know if these objections still apply. --Cherry blossom tree 22:44, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
I actually find the notifications to be the easiest part. With tabbed browsing, I just open up the talk pages of the articles, copy the {{dyktalk}} template, paste, ctrl-tab, paste, ctrl-tab, etc., then save, ctrl-tab and so forth. Do the same with the user notifications, and it's pretty much done in a few minutes. It's the picking of the DYK noms that I find the most laborious. howcheng {chat} 23:13, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Funny that, it's the part I enjoy most. Circeus 00:59, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Maybe "laborious" isn't the best word ... I really meant "time-consuming". howcheng {chat} 16:26, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I guess one idea to get non-admins to be more accessible would be for someone to fill up DYK/N and then go and nag some other admin on IRC who is feeling a bit bored to copy it onto the main page. It seems the admin availability is the main thing. The rest, anyone can cut and paste the notes. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:55, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Or we can say that admins have to help with updating or else their articles don't get on. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:57, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
I've practically taken over updating for now. However, someone will have to do the next actual template edit, because I will be sleeping. Circeus 04:19, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for loading up. I can do the next one after my lab supervision shift is over. Hooray for torturing first year physics students. Image:Blnguyen marking.JPG. Thanks, Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:26, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

We're basically back up to spped again. I piled in some of the ones that Circeus decided to skip en masse. Thanks everyone, Blnguyen (bananabucket) 09:26, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Update stats

A count of updates performed I did.

August so far

  1. Blnguyen: 8
  2. GeeJo:4
  3. Circeus:3
  4. Wizardman:3
  5. Yomangani:1
  6. PFHLai:1

July

  1. Blnguyen: 19
  2. GeeJo:18
  3. Carabinieri:15
  4. Yomangani:9
  5. Andrew c:7
  6. Howcheng:3
  7. ST47:3
  8. W.marsh:2
  9. Jaranda:2
  10. Nishkid64:1
  11. Wizardman:1
  12. Tariqabjotu:1

June

  1. Howcheng:27
  2. Blnguyen:18
  3. Carabinieri:12
  4. Yomangani:8
  5. GeeJo:6
  6. Sean William:2
  7. Moreschi, Wizardman, Mangojuice, Smurrayinchester, Majorly, Nishkid64:1

Looking at the Anonymous Dissident list, I say we conscript Violetriga and Piotrus to help update!Blnguyen (bananabucket) 07:33, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

1500 characters

The suggestions page for T:TDYK used to have the following suggestions:

    • be no more than five days old (unless it had fewer than 1,500 characters, and has been expanded fivefold or more within the last five days).

On July 27th it was changed to:

    • be no more than five days old (former redirects, stubs, or other short articles that have been expanded fivefold or more within the last five days are acceptible).

The justification was the rules page which didn't mention the "fewer than 1,500 character" guideline. I personally believe this was a mistake and couldn't find any discussion around the change. IMHO, the purpose behind the suggestion was to establish some guidance on what "short articles" are. It clearly defined short articles as being under 1500 characters. Personally, I felt that 1500 characters was too short, but that guideline did insure consistency. What I would like to see is guidance introduced as to what is a short article for purposes of DYK---a 10K article is not, IMHO, the target for a DYK expansion.Balloonman 07:49, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I think anything which is effectively new is OK. somtimes I picked stuff that was 8k -> 40k. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 09:28, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
What I would like to see added is something to the effect of "Short articles generally equates to less than X,XXX characters in size, but longer articles may be considered." This give some guidance to the size without setting said guideline in stone. Personally, I would like 3-5,000 characters as the maximum size guideline.Balloonman 14:25, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
I always felt it was "new articles", so something that used to be a minimal stub but was not a decent, basically complete article, but now is, pretty much fits the spirit of DYK. But something that used to be 8K and is now 40K... it used to be a mid-length article, now it's a long article. I don't really see that as a new article so much as an improved article (in theory). Excepting cases where the old 8K article really wasn't very useful despite it's length. But ultimately it's up to the discretion of people commenting and screening individual noms, I guess. --W.marsh 13:00, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
I have always thought the rule should be that articles that were clearly stubs, but the consensus seems to be that the 32k it took to expand a 8k article fivefold is such a large amount of work that it should be rewarded. Since the rule was always ignored, I'm happy to see it removed from the suggestions. Also, the word "short" gives leeway if somebody doesn't feel that the middle-becomes-long articles are inappropriate and decides not to choose it. (No guarantee that another updater won't, though). Rigadoun (talk) 17:57, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Ditto... I thought the purpose was to get Stubs out of the stub condition. Here is another proposal, adding a comment that preference will be given to new articles or articles whose starting length was less than X,XXX characters in length. This opens up the possibility of longer articles when the demand exists---but lets people know that new articles or expanded stubs will get preferential treatment.Balloonman 21:31, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Another ditto. I don't think articles that start out above an obvious stub should be included here. There are lots of other ways of getting attention to a long article (getting it reviewed as Good or Featured, highlighting it on Portals), I thought this was for the short new ones. Espresso Addict 12:59, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I personally liked the old rule with 1500 set in stone. This created a three stage process of review. WP:DYK focussed on getting stubs to a modest length with one good fact. WP:GA looked for a more rounded article. WP:FA looked for an excellent complete coverage of a topic. Now an article could be a GA before it is DYK eligible. Furthermore, it creates a more arbitrary process. Who is to say what is short. I am in favor of reversion to the old rule. Was there any consensus for the change. --TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 01:45, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
The rule was never changed. Apparently, there never was a rule, it was only a suggestion on the DYK page that was out of sync with the "rules page." Personally, I think it should be re-established as a rule---I'd be happy if it was a rule with fuzzy boundaries. Eg "around 1500 characters" or whatever the length criteria happens to be.Balloonman 02:20, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I'd also be in favour of re-establishing the rule, with a firm character limit. It seems to me the major purpose of this page is giving a little kudos to people creating new pages that aren't just a couple of sentence stubs, with a sideline in improving derisory stubs. If we allow the current interpretation, then it'll turn into another way of honouring long articles. Espresso Addict 08:13, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Deleted noms more than five days old

Per Blnguyen (bananabucket) 09:15, 6 August 2007, we are behind schedule and DEMAND > SUPPLY OF DYK REAL ESTATE. I deleted the noms that were between six and twelve days old and otherwise did not meet DYK requirements. However, Anonymous Dissident restored the expired noms, stating "we dont delete expired noms."[5] If we're behind schedule and the noms have expired without being brought up to meet DYK standards, is it reasonable to restore twelve days old nominations that do not meet DYK standards? Two admins rejected the August 6th noms. The August 5th nom still is too short. Two of the three August 4th noms were too short and the third was too POV for anyone to pick up. The August 3rd noms that were striken as clearly ineligible were restored, which doesn't make any sense. The August 1st noms suffered various problems in addition to being 11 days old. If we don't delete expired noms, is there another way that the get removed from the suggestion page? -- Jreferee (Talk) 06:47, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Question

I have been expanding Joe Montana for sometime. During my research, I learned that he was offered a basketball scholarship to North Carolina State University. I think this has great potential for DYK, but is it still eligible for DYK? I added it a few weeks ago.Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat  19:31, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

The operative principle is whether it was expanded fivefold in the last couple of days (unless people have changed it on me in my absence). Looking at the recent changes to the article, it's grown from 40000-odd bytes to 42000 and a bit since the start of the month, which isn't a fivefold expansion and is over too long a period. It's an impressive article, though, so you might want to look into nominating it as a Good Article or something along those lines. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 22:40, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Hehe, okay so no DYK :-( I put that information in a few weeks ago. I'm the principal editor right now, but hopefully some people will get involved and make it a community article. You can see just how much it's changed since I "showed" up [6]. Wish i had thought about the DYK earlier, i think it's an ideal candidate! Thanks for your thoughts. Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat  22:45, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
You're definitely doing good work there, mate. Totally aside from the expansion you've done, de-POVing the headings ("Emergence of a Legend" and so on) is something I'm always pleased to see. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 02:16, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
  • well thanks! There is still some more to do with it, it's just a little bit at a time. Thanks for the compliments, it's nice to hear. Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat  02:24, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Have I missed something?

(Note the emphasis of/on the expletive.) What the fuck has happened with DYK? Have we somehow changed the rules so that old articles can be featured? If so, it should be reflected in the rules, which still claim, in bold, articles created within the last 5 days. I keep seeing articles that are not just older than that, but were significant articles before this period. The most recent example is Ulrich Mühe, which, aside from an expansive filmography, is not much larger now than it was a week and a half ago. Somebody should either rewrite the rules or stop putting this stuff up. -- Kicking222 13:55, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

The rules page never mentioned a maximum size for starting a DYK article, only that it is supposed to be 5X larger within the past 5 days. Thus, an admin removed the suggested maximum legnth from the suggestions on the t:TDYK page. If you want to contribute to the discussion there is a section above this one that is discussing that change. As for an article not being expanded 5 fold, I agree that would be a mistake.Balloonman 14:57, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree that Ulrich Mühe wasn't really eligible and I passed it up several times doing the update. But do you have other examples that this is some sort of (note the emphasis?) pandemic? I've done a handful of the T:DYK/N updates and I don't see this as something that's been happening frequently. --JayHenry 15:17, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
I haven't been watching, but I do know that since the 1500 character limit was deleted, that people have been allowing larger articles in. Some of them have been what I wouldn't call "short."Balloonman 15:22, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
I didn't say it was a "pandemic", I said I've seen it happening more and more. Another recent example is Sky Blue Sky: condition when it was on DYK on June 15, condition on June 7. Is the article more expansive? Absolutely. Was it a small article more than a week earlier? Not even a little bit. That's perhaps a two-fold expansion, but the article already had an image, an infobox, reviews, many references, and some good prose. -- Kicking222 15:51, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
And note, of course, that the above example is simply one I remember, not necessarily the only (or last) one. -- Kicking222 15:52, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
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