Wikipedia talk:A proposal to swap the Main Page positions of WP:ITN and WP:DYK

Wider input

I don't think this can hope to get the level of input from the editorship needed to make such a change. I'd suggest opening an RfC or something and advertising it on AN, the village pump etc. HJMitchell You rang? 10:10, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think even if we have wider input there'll be consensus anyway so... –Howard the Duck 15:10, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Responses to BorgQueen

My various comments in response to BorgQueen's oppose, which is split up and in bold original full version here. MickMacNee (talk) 16:10, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I am a bit short on time, but I will try to reply what I can, one by one. I hope you would understand if my replies to some of your points are delayed. --BorgQueen (talk) 18:06, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm in no hurry....MickMacNee (talk) 18:53, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

"The selection process at DYK by contrast is simple, well known, and well established." - Well established, maybe, because more people have worked on and refined the DYK rules for a longer time, but it has resulted in a painfully long, obscure, inflexible, creep-ish list of rules. Would you please read Wikipedia:Did you know/Additional rules? It used to be called "unwritten rules", adding the mysterious aura of esotericism to the whole instruction thing, thankfully it has been renamed.

I see no issue here. It is a Good Thing that 'unwritten' rules have been codified, and it is a Good Thing that the DYK is now considered well established. The basic criteria are simple, and 90% of the time nobody even needs to be aware of the additional rules. Given the massive levels of participation, where even a full update every 6 hours can barely keep up with the suggestions, I cannot see any concerns in normal users with it being too creepy or complicated. MickMacNee (talk) 16:10, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

90% of the time nobody even needs to be aware of the additional rules.: I would say that is a bit of exaggeration. Please allow me to pick one of the additional rules here as an example - the rule D1 says: "D1: No items that have been rejected for In The News or that have already been on DYK once before (pre-expansion, for example)." I think it is important for a significant percentage of contributors, i.e. those who plan to expand an existing article rather than to create one, to be aware that any article has ever been on ITN or DYK (and there are quite a number of them by now, and keeps growing) is automatically ineligeble for DYK. Although recently we have altered this rule, due to a complaint, to give a three-year limit for a DYK-featured article to have a second chance, i.e. it has to be at least three years old since the article got featured on DYK, although I see this change hasn't been reflected on the rule page yet.

While I do agree that the rules on DYK in many cases are applied with reasonable consistency, especially after the "bot revolution" in 2008, some of the processes automated, the nominations templates installed, got more people to work on it (in 2008, for a period of time, I was almost singlehandedly updating it around the clock), etc, but I do not believe we can describe its rules as "simple", they are not unchanging, (after all, rules must reflect consensus, which is not immutable) and this type of complaints still do occur - some reviewers asking for one cited source per paragraph, when that is a personal preference, and is actually a GA requirement. --BorgQueen (talk) 18:05, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

WHAAAT!!!! What possible justification could there be for a rule that says that an article rejected from ITN cannot go on DYK?? The only possible explanation is that DYK has become a self-absorbed little clique which is incapable of considering the interests of our readers. If that is the case, it should simply be abolished. Physchim62 (talk) 18:53, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Luckily, we're currently moving towards doing just that. In view of your apparently many ideas on how DYK can be improved, I invite you to join the discussions at WT:DYK - you may be interested in the one at the very bottom. Ucucha 18:56, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

In fact, some articles rejected from ITN have been accepted on DYK; the actual practices are not completely consistent on DYK either. --BorgQueen (talk) 20:22, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

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

In my opinion, the idea is utterly outrageous. There are instances in which someone creates or expands an article to reflect new developments, but the subject matter is deemed unsuitable for ITN. Why on Earth should the item not be eligible for DYK simply because a well-meaning, hard-working editor misunderstood ITN's scope? I've seen comments along the lines of "nice job, but this would be a better fit at DYK" on many occasions, and now these hooks are being turned away on an arbitrary technicality designed to withhold content from readers as a means of punishing editors for failing to come straight to DYK? —David Levy 22:07, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Please say this at WT:DYK#Rule M5, not here, so we can actually do something about it instead of just signaling the problem. Ucucha 22:12, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think I even encountered rule D1 until well over 20 DYK nominations, if not many more. I think that is a reasonable learning curve, its certainly no argument for not having rules, or that 90% of them are not relevant to first timers at DYK. It is heartening to see that actual practice is being put into rules, that should happen in both systems. I think expired ITNs being barred from DYK is going to be a pretty rare occurance tbh, but submitting a too short article for ITN however, is not going to be rare, yet even today, the death of Teddy Pendergrass was suggested for ITN, submitted in this state, which meets the guidelines, yet it still gets opposed as too short, and nobody even mentions this glaring inconsistency or arbitraryness. If a relative novice to ITN had that experience, what do you think they are going to think of the process in general? They will probably cut their losses and walk away, instead of wasting any more of their time. MickMacNee (talk) 19:10, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Just for your last point - the diff you gave for the article does not meet the criteria, does it? Its death section is too short indeed, and I suppose that is what meant by the commentator. --BorgQueen (talk) 19:17, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, yes, we've covered the issue of things being proposed without updates, which shouldn't happen. But I really don't think that's what he meant, this was the state of it at the time of the oppose, where he specifically said, "the article is too short. At least the biography section". A more usefull oppose would to either specifically refer to the shortness or unreffed nature of the updated content, or more importantly to give a reason based around the death criteria. 'Biography too short' doesn't appear to me to be doing either. MickMacNee (talk) 19:36, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

On the other hand, ITN regulars judge candidates as they come, usually on a case-by-case basis, and while it may seem random, amateurish, or unpredictable to you, at least ITN certainly does not have that many rules, and certainly much simpler than DYK.

This ties in with point 3) below. It is not simpler by having less rules, it is just more arbitrary, unpredictable, unprofessional, and ultimately frustrating. MickMacNee (talk) 16:10, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

2) "Because of that, it never fails to produce a high quality update for the main page." - Hmm, I am not too sure about that. I myself have been criticized for featuring inadequately updated DYK articles in past, and DYK does get not-so-infrequent complaints on WP:ERRORS and Talk:Main Page.

I am unclear what you mean here, how were you criticized and why? And how does that relate to the DYK process particularly? I've personally never seen a DYK ERROR report that has made me recoil in horror at its total inaccuracy and potential to bring the pedia into disrepute, yet there have been some humdingers for ITN listings. If DYK could do with better quality control, I don't see how that also doesn't apply to the far less participated in ITN process. I still remember the utter lack of concern at me pointing out how as referred to in an ITN listing, the Government of Ireland cannot declare the whole of Ireland free of a certain cattle disease, because the Republic of Ireland only has jurisdiction over part of the island of Ireland (and the border is an open border). Quite the reverse actually - the ERROR request to change the original version which correctly said Republic of Ireland to Ireland was done instead - problematic to say the least if NPOV is the goal. MickMacNee (talk) 16:10, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

And because it is updated so fast, problems are often not dealt with, and people simply forget the errors contained in the articles. On the other hand, ITN items are featured for a much longer time, as you mentioned yourself, and that gives us more time to fix errors and deal with problems.

I seriously don't think we should be heralding the main purpose of either DYK or ITN as being a window to get stuff copy edited. This just really makes no sense, given the vanishingly tiny proportion of our total content that makes the front page, either on ITN, or the much more voluminous DYK, but at least with DYK at the top, more articles overall would get a decent copyedit. Someone else on the proposal also correctly points that ITN articles (if it is doing its job and listing topical articles of wide interest) should already be getting pretty high levels of attention, with or without a main page listing. MickMacNee (talk) 16:10, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I won't pretend ITN has been always successful in that, but the nature of current events means that more people are interested in ITN items, such as the one about an earthquake just happened a couple of days ago, and the sheer number of readers tend to spot and fix errors fairly quickly.

A basic fact is though that we don't have an endless stream of no-brainer ITN candidates like the Haiti Earthquake, and more often than not it is just filler material, only selected out of lack of any interest either way at the suggestions page, and as I said, because of the way it works and the lack of maturity in the general idea behind the section, it often reverts to type as a boring treadmill of the traditionally uncontroversial 'internationally significant' suggestions of death, politics and space shuttle flights, with anything vaguely controversial, especially anything complicated by the US/anti-US tedium, doomed to the tarpit. Arguing for ITN's primacy simply based on the fact it occasionally gets a no-brainer is not justifiable, and is more an argument for a Main Page redesign to display just the no brainers as and when they occur, such as a ticker type system. MickMacNee (talk) 16:10, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

In addition, unlike ITN, DYK regularly features items that can be seen as trivial, odd, and sometimes even "risqué", such as a BDSM porn studio (hook: ...that the San Francisco Armory (pictured), a National Guard stronghold during the "Bloody Thursday" events of 1934, is now used as a BDSM porn studio?"), or a royal torture device (hook: "... that the Apega of Nabis was an ancient torture device similar to the iron maiden, invented by King Nabis of Sparta (pictured on coin)?"), or some obscure Japanese fetish erotica (hook: "... that in the 1977 pink film Fairy in a Cage, according to actress Naomi Tani, her upside-down torture scenes were not faked with suspension braces, in order to show tension in her thigh muscles?"). Do you really want to have such items displayed prominently on Main Page? One of the regular DYK participants has complained that "we get labelled as eccentrics for free already." I am not surprised at that.

This is just personal opinion on what is and is not worthy Main Page material. I am not suggesting ITN be removed, I am questioning the current incarnation's legitimacy to the claim of the top spot. In terms of risqué, we've had far worse TFA's. What is fact though is that every single entry on DYK has interested somebody enough to write a lot of content about it. The same can't be said of a large majority of ITN material. And as many people have pointed out on the proposal, this also better reflects our primary mission, encouraging content creation. MickMacNee (talk) 16:10, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

For me, a key point of endorsing this proposal would that making the DYK square more accesible would encourage more editors to take part in creating DYK articles, thus giving it a wider (and eventually) qualitatively better scope. The question boils down to, what is the core problem at Wikipedia today. The pace of article creation, attraction for new users to create new articles, has gone down. Raising the status of DYK might be one measure to counter that. --Soman (talk) 17:12, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) This is just personal opinion on what is and is not worthy Main Page material.: No, I think it is more about opinions on what is to be featured prominently on the top spot, or with more discretion. (I don't want to go into argument whether the "top spot" necessarily attracts more attention, but you seem to believe it does, so I presume no debate is necessary for that.) I never suggested those contents be banned from Main Page, on the contrary, actually I was the one who promoted two of the three examples I quoted. In terms of risqué, we've had far worse TFA's. Oh really, I found it diffcult to believe. The only one example close enough I can recall is Cannibal Holocaust, out of the hundreds of FAs I've seen featured on MP. Of course, my memory is not perfect, I might be missing some, but I wonder if you are aware that the FA director, User:Raul654, said that he is not going to feature certain FAs on Main Page. --BorgQueen (talk) 18:05, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

3) "Unsuccessful ITN suggesters either have to simply stick around to figure out how ITN works (not an easy task, if possible at all), or more usually, they just leave.": So you are saying because the ITN is a more difficult process than other sections on Main Page, we should move it down? Have you ever tried to go through FA evaluation process? By your logic, we should perhaps move FA down to the lowest bottom.

You are confusing 'difficult' with 'arbitrary and undocumented'. People get annoyed with FA because it takes work, but nobody can say they don't know what is required or how it works. People get annoyed at ITN because they have absolutely no idea what to expect, hardly any of it is documented beyond unhelpful sweeping generalisations widely open to interpretation, and more often than not depending on who turns up at the candidate page and what their personal opinion of what ITN is for, newcomers are more often than not just wasting their time offering up suggestions. It doesn't help that people routinely get away with all sorts of disrespectful and downright nonsensical reasons why somebody else's judgement of what is of Main Page interest was the Dumbest Suggestion Ever and they should simply sod off and leave it to the tiny amount of people who have every single past ITN precedent stored in their grey matter, but have not thought to even attempt to flesh out the totally pointless general description of what is and is not ITN material, beyond of course the ITN/R listing, which is ultimately no use, because people even get away with opposing those suggestions too. Thus, newcomers either take the polite road and simply leave, or we go the tar-pit route, neither of which results in a better or more regularly updated and consistent ITN section. I have gone through a fair few tarpits in my time, and I can hand on heart say I have as much confidence in knowing what will and will not get selected for ITN as when I started. All of my ITN 'credits' have a distinctly pot-luck feel about them tbh. MickMacNee (talk) 16:10, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

This particular reply of yours got me curious, and I'd like to give a more informal reply, if you don't mind, describing my own experiences as a newbie on ITN. When I came to ITN for the first time to nominate an item - I think it was about a new head of Interpol - it got rejected (Surprise, surprise!) and I seem to recall someone (I forget his name, and he is no longer active) made somewhat sniping comments: "It is not in the news to begin with." or something alone the line. It was in the news, in fact, and I was irritated accordingly, but then I realized I had other items to nominate and work on, so I saw no point in wasting time and energy to argue and insist on that particular item. That is why I think it is a good idea to nominate an item before starting to update it, to see if the ever-changing consensus approves its significance.

Humans are emotional beings after all, and if I were as frustrated as you apparently are, I might have supported your proposal, even if I disagreed with some of your points regarding DYK. But now I realize I've never been that much frustrated working on ITN, although I have had my share of noxious arguments, ego conflicts, being accused of pro-US bias, anti-US bias, pro-LGBT bias, anti-LGBT bias and whatnot, endless complaints on Talk:Main Page, and a plenty of merciless rejections.

Honestly, I find it difficult to comprehend why you are so frustrated and annoyed, perhaps because I do not perceive the rejections of my own nominations as a big deal, even when they are rejected for a wrong reason in my perspective, or no clear reason at all. I simply move on, because there are plenty of other items to try. And no, it is not always disasters and elections, of which I am a bit tired as well, I try to maintain some variety of topics on ITN whenever I could. I do not have much confidence in knowing what will and will not get selected for ITN either, but I see the unpredictability as a fun factor, not an obstacle, because I like seeing unexpected items on ITN, and when consensus rejects some item which I consider to be a no-brainer, I find it rather amusing than irritating. Would you say I am not serious enough? --BorgQueen (talk) 20:04, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I do not spend my time on WP exclusively at ITN, so even with a developed knowledge of ITN, to still suddenly find hours of my time once again sucked into another 'wtf' kind of debate, when I thought I had a no-brainer and it would be a five minute job to get it posted and I could move onto that other project, it is lets say annoying, but it is at least to be expected sometimes in a collaborative environment lets say. And as already said, I've had both successes and failures, this is not me complaining I never get anything posted on ITN. I don't even mind taking a bit of time to try and argue the case for something I know might be borderline and might take a bit of time to persuade people, but I expect some semblance of sanity in that debate, and I expect total b.s. to be ignored, not counted as 'opposition' which just turns it into one of the tar pit type failures. But then after you've had a certain amount of 'wtf' and tar pit type debates, when you finally finally realise that success or failure at ITN has nothing at all to do with the actual established rules of the feature, or the percieved purpose of it, and getting something posted really and truly is just a lottery every time, where no amount of personal experience and knowledge of the documention will ever be of assistance, in addition to other such fun as the admin involvement issue and with items going up and down like flags on a whim, then no, not fun in my eyes at all, and certainly not a professional or credible way to select Main Page content. But this is not me taking Wikipedia way too seriouzly, I am as passionate about ITN as any area tbh, and you might see that as me maybe taking the whole of WP too seriously, but I do know that this sort of 'fun' you describe, would not fly at say RFA or FAR, and I don't see how ITN should be any different in terms of how seriously or properly it is dealt with. If people want fun, we have a whole bunch of other activities, like the WikiCup etc. I ultimately want ITN to work better, and more people to contribute. But unless or until that happens, I want DYK to be recognised as the more developed, more usefull, and more consistent, Main Page feature. MickMacNee (talk) 20:48, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply and I am sorry you felt that way. For the sake of argument, let's assume for a moment that we move down ITN. What will be your next step to develop it and make it work better? --BorgQueen (talk) 21:14, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Naturally I would draw up some proposals, and still might, but on current experience with the whole 'how come admins can vote and call the consensus' section on the ITN talk page, I'm not hopefull of just sticking something on ITN Talk and seeing what happens. It would have to be, as suggested, a wide RFC, with actual conncrete proposals that people must say yes or no to, not simply ignore. MickMacNee (talk) 00:51, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

That thread went nowhere because you used it to lambaste an admin for disagreeing with you, instead of proposing something productive. ~DC _{Talk To Me} 01:19, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I 'lambasted' him? You are being way too sensitive if you think that is the case. As for him, well we can but guess why he chose to say nothing at all except confirm he had done what I was complaining about, describing it as 'routine', which is no answer when quite clearly it is not routine elsewhere. I complained about an action and sought clarification/explanation. There was no point outlining (the rather obvious) proposal that follows, when nobody answered. MickMacNee (talk) 02:35, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

4) "We even have a bizarre situation where some of the admins who update the main page with successful candidates, don't even care whether the suggester who has somehow managed to get through this process, gets any credit.": What credit are you talking about? An ITN notice is not a some kind of trophy, it is just a simple notification, as User:David Levy has explained eloquently at Wikipedia_talk:In_the_news#Contributions. If someone thinks it is a trophy, thrilled and enjoys it so much, they can copy/paste the notice template on their own talk pages, and there is nothing to prevent that.

And as I said in that discussion, the wording of Wikipedia:In_the_news#Recognition makes it clear these are credits as well as notifications. I never said they were trophies, I said credits, which is the same word used in the documentation. Just like a GA/FA credit. It should be just rather obvious why giving credit is a good thing, but I am continually amazed the 'regulars' complain of low participation at ITN, yet they can't even see how a system of credits increases participation. TonyTheTiger (talk · contribs) seems rather proud of his two ITN credits, they get pride of place above his gazillion GA/FA credits. But anyway, if they are not supposed to be credits, is it too much to expect that wording should be changed to reflect practice (although I doubt there would be any support to change it if put to a wider vote)? It is one issue if ITN is seen as undocumented and arbitrary process, it's quite another if the documentation that is written is just meaningless twaddle routinely ignored (not helped by the other ITN idiosyncrasy of admins being allowed to vote in and judge the outcome of the same discussions). MickMacNee (talk) 16:10, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I haven't argued that contributors shouldn't take pride in their accomplishments (and prominently display these notifications, if they so desire). I said that there are harmful misconceptions.

One is the apparent belief that the notices must be formally bestowed by administrators (as though we possess some sort of special authority to do so). Editors who know that they (and sometimes others, as in the instance with which the thread originated) are eligible to receive them mistakenly regard themselves as powerless to rectify the omission by simply posting them, even for someone else (as though they would be committing an act of forgery). And why do they believe this? Because we actually advise them to report omissions there (an apparently undiscussed addition that I will modify if someone doesn't justify it soon).

Another harmful misconception is that the absence of such a notice is indicative of a lack of recognition. We're essentially telling editors that if these templates don't appear on their talk pages, it means that we don't appreciate their contributions to the encyclopedia. —David Levy 21:51, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

If you think removing a friendly advice to nominators to come and ask what happened if they never received a notification/credit changes anything, go ahead, I thinks its pretty dickish myself, and merely a sneaky way to try and legitimise the apparent current practice where people just decide for themselves whether they can be bothered with giving them out, irrespective of whether it is for notification or credit, even though it says they are serve both purposes in black and white. The excuse that the complainer obviously knew already, and could have 'awarded' it to themselves anyway, is just that, an excuse. 'You can still award it to yourself' might sit well with you as a form of showing appreciation, I think its downright rude, and would rather see the whole idea of credit removed than allow such insulting and demeaning rubbish to be officially documented. MickMacNee (talk) 00:49, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

1. I explicitly wrote that I intend to "modify" (not "remove") the advice.

The current statement reads "If any contributor feels that they missed recognition, please leave a note on Wikipedia talk:In the news."

To me, this wording problematically conveys that users not receiving such messages have gone unappreciated and must seek to remedy this via a special process.

I was thinking of something along the lines of "If you notice that the appropriate template has not been added to your talk page or someone else's, feel free to do so or request assistance at Wikipedia talk:In the news."

2. I also noted above that in the instance in question, the user was aware that another editor had not received the notice. I can understand why someone might not wish to post the template on his/her own talk page, which is why I drew the distinction.

I'm sorry if any of this makes me a dick. —David Levy 01:14, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

The DYK is prompt at giving out the notices because its process is automated. Do you know what happens when the DYKbot ceases to function?

People get pissed off at not getting any credit for a successful suggestion, and decide not to continue contributing any more? Just an informed guess. It is hardly a criticism that something is so successful that it needs an automated system of giving credit (which is in fact only semi-automated iirc, it still requires a process person agreeing with the basic idea that credits are a good idea, and loading each one into the bot). It is a sad indictment of the current working of ITN that it will be a very long time workload wise until a credit bot would actually be required, although if we need one anyway to remove from the process the personal opinions of participating admins who just want to ignore the documentation, then let's have it. MickMacNee (talk) 16:10, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

5) "the image used on the ITN section doesn't even correspond to the top item on ITN.": Quite a number of FA summaries that appeared on Main Page did not have any image at all. At least ITN always has one, unless the image is accidentally removed by some inexperienced admin.

And DYK always has one, and is always in the right place. This was a comparison of ITN to DYK, not ITN to DYK to FA, so I really can't see the relevance of the comment to this proposal. MickMacNee (talk) 16:10, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

6) "One of the dumbest things about ITN is that it often never even results in an updated article - people simply list a few sources on the suggestion page, and then expect others to update the article (and quite often, this doesn't happen and the item is forgotten).": No, it is not "quite often". It does happen, but majority of successful candidates do get updated and featured.

This happens all the time in failed suggestions, but they at least don't make the front page. It should never be happening for successful suggestions which do. There are all too often 'support when updated' type votes, those suggestions should never even make the candidates page imo, and if necessary there can be a pre-candidate suggestion area for use by both regulars, and storing suggestions from people who don't know ITN requires an update before listing. People who are currently filing candidates first and then updating them themselves later, or when it looks like it might get support, are only encouraging others to think it is other people's role to update the articles, meaning much of the space on the candidate page is wasted. MickMacNee (talk) 16:10, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Anyway, have you checked out how many DYK candidates are rejected?

Again, what's the relevance? I'd be interested at the relative rejection rate between the two though, to see how many people wrongly judge the instructions before they participate in either system, and again, whether less or more is hampering or encouraging newcomers, and hence, gathering more repeat participation and more suggestions. MickMacNee (talk) 16:10, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Replies to MickMacNee

The basis of the proposal (as stated ) is that "in my view, DYK, which I have also used pretty much constantly for months, is superior in nearly every respect." As the above discussion is becoming a tar-pit (to use the proposers term, it is worth analysing the points made in the long version of the proposal. Physchim62 (talk) 22:13, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Interest value

The criteria as to whether an item qualifies for listing on ITN are just impossible to understand.

Its true that we often having editors who have dificulting grasping the concept of WP:CONSENSUS, but that is the main criterion at ITN. If there is consensus for a story to be posted, it will be posted. Physchim62 (talk) 22:13, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Its a bit of a joke for you to even link to CONSENSUS, which will mislead most people who are not familiar with the normal workings of ITN, where strength of argument matters very little, where admins are not barred from being involved, where a tiny amount of support is a listing, not a no consensus - relist, and where the level of opposition needed to derail any suggestion is artificially high compared to other venues. Infact, you have actually ignored that the guideline page does not even say or link to the notion of consensus. MickMacNee (talk) 01:21, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

DYK on the other hand, has a wide range of topics and will always interest many readers.

DYK simply doesn't interest readers, at least not most of its items. We actually have some stats for ITN: for January–May 2009, the median ITN story got a peak in the viewing figures at stats.groc.se of 15.6k hits/day. I don't have anything like complete stats for DYK, but I took a weekday in December 2009 just to have a look: the median DYK story that day didn't even reach a thousand hits. WP:DYKSTATS starts listing items at 5k hits, which is a figure reached (for a single day) by 90% of ITN stories.
This has nothing to do with the position of DYK "below the fold": POTD is even lower down the Main Page, but regularly gets 10k clicks on the featured picture, let alone those readers who just appreciate the image without clicking on it. Physchim62 (talk) 22:13, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Lets not pretend that ITN focuses on delivering the most popular articles, it doesn't. I have seen myself items of international significance which were already getting more page views than any other item on ITN, be rejected. If you focused on the articles selected by the ITN process for their interest value, rather than no brainer articles that were already getting views from people finding them anyway without the main page, your stats would not be so impressive, considering there is no reason at all for anybody viewing a DYK apart from being attracted to it form the main page listing. Infact, be very carefull using stats at all, because if anything, it is the poor performance of many ITN entries that gives the lie to the myth, in my experience. Either that, or we do what is happening now, we simply wait the 36 hours and more every time until something as big as the Haiti Earthquake keeps occuring, to maintain the idea that lots of people are using ITN served content and its way more 'popular' than DYK. MickMacNee (talk) 01:20, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

When making comparisons, remember that a DYK hook only stays up for a fourth of a day. 5,000 page views for a DYK hook is roughly comparable to 20,000 for something that stays up all day. (Of course, 5,000 views is a lot for a DYK) Bradjamesbrown (talk) 02:22, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Whereas 40% of ITN stories peak at more than 20k hits/day. Also viewing figures for ITN stories tend to fall off over a period of two–three days: depending on the time of day the story is posted, the peak viewing figures can be less than half the total viewing figures for an ITN story.

But to get back to Mick's point, what do Titanoboa, leprosy and the French battleship Danton have in common? Answer: they all peaked at more than 50k hits/day while featured on ITN, a feat they share with such household names as Velupillai Prabhakaran, João Bernardo Vieira and Apa Sherpa.

And even if ITN were simply a process of checking the updates on "no-brainer" posts, surely it makes sense to have links in a visible and accessible place on the Main Page to help readers find the articles they are already looking for. After all, ITN gets a couple of stories a month that peak at over 100k hits/day (including two of those in my list above). So claiming that ITN is full of "no-brainer" stories is surely a strong argument against the proposal. Physchim62 (talk) 11:14, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Regularity of updates and relevance of material

Every 6 hours the whole DYK section is refreshed.

This is put forward as some sort of superior feature of DYK over ITN. What it really means is that the good DYK items (of which there are many) just don't get to most of our readers. Instead, they are whisked off the Main Page after six hours, to be replace by other items which, far too often, are simple space-fillers of no interest to any one. As I mention above, it is not ITN which has "a perennial low level of interest" but DYK. Readers simply won't pay attention to it when so many of its items are, quite frankly, boring. Physchim62 (talk) 22:13, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Seriously dude, you want to talk about space fillers? ITN, with its low participation level, has become a master at the selection of space fillers, when as all too often happens, instead of a 6 hour turnaround, the content doesn't change for 36 hours and counting (and the ITN page itself says an update is 13 hours overdue). Thats for one item too. At this rate, the African Nations Cup tournament will be over, before Wikipedia stops telling people the gun attack that happened before it started, has just occured. And again with your criticism, you unwittingly also highlight the fact that DYK has a proper archive system which you can browse the entries you missed overnight, ITN jsut sends you to the completely different CE archives, where you effectively can see all the items that didn't make it onto ITN. MickMacNee (talk) 01:29, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Editor motivation and retention

There absolutely no evidence to back up any of the assertions in this section. How many new contributors are put off by the DYK process and vow never to go back there? I know that's my case! If editor retention at ITN is such a problem, why do we also get complaints that it's always the same people nominating stories? Physchim62 (talk) 22:13, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I surely don't have to break down the argument that the same two or three people suggesting items for ITN, is not evidence that ITN is attracting, let alone retaining, new participants all the time. I doubt if you can find me anybody who will testify that they recently discovered ITN, found it a delight to work with, and went away happy and confident of future success after getting one of their first few attempts accepted. The fact that it only takes a couple of days for someone to then be able to write down the name of every regular ITN participant, is not a Good Thing. I don't think that can be done for DYK at all. I've got no idea what turned you off DYK but it would help if, between the basic attacks, you gave a little actual detail that people could work from. MickMacNee (talk) 01:34, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Benefit to the pedia

One of the dumbest things about ITN is that it often never even results in an updated article

I can't the point of this comment. Is the proposer complaining that not all proposed stories are updated within the ITN timescale? True, but so what? Every story that is posted has been updated – no update, no ITN post. One important benefit of ITN to the encyclopedia is that it provides an incentive for promptly updating articles whose contents no longer match the current situation. What benefit toes DYK provide to the encylopedia, beyond being a simple editing award for jumping through some pretty arbitrary hoops? If DYK is supposed to promote the creation of new articles, why does it specifically exclude articles which have been rejected at ITN? Physchim62 (talk) 22:13, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

As below. Every single DYK represents a 1,500 word article or a 5 times expansion of another. If you can't see the benefit to the pedia of that, I have to question why you are even here. MickMacNee (talk) 01:46, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I didn't realise that there was a pressing need for new articles of at least 1500 words on Wikipedia, given the 3.2M articles we have already, the majority of them in a pretty bad state but still more read than most of what comes off DYK. Physchim62 (talk) 13:50, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

LOL. Yeah, sure. We're all full up! No new articles please! Come on man, with every passing minute you look less and less like someone who really knows what Wikipedia's primary purpose actually is. Most editors switch between basic writing, quality improvement, and basic cleanup, all the time, and DYK is a fantastic springboard, retainer and motivator of editors. You will never ever be able to prove in any believable way, that increased DYK participation would be detrimental to Wikipedia's primary mission, which is only acheived by editors, not news selectors. MickMacNee (talk) 13:59, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

DYK however has better standards - you known for a fact every listing has been the result of a new article over 1,500 words long, or a 5 times expansion of an existing article

True again, but do our readers give a damn? Do they care if it's a five-day old article rather than an three-week old article? Or that it's 1550 words long and not 1480 words long? If I was looking at a "Did you know?" section in a newspaper, I would expect to find items which I could believe might possibly interest someone. I'm not saying all DYK hooks are space-fillers: the problem is that the question of whether a hook is interesting or not seems to have no place in the selection of material for the Main Page. Too often, "Did you know?" becomes "Did you care?", dispite the many interesting hooks. Physchim62 (talk) 22:13, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, if you think the 'Did You Know' title is confusing, you have obviously never explained for the hundredth time to someone why the 'In the News' section isn't for news. The general point though was not benefit to readers, it was benefit to the pedia - and that an increase in DYK participation guarantess increased content. ITN is not pulling its weight in comparison, by both not requiring updates before suggestions, and not serving up all that many articles to the front page to convert readers to editors, and in terms of benefit to the pedia rather than just readers, even making ITN more succesfull has dubious advantages, but it would be a start. MickMacNee (talk) 01:46, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

If DYK is primarily there to benefit editors, then it should be removed. As has been discussed before, it's a well established consensus that the main page if for readers not editors. Any discussion relating to the main page which presumes something is okay because it benefits editors is therefore inherently flawed until and unless you manage to change that consensus (and all I can say ism, good luck to that). Note that even pulling in new editors, while an okay goal, is not the primary goal of the main page which as I said, is primarily to benefit readers even if they have no interest or desire to become editors and the vast majority of readers i.e. the vast majority of main page visiters don't come here to edit. Of course wikipedia is the encylopaedia anyone can edit (although anons can't create new articles themselves) and we do make it clear readers can edit articles if they think they can improve them but it's not something we try to force and we hope that readers will be pleased and interested by our content that they see when they visit the main page not trying to do some sort of passive-aggressive begging. I.E. 'see this extremely boring article on some obcure thing you've never heard of before and don't care about, um I mean cool article? well you can make one too!' - sorry but no thanks, that's not what we're trying to do. (As you may have guessed I also personally question whether we really want to be attracting editors to spend a lot of their time writing articles on some of the fairly obscure things we get on DYK when there are IMHO so many better things they could be doing which does include writing new articles of course but ideally on stuff other then some of the stuff that appears fairly often on DYK) Nil Einne (talk) 10:43, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

I also gave about a million reasons why the current workings of ITN means it is utterly crap for readers too compared to DYK, but its moot now, there is no consensus for the proposal, its closed. In terms of serving readers, if it is to be just a DYK as it is now v ITN as it is now comparison, which was the proposal, I'd take the estimated 200 DYKs that have cycled through in the time its taken to add a measly two ITN entries, one about an earthquake not a soul on the planet doesn't surely know everything about already by switching their bloody TVs on, and a solar eclipse that may or may not be the biggest in the coming millenium. If you are pleased and interested by ITN right now, your expectations must be very, very, low. MickMacNee (talk) 00:58, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

On DYK however, the highlighted articles will always benefit from the extra editor attention and subsequent improvement.

For articles to be improved, someone first has to read them! Physchim62 (talk) 22:13, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Which you know that they do, in their thousands. MickMacNee (talk) 01:46, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

In their hundreds: the median hook on DYK does not get a thousand hits! There are plenty of things that DYK could do to resolve this – and I do believe that it's a problem that needs resolving, as DYK consumes both volunteers resources and Main Page space – but first it would need to admit that there's a problem. That, it seems to me, is far from happening. Physchim62 (talk) 13:06, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

You should really step out of yourself, and actually consider the fact that out of everybody here, you are the only one that seems to think there is something massively wrong with DYK, yet conversely, you are the only person who thinks ITN in its current workings, and is apparently all fine and dandy and doing a fantastic job. MickMacNee (talk) 13:30, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Don't take it personally, I notoriously think that FAC/TFA is even worse! But, if you put up a proposal which centres itself around Process rather than content and editors rather than readers, you can be assured of my strident opposition. Physchim62 (talk) 13:50, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Bad process

Again, I find it hard to understand this point. The proposer seem to be complaining that ITN produces a section which is more read than DYK (probably more read than TFA most days, if you sum all the ITN stories) on a fraction of the volunteer resources. I would say that it is DYK which has the bad Process, with a bureaucracy which ties up volunteers producing a product of very variable interest. Physchim62 (talk) 22:13, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you have totally misunderstood the point of this section, which outlines why a bad process produces inconsistent content and low participation. See above for why stats mean nothing in terms of showing how ITN is being successful. It is punting up popular stories every now and again in spite of the process, not because of it. MickMacNee (talk) 02:03, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

it is the only place on Wikipedia where admins can both participate in the discussion, and call the consensus

It is surely a good thing to have admistrators actively involved in decision-making, rather than dogmatically applying often arbitrary rules, as happens on so much of WP. Physchim62 (talk) 22:13, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Which doesn't explain why this is not the way it is done anywhere else on Wikipedia. MickMacNee (talk)

Items are often fluidly listed and removed from the ITN section

This exactly the reason why we insist on a strong consensus before posting. Items are rarely (not "never") removed from DYK, possibly because people would have to read them in order to be able to object to them. The idea of a 2:1 majority is irrelevant for a consensus decision – posting stories at a 2:1 majority support would imply a !vote, and we notoriously prefer real-world elections to !votes at ITN! Physchim62 (talk) 22:13, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Well yes, 2:1 is never a consensus when you are on the 1 side. But for ITN it is more than acceptable, if anything just to get things moving. You seem to contradict yourself though anyway. If the current system is using strong consensus as you say it is, how come so many admins call it wrong so many times by listing items that should not be listed? A high failure to land rate doesn't suggest ITN is working well in the slightest, which given the fact as we already know the level of regular participants is so low, is just really really odd, and definitey suggests there is not enough built in consensus in the guidance. MickMacNee (talk) 02:03, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Quality of the debates

Accusations of pro-US bias or anti-US bias are rampant, because nobody has a clue how to square that circle for ITN

The same could be said for much of Wikipedia! I could tell you that there's no evidence of significant bias either way (and I've looked for it, and am still looking for it), but those who already hold strong views on the matter would simply not believe me. Physchim62 (talk) 22:13, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I said accusations. ITN usually muddles through it yes, but on the rather destructive model of mutually assured failure, comparing apples to oranges, and in the case of Ted Kennedy, just throwing out its own rules as inadequate and misunderstood by the wider community. MickMacNee (talk) 02:09, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

What? ~DC _{Talk To Me} 02:24, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

DYK long ago separated process from purpose, with obvious benefits

That should be "with obvious effects", that is that the Process becomes more important than the purpose, and that the purpose ignores the readers. Physchim62 (talk) 22:13, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I see no unified idea of purpose of ITN at all, I even still see the original battle going on form some in this proposal - is it supposed to be a news service or not. It is very much bogged down with deciding its own purpose as it goes through its own processes. Very wastefull of both time and keyboards. MickMacNee (talk) 02:09, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

The tar pit effect

WP:ITN/C certainly had a recent period (about a week) of long-running debates that had no hope of reaching consensus in the necessary timescale. It coincided with the test of a new subpage system on ITN/C. The experiment was reverted and the steile discussions have subsided.
It's interesting that this period coincided with a long debate about the merits of a story about darts, proposed by MickMacNee: there was no consensus to post the story, dispite some support, so it didn't go up. But the tar pit effect that MickMacNee complains about was, in a large part, created by himself during that debate. The problem is that a "I don't like it" – without any evidence to back it up – hardly makes for a constructive proposal. ITN is not DYK, could not be DYK, and vice versa. Neither is perfect, but I know which one I put my time into and which one I wouldn't touch with any of my newly written articles. Physchim62 (talk) 22:13, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Don't rewrite history. After a majority of support, an admin posted it, another admin who had also been one of the minority opposing it, took it down, and promptly announced it would never succeed, by pointing at the reams of discussion, in which, much of the opposition side was simply sub-standard and had no grounding in the guidance at all, even defying it at one point. The tar pit phenomenon exhibited there, has existed for a long while at ITN, and has nothing to do with the recent trial of sub-pages. MickMacNee (talk) 02:16, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

For anyone uninvolved, he's referencing the darts suggestion here. You can be the judge of whether there was consensus. ~DC _{Talk To Me} 02:22, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Prior to it being posted then removed, there were 5 supports (not counting Phsychim's because it was meant as sarcasm) and 5 opposes (counting Physcim). This didn't change much after the posting/removal. So tell me how that's any sort of consensus. ~DC _{Talk To Me} 04:18, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

That's not my recollection and its certainly not how it ended up, but I can't be bothered to count it again, because this proposal has nothing to do with that single reversal. But anyway, to answer on the assumption you are right, which I doubt, maybe the posting admin considered the weight of arguments and the guidelines for ITN and decided there was sufficient support for posting? It's crazy I know, but it just might have happened? Given the quality of the opposes anwyay. By the end, it was definitely 2:1, and yes, Physcim's 'support' was an 'oppose', but by his own logic, it was actually a support. MickMacNee (talk) 12:58, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Rationale against change

I'm moving this here from the main page, this was not part of the proposal and not added by me, but by DC [1]. MickMacNee (talk) 12:53, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

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The above proposal deals solely with issues involving the nomination process for ITN and DYK, and not the contents. In the news items are chosen because an reader is more likely looking for information on recent happenings, than the randoms facts presented in DYK. We can assume, for instance, that a reader coming to the site today would expect to find information or a quick link to the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and not that the English judges council didn't meet for ten years following a meeting in 1940.

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