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16 Part DYK hook review

I wanted to mention that the Henry Fielding early plays project is wrapping up its creation stage. It is still in subspace and there are some final actions being taken care of (wikilinking, copyediting, prepping for categories to be added when it goes to mainspace, etc). I would like to welcome DYK reviewers to look through the pages for any major problems or concerns so we can address them here instead of having any kind of conflict on the Template_talk page. Since this is such a large hook, I would like to settle things to everyone's content before listing it. Those who participated on the project include User:Ottava Rima, User:NuclearWarfare, User:PeterSymonds, User:NocturneNoir, User:Res2216firestar, and User:Hassocks5489. When they were not editing directly, these users have also contacted me about various parts, formatting, layout, and the rest, and were vital. This is a team effort.

The proposed hook will look something like: ... that Fielding's early plays before the 1733 Actor Rebellion include: Love in Several Masques, The Temple Beau, The Author's Farce, Tom Thumb (play), Rape upon Rape, The Tragedy of Tragedies, The Letter Writers, The Welsh Opera, The Grub Street Opera, The Lottery (play), The Modern Husband, The Old Debauchees, The Covent Garden Tragedy, and The Mock Doctor? (299 characters, 16 pages linked)

Each page is over 5k in size, with about 200k worth of new size to be added to the Wiki as a whole. Here are the list of pages:

1. User:Ottava Rima/Fielding (will be called Henry Fielding's early plays)
2. User:Ottava Rima/Actor Rebellion of 1733
3. User:Ottava Rima/Love in Several Masques
4. User:Ottava Rima/The Temple Beau
5. User:Ottava Rima/The Author's Farce
6. User:Ottava Rima/Tom Thumb (will be called Tom Thumb (play)
7. User:Ottava Rima/Rape upon Rape
8. User:Ottava Rima/The Tragedy of Tragedies
9. User:Ottava Rima/The Letter Writers
10. User:Ottava Rima/The Welsh Opera
11. User:Ottava Rima/The Grub Street Opera
12. User:Ottava Rima/The Lottery (will be called The Lottery (play)
13. User:Ottava Rima/The Modern Husband
14. User:Ottava Rima/The Old Debauchees
15. User:Ottava Rima/The Covent Garden Tragedy
16. User:Ottava Rima/The Mock Doctor

Please list any concerns, comments, etc, that deal with these pages being acceptable for DYK below. Copyediting, wikilinking, and some other formatting is still being finalized, so please keep that in mind. Thank you, on behalf of the Fielding early plays project (aka the Literati Cabal). Ottava Rima (talk) 17:53, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Which one is the shortest or least substantial? Point me to that one and I'll give you an opinion. Gatoclass (talk) 18:01, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

User:Ottava Rima/The Lottery. The next smallest is User:Ottava Rima/The Mock Doctor. I haven't gotten around to expanding that after the initial push. The full cast list and the rest will be filled in once I can get hold of the 2004 works (multiple volumes, 450-500 dollars each). For all of the plays, plot summaries are not expanded with primary source in order to avoid any issues with that and to have a larger consensus later to keep them concise. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:11, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

They look perfectly fine to me - considerably better, I would say, than our average submission. I do wish we could get consensus on the inclusion of intros and sections, I hate articles that are just a slab of undifferentiated text, and if I had my way they would be disqualified from this project. These however, look reasonably substantial, and all have a nice structure and layout. Assuming they are properly referenced, I don't anticipate any problems. Gatoclass (talk) 18:18, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I can look at these - eighteenth-century literature is my area of expertise. Awadewit (talk) 18:07, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Lacking immediate access to the Robert Hume work on which The Modern Husband is so heavily dependent, are obvious spelling errors such as "Princessses" and "commedic" to be found in the original or are they transcription errors? - Dravecky (talk) 18:10, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Transcription errors. As I noted above, copyediting has not fully gone through them all. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 18:11, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I've got some free time, so I'll do a quick spelling audit, starting from the first listed article... Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 18:16, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I can do some copyediting later - I just have to grade student papers first. Oh, the excitement. Awadewit (talk) 18:26, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

In The Old Debauchees should the word "critic" in the sentence "However, the writer did complain that Fielding's critic was not limited to just Catholics." actually be "criticism" or "critique"? As it stands, it uses the word "critic" in a way with which I am not immediately familiar. (I can look over a few more later but would suggest your self-styled cabal give them another pass for grammar and spelling.) - Dravecky (talk) 18:20, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Critique, most likely. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:44, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Couple of things I've spotted, which Ottava will need to check: (I'll add any others here as well) Hassocks5489 (tickets please!)

• User:Ottava Rima/Love in Several Masques: the first paragraph of "Sources" ends mid-sentene: I think the name of a play has been omitted
• User:Ottava Rima/The Temple Beau: ref [11] has a duplicated page number (perhaps should be pp182–183?)

Fixed both. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:19, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

• User:Ottava Rima/The Temple Beau: in "Plot", should "Unlike The Temple Beau" say "Unlike Love in Several Masques"? Hassocks5489 (tickets please!)
• Not sure whether the name of the character who appears in Tom Thumb and Tragedy of Tragedies is spelt "Dollalolla" or "Dollallolla"; Google shows no clear preference. I changed to one L in Tom Thumb but have left with double L in Tragedy of Tragedies for now. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!)

Cast list for Tom Thumb says "Queen Dollalolla" with five "l"s. (p. 385 of the 2004 edition). For The Tragedy of Tragedies it says "Queen Dollallolla" with six "l"s. (p. 547 of the 2004 edition). Ottava Rima (talk) 20:06, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

DYK pickiness

Just so we don't treat this DYK differently than any other, it would probably be best to make the first sentence of "Early plays" in User:Ottava Rima/Fielding's Early Plays the hook so that we can say the hook is actually present in one of the articles and cited. I'm sure I have a book around here to source it, if you want me to do it. Awadewit (talk) 18:22, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

If it doesn't damage the integrity of the intro, that sounds like a good solution, and having the sourcing provided by another user would be a very good method of ensuring the hook has been properly verified. Gatoclass (talk) 18:31, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

If the lead isn't the best place, another place would be to slip it in this section. If you want, I can produce various passages. Hume's is the most inclusive, and Rivero's is most to the point (but only discusses "10" plays, which is really 13 plays with some combined). The biographies (Battesin, Pagliaro, Dudden) are diffusive, but include all of the plays. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:44, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I meant that section, actually. Let's use Hume and Rivero together. Awadewit (talk) 18:46, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Paulson offers a calendar of Fielding's productions. This is probably the easiest to cite on the matter. See this for a google books copy of the pages. Paulson 2000 pp. 33–35. Page 36 (May) lists when Colley Cibber sold his shares and the rebellion broke in full force, but the whole incident starts earlier. The patent issue begins in 1 September 1732 (Hume 1988 p. 143). The Mock Doctor is the last play to be finished before the incidents really start to unfold according to Hume's plotting of the events (from section 3, Chapter IV "The Changing Theatre Scene" to Chapter VI "The Actor Rebellion of 1733" which discusses the effects of the legal battle. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:13, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I updated the section accordingly. Note, the "early plays" page includes Don Quixote in England and The Wedding Day, which will be listed as later plays, because they were rewritten. The two plays that were produced during 1733, The Miser and Deborah, will also be added to the later plays based on the split. The dates are done by when they were either produced on stage or published (in the case of The Grub Street Opera). The 1733 plays and the post-Rebellion plays were met with the various implications of siding with the management at Drury Lane, which will be discussed in the second set that will be worked on sometime this summer. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:45, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Listed

Based on the general comments and the rest, the above has been listed here. I am slowly expanding some of the smaller pages during this time. Awadewit, if you come up with any concerns since you last messaged, we will try to handle them quickly. Don't hesitate to leave a message on my talk page. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:45, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Aw darn, the heading is just "and 15 others". I was gonna watch DYKcheck take it to task :P Shubinator (talk) 03:47, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I was burned by a previous template when trying to do a header before, so, I cut to the chase. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 04:50, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Nudity in DYK image

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Resolved

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I'm not sure whether DYK allows for partial nudity, but at T:DYK/Q3, this picture may be inappropriate? Perhaps the current DYK rules section regarding pictures should be clarified as to whether nudity is appropriate?(Again, I don't fully know all the rules...just want clarification).Smallman12q (talk) 18:36, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

An alternate image was proposed with the original hook. I know that I personally would have used the alternative image instead of this one but I do wonder what the general consensus is on this subject. - Dravecky (talk) 18:41, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I think this should be fine, since it's not like it's porn or anything. Works of art are usually ok; I don't remember exactly when, but I know recently there were some butt cheeks on TFA, for example. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 18:42, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I think it would work as an April Fool's image. Wikipedia is not censored. Shubinator (talk) 18:44, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm okay with it, I just believe the rules should be clarified to state that nudity is indeed acceptable. Well wikipedia is not censored, but is it appropriate for the front page?Smallman12q (talk) 18:45, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

For the record, the alt image references the Long Man of Wilmington article and gets the point of the hook across without alarming any small children or farm animals.

The alternate image

The front page has different rules. There is a reason we don't put Jenna Jameson in the TFA section. It's not a "think of the children" argument, but a "think of all the angry calls the Foundation will get." The use of the former over the alternate does not add anything vital to the understanding of the article. The alternate is probably a better choice. NuclearWarfare _(Talk) 18:50, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not too invested in this either way, but in any case, isn't the penis one a lot more famous and recognizable? rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 19:04, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, its in queue so someone will need to change it soon. Again, the rules should be modified to define whether this is permissible or not.Smallman12q (talk) 19:05, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that small children or farm animals find the Rude Man of Cerne Abbas alarming. DuncanHill (talk) 21:06, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Are we using the image because it is the best illustration of the hook? Or are we not using anything else because it'd be just "awesome" to have a penis on the Main Page? Sure, we are not censored, but we do not need to have the maturity of an eleven year old. ∗ \ / (⁂) 21:10, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

It's eminently recognizable, and has unarguable (pre-)historical value. I don't think that a millenia-old drawing of an unclothed human being is likely to send anyone running for the hills, and the proposed alternative is very bland and uninteresting comparatively (no anatomical details, simple sticks instead of the more elaborate club). — Coren ^(talk) 21:17, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

... or historical as may be. Reading the article is instructive! Who knew!  :-) — Coren ^(talk) 21:21, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't censored...But... ResMar 21:32, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

For god's sake, it's history. Don't censor it. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 21:32, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

You guys can't censor the TRUTH!! This is information that the world NEEDS to know!!!!!11!!!~ rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 21:34, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

• 'I believe your approach is absurd. Obscenity is not censored on Wikipedia, but it is paraded either. What is the information that the world needs to know? There is no conspiracy here, we simply want to get a consensus as to whether nudity is appropriate on the Wikipedia front page.Smallman12q (talk) 22:08, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

With the high number of available pictures, I see no reason why this particular controversial image needs to be used. Not censorship, just careful picking of images. There's no reason that we need to flout flaunt it on the main page (although I can see why he would be proud ;-). Royalbroil 21:45, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

What is controversial about it? And do you mean flaunt? DuncanHill (talk) 21:47, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the help with my typo. The controversial part is the naked man and his penis. Like Ottava says below, a real picture of the vegetation would be much preferable. If we shouldn't use the picture of a woman urinating for April Fool's Day's Featured Picture, then this picture shouldn't be okay either. Royalbroil 22:01, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

It's a sketch of a hillside. I do not believe that anyone could find it offensive. DuncanHill (talk) 22:09, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Where is the hillside? lol. On artistic grounds, the image is rather fail when it comes to depicting what it is supposed to be depicting. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:16, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

The green stuff is the hillside. England is a green and pleasant land. I had a quick look on commons and we don't have a clear photo of the whole of the Rude Man.

• Am I the only one who wondered why we are stuck with a silly drawing by someone instead of an actual photograph of the site? I would much prefer to see real vegetation. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:48, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Is this better?

Wait a second - it looks like everything but the intro is copied from other articles. --NE2 22:14, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

There's also hill figure, with which it should probably be merged. --NE2 22:16, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

It seems that the term "gigantotomy" was coined by some obscure scholar. It appears as the second book here. I don't think the term is separately notable and might just be a WP:NEOLOGISM. Many of the sources also seem less than reliable. The Fortunecity link, for instance, which has randomly copied sentences from other pages (including those referenced elsewhere on the page). I think the article might need to be pulled for a closer inspection. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:27, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

What a lot of debate. This image and its hook has been on the suggestions lists for a week or so with no comments at all. Isn't that the reason why these things are there for debate? The image is public art. If we this a neologism then we should have spotted it earlier. I thought the third ref in AGF looked OK. If we have to pull it then we have about 12 hours or so Victuallers (talk) 22:47, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Well it was the DYK next to mine, and you couldn't really notice the penis unless you clicked on the thumbnail. So as its been a day...and no one has changed the picture, I'm assuming the current DYK rules section regarding pictures will be updated to state that nudity is okay?Smallman12q (talk) 00:45, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there's really any need for it to be in the rules anywhere. These things don't come up very often, and when they do we can discuss them and handle them on a case-by-case basis; the rules won't be able to replace our judgment. And adding a clause to the rules might be a bit BEANS-ish. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:53, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps a guideline then? My main concern is still this picture. Perhaps we should get an official response?Smallman12q (talk) 01:23, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I believe the person with the most clout when it comes to the day-to-day maintenance of the main page is Raul654. You could ask him, if you want something "official." rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:26, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

This is ridiculous. It is a freaking stick figure. If the Foundation does get nasty calls, the appropriate response would be to laugh at them. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:36, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I was asked to comment here. If Gigantotomy (as of this revision) was a featured article and I were scheduling it for the main page, I'd probably use File:Cerne Abbas Giant's phallus.jpg. Why? Because:

1. image:Cerne-Abbas-Giant-2.svg doesn't actually appear in the article, so I wouldn't use it. If it did appear in the article, I might consider it (but I tend to prefer real life pics to illustrations). I don't think the nudity is a big deal.
2. File:Eastsx 080.jpg is too small - as a thumbnail, it would be very hard to tell what was pictured.
3. File:Homer Simpson in Cerne Abbans.JPG is a picture of a copyright character, so someone would be sure to complain.
4. File:Cerne Abbas Giant's phallus.jpg is clear and easy to tell what's pictured. It's clearly the best one available.

So, that's my 2 cents. Raul654 (talk) 02:48, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay, then based on this comment and the preceding discussion, I'm going to change the image in Queue 3 to the image recommended by Raul654. There's still nearly 11 hours to undo this change if there is a strong objection but the points raised here seem to me to support a change. - Dravecky (talk) 05:16, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Pornography guidelines are notoriously impossible to put into rules, and I don't recommend adding a rule that tries to summarize previous discussion on how the Main Page needs to be a little more careful than an article. But practically speaking, the difference between art and pornography depends mainly on whether the naked woman is named after a goddess or a month. Art LaPella (talk) 05:56, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Except for the "embers", the months are named after deities already, so... we can just cut to "goddess". :D Ottava Rima (talk) 15:26, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

July and August aren't. They're named after Roman emperors. Reyk _YO! 04:44, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Possible merge?

I wanted to take a quick straw poll and see if it is worth a possible merge between Gigantotomy and "hill figure". NE2 suggested above that the Gigantotomy page doesn't contain much original content (copied from other pages), and a google books search seems to come up with very little for the term. This is not a proposal to merge. It is just to see if people think that there is enough -to- propose a merge. If so, we should table the hook until after the merge goes through. If the page is kept, then put it back. Does that seem fair? Ottava Rima (talk) 23:00, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

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

3 hook questions in Queue 5

I pasted a set of hook into Queue 5 just before calling it a night and three of them have issues with the hooks of varying importance (mea culpa). I think all three are probably OK, but want other eyes to double check them please.

First, Pirate Party (United States) has a notability tag on it (thanks to User:Dravecky for raising this issue). Several of the refs are about the Swedish Pirate party, but the following are about the US party. Current ref 1 is from Wired magazine and is quite extensive. Ref 5 is from the Ars Technica magazine seems to me to be a reliable source. These two seem to establish notability, and ref 14, a brief interview on Torrentfreak, does too (I am not so sure about Torrentfreak as a WP:RS though). Thanks too to User:Rjanag for raising this issue on the article's talk page.

I've removed the tag. I originally put it up because I thought, as an officially unrecognized political party that hasn't actually done anything, it wasn't very notable...but as the article creator pointed out to me, it has gotten some big independent coverage nonetheless, which makes it notable for something. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 13:58, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I've struck the concern, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 14:07, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Second, The Marshal of Gunsight Pass is a User:Billy Hathorn TV article, based mostly on IMDb (what a surprise). The hook is sourced from ref 3, TVGuide. I was more concerned about this one than the pirates when I promoted the hooks to the queue.::I checked out the article and about half of the hook is sourced to the TVGuide.com thing, which looks reliable. The problem is that the rest of the hook is to IMDB (TVGuide verifies that it was broadcast live to the West or whatever and that that is rare, but the thing about how it was recorded in a lot or whatever isn't in that source). Maybe we can just reword the hook? rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 15:34, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

This has some information on the filming location (about an eighth of the way down the page). It's not the most reliable, but it is a first-person account. Shubinator (talk) 16:58, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Third (fairly minor) the hook for Tajne Wojskowe Zakłady Wydawnicze is

• that the Secret Military Printing Works of the Polish resistance Home Army were the largest underground printing and publishing network in Nazi occupied Europe?

but the article itself says it was "likely the largest underground publisher in the world". Since Europe is a subset of the world I was Ok with this. The refs here are print sources written in Polish, so I AGF'ed this one. To be honest if I were not raising the other two issues, I would not have brought this one up. Thanks for any feedback, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 13:20, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I've changed the last hook to conform with the statement in the article. Gatoclass (talk) 14:38, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Gato! I had thought of doing this, but wanted to see what others thought. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 14:41, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I see TV.com and Classic TV Archive (this one doesn't work for me, btw) as other sources. It appears to have 22 episodes and from 59 years ago, so, it had some size and isn't "my favorite show" type spam (unless it is someone over 59 years old who waited that long to make a page on Wiki). I hope this assessment helps. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:31, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks all - I fixed the Classic TV Archive link, added the new link, and changed the hook to

• ... that the ABC children's TV series The Marshal of Gunsight Pass, considered primitive even for 1950, was telecast live to stations on the West Coast and seen elsewhere by kinescope?

Is this better? Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 18:32, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Shubinator (talk) 01:57, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks very much, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:22, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Can a page in user space qualify for DYK

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

resolved

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Resolved

Can a page that is moved from user space to article namespace qualify for DYK?Smallman12q (talk) 01:10, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's new to the 'pedia. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:14, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

So if I took an article...userfied it...expanded it 5x...and then put into the article namespace...it would qualify?(Just double checking)Smallman12q (talk) 01:19, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Yep, as long as the version at the end is 5x expansion from what was there before. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:20, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay. Thanks!Smallman12q (talk) 01:26, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

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

Proposed rewrite of the rules

This isn’t a rule change; it’s a rule explanation change. This version of the rules should be easier to understand because:

• The description of each Did You Know function has been separated. If a newbie doesn't understand, nothing confuses him faster than constant interruptions about things like updating Next Update, when all he's trying to understand is how to write an article for DYK, and/or nominate an article.
• Wikipedia:Summary style allows you to read about any subtopic without getting bogged down in the details.
• Therefore, I can add a lot more explanation, and it doesn’t get in the way unless you ask for it. For instance, if you think this is instruction creep, there’s even a section to explain that.
• Nearly all the text in WP:DYK, WP:DYKAR and T:TDYK#Instructions has been included, but it has been moved around to keep separate topics separate and the same topics together. Some of the duplicate rules have been omitted. If you see a rule I can’t explain, it’s because I copied it from the existing rules.

Some people won’t like an explanation others can understand. They will call it patronizing and unencyclopedic. My philosophy is that a working system is better than an admired system.

I don’t do approvals or moving on to Next Update and beyond, in part because an explanation like this doesn’t exist. So I pretty much blindly copied the rules for those functions, and that part of my system will be the easiest to improve.

I didn’t create the shortcut redirects because I would have to change them anyway when moving to Wikipedia namespace. Also, adding images might help relax people (I don’t have much experience with them).

I hope DYKCheck helps. Otherwise, if nominations, but not approvals and updates, are easier for beginners to understand, there may be a flood of nominations and more work for the rest of us. Art LaPella (talk) 06:07, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

My first impression is that I'm not at all keen - especially with the way everything has been separated into separate pages. The rules may well need a rewrite, some reorganization and tweaking, but I'm not persuaded this is the way to proceed. Gatoclass (talk) 06:27, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, if you aren't persuaded you could give me a hint where my persuasion in my previous post broke down. :)

Another form of persuasion would be to find a volunteer unfamiliar with DYK and give him a task like evaluating a nomination. Then ask him if he found information more easily with a long list of unfamiliar concepts jumbled together on one page – well, two pages – trying to pick his way past constant irrelevant interruptions like what admins did before DYKADMINBOT? Or was it easier to get unfamiliar concepts presented one at a time in predigested bites before confusing it with the next concept? Beginners should be our first priority, not preaching to the choir.

Perhaps I should have made this clearer in the introduction, but I also think my system is easier for regulars to navigate, at least when they discover they can bypass intermediate screens using Category:Wikipedia Did you know rules instead of the old system's Table of Contents. The information is combined at the expected place, not all mixed together with unrelated topics. If the old system is so easy to navigate, then why couldn't anyone correct the problems of the same information repeated in unrelated sections, and why is it so often out of date? Art LaPella (talk) 15:14, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

• Organization structure makes it more complicated. Yes, I now know what I can do. However, I now have to search through many pages to try and find it. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:17, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, first of all, I have to say it's clear that Art has put a ton of work into this...so, no matter what we decide on it, hats off to Art for doing all this.
That being said, I do agree with Gato that this is a bit daunting. I don't know if that means we should completely throw this out, though; personally, I still think that a good solution for a lot of the DYK rules problem is to have the main rules page just listing the four "pillars" of the DYK rules or whatever (just the important stuff—newness, cited hook, article not being crappy, and whatever) and leaving the details (how to calculate expansion, etc.) in the subpage(s). (I made a longer posting about this idea, don't remember where, it's somewhere in the WT:DYK archives.) In any case, Art's setup might be useful as a sort of tutorial, rather than as a reference. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 16:56, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Just FYI, my babbling about pillars is at Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 40#Verification. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 18:34, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that sounds better than WP:DYK. Art LaPella (talk) 19:28, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I too commend Art LaPella for being so concerned about those of us who now feel disenfranchised from DYK and for soliciting my input. When I started at DYK almost two years ago, I don't remember reading much of anything. Mostly I looked at the nominations and the comments and could figure it out that way, only occasionally consulting the short list of rules. In those days there was not the intense competition and heated talk page arguments that exist now. As far as the new (or rewritten) rules, the terminology is now so unfamiliar, the sections with bewildering names so many, and the rules so exacting that I would have to spend quite a bit of time figuring out even where to begin. That takes more motivation than I have, since DKY is no longer the relaxing backwaters it used to be where I could exercise ingenuity to produce a creative hook. Further, I am not willing to engage in legalistic talk page defenses of particular hooks or particular rules. I used to enjoy improving the hooks of others and even improving their articles and sourcing to produce a fine DYK hook for someone else. I looked at the hooks recently with that in mind, but no longer felt that it was permissible for me to plunge in and offer an ALT hook. Perhaps there is a place in the rules that explains the correct way of doing that now. (I feel like I might be beheaded if I did the wrong thing, since the fact that DYKs appear on the main page has morphed into such an important factor that a mistake might warrant the death penalty.) I fear there is no going back to those less intense times. DYK is no long a fun place for quaint oddities and expression of creativity in hook writing but rather laundry line battles. —Mattisse (Talk) 17:39, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

The unfamiliar terminology is defined at User:Art LaPella/Proposed rules rewrite for Did You Know/Glossary, which didn't exist before; I thought I reminded people of its existence often enough to sound silly. I didn't describe how to offer an ALT hook beyond briefly defining it as an alternate and suggesting looking at the suggestion page for its format. But there is a section (and subsections) for writing a hook, which would also do for an ALT: User:Art LaPella/Proposed rules rewrite for Did You Know/Hook, which would change to WP:Did you know/Hook. I still think that section, for instance, is easier to find than reading past Raul's pencil sharpener and all that other stuff first, especially when using Category:Wikipedia Did you know rules; and it also links to all our material on hooks without searching Additional Rules. Art LaPella (talk) 18:31, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I have now added a site map. Does that make things easier to find for people who already know them? Art LaPella (talk) 19:28, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh crumbs - a glossary!? Is the jargon really as bad as that? Bad DYK. Bad DYK.  :( There is a tendancy for one-off decisions in particular cases to ossify into binding precedent. Perhaps it is time to get the machete and flamethrower out, and realy cut the "rules" down to size. WP:IAR.

Having said that, I think this is a good starting point. I like the very clean front page - modelled on WP:WIAFA? - but I think it should concentrate on the DYK criteria rather than the process for getting to the Main Page. Can the subsidiary material be thinned down and done as sections of a single page? -- Testing times (talk) 19:41, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I plead guilty to encouraging the tendency for one-off decisions to ossify. The alternative isn't that the situation will go away; the alternative is that the decision will be unpredictable without weeks of studying previous precedent to know if your nomination will be approved. The way to take a machete to the rules – not just the written rules but the unwritten precedents that would otherwise apply – isn't to ignore the rules; on the contrary it's to emphasize a simplified set of rules and get everyone to conform. See my Instruction creep section.

No, I don't know much about Featured Article procedure; I consider Featured Article procedure to take more time than it's worth for such a tiny fraction of Wikipedia's articles. I didn't "concentrate on the DYK criteria" on the first page because nobody needs to know how to do everything at once, and if we insist on people understanding admin functions before they can submit a nomination, they might give up on the whole idea instead. So the first page asks people what they want to do. Then I tell them the DYK criteria for that task. It's the old version that emphasizes the steps leading to the Main Page; my version emphasizes what you need to do to accomplish any one of those steps. And I don't know why I would combine the subsidiary material on one page like the Additional Rules; the way to reduce the confusion factor is to introduce those explanations only when the reader asks for them, and provide them directly rather than reading the entire Additional Rules page. Art LaPella (talk) 21:50, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Gonna echo Art here: I always get a little bugged when people accuse him or other rules-rewriters of creating "instruction creep." The rules are the consensus, and the instruction creep has just happened on its own, grown out of months and months of people starting arguments; if enough nitpicky arguments get started over whether expansion is counted from bytes or characters, then eventually there is gonna be a nitpicky rule about it. Art's unwritten rules, the Additional Rules page, and this page don't create the nitpicky rules; they have just documented them so that we can have a shorthand of what the consensus on these nitpicky issues are, rather than having to dig through 40 archives. If we were to do away with the nitpicky rules page, that wouldn't stop there from being arguments over byte count; it would just mean we wouldn't have any convenient way to respond to them (and would have to start a major thread and waste everyone's time every time one of these tiny issues came up). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 22:29, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I was not intending to point fingers at any particular participant (and I didn't accuse anyone of instruction creep either). Art has put his head above the parapet and should be congratulated for doing so.

My point, really, is that surely we should be able to make do with some statements of principles and then common sense. The margins are always grey and fuzzy, so there is little point inventing sharp black-and-white distinctions. Wikipedia is just not about devising rules and then making everyone conform. The convenient response to rules-laywer arguments about byte counts is "stop wasting everyone's time". Anyway, I will now take my own advice and stop wasting everyone's time. -- Testing times (talk) 19:56, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

And I try to distinguish issues with consensus from the gray and fuzzy margins. Art LaPella (talk) 23:38, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

And my proposal adds explanations, not rules, and only if you click them. Art LaPella (talk) 02:16, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the site map. This has evolved drastically from before. I will skip over reading all that stuff as it does not make too much sense for someone not involved in the last few months. A submission must be "included" using a template. Or are you using "included" to just mean the usual dictionary use of "include". So an editor takes one of those templates and fills it up. How is "including" accomplished? From the examples, it looks like the template is just stuck in with nothing special being done. (It's a good thing I didn't follow my impulses and write an ALT and stick it in per the olden days, as I would have messed up.) I guess the thing to do is to take a template that is already filled out, copy it, then fill in my own stuff and paste it in underneath. I will try to get interested as I used to really enjoy fixing hooks and articles. Is there an area that actually needs help, or is all this automated or for admins to do? —Mattisse (Talk) 20:14, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Oops! I forgot to say that an ALT isn't submitted using a template! I forgot here, but Proofreading#Proofreading Template talk:Did you know does say "For a big change, suggest a rewritten hook using an ALT (still remembering that glossary?). Look through the rest of the page to see how ALT's are formatted." Yes that's complicated, but please don't shoot the messenger; I didn't write DYKsug. As for an area that actually needs help, I believe I listed them on my front page. Art LaPella (talk) 21:50, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and I didn't find the word "included", unless you mean at {{DYKsug/doc}}, which I didn't write. Art LaPella (talk) 21:57, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and E3 also says ALT's shouldn't be submitted with the template. Art LaPella (talk) 22:44, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I haven't read the rules pages yet so correct me if I'm misinterpreting this.... But anyway, I don't think there should be a rule saying people have to use the template. I just made it to help out if people find it helpful; a lot of people had been nominating stuff for long before the template existed, and are more comfortable just typing out the nom by hand, and I think that should be fine. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 22:29, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Better? Art LaPella (talk) 22:44, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I support expanding the current explanations to include the ones listed here.Smallman12q (talk) 20:44, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, here's a newcomer's prespecive. I only recently submitted my first DYK, Asinara. Art's rewrite is much more informal (not neccesarilly a good thing in every respect, but the causuality makes it easier to read) and much more organized (everyting has a subpage; perhaps too much so?). This is the type of reading material you would want to see if you're like me- just submitted your first and are most definently going to be seen here again (I hope). I don't thing you can replace one with another. Just like The Manual Of Style vs. Interprative Essays, the current DYK explanation is official, verifiable, formal. Art's rewrite is, in contrast, unofficial, informal, and mostly verafiable (I'm sure we can roll out the kinks in verfifiability, though). I am against replacing the current rules with this version. Think of the issue as, in a real-life analogy, Manual vs. Guidebook. The former's goal is to give everyting; the latter's goal is to be a well-written guide that only includes what counts. Art's version is different but perhaps just as essential. And I agree with Mattesie, that no one actually reads the official publications; they are chock full of instruction creep. It's know as you go. The only issue I have with this is that it's a bit overflowed. Well Art, you asked me to comment, and here I am. I think your work should be the "Guide to Learning the Way of the DYK." how about splicing it all into a one page format so I can print it? :) ResMar 21:10, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and since everyone's flabbergasted at your effort, here, have one:

	The Working Man's Barnstar
	For your massive and laborious effort in making the DYK rules actually readable, have this Barnstar; it's the concet of the DYK community. Yes, DYK medal would be more appropriate, but you already have one, and variety counts...I'm sure everyone agrees that whatever is the fate of your work, it was quite the effort. ResMar 21:10, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! I missed the point about verifiability for instance; it doesn't mean that we look up DYK rules in scientific journals. But the main point is this: DYK regulars can talk about what we think is understandable, but only newcomers like Smallman12q and ResMar can give us eyewitness testimony. (Well, give or take a selection bias, since I invited them.) So does this mean that there is now a consensus for presenting a choice, perhaps on a disambiguation page, between an official version and a tutorial version? Art LaPella (talk) 22:24, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Support choice being offered. I don't support getting rid of the old stuff though; having everything in one place makes it easy for me when I need to cite a rule. Shubinator (talk) 23:03, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Support The logical choice. Regarding how we get from one to the other, it should be via a "See also:Learning DYK/The Unofficial Guide" ResMar 00:34, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Wait a minute. If the only link is in a See also section, then only those who have read all the way thru the old rules can know about The Unofficial Guide. That is, those who don't need it! Art LaPella (talk) 01:36, 1 March 2009 (UTC)Wait another minute. Perhaps you meant a Wikipedia:Hatnote that says "See also"? Art LaPella (talk) 02:11, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, either a hatnote or a {{seealso}} is the way to go. Personally, I think the link to DYKAR is already a bit too buried in WP:DYK, and would like to see it made more prominent...so I think the same goes for the "unofficial guide" link in DYKAR, it should be pretty prominent. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 04:33, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

What I mean is a "See Also" right at the head of the top section. ResMar 21:30, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Everyone's saying that it's a bit splayed out, so I created this onepage format, for better or for worse. Hope Art doesn't mind. ResMar 21:46, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I have now moved it to Wikipedia space and linked it as a Seealso hatnote. It includes ResMar's Onepage, linked from "our rules" on my front page, and also from the Site Map. I predict that when you get used to the new version, you will wonder why we kept the old one (which is not to say you won't use Onepage or some future version instead). Art LaPella (talk) 07:40, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, that's that. ResMar 20:40, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

DYK credit to user talkpage

I created and nom'd the Eigil Knuth article. Its hook apparently appeared on mainpage yesterday as Talk:Eigil Knuth was tagged 2 March with the DYK template. However, my talkpage hasn't been credited yet. I'm wondering if user talkpage credits are just lagging? Rosiestep (talk) 22:40, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry about that. We had some volunteer non-DYK admins on that update; they did a great job, but apparently missed you. I just checked and you were the only one not credited. I've put the credit on your talk page now. Sorry! Shubinator (talk) 00:04, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Something seems screwy with the 18:56, 3 March 2009 (UTC) archive

The lead hook mentions a "pictured" Savings and Loan, but the photo is the one that ran (or should have run?) with the hook for List of Washington Senators Opening Day starting pitchers. Rlendog (talk) 01:07, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I just fixed it. Thanks! Shubinator (talk) 01:17, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Pics and the archive

For a long time I've wondered why we don't just paste the pic into the archive along with the update. I'm thinking it would make for a more interesting archive page, and it's not as if it takes up a huge amount of space. Does anyone have an opinion on this? Gatoclass (talk) 16:59, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm just thinking about the automation here...we should do something that's doable with a bot. I noticed the earlier archives have the pictures staggered; that might be possible with a variable that the bot changes between true and false every time. Or if the bot straight copy-pastes the template content, including the pic, that works. If the bot can do it, I don't see why not. I was also thinking of having a Category for pictures that have appeared on DYK. Shubinator (talk) 17:05, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I like this idea. I have also wondered if it would make sense to put a notice on the image page that it was on the Main Page in DYK. A bot makes all of this easier, but it would have to also be able to edit on Commons, where most of the DYK images are located. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 18:19, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I like the idea of having a category of DYK images. If you guys decide to tag images with something similar to {{DYKtalk}}, then it will be very easy to make that template add each image to the category; it will just be a matter of getting a bot to do the grunt work of finding all those images and adding the templates. (I imagine this would also be made easier if we showed the images in the archives...although I dunno, maybe bots are also able to search the history of T:DYK and just take an image from each newly updated version of that through the ages.)

One little thing...when we upload a temporary cropped version of an image just for DYK, what happens to it? Does it get deleted after the DYK is over? In that case, the bot would have to know how to tag the parent image instead. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 19:04, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, as for how to display the images in the archive, I don't think staggering will be necessary if the archive is divided into individual updates as it is now; it seems that in the past they were staggered simply because they were all lumped together. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 19:32, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

If you want to go through with tagging images and stuff after they get used, I threw together a mock-up of a tag at User:Rjanag/DYKfile. There's an example of it used in the sandbox here. One question...right now I have it putting all tagged images into a general "Did you know files" category. Would it be preferable for it to put all images in a "Did you know images" category, sounds in a "Did you know sounds" category, etc? rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 19:49, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

(ec...stupid servers here) I've been thinking of making a bot to go through DYK's history. It would directly look at the T:DYK histories instead of the archive because the archive isn't consistent. So far I've been thinking about tagging every article with DYKtalk (before a certain archive...I think 40ish...none of the articles are tagged), including the hook. I can also look into image tagging. The bot should easily be able to access Commons; I'll see if I can get it to add categories.

The temporary pictures on En do get deleted, but if you go to the description page you'll still see the picture, and you'll get the message that the picture is from Commons. (One example is this pic from the weekend.) Yeah, a bot will need to distinguish between Commons and En pictures. For the archive librarian bot it shouldn't be a problem because those pics have already been deleted. For a current updating bot maybe it could check for the {{c-uploaded}} tag.

If this bot does get put into place it could also overhaul the archives and make them all uniform. It's already looking at every revision of T:DYK, so if we want to do a remodel, that would be the time. Shubinator (talk) 20:07, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good - probably want to make sure at Commons that this is OK there. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 20:19, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

One thing to be careful about if we're going to tag all the old ones with {{DYKtalk}} is to first check for {{ArticleHistory}}. When an article reaches GA or FA, people are supposed to put all the stuff into {{ArticleHistory}}, and that often involves removing the {{DYKtalk}} template (since articlehistory has a parameter for showing the DYK date and stuff). So we would want to make sure we're not adding {{DYKtalk}} redundantly. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 21:21, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, I like a good technical challenge. The bot could sort by file extension (list here). We could have four categories; one overarching "DYK media" or "DYK files", with three subcategories "DYK sounds", "DYK images", and "DYK videos". If the bot can't find one of the extensions for whatever reason it can categorize the file into the umbrella category.

The template looks nice. Do you think you can make four templates corresponding to the four categories, and have the file automatically be added to the right category once it's tagged? (like {{User_DYK}})

Oh, I hadn't thought of ArticleHistory. It would be easy to add a check for Article history though. Thanks! Shubinator (talk) 02:12, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I like your idea of having both an overarching category and subcategories. We could accomplish that either by having each article go into both DYK media and DYK images/whatever, or simply by making DYK media a category with nothing but those subcategories in it.

As for how sort them into the categories, I think I can get the job done with just one template. I'll put it up in a moment. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 02:19, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Updated. Now when you tag a page you use a parameter to specify whether it's an image, sound, or video (it defaults to image if you leave it blank...although if it's being done by a bot it shouldn't make a difference) and that both controls what displays in the message, and which category it goes to. It might be possible to do this without parameters at all (ie, if there's a magic word that returns the file type, then this could all get done automatically based on whether the page where the template is called is a .png, .svg, .ogg, or what have you). I won't bother actually creating the categories until we start using the template. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 02:29, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Cool. Yeah, that makes sense. I'll have a lot of time free in about a week; I'll start programming the bot then. Shubinator (talk) 02:39, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I was looking at some of the DYK images, and I think we can just tag on the En version of the page. For example here is an image that's really on Commons, but the En Featured Picture template is on the En description page. If we do decide to tag the Commons description page, we should have the template say it appeared on En's Main Page. Shubinator (talk) 06:44, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Remodelling

If you are planning on remodelling the archives, one approach would be to do it by calender month. The archives are currently wildly different in length, a few months ago I tried to initiate a weekly archiving but it was only erratically followed, and I've come to the conclusion that weekly archives are too frequent anyhow, because you end up with too many archives.

Ideally IMO, we would have a bot that moves hooks from the current archive on a weekly basis, to keep the current archive size manageably small, but that arranged the saved archives by a larger unit, say a calendar month, to keep the number of archives a reasonable size and make it easier to search them. Gatoclass (talk) 07:38, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I was also thinking of something by calendar month. The archive pages will be shorter for the earlier archives then, and longer for more recent archives. I could do a weekly bot after the one-time bot has done its work. If the DYKadminBot is running by then maybe it can update straight to the monthly archive? Shubinator (talk) 06:44, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

If the DYKadminBot is running by then maybe it can update straight to the monthly archive?

Hmm, hadn't occurred to me as a possibility. I'm not sure we should do that though, given the on-again off-again history of the bot. We might need to keep a central archive page for manual updating. Gatoclass (talk) 09:08, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Time to speed up the updates?

According to this, we have 65 verified hooks on T:TDYK (give or take a few, because I promoted several since the bot last ran, but also verified several). Having such a comfortable cushion makes me feel uncomfortable, as I was brought up knowing only a DYK with thousands and thousands of unverified articles and nothing to work with. Should we speed up the updates for three days or so to cut back on this ____ (don't want to call it a "backlog", but whatever)? rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 11:05, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

No, the more hooks there are to choose from, the easier it is to put together a balanced update. I can't see any reason to speed up the turnover since there are currently only 184 articles on the Suggestions page in total. Gatoclass (talk) 12:46, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Well...I guess...if you want to make things easy for people. Sheesh! rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 12:48, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm perverse like that :b Gatoclass (talk) 11:07, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree with Gatoclass that a balanced update is better recieved than merely more updates.Smallman12q (talk) 12:52, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

DYK contributors category?

Although I don't care for myself, I imagine that many of the editors who contribute DYK hooks would love to be in a category that acknowledges their contributions, similar to Category:Wikipedia Featured Article contributors or Category:Wikipedia Good Article contributors. Is it feasible to create Category:Wikipedia Did You Know? contributors and, as part of the crediting process, add editors to it? Otto4711 (talk) 07:52, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

There is a Category:Wikipedia Did you know contributors, which you are included in if you put the userbox {{User DYK}} on your user page. I could also easily update the DYK credit templates to put people in the category, if you think there are a lot of people who aren't using the userbox but would like to be in the category. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 12:19, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Heads up

Update needed, admins. Shubinator (talk) 17:58, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I did it and started the credits - I see the ever faithful Gatoclass is also working on credits. Thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 18:25, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

All done Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 18:51, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Kjell Heggelund - accidental DYK twofer?

I did the update and when I went to tag the talk page for Kjell Heggelund it already had a DYK tag from March 3. The creator's talk page is also tagged for March 3, but when I went to the DYK archive for March 3 I did not see the article. I have left it on the Main Page for now, but could someone please clear this up? Thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 18:22, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I do not see the article listed here (DYK talk) not do I see it listed on WP:ERRORS. Not sure what is going on. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 18:53, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

OK< it was on the Main Page for all of 8 minutes on March 3, then removed as the DYK was too long - see diff. I am going to leave it on this time around, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 18:57, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to remove "anyone"

Here is one reason why the claim that "anyone" can update the next update section is wrong - if anyone can update, that means that trolls, vandals, etc, can add content and it will be moved forward. Since most admin don't look, the content wont be caught until it is on the main page. With the admin bot, this is even more true since no one will be looking at what is promoted.

The main page is very sensitive. Admin are responsible for controlling the content of the mainpage. Thus, admin are the only ones who should be promoting anything. Promotion means moving to the mainpage, and if admin are not going to be looking at what is moved onto the DYK template, then there is a serious problem. This needs to be fixed with a restoration that conforms to every other mainpage declaration that only admin are allowed to control the content of the mainpage.

Yes, this is copied and pasted from the above proposal. Yes, there is no mention of Dravecky in it, even though Ed 17 archived the previous one claiming that it was about Dravecky. Yes, I am in the middle of discussing Ed's abuse of archiving guidelines (WP:ARCHIVE) with quite a few admin now, and if he attempts it again on this section, he will be brought to ANI for disrupting a proposal. This is cross listed at VPP, as with the previous ones. Stay on topic. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:45, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, so I'll repeat some basic responses you haven't recognized in the above. The claim that "anyone" can update the next update section is trivially true; check the next update's page history and count the non-administrators, or see WP:DYK#Updating the DYK next update page which says "... any editor may add a suggestion to the DYK template next update page ... ". WP:DYKADMINBOT doesn't copy from the next update page; an adminstrator has to copy it to the queue first. The present system seems to work, and restricting it to admins would have stopped Awadewit but not Dravecky. The Main Page is indeed "very sensitive", but "only admin are allowed to control the content of the Main Page" by approving content suggested by others, on DYK and on other Main Page sections. And if the archived section isn't about Dravecky, I suggest searching that section for the word "Dravecky" and count how often it comes up. Art LaPella (talk) 03:09, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I saw the response above. If you noticed, the original proposal has nothing to do with Dravecky. Please don't bring him up in here. I will respond to your concerns once you remove mention of Dravecky from your response seeing as how it is off topic. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:17, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, your original proposal uses the D-word twice, so if you will remove your misstatement about him ("claiming that it was about ... ", implying it wasn't), I will be happy to remove my refutation. Art LaPella (talk) 04:06, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

My original proposal is right there in the first two paragraphs. Your persistence in the matter is utterly absurd, and if you suggest that my original proposal statement says Dravecky in it, then there is a serious problem with you. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:36, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually the serious problem with me is so serious that I count 3 paragraphs, and my problem drives me to object to misstatements in any of your paragraphs regardless of how you label them. Art LaPella (talk) 11:42, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Admins look at who assembled the hooks, and they look at the hooks themselves. If the admin has never heard of the assembling editor, they'll check if the hooks are legitimate. If it's a regular DYK contributor, the admin takes a cursory glance at the hooks/articles. Vandal/troll content is not added because the promoting admin looks at the history of the Next Update. I would say having a bot makes it less likely that funny content will be added. Right now the admins are so harried they pop onto their computer, grab whatever's in the queue, and promote it. The bot will free up time for the admins to do other work, including checking content. Shubinator (talk) 03:33, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

If admin are so hurried that they are moving anything to the queue, then wouldn't that justify allowing only community accepted "trusted" members (aka Admin) be the only ones to move it to the area to promote them to the queue? Also, wouldn't it make sense for the person moving it to the queue also be different than the person adding them to the list? Right now, the Next Update is only a glorified version of the check minus system on the Template talk page. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:42, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Admins will only get more overworked if they have more work to do. If we had enough hook assemblers and admins, yes it would make sense for different editors to assemble and promote. But with only two admins running the ship this is impractical. Shubinator (talk) 03:46, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I would argue with the characterization that any admin will "grab whatever's in the queue and promote it". I know that each queue takes me 90 minutes, give or take, to assemble with lots of checking, balancing, and consideration. (And for a thread that's not about me, I haven't seen "Dravecky" so many times on one page since 'cousin' Dave broke his pitching arm.) - Dravecky (talk) 05:13, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry Dravecky, I exaggerated a bit to explain the bot's usefulness. Just trying to say that admins will likely get better at checking, not worse, with the bot. Shubinator (talk) 06:08, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Overworked? We had an admin only system without problems for a long time. The problems have only occurred with the past few months. Your claims about overworked are not based on any kind of evidence. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:36, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Us admins are seriously overworked. The problem is that super awesome DYKbot is down for the past month. It took a huge amount of pressure off us because we didn't have to constantly watch to see when the time was up. It takes a long time to do the admin part of each round that it used to do. Royalbroil 05:57, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Any regular who has been here more than a few months knows that the admins are not overworked. We have dozens of admin who are willing to work on things, and we lasted for a very long time without a bot. Claims to the contrary go against the clear history of this place. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:43, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Note: Royalbroil's first edit to DYK was over 3 years ago, he has updated T:DYK many times, he is an admin, and he is overworked. Shubinator (talk) 17:16, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

He doesn't have to do any work here. There are plenty of other admin who update the mainpage and are willing to. Hell, if anything is needed one only has to make a mention of it at WP:AN or the #wikipedia-en channel. It has happened quite often. We did get by for a long time without any serious problems. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:37, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Who cares?　This is not a serious proposal and nothing is going to come of it. In its 24 hours of being linked from VP, no one has come and weighed in, because it's obvious that this "proposal" is frivolous drama-mongering and that Ottava Rima has, as usual, not done his homework before coming here to stir up a fuss. There's nothing worth discussing here; everyone has already said over and over again why the "problem" with Next Update is imaginary. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 04:16, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Never heard of a weekend? Just because you don't care doesn't mean that this isn't a real proposal. Your contempt for discussion and processes is telling. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:36, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Well. For clueless observers, the way the current system works (whether supported by policy or not), is that updates are prepared on the Next Update page. This page is not protected and many non-admins and admins prepare updates here. When an update is complete, the hooks must be moved manually, by an administrator, to one of the Queue pages. There, a bot (although currently not operational), will move the queue to the main page when the update is due.

I think Ottava's concern is that that admins are not applying adequate scrutiny to the Next Update page before they move it to the queue, and since the Next Update page is not protected, misinformation could be moved into the admin-only queue. Ottava, forgive me if I've missed your point, but while I agree that this is a concern, protecting the update page is not the answer. Having non-admins prepare the updates can save time, as there are generally more non-admins willing to do this task. By protecting it, you are really cutting efficiency and putting a bigger workload on the admins. Besides, the non-admin can't get a hook onto the Main Page without admin intervention. The admin that moves the hooks to the queue has the responsibility of checking the updates, ensuring that the content is suitable. I would agree with Ottava's suggestion that the admin moving to the queues should not have prepared the update (that is just common sense), but splitting the preparing/updating job in two does save time. ∗ \ / (⁂) 07:04, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

You are right about my concern being a lack of scrutiny. With a bot, it would only get worse. Now Backslash, if we want non-admin to prepare hooks (but not necessarily organize them), why not have a "ready" area at the bottom of the template page and simply move them down and have a long list of all of the ready hooks including a diff showing where they are approved? If it is simply one large pool for admin to choose from, I am sure that there can't be any reason to complain. By having a second admin step, that would force two admin to be looking at what is chosen. Admin are ultimately responsible for what goes on the mainpage, and admin are doing most of the work now, so there is no real change. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:43, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Why not? Because it's a stupid idea and doesn't solve any of the things that you think are problems. Finding hooks that are "ready" isn't the hard part for the admins—that's what we have and for—organizing them into well-balanced updates is the hard and time-consuming part. Your "idea" doesn't help with any of that, because it's no different than what we already have (the only difference is that it lumps ticked hooks at the bottom). The easiest thing for you to do now is to stop trying to fix what's not broken; it's pretty obvious by now that no one agrees with you. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 15:03, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

If finding hooks that are ready aren't the hard part, then what is? Your claims contradict each other. Also, my solution is quite different - there will be two layers of admin checking. The first one who organizes the hooks, and the second one who verifies that there are no problems before putting them on the queue. Right now, there are many instances of the same person doing both. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:37, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

"organizing them into well-balanced updates". Wow, for someone so into literature, you sure are not a very good reader, huh?  :) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 18:16, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

@ OR It's not that bad of an idea, my only concern is that we will end up with empty updates if no admins are online. Royalbroil thought that the admins are overworked, but I think it has more to do with the stress of keeping track of the updates. I'd like to know whether any admins think this is a good idea, but I just don't think it is practical at the present time. ∗ \ / (⁂) 20:23, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Just a note

Seeing as how no one really cares in the above if non-admin update, can we at least remove the blatantly silly notice at the Next Update page found here which reads:

"Administrators! Yes, you!"

Unless we agree that it is find for some sort of amusement? Ottava Rima (talk) 04:32, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

This confuses 3 separate issues: 1. "Administrators". Yes, you don't have to be an administrator. 2. The amusing tone. 3. The substance, a warning about image protection. I haven't studied cascading protection, but if we remove the warning, I hope it isn't only because of 1. and 2. Art LaPella (talk) 17:10, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Hook question

Yes, I know that I just pasted this at WP:ERRORS, but I think that this page is watched more, so...

• Maybe "... that the Nassau class were the first class of German battleships built in response to the newly developed dreadnoughts of the British Royal Navy?" would be better and clearer to the general reader? (how many people know what "laid down" is if you aren't a maritime history buff?) ;) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 09:05, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

No longer on the Main Page. Art LaPella (talk) 17:13, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Update

I left a message at WP:AN, but if any admins notice this the update is two hours overdue. I will do the credits. ∗ \ / (⁂) 22:15, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm on it. - Dravecky (talk) 22:17, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Update is complete, archive updated, everything incremented, credits left for \ / to do. (Thanks!) If anybody ever notices that the update is more than about 15-20 minutes late and it looks like I've been editing recently, please drop a note on my talk page. I'll always be happy to perform the update but I'm not always looking at a DYK page when it needs to be done. - Dravecky (talk) 22:23, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Credits done. Danke schön. ∗ \ / (⁂) 22:39, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Missing item?

The article Guy de Beauchamp, 10th Earl of Warwick is mentioned in the credits but not among the updates. What is this? Lampman (talk) 01:51, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

It was apparently accidentally overwritten by a duplicate Will Sessoms hook by the person assembling the queue. I have rescued this "lost" hook and dropped it into the otherwise blank Next Next Update so it may be properly promoted in the near future. - Dravecky (talk) 03:03, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Apologies, I used the original hook instead of the ALT1 and must've lost my place. ∗ \ / (⁂) 23:03, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Sofia Berntson

She just won the international jury vote for the contest today and will go to the final. Could someone please edit the current hook: ... that Swedish singer Sofia Berntson entered Sweden's Melodifestivalen with the Greek song "Alla" and won the international jury vote for her semi-final? and omit "for her semi-final". It is in queue 5 as of now, thanks. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 20:41, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Done. - Dravecky (talk) 21:07, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Five days

This article was accepted and moved to Next Next Update, as predicted by P1. So should we remove the unenforced warning at Template talk:Did you know#Older nominations: "Nominations must be posted no more than five (5) days after the creation or the beginning of the expansion of each DYK candidate article"? Art LaPella (talk) 02:55, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I think it's good to have some sort of warning. Maybe change the wording to "should" instead of "must"? Shubinator (talk) 03:42, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

By changing this text, it implies that we'd still accept nominations after 5 days. We've historically not allowed noms after 5 days, even if there other suggested articles still in the queues. So are we going to allow noms after 5 days? Royalbroil 06:09, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

A few have been slipped in on the day 5/day 6 border without controversy but I feel it's better to make an occasional small exception to a firm rule for a worthy candidate rather than weakening the rule directly. - Dravecky (talk) 06:18, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Dravecky. Besides, the Additional Rules already state that in practice you can submit a hook a little late if the creation date of the article has not yet been eliminated from the Suggestions page. Gatoclass (talk) 06:32, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I know everybody says 5 days, but has 5 days ever been enforced, except against the unlucky few who know the rule? To my knowledge, the de facto rule depends only on when the day-sections get deleted. Art LaPella (talk) 06:42, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

5 days serves as a line in the sand, one day over and no-one really cares. Seven or eight days... pushing it I'd say. We don't want to change it to six or seven else we'll be letting in 8 and 9 day old hooks because they are only a few days late. At least keeping it at 5 keeps it low enough that an extra day doesn't matter. ∗ \ / (⁂) 23:00, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Understood, but once again, has an 8, 9 or whatever-day-old hook ever been refused if it fits on the page? I don't think anyone even notices if a nomination is under the wrong day. If I'm right, the real line in the sand is the end of the suggestions page. Art LaPella (talk) 23:27, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I do! —Mattisse (Talk) 01:24, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) To be honest, I was kind of surprised that my article was added to the queue; soon after I got over my bit of frustration ;), I assumed that dropping the nom might be the default. Besides, I wasn't just one day late; as \ / suggested, 7+ days seems to be pushing it. That is, if we are going to follow this standard. IMHO, I'm not sure why the "5 day" submission rule is being applied. A probable scenario: let's say User1 who submits an article within a couple days of creation. Soon, it becomes "older", and hasn't been verified or reviewed altogether after another whole day (which is possible). At the same time, User2 submits their article, which is about a week old, under the same section heading. A DYK reviewer comes along, and both articles are verified and added to the queue within several hours. At this point, both articles are going on the MP at 8 days.

This is why I think, historically, Art's "unwritten" rule was continually used. And I agree with his last comment. Newness = 5 days is the general guideline; we say it in the DYK rules, and it's what we aim for. But with the current system, there's an inevitable lag which causes a percentage of our articles to be "illegal". I think a better option would be to change the Older Nominations "warning" (which isn't exactly true) to a notification of the rules. Jamie^☆S93 14:31, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

More queue pages?

For the last week or two, the queue, right up to and including the "next next update" page, has been chock full. This is not the first time we've had this phenomenon, and I'm beginning to think maybe we should add a couple of extra queue pages, because I'm getting a little tired of shunting next next updates to next updates, and the more one has to do this sort of thing, the more potential there is for mistakes. Anyone have a view on this? Gatoclass (talk) 06:57, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Created Template:Did you know/Queue/6, Shortcut T:DYK/Q6. The page needs protection, and this page needs updating but I've done the rest. (Perhaps a protection for Template:DYKqueuenav, I should not have been able to edit that). If it is not needed, simply remove from nav box and leave it for a rainy day. ∗ \ / (⁂) 07:34, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I only meant to invite comment at this stage, not to go straight to changing it! Anyhow, I guess it won't hurt to see how an extra queue page works out for a while. Thanks for the heads up on the template, I've protected that now :) Gatoclass (talk) 08:01, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I made it simply because if we decide we need it, great, if not, no harm done and it is there in case it's needed in the future. ;) ∗ \ / (⁂) 08:05, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

T:DYK/Q6 still needs protecting.... ∗ \ / (⁂) 08:38, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Oops, forgot about that. Done. Gatoclass (talk) 08:52, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Quick thought: remember that if the bot is ever put back on-line, it won't take hooks from this new queue without new code. (At least, I think it won't :) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 08:51, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Given the amount of coding needed to put the bot back online, I'm sure having one extra queue to cycle through won't be a mammoth task. (The edit notice was already on the uncreated page, so perhaps Ameliorate thought ahead.) ∗ \ / (⁂) 08:54, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict, reply to ed-17): That was one of the things I was a tad concerned about, but we can always go back to five pages if we have to.

When I suggested more queue pages though, I was thinking more along the lines of maybe eight queue pages in total, because that would be two full days and would give us plenty of leeway. I'm not sure one extra page will make much difference. But I guess we can try it for a while. Gatoclass (talk) 08:58, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Adding an extra queue requires one character to be changed in the code;
if ( $new_count == '6' ) { \ $new_count = '1'; \ }

becomes

if ( $new_count == '7' ) { \ $new_count = '1'; \ } ~ Ameliorate! 09:16, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

An alternative in one line without the if statement: $new_count = ($new_count % 6) + 1 (not sure if the syntax is right, I don't know PHP...% is mod operator) Shubinator (talk) 16:11, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

While we're tweaking the queues, shall we change the updating instructions as suggested above? Shubinator (talk) 16:20, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Drinks all around!

Shubinator has bought you a pint in celebration of having fewer than 100 unverified DYK nominations! Sharing a pint is a great way to bond with other editors after a day of hard work. Spread the WikiLove by buying someone else a pint, whether it be someone with whom you have collaborated or had disagreements. Cheers!

Spread the good cheer and camaraderie by adding {{subst:WikiPint}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

I knew there was a reason I edited — I've finally found it! ;) PeterSymonds (talk) 00:52, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Just remember to edit responsibly, and never drink and verify! (actually, scratch that...I think I always drink while verifying.) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:09, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Messed Up Hook

In quene three, the hook on Loihi is mashed up. It's supposed to be "...although 969 meters (3,180 ft) underwater,..." Not "because." ResMar 14:23, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I've altered the hook, but not quite as you suggested as I don't think that would have made a lot of sense either. Gatoclass (talk) 15:54, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, at least the hook doesn't sound like St. Helens is just 969 meters tall. ResMar 16:07, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

The "969 meters" refers to distance below the sea level, not distance from the seabed (ref). Shubinator (talk) 16:16, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, taking a closer look at this one, the hook is quite problematic, because it appears that Loihi is only "taller than mount st. helens ever was" if measured from one side. From the other side, it's only 931 metres tall, whereas Mt St. Helens was 1,500 metres. So I think this hook needs some work. I am not going to have time to revisit the hook myself tonight though. Gatoclass (talk) 18:25, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I gave the hook another tweak. It now reads "that although the summit of underwater volcano Loihi is 969 metres (3,180 ft) below sea level, it is still twice as tall as Mount St. Helens ever was (when measured from the base of its southern flank)?". Gatoclass (talk) 18:34, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Better? "that although the summit of the underwater volcano Loihi is 969 metres (3,180 ft) below sea level, when measured from the base of its southern flank it is still twice as tall as Mount St. Helens ever was?"

Question: is "flank" the best word there? —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 22:17, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

It's what the reference uses. Gatoclass (talk) 06:59, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

And yes, your hook is better than the one above it, but that's because you changed it. My original suggestion, which was: " "that although the summit of underwater volcano Loihi is 969 metres (3,180 ft) below sea level, it is still twice as tall, measured from the base of its southern flank, as Mount St. Helens ever was?". I don't know why you changed it but you really shouldn't edit other people's posts unless there is a very good reason for it. I'm assuming that was just a mistake on your part. Gatoclass (talk) 07:05, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Twice as tall? St.Helens is 8,365 feet (2,550 m) vs. Loihi's 9,843 feet (3,000 m). Where'd that come from? Oh, and yes, I messed up my numbers. I believe that convention is to measure features at max height, though I'm not certain. I think "flank" is OK. ResMar 23:19, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

According the Mt St. Helens article, the mountain is 1,500 meters tall measured from its base. Are you getting confused with its height above sea level perhaps? Gatoclass (talk) 06:58, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Messed up hook in queue 6

...that although it is considered a gamefish, flat needlefish are seldom eaten because of their green-colored flesh?

• Should it not be its? —Mattisse (Talk) 22:25, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Y Done Good catch pun intended! Royalbroil 03:34, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, if you're going to do that the subject should be either all singular or all plural. Anyhow, it's off the main page now. Gatoclass (talk) 06:56, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Question

I have a question about the Four Quartets page. Each are individually notable and can have their own page. The current page has been problematic for a long time and has had OR claims. I am giving a lecture on the topic and I have a lot of notes that I can use to repair the page and work on the set. The Four Quartets is a publication (book) and a series (grouping) of the four poems. I was thinking of replacing the page itself with the information about the development of the series and the book, and then making new pages that discuss the poems but not in the non-critical way currently.

I wanted to get people's responses on how comfortable they are about this. I would like to put together a five part DYK with a notable aspect of their publication as a set. The OR tag has been there for over a year, and there is little salvageable. I will be working on this tomorrow, and this is mostly in concern about DYK and the page expansion.

On a side note - T. S. Eliot's poetry is copyrighted (he died 1965), so the page does have a major copyright problem. The quotes wouldn't count regardless because they are block, but yeah, I wanted to point that out. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:55, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Ottava, see WT:DYK#Proposal above. Just find a DYK reviewer who is willing to take the time to verify that it is a 5x expansion if you count out the blockquotes and OR, essay-like stuff. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 03:04, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not expanding the page. The page is not salvagable because all of the non-copyrighted text (i.e. the poems) is original research. I just wanted to see people's opinions on what would be necessary for DYK seeing as how the name will stay the same but the topic would change (to be about the publication of the books and the collection as a series, and then four individual pages on the poems but having nothing to do with the original research content on the Fourt Quartets page). Ottava Rima (talk) 03:20, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we can award a DYK for that. It's not as if the existing content is irrelevant to the topic, you just want to handle it a different way. Also, it looks to me as if you will have to do very large expansions for the individual poems, since the existing sections are quite long. Gatoclass (talk) 06:52, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

On second thoughts, having taken a closer look at the article, it contains not a single reference and appears to be 100% OR. I think maybe we could bend the rules a little in such a case and consider the existing content void, since it appears to be nothing more than somebody's personal essay. Gatoclass (talk) 12:09, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

The worse part is this - in order to justify the content, the poetry has to be quoted. To quote the poetry in that amount violates the copyright. Catch 22, no? I would -love- to have full detailed analysis of Eliot's lines, go through it all, break down close reading line by line in my own work and a smaller version on Wiki. I believe the world has to wait until 2035 for that? It is disappointing. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:28, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't automatically assume that quotation at that level for the purpose of comment and analysis is a breach of copyright, especially in the US, which is the crucial jurisdiction for WP. We have "fair use" templates for images, but I don't know how WP copes with the question for text. Johnbod (talk) 17:15, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

They have a history of suing when more than 10% of a poem is used in a single article. Most scholars refer to the line or talk broadly instead of quoting. As I stated, I would -love- to be able to quote that heavily. It is a shame that I probably wont be able to for 25 years (or if I get permission). Ottava Rima (talk) 17:44, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Contribution needed for DYK credit

User:Bongomatic has created a number of very brief stubs that I have expanded into DYK-eligible articles. Bongomatic has raised the issue that he should be given DYK credit as creator of such article based on his contribution, though my understanding of the criteria was that there needed to be more input to the article to be eligible. An excellent example of this is the Robert E. A. Lee article, for which Bongomatic created a 191-character stub with a single source that I expanded into an article with multiple sources and more than 5,000 characters of prose. User:Shubinator added Bongomatic as a creator for this article, as I had not for the Lee article, but I had for Tom Cole (writer), where Bongomatic effectively collaborated on the article's expansion from the start, even though the initial stub included 136 characters, which was expanded to almost 4,000. What is our policy on the amount of prose contributed to an article to be eligible for DYK credit, both in general and in this particular case. Alansohn (talk) 04:10, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

It wouldn't matter at all if people didn't play silly games. --NE2 04:14, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Neither Bongomatic nor I are involved in these games. The issue is how much participation is needed. Alansohn (talk) 14:55, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I looked through the both articles and would say Bongomatic does not deserve to get the credit for DYK on both. We don't define some editors who did minor coyediting as a DYK "content creator/expander" --Caspian blue 04:18, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I am from the school that on articles that I work on everyone who wants credit can take as much credit as they want. Ottava Rima (talk) 04:29, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Credit shouldn't be a big deal. I noticed that Bongomatic had recently created the article so I added his name. To me the question is Would you (Alansohn) have created the article if Bongomatic had not created it? If no, then that user is like a catalyst...may not actually provide much to the result, but helps it along its way, and is necessary to create the end result. Shubinator (talk) 04:50, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

As it turns out, both Bongomatic and I have been using The New York Times obituary listings as a source for potential DYK articles. In my case, I would have created these articles if they hadn't existed. We have even created articles near simultaneously for the same individual. Alansohn (talk) 14:55, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure where I stand on this issue, but I certainly don't agree that "credit shouldn't be a big deal". Handing out DYKs for people who contribute a handful of bytes cheapens the award and is a slap in the face to all those who genuinely work hard to create meaningful content. It also opens the door to gaming the system. I've been aware of this as a potential problem for a long time but I'm not sure what the solution might be. Gatoclass (talk) 08:05, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Slap in the face? Do these people not have any sense of their own worth unless they are counted and ranked? In the best of all possible worlds they'd be rather prouder of the article they worked on than the box telling them they had worked on it. Stop thinking of it as DYK credit and start thinking of it as DYK notification and the whole "problem" goes away. Yomangani^talk 15:04, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

If DYK awards are going to be handed out like confetti what is the point of having them? An award is a recognition for effort, if you take that away you render the whole concept meaningless.

I've now had a little more time to think about this, and I think perhaps the best way to handle it is just to assume that anyone who puts an article into mainspace that has less than 1,500 chars of main text was not seeking a DYK award in the first place and shouldn't get one. When we award article creation we are basically awarding 1,500 chars of new text, so if someone can't be bothered to contribute even that much, they don't get an award. Gatoclass (talk) 15:35, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Can we try a different approach? If someone is seeking an award for something of really low quality and no major effort, then why not just socially stigmatize them? :) Ottava Rima (talk) 16:47, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Why do you think they are awards? Aren't they just to let people know that an article they worked on is on the main page? Who cares whether Editor X got a DYK notification unless you are in a competition where quantity is erroneously thought to be a measure of quality? If there is a feeling of injustice amongst those who rank themselves on the DYK chart, then address it there with the people who care. Yomangani^talk 17:04, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't see it as an award, so that is why we differ. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:11, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Just a sec, people consider that little notification template on their talk pages an award? Awadewit (talk) 17:11, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Many, many do. Many also see the stars and plus signs as awards also. They also *gasp* see adminship as an award. :) I don't mean to tease you about it, but there have been users grumbling about how people use Wikipedia to gain status symbols for years. I hope this rending of the curtain does not shock you. Heh. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 17:14, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

The horror, the horror!. You mean, not everyone contributes to Wikipedia because they want to make information reliable and accessible?! OMFG. :) Awadewit (talk) 17:35, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

:)Ottava Rima (talk) 18:44, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Heh. I work on FPs. I do a lot of heavy restoration work, and am proud of the FPs I get through that. But I also try and promote any particularly good things I see others have done... and automatically get FP "credits" for nominating those as well. Such is life! Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 17:19, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

As far as I know, when it comes to "credits" for featured content and GAs people are pretty much allowed to do whatever they want...ie, if User:Random guy thinks he helped out a lot with getting Totally awesome article promoted to FA status, he's allowed to put a userbox saying so on his profile page, even if other people think all he did was trivial copyediting. He might look like a dick if he starts giving himself "credit" for tons of articles where he didn't really do anything, but that just means User:Random guy is a dick, it doesn't mean the system of credits and userboxes need to be overhauled. If it gets to be disruptive (ie, if the user starts trying to push other users around and saying he has "authority" from having "written" 50000 FAs), then people can give him a stern talking to, on a case-by-case basis.

It seems to me like DYK credits ought to be the same way. They are as important as a user wants them to be. If someone wants to make a big deal about how much he wants to get credits, then it doesn't hurt us to give him the credits (if anything, it makes him look like a loser, for expending so much effort on something that doesn't really mean that much). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:36, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm of two minds on the "credit" issue. If an editor has created a stub and another editor has expanded it on the same day, as often happens on biographies of the recently deceased, I'm amenable to including the original author in the credit list. If, however, a stub from outside the 5-day window is expanded by 5x, only the person doing the expansion should be listed. Personally, I use "credit" and "notification" interchangeably as neither is more exciting than the other to my mind.

I don't consider the individual article notifications to be "awards" (although it was quite a thrill getting that first one) but do consider the 25/50/100 DYK Awards to be awards that must be earned—and that it's both acceptable to recognize positive contributions to the encyclopedia and to enjoy the occasional bit of recognition. (Confession: The hook for WPRN-FM slowly working its way through the backlog will be my 25th for article creation or expansion. I don't count my handful of successful nominations in that total.) - Dravecky (talk) 17:41, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Your understanding of creator/expander credit is correct. I think this is an issue that wasn't a big problem before but has been introduced because of the old nomination template that I made (which has since been superseded by {{NewDYKnom}})—people saw a |creator= field and a |expander= field and naturally thought that they should try to fill in as much information as possible, which sometimes led to us accidentally giving out credit to some rando who wrote a crappy stub in 2006. I tried to alleviate that concern by making the instructions specifically say "please fill in the names of the editors who should receive credit for this DYK," or something like that; I haven't been paying close attention to T:TDYK lately so I don't know if this is still a problem or not. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:45, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

If I'd started a stub (crappy or not) in 2006 and somebody expanded it and it was featured in DYK, I'd be interested to know. I don't want "credit" for it or an award, but I'd like to be notified just so I could take a look. "Awards" are not a problem for DYK, they are a problem for people involved in counting their DYK contributions and worried that somebody will overtake them in the chart without deserving it. If you want to solve that problem then solve it by making some new rules for the chart; most people here don't seem to be bothered. Yomangani^talk 18:08, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Friendly competition can be beneficial, but I think we are losing sight of the friendly. We are all dying on the Everest of poorly written, poorly sourced articles here! We need to help each other out! Awadewit (talk) 18:24, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

In the supposed 2006 article case, why people have to notify you about the DYK? If you're the creator of the article and put it on your watchlist, you automatically get to know that somebody devotes their time to get the article to DYK. By the way, a DYK is not an award, but could be a little badge in recognition for the contributor's hard working.--Caspian blue 18:53, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

They don't have to, but if I was away for a few day I wouldn't see it on my watchlist, so it would be nice to have the notification to let me know. I used to let the original author know if I expanded a stub and it was featured on DYK; where's the downside in that? Awards, badges, credits, rewards are all synonyms; you don't need some automated box placer to tell you that you are a significant contributor to an article, you only need it if your talk page is a proof of merit or you must justify your position in a list. That's fine for people who want to compete, but it isn't a problem for DYK process unless the process is expanded to include that competition. Yomangani^talk 12:48, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps this would be less of an issue if there was no WikiCup giving people "points" for DYK hooks, among other activities. I see a surprising number of DYK participants on the competitor list, including at least one I would have never guessed as even tolerating such a thing. - Dravecky (talk) 19:57, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

The way I see it, if I make a substub, and someone expands it, I shouldn't be getting credit. That's not why I'm making the stubs. Wizardman 20:03, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Let's look at this another way. The DYK page states that "The DYK section gives publicity to newly created or expanded Wikipedia articles, as a way of thanking the editors who create new content and to encourage other editors to contribute to and improve that article and the encyclopedia." When my children were being toilet trained, getting a star on a chart for hitting the target provided some positive reinforcement for working towards (what I deemed as a parent) to be a worthy goal. Getting that notification of a new message about a DYK provides me with a little dose of encouragement to create or expand another article or two. When I create these articles, it always amazes me that a little hole existed in Wikipedia that I helped fill in, building the web of interconnections that makes this encyclopedia so useful. I'm glad that I'm not participating in the WikiCup race and neither is Bongomatic. I fully support giving the DYK credit where credit is due to provide that little star of encouragement, and it should go towards the creation of new and expanded articles. Alansohn (talk) 20:28, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

So do I, but it's a discouragement to other editors who work hard on their DYK submissions to hand out DYK credits for people who wrote a one-line stub. I mean, where does this end? Are we going to start handing out DYK credits to folks who corrected a spelling mistake? We have to draw the line somewhere. When DYK talks about a "new article" it is talking about an article that meets the minimum 1,500 chars of main body text. If someone can't be bothered contributing that much to their own article, I see no reason to hand them the same credit we give to people who are actually making an effort to build an article that meets DYK standards. Gatoclass (talk) 08:15, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Johnbod (talk) 19:43, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Discretionary DYKs

Having thought about this a little longer - what I primarily want to discourage is the notion raised by Bongomatic that users are entitled to a DYK credit just by writing a one-line stub that they are lucky enough to have someone expand within the five-day window. The principle I want to defend is that you are only entitled to a DYK credit if you contribute the minimum 1500 chars of main body text to an article. But in order to save us the task of trying to do a bytecount of individual contributors, I think we could also award DYKs on a discretionary basis, that is, leave it up to the nominators and updaters to decide when a particular user has contributed enough to warrant a discretionary DYK. By taking such an approach, we essentially have to do nothing but continue operating the way we have always done, the only difference being that users have no basis for complaint if they contributed less than 1500 chars of main body text and didn't get a DYK for it. Gatoclass (talk) 08:40, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Agree. If its automatic then it undermines the dyk process. To exaggerate we could link Alex new bot to a new DYK bot that counts 1500 characters and issues templates to every person who touched the article. "Significant contribution" is the key phrase. After that we use judgement. Anyone who really wants 5,000 dyk templates can copy them onto their own user page... personally I value those who contribute .... significantly. Victuallers (talk) 10:27, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Why does it undermine the DYK process? What in the process of showing new and expanded articles on the main page is undermined by somebody being notified? Note in the DYK blurb that the aim is stated as encouraging other editors and that the appearance on the front page is the reward for the contributors, rather than the little template on their talk page. If we expanded the process to encompass encouragement of existing DYK editors, will (in this case) Bongomatic be discouraged from contributing by getting a notification? Will he/she think "I've got a DYK notification for a stub I started, I'd better leave"? It's more likely that he/she might be encouraged to contribute. Meanwhile, Alanohns says "Getting that notification of a new message about a DYK provides me with a little dose of encouragement to create or expand another article or two", not "Seeing somebody else getting a DYK notification discourages me from creating or expanding another article or two". And is nomination a significant contribution? Hardly, but we are quite happy to give out nomination "credits" - perhaps because the "credits" really are just notifications to let people involved know that the article appeared on the main page and to encourage them to participate. Yomangani^talk 12:48, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

You started out by informing us all that you think DYK awards are a joke, and now you're defending Bongomatic's right to share in this meaningless exercise lest he become discouraged? Sorry, but I find your position rather inconsistent. Apart from which, I have to wonder why it is that someone who by his own admission doesn't give a fig about this topic keeps coming back to debate the point. Gatoclass (talk) 13:59, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I started out by suggesting you not think of them as awards but as notifications; I haven't changed my position. If you keep insisting on reading my comments as if I'm referring to awards then I'd imagine my position does seem inconsistent, if not entirely nonsensical (although your response above suggests you didn't read my comment properly even through your award-tinted spectacles). I don't give a fig about getting awards, that's true. That doesn't mean I've got something against people who like awards, but DYK shouldn't be about servicing award hunters, it should be about getting quality articles on the main page. It appears that's the minority view though. Yomangani^talk 14:55, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

If I can raise another scenario based on past experience, is it appropriate to recognize three different editors who added 500 characters each to an article, with no one adding 1,500? A significant number of my new articles are for the recently deceased (yes, call me a hearse chaser), where published obituaries provide an excellent summary of the life of a recently departed individual, for which many editors may work on an article. There have been articles based on topics in the news that have had multiple editors on a DYK. I agree that there is a minimum threshold, but I'm not sure it's 1,500. Alansohn (talk) 19:05, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I thought I'd already covered that in my "discretionary DYKs" post above. Yes, what I proposed is that nominators (and promoters) be permitted to use their discretion when deciding who deserves a credit, so if you think someone who added 500 chars made a substantial contribution, go ahead and nominate him as one as one the contributors. That's pretty much how we've always operated anyhow. My only concern is to emphasize that users who contribute less than 1,500 chars are not entitled to a DYK credit as Bongomatic suggested, but rather that such users can only receive a DYK credit at the discretion of the nominator or promoter of the article, ie the DYK community in general. Hope that helps to clarify things. Gatoclass (talk) 21:52, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I've always felt that DYK credit should be done as a discretionary DYK - if someone significantly contributes to getting it to DYK then they should be credited if it makes sense to the other contributor(s). If they write a substub then they probably shouldn't be credited - although I recently had a case where someone started a small stub and their discussion/input/inspiration to me, the main contributor, to give DYK credit. Royalbroil 02:29, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Sources

I'm trying to understand something - "Try to pick articles that are original to Wikipedia (not 1911 or other data sources)..." - does that mean any article that's on 1911 which WP possibly doesn't have or an exact copy isn't allowed? I'm not thinking of copying anything verbatim... never did that so far even if it's PD... but the above sentence is a bit confusingly ambiguous. Are articles that exist on other Wikipedias just created here allowed for DYK, also? -- Mentisock 18:31, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

I expanded a page that was a 1911 Britannica article that had the 1911 info copied onto Wikipedia. I completely removed the 1911 Britannica info, and also had two other new pages listed on the hook. So, yeah. If that helps any or not, I don't know. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:45, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Technically Menti, there is nothing to stop you creating a new wikipedia article from a cut and paste PD source and submitting it here. The bar might be set a tad higher for such articles though. For example, it should be thoroughly copyedited, fully wikified, no archaic use of language, and preferably from more than one source. And perhaps it should be on a subject of general interest as well. Gatoclass (talk) 19:54, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay so it's for copy-and-pastes, not just because the idea of the article was brought from another encyclopedia, right? So, for instance, are translations from other WPs welcomed?

As a side question as well... is google books perfectly acceptable to be used as the needed reference for the hook? -- Mentifisto 21:11, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Books are acceptable, no matter where you find the content like google (as long as it's a reliable source - not a POV fringe book). Straight copy/paste jobs are acceptable for Wikipedia but not acceptable for DYK, but it would be if you rework the content and properly source it. I would expect any article to use more than one source! Same thing for translations - they would need to be taken from their original sources in the other language. Of course, translating would automatically cause reworking on the content. Royalbroil 02:13, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Don't worry about the rules, just concentrate on creating a good article; if you do that, you'll meet all the rules automatically. Any article that was not on en-wiki before is a new article. Therefore,

• If you translate something from another wiki, it's a new article...but if you just do a word-for-word translation and don't bother to check sources, find your own new sources, rework some of the information, etc., then it will be a crappy article and it won't be accepted for DYK, regardless of the rules. Translation is only the beginning; after that, you have to build the article like you would any other. (For an example of the right way to add a new article that started as a translation, see Suanmeitang and its zh-wiki equivalent; you will see that lots of sources and content were added to the en-wiki one.)
• If you write an article about a topic that was already in 1911 or something, it's a new article...but if you just copy the content and don't bother to add footnotes or integrate further sources, then it will be a crappy article and it won't be accepted for DYK, regardless of the rules. (I don't have any good examples of articles like this, but others feel free to add some.)

All in all, you can just ignore the rules and focus on making quality content. If you're making quality content, the other stuff will automatically fall into place. If you're making junk content, it won't meet the rules (no matter what the written rules are.) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 03:21, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Assuming, of course, that you possess a built-in crap sensor that is compatible with the non-rules listed above! Art LaPella (talk) 03:52, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I do! And if anyone else's built-in crap sensor disagrees with mine, I win!  :) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 03:57, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I should clarify...above, i was mainly just referring to rules about where you get your stuff from and what qualifies as a new article, etc. When it comes to nitpickier things like how long the article needs to be, then of course I think it's good to have the rules (and I'm always one of the first ones kicking up a fuss when someone says we have too many of them). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 13:20, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Assistance needed

I need a hand dealing with Template talk:Did you know#Leptotrombidium. Every time I turn around I see myself getting accused of "bad faith", "dishonesty", and lovely stuff like that, so it would be nice to have an outside party whom the other user there might actually listen to. (You don't need to read the long collapsed discussion, it's just about an issue that has since been resolved; the real issue with the article is lack of inline citations.) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 21:26, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Changing the updating instructions

I've been thinking we should change the updating instructions on the queues so they're current. Right now they're almost wrong. Here's my proposal for what the queues should say:

1. Make sure the image/media for the hooks to be loaded is on English Wikipedia or protected on Commons. If the image/file is on Commons and not protected, upload it to En and tag it with {{c-uploaded}}. You do not need to protect the picture; this is done automatically because of the cascading protection of the Main Page. Alternatively, if you are an admin at Commons you can protect the image/file at Commons instead of uploading to En.
2. Update T:DYK from the current queue.
3. Purge the cache of the Main Page to make sure the new entries appear.
4. Reset the DYK time.
5. Increment the next queue count.
6. Copy the previous set of hooks (not the new set just promoted to the front page) to the archive. Be sure to copy the final revision of the set (should be the last diff on the T:DYK page before your update). Please include the picture/file.
7. Check if the previous picture/file was temporarily uploaded from Commons for display on the Main Page, and delete it from En if so.
8. If you have time, please do the credits for the hooks just promoted (see "Credits" section above).
9. Clear the queue you just promoted hooks from with {{User:DYKadminBot/REMOVE THIS LINE}}.
10. If you have time, check if Next Update or Next Next Update are full. Check the hooks for errors, and promote them to the next empty numbered queue if they're good. Clear the queue you took hooks from to look like this. Tag the numbered queue with {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} once the queue is loaded and ready.

Feel free to tweak the wording. Shubinator (talk) 02:18, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Looks accurate to me. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 02:31, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

There should probably be a note about making sure the image associated with this queue being promoted has been protected or temporarily uploaded and then protected. - Dravecky (talk) 04:43, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I've added steps to check the picture. I noticed recently that images on the Main Page get automatically protected as long as they're on English Wikipedia (see the picture for today's On This Day for an example...the tab says "Edit this page", but if you click on it, you get a View Source instead (admins, log out of course to see what I'm talking about)). I don't think this works if the image is on Commons though, hence the temporary upload (see a Signpost article on the issue). Hmmm...this means that non-admins like me can do the image part...food for thought. Shubinator (talk) 05:06, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Looks good to me. I changed the word picture to image because sometimes we have a drawing or art instead of an actual picture (photograph). You are correct about cascading protection - I've placed an unprotected images dozens of times and have immediately tested to make sure that the image was protected. I'm glad to see that someone made the connection that a non-admin could upload the image from Commons before the article is placed on the main page. Anyone can add the {{c-uploaded}} template as long as the image is not on the main page. I always add it to the description before I upload the image. I think the User:MPUploadBot will download the picture from Commons and upload it on the English Wikipedia if this isn't done. But there might be a lag, which could cause problems. Royalbroil 13:03, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

That's interesting. The bot is inconsistent with the lag. It uploaded the Topoxte picture just 3 minutes after that set was placed on the Main Page, but it uploaded the Walter Johnson picture after that set of hooks had left the main page (it was put on the Main Page here). Shubinator (talk) 17:48, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

A little more info on Main Page image protection at Category:Protected main page images. Any more thoughts/opinions/objections on the instructions? Shubinator (talk) 02:34, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I presume you are changing the sentences just above those instructions: "Note: This is the old manual method. For updates copied to the bot queue, the bot currently automates all of the following except steps 3 and 5." Art LaPella (talk) 03:48, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, we should change that message too but still mention the bot. Maybe something like: "Note: This is the manual method. For updates copied to the bot queue, the bot should automate all of the following except steps 1, 7, and 10." Shubinator (talk) 03:58, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I believe the "bot queue" means the same queue files mentioned in steps 2, 5, 9, and 10, so what does "For updates copied to the bot queue" mean if your botless procedure involves copying to the same queue? Should it say "When using WP:DYKADMINBOT" instead of "For updates copied to the bot queue"? Art LaPella (talk) 21:04, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that's more clear. Shubinator (talk) 21:36, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Are these directions finalized? If so, could someone post them at Template:Did you know/Next update/Clear. Non-admins can do it, Shubinator. Royalbroil 20:17, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and made the changes to the clear template, next update, and next next update. I can't get to the numbered queues though. Shubinator (talk) 20:33, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Crediting

Would someone else do the crediting for this round from queue #4? Royalbroil 01:01, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I'll do it. ∗ \ / (⁂) 01:03, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

 Done ∗ \ / (⁂) 01:06, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Queue getting empty

Anyone feel like throwing together an update or two? We currently only have two in the queue. Gatoclass (talk) 12:26, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I have a question about all these queues. Back when I was last on DYK, there was not a complex queue system as there is now. I am wondering what is the point of the queues? Are they in a particular order? Are the hooks group together in a queue going to appear on the main page in that order? Who can put hooks into queues? How does all that work? If there is an error in the wording of a hook in a queue, an admin must be notified to change it? Just curious. —Mattisse (Talk) 19:39, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

The queues are part of the system for the bot that updates T:DYK automatically; the bot just isn't running for now. Even without the bot running, though, it's nice to have the queues as it allows us to have up to 7 updates (including Next and Next next) sitting by on standby, rather than having to frantically put one together every couple hours.

As for ordering....the queues generally get taken 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.... etc. (after you take 5, you go back to 1). Sometimes one gets taken out of order because of a problem in one of the queues, but that is an exception to the norm. And the hooks appear on the main page exactly as they appear in the queue; the queue is pretty much copy-pasted into T:DYK.

As for updating....queues are edit-protected, so only admins can edit them. The general workflow is, a peon like me or you (or anyone, really), takes 7 or 8 verified hooks off the suggestions page and assembles them into an update at Template:Did you know/Next update or Template:Did you know/Next next update. Then an admin will come along at some point and empty Next and copy that set of hooks into an empty queue. Then, when it's that queue's turn to go to the main page, an admin will empty that queue and copy the hooks into T:DYK. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 19:43, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Yup, it's pretty much as Rjanag put it. We recently added queue 6 though, so now it goes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.... etc. There are tips on assembling next update here, and some older instructions from before the numbered queues here. Shubinator (talk) 19:48, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Our best permanent document on this subject is WP:DYKADMINBOT. Art LaPella (talk) 19:58, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

OK. Thanks for the explanations. Is there a secret queue somewhere. Every so often a list of hooks appears on the main page that does not appear to come from the queues. I think that happened earlier today. Is that possible? —Mattisse (Talk) 20:03, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

That shouldn't happen. All of the queues are listed at T:DYK/Q. The one exception I can think of is on April Fool's the hooks will be coming from the April Fool's nominations page. Occasionally images get switched around; I know this happened with the equitable coloring update about 24 hours ago. Shubinator (talk) 20:22, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate all the answers, that you have taken the time to give. And since I am commenting, I hand it to Art LaPella who was running DYK in 2006 when I first arrived, and who has adapted and adjusted and managed to keep the DYK place a relatively stress free area over the passage of time. Even though his unwritten rules are now written, and threaten to multiple, good job, Art LaPella, and the rest of you also. You seem to all work very well together and I credit that to your individual abilities to get along. —Mattisse (Talk) 21:27, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I was never "running DYK" if you meant as leader, although you could call me the Chief Nitpicker. Art LaPella (talk) 05:20, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I know you don't consider yourself the "leader", but you have been there since I can remember, the steady hand, and I believe its part of your gift that you are not formally the "leader". —Mattisse (Talk) 22:26, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

For that update in question, I changed the image from one in the top article to one in the second article. The other image was blurry at any size, so I switched to an image that I found in another hook. It was an interesting but unusual image - and it's rare to find a good math image. Royalbroil 03:52, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Additional rule about how hooks should make sense

I'm wondering if we should update the "additional rules" with something specifying that the hook should "make sense" to, and be accessible to, lay readers, who don't necessarily know as much as you do about the subject; this issue has come up a few times lately in biology- and math-related hooks, although it could feasibly come up with about any topic. For example, here is a hook that meant absolutely nothing to me because it provides no context:

• ... that any 3D convex body may be covered by smaller copies, the number of which equals the number of lights needed to illuminate the body, but it is unknown whether this number ever exceeds eight? [1]

And here is one that meant nothing to me because it used scientific jargon:

• ... that mites of the genus Leptotrombidium are carriers of Orientia tsutsugamushi, the causitive pathogen for scrub typhus, and are vectors for the disease's transmission to humans? [2]

If we were to update the additional rules, this issue could become a new rule C7 under Other additional rules for the hook, or it could be an expansion of the existing rule C2 ("Don't falsely assume that everyone worldwide knows what country or sport you're talking about."). If we update DYKAR, we should probably also update Art's guide; the relevant page is Wikipedia:Did you know/Hook. Also, the relevant section of the official rules would be Wikipedia:Did you know#The hook, but we should probably avoid making any controversial changes to the official rules at this point. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:46, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia already has WP:Explain jargon and WP:Make technical articles accessible, so the more obvious home would be WP:DYKAR#Rules listed elsewhere but often overlooked and its Doppelganger Wikipedia:Did you know/Lore#Overlooked rules. Anyway, when someone complains about an obscure hook, the answer isn't "No, let's make this as obscure as possible" (although in other circumstances that same thought is promoted as being "encyclopedic"). The answer is that an encyclopedia is expected to explain obscure topics, and clarity and depth are both uncontroversial platitudes, so I'm not sure we should have a rule on one that doesn't mention the other. I'm not sure how the first example could be stated more clearly without dropping it altogether. The second one could be *... that mites of the genus Leptotrombidium carry Orientia tsutsugamushi, which causes scrub typhus, and spread the disease to humans? Art LaPella (talk) 19:30, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't really have a problem with the above hooks, and I don't have any qualifications in the relevant fields. The object of Wikipedia is to increase knowledge, so to me being unfamiliar with the terms used by a hook is just an incentive to read the links and find out!

However, there is the issue of how technical an article can be before it can be disqualified, that's something I'm afraid I haven't given much thought to, but in the past we have pretty much run any article no matter how technical or obscure it might be. Gatoclass (talk) 09:17, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Unanswered

Can I ask what happens when candidates go unanswered? I see there are currently a lot that are in that position right now especially from a few days ago. Do they by default pass to the queue eventually or discarded? -- Mentifisto 03:15, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Nothing happens automatically; no nom can ever get promoted or discarded without being reviewed. So even if something is past the "five day" mark, that doesn't mean it will be discarded or anything; it just means no one has had a chance to review it yet. Sometimes we just have a bit of a backlog like this. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 03:56, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

So articles could easily be weeks old when they appear on the main page? -- Mentifisto 04:41, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

No. At present, the last section at Template talk:Did you know is Template talk:Did you know#Articles created/expanded on March 4 (not counting the holiday sections). That's 11 days old, not "weeks", and even 11 days old is older than usual. Any hooks written before March 4 have either been moved to Template:Did you know/Next update, or deleted after unsatisfied objections. Art LaPella (talk) 05:37, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Like Art said... when you look at the suggestions page, there are always a few sections that are a week old or so (now, they're even pushing 10 days old), but usually they only have a couple nominations left in them, and those are often the ones that have been problematic and had lots of discussion around them; most DYK updates come from newer noms than that. The other thing that can cause a nomination to sit around for a long time before being reviewed is if it's really boring; we reviewers are just as human as our readers and are doing this in our spare time, so we first go for whatever piques our attention. In that respect, you should try to write interesting hooks, not just to get readers' attention when the hook goes to the main page, but to get reviewers' attention here. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 13:32, 15 March 2009 (UTC)