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Hook in Q3

A hook in Q3 caught my eye on two points. It reads "...that Indian badminton player P. V. Sindhu reported on time at the coaching camps despite traveling 56 kilometres (35 mi) on a daily basis?" 1) "the coaching camps" seems vague, and 2) is a 56-km (35 mi) commute interesting? Perhaps he walked it or jumped it on a pogo stick, but if this is the case, it needs to be explicitly stated. Cheers. Haus^Talk 00:40, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

It's the sort of hook I'd like to see phased out. There's nothing wrong with the article (that I can see), but the hook might as well be "...that P. V. Sindhu is a promising young Indian badminton player." I sort of leaves me thinking "so what?" (although all credit to the 15-year old girl in question). Physchim62 (talk) 00:59, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

That is pretty mundane. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:01, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Is there a way to eliminate these "pretty mundane" hooks from DYK? I think this would be a start to addressing the concerns raised in the last couple of days, and it would certainly be a start to addressing my well-known concerns about the section. I accept that it has to be done progressively, starting from where DYK is now (not some imaginary perfect DYK), and that not everyone is going to agree about what is "mundane" and what is not. Physchim62 (talk) 01:33, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't have a problem with something along the lines of "...that Indian badminton player P. V. Sindhu began training at age eight?" Haus^Talk 01:45, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Mundane too, not uncommon at all with all the youth leagues around. And I agree we need to tighten up the "boring factor" and the article quality standards, though we don't need to go to the mini-GA level. — Rlevse • Talk • 12:30, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Removing article info clash with hook

This claim – "... that the Philadelphia Phillies all-time roster has included Allens, Bateses, Covingtons, Delahantys, Ennises, Fultzes, Greens, Hamiltons, Jacksons, Kennedys, Lees, Morgans, Nicholsons, Powells, Robertses, Schmidts, Thompsons, Vukoviches, Watts, and Youngs, but never a player whose surname begins with X?" – is obviously WP:OR synthesis, as the fact can be gathered from the source although it is not specifically mentioned as a fact in the source. If I were to remove the para containing this synthesis from the article while the DYK is on the main page then the DYK fact would not be supported by the article. How to proceed? Ericoides (talk) 07:31, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

I recall commenting on this "so what?...X is not a common last name letter at all." I'll find it and remove it from the queue. — Rlevse • Talk • 12:31, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually I can't find it, was it already on the main page? If so, just rm the material, if not, where is it now? — Rlevse • Talk • 12:33, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

A quick check of Wikipedia:Recent additions shows that hook was in the update that rotated off at 12:00, 30 October 2010 (UTC). --Allen3 ^talk 12:41, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Then just go repair the article. — Rlevse • Talk • 12:47, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

My point has been missed; it was, is it OK to alter the article while the hook is up, such that the article and the hook no longer correspond? (Now the hook is down the article can be altered with a clear conscience.) Ericoides (talk) 12:51, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Other than the limitations imposed by Wikipedia:Speedy keep on WP:AFD nominations of articles link to from the Main page, the same rules apply to current DYK articles as to any other article on Wikipedia. Thus, yes it is permitted and would not be the first time it occurred. --Allen3 ^talk 13:20, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

As a general rule, any article linked from the Main Page should be editable by anyone. That's not an absolute rule: occasionally we link to semi-protected and even full-protected articles, but I think the consensus is that that should be exceptional (especially in the latter case). So yes, your good-faith edits to an article linked from the Main Page are something that the project welcomes and encourages. If your edits lead you to remove the basis for a DYK hook, I would think that's a problem with quality control at DYK rather than a problem with the editor. Physchim62 (talk) 18:41, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Formatting screwed for Oct 27 noms

The entries at October 27, starting at PC Ramakrishna and below, no longer correspond to their edit section buttons. I am afraid that I would cause more problems with page by monkeying with it myself. Could someone with more experience with the Suggestions page maybe try to fix? Thanks, The Interior(Talk) 19:39, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Try refreshing the page and if necessary Wikipedia:Bypass your cache. The usual cause of what you describe is someone adding or removing an item above the section where you are working. The edit tab passes a numeric parameter telling the Wikipedia servers based upon section locations at the time your browser loaded the page. An added or removed section changes the needed values but your browser will not know this until it obtains a new copy of the page. Reloading the page allows the browser to obtain the updated information. --Allen3 ^talk 19:59, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Allen3. Will remember this for the future. The Interior(Talk) 20:02, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

The large page can take a while to reload, so what I usually do instead is use the edit link for a nearby section, determined by the relative position of the section I was "erroneously" taken to. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 20:20, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

I do the same, there's no point in waiting 20 seconds for the whole thing to reload if you can just figure it out where it is :-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 20:28, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I ended up doing. I also am of the impatient sort. Thanks for the feedback. The Interior(Talk) 20:34, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining how this happens - I've been wondering how I seemed to keep pressing the wrong 'edit' link, I was thinking I was losing my mind! Good to know it's a software thing, which is easily addressed. EdChem (talk) 02:49, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Somebody REALLY screwed up with an alt hook

I'm referring to Acheron class torpedo boat, where there was a virtually incomprehensible originally-suggested hook, and a much better (and rather intriguing) Alt1 hook. The Alt1 hook was the one that was stated as being approved. But somehow, the original, steaming-pile-of-crap hook was put into the queue and ran on the Main Page. We need to start striking out non-approved hooks when an Alt is selected (or Alts if the original is preferred) so that this doesn't happen - and yes, I need to do that too, as I was the editor who approved the Alt1 for this article in the first place. - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 21:10, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

What I sometimes do is I put next to the failed hook and next to the approved alt. Strange Passerby (talk • contribs) 22:20, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Good ideas, not the first time this has happened. — Rlevse • Talk • 22:25, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

DYK raised at AN/I again (or rather, the thread just hasn't died yet)

I know many people here have already looked and given up, but just a brief note that the long rambling thread about DYK at AN/I now has a new section [1] suggesting the removal of DYK and characterising its output as "lots of new content of shit quality that is mostly plagiarized" amongst other things.

Calmness and a recognition that there are issues that need addressing, might be advisable :)

--Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:24, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm just sick of all the people who think they know what's best when I don't see them doing any DYK reviewing themselves. I think roundly ignoring the thread (whilst not ignoring the problems) is best. StrPby (talk) 00:26, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I know you guys have a lot on your plate, and I readily admit I don't work in this area, however if you don't do speedy deletions that doesn't mean you aren't qualified to comment when you see someone screwing one up. I certainly don't favor scrapping DYK, but what about lowering the number of articles per day and tightening the requirements a bit? This may discourage the more marginal candidates and will make it easier for reviewers to separate the wheat from the chaff more thoroughly. Again, I am not really an expert in this area but maybe some of the regulars have suggestions as to how the qualifications might be made slightly more stringent. DYK is a great motivator and a great way of showcasing the project's newest content, but we need to make sure it is showing off our newest good content. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:41, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Agreed on ignoring the AN/I thread (or at least not getting baited into arguing on it), and on the need for "calmness and a recognition that there are issues that need addressing." I'm not sure where the idea that all the notable subjects have been covered is coming from. Never mind WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles, is the thinking that there aren't going to be any new or newly-notable things or people in the future? Odd. 28bytes (talk) 00:45, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I just told the jaw flapping malcontent exactly what I think. Now I'm ignoring them. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:50, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

i (newspaper)-Very bad call

I'd like to know who approved this one. The article is made up almost entirely of quotes from persons whose job it is to promote this paper. It's a terrible article that borders on being speedy delete-able as blatant spam and should never have been allowed to be featured on the main page in it's current state. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:48, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

• The "dyk" part is funny, it basically boils down to "did you know that this publication uses a format of summary followed by expansion on its inside pages that has been commonly used by print publications since the early 20th century?" At any rate, as some here may know, i've been criticizing DYK a little lately. Here's a simple idea for reform. Change the "dyk" template slapped onto talk pages to include text like "reviewed by____" which would lead to more transparency and accountability.Bali ultimate (talk) 17:54, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
  • The article has now been edited to remove all the spam quotes. The article's creator did this themselves and acknowledged the problems. If he can see and I can see it why couldn't the user reviewing the submission see it? It is also now about 300 characters too short to be a DYK. Is there any way to remove it? I'm frankly embarrassed that this is linked on the main page. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:37, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
    • Looks like DYK just rolled over so at least it is no longer linked to the main page. I would still like to know how this got through the DYK process without anyone noticing the obvious flaws. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:40, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
      • Hook was approved by Yoninah and moved to prep by Rlevse here [2] --Demiurge1000 (talk) 01:57, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
        • Same editor who added non-reliable sources to Black Eyed Kids, which as far as I can tell from Google, does not meet notability (and is still in the queue). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:47, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
          • With the small size of the article and prevalent use of quotes, the nominator should have been asked to expand it as well. Quotes shouldn't, but are sometimes used to put an article barely above 1500. I won't knock Yoninah (not saying anyone is), the reviewer works hard and often takes the extra and unnecessary step of improving an article instead of asking the nominator too.--NortyNort (Holla) 06:26, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
            • I apologize for not telling the nominator of i (newspaper) about the above problems. I, too, noticed that an oft-quoted citation was self-advertising. But it was late at night and I was trying to work my way through many hooks that no one else seemed to be looking at (there were almost no verifications in the older nominations section on the queue statistics chart), and I didn't pay close attention to that point. Now I have added it to my mental list of "things to do when checking nominations".

              Regarding Black Eyed Kids, I did try to beef it up since it lacked secondary sources. In researching it on Google, I noticed that the topic wasn't receiving coverage in the mainstream press, but I found some sources that had been accepted in other "supernatural" topics that I've reviewed for DYK, so I used those. If it were up to me, I'd send the whole article to AfD, but I didn't think that was the role of a DYK reviewer.

              Regarding taking "extra and unnecessary steps", I find that it often takes too long for a nominator to respond to my query — after all, I'm working on nominations that are 7-9 days old, and non-regular nominators can reply 2 or more days later. And once s/he does respond, the page still remains in less-than-perfect shape. The editor in me just goes ahead and edits it before approving it. Even after several months here, I still haven't figured out all the dance steps around here. Yoninah (talk) 18:18, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

              • Here's something to learn, then. It's a lesson that everyone who thinks that they are "reviewers" (and I'm not talking about just DYK, or even just Wikipedia, here) have to learn. You're not. You're not a passive observer with a checklist on a clipboard. If you really think that something should be sent to AFD and not passed through DYK, then send it to AFD and reject it from DYK. After all, the reverse is done at AFD, where we sometimes (but not often) decide that not only is an article keepable, but it is worth a DYK nomination.

                All too often "reviewers" of various stripes see themselves as impotent, uninvolved, or steamrollered by the process. Before now, I've seen "reviewers" decide that in order to preserve some loopy idea of impartiality, they would write a whole sentence on a review page, complete with ticks and crosses and rules numbers, rather than correct a two letter spelling error. It's good that you don't do that, and are prepared to roll up your sleeves and muck in. But don't see yourself so constrained by a rôle as "reviewer of last resort" that you feel unable to chuck things out of the process. Indeed, if more things in DYK failed because of inattention when fairly basic problems (like no good sources seem to exist for the subject) are pointed out, people would start paying more attention to the basics.

                You do have my sympathies to an extent. Learning from existing practice, rather than from the ideals being aspired to, does tend to cause an accumulation of bad practice as the years go by. And the whole DYK process is in some ways driven from the wrong end, with everyone worrying that they won't have enough items to fill a timeslot that's only a few hours long and so rushing things through, rather than the timeslots being driven by how much DYK material actually makes it through. Really, it shouldn't be like one of those television game shows where the contestants have to do things at the end of a conveyor belt that is deliberately run too fast for them to manage. Uncle G (talk) 08:48, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Nomination of Black Eyed Kids for deletion

A discussion has begun about whether the article Black Eyed Kids, which you created or to which you contributed, should be deleted. While contributions are welcome, an article may be deleted if it is inconsistent with Wikipedia policies and guidelines for inclusion, explained in the deletion policy.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Black Eyed Kids (3rd nomination) until a consensus is reached, and you are welcome to contribute to the discussion.

You may edit the article during the discussion, including to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:55, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

You know, you could've nominated this for deletion before it hit the Main Page, but only chose to do so after. Why? That's a bit WP:POINTy. It would have been pulled from the queue had you done so, too. StrPby (talk) 08:49, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

You know, I didn't think you all were going to run it after I let you know of the problems. Please read the page: I DID let you know. No one pulled it, and it was run with maintenance tags in place. I was going to hold off until it was off the main page, but it was already AFD'd once before, and this is getting ridiculous. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:51, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Having read the nomination which takes a gratuitous swipe at the DYK project (last time I checked, not a basis for deletion at AfD), and noting the timing of the AfD nomination when the article is on the main page, I consider "a bit WP:POINTy" to be a bit understated. Sandy, I read the article and noted that it was a Halloween hook (and clearly worded as such), and thought it was tolerable for that reason. The way you are presenting these issues makes me inclined to disregard your opinions as anti-DYK rants rather than constructive criticisms worth investigating. Try to tone things down a bit, ok? I think the Black Eyed Kids article has serious issues, so you do have a case, but it is being lost in the way you are carrying on. EdChem (talk) 09:16, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Knock off the sanctimony. Pointy my arse-- we talked about it more than a day ago, and you all said you would deal with it. You can disregard me all you want; that won't clean up the problem, and the attitude a few of you (not all of you) have shown is what is shedding more heat than light. You're welcome for the help. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:19, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I give up. I think you should stop characterising this as "help". It's disruptive editing, not anything else. StrPby (talk) 09:22, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

And I have to agree with you, Ed and Strange. I was willing to AGF before, but after awhile even my good-natured, see-the-best-side nature has to draw a line. - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 00:29, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Brown Lady of Raynham Hall

Blatant plagiarism, tagged, on the main page now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:51, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

• From the same editor's last DYK: [3] You all do know here that answers.com is a Wiki mirror, right ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:03, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Sandy, the article is still over 1500 characters. The hook is still reliably referenced. There are still references throughout the article. The fact that there is a bad reference that don't change any of these things is not a reason for disqualification at DYK. EdChem (talk) 09:20, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
    • You're not getting it. Wiki is not all about hooks; we have this little policy called WP:V. Point being, I didn't check the rest of his articles for plagiarism, but it's probably there, too, considering how extensive it was on the first article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:22, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
      • You're not getting it. An article appearing in DYK is not being endorsed as free from errors or of mini-GA or FA standard. Expecting a reviewer to check every reference for possible plagiarism is unrealistic, especially if there are a lot of references (have a look at actinides). You are criticising individual references that do not disqualify an article from a DYK appearance under any DYK rule, and seeking to apply a ridiculous standard to DYK reviewers. Picking up plagiarism in the hook reference is a reasonable expectation. Picking up plagiarism where it is obvious (changes in language style, etc) is a reasonable expectation. Picking up every single case of plagiarism is unrealistic. Do you want to have a discussion of what is possible and what reasonable reviewing standards might be, or would you rather sit on the sideline and throw mud? EdChem (talk) 09:37, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Tut! Tut! That's more shoot-DYK-first-ask-questions-afterwards, I'm afraid. This, which you didn't read properly, is not a Wikipedia mirror. It contains a bibliographic citation at the bottom of the page telling the world what it is a mirror of, as well as another clue to the same in the middle of the page. I've corrected the citation to point to the original for you. Uncle G (talk) 09:54, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
• And before that: [4] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:07, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Again, what is disqualifying from a DYK view here? Yes, it would have been good if the reviewer said something about this, but all referencing perfect is not a requirement or a reasonable expectation for DYK articles. EdChem (talk) 09:37, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

We've long had a policy here that IMDB is not a reliable source. I guess some of our newer reviewers are not aware of that. Articles which are substantially sourced to IMDB or other wiki-like websites should not be getting promoted. We need to identify who has been verifying/promoting these articles and ensure they are aware of this. Gatoclass (talk) 04:04, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Deep breath time: a plea

Okay, everyone, deep breath time. On both sides. Here's what I figure:

• Credible problems have been found on DYK approved articles regarding WP:V and copyvio/close paraphrasing/plagiarism
• At the current time, every time a new set goes on the Main Page, we just get inundated with new sections regarding the new set of articles
• This is unhelpful when we've already identified the problem and are still discussing how to best deal with it (#Proposal for trial). There needs to be a buffer or this mess will not sort itself out.
• With every new complaint on every new set the same issues are getting rehashed every six hours. It's going to be non-stop.
• Words and accusations have been exchanged here and at ANI by both sides, which has gone as far as to lead to a warning for NPA against an arbitrator. This is not the right atmosphere to continue.

Therefore I ask that SandyGeorgia refrain from any further interaction regarding tagging problem articles on the Main Page until after they've been taken off and that she stop bringing the issues here or DYK - just do the tagging and notification which is needed, no need to generate more heat.

And I ask those of us DYK regulars take all that has been pointed out by Sandy and others at ANI and here - constructively or not, POINT-ily or not, civilly or not - in stride and figure out where to go from here.

Sandy, as I said at ANI - (at least for now) ignore DYK and let us sort our mess out. You've identified a problem but are giving us absolutely zero time to do anything about it by just heaping fuel onto the fire every time a new set goes on the Main Page.

Please, people, we can reach a conclusion here but neither side is doing anything which will let us get there. StrPby (talk) 09:43, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Loss

Can I point out that if evertime we have an error we stop only to try and identify who did it then statistically it will always be the same people on average. Those who do most. There is a lot of hindsight now available, can some of it be reapplied to how we ensure that a system allows people to operate so safely so that when a mistake is made we don't have to sacrifice a good editor. If we use the analogy of surgery then our system needs to ensure that we do keep some surgeons who do operate (without hindsight) - an imperfect editor Victuallers (talk) 21:00, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. -- Cirt (talk) 00:36, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Agree absolutely. None of the Main Page sections are perfect, not because they are "staffed" by volunteers but because they are staffed by humans. Nothing useful at all will come of attempts to pretend that WP editors could ever be perfect, whether they contribute at DYK, FAC or elsewhere. Physchim62 (talk) 00:46, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Agree that humans make mistakes. Strongly agree that not every mistake is cause for recriminations. However, disagree that "statistically it will always be the same people on average" because this presumes everyone is equally likely to make a mistake. In fact, the inexperienced and incompetent (not the same thing) are much more likely to make mistakes. AGFing, the advantage of identifying mistakes is that they provide opportunities for us to help the editor involved to learn and grow as a competent and valued contributor. Sometimes there is nothing to learn from a mistake, sometimes a lot can be done to avoid the mistake being repeated. Making mistakes is human, no doubt, but making the same mistake repeatedly is something we should be helping editors to avoid. I totally agree that expecting perfection is unrealistic and foolish, but that doesn't mean that striving towards perfection is a desirable "gold standard". EdChem (talk) 05:28, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Seven Gates of Hell

On the main page now, source that is closely paraphrased is not even a reliable source (uses Wikipedia as a reference), and there is probably more close paraphrasing, but the first source is not available on line. That's three of the current DYKs on the main page now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:56, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

The allegation of close paraphrasing from the article talk page is:

• "Others say that, completely unrelated to the asylum story, an eccentric physician who lived on the property built several gates along a path deep into the forest."

vs.

• "... to an eccentric local doctor who erected a large gate at the entrance to his property, and rumors sprang up that there was a series of gates beyond that one along a road leading deep into the woods"

Now, "others say" begs a "who?", but this does not strike me as a copy vio or even as close paraphrasing that violates plagiarism rules. What do others think?

Aside: I am not surprised that Coren's bot did not flag this. EdChem (talk) 12:36, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Also, the source does not use WP as a source, it notes the source and comments the story is also found on-wiki. NOT the same thing. EdChem (talk) 12:41, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I agree the source is unreliable, because it's not clear how much of the information in it is sourced to the wiki article and how much is not. I think the "close paraphrasing" charge is a bit of a stretch. Yes, a couple of phrases in one sentence bear a resemblance to one another, but that's not much of a reason to start slapping tags on the article. Gatoclass (talk) 04:20, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

My point remains that some of the criticisms contain rather too much heat, and insufficient light. EdChem (talk) 05:29, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the above example is not an example of close paraphrasing. Since this appears to be a general sentiment, I have removed the template from the article. Hans Adler 06:41, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

FYI the source is reliable, as it only mentions that there is a wikipedia article on the matter. Since the source was already there before I wrote the article, it references the deleted article on the matter, Seven gates of hell. The source is a township website, and I believe it is a fair assumption to say that they heard of the legend and did some fact checking themselves. ~EDDY ^{(talk/contribs/editor review)}~ 19:43, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Loss of Rlevse

As many of you would be aware, Rlevse retired from Wikipedia today. A post from arbitrator SirFozzie at user talk:Rlevse confirms that Rlevse has turned in his advanced permissions and scrambled his password. His departure is a great loss for the DYK project as he devoted considerable time and effort here. He was very active in preparing new sets of updates, in organising the queue, in reviewing, and also as a content contributor. I have no doubt that he will be sorely missed.

Being pragmatic, we are going to need administrators to fill the roles that Rlevse's departure leaves open in queue management and preparing updates. Already we have two empty queue slots. I fear that we are about to discover just how much work Rlevse was doing here. EdChem (talk) 19:29, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

No offense to Rlevse, but the DYK project did work for years before he got involved. It is a shame that he's retired, but I'm sure it will continue to work; DYK tends to cycle through active users and administrators anyway. Perhaps I shouldn't be the one saying that (since I'm not going to be the one stepping in to do the work right now). Like you said, what happened is a shame, but I don't think any special effort needs to be made to find some kind of replacement. rʨanaɢ (talk) 19:34, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Well I'm happy to help with some of the easy stuff that requires an admin. Just let me know how I can help or ping my talk page when something needs doing. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:41, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I think you missed the point. Will someone step in to take up the slack? Probably, but partly because of specific requests such as the one above. It doesn't happen by magic, it happens because dedicated editors step up when asked.--SPhilbrickT 20:34, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Meh. He's done it before [5]. Odds are, he'll be back shortly. Not that that will fix any of the structural issues here (some reviewers who don't know what they're doing, a throughput rate that's it least twice as fast as it should be and probably far more than that, a tolerance of apple-polishing, etc...) What's needed is structural reform.Bali ultimate (talk) 21:10, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, that's a shock. One minute he's the most prolific contributor here, and next minute he's retired? That's about the last thing I would have predicted. Maybe he just suddenly got burnt out - he was certainly working hard enough for it.

In any case, as rjanag said, people come and go from this project all the time, Rlevse lasted longer than most, and kept DYK running with a great degree of efficiency, but the project got along before he started contributing here and it will continue to muddle along without him. Gatoclass (talk) 03:46, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Part of my point was to recognise Rlevse, who contributed a lot to DYK. The other part was in the hope more admins could join in the admin maintenance tasks. At this moment there are two empty queue slots, and when they are filled all four prep areas will be empty. The number of reviewed hooks available is also not that large. I am fairly new to DYK and don't consider myself experienced enough yet to try prep area work, but I have done a couple of reviews in the last couple of days. I don't think we realised as a project just how much Rlevse was doing, and we need qualified editors to contribute some more time if they are willing, or we are going to fall far behind. EdChem (talk) 12:51, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure many people would be willing to step up and help, but there's only so much work that non-admins can do in this area. Admins really need to step up to help with this project, or else it'll be hurt further. Paralympiakos (talk) 13:00, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Non-admins can help

Non-admins are helpful and always appreciated to do some DYK hook reviewing, and filling the prep pages. :) -- Cirt (talk) 19:44, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

One thing we can't do is to protect images though, so if non-admins fill a prep area we would need to be careful to make sure the image gets dealt with by an admin. SmartSE (talk) 15:37, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Admins should be checking image protection when they load up the queue, so non-admins, don't worry about that. Shubinator (talk) 03:58, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Hook move

I saw that a time-sensitive hook was in the wrong place, and I swapped it, but I accidentally swapped it to the wrong place. As I was correcting my error, the Prep was moved to Queue. Would someone please swap the hook for American Samoa constitutional referendum, 2010, which is currently in Queue 1? I'm pretty sure it should appear on November 2 at 6 pm UTC, which would be Prep 2. (Note that the Prep order has changed. Prep 2, where the hook was before my move, was originally scheduled for Nov. 3, 6 am, but it's now Nov. 2, 6 pm.) But maybe we should check with Strange Passerby to confirm that this is correct. I sincerely apologize for my mistake. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 19:58, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, could I get it back in Prep 2 please? I've noticed the calendar on the queue page only updates once a prep or queue has been cleared, and thus if a set is in both a queue and a set the time displays wrongly. StrPby (talk) 22:49, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Doing. Courcelles 22:51, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Swapped around. Check my work, please. Courcelles 22:54, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Tidied up. Shubinator (talk) 22:57, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Shoot, I do that one time in three (Copy, not cut, the credit templates.) Courcelles 23:00, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, and again I apologize for the inconvenience. And thanks, Strange Passerby, for the info about the calendar. I had no idea that it sometimes displayed incorrect update times. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 23:12, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

And thanks to Shubinator for fixing {{Did you know/Queue/LocalUpdateTimes}} so that it no longer shows Prep update times when they're incorrect. That should prevent incidents such as this from happening again. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 06:20, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Any idea why the current Tokyo time for queue 5 is displaying as "3 November 09:00 AM 4"? It's the "4" I am confused about. EdChem (talk) 12:44, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks. Shubinator (talk) 04:21, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Request for admin/experienced user check

Hi, I thought I'd step up to help with the prep areas. As prep area 3 was left part-empty for several hours, I've filled it. Could someone please check to see that I've done it all correctly. Thanks. Paralympiakos (talk) 00:13, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Passing by - not experienced - I noticed that prep 3 is interesting reading. Minor: in "... that the largest ethnic group in Makambako, Tanzania is the Kinga?" I would add a comma after Tanzania. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 00:19, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps, yes. I copied and pasted the hooks after they had been given the DYKtick. Paralympiakos (talk) 00:21, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

It all looks correct to me. rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:21, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Proposal for trial

Taking into account everything that's been said in the past two to three days here and at ANI, I think we should probably put some checks in place. Regarding BLPs and plagiarism, I propose that each nominated hook require two reviewers to approve before making it into a prep area. Furthermore, in light of what has been said about "boring hooks", maybe if two-three reviewers agree that a hook is "boring" or "dull", a new hook is to be found. We could, like the reverse timing trial, run this for a week. StrPby (talk) 00:34, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Talk about slowing things down to the point of constipation. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:43, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't like it myself but we have to start somewhere if we want the complaints to stop. StrPby (talk) 00:44, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

We simply don't have the manpower for 2 reviewer approvals on each hook. But if we get 2 people to agree a hook is too boring, I can go with that one. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:51, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I liked EdChem's idea of wrapping some sort of copyvio audit into DYKCheck. Is that technically feasible? 28bytes (talk) 00:57, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, CorenBot checks for copyvios. Shub and Coren could get together on it. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:02, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I think that would help out a lot. I'd rather have a boring hook about a boring article appear on the mainpage than an interesting hook about a plagiarized article. 28bytes (talk) 01:04, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm neutral on the "two reviews" concept; I can see how it would improve quality, but as noted, there isn't the manpower. I strongly oppose the "Boring Hooks" proposal though. First, boring is subjective, even with multiple people required to comment on it; second, it's far too open to abuse. As for copyvio check, that's a good idea, but where does that leave us who don't use DYKcheck? I assume CorenBot would be able to check independently of the non-bot approval process? I agree with 28bytes here too - some "boring" hooks have led me to "huh, I didn't know that" moments. - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 01:05, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

DYKcheck can't check for plagiarism since javascript scripts can't access information on a different server (in this case, a search engine). Shubinator (talk) 01:26, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Then how about CorenBot scanning DYK/Q twice a day? — Rlevse • Talk • 01:29, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

That's more feasible. But the best solution is for reviewers to do a quick copyvio check. When I was regularly reviewing, it didn't take long; you quickly learn to spot unnatural wording. Also, I don't think the bot checks for copyvios against, for example, books on Google Books. Adding a bot should be seen as simply adding another layer, not relegating the task of copyvio detection to a non-human. Shubinator (talk) 01:35, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

First, thanks to 28bytes for noticing my comment / suggestion - I thought it had been lost under the side-discussion that followed. To elaborate on the idea slghtly, if DYKcheck isn't feasible, how about CorenBot (or another bot) being asked to check an article on request. I'll invite Coren to comment, he'll know best whether his bot is suited to working in such a way. If it doesn't check Google Books, maybe it can check the references given more rigorously (in a way that would be too resource-intensive for checking every article, perhaps) on request. Of course, bot assistance will not replace human responsibility to look for copy-vio / plagiarism issues, but any help can be useful. EdChem (talk) 03:11, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

If there were a lot of reviewers, two would be great. I think the only solution, unless we have an army of bots, is to slow the whole process down and increase the acceptance standards. Something like 18 hooks a day, 2500 character minimum, a 5x expansion where the article is greater than 2500 characters afterward. Also, one nom per editor per day. The less hooks and the slower clock we have, the more time for them to be reviewed better.--NortyNort (Holla) 01:19, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I can support a "one nomination per author per day" standard. However I strongly oppose upping the character count required. As I've mentioned before, I've seen ~1000 character articles on obscure subjects that are more complete and interesting than some ~10,000 character articles. - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 01:22, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

(ce) I concur with slowing down and increasing standards. In light of the ongoing brouhaha, I'm being deliberately more careful now checking articles for copyvio & plagiarism, but it takes time to wade through the article text and compare with sources. Sasata (talk) 01:26, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

As an occasional DYK contributor, I think the quality standards should be increased and the number of DYKs reduced. I agree with The Bushranger—increasing the minimum size would not increase the quality. I haven't seen any correlation between DYK length and quality. What would increase the quality is having only 18 DYK articles a day (to pick a number) and using only the "best" 18 articles. That means many articles that technically qualified wouldn't make it to the front page. If some of my own DYK submissions didn't make the cut, that would be fine, I would simply start working on the quality and interest of my submissions. The tricky issue would be how to choose the "best" ones. Consensus? Trusted DYK regulars? We successfully make such choices in other areas, such as GA, Featured Pictures, etc., so that wouldn't be impossible. First Light (talk) 03:45, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

• I think all these ideas are well worth following up, except for demanding 2 reviewers, which just isn't practical at the moment. Plus a GA only needs one (unfortunately - the main reason why I still don't give that process much respect). Although in fact it is completely untrue that all the subjects worth having already have articles - our coverage of the decorative arts is abysmal for example, not to mention Africa - I think it is also true that from an overall perspective of what is best for the project an excessive proportion of DYKs come from areas that are very well covered already. I also agree with the ANI thread that the lack of improvement of existing articles is one of WPs most glaring problems. How about a few batches a week that are 5x expansions only? Or some other way of encouraging these. I would also favour changing "5x" to a mixed formula such as say "5x or +30,000 chars". We have loads of fairly important articles that are much too short, but still too long for a 5x expansion to be doable by most, certainly within 5 days. Relaxing "5 days" for such very big expansions would also help. But an automated way, or easy tool, to pick up plagiarism, may be becoming essential. Johnbod (talk) 04:55, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
• If the most mundane hooks are refused early in the process (perhaps even without a need to look at the article) then there would be the resources available for more eyes on the articles which actually head towards the MP. The corollary is that if mundane hooks aren't removed, then as I see it there's not the resources available for any signficant extension of article reviewing. So the challenge seems to me to be to find an acceptible way of weeding out the boring hooks, the ones that really aren't providing much of a service to Main Page readers and the ones that cause DYK to be by far the least read of the MP sections. Physchim62 (talk) 09:08, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Is it "by far the least read of the MP sections"? I very much doubt that. Of course each article gets relatively few readers, but add them all up over 24 hrs or longer & I think they compare well to the other sections. Johnbod (talk) 09:54, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Actaully, yes, I've just checked the stats again and, if you add up all the hooks over the day, DYK gets slightly more click-throughs than TFA (44.3k vs. 40.6k), but still a lot less than Selected anniversaries (64.9k) and less than a quarter of the click-throughs for ITN (197.6k). If you compare the click through rates for individual hooks, even after correcting for the fact that DYK hooks are only posted for six hours, they still have only about half the click-through rate of Selected anniversaries hooks. I completely accept that this is not the only criterion but, in terms of readership, the current model for DYK is a complete disaster. Physchim62 (talk) 12:06, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

But slightly less of a complete disaster than TFA, which is fully visible to on all screens and has the best position? Johnbod (talk) 12:28, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

It's not really a like-for-like comparison with TFA. The TFA section already contains a susbtantial amount of information about the subject, whereas a DYK hook is a single sentence. The stats only measure click-throughs, not the people who read the section and found it contained all they wished to know about the subject. What is interesting when you look at the TFA viewing stats is that about a third of the people who click through to a featured article while it is linked from the Main Page do so during the three days after it was actually "featured" (when the link still appears at the bottom of the TFA section). You see the same effect in viewing figures for articles featured on ITN: not everyone who is interested in the subject clicks through during the first 24 hours, let alone in the six hours that a hook appears on DYK. That's why I think it makes sense from a readership point-of-view to be more selective with the DYK hooks that go up and leave them up for longer. At present the system is using lots of reviewer resources to churn out 32 (or 36) hooks a day and (again, I stress, solely from the criterion of readership) most of that effort is wasted because the readers don't even get the chance to see them. Physchim62 (talk) 14:16, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I think that updating DYK less frequently would give more time to check DYK's well and the increase in backlog could be attempted to be off set by introducing restrictions on numbers of DYK's entered simultaneously by single editors, by raising the quality bar for nomination and by requiring nominators to also participate in the review process. These strategies worked well at GAN. ·Maunus·ƛ· 16:54, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I had suggested above "Something like 18 hooks a day, 2500 character minimum, a 5x expansion where the article is greater than 2500 characters afterward. Also, one nom per editor per day." Some editors disagreed with 2500 but the main reason I suggested that was because it could help lower the amount of nominations. I can't think of many other standards that can be easily verified, and help reduce nominations. Maybe nominating within 3 days? Any ideas?--NortyNort (Holla) 09:07, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

A practical proposal

One proposal that should be easy to implement:

• For every DYK submission, look for edits by User:CorenSearchBot.
• For every DYK submission, use Wikistalk to look for suspicious overlap of "interest" between CorenSearchBot and the article's main authors.
• Submissions cannot reach the main page before an editor has confirmed that they made the above checks and either they found no edits by CorenSearchBot, or they have followed all steps of a rigorously defined process that ensures that the suspicious material is examined appropriately, rather than inappropriately by an editor who thinks close rephrasing is just fine.

E.g., the editor who was credited for Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, which just had to be pulled from the main page because of a copyvio problem, was previously credited for three DYKs in which CorenSearchBot had correctly identified copyvios (Pons Neronianus, William Lugg, Sybil Grey) before they appeared on the main page. At least these copyvios would have been easy to spot, and if they had been addressed the most recent problem might not have occurred. Hans Adler 10:55, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

• Cut the rate of promotions in half
• Every time plagiarism is found, add the authors name to a sub-page to keep track of which submitters are more problematic.
• Set minimum skill and experience standards for reviewers.
• Remover reviewer status for those who have promoted multiple bad articles.Bali ultimate (talk) 11:56, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

On CSBot involvment

I don't know that CSBot can be that helpful, but there's nothing that prevents you from using it as much as it's able to.

1. CSBot cannot generally find copies in Google Books because it can't search for candidates with Google at all (the Google TOS does not allow it, and they have never responded to requests for permission — though last couple of attempts were a while ago and I should probably try again); and
2. it normally only checks new articles at creation, and would not even know to check a stub being extended.

The latter point can be "circumvented" by making a manual check request as part of the DYK approval process, though, simply by adding a wikilink to the page to User:CorenSearchBot/manual and check the result (that will be posted there on a subpage). There is one big caveat with manual checks, however: the likelihood of a false positive increases with age as the page gets spidered and copied around; so possible matches have to be examined with care. — Coren ^(talk) 12:19, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

• Coren, thanks forf that information.

  Everyone, I am putting in a request for Coren's bot to look at Black Eyed Kids, Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, Seven Gates of Hell, and Rhodocene. The first three have all been mentioned here recently. The last is an old DYK of mine which I am utterly certain is not a copy-vio or plagiarism case, but which I fully expect to trigger a false positive, so we can all see how useful the bot might be. EdChem (talk) 12:26, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

  • All four came back as clean. EdChem (talk) 12:28, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
    • Now try Charles Fitzroy Doll. Uncle G (talk) 15:26, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
      • OK, done - it came back clean - see User:CorenSearchBot/manual EdChem (talk) 17:15, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Earwig's tool searches Google [6]; maybe that's OK because it's manually invoked? Google's Terms of Service seems mostly concerned with automated processes. If a manual invocation is OK, then it could be modified to search Gbooks too [7]. Novickas (talk) 21:38, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

You may also wish to try the plagiarism checker. → ROUX ₪ 21:42, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I've tried it before; it has some problems - doesn't exclude WP or its mirrors; doesn't strip out Wiki markup, infoboxes, all that for you, so you have to copy and paste text sections; doesn't generate output; you need a subscrption to the premium version to make it ignore quotes; for me, on second and successive entries, a 'Possible plagiarism' link shows but clicking the link only works if it's opened in a new tab. Surely WP can afford to develop a one-step in-house tool that eliminates those obstacles - if it's acceptable under Google usage terms. Novickas (talk) 22:45, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Problem with pending Austroplatypus incompertus hook

Eusociality is mentioned twice in one hook: “...that Austroplatypus incompertus forms eusocial colonies in the heartwood of some Eucalyptus trees and was the first beetle to be recognized as being eusocial?” Please change “ eusocial colonies” to “colonies”. --John Stephen Dwyer (talk) 09:15, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Tweaked (Queue 1). Thank you. Materialscientist (talk) 09:28, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing. --John Stephen Dwyer (talk) 17:13, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Let's put it to a vote

Hatted per WP:NOTVOTE
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Ok, currently, we've got a number of fractured sections about potential ideas for changing DYK. I'd like to see where various people stand, i.e. do they think DYK is generally ok, needs retuning, or a massive overhaul. If people could stick their names down (with a short 1/2 line statement about why), it would be a massive help and bring all the opinions together somewhat. DYK is generally fine at present DYK isn't broken, but it could do with some adjustments Consider this my vote - I think we need more reviewers, but overall DYK is getting almost as many hooks as before. All we need is reviewers, because we're getting hooks from the 28th October going into the queue, when hooks from the 24th haven't yet been reviewed. Paralympiakos (talk) 15:06, 2 November 2010 (UTC) DYK is broken and needs a huge overhaul Support changing the process a bit, to require hooks come from newly-promoted-GAs, and simultaneously extending time display of selected hook sets on Main Page. -- Cirt (talk) 15:22, 2 November 2010 (UTC) Support though i don't know if the overhaul needs to "huge." Some sort of drastic reduction in the rate of promotions is needed. I think this simple objective change would have lots of positive knock on effects in terms of quality. Start by cutting it in half, and sprinkle in some of the GAs.Bali ultimate (talk) 15:28, 2 November 2010 (UTC) Hat this section. WP:NOTVOTE, and the headings are unhelpful anyway. Besides which "broken" is exactly the sort of characterisation furthering DYK regulars feeling under attack. DYK can be improved, as can just about anything, especially on Wikipedia. The question is how, which is being discussed. Yes, it's got messy, but to help that, we need a summary of debate and issues (maybe not just yet), not this. Rd232 talk 15:54, 2 November 2010 (UTC) IAR then. At present, it's difficult to know who stands where, hence this section. Paralympiakos (talk) 15:58, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Another personal opinion on the matter

I'm one of the folks who submits articles to DYK, & I'm concerned that there are people who want to radically revise its goals & do away with showcasing new articles entirely. I don't like the idea for a number of reasons.

• Right now it's one of the few ways I have to get some positive to continue to make contributions. I don't participate in the FA process for a number of reasons, the most important of which is that I consider most of them over there to be jerks, & know they consider me a jerk in return. That kind of mutual feeling can only lead to a lot of unpleasant squabbling & even more hard feelings. So I try to stay away from there. As for the GA process, the last time I submitted an article for GA review, it took several weeks for anyone to get around to reviewing it, by which time I had lost interest in it (& my daughter was born, eating significantly into the time I have for Wikipedia). I write about Ethiopia; people know little about its related topics, so they are reluctant to comment on articles about Ethiopia.
• There is no lack of subjects worth covering by Wikipedia; anyone who seriously thinks that needs to move out of the usual subject areas (the stuff middle-class technological-inclined guys from North America & Europe are interested in), & look at the other areas. Here are some examples related to Ethiopia which I have been trying to work on, I do have enough material to write useful articles between Start & B-class quality on, but due to lack of time haven't gotten to:

• Ethiopian Revolution -- probably the most important event for Ethiopia in the 20th century, & far more complex than a simple coup (have a look at 1974 in Ethiopia), & deserving of more than just a redirect to Derg.
• Biographies on individual members of the Derg, the group which ran Ethiopia for over a decade. There were 109 of them, but less than a dozen have articles. And then there are the current Ministers & other executives of Ethiopia, few of which even have a stub.
• Yekatit 16 -- the date when, during the Italian occupation of Ethiopia, someone threw a bomb at the governor. In response, the Fascists executed thousands of people, including everyone with a college education who was still in the country. Set the modernization of Ethiopia back at least a generation.
• Hakim Warqnah, aka Dr Charles Martin, the first Ethiopia trained in western medicine. Thought to be an orphan, a member of the 1868 Expedition to Abyssinia took him home to India, where he got a medical education, & while visiting his home country in 1898 was reunited with his family in a romantic, if not fairy-tale, manner of recognition.
• The 1888 - 1892 Ethiopian famine -- in a country known for these disasters, this was the worst. And despite this disaster, Ethiopians still kicked European butt at Adwa.
• Wube Haile Mariam -- a prominent Ethiopian warlord of the early 19th century, & who had numerous interactions with the various European diplomats, explorers & adventurers of the time.
• The vast majority of all battles involving Ethiopia fought before 1900.
• Cusine of Ethiopia. I know nothing about this, & have long hoped someone could do the articles of this topic proper justice. The same for traditional dress, & architecture.
• Everything I have written so far betrays an Ethiopian Highlander bias: there are at least 80 other ethnic groups in this country, most of which only have a scrap of a stub about the people in general. I barely known where to start with topics related to the Oromo, the Somali, & the numerous small to tiny ethnic groups of southern & western Ethiopia.

And these are the ones just for Ethiopia off the top of my head. Articles relating to adjacent countries -- like Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti, & Somalia -- are even more lacunose. Because we have enough articles about Harry Potter, Star Wars & the latest Microsoft products you don't think there are any more articles needing to be written? Take a moment to get out of your comfort zone & look at topics you don't know anything about; explore a few red links & consider whether they point to stories & topics needing to be told.

I am honestly troubled by those who think Wikipedia is "practically complete"; such comments only show the limits of their knowledge, not what truly still needs to be covered. And turning DYK into a showcase for GA will only serve to discourage work on the areas where Wikipedia's coverage truly sucks hard. -- llywrch (talk) 19:33, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

• Ditto Llywrch's comments aboug GA, FA, and Wikipedia's completeness. cmadler (talk) 19:37, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Have you actually read this page? We are talking about adding GA level articles to DYK (well, most of us are), not replacing new articles with GA. Sigh. → ROUX ₪ 19:38, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

• Have you actually read Llywrch's comment? There are at least six proposals floating around up there. Further, adding GA articles into DYK will either require even longer updates (10 hooks per?!), shorter update times, or significantly more stringent requirements for "normal" DYK articles. cmadler (talk) 20:34, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Shorter update times is the main direction it's going in, by looking at how to get more reviewing done. A couple of GA hooks per day aren't going to make that much of a difference compared to getting more people reviewing. Rd232 ^talk 20:50, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

"Shorter update times is the main direction it's going in". I don't think so! Physchim62 (talk) 21:48, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

That's all very well, Llywrch, and believe me I know WP:CSB projects are full of horrific gaps. But since the vast majority of new articles continue to be on the less "serious" if you will encyclopedic stuff, the DYK status quo isn't helping that much. Now if someone wanted to propose saving (at least some) DYK slots for new articles that can be said to fall into WP:CSB territory, I'd be listening to see if that could be made to work. Rd232 ^talk 20:50, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I've been involved with WP:CSB almost as far back as when it was still called CROSSBOW (Committee Regarding Overcoming Serious Systemic Bias On Wikipedia), & that's why I decided to work on Ethiopia-related articles; speaking as someone who's been active on Wikipedia for over 8 years now, thanks for showing me how to suck eggs. ;-) But Cmadler has a point: fuck if I know what actually is being discussed here. I came here because from one of the pages related to this discussion, where a bunch of people are eagerly agreeing DYK needs to die, claiming that showcasing new articles is no longer needed. Until I'm guaranteed that proposal is off the table & is no longer under consideration, I'm standing by what I said. Sorry, Rd232, but you're just one person (although one whose opinion I'll listen to), & there are a lot of Wikipedians who want to take advantage of this incident to change things unfavorably & grab a little more power for themselves. I just want to write new articles & improve existing ones, but every couple of days something happens which makes it less fun for me to do. -- llywrch (talk) 21:46, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I only mentioned the egg, I did assume you knew how to suck it :) I don't think abolition in toto of DYK hooks coming from new articles is seriously on the table; I can't even see in the TLDR discussion where it's seriously proposed. It seems to be mentioned as a possibility mostly by supporters of the status quo in order to scare people (or at least themselves). But I will say that if stonewalling prevents any change at all, then complete abolition of the current approach is more likely to become a realistic proposition at some point in the (longer term) future. Putting off change may protect the status quo exactly as is for the time being, but allowing some change is more likely to preserve it long term. Unreformable things have a tendency to wither and die. Rd232 ^talk 22:09, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Any option that says "no more new article hooks on DYK" is effectively a proposal to abolish DYK. The community should at least try to keep DYK before deciding to abolish it, as revolutions are always costly things. If there's stonewalling, well, the only thing the community can impose is abolition. Physchim62 (talk) 23:38, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

? where is this option getting support? Also I've argued DYK does not in its essence require any input from new articles; it's just been done that way, and there are good reasons for it, but there are also good reasons to mix in other sources. Rd232 ^talk 00:33, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Mixing in other sources (apart from new articles) is one thing (I'd say "why not?"). Gatoclass and Cirt seem to be effectively saying 100% GAs, which I think is just shifting the deckchairs. Obviously a section that is called "Did you know?" is linked to hooks that provide facts that make people think "ah no, I didn't know that, let's find out more": it is not necessarily linked to "new articles" except by the machinery. But going to 100% GAs would be a complete change of machinery: it would not be the same DYK section, it would be a bcak-door takeover by GAN. Physchim62 (talk) 01:06, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Well seeing as no GA regulars have expressed any interest in taking over DYK (!) this would be more of a capitulation than a takeover :) Really, I don't know why they're suggesting that, there's no reason to think GA could handle a sudden, complete DYK takeover even if that was desired. That's one reason I keep structuring my proposal as mixing in GA hooks as available. None available? No problem. Lots? Then up to an agreed max per day til the surge is gone. Rd232 ^talk 01:30, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

DYKCheck question

Running DYKCheck on Samangan Province shows the article as marked as a stub, but I can't find any stub template in the article (and it shouldn't have one, since it's over 12,000 characters long.) Any ideas? 28bytes (talk) 03:42, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

One of the Project tags on the talk page had it rated at "stub" class. I changed it to "start". Hopefully that will fix it. First Light (talk) 03:49, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. Don't know why I didn't think to check the talk page. 28bytes (talk) 03:56, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Apart from this plagiarism thing ...

I've long been building up to blowing off some steam about the general quality of DYK. It appears bleedingly obvious to me that many of the entries are not attention-grabbing, cogent, surprising, or even interesting. Perhaps lame would be a better description.

I do appreciate the very good work done by some editors on DYK, but it is diluted by the low benchmark.

In summary: aim for fewer entries each day, and make them crisp and interesting. Raise the benchmark. The "anyone can edit" thing can't be taken too literally for DYK, since they go straight onto the main page and make WP look lame itself unless they are carefully chosen and tightly constructed. Tony (talk) 06:53, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree. DYK should be rotated once every 24 hours, not once every 6 or 8 hours, as is currently the case. We barely have enough attention-worthy nominations a full set per day, and competition keeps the quality high. There is a sense of entitlement for getting on the main page and receiving some kind of badge, merely for quickly creating a boring borderline AfD candidate. That's not justified. Hans Adler 10:03, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:DYKSTATS, the 8 most "eye-catching" DYKs on record were for, in order, Paul the Octopus, Ivan Castro (soldier), 2010 Moscow Victory Day Parade, Leonard Siffleet, Longest recorded sniper kills, Bacon Explosion, Saxbe fix, and Todd Palin. So the question is, can the community pick out hooks like these from the pool, and justify their reasoning? -- Yzx (talk) 10:42, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

The question is not to be guessing which hooks will be the very best (in terms of readership), but to identify those which are so mundane that they are very unlikely to interest our readers at all. So can the community identify hooks like "...that between 1933 and 1935, American blues and boogie-woogie pianist and singer Walter Roland recorded around fifty songs for Banner Records?" Hmm, a musician who is notable enough for a WP article actually recorded some of his music! Who'd have thought it! It's not difficult to spot hooks like that very quickly: after all, our readership does so already, which is why the average DYK hook only gets a thousand click-throughs, if that. The figures on DYKSTATS show that there are readers who are looking at the DYK section and who are willing to click-through to artciles that interest them: why don't they do it more often? Because so many of the hooks are so obviously mundane. The current system penalizes the good DYKs (and there are many) by robbing them of the Main Page exposure they deserve. Physchim62 (talk) 14:46, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Hans, talking of justification, can you explain more on the "quickly creating a borderline AfD candidate" part? This whole page seems to be becoming a mud slinging exercise against DYK contributors and reviewers (of which I am both). It's not very civil and whilst I agree that some hooks and articles aren't interesting, very few are AfD candidates as they should all have multiple RSs. Of my 20 DYKs, every one, with the exception of Pogopalooza, took several hours of work, so frankly I find your comment rather insulting. If the slagging off continues, DYK is going to fall apart regardless, as us reviewers are starting to feel that there's no point in volunteering our time if the rest of the community thinks it is so pointless. Sorry to be a bit aggressive, but I can see lots of people happy to criticise, but not so many actually doing anything about it, like reviewing/commenting on hooks. SmartSE (talk) 12:20, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Up on DYK at the time when I made the comment [8]:

• A list of churches most of which have their own articles, with a hook that really referred only to one of them.
• A very specific motorcycle model that would profit from merging with other, related models by the same company. Extremely boring hook following the popular "did you know that X is the biggest city in X-shire" superlative producing schema.
• A person who is presumably unknown outside Scandinavia, with a hook that can only make sense to some of those who have heard of him.
• Two articles about unambiguously DYK-adequate topics, with somewhat interesting but uninspired hooks.
• Another adequate topic (Aylesbury ducks) with a more inspired but ultimately unsurprising hook.
• An American singer (up mostly at a time when most of the US was asleep) with a very uninspired hook.
• A boilerplate article about a random battle ship, with an incredibly silly hook which almost follows the scheme "Did you know that Hermann Einstein was the only father of Albert Einstein?"
• A recently discovered mushroom species (good!!) with a hook that ignores the fact and instead boringly just describes the ugly mushroom, wetting the reader's appetite for the image which is not present in the article.

No actual AfD candidates, but some articles came uncomfortably close. At least half of this was not main page material. In some cases there were severe presentation problems. If DYK is unable to produce main page quality at the current rate, then it should simply reduce its rate. "Did you know that ..." is not an appropriate form of presentation for random recent articles. Hans Adler 13:04, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

PS: Was there any particular reason to put three of the most boring entries first? Hans Adler 13:07, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

So none of them are AfD candidates then, that's good. Like I was trying to say, if you find the interestingness of hooks a problem, then please help us to review hooks and object to them if you find them boring or uninteresting. This seems like a better option to me than trying to impose arbitrary limits on the number of hooks per day, it would be better if it were a more organic process. If we agree amongst ourselves that a hook isn't interesting enough then we can not include it, and just include how ever many are deemed interesting. RE the mushroom hook, I reviewed that, the nom's orignal hook was "X is a new species of mushroom" but I suggested that we try something more interesting, precisely because of the recent furore. The nom had also emailed the author of the orignal paper to try and get a pic, but without any joy. Your comment on the hook demonstrates the subjectivity of interesting... I can only see this being solved by more people helping out with reviewing. RE you PS, those are the three articles with the most hits this year, Yzx listed them in order. SmartSE (talk) 14:05, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

You mentioned the "arbitrary limits on the number of hooks per day" further up, and I didn't have the time to reply to you then: my apologies, and here goes! 8–10 hooks per day is not an arbitrary limit: it is a single DYK section of the current length staying up for exactly 24 hours, so readers in all time zones get a chance to see all the hooks. Why should the best hooks not get the exposure they deserve? At the moment, DYK robs exposure time from the hooks that readers might click on so as to give it to the routine and the mundane: that's not a logical use of our limited resources, either in terms of Main Page space or in terms of reviewer time. Physchim62 (talk) 14:58, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I got these hooks from a rather mundane Chilean battleship Almirante Latorre. I think people can do better with their hook choices... Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 16:00, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Comment: I've suggested requiring hooks to have two reviewers sign them off, for better quality control. That applies to decision-making on interestingness of hooks as well as on plagiarism and sourcing. But of course that's not really practical in separation from increasing reviewing, eg by requiring it from experienced DYKers who wish to self-nominate. More radically, we could have an approach that involved voting for hooks (with different ALT versions included if available), and queues are built by looking at the top votes. Hooks that languish really long (eg 1 month? 3 months?) could ultimately be ejected as too boring. It will be complained that voting is subject to gaming, but on the bright side, it introduce a community element beyond nominating or reviewing; new users in particularly can be drawn in through such voting, if it's appropriately advertised. Rd232 ^talk 18:47, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Who is involved in DYK?

I keep hearing this idea that DYK is a path for new editors. I'm skeptical that this has much significance; a priori I can't see many new editors finding it and getting involved. So a survey of yesterday's nominations (November 2). There were a total of 14 nominations. Most of these were by editors nobody could call new. One was fairly new (May 2010, 261 edits), though I wonder from the proficiency of their early edits if it's their first account. Only one was not a self-nom, being a nom of an IP's AFC-submitted article. They only made one edit and I wonder at the incentive effect there. Anyway, 11 of 14 (79%) are by editors with 5k edits or more.

2 November 2010 DYK nom summary
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
all self-nom uless specified name : first edit : editcount Moonraker2 : June 2009 : 8k Warofdreams: admin Soman: May 2004 : 49k Savidan: admin 4 editors together, of which newest is 15 Oct, 3k edits Leszek Jańczuk : April 2008 : 11k Arctic Night : May 2009 : 5k Tim1965: August 2005 : 15k Derek R Bullamore : December 2005 : 31k aha! AFC submitted by IP, sole edit, nom by FetchComms. (but will they even know?) Philg88 : Sep 2006 : 1.9k aha! A Thousand Doors : May 2010 : 261 (except: signs that this was not the person's first account) Merbabu : May 2006 : 43k Cyclonebiskit : Feb 2008 : 21k

2 November 2010 GA nom summary
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
name : first edit : editcount Hunter Kahn : Feb 2008 : 16k Rob : Dec 2005 : 1.7k Parrot of Doom : Dec 2005 : 27k Spongie555 : Mar 2010 : 2k Magicpiano : July 2008 : 14k Eisfbnore : Jan 2009 1.2k Sasata: Feb 2006: 34k

So, in sum, from this sample it appears the thesis that DYK does much for new editors pretty well fails. (Was this a very unrepresentative day? Well if you have reason to think so, prove it.) But wait, what if we compare it with GA nominations for the same day? We see that GA has more newish-editor nominations in both absolute (3) and percentage (50%) terms! Huh. Rd232 ^talk 10:22, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

In a rough estimated, I would say about half of the nominations I've reviewed were from presumably new editors. I would call them new based off of how often they nominated, their number of DYKs and the quality of the article among other things. I wouldn't trust time on Wikipedia because some editors take long breaks or have very slow starts. Touching story: I have been on Wikipedia for a little over a year and had little idea what DYK was for about 4 months until I started getting these DYK notices on my talk page about 2 weeks after I started certain articles. I later found out that someone was nominating them. This helped motivate me to contribute more and eventually nominate my own articles. It wasn't just a reward but a feeling of community. Then, I started reviewing as well to help out the the "eternal backlog" as one editor at the time described.--NortyNort (Holla) 11:22, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

(e.c.) Well, let's consider the most recent hook with which I was involved:

• 
  ... that ophanin, piscivorin, ablomin, latisemin and triflin, found in the venom of the King Cobra (pictured), the water moccasin, the Mamushi snake, the Erabu sea snake and the Habu snake, respectively, are all cysteine-rich secretory proteins that can reduce muscle contractions?

Obviously, one of those trivial hooks dealing with articles that aren't encyclopedic and are borderline for AfD, and made by experienced wikipedians? Let's look:

• Ophanin – created and expanded by User:Millesya (joined October 19, 2010) – total edits = 7
• Piscivorin – created and expanded by User:Jstedehouder (joined October 19, 2010) – total edits = 20
• Ablomin – created and expanded by User:Danyasimone (joined October 15, 2010) – total edits = 2
• Latisemin – created and partially expanded by User:Aleid Lisanne (joined October 19, 2010) – total edits = 11

Further expanded by User:EdChem (joined January 4, 2008) – total edits = 2887 (2275 of which were in the last 6 months)

• Piscivorin – created and expanded by User:Jstedehouder (joined October 19, 2010) – total edits = 20
• Cysteine-rich secretory protein – created and expanded by User:EdChem (joined January 4, 2008) – total edits = 2887 (2275 of which were in the last 6 months)

Original nominatioin assembled by User:PFHLai, an experienced Wikipedian, highlighting the work of new editors. I was going to add a review until I saw that Cysteine-rich secretory protein was not an article. This "CRISP" class of proteins is essential to spermatogenesis in mammals, and in my view is an example of a significant gap in Wikipedia's coverage. So, we ended up with an article (4000+ readable characters, 11 references) on a class of proteins and five articles on toxins in snake venoms from new editors whose work got some recognition. The hook got a total of 4689 views, so feel free to disparage it as uninteresting - I'm sure many readers were not interested.

Incidentally, the current nomination I have at T:TDYK is a 5-article collaboration with User:Paralympiakos, who I met through DYK when I was reviewing. I suspect those articles wouldn't have been written (certainly not by me) without that collaboration and the DYK project. Go look at them - are those 100,000+ bytes that we generated borderline-AfD cookie-cutter rubbish? What about my article on the compound rhodocene (a DYK that went on to GA status), or the biography of Hans Freeman (a x38 expansion in terms of bytes of a stub that had sat around since March 2006).

I know some of this response refers to comments made in other sections of this page. I also know that I am emotionally involved and the fact that I am upset, offended, and defensive is showing through. Maybe some of you could consider why everything that has been going on makes me feel like I should just take the hint and leave Wikipedia, because I am really get sick of being treated as an annoyance. EdChem (talk) 11:39, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Very good points and made well. I agree DYK helps breed community and collaboration as well. I started Nora W. Tyson recently because of this, and it is not my general area of interest. DYK also helped me understand WP policies much better.--NortyNort (Holla) 12:22, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your experiences, perhaps my sample was unrepresentative (though we should not replace sample by anecdote). The fundamental point I want to make is not that DYK is useless for new editors, it's that if it's supposed to be targeted at drawing new editors in, it can be reformed in ways we haven't really thought about yet to make it fulfil that function more effectively. Secondarily, that GA also has less experienced editors, and that there's a certain learning curve which both DYK new articles and GAs can be part of. Linking them together, even just a little, ought to strengthen that, as well as collaboration more generally. Rd232 ^talk 12:26, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I agree with the EdChem and NortyNort, based on my reviewing experience. The fact is that DYK does provide a way for someone totally new to the project to write a short, relatively interesting article and have it viewed by millions (in hook form). I was certainly encouraged to contribute to the project in general after writing my first DYK and I'm sure that others have been too. I've tried to persuade friends to contribute and they're certainly more interested by the fact that articles can go on the main page, and in one case it worked. Your one day sample is very simplistic and you don't seem to have checked who has actually written the articles either. If it weren't for DYK, I doubt I would be bothering to draft this beast of an article, that represents a massive whole in our coverage of ecology. For articles like this, it will take ages to get them to GA standards, so DYK is a nice way of featuring articles like that. I'm afraid that I agree with EdChem's last points too, please don't criticise this project without carrying out a detailed and comprehensive analysis of articles featured, rather than just bringing up some bad examples and saying that the whole project is useless. SmartSE (talk) 12:37, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Sigh. I took yesterday as a sample, and invited evidence that it was unrepresentative. Anecdotal evidence merely proves that DYK isn't completely useless, an assertion no-one has made. Why do people keep labelling attempts at reform as implying the whole thing is useless? Since nobody's actively claiming DYK is perfect or unimprovable, this just seems like overly emotional stonewalling. PS As to who wrote the articles: with one exception they were self-noms, as stated. Rd232 ^talk 13:02, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Nothing wrong I can see with the articles. The hook is really too convoluted and unappealing for the main page, but with a technical topic and so many articles in one hook it's close to a reasonable compromise.

I have done six DYKs myself and occasionally helped out in the process, so obviously I don't consider it completely useless and everything it produces trash. But I see DYK primarily as a means for creating mainpage-worthy content that draws the reader in, not as a badge factory. Which is why I only nominate articles for which I can find a good hook. (I have now started collecting my hooks here, so you can get an idea of what I have in mind. I consider my first hook borderline, btw, but the article is interesting.) Hans Adler 13:28, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Or...

OK, how about this. There is a current exception to the "new article" rule, namely 5x expansion. Simply add another exception, for newly promoted GAs. But require anyone wishing to nominate a GA hook to review 5 DYKs first, so there can be no complaints about adding to the backlog. And what the hell, since the slots are so precious and GAs not really worthy of recognition on the Main Page, limit GA hooks to 1% of weekly slots. Rd232 ^talk 13:12, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Er, I'm think I'm going to just unwatch this page; it's a TL:DR bitchy mess. I don't understand why the subpage was merged back; it was the beginning of a rationalisation of the discussion, which was and is sorely needed. At the end of the day, I've got a handful of DYKs to my name and 1 GA; it is deeply frustrating to be in the middle of such a mess [the discussion, not the subject] looking in from outside, and so many people in the middle of it apparently unable to discuss it neutrally and with appropriate perspective and AGF. So, good luck with that. Rd232 ^talk 19:00, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

A brief overview

Overview: The major complaints

These are the problems that most commenters have agreed on:

1. There aren't enough reviewers. The DYK workload is too high, resulting in a lack of scrutiny.
2. There have been incidents of plagiarism and close paraphrasing, and resulting copyright violation problems.
3. The quality of DYK nominations is not consistent. There have been many poor quality DYKs without reliable sources.

Minor complaints

These are other issues that have been raised on the talk page, but lack complete consensus:'

1. The time limit for DYKs is too restrictive.
2. Good articles are not featured on the main page, and yet they require much more effort than DYKs.
3. Many hooks are mundane.
4. The size requirements for DYK are too low.
5. DYK should not focus purely on new articles.
6. There are been too many cookie cutter articles. It's been fueling a "reward culture".
7. DYK doesn't do anything specifically to help systemic bias issues

--hkr Laozi speak 20:46, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I've redacted point 3 from "The hooks have been boring" to "Many hooks are mundane", because I don't think anyone is suggesting that all hooks are boring or mundane, nor that people's opinions of the hooks will change if nothing happens. Physchim62 (talk) 02:02, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to add another point here; that is that DYK hooks do not get enough click-throughs to the actual article (based on whatever basis you like). In my opinion, that's because too many of the hooks are just too mundane, but I think it's a separate problem as well. Physchim62 (talk) 02:02, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I meant. And I don't see it as a significant problem, it's just an issue that's been mentioned in the talk. If it was enforced as a criteria, the question then becomes, how do we objectively evaluate a hook's appeal? I don't think there is a way.--hkr Laozi speak 04:56, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Click-throughs are a terrible was to gauge article quality or relevance. Compare the DYK stats for Bacon explosion to, well, almost anything and you'll see that all click-throughs tell you is that people love bacon. - Dravecky (talk) 07:16, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

The solutions

For problem 1 (workload)

1. introduce a requirement that experienced DYK nominators (eg with 5 successful DYKs) need to review a DYK for each new nomination they make
2. or, since a point made by some is that DYK is particularly intended for newer editors: set a lifetime limit on DYKs; or less radically, a monthly limit (perhaps with an exception along the lines of solution 1). This would also help the "reward culture" issue (minor problem 6).

For problems 2 and 3 (quality)

1. more transparency in terms of who's reviewing what
2. require at least 2 reviewers to sign off each DYK
3. change the display of DYKs so that it adapts to the number of hooks available, rather than the current fixed quota per day (eg hooks automatically displayed longer if fewer available). Less time pressure on reviewing may help.
4. introduce some DYKs from a process with higher quality inputs (GA). Also addresses minor problems 2 and 5.

Rd232 ^talk 21:14, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Choosing between solutions (these and others) depends on some agreement on what DYK ought to be for. (Supporters of the status quo have tendency to declare what it is for as if that cannot change.) Rd232 ^talk 21:17, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

an aside: Can I turn up the volume on Cbl62's recent comments. We are not here to create DYKs we are here to improve Wikipedia. If we ensure that everything on the mainpage is perfect then we will have one perfect page. New articles happen. DYK has changed. It requires refs (more than GAs used to have). It used to have lots of editors nominating other people's work. People who sought out the new editors and helped them up. If we channel the output of x editors into 1500 character or 5,000 character chunks then still have the same quantity to review. I'd like to delegate some of "the workers" at DYK to be asked to come up with some solid workable proposals based on the idea that DYK's role is to improve the quality of the most recent articles into wikipedia. If we raise DYK's standards then will people stop creating poor articles or will we just ignore them and stare contentedly at the pile of FAs. We are here (Ithought) to improve the quality of the flow of new articles. We cannot change the quantity.Victuallers (talk) 22:26, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

"We are not here to create DYKs" - disagree on that point. The "did you know?" main page tidbits are valuable for readers. This doesn't affect most of the decision-making about how to do DYK, but losing sight of that does encourage a fundamentalism about "DYK is for new articles", when the incentive effects for editors is just one of the purposes of DYK, and historically those incentives have been pointedly solely at new articles and 5x expanded old articles. (The latter exception tends to be ignored in these discussions, possibly because it weakens the philosophy of "it's about new articles" and opens the door to, say, hooks from newly promoted GAs, which some people seem quite allergic to.) Rd232 ^talk 22:27, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

DYK can't do much to affect the quantity or the quality of new articles, because it involves such a small proportion of new articles. It's one of the reasons GA hooks make sense - you could accommodate a much higher proportion of newly promoted GAs, even if the resulting incentive increases the flow of GA promotions. Rd232 ^talk 22:28, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Question: Any data on the average number of GAs approved per month? Cbl62 (talk) 22:50, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Guesstimating about 3 a day recently. But bearing in mind hooks need to have a certain interest factor, not all newly-promoted GAs may be able to provide good hooks (naming no names on what sounds boring to me :) ). Rd232 ^talk 01:34, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Some one said we need "agreement on what DYK ought to be for" and I think then implied that "we are here to create DYKs". I agree with the first Rd232's first assertion not the latter. ... oh and no I havent seen data on GAs. Oh and sorry. Goodnight Victuallers (talk) 22:58, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

It is one of the purposes of DYK. It's not a prominent one much of the time because it's about readers, and most of the time meta-discussions focus on editors. Rd232 ^talk 01:36, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Let me say, first of all, thank you for this concise overview of the hundreds of KBs at AN/I, here, and elsewhere. Now, as to solutions, I'd like to try to suggest a few ideas for consideration:

Major issues

1. There are a few ways to reduce the DYK workload, but they must all do one or more of the following: increase the number of reviewers, reduce the average per-article reviewing time, or reduce the number of nominations.
   1. Increasing the number of reviewers would require attracting qualified volunteers or some form of conscription (e.g., requiring experienced nominators to act as reviewers).
   2. Reducing the average per-article reviewing time would require lowering standards for acceptance, which is definitely not a step in the right direction, or raising standards for speedy rejection (e.g., requirements pertaining to length, sourcing, and other quality control elements which can be judged quickly).
   3. Reducing the number of nominations would require discouraging nominations in some way (e.g., reducing "rewards" for writing DYKs) or imposing artificial limits on the quantity of nominations.
2. The problems of plagiarism and close paraphrasing probably cannot be eliminated completely, but the only reliable way to reduce them is to subject selected articles to closer scrutiny. This, of course, brings us back to the problem of the DYK workload.
3. The only effective way to avoid "poor quality DYKs without reliable sources" is to tighten the DYK selection criteria and require that selected articles undergo more thorough review.

Minor issues

1. The time limit for DYKs can, if there is consensus, easily be extended as much as is necessary (e.g., 7 days, 10 days, 14 days).
2. Good Articles (GAs) can be added to the DYK box on the main page.
3. Every hook will interest some readers and bore others ... most will be somewhere in the middle. I don't think that this particular issue can be effectively addressed, nor do I believe that it is actually a problem.
4. The size requirement for DYKs can, if there is consensus, easily be raised as much as is necessary (e.g., 2,000 characters).
5. The focus on new articles can be diminished by featuring hooks from GAs and/or reducing the size requirement for expansions (e.g., from 5x to 3x, above a certain minimum size).
6. The issues of cookie cutter articles and a "reward culture" are related (and neither one is necessarily a Bad Thing^TM), but I do not think that they can or should be address by modifying the DYK process. Instead, the focus should be on initiatives such as WikiCup and process such as RfA, which reward certain behaviors. Again, I make no negative judgment against these processes (including WikiCup) and, truth be told, do not consider high-quality cookie cutter articles to be a problem.
7. DYK is not intended to correct systemic bias issues and, given the relatively small number of articles that pass through DYK, probably can't do much to correct it. However, one way that it does help to counter systemic bias is by encouraging editors to create articles on notable topics on which there is not as much written in online sources (e.g., almost anything to do with Africa).

Anyway, these are just some thoughts. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 21:50, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

So I assume you feel it is a good idea to only have each DYK hook up on the Main Page for only six hours, regardless of its quality? After all, DYK already makes special provision for the first and last hooks in a set, and these are the hooks which attract the most click-throughs. Why do you feel that it's impossible to extend this sort of selection throughout all DYK hooks, given that DYK has both the lowest rejection rate of nominations and the lowest click-through rate per hook of all the Main Page sections? Physchim62 (talk) 22:04, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I think that hooks ought to remain on the Main Page for 8 or 12 hours (in other words, we ought to update two or three times every day, instead of four times). More directly on the point of quality: I think we ought to set a higher standard of quality for DYK articles, and then feature qualifying articles for an equal time. I don't think that it is impossible to feature certain hooks for a longer duration than others (in fact, I'm quite certain that it can be done using transclusion and an update-bot), but I don't really see a reason to do this. It will add more work for DYK reviewers and updaters, and yet provide relatively little added benefit (that I can see, at least). -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 01:07, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Edit protected

{{Edit protected}}

English Wikipedia contributors by country as of December 2007

Time zone table should be be ordered chronologically. Order right now is arbitrary. Thank you. Marcus Qwertyus 18:27, 3 November 2010 (UTC)Marcus Qwertyus

...on the Queue. Marcus Qwertyus 18:30, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Template:Did you know/Queue/LocalUpdateTimes is not protected, if that's what you want to change. Bencherlite^Talk 18:32, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Didn't realize it was just transcluded. I ordered it and went ahead and added Los Angeles. Marcus Qwertyus 02:18, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I think it's best without Los Angeles. When the template was created, we decided on Chicago to represent all of the US/North American timezones since it's easy to remember the time difference. Also, the added timezone makes the template busier and harder to read. Shubinator (talk) 02:54, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

The main reason I included it was to help break up the 9 hour time difference between Chicago and Sydney. Marcus Qwertyus 12:49, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

If LA is on there, then Chicago should really be changed to New York: I think most people can figure out that most of North America is somewhere between the two! Physchim62 (talk) 13:18, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Support Both LA and NY are more populated than Chicago.Marcus Qwertyus 14:15, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Chicago made sense if using only one North American city (which was relatively easy to adjust to other US time zones). If we have room for 2, then LA and NYC make more sense. Cbl62 (talk) 14:27, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I have swapped Chicago for New York. Marcus Qwertyus 17:31, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Some issues to address

I see a few issues in the queues and prep areas at present, that I believe warrant further consideration before they get to the main page:

• As I understand it, the last entry in an update is usually reserved for something quirky (for want of a better word). In prep area 3, for example, I think the "Troughman" hook strikes me as more of a last entry hook than the "National Supercomputing Center of Tianjin " hook.

  Swapped. Materialscientist (talk) 00:33, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

• While we are on "Troughman", I am not convinced that the reference supports the hook. The hook states "Troughman is mythically famous in Sydney", but the article includes caveats: "According to Robert Reynolds by the early 2000s in the Sydney gay community "Troughman has become a cultural icon, an almost mythical figure," and that Troughman was particularly famous for his role in the Sydney Mardi Gras parties". Maybe the hook should indicate the mythic fame is within the gay community, and I suspect maybe even within a subset of it, the community attracted to his watersports paraphilia.

  Valid, but I won't accentuate on gay community - the hook does not need to explain all details (the article is actually marginable notable, IMO). Materialscientist (talk) 00:33, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

• Prep Area 1 has as its final hook: "that politician James R. Lewis was involved in plans to build a laser gun "designed to blind people", sell it to a Guatemalan colonel, and use the proceeds to build a laetrile factory in South America?" The source, a 1979 newspaper (according to the article describing a 1980 event), states that "The gun, which was to have the capability to blind people, was going to be built in Wisconsin and sold to a Guatemalan Colonel. They money was to have been used to build a Laetrile plant in South America." Issues:
  1. Is this hook too close a paraphrase of the source?
  2. The quotation "designed to blind people" in the hook isn't actually a quotation of the source.
  3. Laetrile is a chemical, so I'm not sure factory is actually a synonym for plant in this case.

I think a modified hook that actually indicates what laetrile is might be better in any case. Laetrile was promoted as a cancer cure, but is now known as an example of quackery. A 1979 journal article titled "Laetrile: the cult of cyanide. Promoting poison for profit" shows this was controversial at the time. I suggest the article be checked for paraphrasing issues, the quote be removed from the article and the hook, laetrile be covered more in the article, and an alternate hook be used. Perhaps something like:

• ... that politician James R. Lewis was convicted for lying about his role in a scheme to sell a laser-gun and use the money to fund a plant to manufacture laetrile, an ineffective claimed cancer cure that it is now known can cause cyanide poisoning?

  Need 3rd opinion here (as I am inclined to return the hook to T:TDYK) - the person is alive, and we do have a specific rule on avoiding BLP issues. Opinions? Materialscientist (talk) 23:30, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

  Materialscientist, I have had a hook sent back when it deemed a possible attack. The hook was about a guy becoming the first ever to fail drug tests in a certain organisation. I didn't put the hook up to attack him (I was a fan of the guy), but felt it particularly relevant. An alternative of "he failed the test, but returned successfully" was finally passed. I think the main thing to avoid anything that could be construed as an attack. Paralympiakos (talk) 23:34, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

  The hook originally was much, much longer and did include the part about his conviction. I chopped off the first part of the hook for length, intentionally omitting what seemed to me as a negative BLP issue, and including just the last part, which seemed "hookiest" anyways. I had added an online source to the article because the story seemed so outlandish. There was an offline source following the information included in the original hook, and presumably the quotation came from that source. But I've just added another source which includes the quotation. I removed the incorrect 1980 and added 1979 as the year of his guilty plea. I didn't think the hook in Prep was too close a paraphrase to the source (note that I did not write it; I merely chopped off the first part), but it could certainly be reworded a bit if others think so. Hooks are intended to, well, hook people, and I personally don't think we need to include more laetrile information in the hook. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 00:28, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

  The original hook seemed such close paraphrasing that I check the whole article for copyvio (couldn't find any). I would go with a shorter hook like "...that Wisconsin politician James R. Lewis tried to manufacture a laser gun for sale to the Guatamalan military." Physchim62 (talk) 11:43, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

  The hook is much more interesting with all of the original facts. How about:

  ... that politician James R. Lewis was involved in plans to sell a laser gun "designed to blind people" to a Guatemalan colonel in order to finance the construction of a South American laetrile plant?

  (Note: the hook is currently in Queue 3.) MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 18:44, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

• In Prep area 2, the Microsoft / Catholic church hook strikes me as a last slot hook, much more suitable than the drawn out death of someone from a botched execution.

  Swapped. Materialscientist (talk) 23:30, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• We presently have two empty queue slots. Thank you to those who have helped tack up the slack left by Rlevse's departure, but we are still running behind. I know the demotivating effects of the current furore, but it would be great to see the project keep pulling together and weather the storm. EdChem (talk) 23:17, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

One or two empty queue slots aren't necessarily a problem. When I first got involved with DYK, there was only one queue, so a steady rate of production was critically important. Now that we have 6 queue slots and 4 prep area slots, there's a fair amount of flexibility. --Orlady (talk) 20:03, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

• Wasn't aware of the last hook, quirky suggestion (not that I composed that prep area, mind). I would pick up the slack, as I've done in the prep areas, but I'm not an admin, so I don't have the permission. Would be nice to see an admin help out. Paralympiakos (talk) 23:26, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

  By the way, Paralympiakos, I hope I'm not stepping on your toes here, but I've approved a number of hooks you've commented on where it's been unclear whether or not you have objections to the hook or article. Can you use the symbols (, , etc.) when you review to indicate whether or not there's a problem? Some of the noms are getting confused what the status of their nomination is. 28bytes (talk) 00:57, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

That's fine by me. Thanks for the help then 28bytes. I'd forgotten about the symbols as I'm not so much of a reviewer. I'm just picking up a small amount of the duty left by Rlevse, in the prep filling. I would say that a question is slightly self-explanatory, but I'll definitely keep the symbols in mind, in the future! I'm still learning about this project, so bear with me! :S Paralympiakos (talk) 01:49, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Paralympiakos. I definitely appreciate your work here; reviewing can be a pretty thankless task. 28bytes (talk) 01:56, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to all for your input and consideration. Maybe collegiality in this place isn't doomed. :) EdChem (talk) 01:44, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Picking up the slack

We lost a rather valuable participant in User:Rlevse, an admin who took on a tremendous amount of the burden of reviewing and approving hooks, setting up the prep areas and migrating hooks as needed. The circumstances of Rlevse's retirement and the pressure of criticism for what goes on at DYK is rather unfortunate. Hopefully, the departure is just a much-needed wikibreak and not permanent. Unless (and until) Rlevse returns, we all need to pick up the slack to keep the process running. There is a substantial backlog of hooks to be approved and that should probably be our focus in the short term. Thanks to everyone for their contributions and efforts! Alansohn (talk) 02:53, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. (And Alansohn, thanks for your continued, tireless efforts in this project as well.) 28bytes (talk) 03:02, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

This project has a history of not backing up and protecting its own. Rlevse is just another casualty, sad to say.--King Bedford I ^{Seek his grace} 04:30, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Alansohn. I spent this evening reviewing hooks instead of working on content. Will try to periodically do so. If we all help, we should be fine. Very sorry to see Rlevse go. Cbl62 (talk) 06:24, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I've also become more engaged with DYK in recent days -- after months when I largely ignored it, mainly because there seemed to be plenty of volunteers working here. --Orlady (talk) 15:33, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to get involved with DYK. Should non-admins put together the update, or leave that to admins and just do reviews. DC T•C 16:08, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

• Non-admins can put together updates in the Prep Areas. cmadler (talk) 16:30, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

[EC] Many hands make light work, so additional involvement is welcome. Non-admins can assemble queues in the prep areas, but I think the best way to learn the ropes is to start out by doing reviews of proposed hooks. First step, of course, is to get acquainted with the DYK rules, both by reading them and by following some of the review discussions on T:TDYK. --Orlady (talk) 16:32, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks guys. I'll definitely chip in as time allows. DC T•C 16:36, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Question re Four Price

Interesting issue in connection with Billy Hathorn's nom of Four Price. It appears he (under user name Bhathorn) created the article on conservapedia in July 2010. The link is http://www.conservapedia.com/Four_Price . CorenSearchBot picked it up as a copyvio. He has now copied the article (his own) verbatim onto Wikipedia. Not sure how that fits with DYK "new" content requirements and copyvio issues. Thoughts? Cbl62 (talk) 06:30, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

• I'd say that, based on your description, it meets the DYK requirement of "new" content. We regularly allow content that's been translated from a foreign-language-Wikipedia, for example. And if it can be confirmed that the contributor here is the same person as the contributor at Conservapedia, there is not a copyvio issue; since copyright is owned by the creator, a person can contribute (license) their content to multiple websites/organizations if they wish. Actually, looking a little further, Conservapedia's copyright statement says "Conservapedia grants a non-exclusive license to you to use any of the content (other than images) on this site with or without attribution." So even if it can't be confirmed that it's the same contributor, it's still not a copyvio, since Conservapedia say's it's OK. cmadler (talk) 11:30, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Queues 1 and 6

It has been a while since I last uploaded from prep to queues. I have done that tonight with queues 1 and 6. I think I did it all OK, including image protection. But it would be good if another admin can double-check to make sure I didn't muck it up. Cbl62 (talk) 03:18, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Impact of adding GAs to DYK

In considering whether or not to add new GAs to DYK, it's important to consider how that will impact DYK based on the data. New GA statistics are found Here. Last month, there were 333 new GAs. In April, there were 630 new GAs. The quantity varies, probably impacted by school schedules, WikiCup, etc. Presumably, including GAs on the MainPage would incentivize folks and increase the flow of GAs even above current levels. Even at the current rate, the new GAs in a big month like March would fill 20 slots per day. That would leave FAR fewer slots for new/expanded DYK hooks. As rd232 noted above, "The Main Page offers limited incentives because of limited space." I appreciate his desire to reward those who work hard on the GA process. However, those editors are far fewer in number than those who contribute hooks to DYK, and they already have the FA spot on the MainPage which is presumably the ultimate goal for those working to intensively improve an article. They are also free to participate in DYK by nomming when new or expanded. The DYK space is a place where a far broader and more diverse base of editors can come to have their content featured. This is highly valuable to the continued ability of Wikipedia to keep and attract editors. By giving over a significant number of the DYK slots to GAs, we are limiting the slots available to feature the work of the broader base of people who create new/expanded articles. I think it would be a step in the wrong direction. There are other ways to improve DYK quality. Even though I'm one of the persons who would be negatively impacted, I continue to believe that a limit on how many articles an individual editor can nom for DYK per month (maybe 20? 15? even 10?) would help. Many of the most problematic hooks have been the cookie-cutter articles which some folks generate, possibly to rack up rewards (someone called them "smarties", which I like) or to help them in WikiCup. Let's try incremental steps before radically shifting the focus of DYK away from promoting new/expanded articles. Cbl62 (talk) 01:59, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

You're assuming a near 100% pass rate for DYK nominations under the new-article system: I don't have any accurate statistics (the very throughput of articles on DYK makes statistics very hard to gather) but if DYK is receiving 25–35 submissions a day and posting 32 hooks a day, the failure rate cannot be very high at all. Physchim62 (talk) 02:14, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• Someone, please correct me if I'm wrong. I am of the impression that every one (or almost everyone) is a winner in the DYK lottery. With this kind of very low failure rate, it would be unreasonable to hope for anything but mediocrity, and the problems we know well exist. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 05:49, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• You are indeed incorrect. Browse the edit history of T:TDYK and you will see that nominations are regularly rejected, often because nominators are unwilling or unable to correct problems pointed out by the reviewers. 28bytes (talk) 06:10, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• I wasn't suggesting that nominations were never rejected, but what proportion of noms are rejected? 10%? 20%? Other Main Page sections have rejection rates of more than 50%... Of course, simply rejecting more nominations, on its own, won't help with quality: the rejections have to be based on some valid measure of quality (which need not be perfect or entirely objective, simply non-random). But DYK shouldn't be "Smarties for everyone" but "BIG 24-hour Smarties for the best hooks and articles" ;) Physchim62 (talk) 15:13, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

The biggest problem facing Wikipedia is a declining pool of new editors, not a lack of serious topics to be tackled. Reducing opportunities for these new editors to have their work highlighted to favor GA articles from well-established editors will only accelerate this trend. None of the current (often conflicting) proposals would actually improve DYK either as a project or as a benefit to readers or content creators. The one thing they all have in common is that they would displace genuinely new content from a wide pool of editors with a stream of articles neither timely enough for ITN nor good enough for TFA. DYK is the entry-level and the whole encyclopedia will suffer if we raise the bar too high for new contributors.

The biggest problem facing DYK is an overworked pool of content reviewers familiar with DYK standards while the project is awash in cookie-cutter articles generated by contestants in a gameshow. Restricting the number of points that can be scored in the WikiCup from DYK submissions would have strongly reduced both the backlog over the summer as well as the volume of cookie-cutter articles up for review. Indeed, removing DYK from the WikiCup altogether would improve the average DYK submission, lower the workload on DYK reviewers, and allow competitors to focus on improving existing articles to GA/FA status. - Dravecky (talk) 07:11, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Removing or at least limiting DYK contribution to WikiCup probably makes a lot of sense for DYK. But I anticipate at least as much resistance to that idea from WikiCuppers as there is resistance to GA hooks from DYKers. This resistance would be reduced by instead putting an overall monthly limit per editor (10?), so the Cup isn't targeted. 09:48, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• Cbl still hasn't explained exactly how opening DYK to more articles and more editors limits the pool of people who can contribute. And, again, my proposal above (new lottery process) very, very neatly handles all concerns related to 'too many approved DYKs'. → ROUX ₪ 11:45, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Cbl's argument is disingenuous at best. He has cherry-picked the month with the highest number of new GAs, without mentioning that this was the month of the GA review drive, resulting in a number of new GAs more than three times the norm. This chart will tell you that the real number is around 200 new GAs a month; that is less than eight per day, or one to two per update. That is presuming all GAs will be put up for DYK, which they probably won't so the number will be closer to one.

This is what the DYK partisans are up in arms about: giving up one of their eight bullets. This is how obstinate and insular the project has become, and why it is impossible to have a reasonable discussion about the subject without being met with "shut up, DYK should stay the way it's always been." Lampman (talk) 16:20, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Higher standards for sourcing

There has been a lot of discussion about modifying the DYK process to reduce the likelihood that problematic content will slip through to the Main Page, including:

1. Reducing the number of hooks which are promoted per day;
2. Replacing a certain percentage of DYK hooks with hooks from GAs;
3. Tracking which editors review and approve hooks;
4. Requiring DYK nominators to become reviewers;
5. Imposing a lottery system which gradually selects all eligible hooks;
6. Imposing a lottery system which selects a few hooks to be featured and rejects the rest; and
7. Removing or changing the 5-day deadline.

I think some suggestions should be implemented (reducing output, improving transparency, extending the 5-day deadline), some should be considered (featuring GAs), and some should be rejected (requiring DYK nominators to be reviewers, imposing a lottery system which rejects all but a few eligible hooks).

One suggestion which I have not seen (and please feel free to hurl fish my way if I just missed it) is to raise the sourcing standards for DYK articles. For instance, the current criteria require that the hook must be cited, but impose the less-stringent requirement of "the article in general should use inline, cited sources" for the rest of an article.

Why do we not require that all (or almost all) content in an article, not just the hook, must be attributed to reliable sources? This way, an article would need to undergo a much more thorough review before a hook was approved. A change of this type would have two effects:

1. It would increase the time needed to review a proposed DYK hook; and
2. It would reduce the number of articles which pass the minimum selection criteria.

This, in combination with other changes (such as reduced daily output and an extended deadline), would allow a balance to be achieved, wherein fewer, but better, articles are featured. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 20:09, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

There are many suggestions out there for reducing output, and I think that is the first thing DYK should do (by whatever means, except just building up a backlog). None of the other options for improving scritiny of DYK nominations will work with the current throughput, much less with the idea that the throughput must be at the current rate because of the input rate. Physchim62 (talk) 20:26, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Upping the reliable source requirements is a good first step,and increasing the criteria can help in reducing close paraphrasing (which has been plaguing DYK, per SandyGeorgia's findings). Using multiple sources forces the editor to synthesise his ideas and think in his own words. I fully support the proposal. --hkr Laozi speak 21:46, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

While the rule says "should", a lack of citations on paragraphs, charts and sections, etc. is brought up in reviews. The wording should be stronger in that particular rule.--NortyNort (Holla) 21:59, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Enforcement is entirely dependent on the reviewer, some reviewers are very strict about it, others only check the hook. But that brings up another point, even if the wording/criteria changes, would any of the reviewers follow it? And will anyone check to be sure? Which brings up the workload problem again...--hkr Laozi speak 22:37, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with Laozi that increasing the source requirement would reduce "close paraphrasing". All it would do is make it more difficult to find "close paraphrasing" where it exists: more sources to check = more work for reviewers; and there is still no idea of how to cut down the number of articles to be reviewed... Physchim62 (talk) 22:10, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, what would you propose?--hkr Laozi speak 22:31, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, points 1–7 above as long as you can come up with a way of reducing output! Everyone here knows my preferred method of reducing output, fine: but it's not the only one. Physchim62 (talk) 22:38, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

That's the conundrum isn't it? We have to reduce the output to reduce the workload, by increasing the criteria or rejecting more hooks. (even with rejecting mundane hooks, you need multiple people to do it objectively). But doing so increases workload and defeats the purpose. So it's best to address the problem that started the entire discussion, plagiarism. And yet, as you've pointed out, the solution also increases the workload, which makes the situation worse. I guess the only realistic way to reduce the workload is to have more reviewers, which would make solution 4 appealing. Unless there's another method? --hkr Laozi speak 22:53, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I think it takes far less time to challenge a hook than to refuse an entire article, although obviously you need to factor in the time for discussion, and the multiple editors involved. We might not all agree on the proportion, but some hooks which appear at present are really pretty mundane. The click-through rates speak for themselves: some hooks interest our readers, but the vast majority don't. Physchim62 (talk) 23:48, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually, if the stricter criteria include more options for speedy rejection, then it may become easier to challenge proposed hooks and articles. A poorly written or poorly sourced article with a perfectly-cited hook would be more difficult to challenge under the current guideline than if the minimum criteria for articles were raised. For example, one can judge fairly quickly whether a short article is well-written (not the "engaging, even brilliant" prose requirement of WP:FA) or contains inline citations from multiple sources. The most time-consuming part will be attempting to verify that the content of the article is actually supported by its citations (and is not plagiarized), but this is also the most important. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 01:22, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Of course speedy rejection is the key. Reviewers should look at the hook first, before the article. Why? because that's what our readers do. If the hook is lazy, the article is likely to be lazy as well, so why waste time on it? Well, you can if you want, nobody's stopping you, especially if it's a new user... but why can't I say "I think this hook is really too mundane because XXXX" and note that in the review, so that other reviewers might think twice before starting a review on the whole article? I cannot do that at the moment, I would be (quite rightly) accused of disrupting Wikipedia to prove a point. Physchim62 (talk) 02:02, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Whether a particular hook is mundane is a subjective determination. Mundanity could be argued for virtually every hook, and there is no good way to resolve disagreements precisely because the determination is subjective. You may think a particular hook is interesting and I may think it is more boring than watching mold grow in real-time, or vice versa, and neither one of us would be "right" or "wrong". By the way, I do not think it would be wrong to point out that certain hooks are mundane because they state something that is obvious or well-known (e.g., "... that France is located in Europe?"); however, I don't think we should label hooks as boring due to facts about certain topics being subjectively uninteresting. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 02:25, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I completely agree that DYK shouldn't label topics as "boring", and should aim to cover as wide a range of subjects as possible. Do you think DYK does that at the minute, when it it is repeatedly featuring "cooky-cutter" articles on a single topic over repeated sections? I don't wish to knock the articles, which are undoudtedly encyclopedic, but is it not too much to ask their authors to choose only the most interesting one (or two, or three) to put onto the Main Page? A little bit of self-selection, perhaps? "Interesting" is subjective, of course, but that is no reason to run away from it. Still, it's opposite, "mundane", is much easier to justify for a given hook, whatever its subject. Physchim62 (talk) 02:44, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I sympathize, and I think that multi-article hooks can effectively address the "cookie-cutter articles" issue. However, the five-day deadline can make multi-article nominations quite difficult to achieve. It can be difficult to write two or more DYK-quality articles within a five-day period when one has other time commitments (on or off Wikipedia). -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 03:07, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Current rule

FYI, we do have a stronger rule in place; D2 says "a rule of thumb is one inline citation per paragraph". Shubinator (talk) 23:14, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

• I believe that this suggestion will have a bigger and more positive impact on improving DYK than all of the others combined. Increasing quality requirements will minimize, if not eliminate, all of the issues that have been brought up. I would suggest expanding on this by including 3 of the 6 GA criteria, it should be required that the entire article be:

1. Well-written:

(a) the prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct; and

(b) it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.[1]

2. Factually accurate and verifiable:

(a) it provides references to all sources of information in the section(s) dedicated to the attribution of these sources according to the guide to layout;

(b) it provides in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines;[2] and

(c) it contains no original research.

3. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias. (this is already in place)

J04n(talk page) 00:14, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

And how do you plan to review all the 25–35 submissions a day aginst those worthy goals? Physchim62 (talk) 00:29, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, my assumption, and yes it is just an assumption, is that with stricter requirements there will be fewer submissions. If folks with more DYK experience than me (which is probably everyone reading this) feel my assumption is faulty then so be it. J04n(talk page) 00:41, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

It's nice to see the issue of the quality of the articles being addressed, and not just the hooks. Both are important, but asking that the articles appearing on the main page are also "well-written", "factually accurate and verifiable", and "neutral" seems somewhat obvious. We are already asking essentially the same for the hooks. Before asking "how can so many articles possibly be reviewed?", we should first answer the question "should main page-linked articles meet this minimal standard?" I say yes, with the qualification that they don't need to be "well-written" all the way up to GA standard. First Light (talk) 05:18, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Early life of Néstor Kirchner. Is this the sort of stuff we'd like to see on our main page? No offence to the author! I approved the article because it meets our current standards, but "...by the end of the XIX century, during the big immigrations waves of the time... he developed a mail friendship with a croatian Chilean..." - I think there should be at least a little more stringency re. quality. Arctic Night 12:25, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I would have at least delayed that article until it could get a quick copyediting (not that it needs to be perfect, but I agree that it should be better than that article), and I know this has been done before. If you need to cite a DYK rule in such a case, there's always D13. cmadler (talk) 13:07, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Rule D7 is also relevant - something so much in need of a copy edit appears to me to be unfinished / a work in progress. EdChem (talk) 13:59, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

If there were additional article rules for "well-written", "factually accurate", and "neutral", then it would actually make the reviewers' job easier and quicker. Having such a checklist, where an article could be rejected for those specific reasons, would be helpful to reviewers. It would also help if prospective reviewers were first sent to those guidelines/rules—the current approach is not even a suggestion: "For a more detailed discussion of the DYK rules and review process see the additional rules." First Light (talk) 14:35, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't know that I'd argue for "well-written" as the minimum standard for DYK, but I would support a minimum standard of "not rife with grammar errors, misspellings, etc." cmadler (talk) 14:56, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I've been think for a while that we need to develop a set of guidelines for reviewers that would also be a useful tool for editors. It would help us to get more consistency in reviews. However, it could be misused if it became a checklist that meant anything not explicitly mentioned is not something that can be considered by a reviewer. EdChem (talk) 15:00, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, reviewers and editors need better guidance, and a procedure to follow. It doesn't have to be a checklist. The quality of hooks and articles, and the reviews of both, would improve. First Light (talk) 16:22, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Moving from prep to queue, if your own hook is in the prep?

I try to avoid this, but rarely I overlook a set once in a while. Here is the scenario:

1. An editor (in this case myself for sake of case study) nominates hook at T:TDYK suggestions page.
2. A 2nd editor reviews the hook and article, and marks it as satisfying the DYK criteria.
3. A 3rd editor moves the hook from the T:TDYK suggestions page, to one of the "prep" pages, example, Template:Did you know/Preparation area 1
4. An admin, in this case, the same editor that originally nominated the hook, moves the now full set of hooks from the "prep" page, to an empty "queue" page, example, Template:Did you know/Queue/1.

• Question: Is it okay for an admin to move a set of hooks full from a "prep" page, to a "queue" page (if one of their nominated hooks was contained within that prep page), provided of course, that the hook was reviewed by a different editor, and moved to a queue by a different editor?

Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 06:15, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

This happens from time to time (e.g. with Cbl above), and IMHO it is Ok as long as you don't make non-trivial changes to your hook (text, changing lead/nonlead status and such). Materialscientist (talk) 06:20, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that this wouldn't count as a conflict of interest, as the movement from prep to queue is pretty much a technical matter and not an editorial one; it would only be problematic if an admin abused their technical ability to give their hook some sort of advantage, such as greater prominence on the page, or substantive changes to the hook as not already approved. But the mere technical matter of moving the text from one page to another doesn't seem to be a problem for admins who happen to have hooks in the queue. --Jayron32 06:32, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks very much for your input! ;) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 12:31, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I disagree in principle - the transfer is the final formal check that the update is main page ready and so I think that it is desirable for this "signing off" to be done by someone who has no nomination in the update. Particularly with inexperienced contributors preparing sets, the administrator who does this check should be checking for malformed updates, complete credits, image protection, conflict of interest in set preparation, etc. Cirt, I don't think current practice frowns on your action, but I think it should at least be discouraged. EdChem (talk) 14:05, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

A side question to this. I've made up the prep areas a few times now. Would it be considered a COI if I move my own (joint) hook - that had the DYKtick - to the prep area? I would never move an unticked one, even though I'm fairly sure it's ready, but would people complain about the above situation? Paralympiakos (talk) 14:08, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

• I don't have much opposition to the situation described above by Cirt, but I'd be a little concerned about an editor putting their own hook -- even if it's been approved -- into the prep area. I can imagine situations where it would be OK, but they're all fairly far-fetched, so realistically, I'd say don't do what Paralympiakos described. cmadler (talk) 14:19, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Placing hooks into the prep areas and moving a formed set of updates into the queues strike me as both processes where conflict of interest should be avoided. I would not take either of these actions on a hook where I was an editor, nominator, or reviewer – not only because of conflict of interest issues but also because it is desirable to have more editors consider each hook as it increases the chances of issues being raised earlier. Others may (reasonably) have different standards but I think we should (as a project) have a clear statement of what is acceptable "involvement" in this regard. EdChem (talk) 15:05, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Physchim's first law of chemical safety: it's always the point you didn't put on your checklist that makes your reaction explode. Physchim62 (talk) 15:37, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

<indent>The person who promotes hooks to preps sees not only the hook, but all ALTs and the review (which might be faulty). This steps is most important, and COI is to be avoided here. Ed is right on COI in promoting from preps to the queues, but keep in mind that the promoting admin risks their head (for promoting grossly inappropriate material) and is not in position to cheat there. Ideally, we needs checks on all 3 steps, in reality, first 2 are more important. Materialscientist (talk) 22:45, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

'Hook' parameter

This isn't coming up in the credits given to creators/expanders/nominators in the user talk template. I oppose the idea myself, but if we're going to implement it, we should make sure the hook line comes up correctly when placed on a user talk page! See this example. Arctic Night 12:30, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Fixed, sorry about that. On the concept itself, pitch in at the discussion above at #Get the facts straight. I don't have much of an opinion one way or the other; it's up to you guys to decide what you want. Shubinator (talk) 15:54, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

What's the point of DYK?

I see a lot of attempts at solutions above. (Some ideas better than others - but that's how things go when we're trying to hash out what to do.)

But I think the first step should be to decide why we should have DYK. Then once we've agreed upon that, then build upon that in what the solutions should be.

Though this may seem obvious to many who are contributing on this page, the recent discussions elsewhere to scrap DYK suggests that perhaps it isn't as obvious as one might think.

All I seem to find on the whole of WP:DYK is:

"This serves as a way to thank editors who create new content, encourages editors to contribute to and improve articles and the encyclopedia, and brings new and expanded articles to the attention of readers who view the Main Page."

So do we agree that this should be the 3 fold purpose of DYK? - jc37 17:36, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

New articles only?

Taking just the first section: "This serves as a way to thank editors who create new content..."

Why is it important for DYK to focus on new articles? Especially at this point where it's often said that Wikipedia is starting to have issues with upkeep on its existing articles?

And further, doesn't this go against WP:SS, which suggests that some content is better added to existing articles than to create "new" articles?

In other words, why is there a prejudice against new content that it's only DYK-worthy if it's divided into a new article (something that's merely a question of the technology; the way Wikipedia presents information).

I'm not being "snarky" or whatever tone might be applied to my questions, as has to some above. I genuinely would like to know what you all think. - jc37 17:36, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Not so. This is exactly why a fivefold expansion in an existing article also qualifies for DYK. cmadler (talk) 18:52, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

If that's true, it would seem to contradict WP:DYK, and more specifically what is stated on the main page right now. - jc37 19:10, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

The second sentence, right at the top of WP:DYK, states, The DYK section gives publicity to newly created or expanded Wikipedia articles (my emphasis). I agree that it contradicts the Main Page, and if anyone can suggest a good rewording, the Main Page should be changed. cmadler (talk) 19:18, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

"From Wikipedia's newest content" Resolute 19:23, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

IMHO, interpreting what DYK has historically been used for seems much less useful that exploring how the space could be most effectively used in the future. Haus^Talk 19:37, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes and no. There are already plenty of ideas of how we could use any "spare" Main Page space. But it is easier to modify what we've got thatn to rip things up and start from scratch. Anyone can propose scrapping DYK, although this page is probably not the best place to do it. While we have a lot of people all together commenting on DYK, it would be silly not to try modification before abolition. Physchim62 (talk) 20:23, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

The new article criterion is a simple input filter that can be almost automagically applied. It is arbitrary with regards to the section title, but there has to be some form of filter. Indeed, most of the criticisms are saying that there aren't enough filters. Physchim62 (talk) 20:26, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Maybe, but (at least based on my read of the various discussions so far) I think we would be better served if we "filter" based on content, rather than newness of the content to Wikipedia. - jc37 20:46, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

New articles only? Well, exactly my thoughts. It's quite challenging to create a series of hooks every day (or three sets, is it—if so, that's absurdly overserviced). We don't need to many shifts or so many hooks, and each one has to make the readers, figuratively, sit up or smile. Why restrict the pool to new articles? I'd much rather read a hook from any article (perhaps still with a slight emphasis on newer articles). Tony (talk) 01:21, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

It's currently four sets per day. That means that each hook can only be up for six hours, however good (or bad) it is. We know from tracking the stats at TFA and ITN that many people click on Main Page links more than 24 hours after the links are posted. The current turnover rate at DYK is, IMHO, ludicrous and a symptom of more serious problems in the process. Physchim62 (talk) 01:31, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Get the facts straight

Just an idea. For future credits, should the fact they nominated and appeared on the front page also begiven to them as a reminder as part of the template? I.e.

instead of (taking one of my DYKs)

It is something like

Simply south (talk) 12:40, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I assume you are referring to the credits you get on your talkpage? The tags on the article talkpages already do include the fact. rʨanaɢ (talk) 13:38, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I think this is a good idea: it won't be much extra work for the bot programmer to add this as a setting, I assume, and it has a small housekeeping advantage for those like me who keep a list of their hooks as displayed on the main page, in that we won't have to check the article talk page or the Recent Additions archives to see the final wording used. Bencherlite^Talk 14:49, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Bencherlite, this would make my DYK housekeeping easier. Sasata (talk) 15:15, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Sounds sensible enough. Alzarian16 (talk) 15:23, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

According to Shubinator, someone needs to add a parameter the {{UpdatedDYK}} template before he can implement the bot. Simply south (talk) 23:52, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Seeing as i don't know what to do, could someone else add it? Simply south (talk) 10:37, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

And we're updating. Simply south (talk) 00:38, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't like this proposal - I preferred it when it was 'short and sweet' back in the first half of 2009 - but that's just my opinion. I sometimes tl;dr :) Arctic Night 16:01, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

tl;dr? Simply south (talk) 20:24, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

(T)oo (l)ong(;) (d)idn't (r)ead. I've implemented hooks in user credits. If opinion shifts against it, it's easy enough to disable. Shubinator (talk) 04:27, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

The DYK Hall of Lame

As I pointed out above, there is a desperate need to (1) present fewer DYKs, with a higher benchmark of interest; and (2) include enough information to make the hooks meaningful. There seems to be a culture of reverse engineering from new articles that ends up with alarmingly bad hooks. Having read through a target article, DYK editors are too often seduced by their familiarity with its contents into thinking that a very brief hook will be a stand-alone—interesting, funny, outrageous, quizzical, incongruous—any of these will do, but must be tested for such. Most of the DYKs from two sets I happened upon over the past three days need to be either trashed or expanded. There is too little empathy for the reader who has not yet read the article in question; and there is no awareness that an effective hook has to function, in certain respects, as a stand-alone.

DYK Hall of Lame, Wednesday 3 November

• that the 1964 BSA A65 Rocket motorcycle had a top speed of 108 mph and was sold as the fastest motorcycle being produced by BSA? [So what. And no conversion to metrics.]
• that Norwegian folk singer Jack Berntsen had a cultural prize named after him? [So what. It's too short to explain why this is notable. Do I believe it as a stand-alone?]
• that between 1933 and 1935, American blues and boogie-woogie pianist and singer Walter Roland recorded around fifty songs for Banner Records? [The speed of output needs to be more explicit; bit longer; then it might work]
• that Empire Conveyor was the only ship sunk by U-122? [So what?]

DYK Hall of Lame, Friday 5 November

• at M-1 Global's Challenge XXI event, Artiom Damkovsky defeated Mairbek Taisumov to become their inaugural Lightweight MMA Champion and Guram Gugenishvili defeated Kenny Garner (who was replacing the injured Maxim Grishin) for their inaugural Heavyweight Championship? [Here, it's sort of cluttered with information that is hard to put together into an interesting hook ... which bit exactly is of interest?]
• Emery Point Light, an active lighthouse at Larrakeyah Barracks, near Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, was the only navigational aid to remain functional in the path of Cyclone Tracy? [Errr ... When was Cyclone Tracy, and was it special? And so what if one lighthouse remained functional. And I guess if it "remained" functional, it was "active" in the first place.]
• various authors speculate that the Byzantine aristocratic Phokas family are of Arab, ancient Roman, Armenian or Georgian origin? [Do I need to know something more, or is this just the tenuous bore that it looks like? "Various"? "Speculate"? Sounds just like what WP articles shouldn't be.]

Examples of possibilities that are allowed to fall flat:

The James R. Lewis DYK has potential, for example, but it falls flat as a stand-alone when you get to "laetrile" factory, since you have to divert to that link (not the James R. Lewis links) to "get it".

Gary Clayton Anderson ... that one works.

George Tuccaro sort of works, I guess.

Myrna Sharlow would work if we knew that she was a dud singer—that would be gossip-worthy; but was she? It gives no indication.

It is astounding that nearly a quarter of the main page has been taken up with what is mostly lily-livered dross. Strong directorship is required to encourage, mentor, train the writers, to act as a filter, and to ensure that there's an adequate spread of topics (there isn't in the samples I've taken). Tony (talk) 15:32, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Any article (and, by extension, any hook) that is featured on DYK should fit into a section entitled "Did you know?". ITN doesn't post any stories which are not "In the news"; OTD does not feature anything which wouldn't fall under the heading "On this day". If editors are saying "ah, but this is a really good new article, it deserves a spot on DYK", they are abusing their Main Page space, which is for readers and not for editors. Physchim62 (talk) 15:51, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

If the tone weren't quite so nasty, this could become a productive discussion aimed at helping DYK contributors improve.
Tony's first example under 5 November ("M-1 Global's Challenge XXI event") is a mess because of contributors whose goal was maximizing the number of articles in one hook (a Wikipedia contributors' parlor trick), rather than making the hook interesting. DYK veterans have learned that shorter is better. Multi-article hooks can work well when the multiple topics fit together naturally, but all too often they collapse under the weight of too many links. --Orlady (talk) 15:55, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

So that stuff is getting through, but killing 60 deer in two weeks is apparently not interesting enough? That goes to show, different strokes... (on a related note, if anybody would care to take a look - the original reviewer doesn't want to get involved - that would be much appreciated!) Arctic Night 16:03, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

That article and hook haven't been rejected from DYK; they are still under discussion. Anyway, the big issue with the hook wasn't so much one reviewer's view that it's boring, as that it described as fact something that was merely an unprovable boast. (That's the kind of quality control that DYK reviewers routinely provide.) Furthermore, there are suggestions made several days earlier than yours that haven't been reviewed at all -- probably because reviewers have been diverted here, and are busy discussing the review process instead of reviewing things. --Orlady (talk) 17:09, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

It is sad to see that people won't accept that world championship-determining bouts in mixed martial arts might not be interesting to some readers. It is sadder that the actual history - a topic of discussion on this page in the last week or so - is forgotten. The hook was originally intended for an October 28 appearance, to coincide with the day both championship bouts was to take place. When it was reviewed too late for that date to be possible, redrafting taking into account the results was needed. By the way, to those whose agenda is just to criticise the DYK project, don't imagine that what you are doing here is being mistaken for anything constructive. EdChem (talk) 16:06, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I assume, Tony, that you are putting yourself up for the "directorship" you proposed? If so, I won't be working for you. The Interior(Talk) 16:15, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

←No thanks. But there's gotta be someone who has the skills and personality to do it. Raul, Sandy, Karanacs and the team do the FAC process; FLC has a directorship. TFA is determined on very strict criteria by Raul. The Signpost has a Managing Editors in HaeB. But this process is a dog's breakfast and needs some leadership, at least until it's on a proper footing.

The usual pattern when other people come in and criticise a process on WP is that the regulars take up arms in resentment. Then, when they see that the critics aren't going to slink away after a few days or weeks, they gradually recognise the advantages of reform. I'm quite willing to sit this one out until we get to stage 2 and beyond.

BTW, the "M-1 Global's Challenge XXI event," ... who's the target readership? Because no one else will know WTF it's referring to. This is a comlete failure to consider the broad readership on the main page. A few extra words might do the trick, if it were interesting enough in the first place. Convince me. Tony (talk) 16:25, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

WP:SOFIXIT. Go to the suggestions page, find a hook you think is bad for whatever reason, and suggest a better one. 28bytes (talk) 16:36, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yes, FAC is an excellent example – of what not to do. I've been complaining about "featured crap" for even longer than I've been complaining about "Did you care?". FAC has shown itself incapable of picking up not just copyvio, but also BLP, encyclopedic style and even basic English grammar problems, all because it has let itself be diverted from its original purpose into a process of providing Smarties for the regulars. DYK doesn't need some sort of Übermanager, simply to concentrate on trying to provide a reasonable amount of Main Page content for our readers. Physchim62 (talk) 16:40, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

e/c To 28bytes: The fix that Tony1 is suggesting is to the overall process, not to individual hooks. When the process is working correctly, then the overall quality of hooks and articles on the main page will improve. Telling someone to stop talking about process and start fixing individual hooks is not very productive to this discussion. First Light (talk) 16:45, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

All haranguing about proposals to completely revamp DYK definitely has diverted attention from the ongoing work of running the process. --Orlady (talk) 17:09, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Maybe that's because it's working over-capacity. If there's trouble running DYK because of all the criticism, why not cut down to 12-hour updates? Or 24-hour updates? There's plenty of material in the queue that has been approved by the current processes and so is presumably no worse than the stuff going up every six hours at present. Physchim62 (talk) 17:19, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I normally put forward decent hooks. They get rejected though for being "too offensive". Christopher Connor (talk) 18:52, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Rushes in to defend own hook - Actually, I disagree that the Empire Conveyor hook was lame. Mention a World War II U-boat and most people would think "probably sunk quite a few ships then". Some did, but not all. Some didn't even manage to sink one ship. I thought the hook was interesting enough, and at least two more editors must have agreed with that as the hook got used. Of course, if you think that any hook is lame, you are always at liberty to suggest an alternative. Another approach is to write some articles yourself and suggest some interesting hooks so that they may appear on DYK. Mjroots (talk) 12:41, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, lame hooks make it to the mainpage. The main reason for this is that, as for the other problems, there are too many submissions and not enough reviewers. Another problem is that not everyone agrees on what is an uninteresting hook. (Personally, I think the first batch of 5 hooks Tony lists are acceptable, though one or two may perhaps have done with a little tweaking). There are only a few possible solutions - either reduce the number of submissions or increase the number of reviewers or the quality of reviews. Since none of this seems likely to occur, there isn't much that can be done about this. Gatoclass (talk) 05:50, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Queue 3 fix

The second hook of Queue 3 has an extra "that": "that B.B. King and Eric Clapton that won a Grammy Award". MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 18:23, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Fixed, thanks! Shubinator (talk) 18:27, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Swap leads from Queues 2 and 3?

If the hooks in Queues 2 and 3 were swapped, both would be featured at times more likely to meet with an interested audience, i.e., the English church during English daytime and the American football hook during American daytime. Cbl62 (talk) 02:36, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I hesitated to ask, but Christiane Kohl in the middle of the night in Europe is perhaps not the perfect timing, could be later. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:11, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Good suggestion, Cbl62. I swapped those hooks as suggested. I also swapped some other hooks, as there were two hooks about the Canadian Northwest Territories side-by-side! Interest in Christiane Kohl is not so geographically restricted as English churches and American college football, and her hook will run from 500 to 1100 in most of Europe, so I don't see a particular call for switching it out. --Orlady (talk) 15:31, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't ask if so, but read the start of q2 at 11pm London, that is midnight in Frankfurt where she had a premiere last Sunday. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:52, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

(???) It looks to me like queue 2 goes up at 06:00 AM in London. Are we seeing different versions of the schedule? --Orlady (talk) 17:12, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

You are right, sorry. I was (too) used to seeing London left and didn't realize that the pattern changed. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:35, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I thought any DYK was put on any time of the day and this is the first i've seen that hooks are put in an order according to specific countries' viewing times. This doesn't seem right. Simply south (talk) 22:21, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I have observed considerate placing here, like Sunday's cantata matched with a picture of a church (not 7 November, though, and Halloween, of course), or a composition timed on the composer's birthday (without me asking). That seems more than right to me, thanks to the one(s) who did it! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:59, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

What type of data should be in a DYK?

There's many calls for "mundane" information to be excised. But I'm not sure how that can be done and not be really arbitrarily subjective.

Ignoring the WP:DYK page for a moment, it would seem to me that what the average person would expect to see in a DYK, mostly fall into two categories:

• "records", like biggest, smallest, tallest, etc. (Even second tallest, etc.)
• And juxtaposition; that is, information which one might not have guessed (like the "twist" in the punch line of a joke". Knowing that some person famed for politics did something that might not have been expected by someone in the field of politics. (No infidelity jokes here, if you please : ) Or a famed Nobel laureate for physics who was a life long reader of comic books.

If we can start there, I think we would be able to eliminate most of the "Did you know France is in Europe" type DYKs.

Are there any other kinds that anyone can think of? (Not that we need to be all inclusive, obviously WP:IAR can apply whenever needed.) - jc37 17:36, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't think we necessarily need to include all the mundane details in the hook. I keep seeing requests to add dates and locations and other stuff when this is usually not important for the hook. They put me off so I imagine they might put readers off. Also increases the length. Just the important facts of the hook should be included. Christopher Connor (talk) 18:43, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

• I think a lot of the problem has to do with wording. Consider a pair currently on the nominations page. The first could have been a boring mundane hook:

... that Jordan Kovacs was the second leading tackler in the Big Ten Conference?

Nothing remarkable whatsoever about that statement; assuming there were at least two people, somebody had to be second! But instead, TonytheTiger wrote it as:

... that American football safety Jordan Kovacs went from being a walk-on to being the second leading tackler in the Big Ten Conference?

which makes it much more interesting due to the juxtaposition of his previous walk-on status to his success. Here's another one that started off with a fairly mundane hook proposal:

... that American country blues singer Lottie Kimbrough, was described as "as one of the sizable talents of the 1920s blues tradition"?

which I think is mundane because it takes the form of "X is Y" which, while descriptive, tends not to be hooky. Fortunately a reviewer suggeted a much more interesting ALT:

... American country blues singer Lottie Kimbrough was nicknamed "the Kansas City Butterball"?

As Abbott and Costello could have attested, funny nicknames are funny. cmadler (talk) 19:15, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd agree there. My last DYK was

... that the development of the Marker degradation chemical synthetic route between 1938 and 1940 established Mexico as a world center for steroid production?

I didn't nominate that – I just rescued the article from AfD, and someone else felt it was DYK-worthy. If I'd have bothered, I would have put in a hook along the lines of

... that the discovery of the Marker degradation allowed contraceptive pills to be produced from Mexican yams?

The first hook is just a bit lazy, it comes straight from the article without any thought. And yet it is the hooks that readers see, and which entice them to click through to the articles. Physchim62 (talk) 19:38, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

• I agree that DYK should be about interesting hooks that do more than stating obvious or mundane facts (though topics should probably not be rejected as boring). I've tried in the past to categorize types of hooks that are interesting. That was part of the motivation in developing DYKSTATS -- to show people examples of hooks that were successful enough to draw a lot of click-throughs. The cautionary counter-point, though, is that we don't want to encourage a "race for the bottom" with hooks designed to unduly titilate or offend. Also, humor can be an important ingredient in a good hook, and humor is not easy to categorize and can be perceived differently in different cultures. In any event, here is a non-exclusive list of hook types that I think are likely to be successful:

(1) Records. As Jc37 noted above, record-setting accomplishments can make for good hooks. Tallest building, fastest man, etc. One of the all-time most viewed hooks that fits in this category: ... that with a leg-span of 30 centimetres (12 inches), the giant huntsman (pictured) is one of the world's largest spiders?

(2) Oddities. In essence, a hook that makes the viewer say to him or herself, "You've got to be kidding." (e.g., one of the all-time view leaders: that Captain Ivan Castro is the only blind officer serving in the United States Army Special Forces?)

(3) "Rest of the story" hooks. Sometimes, hooks are effective when they don't give the full story, but offer a tease that creates a sense of mystery and entices the viewer want to click on the article to see "the rest of the story." An example from the all-time views list: ... that the discovery of geometrical body Gömböc (pictured) in 2006 helped understanding the body shape of turtles?

(4) Sex. Obviously, sex and double entendres sell, though we need to be careful about going too far. An example of a good all-time view leader in this category: ... that some hermaphrodite snails and slugs pierce each other with love darts (pictured) during mating?

(5) "Current events." Although we don't feature hooks that are included in ITN, there are many topics that ITN overlooks that have been successful as DYK hooks. An example from the all-time view list: ... that Hillary Rodham Clinton (pictured) may be ineligible for appointment as United States Secretary of State by Barack Obama unless a Saxbe fix can be worked out? Cbl62 (talk) 20:22, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I think all of the above would work well as rules of thumb, cbl, except the current events one. Current events (though they shouldn't be disincluded) should have tighter requirements. (And now that i think about it, so should the sex/innuendo ones.) The current event example you give, would seem to fall under "the rest of the story", as well... And really, I think that "the rest of the story" is a big part of what DYK is trying to accomplish.

So juxtaposition in the telling, with a hint of "the rest of the story". And with some tentative general topics of: records, oddities, and sex. And I think "the surprising way such-n-such was discovered" (surprising discoveries and discovery methods) might be one too. Any others? - jc37 20:44, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Just use a swearword or racial slur and attach it to the hook some way. Christopher Connor (talk) 21:01, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

To point out as well that ITN actively encourages editors to submit their more quirky new current affairs articles to DYK. When ITN runs "quirky" stories, these are usually from articles that are too old to qualify for a DYK spot (but which have been updated to take into account a news story). There have been several discussions in the past about the relationship between the two sections, and there seems to be a good understanding between the two of their different purposes. Physchim62 (talk) 21:10, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

• I like what is being said in this thread about guidelines for inclusion ... what DYK writers should look for, and what readers like to see. The colourful, the surprising, the (very) interesting: these are the core opportunities. It is, I must say, akin to the high-end journalist's mentality WRT what will interest readers. We need a page of good examples for DYK writers. That would ease the pathway towards becoming a DYK writer, as well as confirming the instincts of the old hands.

We need a straw poll or RfC on the following matters:

• • Fewer sets (one a day would be fine, IMO)
  • Fewer hooks in each set (leave the readers wanting more ... it's an old dictum that works for a lot of things)
  • Slightly longer hooks, where necessary, since many hooks at the moment don't give enough information for most readers to get it".
  • Widen the pool from "new(ish" articles to any article in WP.
  • Forget about this process as a training ground for new editors. If DYKs are to continue to appear on the project's most prestigious and exposed page, nothing less than high levels of professionalism are required. Tony (talk) 11:49, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Dispelling a myth about DYK

There's this recurring argument that DYK serves as an entry point for new editors. I've looked at one day, November 3, which happened to have a good number of entries (29, with 32 nominators). Here's the number of DYKs for each creator:

332, 275, 183, 673, 332, 1, 467, 24,
34, 30, 101, 17, 143, 143, 26, 3,
19, 220, 836, 19, 13, 275, 332, 1,
1, 30, 121, 1, 121, 13, 168, 1

The average number of DYKs for each contributor is 155!

What about the apparent newbies? Well, three are still pending, though at least two of these contributors seem highly proficient (User:Siauderman and User:ResidentAnthropologist). The other two have been rejected, with such comments as "Major copyvio concerns. Sources have been copy and pasted without even minor attempts at paraphrasing. Article may have to be deleted." Welcome to Wikipedia.

I think this confirms what some have said above: DYK, as it exists now, is not primarily a project through which new editors are introduced to Wikipedia. It is there mostly for established contributors to rack up their numbers, for their own prestige. Lampman (talk) 19:56, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I disagree in part and agree in part. Disagree part. The data you've shown indicates that, on the day that you've sampled (which may or may not be representative), there were five newbies whose work was nommed for a 1st DYK. Three of them look like they will go to the Main Page. If that day were typical, that means that DYK is giving Main Page coverage to 90 new editors (3 x 30) per month. That is a good thing. If 90 new editors per month get Main Page space, that will hopefully encourage many of them to become regular Wikipedia contributors. That's how I got hooked on Wikipedia (someone nomming an article of mine for DYK without my knowing about it). As for the other 2 newer users where we caught copyvio issues, that's also a good thing. Those users will learn from the experience of having presented their non-qualifying article to DYK. Agree part. The part that I agree with is concern with the concentration of hooks by very experienced editors. Experienced editors should not be excluded from DYK, as they have shown that they know how to create good content and offer good hooks. However, I do favor an effort to limit the number of DYK hooks by any one editor, in part to avoid limiting the space available to feature newer editors. (If we go from 32 hooks/day to 16 hooks/day, the risk of squeezing out and/or discouraging new editors whose hooks get rejected goes up.) I've previously proposed imposing some limit (10, 15, 20 hooks?) that any individual can submit in a month. I haven't heard opposition to that. Such a limit would also discourage cookie-cutter hooks, as folks would have to pick and choose which of their articles they think are truly the best suited to DYK. Cbl62 (talk) 20:48, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea. The statistics show that DYK can be an entry point for new editors, but that it's dominated by highly experienced ones. If the number of DYKs are cut, we must ensure that this tendency isn't reinforced, and I think a cap could help towards that (full disclosure: I have over 100 DYKs myself...) Lampman (talk) 22:08, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's a Bad Idea, far from it. I must admit that I'm surprised at the (high) number of monthly submissions that have been suggested as an acceptable upper limit. If one were to take the current FAC limit of no more than one active submission at any one time, then the figures would be much lower than those being suggested. Hooks from regulars are obviously going to have to coexist with hooks from newcomers as DYK is structured at the moment, but DYK shouldn't just be a channel for the regulars: both regulars and newcomers should be nominating factoids that fit within a section entitled "Did you know?" without even the need for the subheader "From Wikipedia's newest articles". I don't feel that it's unreasonable to ask the regulars to exercise some self-restraint in what they nominate – obviously we can't ask the same of the newcomers, but the newcomers will be influenced by what they see in the Main Page section. Physchim62 (talk) 22:37, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I absolutely agree that self-submissions for experienced editors should be limited to some daily/monthly level. I think that the FAC limit is inappropriate for DYK, because the "next" article can just be submitted to FAC when the current submission is done, but at DYK, by that time it will be too late ("newness"). But anything in the range of 15 self-noms per month up to 2 per day would be fine with me. I do think that such a limit should only apply to self-noms; experienced editors should be encouraged to seek out and nominate suitable articles by newer editors. cmadler (talk) 13:56, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean. If you want a second article on DYK, you simply wait to launch it until the first one has been featured. That takes about a week, probably less for experienced editors, where there will be fewer issues. In any rate, I don't see how your suggestion of up to 62 entries a month will help at all, since very few editors can possibly submit more than that as it is. If there is going to be a cap, it should be one that counts. Lampman (talk) 14:32, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

I think cmadler's suggestion was to cap self-noms at two per day up to a combined total of 15, not 62, per month. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 15:07, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Do these numbers reflect DYK creations or total DYKs (creations + nominations)? The reason I ask is that nominations by experienced editors of articles created by new users are, from the perspective of encouraging new contributors, just as good as nominations by new users of articles they have created. It does not change your main point (that experienced editors make up the majority of DYK participation), but it may be something to keep in mind. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 15:07, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

There were no articles by new users nominated by established ones among the ones I looked at. Lampman (talk) 18:22, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Lampman that a limit of 62 hooks per month would not help. At the current rate, DYK features about 960 hooks per month (8 hooks X 4 daily updates X 30 days). If we allow 62 hooks by one person, that one person would have 6.5% of the total DYK output. I suggest moving to a limit of 15 hooks per month. I also agree with Cmadler (and, I think, Black Falcon) that the cap should not limit experienced editors from seeking out and nominating suitable articles by newer editors, which should be encouraged. I also suggest that the limit apply to "hooks" rather than "articles," so that a user could combine 2 new articles into 1 hook toward his/her monthly limit. We can adjust the cap (upward, downward or eliminate) after testing it for a month. The main reason for it is to make sure that experienced users aren't squeezing out less experienced users. We can try it for a month and see how it works. If it results in a shortage of hooks, or has the effect of causing too much discontent, we can also abandon the idea. Cbl62 (talk) 15:30, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you all read my mind. As per Cbl62, I think that limit should be on hooks, not articles, so if an editor has a ton of free time and wants to self-nom 15 hooks of 5 articles each during the course of a month, they should feel free. And if an editor wants to nom 60 hooks for articles created by new editors, that's fine too. (Perhaps there should be a clarification point that you and a buddy can't team up and nom all of each others' articles, or would that be too beany?) cmadler (talk) 16:47, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

At my peak of DYK submission, my highest total for one month was 20 nominated articles. There were a few doubles in that run but I could still see a hook of mine on the Main Page on average every other day. Exciting for me, but perhaps not for the rest of the planet, so I'm hard pressed to understand why we couldn't cap submissions at 15 hooks or 20 articles (whichever comes first) per editor per calendar month. That's a very high rate of exposure and should really only reduce the submissions of a handful of editors. I'd even entertain a 12-hook/15-article cap as both reasonable and workable. (Of course, IAR would allow reviewers to allow an editor to bend the cap if, for example, they came up with an exciting three-article hook late in the month that would push them over the monthly article limit.) But the cap itself should focus the most prolific editors on submitting only their best work to DYK. - Dravecky (talk) 21:02, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

A 12-hook/15-article cap for self-nominations as proposed by Dravecky doesn't seem at all severe to me (although I've never personally managed to reach that limit, so easy for me to say), any editor filling their limit would still get 180 DYK credits in a year. No point in restricting the number of nominations of others' articles though, that's the way to bring new editors in. If the result of such a cap is to reduce the number of available hooks such that there are only say 18 a day (three sets of 6) that would in my opinion be a very good thing. The present number gives the reviewers a really hard time (I know, I don't review enough myself) just trying to keep up - all the other suggestions of improving hook and article quality have a chance if there are far less to check. Mikenorton (talk) 01:05, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I support the basic concept, but I think the limit should be a range, as opposed to a specific number, to allow for a little wiggle room. 15-20, depending on the quality, appeal, and size of the articles. Also, there's the concern about co-creations. If an article is created by multiple editors, does that count as one article for each or is it shared between them? There are a lot of kinks to work out, and more DYK participants need to be notified of this discussion, but the premise sounds intriguing.--hkr Laozi speak 02:01, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm still amazed by the sort of figures that are being suggested for a limit on DYK authorship. How about two a month? Or three, or five? Special rules for February if you want! But the regulars should play an active part in self-selecting the articles they nominate, especially if they are the principal authors of those articles. With limits as the regulars want them, there is no incentive for self-selection and so no benefit to the reader. Physchim62 (talk) 03:36, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

My comment was based on Clbl62's suggestion of "10, 15, 20 hooks?", I fail to see how "15-20" can be construed as leading to a limit of 62, 93, and 155 nominations, respectively. And if you want any limit to be accepted, they, the regulars, have to agree to it too. Since many of them are established users, it would be wise not to ignore them, lest the flood of angry complaints come later. Wikipedia is based on consensus, after all.--hkr Laozi speak 04:21, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm also surprised by the high numbers being suggested as a possible limit. Like Physchim62, I was thinking along the lines of 4 per editor per month as a number that would raise the quality and reduce the backlog. First Light (talk) 05:35, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I couldn't see any point in imposing a cap unless some statistical analysis were done first, otherwise it's just guesswork. Not sure I really like the idea of a cap in any case, but I think if you're going to consider imposing limits on some contributors, you should at least have established beforehand that that limit is going to make a concrete difference to the total number of submissions. Gatoclass (talk) 06:03, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you had in mind, but here are some monthly DYK figures on five of the most frequent DYK contributors (myself included) showing recent months with more than 15 DYKs. I think these figures show that a limit of 15 DYKs per month would make a difference in reducing the total number of submissions. It also would, as some have mentioned, force frequent contributors to focus on their best work.

• TonyTheTiger: 44 DYKs in Oct. 2010; 58 DYKs in September 2010; 38 in July 2010;
• Alansohn: 52 DYKs in Oct. 2010; 61 DYKs in Sept. 2010; 64 DYKs in Aug. 2010; 70 DYKs in July 2010; 65 DYKs in June
• Geschichte: 32 in Aug. 2010; 32 in April 2010; 21 in March 2010; 28 in Feb. 2010; 31 in Jan. 2010
• BillyHathorn: 24 in Oct. 2010; 19 in May 2010; 18 in April 2010; 25 in Jan. 2010
• cbl62: 20 in Sept. 2010; 21 in Aug. 2010; 30 in July 2010; 19 in May 2010. Cbl62 (talk) 06:50, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Also, perhaps I should point out that imposing rules that make it harder for experienced DYKers to participate is going to exacerbate some of the other problems people have complained about, like crummy articles, mundane hooks etc., as well as potentially increase the workload of reviewers, who will have to deal with more noobs who don't understand the process or the rules. Gatoclass (talk) 06:08, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm assuming we will likely also reduce the number of daily updates, as there has been momentum building for reducing the total output. If we go from 4 updates to 3 updates, that should help with the workload and quality control. It will also give hooks 8 hours of exposure instead of 6. Cbl62 (talk) 07:08, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry if I missed some issues raised in this (overly) long thread. But if I understand it right, and it is about setting a hard limit on the number of submissions/month, then I would say a big NO (no COI - I never reach those rates myself). Quenching an editor who writes fast and good is plain wrong - measure by quality, not numbers. DYK regulars know that the key problem of the project is reviewing. How well would it be if all those commenting here spent that time on reviewing the current nominations, instead of criticizing the past ones! Materialscientist (talk) 07:25, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I must say I'm inclined to agree that if the goal is to reduce the number of submissions, I would rather see an increase in the minimum size of an article than restrictions on particular editors. It would be a lot easier to monitor too. I'm not sure that alone would solve the problem though. Because really, it's not about reducing the number of submissions, it's about increasing the quality of review. And for that, you need not only to reduce the number of submissions, but also to have in place a more robust review process. Gatoclass (talk) 07:43, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Length numbers can be cheated by bloating the prose (spelling out all abbreviations, describing all terms, etc, that might not be helpful to the article quality). I would start rejecting boring hooks and articles (which we kept passing saying "this might be interesting to someone", no, not someone, make it more interesting to everyone!) - this would stimulate better writing and researching. Materialscientist (talk) 07:55, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Well then we would need a vote on hooks. It wouldn't be fair to leave it up to just one reviewer. Gatoclass (talk) 09:09, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Add to consensus about limiting self noms to a small number (obviously this includes two wiki mates nomming each others etc). Any othe numbers would get my support but I'd favour the lowest. Addicts can always add to the quality of theirs (and even better other people's) work. Priority at DYK should be given to new people and new subjects.Victuallers (talk) 10:22, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I like the idea of some restriction on the number of self-noms, but limits should not be rigid. In my intermittent involvement with DYK, I've done far more reviewing and queue-building than nominating. As a reviewer and queue-builder, I have found it annoying to deal with "mass production" inputs from someone who is actively producing a large number of articles about a particular subject (often derived from a single source). These mass-produced articles often have a large amount of overlapping content; there is a propensity for "close paraphrasing" of the source information; many of the proposed hooks are profoundly boring; and it can be hard to build diverse sets of hooks when 20% of the hook suggestions are for articles about a particular narrow topical area (a few people might be delighted by a whole hook set filled with hooks on a topic like the snails of Slobbovia, karate experts of Elbonia, or the hymns of John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith, but they are unlikely to interest more than a small fraction of readers). I'd love to be able to tell prolific contributors that they need to choose only their best work (or most interesting hooks) to nominate for DYK.
However, arbitrary limits should be avoided because they could discourage participation by contributors who have intermittent bursts of activity (which seems to be the case of many "regulars"). For me, and many other experienced contributors I interact with, DYK motivates us to write half-way decent articles in lieu of stubs. Most of my DYKs have been for topics that I wrote about to resolve a redlink or a disambiguation issue, and because the topic was interesting I decided to write an article instead of creating a stub. DYK production for people like me tends to be sporadic. An hour or so ago, I compiled the DYK "baubles" from my talk page to count my DYK contributions and determine their frequency. I found that I submit them at an average rate of slightly more than one per month, but the pace is very sporadic -- I sometimes had two or three in less than a week, and once or twice I might have submitted more than one a day. (I also was awarded a couple of credits for articles that I substantially improved during DYK review, but that's beside the point). Accordingly, I'd hate to see restrictions like "no more than one a day" or the draconian "only one hook on the suggestions page at one time," but I think that contributors and reviewers should be advised that reviewers have the discretion to reject some of a contributor's submissions on the basis that they are substantially similar to other hooks from the same contributor that have run recently or are currently in the queue. Implementing that kind of rule on a subjective basis would admittedly require a lot of discussion here at first, but I think that discussion of specific situations would help us evolve some more specific and objective standards. --Orlady (talk) 16:50, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm amazed by the number of vague and unworkable suggestions brought up here to, purportedly, reduce quality and improve quality. "More reviewers", "better reviews", "no hard cap", "no boring hooks". Everybody who's been even briefly involved in the DYK review process will know that if an entry is rejected on anything but hard and fast policy, there's gonna be a piss storm that'll take up pages of discussion and hours of editors' time. Try telling a contributor "sorry, your hook is too boring, goodbye", and see what happens. The only way to make real change is by implementing rigid rules: limits on submissions, higher length requirements, stricter quality requirements. You'd almost suspect that entrenched contributors, who are happy about the system the way it is, are making unworkable suggestions to sabotage the ones that would actually work. Lampman (talk) 12:13, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I've no illusions about the difficulty of making real change. I published my Main Page viewing stats back in January, showing the absolutely catastrophic level of DTK click throughs that has nothing to do with its position "below the fold" as the regulars would pretend. What has happened since then? Absolutely nothing. Nada. DYK is still producing so much low quality material that readers couldn't read it even if they wanted to! All the other Main Page sections reject over half the material submitted to them – the rejection rate at DYK is about 10%. Those editors who kick up a "piss storm" about their lazy cookie-cutter hooks should be told as forcefully as possible that their attitude destroys DYK. Physchim62 (talk) 13:00, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. (1) Once it has been established that there is no automatic entitlement to get on the main page if only an article passes some technical criteria, and that in fact only a small percentage of articles will make it, some of these problems will disappear. (2) If that's not enough and no wiki-style solution can be found, we may need the same kind of solution that FA has: A single editor who is in charge of the editorial decision. I doubt that Raul would be willing to fill this role, but I am sure someone can be found if necessary. Hans Adler 12:53, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

You can't have a grand poobah making all the editorial decisions at DYK because there are far too many editorial decisions for just one person to make. Raul only has to pick one article a day; we have to pick 36. And that's only the start. Gatoclass (talk) 17:09, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Agreed! Johnbod (talk) 15:24, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

(ec)Unlike some of the other projects on Wikipedia there are a lot of different editors involved, which is the main reason why we're having such an interminable discussion. It would be great if we had more reviewers but they have to volunteer and the current throughput is daunting to most I think. Less hooks solves a lot of our problems, allowing reviewers to spend more time working with nominators and creators on hooks and their related articles - apart from possibly giving better exposure on the main page (shorter sets and longer times I mean). However, we are struggling to find a way of doing this, none of the suggestions are ideal, they all come with their problems. I personally don't care if someone tells me my hook is boring, I'll probably agree in many cases, and this is done fairly often I think, but should probably be done more. Improving sourcing is good, but in my view reliable sources should be being used under the current rules, so we're back to reviewing again. Requiring longer articles won't necessarily work, although it could be tried. I've already said that I'm personally happy with capping self-nominated hooks, but the consensus for this doesn't look particularly strong. I haven't given up on this process yet, tedious though it is. Mikenorton (talk) 12:56, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I support a cap per nominator. For one person, in some months, to average more than one DYK per day, while it is impressive, is hard to justify in terms of reader interest (since they tend to be on the same sort of subjects) or the aims of DYK. I think the limit should be a single figure, perhaps 6 per month. I think it is clear that introducing this would by itself significantly reduce the number of noms, and clearly leave more space for less frequent editors. Johnbod (talk) 15:24, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I oppose caps simply because it will encourage socking. Otherwise I would have supported a cap of 30 a month (that's roughly one-a-day. that should be enough.) - jc37 02:35, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I also oppose caps for the reason stated by Materialscientist: the proposal prioritizes process (quantity) over the quality of content. We should not artificially constrain or discourage editors who are able and willing to write many decent articles in a short period of time. It would be much better to limit the number of eligible nominations by raising the minimum standards for consideration (e.g., length, sourcing, etc.). -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 05:14, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

A simple proposal

Distilling and combining some ideas that several people have given above, what if we:

1. Limit the number of hooks to (let's say) 18 per day.
2. Stop seeing the technical fulfillment of DYK requirements as an entitlement to appear on the main page.
3. Come up with a consensus approach to choosing the best hook/articles for each day, meaning that the rest are rejected.

This would likely mean that there were fewer submissions each day, since editors would soon realize that their mass/identical or poor submissions would probably not make the final cut. The quality would of submissions would likely improve. First Light (talk) 17:32, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I think the first point is the fundamental one. We should stop seeing the DYK space as something which can be almost infinitely divided up to satsify more and more people. Instead, the challenge should be more along the lines of "right, we got two DYK sections to fill, which of these submissions will fit best into those sections?" Ideally it would be just one DYK section per day, so that each of the selected hooks gets coverage in all time zones, but I think that's too big a change to make in one jump. Physchim62 (talk) 18:41, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I think that this proposal, especially the first point, would not address the fundamental issue which caused this broader discussion about changing DYK—not that DYK features too many articles, but that DYK features too many articles with content that is problematic. Limiting the number of hooks to 18 per day (on a first-come, first-served basis, I assume) gives primacy to procedure (quantity, timing of nominations) over quality. Any system that is willing to consider featuring a poorly written Start-Class article but will refuse to consider a well-written B-Class article just because a quota has been filled does not, in my opinion, uphold the goal of featuring good content on the Main Page. As for the need to somehow reduce the number of eligible hooks/articles, well ... stricter quality control will achieve that just as well as quotas, with one significant difference: quotas do not take into account quality. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 19:00, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

There's absolutely no reason why DYK spaces should be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis: that would be an incredibly bad way to do it. Do people really have such low opinions of DYK regulars that they can't believe they could ever come together to agree on a set of eight or nine hooks twice a day? If that were really the case, the debate would be not how to improve DYK but what to replace it with. Physchim62 (talk) 19:10, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Forgive me, I misread "hooks" as "nominations" in First Light's proposal—in other words, I thought that the proposal was to limit the number of nominations per day to 18 (which is when "first-come" would be applicable). In light of this clarification, let me revise my statement:

I do support reducing the number of updates (from 4 each day to 2–3 each day) so that DYK reviewers can have more time to review the content of nominated articles. As for selecting 16–27 hooks per day (8–9 hooks twice or thrice a day), I'm sure that DYK editors could do it, but I believe that higher standards and stricter quality control (more specifically, criteria which will allow more articles to be speedily declined) will limit the pool of eligible hooks much more effectively than selection via a consensus approach (i.e., potentially lengthy discussions). -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 19:22, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Not at all keen on this. The FA system works in a similar way....you end up allocating points for this and that and choosing someone to decide. DYK's mission is to influence the quality of new/improved articles. (imo) I can easily choose 18 brilliant articles every day and put them on the main page ..... but that misses the objective. We are here to improve wikipedia (not the main page which is just an important bit of it). Victuallers (talk) 19:28, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure I quite understand your objection. The incentive towards creating good new articles would still exist, because only good new articles (with reasonably interesting hooks) would make it onto the Main Page. There's not much motivation in a system that approves 90% of nominations and then cycles them through the Main Page faster than users can read them. Physchim62 (talk) 19:42, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not produce "Good New Articles" - you should look at the stuff that isnt intended for DYK. Thats the stuff I believe we should be trying to influence. Choosing 18? very good articles by some simple (or worse a complex) method will only improve the main page. I believe (I admit is only a belief) that if we cut back on the self noms and laud those who nominate new editors (even if that means relaxing rules) then we can improve Wikipedia - which as I said should be our objective Victuallers (talk) 20:04, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I think "cutting back on the self-noms" in any formal way will only give creators a reason to game the system by pairing off with another creator or phoning a friend to get their articles nominated. It doesn't alter the number or quality of articles submitted, but it does double the number of "smarties" we'd hand out for every article. - Dravecky (talk) 08:25, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

What do think of giving "smarties" to the reviewers? At present reviewing goes unrewarded, or not? - I like self-nomination - the author knows the article best. Only my very first article was nominated by someone else who introduced me to the process. I do nominate for others who are to shy or forgot or ask me, and I encouraged some to nominate their articles, some did, some not (yet). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:54, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

There are already various Smarties that can be given to reviewers: see WP:AWARD, and feel free to propose any new colours of Smarties you think might be appropriate! I also think that the proposal would lead to reviewers having a more active editorial role in the construction of DYK sections, which has the potential to make reviewing a more rewarding task. At present, I don't review DYK submissions because I think the task is pointless, and a waste of our scarce resources of experienced editors for the product that comes out at the end of the process. I may well pitch in and do some reviewing if the process is changed in a way that I think is constructive (at the end of the day, it's a personal decision as to what I do with my time!) Physchim62 (talk) 14:39, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually, the purpose of this discussion is to improve the main page. The background for the whole discussion was concern over articles being displayed on the main page with severe issues with copyvio, and other things. This puts the whole project in a bad light. Improving the quality of 3,5 million articles, or a thousand new ones a day, is a worthy goal, but somewhat outside the scope of this discussion. Lampman (talk) 22:33, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

In any case, all the Main Page sections serve to improve Wikipedia in one way or another, and in different ways between each of the sections. Physchim62 (talk) 22:39, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Victuallers. The goal is not simply to improve the Main Page, the goal is to do the most good for Wikipedia as a whole. I think -- I've thought for quite a while -- that this can actually be best served by putting obviously imperfect articles on the Main Page through DYK. I'm not suggesting that we should put copyvios, BLP problems, etc. up there. But putting obviously imperfect articles in DYK highlights the "work in progress" nature of Wikipedia and creates an implied invitation for potential new contributors to improve them. cmadler (talk) 12:49, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I thought it was ITN's job to put up "obviously imperfect articles" on the Main Page! Seriously though, we have a limited resource called the Main Page which has to be used in a way that benefits the encyclopedia as a whole. You won't get any improvement on the articles unless you first persuade people to read them. All the Main Page sections, to varying degrees, should entice our casual users to read articles they wouldn't otherwise read. I say "to varying degrees" because ITN and OTD constrain themselves to include material that would fit under the headings "In the news" and "Selected anniversaries on this day", and there are some articles which users would expect to see there and which are included unless there's a strong reason not to. There's no such constraint for TFA and DYK: TFA is "Today's featured article by definition; DYK, well, maybe you didn't know, but... unless the Main Page readers are presented with hooks that entice them to read the full article, and which stay up long enough for them to be read, what is the contribution to the encyclopedia as a whole of DYK being on the Main Page? Physchim62 (talk) 14:39, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not arguing about whether DYK should feature interesting hooks -- it should -- but I am suggesting that there is a benefit to DYK not making article quality, beyond certain basic criteria (copyvio, BLP, etc.) a requirement, or even a consideration for selection. If we're going to limit the number of hooks per day, I'd prefer that we accept all articles that are eligible under current rules (or something very similar) and make the selection based on hook interestingness, not on article quality beyond a minimum. cmadler (talk) 15:33, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Oppose point 2 - If the entitlement is not there, some editors might stop submitting after 2 or 3 failed attempts, regardless of the quality of hook and article. We should in my opinion enforce the "DYK" requirement, if no interesting hook can be found, fail. That should reduce the amount of submissions to two thirds or even half of today's. --Pgallert (talk) 15:26, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

By "technical fulfillment of DYK requirements" I meant the length, date, etc., and not the subjective issues of interest of the hook or quality of the article. Right now I think that editors are under the impression that the hook/article doesn't have to meet any subjective criteria - only the technical ones. First Light (talk) 15:40, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

e/c Cmadler, intentionally putting up imperfect articles on the main page to highlight the work in progress nature of Wikipedia doesn't serve any good purpose. It hurts Wikipedia's credibility as an encyclopedia and it hurts new editors by giving them a very low bar to meet and still get their self-esteem badge. Every part of Wikipedia would benefit by improving the articles linked from the main page—I don't see how anyone can say that any part, or any class of editor, would be hurt by this. If by "imperfect" you mean well-referenced, verifiable, well-enough but not perfectly written, non-copyvio, but just not yet a comprehensive article on the subject, then I would agree. Nobody is proposing that DYK articles must now be at GA status. People are only suggesting these ideas because there are currently too many submissions, and it's time to select only the best ones—not every single one. First Light (talk) 15:36, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I absolutely disagree, and it may be that we'll just have to agree to disagree about this. cmadler (talk) 16:04, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I had walked away from this discussion, but I was just reminded of it again. Rather than rehash the DYK flaws which have been discussed plenty, let me just propose

1. Hooks should be voted on (obviously tech requirements still need to be met). This provides a way for more people to be engaged in the process, beyond what is otherwise largely self-nominating or reviewing. Hooks enter the queue-ready pool based on numbers of votes, with queues constructed from let's say the top 100 hooks (with some discretion for lower-scoring hooks to balance queues). Voters get drawn in and may then consider participating.
2. Encourage established editors to review and to nominate articles by new editors. Let's say for every editor with more than X lifetime DYKs (5? 10?), each new self-nomination needs to be paired with a review or a nomination of a newcomer's article. This is better than a monthly cap because it doesn't send experienced editors away, instead it engages them further in the aspects of DYK that need more input.
3. As soon as possible (not immediately) move to a system where hooks are signed off by at least 2 named reviewers. Point 1 will encourage this, because more experienced voters will (especially if appropriately nudged) look at the DYK nom and review as part of that. Encourage it to develop, and over time see if it's feasible to make it a requirement. Rd232 ^talk 15:53, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I come into this discussion late and did not read everything. I lean against voting because I am afraid that "minority topics" would get lost that way. I suggest that reviewers can mark a hook "second opinion wanted", but I would not request that every hook gets reviewed by two people. - So far I avoided reviewing, because I am not a native English writer, but consider to do so in the near future. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:15, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose voting. The idea is well-intentioned, but it's impractical. Just for starters, voting on every hook would make the suggestions page even more unwieldy than it already is. --Orlady (talk) 19:57, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
  • I rather imagined that we'd figure out a way to make it practical. There was talk of breaking up the suggestion page (too large anyway), to assist transparency, and I had that in mind. Rd232 ^talk 02:09, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Incidentally, there is an unintentional irony in !voting with a bolded summary of "oppose voting"... :) Rd232 ^talk 02:10, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
    • I don't think voting would be practical, nor do I think it's necessary. On DYK at the moment, the construction of the prep lists is a subjective editorial decision, subject to "checks and balances". Why should that need to change? Once the review is complete, the main emphasis should be on preparing balanced queues, while still keeping an eye out for anything "strange" that might have escaped the reviewing process. Physchim62 (talk) 02:20, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Defining "interesting"

There seems to be good support for reducing the number of new article hooks shown per day, which is bound to mean rejecting many more than we do now. Several people have pointed out that what makes a hook interesting is wholly subjective. I would propose a new form of "review", with new symbols to match, which purely judges the "interestingness" of the hook. At a distinct position - probably just below the nom, people can add the symbols, which are like the star ratings for movies etc in the press; perhaps 1-3, or 1-5, pips or stars or whatever. The more assessments the better. The rating may be based only on the hook - the reviewer does not guarantee to have even looked at the article itself. Normal reviewing, hopefully now more thorough, is unaffected. This is intended as a simple "drive-by" way of gathering views on which hooks are the most interesting. I think it will appeal to many editors, and with luck will be an easy way of drawing more DYK helpers into the more complicated parts of the DYK process. Johnbod (talk) 16:19, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

That's an excellent idea. It solves the problem of a single reviewer who might be bored by a particular subject (science, pop culture, etc.), and who passes sole judgment on a hook that might be interesting to others. First Light (talk) 16:38, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's a Bad Idea, but I don't think we even need an entirely new Process (and DYK already has enough "Process" as it is!) There is already an available symbol – {{DYK?no}} – for reviewers to indicate problems which might lead to a submission being rejected but which doesn't indicate instant death. All we really need to do is for reviewers to take really mundane hooks seriously as quality control problems for a section entitled "Did you know?", and not to pass submissions until the problem is sorted out. A single editor should not be allowed to "block" a submission through personal prejudice but, if you have, say, three people saying they think the hook is just too mundane, then it probably shouldn't be posted to the Main Page. Physchim62 (talk) 16:58, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

That's the idea. It isn't really a "Process" and has no rules, but if it catches on it would defuse nominators complaining if a hook with a low "interest" score is passed over. "Possible vote" is not at all the same thing. It also aims to encourage participation by giving an easy way in. Johnbod (talk) 18:03, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Recommend a "presumption of interestingness" so that an editor would have to say "this may be a weak hook" to start the ball rolling on the process. Haus^Talk 18:13, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but I think the "presumption of interestingness" comes in when the nomination passes review. If someone is willing to review the article to appear in the DYK section, then OK, we assume that the hook's acceptable. And even then, a problematic hook that appears in a prep area could be brought to this page for more comment: assuming it passes the discussion on this page, that would only be a slight delay in it's appearance on the Main Page. It's also very easy to spot individuals with certain content gripes on a Process talk page! My worry is that I have this page watchlisted and I have never seen a hook brought here because editors think it might be too mundane: that is surely wrong!

I should add that the principle that "no one editor can block a nomination" works very well on ITN, notwithstanding a minute number of unhelpful editors who have managed to find ways round it (to unilaterally block ITN posts they dislike). Physchim62 (talk) 19:00, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

If there is consensus that the hook is uninteresting, there's no need to review it! Reviewer effort can be concentrated on better possibilities. There have been many complaints on the suggestion page & here that hooks are boring, but the articles still tend to be accepted. There used to be more such comments - in 2006 when I started hooks actually used to be refused on these grounds sometimes, but this has died away & people know there is little point raising the issue. That's what we need to change (one of the things anyway). On current form I think it is optimistic to make a "presumption of interest", but if people don't comment/rate a particular hook, we are no worse off than now. Johnbod (talk) 19:47, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

How many "boring" votes are you proposing before a nomination is tossed, otherwise unexamined? And then how do you prevent a few friendly editors from marking everybody else's hooks as "boring" while giving the thumbs-up to each other, especially if there's suddenly hard competition for a much lower number of DYK slots? All this does is turn DYK into a game rather than a good way to highlight new content and get editors more involved with the encyclopedia. - Dravecky (talk) 20:04, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't propose any fixed rules like that - those selecting the queues can make what use of the information they like. There is always the possibility of log-rolling, just as much as in other WP areas. To the extent it becomes a "game", is this not a good way to "get editors more involved with the encyclopedia"? Johnbod (talk) 20:58, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

The problem with using "interestingness" as a criteria is not just subjectivity. More importantly, it doesn't address the two primary concerns regarding DYK: Output volume and article quality.

Output volume: Creating a criteria against mundane hooks will not change output. If someone criticises the appeal of a hook, the author can simply change the hook to another factoid, again and again, until one is bound to please one of the reviewers. There may be more alternative hook proposals, but very few hooks will ever actually get rejected (just like it is now). Output volume remains the same.

Quality: The quality of the hook has no reflection on the quality of the article. An article could be filled with copyright, referencing, verification, and notability problems, and still have an interesting hook. The only way to increase the quality of articles, is to raise the criteria for article content. Raising the criteria for hooks will only change the quality of hooks. Problems with article content, which is the more important issue, remain unaddressed.

And to conlude: Could working on the appeal of hooks be part of the solution? Possibly. But it is not a panacea.--hkr Laozi speak 20:05, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

• Your quality argument is a bit of a straw man. Reviewers should already be checking for copyright. Articles on non-notable topics should be either speedy-deleted or AfD'd, DYK nomination or not. DYK already requires in-line citations, generally 1 per paragraph. Verifiability is already a Wikipedia-wide requirement. We can argue about whether such requirements are consistently being checked, but that's an issue of review process, not of requirements. The requirements are, for the most part, already in place. cmadler (talk) 20:35, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

• I disagree; by introducing the need to evaluate a hook's appeal, you're inevitably taking away time that should be spent on checking the quality of the article. Time is a valuable and limited resource, that remains in short supply due to the dearth of volunteers. By creating new criteria for hooks, there will be less time to check on the already established-and to some extent-more important criteria like notability, verifiability, and reliable sources. The "interesting-ness" proposals are a diversion from the initial problems that started this whole debate. Perhaps this is a systematic flaw, and can only be mended by incorporating Good Articles, as previously proposed. And remember the context of the discussion: The interesting-hook criteria was brought up to address the output volume which would be a solution to the quality problems. But as I've shown above, this solution does not solve the output issues, and along with it, neither does it solve the quality issues.--hkr Laozi speak 23:34, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

• Indeed it is not a panacea. But, to go back to where I came in, at the moment any complaints about boringness are fiercely contested on the grounds that it is (usually) only one person's opinion. If we are going to reduce output, we need to strengthen the mechanisms for rejecting material, and this is one helpful way - but others are certainly needed. Johnbod (talk) 20:52, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

• Quite. The problem arose when DYK decided that its Main Page space could be made "elastic" by increasing (and then adapting) the number of hook sets per day to suit the number of approved nominations, instead of seeing its Main page space as a limited resource that had to be managed. The result is that it has now become allergic to rejecting anything at all, with entirely predictable consequences. Rejecting hooks as boring does not need any changes in the DYK rules, guidelines or procedures: the rules, guidelines and procedures are already there, they're just not being followed by reviewers in practice. An essential part of any solution is to fix the DYK output by objective criteria, not by the number of nominations coming in. The "criterion of interest" is simply an example of how simple it would be to reject more nominations (if necessary) while staying within the original purpose of DYK. Physchim62 (talk) 21:13, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I see a number of reasons why this wouldn't work: 1. Reviewer time, which is already stretched, would be spent assessing "interestingness" rather than article quality. 2. Articles are not reviewed in the order they're submitted. An article that's assessed the first day will have the chance to suggest better hooks, while one that is reviewed after a week won't have that possibility. This will be perceived as highly unfair. 3. Not least of all, the focus on "interestingness" will inspire a race towards the bottom of gratuitous sexual innuendo, bad jokes, deception and half-truths, all to make it to the main page. I still say we should focus on more concrete, workable solutions. Lampman (talk) 22:13, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Eh?

1. It's far quicker to read a hook and see if it answers the question "Did you you?" for you than to go source checking, copyvio checking, grammar checking through an entire article. Valuable and scarce reviewer time should be reserved for those articles that at least have interesting hooks, rather than being randomly distributed as at present
2. There is no reason why hooks should not have been seen by at least one reviewer within 24 hours of submission. I'm not saying that all articles should have been fully reviewed in 24 hours but, honestly, how long does it take to read through 35 hooks and form an opinion of "OK" or "worryingly mundane"
3. You seem to have a very low opinion of the tastes of DYK reviewers! But seriously, do you see a race towards sexual innuendo on ITN stories? Because ITN operates a much harsher system of "story interest" than the one that's being proposed here.

Physchim62 (talk) 22:23, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

(Responding to Johnbod) But my argument is that the interesting-hook criteria will not address the output volume, since hooks will not be rejected, at least not anymore than it is now. Consider this: If a hook is declined for being mundane, the author can always suggest others until one alt hook is eventually accepted, but the amount of submissions never changes. It's still the same amount of submissions, just with more alt hooks being thrown around for reviewers to address. In fact, this produces more work for reviewers, since they need to go through more alt hooks to evaluate their appeal. As Lampman said, this will divert reviewer time away from checking article quality, which is a more important issue. --hkr Laozi speak 23:45, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

You're putting up a strawman, yet again. If submitters keep on proposing ALT hooks until something comes up as acceptable, the output of DYK reviewing won't have gone down but it's quality will have gone up, which is already a start. You simply assume that the number of submissions will "never change", dispite the fact that DYK would be encouraging submitters to think twice before submitting just any old article with any old hook, as happens far too often at present. Output to the Main Page could (and should) be limited by diktat, no more of the elastic changes to update frequency. If reviewers can't refuse enough hooks to keep the queues in order, then that is a sign that other controls are needed, not a sign that the visibility of good hooks should be debased by faster rotation. Physchim62 (talk) 00:01, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

You're the one attacking the strawman, you've ignored the central point of my argument. "The output of DYK reviewing won't have gone down but it's quality will have gone up". The quality of what? The quality of the hook. How does this help address the quality of article? How does this reduce the output? Having to evaluate more alt hooks does not change the amount of output unless you restrict the number of alt hookes. This is a viable option, but not one you've proposed yet, so the issue remains. I understand this is your pet proposal, but it has just as many flaws as any of the other suggestions we've gone over above, and more, in my opinion.--hkr Laozi speak 00:21, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't see this at all. Apart from what Physchim says, if an article puts up a boring hook, it is generally because there simply isn't an interesting one. At the moment we badly lack mechanisms for rejecting articles without squabbles. This is one, as is limiting noms per creator. Johnbod (talk) 00:24, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I refuse to be fatalistic that any solution to refuse more hooks will lead to huge fights. The overall package isn't just refusing more hooks, it is also higher exposure for the hooks that get onto the Main Page section. Bigger Smarties, to use the recurrent meme! It isn't difficult to understand that the size of the DYK section is not elastic; we cannot run every hook, and so we have to choose between them and the best we can do is to try and make that choice as fair as possible bearing in mind the overal interests of the project. Physchim62 (talk) 00:34, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Replying to both Johnbod and Physchim: "It is generally because there simply isn't an interesting one." I think this is where our central disagreement lies. I think that every article has at least one interesting hook that can be extracted from it. You and Psychim (if he will admit it) don't, which is perfectly fine. But my point still stands. Let's keep cool... I think we all agree on one point, noms should be limited per creator, so let's celebrate that then! :) --hkr Laozi speak 00:36, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Well it is abundantly clear from all the discussions above that you are very much in the minority in thinking "that every article has at least one interesting hook that can be extracted from it"! Many nominators often admit their hooks are not very interesting. Or maybe we're talking about different levels of "interest". Johnbod (talk) 01:52, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

That's argumentum ad populum, sir! What is abundantly clear: many people do oppose the interesting hook criteria, albeit for different reasons, so there currently is no consensus to implement it. My rationale for opposition is a new one, I'll admit that, but I support the original rationales of earlier opposes. Regarding "Many nominators often admit their hooks are not very interesting"; that doesn't mean one doesn't exist. And another point to contemplate: we have about five people still participating in the discussion, most of the people have already dropped out due to WP:TL;DR. If anything's going to be done, we're going to need a wider forum, more particpants, and a clear list of problems and proposals.--hkr Laozi speak 02:04, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, let's celebrate that! (but beware, limiting noms on it's own is not a panacea either) I'm perfectly willing to concede that we could probably find an acceptable hook for most articles. But that raises the Big Question: if it's so easy to find good hooks for all these submissions, why isn't it being done at the moment? How is it that the majority of DYK articles barely attract a thousand clicks, when we know from other sources (such as the better hooks, and OTD) that there are plenty more eyes willing to click-through on that part of the Main Page? Physchim62 (talk) 00:54, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Two reasons, I think. First, the desire to "play it safe", a hook that is less contentious is likelier to be accepted. For example, the DYK article Oscar season. The most interesting hook (and verified by a reliable source) would be: "...that during Oscar season, Harvey Weinstein, in an attempt to promote his own film for the Academy Awards, allegedly spread rumors that John Nash, the subject of a competing film, was antisemitic?" However, while interesting, there are due weight concerns, and this hook is likely to spur a defamation lawsuit by a certain angry studio executive. Many interesting hooks (not all) are controversial hooks, but controversial hooks bring about a host of other problems. The ideal then would be to strike a balance between "playing it safe" and "being boring", and hopefully it can be done. The second reason is simpler: Laziness. Copy-pasting the first sentence of the nominated article and rewording it as a question.--hkr Laozi speak 01:31, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I think your second reason ("laziness") accounts for the vast majority of bad hooks, and these are the ones the proposal aims to tackle. Reviewers need to have a mechanism to say (more politely than this) "if you can't be bothered to find a better hook than that, then I can't be bothered to read your article." Because that's what our readers are already saying, and the click-through figures show it clearly. And "laziness" in choosing the hook that will be viewed by millions on the Main Page is a reasonable indicator of laziness in other aspects of preparing the article. I simply don't believe that there is a whole host of great new articles hiding behind the boring hooks: I think that, if I could be bothered to click on them, I would find a whole load of pretty mundane new articles behind the wall of pretty mundane hooks. Physchim62 (talk) 02:08, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree, this problem does need to addressed. I'm not sure if it will completely fix the output concerns, but I agree that it is a problem.--hkr Laozi speak 02:13, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I still think that Johnbod's suggestion is the best so far, though other suggestions are also better than changing nothing. To be clear, I don't see his proposal as a "vote" or even a "!vote", but a way of offering guidance to the person who decides which hooks/articles make the final cut. It also gives that person who makes the daily queue some support to show why certain hooks were rejected. Other options I'm seeing here include leaving the status quo and continuing to accept all technically qualified hooks, or letting one person decide what they think is "interesting" or not. If a significant number of hooks are rejected each day for being "boring", that role of making the queue suddenly becomes a much more responsible one. If the number of hooks each day are significantly reduced, I think it will require some consensus on how to do that.

If nothing changes, I'm curious: what is the yearly trend for number of DYK hooks on the main page? How many in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010? So what would 2011-12 bring? If nothing changes? First Light (talk) 02:36, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Just how I see it too. Johnbod (talk) 06:08, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Good suggestion. Actually, I do believe input will decrease in response to that; what hook do you propose about a new grass species? A village in the middle of nowhere? A deputy minister of some developing country? --Pgallert (talk) 06:22, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Question?

Ok, this is kind of complicated.

1. I created Joplin Union Depot on October 23. I am currently working to expand the article to 500 words.
2. Do I have to do this, or can I just expand it to the required length of 1,500 characters. (Which would be just over 3 times expansion.)
3. My intended hook is "...that the Joplin Union Depot was featured in the Popular Mechanics Magazine for it's use of mining waste in the concrete?"

What do you think?

Thanks --intelati^talk 02:54, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, your first expansion was too long ago, thus you'll need some 2500 characters of prose for the nomination. Materialscientist (talk) 03:07, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

So, about 500 words?--intelati^talk 03:15, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

That should be more than enough (unless you use a lot of two and three-letter words). Mikenorton (talk) 03:21, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Not planning on it. Thanks.--intelati^talk 03:25, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

By the way, just for when you submit the hook, there shouldn't be an apostrophe in the word 'it's'. Arctic Night 11:27, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Also, "the Popular Mechanics Magazine" should be simply "Popular Mechanics", when the time comes. - Dravecky (talk) 08:17, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Joseph Miranda

The Joseph Miranda hook has been approved, and I was going to move it to the latest prep set, but given that Mr. Miranda is still alive and the hook explicitly calls him a "mobster", I wanted to solicit a second opinion first. Thoughts? 28bytes (talk) 17:37, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

My honest opinion: not worth the potential hassle just to have another hook. My WT:DYK opinion: I can't actually find the rule saying that negative DYK hooks about living people will not be posted, but I know it has (had?) a certain consensus here. Physchim62 (talk) 17:42, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

The applicable rule is that Articles and hooks which focus unduly on negative aspects of living individuals should be avoided. (At Wikipedia:Did you know#Selection criteria #4). The question for reviewers is whether the focus on the negative aspect is "undue". cmadler (talk) 17:56, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I moved this one back to the suggestions page for rewording. It appears that he's never actually been convicted of being a "mobster", so I think that rewording is in order. --Orlady (talk) 20:22, 8 November 2010 (UTC)