This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:Did you know. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
It looked to me like the uncited paragraph under legal status was just a summary of the section below it. I have never seen an article written that way before though. SL93 (talk) 21:44, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
Yes, the paragraph is just a summary of the section below it. That's why it begins with "As indicated below ..." I could add the citations to the paragraph, but that would be repetitive of the citations in the relevant paragraphs below it. You could therefore treat the paragraph as being equivalent to the paragraphs in the lede section of the article. (In accordance with common practice, the lede paragraphs do not include any citations because they are no more than a summary of what is below them.) Bahnfrend (talk) 04:44, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
A further point (and I should have made the point in my earlier response) is that the paragraph is essentially only a more specific restatement of par 2 of the lede, which, in line with the common practice I mentioned in that response, does not include any citations. Bahnfrend (talk) 08:18, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
@Bahnfrend, in the section (as opposed to the lead), it always needs a citation. The lead is allowed to not have a citation because what's in the lead is cited in the section. And for DYK the statement supporting the hook always needs a citation. Yes, if you could add the citations to that paragraph, we do need that taken care of before the hook can be moved to the main page. Valereee (talk) 12:59, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
Also, I assume this should be states rather than States in both mentions? Making that change now, ping me if I'm incorrect. Valereee (talk) 13:13, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
The problem is that I'm having a hard time parsing it in the following paragraphs. That summary without citation is the one place the hook is clearly supported, as far as I could tell. Valereee (talk) 17:23, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
Complex yes, low contrast, not so much (for a fossil). the eay thing to do would be to just promote the hook without the image, or sub in the other taxobox media Titanokorys reconstruction video.webm.--Kevmin§20:48, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
This is a long hook, at 190 characters, without the parenthetical note. Now (currently in Queue 7), with (video illustration featured), it's 220. Schwede66 (or another admin), could you change that to (video featured)? And while you're at it, could you remove the "the" before "Marble Canyon", and possibly replace "possibly" with "may"? MANdARAX XAЯAbИAM 21:51, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
The previous list was archived over a day ago. I've created a new list of all 27 nominations that need reviewing in the Older nominations section of the Nominations page, covering everything through October 17. We have a total of 244 nominations, of which 137 have been approved, a gap of 107 nominations, a drop of 2 in the past ten days. Thanks to everyone who reviews these!
Please remember to cross off entries as you finish reviewing them (unless you're asking for further review), even if the review was not an approval. Please do not remove them entirely. Many thanks! BlueMoonset (talk) 04:12, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
Queue 7: Guide to the Free World
... that the founder of the Guide to the Free World, helping people leave Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, was told: "It's good that you get out of Russia, but a pity that you won't be shot"?
The source is a quote from said founder, who is obviously not an independent source here, and I'm not happy saying something in Wikipedia's voice without attribution. I've tweaked it to "...Ukraine, said she was told..." but if anyone's unhappy with this, I can pull it for further discussion instead. @GRuban and Gerda Arendt:Vanamonde (Talk)04:30, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
It would be best to use [[Movement for Socialism (Bolivia)|socialist]] and [[Movement for Socialism (Bolivia)|Movement for Socialism]], since both are specific to Bolivia. Flibirigit (talk) 16:59, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
Xtools is telling me I've written 87% by character count of this article in the past few days, 83.3% by added text (whatever that difference means), either of which seems like it ought to mean a 5x expansion, but DYK check is telling me I haven't expanded it 5x. Can anyone advise? I'd quite like to nominate it for DYK, it's an interesting subject and I can think of multiple good hooks. Valereee (talk) 17:16, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
Unless I'm mistaken, xtools is looking at authorship, whereas DYK only cares about prose size. The difference isn't in the references (I believe), it's due to the fact that you likely revised some of the existing prose in addition to adding material; which raises your contribution, but not the prose size. Vanamonde (Talk)20:25, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
Hey folks,
just fyi, I've started adding items to Prep 1 (but haven't finished it yet). Would appreciate it if someone took a second look before it's moved to queue, as it's my first time doing this. –LordPeterII (talk) 16:45, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
... and I've switched to Prep 3 because other people are filling up Prep 1 and it's due soon. I had only added the main picture hook in Prep 1, but intend to fill Prep 3 completely. –LordPeterII (talk) 18:17, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
@Theleekycauldron: Ah, scripts, scary! Well, I might check it out at some point; for now I did everything manually (which is suprisingly exhausting, but mostly the fact-checking-everything-again). I've now finished Prep 3, and tried to keep it balanced. The hooks seem to be somewhat longer than what's currently on the main page, but I didn't see that many short ones, or ways to shorten the ones I chose. Please someone check that I didn't accidentally break any formatting (I almost made one error with the credits, but caught it before committing). –LordPeterII (talk) 19:23, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
Oh, and re: all the rechecking: As you work more, you'll recognize which nominators and reviewers are very good. You can focus more time on inexperienced nominators and reviewers. When you see a nomination from someone inexperienced that has also been reviewed by someone inexperienced, that's when you really need to do a full re-review. For folks who have 50+ noms, you can usually do a rougher check -- the most crucial is the hook itself and whether it's supported in the article, not a BLP concern, doesn't have excessive or not enough links, etc. When I was first working here, a set could take me a couple of hours to check. Valereee (talk) 20:04, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
Hey, @Theleekycauldron, about the prep-set's half-assed workbench...does it automatically include at the nom which prep it was promoted to? That would be useful for nominators' info purposes. Valereee (talk) 20:20, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
@DYK admins: There's just one queue filled and it'll move onto the homepage in 4 hours. I've just filled Prep 1 (the quirky was missing) and that one's ready to go to Queue. Prep 2 has the same problem; the quirky is missing. I had a look through all that's approved and have identified a quirky but it needs to have its hook signed off on. I put a note into the spot where the quirky goes; revert that comment first if you use PSHAW. Prep 3 is full (thanks, LordPeterII!). Schwede6607:42, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
Newspapers
Hello all, my newspapers.com and Newspaperarchive subscriptions have expired. I got them through Wikipedia. Does anyone know how I can renew them? Thanks all! Bruxton (talk) 19:24, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
Well, it's a bit of a pain in my experience. If they have limited numbers of licenses for a particular product, you'll have to wait until another one becomes available. Schwede6609:01, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
Ancestry is waitlisted, that's newspapers.com, but Newspaperarchives isn't. I've been waiting since January for TermSoup. Valereee (talk) 13:52, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
Links may be added to quotations, with caution -- see WP:LINKSTYLE. Having said that, I don't think the link added to the NAFO hook in Prep 7 falls within the guideline's requirement that the link target correspond to the meaning clearly intended by the quote's author, since I (at least) am not really sure what a "tactical event" is. (Same goes for the link in the article itself -- shouldn't be there.) EEng02:02, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
I have promoted, but have yet to check; as I have over a day, I was not going to rush it. I'm with EEng. We're allowed to link within a quote where meaning is unambiguous and it would aid the reader; while the latter case is true here, the former isn't. If we can find a hook without the quote, I'd prefer it, but otherwise I'd run it without the link. Vanamonde (Talk)17:29, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
I can imagine some readers not knowing what “tactical” means, in which event Tactic (method) seems like helpful clarification, even if it does not entirely explain what the author was getting at. (For that matter, it’s frankly not clear to me that the author really knew what they meant either; “tactical event” is the kind of vague but snappy sounding buzzword some people like to pepper their speech with, without thinking too hard about whether it means anything.) If nothing else, the link might stop someone from searching separately and finding tactical event instead. –jacobolus(t)03:49, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
So except for one entry, I did Prep 7. I think I am getting the hang of this, and it's not that hard to do, even manually (just time consuming). Still, since it's only my second prep, you might want to check extra carefully that I didn't screw up something (like the extra "pictured" last time). Thanks! –LordPeterII (talk) 19:52, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
Out of curiostiy, how does one move a nom to the special holding area, technically? I've been wondering that, and can't seem to find any instructions. –LordPeterII (talk) 19:48, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
Ah! Okay, that's... kinda unexpected with all the technical stuff going on around DYK. But good to know I can do that if I come across such a case ^^ –LordPeterII (talk) 21:01, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
Prep area 2: Matthias Hanke. Post-promotion hook modifications
@Theleekycauldron: I object to "later became responsible" because it makes the adult achievement appear disconnected with, or in contrast to, the boyhood achievements (and that is not the case). "in due course" is better because it indicates a development from the boyhood achievements (and that is true). Storye book (talk) 07:16, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
I don't know what the problem is. ALT2a was approved. What's in queue now is very close to ALT2a. We haven't heard from Storye book yet. Unless they agree with "eventually", I don't see what's wrong with what we've got now. Schwede6604:49, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
Sorry, just seen this, been away. I have just explained this here. "Eventually" and "later" don't work in this hook because they do not make the same connection that "in due course" does. The dictionary definition of "in due course" is something like "at the right time for it in the future", but usage always involves some kind of cause and effect situation. Storye book (talk) 12:00, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
Clarification for QPQ exemptions
So there seems to be heavy confusions over the QPQ exemption rule. Specifically on whether or not a QPQ is exempt for your first four or your first five nominations. I and others interpret the rule as your first four while others interpret it as your first five. So what is it? Is a QPQ exempt for your first four nominations or for your first five? Onegreatjoke (talk) 16:15, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
Seconding clearer language. I also used to interpret it as "greater than five", but when I re-read it, it seemed ambiguous and could also be read at "greater or equal five". –LordPeterII (talk) 20:52, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
Narutolovehinata5, I changed that page a few hours ago as "fewer than five" was wrong; it's always been five freebies. I agree that five free nominations would be clearer language. Schwede6600:49, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
Update: As of right now, Queues 7 and 1 are filled and ready to go. This takes us up through October 30 in the USA, but Oct 31 for London to Sydney. — Maile (talk) 02:32, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
Does this need citations?
I promoted Jozev Kiu to prep 5. The bibliography section isn't cited, but I didn't think much of it because the titles are cited in the body of the article. I can restate those citations in the bibliography section if it is an issue, but it does seem pedantic. SL93 (talk) 21:45, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
The Facebook source is an acceptable use of a self-published reference because it is the subject's Facebook page. I will look at the others. SL93 (talk) 21:56, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
@SL93, Guerillero, and Theleekycauldron: I have emoved the Facebook and Goodreads sources but kept Wenweipo, as this article was published in 2016 and not about political or controversial issues, the credibility and neutrality should not be a problem. I did not cite any sources in the bibliography session since all titles are mentioned in the Headline Daily source and already cited in the Writing session. --Prince of Erebor（The Book of Mazarbul）01:25, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
My most recent DYK nomination was slapped with a big orange section tag by an IP because the bibliography didn't have cites, so it saves trouble to just duplicate your existing cites whether or not you think you need to. CMD (talk) 02:54, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
Just fyi, I noticed the Facebook ref in my review, but thought it unproblematic since it only supported an uncontroverisal fact. I didn't see that Wen Wei Po was considered unreliable because I reviewed on mobile without the headbomb script; though again I doubt it should be shunned here completely, as it isn't used to ref anything political. As for the bibliography being uncited, that likewise likely was because I was on mobile and didn't notice it; I acknowledge the latter thing as a mistake on my part. –LordPeterII (talk) 19:40, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
I've just moved the 9th Missouri Sharpshooter Battalion hook to Queue 2. The hook says: ... that the steamboat carrying the 9th Missouri Sharpshooter Battalion back from its military service sank in the Red River of the South? The equivalent sentence in the article is this one: The battalion was sent back to Missouri on the steamboat Kentucky; the vessel sank in the Red River during the trip. One of the DYK requirements is that the hook is referenced directly at the end of the sentence where the hook fact occurs but there isn't a reference. In fact, before there is a reference, there is a change in topic. It seems this is unreferenced. Can this please be mended pronto? Ping Hog Farm as nominator. Heads up for Narutolovehinata5 (who suggested the unreferenced hook fact) and Dumelow (who promoted this). Schwede6605:00, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
Schwede66 I actually promoted it. I found the fact in the next reference in the Google Books preview. I also swapped the sentences. Both sentences are in the same source. SL93 (talk) 05:10, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
I wouldn't say it's "unreferenced", but is in line with our general policy, which assumes a reader knows that a citation at the end of a sentence covers those preceding it. This is covered by Wikipedia:CITEDENSE and the article would easily pass at FA on this basis. I suppose it could be argued that by virtue of appearing on DYK the content in the hook is Wikipedia:Likely to be challenged and therefore requires an immediate citation but I am generally against duplication of references when it is clear to the reader where the information can be found. At the time of approval the section looked like this:
The battalion was sent back to Missouri on the steamboat Kentucky; the vessel sank in the Red River during the trip. At least 12 men of the battalion died in the wreck. Over the course of the unit's existence, about 550 men served in it. Besides those who died when Kentucky sank, 17 were killed in action and a further 24 died of various diseases.[45]
I'd say that because the last sentence mentions the sinking and the men killed in it it is obvious to the reader that the reference at the end supports that (and the earlier mentions of the deaths and the sinkings). I suppose a strict interpretation of our policy would render it thus:
The battalion was sent back to Missouri on the steamboat Kentucky; the vessel sank in the Red River during the trip.[45] At least 12 men of the battalion died in the wreck.[45] Over the course of the unit's existence, about 550 men served in it. Besides those who died when Kentucky sank, 17 were killed in action and a further 24 died of various diseases.[45]
For the purpose of satisfying this rule and avoiding any delay to Hogfarm's excellent article appearing I have duplicated the reference at the end of the "At least 12 men..." sentence - Dumelow (talk) 06:16, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
I'm not sure why you added a citation after the "at least 12 men" sentence. That part isn't in the hook and I already directly cited the part that is. SL93 (talk) 06:28, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
Sorry, you are right (I misremembered the hook mentioning the dead). Thanks for reverting that and providing the initial cite - Dumelow (talk) 06:41, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
I'd argue that there's SIGCOV here and here, enough to meet WP:GNG, which only requires multiple pieces of SIGCOV (the latter piece is reliable, see my comment at the DYK nom). I'd say there's also likely to be offline coverage in some of Northern Delaware's other newspapers of the time (plus some of the sources at User:BeanieFan11/Delaware newspaper sources may cover it, namely the 128-page A History of Newspapers in New Castle, Delaware (1968)), but even if not we still have a GNG pass IMO. BeanieFan11 (talk) 13:05, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
BeanieFan11 I promoted the article in good faith that the historical newspaper is notable. The second source seems to be an unreliable personal blog. SL93 (talk) 15:42, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
So being cited by the News Journal, the New Castle County website, and being interviewed multiple times by the WDEL radio station on the subject would not count? BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:51, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
I never said that such a thing wouldn't count, but I can't read minds to know those things. You only stated that it's from a subject-matter expert. SL93 (talk) 15:54, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
... that Hasanpaşa Gasworks(pictured) survived its demolition through the resistance of local residents, became a festival venue for a time and was finally transformed into a museum after redevelopment?
I have added a "proposed" because it seems the gasworks was never demolished. But perhaps "escaped its demolition" is even better? Pinging nom @CeeGee, reviewer @ThadeusOfNazereth, promoter @SL93 so I don't mess anything up. —Kusma (talk) 11:38, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
I meant "escaped" but used the wrong word "survived". It can be changed in the way you say. Thank you for the correction. CeeGee12:44, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
Clarification: does the "no election candidate hooks within 30 days of an election" only apply to articles involving candidates, or does it apply to ballot measures too?
The nominator of Template:Did you know nominations/2022 Ohio Issue 1 has requested a speedy review of this article, as he wants it to run around the time of November 8, the day of the ballot measure's vote. WP:DYK states that hooks about elections can't run within 30 days of the election they're running in, but the rule does not mention anything about other kinds of votes, such as ballot measures and referendums. To clarify: does the rule only apply to elections involving people (i.e. candidates), or to all ballot measures? Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 12:06, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
Hmm, does that only apply for things tied for that particular vote? For instance if you were to run a hook for something that happened in the past the same time as an election? Lee Vilenski(talk • contribs)12:55, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
I'm looking at Template:Did you know nominations/List of compositions by Graham Waterhouse, which should run on Nov 2. It's of primary interest to people in the UK and Germany. If I'm reading the schedule right, prep 7 would show it from 0000 to 1200 local (I'm going by UK time, Germany is 1 hour later) and prep 1 would be 1200 to 2400 local. Neither is optimal.
Would it be better to go for the morning or the evening slot? For something like a sporting event, I would go with the morning slot because the "This event will be happening later today" aspect makes sense. For something like this (the person's birthday), I don't see any strong argument either way. What do people think? -- RoySmith(talk)17:00, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
@Gerda Arendt: may not be able to move her own nomination to the special holding date. But I think her opinion of which slot, would be the best choice. Whatever she thinks, go with it. — Maile (talk) 17:55, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
I looked now at the prep and see it in prep 1 which to my understanding is the afternoon of 3 November. If it just gets moved to prep 6 instead, we'd have two faces of musicians the same day, so I propose to postpone Talia Or (now in queue 6) to a later date. Sorry to cause work. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:25, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Which is exactly what I described. Waterhouse should be in prep 6 (per this discussion), and therefore Or leave queue 5 for later, perhaps much later - I proposed 20 November in the thread a bit below. If it's not too much of swapping, the musical hook by me already in prep 6 should also go to later, to avoid similar topics in one set. Repeating: Sorry to cause work. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:03, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Alt: ...and that Warrior's abrupt departure weeks later, and his erratic behavior leading up to their debut event, is blamed for causing the NWC's first bankruptcy? Simon, Harry (2005). "Behind the Pyro: The Ultimate Warrior". TheWrestlingFan.com.
Anons haven't been able to create pages in any namespace (except maybe talk?) since 2005. This restriction is older than the requirement for registered users to be autoconfirmed to create pages, which didn't come about until WP:ACTRIAL in 2017. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving03:52, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
It's a photograph from 1905, you can't expect perfect quality. The image is completely recognizable and I would say perfectly usable in its current form. -- RoySmith(talk)19:08, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm not suggesting we don't use it in an image slot. But it certainly won't hurt to see if the graininess can be cleared up a bit. — Maile (talk) 19:34, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
So, I'm not quite sure what to do here. It ended up in a non-image slot of prep 6. I really think it's a wonderful image and it would be a shame if it didn't get on the front page. -- RoySmith(talk)21:07, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
RoySmithMaile66 I moved it back with the touched up image. It doesn't look too different, although it is better, but the image was always fine for being from 1905. SL93 (talk) 21:12, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
The article looks good but there is some debate over what Jordan Gray claimed for the hook itself. A point has been raised on the article's talk page and perhaps it should be put on hold whilst the issue is debated.--EchetusXe10:41, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
So is it just a recent issue, or my imagination, or are there really few "quirky" hooks that are good options for the last slot? I was just looking around now, and found probably less than a handful, and many only very recent. I'd consider Iowa Cow War, Cape Grim Air Archive and maybe Guns into Plowshares as quirky, but many others not. Is it because "hooky" hooks tend to be promoted first, leaving only the more boring ones? Do we need to promote "quirky" hooks first, in order to avoid a lack of them later? (I think I have seen you do the latter theleekycauldron.)
Would be interested in your long-term insight into this! –LordPeterII (talk) 17:13, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
@LordPeterII: yeah, there's often a drought of quirky hooks :) *shrug* what can ya do. I usually promote the image and quirky first because they're the most difficult to find, and end up shaping the structure of the rest of the set. If you can't find a quirky to promote, at least try to find something upbeat :) theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 04:02, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Should the errors page be used for complaints on a hook being uninteresting?
theleekycauldron brought up an interestingness concern at WP:ERRORS about the article board game café. I think that such a concern should be dropped once a hook reaches the main page. At that point, the hook already went through a review, approval, prep, queue, and then the main page. I think that if the errors page can be used for that, then the hook should just be pulled. For those who care about such a thing, the stats for DYK won't line up correctly when the original hook version was already running on the main page. I'm not trying to start a fight, but I am trying to reach a consensus. SL93 (talk) 02:56, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Disagree with an open-door policy of pulling a hook because a user posts over there that the hook is not interesting. That's something that should be determined in the review, and no later than it being in Queue. To wait until it's on the main page is a virtual slap in the face to the nominator who had been led to believe all was taken care of before the main page appearance. And in some cases, "interesting" is in the eye of the reader. Errors should not be turned into an open door for having a hook yanked on reader perception. Do we really want to turn Errors into another forum to debate that which should have been settled before it went to the main page? — Maile (talk) 03:13, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
I agree. Right now, there is an attempt to change the hook without the involvement of the nominator and reviewer. SL93 (talk) 03:16, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
@SL93: I strongly object to that characterization – I'm realizing that my ping didn't go through, but I made a good-faith effort to involve all of the interested parties. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 03:37, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
I stand by my comment. You said on the Errors page that an admin is now able to replace the hook, but neither the nominator or reviewer has chimed in. SL93 (talk) 04:38, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
@Maile66: That is reasonable, and I understand your concern. I'm feeling a bit frustrated, because I attempted to nudge the nominator and reviewer into adopting a different hook on the nomination – they fully ignored that request, no response given from either. I made an attempt to engage correctly, involve the nominator, I certainly didn't intend to mislead them. Would you advise me to have done something differently? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 03:59, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
I feel that they have the right to ignore such a request if they disagree with it. I have noticed that you have sometimes not responded to questions on DYK nominations recently. SL93 (talk) 04:38, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
@Theleekycauldron: My comment wasn't about anything you posted, nor of anyone in particular. I was speaking in the abstract. We need some parameters to keep ERRORS from being a catch-all. Wikipedia has contributors who rotate, so to speak, on whichever area they want to input in a given time. Along those lines, every once in a while, Errors gets a list of postings from one or another solitary editor who critiques multiple hooks in a set, or seems to be on a jaunt about a particular contributor. Quite frankly, I've seen it happen to @Gerda Arendt:'s hooks. It makes me cringe when that happens. Keep ERRORS from looking like an open door for such an over-kill method. Let ERRORS be for real errors, and let the extended non-error stuff happen either on this talk page, or on the nomination template. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maile66 (talk • contribs) 13:25, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Interestingness of the hook is a part of the DYK criteria, just like its verifiability. ERRORS frequently pulls hooks that fail verification, even though the nominator, reviewer, promoter, and admin all in theory did their checks. Why shouldn't it be able to change hooks that fail the interestingness requirement? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 03:35, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
I see FA language edited, despite having passes a series of checks to ensure it's well-written and neutral. ITN items are pulled for issues that should have been caught during their candidacy process. None of our volunteer-led processes are immune to error, and I'm not sure the reasons given above—good ones, I think—are good enough to give up an opportunity for review and improvement. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:49, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Because what is interesting is subjective and not an error, along with multiple editors in the process having no issue with the hook. SL93 (talk) 04:35, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
ERRORS is the place to bring up any issues about anything on the current Main Page, even if it is not semantically an "error". I'm not sure what a proposal here could do: it can't stop people raising issues at ERRORs, or such issues subsequently being actioned. That is part and parcel of being on the main page. CMD (talk) 08:09, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
We shouldn't formally forbid it, but really: such a thing should have been discussed before. It's not an error if some hook seems not interesting - vague anyway, and I confess that 90% or more of hooks are not interesting enough for me to click, and same the other direction - the Main page is not in danger. To request to pull it for this very unspecified thingy of interestingness seems overkill to me (but I have no time to look right now, still on my watchlist, and then two recent death articles) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:24, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
I agree with Gerda, but beyond that, many editors are terrible at judging what is and is not "interesting". Most of the people who complain have no idea of what is interesting or not. I've kept careful tabs on the page views of the hooks I've nominated or added to a prep area, and they can be categorised as obvious, intriguing and inexplicable. I can still be surprised by high page views on hooks I thought were mundane. Hawkeye7(discuss)09:18, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Hmm, I feel WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT doesn't really apply here. The hook "hookiness" is a requirement at DYK, so it's not an invalid argument to criticise boring hooks. Personally don't think a boring hook on the main page is an issue; but I suppose we can't prevent discussion about it at WP:Errors either. We could try to forbid it, but really, we could at best discourage it.
I feel we should catch such issues during review, prep and queue. If a boring but accurate hook makes it through, that should lead to a discussion afterwards about how such instances could be avoided in the future. I must admit I was considering whether or not to report that specific board game cafe hook when I saw it in prep, but in the end didn't do it because I felt it was borderline, and I had more important stuff to do.
Hmm, having checked the nomination page again, I think an actual issue here was that theleekycauldron had just started the "interestingness" discussion when the hook was promoted by SL93. @theleekycauldron, in the future it might be best to put a "question mark" tick when you see an issue with hook interestingness, so that such things don't happen as easily. Conversely, @SL93 it might be advisable to check for comments added after the approval tick was given, and RoySmith you also "missed" one of these hook discussions at 2 Columbus Circle. So yeah, @theleekycauldron I think it's best if you put a tick there (and so will I) so that other people are aware of an ongoing discussion. –LordPeterII (talk) 16:07, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
@SL93 and RoySmith: Yeah, I'm not exactly blaming you guys (that's why I wrote "missed" in quotation marks). It wasn't obvious, but at least at Board game café I read that comment as implicitly meaning that theleekycauldron had wanted to promote, but found the hook uninteresting. Likewise, I wanted to promote 2 Columbus Circle but didn't because the newly suggested hook wasn't approved yet (but I personally found some of the approved ones to be sufficiently hooky). Such post-approval discussion is not clear, at least not to me. That's why I said that if theleekycauldron or anyone else wasn't happy with a hook and didn't promote because of it (instead of just casually asking for another hook), they should rather put a tick with their comment so that it's explicitly clear to other editors. Without a tick, or at least without explicit language ("this hook is boring, can't promote") there's no telling. –LordPeterII (talk) 18:00, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Hmmm, what I wrote above is incorrect. There ALT0-ALT3 were approved; ALT4 had not yet been approved. But whether ALT4 was approved or not was moot; ALT1 was the one that seemed the best of the bunch to me, so that's what I promoted. -- RoySmith(talk)18:21, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
@LordPeterII: The story with these two is actually a little different. For board game café, yes – I didn't want to get into a confrontation, so I tried to gently nudge the nominator and reviewer into picking a better hook.
The other nom is a different story – I trust RoySmith and Epicgenius implicitly on matters of hook interestingness. It happens to be that a latter and I agreed on a different hook offwiki, so I was leaving it there as a record. No sweat that RoySmith picked another one.
As for the suggestion of leaving a {{DYK?}} – I don't like confrontation. If these larger discussions are the result, however, I don't mind holding up nominations until they produce a satisfactory hook. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 21:18, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Hmm okay, then whatever *shrug* I shall refrain from putting ticks on approved noms just for the sake of highlighting an ongoing discussion. I've already done it for a few, sorry about that; but I guess it makes no sense to retract them now. I'm also not confrontational in general, so sorry if I annoyed someone, I was only trying to... mediate? or sth like that. –LordPeterII (talk) 21:29, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
That's good and all, but I couldn't figure that out based on what was added. I have come across editors bringing up new hooks and it wasn't that the original hooks were not interesting, but just that they wanted to give other options. You didn't really say that the hook wasn't interesting. I didn't mean for this conversation to get so long and I have no hard feelings towards anyone, but I did want to see how the community felt. SL93 (talk) 21:41, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
I also dislike confrontations. I'm a relative newbie at DYK; I've been submitting DYKs for a while, but only recently got involved in the backend stuff, so there may be a lot of DYK culture and custom that I just haven't absorbed yet.
One thought I have is that ambiguity leads to misunderstandings. You should be able to look at a nom and immediately tell which hooks are approved and which are not. If a reviewer (or anybody else) wants to add some commentary about ranking the approved ones, that's cool, but there should be an obvious "approved" or "not-approved" indication for each hook. The alternative is having to ask reviewers what they meant after the fact. -- RoySmith(talk)21:46, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
That's too long to hold, especially for a date that nobody will care about. Just go for either November 11 or December 21. (... Says the guy with the mirror-image signature ...) MANdARAX XAЯAbИAM 03:42, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
I don't actually have any objection to long holds if there's a reason, but for most of the world 3-20-2023 is actually 20-3-2023. Still a cool date, but not a palindrome. Valereee (talk) 11:42, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
Fine with holding to 22-11-22 (which works for dmy dates but not mdy), but March 2023 is way outside the 6 week window, and it's not a compelling reason to hold it that long. Joseph2302 (talk) 11:56, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
My suggestions for November 11 or December 21 (just under seven weeks from now), ignoring the year, work for whichever date format one prefers. But it's unlikely anybody other than those who have seen this discussion will make the tenuous connection for any of these dates, so it really doesn't matter. MANdARAX XAЯAbИAM 20:24, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm normally lenient when it comes to supporting special occasions as long as they're within the six-weeks-limit, considering the connection to the date (being a palindrome) is rather tenuous, I have reservations if this request is "sufficiently" special. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 00:54, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
@RoySmith: That's about all you can do; I would note for BlueMoonset that both of Chienlit's comments seem to be technically inadequate attempts to approve the nomination, although I would understand not putting much stock in that. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 12:21, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Queue filling
It seems like we're doing an awful lot of pinging to the DYK admins in terms of the status of the queues. TSventon has certainly been doing fantastic work in their keeping of a watchful eye, but I wonder if a more regimented system could be easier? Say, admins in groups of 3 signing up in advance to handle specific weeks and make sure the queues are operational for that week. Would there be admins open to engaging with that system? Admins "on roaming" who help out here and there whenever, of course, are always welcome. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 21:21, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
I struggle very much to predict my RL workload ahead of time; I would never sign up, in such a system. I find the pings helpful, because if I log on with time to spare, and I have pings from here I come right over. I have no objections to others signing up if they wish it. Vanamonde (Talk)21:29, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Keep thinking up the good ideas. What happens with admins (and everybody else), is that the best laid plans are at the mercy of our unpredictable real lives. — Maile (talk)21:28, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
One idea is to give admins moving preps to queue credit for qpq, maybe one non-donatable qpq for every move. Ditto those promoting noms to prep, maybe a non-donatable qpq for every 8 moves to prep. I think it would encourage people who are regular nominators to help out with the work. Valereee (talk) 13:46, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
If someone could make a little dashboard template thingy that displays how many filled preps there are, how many filled queues there are, and how long until the next update, I for one would transclude it on places I look when I'm looking for things to do. We could also stick it at the tip if this page, add it to the admin dashboard thing, and maybe find some other places to put it.~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving00:02, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
I actually think the above dashboard template might be the better idea, of all mentioned in this section. I'm not interested in a QPQ-ish tally for moving the preps to queue. I do it when I have time, and I believe all involved admins are making closer checks of all the hooks before they promote to queue. Everybody does it differently, I think, and each according to whatever else they're dealing with in RL or at Wikipedia. We have at least one admin who will move a set to Queue, but not put the DYKBotdo (which identifies the admin) until they have checked every hook. I try to check before I move to Queue, but sometimes it ends up being after the move. Let's try the dashboard template idea. — Maile (talk) 14:04, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
The QPQ isn't meant to interest you, Maile. :D It's to maybe interest other admins who are regulars here but never move a prep to queue. It's to encourage other admins to maybe do that occasionally so that we maybe aren't so often having to ping the whole bunch. If every admin who regularly nom'd would move one set every time they made a nom, we'd probably rarely have urgent situations. Valereee (talk) 10:50, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
I really like this idea; we currently have a yes/no for whether DYK is "backlogged", but a system showing the fuller picture would be very useful, I believe. There's a large difference in urgency between 1 and 3 filled queues, and a large difference in how much you can help between 4 and 7 filled queues or preps. Vanamonde (Talk)15:46, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
For the record, I saw this when you made the edit. I also have no idea that the phrase means. This was apparently added in July 9, 2014. (Diff) by Prioryman But what it means, is lost on me. I don't see how an article can be "incomplete (though not unfinished)". — Maile (talk) 17:25, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
I'm thinking that a "complete" article would be a good candidate for WP:FA or at least WP:GA. Whereas a "finished" article would be reasonably well-sourced and follow basic conventions, but might still be somewhat bare-bones. DefThree (talk) 17:38, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
An unfinished article is a work clearly in progress of being written. Often with very obvious deficiencies, like an incomplete sentence. Schwede6618:33, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
I personally have no issue with articles being "incomplete" if they are otherwise compliant with policy. We should be encouraging new article creation, particularly from new users who might struggle to "complete" articles in time. I would note the supplementary guidelines at first glance appears to contradict the statement highlighted in the main rules ("It is fine for articles to be incomplete") by saying "There is a reasonable expectation that an article—even a short one—that is to appear on the front page should appear to be complete and not some sort of work in progress". It goes on to clarify that articles that would be incomplete under this criteria would be very basic, including empty sections or not detailing key parts of the subject. I appreciate that an article that is "incomplete" might "appear to be complete", but we should make clear what we are actually asking for here - Dumelow (talk) 18:52, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Can we just remove this whole sentence? "It is fine for articles to be incomplete (though not unfinished), to have red links, to be capable of being expanded or improved further, and so on." The surrounding text already makes clear that DYK articles don't have to be all that good, so this sentence is just redundant and confusing. DefThree (talk) 19:02, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
All righty, here's the rub for me: I interpret this as meaning that the article does not need to address the main aspects of the topic well. DYK doesn't and shouldn't have a GA-style "broadness in coverage" criterion, nor any weaker version of it. If a book article wants to spend all of its time covering real-world background and plot and not touching critical reception... well, that's really weird, but hey. However, it should also be the case that articles present themselves nicely. There shouldn't be unfinished sentences, empty headers, passages that trail off into nothing, exceptionally poor prose, etc. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 19:57, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
I don't necessarily see the rules as being contradictory. An article can be relatively complete but still not comprehensive. I think the guideline was just simply meant to make sure nothing major is being left out in articles. For example, in an article about a person, if it mentions mostly their career but not their early or personal life, that might seem weird. It wouldn't disqualify for DYK necessarily but it could be something that needs to be clarified in the nomination. Or Leeky's example above. A lack of critical reception may be allowed if no such coverage for the book exists, but as I said, it would at least need clarification in the nomination to prevent confusion. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 20:40, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
At ITN I sometimes Oppose on quality if the article omits important details about the subject. For example a recent death which mentions early life and cause of death, but glosses over 30+ years of the career that made that person notable. This applies even if the article is fully referenced and non-stubby and so on. I would imagine the same rule should apply at DYK, although it could certainly be phrased better than "incomplete though not unfinished". — Amakuru (talk) 14:36, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
Suggested rewording
"Articles should be at least "start class" quality that contain the subject's basic elements."
Why add extra wording that will just confuse new editors who know nothing of GA, FA, etc.? At DYK we sometimes get hung up about cramming everything into instructions. Just a basic sentence would suffice here. — Maile (talk) 15:17, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
@RoySmith: It's not common that regular nominators say they'll fix an issue and not get around to it, after a while, without explanation – in that case, I try to gently set a time limit (usually one week) with a ping or talk page message. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 01:56, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
@Gerda Arendt, Narutolovehinata5, Storye book, Theleekycauldron, Firefangledfeathers, and SL93: I don't like to be a trouble-maker, but I thought I'd flag this one as possibly not meeting the criterion 3a, "interesting to a broad audience". In effect, the hook is saying she recorded a piece of music with an orchestra and a conductor, in a city. Is that really remarkable? I'd have thought that's what musicians do, generally. I note that this was queried in the DYK nomination too, but the original hook was chosen nonetheless. Cheers — Amakuru (talk) 12:38, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme is not really an unusual piece... indeed I've played it myself as a piano arrangement many times before. And if there's something unusual about her performing with Mehta then the article and the hook don't appear to make that clear. THanks — Amakuru (talk) 13:06, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
I'm inclined to agree with Amakuru. If you need to know music well enough to recognize that there's something unusual about the piece and the conductor, that's not really appealing to a "broad audience". -- RoySmith(talk)14:04, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
I had mixed feelings, and I landed on thinking the hook was interesting enough to classical music fans. I still have mixed feelings, and I can't say I would go to the mat for this hook. I am still a relative newcomer to DYK, and I find it hard to review hooks that require some prior knowledge. Not trying to play OTHERSTUFF here, but I think this hook is comparable to "Hong Kongese wuxia author Jozev Kiu is an Eskrima coach and karateka", currently in the same queue. Both are likely to appeal to demographics that "get it". Prior knowledge is similarly needed to access Queue 5's "Samuel Hall established Salem's first newspaper, The Essex Gazette, in 1768, using it to support the colonial cause against British taxation" which requires readers to know where Salem is and the basics of late-18th-century political tension in the American colonies. I wouldn't stand in the way of all of these being promoted, or all pulled, or all tweaked. Tough calls. For Talia Or, how about "that Talia Or's soprano was called "the undisputed ruler of the scenery?" Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 15:52, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
"Unusual" is not the same as "interesting". What we want, is for readers to click on it. Yes, they will click on weird stuff, but we are not here just to provide clickbait. People will more likely click on something which they know they will like, and what we are doing here is a form of advertising. We know that advertising works best if it is targeted. So you target your ad primarily at the readers who will like your product.
In advertising, if you are selling diapers (nappies), for example, you are not looking for a broad audience; you are looking for an audience which wants diapers. There is no point in trying for a broad audience there - and even if you do hook in a reader who has no place for diapers in their life, they will not be well pleased to find themselves looking at an article with pictures of diapers. I think they call that an Easter egg on WP? That is, a deceptive link.
If certain WP reviewers are anything to go by, then there are people in this world who not only dislike what they choose to call "classical music", but they appear to be antagonistic to being bothered with the subject. Therefore this hook is targeted at readers who will like the things mentioned in the hook. And what's not to like about the genius Zubin Mehta and Bach's cantatas? In general we know that if we have a hook about a popular celebrity then that hook will get plenty of hits, because the readers have seen something they like. "Like" is not the same as "interesting" either, but both "weird" and "like" get clicks, and if we target the right audience with some of our hooks, no harm is done.
One other point. If we try to distract from the musician and the music in a musician/music hook by finding something weird and clickbaitey, then the chances are that we are trying to dumb down WP. There are always plenty of other hooks in the DYK column which contain dumbdown qualities to haul in the clicks, if it's just click numbers that you want. Some hook subjects are good enough to deserve quality clicks, i.e. clicks by people who will actually read the article and feel grateful for its information. Quality of reader interest in the article is of more value than numbers of clicks on the hooks. So please let WP offer something for everybody, and not try to force hooks into the position of fooling uninterested persons into staring at text on a subject in which they have no interest. Storye book (talk) 16:06, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
ETA: Re the suggested ALT: What is Talia Or's soprano supposed to be? Her voice range? Another soprano whom she sort of owns somehow? And how can a voice range rule the scenery? We would need to explain those things in the hook, both for the cognoscenti and your imaginary "broad audience". Storye book (talk) 16:06, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
"own somehow" cracked me up, so thanks. Consider it changed to "soprano voice". I don't think the "rule the scenery" needs to be explained, as it's meant to leave some curiosity in the reader. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:18, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
I was out and wrote my reply in a haste. Thank you, Storye book! I meant "interesting" or "great" when I wrote "unusual". Both cantata and conductor are pieces of knowledge good to know, and if readers haven't heard about them, that's their chance. I like that this hook combines something German and Israeli without mentioning nationalities, - I'm really not sure if she has one or two, but she is certainly influenced by both, and I like that Jewish woman singing a Christian cantata, with an Indian conductor. - - We could say "ruled the scene" about many, but the culture mix is rather unique to her. - Finally: with that image, it doesn't even matter much what the words say. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:21, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
If, as Storye book suggests, the goal is not to be interesting to a broad audience, but to provide some form of "targeted advertising" for people already familiar with the subject, then we should hold an RfC and repeal criterion 3a. I do agree on the other hooks FFF mentions, and I hadn't got to those in my checking yet so perhaps I would have flagged them as well, hard to say after the fact... this one we're discussing here just struck me as a really obvious statement of someone doing their job, and to be honest I'm not even sure the significance from a musical point of view. If a soprano is notable enough to appear on Wikipedia, I'd expect her to also appear with notable conductors. From a contributor point of view, this could be seen as frustrating, everyone wants their work featured on the main page, and Gerda works incredibly hard on these articles. But the criteria as currently written are geared towards prioritise the reader and ensuring that hooks are interesting to them. As I say, either we should follow those criteria or we should amend them. — Amakuru (talk) 17:57, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Personally, I thought the wuxia hook would have been fine since I did find it unusual that a fiction writer is also a karate coach. The Salem hook, though, I would agree would have needed additional context. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 20:35, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
But it wasn't just doing her job but going from Germany to Israel, - which we can't all explain in the hook, just hint at a few things good to know. Off to rehearsal. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:18, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
I promoted the hook because Gerda, Storye book, and Firefangledfeathers seemed fine with the hook, while theleekycauldron left their own hook preferences out of the discussion. I was going by consensus that was established there by the participants. SL93 (talk) 19:12, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
I disagree on the Salem newspaper hook. Just being the first newspaper in Salem is enough to get clicks in my mind. Same for the karateka hook because many people are interested in karate. SL93 (talk) 19:22, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
I have to disagree on the Salem part. If the city in question were a well-known city like, for example, Seattle or Los Angeles, then yes I'd agree that just being the first newspaper in that city would be hooky by itself. But a place like Salem, Oregon, probably less so without additional context. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 20:35, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
That might be an issue. It isn't automatically clear in the hook which Salem is being referred to (hence why I assumed it was the one in Oregon not the one in Massachusetts). While a link could help, I don't think it would solve my concerns either. Maybe if the hook referred to the trials that could have helped, but mentioning "Salem" without additional context makes the hook rather pedestrian in my eyes (and I say this as a history buff). Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 23:07, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
The "interesting to a broad audience" is tricky. The participants in the newspaper article nomination were fine with it, along with the admin who moved it to queue. With such a thing, we can't say anyone is wrong with what they think of as interesting to a broad audience. We then get long discussions as a result that can be longer than the article itself. I think we should make a clearer guideline than just "interesting to a broad audience". SL93 (talk) 23:18, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
I am only commenting here because I was pinged, but from as far as I can tell, the idea that DYK is intended to be "targeted" promotion has no support on WP:DYK, rather that it's the hooks that are required to be interesting to a broad audience. In addition, as far as I can tell, the idea that hooks should not be "clickbait" actually goes against the spirit of DYK's rules, which claim that hooks should be "catchy, punchy", and "interesting to a broad audience". Now, there tends to be some argument over what "broad audience" means, but from experience and previous discussions here, the idea that hooks should mainly be "targeted" towards one audience contradicts that idea. As Amakuru said, if there's a desire to repeal the interestingness criteria we can have an RfC, but right now, "targeted idea" is not a concept that has consensus or support according to WP:DYK or WP:DYKSG. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 20:35, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
I'm not sure if I want to be promoting hooks if I am expected to go against the consensus of multiple editors. Promoters already have to deal with quite a bit, and I don't want to add more potential conflict to the already sometimes intimidating process. SL93 (talk) 20:50, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Considering that's there are some disagreements over the hook, would it be a good idea to move the hook to a later prep or even to pull it entirely for now while the discussion is ongoing? Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 21:01, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
The hook should be moved considerably later anyway because of the conflict with the hook discussed in a thread above, about 2 November special occasions, which would lead to two musicians pictured in a row. It could be moved to the last Sunday in the church year (20 November) because that would be suitable for the cantata. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:37, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
New day, new month: thank you for the shuffle! As for the hook, I thought Yoninah would have liked it. Jerusalem appeals to many, German - Israeli collaboration should interest the broad readership, no? - How about changing the requirement to simply saying "has to be interesting", to open what we offer more to the minority interests? We don't have to change the wording, just our thinking and handling of situations, especially for BLPs. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:53, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
Since there is a misunderstanding above, I feel that I should correct that. I did not say that every hook should be targeted at a particular audience, and I did not say that "broad audience" should be deleted from the guidelines.
I was explaining that in cases like this, where (as some WP reviewers have demonstrated) the subject is considered obscure and boring by some, the hook needs to be targeted towards those who would find it interesting per se, and don't necessarily need a quirky hook.
I do agree that the guidelines about how to make the hooks catch the reader's eye ought to be revised so as to give more leeway to nominators and reviewers, allowing us to use commonsense, rather than to just keep repeating (or weaponising?) the guideline words when those guideline words are not always helpful. That is to say, I agree that most of the hooky hooks now running on the main page are fine (some are great fun), and that most of them don't need targeting to a particular audience. But I disagree strongly with the idea that some niche subjects need to be either forced unnaturally into a false weirdness to catch the public eye and deceive readers into clicking on an article which would not interest them - or be excluded from DYK.
One of the WP guidelines is that we should use commonsense anyway, but sadly, instead of that, I have seen nominators being told that they should withdraw their nom if they can't make their subject sound interesting to a "broad audience" (where the definition of a broad audience seemed to be people who would not enjoy an article about that niche subject). Storye book (talk) 10:12, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
Wide-angle lens
I've been sitting on the sidelines of this discussion for a while – now that Talia Or's hook has been pulled, I'd like to offer some insight gained by taking a step back.
It seems fairly clear to me that as demonstrated by pageview counts, hooks like the one proposed for Talia Or tend to fall short in enticing a wider audience to learn more. However, hooks in this category can certainly still carry much value – so called "niche" hooks can have value that stands independent of pageviews based on several factors. I'll use my own hooks as an example – I am simply a huge fan of The West Wing, a 1999 television show revolving around American politics, and I've run quite a few hooks on the subject. As you may have guessed, not everyone on planet Earth is absolutely nuts about The West Wing. However, some of these hooks do quite well with our readership anyway:
... that a Christmas gift on The West Wing's "Bartlet for America", a napkin bearing the episode's slogan, was replicated for Jacky Rosen's U.S. Senate campaign?
So, the question is: despite (relatively) poor performance, was it worth it to run these hooks? Take "Bartlet for America" – sure, 103.7 views per hour doesn't exactly burn down the house (I'd estimate that it's somewhere in the 10–20th percentile), but I'd argue that if you're interested in the nitty-gritty of American politics, this hook might be uniquely and particularly interesting in a manner that might outweigh whether or not it's a crowd-pleaser. It's a rather intricate hook that communicates something not just impressive, but noticeably unusual – it's unintuitive for life to imitate art in this way, and if you're someone who cares about this kind of thing, this hook might be something really worth your while. It might teach you something new, or make you think about something you're not normally thinking about. It wouldn't be plausible for this hook to be true about, say, Modern Family or Homestuck, it's something more special than that.
On the other hand, I don't think that line of reasoning is true for "Celestial Navigation" and the "Main Title (The West Wing)". The former in particular strikes me as awkward, in that the facts it presents are rather routine; you could swap out the four nouns in that sentence for any other actress, show, episode title, and character and it would still make about as much sense. In addition to not telling a story that's compelling to a broad audience, I'm not reading that hook as a West Wing fan and getting all excited – it seems pretty trivial. "Celestial Navigation" in particular seems to be rather unfocused on the bolded article (the thing I wanted readers to click on), instead using it as a pretense to tell some other fact that's only loosely related.
In other words: I've run hooks that "appeal to a niche" because they offer something new and exciting that still might not be interesting to others, and I've also run hooks that "appeal to a niche" because they simply aren't compelling enough to attract anyone who isn't already interested in the subject. These two kinds of hooks register at basically the same level on the DYK stats table, but one clearly has more value to DYK's purpose than another.
This notion that "niche" hooks can have value if they are particularly and uniquely interesting to that niche, rather than being routine or trivial, is not reflected in DYK's guidelines. It would seem that something has to give, though, because we already seem ascribe to something like this by running hooks that aren't interesting to a broad audience. So: do we want to enforce what we have on the books, or do we want to change it? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 09:42, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
I am in agreement with you on the above, theleekycauldron. Oh, and also a fan of West Wing. Yes, we need to adjust the guidelines to allow for niche-subject hooks. One difficulty might be that a lot of people don't realise how niche their favourite subjects are, perhaps because they live in an environment where all their acquaintances know and love those favourite subjects; for example Western team sports, Western popular music and other Western popular culture subjects. So it is tempting for them to define "broad audience" as their own social environment type. I would not be likely to click on a team sports hook on the main page, however brilliantly quirky it was; nor would most of my friends. We are all niche in our different ways. In that respect, there is no "us and them" here. We just all need to appreciate the fact that even the most popular article may have its own set of niche audiences. If we exclude "niche" from DYK guidelines, we exclude ourselves. There is no absolute "broad audience" which is definable by the attitudes of the society that we each live in. Storye book (talk) 10:43, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
I don't think we should be excluding topics from DYK solely because they are "niche". Indeed, if you know me, you'd know that I am a strong opponent of systemic bias on Wikipedia, and I think that all kinds of topics and subjects should be given their chance to shine. However, in DYK's case, it's not like niche topics can't be covered in a way that they can be interesting even to those who aren't fans or experts on the niche. Take Leeky's West Wing examples for example. I know nothing about the series other than the fact that it exists, but I thought the 17 People hook was something unusual and interesting even to non-fans. Instead of going for extremes (either solely appealing to broad audiences or solely targeting niches), how about trying to achieve a compromise? Meet halfway? Perhaps for topics that are more "niche" (for lack of a better term), how about proposing hooks that both specialists and non-specialists can enjoy, rather than only targeting specialists? Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 11:36, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
I think we seem to be struggling to define a "niche" hook, then – I define it as the latter set of three. The former three are more just broad audience hooks that happen to be about The West Wing, and therefore also appeal to that niche. So the question isn't about "17 People", everyone's fine with that – it's about hooks closer to "Bartlet for America", where there isn't necessarily broad-audience appeal but maybe there still is value. Without an update to the guidelines, though, I don't see how we can continue to run those hooks. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 20:56, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
My point was simply that a topic that is considered "niche" does not need to have hooks that only appeal to fans or specialists of that niche. Meaning, hooks about such niches can be more like the former set (the one that includes 17 People) rather than the latter set (which admittedly has a less broad appeal). Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 02:06, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
@Theleekycauldron @Paine Ellsworth This causes layout issues at narrow widths, such as at <1360px in new vector. The hook textarea shows up much further down below the label. One way to fix that would be to set the style display: table on #dyk-wizard-container, but that also causes the container to become very narrow even when not required. – SD0001 (talk) 15:13, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
The image file File:Jubilee Memorial, Harrogate (1).jpg has a licence which says it is "in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or fewer". Yet the photographer is stated as unknown, so we have no way of knowing when the author's life plus 70 years may have ended. 1887 may seem like a long time ago, but hypothetically, if the photographer was 16 at the time of the the photo (so born in 1871) and then lived to be 100, that would mean they died in 1971, which is considerably less than 70 years ago. Although Wikipedia itself only requires images to be licensed in the US, the main page I believe conforms to the Commons standard of requiring it to be valid in both the US and the country of origin, so I think a more valid licence would be required. Pinging @RoySmith, Storye book, and Onegreatjoke: who were involved with the nom. Cheers — Amakuru (talk) 15:43, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm not an expert on copyright, but I agree this sounds dodgy for the front page. Let's unpromote it for now and so there's less time pressure to sort it out. I'll leave it to somebody else to actually edit the queue page since I'm not up to speed on that yet. -- RoySmith(talk)15:53, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
I changed the tags at Commons to note that it's presumed to be in the public domain as it was published more than 120 years ago. It's a Commons consensus decision, and I'm not sure how much we respect those here. I wouldn't fight for it over the suitable modern image. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:22, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
The image referred to above is a lithograph taken from an original drawing by the architect Arthur Bown (died 1916), and there should be no problem with that. I have clarified the image filepage to reflect that.
I should add that professional artists in the UK who contributed to newspapers in those days were apprentices until they qualified at around age 21, and newspapers like the ILN did not accept apprentice work when they had so many superb qualified artists available. In the UK in the 19th century, workers aged under 21 were not taken seriously because they had not achieved majority. In the UK at that time, people aged under 21 were formally called "infants" in law, and had to undertake formal matters in the name of an adult "friend" as the courts called it. So the idea of a published artist being aged 16 is invalid in this case. (I know one case of a published lithographic artist aged 16, but that work was published under the auspices of his employer and master, and not in a newspaper, and it was an exceptional case, as he had a scoop.)
However if you still don't like that, there is a large number of free, self-licensed, full-length images of the memorial in the commons category. I suggest the image by RoySmith (right), which is clear and used in the article page. Storye book (talk) 17:33, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Well, like I said, copyright policy is not my strength. If the people who do understand that stuff say the original image is OK, then I'm OK with it too. I like it better than the modern photo. -- RoySmith(talk)17:57, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for that, EEng#s, great fun. Sadly, your linked report goes on to say that "It's unclear if the stratotanker's flight pattern was intentionally made to resemble a phallus", so theoretically it could be another of those famous-icons-on-a-slice-of-toast jobs. But thanks for the giggle. Storye book (talk) 17:50, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
WP:V and WP:NPOV violation in an article that ended up on the front page
I'm concerned about this nomination: Template:Did you know nominations/Irreligion in Malaysia. The hook "atheists in Malaysia are often threatened with rape and murder" is written in wikivoice. Yet the source given doesn't actually say it in its own voice. The source given says ""Nurulhuda’s atheist meetings remain secretive, she stressed, to protect the closeted atheists. [...] Death threats online and over the phone are common, she said. [...] The most common threat to her and other ex-Muslim women is rape, she explained." (emphasis added)
It ended up on the front page, because everyone on Wikipedia is an unpaid volunteer. There are no language/religion experts here, as far as I know. It's good you caught this, and it would be good if Wikipedia-DYK was staffed by specialists on every subject matter that comes up. But lacking that, we human beings make mistakes, and some of them end up on the Main Page. The very existence of WP:ERRORS in general is a testament to "people make mistakes" and "we correct them when revealed". If you know a way to get an all-volunteer unpaid staff of experts on every subject matter that could possibly arise, please let us know. Thank you. — Maile (talk) 10:25, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
@Maile66: I understand that people aren't subject matter experts. But I was under the impression that DYK reviewers had to ensure the hook is actually verifiable to the source given, especially when the supposed source is available online and even more especially when the nominator has typed out the text from that source for you. I've reviewed my share of DYKs and I've always done that (exceptions being when the source can't be found online - but that wasn't the case here). IMHO this was not done here.VRtalk13:40, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Same opinion as you. Even if there aren't subject matter experts the source was right there for review. The reviewer should have at least put more analysis on the hook and its source. This isn't the fault of there being no experts but rather just a lack on analysis on the part of two reviewers. Onegreatjoke (talk) 14:04, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
I've cleared up an instance of close paraphrasing too. The text feels broadly accurate, if unencyclopaedic in tone at parts, although of course it should be correctly supported by sources. It does seem like more editing was needed for it to appear, but that said, what is being looked for here? Mistakes were not caught as Maile says, but this happens, and I suspect those involved have taken note at this point. CMD (talk) 15:08, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
@Chipmunkdavis: can we tweak WP:DYKCRIT #3 to say that the nominator must provide the text in the source that supports the hook and the reviewer must verify (based on provided text) that the source matches the hook? Or put it somewhere in our process so as to help reviewers be more careful next time?VRtalk17:50, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
You could try boldly making that tweak, see what happens. But new nominators -- this one has ~700 edits -- are already overwhelmed by the rules here and unlikely to even see that rule. And reviewers sometimes can't get to the source but accept it on good faith.
As Maile notes, this is a volunteer project. And unlike almost every other project here on Wikipedia, DYK has deadlines. Either 8 or 16 every day. If you'd like to help, there's always a need for folks to build preps. Building a prep involves doing 8 re-reviews to check for things like the one we're discussing here. Oh, and it's highly scrutinized, so try not to let anything slip through. :) Valereee (talk) 21:00, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
@Vice regent: Outch. I take responsibility. I think I've simply nominated and reviewed too high a volume of noms recently. I got careless: I skimmed over the source, saw the statement there, but interpreted it wrong (that is, not as only a personal statement). Sorry.
Tbh, I think my current ethos of "nominate as many different things as possible before they become ineligible" and "keep up with reviews" while at the same time trying to do preps is simply not feasible. I'll take a step back and an immediate wikibreak to get a clear head again. There are some pending nominations that may be failed if they can't be passed without me. See you all again in a few weeks or so. –LordPeterII (talk) 22:54, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
If you actually want to improve it, go build a prep. Seriously. It'll give you some insight. Other prep builders will be happy to help you figure it out. We're on two-a-days right now, so it's tight, but if you start with the lowermost prep you probably have at least three days to get it together. Ta! Valereee (talk) 01:49, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
Now i'm not against this at all. I'd personally love for Thurgood Marshall to be at DYK but can we just give an exception like this? Onegreatjoke (talk) 00:17, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
He's been featured at OTD four times by now. What you are basically asking is a rule change, because if we permit this here, how would we ever say no to another DYK nomination that's been on OTD? I suggest to go for FA and then it's not just a wee hook, but a whole writeup. Schwede6601:12, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
That is a fair point, but do you happen to know why the OTD rule was implemented in the first place? It's something that has been bothering me for a while now. Unlimitedlead (talk) 01:24, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
@Schwede66 and Onegreatjoke: you make a good point, I'd see a narrowly tailored rule change to be in order. @Unlimitedlead: OTD was added afterwards at Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 113#Do previous main page appearances prohibit DYK nomination? It's a short discussion with a few participants, and I think it missed a key point: ITN's limitation to current events makes it a relatively narrow exemption, and one that prevents us from running articles that were newly created as newsworthy events (I don't think the GA rule existed at the time of the ITN rule). Exempting OTD, on the other hand, allows a section of the main page that can run pretty much any historical thing it wants to preclude us from running content that has been expanded or promoted to GA. That includes many high-profile sub-GA vital articles, such as Turkey, Taiwan, Wikipedia, Barack Obama, YouTube, and Fascism (based on a quick category search). That seems much broader than was intended. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 01:44, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
With regards to the original request, it feels like a stronger argument needs to be made for IAR than simple historical importance. It was a shame, for example, that Man of the Hole didn't make DYK for similar reasons. That said, on the wider rules point, I agree that the main value of the rule is that it prevents articles from taking up multiple slots of the main page at the same time (or within a certain period). Appearing in multiple slots over time seems much less problematic, and the spirit of the rule change to include GAs would suggest that the desire is to note new work, even if the old work merited inclusion elsewhere (much like TFA). That said, I don't understand the OTD inclusion. Why does Thurgood Marshall appear OTD in four years, but not in other years? It seems a relevant point to understand to adjust the guidelines here. CMD (talk) 02:00, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Just for the record, if we agree to change the eligibility rules, that shall be fine by me. That's of course a broader discussion than just an IAR request. Schwede6602:01, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Just wanted to say as the article's main author that I'm fine either way: obviously it'd be great to have Marshall on the main page, but I also understand why the rule is the way it is. Cheers, Extraordinary Writ (talk) 03:36, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
A thought
Been brainstorming this based on the discussion above, and I was wondering if some kind of exemption to the "no previous bolded appearances" rule can be added. I'm not sure exactly what would qualify under that exemption, but it could either involve the article in question being promoted to GA status, and/or it being X number of years since it last appeared on OTD and/or ITN. These are just ideas and not actual proposals, but could any of them be feasible? Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 02:23, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
I would fully support changing our rules around this. From a reader perspective, there are more interesting facts available about the kinds of better-known topics that tend to have appeared on OTD/ITN than about niche topics that people have never heard of (that therefore have to establish within the hook why anyone should care about them, something many do not do). And from the perspective of DYK as an incentive to improve articles, we want to encourage and reward editors to improve articles on better-known topics, as they have far more pageviews and thus greater impact for readers. So from both angles, these are the kinds of nominations we should be welcoming, not blocking. {{u|Sdkb}}talk05:46, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm not sure why an exemption would be warranted. The point is that articles get one airing on the main page, other than at TFA. We already don't allow GA DYKs if the same page already ran as a created/expanded DYK, you might as well throw that one into the mix too if you're chucking out the rule. I'm not necessarily against a carve-out for GAs, but we shouldn't forget the principle that DYK is part of the main page, not standalone, and is principally to air things that haven't aired before. Appearing at OTD four times seems to preclude that. — Amakuru (talk) 08:44, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm not sure I agree with that – it did appear four times at OTD, after all. DYK is the only section of the main page that requires article to have never been on ITN or OTD – and it's only those two sections. Glass ran at DYK in 2020; it was an FA that ran at TFA, got delisted, and then passed GA. There are 1,100+ other articles that would be eligible for this if they were brought to GA. It's also entirely possible that if TFL beat us to the punch on a 5x expanded and newly featured list, we would run the DYK afterwards. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 09:01, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
I don't think the double DYK element should be removed, but articles clearly get multiple airings on the main page (the article in question has been on OTD four times), so that leaves the question of whether it is a valuable restriction for DYK. I don't think it is (excluding a certain period of time for articles created for ITN). CMD (talk) 09:44, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Yeah, I thought some more since posting this and you're probably right. Other sections, including TFA, do multiple reruns where appropriate, so probably the rule should go. Happy to see what's proposed in an RFC and contribute appropriately. — Amakuru (talk) 09:46, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Marshall is an important figure, but he's been featured on the main page four times already in OTD, and is likely to be featured again in the future. Are we thinking of doing away with prior OTD and/or ITN appearances completely as a DYK disqualifier? I'm not sure that's a good idea. Another possibility could be blocking GA qualification for past TFA articles. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:09, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
I am in favour of weakening the disqualifier. I would like to throw out the suggestion that appearance in ITN and OTD in the last six months prior to nomination apply as the disqualifier. This does not do away with the disqualifier completely, which I agree would not be a good idea, but does I would suggest remove an occasionally quite random stumbling block. Six months seems long enough for something to leave the news cycle and be a bit forgotten, and indeed perhaps time for some sources to come out that would merit expansion resulting in a DYK. It is also long enough that I do not feel a regular main page reader would think "hmmm Wikipedia sure loves Thurgood Marshall". CMD (talk) 02:27, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
... that after making an anti-Semitic remark, football player DeSean Jackson accepted an invitation from Holocaust survivor Edward Mosberg (pictured) to visit the Auschwitz concentration camp?
This strikes me as too negative a statement to publish on the main page. Rule 4a says to avoid unduly focusing on negative content about living people, and while the article here is okay, I'm not sure it's a good idea in a hook. "making an anti-Semitic remark" is also odd given that it was a social media post. @Schwede66 and Pbritti:Vanamonde (Talk)15:00, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
The only alteration I would suggest based on your comments is change "made antisemitic remarks" to "posted antisemitic quotes" based on sources. As Jackson is neither the subject of the article the hook is for nor does the hook suggest he has not reformed his views (I say the hook suggests personal growth and humility on Jackson's part), I think we're good on 4a. However, because of BLP rules, I would defer to the judgement of more advanced DYK team members and accept whatever consensus they arrive at. ~ Pbritti (talk) 15:11, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for bringing that up, Vanamonde93. The history of this DYK is that an IP editor asked on my talk page whether I would nominate this article at DYK, and that request included a suggested hook: that American football player DeSean Jackson accepted an invitation from Holocaust survivor Edward Mosberg (pictured) to visit the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland? I did so but added how the concentration camp trip came about to give this context. I thought it was great of DeSean Jackson to do this after having caused great offence. Hence, I didn’t regard this as violating the negative BLP rule. I’d be most happy for the hook to be reworded to clarify that this was caused by a social media post. Schwede6615:45, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Well, let's see here. No opinion on the current hook. Since the image is Edward Mosberg in his concentration camp uniform, perhaps a hook like this,
ALT1 " ... that holocaust survivor Edward Mosberg(pictured in his concentration camp uniform) was awarded the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland for his efforts recognizing the Polish war-time rescue of Jews?"
This moves us away from the negative. I know it's not the subject that the article creator wanted, but I really don't have a definitive answer about the BLP concerns. I'm a bit concerned myself about the BLP issue. — Maile (talk) 16:55, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
I agree that the narrative as a whole does Jackson credit, and I have no BLP concerns with the article(s). I'm not confident that that sense is necessarily conveyed by the hook, which is why I flagged it. I would slightly prefer going to Maile's hook, unless we can flesh out the "showed learning" aspect. Vanamonde (Talk)17:36, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Here's my attempt of keeping the affair in the hook, with a stronger positive element. Could also add the words "football player" before Jackson's name. Schwede6621:48, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm not 100% sure that I understand what you are saying, Leeky. Vanamonde suggested that we could flesh out the "showed learning" aspect but when I attempt to, I'm putting a value judgement into Wikivoice. Is that what you are saying? For the record, I could live with ALT1 but have a preference for featuring this Auschwitz invite. Schwede6622:26, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
@Schwede66, Vanamonde93, and Theleekycauldron: Please look closely at the articles on Mosssberg and DeSean Jackson. I don't see anything, sourced or un-sourced, that says DeSean Jackson followed through on the invitation beyond verbally accepting it. What am I missing? — Maile (talk) 22:26, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
I don't know whether the trip happened. What I do know, and what ALT0 and ALT2 say, is that he accepted to go on the trip. Schwede6622:28, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
The source says the invitation to visit Auschwitz concentration camp was accepted via a Zoom call. Neither the Jackson article nor the Mosberg article says there was a follow up. OK, so my point here is that unless he actually made the trip, just verbally accepting an invitation is not redemption. — Maile (talk) 22:41, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Since the two paragraphs in the "synopsis" section contain secondary interpretation, they need to be sourced – that includes the sentence that includes the hook fact. Pinging @Unlimitedlead, Guerillero, and RoySmith as nominator, reviewer, and promoter. Should be a breeze, but I did want to bring that up :) theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 20:29, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
I have just done some work there. If someone else (someone more experienced in this department) could help me out, that'd be great. Unlimitedlead (talk) 01:07, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
I can see why you did that (because "pictured" is next to Harrogate, not the monument itself), but the new hook is not an improvement, because the hook now looks as if Bown did the designing in Harrogate, and readers won't know where the monument is. Regarding the original hook, the readers won't really think that the picture is of Harrogate in general, and not of the monument, because all you can see is the monument - so you didn't need to change it for a more awkward hook. I don't think it needed to be changed. Storye book (talk) 21:33, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
@Theleekycauldron: My mistake, I usually change the review box because it makes it easier for me to fix the problems. Though this same problem does also coincide with the 1920 xalapa earthquake nom as the hook that was promoted should have been replaced with the more accurate alt1 hook. @Rlink2: Sorry for causing you trouble. Onegreatjoke (talk) 01:36, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
@Rlink2: sorry for the pings but you also forgot to change the hook for the 1920 xalapa earthquake nom as it was deduced that alt1 would be a better hook than alt0 due to the source that was used. Onegreatjoke (talk) 13:35, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm shaky on this one, if only because pop music hooks tend to perform rather poorly at DYK and therefore should usually be bolstered. I understand from the nompage that an ALT1 was being workshopped when ALT0 was promoted; could it be agreed upon and swapped in? Pinging @Onegreatjoke, Ippantekina, Sammi Brie, RoySmith, and Rlink2 as involved parties. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 01:33, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
Hmmm, I guess that was my suggested ALT1b that you're talking about. Obviously, I think it was better than the others, but I don't have any strong feeling either way. I'll let you folks make the decision. -- RoySmith(talk)01:42, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
The "fictional character" is Swift's in-video persona, and the "real world aspect" of the hook is "in the music video for the song 'Anti-Hero'". Unlimitedlead (talk) 15:49, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm not sure if that counts. If that is the case, any fictional universe hooks can be used just by tacking on the medium that the hook is in. SL93 (talk) 16:00, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
@SL93: Fair point. However, the hook is worded in a way that could imply that Taylor Swift (our real-world Taylor) is imagining this situation that occurs the video, not that the Swift character inside the video is the one that is imagining being killed by her daughter-in-law. Not to get all philosophical, but if the in-video Swift gets murdered, she's not imagining it: it actually happened in that world. In our real world, Taylor Swift imagines this scenario. Unlimitedlead (talk) 16:18, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, the story in the video is fiction, so the story even if set in the real world is a fictional universe. A hook that doesn't involve the real world is basically "Did you know ... that in a fictional universe, anything can happen?" Because of course it can. If the hook had been, "Did you know ... that in the music video for Anti-Hero, the character who played Swift's murderous DIL is her real-life next-door neighbor?" we'd have been good. Valereee (talk) 18:49, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
@Valereee I apologize if the hook I wrote sounded a little too on the fictional side. The hook was "Did you know that in the music video for the song "Anti-Hero", Taylor Swift imagines a scenario in which she is killed by her own daughter-in-law?". "Taylor Swift" in this sentence refers not to the fictional Taylor in the music video, but rather the Taylor Swift who exists in real life, whose vision guided the production of the video. The real-life Taylor was the one who "imagined the scenario". The imaginary Taylor in the video experienced that scenario. Unlimitedlead (talk) 19:55, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
@Unlimitedlead, but that's true of all fiction. The real creator imagines the scenario in which the imaginary character experiences that scenario. Did you know ... that in fiction, a creator can come up with a scenario in which a character experiences anything the creator can imagine? Yes, everyone familiar with fiction knows that. It's not a hook. Valereee (talk) 20:13, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
No worries, we have an overabundance of rules here, and some of them can seem a bit arbitrary. There really are actual reasons for them. Some of which I disagree with, but in this case I actually do think it makes sense from an 'interestingness of hook' standpoint. Valereee (talk) 20:24, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
It actually goes a little further than that. The real world TS imagined the whole thing, the fictional TS experienced a dream, and the dream TS (doubly fictional) experienced being killed by her daughter-in-law. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 11:39, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
For example, it says that prep 4 will be on the main page on November 12 00:00, but that isn't true. Prep 4 will be moved to queue 5 next, which by itself is messed up because it should be to queue 4. Prep 4 will actually be on the main page on November 9 00:00 after it is moved to queue 5. The local update times line-up does not match the current line-up of the preps and queues below it. SL93 (talk) 21:38, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
I think that I found the issue. I remember there being multiple empty preps in a row until prep 7, and Casliber skipped past those empty preps to promote the filled prep 7 to the next queue (which was queue 3). SL93 (talk) 21:49, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
I've shuffled a few things around and everything should be back in order. Please check. Also, I take it there aren't any special occasion hook in what is now Prep1 (was Prep4)? Schwede6600:22, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
Somebody please explain to me what magic is happening with the display of promoted templates at WP:SOHA. I promoted Template:Did you know nominations/List of compositions by Graham Waterhouse. It appeared to disappear from the SOHA listing, leaving just the "November 2" section head. But, if I look at the wiki source, the template is still there:
===November 2===
{{Template:Did you know nominations/List of compositions by Graham Waterhouse}}
When you promote it, you add <includeonly>{{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|Talk|</includeonly> to the top of it, which prevents the display of transclusions anywhere other than in the Talk namespace (e.g., on the talk page of the article). So it won't display in the Template talk namespace, which is where the SOHA is. WugBot will remove the transclusion itself from the page shortly (like this), but hiding it in the meantime helps reduce some of the clutter post-promotion. DanCherek (talk) 13:18, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT1: ... that the Taiwanese film 陽光普照, about parental favoritism, was translated as A Sun to create a pun with "a son"?
This removes some unnecessary quotation marks and has a smoother wording. Frankly I'm not really a fan of including the Chinese characters here – they will be entirely opaque to most readers – but it's a minor quibble. — RAVENPVFF·talk·10:32, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
i agree with Ravenpuff. i am not sure what standard dyk practices are, but i only know of one tfa blurb that used chinese characters. admittedly, though, romanization may be problematic, as there isn't a universally accepted romanization system in taiwan. two additional nitpicks: (1) presumably, the film wasn't translated as "A Sun", as a film over two hours long with two words of dialogue seems rather unusual; and (2) "A Sun" isn't a translation of the title either, but the english title of the film. (the article gives "Shining on All Things" as a literal translation of the chinese title.) would the following hook be an acceptable alternative?
alt1b: ... that a Taiwanese film about parental favoritism was titled A Sun in English to create a pun with "a son"?
although a bit of meaning is lost for those who can read chinese, dropping the taiwanese title entirely allows the hook to focus on what is presumably the more interesting part to most of the audience. dying (talk) 13:48, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
German titles of a musical work are at least readable to users of English Wikipedia. Chinese pictograms are completely meaningless to 99% of English Wikipedia users. For this reason, we should IMO not be promoting hooks using such pictograms. Cbl62 (talk) 20:28, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
In a similar vein: should we remove the clown emoji in the last hook of this set? MOS:NOICONS states that icons (including emoji) don't belong in prose, and it's conceivable that the character might not display properly on some older devices. In any case, most readers should be familiar with what a clown emoji looks like, and we don't need to point one out to them. — RAVENPVFF·talk·01:36, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
Sorry for the delay - RL has a way of sidetracking the best of intents here. Queue 6 was already up there, so I just now filled Queue 7. Only Preps 1 and 2 are complete at the moment. — Maile (talk) 04:48, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
The previous list was archived several days ago. I've created a new list of all 27 nominations that need reviewing in the Older nominations section of the Nominations page, covering everything through October 30. We have a total of 185 nominations, of which 73 have been approved, a gap of 102 nominations, a drop of 5 from last time. Thanks to everyone who reviews these!
Please remember to cross off entries as you finish reviewing them (unless you're asking for further review), even if the review was not an approval. Please do not remove them entirely. Many thanks! BlueMoonset (talk) 02:23, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
Dangers of the Mail image main page appropriate?
Proposed detail crop
Hey folks, so Dangers of the Mail by Valereee is intended to run with image now (it was approved a bit hastily before said image was added to the nom). I remotely remember some images being voted inappropriate for the main page (because readers can't avoid landing there), but don't remember where I read that. Given the explicit, if artistic nature of the image, I think we should have some discussion about it. Thoughts, opinions? –LordPeterII (talk) 19:56, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
I didn't reference anything. Though I have slept on the matter and I think you have a good point. I brought up part of that point below. SL93 (talk) 11:39, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
The image was created for a public hallway in the USPS headquarters in 1937. Yes, some people found it offensive then and some will find it offensive now, which is why I created a hook about how what people find offensive about it has changed. I think the image is a powerful illustration of that change. Valereee (talk) 11:25, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
Oh, @SL93 I mis-interpreted your comment as suggesting that you wanted to run it on Thanksgiving, but upon a more careful reading, it's obvious that you were saying exactly the opposite. -- RoySmith(talk)13:11, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
I didn't nominate it with any timing in mind. I nominated it because I reviewed the queue containing Karl R. Free, which discussed the mural but didn't include a link or image, and I thought, "Now, there's a likely-notable mural" and because there was a natural hook and a great image for illustrating that hook. :) Pure coincidence that I created the article a few weeks before a holiday associated with colonialism. Valereee (talk) 14:04, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Oh, I thought this was all about an image of/from the Daily Mail, but now I see it's another front in the culture wars. I think the image is ok, if possibly not for Thanksgiving (wouldn't bother us in the ROW, I can assure you). But you could fit into the article another crop from the other side of the painting, with just good old-fashioned American male-on-male violence. Nobody could object to that, surely? Johnbod (talk) 03:31, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Actually plenty of people have objected to that right from the beginning for historical inaccuracy, among other things. Valereee (talk) 12:03, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
1. LOL User:Johnbod
2. I created the Karl R. Free article mentioned by user:Valereee. I think DOTM is a horror show but I also think including an offensive work of art on the front page for a period of 12-24 hours is also totally fine and reasonable and even good as an conversation starter. jengod (talk) 16:48, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
Minor point, but the attribution seems wrong on this one. The article and the subject of this hook are Meni (the overseer of...), but from the article we see that the line threatening the grave robbers was written by whoever did the inscription on the tomb, not by Meni himself. Pinging @Qoan, LordPeterII, Jengod, and RoySmith: who were involved with the hook. Cheers — Amakuru (talk) 15:41, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
@RoySmith: there's nothing wrong with the article, it's purely the way the hook is phrased. From the article: "The reliefs do not only show Meni, but also his wife and children. One inscription also possibly mentions his mother. Among the common offering formulae, there is also a curse against tomb robbers. This curse is peculiar because it invokes danger from wild animals, namely crocodiles and snakes". So this was an inscription on Meni's tomb, and not a line written by Meni himself. So Meni is not threatening anyone with crocodiles, it's the people who buried him who threatened that. Yet the hook says that Meni threatens. Cheers — Amakuru (talk) 15:52, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
The phrasing of such curses is usually in the voice of the occupant of the tomb, and this one seems to be no exception. "The crocodile is against him in the water and the snake is against him on land, (2) he who will do something against this (tomb), (3) as I have never done a thing against him." That "I" is Meni. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 20:46, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
(I wish we had a tomb curse explainer to link for the entry-level Egyptologists (such as myself!). Apologies to the original authors; I think my hook meddling complicated matters!) jengod (talk) 15:59, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
We have Curse of the pharaohs! Perhaps create that redirect? As for the hook, I don't mind the attribution, feels quirky. If it must change, then "tomb of the" seems a simple solution. CMD (talk) 16:18, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
I've amended "that the tomb of the" per FFF for now, but happy to go with "the tomb curse of" as well if that's preferable. But I don't think we should write that Meni said something if he didn't, even if his death was a while back and he's no longer a BLP! Incidentally, on another point, having looked at this, I'm curious about describing the curse as "peculiar" - which I'm not certain appears in the source. @Qoan and LordPeterII: was it actually peculiar? — Amakuru (talk) 16:26, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
@Amakuru Re the attrribution: While I'm not an expert, it looks like most tombs were built (if not completed) while the person who commissioned them was alive. This is certainly a known fact for most pharaohs. Data on private individuals is murkier, but this particular person might have built (at least) two different tombs during his lifetime. Indeed, his depictions in the tomb at Dendera were probably updated later, which might indicate he was a young individual when he first commissioned the tomb, and upon reaching a more advanced age he decided to leave proof of it. The curse, whoever, is in the tomb at Giza. But in any case, and despite the fact that there are a couple of known or suspected exceptions, it would be safe to assume that most of the time the texts inscribed in the tombs were decided by the person(s) who intended to use it as a burial, although you're right in that there is no certainty.
Re "peculiar": The curse is peculiar (or uncommon, infrequent, etc.) in that the order is reversed (punishment first, followed by the wrongdoing) and because only a handful of the curses included in that particular study mention animals (page 40 and 45 respectively). The author doesn't use the term peculiar but states the frequencies. I'm not a native English speaker so maybe this is not the best term. I'm happy to look at alternative wordings. Qoan (say it!) 20:19, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
Unattributed quotes
Sorry if I sound like a broken record at this point, but can nominators, reviewers, promoters and admins please verify every time a hook with a quote is encountered, that it complies with MOS:WEASEL. Any quotes used in a hook (and preferably throughout the article itself too) must state explicitly who said that quote. Particularly if it is a quote where someone or something is "described as X".
In this case, from Queue 7, we have:
... that the 2022 French protests(pictured) against the rising cost of living have been called French president Emmanuel Macron's "stiffest challenge" since his re-election?
The caption for the Ai-Khanoum image, currently in Queue 1, is slightly incorrect. Change from "Disc depicting Cybele, a votive sacrifice, and a Bactrian sun god" to "Disc depicting the Greek deities Cybele and Helios with Oriental religious imagery." Better accompanies the hook, as well. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:32, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
I see that the caption has been copied from the target article, including a link to a dab page! If your caption is better, AirshipJungleman29, why haven’t you changed the caption in the article yet? The reason why changing the article caption first is that it gets the eyes of page watchers and if everyone is happy, it’s probably ok. I for one am no expert on these matters. Schwede6617:05, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
I should clarify that the hook changed since you commented following a complaint at WP:ERRORS (which BTW is the correct venue of asking for changes when something is close to going onto the main page). Schwede6617:27, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
I assumed that it's the same for articles, which is the standard date format for whatever country the article subject is in. SL93 (talk) 16:35, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
Indeed. Reflect what is used in the target article, which in itself should use what is used in the relevant country. Schwede6616:47, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
It should follow MOS:DATETIES- in this case, as Smith is from England which uses DMY dates, that is appropriate. Although do we really need the exact date of his debut in the hook anyway? "August 2016" or just "2016" would probably be fine in the hook, as there's nothing special about the 16th August. Joseph2302 (talk) 16:59, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
Beyond my generic reply, I agree with Joseph. I can’t see anything special about the exact date; it’s too specific. Schwede6617:33, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
As I mentioned at WP:ERRORS, that doesn't work when KrinkleBot is down, and the instructions I linked to above are the correct steps. Thanks again to Schwede66 for taking care of this, enabling the DYK bot to perform the update. Admins should be prepared to do it again in case KrinkleBot is still down in eleven hours. MANdARAX XAЯAbИAM 01:06, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
I'll be available until about 21:00h UTC. Feel free to give me a ping before then if the next photo needs protecting, too. Schwede6604:22, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
KrinkleBot is still down. Thank you for the offer, Schwede, but I've already gotten a Commons admin to take care of it, so we should be all set for the next update. MANdARAX XAЯAbИAM 09:21, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
No, not odd but as designed. Mandarax, to trigger a ping, you need to place the notification AND your signature in the same talk page edit. Missing one or the other will not trigger a ping. Schwede6619:09, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
Ah; I looked at the other edits. Yes, that should indeed have triggered a ping. Not sure where the technical details are documented for Commons. Schwede6602:18, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
New articles only for DYK a problem.
The criteria for mainly new articles for the DYK page creates an issue where mainstream pop culture, which generates a ton of the media links required to build articles, takes over.
Giving new articles some priority would be fine, but your 7 day system is leading to the spate of Taylor Swift DYK articles, sometimes every 3 days!
Your system has created a reverse cascading stock market crash- one sell causes another, in this case, media juggernauts like Taylor Swift completely overwhelm the system because they are big.
Perhaps a better analogy is how Penguin Random House has bought up 1/2 the publishing industry. You've created an environment where big monopolies control the information.
I'd suggest you relax the 7 day rule, and let editors cruise the more obscure articles for interesting DYK hooks, or limit the subject matter to 1 a year, or both.
Taylor Swift and US Radio stations are gaming the DYK page, and making wikipedia look bad. Our policy is driving this, and needs review.
What appears on DYK are the products of various editors who are willing to do the work to get something nominated and passed. And as such, we tend to have repeat subject matter because one or more editors is willing to do the work. Taylor Swift might be your pet peeve about DYK content ... but I've been contributing to DYK for the last decade, and never even noticed Swift got any hook, much less more than one. As for the radio station contributions, I find them interesting and like seeing them. Different strokes for different folks. — Maile (talk) 02:22, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
Not sure why relaxing the seven day rule would help with this goal. I'm sure there's hundreds more mainstream pop culture articles that would appear in that time frame. CMD (talk) 03:27, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
limit the subject matter to 1 a year – there's no way that I could support such a constraint. DYK is complex enough as it is. We don't need a topic area police that has to keep tabs on when a particular topic last made an appearance. Schwede6604:29, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
Agreed - plus problems of definition would be endless. Perhaps you didn't notice those 4+6 Taylor Swift hooks were spread over 10 months, though the first 4 were pretty close together. Johnbod (talk) 04:45, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
It is in the nature of editor work flows that series of articles on related subjects often appear together. An editor who has written one article on a carnivorous mushroom has the source material to create more. Many editors work this way exclusively, writing a series of related articles; it is quite efficient. Major sports events like the World Cup generate articles on soccer players, and elections trigger articles on newly-elected politicians. That doesn't mean that they have to appear in quick succession, but when I'm assembling a prep area, I can see the preps and queues, but not so easily the recently run articles. Hawkeye7(discuss)06:19, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
This proposal seems to misunderstand the very purpose of DYK, which is to showcase new or newly improved content. Every year, at least 3,000 articles are featured on DYK (assuming that the bare minimum of 8 DYK hooks appear every 24 hours - the hooks can be changed every 6, 8, or 12 hours if there are a particularly large number of nominations). As Hawkeye7 says, editors often nominate numerous articles about similar topics because they have access to sources that cover several related topics. However, the editors who are preparing DYK queues almost always spread out these topics so a queue isn't dominated by the same topic.In addition, the vast majority of Wikipedia articles are stubs or start-class articles, which can be improved relatively easily. It is already the case that editors can cruise the more obscure articles for interesting DYK hooks. The problem is not the fact that some people are submitting a lot of DYK nominations, it's that there is a shortage of nominators. As to OP's claim that a better analogy is how Penguin Random House has bought up 1/2 the publishing industry, that is an apples-to-oranges comparison. Anyone is free to create an article and nominate it for DYK, but many editors choose not to do so. The claim that the prevalence of certain topics makes Wikipedia "look bad" is not supported by any evidence whatsoever; if just a few editors had the ability to do that, then we would have a much larger, systemic problem that goes far beyond DYK.This proposal is not even a solution looking for a problem. The proposal itself is a problem, as it will create problems for other editors by introducing unnecessary bureaucracy. It is also overly draconian; not even WP:TFA limits any given topic (e.g. a Taylor Swift song or a radio station) to one per year, and there are only 365 TFAs in a year, not even close to the output that DYK produces. – Epicgenius (talk) 13:56, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
Billyshiverstick in my 14+ years submitting articles to DYK I've written over 450 articles, almost all of which have been on fossil insects or plants, and at times has resulted in one or two nominations a week! Would you say that I should only have nominated one article a year, and had that same article volume take 450 YEARS to go through the DYK process?--Kevmin§15:01, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
I would expect the nominators to limit themselves, rather than expect DYK to limit them. If you are doing multiple very similar articles, does each of them really have an actually interesting fact or are you just nominating them to increase the number of DYKs you have? --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:40, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
I mean, "very similar" can just mean that they share a very specific set of defining characteristics. It's possible for several articles to be very similar but to also have many interesting, distinct, facts. For example, nearly all of the articles on Category:Broadway theatres have appeared on DYK, but each of them had a unique fact that reviewers found interesting. The problem with interestingness mainly arises when you have to combine several details to get a hooky fact, which mainly happens with shorter articles. If nominators can consistently create very similar articles that also have interesting facts, I don't think that should be a problem. – Epicgenius (talk) 16:40, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
I guess the simplest solution would be: if you don't think your article is a good fit for DYK, then don't nominate it. Not all articles are meant to be for DYK no matter how much we expand or improve them. And that's okay, DYK is just meant to be a bonus and not mandatory. If you improve an article, it will be appreciated by someone out there, even if it's not through DYK. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 00:02, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
I agree. There are plenty of articles that I've improved to GA, but haven't nominated for DYK, because there was nothing particularly interesting about that article. Similarly, not all new/expanded articles have to be on DYK even if they're long enough to be eligible. – Epicgenius (talk) 15:56, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
If you're annoyed there's too many Taylor Swift and radio station hooks at DYK, the solution is to nominate your own DYKs that are neither Taylor Swift nor radio station related. At least for me, my nominations (train related, obviously) are infrequent because I like to take a lot of time with my articles and only create or expand a few a month usually. You also have the option of simply not clicking on the links of DYKs that do not interest you. Tell me, Billyshiverstick, have you nominated an article for DYK before? Trainsandotherthings (talk) 00:29, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
Just going to leave a comment here. Billy can blame me for almost all those radio—and TV—stations (proof). Why do I write so many? Because: 1) we have many gaps in our coverage and stubs, some of them mass-created a long time ago; 2) ample sources exist and are available to me to improve these articles, which include historical trade publications and U.S. regional newspapers, and I know where to go to quickly build out a page; 3) sometimes projects beget projects, like the California trio of KTVU (Stockton, California), KCCC-TV, and KVUE (California), which each have related histories, or KOCT to complement KOAT-TV and KVIA-TV; and 4) I enjoy it greatly. In many cases, in my field, works have inaccurate detail. I just finished an improvement of KOAT-TV for eventual GA status, and I got to correct an incorrect starting date and also disprove later newspaper articles wrong. Oh, and not everything I do starts with K or W. This year, projects have included broadcasting-adjacent items like Lifetime Medical Television, J. Elroy McCaw, and Dennis Swanson, as well as complete surprises like Luis Alegre Salazar, Ranchlander National Bank (which I discovered while working on a radio station project), and The Mutiny Hotel. Topics in prior years have included malls, university presidents, Mexican federal highways, local government in Iowa, and historic buildings. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 08:25, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
Hi, @Billyshiverstick. I think the reason so many DYKS about Taylor have been popping up recently is because of the 7 day timeframe that DYK rules allow for a nomination. Because Midnights just came out, new articles pertaining to it are continually being created and expanded in order to keep up with incoming information, which means that it's now or never (unless there is a fivefold expansion or a GA pass, each of which could takes years to happen) for an appearance on the Main Page. I think we can certainly see a decline in Taylor-related hooks once a few months have passed following the release of Midnights. Also, I can't help but notice that you've never contributed to DYK before. If you want to help out with adding diversity to hooks, you should consider joining us here! Unlimitedlead (talk) 21:50, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
More prep builders needed
The main prep builders have been me and RoySmith, who has mentioned getting into burnout mode several days ago. Hopefully we can get enough editors building preps so that we won't go back to two-a-days for a while longer. SL93 (talk) 16:29, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
We certainly need more people working this, but that's not going to affect how long we can stay at one-a-day. The math is simple. As long as hooks get approved at the same rate, and promoted at the same rate (currently pegged at 8/day), the pool of approved hooks will grow and shrink based purely on the difference between those two rates. Those of you who studied calculus in school will fondly remember all those funnels and bathtubs filling and draining.
As I said in the RFC that's running above, rather than loosen the approval criteria, I think we should tighten it up. We'll be running better material and we'll have less burnout. Enticing more people to work on preps will help with the burnout, but it won't do anything about the quality of the material we push out the door to meet our numbers. -- RoySmith(talk)16:52, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
Sorry about my mistake. I was thinking of mentioning something else instead, and it wouldn't have come across as nice towards many of those who don't bother filling preps. I'm not always good at sugarcoating things. SL93 (talk) 17:00, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
I'd love to help out with prep building once in a while, but a combination of on-Wiki burnout and real-life commitments are making it difficult. If I have time I may try contributing here and there. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 01:05, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
... that Captain Sarah Oakley is the first woman to serve as the commanding officer of the Britannia Royal Naval College?
This is a bit of a nitpick, but the source discussed in the review doesn't support this; it only says it was the first time a graduation parade had occurred with a woman leading it. This should be an easy fact to source, if true, but a cursory search only found sources in the daily mail. nom link for convenience. The BBC source also isn't cited to support the hook fact in the body. @Moonraker and Bloom6132:Vanamonde (Talk)17:58, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
Pinging Schwede66 for thoughts on new source or if the hook should be pulled since it will be on the main page soon. I can add the source to the article if it's considered good enough. SL93 (talk) 23:47, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
I've pulled it; it's now in Prep1. I've raided Q2 for an approved (bio) hook; sorry for that. I'm now offline for a few hours. @DYK admins: if somebody would like to plug the hole that I left behind in Q2, please do. Schwede6600:02, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
Surely not, Moonraker. If a lengthy discussion here cannot resolve an issue and I see this a few minutes before it goes live, I am always going to pull a hook rather than make something up on the hoof. Schwede6617:23, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
You're absolutely correct. Noms with a query should never be promoted absent a fresh tick, and it's now the second time it's happened today after Shchors (opera)... Promoters need to check for this, alongside performing a general sanity check of the hook, although I assume that it was also never moved from WP:DYKN/A back to WP:DYKN, giving the initial impression that it was approved. That move has to be done manually I believe, as the bot only moves noms in the other direction. — Amakuru (talk) 14:50, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
No, I didn't move it out of /A. I didn't know you were supposed to. To be honest, though, this seems like an area where some improved automation would help a lot. -- RoySmith(talk)15:54, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
Actually, just by looking at the number of submissions I see in /A that have disqualifying queries, I'll assume that nobody knows you're supposed to do that, and I just don't see it happening given how much manual work it is. -- RoySmith(talk)17:00, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
Somebody should write a bot-writing bot. Then we would just have to say, "Metabot, write me a bot to do ...". That would get all these pesky humans out of the loop. -- RoySmith(talk)19:40, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
RoySmith You're not the only one who didn't know it's supposed to be moved out of Approved if a new hook is suggested. I'm an admin, and if I was ever aware of that, it's buried beneath all the other details we have to pay attention to. When I think of all the suggested ALT hooks here on this talk page, some are already approved nominations and I don't remember this ever coming up. — Maile (talk) 19:16, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
It's also not a practical use of time in most cases. Most hook changes for what is already on the main page, are resolved at ERRORS. And if not there, then here, and many are just tweaking an existing hook. — Maile (talk) 19:41, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
If I understand things correctly, Maile66, the hook got promoted because the nomination was hosted at WP:DYKN/A. Had it been at Wikipedia:DYKN, where it should have been, this wouldn't have happened. Therefore, having a bot that moves nominations from "approved" back to the non-approved holding area would prevent this mistake from happening. Schwede6621:00, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
Nothing is required, but moving a nom from the approved page back to the unapproved page is certainly advisable, both to avoid erroneous promotions to prep of the sort we've seen today and also so reviewers see the now unapproved nom in their list of things to look at. We had the same discussion a couple of years ago I think, there was a suggestion the bot could be enhanced to do this, but I don't know if that was ever enacted... — Amakuru (talk) 00:00, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
I've moved things back manually before, but this should be picked up by promoters either way. The icon to go by is the bottom-most icon, perhaps the instructions on this can be clearer? Anyway, the bottom icon is already the icon the approval bot reads to my understanding, so I hope an unapprove bot is simple enough to code. CMD (talk) 01:33, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
I moved it to November 12, which was the date the article was moved to mainspace, and thus the date the creation is considered to have occurred. Nominations should be placed under the creation date/move to mainspace/expansion start/GA listing, not the date they were eventually nominated. Courtesy ping to RoySmith and Maile. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:05, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
Fair enough. Have swapped it back and moved the content manually. The instructions for the next promotion to queue thus remain the same. Schwede6620:07, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
@DYK admins: , can we please avoid promoting preps out of order in future? It never used to be an issue that we'd have out-of-order promotions, and now it seems to be a fairly frequent issue. Requests to fill preps if the next prep is missing a hook are likely to be looked at quickly and a swap-in done, or you can do your own hook move from a later prep to fill the current prep and then promote in proper order. Of course, having said that, we're now in the situation where Queue 7 is empty and needs to be filled from Prep 2, which was the original set of hooks created in Prep 7 for Queue 7 before the prep contents were swapped. If one of you could do that non-intuitive promotion of Prep 2 to Queue 7, we'll be set for the next little while. Thank you very much. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:57, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
Just so that it doesn't get buried and to re-iterate what BlueMoonset says: Whoever gets to promote the next set, please place Prep2 into Q7, and set the prep counter to "3". Schwede6623:05, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
@Schwede66 and BlueMoonset: Done, if I understand: Prep 2 promoted to Queue 7. Prep 3 is now at the top of the promotion tier. I hope we don't go through this again -- it makes for a confused thing, moving from a prep that is a different number than the targeted queue. — Maile (talk) 02:17, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I recently created and moved to mainspace Killing of Sara-Nicole Morales (nom here), about an event that marks its one-year anniversary on November 20, i.e. this coming Sunday. I am therefore asking if someone can review it ASAP ... if approved, it would likely go in Q5 or (better) Q6 (both of which, I am aware, are otherwise ready).
I am sorry this is near deadline ... I got bogged down over the last couple of months working on something else, and busy offline for the last couple of weeks too. Had I been able to do it earlier, I certainly would have. Daniel Case (talk) 20:31, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
We have now an approved hook. It doesn't mention the anniversary of the shooting (20 Nov) or her death (21 Nov) but requires admin action if it should go to one of those days which would make sense to me.
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The evacuation was a specific point in time, so word tweaks might be enough? "... that the daughter of the Ukrainian ambassador to Indonesia was evacuated together with Indonesian citizens after the Russian invasion of Ukraine?" CMD (talk) 03:38, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
... that John Foster, a Boston printer, made an engraving of Richard Mather around 1670, the first produced in colonial America (pictured)?
This is a "first" hook that requires extra scrutiny. My searches haven't found anything contradicting it, provided what we're referring to is printings of art rather than writing, presumably following an engraving; other forms of printing appear to have existed much earlier. Can the linking at the prose be adjusted to clarify them? @Gwillhickers and Blameless:Vanamonde (Talk)23:35, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm also rather skeptical of the claim that he printed the first bible in colonial America, sourced to an 1874 book. At the very least this should be clarified to say that it was in the British colonies; it beggars belief that the Spanish American colonies had no printed bibles before this. Vanamonde (Talk)23:39, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
@Vanamonde93: — In regards to the first printing of the Bible I also specified, "in the English language", supported by the existing source, Thomas, 1874, v. 1. p. 107, who to this day is one of the leading authorities of printing in colonial America. [Add: I also added a footnote clarifying that 'the' first bible printed, was Eliot's Indian Bible, with citations.] -- Gwillhickers (talk) 00:22, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
@Vanamonde93: — Okay, we can link 'engraving' but would like to pass on linking 'printing', as this is a rather common knowledge term, and besides, I'm assuming we don't want too many links in the hook. As I'm not an administrator, would it be proper for me to edit the hook while it's in the Queue, or will you handle matters? In any case, thanks to all for your help, and for looking out. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 19:50, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
Only just seen this, but 1) "printing" is unclear and poor English. It surely wasn't the first printed book in British America? Do you mean "print", ie printed image? You could link old master print or popular print - on quality grounds it is perhaps more the latter. 2) Are we ACTUALLY sure this is an engraving? Looking at the pretty crude image, it could be an etching or even a woodcut. 3) Havana in particular had printing long before this, so any claim should be explicitly limited to British America. Johnbod (talk) 18:15, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
User:SL93, I very strongly suggest you de-promote this one - none of the current hooks are at all accurate. There is also the sock-puppet issue raised by Roy below. I have corrected all (I hope) of the basic mistakes in terminology in the actual article. Johnbod (talk) 18:35, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
I can see what the hook is trying to say here, that he was a novelist but some other novelist wrote a book inspired by his experiences. However, I think the hook as written can be interpreted as a bolder claim, that none of Vissarion's own books were inspired by his experiences. That seems slightly unlikely, and is I don't think supported by the source linked, which deals primarily with the other novel. Probably a slight rewrite of the hook would be in order. @Onegreatjoke, Dahn, and SL93:. Cheers — Amakuru (talk) 16:54, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
@Amakuru: None of his published novels were inspired by that particular episode, that is indeed the case; the article pretty much summarizes all of them (the episode may be referred to in one of his unpublished novels, granted, but these technically do not exist, as far as wikipedia is concerned). This is not the main point of the hook, which can indeed be rephrased if it must, but it just happens to actually be the case. Dahn (talk) 19:15, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
Hey, so one of the things that I've had a question for a while is the fact that featured articles don't automatically towards the 7 day newness stuff, even though good articles do. I feel as If it should be and I'm going to give my reasons why.
Reason 1 - GAs have this ability to be allowed nomination after 7 days of their promotion regardless of whether they were expanded or not. I support this fully, yet I've never understood why this same logic doesn't apply for FA. FAs are wikipedia's best articles by quality having gone through heavy review by multiple wikipedians. DYK's rules says that "...DYK's main purpose is to showcase new and improved content.." and I feel that FAs are definitely one the best examples of this.
Reason 2 - TFA has never been a restriction for DYK nominations. The best example of this is Glass. It became a FA and then became a TFA. Then, it got demoted, promoted to GA, and THEN allowed to be a DYK hook. So the possible argument of "Well there's already TFA" doesn't apply here. Especially when there's an ongoing discussion on whether or not to remove some of the restrictions such as OTD or ITN. Basically, TFA shouldn't be a problem.
Reason 3 - The allowing of FAs shouldn't cause much of a problem in the backlog. There are usually on average 20-30 FA promotions a month. That's significantly less promotions than GAs. So the backlog shouldn't really be a problem.
I had like two other reasons for this but my brain has annoyingly forgotten about them. But yeah, it is my belief that FAs should be an option for newness along with GAs, Expansions, and Creations. Onegreatjoke (talk) 20:42, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
FAs can get even better exposure than DYKs as TFA, so it is fine not to also have them at DYK. Note also that most FAs go through GA nowadays. —Kusma (talk) 20:56, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
What's the point of newly-promoted Featured Articles being featured on DYK if they're already FAs? We already have TFA for such cases. And yes I note that this point has already been mentioned, but they're called "Featured" Articles for a reason: because they're meant to be featured on the Main Page. I however would not oppose the idea of delisted FAs that are brought to GA status being featured on DYK. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 00:23, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
@Onegreatjoke: Please see Wikipedia:Did you know/Good Article RfC. Good Articles originally had no pathway at all to appear on the Main Page, while Featured content and DYK did. This had been debated back and forth for as far back as I can remember. And since GA is a process that exists solely to improve content, as opposed to the DYK criteria, there were suggestions over the years to completely replace DYK with GA content only. The RFC was conducted to gain a consensus to add GA to the DYK main page slot. Featured has it own main-page slots (Featured Articles and Featured Lists) already. — Maile (talk) 01:25, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
Seems reasonable, DYK is the only pathway for the GAs to be featured on the main page. But TFA can feature only a limited number of pages per week. --Mhhosseintalk06:07, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
I disagree with including Featured Articles in our slot. TFA, TFL and TFP all have slightly different processes in how they get to the main page. Their screenong process is not like ours, where individual candidates have one reviewer.
Both Featured Articles and Featured Lists can be new content, but are are often improved very old content, and only achieve Featured status after grueling reviews by multiple editors who check every little detail. Date of achieving Featured status is not a factor for main page appearance, and all are eligible for repeat appearances over the years.
The daily Featured Articles WP:TFAR and WP:TFAP are suggested and voted on by any editors who wish to participate in that. As is their choice, sometimes they will put FA on the main page that has been there before, and/or very old or very new FA.
Featured Lists WP:FLC must go through a grueling review to achieve Featured status. Appearance on the Main page can be of any age and suggested by any editor, but not voted on WP:TFLS. The selection of what makes it on the main page is at the discretion of those who run TFL. Feature Pictures WP:FPC has a similar process.
Here's a quick note, outside of very strange situations, articles can hit the main page currently four times as bolded items, but pretty much articles get twice if actively persued. Here's an example of how an article might become four time main bolded item:
Created item becomes in the News for a recent death, is then expanded by 5x to DYK (or passes a GA), and is deemed important enough historically to become a OTD news item. Eventually becomes an FA and runs as a TFA.
Most items either go through DYK or ITN on route to TFA; but if it's not nominated at that time, I don't see what we would gain by having FAs included as a part of DYK. It doesn't show new work, doesn't leave room for expansion/improvement and is going to be featured on the main page anyway. If your article has gotten to FA already, you really don't need it to go to the main page twice. Not to mention, it would completely kill the WP:FOUR award. Lee Vilenski(talk • contribs)14:12, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
Approved hook has remained in nomination area for a few days; is there something I still need to do?
I'm not sure where the right place to ask about this is, but a hook I nominated received approval with a green checkmark a few days ago, but it's remained in the nomination area. Is there something I'm missing or still need to do? (link to the hook in question) I struck through the versions of the hook the reviewer was unsatisfied with, and the reviewer approved all the ALTs (ALT2–ALT5) I created as substitutes. It was my fourth-ever DYK, so it's exempt from QPQ. P-Makoto (talk) 18:06, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
I don't see anything wrong with the nom. There was no space between a signature and the tick, so I added one. We'll see if that's what prevented the bot from moving it. If the bot doesn't do it on its next pass, I'll manually move it. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM18:19, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
Don't worry if in future your approved noms take a while to get processed. Our reviewing, promoting and prepping volunteers work hard, but the workload is heavy, and most of the time they are short-staffed. That means that some noms can take more than a month to reach the Main Page, through no fault of the nom itself. Well done for getting this far in only 6 days. Storye book (talk) 18:29, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
Upon closer examination, I noticed that the tick was 20px instead of 16px. I fixed that, and now I'm pretty sure the bot will recognize it and move the nom to the Approved page. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM18:34, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
Thanks so much! I understand that the process of nominations getting to the front page can be slow, since there's a lot of content and a lot of work; thanks very much for all y'all do. I was just confused it hadn't been moved to the staging area after being approved. Glad to hear it was just an accident of text formatting, and thanks again for finding and fixing it. Now it's just a matter of (perhaps a lot, but oh well) of time before Hadley's moment in the sun. P-Makoto (talk) 19:47, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
Request for comment: hooks from articles that previously appeared on the Main Page
CLOSED
There is broad consensus that we should relax this guideline, but nearly all !voters mentioned concerns about the exact timeframe and which MP appearances should be included. I suggest a followup RfC to gain consensus on these issues. Valereee (talk) 19:14, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
DYK eligibility criterion 1d currently states, An article is ineligible for DYK if it has previously appeared on the main page as bold link in "Did you know", "In the news", or the prose section of "On this day". (Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not count.) Should this criterion be kept as is or modified? If you !vote for modification, please specify how. {{u|Sdkb}}talk05:39, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
Background
A DYK nomination for new GA Thurgood Marshall was recently declined on the basis of criterion 1d, having appeared in OTD, most recently in 2014. In discussion above, some editors questioned the usefulness of the rule overall, suggesting it be weakened, such as by limiting the restriction to six months rather than indefinitely. This RfC seeks to more formally assess whether or not there is consensus to modify or remove the criterion. {{u|Sdkb}}talk05:39, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
Survey
Modified to limit the restriction to six months, or a similarly reasonable timeframe. Copying my rationale from above:
From a reader perspective, there are more interesting facts available about the kinds of better-known topics that tend to have appeared on OTD/ITN than about niche topics that people have never heard of (that therefore have to establish within the hook why anyone should care about them, something many do not do). And from the perspective of DYK as an incentive to improve articles, we want to encourage and reward editors to improve articles on better-known topics, as they have far more pageviews and thus greater impact for readers. So from both angles, these are the kinds of nominations we should be welcoming, not blocking.
Support, but just the idea and not necessarily the timeframe. The timeframe I actually had in mind was a year, but I'm not sure if that or six months is a more feasible option, so I'll leave it to consensus. However, I don't think it's fair to deprive articles the right to be featured on DYK simply because they've already been on the main page before, especially if they would have been eligible otherwise. Indeed, if an article was formerly a TFA but has been delisted, but since promoted to GA status, why should it be prevented from running on DYK? It's not like TFAs can't repeat either, so it sounds fair. On the other hand, I'm not actually sure how much this rule change would impact things. Articles that are bolded links on OTD and to a lesser extent ITN are usually already of a sufficient quality that it's usually difficult for them to become eligible other than by attaining GA status. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 06:25, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
The current rule actually doesn't preclude ex-TFA runs, unless I'm missing something, and I belive it's happened at least once. Regardless, I broadly support relaxing this for ITN/OTD; oppose relaxing for articles that have already been in DYK, unless the article is a complete or near-complete rewrite (e.g. due to copyvio). And I also think it's good to allow for some flexibility. So maybe something like An article is ineligible for DYK if it has previously appeared on the main page as bold link in "Did you know" (unless it has been completely or almost completely rewritten), or has appeared in the last year as a bold link in "In the news" or the prose section of "On this day". (Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not count.) Special exceptions may be made by consensus at Wikipedia talk:Did you know.-- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe)06:53, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
I think we should relax the ITN/OTD prohibitions to about a year (to encourage expansions / GA promotions of such articles), but keep the DYK prohibition (or allow reruns after a lengthy period of time like a decade). We don't really need to run an article on DYK four times (initial creation, first 5x expansion, second 5x expansion, promotion to GA) given how many nominations we have. —Kusma (talk) 08:59, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
This RfC may be rushing into it a bit, I support reduction for ITN and OTD to a particular timeframe, six months or one year is fine. I do not support a change to limitations regarding past DYK appearance. CMD (talk) 09:19, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
I don't see why DYK should be exempted from this... other areas of the main page repeat themselves if the conditions are met, and if someone DYKs an article and then subsequently promotes it to GA, isn't that the point of this proposal, to encourage that work? I suppose you might want to avoid gaming the system where someone releases a 5x DYK and then sits on it for six months before promoting the same article to GA, but otherwise looks like fair game. I'd also extend that six months to be at least a year as well. — Amakuru (talk) 11:15, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
Support in spirit, oppose on details. I think that I think that something like 8 years is long enough for a main-page re-appearance, but 6 months feels way too short, for me. Not sure what the happy medium is (maybe 2 years, maybe 3?). Also, I'm not sure what to do about OTD, since many items run nearly every year on some dates. This is one of those "devil is in the details" problems, and I don't think we've spent enough time hammering out the details yet. I support, in spirit, the lifting of the "one appearance only, ever, for all of history" thing on the main page; the standard was established when Wikipedia was much younger, and a revision is likely needed, but I also feel this vote feels rushed in the sense that we haven't worked out all the details yet. --Jayron3216:19, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
This is technically the discussion section of the RfC! On that principle, 8 years for DYK seems wildly out of proportion when in the same breath it is noted that OTD can do something every year. I threw out the idea of six months (which I did not expect to be immediately turned into an RfC) because it separates temporally from the last OTD appearance (it will be more trouble than it's worth for editors here to consider future OTD appearances), putting a nice gap between DYK edits and edits prompted by an OTD appearance. CMD (talk) 01:58, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
I would be shocked if any casual Wikipedia reader remembered something on the Main Page even 6 months ago, so that period seems long enough. {{u|Sdkb}}talk03:23, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
I don't really care about what the reader thinks (actually, I don't really care about what you or ANYONE else thinks about what readers think. Readers think many different, often contradictory things, and the biggest red flag of ANYTHING being a Bad Idea at Wikipedia is if it is being done "FOR THE READERS". but I digress); the prohibition on repeating items is, in my mind, primarily about making sure deserving articles, of appropriate quality for highlighting on the main page, are not passed over because we re-run articles that already got their time in the sun. This is probably good advice for things like FA/FP/FL sections where only one item runs per day. With ITN/OTD/DYK, the quality standards are different, AND we run several of each item each day; there's probably room for posting something more than once per age of the universe, given that it may qualify at different times, for different reasons, for different sections of the main page. --Jayron3214:55, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
Support reducing to either 6 months or 1 year Sometimes there are major updates to an incident, which do merit a DYK if notable. Support a time limit of 6 months or one year to prevent spamming DYKs. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 05:18, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
Personally I don't like the idea of articles being able to be nominated multiple times, even with a time limit, as I feel as if that would increase the already large backlog of DYK. However, I am supportive of getting rid of the restrictions for ITN and OTD as I don't feel as if those should be restrictions should even be there. Onegreatjoke (talk) 15:51, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
Oppose and add TFA to the exclusion criteria. The point of DYK is to showcase new and improved articles, if articles were at one time good enough for ITN, OTD or TFA then they were already decent quality articles. DYK should be for new articles and rubbish articles that are turned good. Joseph2302 (talk) 12:07, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
That does not seem in tune with the current inclusion of GA noms and x5 noms, which push for improvements on existing articles regardless of previous quality. CMD (talk) 12:14, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
what about a GA, though? Thurgood Marshall was a C-class article that got on OTD a bunch of times, and now it's a newly improved GA. Isn't that within the spirit of the criteria? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 23:42, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
Support reducing to one year, which seems to be a compromise. It does not seem fair that some articles may be ineligible for DYK if they've appeared at ITN or OTD at all. Although ITN and OTD ostensibly both have policies against running deficient articles (e.g. those with {{more citations needed}} tags), in practice, articles on ITN or OTD can be of highly varying quality. In addition, this would prevent articles from running at ITN and DYK at the same time, and it would encourage people to improve poor-quality articles to GA if they have previously appeared at ITN/OTD.In addition, I don't see why an article can't reappear on DYK after a long period of time, say 10 years. If a newly created article appeared on DYK 15 years ago but is still relatively short after 15 years, this restriction would discourage editors from expanding it to GA or even expanding it fivefold. For example, I expanded 195 Broadway fivefold two years ago, intending to nominate it for DYK, only to find that it had already appeared on DYK twelve years beforehand. It's unnecessarily bureaucratic, and I doubt people will remember that the same exact article already appeared on DYK a decade or more ago, especially if the article is renominated with a different fact. – Epicgenius (talk) 16:46, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
Support reducing OTD moratorium to six months – given that it can be run two successive years in a row, I'd want there to be some breathing room so that it's not permanently excluded. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 21:45, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
Oppose as written. I might support an article reappearance on the main page after a few years, but the idea of articles popping up on the main page every six months strikes me as gratuitous and unnecessary. (I honestly don't understand why an article already appearing every year at OTD has any need to also appear at DYK. It's already getting a huge amount of main-page visibility.) I wouldn't object to adding TFA to the exclusion criteria; this is an article that already had the upper left quadrant of the main page entirely to itself. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:53, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
I don't think the proposal is saying that an article would appear on the Main Page every six months, and any attempts to "game" the system would likely be dealt with when the time comes anyway. Besides, an OTD appearance is rare enough (just one year) that people may not even remember an OTD appearance if a lot of time has already passed. Plus, it's not like the article will appear on DYK again after it's had its run, unlike with OTD where an article can run multiple times. Finally, there are far fewer articles that appear on OTD than those that appear on DYK, so the number of articles that will overlap will actually be relatively small, so I don't really see much of a problem there. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 01:07, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
The key point for me is that the normal DYK requirements still apply: an article must be either new, expanded 5x, or newly GA. Those are significant, so it's certainly not as if we're going to see the same articles popping up again and again. What we will see more of is high-importance articles, like the Thurgood Marshall example that prompted this, getting a chance to shine rather than being blocked by bureaucracy. {{u|Sdkb}}talk16:41, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
Support a reduction - saying that something can never be a DYK because it was on OTD once 8 years ago is absurd. The whole point of DYK is to show recently created or improved articles. OTD doesn't work the same way. And it's not like the same article can appear as a DYK ten times or something, we'd still only have it at DYK a single time. I think six months is a reasonable change; otherwise, something that appears at OTD frequently would be forever forbidden from DYK. This shouldn't apply to articles that were previously at DYK, unless a long period of time has passed (several years minimum). Trainsandotherthings (talk) 01:10, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
@Graeme Bartlett: Articles do not need to be newly-created articles to be featured on DYK. There are multiple pathways to being featured on DYK, rather than just being a new creation or a converted redirect. For example, a fivefold expansion is also a qualifier, as is promotion to Good Article status. Neither of these pathways require the article to be new. So, for example, if an article was created in 2005 but only became a Good Article in 2022, it would still qualify for DYK as long as it's within seven days of the promotion. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 03:44, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
I agree with Narutolovehinata5 - that doesn't necessarily apply in all cases. To give an example, I 5x expanded 195 Broadway, an article that appeared on DYK over ten years prior. This is what the page looked like when it appeared on DYK in 2008, and this is what the same article looked like after I expanded that page fivefold in 2020. Since 5x expanded articles are considered eligible for DYK unless they appeared on DYK before, this would've been considered "new" even if the page had been created in 2008 and not appeared on DYK then. – Epicgenius (talk) 03:45, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
Support, especially for ITN and OTD. I'm neutral on whether to allow articles to run on DYK more than once, but I've always found it odd that an article that has been featured in OTD years ago is forever ineligible for DYK. (I'd be happy with six months, one year, or some other reasonable timeframe.) —Mx. Granger (talk·contribs) 01:49, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
The planned lowering of requirements was never about not having enough submissions. It's merely to lower bureaucracy and prevent noms from being rejected solely on technicalities even if they're otherwise very much eligible. Also, given that even with this rule we already get tons of nominations all the time, I suspect making this change won't make much of a long-term change anyway. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 22:49, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
If it won't have much effect, then why make the change? I'm not trying to be tautological here, I just don't see how this change would be an improvement. Surely we've got enough good material which meets the current requirements without having to recycle submissions. -- RoySmith(talk)22:57, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
The point is that the whole idea of not allowing, for example, an article that was featured in OTD 5 years ago, to feature on DYK, isn't a fair restriction. What you're saying is correct, but that doesn't mean that we should keep an arbitrary rule that has no benefit aside from its use as a DYKN regulator. The idea that an article that featured on OTD a long time ago can't feature on DYK is literally only useful as a way to lower the overall number of DYKNs. It doesn't even do that effectively. Personally, I want to hold a different RFC about ways to regulate the number of DYKNs. The change won't have much of an effect, yes, but we should, at the very least, delete the requirement out of principle. Cessaune (talk) 02:41, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
In all honestly, I don't understand why the apparent insistence on "pages should only have the main page spotlight once" thing. I mean, if that were really the case, then former DYK/ITD/OTD articles shouldn't be allowed to be TFAs then. In addition, some here say that DYK is meant to showcase "new" content, but that hasn't been the case for many years now. That sentiment was back when DYK's main purpose was to promote Wikipedia's "newest content", but considering now we allow 5x expansions and newly-promoted Good Articles (neither of which exactly count as "new" with regards to the original intention), it's less relevant now. I can get behind articles not being allowed to run on DYK more than once, but saying former OTDs/ITNs articles can't be on DYK is like suggesting those articles can't be improved, nor can we highlight such improvements. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 03:40, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
Oppose, especially for DYKs. This would provide a very strong incentive for people to create stubby 1500-character articles, so that they could return shortly to do an easy five times expansion and/or GA run. Opening up the eligibility floodgates to former DYKs, OTDs, and ITNs could easily overwhelm the already-overwhelmed system and push us into constant two-sets-a-day mode (or even four sets, like in the Olden Days). Those articles have already had Main Page exposure; DYK should be highlighting articles which haven't previously appeared on the MP. While Thurgood Marshall, the person, is deserving of every praise, his article doesn't need "a chance to shine" at DYK – it's already getting an average of over 1700 views per day. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM22:32, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
@Mandarax:Those articles have already had Main Page exposure. The thing is, many DYK articles have actually already appeared on the main page in one form or another. For example, articles featured on "Recent deaths" are already still eligible for DYK. "Articles already having Main Page exposure" is also broad, because in theory, any article which has been linked on the Main Page in the past, as opposed to simply those that are bolded links. As for the concern about us being overwhelmed with submissions, I don't think that's going to happen. For one thing, as far as I can tell, very few people here are proposing that former DYKs can run again, so that's already one source down. Plus, DYK already gets so many submissions and accepts so many that I don't really think that former OTDs and ITNs would being allowed would have much concrete effect, especially if some time has already passed. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 22:49, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
I thought everybody would understand that I meant bold links, so forgive me for not being more precise. Of the last four opposes, you've offered a rebuttal to every one. It's coming across as kinda bludgeony. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM23:32, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
... that some believe reading this article may cause a superintelligence from the future to torture you for eternity?
... that some believe that learning about Roko's basilisk may cause a superintelligence from the future to torture you for eternity?
I made the change from the first version to the second, and was then reverted by John P. Sadowski (NIOSH) without explanation. Could you please explain your changes, in light of my explanation for my own in the edit summary? Also, BlueMoonset, I know we revert nominators who change their hooks in prep – does that apply to reviewers as well? I think this is the first time I've seen it come up. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 05:09, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
It's a pretty major change to the approved hook, since it lacks the clever form that makes it especially interesting. This is a WP:BRD situation, and you're the one who needs to demonstrate consensus to change it. John P. Sadowski (NIOSH) (talk) 05:11, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
It's certainly hooky, but it reads like a BuzzFeed headline ("this article will shock you!"). Or those ad hubs at the bottom of lower-level journalism sites. Self-reference in this way seems deliberately unencyclopedic, especially when it's not necessary to communicate the self-referential nature of the subject.
Also, the first hook technically fails verification: there's no reliable source explicitly telling us that the Wikipedia article on Roko's basilisk will teach you about Roko's basilisk. Therefore, there's no source for the fact that "reading this article" may trigger the effects of Roko's basilisk. The modified hook makes no claim that the Wikipedia article will teach you about Roko's basilisk, so it's verified by the sourcing. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 05:24, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
My judgement was and is that, while we usually avoid self-references, this is a very rare topic where a self-reference is appropriate and clever, and that motivated my selecting this hook to approve. "Reading the article" is a subset of "learning about the basilisk", so it's not a factual problem; your interpretation is a real stretch. John P. Sadowski (NIOSH) (talk) 05:53, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
Well, I haven't changed my view that the hook is unnecessarily clickbait-y and rather inappropriate – so it sounds like we'll need other voices in the discussion. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 05:59, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
I have to agree with Leeky here. We've modified hooks before per concerns about WP:WIKIVOICE and I don't see a reason why this warrants an IAR regarding that. I think the second hook is hooky as it is without the self-reference so I don't really see an issue with spelling out the subject's title here. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 06:04, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm also with theleekycauldron; it was a good change, and should be restored—the hook is plenty interesting and effective with the revised wording. About the original reason I was pinged, it's not unusual that hooks are changed in prep when issues are noticed that the original reviewer didn't consider. If the reviewer has a problem with a change made to the hook as approved, it's better that they come here and make their case. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:35, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
I could see the original wording in the quirky. It's a reach, but it's the quirky. I don't think anyone should be reverting a change in prep to an article they reviewed without opening a section here at talk. Valereee (talk) 17:13, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
@John P. Sadowski (NIOSH), you almost invariably use an edit summary. I'm trying to figure out how to ask this in a nonconfrontational way, and having a hard time coming up with it, so my apologies that this probably feels confrontational: why in this case did you decide to revert with no edit summary? Valereee (talk) 17:19, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
Sure hope we don't end up pushing a real infohazard to millions of people via the main page one day! (Yes, yes, WP:NOTCENSORED, and no for what it's worth I don't think Roko's Basilisk in particular is a real danger... but I'm a little surprised at the notion of nominating an article about a topic notable for the idea that it could be dangerous to know about for DYK. To be clear, I have no objection to the inclusion and I wouldn't be surprised if infohazards in the Roko sense don't actually exist at all.) CharredShorthand (talk) 16:46, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
Yes I saw that, but shouldn’t this be mentioned in her actual biographic article as well? I don’t think it is standard to have someone’s sexual abuse discussed in a song article but not their actual article. I’m not a member of the DYK team, but this feels like a BLP violation that shouldn’t be on the main page. Thriley (talk) 15:32, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
WP:DYKRULES 4a: Articles and hooks that focus unduly on negative aspects of living individuals or promote one side of an ongoing dispute should be avoided. I would say this hook is focusing solely on negative aspects of Eilish's life. Joseph2302 (talk) 15:52, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
@Thriley: stating that Eilish suffered some form of sexual abuse in the article is not a BLPVIO. The cited source in "Getting Older" is a generally reliable magazine, and it quotes Eilish herself who said, "'You're going to complain about being taken advantage of as a minor, but then you’re going to show your boobs?' Yes I am, motherf—er! I'm going to because there's no excuse." The fact that this is not mentioned in the main article about her does not hint at it being a violation of BLP; it just means no one bothered to add it in the Eilish article.
That said, we must focus on DYK rules here, not BLP policies for articles, because we are dealing w/ a hook. Validity of the information aside, I do understand the concerns of that hook focusing "unduly on negative aspects of living individuals." Referencing her childhood trauma is already a heavy-hitter, and adding sexual abuse on top is a twist of the knife. I'd be fine with tweaking the hook such that only either her childhood trauma or sexual abuse are mentioned. Your Power 🐍 💬 "What did I tell you?" 📝 "Don't get complacent..."17:27, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
I find it deeply problematic that something as serious as sex abuse of a minor can be featured on the front page based upon one source, a music industry magazine, and that abuse is not even mentioned in her article. It would be irresponsible to run this hook without at least one detailed paragraph in her main article with citations to several other reliable sources. Thriley (talk) 17:50, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
The Taylor Swiftipedia? US Radio Stations?Abuse of DYK privileges.
We all love our Tay Tay, but there is no way that Taylor Swift makes the DYK section every 3 days. Furthermore, her DYK hooks are generally low grade, hardly of interest to hard core fans.
The DYK section is great to bring obscure artices to light, so that they can attract viewers, and wiki editors like me for improvement. Taylor Swift is the last person on Earth that is short of exposure.
Posting TS DYK articles more than once a year sucks up the oxygen for other artists without a legion of fans and a PR department, and it gives Wikipedia a bad name.
Same for the US radio station historians. I'd appreciate a direct reply from a senior Wiki editor, and some self restraint from Taylor's fans.
... that Taylor Swift said that her first live album, Speak Now World Tour – Live, was meant to capture what she wanted to "show [...] my kids and my grandkids"?
Anti-Hero is an outlier for its somewhat-above-average viewcount, and that's for a rather eye-popping hook to boot. Pop music hooks simply tend to rake in poor performance at DYK:
The Swift articles should have been spaced out more, this was a few too many squished into the same timeframe. I will point out that we have in the past, and will continue to in the future, run plenty of hooks surrounding the same topic. Buildings in New York would be the common example, and we've run waaaay more of those over the last year than we have Taylor Swift hooks. What sets this aside is the proximity of the hooks we've run recently, as well as the fact that there doesn't seem to be a single concerted effort behind the Swift hooks. Looks like multiple interested editors wrote and nominated these independently. In other words, "Abuse of DYK Privileges" doesn't seem to apply. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 01:52, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
@Theleekycauldron: i find it odd that some of these hooks received such low views. I have hooks about Latto and Shenseea that were more successful than a few of these, and they're not nearly as well known. Maybe we need to do a better job at enforcing the interest guideline —VersaceSpace🦃02:01, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
@VersaceSpace: Well, there's going to be some amount of variation in any set of hooks – any hook has a decent chance of beating at least some of the Swift hooks, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's better than the whole set. Maybe put a table together? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 02:06, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm not saying my hooks are better than the whole set. My point is that a hook simply being about TS does not make it meet the "interest" criteria (a defense I've seen used before). Sort of unrelated to the original point of the thread, but those are my thoughts. —VersaceSpace🦃02:12, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
I've always figured stuff like this was just cyclical. I have a vague memory of at one point back in 2020 we ran a ton of Missouri military history hooks I foisted upon everyone. Yeah, we should probably space them out a bit more, but we've got a limited pool to work with, so there's limitations on variety. The same lack of subject matter diversity had come up at FAC before; the only real solution is to just write stuff that's different than what's currently common. (For comparison to the DYK complaints, see Wikipedia:Featured articles that haven't been on the Main Page, which is a listing of prime TFA candidates, and note how many are military history, video games, or soccer). Hog FarmTalk02:26, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
I think there's a level of readership burnout when a particular subject (Taylor Swift songs, for instance) appears too often. Even for Swift, there's only a certain frequency people's interest is going to be piqued. Valereee (talk) 14:13, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
Hi. Tx for reply. Are you saying Taylor, radio stations and NY buildings (I noticed) should get more than one ir two a year? Why? How does this make Wikipedia better? How does it not make us look bad?
"Abuse of privilges" might not be the point, but over frequency is. Myself, if I was a Taylor fan wanting to make a DYK page, I would hold back voluntarily, when I saw another one, so I think these editors should consider their behaviour to be an abuse of privilege, but either way - There Are Too Many Repeat Subjects In The DYK Section.
I'd note that this was simply a rash of hooks – four in five days, yes, that's a bit too many. Would you notice if we ran the same number over a year? I'd wager that this year, we ran many more than four hooks on Israel/Palestine, The West Wing, African slavery, American politics, opera singers, New York City establishments, LGBTQ+ history, rap songs, NFL athletes, life in ancient Rome, trains and railroads, people named Claudia, Bach cantatas, flags... the list goes on. Which brings me to another point: how broad are these topics to be, should we limit them to one or two a year? DYK ran over 4,500 hooks in 2021 – as Schwede66 notes, to enforce such a restriction would be time-consuming and inherently subjective. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 07:38, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
I've definitely run at least a dozen train-related hooks in the past 12 months. I haven't heard any complaints that there's "too many trains at DYK" yet. As I said below, the solution is to nominate more articles on other subjects so those setting up preps have more options to choose from. But that's more work than simply complaining that Taylor Swift is at DYK a lot. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 00:31, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
I hardly think that creating many articles about similar subjects is "an abuse of privilege". There is nothing being abused here. Improving articles about similar subjects makes Wikipedia better because content about those subjects is being improved, not because they are similar subjects.The fact that certain topics appear repeatedly on DYK is not the issue; the real problem is the fact that there's a relative shortage of nominations to begin with. Anyone is free to improve an article themselves and nominate it for DYK. – Epicgenius (talk) 14:01, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
Actually, after reading Talk:Taylor Swift#Abuse of "Did you know" articles., I kind of see the OP's concern. I agree with @theleekycauldron that 4 hooks in 5 days are too closely spaced together (they would make up about 10% of all DYKs that appeared during that time). However, I think this is an issue of spacing out the hooks, rather than the fact that several Swift articles are on the main page. – Epicgenius (talk) 14:08, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
I think the issue is the hooks are dull/boring and mundane. Who care's that a music video hinted Speak Now would be recorded next? A hint isn't a fact - its mass speculation. Its popular culture Euphoria driven by Swifities. The hooks have definitely been used too close together. >>Lil-unique1(talk) — 22:12, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
I agree with this view - in my semi-regular scans of the preps and queues, I saw all these mostly incredibly dull hooks and thought that the frequency plus the low quality of hook does feel just wrong. Especially - but definitely not entirely - remembering Swift has an album out and is in the early weeks of an Oscar campaign at the moment: with that in mind on top of the inherent problems, it's like putting up any boring crap just to get her name on the front page every day. It felt wrong. But I didn't feel I could bring it up based on the fact we have pretty uninteresting hooks on certain topics run regularly and have for years. I've said it before that we need to not feel scared to fail a DYK proposal on hook quality, it's right there in the criteria. Kingsif (talk) 05:03, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
I kind of feel this is an inherant risk with lots of people making hook sets. Outside of the quality of the hooks (which I haven't read, and if they aren't high enough quality, that is an issue), there is absolutely nothing wrong with an editor nominating a lot of similar articles for DYK. If I had gone on a spree, created 20 new articles about snooker, and they all met the DYK criteria, then that's just dandy (20 is probably a bit overkill, but this isn't completely outlandish either), they should just be spaced out a little. We cannot tell the nominator that they are creating/expanding/nominating TOO MUCH content. However, they should just be spaced out better. There is no reason why a accepted hook has to be promoted immediately.
I don't see how the view count of these items is particularly important. I also don't see what "DYK privileges" people have that could be abused. Posting TS DYK articles more than once a year sucks up the oxygen for other artists - this basically says people aren't allowed to create content on what they like. It's absurd. Sorry guys, I've just written an article about David Bowie, you'll have to wait 'til 2024 to write yours. Lee Vilenski(talk • contribs)14:25, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
As somebody who's done a lot of prep building the last month or so, my view is that we need more and better submissions. When I'm building a prep, I scan through the list of approved hooks starting from the oldest ones, mentally crossing them off as they fail some sort of criteria.
Has a really good image that I want to keep on tap for a future set's top hook?
I can't promote because I'm already involved?
Often times, I get to the end of the list and still haven't found any I can use. It would be nice if there were so many viable hooks that I could worry about niceties like "We've run too many Taylor Swift hooks lately", but that's rarely the case. So from my point of view, the fix is that we need people to be submitting better quality hooks on a wider range of subjects, and we need more people working the back end to get technical problems with otherwise interesting hooks fixed quicker. -- RoySmith(talk)15:30, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
I think another thing that editors can do is nominate newer articles when they find an interesting fact in the article, instead of only nominating their own. SL93 (talk) 15:39, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
The previous list was archived several days ago. I've created a new list of all 29 nominations that need reviewing in the Older nominations section of the Nominations page, covering everything through November 12. We have a total of 174 nominations, of which 50 have been approved, a gap of 124 nominations that has increased by 22 from last time. Thanks to everyone who reviews these!
Please remember to cross off entries as you finish reviewing them (unless you're asking for further review), even if the review was not an approval. Please do not remove them entirely. Many thanks! BlueMoonset (talk) 06:53, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
In any case, is there still something that can be done with these WikiEd nominations? Throughout the years and even until now, they've generally failed in higher rates compared to nominations by regulars or even other newbies. This is either the articles were ineligible to begin with, or the articles had issues and the editors involved did not respond to requests to reply. This has been discussed in the past and WikiEd has chimed in before, but it doesn't appear that the failure rate, and more importantly the non-responsiveness of editors, have been resolved. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 03:36, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
I am am about to nominate a class worth of articles, but I am expecting them to all pass. (This is not wiki ed though as outside US). Who are the nominators? Is it the article writers? If so they should not be encouraged to nominate unless the Wikipedia support thinks that they are suitable. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:45, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
I think we all know I think WikiEd is an overall pointless exercise as it does not introduce people to Wikipedia in a way that encourages them, for the most part, to remain, as well as explicitly discouraging them from interacting with regular users. Having seen some of the courses to be able to judge this, and the many past noms, and talking to some WikiEd students that have stuck around, it is entirely apparent that WikiEd does not want to remove the "nominate for DYK" suggestion from the later stages of its courses, even though few teachers are actually active on Wikipedia (instead using a separate platform or just in-class monitoring) and even fewer understand the processes themselves. My honest suggestion remains to burn the whole thing, Editathons are just much better for engagement and for actually getting to grips with Wikipedia editing, and don't come with 'requirements' nobody taking part understands. A more easy-to-implement solution for this specific DYK problem could be pinging the nominator with some standard message about the process and asking if they want to continue, before a DYK review, and giving them a week to confirm. Close if no reply. Kingsif (talk) 23:45, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
Agree with Kingsif that the WikiEd articles are generally problematic, but having now looked at two recent social science submissions to DYK (Social determinants of mental health reviewed by SL93 and Child poverty in the United States), I am happy to have them on my radar to watch closely and fix as needed. From my point of view, if WikiEd wants to keep encouraging students to submit to DYK, maybe it's fine, since that increases their accountability to Wikipedia standards rather than getting away with questionable content that no one is bothered to properly look at. So from a DYK process and waste-of-time point of view, maybe we could just say – if the reviewer identifies serious issues, and there is no response after one week, just go ahead and close it as rejected after 7 days. Also happy to have any social science-related WikiEd submissions punted to me for review in future. I wish there were a tag template for "This article may have been created for an academic course and may not meet Wikipedia standards."...or something to that effect as well, which could help with tracking. Cielquiparle (talk) 10:01, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
Good to know, but personally I'm less fussed about tagging them at the DYK nomination stage. I just want the articles themselves tagged at the top when they are published in mainspace or thereafter (like a COI tag or UPE tag, except specific to academic coursework), so it's easy to go through them and fix some of the common inherent problems (e.g. deleting "thesis statements" in the lead paragraph; removing sections that don't belong in an encyclopedia article; checking for original research, unverifiable claims, and non-NPOV statements, etc.) It also signifies to the reader that the content might be somewhat unreliable. Cielquiparle (talk) 11:19, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
Extra QPQ
Hello everybody, I have an extra QPQ and would be glad to be used by those who are in need of it. Please let me know if you'd like to use it or if there's a DYK nomination by others which may need it. Best. --10:58, 14 November 2022 (UTC) Mhhosseintalk10:58, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
theleekycauldron: Thanks for the insight, 'QPQ charitable bank' is really a good thing. I'd like to establish it with the help of interested users. However I am thinking if it may finally go against the soul of QPQ, making other users to get familiar with DYK review and its rules. --Mhhosseintalk12:45, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
It is a bad idea to make all reviews count as QPQs. The DYK system is designed to have more nominations than QPQs, because we do not require all nominations to have QPQs, but rather only the ones from nominators who have already had five previous nominations. Additionally, some nominations end up taking up the efforts of multiple reviewers. We need to supply those extra reviews somehow, and "somehow" can only mean by reviews that are not QPQs. So if you've done an extra non-QPQ review, congratulations! You're helping the system work. But if you don't need it as a QPQ, then just bank it as good karma and move on rather than trying to make all reviews become QPQs. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:52, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, that's what I keep bumping up against as well – I'd be happy to give out my 45 unused QPQ-able reviews right now, except that might singlehandedly cause a mild inflationary crisis in the QPQ economy. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 00:06, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
They'll get my QPQs when the peel my cold dead hands from around them. But if one of y'all treats me real nice I'll remember you in my will. EEng00:58, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm not fond of the idea of QPQ gifting. If somebody's going to be a regular consumer of a service, they should also contribute to its upkeep. It's not just a fairness issue, it's also that by doing reviews, you get to see what other people have done well (or poorly), and that improves your own writing. I remember when I did my first DYK reviews. I found the process bewildering and onerous. But after a few reviews, I internalized the process and quickly got to the point where it was almost second nature, with just a quick glance at the checklist to make sure I hadn't missed anything. I don't see any reason contributors should be excused from that by gifting them QPQ credit. -- RoySmith(talk)16:15, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
+1. I have no objection to someone giving a QPQ to someone else, but I don't want a 'give a penny, take a penny' bowl. Valereee (talk) 19:34, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
I think QPQ should be required at nomination time. If you want to donate a QPQ, just nominate someone else's article. —Kusma (talk) 20:00, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
I agree that it should be required with the nomination. It's not so bad if you leave it out and circle back later that day to add it, but it's inexcusable to make reviewers chase after you for it. That's just being disrespectful of your follow editors' time. -- RoySmith(talk)21:37, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
Everyone needs to bear his own responsibility by making reviews, but I actually meant to suggest some sort of casual gifting to those who are in NEED. --Mhhosseintalk06:16, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
Other people would not be able to count your QPQ. As part of the check for QPQ, the check is of the user claiming it did the job. It would fail the check if someone else did it. But if they fail just ask them to do one if it is required! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:45, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
Do the check manually? The requirement is just the QPQ is done for backlog reasons. I have a tonne people can use if they need, though, but only like once has it happened. Kingsif (talk) 17:26, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
@RoySmith, PizzaKing13, and Onegreatjoke: Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina needs a different hook, or rework this one. The current one is almost verbatim from the source:
Thanks @Schwede66 and RoySmith: Prep 6 is now promoted to Queue 6. I otherwise did a little shuffling of the hooks therein, as it looked to me like three politically-related hooks were too close together. — Maile (talk) 15:04, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
The María Urquides article is scheduled to go live in 3 hours' time. There's a discussion at Errors about the lead hook in that set and it was suggested that Urquides could take the lead spot instead. Hence I looked and found a photo that was a copyvio, an unreferenced date of birth, and now I wonder what else is wrong with this article. Here's a link to the nomination. I don't have time to look into this further but others might be available. Pings to ProfessorBeaver (nominator), Muboshgu (reviewer), RoySmith (promoter to prep), and Amakuru (promoter to queue). Schwede6621:12, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure Muboshgu means fair use for the article itself since the person is deceased, not about fair use on the main page. SL93 (talk) 21:40, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
Valid is one thing. Referenced in the article is what matters. And yes, given that she's dead, fair use would be the way to get the image back into the article. Schwede6621:58, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
I just got home, so haven't had a chance to dig into this yet, and not sure when I will. I've been verifying the source for the facts in the hook when I promote, but haven't been going much deeper than that most of the time. -- RoySmith(talk)22:29, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
EEng, I'm giving Muboshgu the benefit of the doubt that they know about what images can be used on the main page as a long-time editor and an admin. It looks like they just had unclear wording. We will just have to wait for their response. SL93 (talk) 22:33, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
Reviewers need to be more careful
I'd estimate that at least half of the hooks I go to promote can't be promoted because the facts can't be verified. It's not enough that there's a citation. You have to actually look at the citation, determine if it's a WP:RS, and verify that it actually says what the hook is claiming it does. My apologies if I seem a little grumpy, but it's kind of a drag to keep having to query authors on this stuff. -- RoySmith(talk)19:51, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
The problem is that the people you probably want to reach with this comment are not following this Talk page. As a relative newcomer, it took me ages to figure out that there were actual discussions going on here that I was welcome to follow. Cielquiparle (talk) 21:19, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
@RoySmith, FWIW: as I got more experienced at promoting, I learned which reviewers were more careful. When I saw an inexperienced nominator + an inexperienced or less-careful reviewer on a nom, I spent more time. I used to do pretty much a full re-review for every hook, but I learned that if it was nom'd by someone experienced and reviewed by someone careful, I could spend a lot less time. Valereee (talk) 21:42, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
But wasn't that nominator known for doing pretty sloppy work? That's the kind of thing I mean. When I move a prep to queue, the first thing I do is check all of the nom templates to see who's worked on a given hook. Valereee (talk) 14:21, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
That the problem. He was doing VERY sloppy work for years, but no one noticed -- because no one was checking -- because he was a known name. I'm not singling you out, because it's an easy trap to fall into. EEng14:58, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
Oh, sure, simply going by experience isn't a good idea. But if something is written and reviewed and moved to prep by people I know to be both experienced and careful, I feel pretty comfortable for instance just opening the top hit on Earwig, seeing that 32% hit is indeed from a quote, and not opening the next hit down. If it was written for an ESL class assignment by someone with 20 edits or reviewed by someone whose name I don't even recognize, I'm checking quite thoroughly indeed no matter who moved it to prep. I used to spend two hours doing a move to queue. It takes me more like 45 minutes to an hour now, depending on how many issues I find and need to take to talk. That's all I was trying to say to RoySmith: that a learning curve does exist that eventually lets the job go more quickly. Valereee (talk) 15:16, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
@Valereee: I get that: there is a level of trust here with experienced editors. When I review a nomination from someone new to DYK or the project I use the fine toothed comb. Bruxton (talk) 15:32, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
According to WP:DYKLIST, Coldwell had 541 successful DYKs, which would be his own count. What are the odds our reviewers missed a blooper or two? I'm not sure if he ever reviewed anything of mine, here or at GAC. What does stick in my mind is that I started to review his work, both here and at GAC, mostly because I'd seen his name for years on both projects. And I backed away because it wasn't worth it to me to deal with his output. The thing about GAC, is I don't think that project has a second set of eyes to notice if a review missed a few things. And I've failed a couple of GAs in the past for failure to correct obvious errors - after which the editors just bided their time, resubmitted with errors in place, and they passed GA. I used to feel guilty if I didn't pass something at GA ... until I realized that pattern. — Maile (talk) 16:48, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
Blooper or two??? I guess you haven't read the several threads about him in recent months. For years he flew under the radar, having absolutely no idea what constitutes reliable sources or how to use them appropriately. His articles are full of complete nonsense the moment you get below the surface. EEng20:11, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm well aware of the situation. I was being facetious. I've been at DYK for more than a decade, back in the days when the review system was different, a lot less checking because we really have developed the current review process one mistake at a time over the years. We used to have a contributor (now retired) who wasn't too good in the English language, but somehow managed to get their noms all the way to the lead hook in the lead queue where it literally had to be re-worked right at the last minute. We also had a couple of sock masters that we finally got shut down. — Maile (talk) 21:29, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, it's too bad a GA review doesn't get a second set of eyes. I've come across a few that needed a fair amount of editing just to make them a go for DYK. Valereee (talk) 17:07, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
Yes hold for Dec 29. I think this would be an excellent lead hook. Double checking, I ran the Earwig tool for copyvio, which says "Violation Unlikely 3.8%" Looks like it overshoots the SH criteria by a couple of days, but the rules allow, "The timeline limitations, including the six week maximum, may be waived by consensus, if a request is made at WT:DYK" — Maile (talk) 16:21, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
lol...yeah, the "rules" for building a prep are passed down via oral tradition. The much-missed Yoninah probably created most of them. It's primarily about variety and proportional representation. So image hooks usually alternates between bio/non-bio from one set to the next because we get a ton of bio hooks. We try be aware many images are relatively easy to get -- exteriors of buildings, for instance -- and not let the fact we get a lot of building images mean we end up with a building image every other set. We try to be aware that 1880s images of white men are very common, so when we get an 1880s image of a woman of color, by gosh we want to use it if at all possible. Valereee (talk) 17:06, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
So, let me ask a bonus follow-up question. I'm looking at Template:Did you know nominations/Calais Conference (December 1915), which should run on December 4th, UK time, which means Prep 5. I've recently learned that you're supposed to keep the lead slot of the last prep set in reserve, so I'm not doing that yet. That isn't a biography, but it's got an photo of a person as its image. So, I'm thinking I should not put a biography in the lead slot of Prep 4, to avoid two in a row. But, Is it biographies, or pictures of people? I feel like I'm just learning how to play chess and have discovered that if you think 2 moves ahead, you win more games :-) -- RoySmith(talk)20:58, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
Three moves is even better. :D What Schwede was actually indicating is that it's helpful to have at least one image slot, one quirky slot, and one other slot open somewhere, so in the cast of special occasion hooks you don't necessarily need to stop promoting, although it's not a bad idea to mention here at talk "hey, promoted a spec occ to P5, that leaves no image slots open, someone might want to shuffle just in case", if you see what I mean. It's clearer to other prep builders if it's all in the bottom set, but it's not a big deal. Just a best-practices.
Don't worry overmuch about a spec occ causing 2 bio images in a row. You can shuffle to fix, it's totally a good idea to do that (edit summary: shuffling for balance) or someone else will if they think it's a problem. Valereee (talk) 21:33, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
FWIW, the puzzle-fitting of prep is actually for me a feature rather than a bug. It's fun to see how to put it together. :D I understand if you're thinking my idea of fun sounds very...um...can anyone come up with something other than "nerdy"? Valereee (talk) 21:35, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm not saying it's not fun. I do crossword puzzles; it's kind of the same thing.
Many years ago, I worked with a guy who was a much better chess player than me. We would often play at lunchtime. If I took a long time to think about a move, that was fine. But if I also took a long time to think about the next move, that would annoy him. "If you didn't know what you were going to do on this move, why did you make your last move?" -- RoySmith(talk)21:58, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
I closed this nomination, details can be seen on the nomination page. I'm leaving this message here because I understand this closure may be controversial and I'd like second opinions on whether or not my closing was proper. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 00:14, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
@DYK admins: We are about to have Queue 6 rotate to the main page. After that, nothing is in queue. I don't know if the lack of response here has anything to with the Prep 7 lead hook image. Until we get that figured out, we can't move the set to Queue. But can anyone verify that it's OK to use the image? Maybe a new set of eyes on that emblem would be a good idea. Please refer to he approved nom Coat of arms of Curaçao. Thanks. — Maile (talk) 23:36, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
No issues were raised about the image at the nomination page. The image was uploaded to Commons in 2014 and it is used on seven Wikipedia sites. SL93 (talk) 23:42, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm not sure why it has been taking so long to review preps and move them to queues. Maybe some admins have just lost interest in doing it. SL93 (talk) 23:48, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
Speaking for myself, I'm in a bit of a crisis. I've got 4 more seasons of Merlin to binge and it's leaving Netflix in 2 weeks. That's really going to eat into my wiki time. -- RoySmith(talk)00:34, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
This happened in 2016, and current images indicate the gorilla is no longer there. I'm changing the hook to say "in 2016 an inflatable gorilla was erected ... "
Prep 7 now promoted to Queue 7. IMO, the Carter Moore Braxton hook has a slight redundancy. Fighting in the civil war would in itself be "in the heat of battle". But not a big deal, and I'll leave that up to someone else to think about. — Maile (talk) 00:51, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm fine with the change to the hook, although I think "in the heat of battle" should stay in the text of the article. It's not completely redundant, as two soldiers who both served "throughout the war" could see different amounts of actual fighting. 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 05:16, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
Since we've been discussing (elsewhere on this page) what makes a good hook, let me opine. All that thick-of-battle stuff is awful, because soldier fought in battles isn't unusual or intriguing, any more than Singer sang song is. Without question the best hook is ALT4a, Great-grandson of Founding Father fought for Confederacy, because that's surprising or intriguing. A runner up would be Seven horses shot out from under him, but he was never wounded (surprising), but that's not as good because it's just the guy's good luck, not an apparent conflict of doctrines. EEng18:47, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
Unless I'm missing something, the article must have changed since ALT4 was suggested, because I see no mention of the grandfather in this article, much less a source for that. It takes tracing backwards to the grandfather's Carter Braxton article to put that together. I get your point, but as we know from our era's "rich and famous" families, lineage doesn't mean much except to open doors. — Maile (talk) 23:51, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
Well, I can't completely agree with you on your last point: Bach family, Darwin family, Huxley family. BTW, for those who might not have picked it up, there's a subtlety to Great-grandpa being a "Founding Father": he signed the Declaration of Independence, which fundamentally is about breaking political bonds; he didn't (for example) participate in framing the Constitution, which created the Union which the Confederacy set out to destroy. EEng03:04, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
Now we have two filled queues
I've promoted Prep 1 to Queue 1, so this should get us past the weekend. This one looked pretty good. My only comment is on the hook, " ... that on ESPN, listeners to sports podcasts are 13 years younger than their radio listeners?"
The article quotes the source as saying "the ESPN podcast listener is on average 33, and 60% of our podcast listeners are 18 to 34. That's 13 years younger than our radio listeners." The hook is correct, but the source used an averaging to arrive at that. So now we have two Queues ready to go. — Maile (talk) 03:08, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
Created and nominated this yesterday, would it be possible for this to run on the 105th anniversary of the capture on 24 January 2023? This would be 8 weeks after nomination, outside the usual 6 week period. Though I note there is a slight loophole in the rules in that the period is measured from time of nomination, had I waited the maximum 7 days before nomination it would have granted me another week! Cheers - Dumelow (talk) 15:01, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
It’ll be the 106th anniversary but it’s an anniversary nonetheless. It seems relevant enough to grant an extension to the usual 6 weeks. Schwede6616:10, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
The idea is to click on the link to the link for Yes, which would take you to an article on the musical band by that name. Therein, you would also find out that Life and World are also musical bands. — Maile (talk) 19:12, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
I have been told that interesting and unusual are not the same, and I at least am not interested in the silly choice, - while I might have been interested in something about their music. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:35, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
@Gerda Arendt as the author of that hook, I have to admit I indulged my penchant for pushing the limits of quirky into cryptic territory. You are correct, a hook which said something about their music would have been better, and there was certainly plenty of material to pick from in the article. -- RoySmith(talk)21:41, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
Nothing wrong with the hook, only why I get all the trouble, for hinting at a Bach piece and a famous conductor would not be interesting (really?), while two or three unexplained bands would pass - it seems a bit unfair ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:20, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
Not sure what Gerda's comment means, but Yes has had numerous albums that went Gold (500,000 individual sales) or Platinum (1,000,000 individual sales). — Maile (talk) 21:05, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
I thought it was a pretty good hook for the quirky slot. It got 14K readers to the article, so I think it did its job: encouraging readers to check out a newly-improved article. Valereee (talk) 15:50, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
I think that's about right, definitely an above average performance. Also, I think no one in this thread touched on the pun that "yes" implies an inclusive AND operator (e.g. that given the choice between Life and World, the band picked both). At least, that was what I liked about it :) theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 23:21, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
Move protection
Consensus to move protect target articles while on the main page. Details to be worked out (designing or adding to a bot) before this is implemented, to prevent requiring an admin to manually temporarily protect 8 or more articles every 12 or 24 hours while this is worked out. Valereee (talk) 18:56, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Copied to here from Errors; I thought it should rather be discussed here; at Errors, discussions don't even get archived:
The boldlink of the seventh hook is currently a redirect; the pipe should be taken away in favour of Qaem 100. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 03:57, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for getting this so quickly. I've made the change, but want to note that the rediect was created by fairly new editor @Mucube: just 2 hours ago with no discussion whatsoever. As such, don't be surprised if another editor reverts those actions. — Maile (talk) 04:13, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
@Maile66: Well, it seems like the fairly new editor was correct per WP:CONCISE, so I'd leave it alone. I do wish that DYK articles were move-protected, though, it screws up all the pageviews... theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 04:16, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
@Theleekycauldron: I think you just hit on a really good idea there - I wonder if there is a way to streamline page protecting the hook articles until they are off the main page. — Maile (talk) 04:19, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
Well, move protection while items are on the main page is a reasonable idea. In fact, I suggested something like that for an article that was going through a requested move discussion (where, if they had closed early, they might have moved that while it was a live hook). Move protection should be easy enough to do via a bot (start, say, for the next two queues to go live; remove once the item comes off the main page). Any thoughts? Schwede6604:42, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
How many pages are moved while on the Main Page and how many of them should really not have been moved? I am generally opposed to pre-emptive protection unless we have very good reasons. Neither the possibility of having redirects on the Main Page nor having view statistics more difficult to do counts as an extremely strong argument for move protection in my view. —Kusma (talk) 09:11, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
We had one recently that was moved, and that one, and any in the future, should not be moved. I doubt, however, that we need move protection for 16 hooks per day, when simple common sense would suffice to just not move while on the Main page. The one was by Hawkeye, would have made the stats if not moved, but the stats counting bot can't manage, and doing it manually will be overwritten by the bot. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:49, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
We do protect images proactively while on the MP. I think move protection for at least the target article while on the MP isn't a bad idea. Valereee (talk) 16:41, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
Sensible idea to do it proactively, and I think we should semi-protect articles as well when on front page. The fact that we protect images proactively means that we can do it, and front page articles are an easy target for vandalism. As for page moves, they should only be done on main page articles with a consensus, not unilaterally, as it disrupts the main page (particular DYK, which has a no redirect links policy). Joseph2302 (talk) 16:45, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
We should definitely not semiprotect DYK items on the Main Page. This is "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit", and inviting new editors is far more important than preventing vandalism. Could you explain how page moves disrupt the Main Page? I don't see how they do. —Kusma (talk) 17:24, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
To quote the proverbial example, freedom of speech doesn't mean you can shout "fire!" in a movie theater. And though Wikipedia is "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit", we have for a very long time had exceptions and restrictions on that. Things on the front page can become vandalism magnets, and without any actual evidence that TFAs and DYKs actually invite new editors, I'm inclined to be more concerned about the potential for vandalism. At minimum, I think upcoming DYKs merit temporary move protection. In the rare cases there's a valid move to be made, it can wait 12 hours or 1 day. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:40, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
TFAs should be of sufficient quality to not invite new editors (so semiprotection there is unlikely to be a net negative), but DYKs often are unfinished and would benefit from a random knowledgeable newbie. Vandalism levels are quite low these days, and Main Page items have lots of watchers, so the little vandalism that happens is quickly reverted. The greatest current danger to Wikipedia is running out of volunteer editors.
As to move protection, the recent cases of unilateral moves I have seen were some pages violating naming conventions. Why would we want to protect against fixing errors? —Kusma (talk) 10:04, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
Schwede66 recently educated me that, per WP:MPNOREDIRECT (last bullet), redirects are discouraged on the main page. The precise reason for that (i.e. redirects may not have many watchers, and therefore can be a sneaky conduit for main-page vandalism) doesn't apply to redirects created by moves (because after you move X to Y, anyone who had X on their watchlist now has both X -- now a redirect -- and Y on their watchlist). But to allow moves will require keeping track of this special case, which I predict will be a big headache. Schwede? EEng01:44, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean by to allow moves will require keeping track of this special case, EEng. Could you elaborate? Currently, we do allow moves and it creates risk (although as you point out, there should be many eyes watching redirects resulting from moves) and it buggers up the page view stats. If we decide that we temporarily move protect, those issues will be gone. I'm not sure where the big headache comes in. Schwede6602:04, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
I gather from something you said months ago that any redirect appearing on MP is likely to end up at ERRORS as a vandalism risk. So if we allow moves, then either the MP link has to be specially updated to point to the new title (instead of the redirect left behind by the move), or someone has to remember to keep track of which redirects are OK ones because they were created by moves. That's the headache. EEng02:43, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
Since it's very hard to think of a move so urgent that it can't wait 24 hours, I'd say this consideration alone makes moves-while-on-MP a bad idea, and routine move protection a good idea. EEng05:03, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
How is a redirect on the Main Page more of a vandalism risk than any other link? We are already pretty good at preventing vandalism through edit filters, and it has been years since Main Page related vandalism lasted longer than minutes. Preventing vandalism often has the side effect of preventing good faith edits, so we should not overdo it. —Kusma (talk) 10:07, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
The gargantuan visibility of MP makes it an especially prized target for vandals, and we already take other special steps to protect it e.g. WP:CASCADE. That's part of why, as you say, it's been years since MP-related vandalism lasted longer than minutes. Article text of MP items remains unprotected, to preserve our "anyone can edit" ethos; and that works out because articles making an MP appearance will typically have at least several watchful watchers. But CENSORED per WP:BEANS. EEng16:38, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
This looks like the discussion might be drawn out, with a lot of explanations. To clarify, I'm creating the subsections below.
Move protect survey
Note that Feature Articles are move protected for the time they are on the main page.
@DYK admins: This directly affects the admins while a set is on the main page. Once rotated off the main page, it's not on our shoulders whether or not it is moved. The article that was moved, was done so by a new editor with no discussion whatsoever about whether or not it was correct. In this case, no harm was done. But generally it's just good sense to discuss moving an article that's on the main page.
Template:Did you know is already protected so only admins can edit it. This is necessary because, among other things, the hooks have already been approved and can only be changed at WP:ERRORS. It then makes sense that, for the duration of any set's appearance on the main page, the articles themselves be temporarily move protected. After they're off the main page, any potential moves are not affecting our process.
Temporarily move protect all entries in a set for only the duration of their run on the main page.
Support this just makes sense. We had no dialog about the current one being moved. No real harm done, but there was also nothing to stop any long-time editor moving an article just because they believe they're right and everyone else is wrong. — Maile (talk) 01:15, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
Support. Unlike with semi-protection, I don't see move protection having much of an editing discouragement effect. If the move is not urgent, it can wait 12/24 hrs, if it is urgent an admin is likely watching ERRORS. CMD (talk) 08:55, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
Support not all page moves are beneficial, and for high profile items like front page items, they should only be moved with consensus to do so. Every page move of something on DYK will trigger an ERRORS complaint to fix the redirect link- and this is an unnecessary overhead. Joseph2302 (talk) 11:15, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
Meh - I don't really have any strong feelings for this either way but I'm leaning more towards an oppose. Unlike with Featured Articles that are very visible and prone to vandalism, DYK articles rarely get as much visibility and thus aren't prone to vandalism and the like. Plus, cases like page moves while on the main page (like the case mentioned) above are extremely rare. I can see the benefit but I don't really see the scenario happening enough to warrant this becoming a policy, rather than cases being handled on an individual bases. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 00:55, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
Sorry, but that doesn't make much sense. That moves-while-on-MP are rare is yet one more argument for blanket protection, since it tells us that protection isn't getting in the way of anything. And by the time we're "handling it on an individual basis", any vandalism has already happened. EEng03:11, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
Support This has clear benefits in preventing move vandalism. In the event a move is needed, in 99 cases out of 100 it's not urgent enough that it can't wait until the article in question is no longer on the main page. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:32, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
... and in the 1/100 cases, an admin can still do it with appropriate knowledge and skill to handle the special complications. EEng21:41, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
Question: is this something that can be set up to be done automatically, or is it 8 more individual temporary protects that need to be done as a queue gets moved to the MP? Valereee (talk) 15:57, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
Thank! I figured it must be so, but wanted to make sure enough people who were both administrators and bot-savvy (which is not me) were chiming in here. Valereee (talk) 18:07, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
Probably best to re-use the bot that posts the update, as that bot knows what pages to protect (although protecting earlier would be safer to do to prevent some abuse). This would need some care, though: Pages already protected against moves should not be re-protected with a shorter duration. Such details would need to be worked out if we go ahead with this. —Kusma (talk) 23:38, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Vote for me for lead hook and I'll mail you a ceramic milk set.
@DYK admins: @RoySmith: See ALT2 below. I am all for the image, and made a couple of tweaks to the hook. "that" should correctly be "who". And unless you identify her as First Lady and wife of the president, she could be any family member, or even an average citizen who never even met the president. Be specific. — Maile (talk) 21:01, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
Because if one of us goes down, we all go down together. Strangely his daughters don't seem to be included in that philosophy. Valereee (talk) 03:35, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
Baby feeder I was more concerned about the ceramic milk sets. We've piped to Baby bottle#History but there isn't a description there. I'm sure it's a two-piece set including a baby feeder and a cup, but per the discussion at the nom we're not finding sources. Valereee (talk) 03:44, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
No defined description, but here's verification that Mrs. Harrison was an artist and collector, among other things; Background section: "...she taught ceramic painting at her church. Along with her German teacher, Paul Putzki, she taught china painting classes. The classes were made up of Washington wives and daughters. She painted a “White House Orchid” with water colors and dedicated it to “mothers, wives, and daughters of America.” She decorated White House candlesticks, milk sets, platters and other pieces..." US Mint What a fascinating woman. — Maile (talk) 11:38, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
Huh...I wonder if these were sets she was creating herself? That maybe would explain why there don't seem to be any sources for that term. Valereee (talk) 13:01, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
I was thinking the same thing, and also saw in my searching that the term often refers to what we think of as a little sugar bowl and a cream holder for coffee or tea. — Maile (talk) 13:36, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
Same. So annoying when searching for something brings up something else. It's silly how hard it is to search on writers. All their own pieces and contributor bios come up. :D Valereee (talk) 19:02, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
@EEng and Theleekycauldron: I just noticed today's tweaking, which is OK as it went. And I don't want to mess around with your nowiki code stuff. But right at that junction, the instructions are incomplete. Yes, you need the coding right after the last hook. However, that does not go far enough. Scroll all the way down to the bottom of any prep or queue set. that whole thing beginning where it says #switch, all the way down to the bottom right where it ends with templates - has to be at the end of the queue, or it won't update. — Maile (talk) 16:13, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
@Maile66: Unless I misunderstand you, the instructions appear to be okay: The previous point says to Copy and paste the entire contents of the prep into the queue. (Hint: Right-click in the Prep edit window, Select All, right-click again, Copy. Then go to the Queue edit window and paste.) That would include everything below the hooks, too. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 20:20, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
@Theleekycauldron: under Move to Queue, it is incomplete. #4 is incomplete information. Open any prep or queue. Scroll down to the very bottom. Where it says #switch, etc. That part, all the way to the bottom, is missing from your instructions. under #4. If that part is not also included in the copy and paste, it triggers an error, and the bot won't do its work. And I bring this up, because the bot has refused to update because one or more little letters or whatnot from that wording or other was not completely caught on a copy and paste. — Maile (talk) 21:07, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
@Maile66: But #4 doesn't tell you which parts to copy and paste – #3 does, when it tells you to copy and paste the entire prep. #4 is just telling you to make sure that <!--Hooks--> and <!--HooksEnd--> are in the right spots – the former between {{DYKbox}} and the image, the latter just after the final hook. It's not omitting instructions to copy stuff below the hooks, because #3 is telling you to copy everything – including the stuff below the hooks. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 22:11, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
We all know what was meant, and there's no need for people's choice of section headings on talk pages to comply fully with the MOS. That's just making work for no reason. — Amakuru (talk) 12:49, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
... that Arthur O. Austin built the most powerful outdoor high-voltage laboratory in the world?
Are we sure that we want to tell our readers in wikivoice what is basically a quote from Popular Mechanics magazine? What concerns me is that Austin was conducting a series of tests "in cooperation with Popular Mechanics Magazine". Are we certain that the magazine is neutrally reporting on this, or is there a risk that they are talking things up to impress their readers, given their own involvement? Pings to RoySmith (nominator), Dumelow (reviewer), and Theleekycauldron (promoter). Schwede6618:21, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
ALT2: ... that Arthur O. Austin's lab has been described as "a juxtaposition of Victorian elegance and high-tech equipment"?
ALT3: ... that Arthur O. Austin was able to produce 30-foot-long (9.1 m) lightning bolts in the outdoor lab on the grounds of his estate?
ALT4: ... that Arthur O. Austin's estate featured both French Renaissance Revival-style farm buildings and electrical lab equipment capable of generating 750 kilovolts?
The last one isn't in the article now; I could add it if necessary, sourced to the Rebecca Larson-Troyer reference. But I kind of like ALT3 the best. -- RoySmith(talk)19:27, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
The previous list was archived a few hours ago. I've created a new list of all 24 nominations that need reviewing in the Older nominations section of the Nominations page, covering everything through November 20. We have a total of 198 nominations, of which 80 have been approved, a gap of 118 nominations that has decreased by 6 from last time. Thanks to everyone who reviews these!
Please remember to cross off entries as you finish reviewing them (unless you're asking for further review), even if the review was not an approval. Please do not remove them entirely. Many thanks! BlueMoonset (talk) 06:44, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
There is consensus to update the language in question to say that "The hook should include a definite fact mentioned in the article and likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing by a reader with no special knowledge or interest." There is no need to have an RFC about closing an RFC. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving23:10, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
This discussion in connection with Wikipedia:DYK#gen3 is about whether the phrase "interesting to a broad audience" in the hook guidelines should be retained, changed, or removed. The discussion includes a !voting section at the end, which was designed to give some structure and hope of resolution to an otherwise long and rambling discussion. Storye book (talk) 16:21, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
The following statement was made to introduce the discussion, before the Rfc was initiated:
On the subject of hook eligibility, Wikipedia:DYK#gen3 says: "The hook should include a definite fact that is ... interesting to a broad audience". For a while now, a number of DYK nomination templates have suffered difficulties in passing hooks which refer to the obscure subject-matter of their target article, because it is difficult or impossible to provide a hook for that subject which is "interesting to a broad audience". I believe that the above statement in the rules needs to be adapted to include the needs of that kind of DYK nomination. I list below (in no particular order) some of the issues which have caused long (and well-meant) discussions, and have sometimes brought the nomination to a temporary pause, or a halt. I shall use opera as an example of perceived obscure article/hook subject matter, since many of those difficult discussions have referred to that subject.
It is impossible for an individual reviewer to define "broad audience", without reflecting their own geo-political and social environment. Since many of our reviewers, nominators and promoters are based in the Americas, that situation poses a risk of reviewers from the Americas and in Rest-Of-The-World having differing perceptions of "broad audience".
The difficulty in defining, "broad audience", in turn can create issues wherein a reviewer from a particular large geo-political environment may believe that hooks concerning e.g. opera are "niche", whereas the nominator/creator may be aware that opera is of general interest to readers from another large geo-political area. This situation can lead to a reviewing impasse, in which the reviewer (with best intentions) may believe that an opera article which does not provide quirky hook subject matter, and a hook which uses big operatic names as clickbait, is a non-starter as a nomination. So in that way, the above rule "interesting to a broad audience" is not always viable, even when both the reviewer and nominator cooperatively want to interpret the rule with common sense.
The abovementioned "interesting to a broad audience" - a good thing on the face of it - does tend to imply the concept that the idea of "niche" must therefore be a bad thing for a WP hook. However, the definition of a "niche" subject differs around the world in the same way as "broad audience". I suppose an obvious example may be where many people do seem to concentrate their interests more in the sciences than in the arts, and vice versa. That's an awful lot of people who might think that an awful lot of WP article subjects are niche - such as opera, yes, but also baseball, computer games and current technologies. So the idea of quirky-hook-for-broad-audience (good) versus subject-matter-hook for opera cognoscenti (bad) is too subjective to be useful.
The above confusion and well-meant attempts to overcome the problem of a "niche" article by finding anything at all that is remotely quirky to hook in the "broad audience" has resulted in some inappropriate hooks, which do not respect the subject, and are calculated to hook in many readers who really don't want to be faced with an article on e.g. opera, and which would certainly put off opera buffs. One example from a while ago was a hook which said that a female opera singer was really good at looking around corners. Yet the main interesting thing about her was her achievement in acclaimed performances of the best operas in important venues under famous conductors. (I was part of that difficult discussion/decision and no-one is to blame - we were all just trying to accommodate that "broad audience" rule).
The above situation of inappropriate quirkiness forced on serious subjects raises the question of what we really want from the clicks. Just numbers of clicks, even when lots of our readers may object to being faced with a wall of text about opera and no more quirky bits to discover? Or do we really want to get the public to read something which really interests them, so that quality of clicks counts and number-of-clicks doesn't?
So far, I've seen many nom templates where the reviewer has encountered hooks about obscure subjects, which cannot be quirkyfied, and they have used common sense and respected the nominator's knowledge and decision, the hook has been promoted, and no trouble has occurred. But there are also reviewers who would rather keep it simple and follow the rules exactly as written, and the result of that has been problematic, as described above. That is nobody's fault. The fault, I believe, is in the wording of the rules, which was fine in intention, but now needs to be modified to resolve issues.
I should make clear that I support the intention of "interesting to a broad audience", and that most of the time the DYK section is fine, being full of enjoyable hooks which work well. And I certainly congratulate those who have created hooks like that. What we have on the main page is something to be proud of, most of the time. The rules just need to be more inclusive of whatever article subjects our reviewers may consider to be "niche" and incapable of quirkiness in hooks. There are so many ways in which we could resolve this. I would happily support any fair attempt to be inclusive of obscure (to some people) hooks, which would always be in the minority, anyway. Just to start off, I'll write an example of an improved rule below, but I am hoping that there will be more, and better, ideas forthcoming. Storye book (talk) 13:14, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT1: The hook should include a definite fact that is mentioned in the article, and interesting to a broad audience where possible, or interesting to a specific audience where article content demands it. Storye book (talk) 13:14, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I do not agree that we should be discouraging certain topics from being featured on DYK simply because they are (for lack of a better term) "niche". Doing so would perpetuate systemic bias on DYK and mean that many underrepresented topics and fields would not be given their chance to shine. On the other hand, I have to disagree with the above sentiment that, whenever possible, "niche" subjects can have hooks that only appeal to specific audiences. Indeed, it is perfectly possible for articles about "niche" topics, like for example opera, to have hooks that appeal even to non-specialists. An example, for example, could be a hook about an opera singer that mentions that they graduated with a degree unrelated to music, for example animation. Such an example is about a "niche" topic, but the hook itself is interesting not just to the specific audience that likes opera but also even those not into opera. I mean, wouldn't it be interesting that an opera singer has a background in animation? My point is simply: we should not be giving special treatment to certain topics just because they are "niche". It's perfectly possible for "niche" topics to have broadly-appealing hooks, and indeed there are many excellent examples of that including from opera. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 13:20, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
My knowledge of opera is minimal at best, so it's hard for me to judge opera hooks objectively. But, let's try another area; math. I recently promoted Roberts's triangle theorem. I remember the earlier discussions about some of the opera hooks, and was already thinking, "Math is about as niche as opera; it's going to be really hard to write a "broad audience" hook for a math topic". But, I think this hook fits the bill.
You don't need to know anything about math to appreciate that taking 90 years to make an advance in the understanding of this theorem is an impressive thing. Or at least so it seems to me. If you wrote, "... that (name of opera) brought the house down in 2022, 90 years after it was last performed?", I'd find that interesting.
I'd love to hear what other people think of the Robert's theorem hook. Does it really appeal to a broad audience, or am I just projecting my understanding of the topic area inappropriately? -- RoySmith(talk)15:24, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
@RoySmith:. Your maths hook is fine by the "broad audience" rule, because "90 years" counts as quirky, and therefore (as the rule currently tends to be interpreted) "interesting to a broad audience". The matter at issue here is what happens when a specialist article does not have a quirky bit like "90 years" in it, but depends on its notability facts for hook content. Then, what do we do? Already we have seen people here answering the question by suggesting that we exclude such articles. That's why I think that those articles which cannot supply an "interesting to a broad audience" factor need to be allowed to use facts in the hook which would be interesting to a specialist audience. I agree that "interesting to a broad audience" should be prioritised where possible, but we do need to be permitted to consider specialist articles for DYK as well, if their articles do not contain quirky bits like your "90 years". Storye book (talk) 19:19, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
I think or interesting to a specific audience where article content demands it dilutes that rule way, way too much. This change could be argued to say that any hook is interesting to someone and that if there's nothing else in the article that's remotely interesting, the article content demands we accept a hook no matter how boring. The rule already gets way too many byes because reviewers and promoters and movers (myself included) don't like to hurt anyone's feelings. Valereee (talk) 19:19, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
@Valereee:. Thank you for your contribution. Your answer, however, depends on the definition of "boring", because that is a personal subjective quality, which may also be subject to geo-political bias. I don't think we have the right to pronounce that any WP subject is "boring" to anyone other than ourselves and perhaps those in our own social milieu. To put it another way, WP articles have to jump through the notability hoop, which means that they are considered to have encyclopaedic value. What would happen if we reviewers were to try to exclude, or at least ignore, every nomination of an article whose subject we personally found "boring"? All outdoor team sports bore the heck out of me personally, and I would never watch a match, but I am genuinely happy to bend over backwards to do my best in reviewing their DYK noms. In fact, I have spent many hours in Commons finding ID photographs for historical sports biographical articles, knowing that someone out there would be grateful or pleased or whatever. Occasionally I get a "thanks" and that means a lot. Sometimes we have to be grown up about subjects which don't interest us personally, accept that subjects which are boring to us may have a very large audience (baseball, certainly!) and see our job as a service to others. Storye book (talk) 19:40, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
Believe me, I get it. I work a lot on obscure subjects, I intentionally focus on subjects that are underrepresented because of systemic bias. And I don't nom all my creations. When I find something that is interesting enough for a hook, I nominate it. But there are many, many subjects -- including many of my own creations -- that simply don't make a good DYK. It doesn't mean they aren't notable enough for an article. It doesn't mean they shouldn't be featured on the main page. It means they don't make a good DYK, and the fact we don't have a better way to feature these articles than DYK as the default setting doesn't mean we should make DYK something it's not.
If DYK evolves into a bunch of ho-hum hooks, why would anyone bother reading DYK every day? We can't force readers in here. We have to attract them in, and the way we attract them is with most hooks being hooky. Valereee (talk) 19:55, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
Thank you for elaborating. You say, "We have to attract them in, and the way we attract them is with most hooks being hooky". I agree with that, in that you have used the word, "most". That word, "most", allows the occasional exception of a specialist hook appealing to a specialist audience, which may (as in the case of opera, baseball etc.) be a very large audience, worldwide. What I am asking for, here, is permission to be allowed, when no other recourse is possible, to occupy the minority position implied by that "most" word, and give the green tick to specialist hooks which will appeal to specialist audiences, where no quirky hook is available. OK, a lot of reviewers are doing that quietly already, but some reviewers have been trying to force a quirky hook onto a subject where it may mislead the reader into expecting a fun article about something which they already understand and enjoy, only to find themselves faced with an article on something that they are not interested in. If you want to exclude some of your created articles from DYK, that is up to you. But many article creators feel that their subject matter deserves DYK exposure, for example if a biographical subject has achieved great things. I am asking that those nominators can be permitted hooks which say that so-and-so did great things, without needing to say that they did something weird instead, just for the sake of clickbait. Clicks on great achievements can be more valuable clicks than clicks on weird stuff, in my opinion. Storye book (talk) 20:16, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
We make a lot of exceptions, actually. Probably too many. If a biographical subject has achieved great things, there'll probably be a hook. I'm not sure what 'force a quirky hook' means...maybe you're saying that instead of mentioning a subject's most important accomplishment, we're mentioning a more interesting-to-a-general-audience piece of information? Yes, IMO that's exactly what we should be defaulting to: the interesting stuff. That's what attracts readers to DYK. Something surprises them, interests them, makes them think "really?" Makes them want to learn more.
DYK isn't "Here is the most important thing you need to know about X". It's "here's something surprising that you may not have realized and may actually make you want to read the article" instead of feeling like you're being required to memorize Whan that Aprille with his shoures sorte; The droghte of March hath perced to the roote; because by gosh everyone needs to know that. The point of DYK is not to quickly feed the reader the most important thing they need to know about X before they realize they're being educated. It's to bring them back day after day to see if there's anything interesting in this batch.
Just ask to IAR when you have that rare specialist hook. If you have a good reason, people will listen. We IAR around here constantly. I just don't think we need to codify this particular IAR. The rule's already too weakly enforced. Valereee (talk) 20:44, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
Thank you for that, and I know that we as reviewers already quietly make exceptions, as I have said. Reviewers who are prepared to use common sense and make exceptions are not the problem. The problem is that we will always have some reviewers who (understandably) want to adhere to the letter of the rule, and to have only hooks which they personally feel to be "interesting to a broad audience", and to permit absolutely nothing else. That is whey we need to put in writing any permitted variations to the rule, because nominations are being held up due to the literal-interpretation problem. You say "the rule is already too weakly enforced", but sadly some of us have experienced the opposite problem to the extent that some nom templates have stalled. Storye book (talk) 21:11, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
Thank you, Narutolovehinata5. There seems to be a misunderstanding here. Of course a subject which the reviewer considers "niche" can have a quirky or "interesting to broad audience" hook. ALT1 suggests "where article content demands it". That means, where you can't have a quirky hook because there's nothing in the article which is quirky, or for some other reason, e.g. if the article is too jolly serious for a trivial hook, or whatever. In ALT1, "interesting to a broad audience" remains paramount. The idea of a rule adjustment is to allow reviewers and nominators more choice and freedom over hook content, when needed. Storye book (talk) 13:43, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
In which case, there's no shame in simply not nominating the article for DYK at all if there's no content that is usable for a hook. I myself have declined to nominate some of my own articles for DYK because there wasn't content that I felt would have worked as hooks, and I'm sure many other DYK regulars have had similar experiences. The effort that is done to nominating an article that is ultimately not meant to be for DYK could instead be directed to a more deserving article, one that may actually have something usable. DYK is not mandatory, it's a bonus. An article doesn't need to be on DYK to be appreciated and seen. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 13:50, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
As for the above comment claiming that "broadly appealing" hooks are "inappropriate" or would "disrespect" the subject, I do not really see how that is the case. We simply strive to highlight interesting facts about a subject, even if the fact is not necessarily not what the subject is best known for. Take for example Winston Churchill. Obviously best known for being a British prime minister, but when he ran on DYK, his hook was about his little-known interest in bricklaying. I do not think that highlighting his bricklaying hobby is "disrespecting" him; in fact, I think that if Churchill were alive today and saw the hook, he might have even appreciated it since more people would learn something about him that wasn't about politics. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 13:24, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
If you care to read my comment again, you will see that I did not say that ""broadly appealing" hooks are "inappropriate" or would "disrespect" the subject". That kind of generalisation would not make sense. Where did you get that from? A Churchill example doesn't help, because he is a famous person and household name the world over, not a "niche" subject in any sense. It is of course very appropriate to give him a quirky hook, because we can afford to do that, in view of the fact that most people know about him. Storye book (talk) 13:43, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
Hooks appealing to a broad audience is a good principle for material that is going to be shown to anyone who looks at the main page. As Narutolovehinata5 notes, if there is no suitable hook material, the content does not need to appear on DYK. CMD (talk) 13:59, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
@Narutolovehinata5:. Re your comment above: "In which case, there's no shame in simply not nominating the article for DYK at all if there's no content that is usable for a hook". That is one of the very issues that makes me think that the rules need to be changed. No article ought be excluded from DYK because the reviewer thinks that "there is no content usable for a hook". If the reviewer can only imagine that "broad audience" quirkiness can be a hook, then that is indeed a problem, but it should not result in article exclusion on those grounds. Articles exist on the basis of their notability, and we should be allowed to use that notability as a hook if we have no other options for hook subject matter. Article notability can be interesting. Storye book (talk) 14:01, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
No article ought be excluded from DYK because the reviewer thinks that "there is no content usable for a hook" This. Or to be even move blunt, If an article is notable enough for Wikipedia, its notable enough for the main page. Ive been a contributor of DYK noms on "niche" subjects (fossils/insects/plants) for over a decade now and this rule has always been a undefinable thorn. There is STILL (after a decade of requesting it) no actual way that the criteria can be objectively defined. I agree with Storye book that this is a highly problematic criteria that acts a gatekeeping for the main page. If its an article it is main page appropriate.--Kevmin§16:52, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
If its an article it is main page appropriate. Not necessarily. We wouldn't be putting articles on the main page if they have significant issues, such as NPOV/copyright issues and the like. Granted, that isn't the same as DYK, but the point is articles aren't automatically eligible to be on the main page just because they exist. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 23:33, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
Except thats not what I said/meant. What I was saying was that if it passes notability muster to be on Wikipedia, then it qualifies to be on the main page (when of suitable quality). I didn't say every poor quality article should be on the main page.--Kevmin§00:10, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
Given that its already a very widely ignored rule, why should it be kept? Before stating that "DYK will become flooded with boring hooks and loose its purpose", consider that there is absolutely no evidence that would happen in the first place. I've also noted that the statement was made by Valereeehere's something surprising that you may not have realized and may actually make you want to read the article...It's to bring them back day after day to see if there's anything interesting in this batch. This is actually not a statement made anywhere in the DYK Aims and objectives, and it think its important to point out that no where in the aims and scope or the What DYK is not sections is interesting to a broad audience ever mentioned as a a criteria.--Kevmin§22:21, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
I agree with this viewpoint. The issue of what is interesting to a broad audience can't be reliably stated. Plenty of nominators have had their hooks declined for "not interesting to a broad audience" despite the nominator, and occasionally others, thinking the opposite. I also think that GAs should have an automatic notability pass based on the quality of the articles. SL93 (talk) 22:41, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
Except that DYK volunteers aren't a broad audience either, they are less then what ?20 regular contributors, out of over 1 billion English speaking people globally. WE do not have the right or the directive, per the DYK aims, to gatekeep "interestingness of hte main page".--Kevmin§00:10, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
Hooks are obviously supposed to be hooky and so attract an audience. But this is a goal not a pre-requisite. The only way you're going establish whether a hook works well or not is by running it. If it gets lots of views then it was probably a good hook. If it doesn't then it wasn't.
If there's a problem, it is exemplified by Gerda's work - a steady stream of articles about German church music. Iirc, Gerda doesn't care whether her articles get many readers or not; she just wants to run everything through DYK regardless. But it takes all sorts and when I spot-checked a couple of recent examples, one had over 1,000 hits and the other had over 2,000 and these numbers do not seem exceptionally low. As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, our readership will expect a certain amount of worthy-but-dull stuff and, so long as we have some more lively hooks too, the variety and contrast will provide a balanced effect overall.
It's like music. It shouldn't be all crescendos and climaxes – you want quiet passages too.
I like this idea and the way you worded it. It seems to me that "interesting to broad audience" discussions normally involve "I don't think that the hook is interesting, so it isn't interesting to a broad audience". SL93 (talk) 20:19, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
For what it's worth, while the concept of a "broad audience" is a highly contentious matter, there are some ways to measure "interestingness to a broad audience", albeit in imperfect ways. One way to measure would be to see how many views an article gets while they're on the main page. To be fair, many noms (myself included) do not necessarily care about clicks, but the statistics are still worth noting and analyzing. If a certain topic or hook format tends to consistently underperform views-wise (rather than it just happening as a one-off), then that suggests that perhaps the hook format itself isn't appealing to our readers. Thus, in these cases, perhaps the hooks are indeed not appealing to broad audiences.
As for the above concerns about hooks being rejected solely because they're from niche topics, that shouldn't happen. Fields and topics should not be excluded from DYK solely because they are niche. However, it's not like it's impossible to reach some kind of compromise on these things. Like, just because a topic is niche doesn't mean there isn't a tidbit there that can even interest those not into that niche. Indeed, in some cases, the subjects in question actually do have broadly appealing information that can be used as hooks, but those proposals face resistance. If it was the case where it was consistently the case where these topics have absolutely nothing usable, then perhaps I could be sympathetic to the ideas being espoused above. But in some cases, the articles in question already have perfectly usable "interesting to a broad audience" information. If they're already there, why not just use them? Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 23:33, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
Since notability keeps being brought up here, a reminder that DYK does not assess notability. An article appearing on DYK does not make it notable. Even articles assessed as Good articles are not inherently notable. CMD (talk) 05:10, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
I think I was probably the first to mention notability here. The reason for that was to suggest that where a "niche" subject had no quirkiness to be used in the hook, then its notability could be used instead. Notability in many articles may be stated in the article as the first, the biggest, one of the oldest, etc., or it may be something like a contribution made to the world, an achievement, a discovery or whatever. Maybe not all specialist articles will have notability that is hook-worthy, but many will. As for your comments on the role of notability in DYK, I think you are off-topic here. because the contributors to this discussion already know that DYK does not assess or create notability. But we do also know that certain content may give an article notability, and we can often use that in a hook. And that means that a specialist article without any hook-worthy quirkiness may have something in its leader, originally put there to indicate notability, which can be used in a hook. Storye book (talk) 10:20, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
Interesting facts on an article do not generate notability, notability is generated by the existence of independent reliable sources. Specialist articles with content that is hook worthy can already be nominated at DYK, as many are. Those that you mention as not having content that is hook worthy do not need to be nominated at DYK. CMD (talk) 13:43, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
Notability is given by the very fact its on WP already, I have brought it up to note that DYK does not have the purview to decide that the notability granted by reliable sources are simply not good enough for our tastes and the main page is better then just any old topic. As noted below I take the view that if its interesting enough for sources considered to meet notability criteria by WP thought something was interesting enough to document, DYK has no right (and absolutely no authority per its own Aims, Scope, and Nots) to deny the main page appearance if the DYK standards for an article are met. Also again I notice the refrain that the noms will all suddenly and precipitously decline into "the sky is blue" banality. There is no evidence that would happen at all, and I find it highly unlikely to be a rational possibility given that the aims and scopes already prohibit it, and we actively use the term hooky.--Kevmin§20:42, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
Like others have already mentioned, not every article I write ends up at DYK. Sometimes, I just don't see why many others would be interested in New Zealand political history, say. But I would shy away from the notion that we should tell other editors that their area of interest is unsuitable for DYK. As long as there are enough hooks with a broad appeal, that's good enough for me. Schwede6620:18, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
Gerda's pov
I am late to this as I was away for days. Sorry I can't read all the above, and perhaps it could be structured a bit.
My take for a rule change would be to just say "has to be interesting. Period". Something unusual which deserves being known.
Where I come from: Germany, the country with the highest number of opera houses, where singers from all over world come to perform, because the jobs are there. Not a niche. In DYK history, opera had some hundreds of hooks which you can inspect. When I am impressed by a singer, I want to talk about what impressed me, and not what the performer also did. This not only for my personal pleasure but I believe is only fair to an often living person. Achievements, please, not quirky factoids. We have only one sentence to introduce a BLP, and better say what makes that person special, instead of something crowd-pleasing. I am ashamed about the hook for a singer who was the choice by of Camille Saint-Saëns (whom most will known by the Carnival of the Animals) for the premiere of his last opera, and instead all we said about this specific great singer was that she performed Camen 300 times, - pure quantity going only for sensation. Food for thought. We have Talia Or open, - you can contribute there. Saying that she is a woman who dominates (without saying when what where) is one proposal. I really have my doubts if the "broad audience" would even care about this information. - Personal: she sang in concert for us, as three other soloists. One had an article already. I wrote about the other three. Two hooks had no problems, one appeared, one is in prep. She has the most complex biography of the four, and the highest international successes. I'd like to let that shine, and believe it may even interest our broad audience. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:52, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
The issue with building a hook from personal experience is that others reading the hook will not have the same experience providing context to the hook. To be impressed by a singer performing a certain piece you really need to see or hear that performance. That is not something we can achieve in a short sentence fragment, and it seems almost foolish to try. CMD (talk) 13:46, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
You have not read the article and the hook, so I am not insulted by that "foolish". I didn't try to put in the hook what impressed me, not even the piece (which I did for her colleague). I tried - because she impressed me, to say something about a major unusual achievement. I was never in Jerusalem, but I know history enough to know that singing Christian music there as a Jew, with one of the conductors many readers will know, is worth mentioning. It was approved by several, and only then (when in prep already) came the verdict "not interesting to a broad audience", which I don't believe, nor do I believe that just saying she rules some scenery is interesting at all. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:30, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
I have not read any article or hook, with no DYK nomination being linked above. What I wrote was a general response to the idea of writing about singers who performed as soloists for you. From what you wrote above it seems such performances are inspiring and affect how you see their achievements, what I noted was that we are unable to have that same understanding. CMD (talk) 02:09, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
But we talk about the hooks claimed to be not interesting to a broad audiance, such as what brought us here, #Queue 5: Talia Or. - I find the judgement often quite arbitrary and shaped by the personal view of the reviewer. As long as we have no precise definition what the myth of a broad audience means, we'll discuss and waste time. This hook was approved by two people before being declined here. I bet we spent already days of thinking and discussing for a sentence of less than 200 chars, and I feel it's not a good use of my time. I could have written 10 new articles instead of explaining. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:40, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
Back to the discussion
I don't have the time for an extended discussion here, but my opinion has been that niche topics are fine, and even should be encouraged, but hooks should at least be interesting to someone not well-versed in said niche topic. Vanamonde (Talk)16:34, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
I agree with what you said, until a broad audience is brought into the discussion. For example, an editor not well-versed in a niche topic could find the hook interesting, and then another editor could just as easily come along who isn't interested. A few people cannot determine what is interesting to a broad audience. SL93 (talk) 17:33, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
@SL93: I have added a Rfc template above, but I have no previous experience in doing that, so please would you kindly check that it has been done correctly, and that it's in the right place? Thank you. Storye book (talk) 17:53, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
@Storye book: the RfC statement needs to be shorter and more neutral. I'd recommend something like, "Should DYK's "interesting" criterion be changed to one of the alt proposals below?" The bot that copies RfC listings to the central pages requires what comes after the RfC tag and before the first signature to be short. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 13:32, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
Done. Thank you, Firefangledfeathers, for heads up on that. This has been my first attempt at an Rfc (having been asked to do it), and I did not know the procedure in full. I hope you find the new Rfc statement to be satisfactory. Storye book (talk) 16:28, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
Here are some thoughts. From experience, many topics that could be considered "niche" still managed to have hooks that appeal to non-specialists just fine. We've had multiple hooks in the past about topics ranging from fossils to technology, but just because those involve topics that can be quite specialist doesn't mean that non-specialist hooks about them were impossible. Indeed, we've had many good hooks in the past that have come from seemingly specialist topics, and some have surprisingly been well-received by our readership. In classical music's case, it's not like non-specialist hooks about classical music are impossible. Indeed there have been several good hooks about classical music (and opera specifically) that didn't limit their audience to specialists and they did just fine. So if the option is there to have a non-specialist hook about the topic, then why resist having the non-specialist hook in favor of the specialist hook? ALT1 proposed below may have made more sense if non-specialist hooks for the topic were impossible, but as experience and time has shown, non-specialist hooks about specialist topics can and do happen. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 19:43, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
Narutolovehinata5 As someone who writes on the "niche" topics, I can say very much that "interesting" for the lay minority of gatekeeper reviewers here repeatedly gets boiled down to very mundane aspects for the nom when looked at from the standpoint of the topic. E.g. "x species was named from a single fossil" or "x genus has only a single fossil species". When looked at from the topic point of view there are often other points that are considered interesting for the subject, but get mooted as not interesting to a "broad" (never defined) audience. This is why I take the view that if its been interesting enough for sources Wikipedia considers to meet notability criteria thought it was interesting enough to document, DYK has no right (and absolutely no authority per its own aims, scope, and nots!) to deny the main page appearance if the DYK standards for an article are met. Also again I notice the refrain that the noms will all suddenly and precipitously decline into "the sky is blue" banality. There is no evidence that would happen at all, and I find it highly unlikely to be a rational possibility given that the aims and scopes already prohibit it, and we actively use the term hooky.--Kevmin§20:33, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
One of my main concerns is that having low standards for what counts as "interesting" could mean that you could pretty much use any information as a hook, even if it's not the best, when ideally, it's better to use the best option. All information is interesting to someone out there, and requiring hooks to merely be "interesting" is such a low bar, not to mention it wouldn't prevent discussion on if a hook is interesting in the first place. Take for example, we have an article about a person named John Smith. Smith's day job is as a boy band singer (and he's a very good one at that!), but he also works as an architect during his free time (and he's an award-winning architect at that). However, the hook that is proposed about him is instead something like "... that John Smith has a younger brother and a younger sister?" It might interest his fans, but it may not necessarily be interesting to others, especially when there are better options in the article. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 20:42, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
We keep on talking about high and low standards, but we currently don't have clear attainable standards. SL93 (talk) 20:46, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
But what is the percent likelihood of that actually happening on such a regular basis that DYK would crumble into banality? I will point you to both our Aims and Objectives where there is no use of interesting at all in the verbiage, and to our Nots, point to specifically, which starts with DYK is not A collection of general trivia,.... Additionally its very regular practice for reviewers to make additional hook suggestions already if they see something in the article they feel is a good hook option.--Kevmin§20:58, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
I've added an ALT3 to the below. For a hook to be considered that isn't of interest to a broad audience, I think it needs to be exceptionally interesting to a specific audience. Yep, still subjective. Valereee (talk) 02:48, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
I've added ALT6 to the the list below, in response to ALT5. It was a good idea to attempt to resolve the definisition-of-broad-audience problem in ALT5, but on its own, ALT5 might in future encourage or permit execrable clickbait and the demeaning of biography subjects. For example, ALT 5 could permit and encourage hooks like "German lieder and jazz singer FOO was born with only vestigial arms and legs", or "Former US president FOO allegedly has a FOO shaped like a mushroom". I doubt whether any contributor here would ever propose such a hook, but my point is that ALT5 would nevertheless permit and encourage such a thing. Storye book (talk) 10:31, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
I do not think ALT6 is necessary. Hooks that could "demean" subjects are already routinely rejected at DYK; if the subject was living, such hooks would fall under BLP and thus cannot be used. For subjects who are dead, there's more-or-less an unwritten convention that "demeaning" hooks are to be avoided whenever possible. See for example previous attempts to make fun of Oscar Wilde's sexuality, make fun of Muhammad, and so on. There are already both written and unwritten DYK conventions that would handle such cases. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 11:01, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
I also have concerns about the "lowest-common-denominator clickbait" addition. Specifically, what counts as "lowest-common-denominator clickbait"? For example, a hook that went "Did you know that opera singer John Smith was born with a deformed penis?" would definitely be rejected (under BLP if he's alive, but would still likely be rejected as distasteful even if he's dead). But what about the hook "Did you know that opera singer John Smith, who has performed at the Oper Frankfurt, is a licensed physician?" Would that also count as "lowest-common-denominator clickbait"? Or what about a hook like "Did you know that Fooville mayor Richard Doe created the video game Adventures in Foovile by himself while in office?" Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 11:05, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
If you don't like a particular ALT, vote on another ALT, or contribute a new ALT. Of course there is nothing wrong with your suggested hooks on opera singer John Smith and Fooville mayor Richard Doe. And of course there are already rules and conventions in place regarding defamation, libel and the like. I suggested ALT6 because I felt that ALT5 potentially undermined those existing rules and conventions. Storye book (talk) 11:58, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
I do not see how ALT5 could weaken existing rules and conventions about what can and cannot be a hook. I mean, even with our current "interesting to a broad audience" rule, that doesn't preclude potentially "interesting" hooks from being rejected if they violate these conventions. For example, saying that a person murdered someone might be interesting to many. That doesn't mean that the hook should be the hook, especially if the person is still living. As for ALT5, it merely says that a hook should be "likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing to readers with no special knowledge or interest". I do not see how that opens the door to potentially libelous or defaming hooks. Even if a hook is "unusual" or "intriguing to non-specialists", if the hook violates other rules, it can still be rejected. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 12:12, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
@Valereee: Since you ask, ALT5 is "more likely than what we've got now to encourage such problems" because it only permits "unusual or intriguing" hooks, and by omission excludes hooks which attract the reader in other ways. Storye book (talk) 12:21, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
Okay, I've now read the discussion at Template:Did you know nominations/Talia Or, which is what brought us here, and it seems like you're thinking we're defining "interesting" as "quirky enough to get lots of clicks". I don't agree. Hooks don't need to be "quirky". We kind of hope 1 out of 8 will be, as those are fun for the #8 slot, but even that isn't required. Simply interesting is enough.
And it's not that there's a goal of getting "clicks" because clicks are good. It's that the only measure we have for whether a hook was indeed generally interesting is the relative number of people who found it interesting enough to go take a look at the article, which is the goal. We'd like to maximize the number of readers for each new/improved article. Valereee (talk) 14:02, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
@Valereee: I am answering your comment below, in this section, to avoid starting a long discussion in the !voting section. You said "... I'd see any argument by a nom that a hook is "exceptionally interesting to a specific audience" as something that 1. requires an explanation of how/why and 2. could be taken to talk for discussion. It should be relatively unusual. I do see your point about fancruft, though". (Your mention of fancruft was in response to a suggestion that "specific audience" could be taken to include fancruft).
I had not heard the word, "fancruft" but I am guessing that it refers to something like Star Trek fandom. However, this association of popular culture fans with "specific audience" does rather reveal the cross-cultural misunderstandings that we have had throughout this general discussion. I had understood "specific audience" in ALT1 to refer mostly to subjects which are not in popular culture for most of us, such as science and engineering, ancient Greek plays and myths, philosophy and so on. It could also include items which are considered popular culture in some countries, but not in others, such as opera, baseball and computer games. All non-popular-culture subjects have fans, but they don't all have the Trekkie type of fan. No doubt other contributors here, from other countries or cultures, might have already seen "specific audience" as meaning something different again. I don't actually see what is wrong with Trekkie-type fans though, or why they should be excluded from having hooks which include them in the target audience. Storye book (talk) 14:15, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
@Storye book, WP:Fancruft is a term used here on Wikipedia to refer to something that is only of interest to rabidpassionate fans of a subject. Usually it does refer to pop culture subjects.
Hog Farm's example is a pretty good one, though. It's a relatively obscure subject (Naval vessels) but one that has rabidpassionate fans, and it's not a pop culture subject. The hook they created is one that probably would interest those rabidpassionate fans, who may know that $21K was enough to buy two new boats to replace a damaged one (or whatever would make that fact interesting to rabidpassionate fans.) But to the rest of us, it's like...So what? If I were writing a hook for that article, I might suggest ... that USS Sidney C. Jones was blown up by her own crew? To which a rabidpassionate fan might retort, "But scuttling is an incredibly common outcome in war! They didn't want her captured for use by the enemy!" Or whatever a rabidpassionate fan might say to such a hook suggestion. But there's really not much else in that article that immediately looks like a hook to me, someone not interested in the subject and with only a passing familiarity.
And which brings us right back to Talia Or and the hooks being suggested by non-rabidpassionate fans, hooks which Gerda is incredibly frustrated by because she is a rabidpassionate fan. Her response to ... that Talia Or performed as the Voice of a Falcon? with 'but that's a small part that many have performed'. Valereee (talk) 14:43, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
It should be noted that the main goal of DYK is to encourage people to read about the subjects of the hooks. That's why they're called "hooks": they're meant to highlight something interesting about a subject in such a way that people who see the hook would be encouraged to learn more about the subject. If the hook is too difficult to understand o is too specialist, the reader may actually be discouraged from reading the article rather than be encouraged. If the editor's goal is for people to learn more about a subject, they don't need to make hooks that are summaries of articles. They can just highlight one unusual or intriguing fact about the article, then the reader will be enticed to read the article where they can learn more about the subject's accomplishments and/or history. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 14:50, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
As for the above comment regarding Trekkies: just because Trekkies are a "niche" doesn't mean a hook about Star Trek needs only to appeal to Trekkies. With regards to Star Trek, why propose a hook that appeals only to Trekkies when you can propose a hook that appeals to Trekkies and non-Trekkies alike? Same with other topics. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 14:54, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
In fact I'd argue that a hook being of interest to non-Trekkies is more important than one of interest to Trekkies. The Trekkie will click on even a hook that, yes, they did already know, because: Trekkie. So a hook that is of interest to both is ideal, but the primary target is the not-rabidpassionate-fan who might find the hook interesting enough to want to investigate. Valereee (talk) 15:14, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
I am troubled by the expression "rabid fan" which appears to stereotype all fans of a specific subject. And where that stereotyping uses the word "rabid" in the definition, it is knowingly using a term related to a severe symptom of mental illness. I don't know how that word "rabid" is used in the US, but in the UK we associate the term with rabid dogs, who (at least in common perception) are supposed to attack with great ferocity due to extreme fear, while in the grip of the disease rabies.
Although I do not belong to any Trekkie-type group myself, I have met Trekkies and the like, and so far they have been gentle and quiet folk who simply love their chosen subject. Railway enthusiasts could be included in the same kind of obsessed mindset, but those whom I have met have not only been calm and interesting people; they have often gone to great lengths, expecting no reward, to assist with small elements of my research. We have a lot of rail enthusiasts on WP, and in my opinion we are very lucky to have them, and they have provided us with some very useful articles.
So who, precisely, are these rabid fans? On WP I have only come across one type of subject-fan, whom I would accuse of aggressive behaviour on WP; and that is the Jane Austen fan. My own experience of them in the real world is that they are middle-aged women who love the Jane Austen novels to the extent that they misinterpret the novels as sentimental romance, believe the films which misinterpret the novels as sentimental romance, and think they love their own concept of what Jane Austen herself was like. From a historian's point of view, Austen was a sharp-witted woman, honed in 18th-century spiteful irony, whose every comment was loaded with humorous criticism. She was the type which abhorred romantic sentimentality, but being on the cusp of change between the Age of Reason and Romanticism, her novels were written specifically to mock both genres superficially gently, but at depth cuttingly.
However those middle-aged Austen fans on here appear to have decided that they "own" Jane Austen. Therefore, when I have attempted to edit an article featuring Jane Austen on WP to match the sources, they have immediately changed my edit to fit their sentimentality in spite of the source, and reverted any attempt on my part to put it right. For years I have given up any attempt to get those articles to correctly represent sources. Now, it may be that since my experience with those Austen fans, perhaps that doesn't happen any more. But I'm just giving you that example to show you how I would define a rabid fan. I have not seen Trekkie-types, rail enthusiasts or opera fans behave aggressively on here. Ever. Storye book (talk) 19:57, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
@Cbl62: I really promise that I'm not trying to change your !vote, – you do you, that's totally fine by me. I gotta admit, though, you surprised me – you're the only DYK editor I know who cares about the stats page nearly as much as I do. Why change it so that hooks can get by while being interesting to fewer people? I'd love to hear more about your thought process on that one. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 10:43, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
Hey, cauldron. I'm all in favor of being stricter on uninteresting hooks. I just worry that the "broad audience" element gets misused at times. In the past, I've had someone argue that an American football hook should be rejected because it appeals too narrowly to Americans which were not a sufficiently "broad audience". Cbl62 (talk) 00:32, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
No hook should ever be rejected for subject matter. It should only be rejected because is isn't a good hook. If someone is arguing that a hook should be rejected because the subject is of too limited interest, that's a reason to bring it here to talk. Any subject can potentially have a good hook. The problem is typically that either 1. there simply isn't a good hook in the article or 2. the nom rejects hooks other editors are arguing are more broadly interesting. Valereee (talk) 01:55, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
Indeed. Fields and subjects should never by themselves be rejected at DYK. It is only when proposed hooks are unclear to those who are not specialists in that topic would could such hooks be declined under existing rules. In the case of American football, hooks should not be rejected solely because the hook is about that sport. However, considering the sport is not popular outside of a handful of countries, hooks about it should be easily understandable even to those unfamiliar with the sport. Indeed, WP:DYKSG#C2 specifically deals with the topic under consideration here. To be fair, this concern does not only concern American football, but even other specialist topics where information may not necessarily be understandable to non-specialists. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 02:07, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
Procedural meta-discussion
@Storye book:I've reverted your addition of a retroactive "three lines max" rule to the voting section, as well as your addition of a number of boldfaced addenda to my and others' comments, which violated both WP:TPO and WP:SHOUTING. I fail to see how allowing normal-length comments in the Votes section, as is common in every RfC I've ever participated in, is either unfair to anyone, or somehow "has the effect of campaigning". All discussions on Wikipedia, even ones styled as "votes", are consensus-building exercises, and it is anathema to that goal to say that someone can't write a paragraph explaining why they are voting a particular way. Even if you disagree with that, appending boldfaced objections on the same lines as others' comments, for violating a rule that you created after the fact, is certainly not the solution. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe)10:01, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, I don't think you should ask people to move responses to one another that's already happened, it means it ends up somewhere it makes no sense. And it isn't campaigning to explain one's vote or ask someone about theirs. Most RfCs don't need to be limited. This one's unlikely to become contentious. Valereee (talk) 10:15, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) I don't mind your reversion. That is fine. It was an attempt to resolve a problem, but in retrospect I see that it was not going to work. I did that because this particular controversy always results in endless discussion which gets us nowhere. Yes, it lets people air their views, and we have all learned from it, but that amount of overwhelming and unstructured discussion has so far not resolved anything, from anyone's point of view. That is why I created the voting section, in the hope that we could count numbers and see if there was going to be a consensus. Although the long comments and discussion bits in the voting were not yet overwhelming, I could see from the above discussion (and all the previous ones on DYK templates) that in due course it was very likely to overflow and suffocate that actual voting. My method did not work, I agree, but I do hope that people will not let the discussion bits get out of hand, and will allow the voting to continue to be structured and clear to all. That's what I meant about fairness: structure and clarity for their voting, which, as I write, they still have. Storye book (talk) 10:17, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
To be clear, this isn't a "vote". It's a !vote ("not vote"), a discussion about whether to change policy, and there will be someone assessing consensus to close it, and they'll take into account the arguments made by the !voters, not just count the numbers. That's part of the reason we allow people to provide a voting statement and ask others to clarify: so that the closer understands their !vote. Valereee (talk) 10:22, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
Voting
If you have another ALT in mind, please add it to the list below. Whether or not you have suggested an ALT, please vote using one of the following: No change, ALTnumber, or Other, giving a brief reason if you wish. If you have a long or complex reason, please add that to the discussion above, so that the voting remains clear at a glance. Thank you. Note: Of course you can at any time edit and change your own vote, e.g. in response to a new ALT having been added.Storye book (talk) 17:27, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
ALTs
ALT0: The hook should include a definite fact that is mentioned in the article, and interesting to a broad audience (existing rule at Wikipedia:DYK#gen3)
ALT1: The hook should include a definite fact that is mentioned in the article, and interesting to a broad audience where possible, or interesting to a specific audience where article content demands it. Storye book (talk) 13:14, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT3: The hook should include a definite fact that is mentioned in the article, and is either interesting to a broad audience or exceptionally interesting to a specific audience. Valereee (talk) 02:32, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT5: The hook should include a definite fact mentioned in the article and likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing to readers with no special knowledge or interest. (Added by EEng20:38, 10 November 2022 (UTC) -- see below.)
ALT6: The hook should include a definite fact mentioned in the article. It should be likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing to readers with no special knowledge or interest or exceptionally interesting to a specific audience. Lowest-common-denominator clickbait should be avoided. Storye book (talk) 10:31, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT5 > ALT0 > other options. I am a bit sympathetic to the reasoning behind ALT1 but we really do need to have some standards. ALT1 or even ALT2 are too broad and could open the possibility of hooks that are inappropriate or even not hooks at all. They could even open the possibility of hooks being just about anything about a subject, which would be impractical. Finally, on DYK, while I am sympathetic to the idea of DYK needing to have something for everyone, that doesn't mean that just because a topic is niche doesn't mean the hook should be niche too. And while I understand that the idea for ALT1 is to still prefer broad interest hooks whenever possible, if there is truly a good reason not to have a more specialist hook, IAR already exists. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 19:26, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
I am also open to ALT3, but my concern with ALT3 is what would count as "exceptionally interesting". Do we take the nominator's word for something being exceptional, or would that require further discussion? Because anything can be exceptional to anyone. In fact, it's one of the main reasons why I oppose ALT2 as currently proposed, since simply saying a hook has to be "interesting" could actually cause further debates on whether or not something actually is interesting in the first place. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 03:11, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
Yep. It's basically an attempt to make sure that if we're going to go with a hook that is not broadly interesting, it's at minimum exceptionally interesting to a niche audience. Doesn't solve the subjectivity issue. But it gives us the chance to ask, "Why is this exceptionally interesting to those interested in X?" When to a broad audience it's not readily apparent where the interest is. Valereee (talk) 03:25, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
In terms of options my preferences would be ALT0 (the status quo) > ALT5 > ALT3 > ALT1 > ALT2 and ALT4. ALT4 is just too broad and could open up DYK to having mundane or routine hooks. ALT3 may work but it's basically just codifying IAR exemptions for ALT0 cases. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 23:48, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
Now that I think about this more, I think ALT5 would be the best option here, although ALT0 (the status quo) is also a possible option. What I like about ALT5 is that it basically clarifies the meaning of "interesting to a broad audience", a criterion that has been a source of contention here for years, primarily over what exactly counts as being interesting to a broad audience. Rewriting the criterion to something clearer would help end such discussions and give some much-needed clarity with regards on what should be used at hooks, while still maintaining the spirit of the original rule and the desire to make "hooky" hooks. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 03:29, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT2, (or removing "interesting" fully, as irrelevant to it is already ON wiki not needing to further prove itself to a select minute group of gate keepers.--Kevmin§20:18, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT0. I've only been doing preps for a couple of months, but I'm already getting into burnout mode. It's running in place to keep the queues and preps full because we're trying to promote 16 hooks a day. I think we'd do better to have higher standards, even if that means fewer articles make the cut. Yeah, I know, WP:DYK says "DYK showcases new and improved content", doesn't say anything about "the best content" and WP:DYKNOT explicitly disowns quality as a criteria. I recognize this will probably be an unpopular viewpoint. -- RoySmith(talk)20:31, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT5>ALT3>ALT0, as I'm concerned anything could be considered interesting to someone.Valereee (talk) 22:00, 6 November 2022 (UTC) ETA: All of these preferable to Alts 1 & 2. Alt4 is a definite no for me, that changes completely what DYK is about IMO. Literally any fact? So "Did you know ... that snow is cold?" That's a damn important fact about snow. Valereee (talk) 02:35, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
It wont though, again I will note our Nots, and point 2 specifically, which starts with DYK is not A collection of general trivia,.... your worry is a non-starter--Kevmin§17:10, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT5 or ALT0, as the others are too lax. I would supporting "interesting to an audience outside the general field of relevance" or some such, but we can't have a situation where a nom can say "well I find this interesting" and we can't change it at all. Also: I think we need to get use to the idea that some routine articles, particularly very short ones on natural history or biography, may not be a good fit for DYK. Vanamonde (Talk)22:49, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
The options are spiraling out of control a little, and we should be wary of adding so many that the result is not discernible. I suggest pinging those who participated before new ALTs were added. That said; I support 5, which not only addresses the "broadly interesting" concern, it improves on our current definition and disallows things that are too niche as well. Vanamonde (Talk)17:05, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT0, per existing practice and above discussion. There will always be a grey area, and shifting the grey area towards encouraging content less interesting to most readers does not seem beneficial. CMD (talk) 01:44, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
The alts are growing. I don't remember which ones were there at the time of my vote, so to go through them. ALT0 remains a good principle. ALTs1-3 are dilutions of this principle for no clear gain. ALT4 is the complete abandonment of the principle so that's not great. ALT5 is a synonym of ALT0 so, if we want to make the rules longer, sure. ALT.6 is the ALT1-3 of ALT5. So, ALT0>ALT5. CMD (talk) 15:14, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT2: Is probably the most workable wording. We only need to require it to be interesting. The others - "interesting to a broad audience" - is very subjective and requires the reviewer or promoter to decide what that broad audience is. How broad is broad, and what are the qualifying demographics therein? — Maile (talk) 01:58, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
But how interesting is interesting? I'm with you on the subjectivity of broad, but I'm not sure requiring it to be interesting rather than broadly interesting fixes the subjectiveness. Doesn't it sort of just require us to take the nominator's word for it? Valereee (talk) 02:14, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, I agree with you. But of the three options above, ALT2 seems the best. I'm pretty confident that among our ranks are some who will challenge what that term means. — Maile (talk) 02:25, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT3/ALT5 tie [see below], second third choice ALT0. There are some articles where there's an opportunity for a hook that will very much appeal to people with interest in a particular topic, but sound meaningless to outsiders. For instance, to make up a hook, "... that Noah Syndergaard pitched a complete game shutout in which he homered for his team's only run of the game" probably sounds indistinguishable from any other baseball fact to a non-fan, but is in fact an incredibly rare achievement that we don't even have an article on, and is very alluring to anyone with more-than-casual interest in baseball. There should be a place for those hooks, so I really like Valereee's ALT3. But I also think that's de facto the case with ALT0 already (and you could argue that if something is going to be "exceptionally interesting" to a narrow audience, it will at least be nontrivially interesting to a broad one, who might at least recognize "Hmm that sounds impressive maybe idk"), so ALT0 is my second choice. Oppose ALT1 or ALT2; it's not that hard to make a hook at least nontrivially interesting to a broad audience, and if it is, it's usually a sign that the article needs some more work. Oppose ALT6's third sentence, and overall don't think combining 3 and 5 is necessary [again see below].-- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe)05:52, 7 November 2022 (UTC) ed. 15:20, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for the ping, Valereee. I've updated my !vote to place ALT5 equal to ALT3. While the two sound quite different, I think they functionally have the same effect: Anything that meets the second prong of ALT3 will likely sound unusual or intriguing to the average person (or, at least, some wording exists that can make it sound unusual). Especially because if something makes a reader wonder, "Hmm, is that unusual?", that in itself is intriguing. (We just have to make sure there's a payoff answer of "yes".) Like if I saw a hook that were, "... that such-and-such house was built with a mix of material X and material Y," I might click through to find out what makes that combination special. If unclear, this can always be emhasized with language like "unusually", "a rare feat", etc. E.g. at Template:Did you know nominations/Atkinson Hyperlegible I realized that the average reader wouldn't know that it's unusual for a typeface to be non-uniform, without which knowledge the hook would seem routine, and so chose to say that explicitly. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe)15:20, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
I just get a giggle out of the fact that Atkinson Hyperlegible "began as part of a visual rebranding at the Braille Institute". Kind of like the one I got when I heard a school make an announcement over the intercom about its sign language club. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:29, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT0, the Main Page is there primarily to serve the reader. If the hook is not interesting to the general reader then what is the point of posting it? I am sure I am guilty of nominating some boring hooks in the past (or interesting only to a niche audience), but if the upshot of this is that we become more rigorous in vetting and rejecting sub-optimum hooks then I would support that, even if it reduces the amount that can run - Dumelow (talk) 11:54, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT0 - a hook should be interesting enough that someone who knows little and even cares little about the general topic would be intrigued (without being misleading and not phrased so that the reader is so confused that they have to click through to have any clue what is being said). --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:55, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT4. Which hook writer doesn't want to say something interesting? Even with a broad readership in mind? - Only: users will never agree on what exactly will intrigue which kind of general audience, and what exactly "interesting" means. - When I review hooks I bring my view into play, but in case of no agreement let the author decide who usually knows best what's most interesting about a given subject, and may be good for a broad audience to learn about even if not yet interested in a topic. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:45, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
We now have ALT5 but that's too complicated for my taste. Rather ALT2, plain "interesting", which tries to say the same shorter: something unusual, good to know for everybody even if not previously interested in a subject. - I see many hook mentioning names, for example, which I haven't heard before, but then I can find out by a click, and learn. My interest in the topic isn't required, only my interest in knowing something new, which is what DYK should be about. The hook that brought us here mentions Zubin Mehta, - please tell me, you who support ALT0 and possible reject the Talia Or hook - if his life is not interesting to a broad readership. User:Narutolovehinata5, User:RoySmith, User:Vanamonde93, User:Chipmunkdavis, User:Dumelow , User:Khajidha, User:Epicgenius, User:David Eppstein. Please bring concerns to that open nomination. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:10, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT3/ALT0 per Tamzin. While most sports hooks are just [2] to me, I'm sure that many of them are exciting to some people. Things should be interesting in their context, not necessarily to everyone. —Kusma (talk) 17:43, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
ALTs 5>0>3, oppose 1, 2, and 4 – I do like what Valereee is putting down here. The key is that hooks, no matter which stripes they appeal to, avoid being simply routine. I elaborated on this somewhat here – any hook is gonna have some core interested audience who will click on the bolded article no matter what's around it. That's not something I'm particularly interested in cultivating. But some hooks are uniquely and exceptionally interesting to their niche in a way that isn't easily replicable in another field, even when they don't have broad-audience appeal, and those are worth running. I would rather stick with the status quo, if only because the subjectivity of interestingness is such that the rare few hooks that fall under ALT3 can generally be IARed through – all of the hooks I criticized in that previous discussion were approved as interesting without controversy. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 21:21, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
I've spent far more effort than I care to admit, for literally more than a decade, trying to reform the "interestingness" requirement, and I should know better than to try again. Nonetheless, for what it's worth I've added ALT5, which drops the variations on "interesting" in favor of likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing to readers with no special knowledge or interest. A bit wordy, and still very much requiring the application of judgment to each case, but I hope capturing more of the spirit of what we want, which is (ideally) "man bites dog".EEng20:38, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
P.S. ALT5 also inverts the question of who the audience is. Instead of saying the hook should appeal to a "broad audience", it instead says the hook's appeal should not be limited to specialists, which I think is a bit easier to think about. EEng02:05, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT0/ALT5. I think all hooks should be interesting enough that many readers will click on them. The hooks do not need to be interesting to all readers, or even most of them, because there are some topics that certain readers would never click, but they need to at least be appealing to a decently large crowd. If we were to tailor hooks to specific audiences, then we would be writing for very small audiences indeed - the probability that someone who actually has special knowledge/interest of the topic will decline for more obscure topics. On the other hand, if a hook is likely to be interesting to readers without special knowledge or interest, then it's very likely to be interesting to a broad audience. The vast majority of readers do not have special knowledge of, or special interest in, any given article that appears on DYK. – Epicgenius (talk) 23:49, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT0, second choice ALT5 I do not think it's appropriate to remove the interesting to a broad audience requirement. Otherwise, what's to stop someone, for instance, from making hooks like "Did you know that the Wood River Branch Railroad opened on July 1, 1874?" It's a definite fact, mentioned in the article, and verifiable, right? But how is that at all interesting (unless you're really, really interested in Rhode Island railroads, like I am, and even then I wouldn't find that an interesting hook)? Compare to the hook which actually ran, which is "Did you know that the Wood River Branch Railroad was once sold for $301?" I realize this is always going to be somewhat subjective, but I don't think many would disagree the hook that ran is far more interesting than the example I gave which would satisfy the requirements of ALT4. ALT2 is even more subjective than the current rule, I don't see how it would be helpful. What counts as interesting? At least the existing rules give some guardrails, if you will. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 00:44, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
Even if I do say so myself, I don't think you're giving ALT5 the credit it deserves. It very neatly disqualifies Did you know that the Wood River Branch Railroad opened on July 1, 1874?, because zillions of railroads were opening in the 19th century so there's nothing surprising or intriguing there. On the other had, if it said, The ancient Egyptians used a railroad to build the pyramids, then that would be surprising/intriguing to a nonspecialist, as is Railroad sold for $301. See how well it works? EEng01:49, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
Alt2 for the same rationale set forth by Maile. At least this narrows the subjective element to "interesting" and doesn't require a second subjective determination of what might appeal to a "broad" audience. The key IMO is that hooks need to be sufficiently interesting (or "hooky") to persuade the viewer to want to "click" and learn more. Cbl62 (talk) 00:59, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT0 or ALT5. "Interesting" without qualification is too open to insistance that "it's interesting to me, therefore it's interesting". FYI, if you look at which topics are interesting-enough to me to create articles about them, you would see an unending stream of daily "did you know that X is a professor of mathematics who did Y" hooks, occasionally mixed with other topics in mathematics. I only nominate them when I can find some sort of non-mathematical hook to give them general interest, which is more like a couple of times per month instead of daily. These are indeed all interesting to me, and in fact I am strongly convinced that they are equally interesting to the daily "did you know that X is a baroque musician who performed Y" hooks, so I would expect them all (or at least the ones that meet the minimum character count) to qualify for DYK under ALT2. I don't think that would be a good idea, I think opening the doors to similarly-monomaniacal editors would be a serious mistake, and I think we should get more serious about shutting down the ones who think those doors are already open. ALT1 doesn't help; it's just a longwinded way of writing ALT2 but logically boils down to the same thing. ALT4 is opening the doors even wider, even more of a mistake. And ALT3 is too wishy-washy to make a good rule. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:25, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT5 or ALT0 - "interesting" itself is too subjective (for instance, I consider an archaeological treatise describing all of the metallic objects found at the Custer's Last Stand site with a metal detector in the mid-1980s to be one of the most fascinating things I've ever read), and I find it a bit concerning at exceptionally interesting to a specific audience is essentially the definition of fancruft. ("Did you know that USS Sidney C. Jones required $21,352.82 in repair costs during her career in the Union Navy?") Hog FarmTalk14:25, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
FWIW, I'd see any argument by a nom that a hook is "exceptionally interesting to a specific audience" as something that 1. requires an explanation of how/why and 2. could be taken to talk for discussion. It should be relatively unusual. I do see your point about fancruft, though. Valereee (talk) 14:46, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT5, then ALT0. Wikipedia has an international audience with readers that have many interests. In my opinion, the goal of DYK is to get people to read the bolded article, which someone has worked hard on expanding and getting more information. A hook that is appealing to a broad audience of non-experts is more likely to accomplish this, which is why I like ALT5 best. Z1720 (talk) 15:28, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT5>ALT0>ALT6 on the basis of Hog Farm's reasoning above (what is exceptionally interesting to a specific audience might often actively discourage general interest). ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:01, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT0. The current situation appears to be working; DYK hooks should be interesting to a broad audience, but that doesn't mean that a DYK hook has to be interesting to someone who knows next-to-nothing about your topic. There are some topics that are widely known culturally, like Star Wars, and Queen Elizabeth II; it would not make sense to prohibit hooks unless they were to appeal to the people living under a rock who are unaware of them. — Red-tailed hawk(nest)05:01, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
So, we've got essentially 4 choices here. (If anyone discovers I've miscounted the !votes, just strike and correct the numbers).
No change (ALT0) 14 !votes, almost all of whom ranked multiple options, almost all 5 or 3
Loosen (ALTS 1, 2, 4) 7 !votes
Define (ALT 5) 12 !votes, almost all of whom ranked multiple options, almost all 0 or 3
Define and slightly loosen (ALTs 3 & 6) 3 !votes, all of whom also liked either 5 or 0 or both
This seems like clearly there is interest in making a change, and that change would involve defining as likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing to readers with no special knowledge or interest, with a very few people also supporting adding a slight loosening: or exceptionally interesting to a specific audience. But there were also a significant number who definitely preferred loosening at least somewhat. I'm thinking rather than asking someone to close, which could end with no consensus for anything, maybe a runoff with no more ALTs added? Something like:
ALT0 (No change to the existing rule at Wikipedia:DYK#gen3): The hook should include a definite fact that is mentioned in the article, and interesting to a broad audience
ALT5: The hook should include a definite fact mentioned in the article and likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing to readers with no special knowledge or interest.
ALT6: The hook should include a definite fact mentioned in the article and likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing to readers with no special knowledge or interest or exceptionally interesting to a specific audience.
While in the original discussion ALT6 got no actual votes, it was suggested by someone who does want some loosening of requirements and using it here would allow us to capture the feelings of those who want that. Thoughts? Valereee (talk) 16:56, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
Keep it simple. Notions of interestingness as being discussed here are dangerously close to majoritarianism. e.g. what is to think that the group evaluating the hooks (all of us) are representative of the general or specific (i.e. topic aware) audience out there? The analytics time and again proves that there are popular topics, but, that does not mean we should not have topics that don't fall into the popular topic set. With all that said - any subjective read of "interestingness" however broadly defined or specifically defined is plain wrong. Keep it simple. Recommend no changes. Ktin (talk) 19:13, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
Speaking for myself here, I am finding all the ALTs terribly confusing. Let's keep it simple and go with the nominator's read for interestingness. I have often found myself questioning lines of thinking that over-indexes for page clicks. Ktin (talk) 18:53, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
@Ktin:. Forgive me; I hope I'm not making things worse here, by asking you to explain what you mean. You say above that you want to make no change, i.e. keep ALT0. Now, if you keep ALT0, you get the reviewer's concept of a broad audience's concept of interestingness (= Reviewer wins on interestingness). But in your last comment you said, "keep it simple and go with the nominator's read for interestingness" (= DYK nominator wins on interestingness). Have you changed your mind? Or are you talking about some other nominator somewhere else? I'm not trying to argue one side or the other here - I just want to understand what you mean. Storye book (talk) 19:47, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
@Storye book I continue to remain confused by the ALTs. Here's my observation. Speaking for myself -- When I review a hook, I do not pretend to know more about the topic than the nominator themselves. So, if I do not understand the "interestingness" of a hook, I almost always defer to the nominator. Similarly when I propose a hook, I have had well meaning reviewers rework the hook for "interestingness" and completely miss the point in their quest on a topic that they do not know much on. The good thing is that most of the reviewers on this project are collaborative, but that should not be taken for granted. Now, bringing it back to this voting exercise -- I would recommend that any notions of "interestingness" be left to the nominator. The current wording on the guidelines is sufficiently broad enough to have the reviewer trust the nominator's read of the topic. Hence my recommendation of do nothing. Alternately, you could just do away with "interestingness" and look for factuality. It seems like that's what @Valereee is suggesting in the above comment. PS: I personally am not a big fan of clickbaity hooks in the quest for making it interesting. But, I understand that it appeals to a broad range of project contributors. I do not wish to challenge that, but I try to avoid that in my hooks. My best wishes. Ktin (talk) 01:08, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but your approach is absolutely backwards to what it should be. If you, who do not pretend to know more about the topic than the nominator also do not understand the "interestingness" of a hook then that's a warning sign that the hook may not appeal to our readers. Turning it around, if reviewers completely miss the point of your hook because it's on a topic that they do not know much on, then your hook is at fault, not the reviewer: a reviewer should not need special knowledge in order to appreciate the hook. EEng04:11, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm definitely not suggesting we do away with requiring that hooks be interesting to a broad audience, myself. I'm in favor of clarifying what consensus is. What I intended to say with My read was that Ktin was in effect supporting ALT2 in the original discussion? was that you were saying we should do away with it. Valereee (talk) 12:16, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
Thank you, Ktin and Valereee. I understand now, and it so happens that I agree with you, Ktin. It so happens that I agree with you, also, EEng#s, yet on the face of it you are utterly opposed to each other regarding policy. I believe that the reason is simply that you are each seeing "our audience" in a completely different way. Of course, I may not make assumptions as to how you are each perceiving our readers, but I would suggest that it is possible that a large contingent of contributors who have made themselves primary to this discussion see them as similar to the majority in their own culture, that is, intelligent, but who would happily acknowledge limited knowledge and limited everyday interest; who are most likely to know a lot about their national popular culture, but are likely to be ignorant of, and maybe even resentful of, specialist subjects and the culture of other nations. I think it is possible that we have a second, smaller, but vocal contingent of contributors here whose education or life experience has allowed them to understand and be actively curious about a great deal more. And each contingent is modelling their concept of "our audience" on themselves. I believe that that issue is what has stymied discussion on templates such as Talia Or, and that is why you two, Ktin and Eeng, cannot comprehend each others' views.
Before reading your exchange today, I had been thinking about this, and realised that no genuine consensus can be reached in the !voting, due to opposing concepts of "our readers". If we are left with ALT0, then future DYK reviews will tighten up on that point, nominations like Talia Or will be closed down for sure, and specialist-article-with-no-quirky-bits-type nominators will have nowhere to go on WP, publicity-wise. Should we end up with one of the inclusive ALTs, allowing reviewers to pass two sorts of hooks (for "broad audience" and "specialist audience"), than I fear that quite a few of our no-change voters here would not take that quietly. To summarise, I think that this discussion is a hiding to nowhere, because whatever the outcome, decision or consensus, we will all get hurt somehow.
Trying to win the argument or giving in won't help us, in my opinion, because the end result is going to hurt one set of us. I don't believe that either "side" can win, in that we cannot work together on DYK constructively, even though we are all doing our best for WP, and most of us have honestly tried so hard to work together. I believe that we have to split. I have not really thought it through, yet, but an initial thought might be to introduce a second, maybe smaller, section on the Main Page for plain, factual hooks about specialist articles (while the current DYK section remains the same size as at present). Nominators could elect to be in that section, even though, if it is smaller, it might imply an even longer wait for Main Page exposure. The new section could be called Our newest specialist articles or whatever. Nominators aiming for that section would of course have to abide by all the existing DYK rules, except the one about "interesting to a broad audience". That way, our no-change people in this discussion would get what they want, the Talia Or template would not be closed down, and we would all be at peace.
If I get no replies revealing legal/technical blocks to the above suggestion of a new little Main Page section, then I'll consider starting a new, separate discussion about it. Storye book (talk) 12:23, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
@Storye book, I think you're arguing we need two DYK sections, one that requires hooks be interesting and the other not? And if you get no replies it may be because that's a lot of text for people to wade through. Valereee (talk) 12:47, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
After trying to wade through it, it seems you are accusing those of us who want hooks to be interesting of having little curiosity and education and being resentful of those who do. That is a hideous accusation, and I am having a hard time finding any good faith in it at all. Valereee (talk) 12:57, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
It's like when Harold Carswell's nomination to the US Supreme Court was criticized because his legal scholarship was mediocre, 40% of his decisions having being overturned on appeal. One senator said: Even if he were mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they, and a little chance? We can't have all Brandeises, Frankfurters and Cardozos. DYK should be the same way: mediocre hooks need representation as well. EEng13:06, 14 November 2022 (UTC) That was meant ironically, BTW.
Everyone should click on the link there at the end of Khajidha's post to appreciate his beautiful, perfect example. EEng16:06, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
Definitely no objections to you going off to work on starting your "Important facts that may not interest you but the article creator thinks you should know" section on the MP. That would solve a lot of problems around here. Probably want to do it at Talk:Main Page, though, not here at DYK. Valereee (talk) 13:35, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
Should we end up with one of the inclusive ALTs, allowing reviewers to pass two sorts of hooks (for "broad audience" and "specialist audience"), than I fear that quite a few of our no-change voters here would not take that quietly.Storye book, I'm afraid I'm not understanding what you mean? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 10:04, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
I still think ALT5 is the best compromise we have. ALT0's wording has been problematic for years and is arguably too vague. ALT5 is basically ALT0 but with greater clarity. ALT6 is too wishy-washy: as some editors that mentioned above, a hook that is exceptionally interesting to a specific audience will very likely also intrigue non-specialist audiences too, which makes that clause rather pointless. I'm also concerned about how to define "exceptional" here. It seems even more subjective than "interesting to a broad audience" ever was; to a very passionate fan, perhaps anything can be exceptional. I imagine trying to discuss how exactly a hook is "exceptionally interesting" would just deviate much needed resources from actual primary reviews. ALT5 is still quite simple and if there is truly a desire to make a more specialist hook, such requests could be covered more by IAR than a clause. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 22:50, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
I've read Storye book's new comments above regarding a proposed split to DYK, and there are some things that came to my mind:
First, and I am going to be frank here, I think we have to be more willing to accept the idea that not every article is meant to be for DYK. Not every article, no matter how much we expand or improve them, is destined to be featured on DYK. There are some topics that are just simply not a good fit, or perhaps there are article issues that are simply insurmountable given current policies and guidelines. This is not necessarily our fault or the fault of the subject. It could be the article just doesn't have any material that would work as a hook, specialist or non-specialist alike. We all aspire to have our content featured on DYK, and the feeling of failure (or the fear of it) can be painful. We've all been there, and I'll be the first to admit that I've felt that way multiple times in my years here. But we need to accept that, sometimes, it's just not meant to be. We don't have to nominate everything we create or improve for DYK. And that's okay: think of DYK as just being a bonus. We're all improving the encyclopedia in our own little way, and even if our work doesn't make it to DYK, someone, somewhere out there will still benefit from our work regardless. If an article just can't meet DYK requirements, we don't need to waste our time and energy to force to happen. We can instead divert our time and effort to other articles that may actually work out for DYK instead.
Secondly, I simply do not understand the resistance to the idea that "specialist" topics can have broad interest hooks. Just because a topic is specialist does not mean the subject cannot be treated in such a way that non-specialists can appreciate it too. Whether the topic involved is classical music, New York buildings, ballet, radio, anime musicians, and so on, non-specialist hooks are possible. I'll give an example from my own primary DYK article interest considering I'll be the first to admit it's niche. A while back, an article I brought to GA status, Eir Aoi, was featured on the main page. Considering I'm a big anime and anison (anime music) fan, I could have proposed a hook that targeted primarily anime fans (to the exclusion of everyone else), but I did not. Instead, I proposed a hook that I felt that would make even a person who'd never heard of Aoi or anime music be interested in her. And indeed, that hook went on to be pretty well-received by readers. My point is: just because a topic is specialist or niche does not mean a hook has to be too. It's perfectly possible to write a broad interest hook about a specialist topic, and it happens all the time. I do not see why there's resistance to writing a broad interest hook based on a specialist article, especially when a broad appeal fact already exists.
Thirdly, I don't understand the opposition to "clickbait". I mean, isn't that technically what DYK is already? Trying to invite readers to read an article by highlighting an interesting fact about the subject? That's pretty much already clickbait, and if there is opposition to the idea of clickbait on DYK, it would be more feasible to simply abolish DYK altogether, since eliminating "clickbait" would involve fundamentally changing DYK's purpose.
Finally, I think the proposal to make two sets of DYKs (one for broad interest hooks and one for specialist hooks) is a non-starter. It would just add needless complexity to an already very bureaucratic aspect of Wikipedia. It also connects to my point above: it just begs the question of why not just propose a broad interest hook about a subject and get it done and over with, rather than insisting on a specialist hook.
Emphatic agreement: The idea of a new, separate section is a nonstarter. Forget it.
Now a bit more from he who proposed ALT5 (likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing to readers with no special knowledge or interest): I originally considered including the phrase intellectually curious: likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing to an intellectually curious reader with no special knowledge or interest. You'll notice this is a slight lowering of the bar: it imagines a reader who actively enjoys learning new things, and might click on something an incurious person would pass up. If we added intellectually curious, would that address your concern, Storye book?I also want to underline that I chose the word intriguing (to supplement surprising, which requires no explanation) for a definite reason. You need to understand something in order to be surprised by it, but intriguing allows for the possibility that there's "just something about" the hook that makes the reader want to click, even though he may not fully understand it. Perhaps classic examples:
... that the Vicar of Brighton got shot in the twitten? – Many readers will have no idea what a twitten is, and therefore won't really understand the hook, and yet I think you can see that many will click just for the intrigue of it.
... that J. J. Stiffler's "unparalleled ... landmark" Theory of Synchronous Communications (1971) sprang from NASA's need for power-efficient synchronization of data transmission for its space probes? – Most readers won't have more than a vague idea what in the world power-efficient synchronization could be, but they know what a space probe is, and may be intrigued by why NASA would need this power-efficient thingamajig for them.
In both of the above, in other words, the hook need not be understood (in full, anyway) -- it merely needs to intrigue. In fact (it occurs to me as I write), perhaps the key is that they combine something that is understood (a man of the cloth got shot; what a space probe is) with something that's not (a twitten -- possibly part of this divine's anatomy?; synchronous communication). The intellectually curious reader will think: Hmmm... I wonder how that strange thing ties in with that familiar thing?
Eh, I'm not really a fan of adding that phrase. ALT5 was already intended to be a concise clarification of ALT0; just adding more clauses makes it unnecessarily complex. Adding that clause, rather than it being implicit, also seems to imply that not all of our readers are "intellectually curious", which could actually be interpreted as being mildly insulting. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 17:07, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
lol...to steal unashamedly from George Carlin: think about how intellectually incurious the average person is. Then realize that half of people are even less intellectually curious than that. :D Valereee (talk) 17:10, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
It's not insulting, but merely realistic, to suppose that there's a species of reader who's unlikely click on something unless it involves a topic in which he already has an existing interest. By adding curious -- I suppose we can do without intellectual -- we invoke a reader who is inclined to want to learn things, just for the pleasure of learning, given a slight nudge. But it's not important either way. EEng19:43, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm just making a note here that some of the argument above, about my speculative understanding of two opposing concepts of "broad audience", was misinterpreted above, as if I had been using it to personally insult two individuals. That misunderstanding found its way to my talkpage, where I explained what I was doing and what I meant. I repeat here that I have never had any reason to insult either EEng or Valereee, nor did I intend to do so in my comment above. The misunderstanding seems to have stemmed at least partly from my formal use of the word, "ignorant" (which in Standard English means innocently not knowing about stuff; they - I think - may have taken it to mean something nasty in slang usage). The word "resentment" was also taken to cause personal offence, but I understood resentment on DYK templates to be comparatively rare, and to be exemplified in the use of the word "monomaniac" by someone else earlier in this discussion, and that's why I used the phrase, "maybe even". I hope that is now clear. I am not about being nasty to people. What on earth would be the point?
Meanwhile, since no-one has told me that requesting an extra section on the Main Page is not allowed, I am still considering starting a new discussion about it. Contrary to speculation above, the idea is not an attempt to promote sub-standard articles (whyever should it be?) It is a positive attempt to find a solution which will allow supporters of ALT0 (and similar) to retain the existing DYK Main Page section exactly as it is, while keeping the rules for that section exactly as they are now. What's not to like - about that bit at least. The only potentially controversial bit is my suggestion of a new section for those nominators (mainly of satisfactory specialist articles) who elect not to have quirky hooks, but who want factual hooks instead. And that section would have to be run under rules identical to the existing DYK system, except for one thing only; that the hook did not have to be "interesting to a broad audience". Storye book (talk) 17:18, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
Quite frankly, having a separate section for separate specialist hooks or information seems completely unnecessary and would just add more complexity to the Main Page. It just begs the question: why just not simply propose quirky hooks? What is wrong with quirky hooks? Why the insistence on making a specialist hook rather than simply writing a hook that is intriguing even to non-specialists? Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 17:24, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
I was using 200 characters as "one-line" as that's what DYK limits it to. But knock yourself out. It's a discussion I'd likely have no opinion on. Valereee (talk) 18:17, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
Nope, didn't think you were using it the way ignorant people here in SW OH use it: stupid. Interpreted it as the actual meaning. Because I assumed you weren't ignorant. Or stupid. Also that discussion would probably appropriately be at Talk:Main Page. Valereee (talk) 17:24, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
Ah, thank you, Valereee. So if I do open that discussion, I'll do it on Talk:Main Page. I have only recently started taking any initiative in this sort of meta discussion; it is still all new to me, and I'm learning as I go along.
@Narutolovehinata5: Thank you for your amazing new suggestion: "Why the insistence on making a specialist hook rather than simply writing a hook that is intriguing even to non-specialists?" Why have I never heard that before? You know that I already agree that "writing a hook that is intriguing even to non-specialists" is absolutely fine, I admire what we currently have on the DYK section of the Main Page, and some of those clever hooks were no doubt helped on their way by your good self, and you know that I admire that. That said, some of us want something else as well. Now, how about some respect going both ways? Storye book (talk) 17:56, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
FWIW (as you've indicated you're new to this type of discussion): shorter is much, much, much better. It takes longer to write short, but more people will actually read your argument and potentially be persuaded. Anything over a couple hundred words just gets skipped over or at best skimmed. Valereee (talk) 18:21, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
I just don't see the point of having a separate section for this kind of thing, instead of editors just following the existing rules. It seems much easier and less effort to simply follow the existing rules and propose broadly interesting hooks than to insist on a specialist hook and propose a new section of the Main Page to accommodate them. In addition, having a "Fact of the Day" section already seems redundant to DYK, so it seems very pointless. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 23:12, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
Taking these numbers at face value, and assuming all the !votes for no change or define (0 and 5) overlap completely, and assuming there is no overlap between the two loosen options (including those who liked 0 and 5!), that's still a majority for no change/define. Not vote and all, but that's the best case numbers for change, and even in that best case there is not "clearly" an interest in making a change. If this is going to be debated further, the two questions (whether to reword broadly interesting as intriguing, and whether to add an exception case for hooks that are not broadly interesting) should be considered entirely independently. Running off between them feels liable to do little but muddy the discussion. CMD (talk) 05:23, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
Right now I'm not really seeing a consensus for relaxing the rules when it comes to interestingness requirements happening any time soon. I imagine though that if either the status quo remains or "interesting to a broad audience" is changed to "intriguing to non-specialists", if there is truly a desire to have a non-intriguing hook, either the hook must be rejected, or an IAR exemption can be granted if circumstances permit. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 15:06, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
We do regularly have discussions about the "interestingness" criterion on this page, and there is some hope that defining it better could help resolve some of these discussions. —Kusma (talk) 15:46, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
Sorry, CMD, but I don't follow your reasoning. I agree it's clear there's no appetite for any loosening (ALTs 1, 2, 3, 4, 6) but that there's substantial interest in ALT5 as a clarifying way of seeing the original intent of ALT0 (and which, on the whole, makes things a bit tighter) -- and that interest came despite the fact that I introduced ALT5 very late in this discussion. So it seems to me that it would very much clarify things (not "muddy" them, as you say) would be to ping everyone back for a final opinion on ALT0 vs ALT5 (omitting the "intellectually curious" addendum). EEng20:13, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
The "muddying" would be to discuss both the ALT5 rewording and the new exception at the same time, it was not a reference to the merits of either individual proposal. Your proposal for a specific discussion on just ALT0 and ALT5 matches mine exactly. I also didn't comment specifically on appetite for a change to ALT5, I was only commenting on appetite for loosening. CMD (talk) 01:18, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
@EEng: I'd say you start a straight, up-or-down discussion after this one is over. Things are a bit too hectic right now for anything to gain clear consensus in a new section. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 10:22, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
Well, I think this discussion pretty much is over, as no one's offering much in the way of new substantive thoughts on the question per se, but rather we're going around in circle wondering what to do next. See below. EEng18:19, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
@Chipmunkdavis, actually I'd disagree. Twice as many people prefer either no change or define as are interested in loosening. And many of those listed no change as a second or even third choice behind define. I think before anyone can assume there's no consensus for a change, we probably should drill down on that.
Personally I think that's worth doing. Interestingness and what it means has been a point of contention for as long as I've participated at DYK. Valereee (talk) 13:52, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
Can somebody please tell me who will be making the ultimate decision on this discussion? I am not experienced in these things, but I was told that the !voting was just an opportunity for people to clarify their opinions for us, and to bring a little clarity to this rambling discussion; not to force a decision via voting numbers. Then, I was informed, apparently "others" would make the final decision and alter the guidelines, or not alter the guidelines, and (I guess) close the discussion down. But what we have at the moment is this section called "Runoff" in which some of the !voters are telling us who deserves to win. So who exactly is going to come along as arbitrator(s) and decide what to do? Everyone has had their chance to have a say, now, and the talk on here now seems to be mostly about analysis. So what happens next? Storye book (talk) 17:42, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
There's no formal roadmap. If we're lucky, opinion will eventually coalesce around some outcome -- consensus. If not then, well, we live to fight another day. EEng18:19, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
In general, unless there is a clear consensus (which in this case there really isn't, probably because we have too many choices) someone will ask for an experienced closer to come in and close the original !vote section. Anyone can ask for that, generally once !voting slows, which it has, so you can go in there if you want and make that request. Personally I think we'd be better off discussing here until we have something most people are agreeing is consensus.
No one is actually running off yet. I made a suggestion that we do that, pointing at the three choices that seemed to have the highest level of support, suggesting we continue with those three, and asked for discussion, which is what we're doing now. If you object to these three choices as representative of where previous discussion was going, speak up! Valereee (talk) 18:43, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
OK, guys and gals, I'm going to try to cut the Gordian knot. Does anyone object to my pinging back everyone who's participated in this thread for a choice between ALT0 and ALT5 (leaving the question of whether to include "intellectually curious" in ALT5 to a followon discussion, should ALT5 gain consensus)? Conflict-of-interest reminder: I proposed ALT5. EEng18:19, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
Thank you for helping, EEng. We are all doing our best here, for the best reasons. But before you tell us that we are left with a choice of only ALT0 and ALT5, please would you make clear what would then happen to DYK noms like, for example, a Gerda Arendt nom if one of those alternatives were chosen? I.e. would those noms then automatically be rejected unless they changed to conform rigidly with "interesting to a broad audience" (or the ALT5 version)? I just think that we need to know where we will all stand, before the majority is deemed to be more worthy than the minority. If you think that your decision is going to push noms like Gerda's out into the cold on the occasions when the nominator cannot agree to change a hook to fit ALT0 or ALT5, I think that the decent thing would be to ask a neutral closer or closers to arbitrate and make the decision for us. Storye book (talk) 19:13, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
SB, if you're thinking it's possible a neutral closer would come in and think, "Hey, ALT1 seems the best to me! I'm closing it that way", no experienced closer would do that, that's a supervote and would immediately be challenged and almost certainly overturned. The two ALTs EEng is proposing to run RfC on are the only two that at this point could possibly get a consensus assessment from an experienced closer. TBH running it the way he's suggesting is probably the best chance to get requirements relaxed in the followup. Valereee (talk) 19:37, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
What Valereee said. I'm not making any decision; I'm asking the community whether it's willing to focus on ALT0 and ALT5. How particular ALTs might affect various kinds of hooks is part of what participants are no doubt judging for themselves. EEng19:43, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
@ Valereee. Now I'm puzzled. I was told to put a "!" in front of the word, "vote" to confirm that it was not a real vote, but a clarification of opinion, and that the voting could not be about consensus because someone else would be coming in as closer. So what does the ! mean, then, and why was I asked to use it? Storye book (talk) 19:45, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
@Storye book, when a closer comes in, it's not to arbitrate or judge -- that is, not to make what they feel is the best decision. It's to assess consensus. The closer has no opinion -- or at least, doesn't use their opinion in closing -- but instead assesses the opinions and arguments of the participants in the discussion. They don't count 1votes, but they do note whether a particular choice had well-argued !votes have support in policy. That doesn't mean the number of people !voting for a particular outcome is unimportant, just that policy arguments are more important. So arguments like, "It's not fair", which don't have support in policy, may be discounted.
It's not that you must use the term !vote. It's that we want to make clear: it's not a straight vote. (And as a side issue, majority, unless it's very strong, isn't enough. 51% !voting "change" doesn't win over 49% !voting "don't change." Consensus for changing current policy needs to be larger than that.)
I was away for a week and have no time to read all this, but thought about it. I think trying to word something aimed at rejecting hooks is not the most friendly way to begin with. How about saying something of advice like "Try to make your hook appealing to a broad audience." In my humble opinion, it would be sufficient if that appeal comes from only part of a hook, and once it is established something specific - which may not have been what some general reader always craved to now - could also be mentioned. No? In the end, don't we want to broaden what readers know, even about topics that are not mainstream? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:18, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
@Gerda Arendt, that's twice now in this discussion you've to come in, said you don't have time to read what others have said, then created a section head for your own post, in effect increasing the probability your opinion will be seen. Valereee (talk) 13:32, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
What can I do. It's a new idea that doesn't fit with the two headers above. Feel free to remove it completely, or just ignore it. I thought that I, feeling guilty of having caused all this trouble, shouldn't just remain silent. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:39, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
It was outdented and bulleted until I noticed that it has nothing to do with "Runoff", nor the choice of ALT0 and ALT5 it seems to be about, but can come to terms with that. - What you do when you have a bullet: you repeat that bullet, per the essay on top of User:Drmies. I did it for you. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:44, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
Broadening what readers know is a fine goal, but it isn't actually what most people seem to believe is the main goal here at DYK. It isn't even the main goal of Wikipedia; WP's goal is to create access to information, not to force people to access information we think they should want to access. I know you find it very frustrating, but I think you're going to have to come to terms with the fact that your goals and DYK's goals don't coincide. You can try to work within the system to also address your own goals, but you can't really expect the rest of the project to change its goals to your goals just because you like your goals better. Valereee (talk) 13:57, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
Forgive me please for failing to understand the fine language difference between "broaden what readers know" and "create access to information". I came to Wikipedia because there was a red link to fill, which someone who helped me nominated for DYK, - I had no idea what that was, and I wonder if his hook would have passed the "interesting to a broad audience barrier. I argued against it because I didn't want my BLP connected to "extraterrestrial". This was in 2009, with four sets of six hooks every day, and it was fun, and no big deal. I had planned no more than filling that one red link, but there was a red link in my first article, and I filled that and nominated myself, and it hasn't stopped until now ;) - I think I'll keep doing that, but try to ignore this page of rules. Life is too short. I prefer RD now: less arguing, and high interest in the name alone. Found Azio Corghi today which is not to remain the sad stub that it was. He may not go to the Main page for remaining still to short, but at least will be a better article for those reading that he died. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:44, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
That's how I got here, too. I came here ~2005 looking for Valerie Taylor (novelist) and, not finding her, decided to create it. Within literally minutes it was marked for speedy, and another editor came in and deleted the speedy template, saying "Let's give this noob a chance". That editor is no longer editing but I've often wished I'd thanked them while they were.
For me in English, "broaden what readers know" is active: we're teaching them something. "Create access to information" is passive: we're enabling them to learn. Valereee (talk) 20:25, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
The hook should include a definite fact mentioned in the article and interesting to a broad audience versus
ALT5 (intended to be pretty much equivalent to ALT0, but with added clarity on the "interestingness" concept, and on who the audience is):
The hook should include a definite fact mentioned in the article and likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing by a reader with no special knowledge or interest.
!Votes
ALT5 because it does two things. First, instead of trying to say who the audience is ("broad" -- whatever that means) it says who the audience is not (i.e. not topic specialists), which I think is easier to think about. Second, it replaces the word "interesting" with the somewhat less abstract "likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing". Unusual is fairly straightforward. Intriguing (if you ask me) ideally means that the hook links something familiar (a person, place, thing, or concept) with something unfamiliar, so that the reader thinks, Hmmm, I wonder how that unfamiliar thing ties in with that familiar thing? and clicks. EEng20:23, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT0 Roy beat me to it but they are essentially the same and so the change would achieve nothing except make it more verbose. Andrew🐉(talk) 20:49, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
Per my comments above, ALT5 takes a lot of the subjectivity out of the question – for those of us worried that ALT0 allows reviewers and promoters to think of themselves as the "broad audience" in determining interestingness, this rewording gives a framework to interestingness discussions that is clearer, as well as easier to agree upon and resolve. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 20:50, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
Neither, for the exact reason that RoySmith states, BOTH are the same thing, so you have fully left out everyone that has voted to actually change the scope of the interestingness problem. This is NOT an unbiased option.--Kevmin§21:19, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
I object to your choice actively. You are giving a heads I win, tails you loose vote to everyone that actually expressed a need to change our current wording.--Kevmin§21:18, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
In addition you only gave 1 DAY of any discussion time on you suggestion, leaving out everyone that may have not been on in a 24 period before forcing you personal preference on the project.--Kevmin§21:21, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
The discussion's at #Runoff?. It was clear from the original round of !votes that (by 7 to 1) there's no appetite at all for loosening the existing criteria (ALT0) in any way that allows for hooks expressly meant to appeal to only a subgroup; but there was significant support for re-expressing the current criteria in a somewhat more concrete way (ALT5). The idea of a runoff was floated a week ago, and you made no comment at all. EEng22:44, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
I wouldn't say that there was no appetite at all for loosening the existing criteria. The various ALTs that were proposed that suggested loosening did have some albeit minority support. So rather than saying that there was no appetite at all, it may be more accurate to say that there wasn't enough appetite for consensus to loosen the criterion. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 01:14, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
Neither. The problem that we've been having is that under guideline ALT0 some reviewers were rejecting certain hooks on the grounds that they did not find them interesting, therefore a broad audience would not find them interesting. But with ALT5, I think we'd get the same problem in different guise: such reviewers would now be free to say something like, "I don't think that hook is unusual because I've seen it before, and it's not intriguing to me personally, and therefore it would not be intriguing to a reader with no etc". I applaud EEng for clarifying ALT0 like this, and they have done it well. I'm certainly not criticising ALT5 as a clarification of ALT0. I just don't think that it would resolve the problem that brought us here. Storye book (talk) 21:26, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
I don't think we can assume that "reviewers were rejecting certain hooks on the grounds that they did not find them interesting, therefore a broad audience would not find them interesting". I believe experienced reviewers are sophisticated enough to make a distinction between what I find interesting and what a broad audience would. Valereee (talk) 22:34, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
Look, SB, editors make decisions every day about how to apply guidelines to content, and it's necessarily a subjective process. Reviewers are explicitly supposed to imagine how readers will see the hook, not how they themselves see it, and if they're not doing that then they're not doing the job right. If you think that's what mostly goes on, then it doesn't matter what the guideline is. Everything we do is human and therefore imperfect, yet we somehow muddle on.
Furthermore, SB, you seem to be having trouble getting into the spirit of the consensus process. This thread started with 7 different ALTs, and only two got more than a handful (all together!) of votes. That rules them out, and we focus on those that had significant support. So voting neither is no vote at all. EEng22:51, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT5 - This seems to be a reasonable clarification of ALT0. I understand there may be concerns that a reviewer may reject a hook because it's not interesting to them. However, for the vast majority of topics, the number of people who have expertise in that topic is very small compared to the overall population. After all, the Main Page is targeted toward the general public, not to topic specialists. ALT5 spells this out specifically, whereas ALT0 describes it more vaguely. Epicgenius (talk) 22:33, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT5 is a reasonable attempt at clarification, and we have argued about ALT0 for years so let's try the updated wording. —Kusma (talk) 23:35, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT5 - certainly won't end all the problems with determining if a hook is acceptable, but I do find this slightly better than ALT0. MB01:00, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT5I disagree with those saying it's a more verbose version of ALT0 for no good reason; I feel that "interesting to a broad audience" is about as vague and all-encompassing as possible. Would ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:59, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT5, which provides a clearer answer to "interesting to what audience?". I also don't quite understand the "neither" !votes here; ALT0 is the status quo; this runoff is functionally no different from "is there consensus for ALT5", and if there isn't, it doesn't preclude other options being proposed in the future. Vanamonde (Talk)17:42, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT0. Shifting from "interesting" to "unusual or intriguing" is going to cause a huge amount of extra discussion and conflict to figure out what the new words mean. This is a case where over-engineering the language leads to more wasted time. The "broad audience" language has historically never had any practical effect, though it seems some people have noticed it recently and are trying to enforce it in reviews. I would have preferred ALT2 as being reflective of actual long-standing practice, but I'm late to this discussion and I still find ALT0 preferable to ALT5. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 05:42, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
This isn't a recent issue. This issue has caused complaints and contention for as long as I can remember. We've had dozens of discussions of this criterion here at talk, and that doesn't begin to include the discussions that have taken place on noms which almost certainly number in the 100s. Valereee (talk) 16:17, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
ALT5 I think this language is more specific and clearer to the DYK editors than ALT0, but still general enough that it can be interpreted in many positive ways. Z1720 (talk) 02:16, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
Discussion
There are claims that ALT5 is clearer or less subjective than ALT0 but I'm not seeing this at all. For example, consider the current lead hook, "... that most national flags belong to a flag family with similar designs?". To me, this sounds about as interesting, unusual or intriguing as Sheldon's Fun with Flags. But how on earth is one supposed to determine this without just running the hook? You're still going to get exactly the same subjective arguments which are essentially "I like it" vs "I don't like it". Are we going to have runoffs for each hook? Andrew🐉(talk) 21:15, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
I... wouldn't have picked that hook out Template:Did you know nominations/Flag families. Flag families would likely be assessed the same way under either guideline – true vexillology geeks are such a vanishingly small part of the audience that the numerical calculus doesn't change much. But I think where it simplifies things for the reviewer is that thinking about the "broad audience" requires placing yourself somewhere in that audience, or trying to empathize with the audience, or otherwise trying to get the overall vibe of a crowd with widely varying interests. Thinking about ALT5, though, just requires the reviewer to say "I'm not overly interested in this subject, but I still think it's pretty hooky for people like me who wouldn't take a otherwise take a second look".
The main target of this agitation is Gerda Arendt, right? But I'm not seeing any evidence that her work fails to find a significant readership. To provide some statistical context for this matter, here's some overall readership stats. For comparison, the stats for myself and EEng are also included. We both like quirky topics and so should make a good contrast.
Pageviews for articles created by specific users (2015 to 2022)
Account
Articles created
Pageviews
Average per article
Gerda Arendt
1,785
16,539,640
9,265
Andrew Davidson
668
26,224,523
39,258
EEng
64
1,172,155
18,314
The numbers differ because of our different approaches. While Gerda mostly focusses on classical music, I have created a variety of topics including popular ones such as fear of missing out. But Gerda's totals still seem quite respectable and substantial.
Now we're an encyclopedia and the word means that it should cover the full circle of knowledge. This means that we should not just highlight quirky topics like Dr. Young's Ideal Rectal Dilators but we should cover more sedate topics too. It's like yin and yang. If DYK was exclusively quirky then this might seem monotonous or off-putting to some readers. "Variety is the spice of life".
@Andrew Davidson: The data is surprising to me, because that's certainly not my impression from having maintained the stats pages for about a year now. Could you tell me about how this data was collected? Does it adjust for whether or not a hook is the lead slot, does it count views from only the bolded article or all articles linked in the hook? Does it adjust for background views? Does it adjust for how long an article spends on the Main Page (12- or 24-hour sets)? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 10:46, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
Those stats were compiled using the userviews option of the pageviews tool. This doesn't focus on the DYK days, which is what you're talking about. If you have some averages for DYK, that would be interesting too. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:54, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
Thank you Andrew, for the stats. However, I think we need to distinguish overall interest in an article, which relates to the topic, to from interest on DYK day, which may relate to the hook. German liturgy, for example, is German and liturgical, sacred 19th-century music, so not mainstream interests threefold. The questions are: 1) would a different hook, more appealing to the "broad audience", garner more clicks, and 2) do we even want that: lure readers to a topic they may not be interested in, while it might be better to address those (likely fewer people) who care about the article content? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:15, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
I was really happy to see many people read Luise Duttenhofer because ezlev wrote a great hook for it, although a 19th century German amateur papercutting artist isn't usually at the forefront of people's interest. I don't see evidence that the people "lured in" were disappointed. —Kusma (talk) 11:50, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
@Gerda Arendt, ideally a hook should attract both, but for me the most important person the hook needs to attract to the article is the person who wouldn't ordinarily seek that article out. Someone interested in German liturgical music might find that a reviewer noted "a captivating purity in the tone of devotional Reformation romanticism" interesting, but "in the tone of devotional Reformation romanticism" just lost me. It just sounds like I'm going to need to figure out multiple unfamiliar concepts to even understand what the article is about.
However, the piece was created at the request of the Emperor? Heck, yeah. That's probably what I'd have suggested building the hook around. The source is a pdf in German so I couldn't check whether we could actually say 'at the command of', which would be even better. :D Valereee (talk) 14:06, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
@Andrew Davidson, Gerda Arendt, and Kusma: Allll righty, some hard DYK date numbers. I analyzed a total of 129 hooks for which Gerda Arendt received some kind of credit, ranging from January 2022's Rudolf Pohl to September 2022's Kai Bumann. Of these, 22 (17.1%) ran in the image slot, while 107 (82.9%) did not. The lazier answer would be to simply point to the medians. As a rough ballpark (these are likely a little low), the median non-image hook gets about 220 views per hour on its DYK date, while the median image hook gets about 550 views per hour. In my analysis of Gerda's hooks, I found that her median non-image hook got 110 views per hour, while her median image hook got 279.1 views per hour. But... there's quite a bit of variation in pageview counts, and they can be any number from, like, 20 to 1,500 or higher. So just putting those two sets of numbers side-by-side doesn't really give all that much information; instead, it would be nice to have a standardized number, say, a percentage. So, instead of calculating percentile rank (because I'm lazy), we're going to count up what percentage of Gerda's hooks beat the median average. The average editor should get, well, about 50%, of course. Actually, the medians are a little low, so the average editor might get a bit higher than that, but whatever. Out of Gerda's 107 non-image hooks in this time frame, 14 beat the median average for non-image hooks of ~220. That means that where your average editor should have about 50% of their hooks clearing this bar, Gerda's non-imaged hooks have only done so 13.1% of the time. That's most definitely on the low end of the spectrum. Out of Gerda's 22 image hooks, well... I couldn't find a single one that cleared the median average of 550 views per hour. The closest I could get was Berggarten, which pulled in 444.6 views per hour. I'm not gonna post my own stats or anyone else's here for comparison – it's not that difficult to get these numbers for yourself, especially if you haven't run 100+ hooks this year. Clearly, though, these hooks find themselves at a significant disadvantage. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 12:01, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
That's some good analysis, Leeky. I would imagine there's a large systemic factor that goes into this, as in it's not all the choice of hook that lowers page views but the fact that classical music and opera singers and suchlike aren't of interest to the majority of readers around the world. Yet that's Gerda's area of interest. Like an investment fund attribution it might be more useful to compare the hooks with others on the same subject rather than the overall benchmark... — Amakuru (talk) 20:23, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
I also think there's a burnout factor. Because Gerda is such a frequent contributor, it means there are frequent classical music hooks. It's possible that frequency is a contributor to lower levels of readership of the target articles. Valereee (talk) 20:30, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
Comment - sorry, I've not been at all active in this conversation so far, so forgive me if this is a late curve ball. But I think the most fundamental question we need to ask ourselves, up front, is whether all articles get to have hooks on the main page, or are there some articles that we simply reject on the grounds of not having any suitably interesting hooks available. If the answer to this is that we run something for any article submitted, because the goal is to encourage editors to write articles, then it's really a moot point how exactly we word the 3a requirement - we will be forced to run with whatever the most interesting thing is in the article, even that doesn't actually meet whatever bar we set in criterion 3a. On the other hand, if we decide that articles can be outright rejected for lack of a suitable hook (something I don't think ever really happens in the modern operation of DYK) then we can continue on and debate exactly what the wording should be. Cheers — Amakuru (talk) 11:06, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
Our overall goal is to build an encyclopedia and DYK seems very successful in encouraging creation of new articles as it runs 8–16 every day. I would contrast this with ITN which has quite a different culture in which rejection of nominations is common. ITN's productivity is far lower than DYK as it only runs a new blurb every two days. So, for every new blurb at ITN, DYK will run 16 to 32. And a big price of this culture of rejection is that it encourages conflict between the regulars. ITN has recently had several editors banned for this reason and there is now a huge drama about one of the admins. DYK should count its blessings and continue to embrace its culture of openness and tolerance. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:54, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
@Kusma, FWIW, the book's title might have been offputting to modern readers. "Observations made during" sounds to me like, "I'm here navel-gazing, how about you listen in?" Or possibly, "Just got back from vacation, wanna see my slides?" But the description of the book as the beginning of modern geography does interest me, and I might have suggested something like
I definitely agree with the idea that we need to be more open to the idea of nominations being rejected if no suitable hooks can be found, even if the feeling can be a bitter pill to swallow. We all want our articles to be on DYK even if hook material can be a stretch, and I'm sure we've all been guilty at least once of nominating an article we knew wasn't a perfect fit for DYK but did it anyway (in hindsight, the hook I wrote for Saori Ōnishi was awful and I wouldn't have proposed it had I expanded it today). But yeah, we really need to have more accepting of of the idea that not everything is meant to be for DYK. If we realize this, we can avoid wasting time on nominating ineligible articles and instead spend more effort on articles that can work out. This does not mean we cannot improve articles anymore just because they can't be on DYK, since we can always improve articles even if they'll never be on DYK. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 12:31, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
I am strongly of the opinion that not every article ought to be seen as appropriate for DYK (and similarly for GAN or FAC). Some articles do not have enough content of interest. I have written several natural history articles that I never bothered nominating here, because nothing besides basic species biology was known. I believe the same holds true for many short biographies. This isn't unique to Gerda's creations by any means; I would argue that endless "athlete X held job Y after retiring" hooks demonstrate that short athlete biographies aren't ideal, and while we haven't recently had a glut of barely notable politicians, it's been an issue in the past. That said: I'm not sure that the community is in agreement with me (at FAC, my views are certainly in a minority) and even if they were, we can't address this via guidelines alone; reviewers need to be able and willing to say "this article lacks items of interest, we shouldn't feature it" and that should be okay, not a stain on someone's reputation. Vanamonde (Talk)20:53, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
I've seen a ticker suggested for new articles, so that every new article goes past. Because, yes, not every article has a hook. If an editor is currently working in an area where hooks are few and far between, maybe that's okay? Not every (insert category) really has a hook, and that's okay. Valereee (talk) 23:56, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
I believe that no article should be rejected at DYK because an "interesting" hook cannot be generated, as interesting is subjective. Instead, I want to encourage editors to create the best hook they can from the sources, find new sources if they can't create an interesting hook yet, and encourage reviewers and other passerbys to suggest hooks that might be more interesting to the readers. If we reject hooks for interestingness, we might be turning away the new editors who doesn't quite understand DYK processes and perhaps discourage them from editing Wikipedia, which is opposite of what I hope the DYK project can achieve. Z1720 (talk) 02:14, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
I have generally found newer DYK editors to be very receptive to hook suggestions, rather than feeling discouraged. While specific hooks are often rejected, it is much rarer that entire articles are rejected. CMD (talk) 05:31, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
I was kind of thinking along the same lines. It's almost always possible to wring some kind of quirky hook out of the most mundane subject. But that doesn't mean it's a good hook, or a useful one. The goal of DYK is to showcase new content, not to prove that we can write clickbait. And I know I'm sticking my neck out here, but I don't see anything in that article's listed sources that makes me think it meets WP:GNG. -- RoySmith(talk)22:09, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
OMG @Theleekycauldron, I generally dislike competition, am probably 2nd %ile for competitiveness, but I would love to be able to know how hooks I've created tend to perform relative to average. (Does that make me competitive by proxy?) Valereee (talk) 16:24, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
The initial burden should be on each editor to honestly assess each article before submitting to determine whether it is sufficiently interesting to be DYK-worthy. As Naruto noted above regarding their own submission, I also back in the old days (2008-2010 or so) used to submit most of my new articles to DYK ... and looking back many of those hooks were not really DYK worthy. I have tried to be far more selective in recent years and urge everyone to do the same. If editors can't do that, Naruto is correct that such editors should expect that others will have to do the screening for them ... and some of their submissions will and should be rejected. (In the same vein, I do not agree with Z1720 that "no article should be rejected" at DYK for lack of an interesting hook.) Cbl62 (talk) 22:15, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
Time to close?
This discussion has been open for almost 20 days and has largely died down. My reading of the discussion is that there's no consensus to loosen the broad interest requirement or to allow "exceptionally interesting to a specialist audience" hooks. However, there appears to be consensus to reword the broad interest criterion to wording above that's listed as ALT5. Given that it appears the discussion has reached a natural end, is it time to close it? Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 13:40, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
I agree that to me it looks like consensus to go to The hook should include a definite fact mentioned in the article and likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing by a reader with no special knowledge or interest. The basic level of consensus is similar to that in the original 7-choice RfC: about 2/3rds of participants support that. The other third were divided between no change and "neither", which if I were closing I'd also interpret as "no change".
The question of or exceptionally interesting to a specific audience was intentionally removed here to allow for consensus to be achieved on the clarifying change, but it can be handled in another RfC, if those who would like to also loosen the requirements want to see if that can gain consensus too.
For what it's worth, I don't think a new RfC on the "exceptionally interesting to a specific audience" thing would be necessary. When given a choice in the original discussion, it seemed that more people preferred not including it than including it. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 14:13, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
I wouldn't object to it, though. In the original discussion there were multiple 'loosening' suggestions that split that opinion. And there were also 7 options, which means there's generally little chance to find consensus for anything at all; it's kind of miraculous that we could get to the point we did find consensus for anything.
There obviously are people here who do want some sort of loosening. If they want to continue to try to find some consensus for that, I think they should feel free to. I definitely don't think it would be disruptive or anything like that. To me it would look like simply an attempt to at minimum make sure there isn't consensus to be found for 'or exceptionally interesting to a specific audience' or something similar. Valereee (talk) 14:24, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
The consensus in the final runoff here looks clear to me: more people !voted for ALT5 than anything else. The above discussion, broadly speaking, is people thinking aloud, and comparing notes; the discussion by itself is too complex to represent any consensus. But how they !voted is how they voted, and the !vote count is the !vote count. We have to respect how people !voted. I think we should end this as a consensus for ALT5, because most people ultimately !voted for ALT5. (And this is not about my point of view about the guidelines; I'm being objective and neutral in this post).
I also don't think that it would help to make vague statements about a possible new Rfc on this subject, unless people actively demand one, or start one themselves. Storye book (talk) 18:15, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
Thank you, everybody, for the great effort that has been made to improve WP in this discussion. And thank you especially to Valereee for your constant work to get order and clarity into it. For your information, I have requested formal closure here. Storye book (talk) 10:34, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
SB, your commitment to fair play is admirable, but a formal close is completely unnecessary. I suggest you withdraw the request so as to speed things up and release someone to close something that actually requires closing. EEng12:57, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
+1. I don't object to a formal close if that's what you want, SB, but generally it's only needed when we think someone might object to what looks to everyone here like a clear decision. (I'd just appended a note to folks there saying it wasn't as daunting a prospect as it seemed, but feel free to remove that also if you decide you don't think we need a formal close.) Valereee (talk) 14:03, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
I don't think it is a clear decision for us. Everybody here has an opinion strong enough to look like an agenda (even if it isn't), including me. I don't think anyone here is neutral enough to close this discussion with a summary or conclusion which would have the acceptance of all - and that is important, because such a summary could affect the future shape of the guideline, and in turn the future shape of our experience as reviewers/promoters/nominators. What is more, this discussion has been skewed by a few people deciding which ALTs should be included in the runoff - and that there should be a runoff at all, and that the closer should have been directed to look primarily at the runoff. I'm not saying that the runoff, or the shape of it, is a bad thing. I am saying that it has complicated matters and that is one of the reasons why we need a neutral closer. Storye book (talk) 09:39, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
I think it would be better if an uninvolved editor closes this discussion. I understand you're very enthusiastic about ALT5 given you proposed it and all, but you're too involved to really sway how this should be closed. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 01:47, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
<rolls eyes> This particular discussion, for whatever reason, has been severely freighted by superfluous process formalities, and this is yet one more. It's got nothing to do with enthusiasm or swaying anything. Like Valereee said, a formal close is only needed when we think someone might object to what looks to everyone here like a clear decision.So the question remains: Does anyone disagree that ALT5 is the consensus? Do you? Absent anyone saying so, there's nothing to do and we can get on with other business. EEng03:56, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
Sure, yeah, we can wait, and it's not a big deal, but I'll just point out again that no one's expressed doubt that ALT5 is the consensus result. (Good work, Valereee. Your sensible comments and logical reasoning inspired me to try getting this wrapped up, and now everyone's tsk-tsking at me.) EEng13:24, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
Oh, and I'm not tsk-tsking. It's ridiculous to ask for a formal close here, and we'll be lucky if whoever shows up from RfC doesn't scold us about that (we'll be lucky if anyone shows up at all, actually, the number and length of some posts here has been just silly), but unfortunately we've got a sort of perfect storm here: An incredibly long discussion and at least one editor who is both very new to this type of discussion and very passionate about the outcome. But I'm willing to give it a couple of months for someone to show up, then close it myself if necessary. If it ends up at DRV I don't actually think it would be difficult to defend that. Valereee (talk) 14:23, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
You misunderstood if you thought I was saying you were tsk-tsking. You just emboldened me to suggest skipping the formal close, which got everyone else tsk-tsking. EEng00:35, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
FWIW, as one of the few people who voted for ALT0, I agree that the only way the runoff could possibly be closed is as clear consensus for ALT5. The only real value I see to a formal close would be reading through all the stuff that came before the runoff to make sure none of the other choices had any significant support. But there's also the somewhat more ephemeral value of having an independent/uninvolved person make that declaration so we can all stop talking about it and get on with the real work of getting 8 hooks out the door every day. I don't honestly see that a formal close is necessary, but if somebody is insisting, then let's just do it and move on. -- RoySmith(talk)15:02, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
Every day, readers all over the world are exposed to dull, lifeless hooks that sap their will to live. Please ... won't you help by closing this discussion?
The consensus is so clear at this point that it's unnecessary to have an involved editor take a look. Just let someone uninvolved take a look even if it takes some time. It's not like we're in a hurry to change anything. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 01:33, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
@Narutolovehinata5, except SB is insisting the entire discussion needs to be read by the closer. What do we think the chances are that any closer is going to be willing to read 40,000 words for a close that everyone in the room agrees isn't even tricky? That's hours of work for no good reason. Valereee (talk) 18:57, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
I'll note that @Storye book has just left updated instructions at closure requests that what's needed is someone prepared to read the entire 40,000 words. So that's basically asking someone to spend hours on this. I completely disagree that's what's necessary. Updating to affirm I don't think the closer even needs to be prepared to read 45K words.Valereee (talk) 18:42, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
Nope. I said it needed a closer prepared to read it all. That doesn't mean they have to, and I didn't use the word, need. It means they are capable of making a neutral choice as to whether or not to read it all. I object to an involved-person closure on the principle that I don't believe there is anyone here (including me) who is neutral enough to close such a complex discussion as this. Storye book (talk) 20:01, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
It's not a complex discussion. No one here is saying anything other than "looks like consensus is with ALT5". Even you have said that, SB. I feel like maybe you think the closer is going to tickle something more out of this than "Clear consensus for ALT5". What exactly are you hoping for? Valereee (talk) 20:22, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
This has passed the point of absurdity. In the interest of not dragging this out for no good purpose, I have struck my vote for ALT0 and changed to ALT5. @Andrew Davidson and Antony-22: I believe you two are the only other people who voted for ALT0. Would you consider switching to ALT5 so we can get past this? -- RoySmith(talk)19:09, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm now proposing that we have an RfC on whether to have a formal close, followed by an RfC on how much of this discussion the closer should be prepared to look at. EEng21:45, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The new hook criterion will bring prosperity at home and prestige abroad. Also, William McKinley will jump out of a giant cake.
Hyperspace: space of more than three dimensions. (in science fiction) a notional space-time continuum in which it is possible to travel faster than light.Bruxton (talk) 17:11, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
Welcome back to the DYK wrap, everyone! It's definitely been a while since I've had the opportunity to hop back on this horse, but the saddle's comfy and I'm quite excited. Hopefully, y'all have been doing all right as well, and my thanks to Bruxton for covering for me while I was out :) We've got a lot of ground to cover, but first, a shameless plug word from our sponsors:
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–Okay, the infomercial bit is getting a little tired :) I added a new feature to PSHAW, so it'll now automatically handle the manual bits of moving sets to queue. It can't do any verification work, obviously, but it'll move the set to queue (with the {{DYKbotdo}}), clear it out, and increment the prep counter so that you don't have to do that on your own. You can find it under the "more" tab in the prep set you wish to promote. You can install it at WP:PSHAW – happy queueing!
Back to the wrapped
Whew, glad that's over. Now, of course, to our best performing hooks in the last four months! Did you know...
... that The New York Times claimed that if Johnson beat Jeffries(fight pictured), black people would "misinterpret his victory as justifying claims to much more than mere physical equality with their white neighbors"? by Onceinawhile
... that the isolation of shielings(examples pictured) might have given opportunity for "sexual experiment[ation]"? by Chiswick Chap, nominated by LordPeterII
DYK has undergone... (yeesh) quite a few RfCs in the time the DYK wrapped has been away, especially the past month. By my count, we've gone through three: Sdkb started one on 2022-11-07 that ran relatively quickly, garnering a quick consensus to reverse a 2015 policy blocking article from appearing at DYK if they've been at ITN or OTD before. That came out of an IAR exemption request in which we discussed whether a pending DYK nomination for Thurgood Marshall (a new GA!) really should be closed because he appeared at OTD years back. We even discovered the Glass story, how it appeared at DYK after being promoted to a featured article, running at TFA, getting demoted, and then qualifying as a newly listed good article. The exact details of implementation of the new rule are currently being decided in a follow-up RfC.
Well, that's only two. Our third – and longest – RfC of the recent period was borne out of a hook being pulled from queue by Amakuru, who questioned whether or not one hook really met our "interesting to a broad audience" criterion. One huge discussion snowballed into an even huger RfC; rather than gaining consensus to relax the guideline, the discussion actually slightly tightened the guideline after a late stage proposal from EEng gained consensus in a second Runoff! that dragged maybe a liiitle too long. Proposals for an RfC to determine whether this RfC needed a formal close went nowhere (presumably after an RfC determined that that RfC RfC would not be appropriate).
We've even had some non-RfC drag-out discussions – Maile66 started a discussion to move-protect articles at DYK after they and I bemoaned the logistic mishaps that occur when bolded articles at DYK get yoinked out from under our feet; and we discussed whether those dang Swifties had taken over DYK and abused their privileges. (Spoiler alert: not really.)
I also want to give a big hand to RoySmith, who have been doing fantastic work in promoting and nominating since they joined up recently. Welcome to the crew! Beware of the burnout. But let's go to our lovely-yet-unappreciated quirky hooks :) did you know...
... that Rockstar Lincoln used to keep live tarantulas at its offices? by IceWelder – there was a joke going around on the Wikimedia Discord that some of these tarantulas could be send to the WMF, but that obviously definitely probably shouldn't happen :)
... that Syrian novelist Hani al-Rahib had a deaf-mute father and an illiterate mother? by Ruwaym
Notes
That's all I've got for this time around, folks! I should probably... stop procrastinating on studying for finals. Until next time, hold onto your hats, and thanks very much for contributing to DYK! theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 08:05, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
In general, hooks can't echo the opinion of a single reviewer of a work in wikivoice – it's not actually verifiable that Totoro is going to give me sore cheeks, because the source obviously can't guarantee the truth of the statement. Might I suggest:
ALT1 ... that one reviewer warned that Totoro will lead to "sore cheeks"?
makes it un-factual enough that I think it's OK (or maybe just enough on the right side of borerline, anyway). EEng05:48, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
maybe, but I really wouldn't want to set the precedent that we can maybe-kinda repeat reviewers' statements in wikivoice – we get a lot of these kinds of hooks at DYK. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 06:09, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
If it was a complimentary statement it'd be a problem. But here it's just playful. And since it's "might", it's pretty much irrefutable. I guess I'm just not in a letter-of-the-law mood today.`EEng07:00, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
Sorry but I'm with theleekycauldron here in that I'm not entirely comfortable with the Totoro hooks. ALT2 seems OK; the word "might" is an out, I guess. Proposing a couple more.
ALT1a ... that one reviewer warned that Totoro will give you "sore cheeks"?
ALT3 ... that according to the Independent, "sore cheeks" are "a small price to pay" for watching Totoro?
(For ALT1a, the thinking is...if you've already made it clear that it's the reviewer's opinion...there's less of a need to change the "give you" part.) Cielquiparle (talk) 11:51, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
ALT3 makes it too lengthy to work well as a quirky hook (newspaper name is not needed, the other quote doesn't add a lot of value etc). It also makes it clearer that Totoro is a play, which is not necessarily a good thing. If ALT0 is not possible, I would prefer ALT2 above all the others proposed so far (and if push comes to shove, ALT1a over ALT1). Sdrqaz (talk) 18:26, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
Because that implies that we made a deliberate choice to paraphrase a source and say "sore cheeks" in our own words – something that would be uncharacteristically unencyclopedic. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 21:53, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
Well, I'm way behind in editing I promised to do elsewhere and it's not a big deal, but that makes no sense. It's apparently not a paraphrase, but rather the reviewer's own words, and the concept of cheeks being sore is perfectly straightforward and nothing we need to distance ourselves from, nor is there a copyright issue with two words expressing something that's hard to express any other way. EEng22:17, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
ALT1a works for me, I guess (although we're not really supposed to refer to the reader) – I'm not on board with ALT2, but it's preferable to ALTs 0 or 3 (a bit wordy). theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 21:53, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
Noting that this is now at Queue 4. Cwmhiraeth, could you change the "one reviewer" to "a reviewer"? Seems to be a little more natural, and doesn't change the meaning of the hook. Thanks, Sdrqaz (talk) 11:42, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
theleekycauldron, of the people who have commented in this discussion, only you have taken issue with ALT2. Why did you put ALT1a as the stopgap? Also, Cwmhiraeth, in the course of changing "one" to "a", you changed the whole hook to ALT1 instead. Sdrqaz (talk) 17:32, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
@Sdrqaz: I mean, why not? No one took issue with ALT1a either, and it seems to me to be the safer option. If an admin wants to put in ALT2, that's their prerogative, of course, but I don't think it's a lock either way. For the record, I think ALT2 is pretty funny – I'm just a bit more cautious about wording these days. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 21:02, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
Because there were more users that were specifically in favour of ALT2 than for ALT1a. The previous comment about a consensus being needed to use ALT2 is unfortunately misleading, because it implies that there is one for ALT1a. This is probably all too late for a change anyways, since Queue 4 is scheduled for the Main Page at 00:00, 10 December. Sdrqaz (talk) 22:27, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
certainly a grabby hook, but I'm not seeing the element of wonk or silliness that generally puts something in the quirky slot. Interesting ≠ quirky, although I don't think my selection for the quirky slot was the best... theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 21:26, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
My reasoning was that the "curse" is clearly untrue and therefore quirky while the current selection relates to a murder without any obvious humour or quirkiness. Philafrenzy (talk) 22:11, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
Quick question: Would the hook not be better/more concise if it said "... that the axial parallelism of the Earth's tilted axis is the reason we have seasons"? I don't see the benefit if listing out the four seasons (they aren't listed out in the article after all). Joseph2302 (talk) 11:57, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
I wondered about that myself. It certainly sounds a bit odd, but it's a direct quote and I didn't want to change it for fear of altering the meaning, especially since we're doing the AGF thing on an unseen off-line source. But, if it's OK with Chiswick, I have no objection. -- RoySmith(talk)00:34, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, generally speaking, if I think a hook needs changing, I feel more comfortable mentioning it here, as opposed to just changing it without giving the nominator and reviewer a chance to weigh in. — Maile (talk) 00:46, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
Funnily enough as well, I felt the same way when I saw the hook: "Since when did we start rerunning old hooks outside of very special occasions? Didn't we run this one before?"
And indeed I was right. A little over two years ago, The C of Enominatedwatching paint dry—basically, an article about the subject of Paint Drying. Coffeeandcrumbs approved it and the late Yoninah promoted it. And lo and behold, on October 5, 2020, the Main Page was graced with the following hook:
Wow ... almost the same exact hook 26 months apart, right down to the same verb and the same linked film-rating body. Why didn't someone raise this concern during the second hook's nomination? Was everyone distracted by that lengthy RFC which we just finally closed?
Well, that's certainly a goof on my part! There's no routine or effective way to check for this rarity of a good-faith error. I'm sure if someone who was a DYKer in October 2020 (I joined August 2021) had seen the hook and remembered it, they might have spoken up. Just one of those things – we also don't have an effective way of checking whether article content has been copied from other articles, so it's slipped by a couple times. I mean, we assume good faith on things much more important than this routinely, like offline and foreign language sourcing for verifiability and copyright. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 08:08, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
I likewise don't see an issue here. The point of prohibiting reruns is to not have the same article run multiple times. Running similar hooks about different articles in a short enough timespan would still be an issue just from a reader-experience standpoint, but I'm not really sure what harm is caused by two similar sentences appearing two years apart, about different articles. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe)08:59, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
@Valereee: I'm not sure what you mean, DYKcheck doesn't assess hooks – it could tell you that both articles in question have run at DYK in the past, because they have by now, but it wouldn't've turned up that flag during the review process. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 21:12, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
That's all I meant, I think? That DYK check showed that the article had appeared before...oh, wait, my bad. I swear it showed up as having appeared previously to this last, but I must have misread what I was looking at. Ignore me, I'm just over here in the corner eating worms. Valereee (talk) 21:15, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
That is good sleuth work researching the hook, but I am not too concerned about the repeat. We all do our best. And it was a cool hook...twice! Bruxton (talk) 02:54, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
Kim de l'Horizon - the hook wording "shaved their head" refers to only one person. The usage of "their" is exactly like the source, which is German-Swiss. I believe the correct English wording would be ""shaved his head". — Maile (talk) 14:11, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
Hard to say in a short hook that the subject is not correctly described by "he" (nor "she") - what is the term? Non-binary? To my limited understanding, the pronoun "they" is not only correct, but also a welcome way to express that. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:19, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
My first thought on reading the hook and the article was, Why do we keep using 'they'? Then I got to the part about being non-binary, and understood. According to the New York Times [3] De l’Horizon "uses they/them pronouns in English", so that's what we should use if we use a pronoun. On the other hand, the NYT writes, "the author largely uses “Kim” in lieu of a pronoun", so maybe that should be what we do as well?
The NYT also says, "German has no equivalent to “they/them” for a personal pronoun", which seems at odds with @Maile66's statement about what the original source uses. I don't know German, so I'll leave it to those who do to figure that out. -- RoySmith(talk)14:45, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
FWIW I've moved the footnote about their pronouns to a more visible location. No footnotes in DYK hooks, of course, but if readers are confused by the singular they they can always click through to the article. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe)14:48, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
Ugh. I made one attempt with ReFill, but this really needs a human to do it. I'm going to unpromote this pending the refs getting fixed. My apologies for not noticing it when I originally promoted it. -- RoySmith(talk)13:56, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
whoops! sorry about forgetting to raise the url issue again, Gerda. at the time, i was just happy to have finally been able to update the article appropriately.also, i have noticed that editors sometimes strip from the urls any mention of archive servers before running refill, as seen here. does this make a difference? i cannot get refill to work on my machine, so i am unable to test this out myself. RoySmith, if i were to strip the urls in this article similarly, would you be willing to run refill again for me to see if the results change? dying (talk) 15:29, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
I don't know why Storchy did that. To be honest, I'm not an expert at reference management. I run refill and am happy when it works. When it doesn't work, I fall back to creating the references by some other method. I generally use the built-in reference tool in the VisualEditor and/or User:V111P/js/WebRef to create the basic reference template, then go in and fix up the details by hand. -- RoySmith(talk)15:53, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
Well, we can change now if you wish. UTC midnight is only a few hours ago. Is there any special occasion hook in the queue somewhere? Schwede6604:40, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
Please do not change over to two a day; we should absolutely wait. (Pinging Schwede66 in the hopes of forestalling a premature changeover.) We don't have enough queues and preps filled—only four of fourteen total—which would last 48 hours if we went to two a day. The assumption behind switching is that we have a goodly number of queues and preps filled, around nine or ten at least. At the moment, we cannot sustain two a day, and if we had enough queues and preps filled, we'd be down below 90. There's no point in changing over at the present time, and it won't be the first time that we've delayed the switch in order to build up our filled queues and preps to more normal levels. Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:26, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
I'll add my vote for not going to twice a day. Cranking out 2 sets a day is too much work; we're barely keeping up with one set a day. If we have too many submissions, we should start rejecting those of dubious quality. RoySmith-Mobile (talk) 10:51, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
It's too much work because barely anyone wants to help with preps, not so much because of nomination quality. SL93 (talk) 14:42, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
Building preps is time and labor intensive. Even moving preps to queue - which is less work than building preps - takes about an hour per set if you do all the checks like you're supposed to.
I sometimes wonder if it would be better to move to a system where each hook gets moved to a rolling queue, is on the main page for 12-24 hours, and then rolls off for the next one to roll on. We'd have to sacrifice the idea of well balanced and diversified sets, and the idea of a "quirky slot", but it would be so much better because you would only evaluate as many hooks as you had time for, rather than having to set aside an hour + to do an entire set. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving14:57, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
Well, there's two different issues here, but they're interrelated. One is how much capacity do we have to process submissions? The other is what standard of quality do we want to maintain? Weeding out substandard material helps in both respects, and I don't view that as punishing people any more than maintaining any kind of quality standard is punishing people who produce sub-standard work. -- RoySmith(talk)15:52, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
It would be more ideal for more people to build preps. We have the available labor pool, but I think only three or so people are building preps right now. I also don't think much of the labor-intensive argument stated by ONUnicorn because editors can build partial preps if they want to. SL93 (talk) 16:16, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
FWIW, I'm getting out of prep-building and I'm going to concentrate on promoting preps to queues, where I figure my mop can do the most good. -- RoySmith(talk)16:47, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
That's fair. I won't be working on preps as much as I used to while I am healing from last week's surgery on my collarbone and shoulder. I doubt that I will go back to normal building preps even after that with spring classes starting in January. I honestly don't know what the DYK project is going to do. SL93 (talk) 16:51, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
I would like to help here but I have focussed on content for a while now and have been absent. The thing that is not fun about it is other builders disagree with prep orders or they reconfigure the preps... or demand image slots. SL93 has done Yeoman's work and will be missed. I do hope they come back after recovery and rest. Bruxton (talk) 18:00, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
I would support theleekycauldron's suggestion above to count the hooks in prep and queue in Wikipedia:Did you know/DYK hook count and up the bars from 60 and 120 to 140 and 200, respectively (3 queues + 7 preps filled = 10 sets = 80 hooks). If implemented, it would be useful to have an automatic count of hooks in prep and queue, perhaps on the prep and queue page. TSventon (talk) 18:49, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
No, the prep/Q total should be reported in the table at Template:Did_you_know/Queue#Current_number_of_hooks_on_the_nominations_page, ideally as a separate column. This would be a GREAT TIME to automate the "too few Qs full" warning that right now our colleagues post manually. But please, don't make each new notification a new discussion thread posted by a bot -- make it, perhaps, an update to a permanent box at the top of this page -- maybe with green, yellow, red colors to indicate levels of urgency. EEng22:57, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
DYK queue status
There are currently 3 filled queues. Admins, please consider promoting a prep to queue if you have the time!
Actually, is there a way that prep builders signal (in a particular prep) "This prep is ready for promotion to Q"? Or is it just that all its slots are full? EEng06:33, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
122 approved nominations, yet still too soon to change
We're currently back up above 120 approved nominations five days later (122), but only have two full queues, two full preps, and another 14 hooks scattered over four preps. That's equivalent to 5.75 filled sets out of 14, nowhere near enough to support a switch to two sets a day. I again strongly recommend that we stay at one set per day for the present; if we were at 10 filled sets, we'd only have 88 approved noms. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:12, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
My next step is to turn this into a bot. The idea is that it would run every so often (once an hour, maybe?), look at all the pending nominations and figure out if they fall into the "biography" bucket, the "American" bucket, or both, and add Category:Pending DYK biographies and/or Category:Pending DYK American hooks to the nomination template. The idea is that these cats could be used to simplify the set-building process.
You really want a hook sourced to "Due to their attire and anti-social behaviour, Retribution have been compared to Antifa"? Ridiculous. Pull it. Black Kite (talk)19:24, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
Not to mention that the source, reliable or not (looks to be more on the side of not), doesn't even mention the phrase "anti-social behaviour". ALT2 and ALT3 look OK. Black Kite (talk)19:28, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
It's bad enough that pro wrestling has been long allowed to hijack WP to parrot its phony in-universe storylines as if they were fact, but DYK shouldn't be adding to it. EEng20:10, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
This is currently in prep 6. I'm looking at the Earwig report. I'm not sure if it's bad enough to fail, but to my eye there's an excessive amount of copy-paste. Some are direct quotes that are properly attributed, but not all. I'd appreciate a second opinion. -- RoySmith(talk)01:01, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
@RoySmith, when I started expanding the article, I also concluded that the other site copy-pasted from us. The first red flag was that it was a merchandise site, which would be extremely weird to use as a source (and would raise a lot of red flags in the other direction if it were actually used as such). Second, the site barely even tried to hide the fact that they copied from us. They didn't even get rid of a footnote in one case: in addition to the ballrooms, there were ten private dining "salons" and five restaurants employing 35 master cooks.[5] Finally, the site is very weird in that it purports to sell Chicago-related merchandise, yet the New Yorker is a building in New York City. – Epicgenius (talk) 03:20, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
That website says "Copyright 2021", and our article had that information as far back as 2018 (didn't look further back than that). Seems clear to me that they copied from us, have tagged the article talkpage with {{Backwards copy}}. Joseph2302 (talk) 14:07, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
Error reports
Just thought I'd point out some corrigenda and suggestions (which I couldn't catch) here to be addressed, instead of waiting to post them day by day at ERRORS – hope no one minds:
Queue 6
Missing "(pictured)" in the first hook
Caption: the initial "the" is often omitted for concision
Unnecessary comma after "Messi"
A unit conversion (13 and 14 kg) would be useful for "28 and 31 lb"
Could we perhaps shuffle the hooks round so that the last three don't all start with "... that the"?
I fixed most of these. People may now commence arguing over which flavor of hyphen/dash/whatever I should have used. I wasn't sure what to do about the units conversion. Normally I would have used {{convert}}, but I've seen people hard-wire these in hooks and didn't know if that's the correct style or not. -- RoySmith(talk)00:42, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
I would MUCH RATHER have the errors show up here before they hit the main page. For one thing, it benefits DYK if someone is willing to comb through the individual queues and post here. For another thing, sometimes an error briefly posted by one editor at WP:ERRORS, has a tendency to get very elongated with multiple editor inputs. Better if that happens here first. — Maile (talk) 00:50, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
@RoySmith: Ho boy! Okay, you're going to want to simply do a cut-and-paste move and then delete the mainspace page. There's no significant history that needs preservation, so I'm fairly sure you can get away with not doing a histmerge. In the meantime, I'll look into that bug. Thanks for the heads up! theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 22:30, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
I have added a new heading so the backlog mode discussion can be found more easily when it has been archived. TSventon (talk) 06:47, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
I think it's worth noting that this is not because we have few DYKNs coming in, but because DYKN is seriously backlogged. I heard a suggestion to give DYKNs WikiCup points (2.5 for submitting, 2.5 for reviewing, to avoid people who create DYKs getting "free" points for QPQ) and I think something like that would be good to try. Maybe even a DYKN backlog drive, in the style of GAN backlog drives? Trainsandotherthings (talk) 00:18, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
That discussion wasn't all that fruitful and now the backlog is even larger with 207 hooks needing to be approved and 63 approved hooks. SL93 (talk) 01:17, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
I think one issue is that most of the "delayed" nominations are noms that are quite difficult to review, either due to being mostly reliant on technical sources, or due to their subject matter (usually politics). A backlog drive would be nice but given the circumstances a backlog was probably inevitable. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 01:42, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
We have a mechanism all set up for dealing with large numbers of unapproved nominations per the RfC last summer and subsequent discussions: extra QPQs for experienced DYK nominators. The suggestion of a GAN-style DYK backlog drive was roundly panned at the time. Pinging EEng, who worked so hard to devise the process and shepherd the RfC to completion, to help get it rolling for real. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:50, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
Me and my big mouth -- I've been dreading this day for the last 12 months. Yes, we came to a policy decision as BMs describes, but what hasn't been done (I think -- haven't been watching DYK) is to set up the automation that will identify editors subject to the new requirement. We may need to use the honor system temporarily. Give me a few days to review where we are and recruit technical firepower. EEng06:37, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
@EEng: I'm happy to help :) fools rush in, etc. I think the most straightforward way is to add a note to the {{NewDYKnomination}} template. Something like "effective 30 May 2022, DYK is in "unreviewed backlog mode". All nominations made by editors with 20 or more prior DYK nominations will require an extra QPQ." That way, it'll appear on all new nominations (but not currently open nominations) until we remove it, and timestamps itself. Beyond that, we already use the honour system anyway. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 06:48, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
What I'm vaguely remembering is we needed some new machinery for counting "credits" or whatever we called them. EEng14:28, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
EEng, you were quite insistent that "credits" were to be a thing of the past; the only thing that mattered was nominations, which were set as the determinant going forward. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:42, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
That's why I said " new machinery for counting credits or whatever" -- I remembered there was to be some change in what was counted, just couldn't remember what the change was. (I'm not Superman, you know, despite appearances.) Now that you mention it, that's exactly right. I've been reviewing the two big archived threads and there's a lot to it. It seems they ended with intentions to install new apparatus (template behavior at when new noms are saved etc.) and from other discussion some thought or work has been put into that, but not clear what still needs to be done to make it seamless. It actually sounds like others are more up to speed on the current status than I am, though I'm happy to help once I've got my sea legs again. EEng12:47, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
Is there a way to add a note on the DYK script that most editors use? It also doesn't support natively adding multiple "reviewed" pages without manually typing, say, {{subst:dykn|ArticleA}} and {{subst:dykn|ArticleB}} in the window. Some editors might miss this otherwise. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 08:00, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
There should be a page from which DYK-helper can get to know if backlog mode is currently active. For instance, we can adopt WP:Did you know/unreviewed backlog mode to read enabled or disabled as the case may be – which could then be used by templates/scripts. Let me know once this is created – I'll then update the script accordingly. – SD0001 (talk) 13:10, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
User:SDZeroBot/DYK nomination counts.json is already in place that records nom counts and is updated in real-time, which can be read by {{subst:NewDYKnomination}} to determine if the current user needs a 2nd QPQ. (For 9 months now, server resources are being wasted on keeping that page up-to-date despite zero use – maybe that will change now :)) – SD0001 (talk) 13:17, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
If something like this is added to the WikiCup, I'd rather go for 4/1. A DYK review isn't like half a GA review. —Kusma (talk) 07:57, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
If I may be honest, I have some skepticism as to whether the planned backlog mode (i.e. two QPQs for editors with 20+ nominations) is going to help out much in the long run. One reason is basically simple arithmetic: if the number of nominations being made exceeds the number of QPQs being done, it doesn't matter if nominators are providing one or two QPQs, a backlog will still build up over time. Secondly, not all nominators meet the 20 nominations requirement: many nominations are done by editors who have 6-19 nominations and so would be exempted from this requirement. If they too make nominations without more work being done on the backlog, the backlog would still get bigger and bigger. Finally, the way I see it, it's not that people don't want to review nominations, or not enough people are doing them. The backlog isn't necessarily anyone's fault. The issue is that many nominations are controversial from the get-go owing to their content. For example, I cannot blame anyone from being discouraged from reviewing any nomination that has to do with Israel-Palestine considering how much of a hot potato that topic is. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 08:19, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
A lot of nominations are made by people with over 20 nominations. Just Gerda, Corachow, Epicgenius, Sammi Brie, Z1720, you and me together have something like 25 nominations on the page right now. 25 extra QPQs done would significantly reduce the number of unreviewed noms, and I would expect the number of affected noms to be closer to 50. I take your point that some nominations are more attractive to review than others, but I don't see how we can change that.
The question is what else can we do? We could fail all nominations that haven't been reviewed after four weeks (like at FAC) or reject nominations where the QPQ is provided late, but (unlike the proposal) these would not change the fundamental issue that we need more reviews than people are required to provide as QPQs. —Kusma (talk) 08:41, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
Hopefully the planned backlog mode is a short term measure and won't need to be used too often. theleekycauldron posted a chart here, showing that the number of unapproved nominations went down to below fifty in August-September in both 2020 and 2021. DYK depends on some editors reviewing more nominations than they need to, offsetting nominations by new editors that do not require a QPQ, and hopefully backlog mode will encourage them to help. Backlog mode will probably also encourage prolific contributors to divert some time from nominations to doing reviews which can be used later as QPQs. If some of those reviews are of more difficult nominations, they will still be useful. TSventon (talk) 10:48, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
I generally think we should encourage people to do QPQs before they nominate articles. Currently I count seven nominations by highly experienced nominators lacking a required QPQ, needlessly making the backlog worse. Personally I find it much less stressful to use one of my stack of QPQs than to have to scramble for one at nomination time. —Kusma (talk) 11:10, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
Has a bot reminding editors about late QPQs ever been considered? For example, if a nomination doesn't have a QPQ and one hasn't been provided after seven days, a bot will leave the nominator a talk page message reminding them to do a QPQ. Of course, that's only if the nominator actually needs to be a QPQ. I imagine it could be a bit tricky to code, but it could help I guess. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 14:51, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
Kusma Good luck with that. I just brought up the QPQ issue at the nomination of a major DYK nominator and they asked why I have it in for the nomination. SL93 (talk) 20:08, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
@SL93: Ugh. I think a time limit is reasonable, and another week is plenty. (Personally I usually just do not review noms that lack a required QPQ). —Kusma (talk) 20:26, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
Technical stuff from the old discussions
I may be way behind the times, but I believe WT:Did_you_know/Archive_182#Start and End (and following section) is (or was) a key starting point for technical implementaion ideas. Who are our techies on this? Wugapodes, for startes? Wug, can you ping other techies involved? Possibly this is entirely obsolete but it's where my brain left off, anyway. EEng03:50, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
@TSventon and EEng, sorry I missed these pings. What's needing done? Implementing a "some people need two QPQs" system? SD0001 had some ideas in that previous thread but to my knowledge no one's worked on anything yet. — Wug·a·po·des03:19, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
I think it's probably best if we both go back to the top of WT:Did_you_know/Archive_182#RfC_Discussion:_Details_of_implementing_EEng's_propsal_"Unreviewed_backlog_mode" and review forward from there (maybe skimming it all first to see what early stuff was obsoleted by later parts of the discussion). Then we can compare notes. I don't think there's anything too hard in there, but that's easy for me to say since I'm assuming you're volunteering to do all the work (bless your heart). Shall we start that way? Oh yes, first question: What happened to moving everything out of Template space (which, some may recall, I predicted would never happen)? EEng03:38, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
It seems like the main things are (1) a way to keep track of "backlog" mode and (2) a way to note how many QPQs are needed for a nomination. The first we can do pretty easily by having WugBot update a page on-wiki with the number of untouched nominations. The second is slightly harder and not something I know much about. We'd need the on-wiki templates and lua modules to get the content of that page and parse it appropriately. I'm not sure how to do that. Substing the page into the template? As for moving out of Template space, I was looking today and WugBot has code to handle it, but I don't think anything's moved on that front. — Wug·a·po·des05:02, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
I can handle (2) – all that's remaining is to edit Module:NewDYKnomination to read the nom counts and the "is backlog active?" page and show a message accordingly (the module is used in a substed template so no performance issue). As for moving to template space, there was agreement in the last discussion that it should be done, but some insisted that a formal RFC should be held – we're waiting for someone to start that. – SD0001 (talk) 05:30, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
So you think this new "untouched" category of nominations is feasible? Right now we've got (courtesy of your hard work) a separate page for unapproved vs. approved. Would we move to three pages, or just have the two kinds of unapproved ("unapproved, untouched", "unapproved, touched") remain on a single page? Offhand I don't see clear plusses or minuses either way (other than inventing a third page is probably more work than leaving just two pages). EEng16:21, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
I imagined keeping our current two-page system. The page WugBot would update would just be a counter, kinda like the next queue counter. So it wouldn't distinguish the modified from unmodified nominations on the page, but doing so is feasible for WugBot if that would be helpful. Adding a third page is extra complexity for no clear benefit, so I'd rather try page sections before moving to a 3-page system. — Wug·a·po·des23:01, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
@TSventon Oh, I was waiting on feedback from others. Looks like SD0001 did some fixes on the template, and given EEng's silence I take it everything looks good. I'll get to work on WugBot and update you once everything's in order. — Wug·a·po·des21:58, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Actually, I've had almost no time for WP for about the last two weeks. I have total confidence in you, Wugapoo, but if you fee=l you need me to pass my hand over something, give me a day. EEng23:23, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
No worries, I get being busy. No pressure to review anything, I just wanted to make sure I didn't rush something past you. — Wug·a·po·des23:27, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Same question for the nominator's count of prior nominations -- is it updated in real time (so that if a user does nom A and then immediately nom B, the module processing nom B sees a count that includes nom A), or daily, etc?
There are some race conditions here which may or may not matter (much), and when I get my thoughts together I'll say something about them. In the meantime (and apologies if this is answered above) where exactly are the counts-of-prior-noms-made-by-each-editor compiled? EEng00:40, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
The counts can be seen at User:SDZeroBot/DYK nomination counts.json. There certainly are a few race conditions, and I can see two at the moment: (1) the race between WugBot and SDZeroBot and (2) the race between nominators and both bots. For (1) that can be handled by SD0001 and I coordinating a staggered run schedule so WugBot doesn't run ahead of the by-nominator-count update. For (2) it's harder given the run schedules. We'd need some way to have the update triggered by an edit to the main nomination page or just have the bots run really frequently. I don't know how to do the first one, and either could actually make the race condition between bots worse since it would become an execution time issue not a scheduling issue. There's probably some sweet spot where the coordination is tight but not perfect, and the slack could be handled by a "hey, don't bulk nominate DYKs to try and end-run the backlog mode" message. — Wug·a·po·des20:19, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
Let' start with the most obvious problem (and correct me if there's a flaw in this narrative): (a) Editor has 4 nominations (no QPQ); (b) Editor makes a 5th nomination (also no QPQ); (c) before bot updates DYK nomination counts.json, editor makes a 6th nom. This last nom should require a QPQ, but because the counts.json still shows the editor has having only 4 prior noms, machinery mistakenly reports that no QPQ is required.Now, as I've said before we're talking about QPQs here, not someone's prison release date, so this isn't the biggest deal in the world, and at most it would happen maybe once a year. But when it does happen, consternation will follow and there will be a Talk:DYK thread opened, and a congressional investigation, and there will be gnashing of teeth and tearing out of hair and wrending of garments, all for nothing. So if we can avoid it easily then we ("we" means you, of course) should do it. Tell me if this makes sense: Can the nomination processing machinery, when it reads the nominator's value from counts.json (to see if it's < 5, between 5 and 19, or >=20 -- if I'm remember the boundaries correctly) then ++ it and write it back? That would "patch" the count without waiting for the bot to run again.There's a similar race for crossing the 20-nomination boundary which triggers the double-QPQ requirement, and this would solve this too. Also, unless I'm not thinking of something, with this in place it's really not necessary for the counts.json bot to run frequently -- once a day would be fine.Does what I've said make sense, and can you swing the writing back of the incremented count? EEng21:07, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
I'd rather we not wrend garments, I just bought mine. Unfortunately what you describe is not possible. The DYK nomination template uses a Lua module, but while these modules can read arbitrary pages, they cannot write to arbitrary pages. The only way to do what you described would be using an automated system like a user script or bot. — Wug·a·po·des21:38, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
As I mentioned above and in earlier discussions, updating of counts.json takes place in real-time. It doesn't run on any schedule. To take the latest one, Template:Did you know nominations/Adele Nicoll was created at 2022-06-24T16:39:29Z and SDZeroBot updated the count at 2022-06-24T16:39:33Z. If the difference of 4 seconds also seems too much, I'm sure we can find a way to make it faster. – SD0001 (talk) 22:24, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
Sorry to have made you repeat yourself; last year I was told I needed a brain transplant, and the only brain available was from a goldfish. 4 seconds is plenty prompt; just out of curiosity, how exactly does the bot find out it needs to run? EEng18:58, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
It uses the Wikimedia EventStreams API. Basically it asks the wikimedia server: "notify me whenever a page with title beginning Template:Did_you_know_nominations/ is created". The bot runs 24x7 looking out for such notifications to arrive. When they come, it finds out who created the page, and increments that user's count. It's similar to the technology that enables your phone to notify you of new emails – immediately when the email arrives. – SD0001 (talk) 19:49, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
Can it notify you whenever someone creates a nomination with a boring or erroneous hook? EEng21:59, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
I dislike being the guy who just pokes holes while others do all the work,[1] but this raises some new questions.
(a) So, to be clear, the bot operates only by ++ing a user's counts on file -- it never rebuilds the counts from scratch (by looking at ... I don't know, I guess by looking at every page, going back forever, of the form Template:Did you know nominations/)?
(b) But the bot hasn't been around forever, so where did the initial counts come from?
(c) You look at who created the nom template page, not the name of the nominator given in the template itself? (Wugapodes -- maybe those two things can't be different? The nominated by (or self-nominated) stuff in the nom template -- does your machinery enforce that the named nominator is the same as the editor creating the template?)
Okay, I was just oversimplifying. The EventStream API isn't perfect – it can miss a few notifications and deliver a few ones twice. To account for those glitches, we DO rebuild the counts from scratch -- every 24 hours. The process for that is simpler – it queries the database (quarry:query/59696). This is also where the initial counts came from. As to (c), yes we only look at who created the template page. So multi-user nominations are credited to solely to one person. If we wanted to overcome this limitation, it's easy enough in the real-time update component. But the build-from-scratch component of the bot might would become a BIG task involving reading in the contents of 58318 pages, as opposed to a simple 1.5 minute database query. Is it worth it? – SD0001 (talk) 03:20, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
W/r/t (c) they can be different. Thanks SD0001 for the clarification; I also missed the part where you explained the event stream API. It's the first I'm hearing about it so I look forward to reading up on it. @EEng: So with this information, it seems like the race conditions are minimized. There is still the issue of a bi-hourly WugBot run which would be what triggers "backlog mode". That is, we'll have up-to-the-minute counts of nominations but the backlog mode would only change once every two hours. I think that might actually be reasonable--we wouldn't want it yo-yo-ing around every few minutes as things get added and removed. What do you think? — Wug·a·po·des02:36, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
Wugapodes, SD0001, EEng, has backlog mode gone onto the back burner? There are currently 61 unapproved nominations and it is nearly August, so the situation does not seen critical at present. TSventon (talk) 14:30, 31 July 2022 (UTC)
Not yet. When the situation does become critical, then we'll get off our asses. Brilliant minds such as ours work best under pressure. (Just to repeat what I've taken pains to point out before, W and S are doing all the work; I just sit around trying to find flaws.) EEng15:33, 31 July 2022 (UTC)
One of the technical problems is see with DYK is that it's too hard to find hooks that need reviewing. There's one huge list of templates and you need to manually scan them to find the ones that aren't done yet. What I generally do when reviewing is just go to the newest days and pick one from there, because it's easier to find them at that end. I know that it's more useful to review older submissions, but human nature being what it is, I just go for what's easier. The Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 187#Older nominations needing DYK reviewers section below is great. Something like that should be a regular (automated) feature of the system. -- RoySmith(talk)14:51, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
@EEng, SD0001, and Wugapodes: I've implemented a temporary solution with {{Did you know/Backlog mode?}} and an update to {{NewDYKnomination}}; feel free to revert. It seems like you guys got caught in trying to figure out exactly who needs notifying of the backlog mode, but I'll be honest: we don't notify editors when they need a QPQ right now, backlog mode or no, so I don't think that's a necessary step to implementation. Owing to that, this works by simply placing a note on every new nompage when {{Did you know/Backlog mode?}} is toggled on. This can be disabled by reverting the changes to {{NewDYKnomination}} – if I've made an error, feel free to do so. Otherwise, I think we should just live with this for now. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 06:46, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
I can't remember what we got caught up on. I just remember looking guiltily at this thread every few days for however many months its been, dreading the moment someone says "When the hell are you going to finish this up so we can archive this thread???" EEng06:51, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
Heh. SD0001, now that we have a template that toggles backlog mode, could you implement it in your DYK-helper script so that nominators are aware of it before they make their nomination? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 07:04, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
@Theleekycauldron I made some changes to the setup so that a user script can easily determine if backlog mode is active. So Template:Did you know/Backlog mode? now contains just a true/false value (the page has an editnotice explaining this). This would also help if someone were to write a bot to automatically update that based on some criterion. Let me know if this looks good, will then make the user script changes. – SD0001 (talk) 11:30, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
Template:Did you know/Preparation area 3 has two adjacent hooks that start with "... that despite". I'm not sure if some copyediting will fix it, or if one of the hooks needs to be yanked. I'm deep in some other stuff right, and don't have time to get into it right now, so could somebody else look at it? -- RoySmith(talk)02:50, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
Current hook: * ... that despite being pro-choice, American legal scholar John Hart Ely penned a law review article castigating the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade?
Suggested hook * ... that pro-choice American legal scholar John Hart Ely penned a law review article castigating the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade?
@RoySmith, I moved the JH Ely hook further down the set, and I also put the "despite" phrase at the end of the sentence. Since his being pro-choice seems to be drawing most of the shock factor here, I think the hook would pull a bigger punch if readers get this information right when the sentence ends. Elias 🐍 💬 "What did I tell you?" 📝 "Don't get complacent..."03:10, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
There's an overabundance of bios and "despite X, Y" hooks in the older approved noms at the moment. Unless we leave them longer and draw from newer hooks, the ratios are going to be off. Kingsif (talk) 05:20, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
This gives me an opportunity to complain about something that's irked me for some time, which is that despite is WAY overused in hooks. I mean WAY, WAY overused. There are plenty of other ways to signal incongruity or contradiction (real or apparent); though, although, but, and notwithstanding come to mind immediately. However, in many or most cases the reader doesn't need to be hit over the head with the incongruency -- simply juxtapose the two facts and let the reader notice. Maile did this in his "Suggested" above, but even better might be
... that American legal scholar John Hart Ely, who penned a law review article castigating the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade, is pro-choice?
or (with further refinement)
... that legal scholar John Hart Ely, who wrote an article critical of the US Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, is pro-choice?
(I'm pretty sure only people can be castigated.) Having said all that, I'm going to raise an additional point without resolving it: How many people outside the US know what Roe was about?
Finally, two more of my pet peeves:
Shopworn hifalutin-sounding language where plain language would work just fine e.g. penned instead of wrote
The overturning of Roe was front page news all over the world, and I think educated people know Roe has to do with abortion (I find this hook easier to understand than hooks that assume I know who Babe Ruth is, or any football player other than Colin Kaepernick). To clarify that there is a surprise in the hook, maybe add "1973" so people don't think he criticised the recent overturning. —Kusma (talk) 09:33, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
It may be that lots of people outside the US know that [soomething something] US court [something] abortion [something], but I seriously doubt we can rely on an international audience recalling what Roe was, just from its name. Therefore, I'd suggest:
... that legal scholar John Hart Ely, who wrote an article critical of the US Supreme Court's 1973 ruling that abortion is a right, is pro-choice?
"Slave owner" really is better right in front of the name. Without saying the slave was his own child, the hook doesn't make the user want to click and find out more. — Maile (talk) 19:32, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
... that victims of atrocities committed at Arun gas field allege ExxonMobil's responsibility in a lawsuit that the energy company has stalled for over 20 years?
Listen, I'm not exactly jumping at the chance to keep something off the main page because it's mean to Big Oil. However, I'm also not super cool with saying a company "allegedly" committed gross human rights violations, when the lawsuit hasn't concluded and there was never a chance of criminal conviction. WP:DYK#gen4d says that hooks... should not be approved if they promote one side of an ongoing dispute. I'm concerned we've fallen afoul of that rule here. Pinging @Larataguera, Arsonal, and SL93. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 09:42, 22 December 2022 (UTC)
This hook does not promote one side of the dispute. It merely states that the dispute exists (and has been ongoing for 20 years). Larataguera (talk) 10:54, 22 December 2022 (UTC)
The hook states in wiki voice that atrocities were committed. The source only says "alleged human rights abuses". This needs to get fixed or the hook pulled. There's similar language in Accusations of ExxonMobil human rights violations in Aceh, sourced to the same Aljazeera article which only says "alleged"; that one isn't a DYK issue per-se, but it should also get fixed. -- RoySmith(talk)12:54, 22 December 2022 (UTC)
The source states that Since the end of the civil war in 2005, the government-backed Truth and Reconciliation Commission (KKR) and the Commission for Disappeared and Victims of Violence (KontraS) have extensively documented abuses committed by the Indonesian military both around Arun field and across Aceh and in the NYT we have that The Indonesian Human Rights Commission has documented hundreds of killings, rapes and cases of torture and also that Exxon Mobil does not deny that atrocities took place. There is no question that the atrocities occurred. Exxon's responsibility for those atrocities is disputed, and this is made clear in the hook. The WSJ reports that Indonesian military confirmed...that troops in the area had been involved in "excesses"Larataguera (talk) 13:43, 22 December 2022 (UTC)
@Sl933 @Cbl62 @Onegreatjoke I'm going to promote p1 to q1, but the Junior Colson hook needs some attention. I've verified that he lived in a Haitian orphanage, and that he moved to the US when he was 9, but I don't see anything that specifically says he lived in the orphanage until he was 9. Also, I can't find anything that says the team was undefeated; that's not in the article at all. -- RoySmith(talk)15:33, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
@MatthewHoobin I'm trying to verify the citation for the hook. It's cited to "Drenner & Magliochetti 2017b", but I'm not sure which one that is, because that label isn't actually used in the bibliography. As another example, you've got "Gingold 2017a" and "Gingold 2017b", but they're not identified in the bibliography which is which, and there's no way to tell. If you're going to use that style, you need to explicitly label the references with the tags you use in the citations.
After some head scratching, I figured out that you're probably talking about "Drenner, Elijah (Director and Editor); Magliochetti, Al (Interviewee) (2017). Animating Elmer (Featurette)." It took me quite a bit of hunting to find this on YouTube (I notice that @Narutolovehinata5 was unable to find it at all during his initial review). You should at least include a URL for it. -- RoySmith(talk)18:27, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
PS, I've verified everything else in prep2, so I'm going to go ahead and promote to queue2 but the referencing really should be cleaned up before this hits the main page. -- RoySmith(talk)18:29, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
@Theleekycauldron @Pbritti @Epicgenius The hook that use of the 1604 Book of Common Prayer was authorized by the king of England, but later outlawed by Parliament? is ambiguous. It doesn't say which king, or when. I know the book is from 1604, but for all I know, it could have been the current king (Charles III) who authorized it 4 centuries after it was published, and banned by the current parliament. Could this be reworded to make that clear, hopefully without making it excessively verbose? Thanks. -- RoySmith(talk)20:46, 22 December 2022 (UTC)
However, I should mention that I agree with TLC's comment. On the other hand, if the 1604 book was authorized in 2022, then that might be noteworthy. – Epicgenius (talk) 21:08, 22 December 2022 (UTC)
I like the first suggestion by Epicgenius (nice name) but maybe we could add "outlawed by a later Parliament" to further prevent confusion? ~ Pbritti (talk) 21:33, 22 December 2022 (UTC)
I still can't verify this hook. The source just says, "1604: Hampton Court Conference meets to find agreement between bishops and Puritans. Book of Common Prayer of 1559 re-issued with minor changes. Enforcement campaign leading to deprivation of eighty ministers"; no mention of the king or parliament doing anything. -- RoySmith(talk)19:58, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
Everything else in prep 3 checks out so I'm going to go ahead and move it to the queue. I'm going to AGF that this is factually correct and it's just that the citations need some cleaning up, but we've got 5 days of queue-time to resolve that. -- RoySmith(talk)21:46, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
@RoySmith: This exact same concern was brought up by Elizabeth in the review. As I mentioned in the review, I think it provides a good sense of "period flavor" to the article, and will probably be diluted by an article 1.5-2x as large as the current version. While we're on this topic, what do you think of the period quote in Congress Terminal? – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 02:48, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
Yes, I know it was brought up in the review. I don't agree with the result, which is why I'm bringing it here to get a broader range of opinions. My take on the Congress Terminal article is that's also a lot of quoting, but let's concentrate on Franklin Street for now. -- RoySmith(talk)02:53, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
Shame there's no photo of the tracks running into the building. Better hooks:
... that the Franklin Street Terminal (tracks pictured) was located inside an office building? (existing hook)
... that the Franklin Street Terminal (tracks pictured) was inside an office building? (see WP:LOCATIONLOCATIONLOCATION)
... that the Franklin Street Terminal (tracks pictured) was constructed by gutting two floors of a building and running elevated tracks into the resulting void?
... that the Franklin Street Terminal (tracks pictured) was constructed by gutting two floors of two buildings and running elevated tracks into the resulting void? (per comment below)
I do like your last one, User:EEng, if it’s changed to two buildings. Thank you for tagging that essay. Falls in line with the same thing I see with color: “the flowers can be pink, purple, or red in color”. :) – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 05:59, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
I put this hook to queue, as I think the article is OK. I'm a little iffy on the long block quote in "Station details" and if editors are willing I can summarise this information and remove the quote. I removed "located" from the hook per the discussion above as I think it is better, but I'm not bothered if it is changed. Please ping me if there are any concerns and I will try to address them before this hits the main page. Z1720 (talk) 14:47, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
Z1720, if you want to go ahead and summarize the quote, go for it. I may not get to it until another 12 or so hours, or tomorrow. If not, I can do it then. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 14:59, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
I used the alt suggested above, per your request. I summarised and removed the block quote: I think most of it was not NPOV, repeated information later in the article, or was too much detail. The amount of trains at the station might be returned to the article, but I was unsure about what time period the numbers were referring to so I did not want to keep it in the article without further research (which I am not willing to do). Feel free to return that info with more specific dates. Z1720 (talk) 15:25, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
While the quote was a little long, in an article in an early stage of development, as this one is, it's better to leave it than to lose important detail. For example, the number of trains per hour is essential, as the Chicago L remains famous (if you're a transit geek) for its traffic intensity. The counts would be those as of the publication of the source, no? EEng15:55, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
I would have to evaluate the source to determine the dates, which I do not want to do. I'm OK with editors putting the number of trains in the station back into the article if they so wish. IMO, the block quote was probably not necessary and should be summarised. Z1720 (talk) 16:05, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
I have added a hold marker and pulled it from approved. Please do not mark it as ready until it is ready, the bot only looks at the most recent mark. CMD (talk) 16:14, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
@Gerda Arendt: (nominator), @CurryTime7-24: (reviewer), @SL93: (promoter): At 226 characters, the hook that was in the prep was too long, and I do not think the length is justified. Below I have posted the old hook, and my shortened hook. Please have a look and let me know if there should be any changes:
(before edits) ... that in the Misa sine nomine, composed in 1977 by Leon Schidlowsky in memory of Víctor Jara, texts from the Mass ordinary are juxtaposed with contemporary poetry and Torah verses, set for speaker, choirs, organ and percussion?
I see, and would not like to see go the unusual setting for speaker and percussion. We could say "Mass texts" instead of "texts from the Mass ordinary", and could drop "composed". How is this:
The reader can find out the year by clicking on the article, and the "in memory of" implies to be that Jara was dead when the musical work premiered. I'll wait to hear other's thoughts before changing/not changing the hook. Z1720 (talk) 15:35, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
I read the discussion before promotion and both nominator and reviewer agreed that it was a legend. It is also in the article According to an ancient legend, Buddhist monks built the stupa over the body of a dead gooseBruxton (talk) 16:58, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
Oh, nm...it was originally ... that Giriyak stupa was constructed over the body of a dead goose?, and the reviewer suggested ... that according to legend, Giriyak stupa was constructed over the body of a dead goose? Emphasizing the change, that is, but likely not suggesting that the emphasis remain in the hook. I'm going to remove it. Valereee (talk) 17:10, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
Understood, I am not sure emphasis is needed. Also I was just trying to go through the source and I cannot see that they call it a legend. The source states it as fact: They accordingly built a stupa over the dead goose, which was interred in the base of the monument, and adorned it I with an inscription. Bruxton (talk) 17:12, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
At the end of the previous page/top of the page it says "Goose's Monastery," to account for which he relates the following legend: [legend here] ending with They accordingly built a stupa over the dead goose, which was interred in the base of the monument, and adorned it with an inscription. Valereee (talk) 17:30, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
Not at all! I was sitting there looking at the source and thinking the same thing, just thought...waitaminute, there has to be more to this story... :D Valereee (talk) 18:47, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
The emphasis was just added to point out a suggested change, not to be in the final hook. Apologies for the confusion! Ploni💬23:07, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
The source (Cunningham, 1871) specifies at the top of page 19 that this is legend and not historically verified fact. I agree with @Valereee, @Bruxton and @Ploni that there is no need for emphasis. It was not my intention to italicize the ...according to legend phrase. DiverDave (talk) 23:42, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
RoySmith The way I understand it, first to graduate with that specific degree, and also among the first black students to graduate from the University. Bruxton (talk) 20:03, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
Yes, I believe "has been" is preferable here – despite not being strictly wrong, the old wording could potentially be construed to mean that 4014 is the only locomotive "operating since 2019", but not ruling out the possibility that there might also be other locomotives operating since other years. (Merry Christmas!) — RAVENPVFF·talk·02:44, 25 December 2022 (UTC)
I notified Leeky that pshaw does not work for Prep 3. The que is has 19 slots and it freezes my screen. I am promoting manually until the fix. Bruxton (talk) 01:03, 25 December 2022 (UTC)
@RoySmith: Working on Christmas RS? Check if there is any whitespace: Here is what happened when I experienced a buggy prep yesterday Looks like PSHAW isn't bulletproof enough – it goes screwy when the prep-set is off-kilter, even by a little bit. In this case, there was some whitespace in front of <!--Hooks-->, which foiled it from detecting the hook set. Should work fine now! LeekyBruxton (talk) 00:13, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
Hmmm. Lots of low-contrast shades of grey doesn't make for a great main page image. My guess is we'd do better with a different article in the lead slot for that set. -- RoySmith(talk)03:48, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
I corrected the grammar (one of the two only living princesses → one of only two living princesses), but the fact is not in the article. The other person is identified only as "Saw Nwam Oo (a daughter of Saopha of Lawksawk State)". It doesn't say she's a princess; Saopha is linked earlier in the article, and redirects to Chao Pha. A reader shouldn't have to search elsewhere in the article to find the link, follow the link, and figure out that the daughter of such a person is a princess. It should be explicitly stated. (The source is in Burmese). Pinging Taung Tan (nominator) and Soman (reviewer). MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM08:49, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
Saopha was a ruler of a kingdom, and their daughter also held the title of "princess". and have the right to attend the royal court. You can see an example of princess "Sao Nang Yee, a princess of Lawksawk" [4]. Taung Tan (talk) 09:17, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
Hook facts must be in the article. The vast majority of readers seeing that she's "a daughter of Saopha of Lawksawk State" would not know that that means she's a princess. Please edit the article to explicitly state that she's a princess. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM09:33, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
Thanks all, I missed that date issue during promotion but I am glad it was corrected. I also read the main page error discussion about Justly Watson. Thanks for the quick action. Bruxton (talk) 15:08, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
... that one species of plant(pictured), with a name from the Latin for 'danger', is endangered?
Pinging article creator, nominator, reviewers and promoter: @Stitchbird2, Leomk0403, Ficaia, Schwede66, and Bruxton:. According to the source used in the article, this species is "Nationally Vulnurable" not "Nationally Endangered". Therefore, I think a different hook is needed. I also could not access the source to verify the Latin for danger aspect, so if someone else can verify that information I would appreciate it. Z1720 (talk) 17:03, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
I agree with the concern and note that in the article, the situation is described as per the source, i.e. "Nationally Vulnerable". The problem is thus with the hook wording only. Schwede6618:29, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
CommentZ1720 I see it falls under the umbrella category of threatened and the conservation status of Nationally Vulnerable. I will try a new unrelated hook idea.
I replaced the hook with the one proposed above (thanks Bruxton!), changed the redirect of forget-me-not, and removed the capitalisation of forget-me-not, as it is not capitalised in its article. Z1720 (talk) 01:35, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
West Side Story
@Bruxton @MyCatIsAChonk @Onegreatjoke In prep 7, the West Side Story hook needs an end-of-sentence citation in the article. In the nom it has two sources, but neither of them is very good. The first (deadline.com) doesn't say anything about Anybodys being trans. It's mentioned in a couple of user comments, but those are not at all WP:RS. The Hollywood Reporter source is a little better, but not much. It just says "Sources cited the Gulf Nations’ opposition to the character Anybodys, written as transgender...". WP:RSN has some threads on the Hollywood Reporter which generally indicate it's a WP:RS, but I don't think we can take an second-hand anonymous "sources cited" as the basis for a hook. -- RoySmith(talk)02:44, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
Done Valereee (talk) 16:58, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
Undone until this is resolved. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'r there 15:45, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
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to signal your approval of a nomination :) theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 18:48, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
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Bruxton (talk) 01:32, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
Like- point well made ... except it's"was", as he is deceased. — Maile (talk) 22:02, 17 December 2022 (UTC)