Wikipedia talk:Did you know

Did you know?
Did you know?
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DYK queue status

There are currently 4 filled queues. Admins, please consider promoting a prep to queue if you have the time!

Earliest time for next DYK update: 00:00, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Current time: 06:45, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Update frequency: once every 24 hours

Last updated: 6 hours ago(

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This is where the Did you know section on the main page, its policies and the featured items can be discussed. Proposals for changing how Did You Know works were being discussed at Wikipedia:Did you know/2011 reform proposals.

Pulled hook

As a result of WP:ERRORS and serious concerns over the attribution of claims (i.e. "is said to have been...." by whom?), I've pulled this hook:

" ... that the peal of bells in St John the Evangelist's Church, Kirkham is said to have been the first to be rung in a Catholic church in England since the Reformation?"

For further information, check the error report diff here. Once resolved, there should be no problem re-adding it to the main page. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:51, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What's the protocol for this? Do we reopen the nomination? Gamaliel (talk) 15:23, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Since the hook was on the main page for under an hour, we typically give another chance. (If it had been up for much of its scheduled run, then probably not.) I've reopened the nomination template with a note that a new hook will be needed. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:58, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And please inform the nominator and various reviewers and admin who posted it to the queue that they are required to undertake more rigorous reviews to prevent this kind of thing slipping onto the main page seemingly undetected. Today alone we've had to "fix" three DYK hooks and pull one, all of which had made it to the main page. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:43, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and I had a quick look at the "next" queue, and found a few issues. Seriously guys, it's getting real now, if we have to correct/update/fix/pull three or four hooks from each queue, you're going to lose the main page area. Slow down your updates, focus on review quality, do something about this mess. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:23, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Good job EEng didn't take his analogy any further. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:51, 17 June 2014 (UTC) [reply]

You don't need me for that. In this edit [1]] someone's been talking about "common scat". EEng (talk) 22:54, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

lol. Fly me to the moon... Martinevans123 (talk) 22:57, 21 June 2014 (UTC) [reply]

An ALT 1 hook has now been suggested, I think. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:33, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We are now at ALT 5. When does this get re-added to a queue? Martinevans123 (talk) 22:23, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid I really don't understand all the procedures around here, but someone will show up who knows what to do. I'm glad this got worked out. EEng (talk) 22:54, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

...so, ~~five~~ six days on, does it now need to be re-nominated? by the original nominator? re-reviewed? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:13, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think I've figured this out. It's still on the giant concatenated discussion page, and it has the magic green tick, so it's just a matter of someone picking it for use in a prep set. Unfortunately I don't know how to do this and would rather not learn -- I prefer to just stand on the sidelines and nag, as you know. EEng (talk) 14:50, 23 June 2014 (UTC) P.S. If I wanted to engage you on an utterly unrelated topic in the next few weeks, would you be gamely intrigued?[reply]

Probably shocked and offended in equal measure. But yes. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:01, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Good. Goooooood. My plan is working puhhhhrfectly. <rubs hands menacingly, laughs diabolically> In the meantime, did you see Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library? You of all people will appreciate the footnotes. EEng (talk) 15:19, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Goodness me, could they not all go in a separate (larger) article? Martinevans123 (talk) 20:15, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, this is kinda what I want to talk over with you, because I sense you're the kind of person who appreciates this kind of ancillary material. Please sleep on this a few days (though you needn't be asleep the whole time) and let's talk about it in calmer times. EEng (talk) 22:44, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe too much "kind"-ness in the foregoing. EEng (talk) 22:46, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

...ooo, we don't want that, do we. Martinevans123 (talk) 08:51, 24 June 2014 (UTC) [reply]

I've learned how to promote hooks now, and I thought "Oh goody, I'll promote St. Martin's church", but this one has an image and that's still out of my competence. Sorry. EEng (talk) 22:44, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Prep 1

One hook suggests (arguable) that a sailor's corpse was scattered in a dinghy and a few lifebuoys ... though I don't believe that is what is meant.

What to do about this slowmotion train wreck

Of course, I agree with TRM's comment just above. What's really needed is changes to procedures so that more of a sense of responsibility is instilled at every stage (nominating, reviewing, promoting), etc., but that's way above my pay grade. I suggest that, for immediate relief of this minute-by-minute brinksmanship of STOP PRESS! BAD HOOK ABOUT TO GO LIVE!, the easiest thing might be to explicitly and definitely extend the length of time hooks spend in prep/queue before going live, thereby increasing the number of "eye-hours" on each hook:

For the 500th time I propose increasing the # of prep sets to (say) 12 or even 18 -- what's the cost? (More q sets would be sensible as well, but for that someone needs to tinker with the bot.) And...
Rule for admins: No prep set should be moved to q until, say, 24 hours has passed since that prep has sat with no edits to it. (No doubt there's some magic word by which each prep set can be displayed with an automatic "Last edited at [timestamp]" tag.)

The nice thing about this is that it doesn't require any qualitative changes to the process, just a quantitative time-dilation at the final stage, which for the moment seems to be our best defense against looking like idiots on MP.

It would also be nice to have some way editors can comment on hooks in prep or q less awkward than what we have now (which posting to Talk:DYK) but whether that's hard or easy I don't know. Only someone very familiar with the DYK machinery should attempt that, lest we wake up someday to see our internal arguments over hooks somehow posted on MP.

Thoughts? EEng (talk) 19:25, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

All very sensible suggestions. The cost of increasing to 12 or 18, of course, is that those editors keen on DYK, as an "almost guaranteed" way of getting an article on the front page, will be disheartened and submissions might easily dry up. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:35, 18 June 2014 (UTC) "Did you know that.... more effort was put into Wiki DKY submissions than in constructing all the rest of the front page put together"?? [reply]

Unless the hook gets pulled, more prep areas just means a longer delay to reach MP. I guess you're saying more exposure in prep increases the chance of getting pulled. As to your little coda, I disagree. From the looks of things not nearly enough effort goes into DYK. At least, not the right kind of effort. EEng (talk) 20:00, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

yes sorry, another (deliberately) misleading hook. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:04, 18 June 2014 (UTC) Stop making me laugh. This time I spilled my coffee. EEng (talk)[reply]

I think having your hook pulled at the last minute is more disheartening. DYK is essential to encouraging new editors to participate, but if they don't learn that proper sourcing and factual accuracy are important on Wikipedia, what's the point of this encouragement? DYK can be an opportunity to show them the importance of that. Gamaliel (talk) 20:38, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Is this talk of train wrecks, SHOUTING and people dying meant to invite people to assist or are we trying to give examples of the type of hyperbole we should avoid at DYK? I feel that the more people rant then the more that others go well 'lets leave it to those who never make mistakes and like to report every small change they make here in capital letters'. Asking for rational contributions when the request includes an intro that tells the reader what "sensible folks think..." before they contribute is not going to invite more reasonable views. You found some errors and you have beaten back the process and the contributors and the quality checkers and .... revealed more errors. A similar finding to what they had at Salem and they knew (or thought they did) that the witch finder didn't create the witchcraft... until they stopped looking for it. I'm sure this isn't the type of contribution you wanted so I'll return to spectating as I don't want to be involved in this "train crash" you speak of... now? Who is behaving as if they in charge of this "train crash" and who is the brakeperson? Victuallers (talk) 20:02, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Most of what you're saying is unintelligible, at least to me, despite that fact that I am (trust me) thoroughly steeped in the history of Salem and its witch hunts. No one expects individuals to be error-free. But I and others do expect the process to be close to error-free. Perhaps you don't understand this, but it is quite possible to build a system which is more reliable than any of its parts -- think airliners, telephone switching systems, webservers, even most criminal justice systems (though there's a long way to go yet in that area). Every pulled hook in the last few days was an avoided opportunity to end up as a Slate article or Onion parody. You're like a parent defending his drunk-driving teenager who weaves over the centerline, runs red lights, and knocks down mailboxes -- "Well, they're just little dents, and he hasn't killed anyone yet." Great. EEng (talk) 20:30, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, too many pet project managers here, "it's not our fault we produce utter bilge and get it all the way to the main page, it's all your fault for not spending your own time checking up on us desperately urgent QPQers and checking up on the admins who post crap to the main page". This continual bemoaning of the inadequacies of the rest of Wikipedia is a well recognised disorder. It's about time those at DYK who live in the clouds where it's not DYK's fault that we have to fix 50% of the hooks on the main page finally wise up. Cue another flippant and pointless response from "your local DYK representative". The Rambling Man (talk) 20:37, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Unintelligible? Are you sure that's not hyperbole, because you both go on to answer some very relevant points to what I was saying. As you have said "500 times" we do need to check these extravagant claims. When the last of the passengers is shot and the train is not moving then we will be able to find out who the culprit is that creates this anger. Then as now you will have the last word. Victuallers (talk) 21:05, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I double-checked and, in fact, most of what you're saying is indeed unintelligible, at least to me, but glad that through some accident I somehow respond to whatever it is you were trying to say. What's all this stuff about shooting people and deaths and anger and so on? We just want to slow the train to avoid embarrassment to WP. No shooting involved. EEng (talk) 22:43, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Just improve the DYKs, stop promoting crap to the main page, and we'll all live in peace. The process is flawed, the clamour for main page appearances and pathetic QPQ reviews is the problem, the pisspoor quality control is the icing on the cake. Why should we be fixing or pulling half the DYKs that are being submitted to the main page? Why should we have to do that? The Rambling Man (talk) 5:19 pm, Today (UTC−4)

Because you will get the kind of help you deserve! (actually slightly better) After you have rejected "pet project managers, pisspoor project controllers, crap promoters, half arsed admins etc etc", you will be left only with the people who you don't accuse of being a member of these arbitrary groups. You will also lose all those who object to well meaning volunteers being tarnished by this blunderbuss anger. Anger may solve this problem and show me how you can show a new approach to inspiring people to help by repeating how many errors you have found and how pisspoor, crap and half arsed they are. I will be impressed if you succeed. Victuallers (talk) 5:57 pm, Today (UTC−4)

This isn't about "us" and what "we" deserve. It's about protecting WP's slowly-improving reputation for reliability from constant erosion. EEng (talk) 22:43, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

... goodness me, not a witch-hunt, I hope? Martinevans123 (talk) 20:06, 18 June 2014 (UTC) Where's the incisively amusing easter-egg hook? EEng (talk) apologies Martinevans123 (talk) 20:46, 18 June 2014 (UTC) [reply]

Definitely slow the train wreck down. We now are dealing with half a dozen DYK issues per day, which I guess averages out at 50% of the hooks being corrected somehow. This compares very poorly with ITN and TFA and TFL, and poorly with OTD and TFP. DYK is dragging the quality of the main page down to such a point that it is worth considering pulling the entire section until the quality control issues, both reviewers and admins pushing queues out half-arsed because the timer is screaming at them that they need to refresh the queue. ITN have just removed the stupid timer with one that just informs people how long it's been, rather than attempting to mandate a pitiful update. Suggest DYK consider something similar. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:09, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Any kind of clock is a recipe for disaster, I guess. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:16, 18 June 2014 (UTC) Beautifully apt link. EEng (talk)[reply]

Rambling Man's vehemence and EEng's sarcastic humor are going to derail this project faster than Wikipedia burnout ever did. I have been reviewing DYK articles for many years and have always put so much time into looking up each and every online source and rewriting close paraphrasing. In recent months I have started promoting hooks to prep areas, and spend at least half an hour checking those seven hooks for sourcing issues. (Often I have to stop assembling the set and leave notes on the template pages, calling for fixes before the hook can be promoted.) I know I can make a mistake, but most of my prep sets are going through intact – certainly 50% of them are not being pulled daily, as Rambling Man claims. IMO the problem lies with the QPQ system. Before it was put in place, regular reviewers like myself and others would do all the reviews. The backlog grew, and now many newbie article creators are being asked to do reviews, too. Unfortunately, they don't have the same dedication to the project – they just want to get their own article on the main page – and the system is suffering. Let's talk about revamping QPQ instead of trashing and chasing away good and valuable reviewers and administrators. Yoninah (talk) 22:48, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know where all this stuff about chasing people away or derailing comes from. We're just pointing out the obvious, which is that something's very wrong. Clearly part of it is that various people are trying to carry out functions they're unsuited for, but that's not trashing anyone -- it's just a fact we need to deal with. You've suggested one possible locus of the problem, which is QPQ, which twists editors' arms to do reviews which (presumably) they wouldn't do voluntarily. EEng (talk) 04:02, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is the tone of the arguments rather than the substance; I would say you and The Rambling Man are blunt and forceful and nobody likes to be on the receiving end of blunt force. Belle (talk) 08:13, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

With reviewing articles, I think it would be handy if we created something like Template:GAList. When I do reviews I often forget to actually write down everything that I checked for. Something like the GA checklist I think would help encourage people do be more systematic and thorough in their reviews, and also would prove a handy way to keep track of what they have checked for and what they haven't.

I just thought of something else: Maybe add something like a "help" field or something, that new reviewers can use if they want a more experienced reviewer to double-check or advise them in a particular area.--¿3family6 _contribs 01:03, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Must "to bed" now, so without commenting in full, I really like the idea of giving reviewers an easy way to say, "Can someone guide me here?" Maybe a template preloaded into the review with a parameter that can be changed from "No help needed" to "Yes help needed". EEng (talk) 05:09, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not convinced that hooks being pulled from the queues or preps are an indication of a system failure (or train wreck): if your brakes stop your car (train) before you go through the red light then they are generally considered to be working. And although it would be nice not to have hooks with errors on the main page, most of the error reports there come from a few "concerned citizens" (that's what we call ourselves in the meetings and we close the windows so we can't hear the nasty things the people outside are calling us), so I wonder how much the general readership cares ("OMG honey, have you seen Wikipedia's DYK section!? They said a product could be merchandised into a T-shirt! Wait until the papers get hold of this!"). Belle (talk) 01:08, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Remind me to do the driving next time we go somewhere together. Stopping, over and over, inches before collision indeed means that the brakes work fine, but it also means the machinery that actuates them (eyes, brain, reflexes) are operating on the edge of disaster.

You're right that a huge proportion of readers are unaware of, or unconcerned about, how ridiculous is much of what they read -- that's why the National Enquirer and Daily Mail have plenty of readers, and Fox News plenty of viewers. That doesn't justify WP letting itself move in that direction even a little bit. And the opinion leaders who have a lot of influence on WP's reputation (journalists, academics, whatever) do care about grammar goofs, fact flubs, and common-sense cockups, because experience of many centuries shows that these things are good indicators that the writer can't be relied upon. EEng (talk) 04:02, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

My mother told me never to accept lifts from strangers. The prep areas and queues are for fixing these mistakes before they hit the main page - I think that's really what your proposals below are saying - so we shouldn't count it as a failure if we catch mistakes at this stage, and we shouldn't beat up the those involved in the chain up to that point. I think we can count it as a failure if an error hits the main page (though from my experience the opinion-making journalists are usually the offenders when it comes to grammar or accurate reporting) Belle (talk) 08:13, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, the prep areas and queues are for creating sets of articles, ordering hooks, not for reviewing them. If hooks have to be pulled from prep, queue or mainpage, then the reviewing process, which should end at the time of promotion, has failed. "Beating up" those involved isn't necessary though, unless the problems are very blatant (some BLP problems, the easter hook) or often recurring with the same person. That's why the proposals are usually to change (or abolish) the system of DYK, not to punish some individuals. Fram (talk) 08:45, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's a very idealised view of the process. How many hooks go from nomination page to main page unchanged? I doubt it is much over 50%. Belle (talk) 09:33, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There is quite a difference between "unchanged" and "totally rejected as being factually incorrect" of course. I don't drop a note here i I add a minor word, change a capitalization, ... But there is a problem with the whole process if we regularly get hooks which have been approved by at least three persons (nominator, reviewer and promotor) and still are wrong, and the problem is made worse when things get rushed at the prep-queue-main page stage, reducing the chances of the errors being spotted and corrected. That are the issues people are trying to solve (by requesting a second reviewer, slower throughput at the prep-to-main stage, less hooks, ...), and that will need to be solved if DYK wants any chance of survival. Fram (talk) 09:55, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Seriously, now

I'm formally proposing:

(a) that the # of prep sets be increased to 18.
(b) that no set be promoted to Q until it has been in prep, with no edits, for at least 48 hours (even if that means a MP update will be overdue). (With no edits could maybe be something like without significant change, but since this is something of an emergency let's just stick with no edits for now. And yes, this will almost certainly mean a stall in MP updates for 24 hours or so.)

Before we get supports/opposes etc., let's hear first only from those suggesting improvements and changes. That way we don't have to circle around and get supports reaffirmed after changes to the proposal. EEng (talk) 22:43, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I presume that the "no edits" only applies to the hooks (not the articles themselves)? Edwardx (talk) 22:50, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This is a good idea, assuming we nail down the wording of that "with no edits" clause. Without being challenged? Gamaliel (talk) 23:02, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to see the hooks stay longer in the prep areas as it means mistakes can be fixed without needing admin assistance, but I'm not sure "no edits for x time" is necessarily the best measure of whether a set is suitable for promotion to the queues as this might just mean that nobody has looked at it. Worth trying though. 18 sets might be a bit overwhelming both for those compiling the sets and those looking to check them. It seems rare that the queues and preps are filled even now with just 4 preps, which is why the preps are being emptied almost as soon as they are filled, so I think what is really needed is some encouragement for people to make up the prep sets (at the moment they seem to get little in the way of thanks and a good part of the blame if some error is discovered, so you can't really wonder at the reluctance to step up to the job) Belle (talk) 00:50, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Time "under the spotlight" is a very crude measure of quality, admittedly, but it maximizes the one and only weapon we seem to have, for now, to keep us from shooting ourselves in the foot on MP, to wit, eye-hours. Or keep ourselves from shooting us in the foot. Or us shooting we. Or, um, ... anyway.

The idea of the 18 is (first) so that there is never, ever a time that someone has the energy to put together a set that he's unable to make that contribution just because all preps are full, and (second) because with a enforced 48-hour minimum, at 3 sets/day that's 6 sets right there, so in steady state (queuing theorists, sit up straight now!) with a reasonable daily variance of arrival rate, a buffer size representing 2X the minimum service time (taking the enforced time-in-q as "service time") seems prudent. It can't hurt and it helps at least some and maybe much. EEng (talk) 04:19, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think I see what you are saying: if the prep areas aren't usually full it makes no difference if we have 10 empty slots or 100, but if some valiant soul decides to make up a set we don't want to have to turn them away because all the prep areas are full. Doesn't seem like a bad idea. Belle (talk) 08:13, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. EEng (talk) 12:32, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Revising:

~~(a) that the # of prep sets be increased to 18.~~
(b) that no set be promoted to Q until it has been in prep, with no edits to the hooks or image(s) -- edits to the articles don't count -- for at least 48 hours (even if that means a MP update will be overdue).

EEng (talk) 04:19, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. The best step under these circumstances is to make sure that QPQ's are done properly instead of pulling the hook from the preps or ques. 18 preps would be too big and unnecessary, but I think 10 preps would be good to organize and check. Instead to 3 sets per day we can switch to 2 sets in 24 hours for a few days till we are sure that the review work is being done properly and hooks on the MP won't embarrass any of us.--Skr15081997 (talk) 04:48, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Being "sure the QPQs are done properly" is a great goal, but I don't know how to achieve it offhand -- rules and procedures will need review, etc etc etc. I do know that more time in q will reduce the drama of last-minute pulls -- there will still be pulls, but at least not so many at the last minute. It's very stressful for everyone sticking fingers in the dike right and left. Improving the process upstream should be the next step, but this can be done immediately.

Slowing to 2 sets per day will not have the same salutary effect. All that will happen, if we do that, is that the rate of putting sets together will correspondingly slow, but they'll still be put together, typically, at the very last minute, so that again we'll have the last-minute pulls. More subtle changes to procedures might have the final effect of increasing q length and therefore exposing sets to longer "final scrutiny", but for now, a required time under final scrutiny is the only way I can see to immediately guarantee a minimum time under final scrutiny.

What's the downside? EEng (talk) 04:56, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think the problem here is that the regular mainpage stewards like EEng and The Rambling Man will have seen far more hooks (especially problematic ones) than the typical DYK participant, and especially over a wider range of areas including TFA, ITN and OTD, and therefore it doesn't surprise me that, all things being equal, they are better tuned to spot issues. I'm not sure how to elevate the standard of QPQ reviews to this level in a manner that everyone will accept, but if we don't do it we're going to keep on getting threads about errors on this page again and again. I like the idea of holding preps until they are stable, it's kind of like PROD in reverse - default consensus is to keep unless there are objections. I also support some sort of mentoring - all of these hooks with errors and issues were made by editors in good faith. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 09:37, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Regular DYK steward? Me? I - am - a - regular DYK steward??? I don't remember even visiting this Talk until maybe a month ago, and I don't think I've even used up my 5 free nominations. If I'm what passes for a DYK doyen then we might as well throw in the towel now. Also, I never, ever look at MP so this has nothing to do with breadth of exposure. But the basic point is well taken: whatever the reason, we all have our strengths and weaknesses, and some people are better at noticing problems than others. Helping each editor find tasks he's suited for is always a worthy effort, but for the moment I still want to focus on one thing: for the moment review in prep/q seems to be what's saving us from embarrassment, so I'm just trying to make that less hectic by enforcing a minimum time in prep/q. It's fast and easy. Upstream improvements will take way more time. EEng (talk) 12:32, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think both of these would actually have the opposite of the desired effect. Four Prep sets provide a reasonable number of hooks for thorough investigation. Eighteen sets (126 hooks, which is more than half of all hooks currently on the main nominations page and is significantly more than the number of currently approved hooks) would be overwhelming, and each hook would likely get less scrutiny. Of course, it would never come to that, because even the four existing sets are very rarely full these days. And the other proposal is even worse. Knowing that every edit to a hook resets the 48 hour clock would make people exceedingly reluctant to make any changes except to correct the most horribly blatant errors. Smaller issues would simply pass through uncorrected. ~~Plus, if someone just doesn't like a hook or has a grudge against a user, they can indefinitely delay a set by making a minor edit to any hook in the set every couple of days.~~ MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 21:10, 19 June 2014 (UTC) The part about intentional delays was just an afterthought. I don't want people focusing on that, so I've struck it. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 22:48, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What Mandarax says, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:39, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously any system we adopt would make an exception for minor edits, and any abuse of the system can be dealt with via administrative intervention. Gamaliel (talk) 21:54, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The purpose of having 18 prep set areas available is simply so that there's never a time when someone with a burst of energy feels like putting a set together and can't because there are not prep-set areas available. With a 48-hr min time in prep at least 6 preps would always be full, and I'd expect 2-4 more on top of that, typically. The rest are just to we never have to hit a limit. The reason we rarely have 4 full preps nowadays are this: (a) there's little motivation to put a prep together before the last minute; (b) as just explained, potential set-building is sometimes lost because all 4 are full.

I'm not worried about abuse of the system or grudges.

The point about hesitation to make small changes has merit and is really part of larger issue. goota run more later EEng (talk)

Seriously now (Take 2)

I believe I was being overcautious with the "with no edits" provision, since there will usually be additional time in Q as well (though only admins can fix hooks there). Let's try this:

(a) that the # of available prep sets areas be increased to 18. (With the expectation that 6-10 will be in use at any time.)
(b) that no set be promoted to Q until it has been in prep for at least 48 hours (even if that means a MP update will be overdue). Admins promoting to Q should take special care to check any changes made in the few hours before promotion, especially if the promoted set will appear on MP without much delay.
(c) that nomination discussions be transcluded onto prep and q pages along with their hooks, for ready reference in case questions arise.

OK, now I'm ready to face judgment.

Support. Duh. EEng (talk) 01:49, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong again

DYK 'that when Virginia Grayson won $20,000 in the Dobell Prize for drawing, she said she would use the money to get her "ute fixed"?'

Except she didn't:

JOE O'BRIEN: And what are you going to do with the $20,000?

GINNY GRAYSON: Well, ah… (laughs)

JOE O'BRIEN: A holiday or towards your work?

GINNY GRAYSON: I'm thinking I wouldn't mind getting my ute fixed. [2]

That isn't a statement that Grayson was going to do anything with the money. It was a statement that she was thinking about it. Or, as it says at the top of the source "she'll probably use the money to fix her ute". Not much of a hook with 'probably' or 'maybe' though, and who cares about getting the facts right... AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:17, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

$20,000 seems like a lot to spend on just one sheep. EEng (talk) 04:31, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Trust you to pick up on that one. Martinevans123 (talk) 07:58, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ewe would say that. EEng (talk) 03:39, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Multiple reviews

Is there any reason that nominations have to be reviewed and signed off by only one person, as opposed to being resolved via consensus? I disagree with the decision to pass Template:Did you know nominations/Video gaming in Bangladesh and I nearly pulled Template:Did you know nominations/Ashford, Kent ([3]), though I later redacted this. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 09:26, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There's no good reason why that shouldn't be the case at all. In fact, it's a very good idea. It would dramatically increase the quality of the articles and the quality of the hooks. It would naturally slow the throughput, but that's no bad thing at all. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:58, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

At present hooks pass through at least 4 hands -- nominator, reviewer, prep, q -- and we're still getting substantial #s of serious (and many, many minor but inexcusable) errors not caught until prep or q. So adding one more set of eyes won't help much. (Sorry to mix the hand-eye coordination imagery there.)

What drew me into this talk page a month ago was the realization that a serious reversal of priorities has taken hold -- everything's backwards -- slapdash work is prized over careful development; quantity over quality; tagging minor blemishes, which others might be able to fix better than you, is punished in favor of pretending articles are finished and perfect; personal ideas about what disqualifies an article are imposed at whim through reference to "unwritten rules"; and more. Plus the QPQ provision forces people to review who don't want to do that. I've looked at a sample of the reviews behind some of the recent pulls, and there's a very common pattern: "Length looks good, no close paraphrasing, offline source for hook AGF." I see that last bit over and over even when the article links to the hook's source -- online -- and you can see right there that the hook is wrong. I'm beginning to suspect some reviewers think AGF means All Good and Fine.

But I'm going to keep relentlessly directing people back to my proposal for a quick improvement with little downside -- requiring a minimum time, under scrutiny, for preps before they're promoted to q. See that proposed in bold elsewhere on this page. EEng (talk) 12:55, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well if I may be allowed a moment more, the reason I suggested it was a good idea was that multiple reviews and consensus gathering is how ITN works, and ITN suffers nowhere near the volume of ERRORS, certainly nowhere near the number of pulled items etc as DYK. And the best thing about working that system for DYK is that there's no time limit at all, unlike for ITN, where decisions have to be made reasonably quickly to ensure items posted are still in the news! Multiple eyes on each DYK can't harm the process in any way. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:59, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've been meaning to mention that one of the most striking things about DYK is its high volume of errors compared to ITN (at least based on the low volume of evidence for those in its discussions) -- ITN has built in time pressure, so you'd think the reverse would be true. All kinds of changes should be helpful, but I think we should first thing enforce a minimum time in prep. That way the small # of people who seem to catch most of the errors don't have to keep looking every few hours -- especially non-admins who can't do anything but complain once something has moved from prep to q. EEng (talk) 13:19, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you in principle, your proposal would certainly improve things just because there's more opportunity to fix the foul-ups. However, enforcing a consensus based agreement that a nomination is ready could be put in place quite easily. For free in fact, other than a minor change to the DYK procedure. No changes to templates or timing code, just slowing the process down so nominations can receive quality reviews and for a consensus to build that they are suitable (and interesting enough) for the main page. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:26, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Multiple reviews and consensus gathering is how the vast majority of WP processes work. Let's look at one of them. We wouldn't expect an article to be deleted after an AfD that has just the nominator and one !vote saying little more than "Delete - not notable, no reliable sources". Yet that is analogous to how we treat the majority of DYK nominations. We wouldn't force multiple comments at a nomination - if a genuinely brilliant piece of work appears and the review praises it for overwhelmingly meeting the DYK criteria and the reviewer is highly experienced in this area, it should be put into the build area. Similarly, if a nomination has "New enough, long enough, hook interesting, sources AGF, GTG" and there are no objections, it should go through. The change here is that if you don't think a review is good enough, you get given a chance to object before it goes through. Like the stock 7 days for AfD, there should be a reasonable time period for consensus to form on a nomination. In that's respect it's not too different to EEng's proposal to only bump a set up to the queue if objections don't appear in the timeframe specified, which should be tried as well. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 13:30, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And maybe the focus should be different for different types of DYK, e.g. a recently promoted GA should stand up to quality scrutiny and sourcing, but the hook should be interesting and be referenced in the article, meanwhile a recently created or expanded article needs thorough quality checking, source verification and hook sanctioning. But regardless of all that, if slowing things down and expanding the minimum time in the prep areas is an easy first step, then I support that. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:34, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

By all means propose something, but pls also comment on my min-time-in-q proposal elsewhere on this page. Must run. EEng (talk) 13:37, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

These are by no means contradictory proposals, neither of which seem harmful - why can't we discuss, vote on and enact both of them? Furius (talk) 15:05, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, they complement one another, but to be fair, just slowing things down is more likely to gain traction than revising the pitiful QPQ system which encourages editors to say "yes that's great!" so they get their five minutes of fame for their own DYK. Adopting an ITN-style discussion, re-work and re-review process would be ideal for DYK, and it'd almost certainly reduce it to one set of six hooks per day, but so what? Where was it writ in stone that DYK had to circulate at such a preposterous speed that we ended up piling junk after junk onto the main page? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:15, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I must admit I was not in favour of this before but am warming to it given the ongoing issues. I'm not in favour of an arbitrary 48 hours as listed above. The easiest that would result in littlest change would be some double checking process in the prep areas in that someone certifies them before moving on. I don't know whether it needs to be multiple people or just one. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:53, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think 10 prep areas or so would be ok. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:55, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say that at least two people should be reviewing things, if we're not able to model it on the ITN process where we simply don't promote something until it has consensus, and that includes a quality check, not just "ooooh, nice hook". The Rambling Man (talk) 20:55, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm all for improved procedures at any and all stages where improvement can be made, and by all means someone start proposing something. I just don't know, for example, how a two-reviewer requirement fits with current QPQ -- do we require two QPQs now, per nom? Isn't there some tool that checks QPQs -- that would need to be modified? All doable but I just don't know what's involved. But someone propose.

Meanwhile, this very second there's one set in Q which will swap in about 8 hrs from now, and one prep which (assuming it gets promoted to Q) will swap in about 16 hrs from now. Everything else is empty. Right now it's bedtime in UK, dinnertime on the US east coast, and the end of the workday on US west coast. (I'm going to assume -- unfairly to our esteemed English-speaking colleagues in other parts of the world, but just for a first approximation -- that everyone's in either the UK or US.)

(Oh, or in Canada, of course. Don't cry, Canada. Just because we forgot to buy you any Christmas presents like the other children doesn't mean Mommy and Daddy don't love you too. Anyway...)

Unless someone puts another prep together now, most of the dozen people who have found the problems behind the 20 pulls or fixes in the last 36 hours will either be working, asleep, showering, or commuting for most of the time between now and 16 hours from now. So maybe problems will be caught, or maybe not. If they're to be caught, I guess we'll do it on our coffee breaks or when our bosses aren't looking. We'll have to check over and over until the prep set appears. (I, at least, have no idea how to put one together.)

Why should it be that way? Why can't I just come home tomorrow evening, relax, and spend an hour making my daily contribution to DYK i.e. checking the 3 or 4 or 5 preps waiting their 48 hours? And if I don't have time, I can rest assured that there are plenty of other people who have had lots of opportunity to eyeball each set. What is the downside of requiring 48 hours in prep? Someone please say. EEng (talk) 21:39, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose There seem to be plenty of supernumerary reviewers as things are. For example, my most recent DYK was reviewed and passed after a query about the image status. But then another editor has stuck in a query. And some other editors were quite interested in the article's orphan status. And it seems that the subject himself has looked over the article as he made a minor edit. There seems to be plenty of oversight already and so I oppose more formal rules per WP:CREEP. Andrew (talk) 23:07, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I assume you're opposing the multi-reviewer proposal, not the 48-hour proposal? I tend to agree that just requiring "more signatures" is probably not going to have a low benefit-cost ratio, though as part of a larger reform (e.g. clearer instructions on what reviewers are checking for) I do think multiple people should be involved in the review. EEng (talk) 23:44, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"plenty of oversight" perhaps, but not plenty of "useful" oversight. If the oversight was "useful" then the vast array of errors that land on the main page every week wouldn't be so .... vast, would it? The Rambling Man (talk) 07:10, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This section is headed "multiple reviews" and so that is the formal proposition which I oppose. Other proposals should not be bundled in with this as they will tend to confuse — Wikipedia discussions are quite inefficient when they ramble. This efficiency aspect is another reason to oppose multiple reviews — they would reduce accountability by diluting responsibility for the reviewing process. It seems better that one editor is formally identified as the primary reviewer. We would might then be able to compile useful statistics about the quality of the reviews. If these identified weak reviewers then they could be given some training or other remediation. AFC has instituted measures of this sort because their reviewing process was even more broken, I gather. Andrew (talk) 12:02, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Multiple reviews is used by both FAC and ITN/C, so it's abundantly obvious that it can and does work. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:03, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Multiple reviews are also used at all the deletion procedures (bar the "short circuiting" PROD and CSD), requested moves, content disputes, RfA, in fact the vast majority of cases. In fact, even GA reviews are not exempt from having stalkers, which can be welcome and encouraged. In the case of Template:Did you know nominations/Keith Martin (ophthalmologist), I see no issue with what's happened. Admittedly I think User:Drmies is one of the best content creators we have with a particular flair for DYKs, so when he says "hang on", it's worth listening to, but even so I would expect the closer to act like an admin closing an xfD and make a judgement call based on the arguments supplied and their merits. Sure, it's great to see your work approved and passed, and given praise - but it can't come at the expense of the encyclopaedia. It's all about the article. I wouldn't even go as far as mandating two reviews. Some may only require one, some may require three or four. Some opinions may be deal breakers, some may be discarded. We should be flexible. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 15:02, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't about my note on Andrew's DYK nom of course, nor should it be, but since I'm involved with that (and I was pinged) I'll drop my two cents. Here's the first: a big difference with ITN is that DYK asks reviewers to do much more, not just judge whether something is appropriately important or not. If Pete Rose makes it into the hall of fame the question is whether it's newsworthy, not whether the article is up to snuff (whatever the snuffy criteria may be). A difference with FA is the level of quality control which we must have for FA; for DYK the bar is lower (I think we all agree on that). So the practicalities of a two reviewer-requirement are much more complicated for DYK than for ITN, and on the other hand the quality requirements lower than for FA. That does not mean, of course, that we shouldn't have multiple reviewers, but it's not an easy thing to implement.
As for Template:Did you know nominations/Keith Martin (ophthalmologist), which I think can serve as an example of what sometimes happens at DYK, yes, a "closer" will make a decision one way or another. That decision should be based on the arguments of the objector (in this case me), with maybe a judgment on the commenter's experience: we all know that sometimes very new editors tick things off. Someone above noted and discredited "personal ideas about what disqualifies an article are imposed at whim through reference to 'unwritten rules'". I'm not sure if any of the current DYK rules explicitly support my objections, but to refer to such objections as "at whim" and "personal ideas", that's bogus. (I have no hatred toward ophthalmologists or eye printers.) The "unwritten rule" should always be, is it a decent enough article that we want to advertise ourselves with? It's there also that a second reviewer might be valid (regardless, again, of whether my objections to the ophthalmologist are valid), and on occasion we see this at DYK. The nominator won't like it, of course, but hey--consensus matters. Andrew's article and my objections are not the best example (it's minor and can hopefully be handled by editing and sourcing, by one of you maybe), but we recently had a long, long discussion over--what was it, a Ukranian politician who had been turned into a cartoon or something like that. No appeal to "personal whim based on unwritten rules" applied there: it was serious business (found it: Template:Did you know nominations/Natalia Poklonskaya). The objections in that nom cannot be done away with "personal whim" or "IDONTLIKEIT" (my favorite overused non-AGF charge), and the discussion went on for much longer than it should have, in the face of formidable opposition. This, Template:Did you know nominations/Jailbait, is another recent example, where fortunately Newyorkbrad stopped by to add to my and Mangoe's objections.
Let me just add that I agree that often nominations are OK'ed too easily: I've seen it dozens of times, and I'm sure I've not made friends when I made objections. So in principle I certainly agree that more quality control is best. If it were up to me, I'd have a group of knowledgeable and seasoned editors decide as a committee, not as copy editors but as Guardians of the Bigger Picture--but who's going to volunteer, and who's going to pay their salary? OK, that's enough out of me. Drmies (talk) 15:45, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"the question is whether it's newsworthy, not whether the article is up to snuff". Oooooh, The Rambling Man is going to come after you for that. I shall make lemonade and serve it between rounds for a penny a glass (yes, I'm typing this from the 18th-century). Belle (talk) 16:12, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"DYK asks reviewers to do much more" funniest post of the day. We don't post ITN items unless their quality is up to scratch but DYKs get posted with errors and pisspor hooks every single day. ERRORS is daily full of DYK issues, yet ITN items go unruffled mostly. I wonder why. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:49, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I just checked WP:ERRORS and the last DYK hook to get pulled was the St John the Evangelist's Church, Kirkham one three days ago, ([4]) while at the same time ITN had three issues on it ... am I missing something or are we just pulling them at queue time instead? Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 17:32, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

WP:ITN is a joke so I don't pay much attention to it. Whenever people start slinging mud at DYK, I go to the top, check the current FA and always find it easy to find fault with something in that. Today, for example, the FA is Boletus luridus — yet another fungus. I read the blurb on the front page and notice the claim that "laboratory testing has not revealed any evidence of coprine in the mushroom". I check this out and find reputable sources contradicting this statement: "Traces of coprine were found in other mushrooms like ... Boletus luridus", "Coprin is a toxic ingredient of the ... lurid bolete (Boletus luridus)." The article's claim seems to be based upon a single study but WP:MEDRS says that "primary sources should generally not be used for medical content" and we should "avoid over-emphasizing single studies". Now perhaps the point is debatable but notice that there seems to be no discussion of the matter on the article's talk page, the GA review or the FA review. One might think that the toxicity of a mushroom would be the most important aspect of it but nobody seems to be interested. Now I am not blaming anyone in particular and I don't care much about this myself. My point is to demonstrate how easy it is to find fault. But it is our clear policy that our content may be imperfect and every page of Wikipedia contains a disclaimer which emphatically states that "WIKIPEDIA MAKES NO GUARANTEE OF VALIDITY". People who want perfection should please look elsewhere because perfect is the enemy of good. Andrew (talk) 17:45, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct that the point is debatable; however, there is no contradiction between the sentence in opening blurb and the sources you gave. If you ever find yourself caring, I'd be happy to discuss this on the article's talk page. Sasata (talk) 18:41, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Do please discuss it; I shall be interested to read what you have to say. And I have a picture of a remarkable crop of fruiting bodies which popped up around the garden pond the other day, which I would be interested to identify too. But I fear that we will lose the main thread in consideration of such mycological minutiae so I will now move on to tomorrow's FA. This is Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band — a much more accessible topic. I read through the blurb for this and the final sentence catches my eye, One music scholar has described it as "the most important and influential rock and roll album ever recorded". I immediately itch to shout {{who}}? and go to the actual article to find who said this. The author of this statement turns out to be David Scott Kastan but, as you see, we don't have an article for him yet. So why do we care about this person's opinion, if he's not notable enough to have an article? I go looking to see who he is and find that he's a professor of English at Yale. His profile states that, "my primary intellectual concern is with the relations of literature and history in early modern England". So why are we describing him as a music scholar? FA is the gift that keeps on giving, eh? Andrew (talk) 21:57, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Since you have so much to complain about regarding TFA and ITN, where are your error reports? Or don't you seriously care about the project? I'd suggest that since there's so much wrong here in your mind, this isn't the project for you. Certainly, if you hold DYK in such esteem yet feel other areas of the main page are a "joke" or otherwise, you should do something about it. Perhaps that involves too much effort. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:07, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I had reported that error in the FA at WP:ERRORS 38 mins before The Rambling Man posted that. The main page blurb for the FA was subsequently corrected. This demonstrates that errors can be readily found at the highest level just as I have established previously; it's just a matter of looking. There is therefore no case for special punishment for DYK. Andrew (talk) 23:00, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong I'm afraid. In the current scheme we have one TFA per day, max main page issue 1, we have something like 16 DYKs a day, max errors 16 times greater than TFA. The rush to pass DYKs and the flawed QPQ means DYK stands head Nd shoulders above all other main page areas for problems, as evidenced here and at ERRORS. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:21, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have just reported the next FA at WP:ERRORS too. With that done, I look ahead to see that tomorrow's FA starts, "Bam Thwok" is a download-only single by the American alternative rock band Pixies. My eyes are rolling already but I start reading the article and find that it is quite short — I've seen longer DYKs. Is this really our finest content? Looking further ahead, I see that the FA month climaxes with a Pokemon article! It seems that it is not DYK which needs root-and-branch reform; it's FA. Andrew (talk) 08:35, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I think you've missed the point. If you don't like the TFAs, you can participate in their selection. If you find errors in promotions of FAs you can ask for them to be re-reviewed. None of this is rocket science, but allowing the rank-minimum quality control and amateur COI-infected QPQ review process to keep pushing errors and pisspoor hooks to main page is the issue we're here to address, not your distaste for certain elements of modern culture that appeal to millions. Conservapedia is always looking for help. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:03, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The comparison between WP:ITN and WP:DYK is not altogether appropriate. Note that the number of new items posted in DYK in a given time period is an order of magnitude higher than the number of new items posted in ITN in that same period. (That is, the number of new items in ITN in a given week is typically around 10–12, and the number of new items per week in DYK is typically around 140–150.) I don't believe that that the error rate in DYK is an order of magnitude higher than the error rate in ITN. Furthermore, there are usually many eyes focused on the items eligible for posting at ITN (because they are news), while the articles under consideration for DYK are often about low-interest topics. Finally, the fact that DYK articles aren't fully polished is actually consistent with the original purpose of DYK (as I understand it), which is to draw readers' attention to the fact that Wikipedia is a work in progress, that new content is always being created, and that we have new content that needs improvement. (I sometimes nominate items for DYK precisely because I'm hoping that other people will know how to polish the rough edges on a new article -- for example, because they know about related Wikipedia articles that the original contributor failed to link to.) --Orlady (talk) 18:34, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- And therein lies the inherent problem. The mad rush to push DYKs to the main page is humiliating it utterly. There's absolutely no need for DYK to have the turnover it does, my goodness some hooks come and go before major time zones even get a chance to read them. Slow it down, spend more time looking at the substance in the DYKs and the quality and the interest in the hooks. Why the rush? The Rambling Man (talk) 09:05, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I can't agree with this enough. I find that taking a break from WP and doing something else, then coming back fresh, is a great way to spot your own mistakes. You just don't get that opportunity with the short timeframe that the queue currently has. It's also rather unfair on readers around the world if a hook they'd be interested in happens to come on and off the main page while they're asleep. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 10:07, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Rambling Man, my apologies if I misspoke. My experience with ITN is somewhat limited. I once proposed something and it was laughed out of court (with ne'er a word spoken about the article), and once I wrote a DYK which was hijacked by ITN--also with ne'er a word spoken about article, presumably because I wrote it and there was no need to. Or, if there is such quality control in ITN, great--I didn't know. And I didn't know, maybe, because I don't see it acted out in public like in the DYK discussions. And you could, TRM, look at the two or three DYK nominations I linked, and say, "hey! quality control! no joke!" Drmies (talk) 02:26, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- That seems a little odd, all ITN nominations are discussed at WP:ITN/C and several commentators take the time to read the articles under scrutiny for quality. That's available for all to see, and unless you're a member of Arbcom, mostly the admins that lurk around ITN won't publish an item unless it's up to scratch. I agree that the three DYKs you linked have a decent commentary. The problem is the other 137 that would have featured on the main page in the week in which those three may have been shelved. Some quality, but far too much quantity. Why the rush? The Rambling Man (talk) 10:32, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Cavern mystery

I read in Prep 1 ... that Treak Cliff Cavern (pictured) is one of only remaining active sources of the ornamental mineral Blue John? - sorry, I have no idea what "one of only remaining" is supposed to mean, and wonder if in case of such a change those who were active in a nomination get a warning, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:16, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Just a typo, Gerda, which I noticed and corrected. Belle (talk) 23:22, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And it was I who introduced the error, BTW. EEng (talk) 01:33, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you ;) - Now seriously: it happened that a hook that had been agreed on in a nomination was changed in prep, and I was not notified. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:43, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that happens. Ravening fact wolves circle the prep areas looking for weak or lame hooks that they can cut out from the pack and, after the wolves have eaten their fill, grammar vultures swoop in and pick on the bones. I don't think it is workable that every nominator gets a notification for every change, they should probably watch the prep areas and queues if they are worried. Belle (talk) 00:54, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Foolish hooks flee the preps for the false security of the queue sets, only to find themselves snatched from the flock at the last moment, then dashed on the Rocks of Ridiculousness or run aground on the Shoals of Silliness. EEng (talk) 03:30, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I do a great deal of adding a comma here and an article there in prep, that's not what I mean. The "lamb" is easily watched in the nomination, but once in prep, it's sometimes hard to tell if a change affects "my" hook. In cases of a substantial change, I would like to be contacted and asked, that's all. Nothing happened overnight to Schloss Weimar, thanks, "wolves", also for being watchful, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:44, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That said, if anybody wants to rap my knuckles for interfering with hooks in prep, I can take it (though I'm not saying I won't dish it out in reply). I've only been making changes where there were deficiencies and nobody has told me not to do so which is why I've carried on. Belle (talk) 00:58, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, keep doing it - net positive ++++. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:46, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ionia Rollin Whipper

Pulled

that in 1931, African-American obstetrician Ionia Rollin Whipper opened Washington, D.C.'s first home for unwed mothers that was not racially segregated?

from Prep 1. The article doesn't say this. What it says is that she raised funds to support unwed African-American mothers, then in 1931 opened a home, and that until the 60s it was the only home open regardless of race. It doesn't say it was open to all races from the beginning. EEng (talk) 03:23, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I just took a look, and the sources do support that the home was open to all races from the beginning, so I rephrased the article to clarify matters. Since the hook was not fully pulled—the template remains promoted and nothing was entered in the Removed file, I'm restoring the hook to its prep slot. If there are other significant issues, please feel free to pull it all the way: pulling is a three step process (see Template talk:Did you know#How to remove a hook from the prep areas or queue for full instructions). BlueMoonset (talk) 05:03, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, there's no reason to mandate anyone to do extra work when pulling a hook other than just pulling a hook. If it's going to cause damage when it's on the main page, pulling it is most important. If someone wants to run around finding who's responsible for it and add it to a table or whatever, that's someone else's look out. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:07, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Rambling Man, I was under the impression that EEng was interested in helping DYK work better, so I thought to inform him of the typical steps for removing a hook. If you don't reverse the original promotion once the hook has been removed, the nomination effectively disappears, because promoted and rejected hooks don't show up on the nominations page. It takes a minute or two to do this, adding a new icon and short explanation of the issues that need fixing in the process, and is a crucial step. Obviously we can't expect a main page removal to be handled in this way, but here at DYK before it hits the main page: absolutely. And we have for years. BlueMoonset (talk) 13:41, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Could you two take a break for a few minutes while I get my bulletproof vest on? ... OK, resume firing! I gotta run but I'll comment later. We're all just trying to make things better here. EEng (talk) 13:48, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

EEng, still waiting for the comment. I honestly can't understand why you aren't even pulling the DYKmake templates when you pull the hooks—those are on the same prep page. BlueMoonset (talk) 14:56, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I've been playing amateur repairman to a friend's pneumatic printing press, so I'm covered with ink and a bit distracted. Now then...

TRM, I don't mind following the procedure, now that BMS has pointed me to it.
I think yesterday I had more to say about improving processes upstream, but I guess I'll give that a rest for a while. I'll spend a few more days as the hook-pull martyr, sacrificing my valuable time for the greater good of WP, and hope that eventually a critical mass of editors develop the determination to nip these problems in the bud, before they get to prep. I do wish we had a rule requiring longer in prep so I don't have to keep checking every few hours.

EEng (talk) 23:44, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Extra eyes wanted for hook now in queue

In Queue now: "... that in June 2013, 930 cases filed by or against Madhavpura Mercantile Cooperative Bank were pending in Indian courts?". The article claims "As of June 2013, 700 civil and 230 criminal cases filed against or by the bank were pending in various courts.[18] In 70 of these cases trial hadn't begun as of March 2014.[19]" However, it looks to me as if the 930 cases are only cases filed by the bank (to recover money to pay of their debts)[5], and that the 70 cases are cases filed against the bank (for alleged fraud)[6]. This would mean that the hook is wrong ("by or against" should be "by"), and that the article is wrong as well. None of this was discussed at Template:Did you know nominations/Madhavpura Mercantile Cooperative Bank. If anyone agrees with my reading, I'll change the hook or pull it, whatever is preferred in this case. Fram (talk) 08:03, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The first source says that the bank is also battling over 700 civil and 230 criminal cases and the 2nd source says that trial has not begun in any of the 70 cases filed at three local police stations. The first source doesn't says that the bank had filed the case and the 2nd source doesn't prove that 70 cases were lodged against the bank. Where's the problem.--Skr15081997 (talk) 08:29, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Where's the problem? There's nothing in these two articles indicating that they are talking about the same group of cases, and much to indicate that they are talking about different (opposite) cases. From the second source, about the 70 cases: "It is 13 years since Madhavpura Mercantile Co-operative Bank fraud came to light and Reserve Bank of India superseded its board of directors, but trial in none of the 70 cases filed at local police stations has begun." Not "70 cases remain unstarted", but "in none of the 70 cases has it begun". The complete article is about cases against the Bank. Now, the other article, about the 930 cases, is only discussing cases initiated by the bank, and the fact that they need help in getting their money and so on. The two articles discuss completely separate sets of trials, but our article (and hook) lumps the two together. Fram (talk) 08:42, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The hook can be reworded and the facts in the article can be corrected accordingly. The hook can be changed to "... that in June 2013, 930 cases filed by Madhavpura Mercantile Cooperative Bank were pending in Indian courts?". We need an admin to make the changes.--Skr15081997 (talk) 09:08, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have corrected the facts in the article but only an admin can change the hook.--Skr15081997 (talk) 09:13, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The first source is confusing - at one point they seem to have had more cases than defaulters. The second source isn't clear on who "the accused" is in all cases either (though those identified are all connected to the bank). That the cases haven't started doesn't mean that they aren't pending. Perhaps the hook could be reworked like so: "... that in June 2013, hundreds of cases involving Madhavpura Mercantile Cooperative Bank were pending in Indian courts?" Belle (talk) 09:22, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

(ec)See e.g. [7]: "The bank has filed 225 criminal cases for the recovery of Rs450 crore" (this was in 2011). So it seems at least very likely that the 230 criminal cases were not filed "against or by the bank", but only "by the bank". Fram (talk) 09:25, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed the "or against" from the hook, further improvements or corrections may be necessary but this one seemed the most needed and least controversial. Fram (talk) 09:46, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Carpet bombing

I've pulled

... that the largest piece of carpet ever laid in the Pacific Northwest at that time was installed at 400 SW Sixth Avenue in Portland, Oregon?

Aside from not saying when "at the time" was, the hook doesn't match the article, which says

The interior utilized walnut and light marble trim, and included what was believed to be the largest piece of carpet ever laid in the Pacific Northwest at that time, which was installed by Meier & Frank

-- we can't be turning "was believed to be" into "was". And this can't be patched by just adding "believed to be" to the hook, either. A "belief" like this needs, at the least, to come from a source in a position to know. For steepest street that would be the National Assoc of Road Commissioners, for deepest mine that might be the Mine Safety Administration, but for biggest carpet in the Pacific Northwest that would be... um... well, I don't know, but it better be convincing -- not just the store supplying the carpet or the owner of the building in which it was installed -- can't tell because the source is offline. EEng (talk) 12:57, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I want to add something. I think there's a lot of room for a hook something like this, even if it's not based on an unimpeachable source. if it's phrase right i.e. in a way that self-consciously discloses the tentative nature of the claim e.g.

... that a piece of carpet installed at 123 Jones Street in 1959 was described by its installer as "the biggest shag I've seen in the Pacific Northwest in fifty years"

The combination of distance in time, fanciful nature of the claim (can't be seen as promotional), obviously lighthearted expression of the point, etc. etc. makes this quite different from (at the other extreme) a damaging or laudatory statement about a living person, attributed to "it has been said" or whatever. If the source was online I might have been able to suggest a rewording. EEng (talk) 19:09, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The source is online if you have access to NewsBank and your access includes the historical archives for the Oregonian. What the source says in relevant part is: "the main floor of the new building is covered with what is said to be the largest single piece of carpet ever laid in the Pacific Northwest." There is no attribution as to who said it, but the presumption would be either the bank or the general contractor. Given there is no byline, my assumption is it came from a press release the paper took and ran with. So, I think we could just add "believed to be" or something to that effect. Aboutmovies (talk) 05:40, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

DYK is almost overdue

In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:

Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #1 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page

Then, when the time is right I will be able to update the template. Thanks and have a good day, DYKUpdateBot (talk) 19:59, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Now overdue; admin still needed to promote prep 1, which has been ready to go for a while now. Prep 2 is also filled... BlueMoonset (talk) 00:46, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In a nutshell

This edit [8] is the most concise summary of what's wrong with DYK I've ever seen. The reviewer's comment is:

Note: Reassessment on the Talk Page, or no assessment at all, but DYK cannot be a stub. Removing the Stub rating and leaving it "unassessed" is fine.

In other words, it doesn't matter what the article actually is -- it only matters what tags and templates are, or are not, present. Form over substance. EEng (talk) 00:49, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Of course it matters, EEng. Once rated, an article should not be unrated. There's nothing wrong with reassessing it, assuming that it does qualify for a different status, but it shouldn't be an automatic destubbing and should meet the appropriate criteria. Articles that can only muster a "Stub" assessment are unlikely to qualify for DYK even if they do have the minimum 1500 prose characters. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:37, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Um... you do realize that was my point, no? What I quote above was someone's recommendation to make an article "not a stub" by changing its assessment from "stub" to "unassessed" -- apparently without regard to whether the article really is a stub. That this kind of thing can be said openly in a review, without apparent comment from anyone else, speaks volumes about the DYK process. You have a valid point that an article meeting the 1500-char minimum probably wouldn't also qualify as a stub, but that just brings us to another of my favorite gripes: why does DYK encourage people to pull articles in a direct about 15 degrees off of the stub-start-C-B-GA-FA trajectory? Why not just ask for B-class (for articles under 30 days old) or GA (for older articles), and be done with it? This would channel all this DYK effort into improving articles in ways the rest of WP recognizes. EEng (talk) 03:53, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Rating articles can be tricky, and there is significant divergence in views...as we found out when running the Stub Contest....speaking of which....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 06:07, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea about this stub contest, but I agree that actually evaluating quality would take more time and effort than mindlessly checking that it's at least 1500 characters and has no ^{[clarification needed]} templates. Is that too much to ask before a hook and article appear on MP? EEng (talk) 12:45, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Stub and stub are not the same. Petra Noskaiová was rated almost stub by project opera, but good enough for DYK. Some stub ratings are never changed when an article was expanded, - I simply go and change those myself when I review. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:30, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I cut down the Elms

I pulled

that a 1971 protest against the removal of 13 Scots elm trees in a Stockholm city park led to more attention being paid to citizen input into the decision-making process of the city council?

because from the Google translate [9] of the source to which the hook is cited, it seems...

(a) the change this event led to was more citizen input in planning, not city council matters generally
(b) this seems to be one author's opinion, which may or may not be generally endorsed (though I'm guessing it is).

EEng (talk) 01:15, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

- - You pulled something based on the (notoriously unreliable) Google translate? When the sentence in question is, even in Google, clearly in the context of planning conducted by city councils? (Check out the paragraph starting "Almstriden became a watershed in Swedish post-war politics"). And when the paragraph itself ("Almstriden coincided with a planning crisis.") reports the hook statement as fact? *sigh* — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:21, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Why do DYK denizens put bullets at the start of every comment? It's one of the several signs that DYK is a little island cut off from the rest of Wikipedia. Anyway, the pertinent passage (via, yes, G translate) is:

Almstriden became a watershed in Swedish post-war politics. Anders Gullberg draws in his book about Stockholm, "City - the dream of a new heart," that conclusion because the war unleashed "intense strain and channeled a longstanding and widespread discontent that have not previously received much tangible impact. A long era of high and growing concentration of power in urban construction was canceled.

Almstriden coincided with a planning crisis. It was a confirmation that the next big thing in planning must become citizen participation. An insight as sixteen years later would lead to a new Planning and Building Act.

You explain to me how this is really about city council actions generally (not just planning matters), or how a wider claim is generally accepted and not what one author said in a book -- even allowing for G translate. EEng (talk) 01:29, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Aren't city planning matters an important element of the "decision-making process of the city council"? If there was more citizen input in city council decisions about city planning then there was more citizen input in city council decisions (even if not all of them).Furius (talk) 10:40, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea how planning questions are decided in Stockholm, and if I did it would be OR. I can tell you how they're handled in most large US cities: a zoning, planning, or redevelopment board, separate from the city council, makes such decisions, with the city council acting as an appeals body -- that may or may not be what's going on where the source mentions a citizen writing to the council. I really don't know, and again, if I did it would be OR and SYNTH. We have to stick to what the sources tell us. Hooks, which appear directly on the main page, should be ironclad. EEng (talk) 12:12, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I killed the bodyguard

Hook says

...that Carlos Manuel Hoo Ramírez was the personal assistant and bodyguard of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, once considered Mexico's most-wanted drug lord?

but the article says these things are allegations. We can't have this kind of transubstantiation going on all the time, especially with a BLP. I'm pulling this instead of patching it because this suggests insufficient attention to BLP in review. Even for a drug lord (ahem... alleged drug lord) we need to hew to standards. EEng (talk) 01:23, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Come on dude, help us out. The template is at Template:Did you know nominations/Carlos Manuel Hoo Ramírez--where is the article at now? BTW, I note that "of" is missing in the hook in the nomination; so that's one thing that the reviewer missed. Anyway, I'm sure your point about allegations is correct, so that hook should be pulled. BlueMoonset, are you reading this? Drmies (talk) 02:38, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't until you pinged me, Drmies. You know, looking at the nomination template, it appears that of the two approved hooks, ALT1 was promoted, and it's the one that's problematic. The original hook merely says that the two were arrested at the same time, which appears to be accurate based on one of the sources. (I've made sure it's cited at the end of the relevant sentence.) So rather than reversing the promotion, I'm using the original hook and putting it into Prep 2 where the other hook had been. If there are any other issues, by all means pull it again, and this time unpromote it as well. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:31, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Good call, BlueMoonset. Thanks. EEng, what do you say? Drmies (talk) 03:33, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Fine with me. As mentioned I pulled rather than patched only to shift any potential BLP blame to someone else. EEng (talk) 03:45, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note to my fellow DYK prep/Q vultures

Links to the nom template for the various hooks may be found in the "Credits" section of each prep/Q set. EEng (talk) 03:45, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Nominee notification bot trial

A bot request related to informing DYK author/expanders will begin trial soon, assuming there are no specific objections to the trial. Please seeWikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/APersonBot 2 and voice any questions or objections on that page. In the absence of objections a limited trial will be authorized. Thank you, — xaosflux ^Talk (BAG) 02:56, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

DYK is almost overdue

In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:

Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #2 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page

Then, when the time is right I will be able to update the template. Thanks and have a good day, DYKUpdateBot (talk) 07:04, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The first shall be last

I pulled...

that Mary Quant's first rival, fashion designer Kiki Byrne, was one of her former employees?

because the source just says "rival", not "first rival". I meekly suggest that in future reviews, the boilerplate "hook AGF" be replaced by "IDBC" -- I Didn't Bother to Check".

I might mention in passing that a fashion designer's rival being a former employee is "dog bites man" -- if you want something amazing and quirky, find a fashion-design rival who wasn't a former employee. EEng (talk) 13:32, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've undone the promotion so that the nom template re-appears on T:TDYK. --PFHLai (talk) 16:02, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I might mention in passing that DYK used to be a much more pleasant place when it was standard practice for people who found problems with hooks in prep areas to try to fix the hooks -- rather than removing the hook from the prep and then engaging in triumphant chest-thumping about the removal.

This was a hook that could have been easily repaired, by simply removing the word "first". The fact that the resulting hook would be less amazing and quirky did not justify sending the whole review back to the nominations page. --Orlady (talk) 21:36, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No chest-thumping: my decision to pull had nothing to do with a fixed hook not being quirky enough, as I explained on the nomination page [10]:

Just to emphasize that I'm not some final approval decider, just a busybody editor who's contributing added scrutiny. My only real concern is the "final" aspect of the hook (see DYK talk) -- the point that former-employee rivalries are common was just a side comment, not a reason for pulling.

Where it's just a matter of awkward wording or grammar I have no problem patching a hook already in prep without changing the meaning. But changing the meaning in a substantive way, even in a minor substantive way, is entirely different.

Hooks are supposed to comport with both the article and the sources, so where I find what I think is a discrepancy then everyone upstream has been asleep at the switch -- or maybe I'm wrong somehow. So to patch the hook in prep by changing the meaning, as you want me to, is something I'm not willing to do. It should be pulled and the matter discussed. (Also, even if I'm correct that the old hook is wrong, my new hook might have an error of its own -- see [11].)

I might mention in passing that shooting the messenger is... oh, never mind. EEng (talk) 22:31, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Shooting the messenger? If you aren't going to take constructive criticism about repairing easily repaired hooks versus pulling them—and if I'd realized the inappropriate "first" was the extent of your issues with that hook I would have reverted your pull and made the correction myself—then perhaps you should point out the issue and let someone else repair or remove it as seems appropriate. (Have you removed that bulletproof vest you donned the other day?) BlueMoonset (talk) 00:15, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

My hesitancy to make changes to the meaning of a hook is very clearly explained. If people can just go about modifying the meaning of hooks at the last minute, what are we bothering with reviews and so on for? It's not constructive criticism to label my deference to other editors' opinion "chest thumping". EEng (talk) 01:52, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Pulling a hook from a prep area and asking for the nom discussion to be reopened generates extra work for both the person who pulls the hook (not only do you need to pull the hook from prep, but you should undo the promotion of the nomination, edit the nomination to explain the removal, notify other users who may need to participate in the reopened discussion, and log the removal on DYK/Removed) and other volunteers (to replace the pulled hook, participate in the reopened discussion, etc.). When you make extra work for yourself and others, there ought to be some positive, productive purpose for that work -- a productive purpose is something I did not see in this hook removal and some of the others that you have advertised on this page. If your evaluation of a hook found that a single adjectival word in the hook was inappropriate, but you lack sufficient confidence in your judgment to simply edit the hook, your first step should be to post here to ask for additional opinions (that's a far simpler way to get others' opinions).

I continue to perceive that these hook removals have been aimed more at making yourself a center of attention than at achieving positive results for DYK. --Orlady (talk) 05:23, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Your perception is incorrect. Since starting this blitz on the DYK queues, there has been a marked drop in ERRORS reports. The level of quality control being applied by EEng and others now approaches what is absolutely required to allow DYK to continue. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:10, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think EEng realizes the disheartenment he has sown among longtime reviewers and promoters on the DYK project. His focus on the prep areas – admittedly, the point at which hooks should be well polished and ready to run – and his admission that he doesn't know how to build a prep set himself is wreaking havoc on the system. Not only does pulling hooks from the prep set generate a whole fixer-upper process, as Orlady pointed out, but it has long been strongly discouraged by veteran DYK editors for the disheartening effect it has on article nominators, especially new ones who are trying to understand the DYK process. I strongly suggest that instead of patrolling the prep areas, EEng dives in to T:TDYK and starts going through the 90 approved but still open nominations there, to question sourcing and rewrite hooks WHILE THE NOMINATION IS STILL OPEN. I must commend User:Storye book for that very same, quiet but incredibly efficient effort s/he has made, patrolling the noms page and fixing up or salvaging dozens of hooks. When I build a prep set, the first noms I take are those from Storye book. Yoninah (talk) 09:37, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, ideally we keep all the people happy all the time, but fundamentally it's about avoiding errors on the main page. The situation has been improved, many fewer errors are being published on the main page. Which is what all processes should be focused on. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:46, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What... all processes focussed on the main page? And the 20m other pages and the <100,000 volunteers? Thoroughly agree with Yoninah and Orlady. And I am pleased to see that there has been an improvement in the number of errors, but after the amount of damage that has been caused here you would expect some marginal improvement somewhere. Otherwise it would be seen as unintended vandalism by no doubt well meaning enthusiasts. Why EEng (et al) doesn't quietly direct his efforts at T:DYK and sit back and receive the quietly respect that others who indulge their efforts there receive? The anger and bad feeling that is being created by the mistakes that EEng makes (et al) are a high cost. I mention the quiet respect given to experienced editors who volunteers their time. QPQ is NOT the only way things get approved. Study at T:DYK would reveal that the real quality comes from the real project volunteers. Imagine how badly they and I feel when their efforts are badly second guessed for trivial reasons. I have just had a hook pulled for no reason and without apology because EEng didn't understand the sources and fired from the hip. (Not that I care much). I can only assume that others are in the same position as I cannot work up the enthusiasm to investigate (or help) more. Seeing other editors being called "half-arsed" etc means that I do not want to be associated with this mis-directed anger. Below EENG says that nothing is finished until EEng has looked at it.??? Well done to those who are working despite the poor working conditions. You continue to enjoy quiet respect. Victuallers (talk) 10:17, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The particular pull V complains about is explained at Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know#Imagining_the_resurrection, and for all his bluster he has explained neither there nor at Template:Did you know nominations/Charles Loraine Smith why the pull was inappropriate. EEng (talk) 12:29, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Where oh where is this plethora of dedicated veteran DYKers who have suddenly departed in huffy droves because something is actually being done to improve the quality of the DYK section of the main page? Really, this anger is misdirected, it should be channeled into improving the reviews here, improving the hooks, and doing so, saving DYK from the can. I suspect if these vets really cared and really listened to the concerns that have been floating around for months (if not longer) we wouldn't be here. But we are, and thankfully we're starting to see quality results and fewer errors on the main page. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:30, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I can speak only for myself, but I think my experience is indicative of an overall pattern. I have a long history of on-again/off-again work in various aspects of administering DYK. For various reasons, I've been relatively inactive (both at DYK and at Wikipedia as a whole) in the last couple of months. A few days ago, I visited the Queue to see how things were going and see what needed doing (also because I had an article I wanted to nominate, so I figured I owed a QPQ). My attention was immediately drawn to an approved queue set that had only 5 hooks, in contrast to the current standard of 7 hooks. An unusually short (or long) DYK hook set can be a problem for the main page (particularly WP:ITN, which typically is the feature that has to be adjusted when the main page is out of balance). After determining that the queue set was short because an administrator had pulled two hooks and showed no intention of replacing them, I perused the prep areas for hooks that would fit reasonably well into the affected queue and moved two hooks to the queue (after reviewing the hooks, articles, and noms to make sure I agreed that the hooks were ready). That experience of cleaning up after the incomplete work of another administrator left me feeling a bit grumpy -- and disinclined to spend much time reviewing nominations or re-filling the prep area from which I stole two hooks. That's just one individually insignificant incident, but the cumulative effect of little incidents like that is a significant overall reduction in activity within the core group of volunteers. --Orlady (talk) 18:03, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I can only speak as a recent rambler over the issues at DYK but in recent times I can recall dozens of issues. The "core group" aren't doing the job properly, something needs to change. It's not the problem of an admin pulling crap/incorrect/badly sourced hooks to run around trying to solve the problems inherent in DYK. Sorry if it left you feeling a bit grumpy, but it would be better to focus on ensuring that the crap doesn't make it to the main page and that admins, whose time is required to fix things once they hit the main page, don't have to engage in the DYK bureaucracy game. If you didn't feel the need to rush so many hooks to the main page so frequently, perhaps you would have more time to review them and get them right before they become an embarrassment. If the DYK vets don't like the fact that DYK has finally been called out, then perhaps we should can DYK altogether, it's been mentioned before. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:17, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Lili Bosse

I want to say in passing that I'm gratified that I've received only one bit of pushback (which I don't consider valid, BTW) on my many recent pulls. I guess that means I'm not too far off track. I pulled

that Lili Bosse, the current mayor of Beverly Hills, California, is the only child of two Holocaust survivors?

-- this statement is sourced only to the subject's re-election campaign website, which is certainly at least questionable under WP:SELFPUB, but in the context of a politician, getting what might be seen as free publicity on WP's MP, it just seems this needs wider discussion. Let me quote from the reelection website:

Lili Bosse. A lifetime of dedication to our community. ... Lili Bosse, the only child of Holocaust survivors, grew up on South Maple Drive, in the house where her mother still lives ... Lili has long been considered one of Beverly Hills' most respected and effective community leaders.

If the question were only whether the "only child of" point should remain in the article, even then a ^{[better source needed]} tag would seem appropriate. But as I've been trying to drive home now for some time, hooks -- which are published directly on MP -- need to be ironclad -- particularly because this can be seen as somewhat promotional.

I'd like to hear what others think. EEng (talk) 14:43, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It took a bit of digging, but I managed to find more sources saying both her parents were Holocaust survivors: [12] and [13]. --Jakob (talk) 14:55, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I had added the LA Times article about her mother to the article, and I've just added the other source you found on Google Books. She also says it during interviews which can be found on youtube, but I suppose the Google Books reference is even more "neutral." By the way, nobody lies about this type of thing because it could lead to a lawsuit if it turns out to be false.Zigzig20s (talk) 16:07, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

IMO these new sources are more than adequate, and I want to be clear I wasn't questioning the truth of the assertion -- it's the political context that kept nagging at me. Even now I'm a little uncomfortable repeating on MP the very first thing said about the subject on her own political website, but as far as I can see there's no election underway anytime soon [14] so I, at least, won't lose any sleep on that aspect.

I do need to comment on this "nobody lies" point. First, I don't know who would be the plaintiff in such a lawsuit. And, second, if nobody ever did anything that could lead to a lawsuit, then there wouldn't be any lawsuits. EEng (talk) 16:44, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, there's no election coming up in BH lol. And yes, in some countries at least, you could get sued (by zionist organizations) for lying about that. Anyway, can it please go back in the line now?Zigzig20s (talk) 16:55, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, while anyone can file a suit against anyone else, based on anything, in the US this would go absolutely nowhere. Anyway, despite being mistaken for some kind of DYK expert I have no idea of the mechanics of the next steps -- some one will no doubt step up to the plate presently. EEng (talk) 17:30, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The next step is to discuss on Template:Did you know nominations/Lili Bosse and find a hook which all involved approve for use on MainPage. --PFHLai (talk) 17:47, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

With renewed apologies: I spoke too soon. Prompted by a comment on the nom page, I looked again at the new two sources Jakob links above and realize I'd misinterpreted one of them. I just don't see the confirmation about the father. but this needs to continue at the nom page. EEng (talk) 23:01, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I added another reference from The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles; I don't think her father had his obituary published in the press, as he must've been a private citizen. I am beginning to wonder if this is being blocked out of antisemitism. I will never again spend time trying to suggest articles for DYK in future, but I WOULD like this one to make it to the front page because, other than antisemitism, I don't see why it shouldn't be there. The article is fully referenced and relevant, there is a good hook, she is a prominent philanthropist and politician. After this one though, I am done with DYKs. I replied on the nomination page, but just in case you haven't seen it, I thought I should add this note here. Thank you.Zigzig20s (talk) 11:32, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There is an appalling lack of good faith in an accusation of antisemitism, which is a very serious matter and completely inappropriate here. At the moment, the article still has some factual issues (one example: according to independent sources, Bosse's term as Vice Mayor was March 2013 through March 2014, not 2012–13) that are keeping it from approval, but nothing that can't be fixed. I was in the process of assembling some reliable secondary sourcing and looking to carve out some time for revisions to address remaining issues, but it's going to have to wait for a bit, as this has left a bad taste in my mouth and a disinclination to give priority to this article over other things on Wikipedia and in my offline life. BlueMoonset (talk) 14:19, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Can you pass this on to another editor who will be more objective please? Your personal feelings are not relevant.Zigzig20s (talk) 14:34, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So a person who disagrees with you is antisemitic, and a person who points out that you have assumed bad faith is not objective? Right. You'll make a lot of friends that way.

There are clear issues with referencing here, and these need to be addressed before the article can be promoted. If they are not addressed, and concerns remain outstanding, then the article will not be promoted. Rather simple. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:02, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Everything is FULLY referenced. Every single sentence. Most have more than one reference. Official city government sources and sources from the press. Yes, I do question this allegedly "Presbyterian-style" tactic!Zigzig20s (talk) 15:10, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Antisemitic Presbyterians... wow... I... I... Wha... What a random idea. Can't we be antisemitic Lutherans, or Catholics, or atheists, or antisemitic Hindus, or maybe New Age antisemites? Anyway, why not get straight to Hitler right away? That would save time. EEng (talk) 16:02, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody said sentences were completely unreferenced. They're questioning whether the sources used actually supported the information they were used as references for. Blue already pointed out one issue.

"Presbyterian-style" tactic? If you think this is an anti-Semitic conspiracy against you, rather than a group of well-intended neutral editors trying to show you where issues in the article are, please go to WP:ANI. Just watch out for the consequences for frivolously making such serious accusations. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:23, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Crisco, we have our differences, and suspect we will continue to do so at least for a while, but it's good to know (not that I would have expected anything different) that we're in agreement on the basics. EEng (talk) 16:02, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I am not calling anyone antisemitic; I thought the action might be, not anyone in particular of course. I do find it very, very suspicious however, that anyone would question whether she is the daughter of Holocaust survivors or not, after it is fully referenced. And when I add another reference, question something else. And something else. For a prominent American Jewish philanthropist. It is indeed rather suspicious. But to be honest, I don't want to talk to suspicious characters; I just don't want this DYK to be blocked for "suspicious" reasons. And I will never waste time on DYKs again. So what more edits do you want to make, instead of wasting more time talking here?Zigzig20s (talk) 15:35, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Also, to me, "the daughter of two Holocaust survivors" sounds like bad grammar. How many parents is she supposed to have? Three? If it was only one Holocaust survivor, sources from The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles and the Beverly Hills Courier would say, "the daughter of A Holocaust survivor."Zigzig20s (talk) 15:35, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you were calling us antisemitic, but I least will accept the foregoing as a withdrawal. What we need is an independent and reliable source stating that the father is a Holocaust survivor. It's not a matter of whether anyone's lying, but it's often a matter of interpretation. The extensive profile of the mother, focusing on her status as a survivor, mentioned the father was deceased but, strikingly, doesn't describe him as "(a Holocaust survivor himself)" -- that bodes poorly, I must say. EEng (talk) 16:02, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, I am not calling anyone antisemitic and apologise if that was misconstrued as such. I think over-questioning sources when it comes to Jewish subject-matters may be slightly "suspicious" however. The reference to Presbyterians is a joke--read the news. Anyway, is The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles not a reliable source when it says she is "the daughter of Holocaust survivors"? If that's what you think, I am speechless...Zigzig20s (talk) 16:14, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would much quicker and easier to simply use the hook I suggested, "that Lili Bosse, the current mayor of Beverly Hills, California, is the only child of Holocaust survivors?", which is referenced in several sources including The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, and then we won't have to talk to each other any more, ever. Why make it difficult by worrying about her father and a pre-centennial ceremony, etc?Zigzig20s (talk) 17:18, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm here from a request [15] on WikiProject Judaism. In my opinion, the hook is problematic simply because the main attraction is that Lili Bosse "is the only child" (of something something.) This is not notable. Lots of people are an only child and they go on to do all kinds of things. So what? The fact that this person is a descendant of Holocaust survivors is also not notable. The only reason left to promote this person is political. Is there a policy on promoting a political candidate? Is there an election coming up? Either way, the hook needs to be changed to conform with notability guidelines. USchick (talk) 20:48, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is a good hook because out of the Holocaust came the new Mayor of one of the world's most desirable cities. That's the hook--that's quite a journey. If her parents had been killed during the war, this never would have happened. It's a story of resilience.Zigzig20s (talk) 20:50, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I can appreciate that you think so. Is there a reliable source that talks about how this is "quite a journey"? More importantly, this person is a political candidate and needs to be treated as such. Furthermore, Wernher von Braun was a Nazi officer who also was the product of the Holocaust, he managed to switch sides and went on to achieve enormous success. He wasn't even raised in Beverly Hills, he actually had to struggle and put his life at risk. Why not feature him instead? USchick (talk) 21:08, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Do you realise that you deleted my comment?? "She is also a major Jewish philanthropist, as you will see from reading the article... Most European Jews were slaughtered in the war; I fail to see why you don't think this is extraordinary. Besides, no, I am sorry, she is not a candidate as she is not running for anything at all right now. There are NO ELECTIONS in Beverly Hills right now. She has been elected. Is serving as the current Mayor. Not a candidate.Zigzig20s (talk) 21:05, 22 June 2014 (UTC)" And to answer your new question, because I have created an article about her, not the other guy...Do you know how DYKs work? Otherwise, please stop. Thank you.Zigzig20s (talk) 21:13, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I did not delete your comment. [16] See WP:OWN. Your article is not any more important than any other article. This is an encyclopedia, not a promotional tool for political candidates of your choice who don't meet notability guidelines. USchick (talk) 21:18, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

She is perfectly notable, as were the previous Mayors, and probably even more so given her extensive philanthropy. With DYK, we promote new articles that we've created on the front page. Again, she is NOT A CANDIDATE, but a prominent Jewish philanthropist and politician. NOT A CANDIDATE. Not running for anything right now. At all. It looks like you don't know how DYK works, so please stop commenting here. Thank you.Zigzig20s (talk) 21:24, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If she meets the political requirements for self promotion, a better hook would be something that she is actually known for, like she "Wants Beverly Hills to be the Healthiest City in the World" [17]. She is a politician, she needs to stand on her own platform, not on the accomplishments of her parents. Is this an encyclopedia or a Beverly Hills society page? USchick (talk) 21:54, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that could be another hook. I thought the Holocaust survivor one was good too. The main point is to get the article on the front page anyway. I thought others liked the first hook?Zigzig20s (talk) 22:05, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The nomination was pulled because there were several objections, one of them being political self promotion. If the only objective is to get her noticed, you may want to consider a hook about her views on Sharia Law [18]. I guarantee you that will get her a bigger number of hits, but it may or may not be helpful to her political career. lol USchick (talk) 22:35, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Someone suggested perhaps a better hook, which removes any controversy: "that Lili Bosse, [the current] Mayor of Beverly Hills, California, was sworn in by actor Sidney Poitier?" See this. I think we could go with that one, as it is fairly neutral.Zigzig20s (talk) 22:38, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent! USchick (talk) 22:42, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank god, because at the 10-colon indent level Wikipedia's servers begin to overheat. EEng (talk) 03:23, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

DYK is almost overdue

In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:

Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #3 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page

Then, when the time is right I will be able to update the template. Thanks and have a good day, DYKUpdateBot (talk) 14:50, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Prep 3 is loaded. Can an admin review and move the set to queue, please? BTW, should "Graf Zeppelin" in the lead hook be italicized? I am not sure. --PFHLai (talk) 16:07, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

These days no prep is truly ready until I've pulled something, it seems. I think Graf Zeppelin should be italicizized but I'll leave that to those who really know that stuff. EEng (talk) 17:43, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Admin still needed to promote prep 3. We're more than five hours overdue now. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:19, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This quote needs to be repeated but without comment. "These days no prep is truly ready until I've pulled something, it seems." See above for ref. Victuallers (talk) 10:32, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it does bear repeating that quality control is so poor that a single person, in less than five minutes, can almost always find at least one obviously incorrect hook in each prep set. EEng (talk) 12:11, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Imagining the resurrection

I pulled

that the foxhunting celebrity artist Charles Loraine Smith had both his death and resurrection imagined in verse?

because the article doesn't say the subject "had" these things imagined in verse, merely that others did so. I don't mind fixing grammar and wording a bit, but if hooks are supposed to go through an approval process I don't feel comfortable substituting corrected wording with changed meaning at the last moment -- thus the pull. I suggest

~~that the death and resurrection of foxhunting celebrity artist Charles Loraine Smith were imagined in lighthearted verse years before they happened?~~

[correcting]

that the death and resurrection of foxhunting celebrity artist Charles Loraine Smith were imagined in lighthearted verse while he was still very much alive?

The difference is that the "resurrection" imagined is not the usual religious one, but rather that (in one of the poems) the subject was thought to have died but turns out to be merely asleep. Therefore the poem is actually talking about something that has already happened, at least according to its purport -- not something yet to happen, as my first substitute hook (now struck out) implied. I point out that that this flub on my part, in trying to correct an error in the original hook, is why hooks should not be patched on the fly -- if there are anything but minor problems they should be cycled back for review. EEng (talk) 17:16, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've undone the promotion so that the nom template re-appears on T:TDYK. Please discuss there. Thank you. --PFHLai (talk) 17:36, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

DYK is almost overdue

In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:

Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #4 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page

Then, when the time is right I will be able to update the template. Thanks and have a good day, DYKUpdateBot (talk) 05:34, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Second opinion on Edward Hatton

Hi all. I've been going over Template:Did you know nominations/Edward Hatton (surveyor) and have been a little concerned that a hook isn't exactly supported by its reference. I'm rather new to reviewing, so I'm not sure if my 'plaint is legitimate or if I'm just splitting hairs. Would someone a little more experienced care to take a look, please? Furius (talk) 09:29, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Quick review request

I don't often make these requests but can someone please review Template:Did you know nominations/Mungu ibariki Afrika today because I am away until July and will be unable to respond to any comments after today. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 11:02, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

DYK is almost overdue

In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:

Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #5 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page

Then, when the time is right I will be able to update the template. Thanks and have a good day, DYKUpdateBot (talk) 13:49, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If someone can prepare a prep, I can promote it. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:58, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

See Tom Rees (British airman) DYK nomination 7&6=thirteen (☎) 17:11, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think Crisco is asking for someone to fill all the slots in the next prep area, hopefully with care and attention to each and every one, rather than being invited to edit a single nomination. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:40, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's what I meant. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:42, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Next prep hook re: Sanchez

"worked as a princess" but the source says "I was a face-character friend with the princesses". That doesn't seem the same to me. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:52, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea what "a face-character friend" is, so the whole princess thing has been cut. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:08, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I really want to make a point here. Grammar, wording, format changes are one thing, but when we find a substantive problem with a hook we should pull it from the flow and reopen the nom for whatever change is needed. We should not be "patching" hooks, to fix perceived fact problems, and then moving them along the appearance conveyor belt, because that substitutes our last-minute judgment for that of everyone else's, risking the introduction of new error, and denying the nominator/reviewer the chance to salvage the approved hook. In contrast a pull, at worst, just delays the appearance. Mr. V did something like this last night and I think it was really wrong -- see [19].

I'd like to hear what others think. EEng (talk) 16:21, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You say that - but the link only summarises your own view. And that includes your opinion that everyone is on your side (wow!) ... and that "V"?? is wrong ... and then you ask for opinions? I'm not sure you need advice if you have everyone on your side. I'm not sure you can understand this, but some humility, feigned or otherwise would encourage others to answer your requests. Victuallers (talk) 16:36, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, the link is to a discussion between me and Materialscientist, not just my opinion.
No, I did not say (in the discussion linked) that everyone agrees with me. What I said is that you, by making a last-minute change to a hook, substituted your idea of what the hook should be for the hook which the DYK process came up with (which, at least in a rough way, represents what everyone else thought the hook should be) -- and because you did it at the last minute, you did it in a way that made it impossible for anyone else to put the brakes on.
So by recommending, where there's an apparent fact problem with a hook, that it be pulled, not patched, I am indeed showing humility and deference to the opinions of others. By making whatever change you like, in manner that became very quickly essentially irreversible, shows at worst arrogance and at best poor judgment.

So again, I'd like to hear what others think about last-minute changes to a hook about to go live, versus pulling it for community discussion. EEng (talk) 18:19, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In this case, I think part (just part) of the "charm" of the hook was to imagine that a beauty queen used to work "as a princess", thus making the hook vaguely interesting. The martial arts angle is fine too, so it stands alright on its merits in this case, but in other cases, where the re-write of the hook at the last minute to keep up with the never-ending demand for new DYKs on the main page means it's different in tone to that both nominated and reviewed and agreed and prepared for prep by an admin is somewhat unilateral and disrespectful. Funnily enough, not long ago I had a hook which was completely re-written by a helpful DYK veteran just before it was posted. It actually introduced problems. I was not notified that my nominated hook had been turned to ratshit. Funnily enough, elsewhere on this page I'm being berated for not pulling hooks "completely" (ones which were on the main page and had substantive ERRORS to deal with) and failing to notify the nominators etc. However, it was just dandy for someone to pile in and "expertly" screw my hook over? Double standards, and the result: crap on the main page, or crap to those trying to defend the main page's integrity. If hooks are substantially changed, they should go back to nomination, the nominator should be notified by the "expert" who decided to change it, and we can start all over again. After all, why the big rush to continually push this stuff onto the main page so frequently? The Rambling Man (talk) 18:28, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I just found out about this thread. Crisco 1492 and others, "worked as a princess" is correct. When reviewing the nomination, I did not pay enough attention to the exact wording in the quoted source, since I also read about the fact elsewhere. I've added another source which is unambiguous. -Zanhe (talk) 21:25, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

See, you should listen to me

Unfortunately no one took my advice to pull the hook instead of (as happened) amputating out the princess bit and leaving it on the conveyor belt. So now it's on MP without the princess, and will likely stay that way.

If there's a substantive problem with a hook, it should be pulled and the nom reopened. To amputate or substantively modify the hook and leave it in prep or Q risks sending it to MP with a new error or, as in this case, in unfairly mutilated form. The princess was part of the fun of this hook, which has now been lost.

EEng (talk) 23:49, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Prep 1

US consistency

I'm no expert but out of the four hooks currently sitting there, two mention the United States, one as U.S., the other simply as US. I would imagine "United States" to be preferable, but if not, surely consistency in a set of hooks is desirable? The Rambling Man (talk) 18:22, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"busiest border crossing"

I also have a question about the "busiest border crossing in the world". One of the two references is from 2010 so I just Googled the hook to check and found another single reference in this article which said that, on June 20, 2014, "southern Texas" has the busiest border crossing in the country (i.e. in the US, U.S. or whatever). If its the busiest in the US, and the busiest in the world is the one in the US, presumably Southern Texas has it? Or which source of reference do you believe? The Rambling Man (talk) 18:47, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I see the reference you cite refers to a "spike" in border crossings and says the south Texas one is "now" the busiest border crossing in the world. This suggests that it is very recent and possibly temporary. I'll think about alternate wording and look for more authoritative sources. --MelanieN (talk) 19:09, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm also concerned about the text in the article claiming the building and the border crossing to be "symbolic", that's not borne out in any refs I've read about the building and its location. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:11, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm wondering if we should scrap this AGF entirely. I reviewed this, the source didn't load, but I was on a PC I don't use regularly, and thought "well, two people have double-checked the source, I'll just add a note". I'm thinking from now on I should throw AGF out of the window and just verify everything myself. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 19:39, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That's why the idea of multiple reviews per hook is a good one. You get diversity, readers using different browsers, different access rights, difference ideas as to what makes a hook interesting. Right now DYK isn't really getting any of that right. P.S. I got a dead link too, I wonder if anyone checked the references, and if so, and discovered a dead link, considered archived links? Who knows....? The Rambling Man (talk) 19:58, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I did a few google searches around the theme of "united states custom house" "50 feet" and didn't find anything, but I know from experience at AfD and elsewhere that claiming "can't find anything in a quick google search" can backfire on you and make you look a wally. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 20:04, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The source is the NRHP nomination form, and it appears that all NRHP nomination forms are currently unavailable. I just searched for half a dozen of them and got the same answer every time: "This website is currently unavailable." The "50 foot from the border" information is definitely there in the nomination form, where several of us saw it (the article's author and me, the nominator). Hopefully the website will come back up in the next day or two? Meanwhile I have proposed changing the other wording to "one of the busiest border crossings in the world," since the recent surge in border crossings in Texas may have changed things. --MelanieN (talk) 22:31, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Luckily the author of the article had a cached version of the nomination form! I put it into the article as a substitution for the online version, since the online link is currently unavailable. The cached version is here, and the "50 foot from the border" information is on page 2, in the very first sentence of the nomination. --MelanieN (talk) 23:33, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Rose rosette virus

If the virus is so significant, why isn't it linked to anything? Also, the article says "almost two-thirds" while the hook says "at least two-thirds", while the reference says "about two-thirds". Come on guys, this is simple stuff. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:10, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

look like its linked now. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:36, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's linked, but the hook and the article and the reference don't say the same thing. Weird. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:41, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What part doesn't match? I think I checked the hook through to the source -- I don't attempt to check the whole article for accuracy, of course. Is it something about the description of the virus? EEng (talk) 21:06, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's the "almost" vs "at least" vs "about". The Rambling Man (talk) 21:12, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, sorry. I missed that angle. As with he 25000 and Roosevelt (see elsewhere near here) these kinds of things are readily interpreted by the reader as approximate or estimates. Especially since we're talking about dead roses, not dead people, we can say "2/3" when maybe the source says "almost 2/3". If in doubt I always say "some 2/3" which is a short, neat way of telegraphing uncertainty. EEng (talk) 21:36, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well yes, the real point here is that "at least 2/3" is not the same as "almost 2/3". The Rambling Man (talk) 06:35, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We shoulda just said 2/3. Again, this is why hooks should just be pulled, not patched. There are too many details to fix on the fly with confidence. EEng (talk) 06:48, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Soccer kick

The only source in the article referencing the "fact" that a "soccer kick" can cause injury is from a website called "MMAJunkie" and features an interview with someone who says "we’re just lucky no one has been seriously injured yet". So, in reality, it hasn't caused injury, and if it has then the hook should be changed. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:10, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And per a recent hook change by experienced veteran DYK admin User:Victuallers (here), we shouldn't be allowing humour on the main page DYKs, or Easter egg style links, unless its 1 April, and as most people will read a soccer kick as being related to association football, not MMA, the hook needs serious clarification as well as correction. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:17, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You're being POINTY, TRM, and it doesn't help. And you know I'm with you on most things. EEng (talk) 21:33, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Let it slide: mirroring helps Victuallers (talk) 23:04, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As usual, V, I have no idea what you're talking about. EEng (talk) 23:51, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's a little revenge strike for me applying Victuallers' own flawed logic and pointy outburst to other hooks which he perhaps overlooked or missed or just didn't apply his own flawed logic to. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:52, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Prep 2

Swearing-in ceremony of Narendra Modi

Were the heads invited or did they actually attend? The hook says one thing, the lead says another. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:24, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Approved hook said "invited", sources I checked said "invited" - so I left it invited. They may have also attended but I don't know. EEng (talk) 21:02, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So we leave a hook to disagree with the lead of the article it links to? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:13, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm guessing, BTW, that what might be going on is that the event hadn't happened when the nom was made. Anyway, by far the most important thing is that the hook be ironclad, traced straight through to the source, because they appear on MP and just must not be wrong. But as to the article, I have the somewhat radical idea that we should be very up front that they are works in progress, even to the point of putting a template on them, beginning with their DYK MP appearance, saying, "Like all WP articles, this one is a work in progress, may be incomplete, contain errors, blah blah, click here to help!"

Yes, someone should make the article consistent but from what I recall there's no contradiction -- all the heads were invited is a true statement, and maybe that they all came is a true statement too. But that they all were invited is a true statement. EEng (talk) 22:17, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Different question: I see almost nothing on the image in stamp size, - can it be cropped? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:42, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Only because it's you, I created a cropped version, and changed the prep to use it. However, there are some formalities only an admin can carry out e.g. protecting the image, and I'm not certain the flickr source carries the right license for the original image -- can an admin run all that down? EEng (talk) 23:12, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Taylor Glockner

Minor point, but why are we linking to an iPad variation of the reference? While we're talking about it, our own article on The Courier-Mail states that it's a tabloid newspaper, and it's this, and this only, which is referencing the claim of the hook. I tend to avoid using tabloid references from the UK, e.g. The Sun or The Mirror as they are widely recognised as failing our reliable sources policy. What makes this Australian rag any different from the UK red-tops? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:24, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to be a RS. Mobile vs desktop fmt shouldn't worry us for DYK purposes. EEng (talk) 22:42, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Since when did tabloid newspapers become reliable sources? The Rambling Man (talk) 06:16, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

To be honest, Mr. Man, you were posting queries at such a furious pace I was having difficulty processing them all, and some things fell on the floor. Here, for example, I somehow only saw the iPad point. I'm usually better than that but there's been some strain recently. But it would be better in future if youd concentrate on e.g. the RS point, and skip e.g. the iPad point. EEng (talk) 06:26, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Two issues for the price of one. Still, if DYK posted fewer hooks per second, we'd have fewer errors per second to comment upon. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:28, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Present tense

"that the Philadelphia 76ers are moving their headquarters and practice facilities " apparently they are moving. It appears, from the article at least, that this move won't be happening until 2016, so can we make the hook at least accurate in so far as "the 76ers will move to ... in June 2016" or similar? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:25, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

changed to future tense, though present tense is in use for near-future verbs in spoken English....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:40, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's a nuance of English that we use "are moving". That can imply to other non-English speakers that it's happening now. It isn't, it's happening in the future. Thanks for the fix. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:42, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a question of how far in the future per se. The real problem is CRYSTALBALL. We can say where the next Olympics "will" be held because that's almost certain to happen. A team's announcement 10 days ago about a planned move, no matter how confidently stated, is hardly certain. EEng (talk) 21:41, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Roosevelt's popularity

The source suggests that it was an "estimated" 25,000, not a cast-iron "25,000", so the hook and the article need to reflect that reality. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:37, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

estimated added Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:41, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:42, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with you on this, TRM. MOS:LARGENUM provides that large round numbers are expected to be interpreted by the reader as approximate. We don't have to sweat this in a hook. EEng (talk) 21:32, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think the point is that there are only people having a guess at the numbers, it's not like a modern football match where we can round the large numbers with confidence that what we're rounding wasn't just an estimate in the first place. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:20, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Worst in the world

"...that in 1941 the judge Heber Hart wrote that..." well actually the article refers to a work by Hart that was published in 1941, not written in that year. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:38, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Unless there was a very large delay between the manuscript and the publication, it's usual to elide the two chronologically, taking the publication date as controlling. For one thing, regardless of how many drafts something goes through, there's that last moment when the galleys are approved (in the old days) or the writer clicks SEND (nowadays), and that's sort of the final "writing". EEng (talk) 21:44, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with your first sentence, so the blurb needs to say it was published that year. Otherwise we're just taking a punt that it was written in the same year. Guessing. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:22, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Right first time, RM: wrote is wrong (or deeply misleading at best). The original—and still current—wording is thought, which is entirely correct. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 14:58, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Take a look at this Google search for wrote in 1941 to see how wrong you are. [20]. I suspect The Rambling Man has thought better of this by now. EEng (talk) 15:10, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So lazy thought is commonplace on the internet? What a shocking surprise! We know that he thought about it in 1941, and if we are sure about that, then we may as well stick with what we know, and not what will mislead. - SchroCat (talk) 15:16, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Eric Morecambe, anyone? Martinevans123 (talk) 15:19, 23 June 2014 (UTC) [reply]

Here's a similar search restricted to 19th-century books, so no lazy internet usage. [21] Or does the [22] Report of the Committee of Council on Education - 1858-9 - Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty go in your lazy usage column as well? Really, how long will you continue embarrassing yourself? EEng (talk) 15:49, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not embarrassing myself at all. This is, at one level, a stylistic difference, and that's just one factor. I've already asked you a couple if times to not move into the realms of incivility, and yet you still keep personalising this: again, please stop. - SchroCat (talk) 15:58, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Bottom line is that once again the hook is incorrect. Or at best, badly sourced. Now then, move along all you kids, you're giving me a headache. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:52, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Cervix

This hook has a qualifier (to whit: "the relatively small lower part of the uterus in adult women"). Is there a reason why this specific hook needs a qualifying sentence (after all, cervix is linked, that's the point, right?) when, for instance, "that the Philadelphia 76ers" isn't qualified with "American basketball team"? Also, it may be just me but "is during childhood twice the size of the body of the uterus" seems to be missing some commas before and after "during childhood". And sadly repeats "uterus" in a single sentence. Not good at all. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:07, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You have something against multiple uteruses, you misogynist? EEng (talk) 23:36, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Umm, shouldn't that be "uteri".... ?--MelanieN (talk) 23:41, 22 June 2014 (UTC) [reply]

Indeed a pregnant question. Either uteruses or uteri -- they're identical twins. EEng (talk) 03:38, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I attempted to fix the grammar with this edit. Yoninah (talk) 22:52, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Queue 5

SAS

According to long-time contributor User:Victuallers, hooks like "that the SAS is based in Australia?" should be discouraged unless it's April Fool's Day or similar, because of course this is misleading to our reader. Is this a trick hook or are such hooks allowed and Victuallers has mis-interpreted the current DYK approach to such things? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:45, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I'm not getting the reference. To me SAS is a statistical package. Assuming we get past that... V has been extremely pointy, angry, and childish recently, but we shouldn't be pointy back. A hook that makes the reader look twice because of a double meaning or something is fine. But again I don't know what the joke is here. EEng (talk) 23:18, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The nominator explained that SAS is most commonly associated with Britain's Special Air Service. Brits who see that "SAS is based in Australia" will do a double-take. Unfortunately, the hook was placed in a queue that just hit the main page in the middle of the night in London. Yoninah (talk) 23:32, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

See, I don't see anything wrong with that. People go "What...?" and click. You tricked them into learning something. If you don't want to learn anything new and interesting, don't look at DYK. EEng (talk) 23:39, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, it's gone down really well. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:13, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, we can't please both the UK and the Australians at the same time... 1,350 views in the 40 minutes it was up yesterday. Thanks, Mat ty.007 16:16, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What, someone pulled it from the Main Page after 40 minutes? Yoninah (talk) 17:21, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, unless I'm seeing something wrong it went the whole distance. I'm actually troubled by this on-MP change: [23]. I think it's perfectly appropriate to remind readers of the way the Nazis used euphemisms, as long as we distance ourselves by putting them in quotes. We wouldn't hesitate to have a hook refer to "the final solution" if there was good reason (in quotes in the hook, and with great care of course). EEng (talk) 17:51, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And you complain about merging too many things. That hook was discussed at ANI and our Lord-Saviour-Arbcom stopped by to help out. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:45, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, sorry for that. It was up yesterday, but view stats are only available a day later, so given that the article was up this morning, today's vieww stats aren't available yet. Sorry for my communication error. Thanks, Mat ty.007 17:25, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Teams in and lived in

One hook says: "teams in Detroit and Cleveland, and later lived in Mexico City as a fugitive from embezzlement charges?". As the Detroit and Cleveland links point at sports teams, would there be an objection to saying that the teams were "from" Detroit &c to avoid the awkwardness of thinking that we'd be clicking on a geographical location, even though Mexico City (oddly) isn't linked? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:10, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

All good points, and arguments for all hooks waiting 48 hours in prep, as I keep proposing. But it's on MP now, and not an error per se, so I don't feel like pursuing it. EEng (talk) 21:38, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Off topic for this thread, but I think it's worth considering hiving off this page into a separate Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Errors (for want of a better phrase) so that problems with entries in prep and queue can be reported, leaving this talk page for discussing the process. EEng's proposal has been buried amongst these reports. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 08:46, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, we could open a discussion of starting a /Errors page, but it would get buried amongst all the error reports. Seriously, though, since right now I'm the Bogeyman maybe you could lead an effort to revive those discussions. Also, I have to spend some time making up for lost time in one of my own nominations, due to the idiot seven-day rule. [24] EEng (talk) 11:29, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Happy to help with a pre-main page ERRORS page. Frankly the instructions are confusing in any case, and DYK's odd use of templates rather than mainspace stuff is mega-bizarre and off-putting right from the start so any clear instructions on how to report concerns with hooks not yet on the main page should be helpful. As there are so many, we ought to dedicate a new page, to avoid cluttering up any of the others, to which EEng has alluded. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:36, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Prep 4

Soccer kick

Moved from above, it still claims "that soccer kicks can cause serious injury if done improperly" which is clunky and awful prose ("...if done improperly"...). Can we at least write grammatically suitable hooks? And it still fails to address the "easter egg" issue raised above and by User:Victuallers. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:00, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That was put there erroneously. That was not the hook that was approved, I have since corrected that. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 21:14, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It appears that several hooks that were "not approved" have suffered a similar experience. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:18, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Again, I think it's OK that the "soccer kicks" in this hook turn out to be a term of art in some awful barbarian bloodsport, not (as one readily assumes) footy/soccer, because I think it's OK for the reader to say -- "how crafty -- you fooled me a bit" when he clicks. OK, I say, though in this case I think the hook won't get much click-count since I think most people won't click under the assumption that the statement is so obvious. EEng (talk) 23:23, 22 June 2014 (UTC) P.S. I'm beginning to get tired so my explanations ramble, I fear.[reply]

Prep 3

Baring bare things

"duties of bearing a son bared their breasts" reads really poorly, suggest a revision to stop the odd repeat of bearing and bearing in such quick succession with different meanings. Maybe "exposed"? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:02, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Changed bear-->produce EEng (talk) 22:12, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Exposed sounds best to me. (Can you be accused of decent exposure I wonder?) Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 08:43, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

DYK is almost overdue

In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:

Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #1 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page

Then, when the time is right I will be able to update the template. Thanks and have a good day, DYKUpdateBot (talk) 11:50, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Is death quirky?

In Prep 4, ... that right after Frederick Federici sang the last note as Mephistopheles in Gounod's Faust, descending through a trap door to hell, he died? - by what standard is that "quirky"? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:05, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's certainly dramatic. Yoninah (talk) 17:15, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Operatic, in fact. I was going to suggest

... that opera singer F F descended to hell before he died?

EEng (talk) 17:18, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No problem with it personally, but that probably wouldn't go down too well here. Thanks, Mat ty.007 17:24, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have no problem with the hook, which I suggested myself, but with the quirky position in the set. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:30, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Queue times

Will the times for the queues to appear on the Main Page ever be accurate again? Lately it's been difficult to assemble a set when you don't know if it will be delayed, or exactly what time it will appear in each time zone. Yoninah (talk) 17:15, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps just slow all the queues down to when is most appropriate to update DYK, i.e. once all the hooks have been double/triple checked, rather than rushing them through based on a robot timer telling you to do so. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:49, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Used to be, we didn't worry about the time of day when a hook/queue was going to appear. (Although we did worry about timing for holidays and other special dates.) It was just luck that determined whether a hook appeared when the geographic region it was most focused on was mostly awake or mostly asleep. The idea that article creators can demand that a hook's appearance be timed to coincide with a particular time of day just makes it all the more difficult to administer DYK. --Orlady (talk) 18:12, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well it's only difficult because there seems to be an insistence to rush DYK along a lot, why not stick with one set of hooks per day, like all the other parts of the main page (apart from ITN which may shift a little over a day, depending on stories and such)? What makes DYK need to continually push, push, push? I've had nominations that have featured on the main page which I never got a chance to see, six hours and bang, it was gone. Pointless. I see no harm at all in sloooowing it all down, especially in view of the recent embarrassing oversights, to one set a day. Can you give me one good reason why we shouldn't re-boot DYK to one good set of 6 to 10 hooks per day? The Rambling Man (talk) 18:33, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support TRM's proposal. DYK primarily justifies itself by saying "[MP] publicity rewards editors for their contributions." Six hours really isn't a long time to bask in the glory and being pulled (as opposed to receiving MP space with an improved article after a tough review) is no reward at all. Furius (talk) 19:14, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the deal is that -- consistent with the goal of encouraging new Wikipedia content and new Wikipedia contributors -- DYK tries to feature every nominated item that is determined to meet the eligibility criteria. We've been pretty tolerant (in order to encourage newbies, etc.); I recall only one contributor ever being banned from DYK. The production rate of new nominations -- and of approved nominations -- on the noms page is what determines the number of items that get included on the main page. In my memory, the number of hooks displayed in one 24-hour period has varied between about 12 (two daily sets of six hooks) and 36 (4 daily sets of 9 hooks).

Throttling down the number of hooks presumably would require either (1) only publishing the best nominations (for example, only those that have zero problems at the time of nomination) or (2) developing subjective or arbitrary criteria to use as a basis for rejecting some nominations that are otherwise fully acceptable.

A major difficulty with the first option is that the best nominations tend to come from experienced and productive contributors -- people who at any given topic are usually concentrating on one narrow-interest topical area. Thus, we would end up running hooks on the same short list of narrow-interest topics over and over again. (We have those repetitive topics now, but since each hook runs for only 8 hours daily, the repetition is less obvious.) Users would never see hooks from newbies, contributors with limited English, and other contributors who need a lot of coaching and assistance; hooks about under-represented topics like politics in sub-Saharan Africa might never appear.

The second option would inevitably lead to acrimonious debate that does not contribute anything to improving Wikipedia. We already have the people who want to focus on the kinds of hooks that get the most hits (e.g., anything related to sex), people who insist that no one cares about [fill in name of topic here], people who insist that their own hooks are the most deserving of attention, etc., etc. Unlike ITN, we wouldn't be able to use metrics like current news interest to justify our decisions. That's not a happy prospect -- I'd far rather spend my time in trying to improve articles than in arguing about the relative significance of submarines vs. weevils vs. listed buildings in England (or whatever). --Orlady (talk) 03:32, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No acrimonious debate needed, just straight voting. A rough outline:

Nominated hooks go on a list. Every day every editor has N hook-votes to give out as he pleases (including more than one to a single hook?).
Each day the 7 hooks with the most votes have made the grade.

A hook stays in the running for a few days, accumulating votes (maybe with some kind of time decay) but after a while it's dropped from the running.

Over the next 30 days -- no hurry -- the article is reviewed and improved as necessary, and when it's ready it goes on MP. (Actually, if it were up to me DYK would just include GAs only, not this inexplicable "new content" conceit, but that's a different debate.)
By running only 7 really good hooks per day, there's real quality control. (Or maybe the biggest vote-getters stay on MP 24 hours, others rotate in for shorter periods.)

EEng (talk) 04:58, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That's a big enough change that it would need an RFC, at least. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:28, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. I'm just pointing out that determining which proposed hooks should actually be used is once place where raw, Darwinian voting makes complete sense. We want to run hooks people like? Then ask people what they like. EEng (talk) 12:17, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

DYK is almost overdue

In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:

Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #2 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page

Then, when the time is right I will be able to update the template. Thanks and have a good day, DYKUpdateBot (talk) 20:05, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

CHILL OUT BOT. If it's late, it's late. Stop harassing these people. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:42, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

DYKUpdateBot hate self. DYKUpdateBot kill self with petril. Belle (talk) 22:35, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's a bot. It has no emotions.--Skr15081997 (talk) 04:05, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

<flatstare> Ah, right... yeah, that was totally the joke. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:21, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Mr. Bot look at the top of the page and say "Hi, Honey".--Skr15081997 (talk) 04:33, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

EEng read thread and say, "Huh?" EEng (talk) 04:59, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

DYK is almost overdue

In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:

Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #3 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page

Then, when the time is right I will be able to update the template. Thanks and have a good day, DYKUpdateBot (talk) 06:30, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Are hooks no longer required to be interesting?

From the current crop: "that footballer Pavel Mareš played for the Czech Republic at UEFA Euro 2004". Really? Is this actually interesting at all? Or are we going to get a series of "footballer X played for Y at Z" articles flooding DYK now? The Rambling Man (talk) 07:11, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not kidding -- one hook was "that people sometimes put indoor furniture on their screened porches" EEng (talk) 07:20, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

.. porches can be quite fascinating, especially against a nice screen. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:06, 24 June 2014 (UTC) [reply]

Lets see: DYK hooks are supposed to be

Accurate
Referenced
Reasonably grammatical
Under 200 characters
Interesting
Scheduled on time

What we have here is a hook that fulfills five of the six (there may be more I missed). Considering how far behind DYK has been for the past few weeks, how many hooks have had concerns about accuracy, how many heated emotions have been posted to this talk page recently, how long the article was in prep and queue before being promoted, how that article is buried among several others of considerably more interest (and thus not the focus), and how many DYK regulars appear to have just given up or reduced their involvement because their best efforts just aren't enough for critics... I say it might be better to wait until things are better here before bringing minor complaints. Of course, if you want to suggest "interesting" alternatives for upcoming hooks, be my guest. It's just that complaining about every little thing kinda makes the more important complaints seem more trivial. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:24, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough, there are bigger fish to fry, but really I had thought that after accuracy, the hooks needed to actually be hooks, i.e. hooky, to hook in a reader, not just plain dull. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:28, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Paris, Tennessee ... home of DYK gold. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:20, 24 June 2014 (UTC) [reply]

Having a higher "interestingness quotient" overall would be one side effect of reducing the daily hook count. Face it -- some articles just don't have anything hookworthy. EEng (talk) 07:34, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'd put "interestingness" as 4th most important (accuracy and referencing are definitely #1 and 2, and grammar is fairly important), but yes it could easily have been better written.

EEng, a major issue with "interestingness" is that it is subjective. Something like the hook TRM has taken issue with is probably universally considered "not hooky", but there are many in the grey area. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:37, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it's subjective. So let interested editors vote on which ones they like, and run the top vote-getters. See #justvote. EEng (talk) 12:22, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, because then we would suit only the taste of those who are eager to vote. I don't think I would have been able to interest them in Bach cantatas. Please let's keep serving the interests of minorities and less popular topics also, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:38, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Trust me, I completely agree that's an important goal. But that doesn't mean we have to throw up our hands and exercise no discrimination at all. You're right that voting only reflects the taste of those who vote. But then, the current process only reflects the taste of those who nominate, including a lot of really, really dull hooks that don't succeed in raising interest in anything at all. It's like the Special Olympics -- everyone gets an award! A statistical investigation of hook clickthroughs and what seems to make them vary would be fascinating -- if someone wants to go through the trouble of dumping the raw data I'd happily carry one out. EEng (talk) 13:09, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Is that like looking for ten pences at a Salvation Army jumble sale? Martinevans123 (talk) 13:21, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Crisco 1492 said it all. Interesting or not, it is an opinion. You have to run things and keep them alive. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 07:55, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Late to this: I don't think that hooks have ever been required to be interesting, - it certainly adds if they are, but it will always be subjective (as stated above), - something can be a revelation for me and completely boring for someone else, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:47, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, ok. Perhaps we shouldn't call it "Did you know...." because that tends to make people think you're about to say something interesting. Perhaps it should be "Factoids from recently created or updated articles" and drop the "Did you know.... ?" bit. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:57, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

To you, "did you know?" seems to mean something other than a simple question which can be answered by yes or no. My answer to the hook which started this thread would be "no". The answer to if I would be interested to know that fact would also be "no" ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:19, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hooks should be required to be as interesting as possible. Sometimes the article topic is dry and does not lend itself to a catchy hook, sometimes the article creator can't think of a good one, and neither one should prevent the article from appearing in DYK assuming it fulfills the other criteria. When I review I try to, whenever possible, prompt the creator to come up with more interesting hooks or suggest them myself. We can encourage everyone to do the same thing, even on articles that someone else is reviewing. Gamaliel (talk) 14:48, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Preps ...

are in reasonable shape, but since I filled them (mostly) myself I don't plan to promote them to queue unless absolutely necessary. Could another admin handle the job when the time comes? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:18, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Prep 4

It seems to me that "consumption" shouldn't be in quotes; it makes it look like a joke or something. Wouldn't it be better to just call it tuberculosis, and take the quotes out of the article, too? Yoninah (talk) 10:26, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's meant to be "hooky". — Crisco 1492 (talk) 10:33, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's the wording of that time and gave it a pipe link, - I don't think we need the quote marks. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:38, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Gerda's right. With consumption blue-linked, that's hooky enough. Yoninah (talk) 12:18, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Did someone mention Hooky Street? Martinevans123 (talk) 12:33, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Errors

Moving the most important part of this page, the discussions about problems and errors, to a subpage Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Errors (only because there are so many of them nowadays?) seems like a poor decision to me, so I reverted it. It at least needs discussion before such a rather crucial measure is being taken. Fram (talk) 11:20, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Looked quite a logical move to me, regardless of how many there are at the moment. In fact, I thought it was a good idea. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:23, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We did discuss this, but the conversation got buried in Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Errors#Teams in and lived in - in a nutshell the reports are drowning out actual discussions (such as EEng's proposal to keep preps fixed for a time). As long as instructions are clear what to do and where to do (and I'm not saying they can't be improved), this should be a net benefit. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 11:25, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hiding problems on a subpage is rarely a net positive. The fact that these reports currently drown other discussions is evidence of the enormity of the issue. Fram (talk) 11:30, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I used precedent as set by Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors (where WP:ERRORS goes) - best to be consistent. Similarly, I would imagine most regulars would use a shortcut or a link. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 11:34, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is a good idea. They aren't hidden on a subpage, they are on a dedicated page where they can get the attention they need without being lost amongst general conversation (it's all spin). Belle (talk) 11:35, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, so before this conversation gets buried (!), are there any further objections to splitting off errors? Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 14:08, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If I may say I think this question might be deferred until the question in the next section below (holding noms open for a final 48 hrs or whatever) is resolved. That might moot this idea, good as it is for the current situation. EEng (talk) 15:58, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I object to splitting off errors. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:12, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, I wasn't really objecting, but I don't think it will be necessary if the proposal of the next thread goes through. EEng (talk) 18:31, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yet another proposal from EEng

I think the problem is that so many hooks undergo continued discussion after the nom is closed and the hook is placed in prep, so that there's no natural home for that continued discussion -- thus it ends up here. The reason there's so much discussion after closure is that only two people (nom and editor) are formally required to be involved at all prior to closure (and the nom might do no more than nominate!), and then it goes to prep. Suddenly all eyes are on it, and the real discussion begins!

So here's a new proposal:

Withdrawn in favor of a better idea -- see #Wait.21_EEng_has_another_idea.21

That once a nom receives the green tick, it not go to prep until another 48[let's discuss exact time later]] hours have (has?) passed.

This way, grammar hawks and fact-fussers will have a chance to comment on the nom page, keeping discussion centralized there, before things end up in prep where serious problems can only be addressed as "pulls".

I really, really think this will help a lot, and it's way better than my earlier idea of holding assembled prep sets for a fixed time.

Maybe we can have a new pale-green tick to represent the waiting stage -- and that template should emit some text that can be searched for, so these "waiting" noms are easily found.

Support, obviously. EEng (talk) 13:41, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support - will give time for comments and other issues. No different to AfD process except shorter time frame, approvals to prep will have more chance of consensus. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 13:48, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support - if only for the grammar hawks and fact fussers. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:55, 24 June 2014 (UTC) ...of which you are one -- don't deny it. EEng (talk)[reply]
Oppose - this will only add more red tape and make it harder to build sets, while any improvement in quality control would in all likelihood be minimal. Gatoclass (talk) 13:58, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support - it will definitely improve the situation, it will only make the first few sets harder to build, and will reduce the chances of errors creeping through to the main page. Why this insistence on rushing things through? It will always end in tears, (or in this case, numerous hook pulls and ERRORS reports). The Rambling Man (talk) 14:04, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I think this is a good idea, but support needs to come from those who will be building the prep areas; it's lovely that all the pedants (and I use that as a term of affection for my fellow nit-pickers. Love you. Big kiss.) think it is a good idea, but without buy-in from the logistics division it will be dead on its arse/ass. Belle (talk) 14:11, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Ideally, yes. But in practice, not necessarily. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:14, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Big kiss back. Of course we want buy-in from everyone if possible, but I don't see why the preppies have any special insight on this. We're just telling them (and I'm one too now!) they need to skip anything that hasn't passed the 48-hour mark. If there's a technical problem it should be pointed out, but I can't really see what that could be, except maybe something about how the mysterious scoreboard of still-open noms works.

BTW this may mean a drop in MP output for the first 48 hours, but not as much as one might think -- there seem to be a lot of old apporoved noms that for some reason no one has bothered to send to prep, so these can finally be squeezed dry.

EEng (talk) 14:21, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I thought moving to prep was an admin job. Fair enough. Belle (talk) 14:30, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ideally, yes. But in practice, not necessarily. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:14, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You forgot to say "Support". EEng (talk) 14:21, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No I didn't. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:25, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think he meant me. Support Belle (talk) 14:30, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I did mean TRM, but turns out he did. And you have too. Soon the world will he ours!!! Hahahaha! EEng (talk)

Yes Belle - my concern is that this will just add to the existing workload of updaters, which will mean yet another discouragement to participation here. That is the last thing that is needed at DYK. Gatoclass (talk) 14:23, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There's no rush to post things on Wikipedia, the last thing needed at DYK is the continuation of the propagation of poor, incorrect, embarrassing hooks that get all the way to the main page in the mad rush to satisfy the DYKUpdateBot... The Rambling Man (talk) 14:26, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see why it should make things more difficult (though you are right that we shouldn't be discouraging participation I don't see that waiting is a complication likely to do that) Belle (talk) 14:30, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Because on top of everything else, you are now expecting updaters to calculate the time every hook has been on the nom page before promoting it. It is also going to mean more hooks languishing on the nom page for updaters to have to sort through when looking for eligible noms. Updating is a tough enough job as it is, a rule like this will certainly discourage me from building updates and I doubt I will be alone in that. BTW, has anyone done an analysis of how long pulled hooks have been on the nom page before being promoted? Maybe you should do that before making a proposal such as this. Gatoclass (talk) 14:41, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Is it not possible for somebody (not me, but somebody with a bit of technical expertise) to make a page which lists the noms that are ready to move to prep (where the green tick icon has been on the nom for 48 hours)? That would make the creation of preps easier than it is now. Belle (talk) 14:51, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Of course it is, just as the DYKUpdateBot calculates when it needs feeding, and the ITN timer tells us when the last story was added. It's simple coding and can be easily implemented. It's certainly no reason to oppose this proposal. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:26, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Simple coding? It may be straightforward, that doesn't mean it's trivial. There are a very finite number of folks with the requisite technical skills helping at DYK to implement this for you. DYKUpdateBot may not have feelings, but after you and others have repeatedly insulted my code, I'm less inclined to spend hours on a new bot. Lack of manpower is definitely a reason to oppose a plan. Shubinator (talk) 01:13, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh... I, for one, think the coding works marvelously, and that this talk page has gotten too toxic recently to support constructive collaboration... but I guess I'm in the minority. Shub, thank you for all of your work. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:37, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Gamaliel (talk) 14:39, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I support the idea of letting things sit on a nom page/prep area for a little to get some reviewing time. I don't know if 48 hours is too much or not.--¿3family6 _contribs 14:41, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Let's agree to see first if there's support for some waiting period, and if so, then decide how long. EEng (talk) 14:47, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Question - How many of these grammar hawks et al. actually read the nom page? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:50, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thus the followon point I made in my OP: we need an easy way to find noms that have passed the one-editor review, but haven't gone to prep. Right now just trying to page through the giant concatenated page of nominations is dizzying. Part of my goal here is to make it socially acceptable for a random editor to add to the end of a nom discussion, "In case it helps, I checked this hook through to the sources and it looks OK to me." Right now I have the feeling that if I did that, certain people would immediately say, "And what makes you think we need you to check?"

EEng (talk) 15:48, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Excuse me, EEng, your ignorance of DYK is showing. There is an easy way to find noms that have been ticked as "approved". If you had built prep areas (instead of pontificating about the character flaws of those who do), you might have discovered by now. On the Queue page under the heading Current number of hooks on the nominations page, you will find at table with by-date listing of numbers of nominations and numbers of approved nominations. Currently there are 238 noms, of which 54 are approved (this includes noms that have been the subject of lengthy discussion prior to approval, as well as those that were simply ticked "OK" by one user). Click on the date to see the noms for that date. The various colored icons are used to allow volunteers to quickly skim to find hooks that are approved, as well as hooks flagged as having problems or as being ready for new review following action to correct issues identified earlier. In my experience the system is pretty easy to use. My biggest complaint has been that when the DYKHousekeepingBot stops working, the table on the queue page doesn't get updated. --Orlady (talk) 00:19, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You think that is easy and are worried that this proposal will make things more difficult? We must be matter and anti-matter versions of each other (You shouldn't agree with this or it will ruin my hypothesis.) Belle (talk) 01:15, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support. I support strongly to raise concerns on the nominations page, - once in prep it's late. I support to try this, and we can do that without extra red tape, if prep builders simply watch for the date and don't take things approved just before, in cases of only one reviewer. I think a discussion with several people involved which finally comes to a conclusion is a different story. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:51, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - having just checked the first dozen or so pulled hooks, it seems most of them were on the nom page way longer than 48 hours before being promoted. On that basis, it would appear, as I said above, that a rule like this would achieve very little apart from adding considerably to the workload/aggravation of updaters. Gatoclass (talk) 14:56, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, your first point has merit, but your second none at all. It's trivial to code up something that tells an updater that a nom has been sitting there for 48 hours. No workload increase, no aggravation gained. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:28, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This sort of code isn't trivial, and there's definitely a workload increase for whoever maintains the code. Developers are not slaves. Shubinator (talk) 01:18, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I thnk that's because the giant concatenated page of noms is too hard to parse, and the social acceptability of injecting oneself into a nom, short of pointing out a serious problem, is marginal right now. See my response to Crisco, a few posts up from here.

BTW, if this goes well and is eventually formalized a bit more, this might make it easier, not harder, for the person assembling the prep. We might eventually be able to dispense with giving that person responsibility for rechecking the hook and its sources. Right now there seems to be an implied responsibility to do that, but one which is very unevenly discharged.

EEng (talk) 15:48, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"A pale green tick"... this is rather similar to what happened with the "ready for rereview" ticks... those still wait weeks for a second reviewer, or for the reviewer to come back. Ticks don't work. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:03, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think it might if the tick meant it was listed on a separate page. One of the problems now with looking through the hooks on the nomination page is volume. I sometimes correct the hooks in the latest nominations, but later in the process there can be 5 or 6 ALT suggestions that all need some attention and by the time they get to prep the hooks can have been reworked again or replaced an ALT that hasn't been checked over by the nit-pickers (I like that more than hawks; nit pickers provide a grooming service, hawks eat your young). Belle (talk) 16:11, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No doubt someone knows how to make derivative subpages listing selected noms and so on, but that will take time. Right now I'd be happy for an intermediate tick that emits text that can be searched for. Right now enormous amounts of time are spent unpromoting, posting to TDYK, etc etc, and it's driving everyone crazy. All that will be saved, along with the goodwill now being lost when hooks from "closed" noms are pulled for problems that could and should have been caught before closure. Once it's clear it's working some template wizard can whip up some code. But such an investment of time shouldn't be made until we have some experience with the general idea. EEng (talk) 16:19, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Rambling Man says it is trivial to code that, so don't go putting him off. Belle (talk) 17:15, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's already coded, e.g. {{ITN update}}. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:23, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary break (to reduce edit conflicts) #1

Comment There is nothing implicitly wrong with this proposal but I agree with Gatoclass that it just causes problems for the builders. Every error we can find before a hook is approved is brilliant. Everyone that we find after it is approved is a failure of the process. By all means lets leave nominations for 48 hours to allow eyes to look at them, but building a meta-review process will I think take everyone's eye off the main process .... and everytime we "pull" a hook we create another review and we potentially annoy and confuse the original nominator, the author and the people involved in the real approval process. Lets just remember that the hook is ephemeral, we are meant to be improving the articles and the editors. We are spending too much time tweaking a hook. Lets work out how to improve the creation of DYK articles and improving them .... oh, and the hook Victuallers (talk) 15:41, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

After the initial 48 hour (or whatever) delay, there's no "problems for the builders" who simply look at an indicator which automatically tells them if an article has been sitting there long enough. This is software, it's trivial to code a timer. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:43, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Read on .... if the builders only had to build then that would be great. But they are checking reviews and answering witch hunts into why they failed to spot that it was the wrong type of engineering strut (etc) in a hook and facing the problem of having their work and themselves rubbished. Will the software you describe help?Victuallers (talk) 16:40, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There's no witch hunt. The large number of pulls from prep show that some prep builders, at least, aren't checking the reviews. No one's naming names, but we're trying to relieve them of that responsibility by moving more eyes upstream (weird an image though that is). And there's some evidence, at least, that careful checking is having a salutary effect already [25]. EEng (talk) 17:13, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The proposal is only trying to address the problem having to rework hooks in the prep areas and queues. It can't help you deal with existing problems caused by other people's attitudes (though it might cut down on the number of witch hunts by getting more eyes on the hooks before they come to the attention of the witch finders). Belle (talk) 17:15, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, in the short run it will probably make noms discussions longer, increase the frequency of ALTs being proposed, etc., and to some that may be an annoyance; but another short-term effect will reduction of MP pulls, Q pulls, prep pulls, and the godawful mess on this very Talk that those create. And in the long run (actually mid-term, I think) it should reduce the need for reworking of hooks and so on even in the nom discussions, because examples of what is and isn't acceptable will become more visible and reviewers will be educated more effectively. Let me quote from a nom I linked just two posts up:

I do not see neutrality, copyright or plagiarism issues, and everything is well cited. To keep [name of well-known fact-hawk modestly redacted]' happy I'd recommend ALT 1, as the source does not say "private" as is stated in the first hook

Can anyone really say that it's not a good thing to help reviewers think in those terms i.e. "How will this hook stand up to the scrutiny of others?" EEng (talk) 17:37, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I'm once again unsurprised by the pushback on anything that seeks to reform DYK by those veterans who still seem to think there's no problem here. The bizarre and mad rush to shove whatever we've got onto the DYK section of the main page will continue to embarrass and upset people unless something is done. The first step is to systematically slow the process down and allow more time to reflect on the impact of crap hooks, offensive phrasing, poor grammar, inconsistency, bad links, inadequate referencing, all of which has struck DYK in the past week alone. This proposal offers that first step. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:23, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

See, Victuallers, you didn't have to worry about the rubbishing letting up. TRM, be nice or I'll punch you or kiss you (whichever you think would be worse; see my user page for terms and conditions). Belle (talk) 17:34, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have to agree, TRM. Truth and Justice are ascendant here, so no need to offend people unnecessarily just now. We can offend people unnecessarily later. EEng (talk) 17:39, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, you'll have to clarify the point where I offended people. I just told it as it is. Or am I simply wrong when I count the pulled hooks, the ANI threads, etc? No, perhaps I'm wrong and DYK is just fine and dandy and all these mistakes on the main page of the sixth most visited website in the universe are just fine and dandy too. Keep up the great work DYK veterans who don't even see a problem, at some point the plug will be pulled on DYK, just as it was on Featured sounds, we're closer than ever. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:59, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary break (to reduce edit conflicts) #2

Support I don't see the harm, and it doesn't have to affect the number or lengths of hooks, nor even slow down the process in the long term. It will be somewhat disruptive to DYK for a couple of weeks, but I think the long-term benefits outweigh the short-term bot angst. 78.26 (His Wiki's Voice) 17:25, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose In principle this is a fine idea, but (as others have already noted) in practice it would only add to the challenges faced by the volunteers who often struggle to find a good mix of hooks when building a prep area (and often end up "unapproving" several hooks in the process). Furthermore, many hooks already sit on the noms for a very long time after being reviewed, but that waiting period has not ensured quality. It is useful to note that several of the hooks that were severely criticized in recent days immediately after they were moved to prep areas had sat on the noms page for days -- even weeks -- after being "approved". If the vultures who have been swooping in to remove hooks from prep areas while they are being built would actually spend time perusing the nominations page, a lot of aggravation could be avoided. --Orlady (talk) 17:31, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Not vultures, but hawks (as in eagle-eyes, to mix the metaphor)
The reasons pulled hooks sit around a lot are mixed.

Mostly it's because no one seems to know how to get pulled hooks back in the workflow with certainty. This proposal reduces that problem by shaking out more problems before the pull stage.
Sometimes it's just sulking on the part of nominators and reviewers who expected an easy ride, and/or those with high tolerance for main-page embarrassment of WP. Not sure what effect this proposal will have on this small but vocal minority.

The idea that this proposal burdens prep builders is addressed above -- see #easiernotharder.
The idea that the long "sits" that already occur, for some noms, between approval and going to prep, predicts that this proposal won't help, is addressed above -- see #whydelaynowislittlehelp.

EEng (talk) 17:52, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Mostly it's because no one seems to know how to get pulled hooks back in the workflow with certainty. There are plenty of people who know how, and there are instructions on the T:TDYK page, as was pointed out to you only the other day. If someone isn't sure, they but need to ask on this very page, and we're happy to explain the process. The standard promotion reversion with an added note on the nomination template, coupled with a quick note on the nominator's page, does the trick. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:33, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support On a technical note something like the prod functionality could be used so that the tick calculates its own time and places the article into the prep area. Agathoclea (talk) 18:09, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

To automatically promote after 48 hours is to lose the doublecheck of hook and article that occurs at the time of promotion by the person promoting the hook. This seems to me to be counter to everything this proposal is attempting to do by adding more time to check (though it doesn't do anything to actually ensure any additional checking is done in that time). BlueMoonset (talk) 05:33, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Perhaps we should push for reviewers to double check-nominations, which is what the core issue seems to be? The question is, how do we do that?--¿3family6 _contribs 18:17, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- That idea was already lost in the words, the idea that DYK should operate like pretty much most of the rest of Wikipedia, i.e. by a consensus-driven review process. The vets didn't like it, the idea's on hold for me at the moment. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:34, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose This is micromanagement, contrary to WP:CREEP. We should continue to rely upon the good sense and discretion of the volunteers who perform this thankless task. In my experience of many DYKs, I have only once been surprised by the speed with which a nomination was promoted and that wasn't really a problem. There's no justification for a change, especially when you consider that the GA process only requires one reviewer to promote. KISS. Andrew (talk) 18:53, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, keeping it simple has really worked lately, with frequent pulls and trips to AN/I to discuss some of the more disgusting hooks sanctioned by the simple process. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:58, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

GAs aren't required to be nominated before they're likely to be ready, when they're just 7 days old, they aren't under an inexplicable push to get them through the process quickly, they aren't by design meant to be created by inexperience editors, and they don't go straight to MP. EEng (talk) 19:20, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

DYK is, by design, intended for new content and, by showcasing the work of novice editors, performs a valuable service in encouraging them. If their work is imperfect, then this is only natural. As Wikipedia is a work-in-progress which depends upon collaboration and input from its readership, it is good to have a section of this sort on the main page. The vexatious complaints about errors fail to understand this that is a proper part of our process. Attempting to make the main page immaculate and totally error-free is a quixotic goal based upon the Nirvana fallacy. We should not allow such perfectionism to unduly hamper the work which is reasonably satisfactory overall. Andrew (talk) 20:02, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It would be instructive for you to demonstrate how many DYKs are actually from novice editors rather than simply claim it to be a "valuable service". Anecdotally (and Wikicup wise) that is utterly incorrect and has no bearing in reality. No-one said we were trying to make the main page perfect, just free from obvious and hideously offensive errors of judgement, as demonstrated by DYK several times over the past few weeks. For "reasonably satisfactory" read "shambolic". The Rambling Man (talk) 20:08, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose per WP:NOTBURO. More regulations and requirements will drive people away from the process, so I think this will have the opposite effect the proposers are intending. If you want more eyes (I've always thought the preps and queues were kind of hidden), how about transcluding them to the top of WT:DYK? IronGargoyle (talk) 19:58, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the whole template thing with DYK drives a lot of people away, it's so confusing from the very start. Then the process is overly complex to get something nominated. However, this proposal doesn't affect nominators at all. People working the back end of the process will need to be educated, as is always the way when things change, but it sounds like all the opposition here is "we can't change because we'll scare our volunteers away". Okay, well how about "let's stay the same and wait for DYK to be shut down because it's such an embarrassment, a perennial visitor to ERRORS and frequent flyer at ANI because the hooks are wrong/badly sourced/offensive". That'd be better than changing the process a little to make it more robust, right? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:05, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose because we already do this anyway. No need to make yet another rule. I like IronGargoyle's idea, though. --Jakob (talk) 20:08, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- No, we don't "already do this anyway". The Rambling Man (talk) 20:09, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  - Yes, we do. Approved nominations often wait for days before entering the prep areas. For example: green tick, entered prep. Total time elapsed: 11 days. --Jakob (talk) 20:26, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I address that point above-- see #whydelaynowislittlehelp.. Part of the motivation here is to make sure there's a minimum time "with many eyes on", but a lot of it is simply making it what I call "socially acceptable" / encouraged to jump in and either tweak, critique, or double-check a nom. The doublechecking is important. Right now I think people don't hesitate to point out a serious error, or to make a friendly tweak of the hook, but what they don't do is say, "In case you care, I also checked the hook back to the source and all looks good." The reason this matters is that when someone goes to make a prep set, there's an assumption that no news is good news in the nom -- if there are no complaints I guess all is OK with this nom. But really it usually means no one but the reviewer (and let's face it, in general we can't be sure of their competence) has looked at all. And since someone who does check usually remains silent, there's no way to tell.

We have enough hawks here that, if it was made easy for them to come in after the review and stamp the nom, "I've doublechecked", then that would become commonplace. Prep-builders would come to expect that, and if they don't see it they would either do the check themselves, or just pass over that nom for another day until someone else does a doublecheck.

I guess I'm foreseeing this as a way to transition to either a doublecheck by a smaller, more experienced group, or maybe a consensus approach like AfD.

I didn't see it this way when I first posted this morning but it's come to me over the hours. EEng (talk) 20:43, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, we don't. Re-read the proposal. It isn't currently mandated. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:31, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

But it happens whether or not we mandate it, so why bother making a rule? --Jakob (talk) 20:45, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So it happens every time. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:51, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hooks never or almost never get moved to prep instantly after approval. --Jakob (talk) 02:01, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. It just took me one hour to assemble Prep 1. More than half of that time was spent flagging already approved nominations for hook, citation, and other problems. I agree with Orlady that this kind of double-checking and un-approving is not in the job description of a prep builder, and it is certainly not the prep builder's job to get into the kishkes of an article and decide if it's telling the truth or not. On the one hand, I like EEng's proposal to have some kind of holding queue in which approved hooks can be dissected and re-reviewed, but on the other hand, I'm wondering who's going to spend their time touching up those hooks? EEng and TRM? As of this post, we have 182 unapproved hooks on the nomination page. IMO it's far better for our experienced reviewers to spend their time fixing up and approving nominated articles than to eagle-eye or nit-pick through a holding queue. Yoninah (talk) 21:15, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I think that double-checking the review is part of the job of the person who builds the prep area. There's never been an expectation that the prep-builder will do a complete re-review of every nomination, but I think it's important to do things like (1) checking to see whether the reviewer identified the criteria they assessed (and included everything), (2) looking for obvious problems with the article (cleanup templates, lack of footnotes, too short, bare-url references, wording of a style that screams "possible copyvio", etc.), and (3) making sure that the hook is written in coherent understandable English (something that many QPQ reviewers don't seem to bother with -- apparently there is a theory that reviewers must defer to the judgment of the nominator). That's not a complete list, of course, and if the reviewer or article creator is relatively new to DYK or someone whom I know to have a poor quality record ~~as a reviewer~~, or if any of these checks turns up possible problems, I do a more thorough evaluation. --Orlady (talk) 00:40, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You don't have to ask who will dissect and rereview -- that's already happening, as seen right here on this page. The purpose of this proposal is to get that dissection off this page and into the nom pages where it belongs, and to have it happen before the nom page turns bluish with the message "This discussion is closed."

Now,as to the 182 open noms... I'm either gratified, or amazed, or both, that no one so far has pointed out that the very first open nom, at the top of the giant noms page, was made by me, and it's older than the next oldest nom by maybe 10 days. If you read through it you'll believe me when I say that it was the experience of making that nom (along with two others I made at about the same time) that clued me in to how much is wrong around here.

I am also gratified that no one's used that nom to concoct some kind of "this is EEng's revenge" narrative, because that's not true either.

Anyway, I have to go to dinner now, but I absolutely promise to get whipping that article into shape tonight. Of course, the sooner everyone agrees with everything I propose here, the more time I'll have for that. So get agreeing. EEng (talk) 21:49, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So are we to understand that the true motive for your personal vendetta against DYK is a desire for revenge because this nomination of yours has fared poorly?!?!?

You nominated another contributor's work. That's a good thing to do. However, sooner or later everyone nominates the work of other users discovers during the review process that the article wasn't as good as it first appeared -- for example, there might be a copyvio or a misrepresentation of sources. When serious issues arise and the article creator isn't around to help resolve them, it's common for the third-party nominator to abandon the nomination. Welcome to the club of sadder-but-wiser DYK nominators (many of us are members)! --Orlady (talk) 02:22, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Huh? I just said

I am also gratified that no one's used that nom to concoct some kind of "this is EEng's revenge" narrative, because that's not true either

-- and somehow you interpret that as a confession that I'm pursuing some kind of revenge. Do you get everything backwards? What I've experienced on that article, which you seem to recognize as a common experience, is just one more way that DYK asks of various people that they do something they're not well-positioned to do -- in this case, nominators are expected to continue development of an article on a subject they may know little about. This requirement that new articles be nominated at the precise moment they're least likely to pass muster is just one of DYK's many through-the-lookingglass features. EEng (talk) 03:15, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Your protestations didn't convince me. Instead, your comment "the experience of making that nom ... clued me in to how much is wrong around here" is a pretty good indication that your campaign of harassment against DYK is in fact related to a personal grudge against DYK.

As for the specifics of your complaint, DYK doesn't require anybody to do anything. It was your choice to nominate that article. It wasn't your fault that people found problems with it. If anything, your problem lies with the subject matter. The single most important "rule" in DYK is validation of the hook fact. Hooks about research in fields like psychology and education often get challenged during review because it is difficult to make valid factual statements about research findings -- many aspects of these fields seem to be highly subjective, and it seems like findings are often contradicted by other researchers' work. When a hook is approved, it's usually after a long process -- like what happened with Template:Did you know nominations/Carleton Washburne (where another reviewer and I ended up essentially rewriting the article -- as reviewers who didn't get "credit" -- so it would pass). --Orlady (talk) 04:19, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Can you please get off it with this insane idea of a campaign of harassment? You sound completely crazy.

Obviously when I say DYK "requires" people to do things they're ill-suited to, I mean they're required to do so if they desire to participate. Just because no one has a gun to their head doesn't mean the rules and procedures shouldn't be subject to scrutiny, according to the standard of whether they tend to achieve what we want to achieve (though in the case of DYK, that last doesn't seem well defined, which is part of the problem).

I really don't care whether I convince you, who in a nom discussion defended confusing Britain with England in a hook by saying that "the law of Britain is basically the law of England", as if you had any idea what you were talking about.

If your comment about hooks in psychology is meant to be related to the Gleason nom, then as usual you have the wrong end of the stick, since the hook has never been at issue in that nom to even the slightest extent. EEng (talk) 04:51, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose one of the problems now is there is a rather nebulous responsibility after the first tick is given - sometimes the assembler to prep checks (but not if in a hurry), sometimes the admin who moves them to the queue (but not if in a hurry). Adding an arbitrary time period won't help. The best would be that the assembler to prep has the responsibility of double checking the hook s/he is moving up to prep and it is a firm line. OR it is the admin that moves to the queue. Or we have two sets of preps, one doubleticked. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:18, 24 June 2014 (UTC) switched to tentative support - look, if people are keen, I am willing to give it a go, though not sure it will help. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:20, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Gatoclass, Belle, Orlady, Andrew Davidson, IronGargoyle, Jakec, and Crisco 1492. Also, there was a question above about DYK bringing in novice editors. I was pulled in by DYK. Without DYK, I likely would have made a few edits and carried on with other things. With DYK, I expanded an article and got it on the Main Page. I continued to tweak it until the article eventually became a Featured Article. I stuck around at Wikipedia, eventually becoming an administrator and contributing technical support to DYK. Yes, DYK does bring in new editors. Shubinator (talk) 01:46, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Um, except Belle was a Support. As for new editors and so on, how is that impacted by asking that there be a short wait between initial review of a hook and its MP appearance, so more experienced editors can take a look, and problems (or potential problems) can be addressed before a pull from prep or Q is required. EEng (talk) 03:21, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, Belle supported. But the corresponding text raises valid concerns: 1. On new editors, I was primarily responding to this. I agree with Gatoclass though that this proposal would impact editor engagement: 2. Shubinator (talk) 04:39, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

My comment was pointing out a potential obstacle and was made in the hope that the prep builders would get on board and the obstacle would not materialise. Belle (talk) 08:05, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - Many times hooks only come to people's attention because they are about to reach the main page. In my experience, few of the "hawks" glide over the ripe fields of T:TDYK, instead preferring to pick out weak members of the flock once they've reached the narrow pass of WP:DYKQ. This new proposal won't change that. And yes, DYK does draw new editors... myself included. I've progressed quite a bit since my first DYK three years ago. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:00, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Huh? The whole point of this is to make it possible for the sharp-eyed to more easily spot problems before noms are closed. EEng (talk) 03:21, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Which still leaves the weak and strong members of the flock wandering a very large field. Painting a bullseye on the sheep (sorry, just watched How to Train Your Dragon 2) might make it a bit more visible, but still leaves a very wide range to cover. Now, if we had a bot which, say, was able to recognize approval ticks and automatically transclude approved nominations onto another page (narrowing the field, like the approach to a pass), that would make it easier for both queue builders and any Accipiter facticus or Accipiter grammaticae floating around. I'd support a proposal like that, although admittedly it would (as with this proposal) require some investment of time from a bot builder. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:08, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose – the idea that a 48 hours delay after approval is going to magically fix even some of the issues is a dubious one unless, as Crisco notes, there was a way of putting them front and center as needing further examination. And the more of these places people have to check, the less likely it gets done: how many pages will we need to monitor on a regular basis, and at what point do people decide it's not worth checking yet another page? BlueMoonset (talk) 05:33, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

But you're making my point. The proposal makes it easier to identify hooks that have passed initial review but not gone to prep, while the discussion is still open on the giant nom page. It makes it unnecessary to monitor both the Q/prep page AND the giant nom page, and keeps all discussion of the hook on its nom page, period. EEng (talk) 12:19, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose As Orlady states, this may appear to be a good idea in theory. However, the available evidence suggests that in practice, a 48-hour delay will not have the intended effect. I was also pulled further into editing by DYK, and have become a better editor through the collaboration and scrutiny that it entails. We have to strike a balance between encouraging and rewarding editors, especially newer ones, for their contributions, and achieving perfect articles and hooks. And I suspect that our users worry more about articles generally, than they do about any passing flaws on the front page. Edwardx (talk) 14:13, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - It seems to me imposing a waiting period on promotion from the prep to queue would be more likely to increase quality than a waiting time on promotion to prep. That said, coding to signal out items (different background color perhaps) based on their tick status might be helpful. If there is support for such a thing (irregardless of the wait time decision) I would be willing to provide the coding.

Another possibility would be a bot that sorts hooks based on approval tick date and encourage people to promote from that list rather than than main one (since nominations are transluded individually it wouldn't add any work or have any risk of causing confusion). Seems that would be useful regardless of a waiting period or not - it would allow those wishing to check hooks before promotion a chance to do so more easily and would facilitate the work of prep builders by blocking out the "noise" of unapproved hooks. I don't really see any down side of doing this. I may bolding start working on the coding later today. The worst that could happen is no one will use it, I'd think, resulting in nothing worse than a bit of wasted time on my part. --ThaddeusB (talk) 15:25, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@ThaddeusB: How hard would it be to get the addition of the green tick to add the nomination to a category and make a page that listed out all the noms that were in that category but hadn't been moved to prep? That's basically all the fact and grammar checkers are after and it would make it easier on the prep builders too. Belle (talk) 22:57, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thinking out loud, the {{DYKtick}} template could easily add the category, but a bot would have to remove it when appropriate (when a new tick was added or it was promoted). In other words, it would be roughly the same amount of coding as the extra subpage idea, but without the benefit of the time ordering. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:30, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
If the "moved to prep" template added another category could a page not list "everything in category A that is not in category B", or is that just as much work/impossible? (No clue how these things work. Like that wasn't obvious.) Belle (talk) 00:38, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The magic words built into the wiki syntax don't include the ability to check for category membership, so anything more complicated that added a page to a category has to be done with a bot. --ThaddeusB (talk) 14:28, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You may recall that a while ago I proposed a waiting period before preps go into q, but that didn't fly. And later I realized that the bigger problem was that noms get closed when the hook goes to prep, but then there's no venue for the discussion that so often happens. I was trying to solve that with the 48-hours-before-going-to-prep idea.

But you've given me an even better idea, I think. How about this:

Wait! EEng has another idea!

EEng, yesterday, relishing the mass hypnosis he plans to use in his plan to corrupt and destroy DYK from within. (Artist's conception -- EEng's mustache is waxier.)

[Continuing from TB's post in prior section...]

Leave the nomination page open when moving to prep.

Just add a mention on the nom page that it's gone to prep.

The nom page stays open when prep goes to queue.
The nom page stays open when the queue goes to MP.
Close the nom when MP appearance is over.

That's it. No waiting periods. (We could still add those later.) Hawks can work from the preps.

If someone spots a problem in prep, just remove it from prep, and go back to the nom page (still open) and explain.

This isn't a "pull". No need for these to be listed in "/Removed" since the nom page activity is notice enough. (Even the editor promoting to prep will have this on his watchlist, since he noted on the nom page when he promoted to prep.)

Same if there's a problem noticed in Q (though only an admin can do that). Just remove it from the Q set and explain on the nom page (still open).
I'm not sure what /Removed would even be for anymore -- maybe only for MP pulls?

The important thing is the nom page remains open for the duration of the hook's lifecycle, most importantly during its time in prep or Q. There may be a place for automation per TB's suggestion, but this seems like a win-win no matter what.

Am I not an unending stream of pretty-good-but-not-great ideas? EEng (talk) 16:30, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support I like this. I know there has also been recent complaint about the notifications from DYKUpdateBot, but I also want to throw that idea on its head. What if the notifications from DYKUpdateBot were sooner and more frequent? Reminders would occur not just when there was nothing in the queues, but also when a certain % of the queues (or preps) were empty? While it would take a bit of a drive from DYK to fill up the queues and preps, the new norm of both queues and preps being full would give more time for people to look at the hooks before they went to the main page. One the queues and preps were full, the rate of required updating would return to its normal pace. IronGargoyle (talk) 18:22, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: the one definitive clue we prep-set builders have that a hook is not in some other prep or queue is that the nomination template is closed and disappears from T:TDYK. If instead they stick around, each time I find a potential nomination I'll have to search through a bunch of preps and queues to be sure that none of its hooks are in it (and some noms have bunches of preps to choose from, some of which may not use the same bolded phrase). With this proposal, we're just asking for duplicate hooks across the sets, and frustration from people who realize that the hook they just checked has already been promoted. I'd also like to propose that EEng take a one week moratorium from proposing any new ideas, since an unending stream of not-great ideas is taking up a lot of time that might be better spent elsewhere. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:56, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Like I said, the prep builder notes at the end of the nom page that it's gone to prep. Why is that less reliable that turning the nom blue? Anyway, there are way worse things going on here than one DYK running twice.

Here's the thing. When you turn the nom blue it says, "This discussion is closed." But we all know that's not true -- the moment that happens also happens to be the moment when the most difficult discussions begin, except they happen here on this page instead of on the nom page where they belong.

Perhaps you should open a thread proposing that I make no more proposals for a while. EEng (talk) 19:02, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You're even wearing me down with the proposing and reproposing. I feel like I forgot my wellies and fell in your unending stream. Belle (talk) 23:03, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I swear this is the last one for a while. Pleeeeease? EEng (talk) 00:42, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps people should be required to leave a note on the DYK nomination page when they move the hook to prep. That would certainly fix that issue. --Jakob (talk) 00:54, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As I keep saying, that's part of the proposal -- first bullet point. EEng (talk) 13:05, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - As BlueMoonset has pointed out, this would add significantly to the work involved in building prep sets. Further, it would add to the work of administrators who review and approve prep areas before moving them to the queue, as it would be necessary to go back to the noms page to check for comments from users who didn't notice that the hook was moved to the prep. Additionally, this would create new work for Shubinator, who built and maintained the DYK bots, because he would have to add scripts to give new jobs to the loyal DYKUpdateBot that moves approved hooks to the main page; posts notices on the talk pages of all involved articles, article creators and nominators; resets the clocks; archives the hooks that came off the main page page; and clears the queue that was just promoted -- because the bot would now also be responsible for closing all the nominations of promoted hooks. And when the bot isn't working and a human administrator has to do all that stuff, it would just one more set of jobs to do -- and one more step that possibly could get forgotten during a manual update, leading to a variety of potential problems. --Orlady (talk) 00:52, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Blue and Orlady. As if the nominations page wasn't enough of a mess. This is a major step backwards. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:58, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Blue and Orlady. I use the template turning blue not just to check that an article has not already been promoted, but as part of my procedure to ensure that the promotion has been done correctly. There are quite a few steps involved. I'd like to be able to automate the process a bit more, but the big problem is to find the approved hook amongst all the markup. It's no picnic for the humans either. Hawkeye7 (talk) 13:32, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Not BLP, really, but privacy

I'm a bit concerned about Template:Did_you_know_nominations/Diane_Guerrero, now in prep. The hook is that the subject's parents and brother were deported from the US. That's certain OK for the article, but isn't it a little bit invasive to trumpet this fact, which is really about three people other than the subject, on MP? I'm not saying it's a pull, but I thought this point should be given some thought. No doubt there are lots of other good hooks we could use. (I wouldn't be saying this if the hook was e.g. "... that the deportation of three of her family members inspired The Subject to write her biggest hit song?" or some other direct tie-in.) EEng (talk) 22:17, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"She is notable for having overcome the deportation of the rest of her family when she was a teenager" is unsourced (either directly or anywhere else in the article) so it is not eligible for DYK anyway. Needs pulling. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:02, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Or, you know, simply removing the sentence from the lede and adding an RS that supports the claim (i.e. this) — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:56, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but look at what's happened. I was worried about the propriety of the hook even if it's verifiable. Then someone else says it doesn't seem to be, in fact, verifiable. At that point, we're done as far as this hook being included in any set. None of us should be trying to figure this out on the fly, especially since this is a BLP. There are plenty of other hooks to use. The nom should be reopened and the issue addressed. I'll check now and if no one else has pulled it I will, and copy this discussion to the nom page. EEng (talk) 00:32, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That's one of the reasons article writers get upset. Anything wrong? Pull. Can it be fixed easily? Too damn bad, pull it! And now, with even grammar mistakes being a cause for pulling... I referenced the sentence in question within five minutes (a single Google search, first link). As for whether it's invasive to use this as a hook, debateable since Guerrero was talking about it herself in an interview on a public website. An ALT is possible, but there shouldn't be any need to pull the hook right yet. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:35, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We absolutely should not be taking it on ourselves to come up with a new hook at midnight, especially in a BLP. As always, what's the hurry? There are plenty of other good noms to use. Apparently the writer didn't provide the right source, so he's got himself to blame. EEng (talk) 04:05, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And we can tell Tony (the nominator) without making it appear as if the sky is falling. It was quite probably a slip. I've had it happen to me before: I've got a reference open, have mined it for information, but forget to include it or (more commonly) end up moving it while refactoring for grammar. A nudge is all that's needed. Pulls should be a last resort, as they are both detrimental to the queue and to the relations between editors. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:10, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't pull until someone said the hook was unsourced. This is a BLP. EEng (talk) 12:03, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And, again, it took all of five minutes to source. Fixing something should be our first reaction, not just pulling. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:34, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We keep going over this and over this. You're confident making an on-the-fly sourcing change to a BLP hours before it appear on MP. That works out with no problem maybe 90% of the time. The other 10% are a black eye for Wikipedia. That's not a good trade. Anyway, as TTT said below, this discussion should be going on on the nom page, not here. EEng (talk) 13:05, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Since this does not involve broader issues and a set of other nominees, can you please join the discussion at Template:Did you know nominations/Diane Guerrero.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 05:49, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Somewhat similar, and now in prep, "... that despite being molested as a child, Mekayla Diehl forgave her attacker and later became the first woman of Native American descent to win Miss Indiana USA?". Seems correct at first glance, but is that sufficient to put it on the front page like this? Anyway, we could do a lot worse, we could copy the Miss Universe website biography of her (one of the two sources used to support the hook), and claim that she was "a victim of child abuse and adoption". Rather insulting to all adoptees and adopters in general, and to her grandparents (who adopted her) especially... Fram (talk) 12:55, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, are you staying neutral on the 48-hours-before-moving-to-prep proposal? EEng (talk) 13:09, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

DYK is almost overdue

In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:

Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #6 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page

Then, when the time is right I will be able to update the template. Thanks and have a good day, DYKUpdateBot (talk) 06:04, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Chillax Bot. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:08, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Leclerc

Is it just me? I had to read (now Prep 1)

... that Leclerc adopted his nom de guerre to avoid risk to his family should name appear in the papers?

several times and am still not sure if I got what it is supposed to mean. What name? His real name? The family name? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:12, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've given the hook a tweak and copyedit. Gatoclass (talk) 10:06, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I had tweaked that myself earlier and, along with leaving out a critical word, I completely missed this problem. It makes no sense as currently stated. It really should read "to avoid risk to his family should his EXPLOITS appear in the papers" but it's in Q now so beyond my reach. I think it would be a good idea if some admin reach in and do this before it gets to MP. EEng (talk) 12:12, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

He didn't care if his exploits were in the papers, so long as they weren't linked to his real name (and thus traceable back to his family, allowing the Nazis to take revenge). Standard reason for a pseudonym. I didn't have any issue with the hook as Hawkeye wrote it, and I still am not having any issues parsing that (except for the missing "his" above, which has been fixed). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:17, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Right, that's the point. He expected his exploits to get in the papers, but he didn't want his real name there too. by using a fictional name, then if his exploits got in the papers, that would appear instead of his real name, protecting his family. ("Name" certainly suggests, at least, real name, which leads to a contradiction in the reader's mind if that's the way he or she parses it.) I believe that the source says exactly this... "in case his exploits were reported" (or maybe it was "adventures"). EEng (talk) 14:39, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Which is why it was his name which led to the nom de guerre. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:42, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe its just me, but the "should" was really throwing me off (even though grammatically correct), so I tweaked it and also added "real" for clarity: "...adopted his nom de guerre to avoid risk to his family in the event his real name appeared in the papers?" --ThaddeusB (talk) 14:44, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"Should" is a slightly out-of-style way of saying "in the event", but what you have is fine. For the record, that's:

that World War II French General Leclerc adopted his nom de guerre to avoid risk to his family in the event his real name appeared in the papers?

EEng (talk) 15:45, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yah, I am familiar with that usage of it, but in this sentence in particular my brain wanted to read it as a helping verb for name (which of course was actually a noun here) causing some processing difficulty. --ThaddeusB (talk) 16:11, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Was this chap the inspiration for "It is I, LeClerc!"? I do hope so... Bencherlite ^Talk 15:56, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't kill me Wait. I'm really having a bad day. That's still not right. It still doesn't make sense. If his real name appeared in the papers, then the fact he's using a fake name isn't going to help his wife and children. Look, here's what the source [26] says

Like most Free French, his family was still in France and the mission could end up in the newspapers. If he used his real name he could put Therese and the children at risk.

So this time for sure:

that World War II French General Leclerc adopted his nom de guerre to avoid risk to his family in the event his missions appeared in the papers?

If you will be so kind. EEng (talk) 16:08, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No need to kill you, you are absolutely correct and the new wording is much better. --ThaddeusB (talk) 16:11, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And see #Wait.21_EEng_has_another_idea.21 EEng (talk) 16:53, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The odds of his exploits appearing in the papers was fairly high, because he was almost immediately interviewed by the BBC (using the name "Leclerc" of course). It didn't take too long though for the Germans to work out who Leclerc was once his photo appeared, but his family remained safe in the German-occupied zone. There was a hell of a row with his father when he decided to change his name officially. I might add this to the article. Hawkeye7 (talk) 13:22, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Leaflet for Did You Know at Wikimania 2014

Hi all,

My name is Adi Khajuria and I am helping out with Wikimania 2014 in London.

One of our initiatives is to create leaflets to increase the discoverability of various wikimedia projects, and showcase the breadth of activity within wikimedia. Any kind of project can have a physical paper leaflet designed - for free - as a tool to help recruit new contributors. These leaflets will be printed at Wikimania 2014, and the designs can be re-used in the future at other events and locations.

This is particularly aimed at highlighting less discoverable but successful projects, e.g:

• Active Wikiprojects: Wikiproject Medicine, WikiProject Video Games, Wikiproject Film

• Tech projects/Tools, which may be looking for either users or developers.

• Less known major projects: Wikinews, Wikidata, Wikivoyage, etc.

• Wiki Loves Parliaments, Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Loves ____

• Wikimedia thematic organisations, Wikiwomen’s Collaborative, The Signpost
The deadline for submissions is 1st July 2014
For more information or to sign up for one for your project, go to:
Project leaflets
Adikhajuria (talk) 10:20, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt DYK needs to be more discoverable. EEng (talk) 17:54, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This could be way to get more serious contributors. You know, to double-check nominations?--¿3family6 _contribs 13:24, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Lead in prep3

... that the rood screen (pictured) in St John the Evangelist's Church, Kirkham, designed by Augustus Pugin in the 1840s, was moved and altered by the parish priest in 1906?

I can't see that the source says "altered" - any chance this can be properly verified before pulling the hook? Gatoclass (talk) 14:18, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It certainly was altered as it did not fit. Will try and add with a source later, unless User:Peter I. Vardy can get there first. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:27, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As it stands, it should be pulled. The source for it says "He moved the rood screen to the back of the church, and altered, extended and refurnished the sacristy. "[27], where the "altered" clearly is about the sacristy, not the rood screen. Unless some other source is found for the altered rood screen, it should be pulled. Fram (talk) 14:40, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Have made an adjustment and added a new source, but it's not available on the web, so it may be tricky for you to check it. But hey, those bells got pulled, so why not the screen too! Martinevans123 (talk) 14:46, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So, it's in Prep3? Martinevans123 (talk) 18:36, 25 June 2014 (UTC) is it?[reply]

You will find that the hook has now been positively confirmed by Martinevans123 from a reliable source not available online. --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 09:04, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

User:Hassocks5489 has even found an on-line source now to suppport the original bells hook! Haha. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:28, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean bell hooks?--¿3family6 _contribs 13:22, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

or "our Gloria" as she's known to her pals down at the snooker club...? Martinevans123 (talk) 14:43, 26 June 2014 (UTC) [reply]

Is this nomination being ignored now that sources have been found for both the first "pulled" hook, and for the second current hook? --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 08:04, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Prep 3 again

"that the 1967 song "Days of Pearly Spencer" features a "strange phoned-in chorus"" per WP:ATTRIB ("Editors should provide attribution for quotations....."), we should be saying who is attributed with this quote. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:45, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Good luck with that one. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:48, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, all these competent veteran DYKers who see no issues with the current state of affairs CAN'T HEAR ME.... The Rambling Man (talk) 14:50, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe you need one of these? Martinevans123 (talk) 14:57, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Unless I'm missing something that quote was never in the article. But it can be found in the 5th paragraph here Belle (talk) 14:58, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see a problem with including a quote in a hook if the reader can immediately find the attribution in the article. Different if this were a BLP etc., a controversial topic, etc., of course. But if it's not in article, uh oh.

Well, here we are again discussing a hook here at TDYK because the hook's in prep and the nom is closed. EEng (talk) 15:00, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, we're flogging that stable door again, after the dead horse has bolted, I fear. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:09, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There is no problem here. Just you pesky kids driving our kind and generous veterans away with your pesky complaints. THAT IS ALL. Move along. The Rambling Man (talk)

I've fixed it in the article and in the hook...unless you meant we should give a named attribution in the hook; I don't think that will sit particularly well as it comes from the obituary written by (as I have just discovered) the former editor of "Men Only" rather than a music journalist (not that that makes his observation about the strangeness any less valid) Belle (talk) 15:33, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

.. what are you saying, Belle! Martinevans123 (talk) 15:54, 25 June 2014 (UTC) [reply]

I'd suggest that it is rather odd to quote the editor of a soft-core porn magazine as some kind of authority in music. Does this man have any credentials in music? Why should what a porn magazine editor think of a music track be of any real-world significance? It's still not attributed in the article. Suggest this hook is removed as a complete flop. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:52, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As noted, the article is fixed now. I do wonder how Storye book managed to miss the fact the quote wasn't in the article, as he is nromally one of our best reviewers (very thorough). --ThaddeusB (talk) 15:37, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Repeating something I said earlier elsewhere: none of us can catch everything all the time (not even me and I'm practically perfect) Belle (talk) 15:40, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have to say I agree with TB re SB -- surprised to see a nontrivial error in anything he'd passed. EEng (talk) 15:42, 25 June 2014 (UTC) And I agree with Belle too.[reply]

About me being practically perfect? Thank you. Belle (talk) 17:04, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Pull the hook. A unattributed non-notable soft-core porn magazine editor says it's a "strange phoned-in chorus". Who cares what a non-notable soft-core porn magazine editor says? The Rambling Man (talk) 16:54, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

He was writing the obit for The Independent (I was just pointing out that he wasn't a music journalist). I think the phoned-in chorus is hooky regardless of who said it; that it appears as a quote is incidental. Belle (talk) 17:04, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's the entire basis of the hook. Okay, no problem, a soft-core-porn mag editor now critiques music and, despite him not having any attribution in the article or an article (or does he?), we use his opinion as the primary part of the hook? Brilliant. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:08, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a critique though, it's an observation, like saying it is 3 minutes and 4 seconds long (time chosen at random; may not reflect actually running time). I think you are going a little overboard on this one. I could break it out of the quotes if you like, it was probably only quoted to avoid a challenge on close paraphrasing. Belle (talk) 17:19, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's nothing like giving the running time, but nonetheless an unattributed subjective quote is fine in a hook for something the reader will recognize as obviously subjective and... let's say... harmless. It's a fun characterization and the wondering reader can find attribution in the article. EEng (talk) 18:21, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, but seriously, if the article is using non-notable people to give personal opinions on a piece of music and we now use that as main page fodder, it's wrong, isn't it? Paves the way to something like "EEng said "this music rocks!"" in a hook. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:32, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If you're saying the article shouldn't include it that's one thing (but we certainly don't require that everyone we quote is notable). But as long as it's OK to be in the article then it's OK for the hook -- the question is only whether it needs to be attributed in the hook. I say it doesn't. It's a quirky phrase that will draw clicks. It doesn't overpraise or insult anyone. It's OK. EEng (talk) 18:56, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm saying it should have attributed in both places, but seriously, if we're taking the opinion of a non-notable porn peddler to be that of note on music, gods help us. "we certainly don't require that everyone we quote is notable" seriously? So we just quote any old Joe? I think you're kidding, you must be. Editor of a soft porn mag has an opinion on a song he's heard. Why do I care? Why does Wikipedia care? Why do the millions of visitors to the main page care? Actual questions, need answers. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:22, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Pull, pull, pull

Does anyone else think this hook pulling is wreaking havoc at DYK?

Being an administrator may give you the right to pull a hook from the queue, Rambling Man, but you must follow the rules and replace it immediately. And who left that mess in Prep 3, with a non-lead-worthy hook and a different picture? Yoninah (talk) 15:32, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It will cause no more havoc. Having seen way too much dramah over it, especially the most recent underhand post-consensus changes that were made without informing any of the discussion participants, and that introduced basic errors, I have pulled the nom in its entirety. Neither it, nor I, will return to DYK. - SchroCat (talk) 15:48, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Withdrawn. Sorry for all of this. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:21, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So, another in a long line of people complaining about DYK and acting on their own initiative without actually paying attention to any of the safeguards DYK has (several of them initiated after a different batch of complainers drove many regulars away in 2011). This however is getting to be too much. Hook unclear? Pull! Hook fact not followed immediately by a footnote (but supported by the footnote after the next sentence)? Pull! Missing period? Pull! What happened to protecting editors and their interactions? A split infinitive is not going to kill anyone. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:21, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid pulling hooks that don't reflect the intention of the nominator (remember, the one the DYKers are working so hard to keep encouraging) is the only way. Modifying and redefining the purpose of a DYK hook unilaterally will do nothing but drive these novice editors away. It's certainly driven some experienced editors away. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:36, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think I said that this particular hook pull did that, did I? The section title is "pull, pull, pull", and the opening sentence is "Does anyone else think this hook pulling (i.e. an action, not 'pulling this hook') is wreaking havoc at DYK?". It's clearly a statement about the constant hook pulling over the past week or so, which is what I am addressing. If you didn't notice, I not only cleaned up after your removal of a hook from queue (can you imagine the moaning that would happen if we had ellipses on the main page?), but also closed the previously promoted nomination as withdrawn for Schro. Things which existing guidelines recommend (actually, two of them [replacing the hook and reopening the nom page] require).

How long would ITN (since you love bringing that up) last if hooks were pulled every 12 hours owing to minor issues which can be fixed by normal editing? Say, for instance, 2014 Mpeketoni attacks (first article I checked), which has "more than 60" killed on the main page (permanent link) yet the article says "At least 53 people were killed in the attack and eight others were unaccounted for as of 18 June" (which is not as conclusive as "killed", no?). I'm not pulling it, because this can be fixed via normal editing. Instead I will raise the issue at WP:ERRORS and hope either the article or template are fixed. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:56, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As an interesting side note: this discrepancy has existed since the blurb was posted 3 days ago. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 17:01, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There were two attacks - the first killed ~50, and the second ~15. "More than 60" is purposely imprecise and conservative as the figures are not definitive. --ThaddeusB (talk) 18:09, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, for the record, the ITN article was accurate, as was the ITN item on the main page. It's not useful to try to point to other parts of the main page to explain why DYK can be so crap, especially when they're doing it right, unlike DYK. Boomerang anyone? The Rambling Man (talk) 18:12, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Yoninah: If you'd like me to read these threads, please notify me of their existence. In the meantime, try to solve some of the havoc by ensuring hooks aren't overhauled at the last minute. I too have suffered at the hands of the "expertise" last minute "tweaking" that goes on around DYK. Like SchroCat, despite being a prolific article creator, I will not participate in the DYK process until it's fixed. Others are free to use anything I create, but the approach that some take here, to modify things to their own taste, and in doing so, introducing errors onto the main page (which are then attributed often to the nominators) needs fixing. Cheers. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:35, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I'm starting to get annoyed too. Fortunately I've graduated and am jobless right now, so I have a lot of time and thus my frustration threshold is very low, and I actually find a lot of the debates and dialogue amusing, but this is starting to get out of hand. I was a bit challenged at first by all of the extra scrutiny placed on DYK noms in the past few months, but I rose to meet them. I don't even mind discussing errors and finding ways to improve things. But I agree that the level of debate, complaining, and now nom pulling is now absurd. I'm not planning to leave DYK, but I can see why other people are getting turned off and leaving.--¿3family6 _contribs 16:42, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So please make sure everything that gets into the queues for auto-population onto the main page is accurate, cited, hooky etc. Don't just whinge about the fact some of us our doing our best to increase the bar at DYK, which is currently the black sheep of the main page. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:44, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That was uncalled for. I help out the best I can at DYK, and I am trying to get more involved, but it takes a while to learn the ropes. My reviewing skills have definitely improved as a result of the recent discussions by you and EEng, and Storye book's, BlueMoonset's, and Yoninah's careful attention to detail and double-checking of mine and others reviews. I've also started interjecting occasionally at other reviews. But believe it or not, I have other things I'm involved with on here, too. All of yesterday and this morning I was involved in 20+ deletion discussions, and spent hours scouring the internet for sources for the articles in question, many of which will be deleted anyway because I didn't find any. Learning to do more and how to do it takes time, you can't expect things to change just because of some quite long-winded discussions this past month.--¿3family6 _contribs 16:53, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Not at all. If you have the time to fix the errors we're now picking up here, then do so. We have had far fewer ERRORS at DYK over the past week or so, and sadly it's put a few DYK regulars' noses out of joint. So what? If we can continue to improve the hooks by actually reviewing them properly and checking the sources, then we should. The problems haven't gone away, but the quality is gradually improving. Omelettes and eggs. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:56, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I totally agree about reviewing and checking sources. It's the drama and pulled hooks and general mess associated with a few editors that I'm tiring of. I don't mind the extra scrutiny, but I think there are better ways to recruit and train reviewers than what is transpiring now on the talk and prep pages.--¿3family6 _contribs 17:31, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So you are saying that it's better to have an errorless encyclopedia with no editors, than a growing encyclopedia with some editors? While using a reference to a quote widely attributed to a genocidal dictator? Have fun with that. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 17:05, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, that's not what I'm saying, where did I say that? We lose some of these stubborn editors who believe that everything is just fine. So what? We get more because people begin to respect DYK again as part of a quality encyclopaedia rather than just report errors to ERRORS and ANI. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:09, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think the extra scrutiny recently is good and bad: it makes us watch what we nominate, no-one wants to have an error on the main page, especially not presently, but I have stopped building preps as I don't want to get it wrong. Thanks, Mat ty.007 18:16, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm also backing off from prep sets for fear of getting my hand slapped instead of a friendly reminder. Yoninah (talk) 21:41, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think we're getting close to the point where Rambling Man's tactics are more disruptive than constructive. I hope he reconsiders his approach before other steps become necessary. Prioryman (talk) 22:01, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think you got the wrong piped link there. What you wanted was probably something like "WP:SHUTDOWNDYK" instead. It owuld at least be a better reply to all the problems than the "WP:SHOOTTHEMESSENGER" tactic applied by some of the regulars here. If you believe DYK is more important than getting it right (like some people here clearly do), then you have your priorities wrong. Fram (talk) 08:01, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I would say there was a consensus that the cure is too disruptive. No one doubts that improvement is possible but we are being forced to lose the workers who drive this project because they do not like the prescription that is being offered/forced on the project. The majority seem to stand accused of not listening... or at least of not being convinced. Maybe they are not convinced? Victuallers (talk) 22:30, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ooh, threats from Prioryman, I'm so nervous I may .... just carry on. By all means seek some kind of "user conduct" discussion. You have a certain paranoia, claiming I'm using "tactics" when all I'm doing is analysing the continuing failure of DYK and the continuing ignorance of some editors who think all is just dandy. The "consensus that the cure is too disruptive" is where? Amongst the whinging veterans who don't like their pet project being criticised? As far as I can tell, it hasn't impacted nominations at all, it's just reduced the number of trips to ERRORS and ANI. Which, I'm sure we'll all agree is a good thing, right? The Rambling Man (talk)

Are all the people who don't agree with you "whinging", "half arsed", "ignorant" AND "paranoid"? Do we have this as a common feature or are some of us only in one or two of these groups? Looks like the members of the consensus you seek have something in common apart from failing to listen with due respect to your requests and suggestions. Victuallers (talk) 09:45, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, mostly they are a random combination of the qualities you've listed. But isn't it great how few ERRORS DYK is promoting at the moment now it's been brought up? The Rambling Man (talk) 10:05, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

One more hook required for Queue 2

One of the hooks in Queue 2 got pulled and I don't have time to replace it, can someone else do the honours please? Thanks, Gatoclass (talk) 16:25, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is the one I did? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 17:24, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it was, thanks :) Gatoclass (talk) 17:54, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Someone add to p3

Maybe Template:Did_you_know_nominations/Edmondston-Alston_House -- need some US. I'd do it but don't know how to handle a photo. Interchange #2 and #3 to avoid 2 bios adjacent. EEng (talk) 19:08, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Queue 2 image

The flag of Sierra Leone should utilize the superior SVG version that was included in the DYK nom instead of the JPEG one currently in use. —Bloom6132 (talk) 17:32, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Done Gatoclass (talk) 17:52, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Fantastic job!

A lot of people complain about DYK here. Some because they want DYK improved and some because they hate the DYK and want it removed from Wikipedia. Have there been a few problems? Absolutely, and there's always room for improvement. That said, I don't think that this echo chamber of negativity reflects the vast majority of great work that DYK volunteers (writers, nominators, reviewers, and admins) do. I want to say that DYK is always one of the first places I go on Wikipedia and it is full of interesting facts that help develop new content. If you've worked on 1 article or 1 thousand, thank you! Nice work all! IronGargoyle (talk) 18:34, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, DYK mostly has good and interesting articles sourced usually pretty well and accurately. No-one here "hates" DYK and no-one wants it "removed from Wikipedia", people just want the quality to be improved. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:18, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, indeed. Let's remember WP:AGF please. Why would people be advocating for procedural changes here if they wanted DYK scrapped altogether? Gamaliel (talk) 19:42, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't talking about any specific people and I'm certainly not including anyone in the present conversation (I think that there are people who do hate DYK and want to see it removed but I'm not going to provide specific examples or name names because that's not the point). I just wanted to inject a bit of positivity and praise for the project to counter the recent theme of negativity (well-intentioned or not) that I see here on the talk page. IronGargoyle (talk) 20:46, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well you're still wrong, I can't see a single person "hating" DYK or wanting it removed, I see a lot of people trying to help fix a very broken process which is far too quick, far too slapdash, allows garbage to be passed once, twice, three times until it gets onto the main page. This isn't negativity, this is the description of a problem that exists. First step on the road to recovery is to accept DYK has a problem, sadly far too many DYK regulars haven't been able to take that first step. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:50, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there's really an "echo chamber"; it's just a couple of noisy people. I've seen this kind of thing happen before. Usually they just get bored and go away after a while. Prioryman (talk) 22:04, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe echo chamber was the wrong word. I agree with your assessment of what's happened in the past. IronGargoyle (talk) 22:22, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to echo IronGargoyle's thanks to the numerous people who do work in submitting, reviewing, checking, administering, improving etc etc DYK submissions. To also echo some other comment made somewhere recently, DYK was what originally got me really involved with Wikipedia. In unusual ways, but it was this project that did it. There are probably many more readers and occasional editors for whom DYK will be the "hook" into full participation in editing. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:09, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Nice summary. I hope that is what the project remains. I apologise that someones thank you was said to be wrong. It was not. It was appreciated. Victuallers (talk) 22:12, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Errant line

There is an errant line, "To Prep 4 Adam Cuerden (talk) 11:28, 23 June 2014 (UTC)" on the noms page at the end of the June 18 listings. Yoninah (talk) 22:20, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Probably caused by someone adding that particular line below the "Please do not write below this line or remove this line. Place comments above this line." line, which places it outside the actual template when it was promoted. I'll find out which one and move that line inside the template proper if someone else hasn't beaten me to it. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:31, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Did you know nominations/The Night We Called It a Day (album)

Something strange is going on when I try to click on "Review or Comment" under Template:Did you know nominations/The Night We Called It a Day (album) on the noms page. I can get into the template from the "What links here" page for the article, but not from the noms page. Yoninah (talk) 01:04, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think the correct name for this template is Template:Did you know nominations/The Night We Called It a Day. Yoninah (talk) 01:07, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's my fault. I created the original nom page at Template:Did you know nominations/The Night We Called It a Day. I'm trying to trace back and find where I made the error.--¿3family6 _contribs 01:08, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. No need to move the nomination template; the nompage and DYKmake templates have been corrected, and you'll be able to see the correct article history to. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:28, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

DYK is almost overdue

In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:

Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #3 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page

Then, when the time is right I will be able to update the template. Thanks and have a good day, DYKUpdateBot (talk) 06:05, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Done Gatoclass (talk) 06:53, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Prep building and the issue of responsibility - suggestion

I am very concerned that a couple of our regular prep builders have expressed an intention to "back off" from building sets due to the number of promoted noms getting challenged recently. Prep building is a vitally important part of this process, we need our regulars to stay engaged.

This is actually not a new concern of mine, it's been bothering me for a long time that the burden of responsibility has, IMO, been placed too heavily on the shoulders of prep builders rather than being more evenly distributed. Prep building is a difficult- and time-consuming-enough task as it is, without the expectation that builders also be made responsible for checking a host of standard article and hook criteria. I was already mulling the notion of proposing, in a few weeks' time, a tighter definition of respective responsibilities of DYK participants, but given recent events, perhaps this is an opportune moment to bring that discussion forward.

In brief then, I'm thinking it should be clarified that prep builders are not primarily responsible for set verification. Beyond simple checks for hook grammar and interest, and a basic level of presentation for the article, prep builders should be allowed to concentrate on what they do best - selecting an appropriately varied set and posting it to prep. It doesn't mean we shouldn't encourage them to do more, but I think neither should we be blaming them when, for example, hook statements turn out to be erroneous. Instead, I think the responsibility for hook fact-checking should shift to the administrators moving the sets from prep to the Queue. Technically, that's a very simple job - far easier job than set-building - so I think it makes sense for the promoting admins to take on that particular responsibility. Ultimately, of course, primary responsibility still lays with the reviewer/s, and we might eventually need to look at making that part of the process more accountable, but that's probably a discussion best left for another day.

Regardless, with regard to the present situation, I would like to assure set-builders that I personally will not be holding them accountable for errors identified in their sets (unless of course they are egregious) - I am already taking responsibility for the accuracy and quality of sets I promote to the queue and I therefore expect any criticism of such sets to be directed to me. Since I currently have some spare time, I also expect to be promoting the lion's share of sets to the queue over the next few days. The important point is, I currently have time to verify and promote sets but I don't have time to also build them - for that I need assistance. So once again, I request that our regular set-builders stay engaged, and indeed encourage everyone to continue their participation. Thanks, Gatoclass (talk) 08:13, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If the number of sets required per day was reduced, the problem of finding a set builder would be less frequent. What's the rush? The Rambling Man (talk) 08:25, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"The rush" is that there are approximately 250 eligible articles waiting for promotion at T:TDYK. If we slow down the process, either there will soon be 500 noms on that page or large numbers of them will never get promoted. Gatoclass (talk) 08:36, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Just like all the other processes on the main page then? The promotion rate of FLs means we currently will have an increasing backlog, the throughput of ITN means some items aren't good enough so they fail. It's commonplace. Perhaps part of the problem is offering some form of guarantee that DYKs, once "checked off" by the various reviewers, will feature on the main page. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:15, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, if you want to propose some radical restructure of DYK, you are free to do so, but you should start a new thread for that. This thread is about something else, and I'd like to keep it on topic, thanks. Gatoclass (talk) 10:38, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't given up on building prep sets, but had to suspend doing so for a while because I'm in Canada with the Paralympians at the moment. I will resume when I get back. Hawkeye7 (talk) 13:41, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Gatoclass' premise that the administrators who promote queues are the folks primarily responsible for ensuring the quality of what gets approved for the main page, but the prep-builders should not be let off the hook completely. The prep builder is the one who closes the nomination discussion (let's get away from saying they "promoted" the hook). Closure of any discussion is an action that normally involves some accountability. For DYK noms, the person who closes a discussion should be expected to try to make sure that the nomination was reviewed properly, that the relevant issues raised during the discussion have been resolved (for example, that there are no unresolved issues with the hook they are promoting), and that there are no apparent issues that appear to require continuation of the discussion. (Ideally, they would also check to ensure that nobody wrote below the line that says , but that's probably asking too much!) --Orlady (talk) 15:30, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with most of your comments Orlady. Obviously if we go ahead with tighter definitions, they will have to be negotiated, and I think you raise some good points here. Gatoclass (talk) 00:00, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, prep builders are (should be) responsible for checking the accuracy of the hook (but not the rest of the criteria). Admins who do the final promotion are also responsible to fact check. Having multiple eyes on something is the best way to make sure it is accurate. It only takes a couple minutes to find the fact in the article and check the online source (or AGF on an offline source). I wouldn't expect independent research to verify the fact, but checking to make sure it is in the article, properly cited, and that the citation is valid isn't too much to ask. --ThaddeusB (talk) 15:44, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, prep builders are the penultimate line of defence, they shouldn't be building sets if the blocks they're using are corrupt. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:39, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Another solution: Reviewer accountability

Thank you, Gatoclass, for your calm and reasoned approach to finding a solution to what has been dubbed "The DYK Problem". I don't think we've reached a solution yet, but your ratcheting down the tone many notches from the strident negativity that appears in almost all the threads on this talk page is much appreciated.

I'd like to suggest another solution for discussion. I don't think the problem is with the "rush" to get things onto the main page, or with the need for a "48-hour holding area" (it could just as well be 24-hours, for all the eyes that are supposedly going to look at it), or with the prep builders or administrators who "fail" to spot errors in sourcing or whole articles while they're putting together those 7 hooks. Bottom line, it's the reviewers. Some of them are novice reviewers who are bound by the QPQ system to review something; others are more regular reviewers who nevertheless are skipping over fact-checking, reference-checking, and other DYK criteria, letting errors creep through. I believe that the solution is to impose accountability at the review stage. I really like Maile's checklist; I think something along those lines should be programmed into every template so that the reviewer is "forced" to tick off what s/he checks, one by one. Then, it is perfectly appropriate to put the approved hook into a holding area where it will wait as long as necessary until a second reviewer double-checks it to make sure all the criteria have been met. Since the criteria are clearly spelled out on the template, you can include any criteria you want in order to make sure that it will hit the main page "error-free". After that, it would seem that prep-building and queue-promotion would go much smoother. Yoninah (talk) 17:50, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support. This is one problem among many, but hopefully this is one issue where we might all be able to find a common ground. Gamaliel (talk) 18:08, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I'm kind of partial to the format of the GA review Table, but some program guru (such as Guru Shubinator) would have to incorporate that with the current nomination template, so it would be relatively seamless in execution. At the very least, every new reviewer would have a visual of what they need to check in the review. And as you say, if the review couldn't pass without filling out the template...then it just wouldn't pass.— Maile (talk) 18:17, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Another example might be the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist. We need to improve accountability and traceability. And we need to make the review process more structured and methodical. It's better to get things right first time, rather than having to duplicate effort with multiple reviews. Edwardx (talk) 18:24, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support no issues with mandating a checklist, sounds like it'd have the side-effect of slowing things down in any case which is ideal. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:55, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support I don't want to detract from Maile66's glory at all, but I recall that I suggested something like this as well. I fully support this idea, and cannot see any downside to it. I do have a question: Would QPQ credit extend to the second reviewer, or only for the initial reviewer?--¿3family6 _contribs 19:05, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

3family6, recently I ran across a template where someone else had actually tried to work up a review checklist template. Seems to me it was 2011, so perhaps someone here will remember it. I do know this idea was floated before. It was before my time. FYI - you're not detracting from me. What I've been doing is just covering my behind. And trying to keep track of what I did on any review. Things come back to bite a reviewer, so I've been logging the details on the review template. Also, it's just simple courtesy to leave this for promoters to see. But I do believe we need a better structure in place for reviewers both new and veterans of the process.— Maile (talk) 19:16, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Probably thinking of {{DYK review checklist}} or {{DYKrev}} (guess we have at least 2 attempts). Both are a good start but will need expanded/adjusted to meet this proposal. --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:24, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. This is what I recently saw. — Maile (talk) 20:33, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I implemented something for FLC a while ago, "things to check", it's a good ready reckoner, and while most of it applies to article content, the fact I could point people to common errors, common flaws in nominations without having to continually repeat myself in reviews, was very helpful. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:25, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Another thing, we have way too many rules and ins and outs for even the old-timers. New reviewers can't possibly know everything they're supposed to check. This is a collapsible cheatsheet I've run up for myself just to remember the basics I need. It's a work in progress: DYKCheatsheet. — Maile (talk) 19:54, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support - I'm not too much into DYK but I have been lurking; as an outsider, having a standard checklist like that would definitely be good. As long as it's built-in as a template and easy to use, I can't see a downside. Would make reviewing more appealing and streamlined in my eyes. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 19:33, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - This appears to be two proposals in one: a checklist and a mandatory second review, but all the comments on on the checklist only. The two don't in any way seem to require one another, so I suggest this be a discussion only on the checklist. --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:12, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I am a bit hesitant to "mandate" use of a checklist template. I think prepopulating it into the nomination template would accomplish the goal of making sure new users are checking everything and new most people new or otherwise would use it. However, the lack of mandate would allow experienced users to continue using their current style of review if they so chose. --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:12, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. We did try a checklist some time ago, but although I thought it needed more time, it got dumped pretty quickly by consensus. I guess we could try it again, but first, an acceptable checklist would have to be developed. However, checklists do not ensure accountability, because lazy users can still tick off a checklist without actually making the checks. Accountability to me means some sort of penalty for not doing the job properly. Regarding the proposal for double reviews, I would have to oppose that because if we are going to double reviews we might as well just declare QPQ a failure and go back to voluntary reviews - but that would mean a critical shortage of reviewers, so it's not an option IMO. Gatoclass (talk) 00:17, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: If I remember correctly (but note that my memory may have distorted the facts!), that earlier checklist got dumped for a variety of reasons -- after it had been tried out on the noms page for a little while. One thing that I recall as problematic was that it took up a huge amount of real estate in the nomination template (the proposal called for it to be built into every template, so the entire checklist would be displayed as soon as a new nom was created) -- when viewing a relatively simple brand-new nom on my computer screen, I couldn't see the top and the bottom of the nomination at the same time. And because it used icons for each of the items on the checklist, it added greatly to the visual information that a prep-builder would need to process when scanning the noms page for prep-area candidates. For a nom that passes on all but one or two criteria (as many noms do) and then is discussed on the noms page, the presence of template within the nom template made it harder for a prospective prep-area builder to follow the discussion and find the approved hooks in the wiki-code version of the noms page. IMO, checklists for reviewers are a great idea as guidance to reviewers, but mandating that every nomination include an extensive template was an idea that didn't work out. --Orlady (talk) 01:11, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If a compact checklist, perhaps something like that Maile is using for himself, can be developed, I don't think it could do much harm. However, I think it should be made clear that it will be mandated only for QPQ reviewers and only for the initial review - we don't want the same checklist stamped on a nom over and over for subsequent reviews. Gatoclass (talk) 01:33, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Before we pursue a new checklist, let's consider the guidance that currently is provided to reviewers. The edit notice that displays when a nomination is opened in edit mode provides a rather comprehensive list of the review criteria. Apparently reviewers aren't paying enough attention to that list (possibly they aren't noticing it). Maybe there would be more compliance if the appearance of the list were changed frequently to attract people's attention (for example, keep changing the text colors), so reviewers will be less inclined to ignore it.

As for QPQ, I don't believe it's reasonable to expect high-quality work from every reveiwer. QPQ inevitably means that some reviews will be done by users who don't really understand what they are being asked to do. IMO, neither the existing edit notice nor a formal checklist is likely to completely resolve that problem. I submit, however, that we should treat deficient reviews by inexperienced DYK reviewers as an opportunity -- this is an opportunity for engagement with an inexperienced user to help them become more effective contributors. It's a mistake to assume that somebody (particularly a newbie, but similar issues occur with WikiCup competitors and some other veterans) who did a DYK review solely for QPQ credit did that review properly (BTW, this is one reason why I think prep builders need to take a critical eye to the discussions they are closing), but it's also shortsighted of us when we don't use a deficient QPQ review as an opportunity for positive interaction with a contributor who might want a bit of a nudge to help them become both more proficient and highly productive in the future. --Orlady (talk) 01:42, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose If a reviewer skimps on the review I see no reason that they wouldn't tick off items on the checklist with the same careless attitude (somebody might have already said this but I'm the type of lazy reviewer that doesn't read previous comments). I'm pretty sure that the hassle of filling in a templated checklist would put an end to at least my reviewing [and cue noise of editors rushing to add support for the proposal]. Belle (talk) 08:09, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment As noted we did try this and it just means more for people to cut and paste before writing "good to go". My own pet solution to improving quality is that reviewers should make a referenced addition to the article of at least one sentence. That means that they look at the article and we get real eyes on real text and one real source. My own enthusiasm is low and I don't want Gato's suggestion (nice to see the help!) to wander off topic so feel free to propose this idea if you think it might work. Victuallers (talk) 09:24, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This is a big mistake

This nomination was actually never promoted but the hook appeared on the MP.--Skr15081997 (talk) 08:20, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It was a mistake, but not a "big" one. I promoted that article, obviously I just forgot to close the discussion when I did so. I'll do that now, thanks for the reminder. Gatoclass (talk) 08:27, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree it wasn't too "big", but it was there on the nominations page. Someone else might have promoted it and the same hook would have appeared on the MP.--Skr15081997 (talk) 08:38, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A valid point. I'll try to do better in future. Gatoclass (talk) 08:47, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Edit request

moved from T:TDYK:

This edit request to Template:Did you know has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

‹ The template Edit fully-protected is being considered for merging. ›

Please replace the line

[[File:Flag of Sierra Leone.svg|100x100px|File:Flag of Sierra Leone.jpg|Flag of Sierra Leone]]

with

[[File:Flag of Sierra Leone.svg|100x100px|border|File:Flag of Sierra Leone.jpg|Flag of Sierra Leone]]

i.e. add a border to the flag. 213.246.89.79 (talk) 06:09, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's off the main page now, but I added the border to the archived image. T:TDYK is not the correct place to make requests of this type, next time make it at WP:ERRORS or this page. Thanks, Gatoclass (talk) 09:13, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Updaters needed

I am currently available for verifying sets and promoting them to the queue if someone wants to throw an update or two together. As I said above, you don't need to worry about making mistakes ATM as I am taking responsibility for sets promoted over the next few hours. Thanks, Gatoclass (talk) 09:30, 26 June 2014 (UTC) [reply]

I am taking a break but updaters are still needed. Gatoclass (talk) 12:50, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Prep 1

Apparently, Felisa Vanoff was not checked for close paraphrasing. A spot check of footnote 2 shows the article text following line by line, if not outright copying, the source. I suggest it be returned to the noms page for further discussion. Yoninah (talk) 13:11, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Done Gatoclass (talk) 13:27, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Template formatting

Could someone also fix the formatting for Template:Did you know nominations/Trijata so the Review or Comment line comes up on the noms page? Thanks, Yoninah (talk) 13:16, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed by Maile. I fixed the DYKmake template, which was also malformed. It should now be fine. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:29, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

DYK is almost overdue

In less than two hours Did you know will need to be updated, however the next queue either has no hooks or has not been approved by an administrator. It would be much appreciated if an administrator would take the time to ensure that DYK is updated on time by following these instructions:

Check the prep areas; if there are between 6-10 hooks on the page then it is probably good to go. If not move approved hooks from the suggestions page and add them and the credits as required.
Once completed edit queue #4 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
Add {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} to the top of the queue and save the page

Then, when the time is right I will be able to update the template. Thanks and have a good day, DYKUpdateBot (talk) 14:04, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Admin needed to fix Queue 4, which still has its "remove this line" header, and I think needs a DYKbotdo line. As the move to the main page is now overdue, immediate attention would be great. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:33, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, I must have forgotten to remove the header when I promoted the set last night. Done now. But, there hasn't been a single hook uploaded to prep since I logged off, I'm starting to feel like Robinson Crusoe around here. Gatoclass (talk) 23:55, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe a few hooks will get added by Friday. EEng (talk) 01:53, 27 June 2014 (UTC) Just kidding. I added some a few hours ago.[reply]

To the contrary, EEng, it appears that you have nearly succeeded in your campaign to cause DYK to grind to a halt by discouraging volunteers from contributing their time to building prep areas. --Orlady (talk) 03:12, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the people that point out problems are of course to blame, not the ones creating our causing the problems. If people can't stand that their work may be corrected, improved, removed, rewritten, criticized, ..., then they shouldn't be on a wiki but go play on another website. If people can't stand that others want the info on the main page to be as error-free as possible, and that others want to raise the lax standards used on DYK for way too long to reduce the continuous flow of problematic hooks and articles that have "graced" the main page far too often, then tough luck, but perhaps then they simply shouldn't be building prep areas or doing other DYK work. The vast, vast majority of discussions here about incorrect or problematic hooks has focused on the hooks, the articles, not on people; the proposals to improve DYK have focused on process, not on people; but a few old-timers here believe this is unacceptable, and want to remove these discussions, make it much harder to change or remove hooks from the preps, queue or main page, or even take action against people like EEng (an RfC/U was proposed already), even though no one has e.g. compiled a list of reviewers with the most errors to take action against them. The defensiveness of a few people here who seem to believe that promoting as many DYKs as possible is the ultimate goal of Wikipedia (hyperbole warning!) is doing much more to bring DYK to a halt than the actions of EEng and the like. Fram (talk) 07:28, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Give it a rest Orlady. If you want to keep pushing garbage to the main page, fill up ERRORS and get frequent flyer points at ANI, feel free to ignore these concerns. In the meantime, we'll try fix the broken process. It would be good if you could try to help too. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:37, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Issue with Tom Rees DYK

The hook for Tom Rees (currently in prep area 1) had a picture with it when it was nominated. Any reason it was removed? Spirit of Eagle (talk) 00:06, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I removed it because the copyright tag looked dubious. Gatoclass (talk) 00:20, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Remember the necrophilia hook?

Just when you thought it was safe to go back on the nom page...

Template:Did you know nominations/Jailbait

EEng (talk) 01:36, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone check this

I have promoted a nom to prep 3, my first promotion work. Can anyone check to ensure that I have done the work correctly.--Skr15081997 (talk) 03:58, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That looks fine, thanks :) Gatoclass (talk) 04:38, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]