Wikipedia:Did you know/Monthly wrap/November 2021

DYK's November wrap, 2021

I thought I'd start these monthly wraps with an epigraph to summarize this month at DYK, a specific experience from this month at DYK, or the DYK experience in general. Our first epigraph is as follows:

The internet people have gone crazy.

— Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford), on The West Wing (2002)

It's me. I'm internet people. Ladies, gentlemen, and everyone betwixt, welcome to DYK's November wrap! Coincidentally, Spotify Wrapped was just released (and its article should be on DYK in a few days!), so I'm also staring, open-mouthed in horror, at the fact that 34% of my top-songs playlist is literally just Hamilton. College applications were due last night, so I'm running off of two hours of sleep, Dr Pepper, and pure spite—let's get into it!

As is tradition, a round of applause for our most-viewed hooks of the month: (Did you know...)

... that Belle Delphine's online popularity surged after she mimicked the orgasm faces (example pictured) featured in some Japanese manga? By Soulbust—37,017 views in 12 hours
... that the 1514 horned helmet of Henry VIII (pictured) has spectacles and a toothy grimace? By Dumelow—36,010 views in 12 hours
... that the keepers of Carl Griffith's sourdough starter (loaf pictured), which traveled the Oregon Trail in 1847, are sworn to keep no other sourdough starter in their homes? By Anon423—17,738 views in 12 hours
... that Susan Catania (pictured) shocked male legislators by bringing her infant daughter to the floor of the Illinois House of Representatives and nursing her baby in the women's restroom? By Edge3—15,456 views in 12 hours
... that Anne Saxelby (pictured) was a pioneer in promoting American artisanal cheese? my queen. my icon. The high cheese monarch herself. By Calliopejen1, Silver seren, and Thriley—15,001 views in 12 hours

Side note here: Dumelow had like fifteen gagillion hooks on the stats page on this month—idk how they do it, but whatever secret sauce they've figured out, it's good.

I really was hoping for a quieter month in the one-a-days, but we spent about half of it running two sets a day, for a total of 45 sets and 360 hooks this month—fortunately, the show went on just fine! Lots of admins helped promote to queues (I understand Ritchie333 and Hog Farm dangled their feet in the water), and given that we perennially run DYK's queue backlog like a sick American with a GoFundMe page for their medical bills, I very much appreciate the admins who are sufficiently guilted by our cries for help and hope they will consider making their one-time contributions monthly :) as for prep builders, Vaticidalprophet dipped their toes back in the water, and of course the ever-helpful SL93 and Kavyansh.Singh lent their hands to make sure we weren't running two sets a day forever. I was surprised by how long it went on, actually, but I can see from WP:Recent additions that there are entire months that ran on two a day; so I'm just going to be thankful for what we got.

I'd also like to highlight our well-performing non-image hooks, because 7⁄8ths of our hooks should probably make up at least a third of this wrap: (Did you know...)

... that after discovering the mass graves of the Arnsberg Forest massacre, American soldiers ordered the entire local population to watch the exhumation? By Dunutubble—13,996 views in 12 hours
... that Wikipedia editors wrote over 40,000 words arguing over a single letter? By me! 11,228 views in 12 hours
... that Earl Old Person, lifetime honorary Chief of the Blackfeet Nation, inadvertently broke a 1000-year tradition in 1971 when he asked the Shah of Iran to stand up? By Montanabw—10,678 views in 12 hours
... that Kursdorf is "the loudest village in Germany" and a "sound inferno"? By Eviolite—10,603 views in 12 hours

Speaking of an unquiet month, we had quite a bit going on behind the scenes! And I think you know what I mean when I say that; the one discussion that was so controversial, so fiery, as to dwarf nearly every other discussion for the month and temporarily cast a shadow on the decision-making of DYK. I'm talking, of course, *dramatic setup* about this question from DrThneed about whether we still do International Women's Day...

No, obviously I'm overdramatically referring to the Belle Delphine thingamadoodle. Umm, long story short, the entry that ended up being our most-viewed hook of the month (see above) was not exactly... uncontroversially interesting. While most respected WP:NOTCENSORED, some thought that the hook being reviewed, promoted, and ran was poor editorial oversight and didn't reflect well on Wikipedia's reputation. Others thought that the hook was fine, and pointed out that DYK had ran much more explicit images. The hook did end up running the full twelve hours, and Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da, life went on, although I'd like to input that the highlight of that discussion was Gerda Arendt being thoroughly unimpressed. We also restarted our starting-to-become-perennial discussion about whether we really need to haul in admins to keep this place running, and the discussion was closed after it became clear that 1. there was no consensus among admins and 2. the venn diagram of people the admins trust to promote preps to queues and people who actually want to do it is, like, almost no one. We're still figuring out how to implement SD0001's fancy new gadget, and EEng's find from several years ago on editor conduct guidelines was quietly archived as well—a shame, it might have come in handy for the Belle Delphine thing? Who knows.

Moving on, we also had some changes to the way the WP:DYKSTATS page is operated, due to the valiant efforts of our bold, efficient, and dare I say vivacious young theleekycauldron. We now have a script to semi-automate the updating of the monthly stats table, which allows one editor to maintain a page instead of relying on multiple editors to add their own hooks. We also stopped penalizing hooks for lingering interest, and some other cool behind-the-scenes changes to the page that make it easier to edit and nicer-looking! So, if something changed for the better this month here at DYK... it was probably that, because our equally important discussion about whether the Special occasion holding area belongs at the top or bottom hasn't been closed yet due to the absence of Shubinator.

Lastly, here are some of our quality quirkies from this month that were left unappreciated by our readers (who needs 'em, they don't know what's good): (Did you know...)

... that the type specimen of the icefish Pagetodes, a synonym of Cryodraco, was stolen and eaten by a cat before it could be preserved? By Quetzal1964
... that Citizens Square was almost named after Fort Wayne's Harry Baals? By me, but you know what, it was a damn good hook
... that Miller's Anatomy of the Dog, a textbook dedicated to canines, was found by a specialist feline publication to be bereft of information about cats? By DferDaisy
... that Carol Publishing Group distributed a suicide manual? By AleatoryPonderings
... that one critic opined that "it's hard to fall for Falling for Figaro"? By Filmomusico
... that it can be hard to know which Snake is which? By Kevin1776

So, what have we learned? We've learned that no one really wants to promote queues (except me, but i'm certifiable anyway). We've learned that things stop moving a little when Shubinator takes a break. And, of course, we've learned that if you're considering putting an adult film actress in the image slot, you should probably... think it through first. Lessons noted—since quiet is apparently a dream of the foolhardy, here's to an... interesting December for us all! theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/them) 09:41, 3 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]