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Likely sockpuppets self-approving DYK noms

After WayKurat contacted me on my talk page at User talk:BlueMoonset#User:PapaJeckloy and his questionable DYK nominations and reviews, I took a look and agreed that two different new accounts each approving one of PapaJeckloy's DYK nominations minutes after the user's first edit was suspicious behavior, so I submitted a sockpuppet investigation. The results have just come back that the two accounts are "Likely" matches, which I gather is strong evidence but not enough for "Confirmed".

The question is, where do we go from here? PapaJeckloy's reviews have required extra scrutiny: EEng asked me to intervene a few weeks ago, and even today PJ's review of Template:Did you know nominations/Jeff Dexter missed close paraphrasing. His own articles have weak prose and he shows an inability to recognize issues with his own, another issue that carries over to his reviewing. Only today, he opened, reviewed, and passed a GA nomination in eight minutes: Talk:Adderall/GA1, a complex scientific article of 3210 words (23139 prose characters). I find these actions quite troubling.

Is this enough to disqualify the two nominations in question? To withhold DYK credit? To suspend DYK privileges? I'm not sure what has been done in similar situations in the past, or what sorts of sanctions are typically invoked against the sockmaster. (One of the two likely socks has already been blocked for having an offensive name.) BlueMoonset (talk) 00:07, 1 September 2014 (UTC) (minor edit at 04:18, 1 September 2014 (UTC))

I think the SPI should be closed shortly by a closing admin, who will decide on sanctions, so I would wait for that. HelenOnline 07:48, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
I think that given the way he has stepped up his reviewing activity (with continuing problematic results) and has now started assembling prep sets, DYK should definitely consider what action it wishes to take. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:06, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
I've removed a hook that he approved and promoted in the same edit and reopened the nomination (though I haven't struck the approval), and I've also removed Template:Did you know nominations/Broadway Hollywood Building. I haven't got it in for TonyTheTiger (despite the fact that I only ever seem to suggest that his articles are withdrawn or don't qualify; sorry, I'm going to make it up to you in a second TTT); it was just that it was approved by Gongon3336 whose only other contributions seem to have been to approve or edit nominations by PapaJeckloy. Belle (talk) 08:30, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
Ok, it's your opinions, i'll just wait for an administrator to close the sock investigation, and i'll never edit Wikipedia again, your comments are hurting me a lot, i feel sorry to my self that my contributions in WP are controversial because of lack of experience and the accusations to me are being judged as likely or something else, i'll just wait for it to be closed (if i'll get an indefinite block), but it's not yet confirmed, i'll just tried my best to help and contribute to wikipedia but seems like it's not effective and i am always controversial, i understand the evidences and i think it is caused by lack of experience thereof, so i temporarily will not build prep sets, review GA and DYK's and create/contribute to articles at this time, i am hardly percieved by the whole community, and to be safe from judgemental persons (i'm not sure), Maybe it's a sign for me, Well, I just want to thank everybody who helped me contributing on this site, I just want to help but this is the result of everything i done, You can give me sanctions, judge me, percieve me, i understand my wrong and damageable edits here and i also know that it causes waste of time, but i just can't insist that i am accused that i abusively used multiple accounts, i'll just hold this to an SPI clerk or something else. -PAPAJECKLOY (hearthrob! kiss me! <3) (talk) 08:41, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
I have re-opened the sockpuppet investigation to address Gongon3336, please add any other possible socks there. PapaJeckloy got a week's block and is showing no remorse so I think the next step would be to propose a topic ban at ANI. I am prepared to get the ball rolling if I have enough support here. HelenOnline 12:34, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
Gongon3336 has been confirmed and blocked. Please participate in ANI discussion re proposed ban. HelenOnline 15:50, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
I created an ANI discussion against Jeckloy. Feel free to join and share your experiences dealing with this guy. Thanks. -WayKurat (talk) 15:54, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
PapaJeckloy has been indeffed by TheBushranger after proof of further socking (initial block had been one week), but I would like to move forward with a topic ban here as well for when he returns, so we can relax the ban at what we consider to be a prudent rate. I don't believe we are restricted from that, even if the ANI thread has been closed. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:14, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
My understanding of Wikipedia protocol is that such a ban would have to be agreed upon at AN(I) and is not an option at this time based on the outcome of the ANI discussion closed earlier today. Please correct me if I am mistaken. HelenOnline 20:48, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Two of my hooks (the EarthBound four-part multihook in Q1 and Crawl in Q3) were added by PapaJeckloy, and I'd like to request reconsideration of their placement. Would someone be able to take a look? EarthBound is sitting near the bottom (for a four-part hook), and Crawl, I thought, had an exception animated image that would be worth displaying. czar ♔ 08:27, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Queue 1

Can somebody add "US" before the $ in ".. that Walter W. Law went from being a carpet salesman to shipping 8,000 roses daily, earning up to $100,000 annually?", as other currencies use the $ and some of them would seriously dent Mr Law's bottom line. (I know it was in US$ because he shipped the roses to me for my attendants to strew in my path. He died in 1924? I'd like to withdraw my previous claim) Belle (talk) 18:29, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Done. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:57, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's The Rambling Man! (I don't know why I thought he might be a bird or a plane, he's not flying and hasn't even got wings; I'd better get my eyes tested) Belle (talk) 12:05, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Oueue 3

Oueue? Is that like a DYK oeuvre, maybe with a Ouija board? EEng (talk) 01:29, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Encouraged by the sound of an open door flapping in the wind and the tumbleweed rolling down the street that accompanied my last request (look, it's just above this one), I thought I'd bring your attention to the the hook for Johannes Østrup in Queue 3. Although that hook wasn't struck out, it wasn't approved either. See Template:Did you know nominations/Johannes Østrup for all the exciting details. Belle (talk) 11:42, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Replaced with approved hook. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:59, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
Is it A F G D X on the top line? No, it's The Rambling Man! (I was right, I did need to get my eyes tested.) Belle (talk) 12:07, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
Maybe I'm being too picky but ... that in 1893 Johannes Østrup rode on horseback for 60 days from Istanbul to Copenhagen? Copenhagen is on an island. Art LaPella (talk) 05:39, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
That's why it took sixty days. EEng (talk) 05:42, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
Horses can swim but, yes, I think you are being a bit picky; nobody will imagine that he remained constantly on horseback for the 60 days either (and Copenhagen is on more than one island; pow! picking at the pickiness). Belle (talk) 07:50, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

A quickie

Need someone to take care of "Violence & Destruction, Islander (band)"--should be done easily. Drmies (talk) 21:38, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Alt1 reviewed and passed. — Maile (talk) 15:07, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Hook accumulation

There are currently four filled queues and two filled prep areas. Despite this, there are over three hundred nominations waiting to be processed with forty-five of these being approved. The size of the backlog has been growing for several weeks and I suggest that it is time to either increase the number of hooks in a set or else increase the frequency of the changeover to three sets a day. Any other views? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:58, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Closure of RFC on main image of upcoming DYK

treats! is going on the main page in a little over 26 hours. It has an WP:RFC regarding its main image that has been waiting for closure at WP:ANRFC since August 31.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 21:37, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I also left a note at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Closure_of_RFC_on_main_image_of_upcoming_DYK.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 23:36, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
I didn't realize someone responded to this because no message was left.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 23:43, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Older nominations needing DYK reviewers

With the last set of unreviewed nominations recently archived, I've compiled a new set of 35 older nominations that need reviewing. Many of these may look familiar. Thanks to everyone who reviews.

Please remember to cross off entries as you finish reviewing them (unless you're asking for further review), even if the review was not an approval. Many thanks! BlueMoonset (talk) 21:53, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for these continuing updates! Would it be possible to automate this? It would be helpful to have a "dashboard" that has just the titles and the most recent bullet for all open nominations, like an expanded version of Wikipedia:Did you know/DYK hook count. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 07:11, 21 August 2014 (UTC)
Antony-22, I suppose it might be possible to automate something, where those entries that have either no icons or the last icon as the "review again" are listed. The problem is that this often doesn't tell the whole story, that people seem not to want to get involved with the no-icon nominations that have a lot of exchanges, and that I frequently have to add those red arrow icons to reviews that already have other icons but have now progressed to the point that they need a new reviewer. If someone wants to try they're certainly welcome to, but it's not something I'm interested in doing myself. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:14, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
BlueMoonset We can have a section reserved on the project talk page for older nominations needing reviews. The nominations which have been passed or failed can be removed manually and the section can be regularly updated. I have added a comment in this section so that it doesn't gets archived.--Skr15081997 (talk) 14:05, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
Skr15081997, you mean on this talk page? I'm not sure how well that would work; where do you think it should go? If it sits at the top of the page, which is where it will end up eventually (like this section has), it's less likely to be seen as it's old; if it sits at the bottom, it will obscure more pressing matters needing immediate attention. Not that the current process of starting at the bottom and moving up is ideal, but it seems to attract enough attention. We could add and delete nominations—I already add new entries within the post's original timeframe when I spot them—though the nice thing about the struck entries (rather than deleting them outright) is that it shows progress (or lack thereof) since the section was posted. But that's my impression; other folks could have different ideas on what would work best. BlueMoonset (talk) 13:43, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
BlueMoonset the list of older nominations needs to be somewhere. WP:GAN and WP:FLC have a note of older nominations right at the top of the page. I don't think putting it at the top of nomination's page would help but since many editors visit this page frequently putting it somewhere on this page might help speed the reviews and help maintain low backlog.--Skr15081997 (talk) 10:35, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
Skr15081997, unless there is consensus that a section of the sort I've been creating needs to be pinned somewhere on this page, rather than be introduced at the bottom and gradually rise toward the top and get archived in the usual way as has been the practice for years now, I think I'm going to stick with the status quo. If you feel strongly that it should happen in a particular way, why not create a new section at the bottom of the page (where people will see it) and see what sort of consensus develops—people may have preferences about this that I may be completely unaware of. I do think we should let this obsolete section of hooks be archived off the page, since it has been superseded once and is about to superseded a second time. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:08, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Hooked facts

Does the fact(s) in the hook has to come from the newly added content in case of 5x expansions? --Vigyanitalkਯੋਗਦਾਨ 06:56, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

No, just needs a ref right next to the fact, or several if more than one fact is mentioned in the hook. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:02, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

What is the meaning of main article at Wikipedia:Did you know/Multiple Article Hook Hall of Fame?

I have just discovered Wikipedia:Did you know/Multiple Article Hook Hall of Fame and want to fill in some of my hooks. What is the meaning of main article in the table on that page? Does it have to do with the Lead hook from the set they were in or the hook at issue?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 10:56, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

The way I've always interpreted it is: if one of the articles in the hook is clearly the major topic and the other articles are subsidiary to it, put the one that is the major topic in the first column. For example, one of mine was List of places of worship in Hastings plus four articles about individual churches, so I put "List of..." as the main article. For many hooks, though, there isn't really a main article: they all have the same "status". In those cases, just put a description (or link to an article) that covers all of them. For example, for your hook about the Michigan Wolverines football team in 1990 etc., perhaps enter "Michigan Wolverines football team seasons" in the Main article column. Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 18:46, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Oldest nominations needing DYK reviewers

I've compiled a new set of the 38 oldest nominations that need reviewing. Thanks as always to everyone who reviews.

Please remember to cross off entries as you finish reviewing them (unless you're asking for further review), even if the review was not an approval. Many thanks! BlueMoonset (talk) 18:57, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Pageview stats

Has the http://stats.grok.se pageview tool been discontinued. I have never not gotten a response within 24 when inquiring about a delay in updating. It has not updated since September 2. I have queries in at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Pageview_tool_down_again and User_talk:Henrik#Pageviews_not_updating. P.S. I know another tool exists at https://tools.wmflabs.org/wikiviewstats/?, but it does not accounts for non-alphanumeric characters very well yet. E.G., Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, which has an apostrophe only counts about two thirds of the page views (see the variants tab at the bottom).--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:07, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

TonyTheTiger, I don't know about Henrik's tool. That's always been iffy for years. You might get an answer if you email Henrik. Have you tried installing User:Hedonil/common.js on your js? The results are spectacular, in a way. Yeah, there's a section tied in to the page views you have issue with. One thing Hedonil's tool does is give you a "heading" line on every WP page of stats, who created the article, how many authors, how many revisions, etc. If you double click on "See full page statistics" on that heading, it takes you to a wonderful breakdown page of various information. Interesting to look at. However, if as you say, you think those stats are off somewhat, then maybe this will not interest you. — Maile (talk) 16:25, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
His tool is back up. A six day hiatus is a record though.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 23:34, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

PapaJeckloy

Something buzzed in my head over the nomination for the 2014 Philippine FIBA Basketball World Cup team, and checking Gelacost Mouse's contributions shows they are suspiciously PapaJeckloy-esque, so I've reopened the sockpuppet investigation. It's just like a really mundane Nancy Drew adventure. Belle (talk) 21:45, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks to you, PapaJeckloy's latest sock has been blocked, and I rejected the DYK nomination. He'd also signed up for GOCE and edited an article for it, even though said article wasn't on the GOCE list until he added it. Fortunately, the sock hadn't gotten around to GAN yet. Unfortunately, Gelacost Mouse managed to get Confirmed days in advance of the standard autoconfirm by requesting it; I've pointed out what happened to the confirmer. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:16, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

WP:DYKSTATS or not?

The other day, a DYK of mine, for Deep Creek (Pennsylvania), got onto the Main Page. It apparently just missed out on a DYKSTATS spot, getting 4949 views. But then it got 395 views on the next day for no apparent reason. I've heard that DYK views from one day are sometimes carried over to the next day. Is this what's happening here? --Jakob (talk) 17:48, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Considering its pageview stats and the fact that it removed from the main page at midnight it gets carryover totals. Its official total is 4752+393-(11+36)/2=5122.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 18:47, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

New Hooks to the bottoms of sections

Can we have the editing prompt on the nominations edit screen be changed to direct new articles to the bottom of sections? The Nominations page as a whole already reads oldest to newest when scolling down it, it does not make sense to have the new noms placed at the tops of the sections in my opinion. --Kevmin § 00:30, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

In a similar vein, actually, I'd like to renew my suggestion that new nominations be entered under the date of nomination instead of the current "date of expansion/date of creation" system (designed, I'm guessing, to maintain some kind of first-creation-first-featured fairness, which hasn't made sense for a very long time given the highly unequal rate at which noms progress to approval).
For those of us who like to eyeball each nom it would make things much easier if new noms just appeared at the bottom. It would also make it easier to find noms that have been neglected.
EEng (talk) 04:23, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
One reason to keep nominations under the date of creation (or start of expansion) is that if said date isn't in the Current nominations section, then the nomination is clearly overdue. And since a great many reviewers seem to work from the bottom up, it might be nice to continue having those who submitted their nominations sooner get seen sooner by these from-the-bottom folks, rather than have subsequent submissions get a leg up by getting placed in that prime position. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:55, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
Well I don't think it's a big deal either way, but the "subsequent submissions get a leg up" argument makes no sense i.e. there's no strategy that goes "I'll nominate tomorrow instead of today because that way, when I nominate I'll be in the prime position at the very bottom" -- if you nominate right now you'll be in that same prime position, too. EEng (talk) 04:17, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
EEng, I didn't say it was a strategy, but a simple fact of placement: those at the bottom get the attention of those who work from the bottom up. Anyone who's been working at assembling sets will have seen how the lowest nomination is more likely to have been reviewed than the ones above it. If we change the placement, we change the likely order the nominations will be reviewed. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:33, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
Whether it's a conscious strategy or not, the point is the same: you're saying that "subsequent submissions get a leg up " i.e. somehow nominating later gets you reviewed sooner, and that makes no sense. EEng (talk) 19:55, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
I don't think it will matter a great deal within each days grouping, with the more reviewable nominations getting reviews quicker then the more intensive ones, as already happens to be honest.--Kevmin § 00:11, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Queue1 problems

@A P Monblat, Hawkeye7, and Wasted Time R: The third item in Queue1 (Template:Did you know nominations/Sutton twin towns mural), "... that all of Sutton's European twin towns can be seen without leaving Sutton High Street in London by looking up at the twin towns mural?" should be removed and put on hold as I have just nominated the article for deletion.

Removed. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:04, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

@Rosiestep, Hawkeye7, and Yoninah: The final item (Template:Did you know nominations/A Dog's Love), "... that Shep the Dog proved a better actor than his child co-star in A Dog's Love?", I must be overlooking something, I can't find that fact in the article at all. Can someone else check this please? Fram (talk) 09:53, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Yeah, the hooked fact is missing in the article. --Vigyanitalkਯੋਗਦਾਨ 10:04, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps, hook refers to this line "The dog's emotions — including "depression", "groveling pathos", and "joy" — were noted to surpass the child's histrionics." --Vigyanitalkਯੋਗਦਾਨ 10:06, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
Pulled until a better hook can be agreed upon. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:09, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
The hook is indeed based on the source quoted by Vigyani. Not sure why it's not a good hook. Yoninah (talk) 13:42, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I've just reopened both nominations, which had been left as "approved". Any nomination that's pulled needs to be reopened as part of the removal process, and a message added to the nomination template noting the issues that need to be addressed. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:16, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

It's not unusual for a hook to be pulled without prejudice, usually to make way for a time-critical hook. If there is no comment on the nom, then it is liable to be added to the next prep area. Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:53, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Pulled Perce Wilson from Queue5

@Cbl62, Cambalachero, Hawkeye7, and HJ Mitchell: I have pulled Perce Wilson (Template:Did you know nominations/Perce Wilson) from Queue5. The hook fact was sourced to two sources (one a wiki) which did not include the hook fact (and flatly contradicted it by omission), and one editor-written note stating that these two sources are wrong, as evidenced by some primary sources and a source of dubious reliability. This piece of WP:OR was then used to promote this to the main page (or nearly, pulled from queue). If source A and B say X and source B says Y, then doing some research in primary sources and finding that Y is correct may give a kick, but it is not the kind of impeccably sourced fact that should be a hook. I don't understand why no one even bothered to discuss this, to raise this problem, at the review.

Realise also that the hook is possibly incorrect synthesis; even accepting the original research, what source states that he was the only or first Canadian-born quarterback? The sites that list Canadian-born ones separately omit him, and the source used to indicate that he was Canadian-born doesn't list who else meets that description. If the reliable sources have omitted one player from their list, what makes you decide he is the only one? Fram (talk) 09:23, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

DYK Toolbox needs an edit

Orlady, Crisco 1492, Mandarax, BlueMoonset - I'm hoping one of you can edit Template:DYK tools. I'm a little hesitant I might not get it correct on this one if I try. In a nutshell, Dispenser's tools for Dablinks and External links are not functional and may not be in the foreseeable future. There is a Village Pump discussion about replacements. Therein, it suggests Extension:Disambiguator does the same thing as the Dablinks tool. Can any of you make the change on the DYK toolbox? — Maile (talk) 22:02, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. — Maile (talk) 14:04, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Worst hook in the history of DYK

"...that ketchup was originally prepared using mushrooms as its main ingredient, and was sometimes referred to as mushroom ketchup?" currently sitting in Prep 4 has to be the worst hook I have ever seen. Seriously. And according to the ketchup article, is actually factually incorrect. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:28, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

  • You and I both know (well, I should hope that we do) that if the original hook that was promoted is reinstated, it is likely that the hook will be pulled anyways owing to concerns over its accuracy. Might exacerbate the situation, but I don't doubt that it will happen. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:59, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
  • The ketchup article needs to be edited for accuracy, not vice versa. Mushroom ketchup is written entirely from sources. I have copy edited the ketchup article for clarity, also adding inline templates requesting further verification within its lead, where clarification is needed. What part of the ketchup article contradicts this article at this time? Please review and compare both articles, as the supposed contradiction stated above isn't qualified by specifically stating how. NorthAmerica1000 14:07, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Sources which may, themselves, be inaccurate. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:32, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps redo the original hook as ..."that ketchup was originally prepared with mushrooms?"--¿3family6 contribs 14:22, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Well said. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 14:24, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
Sorry, but no - there are sources that state that ketchup was originally made in the far east, from fish sauce - and explain the etymology. [1][2] Given such contradictory evidence, we shouldn't be making definitive assertions about this, especially on the main page. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:29, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
And yet another source... yeah, questionable assertion at best. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:37, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks to users for qualifying the stance of inaccuracy. I wasn't specific enough in devising the hook, which made it inaccurate. A simple way to modify the hook is to reword it, adding accurate qualification with, "in the United Kingdom". See example below. NorthAmerica1000 14:47, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

How is a statement that mushroom ketchup was originally made from mushrooms even remotely interesting? AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:50, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
That can be worded better. Here's something below. NorthAmerica1000 14:57, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

7&6=thirteen (☎) 14:59, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

  • Early preparations prepared... gosh. How about
 — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:07, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

There we go!--¿3family6 contribs 15:09, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Homemade mushroom ketchup

I prefer ALT5 too, it seems factually correct and doesn't contradict the ketchup article (which User:Northamerica1000 has stated needs fixing). But in future, and as AndyTheGrump has reinforced above, I hope reviewers remember that a hook along the lines of "... that A of B is B from A?" is in no way interesting. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:02, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

ABBA tomato sauce? Martinevans123 (talk) 18:08, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

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:

  1. 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.
  2. Once completed edit queue #5 and replace the page with the entire content from the next update
  3. 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) 10:09, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Removed from Prep 1

@Shhhhwwww!!, Cwmhiraeth, and Hawkeye7: I have removed "* ... that the first Bay Church was made of bamboo and nipa and was built along the lake shore of Laguna de Bay, Philippines?" from prep 1. The hook was sourced to one unavailable page and one wordpress page that had copied the info from Wiki Pilipinas. Worse, it looks quite likely that the info is simply wrong, and that people have been confusing the St. Augustine Parish Church (Laguna) with the San Agustin Church (Manila). This doesn't seem fit to be on the main page. And that, sadly, seems to be happening quite often again these days. Fram (talk) 09:57, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

  • No one claimed that the Manila church was ever nominated (unless Hawkeye was referring to that, no idea what he meant). The churches are two different churches, but it seems as if somewhere along the way the nominated Bay Church has appropriated the early history of the much more important Manila church. Note that already the second sentence of the article, "It served as an old Franciscan mission town in 1578. " is wrong, as it was supposedly Augustinian at the time, and only became Franciscan in 1737, or nearly 150 years later... Sourcing and fact checking of the article don't seem to be up to main page standards. Fram (talk) 14:56, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Thank you for pointing out several errors. I hope so that the comments was also written on the article's talk page to address it immediately for revision. It was an honest mistake to mixed up the Franciscans and Augustinians in the lead paragraph. Changed the second sentence to "It was first administered by Augustinian priests and later transferred to Franciscans." Changed also the references to more credible one like the book of Huerta and the Historical Marker of the church. If it does not meet the DYK criteria, well then, close the nomination and fail it. We'll respect it. --Carlojoseph14 (talk) 15:29, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Why approve one hook and promote another? Pulled one from queue...

Template:Did you know nominations/Mahikeng Airport

@Jakec and Hawkeye7:, one hook was approved at the nomination, but another one taken for the promotion. This means that an unpproved hook was about to hit the main page. One I have trouble to find in the sources, I have to say (the "regain" part, which means it once was an international airpport). In any case, it isn't useful to have different checks balances when the promotor decides to take whatever hook he likes anyway... Fram (talk) 15:07, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

When I saw such a thing, I just changed prep, using the approved hook. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:17, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
In the promoter's defence, this was changed after it was promoted [3] and if the hook fact is supported I think the change makes a better hook than than the original. Belle (talk) 15:20, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
The promotor didn't use the hook that was promoted, then someone else changed the hook in the queue to yet another one; perhaps we can just abandon the whole review process, and give everyone the right to put things straight into the prep areas? The hook that was in the queue may be better and may be correct and sourced, but we have a process to decide and determine such things, to avoid too many mistakes from reaching prep, queue and main page. Fram (talk) 15:35, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
I only asked for the right to replace an unapproved hook by the approved one. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:39, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
I wasn't responding to you, but to Belle, apologies for any confusion. Fram (talk) 15:57, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
Gerda Arendt, if it's your own nomination or your own hook, then you don't have that right. Please ask here if there's an issue with a hook promotion from your own nomination; I'm sure someone will be happy to check and make an appropriate fix. Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:53, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
I exchanged one image, - should I have bothered someone else? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:18, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
Yes. Please do next time. Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:38, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
You seem to be serious about bothering another person for using the cropped version? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:30, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
  • When Hawkeye7 promoted this, neither hook had been struck out. Reviewer Jakob never mentioned the original hook on the review, which made the review incomplete and nobody catching that fact. The review mentions no details, such as a check for close paraphrasing/copyvio. "Sufficiently expanded, meets core content policies. ALT1 was supported by sources, so let's go with that." is a pretty surface skimming review. Nominator Nathan121212 never mentioned a preference on a hook after the review was done. More than one unstruck hook is promoter's choice. But no way should anybody just jump in to a Prep area or Queue and create an entirely new, unapproved and unreviewed hook. As pointed out above, it was EEng who changed it in Prep1 with no discussion on the template or anywhere else. — Maile (talk) 17:50, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
I changed the hook from
... that Mahikeng Airport was an air force base and is now trying to become an international airport?
to
... that efforts are underway to help Mahikeng Airport, a former air force base, regain its status as an international airport?
because (as my edit summary stated)
airport "trying" is a bit too anthropomorphic, and per article it was once an intl airport before
i.e. the promoted hook was borderline illiterate, and didn't match what the article said. I have said over and over and over and over that the final, perfect, all-it-needs-is-to-be-copied-to-prep version of the one-and-only, positively this-is-the-one-to-use hook should be explicitly agreed upon on the nom page (maybe with the required participation of a "senior reviewer") before the nom is closed, so that things like this can be handled where they should be handled -- on the nom page. But no one seems to want to do that, so often they've gone to prep before anyone's noticed some problem.
I make some change to maybe 1/3 of hooks while they're in prep, with almost zero pushback and plenty of Thank-You pings (not to mention the many, MANY changes and fixes I make on hooks in noms still in progress -- with even more Thank-You pings, and lots of "Thanks for a much better hook" as well) -- you want me to log a REMOVED and reopen the nom page every time? This was one of the few that wasn't strictly a copyedit or grammar/mechanical fix, but it changed a hook that didn't match what the article says, to one that does. (Maybe this one I should have REMOVED and reopened -- so sue me.) If you don't like that, then I hope you'll join in getting procedures changed so that hooks are final before the nom is closed.
EEng (talk) 18:17, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
FWIW, and IMHO, the original hook was a tragedy so EEng's choice was a vast improvement. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:37, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
Gratefully (and somewhat ashamed) I agree. ("Borderline" damn I'm getting close.) Nathan121212 (talk) 18:48, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast.

Logan Pearsall Smith (1931). Afterthoughts.
Don't you mean ashamedly, you borderline illiterate? ;) But seriously, I was too harsh. Let's just say The airport is trying sounds very odd. <begin musing> Strangely, had it said "Berlin is cracking down on..." I wouldn't have objected. And we routinely hear that "Cuba refused to recognize..." and so on, and that sounds OK. I think it's something to do with the fact that we don't think of an airport as an active entity -- if it had said "the XYZ Airport Authority is attempting..." that would sound right. And yet so would "XYZ Airport no longer allows small planes to land". Sometimes the ear knows what the mind can't really explain. <end musing>
In closing, let me use this discussion as an excuse to trot out one of my all-time favorite aphorisms -- see the box.
EEng (talk) 20:04, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
"the airport is trying" = 259,000 Google hits?? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:45, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
The Rambling Man says my hook is better. You dare to disagree? EEng (talk) 03:21, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
  • All I can say about promoting the wrong hook occasionally is that the prep area assembly process involves first selecting seven or more nominations, then I have to come back and move them to the prep area. At that point I can only see the markup, which can sometimes makes it hard to find the hook at all. But this is not part of the review process, it is the prep area assembly process. If the wrong hook is promoted, or even if someone thinks that another alternate hook would be better, then anyone is free to swapo the hooks. This is not overriding the reviewer, it is part of the prep area assembly process. Moreover, The rules encourage the kind of copyediting grammatical tweaks that EEng is talking about. They also recommended trimming back necessary verbiage. So long as the meaning is not changed. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:11, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
Well, I for one think we should draw the line at trimming back necessary verbiage. And sentence fragments. EEng (talk) 21:25, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Often, though, the meaning is changed while DYKs sit in the queues, but mostly this is a good thing. The benefit of the slow down in DYK promotion to main page is that some of us get a chance to look over the hooks properly before they're posted. DYK errors are decreasing, quality is increasing. Keep it going, and don't be afraid to modify or pull hooks that seem dubious. Better to pull now, ask questions later than to let erroneous material get to the main page. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:14, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
Well, while mods in prep/Q are often our only recourse for now, I repeat it would be far preferable for hooks to be completely finalized "in public" -- by which I mean on the nom page. But such a process would have to include some provision for making sure the select few have a final opportunity to fix the problems most don't see. EEng (talk) 21:25, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Old nominations needing DYK reviewers

I've compiled a new set of the 36 oldest nominations that need reviewing; at the moment, 278 of 352 nominations are unapproved. Thanks as always to everyone who reviews.

Please remember to cross off entries as you finish reviewing them (unless you're asking for further review), even if the review was not an approval. Many thanks! BlueMoonset (talk) 20:14, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

What I've Been Looking For needs review

What I've Been Looking For, about a Disney song, was nominated July 29. There's been chatter on the nomination template, but nothing in the way of a real review. It's not listed above as an older nomination, but it sure needs a review. — Maile (talk) 14:07, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

ok hang on. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:28, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for doing this. — Maile (talk) 15:10, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Template:Did you know nominations/Cross-border Terminal, Tijuana International Airport

Cross-border Terminal, Tijuana International Airport has a stack of text created as it was imported from Tijuana International Airport, however that material was created not long before. So even though the material was imported...it is still new and hence qualifies...right?...or not? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:25, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

I see what you're getting at, but it seems legit to me. The content was added, and then on second thought, moved to a new article. I might have some concern (but limited for sure) in the case when older content was moved into a new article, but in this case I don't see an issue. Maury Markowitz (talk) 15:46, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
I agree that it qualifies as new: we've had cases before where a large amount of material was added to an existing article, and then removed into its own new article with a couple of days (well within the "new" deadline). I see some other issues with the article that need to be dealt with, but in terms of newness and size, it definitely qualifies. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:44, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Removed one hook from Queue5

Template:Did you know nominations/Martin Manulis

@Cbl62, Cwmhiraeth, Hawkeye7, and Casliber:

  • ... that Martin Manulis was the producer of Playhouse 90, which was voted the greatest television series of all time in a 1970 poll of television critics?

This isn't supported by the source, [4]. Yes, I could have corrected the hook. And then I would have done what I object to in others, changing facts in hooks while bypassing the whole review process. I have no objection against making hooks better without changing the meaning (e.g. adding wikilinks, changing some punctuation or capitalization, whatever). But a wrong hook should be sent back to the nominations page. Fram (talk) 07:30, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I think it is supported in this source [5] which is where I saw it. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 07:49, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
Then you think wrong. The hook is similar to a statement in the NYTimes article, but not the same. That you overlooked the difference in your review is not good. That you overlooked the difference even after the hook was pulled for being wrong makes me wonder whether you should review any hooks. For crying out loud, the hook is one sentence, 26 words. Fram (talk) 07:58, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
Aah, yes it is "editors" and not "critics" - changed now, given I reworte the hook, does someone else want to assess? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 08:22, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
Don't you think editors are critics of one another's works? ;-) Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:28, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
Some of our editors clearly not. Fram (talk) 09:31, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Fix the tools?

The DYK review page currently list three tools in a little box on the right: DYKcheck, Dup detector, QPQcheck. None of these actually "work". The first takes you to the description page of the tool, not the tool. The second takes you out-of-page and then requires you to to all of the URLs and kinda already know if it's a dup, and the third asks you to type in the username, which is on the page you just left.

So, is there any reason that DYKcheck can't go directly to the page and invoke the tool?

And the same for QPQcheck?

Is there any purpose to Dup detector at all? If I think it's a dup, don't my eyeballs do the same thing as this with a lot less typing?

Maury Markowitz (talk) 15:43, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Maury, they're helpful links. DYKcheck takes you to a page that explains what the check does and how it can be used: very helpful for the new DYK reviewer (there are more all the time). Duplication detector takes you to the tool's wmflabs page, and I've never had to type at all: copy the article url, copy a source url, paste each onto the form, and bingo: a list of matching strings of words. Eyeballs take far longer to scan both documents, especially if the source is at all long, and especially if there are a lot of sources to check. It has found copyvios and close paraphrasing more times than I care to say, including cases where it's close paraphrasing not on the cited source but a copyvio of a source cited elsewhere in the article.
Once DYKcheck is installed, the user has it in their Tools section of the left-hand Wikipedia menu, so you invoke it whenever you're looking at an article you want to check. (It's two clicks from the nomination template, not one, but you should be looking at the article anyway as part of your review.) For QPQcheck, right now, that tool seems to be hit-or-miss: it shows that I have 34 DYKs, but doesn't seem to see any of yours, not even the one on your Talk page. (It may not be able to deal with your talk page archiving scheme, which strikes me as a weakness of the tool.) BlueMoonset (talk) 20:40, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
"DYKcheck takes you to a page that explains what the check does and how it can be used"
Which is completely useless, it doesn't actually do anything. Why does it not simply run the tool?
"copy the article url, copy a source url, paste each onto the form"
A perfect description of why this tool is useless. BM, how does one find if there is a copyvio if you need to know the page that it vios? And even if you torture logic to try to answer that, why doesn't it at least fill out the first URL?
These need fixing, not apologies. Who do I talk to? Maury Markowitz (talk) 13:00, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
Thanks Maile! Maury Markowitz (talk) 15:06, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
There are technical limitations here that would make such an implementation flaky at best. The main limitation is that DYKcheck can't be run by an anonymous editor. This wasn't true years ago, but somewhere along the way MediaWiki changed so now users must be logged in to use the script. Aside from this limitation, it is possible to tweak DYKcheck to allow a link on the nom page to invoke it. This sort of a tweak isn't trivial though. To be clear, DYKcheck is a script and not a tool run on an external server. With a tool on an external server it's much simpler to create links to invoke it from wherever regardless of user state. Shubinator (talk) 03:35, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
Just my experience, which is separate from what Maury would like to see happen. I find it really useful to have the DYKCheck in my left-hand Toolbox sidebar. I use it frequently without doing a review. It brings up handy information, and all I have to do is pull up an article and click the DYKCheck. — Maile (talk) 13:57, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
And just so those editors know what you are talking about, it's when a reviewer clicks on a tool in the upper right hand tool box of the Template:Did you know nominations, you believe clicking on the links should be all the reviewer should have to do. No fill in the blanks or anything else. It should just take the reviewer to the complete information. This is the DYK toolbox. — Maile (talk) 18:41, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Queue 5

I've noticed that in the lead article of this queue, there's an unreferenced paragraph in the bottom of this section. There's also another unreferenced sentence in the final section of that article. Since DYK rules suggest one citation per paragraph, these should be fixed before it moves to the Main Page. Pinging people involved: @Peak Player, Oreo Priest, and Maury Markowitz:. --Jakob (talk) 12:04, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Your concerns have been addressed.Peak Player (talk) 13:44, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
And it's not a rule anyway. Queue outraged comments.... NOW! Maury Markowitz (talk) 15:15, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
This is true. Supplementary Rule D2: "The article in general should use inline, cited sources." I've always taken this to mean than an unreferenced sentence or paragraph is okay, but an article unreferenced except for the hook is not. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:11, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
D2 does continue, A rule of thumb is one inline citation per paragraph, excluding the intro, plot summaries, and paragraphs which summarize other cited content. So it depends on what isn't sourced, but the rule of thumb gives guidance as to the expected level of sourcing for DYK. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:59, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
Surely "A swimming infant is featured in the Nirvana video of "Come as You Are" and on the cover of its album Nevermind." doesn't need explicit citations; the content of the album cover and music video are immediately self-evident, as is where you would look to verify this (at the things themselves of course!). Peak Player has nonetheless dutifully provided citations, somewhat absurd though they may be. Oreo Priest talk 09:07, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

"A rule of thumb is one inline citation per paragraph"

Perhaps everyone should go and read the article on rules of thumb, especially the part about "not intended to be strictly accurate or reliable for every situation". If it was a rule we'd call it a rule - it's not rule, which is why we call it a rule of thumb. There have been attempts to elevate the rule of thumb to a rule a couple of times over the last decade, but they've always gone down in flames. And not just here in DYK, but across the entire project. In fact, the MoS guide on inline citations clearly states "Wikipedia does not have a "one inline citation per sentence" or "one citation per paragraph" rule, even for featured articles". And the reasons for this are sound, if we had such a rule;

This is a sentence that is supported by ref one. And this one is too.[1]

would pass muster, while;

This is a sentence that is supported by ref two.
And this one is too.[2]

would fail, in spite of the only difference being a single invisible character. Are we really so interested in form over function that invisible character placement informs us whether an article is good or not?

I, for one, hope not. We shouldn't be promoting DYKs because they have cites in the right places, we should be promoting them because they're good. Of course that's a subjective statement, but does anyone reading this not agree that the article in this case is not just good, but great? Can't you tell? I know I can tell a good article from a crap one, and now we rely entirely on the judgement of the unseen promotors to figure this out (and they do, IMHO, a great job of it).

So let's stop worrying about rules that don't exist and focus on the actual content.

Maury Markowitz (talk) 14:23, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Amen. Mindless formalities like this inevitably lead to atrophy of actual use of the brain. "Sorry I didn't notice that the article was full of nonsense that defies common sense. I checked that every paragraph had a cite -- what more did you expect me to do?" EEng (talk) 15:53, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Punta Cruz Watchtower on Prep 3

Yoninah, The approved image was not included to the queue. Please see Template:Did you know nominations/Punta Cruz Watchtower --Carlojoseph14 (talk) 02:28, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Carlojoseph14, if you look at the nominations page you'll see there are many "pictured" hooks nominated with images – probably around the same number of hooks nominated without images. Since each queue only has space for one "pictured" hook and needs six more hooks without images, it isn't really feasible to guarantee that every hook with an image will have its image featured at the top of the queue. 97198 (talk) 02:58, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Noted. --Carlojoseph14 (talk) 04:33, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Sandra Bullock hook

IMO this seems like it crosses the piping line. Seems too much like a cheat to me. Any other opinions? Taylor Trescott - my talk + my edits 13:44, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Two hooks

Template:Did you know nominations/Monsieur Léonard started as a double nom. We arrived at separate statements about the two people. I have no idea how that may be processed further, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:45, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Gerda, the promoter who picks one of the two hooks to promote should strike it but not close the template (should not substitute it or fill in "passed"); the promoter who picks the remaining hook to promote should close the template in the normal way. However, I found an issue with ALT2b, and have proposed a slightly changed ALT3b to deal with it; you'll want to review it because I had to supersede your AGF tick with a ?. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:30, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
@BlueMoonset: ALT3b is not quite correct: should read "may have fled Paris". It's more probable that he did not, IMO. In any case, Bashor, who suggests this, makes clear it is speculation. --Robert.Allen (talk) 13:57, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Lord Zoltan hook

I'd like to submit Lord Zoltan as a DYK nomination but I'm having trouble creating the nomination subpage. I put in the title but it brings me to a page I can't edit. If it's possible, I'd also like to include the image which is in the public domain. Thanks. 72.74.201.223 (talk) 20:41, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

 Done. I created the nomination page, Template:Did you know nominations/Lord Zoltan, for you, since IP users can't create template pages. I just used a dummy hook, so you should now supply your actual desired hook. Also, please monitor the nom page and take care of any issues that may arise throughout the review process. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 21:10, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. 72.74.201.223 (talk) 21:16, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Nomination time frame

I've always interpreted the elligibility criteria stating "A nominated article must be new", and "For DYK purposes, a 'new' article is no more than seven days old", to mean that articles must be nominated within seven days of creation. As I always nominate articles i've created the same day I create them, and as until now i've never done a QPQ review on an article that was more than seven days old, this has been something i've never really looked into despite my several years activity at DYK. I'm now involved in a minor dispute with an editor who tells me the time frame for nomination is actually 10 days. See here: Template:Did you know nominations/Come Over (Clean Bandit song). Is the time frame 7 or 10 days? This article was actually nominated the 11th day after it was created, so even if it is 10 days, is it common practice to automatically deny this nomination on the grounds it was late, or should I not be so strict and just give him an extra days leeway? Thanks for your time. Freikorp (talk) 08:00, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Jumping into the DYK process -- advice?

DYK is an area of Wikipedia I'd like to learn more about and perhaps get more involved. I've looked around and feel like I have a decent understanding of the process at this point but am yet to actually nominate anything. I'm hoping someone could help me navigate the procedures/standards for this first time. I've just in the past couple hours created a new article that I believe meets DYK requirements: The Analytical Language of John Wilkins. I'm having trouble determining what still needs to be improved before nomination and, perhaps more importantly, would really appreciate advice on what kind of hook might work. Thanks, and apologies if this is not the right venue to ask for this kind of help. --— Rhododendrites talk |  02:24, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi, and welcome. The process of getting through DYK is complex (to understand) but Im pleased to see that you have a new, notable, well written article of a fair length ready to go and you have asked for guidance. I'm going to nominate your article and place a link on your talk page so that you can watch its progress and assist any constructive criticism. You are a newbie, here, so do claim a bit of leeway but realise that we do have some rules and its best to bend with the wind to get through the first few times. Hope you enjoy this. Do complain here (or on my talk page) if you someone starts snapping at you, and they refuse to acknowledge the need to "be nice" :-) Victuallers (talk) 16:09, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
Hi Victuallers and thanks for your response and your help. What I was most interested in is guidance for me to create my own DYK nomination, though I see now I wasn't explicit in my request. As a DYK newbie but experienced Wikipedian I feel comfortable with the idea of watching the process unfold with other articles/nominations, so while watching my own article go through it would be even more instructive, creating the nomination (and preparing for it) is what I feel least comfortable with. I thought about using one of the resources to find recently created/improved articles that might work, but decided to start a new article myself so as not to muck up someone else's chance at some recognition by my own poorly formed nomination, if that makes sense.
To add a little context, my motivation for exploring DYK, in addition to being curious about all sorts of Wikipedia processes, is to see if it's something I feel comfortable incorporating it into Wikipedia-based classwork I assign (or as a way to recognize student work). ...But a discussion of how best to do that is for another time :)
I see that you added a line to the article's lead which also acts as the hook you used. Is this because there was nothing usable in the article as it existed? I'm not so sure about the hook's language (i.e. the classification system is bizarre and Foucault did quote it/was inspired by it, but I don't think it's the bizareness that he was necessarily drawn to). Splitting hairs, maybe. I don't have a good sense of how generalized/simplified/sensationalized it has to be. Thanks again. --— Rhododendrites talk |  19:33, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
(watching) To add an alternate hook, simply replace "have a go" in nomination. For a new article, insert the name of your article in the form to nominate and see what happens. You can fill the template to your liking, also incompletely, - you can always change. Save, talk, improve, - when you are ready take the next step: the actual nomination. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:08, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
Good advice from Gerda. You can always add or change my words. I added stuff because I dont have your offline sources and I wanted to find something "hooky" and the word "bizarre" will attract clicks. I got the word "bizarre" from the ref - the idea of someone laughing out loud is also "hooky" and that quote makes me smile too. Hope this goes well for you. Don't hesitate to interfere if have an improvement. Victuallers (talk) 21:49, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

My DYK was approved 6 Sept but wasn't ever added to a queue or prep area

Any assistance would be appreciated. Here's the link to the approved DYK, Template:Did you know nominations/Raymond A. Thomas. Thanks much, —  dainomite   18:58, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Without looking: that's not so long ago. Any rush? Coincidentally, I have a hook on the German Main page saying "Ich eile nicht" (I do not rush) ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:16, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
Oh, no rush, just different from my limited DYK experience (this is my 3rd DYK nom) of it being approved and going to a queue the same day and a few days later being on the main page. Thanks for the hasty reply Gerda. —  dainomite   19:33, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
I looked and saw it was approved 10 Sep, and it comes with a picture. Only every 7th chosen one can have a picture, - that's actually why my German one appeared sooner than expected, - the great image was considered too remotely related to the hook, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:41, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
Oh, it says 10 sept because hawkeye forgot to sign it on the 6th when he approved it and went back the 10th and signed (over someone who had put {{unsigned}}) But I gotcha, thanks Gerda! —  dainomite   20:08, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Prep 1

Paraphrasing : "that asparagus can enhance the flavour of asparagus soup?" REALLY? Our hooks are so weak we need this kind of thing? Seriously, with the stack of hooks ready to go, is this the best we can offer? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:02, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I dunno. If the interesting bit is supposed to be the thickness of the pieces, the hook could perhaps be rephrased to make that clear, but as it is, it does sound an awful lot like your interpretation! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:16, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
Yep, it's my interpretation that "asparagus" makes "asparagus soup" taste more like "asparagus". That's what it says. It's not interesting at all. In fact, it's up there with the worst hooks of all time. Technically it meets the criteria I suppose, but this is a Dullest Ever DYK Hall of Famer. We must be able to do better than this. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:20, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
@The Rambling Man and HJ Mitchell: How does ... that cream of asparagus soup can also be made with broccoli? (I just added that). Also a courtesy ping to @Northamerica1000:, the creator of the article. --Jakob (talk) 20:27, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
I'm not wild about that either, but it's better. Even "flavour can be improved using thicker cuts" would be an improvement, if that's the point the hook is trying to make. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:01, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

New nominator needs a bit of help

DYK nomination Belonogaster petiolata - you can read the template for yourself to see what happened. It's actually not a bad article, but could probably use a little formatting help, and a review from someone who understands the subject matter. — Maile (talk) 19:49, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Older nominations needing DYK reviewers

I've compiled a new set of the 37 oldest nominations that need reviewing; at the moment, 308 of 361 nominations are unapproved. Thanks as always to everyone who reviews.

Please remember to cross off entries as you finish reviewing them (unless you're asking for further review), even if the review was not an approval. Many thanks! BlueMoonset (talk) 16:39, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Florence Pernel hook

Something, is wrong with this hook. She was born on 30 June 1966 and the film for which she received the nomination was released on 3 November 1982. At the time of film's release she was 16 years old. But the sources used in the article mention that she received the award in 1981 at the age of 15. I have checked the translation of sources, the film's page on French WP and IMDb. There is something wrong with this hook. The sources used in the article are contradicting the info. since I am the nominator of this particular nomination I am sorry for all the trouble I have caused.--Skr15081997 (talk) 17:14, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Skr15081997, thanks for bringing this to our attention. As the hook is currently the lead hook in Queue 2, it will require an admin to remove it and also to replace it with a new lead hook. The nomination template is at Template:Did you know nominations/Florence Pernel, and its promotion will need to be reversed so a new hook can be found and the factual confusion straightened out. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:01, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Pulled one hook from Queue 6

@Skr15081997, EtienneDolet, 97198, and HJ Mitchell: I pulled the following hook from Queue 6:

There was no "province of Treviso" during the Roman Empire; there was a province of Gallia Cisalpina, and a region of Venetia, in which the city of Tarvisium (now Treviso) could be found. Nothing resembling the current "province of Treviso" existed at the time, and hence they didn't have a name for it either. The source used, [6] indicates the Roman name for the city, but the article and hook make it sound as if the province dates back to that time as well. "The Celts established Treviso, and it prospered under the Romans as Tarvisium until the barbarian invasions. The devastation, however, was not as bad as that of other towns" (emphasis mine). Other towns, not other provinces, as the town or city of Treviso was founded by the Celts, but the province is a much later creation. I have searched hard, but couldn't find any source discussing a Roman province of Treviso. Fram (talk) 11:35, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

@Fram: I am proposing this new hook here.--Skr15081997 (talk) 11:48, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
    • Hook proposals should go at the template page (and please use a better translation of the Italian description, there are many translations for that name, but the second "of" certainly has to go). This page is more concerned with the quality of the process, what went wrong, how we can assure that when things hit the mainpage, the errors have been removed, and so on. Fram (talk) 12:28, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Admin needed to replace pulled hook

At the moment, there is a stub in Queue 6 which needs to be taken care of before the set is promoted to the main page in about four hours. May I suggest moving in a hook from one of the current preps to bring the number of hooks back up to seven, preferably not one from Prep 5 which will itself need to be promoted shortly. A couple of suggestions are Balu Mahendra from Prep 1, or Susann Müller from Prep 2. Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:54, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

I've moved Balu Mahendra into q6. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:05, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Question on lead hook in Prep 4

Template:Did you know nominations/Acquacotta was promoted by another editor to the quirky slot in Prep 3. I felt that the accompanying picture was much more interesting for the lead slot in Prep 4, so I moved it. But now that I look at it, the hook doesn't seem so hooky. I discussed this with the page creator on his talk page, and he came up with this ALT:

ALT2: ... that acquacotta (pictured), an Italian peasant food dating to ancient history, was originally invented to make stale bread palatable?

The second part of the ALT was my suggestion, based on the article and sources. I would prefer not to pull the hook in order to tweak it. Could I go ahead and change the hook while it's in the prep set? Thanks, Yoninah (talk) 11:09, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

" ... that did you know is not available on Wikipedia mobile?"

Does anyone know if there is a really good reason for this, and if not, how we can get DYK on the mobile edition? It's one of the best parts of the main page. Way more interesting than the stale articles from In the News that seem to never change... —Gaff ταλκ 23:59, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Hmm. I am not seeing WP:FP, WP:DYK, or WP:SA/WP:OTD. Also the sections below FP are missing (Other areas of Wikipedia, Wikipedia's sister projects, and Wikipedia languages) are missing. It is just WP:TFA and WP:ITN. I am curious what the larger issue is here.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 13:49, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Hear, hear. I often look at the main page on my mobile and always have to switch to the desktop view to get the good stuff. All you seem to get by default is the FA and ITN. The FA is often quite obscure or boring like the monthly typhoon/hurricane while ITN is just repeating recent news headlines which are already familiar. The display has to scroll already so there doesn't seem to be a good technical reason why it shouldn't scroll through the other main page sections like DYK, On this day, Featured picture, &c. How is this controlled and where can we go to get it expanded? Andrew (talk) 14:10, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
Careful. Let's keep religion out of this. Remember when I was at ANI for "blasphemy"? [7] EEng (talk) 04:31, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Third opinion please: Template:Did you know nominations/Manhattan Vigil

If anyone has time to weigh in at Template:Did you know nominations/Manhattan Vigil, I'd be very grateful. There's been quite a bit of back-and-forth between the nom and the first reviewer that seems to have reached a deadlock. The nom is a friend of mine and she asked me to have a look. I don't doubt the reviewer's good faith, but I think they're being a little harsh. They've dismissed three or four proposed hooks as "uninteresting" and "TV trivia" that I thought were quite reasonable. I'd appreciate it if somebody with a bit more distance would intervene. Thanks, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:39, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

I've provided a full review. I agree that the first review was pretty unreasonable. 97198 (talk) 07:49, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Promo joke by CEO of hook subject company about a competitor acceptable as hook?

Template:Did you know nominations/BlackBerry Passport, @ViperSnake151, Rsrikanth05, and Yoninah:

Is it really a good idea to repeat the "joke" the CEO of a company made about his new product compared to a competitor as a hook here? How is that neutral and factual information? A hook should contain real information about the subject, not what the CEO of the company has to say about it... I haven't pulled it yet, want to get some more opinions first. Fram (talk) 09:43, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I just realised that my entire comment didn't get posted when I had reviewed, including my signature getting clipped. My point was to say that I'd actually go for the first one, but the second one is more appropriate. The latter half, for some reason got clipped. Apologies for the mix up caused. the second one is what I'm supporting. I'll wait for Vipersnake151 to also provide an opinion. --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 09:53, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
The joke would be a POV violation if we ran it on DYK in my opinion. Maybe for April Fools Day it might be acceptable. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 09:55, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
There was a 2nd hook that was more neutrally worded, "... that BlackBerry CEO John Chen joked about the iPhone 6 "bendgate" incident while introducing the Passport?". Why not just use the alt? ViperSnake151  Talk  15:04, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Since no one, including the reviewer, actually wants the hook, I have pulled it from Queue4 where it had been moved to in the meantime. Fram (talk) 12:17, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Poverty in Cyprus (now) in Queue 6

I was pulling this hook from Prep 4 for the reasons stated in Template:Did you know nominations/Poverty in Cyprus (not just on a whim; though that would be fun for me I suspect it might upset people), but I edit conflicted with HJ Mitchell who moved it into Queue 6 (and out of reach of my grubby paws). Can some admin please pull it (or if you think my concerns are unwarranted re-close the nom and laugh imperiously) Belle (talk) 12:07, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Sorry about that! I've pulled it for you. Give me a minute and I'll find a replacement. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:10, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
No wuckers (just wanted to see if we had an article on that, and we do), until the WMF finish the "another editor opened this file for editing some time ago so may get an edit conflict later" tool, you have no way of knowing. Belle (talk) 12:22, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Prep 3

The Mahanoy Creek hook appears to be using ALT1, but the nomination approved the original hook, not the ALT. Can someone please fix this? It would also be nice if the picture from the nomination could be added, especially since it was specifically approved by the reviewer. Thanks, --Jakob (talk) 12:23, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Both hooks have clearly been approved with green ticks. While a reviewer can express a preference for one of the approved hooks, the person putting together the prep set is free to choose between any that have been approved. There are also far more nominations with pictures that there are picture slots, so some invariably have to run without. The preparer appears to have decided to feature the picture of the acacia cultriformis in that set instead of the one in this hook. BlueMoonset (talk) 14:12, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
@BlueMoonset: But now that I think about it, the hook being used seems rather uninteresting. I'd like request that it be changed to from the ALT to the original hook. (And given how many hooks with pictures I've submitted, I just find it a bit strange that not one has gotten to the main page). --Jakob (talk) 14:29, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
I generally don't feel that "X has been described as Y" hooks are very interesting, because they don't say that this description is accurate or that this description is relevant in any way. That is why I chose the ALT.--Carabinieri (talk) 14:51, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Haven't got credit

The DYK notification police are off duty. You won't get indeffed for adding a template to your userpage.

Hello DYK experts, few days ago I have started an article which was nominated by MelanieN for DYK and credited me as the creator. Today it appeared on the Main page. I noticed now that I haven't got the credit. See my talk page history, I haven't got the credited. Although I was listed in the nomination page as the creator but I haven't got the credit. @HJ Mitchell: Please give me my credit manually. Thanks, Jim Carter 10:29, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

I have added the notification to your talk page. If you knew the article appeared on the main page, why do you need a notification? If having the banner on the talk page is important to you, why didn't you add put it there yourself?--Carabinieri (talk) 11:13, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
@Carabinieri: It is important for me because I have to add it to my list of all my DYKs in my user subpage. And why should I come up here and ask for notification? It is absolutely not my duty. It is the DYK projects duty to add that banner to my talk page. Jim Carter (from public cyber) 11:42, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
It must've gotten lost somehow. Sorry. However, in general, one only needs a notification of something one isn't aware of. And like I said, you could've just added that banner yourself if you that's something that you care about.--Carabinieri (talk) 11:47, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
@Carabinieri: For me that banner is like a barnstar. Have you ever awarded yourself a barnstar? Jim Carter (from public cyber) 12:05, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
I don't suppose Carabinieri ever demanded that somebody else award them a barnstar either, so that analogy doesn't really work. If it got missed, it got missed; it's nobody's duty and the DYK notification police aren't going to come after you for adding it to your subpage (though how would I know? I'm not in the DYK notification police; at least I don't think I am; I applied once but they never notified me whether I'd been successful). Belle (talk) 13:09, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
DYK notification is sent by a bot - the DYKUpdateBot. The bot did notify me about this DYK, so it was just a technical glitch of some kind that it didn't notify you. Thanks for doing it manually, Carabinieri. I don't know about Jim Carter, but I wouldn't have a clue how to make one of these banners manually. --MelanieN (talk) 14:06, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
Apparently the template that gets the bot to notify the article creator got left in Prep 3 when this hook was moved to Queue 4. I don't think this is a big deal. Since Jim Cartar was aware of the hook being used anyway, he didn't really need notification. Why don't we get rid of notifications to people involved in the DYK process? They clearly don't need them. Those banners only promote people thinking of DYK as a reward, which only makes the review process more difficult.--Carabinieri (talk) 15:06, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Part of why DYK is the way it is

Quoting from above:

It is important for me because I have to add it to my list of all my DYKs in my user subpage ... It is the DYK projects duty to add that banner to my talk page.

EEng (talk) 15:44, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Queue 5

The quirky hook at the end is a rather unquirky 215 characters long. I disagree with EEng's attempt to fix the original. Agreed, the grammar wasn't great, but now it's too long. Yoninah (talk) 21:36, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

You could shave "productions" off the end and thus save a dozen characters. If 15 characters makes that much difference. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:45, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
I think you could shave off the entire "(which also supports radio productions)". It's really overkill for a hook. — Maile (talk) 21:47, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
It was difficult to compress some convoluted info into 200 characters, but I managed to do it in the nomination. As for the altered version now in Queue 5, remove "productions" and replace "television" with "TV" (resulting in 197 characters), but keep the "supports radio" part. As I noted on the nomination when I added that part, the hook isn't really logical without it: it said he didn't like something on the radio, so he got rid of his TV. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 22:03, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
Done. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:18, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Older nominations needing DYK reviewers

Now that the previous post has been archived, I've compiled a new set of the 37 oldest nominations that need reviewing; at the moment, only 22 nominations are approved, leaving 330 of 352 nominations are unapproved. Thanks as always to everyone who reviews.

Please remember to cross off entries as you finish reviewing them (unless you're asking for further review), even if the review was not an approval. Many thanks! BlueMoonset (talk) 04:57, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Increase to 3 sets a day? (revisited)

On 10th September User:Bloom6132 wrote:

"The backlog is now over 300 noms with 54 hook approved, and there is no backlog in the queue. I say it's time to increase the number of sets per day to 3, as 300+ noms has typically been the point when an increase would be made. Thoughts?"

Two weeks later we are now up to over 400 nominations, with over a 100 approved, including those in the queues and prep area. That's about 4 weeks-worth at the current rate of throughput, and more piling in all the time. (I must admit to a WikiCup-related vested interest here :-) ) Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:15, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree it should be now. I think if they move through more qucikly we'l be reviewing noms more quickly too. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:22, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
In the past two weeks our reserve has been generally dropping (from 115 to just under 100, though in the last few days it's risen to 107). Had we increased to 3 sets/day as proposed two weeks ago, we'd now be at zero reserve and missing updates. The proposal seems to be that we should now increase to 3 sets/day, so that two weeks from now we can be at zero reserve and missing updates.
And I'm sorry, but to bring in the number of under-review noms as an argument for increasing the consumption rate is utter nonsense -- only the approved reserve counts. And "if they move through more qucikly we'll be reviewing noms more quickly too" is the most dangerous thinking I can imagine on the subject -- translation: "If we run out of hooks we can just start rushing the reviews like we used to" -- fun times, yeah!
I repeat that when the reserve gets to 150, then we go to 3 sets/day. When it drops to 100, back to 2 sets/day. And if it ever gets to 50, then 1 set/day until the reserve recovers. If there's a big backlog of noms in review, do something about that, but planning to update at an unsustainable rate is suicide (metaphorically speaking, of course).
EEng (talk) 06:10, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
Do not increase. Currently hooks stay in the prep areas and queues long enough for some quality reviewing to take place. Quality is increasing. Rushing them to the main page will compromise that. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:13, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
The question of increasing or decreasing is not getting resolved because (I think) it is linked to more fundamental questions - as TRM notes above. Is DYK a way of slowly curating a smaller number of articles onto the main page so that we show that Wikipedia has no/few errors or is it to encourage a larger number of (new) editors to be encouraged by wider exposure at the cost of showing a less perfect/more honest view of new articles? If we want to have great hooks with high quality articles then in the limit we need to increase the backlog so that everythig has to wait and very few articles are published every day. The alternative view means that we publish very quickly with a minimum wait time so that editors see their work more rapidly. Surely the question is, how many articles should be in the queue and how long should they wait? If the answer is just "lots" and "as long as possible" then I'm not sure that this allows any room for compromise. Is there a consensus of what an average wait should be? Is the purpose to allow reviewers time or to deter new articles? If it is just to allow time then how many weeks do we want/want to invest? Balanced views requested. Victuallers (talk) 16:30, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
I think a fortnight would be a good target for straightforward nominations to be reviewed, pass through the system and get to the front page. That there is such a large number on unreviewed nominations is a result of a QPQ only being required when the article is a self-nomination. There is a need for willing reviewers to voluntarily work on the backlog to bring it down to reasonable proportions. I used to do this, and aimed to review two articles for every one I nominated. But in the present atmosphere of fear and recrimination, not many wish to review articles voluntarily only to be criticised as I was here, where Fram wonders whether I should review any hooks. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 08:36, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
Because of QPQ and contests like WikiCup, it's important that these hooks are held before being posted to the main page so that independent reviews can be conducted. Therefore two sets a day allows for a few diligent uninvolved editors to have a look at the hooks proposed for the main page. An eight-hourly turnaround is too quick, as proven in the past with the vast number of pulled hooks and the odd visit to ANI to discuss why DYK allowed such distasteful rot through to the home page of one of the most visited websites in the universe. Think quality, not quantity guys. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:20, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
Right. We want to encourage double- and triple-checking of hooks, and discourage rushed promotions. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:59, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
I agree that it's about quality rather than quantity. DYK has very little to do with newbies—those who even know it exists would be totally baffled by the rules, the extra rules, the rules that aren't quite rules, rules that are more stringent than FAC requirements, and daft demands somebody just made up. And that's assuming they can navigate the mass of templates and transclusions in the first place, and that they're not put of when somebody is incredibly rude about an honest mistake (cf. Cwmhiraeth, who is far from the first person I've heard say that). HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:22, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
A bit of history: I wrote my first article, it was deleted, someone helped and nominated it for DYK without telling me a thing, I got this message about a problem with the nom ... - learning by doing ;) - 2 sets a day is fine. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:19, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
An increase to 3 sets a day is long overdue. It's disgraceful how the no-increase side can continue to claim that an "eight-hourly turnaround is too quick, as proven in the past with the vast number of pulled hooks." Unfortunately, you haven't been able to provide any solid proof – either here or in the previous thread – and that line of argument was already long disproven when I called you out on your stat skewing and deceit. The only response you guys could muster up is "Subjectively it seems that the quality has increased substantially". Sorry, but providing wishy-washy subjective points of view here doesn't cut it at all. You guys would have eaten me alive if I had rebutted your skewed biased stats with a mere "Subjectively it makes no difference whether we're using 2 or 3 sets," but it seems you don't believe in holding yourselves to the same objective standard. Back up your unsubstantiated claims with objective facts, or don't bother making them at all. —Bloom6132 (talk) 19:51, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
This isn't going to get anyone anywhere. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:58, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Why are you so keen to rush things? I've lost count of the tweaks and adjustments I've made to the queues in the past few weeks but at least I've had a chance to do so because I get a chance to see them. Why are you so keen to rush things on and off the main page? What is your motivation to keep DYKs on the main for as short a time as possible? Why are you determined to prevent some parts of the world even see some of these DYKs? You have nothing backing an increase in rate other than a desire to pile it high, sell it cheap. Look at the removed hooks lately, far fewer from the main page than before. Even you are capable of that. In the meantime, if you can answer the questions about why you're so keen to rush things on and off the main page, that'd be dandy. In any case, there's no community consensus in any form to increase the rate, so all this, while fascinating, is just an interesting little discussion. Get some consensus or pipe down. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:56, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
"Why are you determined to prevent some parts of the world even see some of these DYKs?" – that is the most unsophisticated argument I have ever seen. Keeping hooks on the main page for a shorter period of time does not "prevent" people from viewing them. As BlueMoonset said, "[T]he hook is there and can be seen by anyone who stops at the front page for that period." That's the way it should be. You happen to click on the main page when the hook is up and view it – great. You don't – tough luck, you snooze, you lose. Wikipedia moves on; it doesn't wait for anybody (you must've closed stale FLCs for being 2+ months old). When users go on holidays during the summer and winter and aren't active for days (if not weeks), are you going to propose reducing DYK to one set a week just to ensure that everyone from around the world gets to see the hooks? I hope not – that'll simply be delusional on your part. Furthermore, you keep scaremongering claiming the quality will go down if we increase to three sets a day, but so far both you and Nikkimaria have failed to provide proof that it will happen (while I've provided evidence to the contrary). All we've seen is you just sidestepping the issue at hand by asking silly questions. You made a claim – the burden of proof is on you. —Bloom6132 (talk) 12:53, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
The most unsophisticated argument you have ever seen? You must be very young. Of course placing new hooks on the main page between 11pm and 7am prevents most of Western Europe seeing them, unless they set alarms to wake them up to see them. That's blindingly obvious. I'm not sidestepping anything. I'm not asking "silly questions". I've got no idea what closing FLCs has to do with this. Nor your straw man argument about holidays. But in any case, it's clear we won't agree so let's not take up any more of each others' time. The slower moving DYK has been a genuine success with fewer items pulled from the main page. Long may it continue. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:12, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
"You must be very young" – nah, I've just been fortunate enough not to have to encounter many unsophisticated people. It's an ugly business dealing with them, but just occasionally (like in this case), it's a real pleasure. And no, let's take up more of each others' time. I'm not falling for that cop out so that you can "win" the argument cheaply with unsubstantiated claims ("a genuine success with fewer items pulled from the main page") based on falsified evidence. —Bloom6132 (talk) 13:50, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Proposal to increase number of prep areas

  • On a tangent, what would folks think about increasing the number of prep areas? That would allow more sets to be assembled while also allowing sets to mature and get plenty of eyes. I try to leave sets in the prep area 12-24 hours before moving them to the queue, and I think other admins work to similar timeframes, which can create a bit of a bottleneck when there are four full preps. Perhaps having a fifth or sixth prep (to match the number of queues) might add a little more flexibility and reduce the backlog of approved hooks at T:TDYK? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:53, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
This one's a no-brainer. Prep and Q sets are f-r-e-e, and there should never be a time someone feels like putting a set together, or promoting one from prep to Q, and there's no place to do it -- and remember, if you find a few hooks-with-image in a row that you want to promote, each needs its own prep set. Let's double the number of prep sets from 4 to 8. No kidding. EEng (talk) 03:52, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
Don't see a major issue here. More queues populated for longer means a continuing adherence to good quality, providing opportunities for the hooks to be reviewed by those without vested interest in churning over DYK for competition points or badges of honour. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:14, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
Yes, I think this is a positive. Just go for it HJCas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:39, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
Also agree, but an admin will need to enact the proposed change as Template:Did you know/Queue is fully protected. C679 16:17, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
Paging Shubinator. EEng (talk) 20:15, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
It was on this template. all good now (I think.....) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:20, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
It's a great idea, and I'm glad it's been implemented. We'll all keep our eyes out for any other glitches. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:50, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
Thanks Cas! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:03, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Proposal to increase number of hooks per set from 7 to 8

Since there's been resistance to increasing the number of sets, how about the number of hooks? That's traditionally been a way to make smaller increases or decreases in the run rate of hooks. This would increase our burn rate from 14 to 16 hooks a day, an extra 14 hooks a week, as opposed to the extra 49 hooks a week that a third set would bring. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:50, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

With all due respect, Oppose. Once again, it doesn't matter how many unapproved noms are pending, only the number approved, and as seen in my tragically overlooked #Informal_tracking_of_the_stats, for the last few weeks our approved reserve is just barely holding in the low 90s, and actually sagging a bit, at the current burn rate. EEng (talk) 17:34, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Strong support – Once again, the "No increase" side tries to scaremonger, this time using the "approved hooks" sidestep. "[O]ur approved reserve is just barely holding in the low 90s" – that's way over what it should be (it shouldn't even be getting close to triple digits). Adding merely two more hooks a day will certainly not adversely affect the number of approved hooks we presently have. Time for a long-overdue increase of some form. —Bloom6132 (talk) 00:28, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
Honestly, what is with you? All your posts carry this hysterical theme of some kind of political conspiracy against increasing the burn rate. Scaremongering??? A bit overwrought, don't you think? Your intense interest in this wouldn't have anything to do with your desire to come from behind in the WP:WikiCup, would it? If so, why don't you get the judges there to base the scores on when DYKs are nominated -- assuming they eventually are approved and actually do appear -- but without worrying about when they appear. That way you can stop nagging us to help you rack up your silly points. (BTW, The approved reserve is now down to 76 from 92 two days ago.) EEng (talk) 05:45, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
If I'm so concerned about racking up points in the WikiCup as you claim I am, why is it that I have not a single DYK nomination in the pipeline? And why is it I have only one other piece of content in the form of a GAN? Clearly, it is you who's baking up a silly conspiracy that ultimately turns out to be a pack of lies. I knew you'd act like this, but I didn't think you'd be this ignorant beyond belief. Thanks for proving me wrong. —Bloom6132 (talk) 12:40, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
That word overwrought comes to mind again. I didn't "claim" you were racking up DYK points for Wikicup, merely asked if that's what was going on -- which would have, if true, at least given a rational explanation for your explosive behavior on this issue. Unfortunately, you've proved me wrong on that, so I'm out of rational explanations for you behavior. So why is it this is such a hot button for you? EEng (talk) 16:37, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
If you're "merely ask[ing] if that's what was going on", then why do you order me to "stop nagging us to help you rack up your silly points"? Obviously you're making a dishonest claim about me, and now you're lying to cover up that earlier lie. Why am I so passionate? Well, three sets has always been the norm at DYK. As BlueMoonset succinctly put it, "there's years of DYK experience that you're apparently unaware of." Unfortunately, you're under the false impression that your new theory is "suddenly the be-all and end-all" at DYK. What a "perfect" combination you have – arrogance & ignorance. —Bloom6132 (talk) 20:16, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
No amount of DYK experience can change the facts that we can't post hooks that haven't been approved and that at 3 sets/day we'd be out of hooks in 10 days. Neither is a "new theory", but common sense and arithmetic.
Still hoping to hear why you care so much. You're arguing this like it's a debate on abortion or same-sex marriage. EEng (talk) 23:25, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
"[A]t 3 sets/day we'd be out of hooks in 10 days" – do you seriously not know what this debate is about? We're not arguing over 3 sets a day; what BlueMoonset proposes is adding one hook to each set (i.e. running more 2 hooks a day, increasing from 14 to 16 hooks a day). Obviously you didn't bother paying attention to what he had to say – what a surprise. —Bloom6132 (talk) 23:45, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

You quoted BMS' reference to my so-called "new theory" and that reference [8] was, indeed, in the context of going from 2 to 3 sets/day. Therefore, to reinforce that it's arithmetic, not some "new theory", that's behind my concerns about increasing burn rate (whether a little or a lot) I applied the givens of that discussion. Do you honestly not see how much you're embarrassing yourself with this desperate flailing? You seem to be coming unhinged.

In the last 10 days our approved reserve has dropped from 96 to 59. If things keep going like that, we'll be out of hooks in about 10 days even at the current burn rate. When it drops to 50 (which is only 3.5 days' reserve at 2*7/day) I'm going to recommend that we go to 1 set/day until the reserve recovers to 100. We should never intentionally allow the reserve to get below 4 days.

EEng (talk) 01:17, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

i don't think you should be lecturing me on arithmetic, especially after you embarrassingly acknowledged how you're "not sure how we got from 76 to 59 in 24 hours". Do you care to explain that? Or have you just been making up numbers from the get-go? Because the one common denominator I've noticed from the "No increase" side is their proclivity to fudge stats and make shit up. And your delusional "recommendation" of reducing to one set a day is another shining example of that. —Bloom6132 (talk) 01:55, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
  • I only record the stats as they exist at the moment I snapshot them. I'm not responsible for why the data is what it is, though it's possible I mistranscribed one day's figure. It's the sign of a good statistician (I have degree in statistics, BTW) to honestly acknowledge apparent anomalies in the data. In any event, it has no effect at all on the 10-day delta, which is certainly there.
  • If we get down to 50, then we are going to go to one set per day. The only question will be whether we'll do it in an orderly fashion, by planning to do so, or haphazardly, by heedlessly tapping the well completely dry and then sporadically updating every 14-30 hours as we desperately scrape sets together.
  • I ask again: why do you care so much? (And before you ask, I'll answer that question as it pertains to me: I care because I don't want WP embarrassed by the irregular updates, and errors resulting from desperate hook-scraping, that obtain when the reserve runs dry.)
  • "Or have you just been making up numbers from the get-go?" I wish I could believe you're kidding, but apparently you're not. You really do seem unhinged.
  • I'll let you have the last word now. Make it your best performance ever!
EEng (talk) 02:26, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
You've clearly lost the plot if you think adding just two more hooks a day is in any way "rush[ing] things through"? And your argument of unbalancing the main page layout is a weak straw man argument. We've decreased to six hooks a day in the past; we can just as easily increase to 8 without a problem. No need to make a mountain out of a molehill. —Bloom6132 (talk) 12:40, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
Looks to me like you're the one losing the plot. Try to remain calm and discuss things rationally. You've been asked to do so several times now. Your hyperbole is unnecessary and doesn't do you any favours at all. Look forward to your hysterical responses to the other editors who oppose your position, not just mine and EEng, or is that something else we need to talk about? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:17, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose per TRM. If we've on average got three score and ten years on this planet, a few days delay to get your hook onto the main page won't kill you. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 08:36, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose Quality over Quantity. --Carlojoseph14 (talk) 08:49, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment Making personal attacks on editors who make proposals here illustrates the poor manners of some contributors. I will resist making personal attacks on those who feel that their view can only be achieved with italics, Emphasis and slogans. Can we increase the quality and not the quantity of these "contributions" that follow a well mannered proposal? Victuallers (talk) 21:41, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Support - I have been contributing to DYK for nearly four years and I have previously never known there to be such a large logjam. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:20, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose I have been contributing to DYK for years too, and there sure is a logjam! Last time we had this was when the Gibraltar kerfuffle forced reviews to be doubled up. At the moment we are down to 20 approved hooks in the pool, 21 in the queues, and 21 in the prep areas, which means (a) we have insufficient hooks to assemble another 7-hook prep area and (b) we are close to the 50 threshold for going to one set per day. But there are still over 300 unapproved hooks! I'd like to know where the people who said we don't QPQ because they will review all the hooks got to. Now would be a good time! Apart from "review some hooks", I have only one suggestion: cancelling all the remaining July hooks to avoid wasting any more reviewer resources on them. Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:01, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose—the fewer hooks that make it to the main page, the longer those that do can stay there. It's a circular feedback process—increase the quality and impact of what gets through, and they'll deserve a longer shift. Start flushing them through like a waterfall, the way it used to be, and any old thing will get through. Tony (talk) 11:37, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

DMV

In the United States, the DMV is known as the department of motor vehicles. Please change DMV to German Metal Workers' Union as soon as you see this. I'm guessing someone high up is having fun and it's not benefiting anybody. 98.17.2.187 (talk) 14:14, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

"DMV" as an abbreviation for German Metal Workers union is not widely known outside Germany. It's bad form for an encyclopedia to make bait and switch moves like this (intent or not) because DMV is widely known as the Department of Motor Vehicles in the USA, among other "DMVs" within the USA and worldwide, see DMV. Surely somebody should be watching this that can easily correct the error. 98.17.2.187 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 15:51, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

The "Did You Know?" section is supposed to be a little light-hearted, at leat some of the time. So, yes, that "bait and switch" was intentional and supposed to draw people to click on the DMV link.--Carabinieri (talk) 15:58, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Very similar hooks

In Prep 6

  • ... that despite the upper reaches of the Crooked Run being acidic due to acid rain, the creek is still considered Class A Wild Trout Waters?

In Prep 2

  • ... that despite being infertile and acidic, Little Crooked Run is considered to be Class A Wild Trout Waters?

I don't think it's a good idea to have two so similar hooks only a day apart. Could we at least split them up a bit more, if we don't change one? Nikkimaria (talk) 22:48, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

  • Since the latter hook is not the one that was approved, despite being promoted, I'm going to pull it. (Crooked Run started out with a different hook, but the acid was suggested by the reviewer. Such is luck.) BlueMoonset (talk) 02:53, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Another one that may need to be pulled until the facts are straightened out.

I saw a hook in one of the prep areas that says "that upcoming film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon II: The Green Destiny is the first film to be released on Netflix?", but I have already seen 2 of the films on Template:Netflix that were released on Netflix.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 22:17, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

@TonyTheTiger: This source says that it is the first feature film to be released on Netflix. Perhaps that is what the hook means to say? --Jakob (talk) 22:31, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
This needs to be pulled. The change may even make the hook uninteresting. It needs to be rejudged, IMO.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 23:21, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
Can BlueMoonset look at this.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 03:00, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
Pulled. The sourcing isn't definite that this will be the first feature film released directly to Netflix ("will likely be the first one released"), and when the nomination was approved, the article had three bare urls, which are not allowed for DYK-nominated articles. I think the hook wording is problematic as well, as Tony notes, though I doubt the fix will be uninteresting as Tony posits. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:18, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Just a question

Can an article that was previously approved in DYK be nominated again in DYK after passing the GA status? Thanks. --Carlojoseph14 (talk) 04:37, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Two appearances on DYK are not allowed. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:51, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
Not as the bolded blue article. You can mention it as often as you like if you find a new related fact, look at Template:Did you know nominations/Louisa Venable Kyle, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:57, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. --Carlojoseph14 (talk) 06:35, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Another day, another hook removed from the queue

Template:Did you know nominations/Battle of the Lippe @Oceanh, Cwmhiraeth, Carabinieri, and Casliber:

I start to wonder where people get the idea that the quality of DYK has improved and less problems occur. I have now removed from Queue 2

The hook fact is sourced to an 1876 book, which I can't access at first sight. However, more modern scholarship (not Wikipedia, but actual good sources) dispute the 1504 birthdate of Cristóbal de Mondragón (and the corresponding age of 91 at the time of the battle), placing his birth in 1514 instead, or as uncertain 1504/1514. This would make him 18 when he joined the army, not a rather late 28, and 81 when he lead the battle, not the rather extreme 91. Online available sources for the 1514 date include this onethis, thisthisthis... Note that the Spanish Wikipedia also lists his year of birth as uncertain, 1504/1514[9]. Apparently the wrong date of 1504 was corrected to 1514 as early as 1906[10], but over a hundred years later this error is still being retold, and now almost graced the main page of Wikipedia. Please, if you have a hook that is based on a 1876 book and which makes a rather remarkable claim (not impossible, but unlikely nevertheless), go the extra mile and try to find out whether this is still supported in more recent sources. Fram (talk) 09:47, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Personally, I assume good faith when I review articles. In this case the source is not on line and the fact that he was 91 years old at the time, which is repeated in the Wikipedia article about him, is not easily verifiable. What a good thing it is that we have Fram to go that extra mile and show us all up! How dreadful it would be to propagate this (questionable) falsity through DYK (a 12 hour appearance) while leaving the articles concerned unamended for eternity! Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:21, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
It probably isn't easily verifiable because it isn't true? It wasn't too hard to check though... but your sarcasm is noted. No idea why you bring up good faith, that wasn't questioned at all, and I don't think there was any bad faith involved with the creator or nominator. But if by "assuming good faith" you mean "blindly following the article", then you are a) incorrectly using WP:AGF and b) not really fit to review articles for DYK. As for your last sentence: if you can't see that getting something removed from the DYK queue (where it gets a massive amount of views in the 12 hours) is urgent, while correcting the articles is much less urgent, then you need a better perspective. And if you can see it but choose to ignore it for rhetorical purposes, then please cut it out as it only reflects badly on yourself. Fram (talk) 11:13, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
Well, you have told me before that I am a bad reviewer. By good faith I mean that the process of bringing this article to GAN and having it reviewed there mean that I can accept its content without having to question it, but I can see I expressed that concept badly. As a matter of interest, do you plan to amend the articles? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:49, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
I've put another hook in Q2. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:00, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
  • This is DYK, not FAC. We simply don't have the resources to give every nominated article that kind of scrutiny, and we rely on volunteers who are more often than not unfamiliar with the subject area. And even if we did have the resources to give every article FAC-level scrutiny, it wouldn't be an effective use of those resources. DYK's purpose is to showcase, for 12 hours, a selection of new content that's of a reasonable quality. Yes of course we should try to ensure that those articles are of sufficient quality and that the hooks are accurate, but it's not reasonable to expect DYK reviewers to know that there are conflicting sources on an issue they known nothing about. While it's commendable to remove (possibly) inaccurate hooks from the queue when discrepancies are uncovered, it is unreasonable to criticise DYK reviewers/pre-builders/administrators for not uncovering it. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:25, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
    • I am not asking you to give the article FAC scrutiny. I'm asking people to give the hook, one bloody sentence, FAC scrutiny. If that is too much too ask from you, then don't review or promote articles. If that is too much too ask in general, then just shut down DYK. Please don't use strawman arguments to defend your position though. Fram (talk) 13:51, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
      • You are of course free to propose that DYK be shut down. Liberal use of bold text and dismissing other editors' comments as "strawman arguments" is not going to make your argument stronger. It's my opinion, and one I would wager is shared by many of those involved with the DYK process. Now, in this specific case, the fact was added to an article by an editor who presumably believed it to be accurate; it was nominated for DYK by a second editor, approved by a third, and moved to the prep by a fourth. It sat in prep 6 for nearly 20 hours, where five other people made edits to the set before Cas moved it to the queue. All that scrutiny and it still made it to the queue.... There are two possible explanations for that: 1) that all 10 of those editors are incompetent and should not be allowed near the encyclopaedia lest they trust what appears to be a reliable source, or 2) that we're all human, that we all make mistakes, and that in this particular case the (possible) error was not easily spotted, especially by non-expert volunteers. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:05, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
        • Nothing in your reply indicates that your original argument (about FA-quality checking of the article wasn't a strawman). Just like your "ten people checked the set" argument is a strawman (or at least a fallacy), since there is no indication that those 10 checked for accuracy or checked all articles, they may have checked for grammatical errors only, or only those topics they take an interest in, or whatever. However, the people I pinged are the ones that explicitly approved the hook. And of course, going from "should be more diligent in checking hooks" to "are incompetent and should not be allowed near the encyclopedia" is also some dubious rhetoric. Anyway, I'm a non-expert volunteer, and I spotted the problem easily. But of course one can't expect such things from people who believe that fact-checking one line is such an impossible task and too much too ask. No wonder so many problematic hooks make in into the queues and probably onto the mainpage as well... Fram (talk) 16:15, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Fram, how do you think a layman would have known that this person's date of birth is disputed? I would guess that maybe one in a thousand DYK nominations happens to be reviewed by an expert in the relevant subject matter. For the other 999, this project does not have the resources to find experts to review them. So the laymen reviewing nominations are naturally going to verify the hook based on the given source, not on their own knowledge of the subject or other sources about the subject. Also, at the OP, we're pulling a hook every few days instead of a few hooks a day. I'd call that an increase in quality. --Jakob (talk) 15:30, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

We all make mistakes. In this case, the hook was sourced to a book which looked reliable. The reviewer didn't believe that being 91 years old was impossible, and may not have thought to find other sources or even known where to find any other sources that disagreed with the year of birth, particularly since a GA review should have checked all the sources as good as possible. Antandrus has a nice essay on this, with a similar problem that people get Antonio Vivaldi's birthday wrong due to using bad sources. An expert (or someone knowing more about the subject) spotted the problem, pulled it from the queue, and the error was fixed. So, we've avoided a bad hook and a trip to WP:ERRORS. End of story. Who's for a nice cup of tea and a sit down? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:31, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

No idea what gives everyone the idea that I'm an expert on the subject. I never heard of the man or the battle before today. Common sense, inbred curiosity, some basic searching skills, and some feeling of responsability for what we showcase on the main page. That's all it takes. Fram (talk) 16:15, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
Yes, but if you charge in like a bull in a china shop, the odds are less that people will learn those skills off you, rather they'll just get upset or annoyed. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:34, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
TBF, Fram's tried many different approaches, and none of them seem to be working well. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 16:50, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
Fram is absolutely correct here. What we need is an "extraordinary hooks require extraordinary sourcing" line in the DYK rules to address this. The initial hook claim was extraordinary, and it should have been checked further. Viriditas (talk) 06:04, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't think Fram really deserves the grief he/she is being given. This error was somewhat difficult to catch, since it was backed up by sources that appear reliable. So kudos to Fram for catching it. Clearly, the lesson here is that everyone involved (myself included) needs to be a little more diligent in ascertaining whether hook facts are true. I've been guilty of missing a false fact during a review myself (see above), so I'm definitely not pointing fingers, but I vow to try and do better in the future.--Carabinieri (talk) 13:59, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Ancoats Hall, The hook is wrong, please check your facts

Ancoats Hall is/was on the main page, I created it but knew nothing of any nomination here. The hook is wrong. It was not built to house a museum of any sort, it was a replacement residence for the old hall and used as such for many years. Please check your facts, preferably with someone who has actually read the article. J3Mrs (talk) 06:55, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Removed, thanks. Template:Did you know nominations/Ancoats Hall. @23W, Poritrin, and Hawkeye7:. The article makes it very clear that the hall was demolished and rebuilt, and that it was much later used as an art museum, but indeed doesn't say anything indicating that it was "rebuilt as an art museum". So, after all the hooks that were recently removed from the queue, and my request to have a little bit more quality control (and for which I got quite a backlash from some people here), now we have one that got on the main page. One that wasn't even supported by the article, never mind some sources. Good going... Fram (talk) 07:27, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
Note: there's a bot in the works, designed to notify users when someone else nominates an article which they wrote. I thought it was already operational long ago, but upon looking into it, I see that, although it may be ready, it won't be online until about a month from now. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 08:15, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
Alas, some editors have such a low opinion of DYK, they might well delete such bot posts as "rubbish" without bothering to read? Martinevans123 (talk) 08:43, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
  • We could change the nomination template to require a signature from the nominator. That would notify (via Echo) any other editors whose usernames were linked. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:26, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
    • Yeah, cause obviously the thing that was the major problem here was that the article creator wasn't notified... While it isn't a bad idea to improve such notifications, ignoring the fact that a clearly incorrect hook made it to the mainspace, hot on the heels of different hooks that were pulled rom the queues for similar reasons, is much more harmful to DYK. Fram (talk) 14:32, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
      • I wasn't ignoring it, but my time machine is out of service at the moment, so I can't go back and prevent it from happening, though I will do my best to prevent it from happening again. Now, maybe the reason that you get a "backlash" is not anything to do with DYK, which is run by editors who do their best but are fallible, but because you're an arsehole. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:08, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
        • I've given you a well-deserved NPA warning for that on your talk page. I don't blame people for being fallible, but for making up excuses in the style of "we can't do a FA quality check on every article" when all that was asked was a better check of hooks. As seen here, and way too often before, this is sorely needed. I'm glad to hear that you'll do your best to prevent this from happening again. That's all any of us can do. Fram (talk) 18:28, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
          • You can do the proverbial with your NPA warning for as long as you insist on berating good-faith but fallible editors while contributing nothing. Your last two sentences seem to imply that you recognise that that approach is unhelpful, so perhaps we can leave it at that and agree to take a more constructive approach in the future? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:06, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
            • Thanks for confirming that finding errors and preventing them from reaching the main page is "doing nothing" in your book. A great start for the "more constructive approach" you proclaim to want. The only editor I berated was the one that indicated that checking hooks was too much effort. The others I asked nicely to be more diligent. I have no plans to change my approach to this. Fram (talk) 06:45, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
    • Likewise, I'd say User:HJ Mitchell's propoal is one that would improve things, even if some editors ignored it. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:55, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
    • HJ Mitchell, Re your suggestion, did you have in mind something whereby the article creator gets a notification just like they do when something is linked to the article? Latest target date for the bot mentioned by Mandarax to go live is first week in November. What we requested from the bot creator is that anytime a nomination template is created, if the nominator is other than anyone on the Created/Improved part, those individuals would get a notification. — Maile (talk) 15:27, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
  • How about not waiting for 'bots and just requiring DYK nominators to manually notify article creators? It's not hard: DYK rules already limit qualifying articles to those with a recent, thus obvious, creator or expander(s). There is no good reason why this can't be done, and done from today.
It won't solve the problem of bad hooks, but it would help. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:48, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Pull or change needed, Queue 3

What the article and source both say is that cardiac imaging is "usually unnecessary for people...who are having surgery unrelated to the heart" (my emphasis). Heart surgery, no matter how minor, is obviously related to the heart. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:10, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Pulled, and Template:Did you know nominations/Preoperative care reopened. FYI @Bluerasberry, Daniel Case, Hawkeye7, and Casliber:. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:47, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Removed one from queue (been there, done that)

Yet again, I have removed a hook from the queue for factual errors.

Template:Did you know nominations/Maxwell and Tuke, @Peter I. Vardy, Carabinieri, and HJ Mitchell:. Extra ping for User:7&6=thirteen, your name doesn't seem to work in the "Ping" template!

Nope, it was the fourth-tallest, not the second tallest, both the Mole Antonelliana and Ulm Minster were higher. And of course the Washington Monument, which is perhaps less of a building, but still... We have useful lists for these kinds of things, e.g. List of tallest structures built before the 20th century. I noted that 7&6=thirteen sourced the hook, and proposed it, and that no one actually accepted it before it was promoted by Carabinieri, so at least one step of the review process was missed here.

I note that the incorrect claim seems to be one that is repeated often in the UK, e.g. in GSCE's[11], but that doesn't make it correct of course. Fram (talk) 07:20, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

I did not check the factual accuracy of the added statements (about the rankings of the building). WP:Truth. Hypothetically, if I had, I would probably have taken the oft-repeated statements from WP:RSs at face value, and they are in the article. I took them at face value. Wile the Washington Monument is a man-made structure, I don't know that I would classify this obelisk as a building. I did bring up the procedural issue of the review process to User:Carabinieri as to the change in the hook, as I thought there might be static.
The original proposed hook is still absolutely reliable namely:
This from the Washington Monument article: "Upon completion, it became the world's tallest structure, a title previously held by the Cologne Cathedral. The monument held this designation until 1889, when the Eiffel Tower was completed in Paris, France." 7&6=thirteen (☎) 12:15, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps when you tried to close it was impeded by someone's comment that went beneath the "Do not write below this line" line. I've moved that. 7&6=thirteen (☎)
I was the one who moved the nomination to PREP. I reviewed the alternative hook suggestion. This source appeared to confirm the fact. Obviously, I wasn't aware of those other buildings. I felt that the original hook wasn't very interesting, because without that additional information it just stated that "architect X designed buildings Y and Z".--Carabinieri (talk) 13:51, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
That "architect X designed one of the most famous buildings in Britain" (or any other country) is quite interesting if you ask me. But that only goes to demonstrate that "interesting" is subjective. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:32, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Does it strike anyone as odd that the article body opens, "The Blackpool Tower Company was founded by London based Standard Contract & Debenture Corporation in 1865, when it bought an Aquarium on Central Promenade with the intention of building a replica Eiffel Tower on the site." -- ? EEng (talk) 15:41, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Older nominations needing DYK reviewers

Now that the previous post has been archived, I've compiled a new set of the 37 oldest nominations that need reviewing. Half of these are from July and August, and are way overdue for completion. At present, only 25 nominations are approved, leaving 320 of 345 nominations unapproved. Thanks as always to everyone who reviews.

Please remember to cross off entries as you finish reviewing them (unless you're asking for further review), even if the review was not an approval. Many thanks! BlueMoonset (talk) 01:50, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Increase to 3 sets a day?

The backlog is now over 300 noms with 54 hook approved, and there is no backlog in the queue. I say it's time to increase the number of sets per day to 3, as 300+ noms has typically been the point when an increase would be made. Thoughts? —Bloom6132 (talk) 09:27, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Cwmhiraeth posted something similar here a couple of days ago in Hook accumulation. It probably is about time, especially with the final push for the Wikicup underway, and the normal post–Labor day increase in nominations. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:16, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
  • I was asked to look into this, and although there hasn't been much discussion I agree with Blue and Bloom. Just don't recall where the bot's adjustment page is... — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:51, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
    • The critical figure is the number approved, not the number of noms. I agree that 300+ is excessive, but experience has shown that 54 hooks is only enough to fill two prep areas! There is no way that we can sustain three per days with that approval rate! Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:51, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
      • 54 approved = 2 prep areas? Do you mean 2 sets? 54/6 = 9, so assuming some duds there should still be at least 7 or 8. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:03, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
        • Haven't we been putting 7 hooks in a set? 54/7<8. I think we should wait a little while before going to 3 sets per day. We will likely end up going to 3 sets for a while and soon find ourselves unable to fill prep sets far enough in advance to put them into the queue before the bot is telling us the queues are empty. It is annoying seeing the page run sporadically. Let's wait until the backlog is larger so we can keep on our schedule.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 17:56, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Yes, it's been 7 hooks per set, but that can easily be reduced to 6. And with a backlog of over 300 (now 335 to be specific), I don't see why anyone should be advocating waiting longer to increase to 3 sets a day, especially when there are 71 approved hooks already. That's enough to build 10 sets of 7 hooks each. At the rate we're going at, it'll take 5 days for that to be used up (not to mention the additional approvals that would take place within those 5 days). Rule of thumb has always been – reduce to 2 sets when under 200 noms; increase to 3 sets when over 300. The time for an increase is now. —Bloom6132 (talk) 19:25, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
  • The number of noms should not determine the throughrate, as Hawkeye explains, so if that ever was a rule of thumb it shouldn't be. I too think that 2 sets a day remains an appropriate rate. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:20, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
  • We have me, Crisco, Bloom and BlueMoonset for increase to 3, and Tony, Hawkeye and Nikkimaria preferring to stay at 2 for the time being. Much as I'd love to tweak, I think it might be prudent until a couple more opinions have weighed in. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:06, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Per WP:NOTDEMOCRACY, your vote counting is irrelevant to the current situation. Hawkeye didn't actually specify whether there should be 2 or 3 sets a day, and stated his concern when there were only 54 approved hooks. There are now 62 of them, not to mention the fact that all four prep areas have now been filled. That, along with the 3 queues, covers at least the next 3.5 days, if not more. —Bloom6132 (talk) 15:09, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
  • I think it is pretty clear that Hawkeye7 said 3 per day was too much. I don't think WP:NOTDEMOCRACY is relevant here. We are trying to determine a collective consensus on what to do and there is certainly not a consensus to move to 2. It really would be no more helpful for me to bluelink CONSENSUS that it is for you to bluelink NOTDEMOCRACY. There is just not a consensus to go to 3 right now.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:14, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Per Hawkeye: The critical figure is the number approved, not the number of noms. I agree that 300+ is excessive, but experience has shown that 54 hooks is only enough to fill two prep areas! There is no way that we can sustain three per days with that approval rate! Unless I'm blind, nowhere in that statement does Hawkeye say he's in favour of staying at 2 sets a day or that he's opposed to three sets a day. Taking his quote within the context it was given, he says we can't sustain 3 sets a day "with that approval rate". Since then, the number of approved hooks has increased to 64 (and would've now been over 80 approved had not all 4 prep areas been filled today). That's an increase of more than an entire set. —Bloom6132 (talk) 16:46, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
  • And your claim that NOTDEMOCRACY is not relevant is simply inaccurate, since the way you derived "consensus" is by counting votes. You previously stated, That still only makes 5 ayes and 4 nays (with TRM below).) If that's not vote counting, then what is? —Bloom6132 (talk) 16:50, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Why the delay? I still see hooks being pulled here and there at the same pace they were back when there were 3 sets a day. Hence, the claim correlating slow pace with quality control is iffy at best… —Bloom6132 (talk) 19:30, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
  • I wasn't talking about solely the main page. If you haven't noticed, there's been threads like "Queue1 problems" and "Pulled Perce Wilson from Queue5". The end result is exactly the same – inferior noms by inexperienced users. Slowing down the entire DYK process with slogans like "No need to rush" repeated ad nauseum is like putting a band aid on a bullet wound. —Bloom6132 (talk) 21:19, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Actually no, not at all. Keeping crap off the main page is key. If hooks get pulled prior to main page, because they're in queues and prep areas for a little longer, that's a great thing! No need to rush! The Rambling Man (talk) 21:21, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

"If hooks get pulled prior to main page …" – they shouldn't have to pulled at all. The fact that they are even promoted to the prep areas and then to the queues in the first place is the real problem. Insisting on 12 hour cycles is merely a temporary solution to a much bigger problem (another band aid on a bullet wound). We all know you want to completely overhaul the DYK system. That's fine. But repeating your opinion ad nauseum each time doesn't make it an iota more correct. Create an RFC instead and we can start some meaningful, constructive reforms from there. And BlueMoonset confirmed what I had been suspecting all along – 3 sets a day is indeed the norm. So why don't we go back to 3 sets and see how it pans out? We can always change back to two when we run low on hooks or when there's an increase in the number of pulled hooks. For someone who staunchly advocates necessary change, it's hard to comprehend how you can simultaneously be so resistant to it, especially when this change here to 3 sets has become very much necessary. —Bloom6132 (talk) 22:20, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

I think two a day is appropriate too. No need to rush, and the quality is increasing slowly but surely as more people have time to visit the queues before they get to the main page. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:09, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

  • Our purpose here is to choose a rate of consumption (hooks per day moved to main page) and a nominal number of noms approved-but-not-yet-run-on-MP (including those in prep or Q -- let's call this the approved reserve) -- matched such that, while the approved reserve will always fluctuate, the probability of its reaching zero on any given day is very small.
  • Right now we've got 340 noms on the board, 80 in "approved reserve". For this discussion only the 80 has any significance. (If anything the 260 "excess" tells us large numbers of noms are stalled for unknown lengths of time.)
  • A sample of 28 hooks promoted in the last week suggests that the average time from nomination to approval is (believe it or not) about 19 days, with a standard deviation ("give or take") of about the same amount. (Those who can remember their elementary statistics without painful PTSD relapses should take a moment to think about what that last bit implies.)
  • Here's the complete data (days from nomination to final tick) -- it's a highly variable process: 0,0,1,2,2,3,3,3,5,5,6,4,7,10,11,20,22,23,26,31,33,32,35,38,44,41,56,62
  • How to translate this data into the right rate of consumption, approved reserve, etc. (not to mention what we consider an acceptable probability of running dry on any given day) is complex. However, if we move to consumption of 3*7=21 hooks per day, then the current reserve of 80 is only 4 days' worth. From the data, only about 25% of hooks are approved in 4 days or less. Combining this with the recent nomination rate of about 9 per day means that....
  • Wait a minute.... The rate of nominations (9 per day) over the last month has been insufficient to sustain even 2*7=14 promotions per day, much less 3*7=21 promotions per day. That alone tells us that we shouldn't go to 3 sets per day, and that even 2 sets per day may be risky.
  • I'll complete the above lecture when 30 days of nominations rises to the 21 needed to sustain 3 sets per day. Until then 2 sets per day is the absolute max unless we want to find ourselves running out sometime in the next few weeks. Then that stupid DYKbot starts bugging us, and then my violent fantasies of bot-o-cide begin to return, and...

[My own idiotic comments struck -- see below. Lecture to resume presently...]

EEng (talk) 16:14, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

  • EEng, your figure of 9 nominations per day is about half what it should be. Since the beginning of August, there have only been 7 days where the nominations have gone below 14 per day, and 6 have exceeded 21 per day. (Note that I'm not counting the days that are still filling under Current nominations, but even there only the two most recent days are below 9.) If you're basing your count on the List of DYK Hooks by date, that table doesn't count already promoted or rejected nominations, so it's useless for determining the rate of nominations.
  • In fact, the average rate of nominations in August was 17 per day. At a promotion rate of 14 per day, the number of waiting nominations will increase, as indeed it has been doing. For the first seven days of September (and the September 7 total of 18 nominations can still increase over the next six hours), the average is currently 18.85 nominations per day. If we stay at 14 promotions per day, our backlog will continue to increase, and it's enormously high already. If we increase to 18 or 21 per day (in three sets), then our unprecedented backlog will start to decrease. We can always back down to 14 per day later if we start running out of approved hooks. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:18, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
Feel free to grab this trout by the tail and give EEng a quick whack!
Arggh! I'm an idiot! I did exactly the stupid thing BMS guesses above that I did. Please, I beg everyone, help me expiate my sin! Whack me with the trout provided at right.
BMS, where did you get the full noms-per-day figures? Are they hidden somewhere? Also, can you give separate figures for (still in review vs. approved vs. rejected)?
I'll resume the above lecture after my ego has recovered somewhat (though the conclusion remains that 2 sets/day is the maximum prudent rate of consumption -- I'll just have to use some ∑s and δs and ∫s and stuff). EEng (talk) 18:45, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
EEng, I used the brute-force method for nominations: took T:TDYK into the editor and counted the number of templates per day. A bit of a pain, but it works...so long as someone hasn't decided to clean out the promoted/rejected ones in order to reduce the loading time of the page. (This was last done on July 27, so it wasn't an issue for August or September.) I did have to go back into the page history to check August 2, which had been deleted entirely since all its hooks had been promoted/rejected, but that was an easy diff. Unfortunately, I can't give separate figures for the still in review vs. approved vs. rejected, and the one problem with the brute force method is that it doesn't know about special occasion hooks that were removed from their original date. There aren't a lot of them, so they wouldn't have significantly changed my numbers. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:54, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Just to clear up one point BMS makes: the number 300 has absolutely nothing to do with this. That large number means only that there are a lot of noms stuck awaiting approval, but the only thing to do about that is crack the whip on reviews. Unless and until those noms end up in the "approved reserve" (as I call it), this has zero to do with the appropriate "consumption rate" (as, again, I have called it). [Lecture resumes]

  • BMS' nomination figures clarify things marvelously. His number of 17 noms/day includes a few that will end up rejected/withdrawn, but on the other hand it looks like nomination rates have been going up recently, in desperation let's just call it 17 noms arriving per day. That's somewhat more than what's needed to sustain 2 sets of 7 = 14/day, but not enough to sustain 3 sets of 7 = 21/day. So an alternation between 2 sets/day and 3 sets/day is the right strategy. But of course we knew that already.
  • The question, then, is when to trigger the switches back and forth. If we switch to 3/day right now, the approved reserve will start at 4 days, and rapidly become 3, then 2, then 1 -- then suddenly we'll be having an emergency debate on going back to 2/day again. That's no way to run a railroad.
  • Let me suggest two really nice, round numbers which are easy to remember, and safe against the approved reserve running dry -- but not excessively so: 100 and 150. That is:
  • Keep running 2 sets/day until the approved reserve hits 150 or above.
  • At that point switch to 3 sets/day, until the approved reserve hits 100 or below, at which point we go back to 2 sets/day.
  • Notice the trigger points are such that drift from 7 days' reserve up to 11 days' reserve during the 2/day period ("on the way up"), then from 7 days' reserved down to 4 days' reserve during the 3/day period ("on the way down").
  • I know these numbers will seem excessive to the "rushers", but the key number in the above is the minimum 4 days' reserve. I submit that 4 days' reserve is really the least we should want to plan to have ever.
  • This yields a very stable process with changes to the # sets/day only every few months, and we would never, ever run out of hooks. If we can agree on the 100/150 trigger points now (at least provisionally) then we don't have to have a debate every time -- when the approved reserve hits a trigger point, whoever notices that can just change the bot parameter, no questions asked.

Informal tracking of the stats

This subsection was moved, to allow the rest of the section to be archived.

Resuming normal, non–lecture-format debate

  • No need to rush. A backlog is a good thing actually, and keeping hooks on for twelve hours means that most of the world can see them, I've had several DYKs that have been posted while I slept. No rush. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:28, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
  • No need to delay. The whole purpose of a backlog is to build up enough noms so that we don't run out. Unless this wasn't the case before August 2012, having three sets a day has always been the norm since I've been nominating DYKs. Reducing to two sets is only utilized as an emergency measure when we get below 150–200 noms. Now that we're at over 300 noms (and 81 approved), the backlog has clearly served its purpose already. Time to return back to normalcy. —Bloom6132 (talk) 19:39, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Yes, if "normalcy" is posting garbage to the main page and getting dozens of error reports and allowing hooks to be re-written on the fly while contributors sleep. Slow it down. Current is good. Your version of "normal" is simply not good. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:55, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
  • As I replied earlier above, I still see hooks being pulled here and there at the same pace they were back when there were 3 sets a day. It makes no difference whether it's 2 or 3 sets. The end result is exactly the same – inferior noms by inexperienced users. Hence, your claim correlating slow pace with quality control is iffy at best… —Bloom6132 (talk) 20:26, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
  • The numbers do not agree with your observations. Compare the one-month periods between 11 June and 11 July (3 sets/day), versus 19 July and 19 August (2 sets/day), at Wikipedia:Did_you_know/Removed: 44 pulls for a month of 3 sets/day, 5 pulls for a month of 2 sets/day. Granted there are likely other factors contributing to this, but it would seem there is in fact a very strong correlation in recent months between higher run rate and higher pull rate. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:57, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
  • There's no point in comparing stats when you skew them to your favour. You conveniently left out April 2014 (which was 3 sets a day and only 13 pulls) and February 2014 (also 3 sets/day with just 14 pulls). And there would be no pulls for a month of 0 sets/day. So the stats you provided are basically meaningless, because it's obvious the more sets run, the more pulls there will be. Correlation does not imply causation. —Bloom6132 (talk) 22:19, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Which is of course why I said only that there was a correlation. I chose the stats period from looking at the history of rate changes - selecting a period of one month starting the day after the most recent change to each rate - before looking at the removals list, so your accusations of deliberate skewing are out of line. Please dial it back a bit. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:43, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
  • "[Y]our accusations of deliberate skewing are out of line" – let's see. You claim that the "numbers do not agree with [my] observations". Then, you choose a one-month period with 3 sets that is a complete anomaly (there's no other way to describe it) to all the other DYK months in 2014. But you don't disclose the two months with 3 sets that do agree with my observations (and rebut the anomalous month example you gave). When I (correctly) call this out as skewing the stats in your favour, you call my accusations "out of line". Reality check – the only thing "out of line" here is your picking and choosing stats that suit your (and TRM's) argument but don't give the full perspective of the actual situation. It presents an incomplete and inaccurate one-sided picture which, if I hadn't probed deeper into these stats, would have misled others to believe that your argument was correct. Clearly that's not the case. —Bloom6132 (talk) 23:40, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
  • "I still see hooks being pulled here and there at the same pace they were back when there were 3 sets a day. It makes no difference whether it's 2 or 3 sets" as a claim is not compatible with "it's obvious the more sets run, the more pulls there will be", nor is it compatible with recent data. If you want to look at larger trends to get the "full perspective of the actual situation", it is indeed obvious that more sets per day equals more pulls, not to mention more late-update warnings. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:53, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Actually Bloom6132, I make my observations based on the number of ERRORS and pulls I'm seeing. Subjectively it seems that the quality has increased substantially and that I rarely have to attend to major DYK errors on the main page. This is because there's more time for some of us to wander past the queues because the mad rush to cycle DYKs round has slowed a little. There is absolutely not one single advantage to rushing these to the main page. So you would claim "backlog!", I would suggest this is a good investment in the future of DYK. Keep allowing us time to make sure the quality is on the increase, and continue the education of those reviewers who clearly have something to learn about quality control in Wikipedia. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:04, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Speaking as only a sometime contributor to DYK (I have maybe about 50 or 100 — we temporarily had the record for most hooks in one article at one time — I thought a whole day was good. Running them through just to get them out of the line doesn't do the articles justice in terms of visibility. Who (and how many) is looking at these articles on the midnight shift {{yes, I know we are global)? I daresay that most people don't constantly monitor the main page. I understand the need to move the queue, but that can't be the only consideration. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 19:25, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
If this were some sort of perfect world, every article would get its own little feature on the main page. It isn't. DYK is set up to give a brief, hopefully memorable mention for a variable number of hours on the main page. It isn't ideal that it can't be a whole day, or even necessarily half a day—I've had some hooks that were up for six hours, when we had to go to four sets a day—but the hook is there and can be seen by anyone who stops at the front page for that period. If we don't "run them through" at the rate they're coming in, then eventually we have 400, 500, or more hooks backed up—300 was a rare event in my experience until very recently. Something has to give if we aren't to have an ever-inflating backlog: either we have to bar the door to newcomers, or increase the flow of hooks going to the main page. Three times a day was the standard when I first started coming here, occasionally varying to two or four times when necessary. We write articles, nominate them for DYK, and take our chances as to when and how long the nomination will be seen. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:58, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
There's no rush. 12 hours for a hook is a fine amount of time as it allows most of the world an opportunity to see it and those who contributed to enjoy the fact they can see it on the main page. The reserved turnover rate also allows queues and prep areas to be patrolled more thoroughly and reduce the errors (and major embarrassments that DYK has provided Wikipedia in the past). Slow and steady, remember? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:05, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
My comment was not meant as an implicit criticism of the administration of DYK. I simply wanted to suggest that there are countervailing considerations, and y'all have to do the best you can to weigh them in the balance. But assuredly there is a balance and a trade off no matter what you do. That's all. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 22:06, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

I suspect the nomination increase is caused in part by the Stub Contest that is running in September, as the rules for stub expansion make every entry eligible for DYK as a 5x expansion (unless they've appeared before), and if the competitors are new or reviewing each other's entries as QPQ the number of unreviewed hooks would go up (I've done extensive research into this by imagining it as a cause; it's a poissin distribution with a standard deviation of a T-test; there, statistic that!). I don't see any reason not to go to three sets a day if the queues and prep areas are kept full, but since it seems that swapping between 2 and 3 sets a day requires days of debate rather than a flick of a switch, it is probably best to stay with two. Belle (talk) 11:56, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Terrible DYK on main page right now

.. that Wan Laisheng's teachings on martial arts pre-dated Bruce Lee's by about 50 years? While not technically incorrect, this is a very poor DYK. The detail has nothing really to do with the topic. The only reason Bruce Lee is mentioned in the article is because he happens to be famous; it's totally attenuated from the topic, it's not "about" the individual, and the fact is actually not even directly mentioned in the article but is just an implicit observation from itsa text. Moreover, the detail of fifty years cold have been any other range of time, because this is a petty randow detail. It's not as if these are two terminal ends of some period measured from the first to the most recent iteration. It's just a rather weird detail that raises only because the article decided to mention Bruce Lee, probably because he is very famous as a martial artist. Indeed, the detail abut his "teachings" would imply that he was a renowned teacher or martial arts when he was not (as opposed to the article's subject). He was a renowned movie star. Bad all around.--108.14.111.128 (talk) 18:29, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Feel free to get involved with the DYK process to stop this kind of thing happening again! The Rambling Man (talk) 18:34, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

6 preps

Now that we have 6 prep sets, I wonder if Preps 5 and 6 could be added to the preview that says "See how this template appears on both today's Main Page and tomorrow's Main Page". Thanks, Yoninah (talk) 10:04, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Some people are never satisfied. EEng (talk) 12:19, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
What's that supposed to mean? Yoninah (talk) 20:49, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
It means nothing. Can you point me to the precise page you wish to be updated? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:54, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
TRM is right. I was just being flippant. EEng (talk) 22:30, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Yoninah, it's all set. I had to create two new alternate main pages for preps 5 and 6, and add code to the Clear page and all six preps. However, I didn't bother with tomorrow's Main Page, since it only works with preps 1 and 2, as opposed to all six queues and now all six preps for today's Main page. I figured if tomorrow was that important, it would have been available for at least a couple of queues... BlueMoonset (talk) 05:13, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you so much! Yoninah (talk) 06:22, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

3rd opinion requested on Template:Did you know nominations/Davis Run

Can someone give a 3rd opinion on the above-linked DYK nomination since both the reviewer and the nominator (myself) have requested it? Thanks. --Jakob (talk) 12:33, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Hook wording

Would an admin be able to change "halted on the" to "halted on" in the final hook of the current set displayed? I wouldn't ask but there are still quite a few hours to run on this set. Rcsprinter123 (confabulate) @ 15:19, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

For problems displayed in DYK on the main page, your best bet is to leave a note at WP:ERRORS. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:50, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, I went there. Rcsprinter123 (spout) @ 19:05, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
I think I added the in prep -- an American's mistake, sorry. (Viaduct doesn't get much use over here.) EEng (talk) 19:43, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
I think that's stylistic preference. I wouldn't say the was definitely wrong. In fact, it's referred to as "the Dinting Viaduct" in the article. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:40, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
In that case I indignantly retract the mea culpa. EEng (talk) 19:55, 14 October 2014 (UTC) P.S. Your input may be useful here [12]. Actually not likely, but I'm sure it will be fun.

Prep 3Queue 3

  • Re steak burger: Does anyone else share my hesitation that something as common as (what appears to be essentially) a steak sandwich is credited to a specific person via an "appears to be" weasel phrase -- with the source being a "roadside-attractions for the whole family"-type book? EEng (talk) 05:20, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
    Indeed. In fact this makes very interesting reading, a little more authoritative than a "roadside-attractions for the whole family"-type book. It's by no means a great nor interesting hook. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:00, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
Not one of the better-written opinion's I've read, actually, but the point remains. Pull? EEng (talk) 13:57, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
The more I think about this the more I'm sure this should be pulled, but an admin is needed. EEng (talk) 02:18, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
The more you think about it, the more likely you are to come with a feasible reason to remove it other than you just don't really like it? It's crap, but it's DYK-standard. Do you have anything to add? The Rambling Man (talk) 18:55, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
Um, I gave my reason in my OP: it's an extraordinary claim sourced to a dubious source. I thought you added the link to the court's opinion in support of my concerns, given that (for example) it cites an expert's testimony re 'references to "steakburger" dating back to the 1920s.' (WP:OR, yes I know, but certainly enough to call the article's sourcing into serious question.) It ought to be pulled until this is clarified. Crisco 1492? EEng (talk) 19:34, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

I've pulled it, you do the paperwork. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:31, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Per all of the above, I have copy edited the article and posted a new hook at Template:Did you know nominations/Steak burger. NorthAmerica1000 20:59, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Admin needed

Right now we have Queue 3 without a lead hook, which means an admin is needed to supply one. The only one already promoted is the lead hook in Prep 5, so that's probably best to move, since moving Queue 4's lead hook would just mean someone else would need to fix that queue. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:15, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

  • Thanks, Crisco. The edit button might have been due to my bad template format for queue 4 above, or it might be something way the heck up the page. I'll know once I save this edit. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:44, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
Looks like it was me. Amazing what a bracket instead of a brace can do to an innocent wiki page. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:45, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Arbitrary reviewers

While I'm all for thorough checks of nominations, I don't like it when reviewers take it upon themselves to invent new rules. Allow me to illustrate an example.

  • Template:Did you know nominations/Constantin Doncea: nominated August 28.
  • Reviewed October 4, technical problem found.
  • Problem corrected, approved October 8.
  • October 9: a second reviewer comes in and says the article includes too many subordinate clauses.
  • October 9: I fix the "problem".
  • October 14: still in limbo.

(I might add that on October 9, the same reviewer promoted this atrocity, in spite of the chaotic format, two dozen unformatted references and, yes, dubious grammar. I might also add that this is not the first time the same reviewer makes up a rule for me: see Template:Did you know nominations/George Oprescu.)

Is it too much to ask that reviewers not create rules as they go along (no, the rules say nothing about subordinate clauses or even grammar), and that if they do feel compelled do that, they not indefinitely gum up already-approved nominations, but have the courtesy to check back if their capricious demands have been heeded? - Biruitorul Talk 05:33, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. People should stick to the DYK criteria, not the GA or FA criteria and certainly not be making up their own rules. --Jakob (talk) 12:33, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
Don't get me started. I had one reviewer tell me there can't be any [citation needed] tags, which even GA doesn't require. Then something about image placement. Meanwhile we have articles that read like nonsense being approved. EEng (talk) 03:00, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

DYK nomination

I'd like to submit Erich Sbraccia for DYK. The hook is "Did you know Erich Sbraccia made his pro wrestling debut at age 14 as a "junior member" of The Brotherhood?" The sources are citations #4 and #5. Thanks. 72.74.200.209 (talk) 17:03, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it's new enough (should have been created/expanded in the last 7 days). This is not the place to nominate either, there is a process to follow at Template talk:Did you know. Sorry. HelenOnline 19:33, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
@72.74.200.209 and HelenOnline: Actually, it was moved to mainspace on October 11, so it's eligible for another four days. Also, IPs can't create template pages, which is probably why the IP posted here. --Jakob (talk) 19:37, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
Oops, sorry. HelenOnline 05:17, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
 Done. As usual, please keep an eye on the nomination and respond to any issues which may arise. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 22:32, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Davis Run in Template:Did you know nominations/Davis Run

I am not sure about that article being the right thing for DYK. The article should be a "readable summary of everything within the scope". I dont expect each such article to equal Thoreaus Walden pond or sillyness is a must ;) but this article imho lacks love of the subject, "1 Corinthians 13:2, while his other creek articles suggested for DYK contain valid cultural and usage background. (Jakob doubts the "entire article has to be interesting" (just the hook). Now I would like to know wether "raising interest" is of relevance for the DYK process or not and wether that should be part of the review policy. I would like to have as well a third opinion on my review. Serten (talk) 23:32, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

I can assure you that 1 Corinthians 13:2 is not one of the criteria for DYK eligibility. On a more serious note, there is nothing in the DYK rules that states an article must be interesting (or written with "love of the subject") – only the hook must be. 97198 (talk) 02:02, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
And even the rule about the hook being interesting is never, ever enforced. EEng (talk) 02:47, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
1 Corinthians 13:2: If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have a citation at the end of each paragraph (as a rule of thumb), I am nothing.
Then the Davis creek of wisdom may flow ;) I think its a sort of heritage of my experience with the deDYK, Schon gewusst - they tried to change topics now and then and even imposed a Bach cantata proposal cap, poor user:Gerda Arendt. the main page task was seen as to attract readers, not to get rid of them. Serten (talk) 03:11, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
Considering that, could someone please do a full review? (also, it'd be great if someone could review Template:Did you know nominations/Corn Run -- it's been languishing untouched for over a month). --Jakob (talk) 12:15, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Prep 2 - Scottish religion

Prep 2 contains a hook I nominate a while back. The original hook was "that Scottish religion in the seventeenth century included intense conflicts between Presbyterian Covenanters and government forces (execution of minister James Guthrie pictured)?" The image was removed, which I'm fine with, but now the hook reads "that Scottish religion in the seventeenth century included intense conflicts between Presbyterian Covenanters and government forces execution of minister James Guthrie?" That doesn't make grammatical sense. Could this be fixed, please?--¿3family6 contribs 21:35, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Looks like EEng fixed it. The entire set has since been promoted to Queue 2. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:18, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Grammar

On the main page: "... that the 1967 West German sex-education film Helga – Vom Werden des menschlichen Lebens featured scenes of childbirth which were the first to be shown publicly in Germany?"

What, exactly, was/were the first to be shown publicly? There's a murky but unclear association to "scenes of childbirth" (only because of the plural words) and redundant references to "Germany". Expressed in shorter, and ultimately clearer, form: "... that the 1967 sex-education film Helga – Vom Werden des menschlichen Lebens contained West Germany's first publicly shown scenes of childbirth?" Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 17:22, 16 October 2014 (UTC)`

Note: I've changed T:DYK to my suggested wording. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 17:24, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
Not the only problems. I was able to make this hook far cleaner by removing uninteresting and unnecessary information, added a necessary apostrophe, and used active voice to show who denounced Zhang Xi and discarded his ashes. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 17:30, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Internet Slowdown Day (Queue 2)

...has been compared to the January 18, 2014 Internet Blackout Day?

The article says it was 2012 not 2014, so does my memory. 137.43.188.70 (talk) 15:39, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Has now been fixed by The Rambling Man. Probably just a typo. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 17:17, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
True, but the question is, how did it get all the way to being ready for automatic loading onto the main page with such a glaringly obvious error? I expect we'll still see the "speed up the queues" brigade overlooking this kind of fundamental error.... The Rambling Man (talk) 17:26, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
It does make one question the effectiveness of these 'multiple layers' of reviews. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 17:31, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Florence Pernel (currently in Prep 6)

I really don't think this article is of suitable quality to be the lead hook. Sure, we have a nice photo, but the article is three paragraphs long, barely long enough (1816 characters), contains no section headings in the body, and is full of red links. The content that's there looks decent, but, frankly, it looks a mess. What do others think? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:15, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Doesn't bother me at all. If it were up to me every DYK article would carry, for the duration of its hook's MP appearance, a banner saying, "This article, like all WP articles, is a work in progress. If you think you can help improve it, click <here>." If we're lucky, some Florence Pernel fan will see the hook, visit the article, and be inspired to pitch in. As far as I'm concerned, we should see DYK as a way of attracting new editors to articles that could use help, instead of pretending we're showcasing "polished" material -- a hopeless aspiration given DYK's fundamental mission. EEng (talk) 03:38, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
I agree with EEng. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:24, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
The whole idea of DYK is to display unfinished content, in order to get more users to contribute - the more red links etc., the better. The new GA at DYK notwithstanding, DYK doesn't need to be fully polished. Simon Burchell (talk) 13:53, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

I remember a Russ Meyer quote on the line "I got my films shot in no time while those guys in Hollywood just start scratching ass" but haven't found it. However Nothing is obscene providing it is done in bad taste. She's cute, her article has now three section titles and the redlinks are redlinks. Done and dusted. Serten (talk) 21:48, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Incorrect hook on main page

For some reason the approved hook of my DYK nomination has been changed without my knowledge. The approved hook is "that years after Zhang Xi died, he was denounced as a traitor and his ashes were discarded?" (see nomination page), using the passive voice as in the source. But the hook on the main page now reads "that the Communist Party of China posthumously denounced Zhang Xi as a traitor and discarded his ashes?", which is incorrect. Although the CPC did probably denounce him as a traitor, it was not mentioned in the source, and the CPC almost certainly did not discard his ashes. Most of the vandalism during the Cultural Revolution was done by the Red Guards, who were radical followers of Mao but not part of the CPC. I don't know at which stage the hook was changed. Can an administrator please restore the original hook ASAP? -Zanhe (talk) 18:20, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

@The ed17: I just saw your thread above after posting my message. Please restore the original hook ASAP. Thanks! -Zanhe (talk) 18:24, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
I've changed it, but I find it surprising that we can't say that the Communist Party was the one to denounce him; it's not like anyone else could have, and the sky is blue. It was my mistake to conflate that with his ashes. All that said, I'm not a fan of the passive voice here. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:34, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for changing it back. I'm not a fan of the passive voice either, but it's better than OR. It's a bit simplistic to cite WP:BLUE here. The Communist Party was not a monolith, and the whole Cultural Revolution was the result of a power struggle between Mao and much of the rest of the CPC leadership. So it's better not to say who denounced him unless we have reliable sources naming them. -Zanhe (talk) 22:12, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Suggestions for DYK/Stats

Hi, I've made a few suggestions here. Per suggestion #2 specifically I'd like to propose updating Template:UpdatedDYKNom and Template:UpdatedDYK so that they point to the correct DYK/Stats rules rather than to User:Rjanag/Pageview stats. Does this sound like a good idea? -Thibbs (talk) 23:28, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Small is beautiful. Still, removed one hook from the queue, again...

Sometimes, hooks just aren't up to the job and need to be pulled. That's the way of the world.

Template:Did you know nominations/Eastern swamp crayfish @G S Palmer, Mike Cline, Hawkeye7, and Casliber: did you know

No, I didn't know that, and neither does the cited source. The hook fact is sourced to [13], which has the section title "World's smallest crayfish" (aha!), and the first line beneath that title "One of these new species, named Gramastacus lacus, holds the title of being one of the world's smallest crayfish." (emphasis mine). Oops, that's not the same, obviously. The original paper[14] doesn't mention the hook fact either. And that's probably for the better, as the Eastern swamp crayfish has a max "length of 21.32 millimetres" (rare). According to the original paper, "Females mature at approximately 12 mm ", and "Reproductively active females are recorded between 12 and 18 mm OCL".

However, the Gramastacus insolitus seems to be smaller, according to the IUCN Red List: "This species attains a maximum adult size of 13.2 mm OCL, while the minimum size at sexual maturity for females of this species is 7.2 mm OCL[...]" So it looks as if the reliable (not popular) sources on this subject indicate that Insolitus is probably smaller on average than Lacus (the one from the hook), and the source used to reference the hook and verify the DYK does not indicate that it is the smallest either, if one actually reads the article and not just the headlines. So how did this ever get nominated, reviewed, promoted and moved to the queue? Hook pulled, obviously. Fram (talk) 06:49, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

ALT1 on that nomination appears to be sound. I've removed the questionable claim in the article per Fram's comments. I, JethroBT drop me a line 10:20, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
@Fram: I honestly wasn't trying to pull a fast one - I just took the source at face value. I liked both hooks, so I would be equally happy running the second one. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 13:52, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
Oh, I don't think anyone deliberately tried to get incorrect information on the front page (my reaction would be quite different in that case), I usually blame some carelessness only. It's just baffling sometimes that at least four people check a hook (or are supposed to check a hook), and still such things slip through the cracks way too often. Fram (talk) 13:56, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
It's cause we're human and shit happens. As long as people respond to pulled hooks with "mea culpa" and suggest alternatives or withdraw, the issue isn't as bad as some make it out to be. Plus, it would be interesting to see what the overall proportion of hooks that get passed through are, in fact, "piss poor". Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:25, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
According to Wikipedia:Did you know/Removed, in September 16 hooks were pulled for a variety of reasons. This means that in that month, about 1 in every 25 hooks was pulled (if my maths are correct). For October, we are now at 14 hooks pulled in 16 days, or about 1 in every 15 hooks. Considering that these are all hooks that have been nominated(1), reviewed(2) and promoted(3), this is rather alarming, even when one takes into account that not all these pulls were uncontroversial (cough). Fram (talk) 14:39, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
At least most of these are getting pulled before they hit the main page, partly as a result of the slower turnover, partly as a result of more eyes on the queues and prep areas from a number of reviewers. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:43, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
Possibly part of the problem is my perception that actually failing a DYK nomination is akin to saying something like "a pox on your article", and while I've done it, it seems to be the exception. If you compare that to GA and (especially) FA reviews, the proportion of rejected stuff is probably higher, but people don't seem to take it so personally. Perhaps if we all just took reviews with a more critical eye to try and find problems instead of "new enough, long enough, hook is in English, good to (sorry, 2) go" the problems might be alleviated? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:46, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
Well definitely agree with that. There seems to be an unwritten understanding that, as long as you nominate something, and puff it out, regardless of whether it has an interesting hook (or in some cases, a referenced hook!), it will be guaranteed a main page slot at some point in the future. We don't do that anywhere else. 15:00, 16 October 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by The Rambling Man (talk • contribs)
Thirded, if that's a word. They don't need to be scrutinized like a FA or even a GA, but achieving basic factual accuracy should be DYK's starting goal. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 17:32, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
"Fourthed": the rarely-fail approach to DYK has never made sense to me, particularly given the big discussion a couple years back about how DYK is not for improving articles. We don't as much failing-right-away as GAN, but failing should be "easier" than it is now. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:52, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
Contrary to what Fram says, some of the pulls were uncontroversial. I pulled one because the nominator asked for it to be run on a particular date, and Yoniah and I pulled another because it didn't fit in the assigned slot and there were no free prep areas. Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:17, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
Contrary to what Fram says? I said "not all these pulls were uncontroversial", you say "some of the pulls were uncontroversial". If you see that as "contrary", then I begin to understand why you promote some of these incorrect hooks after all. Fram (talk) 04:34, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Rotating the preps to the queue

It has been a long time since the queue have gotten overdue, but they are getting close. Could someone rotate preps 3 and 4 to the queues.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 06:45, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

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